July 25, 2012
NO "RETROGRESSION" IN "ME-FIRST" COUNTY BOARD REMAP

ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART

If Cook County's 17 commissioners were among the crew of the Titanic, none of them would have appeared in the obituaries. None of them would have gone down with the ship. All of them would have gotten choice seats in the lifeboats.

Their instinct for self-preservation is understandable. They get a staff, an expense allowance and an $85,000 salary. They get input on the county's $3.1 billion budget. Most importantly, they get no hassle.

The commissioners' 50 Chicago City Council colleagues, who earn $111,000, are constantly bombarded with constituent service demands. The job of the 17 commissioners is to fund the court system, the county jail, the forest preserves and the social service bureaucracy. Those "services," especially in the predominantly white areas of the city and the suburbs, are unneeded. With few service inquiries, two meetings per month, sufficient obscurity to deflect opposition, fund-raising capacity, the ability to actually focus on public policy issues, and no real county board "boss," the job is really sweet.

Rarely does a sitting commissioner get defeated. Such is the incumbents' arrogance that five of them (Bill Beavers, Robert Steele, Deborah Sims, Joan Murphy and Earlean Collins) initially refused to accept the requested 10 furlough days, which would have cut their salary by 4.5 percent and saved $29 million. Steele, Sims and Murphy later reversed themselves.

The job is not only a steppingstone to higher office, it is viewed as a step up from other offices. Former commissioners Forest Claypool, Mike Quigley and Roberto Maldonado are now, respectively, the CTA chairman, a congressman and an alderman. John Fritchey quit the General Assembly to be commissioner, and Beavers quit the City Council. Fritchey and Bridget Gainer, a Lakefronter with family ties to the 19th Ward, are positioning themselves for a run for mayor or Cook County Board president. Gainer thinks that she, as the only female candidate, can win a post-Rahm Emanuel election.

In June the board passed its predictable "Me First" map. Fifteen of the 17 incumbents took care of number one in the recent reconfiguration of the county's single-member districts.

Here are some salient facts:

Cook County's population declined by 3.4 percent, to 5,194,675, from 2000 to 2010. This was fueled by a Chicago population drop of 7 percent, including an outmigration of 200,000 black residents, most relocating to the south and west suburbs. Hispanic population increased by about 150,000.

Of the 2010 population, 2,278,358 (43.8 percent) were white, 1,265,778 (24.3 percent) were black, and 1,244,762 (23.9 percent) were Hispanic, with the remaining 8 percent unclassified or multi-classified. In theory, eight of the 17 board districts should be white-majority, 4.5 should be black-majority, and 4.5 should be Hispanic-majority.

"Non-retrogression." There are two eternal verities: life and death. However, in the political realm, as mandated by the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, there is a form of immortality. It's called "non-retrogression," and it means that once a majority-minority district or ward has been created, it lives forever, even if there is demographic change and it becomes non-majority-minority district.

In other words, once a political subdivision goes black, it's a violation of federal law if it ever goes back (to white) or, presumably, forward (to Hispanic).

After months of wrangling, shrieking and threatening of lawsuits, a "Me First" incumbent-protection map was drawn. There are now 10 white commissioners, including six Democrats, five black commissioners (all Democrats) and two Hispanic commissioners (both Democrats). Under the new map, the west suburban district of Democrat Jeff Tobolski, who also is the mayor of McCook, went from a Hispanic voting age population of 41 percent to 56 percent. Tobolski's not in jeopardy, since Hispanic turnout is desultory.

The new map, effective in 2014, will be the same as the old map: 10 whites, five blacks and two Hispanics.

No guts and glory. When Toni Preckwinkle, the 5th Ward alderman, succeeded the inane and inert Todd Stroger in 2010, she promised reform. Her 2011 budget was supposed to slash county spending by $112.3 million (3.7 percent) and effect 1,000 layoffs, an across-the-board 3 percent cut in every department, and no step pay hikes for nonunion employees. Instead, county spending is down by an anemic $2.5 million, revenues have dropped by $317.7 million, and a $315.2 million deficit looms. Preckwinkle is not much of an improvement over Stroger. In 2014 she can expect a primary challenge from Fritchey or Gainer.

The second most jeopardized district after Tobolski's is that of West Sider Collins. First elected in 1998, she previously was an Austin-area state senator for 22 years. Her gripe is that the new district is likely to elect a white commissioner some time during the 2010s. That violates "non-retrogression."

Collins has announced her retirement, so the remappers ignored her. They created a "Don Harmon district," named after the Illinois Senate president pro tempore and Oak Park Democratic committeeman. The new 1st District encompasses 32 of Oak Park's 38 precincts, a string of upscale white enclaves nestled along the Eisenhower Expressway, plus the black-majority suburbs of Bellwood, Maywood and Hillside in central Proviso Township and the black-majority 37th, 28th and 29th wards. Collins wanted hers and Steele's districts to push south and absorb more South Side black precincts. Steele got his wish, appending his base in the Near West Side 27th and 24th wards to the South Side 2nd, 3rd and 6th wards. He's unbeatable.

Collins beat Ade Onayemi in the 2010 primary by 16,909-10,599, getting 47.4 percent of the vote in a race with others running. Collins won the 2010 election, against a Green Party candidate, with 79.3 percent the vote, but she carried Oak Park by only 15,335-5,086. She's fading fast. Regardless of whether Collins runs or not, the white Oak Park boss will anoint the next black commissioner.

Here, in the order of creative cartography, are other interesting races:

11th District: A county board without a Daley would be like a morning without . . . well, you get the picture. John Daley, the former mayor's brother, has been a commissioner since 1992 and the board's Finance Committee chairman since 1994. However, while Bridgeport and the 11th Ward retain a white majority, all around is a sea of Hispanics. Not to worry. The remappers simply leapfrogged Bridgeport out to Midway Airport along the Stevenson Expressway and attached it to the 13th, 23rd and 19th wards, still-white enclaves dominated, respectively, by Mike Madigan, Bill Lipinski and the "Hynes Clan." To seal the deal they added Oak Lawn in Worth Township and all of Stickney Township. That makes Daley untouchable.

5th District: To call Commissioner Joan Murphy, who was first elected in 1998, a cipher in the "(John) Daley Machine" would be accurate. She voted for the Stroger sales tax, then voted to repeal it, then voted to override his veto of the repeal, then voted to pass his $3.2 billion 2009 budget. Does she have a clue? The remappers kept her wrap-around district intact, even though the black population is surging. All the predominantly black south suburbs in Calumet, Bremen, Thornton and Bloom townships and the 34th and 9th wards are in Sims' district, and Murphy's encircles it. Murphy won her 2010 primary with 53.7 percent of the vote. Her days are numbered. In either 2014 or 2018, a black candidate will unseat her.

4th District: Beavers has smoothly handled his transition from colorful to comical. After being indicted in February for income tax evasion, Beavers has evolved from boasting about the size of his sexual equipment to disparaging the size of the U.S. attorney's. He's now a joke. His 7th Ward base has collapsed. Sandi Jackson, the congressman's wife, beat Beavers' daughter for alderman in 2007, then beat him for committeeman in 2008. In the 2010 primary, Preckwinkle's candidate, Elgie Sims, lost to Beavers for commissioner by 26,025-21,016, getting 44.7 percent of the vote. Beavers is D.O.A. for 2014. Sims just won an Illinois House seat, so it is likely that Preckwinkle will run for Beavers' seat, which would give her a vote.

9th District: Some politicians make waves, others make ripples. Pete Silvestri is the "Ripple Man." On the board since 1994, and also the mayor of Elmwood Park, Silvestri has been a solid, stolid vote against increased spending and taxation. In his 2010 campaign Silvestri sent out mailers claiming that he was "Todd Stroger's worst nightmare" -- a bit of an exaggeration. He nevertheless won by 47,333-31,186 (with 55.3 percent of the vote) in 2010 and by 47,881-36,701 (with 56.6 percent) in 2006. Silvestri's allies in the 36th and 41st wards have evaporated, and his popularity in Elmwood Park, Franklin Park, River Grove and Schiller Park has dwindled. Remappers did him a huge favor by pushing his district outward into parts of Park Ridge and Des Plaines. Silvestri is beatable, but only by a credible, well funded Democrat.

12th District: Wicker Park ain't Jefferson Park, but it could be Portage Park. Fritchey's political organization consists of his creativity and his computer. When he became estranged from the "William Banks Clan," he was on his own. He lost a congressional race in 2009, and he didn't run for 32nd Ward committeeman in 2012. The district extends from Wicker Park through the 47th, 40th, 39th and 45th wards. If he's opposed by someone from the west end of the district like John Garrido, John D'Amico or Randy Barnette in 2014, he could lose.