August 16, 2023
DANNY DAVIS VERY BEATABLE AS 2 CONGRESSIONAL CHALLENGERS EMERGE

“Shelf life” is customarily used in the food marketing industry to describe perishables on the shelves.  They’re in the compost heap if not timely sold. Think spoiled milk. Think moldy bread.
The phrase also applies to politicians: As a commodity they can easily and sometimes quickly get stale, tiresome, inedible, intolerable and rotten, as in corrupted. This especially applies to aging politicians. But it does not apply to Chicago politicians,  or most politicians actually, especially on the congressional level.

For them longevity is a virtue. Seniority is equated with power, despite age-related declining cognitive skills. Some congressmen in Chicago don’t step aside until they are either a few steps from the grave, in it, or like Jesse Jackson Jr., in jail. They don’t get pushed aside, as in getting defeated.

Congressman Danny Davis (D-7) has been a permanent fixture in Chicago politics for 44 years – 11 as Chicago’s 29th Ward alderman (1979-90), six as a county commissioner (1990-96), and 27 as congressman (since 1996). He has risen, at age 82 (as of Sept. 6) to the level of an icon, which is NOT a person defined as “widely admired for great influence and significance in a particular sphere,” but rather a person who has been hanging around in office for a long, long time and still has a pulse.

Davis was a USPS clerk, a CPS teacher and a healthcare administrator before breaking into politics in the pre-Harold Washington era year of 1979. He ran against Machine hack LeRoy Cross as a “progressive reformer” in the Austin-area ward. Davis has hewed to the path of other longtime politicians.

•WILLIAM DAWSON: He was just occupying space in Washington for 27 years (1943-70) but was a South Side Democratic political powerhouse, controlling and delivering tens of thousands of votes from his Black Belt constituency. With an army of patronage workers, Dawson is credited with insuring Richard J. Daley’s 1955 mayor primary win and his 1963 re-election over Ben Adamowski (R). He handpicked every officeholder in his area. Dawson, who died in 1970 at age 84, was a true Icon.

He was also at the forefront of Black Chicago’s realignment from Republican to Democrat – from the Party of Lincoln to the party of FDR’s New Deal. He was the Republican 2nd Ward alderman from 1930-39 and ran for Congress as a Republican against incumbent Arthur Mitchell (D) in 1938. Dawson astutely switched parties and won the open 1st District seat in 1942.

•CARDISS COLLINS: Tragedy brought Collins to Washington from the West Side 7th District and incumbency kept her there for 23 years (1973-96). Husband George died in a 1973 plane crash. He was 24th Ward alderman and won the now-Black-majority seat in 1970. Committeemen (D) picked his widow as a placeholder until they could decide which of them would get the seat. But Collins, who was especially popular with women and churchgoers, stayed in place. Davis ran against her in 1984 and 1986, losing badly.

•BOBBY RUSH: He is best remembered for his early years as a Black Panther member and his much later years as a pastor at his own financially-troubled church. In between he got elected 2nd Ward alderman in 1983’s Washington Wave, stood against the Vrdolyak 29, ousted in 1992 a place-holding 1st District congressman (who won Washington’s seat in 1983) and then embarked on a 30-year snooze in Congress, retiring in 2022. Only notable are the facts that Rush beat cancer and that he beat Barack Obama, then an up-and-coming state senator, in the 2000 primary.

•THE JACKSON CLAN:  Jesse Jackson, at age 81, is a true civil rights icon, having marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s, founded Operation PUSH/Rainbow, run for president in the 1980s, and been a celebrity for almost 60 years. He is much-venerated in Chicago, which propelled namesake son Jesse Jr. into Congress in 1997 from the 2nd District.  With his dad’s national connections, he was supposed to be plotting a run for Chicago mayor. What he was NOT supposed to do was spend $750,000 of his campaign fund for personal expenses. That got him indicted and convicted in 2013 (along with his wife). But the Jackson name still has magic: Son Jonathan won Rush’s seat in 2022.

7TH DISTRICT: The courts have applied a test of non-retrogression to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which means any existing majority-Minority congressional district cannot be diluted to become minority-Minority. The 7th takes Chicago’s Black West Side wards but also a lot of White precincts in and around the Loop and also in Oak Park. It is 45 percent Black, and that is more than sufficient to dominate a Democratic primary.

It includes all or parts of 21 wards with 469 precincts, the largest being 3, 16, 17, 20, 27, 28, 29, 37 and 42, encompassing the Loop, near South Side, near West Side, some Lakefront River North, Garfield Park, north Lawndale and Austin plus parts of Humboldt Park and Englewood. And also three suburban townships with 103 precincts, the largest being Oak Park and Proviso, encompassing Oak Park, Maywood, Forest Park, Westchester, Hillside, Broadview and Bellwood.

2020 PRIMARY: This was not a wake-up call for Davis. In a turnout of 132,005 he got 79,812 votes, or 60.2 percent. Finishing second was Kina Collins, a 30-year old self-proclaimed “community organizer” and “political activist” from Austin, who got 18,390 votes, or 13.8 percent, ahead of 2 others.

2022 PRIMARY: Collins was back with her Left platitudes to end gun violence, reform criminal justice and provide universal health care and Davis definitely got a wake-up call.

In a turnout of 68,046, about half of 2020’s, the outcome was a 35,366-31,054 Davis win, or 52-45.1 percent. The margin was just 4,312 votes, with Davis spending $698,000 and Collins under $100,000.  Davis’s vote plunged by 44,445 from 2020 while Collins’s grew by 12,664. Collins got 68 percent in the 1st Ward, 63.4 in the 2nd, 56.2 in the 4th, 49.6 in the 11th, 55.5 in the 25th, 55.8 in the 26th, 40.3 in the 27th, 49.4 in the 42nd, and a stunning 73.6 in Oak Park. These are all areas with a large Democratic/White base.

Old-line Black committeepersons saved Davis. The congressman won Proviso with 57.4 percent, his home 29th with 66.4, the 28th with 66.5, the 37th with 75.6, and the 5 near Southwest Side wards by over 70 percent.

2024 PRIMARY: Davis could retire with multiple pensions, but he’s running for a 15th term. He has $220,000 on-hand. Collins has announced and is gathering democratic socialist endorsements and Leftist money. The third contender is city treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, elected in the 2019 runoff with 59.4 percent over Ameya Pawar and unopposed in 2023. She is the wife of 28th Ward alderman Jason Erwin and is an ex-state rep from East Garfield Park.

Outlook: Presuming the hardcore pro-Davis base is around 50 percent, having 2 female foes should cinch his renomination. But both women start with a 25 percent base, with room to grow. If both crack 30, Davis is in real jeopardy.

CITY TREASURER: NO DEAD-END FOR MONEYMAKING: The job is a political steppingstone to nowhere. Some recent treasurers (see chart) aspired to be mayor, but only Cecil Partee moved up, appointed to Rich Daley’s state’s attorney vacancy in 1989, but then losing in 1990. Miriam Santos had ambitions but got indicted for mail fraud and extortion in 1999, eventually pleading guilty to mail fraud. Ethnicity still drives party slating. It went to the Polish in the 1940s, the Jewish in the late 50s and 60s, and Blacks from 1971 on.

The office has a $7 billion investment portfolio, including CPS and 4 city pensions. That’s a lot of cash in not a lot of banks. The three previous treasurers moved on to greener banking pastures. 

Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com

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