December 13, 2023
2024 "FILING FOLLIES" AND ALD. WAGUESPACK'S BIG BUNGLE IN 32ND WARD
It’s that wonderful time of the year when you can count on politicians to deliver some holiday cheer. I don’t mean like Santa Claus or a bottle of Johnnie Walker. I’m talking about the cynical joy and laughter that fills ours hearts when we think that we actually elected them.
The Dec. 4 filing deadline for 2024 has passed and we will be stuck listening to a gaggle of candidates for the next 11 months, until Nov. 5. It doesn’t take great skill to get nominating petition signatures, especially with a 90-day circulatory window dating back to Sept. 5.
But there are always a couple of big-time bunglers who provide much-appreciated hilarity through their incompetence.
This cycle’s unquestioned champion is Alderman Scott Waguespack (32nd), who is also the ward’s Democratic committeeperson. Waguespack, age 53, is no political rookie, having been elected to the City Council in 2007. He was finance committee chair during Lori Lightfoot’s term (2019-23) and had $137,354 cash-on-hand as of Oct. 1.
Waguespack was unopposed for alderman in 2023, 2019, and got 78.9 percent in 2015. Suffice it to say Waguespack’s ward organization is creaky if not dormant, the alderman last having credible opposition in 2011. The 32nd Ward is upscale “progressive,” not Woke/Leftist. It contains 30 precincts in Wicker Park, Bucktown, Hamlin Square and Roscoe Village and went 10,793-7,669 for Paul Vallas in the 2023 Vallas-Johnson mayoral runoff.
At some date between Sept. 5 and Nov. 27 (the first day to file) the alderman decided not to seek re-election as committeeperson and didn’t really publicly disclose it, giving the impression that he was running to keep the field clear. In some quarters that’s called bait-and-switch.
But it was just dumb. He anointed a replacement and tasked her with getting the minimum 988 signatures (usually double that number to be safe from a challenge) to run. Turns out she didn’t. Everybody in the party, including Waguespack, is very close-mouthed about the fiasco.
According to a top city party source, Waguespack’s choice came in with about 400 signatures on Thanksgiving weekend. They panicked and tried to get 1,000 votes for Waguespack the ensuing week. They didn’t. Nobody filed – except Ishan Daya, a Woke/Leftist whose petitions were circulated by United Working Families (UWF), the well-funded grassroots arm of the CTU. Daya filed after 4 p.m. on Dec. 4 (the last day and hour) along with the petitions of aldermen Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th), Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd) and Daniel LaSpata (1st). They all filed simultaneously for committeeperson (D), with UWF-gathered petitions.
And then, according to party sources, it was revealed that Daya was photographed in New York City tearing down posters bearing the faces of Jewish women and children kidnapped/killed by Hamas terrorists. UWF hit the exits. Which raises 2 questions: (1) What is Daya doing in NYC? And (2) how dumber is Daya than Waguespack?
Again, according to party sources, Waguespack’s new gameplan is to (1) knock Daya off the ballot by challenging his signatures and/or (2) mount a write-in campaign for himself on March 19 amassing 988 write-in votes. Waguespack has the name ID to do that. If Daya is on the ballot, Waguespack needs more write-ins than Daya has votes; if Daya is off, then he needs 988-plus. If Waguespack wins, then next April he can resign and let the city Democratic central committee name a replacement.
Let’s all toast some the 32nd Ward for making it a merrier Christmas. Nobody could make this stuff up.
GRAB SOME BENCH: That’s a baseball metaphor for a player who has an “off-day.” Just hit the dugout and hope it’s not permanent. In Cook County’s Identity-driven judicial politics, there is no room on the bench for White guys and, now it seems, Latino guys. Just eat the dust.
There are 55 judgeships on the March 19 primary (D) ballot in Cook County and 39 subcircuit judges. One for the IL Supreme Court (appointed/slated incumbent Joy Cunningham vs. Jesse Reyes), 4 for the Appellate Court (appointed/slated justice Mary Mikva and appointed/slated justice Carl Walker, both unopposed, and slated Cynthia Cobbs (appointed) and Leonard Murray, facing Carolyn Gallagher and Celia Garmuth, respectively.
For the 11 countywide Circuit Court openings, the 4 slated Guys –Neil Cohen, Ed Underhill, James Murphy-Aguilu, Pablo DeCastro are opposed, respectively, by the South Side slate of Wende Williams, Lori Ann Roper, Ashonta Rice and Chelsea Robinson. None have been rated “Qualified” by the Chicago Bar Association. Yet all will likely win. The only other slatee in jeopardy is Debjani Desai, opposed by perennial candidate Russ Hartigan.
Some accuse Woke/Leftists like Kim Foxx of being “soft on crime.” But the underlying “root cause” is putting judges on the bench because of their identity, not their qualifications.
EQUITY AND JUSTICE – FOR SOME: There are two vacancies in the Northwest Side 10th subcircuit (covering parts of the 41st, 45th and 39th wards, and extending north to Glenview). Caroline Glennon-Goodman, a 26-year public defender (PD) is unopposed for one, and 3 men — Liam Kelly, James V. Murphy and Mike Kilgallon — are competing for the other.
Kelly, a criminal defense attorney whose brother is the Evanston Township committeeperson (D), touts his endorsement by Leftist congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-9), of Evanston. She praises his commitment to “equity and justice.” I was a lawyer for 44 years, until I retired in 2022, and I always thought “justice” was supposed to be equality under the law based on statutes the facts of the case. It is NOT supposed to be based on the “feelings” of the judge predicated on the identity (race, gender, personal circumstances) of the perpetrator/defendant.
To be sure, “equity” is the by-word in Chancery and Divorce division cases, where a judge must sort out individual claims, but definitely not in criminal cases or civil disputes, where facts control.
The obvious choice is Murphy, a 22-year prosecutor (ASA) in the state’s attorney’s office who quit in 2022.
COMING FOR KAEGI: Assessor Fritz Kaegi is not a popular guy. He was renominated in 2022 over MWRD president Kari Steele. Kaegi’s policy has been to shift the tax burden from homeowners to large property and business owners. This he has done by adjusting the assessed valuations. And that has infuriated the construction trades unions who know this flattens new construction and renovations. His new policy may be to go after the homeowners again.
The firewall for the Big Business/Union cabal is the Board of Review (BOR). An owner gets a Notice of Assessed Valuation (A/V) from the assessor and promptly appeals it to the BOR, citing pretexts like vacancies, lost income, upgrade costs and hardship. The BOR – consisting of 3 elected commissioners – then promptly reduces the A/V, shifting the tax burden back to where it was.
The IUOE Operating Engineers Local 399 gave Steele $1 million in 2022. She and they will be back in 2026. Kaegi had $112,212 on-hand as of Oct. 1. As a pre-emptive strike Kaegi is funding and backing Larecia Tucker for BOR in the South Side/south suburban 3rd District. The incumbent is Larry Rogers Jr. (D), a powerhouse in the Black community. Rogers will win. But Kaegi is setting the table for 2026.
16TH DISTRICT: JEWISH NO MORE: Back when I started writing this column in 1973 there were two area “Jewish” House districts under the multi-member system, which elected 3 reps per district.
Bernard Wolfe had the Chicago 39th/40th ward seat, and Aaron Jaffe the Skokie seat. Alan Greiman of Skokie replaced Wolfe, who became a judge in 1974. Greiman became a judge in 1987, and was replaced by Lou Lang of Skokie. Jaffe became a judge and was replaced by Cal Sutker in the mid-1980s. Both districts were consolidated into a mega-Jewish House district in the 1991 remap, and the state senators were Howie Carroll (1972-98), who lost to Schakowsky in 1998, and then Ira Silverstein (1998-2018), who lost to Ram Villivalam amid #MeToo allegations in 2018. Lang, the state rep, was on a track to be speaker when Madigan eventually quit.
Lang, the Niles Township committeeman (D), resigned in 2019 amid #MeToo allegations too and was replaced by Mark Kalish, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi from a West Rogers Park synagogue. Kalish became an instant pariah in 2019 when he voted ”present” on a pro-abortion bill. He got beat by Denyse Wang Stoneback in 2020, and she by Kevin Olickal by 5,450-4,828 in 2022.
Olickal signed a letter with 15 other elected officials calling for de-escalation and peace following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. “We will not be able to achieve peace when millions of Palestinians are denied basic human rights.” There has been no Jewish pushback. Olickan’s 2024 foe is Faye Abushaban. Olickal will win.
In the 50th Ward alderwoman Debra Silverstein is handing off her post to Bruce Leon. In the 29th Ward Chris Taliaferro, who barely won in 2023 and lost for judge in 2022 faces C.D. Johnson and Zerlina Smith-Members. Taliaferro should quit before he is defeated.
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