January 29, 2025
DEMOCRATS BESEECH SEN. DURBIN: TIME TO STEP ASIDE IN 2026
For a politician the most painful circumstance is to become irrelevant, especially involuntarily, as in losing re-election. Only slightly less painful is to voluntarily become irrelevant, to step aside due to age, health, likelihood of defeat or just plain exhaustion with the job.
That’s longtime U.S. Senator Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) predicament: He is fast becoming irrelevant but is resistant to stepping aside. Durbin turned 80 last month and is up for re-election in 2026, when he will be age 82. He is a mainstay of Washington’s Geezer Generation, eighty-something oldsters who think they are indispensable when, in fact, they are way past their prime, very expendable and are desperately clinging to their office.
They include the likes of Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Danny Davis (D-IL), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who at age 75 this year is a comparative youngster. They may not yet be suffering cognitive deterioration like the ex-president, but having spent 30-40 years, practically their entire post-30 adult life in Washington, they know no other life without perks, power and fawning donors, lobbyists and staffers.
Durbin has been a durable politician in a reliably Democratic state. He has been Illinois’ senator for 30 years, winning 5 statewide elections with ease and before that winning 7 terms in Congress from the Springfield district. That’s 44 years through 2026. Another term, which he would surely win if he wants it, would take him to 50 and to age 88.
Durbin, ex-chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee as well as ex-Democratic majority Whip (he’s now minority Whip in a 53R-47D senate) notably told Trump AG nominee Pam Bondi that she had the qualifications and experience to be U.S. attorney general but that he feared she “could not say ‘no’ to Trump” and his policies. In Illinois a bunch of Democrats who covet his seat as well as the party leadership fear that Durbin will not say “no” to another term. And that could mean a nasty, expensive primary.
Springfield Democrats, forever tinkering with ballot access to maintain their power, changed the filing deadline to the first week in November with the petition circulatory period the prior 90 days, starting the first week in August. The ostensible reason is that some 2024 petition court challenges were not resolved until March, days before the primary. Accordingly, party slating was accelerated. County Democrats’ pre-slating, a dog-and-pony show where 2026 aspirants grovel and make their pitch, is set for April 16-17, nearly 11 months before the March 17, 2026 primary. And actual slating, where party bosses dictate and disclose their slate is July 17-18.
Durbin publicly promised to make his GO/NO GO decision by the end of January, but he’s still dawdling. Durbin had a puny $1,847,694 on-hand as of Dec. 31. The preferred candidate of Democratic insiders, and presumably JB Pritzker, is Schaumburg/Streamwood congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-8), who had 17,053,353 on-hand. He will be age 53 next year. Another favorite is congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-2) from the south suburbs and Chicago’s far South Side, and the state party chairwoman. She had $2,034,553 on-hand. She will be age 70 in 2026. Again, the Durbin succession is all about identity.
COUNTY DEMOCRATIC SLATE: In addition to slating for county board president (CBP), sheriff, assessor, treasurer, clerk and 3 MWRD commissioners and some judgeships, the county Dems (CCDP) will also slate for statewide office, including senator, governor, LG, AG, Sec. of State, comptroller and treasurer. If one moving part ceases moving – like Durbin or Pritzker quit – then other moving parts will instantly malfunction. The CCDP (and its toady State party) need to get their act together by March.
According to Democratic sources Toni Preckwinkle, the county chair, is seeking re-election. She is finishing her fourth term. She will be age 79 in 2026.
MWRD president Kari Steele, who came close to beating assessor Fritz Kaegi in 2022, is not seeking a rematch, though Kaegi will have an opponent, likely someone backed by Board of Review commissioner Larry Rogers. So, too, will Tom Dart, sheriff for 20 years. Treasurer Maria Pappas, first elected in 1998, will be 76 next year – and will run again.
Durbin is the linchpin. As he moves so does everybody else.
POGO GETS THE HEAVE-HO: “It’s all about his name,” said one Chicago Democratic committeeperson about former Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner Dan (Pogo) Pogorzelski. Pogo was slated in 2021 for a 2-year term and won nomination by 1,903 votes and again slated in 2023 for a 6-year term and lost by 11,170 votes to a non-slated woman, Sharon Waller.
“It was really hard to sell” Pogorzelski to primary voters in Black, liberal Latino and “progressive” White Lakefront and suburban North Shore areas, the committeeperson said. And why is that? Pogo, like all 22 slated candidates gave the party $45,000 (which aggregates to $990,000 total) to get county chair Preckwinkle to whip all 80 committeepersons into line, distribute sample ballots and print and mail literature. On March 17, 21 of the 22 slatees won – but not Pogo.
To be fair, Cook County Democratic Party attorneys did try to knock Waller off the ballot. Waller got top ballot position and Pogo last (fourth). The result was predictable. Pritzker appointed Precious Brady-Davis to a vacancy in 2023 and the CCDP did clear away all opposition for her in 2024.
And that is due to the Democrats’ Woke/Left faction’s obsession with identity politics. Pogo was described as a man with an identifiably White ethnic Polish-American last name. The days are long gone when Democrats used to “balance” their slate ethnically with a few Poles, Italians and Jews among all the Irish White men. Now it’s balanced by race, gender and sexual orientation.
The 2024 slate had an equal number of men and women, 8 Blacks, 4 Latinos, 4 LGBTQ and one Jewish man for a judgeship. The upcoming slating for 2026 will be no different.
After his loss, Pogo lobbied Pritzker to appoint him Dec. 2 to the vacancy created when commissioner Mariyana Spyropoulos (D) was elected Clerk of Court. He got an endorsement letter signed by 130 party and elected local officials and all U.S. Representatives in Cook County endorsing Pogo for the MWRD vacancy.
All for naught. Pritzker appointed southwest suburban Orland Park Township committeeperson Beth Kirkland, who will be slated for a 2-year term in 2026.
“I’m weighing my options” of running in 2026, said Pogo, who had $11,880 on-hand.
There will be 3 6-year MWRD seats up next year: Those of Cam Davis, Precious Brady-Davis, and Eira Corral Sepulveda. Cam Davis is set to retire, creating a slating pickle. The current Board has 3 men and 7 women.
A commissioner is paid $60,000-a year and attends 22 3-hour meetings per year (although that’s optional). The MWRD’s function is to dispose of billions of gallons of wastewater and over a hundred thousand tons of solid waste. The former goes to various treatment plants, thence to the Chicago River, thence to the Sanitary and Ship Canal, then to the Mississippi and down to New Orleans and into the “Gulf of America.”
Pogo was well-liked and popular at the MWRD. It’s a shame he won’t get another chance just because he’s a White Polish man in the wrong era.
Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com
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