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There could be some fireworks the next time the
Illinois Senate Democrats meet behind closed doors.
Two of those Democrats, Martin Sandoval and Tony
Muñoz, contributed a combined $45,000 to Rep. Rich Bradley’s
losing Democratic-primary campaign against Sen. Iris Martinez. That is a
big political no-no. Martinez pulled off a stunning upset last week by
beating Bradley by nine points. She received hundreds of thousands of
dollars from Senate President Emil Jones, but Bradley’s precinct
organization was supposed to be too tough to beat. In the end, though,
Martinez had more of a field operation than was expected. Her clear
superiority on cable TV — and the fact that she was running positive
ads while Bradley could only afford to go negative on cable — was
also a major factor. The fight started a year ago when Jones appointed
Martinez to his Senate leadership team even though the Senate Latinos,
including Martinez, had voted to promote Muñoz. Martinez was warned
to reject Jones’ offer. She refused. Ever since, Muñoz and
Sandoval have been voting against pretty much every major bill that Jones
supported. Then, late last year, they persuaded Bradley to run against
Martinez. Their crusade has obviously not ended well.
Muñoz and Martinez, along with some of their allies, succeeded in
tying Jones up in knots during last year’s extended legislative
session. They thought they could do the same thing to him at the ballot
box. They were wrong. Complicating matters further is the fact that the
most strident voice in Jones’ caucus, Sen. Rickey Hendon, won by a
huge margin last week. Hendon consistently argues for ever more party
discipline and retribution against those who dare question Jones. Hendon
fended off well-funded attacks by two opponents and still managed to garner
more than 62 percent of the vote. And then there was Sen. Willie Delgado’s 60-40
win against a hard-charging, well-funded challenger. Delgado started last
year allied with Sandoval and Muñoz, but he eventually switched
sides and is now mostly with Jones. The thing that brings all of those wins together is
the involvement of House members. Jones has been feuding with House Speaker
Michael Madigan for more than a year. Madigan repeatedly manipulated
Jones’ caucus members against their leader, and Jones has tried to do
the same to Madigan. Their protracted battle has overshadowed almost
everything else at the Statehouse. For the past few months each man
believed that the other was backing primary challenges against his members.
Bradley is a House incumbent, of course, but he also
received cash and aid from several fellow House members, and many of the
contributors who lined up with Bradley are connected to Madigan. Jones’ forces didn’t win everything last
week. His former staffer Stanley Moore was absolutely trounced, 75-25, by
Rep. Monique Davis. Candidates openly backed by Hendon against several of
Madigan’s incumbents also came up way short.
Still, the rush from all those other victories,
particularly the Martinez win, will at least temporarily silence some of
Jones’ fiercest critics within his own caucus. Those critics have
been grumbling about Jones’ impending “losses” for weeks.
They had claimed that a Martinez loss, and any other big defeats, would
reflect poorly on Jones’ leadership and his judgment. A Martinez loss
could have even forced Jones to retire at the end of his term because it
would have showed that the war he fought with his members was futile and
counterproductive. The governor’s massive proposal to expand health
insurance was just one of the bills that didn’t pass last year
because of the divisions created by the Martinez war. Those Jones wins will also likely embolden those who
want to take an even harder line against the internal critics and up the
ante against Madigan. Unless cooler heads prevail, last year’s
year-long contentious, divisive Statehouse war might get even worse this
year.
Rich Miller also
publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com.
This article appears in Feb 7-13, 2008.
