In August 2005, former Republican Gov. George Ryan
awaited trial on federal corruption charges, Democrats held almost every
constitutional office in the state and a majority of seats in the
legislature. Without the traditional goodies – namely, state jobs
– to hand out in exchange for loyalty and hard work, nobody wanted to
be chairman of the Sangamon County Republican Party. After some coaxing by
Irv Smith, who was stepping down after two decades as county GOP boss,
circuit clerk Tony Libri agreed to take the job.
It was hardly an act of martyrdom. Libri had been
quietly expressing a desire to take the party’s top spot for some
time and upon assuming the chairman role talked about attracting young
people and expanding the party. With Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s
unpopularity growing, particularly in central Illinois, the odds that Libri
could achieve his goal were in his favor. Even after having narrowly lost a
hard-fought mayoral contest against Tim Davlin two years before, Libri, a
former Marine, TV weatherman, and furniture store spokesman, remained
highly regarded among party members.
His popularity slowly began to fade, however. Libri
notoriously butted heads with prominent fellow Republicans who made
political donations to or otherwise supported Democratic candidates. Then
in late 2007, under Libri’s leadership, the Sangamon County partybacked the ill-fated
presidentialcandidacy
of former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, who not only dropped out of the
race but bailed on his scheduled keynoting of Springfield’s annual
Lincoln Day luncheon, which drew criticism of Libri from some local
Republicans.
More embarrassment came later in 2008 when Libri,
along with other politically connected people serving on the Springfield
Metro Sanitary District board, gave themselves a raise while raising
taxpayers’ sewer rates.
Now facing reelection to the office of Sangamon County
circuit clerk, in his first contested race since he secured the post in
1996, the 53-year-old Libri’s political future hangs in the balance.
Later this fall, Libri, a colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard will
deploy to Afghanistan for a year and what will happen to the Sangamon
County party in his absence is uncertain.
In Sangamon County, which has disagreed with the rest
of the state’s Democratic picks in the past two presidential and
gubernatorial elections, for any Republican county officeholder to be
vulnerable against any Democrat speaks volumes. Unfortunately for Libri,
his opponent isn’t just any Democrat.
Cecilia Tumulty has held elected offices since 1999,
first as Ward 5 alderwoman then as Springfield city clerk. She’s
respected and well-liked, winning reelection in 2007 with 74 percent of
voter support.
In fact, it’s hard to dislike to either
candidate. Combined, their charisma and intelligence could fill every file
cabinet in the offices of the Sangamon County circuit clerk and the
basement vault. Indeed, the responsibilities of the position are rather
mundane: overseeing the office that collects your speeding tickets, child
support payments, and fees when you apply for a marriage license, birth
certificates, or passport. Also, the office processes and maintains records
for the 7th Judicial Circuit.
Both can lay claim to having brought their respective
offices into the 21st century by making information available via the Web.
However, Tumulty, 44, may have a slight advantage as the county’s
change candidate: she would be just the second female officeholder in the
county’s history and, unlike her previous campaigns in officially
nonpartisan races, her name appears on ballots with a D next to it the same
year that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s name is on
the ballot.
Tumulty also has the support of a resurgent county
Democratic Party and the not-so-secret backing of some influential
Republicans. She calls it the benefit of having held nonpartisan office.
“I have a 10-year history of working in this community so I’ve
gotten a lot of support from both sides of the aisle,” she says.
Most notably, former members of the
now-disbanded Evening Republican Club hosted a fundraiser for Tumulty in
June. “They weren’t members of our party. They just wanted you
to think that,” Libri says of the event organizers, Pete Cimarossa
and Dr. Jack Fyans.
“That was just an attention-getting device.
These are people who are mad at me and this is how they think they’re
getting back at me. You’ll find since I’m chairman of the
Republican Party, people who are no longer connected with our party would
like to see bad things happen to the party — and to me. So they do
things like this. This is their way of making themselves feel
powerful,” Libri adds.
But in politics, money is power — and Tumulty is
beating her opponent on that front too. According to recent state campaign
disclosure records, Tumulty’s war chest contained $25,512 as of Oct.
5, compared with Libri’s $18,578.81.
In addition to that sum, Tumulty has bested Libri in
raking in donations of $500, which candidates are required to report in
weeks leading up to the election. Prairie PAC, U.S. Sen. Dick
Durbin’s leadership Political-action Committee, gave $5,000 while
unions, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 193 and
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31
donated a combined $3,500. Springfield resident James Potter also
contributed $1,000. As of press time, the state database lists no
$500 donations to Libri’s campaign committee.
But Libri has proven his shrewdness over the years.
In 2007, for example, he correctly predicted that Republicans would
wrest control of the nonpartisan Springfield City Council. Libri says his
campaign has conducted polls in his race against Tumulty, but declines to
disclose the results except to say, “One said the race is close, one
had me way ahead. But I don’t believe in polls.”
His decision to go to Afghanistan has played well with
voters despite the fact, he says, “I could probably swing it so that
I wouldn’t have to go, but that would mean that some other young
person would have to go in my place. I’ll probably retire shortly
after coming back because I’m getting close to retirement age
anyway.”
By talking to people who know him, one gets the
impression that Libri is like a wounded tiger, and as injured animals are
prone to do when cornered, Libri has ferociously defended his turf down the
homestretch. The proverbial October Surprise came mid-month when Libri
unearthed what he characterized as sloppy record maintenance by Tumulty,
who keeps the minutes of Springfield City Council meetings.
By his count, Tumulty committed errors “86.4
percent of the time,” citing instances of “important
discussion” not appearing in the minutes, misidentified speakers,
misstated facts and figures, audio of meetings missing from the
city’s Web site, and other erroneous information.
“In her announcements and on her Web site she
talks about the quality of her record-keeping, her 20-some years as a legal
secretary. Quite frankly, if you’re saying, ‘The quality of my
records are better than yours, you’d better be prepared to back that
up,” says Libri, who also raised the issue in a series of radio ads.
Tumulty says she took the discovery “very
seriously,” noting that the benefit of her “bringing the city
clerk’s office out of the dark ages” by posting documents
online has enabled such scrutiny of public information. “I’m
happy that he’s using the Web site,” she quips. She made the
necessary updates to the Internet site. On Oct. 21, the City Council
approved changes to the meeting minutes in question without discussion.
Libri doesn’t deny that his office also makes
errors. The difference, he says, is that “I have millions of
documents. We do millions of keystrokes every year. We file millions of
pieces of paper every year. As a matter of fact, in our office we probably
answer more phones in a day than she gets in a year. We get more people
walking into our office in a day or two than she gets all year.
“So we’re talking apples and oranges.
Don’t forget, much of our work, once it’s done, it goes to the
judge, it goes to both attorneys. Our stuff gets checked pretty frequently.
We still make mistakes,” he says.
He also mocks Tumulty’s city Web site, boasting
that the Web page his office launched in July is the second largest
searchable database in the state. “It’s the difference between
a Maserati and a Volkswagen,” says Libri, who also prides himself on
the fact that he’s reduced headcount by seven employees since
he’s been in charge.
Tumulty isn’t convinced that fewer employees is
necessarily a good thing. She says she’ll conduct a thorough review
of the circuit clerk’s operation if voters elect her. “There
have been stories about the lines snaking out of the circuit clerk’s
office and down the hallway with people who are there for traffic court. If
there needs to be reallocation of resources then I’ll make those
decisions and we’ll move forward to make each one of those
departments run better,” she says.
Without a doubt, Libri has the most on the line on
Nov. 4. Tumulty has another three years in her current term and, even
though she faces term limits, her prospects for a political career remain
bright and even more so if Democrats hold on to the governorship in 2010.
Already, murmurs are swirling about a potential coup
of Libri’s chairmanship after Libri deploys to Afghanistan after the
election, which can occur with a vote of no confidence by Republican
precinct committeemen.
Irv Smith, who preceded Libri as chairman and held the
post for 22 years, says Libri will have a hard time holding on to his jobs
as chairman and circuit clerk if party members don’t look out for
him. Meanwhile, he lauds Libri’s management of the circuit
clerk’s office, which he says “was always a snake pit.”
When asked about Libri’s effectiveness as a
party leader, Smith offers: “One thing that I’ve learned is
that it takes about five years to get the hang of being chairman. You
don’t walk in and have that automatic trust. You gotta earn
it.”
Libri came along at a time when the party was
floundering, Smith explains. “Being chairman is very lonely. I
don’t envy anyone in that position,” says Smith. “I
appreciated the fact that he took the chairmanship.” Asked about the
support Tumulty has received from Republicans, Smith says, “Suicide
is foolish. You’re destroying yourselves, but you’re not going
to destroy us,” referring to the party.
In the event that he loses to Tumulty, Libri says he
will likely return to the private sector. He went into politics in the
early 1980s because his first wife, Donna, had cancer and government work
had better health insurance, Libri says.
He adds: “My chairman’s job is way down
the list of things that are important to me. My God, my family and my job
come first. He and his wife, Ann, have a four-year-old daughter.
And if he loses his clerk’s job as well?
“Life goes on,” he says.
Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in Oct 23-29, 2008.
