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Several African-American House members are starting
to worry about potential primary opponents backed by Senate President Emil
Jones and Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but it’s unclear right now how many
will get opponents and how involved the two leaders will be. Jones and
Blagojevich have engaged in open political warfare with House Speaker
Michael Madigan pretty much all year, and it looks like they may be taking
another big step by attempting to take out some of Madigan’s people. Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, one of Jones’
top lieutenants, is backing an opponent against Rep. Art Turner, one of
Speaker Madigan’s top guys who represents half of Hendon’s
state-Senate district. Hendon claims that his candidate, Dottie Walton,
already has enough signatures to get on the ballot. But Hendon is also facing a primary race. Three
candidates have lined up against him, including Amy Sue Mertens, a
University of Illinois at Chicago official who, Hendon claims, is a Madigan
candidate. Mertens has recently met with some people close to Madigan, but,
though impressed with her, they report that she has not put together much
of a campaign on her own. Hendon and others deny it, but it looks very much
like Jones is backing Stanley Moore in his campaign against state Rep.
Monique Davis, D-Chicago. Moore is a former member of Jones’
appropriations staff, Davis represents half of Jones’ South Side
district, and Moore just moved into that district last December, according
to Davis. It’s not too difficult to connect the dots there. Word from the Senate side is that Moore and the
Senate Democrats expected Davis to announce her retirement this fall and
take a job with the administration. Davis said, however, that she has no
plans to retire and intends to make a fight of it. She also ridiculed Moore
for opening a campaign office in the wrong district. Turns out,
Moore’s campaign headquarters listed on his statement of candidacy is
in Rep. Kevin Joyce’s neighboring district. Oops. Davis has not only withstood challenges before when
her committeemen have turned against her but has also racked up huge
victory margins. The committeemen and aldermen appear divided at the
moment, but Davis says she has commitments from most of them. Meanwhile, Hendon says that Rep. Deborah
Graham’s Democratic primary opponent is not technically his candidate
. . . yet. Hendon says Phyllis Logan approached him about running and he allowed her to speak to
a meeting of his organization. “Most of my people are supporting
her,” Hendon says, but he adds that he hasn’t yet officially
endorsed her. Graham has the backing of most or all of her
district’s committeemen, and they’re not exactly happy about
Hendon’s involvement. Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, has been sending
people from his township party’s organization to Iowa on the weekends
to help U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign, but, word is, he will keep
many of those people home to work for Graham if this develops into a
full-blown war. But wait, there’s more. Rep. Mary
Flowers’ Democratic primary opponent works for the Illinois
Department of Corrections, which is prompting speculation that the governor
is behind this one as well. Flowers is a staunch ally of Speaker Madigan. And then there’s freshman Rep. Al Riley, whose
Democratic opponent, Toni Ashmore, is married to a former top official at
the governor’s patronage-filled Department of Commerce and Economic
Opportunity.
For many of these challengers, the big question may
be whether Jones, the governor, and the governor’s surrogates,
particularly the Service Employees International Union, dump big bucks into
their races. The governor’s campaign fund doesn’t have much
money in it, but his top fundraisers are gearing up in a big way. The SEIU
will be making endorsements sometime in November, after the petition-filing
deadline ends, so we’ll know more by then. The House Democrats say that they’re ready for
anything — but, if any of these challengers can put together a
credible effort, voter anger over the botched session could make for some
interesting contests, and it will make the war between the state’s
top Democrats a whole lot more intense.
Rich Miller publishes Capitol
Fax, a daily political newsletter. He can be
reached at capitolfax.blogspot.com.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2007.
