For the first time in nearly four decades, Illinois House Democrats are seeking to defend their dominance in Springfield without the chief architect of their supermajority, indicted former House Speaker Michael Madigan, at the helm of their campaign operation.
As new House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and his members try to turn the page on the Madigan era without losing ground to the Republicans, their first test will be defending incumbents who are facing tough competition in the June 28 Democratic primary.
The challenge for Welch and the House Democrats, who currently outnumber Republicans 73-45, will be to build on past successes while trying to jettison the baggage of connections to the former speaker, who pleaded not guilty after being charged with racketeering and bribery in a 22-count federal indictment this spring.
All 118 seats in the House and all 59 in the Senate are up for election this year under new district boundaries drawn to maximize the Democrats’ advantage. Of the 50 contested primary races this summer, perhaps no contest better exemplifies the political Catch-22 facing the majority party than state Rep. Mike Zalewski’s bid for an eighth full term.
The moderate from Riverside is facing a challenge in the near-west suburban 21st House District from a progressive opponent — Abdelnasser Rashid, a technology consultant for the Amalgamated Transit Union — who is seeking to make Zalewski’s deep ties to Madigan the central theme of the race.
Rashid, 32, of Justice, who lives just outside the district, is making his third run for public office after failed bids for the Cook County Board in 2018 and the Board of Review in 2020.
Zalewski, a 43-year-old attorney, was appointed to fill a vacant seat in 2008 by a group of local Democratic leaders that included Madigan and Zalewski’s father, then-23rd Ward Ald. Michael Zalewski. He hasn’t faced a primary or general election opponent since 2010 as he rose to become chairman of the powerful House Revenue and Finance Committee and, more recently, a member of Welch’s budget negotiating team.
Zalewski’s father is a key figure in the federal case against Madigan, with prosecutors alleging the former alderman was among those whom Commonwealth Edison paid for lobbying in an effort to curry favor with the longtime speaker. The elder Zalewski, whose home was raided by federal agents in 2019, has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
Those connections created an opportunity for Rashid, backed by progressives including former Cook County Clerk David Orr, to challenge the longtime incumbent, who he excoriated as “part of the corrupt Madigan machine.”
“This corruption is a family affair,” Rashid said.
Rep. Zalewski has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and the Tribune has previously reported that he testified before a federal grand jury in the bribery case against former Rep. Luis Arroyo, who last month was sentenced to nearly five years in prison.
But Rashid has poked at the issue by noting Zalewski’s campaign fund has paid out more than $130,000 in legal fees in the past three years.
Without specifying what the legal fees were for, Zalewski noted that politicians can use campaign funds for a variety of reasons that include document review and advice on election law and ethical issues.
“I don’t think anyone should play a guilt-by-association card in a campaign, especially in a Democratic primary,” Zalewski said, though he has attacked Rashid over campaign contributions from a former Republican donor who has a more recent track record of backing Democrats.
With abortion thrust into the spotlight by an expected U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Zalewski has had to defend his record on reproductive health issues due to his vote last year against legislation to repeal the state’s parental notification requirement for minors seeking to terminate a pregnancy.
Rashid has used the vote to paint Zalewski as an opponent of reproductive rights, though the lawmaker points to his long record of supporting other key priorities for abortion rights advocates, including the 2019 legislation that established the procedure as a “fundamental right” under state law.
Zalewski is backed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who has made staunch support for reproductive health care a central theme of his own reelection campaign and who has contributed $55,000 to the legislator’s campaign.
Both candidates say pocketbook issues are top of mind for voters in light of soaring inflation and gas prices, with Zalewski noting his role in shepherding a $1.8 billion tax relief plan — another central theme of Pritzker’s campaign — through the House this spring. Rashid, like other critics of the plan, notes that the relief is largely temporary.
The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Matthew Schultz of Brookfield in the Nov. 8 general election.
The Madigan factor also weighs heavily in Addison Democratic Rep. Kathleen Willis’ bid for a sixth term representing the 77th House District, which spans portions of west suburban Cook and DuPage counties.
Willis, 60, became majority conference chair under Madigan and regularly used her campaign fund to help candidates in key races for House Democrats.
But Willis was among the 19 House Democrats who came together in January 2021 to oppose Madigan’s reelection as speaker. The lone member of House leadership to take that stand, Willis also briefly put herself into consideration to be the next speaker.
Nonetheless, her long-standing relationship with Madigan has helped inspire a challenge from Triton College trustee Norma Hernandez, 31, who has the backing of progressive U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
“I honestly think that the reason I have a primary is because of that,” Willis said. “And I tell the people in my district I’m asking for their support to prove that I did the right thing by going against Madigan.”
While questions about her Madigan connections have come up as she campaigns, Willis said constituents are more concerned about the economy and public safety.
Willis, who sponsored a 2019 state law that allows courts to order guns be taken away from those who pose “an immediate and present danger” to themselves or others, said there’s more work to do on gun safety issues, such as raising the legal age to buy semi-automatic weapons.
Hernandez, who won her seat on the Triton board last year, said she thinks the district and its large Latino population is ready for more progressive representation in Springfield.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for us to really think about how we’re designing and creating communities for them to continue thriving in this area,” said Hernandez, a community development planner at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute.
Anthony Airdo of Melrose Park is running unopposed on the Republican side.
In the North Side and north suburban 16th House District, Garcia has thrown his support behind a challenger to first-term state Rep. Denyse Wang Stoneback of Skokie.
Kevin Olickal, a 29-year-old-law school student, is back for another try after losing to Stoneback, 52, by more than 3,000 votes when he finished last in a three-way primary in 2020.
While she has the backing of Welch and some fellow House members, Stoneback been criticized by Olickal’s supporters for giving contract work to a former Evanston human resources official who had been disciplined for allegedly mishandling sexual misconduct complaints from teenage girls who worked at the city’s beaches. That story was reported by WBEZ-FM.
In a statement issued via social media, Stoneback said she’s been the victim of “deceptive, sensationalized attacks” and has “a strong record fighting for women.”
She’s also being challenged for sitting out a vote on legislation that made submitting fingerprints optional for state firearm owner’s identification card applicants. Stoneback, who’s been a staunch gun control advocate, had backed an initial House proposal that would have made the fingerprinting mandatory.
Olickal, whose backers also include the area’s state senator, Democrat Ram Villivalam, and the Gun Violence Prevention PAC, said Stoneback “refused to come to the table because she wasn’t getting 100% of what she personally wanted” on the legislation.
Stoneback did not respond to requests for comment.
The winner will face Republican Vince Romano of Skokie in November.
Despite concerns about the perception of corruption, House Democrats are backing an incumbent who is under federal criminal investigation.
Rep. Thaddeus Jones, who also is Calumet City’s mayor, is being challenged in the 29th House District by Calumet City Ald. Monet Wilson, who last year became the first Black woman elected to the south suburb’s City Council. There is no Republican candidate for the seat.
The Tribune reported in April that a federal grand jury subpoena was issued in January to the state Board of Elections on three campaign funds controlled by Jones, 51, who has been a House member since 2011.
In recent days, the chief campaign fund for House Democrats has given Jones’ campaign close to $79,000 for mailings, state records show. What’s more, Welch’s campaign fund has given Jones close to $25,000 for mailings, records show.
Jones’ campaign reported having just over $52,000 in its account through the first quarter of 2022.
Jones declined to comment for this story.
“Democrats for the Illinois House supports incumbent candidates, and Rep. Jones is an incumbent candidate,” said TaQuoya McConnico, a spokeswoman for the House Democrats’ campaign.
On Tuesday, Welch announced a slate of endorsements that includes three candidates running in contested primaries with no Democratic incumbent.
Wilson, 45, who was an office administrator for the Illinois Department of Corrections, said in an interview that “it is time to get rid of career politicians.”
Aside from the federal scrutiny, Wilson takes issue with Jones’ support for a sweeping criminal justice overhaul pushed by the Legislative Black Caucus and signed into law by Pritzker last year. She said there should have been more bipartisan discussion about the provision to eliminate cash bail in 2023, and about policies related to electronic monitoring.
“There’s good and bad in everything in life,” Wilson said. “But for the most part, the men and women who sacrifice their lives on a daily basis to keep communities safe, we have to start listening to them.”
She said she supports “common sense good steps” in the law, such as the requirement for all officers in Illinois to use body cameras by 2025.
The controversial criminal justice law also is playing a pivotal role in a hotly contested Democratic primary in the Northwest Side and northwest suburban 10th Senate District.
Sen. Robert Martwick, 56, has represented the area since being appointed to a vacant seat in 2019, moving over from the House, where he’d represented a portion of the same territory since 2013.
The district is home to many Chicago police officers, firefighters and other public employees, and Martwick has become accustomed to challenges, both in primaries and general elections, from more conservative candidates.
This year, he’s a top target for the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police largely because of his vote for the criminal justice legislation. His opponent is Erin Jones, 45, a Chicago police officer whose husband is a city firefighter.
She declined to comment, but FOP President John Catanzara, whose union has given $55,000 to Jones’ campaign, said “Rob Martwick has proven to be anti-law enforcement,” citing his support of the criminal justice legislation.
Martwick said he backed the bill not only because he supports police reform but also because the measure preserves collective bargaining rights for police.
“You can’t do something as monumental as that and make everybody happy,” Martwick said. “Was it perfect? No. But we’ve had intense negotiation sessions and trailer bills that cleaned up all of the problems that have been identified with it.”
While Jones has requested a Democratic Party ballot in at least three past primary elections, she was also aligned with the Northwest Side GOP Club, a Republican organization that operates in Chicago’s 41st Ward and its surrounding areas.
Matt Podgorski, who heads the GOP Club, said Jones was active with the organization only for certain issues, including its opposition to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
Martwick has the backing of the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2. He helped pass key legislation supported by each union, including the creation of an elected school board for Chicago Public Schools.
There is no Republican candidate in the primary.
Farther north, the retirement of Grayslake Sen. Melinda Bush has set up a contested Democratic primary race for Lake County’s 31st Senate District seat.
The race pits five-term Rep. Sam Yingling of Grayslake against former one-term Rep. Mary Edly-Allen of Libertyville, who lost her 2020 reelection bid to Republican Chris Bos by 1,149 votes.
Despite Yingling’s longer tenure in Springfield, Edly-Allen, 61, has the backing of both Bush and Pritzker, who contributed $55,000 from his campaign fund.
In a statement, Pritzker called Edly-Allen “a fierce advocate for women’s reproductive rights and critical investments in mental health care, child care and violence prevention programs that strengthen public safety.”
Yingling, 41, didn’t endear himself to Pritzker when he spoke publicly against the governor’s graduated-rate income tax proposal in 2019. He ended up voting in favor of putting the question to voters after Pritzker agreed to the creation of a legislative task force to make recommendations for alleviating the state’s high property tax burden.
The task force devolved into partisan squabbling in early 2020 and never released final recommendations, and voters overwhelmingly rejected the graduated income tax at the polls that fall.
Yingling said that with Madigan gone, he thinks voters may be ready to revisit the issue of how to overhaul the state’s tax system, which relies heavily on real estate taxes to fund schools.
Yingling, who was among the 19 Democrats who opposed Madigan’s reelection as speaker last year, said constituents he’s spoken with while campaigning have been “incredibly appreciative” of that effort.
Edly-Allen, who teaches English as a second language, also publicly opposed another term for Madigan, though losing her reelection bid meant she didn’t get a vote in the selection process of a new speaker.
Edly-Allen said having the support of the district’s outgoing senator is important to Democratic primary voters because Bush “is a workhorse and people know her as a workhorse.”
The winner will face Republican Adam Solano of Third Lake in the fall.
The intraparty squabbles aren’t limited to the majority Democrats.
Rep. David Welter of Morris, an assistant GOP leader running for a fourth full term, is being challenged by Jed Davis of Newark, a civil engineer who also is board president of a Christian school that has fought Pritzker’s pandemic orders. They’re running in the 75th House District, which stretches from exurban Oswego and Yorkville to LaSalle County.
Davis has criticized Welter for votes in which he’s sided with Democrats, including the measures in 2019 that legalized recreational marijuana and doubled the gas tax to pay for road projects, and an energy and climate package last year that supporters say preserved jobs at nuclear power plants in Welter’s current district.
Davis’ campaign is largely funded through a political fund run by the caucus’s most conservative faction, allies of Sen. Darren Bailey of Xenia, who’s running in the Republican primary for governor. Davis also has tried to appeal to the party’s conservative base by highlighting Welter’s ties to local U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump.
“I’m going to cast conservative votes in Springfield, without question,” Davis said.
Welter, whose better-funded campaign has the support of party leaders and labor unions, among others, said it’s “disheartening to see a very small group within my caucus that I would say are on the fringes of our party trying to get involved in another member’s primary.”
There is no Democratic candidate on the district’s primary ballot.
dpetrella@chicagotribune.com
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
