Were it not for Barrington Township, state Rep. Cal Skinner (R-Crystal Lake) might be dusting off his economics degree, while John Brehmer would be packing his bags for Springfield.
Skinner received 189 fewer votes than Brehmer in the 82 McHenry County precincts that are in the 64th District. Brehmer received 6,391 votes to Skinner’s 6,202.
But because he received twice as many votes as Brehmer in the dozen Barrington Township precincts in Cook County–1,276 to 525–Skinner won renomination with 52 percent of the vote.
And in a footnote that Skinner finds amusing, Al Jourdan, the McHenry County GOP chairman who supported Brehmer, was the mediator of the remapping committee that moved Barrington Township into an expanded McHenry County legislative district in 1991.
“We blew them away in Barrington Township,” Skinner said Wednesday. “That just tells you my opponent doesn’t know anything about Barrington Township. This contest was all about taxes.”
In both Skinner’s close call and in the pivotal role of Barrington Township, it was partly about taxes. And it was partly about a proposed new highway and bridge across the Fox River.
Skinner made opposition to an amendment to the state-imposed property tax cap the cornerstone of his campaign, and the reason Jourdan threw his support to Brehmer, he said, was that Brehmer supported the bridge and Skinner did not.
Anti-tax sentiment was seen in Barrington Township, as voters there helped defeat a $92 million school bond referendum proposal. And many in the township seemed to have agreed with Skinner in not wanting the new road and bridge, which would affect their area.
But on a larger scale, Skinner’s rigid anti-tax message and opposition to the bridge have angered many school and municipal officials struggling to provide government services and improve traffic flow in the fastest-growing county in the state.
The vote of no-confidence from his own county, along with consistent disagreements with mainstream members of his party, has painted Skinner as the Dennis Rodman of McHenry County politics.
Tuesday’s vote is also raising questions about whether Skinner will have to soften his anti-tax message and broaden his views to survive politically in a county that is fast outgrowing its rural roots and becoming more diverse both demographically and politically.
“I feel that I could have accomplished more in Springfield because Cal is often on the opposite side of what the residents in McHenry County need,” Brehmer said Wednesday. “My goals would have been to balance industrial growth with residential development and to help unclog the traffic problems in the county.”
But asked Wednesday how much of an impact the vote would have on his positions, Skinner said: “None.”
“I intend to continue my crusade to abolish non-referendum bonding authority,” Skinner said. “And I will lead the opposition, should this rumor (that the state may raise income taxes in exchange for a lesser amount of property tax relief) rear its head again.”
Michael Cys, spokesman for House Speaker Lee Daniels (R-Elmhurst), who gave Skinner $5,000 in his campaign, said Skinner is “a good person to have on our team . . . because he adds the diversity we need to be successful.”
But, Cys said, Skinner should think seriously about what Tuesday’s signs of “trouble in his own base” mean.
“Cal is very hard-line on a lot of these issues, and in many ways that is good because we know where he stands,” Cys said. “But with that style, there is not a whole lot of room to do stuff for your district except fight taxes.”
“To have won so narrowly is telling you something,” said State Rep. Kay Wojcik (R-Schaumburg), assistant majority leader of the House of Representatives.
“You must listen to your constituency. This is an outcry that he has to pay more attention to some of their issues.”
State Rep. Ann Hughes (R-Woodstock) had an easier time of defeating Steven Verr of McHenry, who was opposing her for the third time.
In her personal “three-peat,” Hughes won with 56 percent of the vote. She received 1,678 more votes than Verr in this election, after having beaten him by 940 votes in the three-way 1994 primary and by 4,156 votes in the 1992 primary.
“Ann Hughes has earned the right to represent the people of McHenry County again, again and now again,” Cys said. “Maybe now Mr. Verr will get the message: Three strikes, and he’s out.”
Turnout in McHenry County was 32 percent. In suburban Cook County, it was 25 percent.
Winners in the McHenry County Board’s contested races were Dan Shea, former village president of Fox River Grove, and Donald Brewer, former Algonquin village president, in District 1; and incumbent Alex Orsolini of Richmond and former board member Virginia Peschke of Bull Valley in District 5.
In the nearby northwest suburbs, state Sen. Marty Butler (R-Park Ridge), state Reps. Rosemary Mulligan (R-Park Ridge) and Verna Clayton (R-Buffalo Grove) turned back challenges from anti-tax opponents, while arch-conservative state Rep. Bernard Pedersen (R-Palatine) defeated a moderate Republican.
“Mulligan and Pedersen are almost polar opposites, yet they were both able to come together and get things like welfare reform and tax caps passed,” Cys said. “They ran on that record and won.”
