Candidates began falling in line Sunday for one of the most prized Democratic seats in Congress.
State Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston) formally announced her candidacy for the seat occupied for nearly a half-century by congressman Sidney Yates, who has said he will retire after his current term.
Schakowsky’s announcement was no surprise. She formed an exploratory campaign committee as far back as 1995 to be ready for the day when Yates finally said nay to re-election.
Though she is first, she will not be the last to seek the seat in 1998 from the Democrat-dominated 9th Congressional District, which includes the traditionally liberal North Side lakefront.
It is heavily Jewish, yet ethnically and racially diverse, snaking into parts of the Northwest Side and into Evanston, Skokie, Lincolnwood, Morton Grove and Niles.
J.B. Pritzker, heir to the Pritzker fortune that includes the Hyatt hotels, also covets Yates’ position and, like Schakowsky, formed an exploratory committee a few years ago.
More recently, Pritzker has been reaching out to the kind of small donors who can provide a support base for a campaign and on March 1 hired a fundraiser.
State Sen. Howard Carroll also is a considered a formidable would-be candidate. However, playing the politician, Carroll said on Sunday he will not make up his mind definitively until the current session of the state legislature concludes.
Cook County Clerk David Orr’s name also has surfaced.
Yates, 87, is the dean of the U.S. House of Representatives.
He first won the seat in 1948 during the administration of Harry S Truman and returned to office without much problem every term except when he left to run unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1962 against Republican Sen. Everett M. Dirksen.
Schakowsky and Pritzker shelved their attempts to run in 1995 and 1997 because it was considered near political suicide to oppose the popular Yates in a primary.
Yates has not formally announced this will be his last term, but in a telephone interview from Washington on Sunday, he confirmed his tenure is coming to an end.
“I have not made a formal declaration of resignation, but if the question is, Will I run again? the answer is no,” Yates said.
The immediate prize for the congressional wannabes is Yates’ endorsement in the Democratic primary in March 1998. The winner of the primary virtually is assured election in the staunch Democratic district.
The early word is that Carroll, who served as Yates’ campaign chairman in his November 1996 victory, is the favorite to get Yates’ nod.
Carroll, Schakowsky and Pritzker have sought audiences with Yates in recent weeks and had talks with him or his aides, Yates said.
“It’s widely believed that Yates would endorse Carroll,” longtime political consultant Don Rose said Sunday.
However, a source close to Schakowsky said Yates told her he will stay away from supporting anyone in the primary.
For now, that is Yates’ tack, but he left open the possibility he could change his mind.
“That may happen,” Yates said of his possible endorsement of Carroll, “but I don’t know that it will. Ordinarily, I haven’t taken a position in the primaries. As of now, the probability is that I will not.”
In making her announcement Sunday, Schakowsky picked up support from U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and former Democratic National Committee Chairman David Wilhelm.
She scheduled a private fundraiser later Sunday in the lakeshore home of former Democratic National Committeewoman Marjorie Benton.
“I come from a family not just of advocates, but of fighters for social progress,” Jackson told a kickoff rally at the Clarendon Park Fieldhouse. “I think I know a fighter when I see one, and Jan Schakowsky is a fighter, and that is just what we need.”
To complement her campaign theme for the television cameras, Schakowsky met with several boxers working out in the field house, including Wayne Hankins, the Illinois cruiserweight Golden Gloves champion.
A three- or four-way primary would not be easy or inexpensive. Schakowsky said she expects the primary race to cost about $1 million.
The 1990 primary, when former Chicago Ald. Edwin Eisendrath unsuccessfully challenged Yates, was at that time the most expensive congressional primary in the nation, with both candidates spending $1.4 million.
Schakowsky said she has raised about $100,000.
Before a group of enthusiastic supporters, Schakowsky traced her political career to 28 years ago, when she and other mothers began a fight to get freshness dates on groceries.
“A date on cottage cheese did not change the world, but it’s changed my life forever,” said Schakowsky. “It convinced me that a few committed individuals could make their world better.”
She worked on consumer issues for Illinois Public Action, now Citizen Action of Illinois, and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1990.
She champions many of the liberal causes that Yates has in his years of winning a 100 percent approval rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.
She boasts of fights on behalf of seniors, against nursing home abuse and for universal health care reform.
Pritzker could not be reached for comment, but Rose said he “has taken organizational steps and hired campaign people.”
Carroll said he wants to remain focused on important issues pending in the legislature, but he gave an indication of how he is leaning toward making a run at Yates’ job.
“Most people like a promotion, and most people would look at working on the federal level instead of the state level as a promotion,” Carroll said. “I seriously love the legislative process, and I’m going to give it very, very serious thought but not until the (legislative) session is over.”
