In the midst of a campaign season that finds hundreds of political candidates in a competition to raise as much money as they can, a group of politicians will call time out next week to host a fundraiser for a colleague whose ballot chances died shortly before she did.
On Monday, a group that includes U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), former state Senate President Philip Rock (D-Oak Park) and former state comptroller and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dawn Clark Netsch will gather at a downtown Chicago law firm for a luncheon aimed at wiping out the campaign debt left behind by the late state Sen. Penny Severns (D-Decatur).
Severns, 46, died Feb. 21 of complications from breast cancer in her Decatur home. Her death came just two days after the State Board of Elections ruled her candidacy petitions for the Democratic primary contest for secretary of state fell 251 names short of the 5,000 needed to qualify for the March 17 ballot.
In her campaign for the secretary of state nomination and her legal fight to stay on the ballot, Severns accumulated a campaign debt of almost $48,000 for legal fees. Now, her estate could be sued by creditors.
“A lot of her friends want to step up and close this part of her life with some dignity,” Durbin said of the event, to be held at 11:30 a.m. at the offices of the Ungaretti & Harris law firm. “We want to have a fitting end to her political career.”
Rock, who recruited Severns as a candidate for the state Senate against an entrenched GOP incumbent in 1986, said the gradual deterioration of Severns’ health had prevented her from raising enough money to pay off her campaign debt.
“Her family has enough on their minds and enough trying to cope with grief; they don’t need to cope with bills,” he said.
Co-hosting the event are Senate Democratic leader Emil Jones Jr. of Chicago, state Sen. Vince Demuzio (D-Carlinville) and Dick Phelan, a former Cook County Board president who tapped Severns as his 1994 gubernatorial running mate in the Democratic primary.
Although Phelan lost to Netsch, Severns won the lieutenant governor nomination and teamed with Netsch to produce the first female gubernatorial team candidates in the nation’s history.
“Penny was a very political person. She loved it and lived it and fought that last battle because she thought it was what she needed to do,” Netsch said.
“The last thing any of us would want would be something that was part of her political and public life to be left hanging over,” she said. “It just doesn’t seem right and it doesn’t seem fair, and I don’t think anybody would want it to happen.”
