To you, weary voter, not even a year has passed since the 2004 general election. But to politicians in a Cook County government that’s in desperate need of reform, this is the season for gearing up their 2006 campaigns. They’re publicly circulating petitions–and privately wondering if they’re witnessing the last hurrah of County Board President John Stroger.
During Stroger’s decade as president, Cook County’s inefficient and sometimes dangerous government has become too costly for citizens to tolerate. Scandalous conditions for young boys and girls being held at the county’s Juvenile Detention Center, detailed in recent weeks on this page, are but one of many chronic sores festering under Stroger and his government’s vast patronage army.
Stroger has all but formally announced that he’s running for re-election. He’s also laying the groundwork for tax increases that this already overfunded government doesn’t need–no matter how often Stroger claims he can’t give more jobs and contracts to cronies without, yes, more revenue from tapped-out county taxpayers.
Stroger seems energized by the fact that three reformers on the County Board–Democrats Forrest Claypool and Michael Quigley and Republican Tony Peraica–want his job.
But when a new board takes office after next year’s election, whoever is seated as board president will have only one of the 17 votes. What’s most urgent for Cook County citizens is to make sure the current count of eight (usually) reliable votes for reform becomes a solid majority of nine. That majority could rewrite county government’s agenda, which under Stroger amounts to: Why fire any of these costly political payrollers when it’s so much easier to raise people’s taxes?
The all-important ninth vote, if it materializes, will spark a revolution. But that first means recruiting challengers to unseat at least one of three Stroger puppets who should be beatable:
– In 2002, Joan Patricia Murphy was the last candidate standing in an overcrowded primary field for a south suburban seat. Taxpayers will be making a terrible mistake if they re-elect such a weak incumbent. Last year, for example, Murphy broke a written campaign pledge to balance the county’s budget by cutting expenses rather than supporting tax hikes. This seat has turned over frequently. But for 2006, opponents of ever-higher taxes have to settle on a single challenger who, unlike Murphy, isn’t intimidated when Stroger merely glares in her direction.
– Then there’s Deborah Sims, who–when she isn’t complaining that the duties of her job delay her lunch–also poorly represents a southern stretch of the county. Like Murphy, Sims can’t understand that Cook County’s high tax burden hurts employers struggling against lower-cost competitors in Will County and northwest Indiana. The question here is whether U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is angered about government-by-cronies at the County Building–or only at Chicago’s City Hall. Sims does what Stroger says, nothing more. Jackson will serve his constituents if he recruits her replacement.
– Joseph Mario Moreno, who routinely makes excuses for Stroger’s regime, was a creation of Chicago ward bosses. They ought to be as disappointed with his slack performance as are many of his constituents on Chicago’s Southwest Side and in Cicero. A typical Moreno moment came during this year’s county budget debate when he proclaimed, “We’ve got to make cuts”–right before he voted against them. The ward bosses ought to be able to find someone willing to actually earn this $85,000 salary, plus $14,000 in expense money, plus two offices, plus the services of four staffers.
In 2002, taxpayer fury with this slipshod government ousted five board incumbents. Murphy, Sims and Moreno aren’t the only lame survivors. But the crucial ninth vote for reform probably depends on dumping at least one of these three.
