Paper Pushers

By: Casey SanchezWhen Mayor Richard M. Daley coasted to re-election in 2003, he attributed his landslide victory to his broad support in neighborhoods north to south, black to white and Latino to Asian. But in the months leading up to his election, a more narrowly drawn army of nearly 2,850 circulators-more than a third of them city workers and often from the fringes of the city-collected signatures to put Daley back on the ballot.

The Chicago Reporter analyzed 5,888 nominating petitions that Daley submitted to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners in December 2002 and found that:

* About 38 percent were circulated by nearly 1,000 city employees, most of whom hailed from white or Latino areas.

* Only 16 percent of all circulators came from black census tracts on the South and West sides, compared to 40 percent from white census tracts.

* There were 15 circulators per 10,000 residents in white census tracts, compared to nearly seven per 10,000 in Latino tracts and four per 10,000 in black tracts.

The Reporter's findings didn't come as a surprise to James H. Lewis, director of the Institute of Metropolitan Affairs at Roosevelt University. "The petition collection is sort of a hardcore political organization function," he said. "It's the one that your strongest loyalists are going to take the lead in."

But, unlike other types of political loyalty, petition collection leaves a set of wellidentified fingerprints. Sometimes clean and white, sometimes stained by fingerprints and spilled coffee, nominating petitions are a paper trail of who is working to support a candidate. Each sheet is stamped by a notary and lists the name and address of the circulator. Plotted out against the grid of the city, those names and addresses create a power map of neighborhoods that deliver political muscle- and those that don't.

Aside from Austin, it's a map with few dots in black neighborhoods. Some say it's a sign that Daley has yet to gain popularity, much less political loyalty, in these areas even if many African American politicians publicly support him. Others point to a breakdown in black political leadership that is working in favor of Latino political organizations.

Robert Starks, a political science professor at Northeastern Illinois University, points to the Hispanic Democratic Organization, a Daley- allied group that remains strong in neighborhoods on the Southwest and Southeast sides with a large Latino population, as an example of political discipline and patronage.

"You don't have organizations like the HDO in the African American community," he said. "The HDO is very well organized, very tight knit, and people saw immediate benefits. You don't have a comparable type of organization."

The "immediate benefits" to which Starks refers and the HDO had to offer were access to city jobs in exchange for canvassing for city, county and state candidates through petition collection, poll-watching and other general politicking.

But that's a quid pro quo that African Americans should not be eager to be a part of, says Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association, a watchdog group for government corruption in Chicago.

Like Starks, Stewart found it curious that Latinos circulated petitions in greater proportions than African Americans. "In the context of an illegal hiring scheme, was it fairly spread around? I don't know," he said. "But, once you get to the phrase, 'illegal hiring scheme,' it strikes me as a bit much to ask that they then follow rules of propriety-'Please, please divvy up the illegal job scheme evenly.'"

In the case of Daley's 2003 run, Daley's circulator base was found in the neighborhood where Daley grew up and white community areas at the fringes of Chicago that are known for their concentrations of city workers. Of the city's 77 community areas, a dozen of them are home to more than half of the city workers who circulated petitions for Daley in 2002. The top five community areas for city workers canvassing for Daley were Bridgeport on the Near Southwest Side, Norwood Park and Dunning on the Far Northwest Side, and Mount Greenwood and Garfield Ridge on the Far Southwest Side. These community areas are predominantly white, while Bridgeport is racially mixed.

The community areas also form the base of political organizations that are staunch Daley allies. For instance, Illinois Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan is committeeman for the 13th Ward, in the Southwest Side including the Garfield Ridge neighborhood.

And the Bridgeport-based 11th Ward organization is the traditional home of the Daleys that's helmed by the mayor's brother, John.

Based in Southeast Chicago and strong in Latino neighborhoods on the Southwest and Southeast sides, the HDO was created by the Daley administration in the early '90s to support the mayor in the Chicago City Council and Illinois legislature.

For 12th Ward Alderman George Cardenas, whose ward covers a largely Latino swath of the Southwest Side, the reason for this geographic divide is simple. "They're there because a lot of people in those communities support what the mayor has done for them," said Cardenas, who is a member of the HDO. Freddrenna Lyle, alderman for the South Side's largely African American 6th Ward, said the Reporter's findings didn't surprise her. After all, she says, "most city workers live in those communities." African Americans, meanwhile, make up a large base of city workers and have formed the core of Cook County political organizations. Yet Austin was the only black community area that was among the top 25 communities delivering petitions for the Daley campaign.

A "clout list," a directory of 5,743 people referred for city jobs by political or union sponsors released by federal prosecutors last year, revealed that thousands of city workers owed their jobs to political organizations. This politicized, quid pro quo hiring was deemed illegal by the Shakman decree, which made political and patronage hiring or firing illegal, and prohibited by the city's Detailed Hiring Plan that was put into effect to comply with the decree in 1986. Yet many city workers on payroll since the 1970s and 1980s may have deeply rooted loyalties to political organizations that landed them their first job.

Lyle points out that, while many city workers owe their jobs to political organizations, that is often not the case with African Americans. "Many of the black employees were not necessarily brought in through organizations, so they don't feel that organizational loyalty," she said.

But Stewart says that's laughable. "For those who would have you believe that the African American community has had nothing to do with patronage, the factors don't bear that out. Have they benefited in the same proportion as other communities? That may be true that they've underperformed in the patronage system, but it's not as if every single one of them is there because they simply filled the civil service requirements."

Harold Baskin, a current aldermanic candidate in the 16th Ward and campaign consultant since the 1980s, said another reason may be that circulators have a hard time in black neighborhoods. "Most of the people who go to the door to get the petition-they will not get the petition signed," he said. "Often times, in terms of black communities, when you have other black candidates that's running, it's kind of hard to go out there and push candidates who like the mayor."

But Lyle says the fact that few circulators came from either her ward or other black communities on the South Side doesn't affect her as a politician."You know the saying about reward your friends and punish your enemies? Well, I've only seen them do the reward part. I haven't seen the punishment," she said. "How can they take retribution against the black community when they still have to come to the black community for votes?"

Alderman Ricardo Muñoz of the 22nd Ward explains that there are two types of circulators." Some people circulate for candidates because they just like the candidate. Maybe they're softball buddies," he says. "The other type of circulator is known basically as the patronage worker. That has obviously been deemed illegal."

But others maintain that city employees have practical reasons to perform political work that shouldn't be confused with patronage.

"It's the nature of the beast," Lyle said. "I think city, county and state employees are much more politically active than those people that aren't." 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett added that there's no other single class of people who follow politics on a day-to-day basis in the city.

But, to Stewart, the question is its own answer."Why? 'Cause it's Chicago," he said.

Too many times, Stewart says, he's heard the defense that city workers just have politics in their bones. "There's a great fiction out there that city workers are just naturally political animals," he said. "Look, city workers aren't stupid. … They see who gets the promotion."

Frank Coconate, a former city employee turned Daley critic, agreed. As part of his 27-year employment with the Department of Water Management, Coconate regularly worked precincts, bought fundraiser tickets and knocked on doors at election times. In 2005, he was fired for allegedly falsifying "work sheets." Coconate says it's payback for speaking out against patronage abuses, insider deals and political hirings and firings. "These people are out there because they are protecting their jobs," he said. "It's insurance; it's finding a promotion. That's why they're out there. They're not out there to change the world."

In 2005, Coconate sued the city for his termination. The suit is still pending.

Richard Means, a longtime Chicago election attorney, says the patronage hires can be damaging because civil service takes a back seat to poll-watching and petition gathering. "One thing about patronage workers is that they are judged on their political skills. Any work that they do for the public is accidental," said Means, who is one of a handful of election attorneys that both aldermen and their challengers count on at election time.

On Dec. 11, the opening day of "petitions week," Terry Peterson, Daley's campaign manager, had already snagged the first slot in line by 6 a.m. Though a new lottery system has replaced the "first-inline, first-on-ballot" rule, Peterson said grabbing the front spot spoke to the seriousness of the mayor's re-election campaign.

Peterson said he couldn't talk about why so many of the circulators had city jobs and hailed from white or Latino areas but, this year, he promised, "you will see we have representation from all parts of wards."

This time, Daley is asking all circulators to sign an affidavit promising the petition work was done voluntarily without the promise of a job, the coercion of a supervisor, or the use of city resources. "We've put safeguards in place. We're required to say that they are passing on their own free will," Peterson said.

Insiders say the affidavit is a sign that Daley is bowing to political pressure to clean up hiring, after years of having his campaign insiders and cabinet members on trial for job-rigging and bribe-taking.

"Shakman was more in the breach than in the observance … 'til they got caught on it,"Means said. Daley's 2007 campaign seems eager to shed its associations with city worker patronage armies and to prove that it has something to offer the South Side's black communities.

Last year, Daley chose Peterson, then-executive director of the Chicago Housing Authority, to head his re-election campaign. And, in December, he announced his candidacy in the South Side's Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. The community is a mostly working-class African American neighborhood, where only six volunteers who circulated petitions for Daley in 2002 resided.

Some South Side aldermen have also gingerly declined requests from the Daley campaign to circulate petitions.

"They have approached us, but we are not circulating petitions for the mayor. We haven't had a relationship with the mayor," said 21st Ward Alderman Howard B. Brookins Jr."The mayor is not as well received in our ward or in our ward organization."

Brookins says he appreciates that the mayor has recently been "coming to my way of thinking" regarding oversight of police brutality and public schools, but it irks him that he has been able to meet with the mayor only once since he was elected in 2003.

But some say choosing ward committees over political organizations that are under federal indictment and attaching "no quid pro quo" riders may only go so far. For reasons as practical as they are political, they say city workers may always have a lot invested in politicking for their boss.

"Even without the patronage, there's always fear of change. If a new [mayor] comes in, he may want to outsource your whole department," said Lyle, in response to why so many city workers circulate.

Coconate added that it's not coincidence that the spoils of the systems are jobs-livelihoods that support families and enforce loyalties across generations.

"When you give someone a job they could be there for life," he said. "This system will take years to clean up."

Charles Kevin Barr Jr., Mirela Bicic, Nicole Clark, Hannah Ferdinand, Kimbriell Kelly, Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, Katherine Schrupp and Sara Semelka helped research this article.