Dorothy Brown’s on her way out as clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court, and the four Democrats vying to replace her are defining their plans in relation to her polarizing two-decade run.
Brown’s administration has been notable for its longevity. But it’s also been notorious for the slow pace of modernizing how the clerk’s office collects, keeps and distributes court case files, and for the federal investigations that have dogged Brown and the office, resulting in two former employees getting convicted but no charges against her.
Brown isn’t seeking a sixth term.
Vying to take over a 1,400-employee department with a reputation as a backwater for political patronage workers and a mission that some argue would be better carried out by an appointed professional than an elected official, the field of hopefuls has leaned on buzzy terms such as transparency, independence and technological improvement.
They differ in the strategy they’ll employ to try to win on March 17 and the extent to which they will attempt to make changes if they do.
The Cook County Democratic Party endorsed Michael Cabonargi, chairman of the county Board of Review that considers property owners’ tax appeals. He’s facing former Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin, attorney Jacob Meister and state Sen. Iris Martinez.
Cabonargi touts his work to move that office to a paperless filing process as evidence he’s the right candidate to do the same with the massive court filing system the circuit court clerk oversees.
“I’m the only one who’s done anything like this,” Cabonargi said.
Cabonargi will get the benefits of the Democratic apparatus backing his campaign. He can expect committeemen to include his name on the palm cards of endorsed candidates they pass out to voters across the county, and for it to appear on mailers sent out by the party.
The endorsement also translates into money from groups allied with Democratic leaders, such as the $57,800 contributed to his campaign last fall by both the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters and the Chicagoland Operators Joint Labor-Management PAC.
And Michael Sacks, the CEO of investment firm GCM Grosvenor who was a close adviser to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and a big contributor to Democratic causes, recently kicked in $25,000 to Cabonargi’s campaign, according to state campaign finance records. Media mogul Fred Eychaner cut Cabonargi a $25,000 check, too, records show.
Cabonargi’s campaign has started airing a television ad on broadcast and cable television.
Cabonargi said he’s proud of the party’s backing. “All four of the candidates in this race asked for — in some cases begged for — the endorsement,” he said. “I put in the work. I got to know the committeemen ahead of time, and they supported me.”
But Democratic support is also potentially a double-edged sword, with voters showing they’re willing to reject the party’s picks in recent local contests and a burgeoning federal corruption investigation in Chicago, the suburbs and Springfield focusing the public’s attention on officials’ misdeeds.
His status has given Cabonargi’s opponents an opening to attack him.
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Boykin, who lost his county board seat in 2018 after opposing Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s pop tax, has positioned himself as an outsider in the race despite his time in politics.
The Democratic endorsement will hurt Cabonargi, Boykin argued.
“I think it’s like kryptonite to Superman, frankly,” Boykin said. “He wants to continue the status quo, protect those 1,400 jobs for the party. Those jobs don’t belong to the Democratic Party.”
Boykin ripped Cabonargi for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in donations over the years from lawyers who represented clients seeking property tax reductions in front of the Board of Review.
“You got lawyers who do business in front of the board, they get their client’s taxes lowered, but then they turn around and make a contribution to the Board of Review members,” Boykin said during a recent appearance at the Tribune Editorial Board.
The county Board of Ethics ordered Cabonargi to return $68,950 worth of donations in 2018, saying he had exceeded the caps on political contributions from people or businesses that sought rulings from the Board of Review. And a supporter of Meister’s filed an ethics complaint against Cabonargi in January, alleging he accepted more than $120,000 of improper campaign donations.
Cabonargi said he complied with the Board of Ethics order, which was his first notice that he had exceeded the caps. The contribution rules changed without him realizing, Cabonargi said. “They didn’t give us a heads-up until after the change,” he said.
Boykin, the lone African American in the race, is less willing than his opponents to attack Brown, who enjoys strong support among black voters that helped propel her to five election wins. Brown won in 2016 even though the Cook County Democratic Party revoked its endorsement of her when news broke about a federal investigation in the clerk’s office.
“I don’t think it helps, necessarily, to be critical of others,” Boykin said when asked about Brown. “I’ll use my energy to improve things going forward.”
Meister, on the other hand, is not shy about blasting Brown. He made an unsuccessful run against her in 2016.
An attorney, Meister said he’s incensed by the inefficiency he sees in the clerk’s office. And, court cases drag on for months or years while residents pay exorbitant fees for poor customer service, he said.
In addition to overseeing warehouses full of courtroom proceedings records, the clerk’s office staff collects millions of dollars in fines and fees for the circuit court. The office also processes child support, traffic tickets and protection orders, and is supposed to manage an electronic filing system for civil cases that pour into the system on a daily basis. The office’s budget this year is about $124 million.
“You see 30% of the people doing 195% of the work (in the clerk’s office). And that is just not acceptable,” Meister said during the Tribune Editorial Board forum.
But Meister’s not convinced his opponents are equipped to fix the situation. “I’m the only one in the race who uses the clerk’s office, who understands the scope of the problems,” he said. “Think about going to a surgeon who says ‘Well, I went to medical school, but I’ve never done surgery.’ That’s not the person you want performing the bypass.”
In order to remove politics from a position that’s essentially administrative, Meister said he would try to take it off the ballot in future elections and have judges pick the court clerk. “It’s an administerial office that needs efficiency, and it needs to be free from bureaucratic and political influence,” he said.
Martinez, D-Chicago, wants to open up the office by making it subject to the state Freedom of Information Act.
“We need that openness. We need to be able to let people look at all the documents they need to try to get to the bottom of the deep problems that have been going on there for so long,” Martinez said.
As the only Hispanic and woman in the running, Martinez said she hopes she can connect to voters and carve out a path to victory. An 18-year veteran of the Illinois Senate, Martinez has a base and relationships with other elected officials that could buoy her in the four-candidate race.
If elected, she would make all the top employees in the office who aren’t protected by government hiring rules re-apply for their jobs.
“It’s the least we can do,” Martinez said. “There’s been a cloud hanging over this office for years. Why hasn’t anything improved? Why has there been all this mismanagement happening, and why hasn’t it been addressed? We need to go one by one, and listen to people explain themselves.”
The Democratic winner in the March 17 primary will face Republican Barbara Bellar in the November general election.
Twitter @_johnbyrne
