Top Illinois Democrats will meet virtually Wednesday night to select Michael Madigan’s successor as state party chairman in an increasingly contentious race that has been further complicated by legal questions about one contender’s ability to fully participate in the post’s fundraising role.
The candidates, Chicago Ald. Michelle Harris, 8th, and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson, are scheduled to appear before the 36 members of the Illinois Democratic State Central Committee, made up of one man and one woman from each of the state’s 18 congressional districts.
The contest has created tensions among Democratic leaders who are not on the committee. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth are backing Harris, while U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the state’s senior senator and No. 2 ranking Democrat in the chamber, has backed Kelly.
But a fresh question arose this week about Kelly’s ability to fully conduct the duties of the state party chairman due to restrictions on fundraising and control of campaign money placed on federal officeholders.
The Perkins Coie law firm, acting as outside counsel of the state party, issued an advisory opinion that warned electing a federal officeholder as chair could open the Democratic Party of Illinois to scrutiny by the Federal Election Commission over funds raised and dispersed on behalf of state office candidates who are not subject to tighter federal campaign finance restrictions.
Attorney Brian Svoboda warned that if a federal officeholder or candidate becomes chairman, “the FEC would likely find that the DPI was established, financed, maintained or controlled by the officeholder or candidate and the DPI would accordingly be prohibited from raising or spending nonfederal funds in connection with elections.”
The warning led the state’s largest labor organization, the Illinois AFL-CIO, to declare it would be cautious about contributing to any organization run by a federal officeholder. The state Democrats’ largest ally for fundraising is organized labor.
But U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a member of the state central committee who is backing Kelly’s bid, called the warnings a “distraction” and an effort to “delegitimize” her candidacy.
Kelly released a letter from election attorney Michael Dorf that said he believed “policies and procedures” could be implemented to delegate fundraising and spending decisions to others should she become chair.
“Your ability to raise funds for use in state and local elections will be limited, but your ability to ascend the ‘bully pulpit’ to advocate for Democratic policies, principles and candidates on behalf of DPI should not be impinged,” Dorf wrote.
Still, Dorf’s letter raises questions about the role of state Democratic chair and whether it would largely be a position of ceremonial status without the power of raising or directing campaign funds.
On the eve of the vote, Kelly sent a letter to central committee members saying, “Change isn’t easy. And it’s clear some are resistant to opening up the party and being inclusive.”
She said the legal debate “should not be what our party is about.”
“Together, we will build a party apparatus that acts collaboratively, not unilaterally — that includes raising the funds and resources to elect Democrats up and down the ballot,” Kelly wrote.
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The party’s choice will be made on a weighted vote based on the Democratic primary ballots cast in each of the state’s congressional districts, with each committee member getting half of that vote. The winner needs a majority of the statewide weighted vote.
Heading into Wednesday’s meeting, Harris, a 15-year member of the City Council, had just over 44% of the weighted vote of committee members expressing a preference. Kelly in her eighth year in Congress, had just over 31%.
Harris was backed by 15 members and Kelly by 11. The 10 undecided members, representing about a quarter of the weighted vote, will be the determining factor.
Durbin and others backed Kelly point to the urban-suburban-rural makeup of the 2nd Congressional District she represents as an example of how Democrats need to reach out to the rural areas where support for Republicans is growing in Illinois.
Kelly’s supporters question the optics of picking a Chicago Democrat as party chair at a time where rural areas are growing increasingly restless in the belief that big-city liberalism is driving out their more conservative values.
They also note the autocratic style of Madigan, a Chicago Democrat who held the chairmanship since 1998, and used party finances largely to ensure a Democratic House majority that would reelect him as speaker, a post he held for 36 years until last month.
Pritzker, a multibillionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, holds considerable sway over the party’s future through his ability to self-fund his campaign and assist others. He has cited Harris as a party-builder who knows how to build a strong ground operation, and he has acknowledged making calls on her behalf, calling her a “listener and a leader.”
Harris is backed by Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough, the interim party chairman following Madigan’s resignation last month. Harris is Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s floor leader on the City Council, but the mayor is staying neutral in the contest. Kelly provided Lightfoot’s mayoral bid with an early endorsement.
Madigan, who was deposed as House speaker in January, resigned from his longtime House seat on Feb. 18 and stepped down as Democratic chairman a few days later. He remains a member of the state central committee from the Southwest Side and suburban 3rd Congressional District and runs the 13th Ward Democratic organization. He is backing Harris.
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