Chicago Republican Party a Shill for Democrats

I don’t usually pick up in its entirety a column by someone who didn’t contact me and ask me to run it. But this one bears repeating, even unbidden! Doug Ibendahl over at ChampionNews.net wrote a great piece detailing how the folks that run the Republican Party in the City of Chicago are worse than a sham. Now, Ibendahl didn’t say it, but I think it is pretty obvious that they are just Democrats put in place by King Daley to keep the Chicago GOP a meaningless organization.

Reading the bull crap that is being offered as Republican Party leadership coming out of the City of Chicago is enough to sicken anyone. If you wonder why King Daley is the iron fisted ruler of Chicago and why someone just doesn’t do something, well, this is one of the things that helps him stay there. Even the so-called opposing party is in his service.

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Chicago GOP slates formerly imprisoned Democratic Alderman

By Doug Ibendahl

If you thought the Republican Party in Chicago couldn’t get more pathetic, guess again.

The latest destructive behavior comes from two Chicago “Republican” Ward Committeemen already infamous for destructive behavior, Eloise Gerson and Tom Swiss.

On April 8, 2008, Swiss sent out a memo congratulating himself and Gerson for their efforts in recruiting candidates to fill vacancies on the November ballot.

Among the candidates recruited by Swiss and Gerson, several have never pulled a Republican ballot in a Primary Election in Illinois, while others have no voting record at all. Even more unfathomable, a few of the candidates thrown on the Republican ballot by Gerson and Swiss have lifelong Democratic voting records. This is all according to Voter Vault.

But wait, it gets even worse. Included in Swiss’ list of recruits that he publicly gloats are all “outstanding Republicans” is a super fan of Barack Obama and Todd Stroger, and another man who served nearly three years in federal prison on felony convictions!

What’s most sickening about this whole thing is that Gerson and Swiss are part of a tiny discredited faction in Chicago that’s done little else for years other than smear and slander good Republicans on sewer blogs and chatboards.

That faction keeps getting smaller and smaller, but as this latest disaster demonstrates, they’re still willing to damage our Republican Party.

In recent months a common target of that little faction’s viciousness was now former Cook County GOP Chairman Liz Gorman. Liz was “anonymously” smeared by cowards all over the sewer blogosphere on a constant basis for supposedly being in bed with the Democrats (simply untrue). Liz was also attacked unmercifully for supposedly not doing enough to fill vacancies on the ballot with Republican candidates.

The problem of course is that when you spend all of your time smearing good people on sewer blogs, there’s little time left for serious work – like responsible candidate vetting.

Now the people who pretended to be so concerned about Democrat affiliations are not only slating Democrats on the Republican ticket – they’re slating at least one Chicago Democrat who went to prison for criminal misconduct while he was an elected official!

Liz Gorman had the right idea. If you don’t have good Republicans who want to run for the right reasons, then you concentrate on building and cleaning house where you can. You get a solid foundation in place, and that’s how you attract real Republicans to run.

But it’s preposterous to just throw names on a ballot because you want to brag about your buffoonery in a press release.

Meet your “Republican” candidates

The convicted felon slated by Swiss and Gerson is Virgil Jones. Jones was recruited to fill the vacancy for State Representative in the 32nd House District.

Jones, a lifelong Democrat and former Chicago 15th Ward Alderman, was convicted in Operation Silver Shovel on extortion and tax charges for accepting bribes from an FBI mole who sought a permit to run a rock-crushing business. Jones was imprisoned from September 1999 to August 2002.

In 2007, Jones made headlines when he filed petitions to run for 15th Ward Alderman in Chicago. But a voter from the 15th Ward filed an objection to Jones’ nominating petitions with the Chicago Board of Elections contending that state law prohibits felons from running for municipal office. A hearing officer for the Election Board agreed.

Jones then sought review by the Cook County Circuit Court and it affirmed the ruling of the Election Board. The matter was ultimately taken all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court which ruled that Jones was ineligible to run for Alderman and should be removed from the ballot.

On February 5, 2008, Jones made his first attempt to infiltrate the Republican Party when he appeared on the ballot as a candidate for Republican Ward Committeeman. Jones lost, garnering just 30% of the vote.

Another one of those “outstanding Republicans” according to Swiss is Chester Hornowski. Chester’s been slated to run as a Republican in the 20th State Senate District.

Hornowski is a longtime Chicago Democratic operative, who just happened to serve as Republican Ward Committeeman from 2004 through February 2008. His attempts to run for re-election were undone when a Republican challenged his nominating petitions over the residency requirements.

And get this. The address Hornowski swore where he DIDN’T reside, when he spoke at a Chicago Board of Elections hearing just a few months ago, is the same residence he now gives as a slated candidate for State Senate. Nice.

Dabbling on the Republican side of things seems to be more of a hobby for Hornowski. He’s probably better known in political circles for his work as an enforcer (for lack of a better word) for Chicago 33rd Ward Alderman and Democratic powerhouse Richard Mell, father-in-law of Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich.

On February 11, 2003, the Chicago Sun-Times had this disturbing account about the way Hornowski was caught skulking around Mell’s opponent in the Aldermanic race that year, Deb Gordils.

Gordils made headlines earlier when she confronted two uniformed police officers taking pictures of her and identifying themselves as Mell’s representatives.

“They said, ‘What are you looking for? What job can we get you? Do you want something with the Water Reclamation District? You only have to go to a couple of meetings,”” Gordils said.

Gordils turned her video camera on them. One was Chester Hornowski, who’s running against Ald. Tom Allen (38th).

Hornowski is reportedly no longer a Chicago police officer.

Another member of the Gerson/Swiss dream team is Anthony Williams. Williams was slated to fill the Republican vacancy in the 2nd U.S. Congressional District race. Like Jones and Hornowski, Williams is a lifelong Democrat and perennial candidate.

Williams’ campaign website is a testament to his commitment to his Democratic Party. The website’s front page promotes Barack Obama for President. Scrolling down you’ll find Williams declaring: “We support Todd Stroger.”

Can you believe this gall?

Included in Swiss’ April 8th self-congratulatory memo was a call for a fellow Republican Ward Committeeman’s resignation. According to Swiss and Gerson, the committeeman in question “refused to sign-off on a candidate” they recruited for State Representative. Swiss went on to call this Republican Ward Committeeman a “clown” and accused him of being “spineless.”

Swiss and Gerson even got some of their pals to post over on one of their favorite sewer blogs. In “comments” shills say Gerson and Swiss are wonderful for slating a mishmash of sacrificial lambs that includes Democrats, a brute or two, and at least one convicted felon. Oh, and Liz Gorman is smeared some more. She’s the bad person.

And folks this is not the first time Swiss has made a fool of himself and embarrassed the GOP thanks to his so-called recruiting efforts.

A couple of years ago Swiss had the title of executive director of the Cook County GOP under Gary Skoien as Chairman. As part of Gorman’s clean-up efforts she did the responsible thing and removed Swiss from that position right away after she took over as Chairman.

The Pioneer Local reported this gem back in 2006 when Swiss was working under Skoien:

The Cook County Republican Party was so desperate to find candidates to fill the Nov. 7 ballot that it recruited a mentally ill man who lives in a nursing home.

James Batek, 55, has been living in a Chicago nursing home for treatment of his bipolar disorder and schizophrenia for 14 years. He said he was contacted this spring by Tom Swiss, executive director for the Cook County GOP, and was asked to run against State Rep. Harry Osterman, D-14th.

No Republican ran in the primary for the spot, and Swiss found Batek’s name on a list of GOP election judges in Osterman’s district, Batek said.

Swiss knew of his condition, but told the candidate not to advertise it, he added.

“He wanted to keep it out of the campaign,” Batek said. “Personally, I wanted to feature it because I’m doing so well with it. And if I am elected, with all the undoubted news coverage, I would ask the Republican Party to seriously consider me as the candidate for President (in 2008). If handled right, it could make me a viable candidate.”

Batek may be the most obvious example, but many Republican names on the Nov. 7 ballot are just that: names.

Swiss’ reaction to criticisms of the GOP plan to lower its standards just to have names on the ballot was:

“We didn’t have so much of a screening process for them,” Swiss said. “They weren’t going to do a lot there. We’re not too concerned that they have an active vocabulary or not.”

And there’s more. Swiss’ screw-ups in 2006 weren’t just confined to his exploitation of a mentally ill man who was allowed to believe his next stop might be the White House. That same year 14 candidates recruited by Swiss and his boss Gary Skoien were denied access to the November ballot by the Illinois Board of Elections because Swiss missed the filing deadline.

We’ve already heard rumors that Swiss may have again played fast and loose with the legal requirements for slating this time. We have no confirmation of that at this time, and we may or may not ever find out if there is any truth to those rumors. The Democrats may very well decide not to even bother challenging many of Swiss’ “outstanding Republicans.” They may decide to let many go and then highlight some of these campaigns to embarrass our party at their leisure closer to Election Day.

It’s hard to say exactly what the Democrats will do, but we can be pretty sure Mike Madigan and Emil Jones have been laughing hysterically ever since Gerson and Swiss finished their little recruitment drive. Swiss and Gerson are doing a lot of the Democrats work for them.

Finally, I should note that there may very well be some qualified Republicans in the list of slated candidates. No doubt a few are running for the right reasons. The problem is this embarrassing debacle tars even the good candidates who may really be trying to make a difference.

Regular voters will have a hard time trying to differentiate. The main message voters get is that the Chicago GOP still isn’t ready for prime time.

Enough is enough

Also, I should note that our new County Chairman Lee Roupas is not responsible for this disaster in any way. I’ve already gotten to know Lee a bit and I’m impressed thus far. Despite his young age (just 25), he displays much more maturity and professionalism than most on the Republican scene in Cook County. Liz Gorman made a good choice in picking her replacement, and with Liz’s blessing Lee handily beat the chairman candidate backed by Swiss, Gerson and Tony Peraica at the Cook County Convention in March.

The imposter Republicans highlighted above are the responsibility of Gerson and Swiss. They organized their own slating where they cut Roupas out as County Chairman. They did their own thing under the auspices of the Chicago GOP, which is basically an artificial subset of the official Cook County Republican Party.

Lee Roupas would be on very solid ground in calling for the immediate resignations of Gerson and Swiss as Ward Committeemen, at a minimum.

I’m confident that Roupas is capable of helping good Republicans rebuild our GOP. I know he’s trying and he’s already stepping-up on several big things in a positive way. For example Lee has already stated he supports returning to direct elections for our State Central Committee, and he’s also serious about helping to recruit a full slate of good delegates from Cook County to attend the State GOP Convention in Decatur.

Let’s help Lee help us as Republicans. It’s clear to me already that Lee understands that as a party official, he works for all of us as Republicans. Lee has a business background and professional training. He gets it. Many of these goofs who keep hanging around never will.

The ball simply can’t be advanced as long as these embarrassing millstones remain around the neck of our GOP. The trainwrecks aren’t going to stop without some serious personnel changes. An awful pattern has already been established. All sense of professionalism and maturity are completely out the window right now in Chicago.

The good news is it’s only a tiny gang that’s holding back progress.

If you would like to encourage Lee to clean house, and if you’re willing to stand-up for him towards that goal, you can let him know at lroupas@gmail.com.

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Doug Ibendahl is a Chicago Attorney and a former General Counsel of the Illinois Republican Party. He is Co-Founder of Republican Young Professionals (RYP).


Copyright Publius Forum 2001