Legislative race to watch is second challenge to Berrios’ daughter: Brown
By Mark Brown September 9, 2013 11:22AM
Updated: September 9, 2013 11:22AM
Novice Will Guzzardi snuck up on Chicago’s political establishment in 2012 and fell just 124 votes short of ousting state Rep. Toni Berrios, daughter of Joe Berrios, the Cook County assessor and Democratic Party chairman.
“No one saw us coming,” said Guzzardi, formerly a Huffington Post writer and more recently a communications worker for the University of Chicago before quitting to launch a second campaign against Berrios in the coming March 18 primary.
They say close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but in politics, such a near-miss at least has the value of getting everyone’s attention.
As a result, there will be no more sneaking up.
“They’ll see us coming from jump street this time,” Guzzardi acknowledged.
The 26-year-old with the prematurely graying hair is trying to use that turnabout to his advantage by casting the otherwise low-profile state representative race as a chance for Chicago progressives to strike a rare blow against “Democratic Machine politics”— in the persons of the powerful assessor and the daughter he installed to replace him in the legislature in 2003.
The result, I expect, will be a high-stakes battle the likes of which we rarely see in a legislative race in the city, where Democratic seats are safe and competition for incumbents is always scarce.
The Berrios camp scoffs with irritation at the self-styled community organizer from Chapel Hill, N. C., and his brand of “reformer” politics.
“If he’s going to say, ‘I’m going after Joe,’ then maybe he should run for assessor,” taunted Manual Galvan, a spokesman for both father and daughter.
For his part, Berrios said he welcomes any attempt to make the campaign about him.
“I’ve done a heckuva job at the assessor’s office,” said Berrios, touting his efforts to reduce assessments for homeowners and catch tax cheats.
Berrios’ old-school insistence on hiring family members and taking campaign donations from lawyers seeking assessment reductions make him an easy target for guys like me.
But his careful tending of his political alliances has proved to make him a very difficult target in the voting booth, as CTA President Forrest Claypool learned the hard way in the 2010 assessor’s race, despite especially friendly treatment by the Chicago news media.
Berrios, who runs the county Democratic Party, admits he and his 31st Ward political organization weren’t quite so careful against Guzzardi.
“We sort of took him for granted,” Berrios said, later adding: “I admit we dropped the ball.”
He vows not to make the same mistakes again.
Toni Berrios, who was traveling out of the country last week and could not be reached for comment, has been going door-to-door in the district 20 to 25 hours per week to meet voters, her father said. Galvan touted her annual distribution to school children of backpacks filled with school supplies — 800 this year — as an example of her accomplishments.
Part of the problem in the last election, Berrios said, was that redistricting had significantly changed the makeup of the district.
“We didn’t really understand it,” he said.
Ever since, he said, he’s been working hard to improve relations with the “ethnic” portions of the Northwest Side district, ethnic meaning non-Latino. The district is designed to have a 56 percent Hispanic majority, and Berrios is expected to use the possibility of losing the seat — and the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in the House — to motivate more Hispanics to vote this time.
Guzzardi, who proved himself an energetic campaigner and adept organizer in his first run, stayed involved in the interim by helping organize the successful effort to keep Brentano Elementary off the Chicago Public Schools’ closing list.
He expects to make up for losing the element of surprise with newfound support from those who didn’t want to risk backing him the first time because they didn’t think he stood a chance.
Toward that end, Guzzardi said the contest should be viewed as a referendum on the Chicago political establishment.
“It’s much more important for the sake of the progressive movement in Chicago. We can take on the most powerful political families in Chicago, and we don’t have to sell out to do it,” he said.
The race is especially important as people start sizing up the aldermanic elections for 2015, where other entrenched incumbents await, Guzzardi argued.
“I want people to say Guzzardi took out Berrios so this can be done,” he said.
At the same time, Guzzardi argued, “This is not about picking a fight with a particular family.”
Yes, it is. Might as well run with it.
Email: markbrown@suntimes.com
Twitter: @MarkBrownCST
