Candidate declares she is only ‘legit’ Madigan opponent
By ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter apallasch@suntimes.com February 18, 2012 2:20PM
Democrat Michele Piszczor's house - no sign
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Updated: March 20, 2012 8:04AM
If there are really five candidates in this race for state representative on the Southwest Side, why does only one of them have his own campaign sign on his front lawn?
Candidate Michele Piszczor, 25, says it’s because the only real candidates in the race are herself and Speaker of the House Michael Madigan.
And when Madigan heard she’d be running against him, he drew her neighborhood out of the district, so there’s no point in posting a sign on her lawn — her neighbors can’t vote for her, she said.
“They’re not real candidates,” Piszczor said of the others. “I’m the only legitimate candidate standing up to Mike Madigan,” whom she calls “the most powerful ... man in this state.”
Madigan, 69, has proven over his 40 years in power — 27 of the last 29 years as speaker of the House and the last 14 as state Democratic Party chair — he knows how to play the game to stay in power.
What few “candidates” file to run against Madigan rarely open campaign accounts or print signs. They don’t even post signs on their own front lawns.
Conventional political candidates seek publicity, but these don’t even return phone calls or answer the door when the Sun-Times rings the bell. They just turn off their televisions. Piszczor says they take up space on the ballot to discourage “real” candidates such as her from running against Madigan.
Two years ago, the Illinois Republican Party called Madigan’s bluff, hosting a tongue-in-cheek fund-raiser for Madigan’s nominal “Republican opponent” Patrick John Ryan, a city Streets and Sanitation employee who voted in every Democratic primary up until he registered to be Madigan’s Republican opponent.
GOP officials led by state Party Chairman Patrick Brady and House Republican leader Tom Cross raised $3,000 for Ryan to spend in his race against Madigan. Ryan never collected, they said.
Same story this year. Madigan’s “Republican” opponent, Robert Handzik, has faithfully pulled a Democratic ballot in every primary election for 20 years until his apparent conversion this year. His record of voting Democratic is second only to Madigan’s among the five candidates.
Handzik did not answer his door or return a telephone message the Sun-Times left with a woman at his home.
At Elmhurst College a few weeks ago, Madigan invited reporters to drive through his district to see his “strong” support. Asked about Brady’s claims that Madigan recruits “plants,” “shills,” or “ringers” to run against him, Madigan laughed and said, “This Mr. Brady — he must not have too much going on in his life — he has so much time to think about me. I’d encourage him to drive through the district too.”
Driving through the 22nd district confirms the outward show of Madigan support. Nearly every lawn on some blocks has the rectangular white signs, positioned perfectly perpendicular to the homes, looking almost in military formation like the tight political organization Madigan runs.
On the 3800 block of West 68th Street, nearly every house has a Madigan sign except two. Those are the homes of Olivia Trejo and Mike Rodriguez, the other two candidates in the Democratic primary with Madigan and Piszczor.
One of the two homes between Trejo’s and Rodriguez’ has a Madigan sign. There are no signs on Trejo’s or Rodriguez’s lawns or windows. No one answered the door at either home, though the television went off at the Rodriguez home after the Sun-Times rang the bell.
The age-old Chicago trick of running as a fake candidate to syphon votes from a real candidate or recruiting someone to run as a fake candidate violates no law, election lawyers tell the Sun-Times.
Piszczor, a former law firm administrative assistant, has a legitimacy issue of her own. Though running in the Democratic primary, her main donation of $5,000 is from conservative businessman Richard Uihlein. Her campaign manager, Jim Edwards, runs Republican activist Jack Roeser’s political action committee.
“Jim’s a family friend,” said Piszczor, who she says she is a Democrat and voted in a Democratic primary as a college student in Texas.
The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights has recently allied itself with Madigan, who pushed through a state version of the Dream Act, giving scholarships to children of undocumented immigrants.
The Coalition demanded Piszczor — of Mexican and Polish descent — repudiate Roeser’s opposition to the Dream Act.
Coalition Director Josh Hoyt asked Piszczor if she would fire Edwards.
“Fine!” Piszczor said. But who else would help her, she asked Hoyt.
“Do you know how many people would be willing to stand up against Michael Madigan and take that risk?” Piszczor asked.
Hoyt and Juan Salgado of the Institute for Latino Progress asked if Piszczor would give Uihlein’s $5,000 to a Hispanic charity.
“Would you guys like to donate to my campaign so that I can defeat Madigan?” Piszczor asked. “Help me defeat Madigan. The only $5,000 in my account? To donate? I can’t even make signs.”
Asked when Madigan became such a strong ally of the immigrant-rights lobby, Hoyt smiled and admitted the alliance was recent: “Speaker Madigan is very good at counting and we are very happy that he is,” Hoyt said, noting that Madigan’s newly redrawn legislative district is about 72 percent Hispanic.
Piszczor said she has met Roeser only briefly but she defended him: “Do you know how many Hispanics he has employed? Do you know how much he has helped the Hispanic community? It’s funny that they’re trashing him when the majority of people in his factory are Hispanics.”
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