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Claypool files paperwork to get in Cook County assessor race
6/21/2010 3:01:59 PM
by Hal Dardick
In a show of grass-roots political muscle, Democratic Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool today filed more than three times the signatures needed to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for county assessor.
If the signatures pass muster, Claypool will join an assessor's race that already includes Democrat Joe Berrios and Republican and Green Party candidates.
"We filed the signatures of 90,000 Cook County taxpayers, and I think that number reflects the fact that voters in this county are no longer going to tolerate the political culture where insiders make out like bandits and the rest of us pay higher taxes as a result,” Claypool said, taking aim at his Democratic opponent’s party status.
Claypool dismissed the possibility of losing a legal challenge to the petitions, noting that he had hired high-profile attorney Michael Dorf.
“We filed 90,000 signatures today. I’m sure that’s well over the comfort zone for ballot access,” Claypool said. “But that doesn’t mean that Joe Berrios and his thugs won’t try all the traditional machine tactics to try to disqualify voters, disenfranchise voters and prevent the public from having a choice. That’s typical. We’ve seen it before, but we’re prepared for that fight.”
Berrios defended his right to challenge petitions and said Claypool did not vote in the Democratic primary and called that “irresponsible.”
Berrios, the county Democratic chairman who is on the Board of (Tax) Review, said he continues to consider a challenge to Claypool's nominating petitions, despite the Claypool camp’s count of the numbers. Claypool filed petitions with more than 90,000 signatures, even though only 25,000 were needed. That was in keeping with advice from experts who recommend getting three times as many signatures as needed to withstand any petition challenge.
The assessor’s office sets the value of homes and businesses used for tax purposes. Assesor James Houlihan, a Democratic, is not seeking re-election.
Many Claypool supporters were disappointed earlier this year when he decided not to run for County Board president, as he did four years earlier in the Democratic primary won by then President John Stroger after Stroger suffered an incapacitating stroke.
A self-styled reformer, Claypool announced his intention to run for assessor after the February primary, saying he couldn’t stand by and watch Berrios — considered an insider among insiders because of his alliance with House Speaker Michael Madigan — win the office after narrowly getting through a three-way Democratic primary.
Claypool, 53, is taking on the establishment that originally gave him the cache he enjoys today. He twice was chief of staff to Mayor Richard Daley and ran the Park District under Daley.
Berrios, 58, a Springfield lobbyist who as a Board of Review commissioner considers tax assessment appeals made by Madigan’s law firm, won the February primary with 39 percent of the vote, which some political observers considered a sign of weakness.
Berrios said earlier today he did not yet know whether he would challenge the petitions. “We’ll have to take a look and see what he files,” Berrios said.
If Berrios challenges Claypool’s petitions, that effort is expected to focus on whether any of the petition circulators had circulated primary petitions, as well as whether any of the registered voters who signed the petition had either circulated petitions or voted in the primary.
Thomas Bowen, Claypool’s spokesman, said none of the 912 volunteer circulators had taken on the same task in the primary. He also said not case law supports removing signatures for independent candidates that came from folks who circulated petitions for or voted in the primary.
Republican nominee Sharon Strobeck-Eckersall, the former three-term Evanston Township assessor, said Claypool's entry into the race may give her more of a shot at winning in traditionally Democratic county.
“I think it could, but let’s see if he stays on the ballot,” she said. “I was telling people to sign his petitions at the train station last week.”
Strobeck-Eckersall, a 66-year-old real estate broker, lost a re-election effort last year to a Democrat who has since said Strobeck-Eckersall is partly to blame for not ensuring more than 1,500 building permits got to the county assessor’s office. That means some property owners might not have paid their full fair share of taxes.
Strobeck-Eckersall said she takes responsibility for the problem, but added that her efforts were hampered by inadequate funding for computers and incomplete reporting to her by Evanston city building department officials.
“I’m totally qualified, and they are not,” Strobeck-Eckersall said, adding that she is a certified Illinois assessor.
Green Party candidate Robert Grota is a junior analyst in the assessor’s office.
