Marengo’s Peter Janko is the only Democratic Party State Central Committeeman not to vote to make Mike Madigan Chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party after this spring’s Primary Election.

He published the following on his Facebook page:

A week ago today, the State Central Committee (SCC) of the Democratic Party of Illinois (DPI) voted for a new Chair, Congresswoman Robin Kelly.

Michael Madigan had been Chair of DPI since 1998.

On February 22, 2021, he resignedIn 2010, Rich Miller of Capitol Fax, wrote, “the pile of political corpses outside Madigan’s Statehouse door of those who tried to beat him one way or another is a mile high and a mile wide.” [1]

At the time, the article probably just referred to his legislative role.

Madigan literally owned DPI.

He fired the state party staff, closed its Chicago headquarters, and moved it Springfield into the same office building as his campaign finance committee staff in, IL. Chicago magazine declared, “Michael Madigan Is the King of Illinois.” [2]

After last week’s election of the new Chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois, the headlines read, “Robin Kelly takes reins from Mike Madigan, winning Democratic Party chair race: ‘Tonight we made history together.’” [3]

Yes we did!

And I believe Robin Kelly will make a fine Chair.

It has been a week since the election and not a single person in the media has shown an interest in how it was that “Robin Kelly takes reins from Mike Madigan.”

To me it feels like the media saw a box of Cracker Jack, opened it to find caramel corn and peanuts, so they asked us what we thought of the caramel corn and peanuts.

None of the media ever went so far as to look for that surprise packet in every box.

There is one for every State Central Committee member that voted for Robin Kelly.

Well here is what’s in mine.

The media called it a proxy war between JB and Dick Durbin.

But, what if the three highest profile Democrats in Illinois (if you include Tammy Duckworth) injecting themselves in the race made absolutely no difference in the final outcome.

What if Madigan’s successor was actually predestined back in November of 2017?

That is when I, as a volunteer working on the Rockford Festival of Lights display at the campaign office of Dan Biss for Governor, was recruited to run for State Central Committeeman of the 14th Congressional District.

Prior to then, I had never considered running for any political position.

I was an activist, not a politician.

I was co-founder of an Our Revolution group, Medicare for All Northern Illinois.

We had just finished a summer of Medicare for All activism.

I saw this as an opportunity to take my activism from just being another face behind protest sign marching in the streets to the “inside.”

So in the March 2018 Democratic primary, I joined twelve other candidates backed by Our Revolution Illinois (Chicago) in a fierce challenge to “Democratic Machine” incumbents on the Illinois Democratic State Central Committee.

Because we put up a unified challenge, the Committee races made headlines not only in the Chicago media but nationally in The Intercept known for breaking the Snowden story.

Our campaign put the role of an obscure political position in the spotlight for the first time ever.

The Madigan machine pulled out all the stops in defending their incumbents, spending at least $330,000 to defend those seats.

We prevailed.

One of us successfully ousted a Madigan incumbent.

Yet at the time, many of the progressives, that busted their asses phone banking and knocking on doors to get all of us elected felt it was a hollow victory.

“What could one lone progressive do to take away any power from the unbeatable Madigan machine?

“You are only one vote out of 36.”

“You won’t make any difference.”

Three and half years later, Michael Madigan resigns as Chairman of DPI

In the past, it is likely that he would have just anointed his replacement and few outside the Party would have noticed.

We are in a different time.

Two brave admirable candidates stepped forward to challenge Madigan’s choice to replace him.

(This is not a reflection on Michelle Harris’s qualifications in any way.)

For me, the race was a real cliffhanger to the very end.

Waiting for tabulation of the weighted votes felt like an eternity.

The final vote for Robin Kelly was so close that if any single Committee member that voted for Robin Kelly had voted for Michelle Harris instead, the Madigan machine would have won.

Never underestimate the potential impact of the butterfly effect, an idea that is commonly used in chaos theory.

“A small change can make much bigger changes happen; one small incident can have a big impact on the future.”

Had I not unseated Mark Guethle, a union leader, in 2018, he would have most likely voted for Harris simply because the AFL-CIO had backed her

I believe that in the end, all of the political clout that Michael Madigan could muster could not reverse the chain of events that led up to Robin Kelly’s victory.

It was #NotMeUs that denied Madigan his chosen replacement.

It was everyone that in some way helped me get elected to the State Central Committee.

It was the Democratic voters in the 14th Congressional District that voted for me in 2018.

I was always your proxy.

We, all of us, won this one.

Every vote matters.

Peter Janko

Democratic State Central Committeeman

14th Congressional District of Illinois

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[1] Miller, Rich (December 5, 2010). “Rahm vs. Madigan: Mayor would take on House speaker”. Chicago Sun-Times. 2014-01-06.

[2] Ylisela Jr., James (December 2013). “Michael Madigan Is the King of Illinois”. Chicago Magazine. 2014-01-01

[3] Hinton, Rachel (March Mar 3, 2021). “Robin Kelly takes reins from Mike Madigan, winning Democratic Party chair race”. Chicago Sun-Times.

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Lynn Sweet’s take in the Sun-Times on the election can be found here.