McHenry County Blog

The last Democrat to serve in the Illinois House before Jack Franks died in Arizona April 3rd. This is the second installment of some of my memories of Tom, who died of cancer in Prescott, Arizona, on April 3, 2009.

The Chicago Tribune obituary yesterday concentrated on Hanahan’s “braless, brainless broads” comment during the ERA debate.

Part 1 of this one concentrated on other aspects of his life.

It also mentions a Federal trial against him for trying to get a $5,000 bribe on some legislation, a rap he beat. I commend the story to you, but Tom was so much more than that.

I rode home with him one time. As we entered the Tri-State Tollway from I-55, he flashed some card or badge that indicated he was a member of the tollway advisory board, which apparently let him skip the toll.

He told me of having to go west of DeKalb for a meeting while that tollway was being built.

Taking the new tollway, he got to a point west of DeKalb where there were barriers.

That didn’t stop him. He kept driving west until he ran into fresh concrete.

He told me that totaled the car.

Hanahan wasn’t all that good at figuring out what was good for McHenry County, but he was good at picking up clues. I can’t remember any local bill that I asked him to co-sponsor where he refused.

We worked together on an illegal alien bill.

One of us came up with the idea of fining employers who hired illegal aliens. This was way back in the 1970’s remember. A logical idea then, as it is now, if one wants to prevent illegal aliens from working in the United States.

Hanahan jumped on the idea and brought all the union guys on board. The business Republicans were opposed to it, but we passed it anyway.

It obviously died in the Senate. I can’t remember the year, but it wouldn’t matter, because the Illinois Senate is always controlled by the Establishment.

Then there was RTA. Tom and all the other suburban Democrats but one (Harold Katz) aligned with suburban Republicans to fight the Regional Transportation Authority referendum held at the 1974 primary election.

We had numerous debates. Hanahan, State Senator Jack Schaffer, I and, sometimes, Waddell on one side and members of the League of Women Voters, Hanahan’s “running mate” Ron Stroupe (D-Huntley) and, in McHenry County, Jeff Ladd on the other side.

I got such a delight in suggesting we would not live to see train service in Huntley. It’s 35 years later and I’ll grant that discussion are being held about a train station in Huntley, but it’s certainly not there yet. Well, two of the legislators on the kNOw RTA side of the debate are not around and neither is Stroupe. Two to go.

With all McHenry County legislators opposed to creating the RTA, the only support was from local municipal officials and women in the League of Women Voters.

McHenry County has never been so united on an issue. I think it was 93% of the votes that were cast against the referendum.

One precinct in Cary is recorded in favor, but when I asked an election judge if it really passed, she said, “No,” and got really flustered when I told her that’s what the election canvass said. Someone is going to look at those results sometime and think a bunch of commuters voted “Yes.”)

The state rep. raced turned out like this:

• Cal Skinner – 34,210 1/2
• Bruce Waddell – 26,932 1/2
• Tom Hanahan – 16,783 1/2
• Ron Stroupe – 8,821 1/2

The half votes are a result of proportional representation. Each voter had three votes. They could vote for one candidate, in which case he got 3 votes, two giving each 1 1/2 votes or three, which meant each would be 1 vote apiece.

There are so many more stories about Tom Hanahan. I’ve asked some to send me their favorites. If you have any, I’d like to hear from you, too.

After activist Pat Quinn got his Cutback Amendment to the Illinois Constitution passed in 1980, Johnsburg Democratic Party State Rep. Thomas J. Hanahan didn’t stick around McHenry County.

He moved to Park Ridge. I don’t know if that happened before or after his term ended in January 1983, but that’s the address I remember when he was on the payroll of Chicago Democrat Bill Laurino, one of his legislative contemporaries not negatively affected by the imposition of single member districts.

Hanahan knew he couldn’t get elected in McHenry County running one-on-one with a Republican so he abandoned his residence of convenience. (And, no one did until Jack Franks defeated appointed State Rep. Mike Brown after a bitter 1998 primary election with Steve Verr.)

The son of a carpenters union official, Hanahan had been told to move to McHenry County in preparation for the 1996 election cycle.

Rural Union’s Billy Giblin and he represented McHenry County after the 1964 bed sheet ballot, when reapportionment was not accomplished and all candidates ran statewide.

Both Republicans and Democrats slated candidates for two-thirds of the seats. The Democrats won the legislative contest with a slate headed by untested Adlai Stevenson III.

Republican A.B. McConnell of Woodstock was the odd man out in that 1964 election, not having had enough clout to be listed in the top half of his party’s candidates.

In 1966, when three-member districts again were drawn, Hanahan beat out Giblin, who served only one term, to become McHenry County’s Democrat.

His trade union buddies helped him build the house he lived in while serving in the Illinois General Assembly.

The district was composed of all of the county and points south, west and southwest into DeKalb. The other district included Grafton and Algonquin Township and everything straight east to Lake Michigan. I can’t remember if it was one or two township high.

One of the big issues in the 1971 General Assembly was the authorization of the unionization of teachers.

It was a key issue in 1972campaign, when I ran for the GOP nomination for state representative against former Belvidere Mayor (“Get More with Les”—really; that was what his cartop said) Les Cunningham and northern Dundee Township’s R. Bruce Waddell.

Waddell had won a special election when Dundee nursery owner Jack Hill was killed zipping his motorcycle around his business property at the northeast intersection of Routes 31 and 72 and hit his head on a pipe sticking off the back end of a truck. There was a closed casket.

One of Hill’s great admirers and supporters, McHenry’s Goldwater-inspired Tom Davis ran to replace him, but Waddell won.

At any rate, in the teacher unionization fight, Hanahan was on the side of the Chicago Teachers Union and its statewide affiliate, the Illinois Federation of Teachers. After all, those unionized teachers were connected with the AFL-CIO and the Illinois Education Association wasn’t.

Only the Woodstock High School District was composed of IFT members. All the other area district’s teachers were members of the IEA.

The IEA found an Algonquin attorney named Joseph Coleman. The IEA used him to “teach Tommy a lesson.” They put a precinct worker in every precinct and gave Hanahan the scare of his life.

The election turned out this way:

Cal Skinner – 72,395 1/2
Bruce Waddell – 66,395 1/2
Tom Hanahan – 53,848 1/2
Joe Coleman – 32,226 1/2

After that, Hanahan was much more responsive to the IEA’s desires and, while I don’t know this for a fact, probably was the bridge between the IFT and the IEA for the collective bargaining bill that eventually passed.

Part 2 Tomorrow

Yesterday, McHenry County Blog published the Daily Herald’s county board questionnaire. Today, take a look at the Northwest Herald’s.

I like to look at candidate questionnaires probably because I enjoyed tilting with editorial boards at election time. Often their questionnaires, especially those of the Chicago Tribune, were so loaded.

They often revealed the editorial board’s hidden–or not so hidden–agendas.

Editors regularly had different views of what was best for my legislative district than I did. One, Leroy S. Clemens, the editor of the Elgin Daily Courier-News, even wrote a column in 1970’s in which he named the 33rd district as the worst represented in Illinois.

I had sponsored a bill in my first term that tried to equalize real estate taxes for local governments that lapped over county lines. Elgin and its school district lies in both Kane and Cook County. The 33rd district represented Elgin west of McLean Boulevard.

My legislation resulted in tax bills being cut by 14% in Kane County and going up 14% in Cook County, according to Kane County Auditor Don Clute.

Clemens lived in Cook County and–this is just a guess because he didn’t mention it in the column—probably figured out it was me who had caused his tax bill to increase.

Clemens had other reasons to denigrate my Dundee Township Republican running mate Bruce Waddell and our Johnsburg Democratic Party colleague Tom Hanahan.

If I run across that column, I’ll have to share it with you.

But, back to the Northwest Herald.

Top priorities, disagreement with past decisions, addressing top transportation needs and stewardship evaluation are the first four questions.

Not bad. They don’t lead the candidates to give a particular answer as candidate questionnaires from various newspapers often do.

But, then there is question 5:

Should the county pursue a regional conference and event center project?

I just knew the Northwest Herald would find some way to bring up the baseball stadium.

My answer would be short:

Not if any of my tax dollars pay for it.

Candidates are allowed 100 words. I could finish this one off with ten. Probably less, if I tried.

How about?

Not with my taxes.

That got it down to four words.

Enough rambling. Here are the questions:

Northwest Herald Questionnaire

Please respond to each of the following questions.
Answers are strictly limited to 100 words.

1) What are your top priorities if elected?

2) What past decision made by this elected body did you most disagree with and why?

3) What are the county’s top transportation needs and what can be done to address them?

4) Has the county been a good steward of tax dollars? Why or why not?

5) Should the county pursue a regional conference and event center project?

= = = = =
Any county board candidates or other candidates wishing to share their answers can do so by emailing them to McHenry County Blog, where they will be published.

Yesterday, McHenry County Blog published the Daily Herald’s county board questionnaire. Today, take a look at the Northwest Herald’s.

I like to look at candidate questionnaires probably because I enjoyed tilting with editorial boards at election time. Often their questionnaires, especially those of the Chicago Tribune, were so loaded.

They often revealed the editorial board’s hidden–or not so hidden–agendas.

Editors regularly had different views of what was best for my legislative district than I did. One, Leroy S. Clemens, the editor of the Elgin Daily Courier-News, even wrote a column in 1970’s in which he named the 33rd district as the worst represented in Illinois.

I had sponsored a bill in my first term that tried to equalize real estate taxes for local governments that lapped over county lines. Elgin and its school district lies in both Kane and Cook County. The 33rd district represented Elgin west of McLean Boulevard.

My legislation resulted in tax bills being cut by 14% in Kane County and going up 14% in Cook County, according to Kane County Auditor Don Clute.

Clemens lived in Cook County and–this is just a guess because he didn’t mention it in the column—probably figured out it was me who had caused his tax bill to increase.

Clemens had other reasons to denigrate my Dundee Township Republican running mate Bruce Waddell and our Johnsburg Democratic Party colleague Tom Hanahan.

If I run across that column, I’ll have to share it with you.

But, back to the Northwest Herald.

Top priorities, disagreement with past decisions, addressing top transportation needs and stewardship evaluation are the first four questions.

Not bad. They don’t lead the candidates to give a particular answer as candidate questionnaires from various newspapers often do.

But, then there is question 5:

Should the county pursue a regional conference and event center project?

I just knew the Northwest Herald would find some way to bring up the baseball stadium.

My answer would be short:

Not if any of my tax dollars pay for it.

Candidates are allowed 100 words. I could finish this one off with ten. Probably less, if I tried.

How about?

Not with my taxes.

That got it down to four words.

Enough rambling. Here are the questions:

Northwest Herald Questionnaire

Please respond to each of the following questions.
Answers are strictly limited to 100 words.

1) What are your top priorities if elected?

2) What past decision made by this elected body did you most disagree with and why?

3) What are the county’s top transportation needs and what can be done to address them?

4) Has the county been a good steward of tax dollars? Why or why not?

5) Should the county pursue a regional conference and event center project?

= = = = =
Any county board candidates or other candidates wishing to share their answers can do so by emailing them to McHenry County Blog, where they will be published.