McHenry County Blog

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

From what Democratic Party Chairman Tom Cynor is reported to have said Wednesday night at the McHenry County Democratic Central Committee meeting, it looks like he is thinking very seriously about running against McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi.

If so, you heard it here first.

Cynor announced he was not seeking election as party chairman again, but that he would have another announcement soon.

You may read these tea leaves differently, but I sense a party slating of Cynor is in the works.

One would assume that Cynor would have to resign his post with the 22nd Judicial District to run for this partisan office.

That would mean that some law firm or business would have to agree to put bread on the new father’s table.

Reading the obituary of long-time chairman of Winston and Strawn Tom Reynolds, I was reminded how he hired Thompson for what I heard was $50,000 when he left the U.S. Attorney’s Office and ran for governor.

Thompson lost his first case. It was in Elgin’s appellate court and concerned a property tax appeal.

The attorney who beat the future governor was Boyd Gates of Dundee Township.

Boyd was the newly-minted attorney whom boss Ed Glaser told to call me when I was running for state representative in 1972 and all of Dundee Township had been reassessed. The senior law partner’s home sat on one of the highest hills and he had quite a jump in his assessment.

Using the information I had learned in my successful representation of McHenry County assessment appeals, Boyd and I did an dog an pony show at three locations in Dundee Township, first at the congregational church, then at a church across from the historical society building and, finally, on the coldest day for the year, at St. Monica’s.

The Carpentersville police were on Route 25 directing traffic that Saturday. There were that many people who wanted to file appeals. We leafleted the entire township of one of the incumbent opponents, R. Bruce Waddell. (He came in first in Dundee Township. I came in second ahead of incumbent State Rep. Les Cunningham, former mayor of Belvidere, with two to be nominated.) Naturally, the broadside that Ed Richardson printed up had my name in it, along with the three seminar locations.

Word of mouth spread throughout the township as what happened at the first two meetings became known, leading to the overflow crowd that frigid Saturday.

From what Democratic Party Chairman Tom Cynor is reported to have said Wednesday night at the McHenry County Democratic Central Committee meeting, it looks like he is thinking very seriously about running against McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi.

If so, you heard it here first.

Cynor announced he was not seeking election as party chairman again, but that he would have another announcement soon.

You may read these tea leaves differently, but I sense a party slating of Cynor is in the works.

One would assume that Cynor would have to resign his post with the 22nd Judicial District to run for this partisan office.

That would mean that some law firm or business would have to agree to put bread on the new father’s table.

Reading the obituary of long-time chairman of Winston and Strawn Tom Reynolds, I was reminded how he hired Thompson for what I heard was $50,000 when he left the U.S. Attorney’s Office and ran for governor.

Thompson lost his first case. It was in Elgin’s appellate court and concerned a property tax appeal.

The attorney who beat the future governor was Boyd Gates of Dundee Township.

Boyd was the newly-minted attorney whom boss Ed Glaser told to call me when I was running for state representative in 1972 and all of Dundee Township had been reassessed. The senior law partner’s home sat on one of the highest hills and he had quite a jump in his assessment.

Using the information I had learned in my successful representation of McHenry County assessment appeals, Boyd and I did an dog an pony show at three locations in Dundee Township, first at the congregational church, then at a church across from the historical society building and, finally, on the coldest day for the year, at St. Monica’s.

The Carpentersville police were on Route 25 directing traffic that Saturday. There were that many people who wanted to file appeals. We leafleted the entire township of one of the incumbent opponents, R. Bruce Waddell. (He came in first in Dundee Township. I came in second ahead of incumbent State Rep. Les Cunningham, former mayor of Belvidere, with two to be nominated.) Naturally, the broadside that Ed Richardson printed up had my name in it, along with the three seminar locations.

Word of mouth spread throughout the township as what happened at the first two meetings became known, leading to the overflow crowd that frigid Saturday.