McHenry County Blog

when I saw the Chicago Tribune editorial on McHenry County’s former Democratic State Representative Tom Hanahan, I sent his and my former State Senator Jack Schaffer an email asking for his memories. It gave me two of the five belly laughs that everyone should have every day to keep healthy. It follows:

Sorry Cal, I don’t check my emails as often as I should.

I did have an opportunity to talk to Tommy about a week before he died. While you could tell the disease was getting to him, you could also tell that the old Tommy was still there. You are right, I do have a lot of memories of Tommy.

In 1974 when the RTA was being created, I was a little curious as to what Tom was going to do about it because the labor unions were very much for the new unit of government and Tom was first and foremost a labor guy.

He must have convinced his leaders that he had to oppose it or he wouldn’t be back (a very accurate perception), which led to a very unusual election in that primary with the four of us; Tommy, you, Bruce and I out stomping against the RTA.

I recall one meeting in Crystal Lake (at the Nature Center) at which all 4 of us took different approaches as to why the RTA was evil – Tommy said it was bad for working men and women. As the meeting broke up a proponent for the RTA, who I knew, thought the four of us had covered every negative angle he could think of against the RTA.

The crowd was so hostile, I felt the need to walk the proponent back to his car. And as you know, 90%+ of the voters voted no with the largest primary turnout in history.

Another time, Tom and I were working on a piece of legislation to give homeowners property tax breaks if they improve their homes, or put an addition on.

I got wind, through a friend in the Dept. of Rev., that the Dept. was about to adopt rules that would require three inspections to qualify for the exemption.

I got hold of Tommy and we both went to see the Director of the Dept of Rev. I don’t recall that I got 5 words in during the meeting but Tom did such a war dance on his desk and threatened him and his descendents…the rule came out with a simple procedure.

During the RTA fights, we came up with the idea to send Gov. Walker petitions signed by people in the area opposing the RTA.

The problem was Tom got along with the democratic Governor Walker no doubt about as well as Jack Franks did with democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich…probably for some of the same reasons.

Governor Walker indicated he’d be happy to meet with me but refused to meet with Tom.

So we issued press release saying that opposition in McHenry County was bipartisan and if the Governor wouldn’t meet with Tommy then I wouldn’t meet with him either.

You’ve already talked about Tommy’s famous/infamous (choose your own word) opposition to the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), but one of the things that I do definitely remember the time during candidates nights when the speeches and Q & A were over;

• you would be in the corner talking about property tax assessment,
• Bruce in another corner discussing creeping socialism,
• I would be talking with a group about Mental Health and the state budget, and
• Tommy would be in the front of the room talking to every good looking woman there about the ERA with a huge grin on his face.

It’s almost impossible today to explain the cumulative voting system that allowed for a minority party member in every district, and while the system certainly had its flaws, we did see some incredible individuals elected because of it.

And Tommy Hanahan was one of those.

About the only thing Tommy and I had in common was the same constituency and because of that we worked together fairly well.

I doubt we’ll see his likes again.

Thanks for letting me share some of my thoughts with you (it’s more than the local paper did!!!!!)!

The pamphlet printed on my father’s offset printing machines–180,000, maybe more–can be seen interspersed throughout the article. The little kNOw RTA clip-on button, front and back, is also shown.

Other stories about Tom Hanahan:

Johnsburg Democratic Party State Rep. Tom Hanahan Dies – Part 1

Johnsburg Democratic Party State Rep. Tom Hanahan Dies – Part 2

More Memories on McHenry County’s State Rep. Tom Hanahan

Jeff Ladd Calls for RTA Tax Hike

The Wiring of Rep. Pete Pappas

This time from former State Rep. Penny Pullen (R-Park Ridge).

The Chicago Tribune obituary concentrated on the opposition of former State Representative Tom Hanahan (D-Johnsburg) to the Equal Rights Amendment.

I asked, Penny Pullen, the Republican leader of the opposition to the ERA, to jot down a few thoughts and here they are,

“When Illinois was besieged by the radical feminists, demanding that the Illinois House vote over and over again (something like 13 times!) on the so-called Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution, it was Rep. Tom Hanahan who marshaled the votes on the Democrat side.  

“Though we had little else in common — he being a union Democrat and I being a pro-business Republican — we did share the cause of protecting the family, the Constitution and the sovereignty of the states in our opposition to the ERA.

“We used to meet clandestinely in a little-traveled corner on the south side of the second floor of the state capitol to swap ERA vote counts on our respective sides of the partisan aisle. 

“Tom had very little use for radical feminist types (like the female legislators who sponsored ERA and by the very fact that they had attained positions of leadership in government proved that ERA was unnecessary for the fulfillment of women!).  

“It was he who circulated on the House floor a hilarious color poster showing a woman lined up with the men at a public restroom’s urinals; the radical fems were flabbergasted. 

“It was also he who referred to their pals in the sisterhood (also known as the ERA lobby) as ‘brain-less, bra-less broads,’ in House debate, no less! 

“Flamboyant, cheerful, funny and thoroughly settled in his beliefs, Tom Hanahan was one of a kind and literally contributed to the history not only of Illinois but of this country.”

My memories are here and here.

That’s was the headline under which publisher John Rung wrote readers on Friday’s page 2.

What an extraordinary headline and topic for the dominant, if staggering, daily newspaper of record in McHenry County.

Editorial writer Brian Slupski is now writing articles as a senior reporter. It’s my impression that he used to write the editorials, almost exclusively.

Reporters are covering about 3-5 times as many local governments as they used to.

The lack of longitudinal experience on the staff is epitomized in the lack of an obituary for former 18-year (1965-1983) McHenry County State Rep. Tom Hanahan (D-Johnsburg)…even after the Thursday Tribune headlined his death on its obituary page.

Do you see anything wrong with this analogy offered up by Rung?

“…just because General Motors and Chrysler are navigating through some challenging times, it doesn’t mean people are going to stop driving cars.

“And just because some larger newspapers are having financial difficulty, it doesn’t mean the demand for local news and the need for local newspapers is going away.”

He is, of course, correct that people want local news. Whether they will want newspapers is a question still outstanding.

It is just sad that the NW Herald can’t cover the really good stories that are out there.

I can’t either.

But with the newspaper giving away subscriptions for just over one-half a cent apiece at business expos, it does appear the value placed on this one is quite a bit less than the 75 cent masthead price.

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

First it was Republican Governor George Ryan who decided that increasing drivers license fees was the way to finance his Illinois FIRST in 1989.

I didn’t support that bill because it took about 56% of its money from the six-county Chicago metropolitan area and proposed spending only about 43% in the area on roads.

Under the 1989 gas tax hike deal that Lake County State Rep. Bob Churchill put together, the Chicago-area had been getting 45%, so Ryan’s deal was making things worse for this area, even though population and traffic had increased since 1989.

Now, Democrat Governor Pat Quinn wants to raise license plate fees $20 more.

Being a resident of Cook County, Quinn probably never paid a personal property tax bill.

Typically, getting rid of a personal property tax bill was something one asked one’s Democratic Party precinct captain to dispense with.

“Fix” for those of you who don’t need sugar coating.

Outside of Cook County, the tax was collected.

I remember that the half-life of uncollected bills was about a year. About 90% was paid and our collection efforts cut that the delinquencies in half each year.

With lots of people having moved from Cook County, lots of personal property tax bills went unpaid when I was McHenry County Treasurer from 1966-70.

The office had a whole division (well, two or three people) who filed small claims suits in my name for any bill or combination of bills that amounted to over $25. They were located down in the basement at the back of the old courthouse.

2,500 to 3,000 suits a year.

I sued fully 25% of the households in McHenry Township. It’s a wonder I ever carried the township for state representative.

If a person tried to sell a home and they had such a small claims judgment, they could not get a clear title before paying it off.

I remember one of Democratic State Rep. Tom Hanahan’s best precinct committeemen, Frank Hromac, came in really disturbed one day several years into my term.

The McHenry County Title Company had told him he couldn’t sell his home until he paid his back personal property taxes.

I explained that was the case.

He was not happy, but paid.

He was not moving out of his McHenry Lakeland Park precinct—just from one side of the subdivision to the other. He didn’t want to give up his precinct, one that he had worked so hard.

When I ran for county treasurer, opposition to the personal property tax was one of my issues.

It resonated.

The Establishment types said a county treasurer couldn’t do anything to get rid of the personal property tax.

That took a change in state law.

There were a number of county treasurers elected in 1966 with similar ideas.

We decided the way to bring pressure on the General Assembly was to enforce the law.

I remember the Peoria County Treasurer Vic Castle went so far as to physically seize cars with unpaid personal property taxes. One day I went down to watch and ended up cowering behind a snow plow blade in an East Peoria trailer park while the police tried to get an armed man to surrender.

That convinced me I didn’t want to seize cars.

In any event, enforcement was ramped up.

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.