by David Ellis
27
USED TO BE, I walked with my head held high when I entered the offices of a Democratic state senator. I’m the guy whom, at a minimum, they treat with respect, because I’m part of the Majority Leader’s team. In some of the senators’ minds, I’m almost in charge of them, looking out as I do for Grant Tully’s interests. More likely, during the course of their political lives, they have relied on me in one way or another. I review and approve every Democratic senator’s petitions to get on the ballot, at the very least. For more than half of them, I’ve knocked off a challenger or two, maybe even spared them a primary race altogether. It’s the trade-off Majority Leader Grant Tully makes with his fellow Dems in the senate—hang with me, show your loyalty, and I’ll take you through your next election: make sure your nominating papers are clean, help you knock off primary challengers, throw you some cash.
Jimmy Budzinski is one of the senators who takes the senator up on his invitation, which means he has relied on me plenty. Over his three terms as state senator on the southeast side of the city, Jimmy has been challenged in the primary every time. The last time—two years ago—Senator Budzinski faced his toughest race. The demographics of the senator’s district had changed considerably over the years, thanks largely to an influx of downtown yuppies looking for an alternative to the pricey near-north side. The socially conservative, blue-collar Polish community was now under siege by liberal, upper-middle-class types. A local activist, a feminist named Anna Robbins, emerged as a progressive alternative to Jimmy in the Democratic primary.
So Jimmy turned to me, like they all do. First thing, I looked into Anna Robbins’ nominating papers. It turned out she had brought in volunteers from a pro-choice group to circulate petitions for her candidacy. Six different women circulated petitions and got the candidate upwards of eight hundred signatures, far more than the three hundred necessary for ballot access. But what somebody didn’t realize, or didn’t know to realize, was that three of these women also had circulated petitions for a pro-choice Republican in a different race up north. Imagine their alarm when they learned—through a complaint filed by me—of a state law requiring that circulators in a given election cycle may only circulate petitions for one political party. So every signature obtained by those three circulators—just over four hundred of the eight hundred—was automatically thrown out. That left me with the rather simple task of finding something wrong with only one out of every four remaining signatures based on the usual stuff—that the person who signed the petition was not a registered voter within the district, or not a registered voter at all, or that the signature was printed, not signed. By the time we were done, Anna Robbins had just under two hundred and fifty valid signatures, well short of the three hundred requirement. And Senator James Budzinski was the unchallenged Democratic nominee for re-election.
It’s my least favorite part of my job, no question, but I don’t make excuses for myself. It’s part of my job and I do it. And as a result, people like Jimmy Budzinski owe me.
I’m out on the southeast side now, in Jimmy’s district office. Like many of them, it’s informally run: one or two staffers who do everything from answering phones and tracking poll numbers to ordering drinks for the fridge and paying the heat and electric bills. An overweight woman in a massive cotton sweater is busy trying to close an uncooperative file cabinet when I walk in. “Can I help you?”
“It’s Jon,” I say without thinking. Funny that I didn’t say my last name. Afraid she’ll put the flame with the recent news and freak out?
“Jon, come in!” The voice comes from the inner office. Jimmy’s voice.
He meets me as I enter his office. Jimmy is squat, a little on the heavy side, a cigar-chomping pol whom most everyone likes on a personal level. The odor in his office confirms his tobacco preference.
He pumps my hand. “God, Jon, it’s just a crime what they’re doing. Come on, have a seat now.”
“Appreciate you seeing me, Jimmy.”
“You?” He makes a grandiose display, arms waving. “Come on now.”
“I half expected Anna Robbins to ambush me on the way here.” Might as well remind Jimmy of my most recent favor before I call it in.
He stops short of his chair behind the desk, holds his hands out like he’s beseeching the Lord. “That one. She doesn’t quit. Already working the neighborhoods. Says she’s going to be smarter this time.” He points to his brain then casts the finger away.
“She’s running again?”
Jimmy takes his seat with a sigh of relief. Back problems, if memory serves. “She’s running again. This time, I see her coming.” He directs his index finger in the air. “Listen to this. I have three of them lined up. Two years away, they’re already lined up. Diane Robinson. Rosa Sanchez. And this one’s the best—she’s the daughter of one of my precinct captains—Ann Haley.” He cups his hand. “I was at her baptism. Known this girl her whole life.” He claps his hands with delight.
A classic move for an incumbent facing a real challenger. Flood the primary with other challengers to split the anti-incumbent vote, hold your base, and squeak by on a plurality. Looks like Jimmy’s gone one better—he’s found someone with a similar last name, and another one with an almost identical first name, to his principal challenger. Anna Robbins will probably finish second, but it will be a hard climb to overtake Jimmy.
“So,” he says. “You were so—what’s the word—” He waves a hand.
“Cryptic?”
“Cryptic, yes—you were so cryptic on the phone.”
“I thought the conversation might be better in person.”
“All right.” Jimmy’s mood settles. “Tell me what I can do.”
“Jimmy—” I lean forward in my seat, lending a more intimate tone, perhaps a more pleading tone. “You know I don’t want what you can’t do.”
“Ask first,” he says. “I’ll tell you what I can’t do.”
“Okay.” I rub my hands together. “You still tight with the folks over the border?”
“What, Summit County?” His face reads a combination of confusion and relief. The topic seems to be outside his expectations. What, I wonder, did he think I wanted from him? “Sure, of course. They’re not ten minutes from this office. I raise money for Aldridge, the mayor. I threw a golf outing for him. You gotta see this one on the course.”
I try to manage a smile. He appraises me.
“You had someone in particular in mind.”
“The chief prosecutor,” I say. “You know him?”
“Do I know him.” It’s not a question; he’s mimicking. He waves at me, like he’s telling me to go away. “Maples,” he says. “Frankie Maples. I play with this guy, what, four, five times a summer.”
Golf, I assume. Normally, Jimmy would spend another ten minutes with a story or two. But he’s read enough so far. This isn’t time for idle chitchat. “You need something.”
“Just some information,” I say. “I’d like to get a look at a file.”
“A file—a case?” He raises his hands. “They’re not public information?”
“Well, some might be.” Actually, I’m not sure about that. I don’t know what the public is allowed to see with regard to criminal files. But the one I have in mind I’m quite sure is confidential. “It’s a juvenile file,” I say.
“You want access,” he says.
“Just access. Just to take a look. We won’t remove anything. I just need to see something.”
“We,” Jimmy says. “Who’s we?”
“It won’t be me. Not under the circumstances.” I don’t come out and say that, as a condition of my bond, I’m not allowed to leave the state. “An investigator. I’ll give you his name if you want.”
“Do I want?”
“Probably not. Listen, Jimmy—technically, juvenile files are sealed. So in that regard, this request is—it’s a real favor. But other than that, we won’t do anything that would cause any worry. Someone can watch my guy the whole time. He w
on’t destroy anything or take anything. He’ll just take a look at what’s there and then leave. And I absolutely promise”—I adjust in my seat—“you have my word, no one will ever know we were there. This information will never come to light in any way that would suggest that we had a peek. It’s completely untraceable.”
Jimmy allows his head to lean back. He brings his hands to his expansive stomach. “I take it this relates to your case.”
I give him a look. “Do you want me to answer that?”
“Do I?”
“I’d say no.”
“Fine.” A grand nod. “A friend is asking for a harmless favor. Just a peek.”
“Just a peek.”
“I’ll mention it to Frankie,” he says. “If he says yes, how do we do this?”
“I’m flexible,” I say. “It might take some searching. It’s an old case, and I don’t know the particulars. I’m not sure I even know all of the names—”
“Jon.” The senator raises a hand. “More information I don’t need to know?”
I manage a smile. “Right.”
Jimmy leans forward again, his elbows resting on his desk. He waves a hand at me. “A crime, what they’re doing to you,” he says. “I’ll make the call.”
28
THE STATE DEMOCRATIC Party headquarters is located in a building two down from Seaton, Hirsch. We rent half a floor from a personal-injury lawyer who owes us because we have blocked tort reform proposed by the Republicans for over ten years. The pro-business Republicans want to put caps on recoveries for pain and suffering—the most recent legislation they proposed limited pain-and-suffering awards to three times the costs of medical expenses incurred as a result of the injury. That means people who get hurt because they thought it was okay to take a piss on the third rail of a railroad can’t recover ten million dollars from the transit authority for failing to “protect” them. This would seriously thwart the business of personal-injury litigation, especially in this city, where the juries love to sock it to big business.
So the Democrats in the senate kill the legislation every time the house sends it to us. And for this, we have the deep appreciation of every plaintiff’s lawyer in the city, who annually throw close to three million dollars in our coffers. We also get these pretty nice digs.
Sitting around the table in the main conference room are the senator; his chief of staff, Jason Tower; his press guy, Don Grier; and me. This is a perfect situation for my appearance because it’s off-camera, completely behind the scenes, and the senator respects my opinion probably more than anyone else’s.
It’s a strategy rap. We’ve just gone over a number of campaign stops the senator is poised to make over the next six weeks, the number of hands he must shake, the money people he needs to visit.
“Issues,” says Jason Tower. Jason has been with the senator’s staff for three years now. He lived the early life of the stereotypically poor, inner-city African-American. A life in public housing, strong mother, a brother he lost to the gangs. Jason got a scholarship to the state university, turned it into a graduate degree in public policy at Harvard, and worked as a congressional aide in the U.S. Senate until deciding to return to his roots. His skin is coffee-colored and smooth, a long youthful face, very short kinky hair, small wire-framed glasses. He’s a relatively handsome guy save for rather crooked teeth, which he is treating with those state-of-the-art clear braces. He didn’t have health care as a child, he’s told me more than once, nor dental care. I was surprised he’s correcting the problem; he always wore it as a badge.
The senator blows out a sigh, pinches the bridge of his nose. I don’t know if this is from the weariness of an already long campaign about to get longer, or the fact that he’s going to have to listen to us beat him up again on some of his campaign positions.
“We ran the tax plan through focus groups,” says Jason.
“Let me guess,” says the senator. “They hated it.”
Don Grier laughs. He’s been with the senator since the beginning, since before then, really, with Grant’s father, Simon Tully. So he can laugh where others can’t.
“They weren’t real happy about it, no,” says Jason.
“Well,” the senator responds, “did you package it with the fact that we’ll improve the schools?”
Jason shrugs, starts to answer.
“It doesn’t matter,” says Don. He’s wearing a light cotton sweater, reddish-orange, which matches the shade on his cheeks. “You can name twenty different benefits about a tax increase, but in the end most people only care that you’re raising their taxes.”
“And lowering some of them,” says Senator Tully. He looks at Jason. “Did you tell them that?”
“He told them that,” I answer for Jason. “I saw the videos. One guy, I think, hit it right on the head. He said, ‘Liberals always say that something good comes out of a tax increase, but in the end the only thing I see is a higher tax bill.’”
The senator shakes his head dismissively but doesn’t speak. The senator’s idea is to change the way the state funds education. Currently, we pay for most of our schools locally, through property taxes. So wealthier areas, with higher property values and higher property taxes, have more money for their schools than poor ones. Senator Grant Tully wants to fund education through the state income tax, so that all schools are funded equally student-for-student. The senator would have to raise the income tax to do this, of course, but he would then cut the property tax to the extent it previously funded education.
“When it’s all said and done,” says Don Grier, “almost everyone will have a higher tax bill, and the only gain is one that most people can’t see or appreciate—better schools in the future.”
“People might thank you down the road,” Jason joins in, “but they might not elect you in the first place.”
“The problem is what Don said.” The senator rolls his neck. “A tax bill is something you can hold in your hand, something you notice feels heavier. Gradually improving schools is not.”
Jason watches the senator, making sure he’s completed his thought. “The bottom line is, it doesn’t sell. This isn’t a point to pursue.”
Senator Tully brings his hands together in prayer, drops his chin on his fists. “This is a unanimous feeling? The three of you?”
“I’ll speak for myself,” Jason says.
“A loser,” says Don.
The senator looks at me.
“A great idea that’s not ready for prime time,” I say.
“Something to propose midterm.”
“Midterm,” says Senator Tully. “I tell the voters I’ll do one thing, then halfway in, I give them something new.”
“You propose something new,” I add. “You wouldn’t be making history with that move.”
“I see. And if we scrap my idea, then what is my education plan? My tax plan?”
“Fund education first,” says Jason. He’s referring to legislation that has been proposed by the senate Democrats, a law stating that fifty-one percent of every new dollar of revenue must be spent on education. “And no tax increases.”
Senator Tully wags a finger at his chief of staff without looking at him. “That sounds like a prudent course, Jason. A very safe course.” He nods at Don. “Is that what you want, too?”
“You’ve got many good ideas about education you’ve already outlined.” Don scratches at his beard. “But this one adds a tax increase. I like Jason’s idea.”
“Jon,” says the senator. “Don and Jason like their idea. What do you think?”
“I’m just the lawyer,” I say. “But I agree with them.”
The senator sweeps an open hand around the table. “That’s three-for-three. My great minds. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve had about ten members of the caucus give me the same basic advice.” He’s referring to the senate Democrats, many of whom, for various reasons—a dislike of the young senator, a desire to take over his job as majority leader, some patronage jobs to fill—very much wa
nt to see him elected governor.
“What do you think?” I ask Grant.
The senator drops his hands on the table with bravado and rises from his chair. “I think you’re all full of shit.” He leaves the table and walks toward the window and a view of the downtown, the courthouse, and the civic center. The three of us look at each other with poker faces, each disappointed. Jason could even be described as alarmed.
“Why don’t we take five minutes,” I suggest. Jason and Don head out the door, Don patting Jason on the back and uttering one of his reassuring offerings I’ve heard time and time again. I sit up on the table and look at Grant, his back turned to me as he peers out the window.
“Don’t start with me,” he says.
“I’m not starting. Let me ask you a question.”
Grant turns his head so I’m looking at his profile.
“Do you want to win this race or not?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You should have fired me,” I say. “But you didn’t, and I can’t resign because it’s a condition of my bond that I remain with you. So we’re stuck with that decision. Let’s not make another bad move.”
“We’re not.”
“Pull your head out of your ass for a second, Grant. The plan’s a good idea, but the ten-second sound bite is that you want to raise taxes.”
The senator turns and leans against the bookcase along the window. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Get in the mood,” I say. “You’re not being smart about this, buddy. It’s not like you. This plan—if you were consulting someone else who wanted to be governor, you’d tell him this is a dog. You’d counsel him up and down not to do it.”
Grant’s expression softens. He’s beyond a smile at this point, or a joke, but the ease in his face seems to indicate he sees my point. “It’s the right plan,” he says.
“Maybe. Probably. But you won’t win on it. You’ll just be another Democrat who wants to raise taxes.”
“And what will I be if I take your advice?”
“With a little luck, governor.”