Campaign cash and accusations fly in race for Cook County court clerk
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The contest to run the often-overlooked office responsible for managing filings in the nation’s second largest court system could become one of the most expensive races in the March 19 primary.
Mariyana Spyropoulos, a Democrat seeking to knock out incumbent Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Iris Martinez, loaned her campaign $875,000 on Valentine’s Day, allowing both candidates to accept unlimited campaign contributions in the run-up to Election Day. Martinez has about $128,000 in cash on hand among her three main campaign funds.
Meanwhile, the incumbent clerk defended her first term at the helm of the office she described as a “wild, wild west” when she took over in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 from Dorothy Brown, the controversial former clerk who ran the office for 20 years.
Martinez defended her record in a session with the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board Thursday, citing as her chief accomplishments improvements to customer service, progress on digitizing a system that long relied on carbon paper and hard copies, and work to clear a backlog of criminal record expungements.
Earlier Thursday, she cut the ribbon on a new expungement department on the fifth floor of the Leighton Criminal Court Building at 26th Street and California Avenue, where members of the public will be able to submit paperwork and get information about whether they can try to have their court case records expunged and sealed.
The office also put together a “global filing” system that will allow the public to file for expungement at any court location, clerk’s office staff said. Previously, people had to file at the branch court where the case was filed. The changes eliminate some filing fees as well, staff members said.
But Spyropoulos, who is currently a commissioner on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago board, told editorial board members in a separate session Tuesday that Martinez’s modernization efforts have fallen short and that the incumbent’s ethical lapses are little more than an extension of the scandals of Brown’s tenure.
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On top of her significant cash advantage, Spyropoulos has the backing of the Cook County Democratic Party and the Teamsters Local 700 in Park Ridge. The Teamsters represent most of the clerk’s employees. Spyropoulos was previously a Cook County prosecutor and real estate attorney whose late father was a businessman who worked in auto wholesaling, the oil and chemical industry and manufacturing, according to news accounts. She has been on the water reclamation board since 2010.
Among Spyropoulos’ proposed reforms: eliminating the internal inspector general role currently chosen by the clerk and instead asking the county’s Office of the Independent Inspector General to do the job.
Spyropoulos introduced similar legislation to give the OIIG oversight of the Water Reclamation District in April of 2017. “It took us two years to pass it, but we did pass it, finally,” she told the Tribune Editorial Board earlier this week. Employees can submit complaints anonymously to the OIIG, whose investigators can also audit MWRD functions and make recommendations. She wants the same oversight of the clerk’s office.
Martinez said she inherited the existing inspector but defended his independence and said he was doing “a phenomenal job.”
Spyropoulos also pledged to further open up public access to clerk data. The clerk’s office is currently not subject to the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which Martinez — at the time a state senator — pledged to take up with lawmakers in Springfield. Amid pushback from judges, however, Martinez backed a separate bill to make the office subject to a weaker local public records act.
Spyropoulos said she would push for even more data access while working to change the state law to make the office subject to FOIA. She said, if elected, she would release information on the office’s spending, case statistics and how many continuances are taken in cases.
“Certainly we don’t want any sensitive information with regards to cases or people’s personal data to be compromised, but I think that the operation of the office, how the budget is handled and what kind of resources are being used should be subject to FOIA,” she said.
Alluding to a Tribune investigation that found dozens of the clerk’s employees were engaged in campaign work or had contributed cash to Martinez, Spyropoulos said she would draw a “clear line between government and political activity.” The Tribune found 52 clerk employees had contributed $45,000 to Martinez’s campaign funds since she took office, and that of those 22 received promotions or significant raises in their clerk jobs just months — sometimes days — before or after making those political contributions. The Tribune also found 86 clerk’s office employees circulated petitions to get her on this year’s ballot.
“That’s not how you operate government,” Spyropoulos said.
Martinez defended taking the campaign money and said she accepted contributions at two annual events — including a birthday party — that were widely publicized. She said employees were not required to attend or to cut checks.
“I am about as ethical as I can possibly be,” she said during the editorial board session, while pointing out that Spyropoulos during her time at the Water Reclamation District has accepted campaign contributions from district contractors.
A Tribune analysis of Spyropoulos’ contributions since 2010 showed she received more than $140,000 from companies that have done business with the board.
Asked about it Tuesday, Spyropoulos said those contributions haven’t “influenced the way I vote,” but that, if elected, she would not accept contributions from any contractors who do business with the clerk’s office.
Chicago Tribune’s Madeline Buckley contributed.
