Machine politics still front and center in race for 33rd Ward alderman

For the first time in 48 years, the name “Mell” won’t be on the ballot for Chicago alderman in the Northwest Side’s 33rd Ward.

And while the democratic socialist alderman who four years ago upended the Mell family’s reign is facing a challenge from new opponents, some of the same tactics that solidified the ward’s reputation for Chicago Democratic machine politics have found their way back to this year’s aldermanic race.

After taking out Mell scion Deb Mell in a razor-thin 2019 election, incumbent Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez says allies of Mell’s father, family patriarch Richard Mell, are hard at work behind the scenes to make her a one-and-done member of the City Council.

Those opposing Rodriguez Sanchez deny they are employing old-school political methods to the campaign and say they want Rodriguez Sanchez out of office not over some ward power play but because she’s done a poor job providing government services to residents and hasn’t helped crack down on neighborhood crime.

While that debate rages, the race in the 33rd Ward underscores some of the changing dynamics in play in the world of Chicago politics. Ward organizations like the one Mell built have been slowly shunted to the side and, at least in some parts of the city, replaced by unions and well-organized progressive groups that have money to spend and candidates offering a new message.

Indeed, Rodriguez Sanchez was one of several candidates helped in 2019 by what some, including Dick Mell himself, described as the new political machine: progressive groups like United Working Families and allied labor organizations like the Chicago Teachers Union.

As federal probes targeted longtime Chicago politicians, Deb Mell was made vulnerable by association: Her father, the “lord of his ward,” was on the City Council for nearly 40 years and commanded an army of hundreds of precinct workers who helped reelect him and others and were often rewarded with city jobs.

While that organization has since faded away, the 33rd Ward’s Democratic committeeperson is using similar tactics, according to Rodriguez Sanchez.

That committeeperson is Iris Martinez, the clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Martinez is backing Samie Martinez in the race for alderman, and records show that several workers from the clerk’s government office have helped Samie Martinez’s campaign.

Of the 50 circulators listed on Samie Martinez’s petitions for alderman, 23 match names of current employees at the Circuit Court clerk’s office.

Rodriguez Sanchez and another candidate in the race, Laith Shaaban, said they think the elder Mell is still involved in ward politics and is supporting Samie Martinez’s candidacy. Mell did not respond to requests by the Tribune for comment, but others familiar with Mell’s relationships consider him and Iris Martinez allies in this race.

“My concerns with this are ethical concerns,” Rodriguez Sanchez told the Tribune. “With the tradition of patronage that Chicago’s government and Cook County government has, it doesn’t speak well of an office that has been under scrutiny to see how many employees are going out, campaigning for a political ally of the (Circuit Court clerk).”

Personalities are also coming into play.

Iris Martinez and the current alderman “definitely disagree in terms of politics,” Rodriguez Sanchez said. This year, Rodriguez Sanchez supported Martinez’s opponent in the race for the state’s central committee, U.S. Rep.-elect Delia Ramirez, who won, and she has criticized Martinez’s relationship with the head of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Samie Martinez also was the chief of staff for former Ald. George Cardenas, 12th, who previously tussled with Rodriguez Sanchez over a parking lot deal involving Cardenas’ brother.

But Patrick Hanlon, a spokesman for Iris Martinez, said in an emailed statement that Martinez “has spent decades of public service fighting against Democratic machine politics and standing up for the independence of doing what is right for her constituents. The inference that she is and operates as a Democratic machine person is farthest from the truth.”

Samie Martinez, who is no relation to the clerk, told the Tribune in an email that he was not recruited to take on Rodriguez Sanchez. He was the one who first approached Iris Martinez and others in the ward for “their thoughts about running for Alderperson and their assistance in getting my petitions circulated.”

He said he is centering much of his campaign on public safety and better city services.

He said he was inspired to run after the fatal shooting of Ernie Perez in Albany Park in the fall of 2020, adding that “there have been at least 5 shootings at this boundary of the 33rd Ward since my wife and I bought our home in 2016.”

Asked whether he was aware that so many clerk employees helped circulate his petitions to be placed on the ballot for the Feb. 28 municipal election, Samie Martinez did not answer directly, but said, “Every person has a First Amendment right to be involved in the electoral process.”

One of the biggest issues surrounding the debate is the fact that the clerk’s office was just recently removed from federal oversight of hiring and promotion practices, a development that began under Iris Martinez’s predecessor, Dorothy Brown.

The oversight to ensure compliance with the Shakman decree, named after an attorney who launched legal efforts to reform government employment, began in the clerk’s office following rampant accusations and a long-running federal investigation centered on bribes-for-jobs allegations in her county office. Brown was not charged and denied any wrongdoing and announced in 2019 she would not seek reelection.

Martinez made getting out from under the Shakman oversight she inherited from Brown’s administration a priority of her first term, and celebrated its conclusion last month. Hanlon, Iris Martinez’s spokesman, said she is not a tool of the old Cook County Democratic Party machine, noting she won the race for clerk even though she didn’t have the party’s endorsement.

To the lawyer who was most involved with overseeing hiring and promotions at Martinez’s county office, the help from Martinez’s workers didn’t cross the line.

Brian Hays, an attorney on Shakman’s team with Locke Lord LLP, pointed out that based on their job titles, most of the petition passers appeared to be “Shakman-exempt” employees in policy roles. As long as Iris Martinez wasn’t discussing politics on government time, it wouldn’t violate Shakman, he said.

“If she called them up or talked to them outside of working hours and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get behind this person,’ there would be nothing Shakman-violative,” Hayes said. He declined to comment on the ethics of Clerk Martinez’s support, but said that overall, her Shakman “compliance was excellent.”

Clerk spokesman Hanlon said Martinez “asked people in her 33rd Ward Democratic Organization if they would like to help her circulate petitions for Samie Martinez and they were not required to circulate petitions at all for anybody.”

“Petitions were circulated in the evening and weekends,” or on the government employee’s personal time, according to Hanlon’s statement.

One of those who gathered petitions for Samie Martinez and who works for the clerk’s office is Carmen Navarro Gercone, who is the executive clerk for court operations. With Iris Martinez’s political support, Navarro Gercone campaigned to be Cook County sheriff but was booted from the ballot after a legal challenge from the incumbent sheriff, Tom Dart.

Navarro Gercone told the Tribune in a written statement that she’d previously known Samie Martinez “due to his involvement in the Northwest Side, the 33rd Ward, and the Latino community, just as many of my colleagues did. Everyone who volunteered did so on their own accord because he is an amazing young man who will make a great Alderperson.” She said she volunteered for him on a county holiday.

Added to the mix in the race is the fact that like all city wards, the boundaries of the 33rd Ward are new. Following the once-per-decade remap, the new 33rd Ward boundaries are expected to have strengthened Rodriguez Sanchez’s political position because they dropped the wealthier Ravenswood Manor neighborhood while keeping Albany Park, which is considered her base.

In 2019, Rodriguez Sanchez defeated Deb Mell in the largely moderate ward by just 13 votes after campaigning on themes of police reform, rent control and raising “progressive” taxes.

Shaaban, who has previously worked in finance, is campaigning as an independent choice. He said he does not support the old-school machine or Rodriguez Sanchez’s “purity politics,” which he says has stopped her from building coalitions to govern. He also said public safety was among his top concerns.

“Look, the voters of the 33rd Ward are tired of machine politics, gotcha politics and the politics of the far left,” said Shaaban, who said he hopes to become the first Arab American to serve on the City Council. “They want people who will address safety, who will address affordability, and make sure their voices are taken to City Hall.”

aquig@chicagotribune.com