Before Eddie Vrdolyak tried to make party-switching a movement and before Harold Washington even became elected mayor, Walter Dudycz decided he was so sick of the antics of the local Democratic Party that he would run for alderman as a Republican on Chicago’s northwest side.
Little more than a year old, his law has stirred up political activity throughout the city. From Garfield Ridge on the far southwest side to Wrigleyville on the northern lakefront, voters in several hundred precincts in a dozen wards will get to express their opinions next Tuesday on issues that range from night Cubs baseball to public school decentralization.
In 137 precincts in the 30th, 33rd, 35th, 36th, 38th, and 45th wards, voters will be asked whether the Chicago public school system should be chopped up into local districts governed by community residents and teachers.
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But backers of limited referenda insist they will help issue-oriented community groups rule instead of machine politicians.
“This is democracy with a small ‘d,’” said Pat Bower, a political organizer with the Northwest Neighborhood Federation, which is pushing the school decentralization referendum. “In a city the size of Chicago an issue can get lost in the cracks. But when you go to the ballot box, you force the politicians to take notice.”
Madigan finally relented, but all he offered SON/SOC was a compromise permitting a local advisory referendum one time only–during the April 1987 election–and only on the home equity issue.
