Rich Daley a reformer?
In announcing his candidacy for mayor in December, Cook County State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley put it this way: “I ask only that I be judged on my record, my experience, and my ideas for our city’s future.”
Daley also promises the strong leadership Chicago needs. But when Council Wars held the city hostage for three years, Daley sat on his hands, while even his own alderman voted in lockstep with Vrdolyak.
Daley also promises able and efficient government, contending, “I know how to run a government.” For the most part, he has continued the professionalizing and depoliticizing of the state’s attorney’s office begun under his predecessor, Bernard Carey, while increasing prosecutions. But politics appear to have played a major role in his office’s handling of elections cases, and his prosecutors have too often used peremptory challenges to disproportionately exclude blacks from juries.
Daley kindly agreed to be interviewed for this article. He responded to every question, including many posed after the expiration of our allotted time. His answers are given below as the appropriate topics arise.
After unsuccessfully soliciting support from acting mayor Sawyer, they went to the Daley campaign in December and met with Julie Hamos, one of the well-regarded top aides whose name is often invoked by Daley defenders. Their plan sounded good, she told them. In a follow-up phone call, according to Larry Pusateri of the Statewide Housing Action Coalition, Hamos left the impression that someone had talked to someone, and that prospects for support from Daley allies in City Council were encouraging.
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But the strange thing did happen. Shortly before leaving office, Bernie Carey had agreed to sign a second Shakman decree. The original decree, signed by Carey in 1973, banned political firing; the new decree would ban political hiring as well. Soon after taking office, Daley became the first county official to sign the new decree. During the campaign–in which he had also come out in favor of merit selection of judges, a machine curse–he had pledged, “This office will be professional. I will not take a letter from any ward committeeman.”
