The race this year for Cook County state’s attorney recalls the days when the Irish Catholics ruled Chicago, when Jews, blacks, Poles, Hispanics, and Lithuanians were mere shadows on the political horizon. Voters will be asked to choose between Jack O’Malley and Pat O’Connor. One is the Republican incumbent, the other a Democratic alderman. Between now and November both candidates will be trying to teach the voters which is which.
While O’Connor was born to politics, O’Malley ran for state’s attorney in l990 without any political ties beyond a few friendships with Republican attorneys at his law firm, Winston & Strawn. And while both men were altar boys in the Catholic Church, O’Connor remains a devout Catholic who lives by all the rules and goes to Mass every Sunday and O’Malley fell away from the church when he was a teenager. Now only an occasional churchgoer, O’Malley says, “My generation seems to be one that returns to the church when they have children.”
O’Malley adds, “For O’Connor to make all these statements publicly–that I don’t want to prosecute clergy–could have the effect of discouraging people from coming forward with their charges. That’s a very irresponsible thing for him to do.”
Webb talked to Governor James Thompson. “Thompson was tremendous about it,” O’Malley recalled. “He didn’t know me, but he sat and talked with me and then came out and endorsed me. People who claim Thompson picked me for the job are absolutely wrong. I take full credit for seeing the opportunities, though of course it’s true I couldn’t have won without the support of Thompson and Dan Webb.”
The couple recently bought a century-old graystone they are gradually rehabbing in Hyde Park, which is where O’Malley has lived since he entered law school at the University of Chicago. Before that he lived in several neighborhoods around the city, like someone looking for a place to light. He grew up in south Elmhurst, in an enclave of devout, working-class Irish Catholics. One of six children of a Chicago fireman in a neighborhood where a dozen kids wasn’t unusual, he attended Catholic schools and was an altar boy.
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During those years O’Malley found time to take a few courses at the College of Du Page County. Later he attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he finally graduated from Loyola after he’d become a police officer. He went to Loyola “because it was in the l8th [police] District where I worked.” He left the force to spend a year at Cornell University Law School, then, having run out of money, returned to Chicago and rejoined the police. He worked nights and attended the University of Chicago Law School by day.
O’Malley joined the police force in l973 because “it was the most exciting thing I could think of to do, and it turned out I was right.” He worked a couple of years in a squad car in the crime-ridden Fillmore District, and when his boss was given command of the l8th District on the Gold Coast, O’Malley went with him. There O’Malley worked first on the high-pressure tactical unit, then briefly guarded Jane Byrne, a job he took because it would give him time to study but soon gave up when he became too bored. He also spent several summers patrolling the beaches on a motorcycle, an assignment he had admired from afar even before he became a cop. During his nine years on the force he finished college and law school. His view of the state’s attorney’s office was clearly influenced by his experiences as a cop.
