Dupage Co.

IL Foreclosure Notices Keep Rolling In

Angela Caputo — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:04:10 -0800

More bad news emerged on the Illinois foreclosure front today. The number of homeowners slapped with bank repossessions, foreclosure, default or auction sale notices came to 12,681 in October -- a 24 percent increase from September and a 31 percent increase over the same month last year.

Homeowners in Cook County fared the worst. They made up more than half of the total foreclosure filings in the Prairie State. From the Sun-Times:

Some 6,885 homes received foreclosure notices in Cook County, representing one in every 313 homes. In Will County, the number was 990 homes, or 1 in every 226 homes. In DuPage County, the number was 807 homes, or one in every 441, and in Lake County it was 815 homes, or one in every 307 homes.

For more on what certain banks are doing to stem the tide of foreclosures -- here in Illinois and nationwide -- check out this post from yesterday.

Michelassi "Stunned" By County Board Victory

Josh Kalven — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:03:40 -0800

Back in May, Adam profiled several young progressive candidates running for public office around Illinois. Among them was Tony Michelassi, a 23-year-old Democratic candidate for the GOP-dominated Dupage County Board:

After receiving his Associates Degree in Political Science from the College of DuPage in December, Michelassi decided that government service was the career that best suited him. “Politics gets a bad rap in our society as being something that people go into if they can’t make it in the private sector, and that’s not true,” he says. “Politics can and should be treated as a profession.”

If elected to the DuPage board, Michelassi hopes to ease the county’s growing pains. He says that the board is struggling to balance its budget and the steps members have proposed to alleviate excessive outlays -- cutting funding for the public safety department or charging fees for storm water drainage service – aren’t appropriate responses.

Well, last week Michelassi -- who works at a Jewel-Osco photo desk in Naperville -- won election to the board. And no seemed more amazed than himself:

Michelassi was ahead of [GOP candidate Garry] Cassioppi the first time he checked the votes online.

"I was absolutely stunned but I thought, it's early voting and a lot of Democrats went to early vote and this is going to change when they get to Election Day votes," Michelassi said. "I thought, yeah, I'll probably finish an admirable third at best."

He began to hope by the end of the evening, when he still hovered above Cassioppi. After he won by a margin of 2,193 votes, he said his phone began to ring with calls from friends and family members who shared his astonishment.

"They're all pretty amazed," Michelassi said. "They're all very proud of me and it's just an amazing feeling to have all this support coming in."

Michelassi is the youngest person to ever sit on the board. He said he plans to leave his job at Jewel-Osco and pursue a political science degree at Aurora University.

Of the candidates we profiled earlier this year, Democrat Jehan Gordon was the only other victor. She defeated Republican Joan Krupa in the race for the Illinois House seat in the 92nd District, formerly held by GOP congressman-elect Aaron Schock.

Obama Dominates The Collar Counties

Adam Doster — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:06:46 -0800

As Josh noted yesterday, the most dramatic change in the Illinois presidential map between 2004 and 2008 is the blue-ing of the collar counties. Solid Bush terrain four years ago, every single county swung for Barack Obama on Tuesday.

Here's a data comparison (click "Sheet 2" to see the popular vote margins):

A few things seem fairly obvious from the returns Tuesday night. The first is that the "Emerging Democratic Majority" -- which started to develop in the 1990s but was stunted by Sept. 11 -- appears to have arrived. The New Republic's John Judis explains in his sharp election analysis published Wednesday:

The new Democratic realignment reflects the shift that began decades ago toward a post-industrial economy centered in large urban-suburban metropolitan areas devoted primarily to the production of ideas and services rather than material goods. (In The Emerging Democratic Majority, Ruy Teixeira and I called these places "ideopolises.") Clustered in the regions that have undergone this economic transition are the three main groups that constitute the backbone of the new Democratic majority: professionals (college-educated workers who produce ideas and services); minorities (African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans); and women (particularly working, single, and college-educated women).

The Chicago area is a prime example of this transformation. Immigrants and professionals with graduate degrees have flooded the collar counties, as they have metropolitan centers like Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Denver/Boulder, and Raleigh. And among those voters, Obama did exceptionally well. Exit polls showed the Democrats "sharply increasing their share of white, college-educated voters. Bush carried this group by 11 points, but Obama narrowed that deficit to four, continuing a trend away from the Republican Party by college-educated professionals that has been underway for at least a decade." Latinos also heavily favored Obama. Two-thirds cast ballots for the Democrat and more Latinos voted for Obama than had voted for John Kerry in 2004 by 13 percentage points.

In the Prairie State specifically, the political shift among these demographic groups was undoubtedly sped along by the popularity of favorite son Obama. But disgust with President Bush is just as important. Angela demonstrated yesterday how poorly Illinois immigrants have responded to the GOP's rightward shift. Among white suburban residents, a similar phenomenon is taking place. “Bush made it possible for people to say this agenda is completely messed up," Dupage Co. resident Amy Tauchmann told us in March, "and it does not represent at all what I have understood our country to be, in DuPage or anywhere else.”

Of course, with Obama atop the ticket and the economy tanking as fast as the Republican "brand," some may consider this year an anomaly. I'm one to believe that the GOP's strong showing in the area's congressional races had more to do with the power of incumbency than anything else, but we will have to wait another few years to find out.

IL Planned Parenthood Holds Its Ground

Adam Doster — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:34:35 -0700

Under a barrage of legal appeals and lawsuits, Planned Parenthood of Illinois keeps standing strong. Just days after a judge threw out significant portions of a defamation lawsuit against the women's health care provider, the Aurora Building Code Board of Appeals dismissed appeals filed against Planned Parenthood's state-of-the-art clinic there. The Beacon News has the details:

Earlier this week, the Building Code Board of Appeals rejected the lion's share of a complaint filed in July by anti-abortion activists, including Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood. In the complaint, those opponents argued several zoning and building codes were violated during the construction of the facility, and challenged the July 1 issuance of a final certificate of occupancy.

City Attorney Alayne Weingartz filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, and after nearly two hours of deliberation, the board upheld that motion. The board, Weingartz said, has a 20-day limit on decisions it can consider, and most of the decisions referenced in the appeal happened more than 20 days before it was filed.

But Illinois' pro-life community isn't backing down. They're still awaiting a hearing date for nine-count lawsuit the Thomas Moore Society filed against the City of Aurora last year. And this week, anti-abortion activists met for the adorably named "Planned Parenthood: BAD for America" summit, in which they "share[d] techniques that they believe will lead to the closure of all clinics."

You know, because when abortion clinics are closed, women magically stop having abortions.

22-Year-Old Trying To Turn Dupage County Even Bluer

Josh Kalven — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:18:18 -0700

A great story from the Lisle Sun today. Recent college graduate Tony Michelassi was so frustrated by the lack of a Democratic candidate in the race for the 5th District seat on the Dupage County Board that he decided to run himself:

The 22-year-old had graduated with an associate's degree in political science from College of DuPage two months before the February primary. Although he started his college career as a rhetoric major at the University of Illinois, he had become increasingly interested in government administration.

So when he saw blank space after blank space on the ballot, he decided his name should go in the Democratic slot for the 5th District of the DuPage County Board, which includes Naperville and Lisle.

"I thought this would be a great way to get experience in the field, whether I win or not," said Michelassi, of Aurora.

After consulting with his local precinct committeewoman, Michelassi began attending meetings of the DuPage County Democratic Party and was nominated to run for the seat in March, just before the filing deadline.

In November, he'll compete with two Republicans - incumbent Jim Healy and attorney Gerry Cassioppi - for two of the District 5 seats on the 18-member board.

Go, Tony, go!

Dupage Dems Have A Snazzy New Website

Josh Kalven — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:30:06 -0700

As our own Adam Doster explained in a recent feature article, Democrats have gradually been coming out of the woodwork in Dupage County this year to support Democratic congressional challengers like Bill Foster, Jill Morganthaler, and Scott Harper.

In accordance with this resurgence, the Democratic Party of Dupage County just unveiled their stylin' new website. Check it out.

Urbanization Spreads To Dupage County

Adam Doster — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:02:13 -0700

In my recent article on changing political dynamics in the collar counties, I highlighted a number of factors that are aiding Democrats at the ballot box, including demographic shifts, Republican missteps, and the transformation of the regional economy. But one factor I only touched on tangentially was what DePaul University professor Larry Bennett called "the rush of urbanization."

This phrase refers to a rise in civic problems that are traditionally found in urban areas, such as struggling schools, traffic congestion, and slow development. Suburban residents distanced themselves from these issues when they left Chicago's bungalow belts, but they have since crept back into their communities. Meanwhile, as Bennett told me, GOP legislators have failed to address these concerns adequately, instead continuing to advance an anachronistic view of suburban governance.

Michael Gecan, a national staff member for the Industrial Areas Foundation and the author of the must-read memoir Going Public, picks up where I left off, beautifully profiling DuPage County's new bouts with urbanization in this month's issue of the Boston Review:

By the date of the meeting, however, the developers who had helped double DuPage’s population in just 30 years had run out of land. The income generated by their construction efforts had dwindled to a trickle. Education and public safety costs continued to climb. Scores of specialized local districts and commissions — water, sanitary, and others — absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars that never made it into the general operating budget of the county and were subject to little, if any, scrutiny or oversight. And residential real estate taxes — the backbone of the county’s budget due to the long-standing agreement to attract and retain business by keeping commercial taxes low — soared.

(More after the jump ...)

Gecan asserts that the suburbs west of Chicago resemble the 1950 West side neighborhood where he was raised, one where "the massive economic and political, civic and religious institutions had seemed as solid and stable as glaciers" before they declined at rapid speed:

In that pleasant synagogue meeting space, with the last of the new McMansions going up across the street, with 60,000 more workers commuting in to DuPage each day than commuting out, with the local football teams on the rise and the SAT and ACT scores still high, I suggested that perhaps the county had hit its own high-water mark and that without clear-eyed re-evaluation, it was poised, as Chicago had been in the mid-1950s, for decline ... No longer young, no longer trendy, no longer the place to be, no longer without apparent limitations or constraints, these places, like people, have developed ways of avoiding reality.

It's an observation echoed last month by Christopher Leinberger in The Atlantic. He wrote that the subprime housing crisis is speeding up suburban decline in the exurbs.

But what makes Gecan's article especially valuable is his prognosis for how communities can best confront "municipal mortality." The first challenge is to address the new problems honestly and quickly without denying their existence or shifting blame. It's a task that sounds difficult for proud civic leaders, but one that Gecan says isn't as bad as people think:

Besides, when reality is finally and fully faced, it is not all bad. While a whole generation of institutions has declined, a new generation has begun to emerge. In DuPage, the Muslim and Hispanic communities are rising and eager to contribute to the next phase of the county’s life. Evangelical congregations are growing and thriving all across the country, many arriving at their own mid-life moment after 30 years of astonishing growth. The local community college — The College of DuPage — attracts a diverse cohort of 30,000 students to a single sprawling campus. Community colleges, which began decades ago as small and often isolated vocational schools, now educate 45% of college students in the United States. Vibrant networks created and led by those recovering from alcohol and substance abuse are major presences in almost every urban neighborhood or suburban development.

The two other important necessary responses are: 1) to elect new types of leaders to supplant those unwilling to adjust and adapt, and 2) to find alternative sources of revenue that can be deployed in creative ways. The election of Bob Peickert -- a key member in the grassroots organization Operation Turn DuPage Blue -- as DuPage County Democratic Party Chairman is a step in the right direction. But as many collar county residents will tell you, it's only the beginning.

Blue-ing The Collar Counties

Adam Doster — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:15:06 -0700

Amy Tauchman had no special affinity for DuPage County. In some ways, she just ended up there. It was the late 1980s and she and her husband were looking for some more space for their budding family. They considered moving to Evanston, a town whose residents largely aligned with their politics, but the home prices were too lofty. The south suburbs were out -- Tauchman had reservations about living too close to her in-laws from Oak Lawn. So they compromised and chose Glen Ellyn, a fairly affluent suburb about 20 miles west of Chicago.

Tauchman knew that the county had a reputation as a conservative stronghold, or as she describes it, a place where people “don't like rocking the boat.” She even embraced that hunkered-down attitude herself while raising three young children. But when her kids were old enough to attend school, she realized how ingrained Republican culture really was.

“In 1998, I did some work at the school around what I would call attitude integration, where we stopped calling it Christmas Break and started saying winter,” she remembers. “I was very amazed at the backlash.” According to Tauchman, residents were incensed and PTA meetings turned into vitriolic affairs marked by weeping parents and screaming matches.

Even in casual settings, it was tough to avoid GOP talking points. “The Republican culture … was so oppressive that people gave up trying to have conversations about [politics],” she says. “They would go to parties and just assume everybody is a Republican and walk away never knowing that half the people in that room were Democrats.”

But two weeks ago, Democrats came out of the woodwork in Illinois’ 14th congressional district -- which includes sections of DuPage -- to propel upstart candidate Bill Foster into Congress. It was a stunning victory given the GOP's historical dominance in the region, and one Democrats maintain is a bellwether for congressional races nationwide. While that's unclear, Foster's win certainly illuminates the Democrats' rising influence in Chicago's collar counties, townships where changing demographics and Republican missteps have drastically altered the political landscape. And for lefties on Chicago's periphery, the best may be yet to come.

Swing city

Before Florida and Ohio, there was the Land of Lincoln. For much of the 20th century, Illinois represented the nation's archetypal swing state, voting for the winning presidential candidate in 22 of 25 elections. Downstate independents often decided the races as Chicago's infamous Democratic machine was counterbalanced by the stalwart Republicans in the surrounding suburbs.

How best to describe the denizens of the collar counties? Many of these residents rejected Chicago's bustling urban lifestyle and New Deal politics in favor of open spaces, lower taxes, and cultural conservatism. Tauchman says many of her neighbors fully embraced the classic stereotype of suburban life. “There were still remnants of that 1950s feeling,” she says. "That's never the reality anywhere, but I think DuPage County basked in the pretenses of that reality for a longer period of time than was accurate."

Republican members of Congress, like the outspoken pro-lifer Henry Hyde and the strict supply-sider Dennis Hastert, appealed to these voters through what DePaul University political scientist Larry Bennett calls “19th century small government Republicanism.” Collar county suburbanites wanted their legislators to stave off the rush of urbanization, both culturally and economically, and for decades, the Illinois Republicans placated those concerns. Of course, they were rewarded with votes, too. Even as late as 1988, the Cook partisan voting index (PVI) – which measures how strongly a congressional district leans toward one political party compared to the nation as a whole -- showed the GOP with enormous advantages in Kane County (13.4), DuPage County (18.7), and McHenry County (19.7).

But a Democratic tide has been developing since the early 1990s and has greatly accelerated recently. In Congress, Foster will join moderate businesswoman Melissa Bean from Illinois’ 8th district, who in 2004 ousted arch-conservative Philip Crane, then the longest serving Republican member of the House. At the state level, Lake County has elected Democrats to three of its five state senate seats, key victories in establishing the party's first veto-proof Senate majority in 70 years. Republicans’ dipping advantage in PVI is another indicator of the Democrats' rising popularity; since 1988, the GOP edge in the DuPage and Lake Counties’ PVI has nearly been cut in half, while those in Kane and McHenry Counties have also dropped significantly.

This year's presidential primary turnout numbers are equally revealing. Statewide precinct reports show that more than twice as many Democrats cast presidential preference ballots than Republicans -- 1.99 million to 893,376 -- and those trends held up in Chicago's Northern and Western suburbs. Democratic voters outnumbered Republicans by 6,000 in Kane County, 2,210 in McHenry County and a whopping 23,500 in DuPage County.

New voters, old tricks

What accounts for the sea change? Demographic trends tell part of the tale. For one, immigrants have been moving into the collar counties with mounting frequency. Census data shows that the number of foreign-born U.S. citizens rose by nearly 38 percent in the suburbs between 2000 and 2005, jumping almost 50 percent in DuPage County and doubling in Will and Grundy counties. Many of these imports are of Latino origin, especially around Aurora and Elgin, and while they don't constitute a monolithic voting bloc, a December Pew Research Center poll found that 57 percent of Hispanic registered voters lean Democratic while only 23 percent align with the GOP.

The transformation of Chicago's regional economy from one dependent on manufacturing to one focused on service and technology has also benefited Democrats. Professionals with graduate degrees have flooded the collar counties, particularly the wealthier suburbs in Lake and DuPage counties, drawn by high-tech jobs and new cosmopolitan amenities. While their migration patterns mirror that of their suburban forbearers, demographers like Ruy Tuxiera report that their politics differ widely from past generations; most are pro-choice, skeptical of religious fundamentalism, and open to taxation. Not surprisingly, Democrats have been successful in attracting this new suburban constituency. “Urbanization has occurred and the [suburban] populations are more diverse than they used to be,” says Bennett. “I think that some of the Democratic politicians who have become more successful in suburban areas have recognized some of these changes and have been astute in the ways they've presented themselves.”

Republicans themselves deserve some of the blame for losing grip in their collar county wheelhouse. At the national level, the party's failed war policy and its southern shift, best exemplified by its hard-line stances on immigration, choice, and gay marriage, have alienated moderate Republicans, many of whom hail from Northeastern and upper-Midwestern suburbs. “Bush made it possible for people to say this agenda is completely messed up,” says Tauchman, “and it does not represent at all what I have understood our country to be, in DuPage or anywhere else.”

The state party hasn't fared much better. Dogged by corruption scandals that drained the party of fundamental resources, Republicans have had difficulty recruiting quality people to run in competitive races. In a bind, they've turned to self-funded but deficient candidates that lack a complex understanding of Illinois voter's changing preferences. Jim Oberweis' nativist immigration ads certainly contributed to his loss in the 14th special election, as did David McSweeney's opposition to stem-cell research in his 2006 race against Bean.

Down-ticket effect

When one considers the number of competitive congressional races occurring in the collar counties this November, these patterns are heartening for Democrats. Along the North Shore, Democrat Dan Seals is likely to improve upon his impressive run in 2006, when he garnered 47 percent against 10th district incumbent Mark Kirk with limited support from the national party. A perfect conduit for the Lake and DuPage County wine-track voters, he’s a strong progressive with a background in business.

Elsewhere in the suburbs, Illinois State senator majority leader Debbie Halvorson is in great position to fill Illinois’ 11th open seat, vacated by embattled Representative Jerry Weller, Bean has a nice cash advantage over Republican contender Steve Greenberg, and Foster has momentum on his side after triumphing earlier this month.

One caveat is a potential Hillary Clinton backlash. A polarizing figure in swing districts, polling suggests that if the Senator from New York was to somehow win the Democratic presidential nominataion, Republican candidates in Illinois may see an unexpected boost. According to a SurveyUSA poll of 600 Illinois registered voters released last week, Clinton trails McCain badly in Chicago’s suburbs, 47 percent to 34 percent. This stands in direct contrast with Illinois’ favorite son, Sen. Barack Obama, who smashes McCain by 20 points in the collar counties, 57 percent to 37 percent. According to Rich Miller of the Capital Fax, the national GOP will “likely abandon the state if Obama is at the top of the ticket, which could cost Republicans about a million dollars in national cash and could lead to some serious legislative blowouts in unexpected places.” If Clinton wins, they’ll at least toss in some token funds.

But Chicago-area progressives shouldn’t fear. At this point, a Clinton win is unlikely, and no matter who wins the nomination, the gains made by Democrats outside Chicago should snowball. “I think [Democrats] always were out there,” says Tauchman, “they just didn't realize it was time to stand up and be counted.”