Lake Effect News

By LORRAINE SWANSON

Editor

State Sen. Heather Steans and democratic challenger Jim Madigan discussed local and state issues in the candidate's forum at the Sulzer Regional Library on Jan. 6.

If you were one of the 100 or so lucky ones who crammed into the Sulzer Regional Library last Wednesday, you may have witnessed the only forum to take place between the Democratic candidates for the 7^th Senate District before the Feb. 2 primary.

Former Equality Illinois executive director and openly gay candidate Jim Madigan is challenging the popular freshman incumbent Heather Steans for her 7^th Senate District seat in the Illinios General Assembly. Sponsored by the Edgewater Community Council, Americans for Democratic Action, and Northside Democracy for America, whose chair, Sandra Verthein, moderated the forum. Both candidates fielded audience questions on job growth, neighborhood violence, gun control, healthcare, campaign reform and equal marriage for same sex couples.

In a hyper-local race that already has neighborhood tongues wagging about Steans’ husband, Leo Smith’s, gate crashing a Madigan fundraiser at an Andersonvile gay bar last month, Madigan kept Steans on the defensive most of the evening about her and Smith’s massive campaign contributions to indicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and questions about her quick ascension into her predecessor’s seat, wedged between biting discussion of local and state issues.

Madigan has positioned himself as an independent reformer willing to stand up to Chicago political machine-influenced state legislators; Steans, a self-described “Deaniac” and “fiercely independent voice” in the Illinois Senate who was “proud to push the button” on Blagojevich’s impeachment last year.

“The Chicago political machine has for too long tried to maintain its authority over seats rather than trying to protect the people of our city." Jim Madigan, 7th Senate District democratic candidate

“The Chicago political machine has for too long tried to maintain its authority over seats rather than trying to protect the people of our city,” Madigan said. “It is that machine which I am determined to challenge in this process.”

Steans touted her record pushing for civil unions, including an equal marriage bill (SB2468) that she introduced in the state senate in October; health care reform that allows consumers to redress claims rejected by their insurance carriers; and negotiating legislation that limits campaign contributions to candidates. She also called for more transparency in Springfield.

“We’ve got to get rid of the corruption,” Steans said. “[Blagojevich] was a man who certainly betrayed the trust of all of us here. While we’ve gotten him out of office, we clearly have not solved the problems of Illinois in this regard. This session we made some good progress and at least have the basis for a campaign contributions limit system in place but clearly we’re not done. I’m proud of my ability to keep pushing forward on this.”

Both candidates engaged in sharp exchanges on the issue of equal marriage for same sex couples. Madigan has casted doubt on the timing of a bill advocating equal marriage that Steans introduced in the senate in October, while 13^th House District Rep. Greg Harris’s civil unions and equal marriage billsl has languished in the Illinois House the past several sessions.  Madigan has claimed that Steans only introduced the equal marriage  bill when she realized she would be up against an openly gay challenger in the LGBT- heavy 7^th Senate District.

“In terms of timing, Greg Harris has been sponsoring both equal marriage and civil unions in the house for each session,” Steans said, whose district overlaps with Harris’s. “Greg is certainly not undermining his work on civil unions with the equal marriage bill. I worked closely with Greg and asked him if it would be helpful to have an equal marriage bill in the senate and his answer was yes. I’m very resentful of the implications otherwise.”

Madigan, who as an attorney helped draft the pending civil union bill that has not gained enough votes to leave the house for the senate, said the equal marriage bill wasn’t about coming up with a strategy for passage in a conference room but the capacity to lead fellow legislators into doing the right thing.

“That civil unions bill has been waiting in the house for someone in the senate to take it and run with it,” Madigan said, “not wait for Greg Harris’s permission to do so, but to exercise leadership and get it done and that’s what we need.”

“We’ve got to get rid of the corruption ... This session we made some good progress and at least have the basis for a campaign contributions limit system in place but clearly we’re not done. I’m proud of my ability to keep pushing forward on this." State Senator Heather Steans, 7th District

Steans also answered questions about her vote against a recall measure in May 2008 which would have allowed Illinois voters to recall then-Gov. Blagojevich and other elected officials. The measure fell three votes short of the 60 percent majority needed to pass in the state senate. 

The senator’s critics, including Madigan, have eluded that Steans’ sided with Blagojevich and former State Senator Carol Ronen, who handpicked Steans to fill her seat when Ronen resigned mid-term in 2007. The 7th Senate Distric encompasses parts of Rogers Park, Edgewater, Uptown, Bowmanville, Lincoln Square, North Center, Buena Park and Andersonville.

Both Steans and her husband are on public record as having contributed $180,000 to Blagojevich’s campaign fund between 2002 and 2006. In addition, Steans and Smith made more than $16,000 in monetary and in-kind donations to Ronen between 2000 and 2007, including hosting a Ronen fundraiser that netted $50,000 in July 2005. Madigan has called for an investigation into Ronen’s possibly brokering of her state senate seat and any quid pro quo with Blagojevich.

“I’m glad to get this question,” Steans said. “The (2008) recall bill that came before us included everybody, including judges that would be subjected to recall. I agree there was gamesmanship … I’m not given the choice on what the bill is all the time that I get to vote on. I thought it was the wrong tool at the wrong time, and certainly not to be applied to judges.”

Steans also explained her support of HJRCA 31 which provides for recall of the governor, of which she is a chief co-sponsor.  That bill has been approved by the Illinois House and Senate, and is set to go to Illinois voters on the November 2010 ballot.

“The most recent bill was narrowly applied to the governor,” she said. “I think we should broaden it potentially to include more offices, but this one applied to the governor and I did support that.”

Madigan accused Steans of doing a “flip flop” once Rod Blagojevich was out of the picture as a political favor to Ronen. Steans retorted that when applied broadly, she still thought the 2008 recall bill was “bad public policy.”

“I don’t think it’s a secret that my husband and I have made significant contributions to progressive politicians,” she continued. “It’s in context of my entire adult life that I have been committed to social change. I’m blessed that I have financial resources and what I choose to do with them is to support progressive causes. I’ve done that through politics and my non-profit giving.”

The real stars of the evening were the more than 100 district residents who crowded into the Sulzer Regional Library on Jan. 6 for the 7th Senate District democratic candidates' forum.

Madigan and Steans also sparred on pension reform, with Madigan chastising Steans’ association with Ronen. After resigning from the state senate, Ronen accepted a senior advisor position with the Blagojevich administration which she quit after two months later. Ronen was able to add $38,000 to her annual public pension through a legal loophole.

Madigan said if elected to the state senate, he would propose that pensions for state legislators be dropped, to discourage other lawmakers from making a career out of it.

“I wish the former state senator was here tonight because I’d like to ask her, ‘what did you do for two months to justify getting three quarters of a million dollars in your life of our taxpayer funds,’” Madigan said. “For that reason I think that Sen. Steans to allow former Sen. Ronen to play such a significant role in her campaign and chair her campaign in 2008 is a mistake, because we need to show that our state legislators have credibility in the issue of pension reform or else nobody is going to believe us when we say we’ll try to fix it.”

Stean’s and Smith’s Illinois Birth to Five PAC frequently came up during the evening. Steans, a staunch pro-choice advocate, said that she fully supported the reproductive justice act currently pending in the Illinois House that will always guarantee the right to full reproductive health services should the U.S. Supreme Court reverse federal abortion laws back to the states.

Madigan criticized the Illinois Birth to Five PAC’s repeated donations totaling about $76,000 to such Republication state legislators at Steve Rauschenberger, Dave Syverson, Herb Diller and Lee Daniels who oppose gun control and gay and reproductive rights.

“In my view, if you are funding the people who repress the threat of reproductive freedom, it’s not enough of an answer to give a little more money to some democrats,” Madigan said. “The answer is not to reward them for their anti-women and anti-gay behavior which in my view, the senator and her husband’s PAC have done exactly that.”

Asked by Verthein if she had a response, Steans replied: “I have no control over decisions made by the PAC.”

Missed the forum? Here are links to some available video of the Jan. 6 7th Senate District democratic candidates forum. If you were there and posted video or audio, please send LEN a link at info@lakeeffectnews.com.

Central Square Ledger — Steans Opening Remarks

Central Square Ledger — Madigan Opening Remarks

Video coverage from candidate Jim Madigan’s site

Also, check out Chicago News Bench’s exclusive video with Jim Madigan.