Democrat Richard Phelan, a Winnetka attorney, took a giant political step Tuesday, handily winning the Cook County Board presidency in his first try for elective office.
In addition, Democrat Michael Sheahan ousted Republican Sheriff James O`Grady, and Republican Jack O`Malley-like Phelan, a political newcomer-defeated Democrat incumbent Cecil Partee for state`s attorney. Partee conceded at 10:45 p.m.
Failing to materialize were the long lines of voters and election-day chaos many had predicted as a result of confusing ballot procedures put into effect to accommodate the court-ordered reinstatement of the all-black Harold Washington Party.
Only two dozen city precincts opened late and were kept open an extra hour beyond their scheduled 7 p.m. closings.
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Voter turnout was meager-53 percent in Chicago, an all-time low there for a non-presidential election, and between 53 and 55 percent in the suburbs, according to election officials.
In addition to Phelan, other apparent winners included County Assessor Thomas Hynes and Treasurer Edward Rosewell, both incumbents, and Chicago Ald. David Orr (49th), who was seeking to succeed Democrat Stanley Kusper as county clerk.
An unknown in politics little more than a year ago, Phelan relied on an extensive media campaign to portray himself as an ”outsider” in his effort to succeed George Dunne and continue Democratic Party control of the office it has held for the last 21 years.
In unofficial early returns from both Chicago and suburban precincts, Phelan had about 55 percent of the vote, against 29 percent for his Republican opponent, State Sen. Aldo DeAngelis of Olympia Fields, and 16 percent for Washington Party candidate Barbara Norman.
In the sheriff`s race, with more than 50 percent of the vote counted, Sheahan had 58 percent, O`Grady had 33 percent and Washington candidate Tommy Brewer had 7 percent.
At about 9:45 p.m., O`Grady appeared at his campaign headquarters to concede, pledging ”one of the smoothest transitions” in the history of county government. O`Grady`s warm-hearted concession speech was in marked contrast to what had been a very bitter, and occasionally violent, campaign.
A jubilant Sheahan told his supporters that the voters of Cook County had ”demanded a change. . . . Tonight I assure them, change will come.”
In the state`s attorney race, for a two-year term, O`Malley had 59 percent of the vote, Democratic incumbent Partee had 37 percent, and Washington Party candidate Janice Robinson had 4 percent. That was with 56 percent of the precincts counted.
The election was seen as a critical test of the Washington Party`s ability to muster sufficient support among black and other voters in Chicago to end the Democratic stranglehold on the city`s black wards and make the Washington Party a force to be reckoned with in the 1991 mayoral and aldermanic elections.
”We`re not going to go away,” said Washington Party Chairman David Reed as early returns showed the party getting about 15 percent of the city`s vote. ”We`re going to continue to organize and get stronger.”
Even before the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated Washington Party candidates to the ballot two weeks ago, the party had targeted six Democrats for defeat: gubernatorial candidate Neil Hartigan, Phelan, Sheahan, Partee, Hynes and Board of (tax) Appeals member Wilson Frost.
Phelan also appeared to have won a suburban seat on the 17-member County Board, which would enable him to cast votes on the board.
DeAngelis also appeared on his way to winning a board seat. But he said during the campaign that, if he won a board seat but not the presidency, he likely would resign from the board and return to the state Senate, where he has been a GOP assistant minority leader for the last decade.
As president of the County Board, Phelan, 53, will head the nation`s second largest county, ranking only behind Los Angeles County, with a budget of nearly $1.7 billion and 26,000 employees.
Phelan, an attorney who founded the law firm of Phelan Pope & John 16 years ago, came out of almost nowhere to win a four-way slugfest in March`s primary election for the Democratic nomination for the board presidency.
In the primary, he spent $2 million, chiefly on a media campaign to build name recognition and to create for himself an image of a reformer who would shake up a county government on the brink of disaster.
In the primary, and again in the general election, he frequently reminded voters of his role as chief counsel in the U.S. House ethics investigation that toppled House Speaker James Wright (D-Texas).
Although he spent another $1 million in his race against DeAngelis, Phelan ran a relatively low-key campaign compared to the primary, apparently content with his standing in voter opinion polls that showed him ahead of his Republican opponent by a consistent 2-to-1 ratio.
Phelan focused his campaign primarily on the issues of hospital care for the poor and taxes. He also pledged to give blacks more county contracts and a third of the county`s top 50 jobs.
He supported building a new, 600-bed hospital to replace the crumbling Cook County Hospital and the reopening of Provident Hospital with a trauma center and a community-based advisory board.
He also called for coordinating patient care between county, city and not-for-profit facilities, which he said would enable the county to recoup $100 million of federal matching Medicaid funds it is not now receiving.
Phelan pledged to cut the county budget by $50 million by slashing part-time and overtime work, and eliminating unproductive patronage jobs.
In the area of criminal justice, he proposed buying the soon-to-be shuttered Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Ill., from the federal government as a place to send first-time offenders for job training and classroom work. He also has proposed operating two shifts a day in county courtrooms to relieve jail overcrowding.
He also said he wouldn`t fund the county`s portion of the Cook County School superintendent`s office and would ask the state to eliminate the office completely.
The sheriff`s race between Republican incumbent O`Grady and Democrat Ald. Sheahan (19th) was a shootout, literally. Last week a Southwest Side campaign office of Sheahan`s was shot up overnight. O`Grady accused the Sheahan campaign of vandalizing its own office to cast aspersions on the sheriff.
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A week earlier, a Cook County correctional officer supporting Sheahan was shot three times and critically wounded outside a South Side tavern at 3 a.m. The Sheahan campaign said the officer, Irving Bell, was hanging Sheahan signs, but O`Grady said Bell was tearing down O`Grady signs. Three men, including a correctional officer supporting O`Grady, were arrested in the incident.
On Tuesday, the state`s attorney`s office received a report that Daniel Sheahan, the candidate`s nephew, had been badly beaten outside the Greenbriar School in Chicago Heights when he tried to stop somebody from tearing down Sheahan campaign signs. He was treated and released at St. James Hospital in Chicago Heights. Sheahan advisers said he had suffered a broken nose.
At stake in the sheriff`s race was a patronage-rich office. The sheriff`s budget of $173 million and 5,150 jobs promises to increase sharply in the next several years with three major additions planned at Cook County Jail.
Sheahan, 46, a former Chicago police officer who has been the alderman of his Southwest Side ward for 11 years, has accused O`Grady of failing to live up to promises to rid the sheriff`s office of corruption.
O`Grady, 61, a former Chicago police superintendent with 38 years in law enforcement and the only Republican to win in Cook County in the 1980s, attacked Sheahan as inexperienced and unqualified for the job.
The battle for Cook County state`s attorney pitted Partee, 69, of the South Side, against a well-financed and aggressive Republican political newcomer, O`Malley, 39, an attorney who lives in Hyde Park, as well as attorney Robinson.