By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

Illinoisans head to the polls Feb. 5 for the party primary elections, and outcomes from a number of local races promise to have serious implications for GLBT Chicagoans. A number of openly gay candidates are running, while others have spoken out in favor of GLBT-related causes.

One of the more high-profile local races is to fill the seat of outgoing state Sen. Carol Ronen (D-Chicago). Businesswoman Suzanne Elder is up against Heather Steans, whose background is in public policy and finance. Each candidate has reached out to GLBT Chicagoans and has advocated passage of gay marriage legislation in the state. At a Jan. 19 community forum, each candidate addressed the issue.

Steans, who has been endorsed by Rep. Greg Harris, said at the weekend forum, “I 100-percent support same-sex marriage,” and went on to praise the current efforts, led by Harris, to institute civil unions in the state.

“This is a key issue in our district and something I plan entirely to focus and help on,” Steans said.

Elder said that marriage equality, not civil unions, should be where activists set their sights.

“The conversation has now degraded to where we are going to satisfy ourselves with a compromise. Can we imagine, just for a minute, if we started out the battle for civil rights by starting out with a compromise?”

Steans has been endorsed by a number of local officials, and Elder has labeled her a machine candidate, to which Steans responded, “There’s no entrenchment here. …My independence comes from my ability to stand up and be beholden to no one—not the governor, not the mayor, not the speaker of the House, not the Senate president.”

Elder replied that Steans had gotten those endorsements even before the people in the district knew there was a race.

“I am not endorsed by the elected officials,” she added. “…I’m the grassroots candidate. …I do not have the machine backing. I have no machine help.”

The Cook County Democratic Party does not seem to have a handpicked candidate to replace outgoing State’s Attorney Dick Devine. Consequently, the field has been left open for one of six candidates: Alds. Tom Allen (38) and Howard Brookins (21), Cook County Comm. Larry Suffredin (13), defense attorney Tommy Brewer, and Robert Milan and Anita Alvarez, both of whom have worked as top aides to Devine. Cook County Comm. Tony Peraica (16) is running in the Republican primary.

The candidates have each chosen to campaign on their own issues. Suffredin, for example, has pledged to crack down on corruption and promised that the state’s attorney’s office “will not be an extension of the police.” GLBTs, he added, may be “more vulnerable to discrimination, since it can be broken down into so many more sub-communities.” He also promised to hire more lawyers who would be knowledgeable on GLBT issues.

Among the openly gay judges running Feb. 5 are Aaron J. Weiss in the 8th Subcircuit, and James Edward Snyder in the 10th.

Openly gay attorney Jay Paul Deratany is up against incumbent Joseph Berrios for the Cook County Board of Review, 2nd District. Deratany cited the ever-increasing Cook County property taxes as the main impetus for his run. He says he’ll try to keep them low and ensure that tax monies collected are fairly distributed to poorer areas. He also said taxpayers should expect a fairer, less-complicated appeals process.

Berrios, who is head of Cook County’s Democratic Party, promises taxpayers a more streamlined and efficient operation to handle tax appeals.

In the contest for Recorder of Deeds, incumbent Eugene Moore is challenged by Ald. Ed H. Smith, who has opposed GLBT rights legislation as a city councilman. Moore has been a stalwart supporter of GLBT rights and has given the public 24/7 access to the recording database online.

Posts as commissioner to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District were once essentially political appointments, but no longer. A number of commission candidates, including attorneys Dean Maragos and Mariyana Spyropoulos, have followed the lead of Comm. Debra Shore in advocating for a more environmentally sensitive agency. Both candidates have campaigned heavily in the GLBT community and have pledged to make MWRD, which has a budget of about $1.4 billion, more transparent.

Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court Dorothy Brown, a longtime GLBT community supporter, runs unopposed Feb. 5.