By ED McMANUS

County Board seat shuffle

DOWNSTATERS are bumpkins, according to one Chicago columnist. But it has been suggested that there may have been at least one bumpkin in sophisticated, urbane Cook County in past years — the fellow who dreamed up the manner in which that county elects its governing board.

Cook County has a 16-member board of commissioners. Ten are elected by citizens of the city of Chicago, and they are always Democrats. Six are elected by citizens of the suburban area, and they are always Republicans. (The board president is elected separately from the entire county, and is always a Democrat.) The 1980 census has prompted changes in the city-suburban ratio, and a campaign is under way to scrap the system altogether. As a result, the relatively obscure board has been much in the news in recent months.

Other Illinois counties elect their commissioners by district, just as the Congress and the state legislature are chosen. A coalition of the Citizens Party of Illinois, the League of Women Voters, and a black incumbent commissioner from Chicago, John Stroger, are circulating petitions to put a proposal for districting on the November 1982 election ballot. If the plan is approved, it will take effect in the 1986 election.

The board itself has the power to adopt a districting plan, but the one proposed by board president George Dunne was defeated 11-5 in October. Dunne usually can count on the loyalty of his nine fellow Democrats, but on this issue, five of them joined the six Republicans in voting "no." Two of the five Democrats live in the same ward as Dunne, making their chances of remaining on a districted board remote. The other three all probably would have a tough time getting reelected. Districting also poses a significant threat to the reelection prospects of the Republicans. Moreover, they fear the Democratic majority would draw the map in such a way as to increase the Democrats' control of the board.

A week after the vote on districting, Dunne proposed changing the board ratio from 10-6 to 9-6 — that is, reducing the number of Chicago members by one — to reflect the fact that the city's population has dropped and the suburbs' have grown. This time he had the support of all the other Democrats and the plan was adopted. The Republicans had proposed that another suburbanite be named to the board, making the ratio 10-7. Among other things, the 9-6 plan presented a problem for the Republicans in their effort to assure a place on the board for their candidate for board president, former State's Atty. Bernard Carey. The candidates for president usually run as well for a position on the board; that way, the candidate who loses still can serve as a member of the board. To make room for Carey, incumbent Joseph Tecson agreed not to seek reelection.

A few days after the 9-6 proposal was approved, the suburban board members went to U.S. District Judge Hubert Will with a challenge of the new makeup. (In 1973, following the 1970 census, Will had changed the ratio from 10-5 to 10-6 at the request of the suburban members.) And on December 22, Will issued an order establishing a new ratio of 10-7. He found that with a 10-7 apportionment, the suburbs would have 41.18 percent of the votes and be underrepresented by .93 percent, and the city would be overrepresented by the same amount, for a total deviation of 1.86 percent. The deviation with a 9-7 apportionment would be 3.2 percent, and with a 9-6 apportionment it would be 4.22 percent.

Will rejected the Democrats' argument that adding a member would increase the budget by $80,400. "That is not an adequte justification," he said. "That amount is not large compared to the total annual county budget of almost $1 billion, and a small savings cannot justify a dilution of voting rights."

Will turned down a petition by commissioner Stroger for permission to intervene in the case. Stroger had asked the judge to hold that the system of electing commissioners at large from the city and the suburbs is unconstitutional because it results in minorities being underrepresented.

At this writing, Will's decision creating the 10-7 ratio is under appeal. Meanwhile, petitions are being circulated to put the districting issue on the ballot. More than 220,000 signatures are needed. Supporters of the proposal point out that under the present system, board members are virtually unknown and therefore unaccountable to the voters. "An aspirant to a seat on the board has often shadow boxed with an unknown, unspecified incumbent opponent," says Betty Cameron, president of the League of Women Voters of Cook County. "In the primary an independent candidate for nomination challenges not an individual but the party's slate of names. To be successful such a candidate would have to defeat the weakest opponent on the list, an accomplishment that would require both widespread voter agreement on the superior qualifications of the challenger and virtual concensus among the electorate about who is the least desirable among all those unknowns. In the general election a similar situation has prevailed, and the dominant party in either the city or the suburbs has swept its whole slate into office. Cook County government is too important to have its elective representatives chosen in this way."

February 1982/Illinois Issues/31