Harris and Partee: The story of two legislators quest of the executive branch

Cecil A. Partee and William C. Harris, the two Senate party leaders, both seek executive positions this fall. Partee Challenges Republican incumbent William J. Scott for attorney general and Harris faces Democrat Alan J. Dixon for secretary of state

THE ANNALS of Illinois history are not studded with the successful transitions of legislative leaders to elected state positions. Yet two are seeking to make the big shift this year, one each from the Democratic and Republican parties. Both currently are Senate leaders, and each has been Senate minority leader, majority leader and Senate president — the position of president pro-tempore having been dropped in the 1970 Constitution. For Senate President Cecil A. Partee (D., Chicago), the goal is the office of attorney general of Illinois, a post held since January 13, 1969, by William J.Scott, a Republican.

For Senate Minority Leader William C. Harris (R., Pontiac), the target is the office of secretary of state, where the incumbent, Michael J. Hewlett, is the Democratic nominee for governor. Harris' foe is the present state treasurer, Alan J. Dixon, currently in the middle of a four-year term.

Harris' decision to run
Harris is flatly on record as saying he would not have been a candidate had Hewlett sought reelection as secretary of state. In fact, Harris last year announced his retirement from the legislature. Not until October, he says, when it became clear to him that the rancor in the Democratic party toward Gov. Dan Walker would lead to a major confrontation in the party primary election of March, did Harris change his mind and decide to run again for statewide office.

It was in 1968 that Harris made his first race against Hewlett: for the office of auditor of public accounts. Harris, in the midst of a Senate term, did not lose his place in the legislature — one of the benefits of being a senator with a term longer than two years. And Harris was not demolished by the experience of being defeated in his first statewide effort. "He was running as an eight-year incumbent, seeking a third term, "Harris said of Hewlett. "He beat me by about 105, 000 votes. But I carried 75counties. Had I run as well as Don Carpentier [candidate for secretary of state] in the City of Chicago, I would have been elected. There was still a residual identification with the Carpentier name in Chicago, but I got clobbered there."

Chicago Democrats an issue
This time, Harris predicts things will be different. For one thing, he notes, there has been a four-year period of frustration for many Chicagoans who have seen their mayor constantly fighting their governor to the detriment of the citizens of the City of Chicago. "There has just been this terrible dichotomy between the mayor and the governor and I think serious Political defection from the Democratic candidates will result. I believe that," Harris insists. Downstate, the power of the Chicago Democratic Organization will be a major issue, according to Harris. Not Daley himself, he adds, "but that apparatus is an issue; the domination of the entire governmental operation of Illinois by a single political organization is an issue."

The jolly red-haired son of a funeral director in Pontiac, who still has a leave of absence from the family funeral home, Harris does not speak trippingly but with labored emphasis. He was farming when he first was elected to the House 22 years ago. After the cows got loose several times while he was away Springfield, he shifted to being an insurance agent in. Pontiac. Since being elected Republican leader in the Senate and its first president in 1973, Harris hasn't done much with the insurance business either. All this, said Harris, was

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By creating opportunities,Harris believes each man ought to be allowed to fend for himself

why he was planning to retire at age 55 and take his pension from legislative service. "Very frankly, I really had notd one great things economically for my family. Service in the legislature is extremely demanding, especially in the leadership insofar as time is concerned. And I have been in the leadership since1967, except for the two-year break when I was ill," Three kinds of constituencies Harris is now a trim 165 pounds and except for the fact he was once over 200and has some excess skin folds to show for it, he appears to be his old bouncy self again. " You know I'm a self-starter type of guy, a physically aggressive, outgoing type." But it was different when he ran out of steam and into aches and overall pain back in 1971. Through much of 1972 Harris was in and out of hospitals with what was finally diagnosed as a collagen disease, an upset of the auto-immune system of the body involving the collagen or the adhesiveness in the muscle function. Before making the decision to get back into the political races last October, Harris went through a rigorous physical examination to satisfy himself, his wife, Jeanne, and their two children that he was once more in good shape.

At a time when the legislature is in varying stages of disrepute with the public, Harris says he will not deny being identified as a legislative leader might be a detriment this year. " But I don't affirm it. I think all institutions seem to be in some difficulty. But we do ultimately have to resolve our needs through organized responses. Society requires it. " With much of his legislative time involved in the appropriations process of the legislature before moving into the leadership, Harris sees his strength as " getting people to see others 'viewpoints and in being able to make an accommodation in this unique state that involves the City of Chicago, the northeastern Illinois metropolitan area [some of which is included in his largely rural district] and the rest of the state largely rural with population clusters around middle sized cities. You've got three kinds of constituencies, that all involve their own kinds of crosscurrents, and pressures. But I've got that capacity. "

Harris likes to describe his kind of Republican philosophy by recalling the Walter Judd speech to the 1960 Republican National Convention which made a sharp impression on him. The part of the speech Harris recounts frequently was when Judd said, "I do not work my daughter's arithmetic problems for her because I don't love her, I don't work my daughter's arithmetic problems for her because I DO love her. "

Creation of more jobs
By creating opportunities, Harris believes each man ought to be allowed to fend for himself. " Don't, every time you stumble and bump your head, say' damn it, it doesn't work. The government is going to do it for you.' That iswhat it is about with me. Time after time in the whole mess of decision-making that we have to do, Republicans will tend to say 'damn it, let them bump their heads a few more times.' But Democrats will say 'Jesus, they bumped their heads. It ain't going to work. We've got to do it for them. '"

Contrary to what Harris suggests about Democrats, Partee sounds very much like Harris when he discusses the major burden on the state budget today: public welfare. The solution, says Partee, is creation of more job opportunities. Only by diminishing the high unemployment level, Partee insists, can the welfare drain be checked. It distresses him that so many people feel the government owes them a job. " I am for creating the kind of climate where there can be more private employment and people can get off the rolls where there are jobs available. This is what you've got to do, have more jobs available, " There will always be a residual element of recipients who because of illness, handicaps or other factors cannot work, Partee says, and he feels " government has some kind of an obligation there. " The welfare dollars given recipients are immediately spent on food and goods to keep a family going, Partee stresses. But the overall problem should be shouldered by the federal government, according to the 20-year veteran of legislative sessions.

Partee's legal background
Federal welfare based on a standard of living common to every state, or a parity, would " perhaps give lie to the argument that many people come to Illinois to get on welfare, " Partee observed. " A guy would stay in Alabama if what he got there was comparable to what he got here in terms of what it would buy. " Partee is Southern-born. He came to Illinois largely because of the discrimination in his native Arkansas at the time he finished his bachelor's work in business administration at Tennessee State University in Nashville. Arkansas University's law school rejected his application for law studies because " they didn't want to be integrated, " according to Partee. But, following the usual custom, the slate was willing to pay the tuition to send a Negro out of state if he found a place of admission. Both the University of Chicago and Northwestern University law schools accepted Partee. He chose NU because it started classes a few' weeks later and he had a summer job which he desperately needed to cow college living expenses. He finished as accelerated program in two years, passed the bar and, as a result of advice and help from one of his professors, Walter V. Schaefer, now a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, he joined Joseph Clayton in one of the major law firms in downtown Chicago.

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'After 20 years here, I have, in a measure, done pretty much what I sought to do,' says Partee. 'I welcome a new challenge'

One of the ways to build up a law practice, Partee decided, was to become a precinct captain and get to know 500people quickly on a first-name basis, and vice versa. Within a year, he was offered a job in the state's attorney's office just before John Boyle took over in 1948. He stayed through 1956, atwhich time he was the chief assistant state's attorney in the chief justice's court room. As a result of legislative reappointment effective with the 1956election, Partee was elected to the House as the black areas of the city gained major strength.

The start of his battle
Partly as a result of his work in the fraud and complaint department of the Cook County state's attorney's office, Partee in his freshman year passed a bill to mandate auditing of casualty and life insurance companies in Illinois —something desperately needed to protect insurees. It was the start of what Partee called a continuing battle for equality and fair play at all levels. One of his major frustrations in rounding out 20years of legislative service was his inability to pass open housing legislation for Illinois. " But as it worked out, with the federal law coming on board and the Constitution interpreted on that [by the courts], the people now reallyhave a forum to go to on that. The legislative battles prepared people for an understanding and acceptance of fair housing when it did come. And of course the fight for Fair Employment Practices legislation was won, to the point that we now have the strongest FEPC law in the land with the recent addition of a clause authorizing the commission to initiate complaints —not just hear them or take them from others. "

Drafted for the state
Partee likes to look back also at early and continuing work in the area of credit reform, particularly the mandate for high schools to teach consumer education as a preparation for life. Partee also would like to see nuclear science added to the high school science curriculum as a way of spurring more peaceful developments with that energy source. Although Partee would have been willing to stay in the General Assembly had he not been drafted for the regular organization slate as the candidate for attorney general, he said he was seeking relief from spending so much time in Springfield. His wife, Paris, was about to be left alone for the first time in their marriage as their second daughter, Cecile, prepared to go off to the University of Denver.

" After 20 years here, I have, in a measure, done pretty much what I sought to do. I welcome a new challenge, to go on to the state ticket, and to win; it would probably open new windows and new doors, particularly for minority people, to show that we really are the land of the free and the home of the brave and that people can be elevated despite our past history. It could serve as a beacon light and more as an incentive to frustrated minorities who believe that the system doesn't work. It might help to prove that the system does indeed work if they work at it. "

What Partee does not say is that reaching for state office also might get him off a terrifically hot spot in the Senate where he has had his mettle as a compromiser and peacemaker tested sorely by a wide split in his Democratic majority of 34. With a group of independent Democrats — mostly from Downstate — requiring his attention on one flank, Partee has found his Chicago ranks split as Mayor Richard J.Daley's son. Sen. Richard M. Daley, frequently has lined up a handful of partisans on the other side. The divisions have often made his leadership position untenable.

Harris views the secretary of state's office as a major service office where he could be of service both to the people and to his party. Partee views the attorney general's office as " not very sexy " but adds: " It's basically a big law office, and it would be my goal to run it competently. I think the present attorney general grabs cases on the basis of media value to the distress of his clients. I think the attorney general can be a bridge between federal and state law enforcement and can structure some new programs and ideas which can bring about a new climate of law enforcement. " Like Scott, Partee favors the power to convene statewide grand juries. Partee insists they should be convened only on issues or problems that spread over numerous counties and beyond the capability of any one state's attorney to prosecute properly.

Partee looks at the issue of his race and his statewide candidacy and insists" I don't think there is any question but what the people of Illinois will elect a person on the basis of his merit. I don't think color will enter into that at all. " Partee, of course, by virtue of his Senate presidency, has been one of the top black state leaders in the nation. Cement bribery trial What may be more disturbing to Partee and Harris was their name involvement in the cement mixer bribery trial in U.S. District Court in Chicago last spring and summer. The U.S. attorney insisted Harris had received some vacation trip benefits from industry people and Partee was mentioned as a recipient of a campaign donation through another senator indicted and convicted in the legislative-bribery scheme.* How the voters will size up Partee and Harris — if they bother to pick and choose rather than vote straight party ballots — remains to be seen when the tallies are posted after election day.˛

" Read Mike Lawrence's account of the " cement trial" in December's Illinois Issues.

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