Alex R. Seith
wants to be
U.S. senator

 

 

He believes he can beat Percy and offers proposals on state-federal revenue and on foreign affairs

ALEX R. SEITH, 42, an attorney from Hinsdale, was the first Democrat to declare his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by Sen. Charles H. Percy. In a year when most high-ranking Illinois Democrats were declining to seek either the governorship or the U.S. Senate seat, Seith was an early bird, announcing July 27. It remains to be seen whether he can catch the worm.

After two long slatemaking sessions, Democrat party leaders seemed likely as of November 9 to endorse Seith over his lone party challenger for the nomination, William Singer, a Chicago lawyer and former independent alderman. Best known for masterminding the unseating of the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and his regular party delegation from the 1972 Democratic National Convention, Singer made surprisingly swift and successful overtures to the regular Democrats just prior to the start of slatemaking. While Singer may be slated for some office, insiders doubted that he could beat out Seith's bid for the U.S. Senate.

Seith's political assets include not only his early entry into the race, but his popularity within the organization that Singer had for so long fought. Seith has long been considered the "intellectual" among organization Democrats. He won early endorsements from many big-name Democrats, including five members of the party state central committee who live outside Chicago.

Seith's political debits, however, may be equally weighty. His biggest problem is lack of interest in his campaign early-on and a resultant lack of campaign money. Should he not get the party endorsement for the Senate, he may run on his own. He said in an October interview: "If there is going to be a primary fight, I didn't create it."

His chances against Percy

Senate seats are a particularly elusive species of worm — especially when it comes to wrenching them from incumbents. Over 90 per cent of all sitting congresssmen are reelected. Why does Alex Seith believe he can beat Percy, a man who racked up 62 per cent of the vote last election (1972) and won all 102 Illinois counties?

Seith's explanation is that he is "offering a choice of being a creative, bold leader, in contrast to his [Percy's] eleven years in the Senate." Translated, this probably means that he is hoping his political obscurity will be seen as political freshness; Jimmy Carter proved that disassociation from the Washington establishment was an asset, and Seith hopes to follow suit. Seith's comment on Percy's lack of adequate leadership refers largely to the recent nationally televised hearings on the financial problems of Carter's former budget director Bert Lance. Percy himself has admitted that he was politically "hurt" by the Lance hearings,. in which he apologized to Lance for raising the possibility to journalists that Lance might have backdated checks to avoid income tax payments. And despite the fact that Percy feels his view (that Lance had deceived the Senate) was ultimately upheld, Seith will probably make political hay from the

12/ December 1977/ Illinois Issues


earlier "inept" slips Percy made as the ranking Republican member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

That Percy is vulnerable on the Lance affair appears certain — he must have the support of many Democrats to win. And Percy says that among some Democrats he may never be forgiven for his handling of the Lance hearings. "I was depicted as a loser," Percy admits now. Seith says he does not plan to "dwell" on the Lance hearings as an issue, but rather "to use it as an illustration which the public saw of a senator in action, doing an extremely poor job, then falsely accusing a man."

Besides these factors, Seith also believes that Percy may be vulnerable as having been too wishy-washy on the issues. "I have some difficulty making out what his philosophy is. I don't hear him stating what he's trying to accomplish."

Seith himself is a liberal Democrat, with ties to the Chicago machine, but also to many downstate Democrats and Walker independents. He has an impressive record as an academic-type foreign affairs expert but also has experience with local government. He says his chief issue of concern is his proposal to supplant the federal revenue sharing program with one in which a part of federal revenue is not sent to Washington, but remains in the state where it was raised — thus avoiding the federal bureaucracy. He calls this plan "revenue keeping" and says it is designed to reduce the $4.2 billion yearly difference between the flood of tax money Illinois sends to Washington and the smaller amount that trickles

His 'revenue keeping' plan

Seith says that "kept" revenue could be a significant source of funding to schools, to replace the property tax as a major source. He explains that the statutory implementation of his proposal would be simple, providing for accurate accounting of all federal taxes collected in the state, with a percentage automatically set aside to stay in the state. The percentage he recommends is "at least 10 per cent."

As to the practicality of passing a "revenue keeping" law, Seith points out that "at least 20 other states are in the position as Illinois" in losing huge amounts of revenue for out-of-state spending. He points out, too, that "by keeping a significant amount of money here you don't need a lot of categorical grants." Seith says he favors consolidating many of the grant categories already in existence and doing away with some. "Behind all this enormous bureaucaracy is the notion that somebody in Washington knows best," he says. "The sad fact is, no one does."

The funds returned to the states under Seith's program would bring about reductions in the federal budget. Seith has urged cuts in the $150 billion U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare budget to take up most of the slack.

His foreign affairs plan

Seith's real area of expertise is foreign affairs, and he has made proposals in that field as well. Seith backs a three-point program aimed at reducing imports and increasing American manufacturing jobs. His plan calls for bolstering the scrutiny of import prices, giving tax incentives to industries to modernize domestic industrial plants and persuading U.S. trade partners to voluntarily reduce the volume of products they ship to this country. Seith says his proposed alterations in Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations would allow that agency to directly request pricing information from foreign governments and industries doing export business with the United States. With such information the FTC could determine if foreign products were being sold here at artificially low prices, Seith says. Under his plan, if a nation or corporation refused to provide data on the costs of production and pricing, it would be penalized economically in the U.S.

By offering such proposals Seith is intentionally challenging Sen. Percy in their shared field of authority—foreign policy. While Percy is a member of the powerful Senate International Relations Committee, Seith is a former president of the prestigious Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. Both have traveled extensively and both have considerable experience in dealing with world leaders.

Seith's background includes a degree from Yale, a year of study in Munich on a Rotary fellowship, and a doctorate from Harvard Law School. He began his professional career in a Chicago law firm in 1961 and is currently a partner in the firm of Lord, Bissell and Brook of Chicago, where he specializes in international law and international economics. Seith speaks French, German, Spanish and Russian, and he says he has "lived or traveled in 60 countries," mostly in western Europe.

His political experience included a stint as vice chairman of the delegate selection commission for the national Democratic party from 1973 to 1975. There he helped shape rules for the 1976 nominating convention, rules that were credited with "healing" the party and facilitating President Jimmy Carter's 1976 election victory. Seith was on the speaker's bureau for Carter's Illinois campaign. Soon after taking office Carter rewarded Seith by naming him to the Presidential Advisory Board on Ambassadorial Appointments.

Seith was also deputy chairman of the Foreign Affairs Task Force of the national Democratic party from 1973 to 1976. "The chairman was Averell Harriman and members included Zbigniew Brzezinski (now Carter's chief foreign affairs advisor), Cyrus Vance (now U.S. secretary of state) and others. In short, we had on that committee the people who were the major foreign policy advisors to the party and many of them now to the President of the United States. My role as deputy chairman was to supervise the thinking through and reasoning out of the number of basic policies, which have now become national policies of the Carter administration," Seith says.

Local government experience

Seith has experience with local government. He has been chairman of the Cook County Zoning Board of Appeals since 1969 and a member since 1966. As chairman he has opened to the public the previously closed board meetings and has helped bring about procedural reforms that won him the 1975 Outstanding Cook County Employee Executive Award.

He writes a weekly newspaper column, "Perspectives," which circulates to two million readers, and has done feature articles on foreign affairs and politics for a number of papers and magazines, including Illinois Issues ("Chicago's growing clout in world affairs," September 1975).

December 1977 / Illinois Issues/13


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