Chicago By CHARLES B. CLEVELAND

Will it ever be 'Boss Bilandic'?

IT TURNED OUT just as everybody expected: Michael Bilandic was elected mayor of Chicago on June 7. He carried every one of Chicago's 50 wards, and for all the talk of disaffection among liberals. Blacks, Polish voters. Latinos and others, the dissidents didn't show up on the election results. As a matter of fact, most of the Chicago voters didn't show up. Only four in every ten eligible voters even bothered to go to the polls.

So, even in victory, Bilandic failed to match the vote totals produced by Richard Joseph Daley, the man he succeeded as mayor and the man he will be compared to. Is this the start of a new boss rule, a divided authority or a new era in politics?

It is doubtful that Bilandic — or anyone else — will ever again achieve the complete domination of Chicago politics that Daley had. Even during Daley's lifetime, the gradual undermining of boss rule was already underway.

Political power — boss style — is based on the power to control jobs. If— as Daley did most of his life — one man has the power to hire and fire the people who turn out the votes on election day, he controls the party machinery. Unlike downstate counties where precinct committeemen are elected and hence have a measure of political influence of their own, precinct workers in Chicago and its suburbs are appointed. Particularly in Chicago, they are appointed on the basis of their ability to "deliver" votes.

Their reward for doing a good job on election day was a job in one of the city or county governments; the better the record of turning out votes, the better the job. Conversely, a failure to produce the desired pluralities meant getting tired, and someone else took over the precinct and the patronage job.

The system worked from the grassroots up. The stronger the ward committeeman (meaning his ability to deliver votes), the better the jobs at his disposal and the more power he had at slating time to pick candidates for the offices that in turn would provide the patronage jobs.

One reason Bilandic won the party nomination for mayor was that he, and his supporters, controlled 10,000 patronage jobs; potential rival George Dunne had only 3,000 jobs under his jurisdiction as president of the Cook County Board.

But there is a second and far more significant reason which may change the system itself. A court ruling, agreed to by the Democratic leaders, has already ended the power of the party to fire a government worker for political reasons. A second lawsuit which is due for decision at any moment is expected to make it equally illegal to hire anyone for political reasons.

Not only does this sever the ties which obligate the precinct captain to the man who got him his job and approved his continuation in that job, it also severs the ward committeeman's ability to deliver jobs. In effect it becomes illegal for a committeeman to use politics as a ground for hiring or firing. There is, of course, a loophole. A government worker can still be hired or fired on the basis of how well or how poorly he does his paid job. And it may not always be that easy for an outsider to determine whether it was an administrative — or a political — reason which produced the hiring or firing.

That sets the stage for the eventual battle for power in the Democratic party. Daley was both mayor and county chairman and had all the jobs. By the old rules, Dunne as county chairman would win a confrontation with Bilandic, the mayor. But, under the new rules without patronage bondage, the mayor may well have the upper hand.

The showdown, of course, may never happen — or at least openly. Bilandic is new to the power game; he's got a major job just running the city. Dunne is, by nature, a conciliator; he may well seek to avoid any untoward action that could precipitate a fight.

It was at least a symbolic gesture of unity that the first two persons to share the spotlight with Bilandic on election night were Dunne and Ald. Wilson Frost, one of the city's black leaders. But the election by itself didn't unify the Democratic party. There was no obvious effort made to bring Roman Pucinski back into the fold. A former congressman and now alderman and ward committeeman, Pucinski had drawn a sizable vote in the Democratic primary for mayor, particularly in Polish areas on the city's northwest side. A Humboldt Park riot just prior to election day was interpreted by some as political unrest in the Spanish-speaking areas. State Sen. Harold Washington, another black leader, remained outside the fold during the campaign; other community and political leaders are holding back judgments.

Another tenet of boss rule is party slatemaking. But, Alan Dixon, now the ranking Democrat statewide with his post as secretary of state, is a downstater and not wedded to the Chicago-style closed primary. Others, particularly in Chicago suburbs and outlying counties where Republicans are in the majority, believe slatemaking and boss rule have alienated the independent voter; many of them lean toward putting more democracy into the Democratic party. Old habits, however, die slowly. Clout is an old Chicago custom, and nobody really expects Windy City politics to suddenly follow the civics textbooks. 

30 / August 1977 / Illinois Issues