It was simply a late summer celebrity softball game in which the old pros took on the wannabes. This one pitted such former White Sox and Cubs greats as Minnie Minoso and Randy Hundley against Cook County officeholders — many still rookies at their jobs. Two in the political line-up were County Clerk David Orr and County Board President Richard Phelan, both Democrats elected countywide for the first time only months before in November 1990. Orr was the former lakefront alderman, Phelan the Loop lawyer from Winnetka who as a special prosecutor had brought down U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas) in an ethics scandal. Orr took the mound and actually hurled so well the pols were ahead of the pros. But Phelan decided he, too, wanted to pitch, and the old-timers clobbered him. Ignoring pleas from teamates, Phelan refused to give up the mound, and his team eventually lost. Most likely, Phelan supporters would say the episode shows he has the character needed to endure political poundings over issues tougher than these batters. But critics would say he played the game the same as he runs county government — for himself. Either way, there's no doubt Phelan has tackled some of today's thorniest issues — taxes, abortion, crime, health care. Sometimes, he's blamed the old guard for his problems. But the man who campaigned as an outsider is criticized now for handling political problems like a consumate insider. Phelan the campaigner espoused idealism. But his governmental style seems to embrace the old guard's sense of realism. He'll reach out to some Republicans but only to scratch their backs long enough to get the votes he needs, His style also incorporates many elements of the traditional win-at-all-costs attitude of Chicago politics. It's a method he's learned to use to gain County Board victories and to build a resume for a likely gubernatorial campaign.

Photo by Photoprose

The style evolved after one of the most humiliating defeats by a government leader in Chicago since the mid-'80s "Council Wars." Maybe he was still buoyant from crushing state Sen. Aldo DeAngelis (R-40, Olympia Fields) and Harold Washington Party candidate Barbara Norman of Chicago. But like a novice nun in a study hall, Phelan seemed eager to ride herd over a bunch of toadies left from the 22-year rule of his predecessor, Democratic powerhouse George Dunne. But, on December 10, 1990, Phelan failed his first test by disregarding Politics 101: He forgot to count votes.

On the Friday before, Phelan revealed plans that would lead to an infamous Monday. Phelan would seek to oust Commissioner John Stroger (D-Chicago) from the Finance Committee chairmanship, a post he had held for six years as a Dunne loyalist. Phelan preferred Commissioner Bobbie Steele (D-Chicago), a schoolteacher who had been an ally of Harold Washington. Both Stroger and Steele are African Americans. To Phelan's surprise, Stroger refused to cave in and gained endorsement of a longtime ally — Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Over the weekend, Stroger cobbled together a coalition with the bare minimum nine of 17 board members needed to thwart Phelan. Stroger combined his vote with the board's six suburban Republicans and two other Chicago Democrats: newly elected Commissioner Ted Lechowicz, the longtime Democratic regular who still held his state Senate seat and had been beaten by Phelan in the county's Democratic presidential primary race, and new Commissioner Maria Pappas, a lawyer and political neophyte who would later become Phelan's harshest critic. When the deal went down, they had not only preserved Stroger's role as finance chairman, but they had carved out a committee structure of their own: Richard Siebel, the Northbrook

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commissioner and then-chairman of the County Republican Party, emerged with key finance committee posts and other GOP gains; Pappas chaired the Law Enforcement and Corrections Committee; and Lechowicz headed the reapportionment committee — a powerful post because in 1994 the county will convert from one suburban district with seven seats and one Chicago district with 10 seats to single-member districts throughout Cook.

By Monday, all Phelan could do was take his licks. Stroger packed the boardroom with wildly cheering supporters. Phelan threatened to eject them. The new president also brusquely instructed commissioners to raise their hands if they wanted recognition. He pounded a gavel on the podium so swiftly and loudly that one Republican commissioner, Mary McDonald of Lincolnwood, called on him to stop because it hurt her ears. He muttered that he did not "understand" what was happening. "This is a matter of what Democrats are," Phelan said. "I'm a Democrat." But even with Democrats holding an 11-6 edge, a better margin than when Dunne left, a "bitterly disappointed" Phelan lost. Even today, Phelan admits he started "not exactly ... the fastest guy on two feet."

Phelan also faced the possibility of another crushing defeat over his promise to act swiftly to restore abortion services at County Hospital, where Dunne had halted them in 1980. A survey found Phelan would be unable to round up enough support from board members to overturn the ban. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin pressured Phelan to reconsider.

Then Phelan received what may have been a political blessing in disguise: County Hospital lost its accreditation for failing to address fire safety problems only five weeks into his term. Phelan used this development to take the pressure off the abortion issue, saying he would not reinstate abortion services until the hospital gained reaccreditation. Finally, with accreditation restored, Phelan called for abortions to resume in July 1992. From the beginning. Phelan had to determine whether to try to ram an abortion proposal through a board that couldn't pass it or to reinstate the services by executive decree. He chose the latter. Immediately, Siebel, McDonald, Stroger and two other board members took Phelan to court, arguing he had overstepped his bounds and encroached upon legislative turf. A circuit judge sided with Phelan's action as chief executive, and an appellate court agreed. The Illinois Supreme Court decided in June to hear the case. In general, however, Phelan's attorneys were successful because they argued the board under Dunne had failed to vote on an official written proposal to ban abortion following Dunne's move to stop them. The rulings cleared the way for Phelan to act unilaterally by his executive action. Now each week the hospital performs about 30 abortions.

Even though he made the pro-choice position one of his central campaign pledges, Phelan, a practicing Catholic, said he sat down, prayed and thought over his decision before finally acting. "It's conscience," he said. Over several days, Phelan reread St. Thomas Aquinas and speeches by President Kennedy and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. "I felt very strongly that I was not going to let my faith interfere with another person's right." Phelan said. "I don't believe the church has any business whatsoever in governement. ... If somebody presses that argument on me, they just press the wrong button."

While the abortion question may have posed his toughest personal struggle, Phelan garnered the pro-choice headlines he wanted. What he didn't want in his term — but has gotten plenty of — are the stories about breaking his campaign pledge to hold the line on taxes. He promised to freeze the property tax levy with the only exception being to help health services. Yet he's pushed the overall county budget to $2 billion a year, about $300 million over Dunne's last budget.

The tax issue is his biggest governmental and political baggage, and no doubt will haunt him throughout any future campaign — be it for governor or merely reelection. "His word isn't worth anything," McDonald mused. During his first nine months in office alone, Phelan shoved through two hikes that raised the property tax levy $124 million. "I'll wear the jacket," he said, blaming increases on public safety costs. When he later pushed through a $200 million-plus sales tax, the first ever in Cook County, Phelan said the tax was necessary to pay for jail construction and staffing, to care for the poor and to avoid further jumps in the property tax. Said Phelan: "This may be my swan song."

But it hasn't been — at least with the majority of the board. They've given him bountiful support as Phelan has increased property taxes and more than doubled the county's indebtedness beyond $1.2 billion. And he's taken shots for doling out "pinstripe patronage" to political contributors who receive county bond business and contracts. Pappas has maintained it's no accident that contributors to Phelan's $3 million campaign bid for the board and his gubernatorial run often show up on county contracts. Since 1989, Pappas charged, Phelan has received $400,000 from contributors who had received county work. She leveled the charges the same day the Finance Committee approved $400 million in new and refinanced bonds. "What he prosecuted Jim Wright for is probably minimal by comparison." Pappas charges. "All Jim Wright did was sell a few books." She has long contended Phelan's moves are calculated merely to position him to run for governor more than to help taxpayers.

Phelan says her arguments are balderdash. "No politician that I'm aware of likes to raise money," Phelan said. "No politician thinks that this is something that's easy to do or wants to do. ... If people have contributed to me, they've gotten less money in terms of bond fees than they ever got before."

Further, Phelan says the sales tax funds will finally allow him to freeze the property tax levy. But he's still defending the property tax hikes with the time-tested excuse that the problems were worse than he'd believed before he was elected. "It was very hard from the outside to see," Phelan

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Richard Phelan in brief Richard J. Phelan, 56, was born in Chicago and grew up in the Ravenswood neighborhood on the city's north side. He attended Quigley Seminary, graduated from Notre Dame and received his law degree from Georgetown University. For 28 years, he was a trial lawyer. That experience ranged from successfully defending Jewel Food Stores after the 1985 salmonella outbreak to unsuccessfully defending the Chicago Police Department in an affirmative action fight initiated in 1973 by Renault Robinson. In 1975, he founded Phelan, Pope & John Ltd., which grew to more than 100 attorneys. (He severed ties with the firm, now called Pope & John Ltd., when elected Cook County Board president). He served as president of the Chicago Bar Association from 1985-1986. In 1988, Phelan was chosen as the special outside counsel for the U.S. House Ethics Committee when ethics charges were filed against Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas). Phelan's work ultimately led to Wright's early retirement. The high-profile Wright case sparked Phelan's political career. In 1990, Phelan spent $2.1 million on the primary campaign — more than a quarter of which came from his own pocket. He raised and spent about $4 million from September 1989 through December 31, 1992. He hopes to have his campaign coffers at $1.5 million this summer for a likely gubernatorial bid. Phelan lives in Winnetka with his second wife, Barbara. He has three children by his late wife, Carol. They are Jane, 30; Anne, 27, and Mark, 24. He has one grandchild. Ray Long

said. "I thought from what we'd seen from the outside that it would have been a matter of cutting here and cutting there [and] we could maintain the levy." Now, he can fully examine the costs of building jail additions, a juvenile center and repairing the decrepit County Hospital. While the previous administration estimated that reopening the shuttered Provident Hospital would cost between $15 million and $20 million, projections now are $55 million. On cutting costs, Phelan's accomplishments include reducing insurance costs, instituting an early retirement program, forcing other countywide offices to shave budgets and establishing a better hospital billing system. He's also won kudos by cracking down on the old guard bloat. For instance, Phelan sliced the budget of Regional School Supt. Richard Martwick so much he eventually quit. With the help from his ally, Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan (D-22, Chicago), and suburban Republican lawmakers, Phelan also won support for phasing out the office known more for patronage and putting money into noninterest-bearing accounts than for helping teachers and students. In addition, on the heels of a Chicago Sun-Times investigation documenting patronage abuses, Phelan raised the rents on about 100 homes owned by the Cook County Forest Preserve but rented for years for little or nothing. He's also taken away some of the outside business doled out to friends of the Dunne regime, and he has sought to increase the percentage of minority participation in county business. In a bid to build name recognition downstate, Phelan is touting a constitutional amendment requiring the state to pay for future programs mandated on local govemements. Saying 40 percent of Cook County's budget is linked to such mandates, Phelan argues local government will be better able to control property taxes without having to worry about new mandates from state government. What Phelan does not point out is that Republican Gov. Jim Edgar is also a critic of mandated programs, that many state lawmakers blast mandates whenever they pop up in legislation and that the amendment would affect only future legislation rather than current mandates. Phelan already has clashed with Edgar over taxes. Last year, Edgar vetoed legislation requiring the state help collect the new county sales tax.

If Cook County government has not been enough to juggle, Phelan has found himself dealing with personal and political problems he did not anticipate. First, he lost consciousness for a couple of minutes while riding in a car with a reporter and photographer, confirming later it was an epileptic seizure. Then he had to explain why he hadn't checked a box on his driver's license application that he had a condition that could affect his driving. "If I had even thought about it, in this job, I'm going to live in a goldfish bowl, my God, I would have checked them off," Phelan said, saying he'd only suffered from seizures a couple of times since 1988. "It just didn't even dawn on me." Phelan got caught on videotape later calling Pappas, according to a lip-reader hired by the Sun-Times, a "f—— b-—." It followed Pappas' charge during a board meeting that Phelan had forced out some administrators who had worked for Dunne.

But one of Phelan's smarter moves has been to tap a host of legislative veterans headed by the behind-the-scenes master politician William Filan, a former staffer of House Speaker Madigan. Filan, who will be invaluable to Phelan if he runs for governor, directed Neil F. Hartigan's 1990 gubernatorial campaign, which fared well against Edgar. Also, Phelan has taken sage advice to siphon away a couple of Republicans on almost every major vote, quieting any suburban opposition. He's also learned to stroke the egos of the Democrats who've stuck with him from the start. Even the wily Stroger, who hopes to succeed Phelan, is now on the same page as the county board president more often than not. Foes whisper that Phelan gets his way most often by dangling favors and patronage jobs in exchange for votes. He denies it flatly. Whatever the reason, Phelan has shored up his base so thoroughly that he can get virtually anything he wants through the board, sometimes with more ease than the biggest backer of Stroger — Mayor Daley — can get his way with the City Council.

To Siebel, the shortstop who caught a Randy Hundley pop-up in that softball game two years ago, Phelan's playground panache reflects his governing style. "It's consistent with Phelan's behavior in office in that he believes it's his bat and ball," Siebel said. "And if you don't play his game, he'll threaten to take his bat and ball and go home." �

Ray Long covers city and county government for the Chicago Sun-Times.

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