Still running to rep the 7th

11/11/2009 10:00 PM


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Danny Davis
U.S. Congressman

Incumbent congressman Danny Davis’s decision to drop out of the race for president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners didn’t surprise many veteran political observers (Greg Hinz, blogging at Crain’s about the move: “Not many folks in politics willingly give up a seat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, as [Davis] would have had to do.)

Davis made the call for four primary reasons, according to a press release his campaign circulated after Monday’s announcement: He likes being congressman; he says he’s good at it, citing various pieces of legislation he’s backed; he likes representing the people of the 7th District.

And this: “I have always pushed the concept of unity and have always recognized that it would be politically dangerous for four candidates from the same community and from the same political base to run for the same office at the same time, with one more conservative candidate in the race.”

By the end of the day Monday, candidates who had filed petitions for a place on the Democratic Party ballot for Davis’s seat started to drop. State Rep. Annazette Collins withdrew at 10:43 a.m. State Sen. Rickey Hendon withdrew at 4:22 p.m. (Hendon told Chicago Journal that Davis is his mentor: “I would never run against Congressman Danny Davis. I talk to him on a regular basis.”). And then Ald. Robert Fioretti dropped from contention 21 minutes after Hendon, according to the state board of elections.

Who’s left?

Twenty-fourth Ward Ald. Sharon Dixon. Real estate agent Jim Ascot, who previously challenged Davis, unsuccessfully. Marshall Hatch, a pastor in Austin. Darlena Williams-Burnett, chief deputy in the Cook County Recorder of Deeds office and a member of the Illinois Democratic Party’s State Central Committee.

Williams-Burnett, who is married to Ald. Walter Burnett (27th), described herself as little surprised by Davis’s decision.

“It was not my desire to run against the incumbent,” she said. “I decided to get into the race because it appeared there was going to be a vacancy. His poll numbers had him as the candidate to beat, and the candidate to do something different.”

As noted in last week’s Chicago Journal, 94 percent of incumbents in the House of Representatives were re-elected to their sinecures in 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Davis, according to his most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, has $428,349.09 on hand to spend on his re-election campaign. Williams-Burnett has $10,811.36. Ascot has $21,455.07.

Ald. Dixon has no federal campaign fund. Neither does Pastor Hatch. Nor do several lesser-known candidates whose petitions for the 7th District nomination are still active. Among them: Mark Weiman, Robert Dallas, Joyce Washington, Clarence Clemons, Kip Robbins.

—Micah Maidenberg


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By John from Prairie District
Posted: 11/12/2009 8:20 AM

There was one reason Danny Davis didn't run for Cook County Board President, and that was because he would have had to actually campaign.