Field grows for successors to Robin Kelly, 5 either running or exploring options
This week, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller said she's formed an exploratory committee comprised of south suburban mayors to study her options.
Yumeka Brown, a commissioner with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and Matteson village clerk, said Tuesday she is a candidate after initially forming a group to explore a run. She is also president of the Rich Township Democrats.
Lynwood resident Eric France, whose father worked for several Chicago mayors, plans to announce his candidacy at a news conference Saturday in Burnham.
With Kelly running to replace U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who's not seeking reelection, Kelly's representative seat in Washington appears up for grabs, but with the primaries still nearly a year away the field of contenders could grow or shrink.
Kelly served in the Illinois House and won a special primary in 2013 for her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
State Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, had previously said he is a candidate for Kelly's House seat.
Matteson Mayor Sheila Chalmers-Currin has formed an exploratory committee to consider a run.
Miller, a Lynwood resident in her second term as 6th District commissioner, was elected to the Cook County Board in November 2018 after winning the Democratic primary that March.
Miller is vice president of the Illinois Democratic Women organization and former president of the Democratic Women of the South Suburbs.
She said Wednesday her exploratory committee is comprised of Dolton Mayor Jason House, Flossmoor Mayor Michelle Nelson, Homewood Mayor Rich Hofeld, Lynwood Mayor Jada Curry, Markham Mayor Roger Agpawa, Olympia Fields Mayor Sterling Burke and South Holland Mayor Don DeGraff.
The oddly shaped 2nd Congressional District stretches about 140 miles along the Lake Michigan shoreline and the Indiana border, from 43rd Street on Chicago's South Side to south of Danville in central Illinois.
The district includes all or parts of Blue Island, Calumet City, Chicago Heights, Country Club Hills, Dolton, Flossmoor, Glenwood, Harvey, Hazel Crest, Homewood, Markham, Matteson, Monee, Olympia Fields, Park Forest, Thornton and University Park.
If Kelly, a seven-term Democratic congresswoman from Matteson, stays in the Senate race, she would be unable to run for reelection in the House. She previously told the Chicago Tribune she won't circulate petititions later this year to run for another congressional term.
Chalmers-Currin, sworn in for her third term earlier this month, said she was working with business leaders and elected officials to study a possible bid for Kelly's job.
Peters took office as state senator in January 2019 to succeed Kwame Raoul, now state attorney general.
Peters' district is entirely in Chicago, taking in all or parts of communities including the East Side, Hyde Park, Kenwood and South Chicago.
France, of Lynwood, heads up The France Group, a management consulting firm started by his father, Erwin France.
Erwin France spent nearly 20 years in public service beginning in 1967 when former Mayor Richard J. Daley brought the St. Louis native to Chicago as one of his administrative assistants, according to a Chicago Tribune obituary.
He worked in consulting jobs with city agencies during the administrations of former Mayors Michael Bilandic, Jane Byrne and Harold Washington, according to the obituary.
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San Francisco Chronicle
16 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Republicans say they'll sue to block California redistricting plan. Do they have a case?
Gov. Gavin Newsom's plan to ask the voters to redesign California's congressional districts to enable Democrats to add House seats is drawing challenges from Republicans who claim the proposal violates the state Constitution and federal law. But the law doesn't appear to be on their side. As the Democratic-controlled Legislature prepares to vote this week on Newsom's proposed November ballot measure to change districts that were drafted by an independent commission, Assembly Member Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, asked the nonpartisan Legislative Counsel's Office to declare the measure illegal. He said he was also prepared to go to court. 'By concocting this partisan redistricting scam, Gavin Newsom and Democrat politicians are openly violating the California Constitution and their oath of office,' DeMaio said in a news release. 'Any vote … on this corrupt plan would be unlawful and unconstitutional.' He argued that the state Constitution, under a ballot measure approved by the voters in 2008, allows only a bipartisan commission to draw district lines and does not permit them to be redrafted for political purposes. The National Republican Congressional Committee also said Newsom's plan would be challenged in court as well as the ballot box. Newsom 'is shredding California's Constitution and disenfranchising voters to prop up his Presidential ambitions,' Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., chair of the committee, said on X. But Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA who has written widely on election law issues, said the Legislature can ask California voters to change the state Constitution by placing an amendment on the ballot with two-thirds majority votes in each house. Newsom and legislative Democrats introduced their measure on Monday. 'If it's a constitutional amendment approved by voters, then there is no state law problem with amending the earlier constitutional amendment,' Hasen said. Newsom's November ballot measure, a response to plans by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to redraw the state's House districts and allow Republicans to pick up five seats next year, would likewise redesign California's congressional districts for the remainder of the decade to enable Democrats to add five seats to their current 43-9 majority in the state if Texas or any other state redrew its district lines. The proposed state constitutional amendment, ACA8, dubbed the Election Rigging Response Act, was introduced Monday with 43 coauthors in the Assembly and 20 in the state Senate, all of them Democrats. They plan legislative votes on Thursday. The ballot proposal would temporarily suspend the state constitutional limits on redistricting that DeMaio cited. But he contended the Legislature has no authority even to ask the voters to remove restrictions they had added to the state Constitution, and that such changes could be made only by an initiative from private citizens. DeMaio said he would actually prefer a U.S. constitutional amendment establishing an independent commission to draw nonpartisan House district lines in every state. Until that happens, he told the Chronicle, Newsom and his fellow Democrats should refrain from asking Californians to 'act like a bunch of toddlers because two wrongs make a right.' Another election law professor, Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who was a national policy adviser for democracy and voting rights under President Joe Biden, said DeMaio was correct that the California Constitution currently prohibits legislators from redrawing district lines. 'But that's exactly why the Legislature is proposing a constitutional amendment,' Levitt said. 'And I'm not aware of any limitation on the Legislature to propose such an amendment for the voters to consider.' DeMaio also said federal law allows changing district lines only after each 10-year census and prohibits mid-decade redistricting. But the Supreme Court ruled otherwise in a 2006 case, League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, allowing Republican legislators in Texas to redraw House district lines in their favor. 'The text and structure of the Constitution and our case law indicate there is nothing inherently suspect about a legislature's decision to replace mid-decade a court-ordered plan with one of its own,' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for a 7-2 court majority. Texas' current Republican majority, and partisans on both sides in other states, have relied on that ruling to propose off-year redistricting for their own advantage. Levitt said he'd prefer to limit the practice to once per decade. 'I wish there were such a law — and Congress could clearly pass one,' the Loyola law professor said, noting that legislation to prohibit mid-decade redistricting of U.S. House seats has been proposed in Congress for more than 20 years. 'But that's not currently where federal law stands.' Hasen of UCLA said Newsom's proposal might be challenged on other legal grounds, such as the rule limiting California ballot measures to a single subject. But he said opponents' strongest argument would probably be a political one — that the voters should reject a plan to suspend the nonpartisan redistricting program they approved 17 years ago. DeMaio appeared to agree on Monday. 'If we stop it in court, fine,' he said at a press conference in the state Capitol. 'But more than likely it will have to be stopped at the ballot box.' Also Monday, DeMaio submitted a proposed initiative for the 2026 state ballot that would ban any legislators from seeking any elected office for 10 years who voted to put Newsom's redistricting measure on the ballot. 'There is no free ride on casting a corrupt vote this week — if a state legislator votes in favor, they better be prepared to get a real job for the next 10 years,' DeMaio said.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Can Beau Bayh and that 'incredible surname' reignite the hopes of Indiana Democrats?
Beau Bayh has reentered the chat. Bayh has been in Indiana's spotlight since he and his twin brother were born to a sitting Indiana governor: Evan Bayh. Their mom, the late former Indiana First Lady Susan Bayh, even gave a post-delivery interview from the hospital in 1995. Now, all grown up at age 29, some Indiana Democrats hope the younger Bayh is their best hope to regain a shred of the political power and relevance they had when the elder Bayh was in office. Beau Bayh isn't quite ready to share his plans, but he looks and sounds lately like he's about to run for political office here. Speaking to a room of about 175 Indiana Democrats down near French Lick over the weekend, Bayh spoke of standing up to the powers that be. Rebuilding the middle class. The broken bonds between the people and politicians. The Harvard graduate and U.S. military member told IndyStar he's currently moving back to Indianapolis from Bloomington, following his judicial clerkship for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. But he signaled more could be coming soon. 'I'm going to take the next month or so to get settled,' he told IndyStar over text. 'But I'm sure of one thing: we need a change in our politics. More unity, less division. More progress, less partisanship. More elected officials who represent the public interest and not the special interests or themselves.' Meanwhile, speculation is high that he's considering waging a bid against Secretary of State Diego Morales, and if Bayh could make inroads for Democrats as they keep losing statewide elections. 'If you can get someone at the top of the ticket people are excited about, it's easier to ask people to write a check, knock on doors or go to this and that event,' said Greg Shufeldt, a University of Indianapolis political science professor, when asked about the prospect of Bayh running. 'Those are all good things for the Democratic party even if the on-the-ground reality makes it a tough fight for any Democrat.' Getting people excited doesn't appear to be out of reach for Bayh, if the reception at a recent Orange County Democratic Party event translates statewide. County Chairman Larry Hollan had to add two extra tables to the American Legion hall where Bayh served as keynote speaker on Aug. 15 due to an increase in ticket sales that he thinks was driven by interest in Bayh. 'They hung onto his every word,' Hollan said. 'You could hear a pin drop when he was speaking. He held the audience in the palm of his hand.' Bayh didn't make any announcements at the dinner, but did show up with two heavyweight supporters: his dad and Mayor Joe Hogsett. 'It was a mini reunion, you might say,' Hollan said. '(The elder Bayh) also felt welcome but … Beau was the star of the show.' Could Beau Bayh turn around Democrats' chances in Indiana? Even for a Bayh, running for a statewide seat in Indiana is going to be an uphill battle, according to political analysts contacted by IndyStar. The fundamentals of the state are just so heavily tilted against Democrats at this point, said Shufeldt. 'Our politics have become increasingly nationalized and candidate attributes, including last name, matter less and less,' Shufeldt said. 'The letter for the party after your name tends to matter a whole lot more. Devoid of anything specific to his candidacy, any Democrat faces an intense uphill fight.' Democrats thought state races could be close, but Republicans clobbered. What happened? Shufeldt said that, on paper, Democrats have run some good candidates recently. All got handily defeated electorally. Republicans haven't won a statewide race since U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly squeezed out a win against Richard Mourdock in 2012. 'Evan Bayh lost quite comfortably to Todd Young, and I think people thought that would be a lot closer,' Shufeldt said, harkening back to the 2016 U.S. Senate race featuring Beau Bayh's dad. Still, Republicans have seemed eager to pounce on Bayh's candidacy. "The guy seems genuinely nice and I appreciate his military service… but this is the secret weapon we've heard about for 6+ years that's going to save the Indiana Dems?" state Rep. Kyle Pierce, R-Anderson, posted on X after Bayh's recent appearance on a liberal podcast. "Bayh barely wants to talk policy, avoids sharing his ideological beliefs and barely shares any vision of public service besides his personal desire to do it." 'Incredible surname' A win for a Democrat statewide now would require a fortuitous confluence of events for the candidate, Shufeldt said. 'It's a lightning in a bottle thing,' he said. However, University of Indianapolis political science professor Laura Merrifield Wilson said Bayh has some key advantages that other Democratic candidates would lack, including that 'incredible surname.' 'You're talking about a great legacy in terms of public service,' Wilson said. 'It's hard not to think 'Evan' and 'Birch.'' Along with that name ID comes access to fundraising, polling and public relations resources that other startup candidates would have to work harder for, Wilson said. Bayh could have access to an impressive war chest right off the bat if his dad is feeling generous: Evan Bayh's Senate campaign committee had about $2 million in the bank as of June, according to FEC records. Federal candidates are permitted to donate to statewide candidates subject to state law. 'It's all of the mechanisms you'd need to have a successful campaign,' Wilson said. 'He'd have a foot in the door to begin that first step. It would be a really good strong start.' Questions about his candidacy remain though, Wilson said. Namely around policy. The younger Bayh is largely undefined. Is he a centrist Democrat like his dad or does he lean more progressive? 'I do wonder policy-wise what he has to bring to the table,' Wilson said. 'That's really the struggle to find what their niche is to attract Hoosier voters. I don't know what he has to offer in terms of that.' Contact senior government accountability reporter Hayleigh Colombo at hcolombo@ or follow her on X @hayleighcolombo. Sign up for our free weekly politics newsletter, Checks & Balances, by IndyStar political and government reporters. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 'Incredible surname': Can Beau Bayh help Indiana Democrats finally win? Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump wants states to feed voter info into powerful citizenship data program
People participate in a naturalization ceremony last year at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, N.J. The Trump administration is encouraging states to use an online search tool to verify the citizenship of registered voters, alarming some Democrats and privacy experts. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) BILOXI, Miss. — The Trump administration is developing a powerful data tool it claims will let states identify noncitizens registered to vote. But Democratic critics and data experts warn it could allow the federal government to vacuum up vast quantities of information on Americans for unclear purposes. Some Democratic election officials and opponents of the effort fear President Donald Trump wants to build a federal database of voters to target political opponents or cherry-pick rare examples of noncitizen voters to fuel a sense of crisis. Republican election officials allied with the president counter that he's helping states to maintain accurate voter rolls. The Trump administration has rolled out changes to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, tool at the same time the U.S. Department of Justice is asking states for copies of their voter rolls. The timing, combined with questions about what happens to voter data uploaded to the program, has alarmed critics. Trump wants Congress to pass a national proof of citizenship voter registration requirement and in March tried to unilaterally impose one for federal elections through executive order. But with the legislation stalled and the order halted by the courts, the citizenship data tool may offer a backdoor way to accomplish the same goal. SAVE was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. But U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, this spring refashioned it into a platform that can scan states' voter rolls if election officials upload the data. The changes to SAVE, rolled out over just a few months and with little public debate, are 'tinkering with sort of the bones of democracy,' said John Davisson, senior counsel and director of litigation at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy group that argues privacy is a fundamental right. 'You're talking about the voting process and who will be eligible to vote,' Davisson said. 'And to take a system that is not designed for use in that process and repurpose it, really on the fly, without a formal comment process, without formal rulemaking, without congressional intervention — that's pretty anomalous and pretty alarming.' Previously, SAVE could only search one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches, allowing state officials to potentially feed into it information on millions of registered voters. SAVE checks that information against a series of federal databases and reports back whether it can verify someone's immigration status. Since May, it also can draw upon Social Security data, transforming the program into a tool that can confirm citizenship because Social Security records for many, but not all, Americans include the information. NPR reported earlier on changes to SAVE. 'It is incredible what has been done, really since March,' Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, a Republican who supports proof of citizenship requirements and the SAVE tool, told a gathering of state secretaries of state in Biloxi, Mississippi, last week. Individuals registering to vote in federal elections must already sign a statement affirming they are citizens under penalty of perjury, and those who cast a ballot face criminal penalties and deportation. One study of the 2016 election placed the prevalence of noncitizen voting at 0.0001% of votes cast. But as Trump has spread falsehoods about elections, Republicans have made purging noncitizens from voter rolls a central focus. Democratic concerns were on display last week at the National Association of Secretaries of State conference, held at the Beau Rivage casino-resort in Biloxi. In interviews on the sidelines of the conference, Democratic secretaries of state voiced deep reservations — or outright opposition — about plugging their voter data into SAVE. Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said Aug. 6 that the federal government appeared to be trying to take over election administration. She formally rejected the Justice Department's voter roll request two days later. Bellows said the Department of Homeland Security told her in a recent phone call that it planned to retain SAVE data for 10 years for 'audit purposes only.' 'Just like the [Justice Department] is asking us to hand over an electronic file of all the voters in our state, it seems like the Department of Homeland Security is through this backdoor system also asking us to share voter information about every voter in our state,' Bellows said. At least one state appears to have granted the federal government sweeping authority over any voter data it provides to SAVE. Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales announced in July he had reached an agreement with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to access the newly expanded system for voter list maintenance. Indiana's agreement allows the federal agency to use information the state provides for any purpose permitted by law, including criminal prosecutions. Morales, a Republican, said in a news release that SAVE represented 'another step in safeguarding the rights' of eligible voters. His office didn't respond to Stateline's questions. The Trump administration has ramped up efforts to encourage state election officials to use the expanded program. The White House hosted a bipartisan 'fly in' event for state secretaries of state on July 29. Multiple secretaries of state told Stateline that USCIS Director Joseph Edlow, who was confirmed on July 15, spoke at the event. 'The president is very much keyed in on voter list maintenance,' Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, said in an interview — echoing other GOP secretaries of state who released statements praising the Trump administration after the meeting. When we disclose information, particularly personal identifying information, we need to have a handle on how it's going to be used, by whom and under what circumstances. – Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who attended the meeting, said he questioned how the federal government would handle voter information provided to SAVE. He added that the Justice Department's request for his state's voter rolls raised his level of concern about how data would be used. 'When we disclose information, particularly personal identifying information, we need to have a handle on how it's going to be used, by whom and under what circumstances,' Simon told Stateline. The White House referred questions about SAVE and the event to the Department of Homeland Security and USCIS. In response to questions from Stateline, USCIS didn't directly answer whether the agency would share voter roll data with other parts of the federal government but confirmed it disposes of records after 10 years. 'The SAVE application is a critical tool for state and local governments to access information to safeguard the integrity of elections across the country. It's no wonder many states have quickly adopted it, and we continue to promote the tool to other states and counties not using SAVE,' USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser said in a statement. 'We look forward to continued optimization efforts and implementing more updates to SAVE.' Some Republican election officials and Trump allies have long wanted the federal government to take an expanded role in searching state voter rolls for noncitizens. Last summer the Trump-aligned litigation group America First Legal, co-founded by Trump adviser Stephen Miller, encouraged states to submit to the Department of Homeland Security the names of individuals for citizenship or immigration status verification. Some states did just that. Texas, for example, asked USCIS to verify the citizenship of some voters in September, and Indiana asked the agency to verify 585,774 voters in October. The same month, 16 Republican state attorneys general signed a letter criticizing Homeland Security, then under the Biden administration, for failing to work with states on verification. After Trump took office, GOP state officials kept up the pressure. Twenty-one Republican secretaries of state urged Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February to prioritize SAVE improvements. On April 16, Indiana sued the department in federal court for not responding to its verification request last fall. USCIS announced an overhaul of SAVE less than a week later. As the agency continues to remake SAVE, the tool will soon allow searches using the last four digits of a Social Security number, multiple state secretaries of state told Stateline. The agency confirmed the feature is under development and will be available soon but didn't provide an exact date. The change would mark another significant expansion of the program because most states collect the last four digits when individuals without a driver's license register to vote. Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane, a Republican, said SAVE represents a better way to verify citizenship than a state law requiring voters to produce documents. 'I think there's a real opportunity for us to do a lot of this through just sharing of information and I think that's what we're seeing happen,' McGrane said in an interview. But some voting rights advocates and experts on government data caution against an overreliance on Social Security data. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, a progressive policy nonprofit, has noted that Social Security only began tracking the citizenship status of all applicants in 1978 — meaning the database doesn't include comprehensive citizenship information for older Americans. Additionally, Social Security may not always have up-to-date information on the status of naturalized U.S. citizens. The nonpartisan Institute for Responsive Government also warned in May that since SAVE hasn't used Social Security numbers to verify citizenship in the past, its accuracy and effectiveness are unknown. The success of the expanded SAVE program may also partially depend on whether it has adequate staff and resources, it said. A 2017 Government Accountability Office report found that between fiscal years 2012 and 2016, about 16% of the nearly 90 million SAVE searches required additional verification, which the institute says often translates into federal workers manually checking files. Now that SAVE allows bulk searches, the need for manual checking could rise dramatically. Nick Doctor, director of implementation at the Institute for Responsive Government, said in an interview that a tool confirming the eligibility of registered voters in a way that doesn't burden individuals can be a good thing. But he emphasized that it depends in large measure on SAVE's implementation. 'The changes that have been made to SAVE happened very quickly and, to my knowledge, we haven't seen releases on the level of accuracy of that information,' Doctor said. During interviews, Republican secretaries of state stressed that voters aren't kicked off the rolls because SAVE can't verify their citizenship. Instead, an inability to verify would likely trigger a follow-up process with the voter. 'Just because we get something back from the SAVE database, it's not a cut and dry, especially on those they're not sure about,' Hoskins, the Missouri secretary of state, said. Still, Arizona illustrates why some Democrats worry about any large-scale effort to ask voters — especially longtime, older residents — to prove their citizenship. After the state discovered errors in how it tracked voter citizenship dating back years, election officials are contacting some 200,000 voters seeking proof of citizenship documentation. Some have been casting ballots for decades without incident and many feel targeted, Arizona Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said during a presentation at the state secretaries of state conference. 'They feel insulted when they get that letter,' Fontes said. Charles Stewart III, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies elections, said Arizona may actually point to the potential usefulness of SAVE. If Arizona runs its voter roll through the program, a list of 200,000 voters needing citizenship verification would perhaps drop into the hundreds, he suggested. 'There's a lot of good-government reasons to believe that something like this, governed properly and governed with fail-safe mechanisms, could have an upside,' Stewart said. Connecticut Democratic Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas told Stateline that every secretary wants tools to keep voter lists as clean as possible. But the details are important. When she hears of something new, Thomas said she asks whether it's the best option available and whether 'the i's are dotted, the t's crossed.' She said she's asked USCIS a series of questions about SAVE and is waiting on some responses. 'When it comes to voter lists,' Thomas said, 'I don't want Connecticut voters to be a guinea pig.' This story first appeared in Stateline, a sibling site of the Minnesota Reformer and part of the States Newsroom nonprofit news network. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@
