September 16 just doesn’t have the same ring as Cinco de Mayo

For those of you who still haven’t figured it out yet, Monday night into Tuesday are the real dates of the holiday you thought you celebrated (mainly by consuming too many Coronas or cut-rate margaritas) back on May 5.

 

Those are the dates back in 1810 when Father Hidalgo climbed to the top of his church, rang his bell at midnight, and proclaimed a statement of independence from Spain that is as significant in Mexican history as the Declaration of Independence is to the story of the United States because of the way it inspired the people to take up arms against their colonial masters.

 

OF COURSE, IT wasn’t immediate freedom. It took some 12 years before the Spanish royal family acknowledged independence for the most significant of the American colonies that comprised “New Spain.”

 

By comparison, the British royal family virtually bent over backward to give the fledgling United States its freedom and sense of itself as a new nation on this planet.

 

If anything, I often wonder if the history of Mexico and its attempts to establish itself as a Democracy are a perfect example of the old saying, “If something can go wrong, it likely will.”

 

Mexico has had to do many things the hard way during its two centuries of existence. It ought to make those of us of the United States more thankful for the relatively easier path we have traversed to get where we are today.

 

I FEEL THE need to think about this because I’m sure most people not only don’t give it a thought, they’re not even aware it is something they ought to consider relevant.

 

But our two nations are so intertwined in so many ways, and not just because of those Southwestern states that once were the northernmost outposts of the Spanish colonies/Mexico itself. If anything, I wonder if the exception to our nation are those far northeastern states who have a significant international border with Canada.

 

Which is why I’m not particularly interested in hearing from those people who are going to complain about the many celebrations that took place in this country related to Mexico’s Independence Day.

 

In Chicago alone, I’m aware of two parades – in the South Chicago and Pilsen neighborhoods – along with various parades in outlying areas including Cicero, West Chicago and East Chicago, Ind.

 

THE SOUTH CHICAGO parade has been ongoing for more than 75 years, while the Pilsen parade is the one that has garnered the public attention.

 

Candidates for the Nov. 4 and Feb. 24 election cycles all felt compelled to show up and march through the one-time eastern European enclave that turned Mexican and now threatens to become a place for artsy people to live near downtown Chicago.

 

After all, those people vote. Both Gov. Pat Quinn and Republican challenger Bruce Rauner were there, along with mayoral hopefuls Karen Lewis and Bob Fioretti – with Mayor Rahm Emanuel making an appearance at an Independence Day breakfast event prior to the parade.

 

Although that threatens to trivialize the event, if it winds up that Mexico’s Independence Day becomes nothing more than a chance for political people to pander for the Latino vote.

 

BUT WITH ONE out of six Chicago residents being of Mexican ethnic origins, this becomes too big of an event to brush aside. Chicago is now just as significantly Mexican as it is Irish or Polish – the two other ethnicities that like to think they’re almighty and dominant in the city.

 

And yes, it’s a bit odd to have all these public celebrations on Sunday; a day early before the actual event – which could become an afterthought.

 

Except for those of us who are desperate to take what already has become a two-day celebration in Mexico (think Christmas the way some people just can’t wait until Day and feel the need to go all-out on Eve) and make it a three-day fest.

 

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An Election Day most of us will ignore

For most of us, Tuesday is nothing but Tuesday.

Even for those of us whose communities have municipal elections (or those of us on the Far South Side) who have a chance to have a do-over election for a member of Congress, it will be thought of as just another Tuesday.

THAT’S BECAUSE WAY too many of us have that bit of Archie Bunker in us – as in actor Carroll O’Connor’s character whose many traits included a reluctance to vote for anything other than president.

Voter turnout for the special election to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., in Congress is expected to be down.

One such report indicated that of the roughly 250,000 registered voters in the district (which stretches from 53^rd Street in Chicago to the Kankakee/Iroquois county line), at most maybe 50,000 of them will actually bother to cast ballots.

Kankakee County officials say they expect about 10 percent of their registered voters to actually bother to turn out at the polling places.

I’M SURE THE weather forecasts calling for a 90 percent chance of rain on Tuesday that turns to snow with temperatures just barely over 30 degrees (which means freezing) will do more than their part to persuade many people who have the chance to cast ballots to think it’s not worth the bother.

This is an odd election cycle.

We have a campaign that is attracting national attention. It involves the replacement of a nationally-known name in Congress. It has gained the attention of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg – who sees it as a chance to undermine the political influence brandished by the National Rifle Association.

Yet I can’t help but wonder; do Noo Yawkers care more about this campaign than most people here?

THIS ELECTION CYCLE also is odd because we don’t have an Election Day mode going across the Chicago area. Some suburbs have municipal offices up for grabs – but most of those are non-partisan elections taking place come April 9.

As for Tuesday, there are a few towns such as Cicero or Calumet City where there is feisty attempts at campaign activity taking place. But a few stray towns just doesn’t get many people to believe that the future of our Republic is at stake on this day.

As for me, I didn’t cast any ballot for Tuesday. I live just outside of the Illinois Second Congressional District, which means I voted for my member of Congress (Bobby L. Rush) back in November. I don’t have to think about this until next year.

So in Chicago proper, this IS the only election going. Federal and Cook County posts were up for grabs last year, while state government offices will have their day come next year.

AS FOR THE city government positions, we picked Rahm Emanuel to be our mayor two years ago. He and the aldermen will have to regain our support in 2015. So 2013 is the year Chicago voters get a break.

Unless they have to pick from amongst 9^th Ward Alderman Anthony Beale, former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson from Crete, former state Rep. Robin Kelly from Matteson or any of the other minions who comprise the more-than-a-dozen people wishing they could get the Democratic nomination for the post on Capitol Hill.

I’m sure whichever candidate winds up being able to make a “victory” speech Tuesday night will claim to be expressing the “will” of the people. Yet with all the people who likely will sit on their duffs and do nothing, perhaps we ought to consider that the true “will” of the public.

We thought so much of this election that we couldn’t be bothered to vote. Perhaps that’s why we jokingly call it the Election Daze.

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EXTRA: Job opens up in Oak Park

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is in the Chicago suburbs to try to help the Illinois Republican Party raise money for use come the Nov. 2 elections, while Democrat-turned-independent Scott Lee Cohen picked a political anonymity to be his lieutenant governor running mate.

Yet there are those people who will insist that the top “political” story of the day occurred in west suburban Oak Park, where Salerno’s Pizza & Pasta is now looking for a new hostess to seat customers at the restaurant.

THAT JOB IS the one that has been filled in recent weeks by Betty Loren Maltese, the former Cicero town president who earlier this year was released from prison after serving her sentence for a political corruption conviction.

WLS-TV reported Wednesday that the restaurant manager said she quit. She was not fired. She left her job on good terms.

Since I don’t see anyone connected with law enforcement now talking about going after her for violating the terms of her parole in any way, I’m assuming she has something else lined up in terms of gainful employment so that she can justify to probation officers that she’s not goofing off.

But the reality is that she is going to be one of the characters on the fringe of our society. She has made radio appearances and recently spoke to students at DePaul University (where one student reporter couldn’t help but notice she wore the same fragrance as the student’s grandmother). So maybe that is what Maltese’s future is going to be while she focuses her personal attention on trying to regain legal custody of her adopted daughter (who is now 14).

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Betty is back! Is Blagojevich watching?

Following the newscasts on Monday, I couldn’t help but wonder if Rod Blagojevich was watching as well. Because seeing the “return” of Betty Loren Maltese to the Chicago metropolitan area could have given him a clear vision of what his life could be like some day.

Maltese, the one-time president of the Town of Cicero, has suffered the fate that many people are eagerly hoping befalls the now-impeached and removed Illinois governor some day.

SHE WAS SENT to prison, which broke her mentally. She was hit with fines and demands for reimbursement so high ($8 million) that she seriously is in debt. Her employability these days is so limited that it is highly unlikely she will ever be out of debt no matter how long she lives.

She has no home, no income. In fact, she has no family around her – they all left the Cicero area after Betty was sent away to prison.

So bringing Maltese back to the Chicago area on Monday was really more about personal humiliation than anything else.

Maltese served more than six years in federal correctional centers outside of Illinois, but is now finishing her prison term living in half-way houses – which in theory are preparing her for re-entry into society. She had been staying in such facilities in the Las Vegas area (which is not far from her adopted daughter now living in Arizona).

BUT OFFICIALS GOT her shifted to Chicago to finish the four more months she still must stay in such a place, specifically at the Salvation Army facility on Ashland Avenue where many convicted corrupt pols wind up finishing their prison time.

Why do I think this was about personal humiliation?

I think it was all about subjecting her to that final “perp walk,” where she had to get out of a car and walk into the facility while television cameras preserved the moment for “eternity,” or at least the few seconds of airtime that it took to show the footage on the Monday night newscasts.

For the record, Betty had nothing to say. No last-minute confessions. No curses at a reporter whose microphone got a little too close to her face for comfort.

ALSO, FOR WHAT it’s worth, none of the overly made-up appearance that used to be the “trademark” of Maltese. She was downright subdued.

I expect she will keep her mouth shut for so long as she must be in the Chicago area, then will leave us for good once she no longer has the federal government watching her every move (she must do three years probation, once her prison term is officially complete).

If it reads like I’m giving you a lot of trivial details about Maltese’s return to Chicago, you’d be correct. Because there really isn’t much else to say or write about her.

She was found guilty back in the early part of the past decade of allegations that Cicero taxpayers were ripped off of $12 million-plus by an insurance company that overcharged for its services, with some of that excess money supposedly going to associates of “a certain Italian subculture” (which is how actor Vince Curatola’s Johnny “Sack” Sacramoni character once described organized crime in an episode of “The Sopranos”).

THERE’S NOTHING NEW here.

The thought that she has to repay this money (conditions of her probation is that she has to cough up at least 20 percent of every paycheck she receives in the future toward her restitution) also isn’t new.

In fact, about the only new aspect is the revelation that Maltese is NOT among the ranks of the 47 million uninsured U.S. residents. Cicero government must provide her with a health insurance policy for the rest of her life.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that current Cicero municipal officials are looking into altering the perk, but even they concede they can only change it for future officials – not Maltese.

SO AT LEAST Betty can afford to go to the doctor when she gets sick. That might very well be the highlight of her life, at this point.

I find it all interesting because, as I hinted earlier, I think Maltese is the prototype for what people want to happen to Blagojevich.

Perhaps it is because Maltese’ so-called crime involved elements of organized crime, but she gets to be the pariah of our local politics. Someday, she likely will be joined by Blagojevich.

Perhaps they will make a nice couple. They’d even be bipartisan examples of how government corruption can break someone (after all, Betty considered herself to be a good Republican).

NEITHER MALTESE NOR Blagojevich is going to get the Dan Rostenkowski treatment (guest lecturer at Northwestern Universtiy, senior fellow at Loyola U. of Chicago, Election Night commentator on local television newscasts), which – if he survives, he turns 76 on Feb. 24 – is the fate I ultimately expect to occur for former Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan.

I guess that’s the difference between being an “old school” pol like Rostenkowski or Ryan who can point to real accomplishments in their political careers that benefitted the public, and the younger pols who didn’t stick around long enough on the political scene to achieve something of lasting value.

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Could Maltese, Blagojevich (“we didn’t do it”) be Illinois' perfect political couple?

This could be a new technique – those who are convicted of criminal offenses get out of prison and sue everybody they can think of for all the bad things that happened to them during their legal proceedings.

But then again, no one would ever have thought of Betty Loren Maltese as being someone who would follow the pack. If anyone was destined to make a public splash upon completing time in prison, it would be the one-time town president of Cicero.

MALTESE WAS THE heavily made-up beauty (in her own mind) who ran Cicero government – the political entity whose historic ties ran back to the late 1920s when Al Capone used the town for a few years to evade Chicago authorities who actually had the nerve to think they should try to do something to bring his criminal behavior to an end.

The point is that for decades, Cicero political officials have suffered from the perception that they were just a little too cozy with elements of organized crime.

In Maltese’s case, her late husband was a man who mob-watchers would contend was a low-level affiliate of the Chicago “outfit.”

In the end, Maltese suffered the same fate as many other people in her circles – the federal government came after her, prosecuted a case, got a conviction, and she received an eight-year prison term (much of which has been served in facilities in the southwestern U.S.).

THESE DAYS, MALTESE is no longer being kept in prison facilities. She is far enough along in her term that she is now living at a halfway house near Phoenix, where she theoretically is being given final preparation for the day when she is set free.

But Maltese, while she claims to have no interest in returning to Cicero or Illinois to live or work (she seems to be thinking “Las Vegas”), apparently isn’t letting go of the past.

She has a lawsuit that seeks a combined total of nearly $40 million from 27 different people – all of whom she claims did something to make her life miserable during the period when she was in the news on a daily basis because she was on trial in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

As she puts it in the lawsuit (for which she is serving as her own legal representation), my, “civil rights were deliberately and flagrantly hindered and severely abused.”

AT THE TIME of her incarceration, Maltese actually had an adopted daughter who wound up going to live with her sister while Betty was in prison. But now, Maltese thinks it was bad for her sister to have the child, even though most people would be grateful that a child remained within the family – rather than being sent off to a “foster home” of sorts.

So she’s suing her sister, claiming lies were told in order for her to get custody.

She’s also suing her one-time defense attorney for not including her physical presence at some of the court hearings. She claims he told her “I don’t need you there.”

Many people enjoy the idea of not having to show up for court, and it is common in criminal cases for instances where the attorneys for all sides get together to discuss the legal issues – in hopes of cutting through some of the procedure to try to achieve an actual result a lot sooner.

HER LAWSUIT ALSO names the U.S. attorney’s office that prosecuted her, the federal court system that tried her, the Bureau of Prisons that incarcerated her.

I wonder if she seriously considered including the quality of food at the prisons she was held at, since I heard reports throughout the years that Maltese lost so much weight while incarcerated because she couldn’t bring herself to eat the foodstuffs served to inmates – much of which technically includes nutrients needed to keep someone alive but was picked more for its low purchase cost than for its substance.

It seems like anyone who had the misfortune of coming into contact with Betty Loren Maltese during her years of legal travails now faces the likelihood of being named in her lawsuit.

It is very likely that Maltese will go to her grave someday (not that I’m wishing for that to happen sooner, rather than later) believing she was wrongfully convicted and incarcerated. Which is probably why we citizens of the Chicago metropolitan area are better off that Betty no longer wants to live among us.

HOW QUICKLY WOULD we become disgusted with her tales and her lawsuits and her likely future antics? She might actually make George Ryan look like a respectable, standup character by comparison.

If anything, she might very well be the Republican counterpart to Democrat Rod Blagojevich. They could both go around together claiming, “I didn’t do it.”

I understand that Maltese is contemplating her own book, partially as an attempt to explain her “story” to her adopted daughter – who was too young to understand what was happening to “mommy” while it was happening, but may someday get to see the cold hard language of the federal indictments and other legal documents related to her case.

In which case, we could take Maltese’s book and put it alongside copies of “The Governor” and try to figure out which one gives more political-style “bull” for the buck.

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Calumet City & Cicero to have differing Election Day outcomes on Tuesday

In one of the ironies of Campaign ’09, two suburban elections that got mired in the judicial system centered around an identical issue – yet wound up with opposite results.

Calumet City and Cicero both have incumbent mayors who wanted to run unopposed in the primary elections taking place Tuesday. In both cases, the leading opponent was a local police officer who got it into her/his head that they could challenge the incumbent.

IN BOTH CASES, local electoral boards bounced the law enforcement/political wannabes from the primary ballot by claiming that the law prevented police officers from becoming politicians.

In the case of Calumet City, they interpreted state law to say that only firefighters could have political aspirations, while Cicero officials said they had a local law preventing their cops from running for elective office.

Both suburbs wound up spending the bulk of the past couple of months in court, as the politically motivated police officers used the judicial system to try to force local elections officials to print their names on the ballots.

But that is where the similarity ends.

IN CICERO, ROBERTO Garcia got a Cook County judge last week to issue an order saying that the law does NOT prevent police officers from running for office – only from trying to serve as police officers and politicians simultaneously.

But in Calumet City, Pam Cap was not so lucky. Although her name appeared on ballots used at early voting centers across Cook County, an Illinois appellate court ruling last week knocked her off the ballot – and all those people who voted for Cap in early voting have the knowledge that their ballots are now considered spoiled for “mayor.”

Votes cast for Cap don’t count for anything on Tuesday.

Now it struck me as odd (as it did several law enforcement observers) that someone would claim a police officer can’t have political aspirations. After all, one of the long-time veterans of the City Council – Edward Burke – was once a police officer.

AND I CAN remember from my stint covering the Illinois Legislature the era of state Sen. Walter Dudycz, R-Chicago, who was a Chicago cop before going into politics and remained with the Chicago police department (on a permanent leave of absence) even after getting elected.

Those two are just part of a long tradition of police officers who get elected to one office or another.

But the local officials gave their interpretation of the law to apply to their own situations. So what is the difference between west suburban Cicero and south suburban Calumet City that nearly identical (at least from a legal standpoint) cases wound up with opposite results?

In the case of Cicero, a Cook County judge was forced to consider the merits of the legal argument that police should not be politicians. Attorneys for both suburban towns claim that police should have to give up their police positions before running for office – which would leave them with no income while campaigning.

BUT IN CALUMET City’s case, attorneys managed to prevent the issue from ever being considered by a court.

The same Cook County Circuit Court that produced a judge who ruled in favor of Garcia last week wound up having to focus its attention in the Cap case on whether her campaign properly notified local electoral board officials as to her intention to sue the city.

While the Chicago-based law firm of Ancel Glink was prepared to fight the merits of Cap’s case that a cop can be a pol, attorneys hired by Calumet City were able to persuade a Cook County judge that she could not hear the appeal because officials were improperly notified.

And an Illinois appellate panel in Chicago last week, in upholding the Cook County judge’s ruling, specifically said that without strict adherence to procedures in electoral law, no other issues were relevant.

SO IN ONE sense, the attorneys hired by Calumet City (including long-time election law expert Burton S. Odelson) were sharp. They outfoxed the opposition. They did their job. They “won” the case for their client – the government of the City of Calumet City.

The political observer in me almost admires them for skillful use of the law to advance politically partisan motives, which is typical of electoral boards in all towns. Every election cycle produces stories of some government entity where a serious challenger never even got to run for office.

And some people defend such measures these days by reminding us that Barack Obama won his first elective office in the Illinois Senate by getting his opponent, incumbent state Sen. Alice Palmer, D-Chicago, booted from the ballot (for insufficient valid signatures on her nominating petitions). This is an issue where the victors' viewpoint ultimately prevails.

As often came out in the court hearings involved in these two cases, electoral boards historically were supposed to be entities with great authority to make decisions. In fact, the law once said that electoral board rulings about who was, and who was not, on the ballot could not be appealed in any court.

SO PERHAPS IT is not some great legal surprise that Cap will not be on Tuesday’s Democratic primary ballot in Calumet City. Others would say that the only surprise would have been had Garcia failed in his goal to be an alternative to Cicero voters determined to vote against Town President Larry Dominick.

But it strikes me as ironic that Garcia will be able to garner votes for his political aspirations on Tuesday, while Cap has to focus her attention on a write-in campaign (which makes her a political long-shot) in the April 7 general election.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: I get a kick out of reading Cicero President Larry Dominick’s “response” (http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/1441172,CST-NWS-cicero20.article) to learning that he will have a police officer opponent in Tuesday’s elections.

Calumet City voters will have a “routine” primary election Tuesday as Mayor Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush (http://www.nwi.com/articles/2009/02/18/news/illinois/docf01bd73ec936ed778625756100037c12.txt) runs unopposed.