To combat corruption, Erika Harold for AG
ENDORSEMENTS
Since 2003, Lisa Madigan has occupied the Illinois attorney general’s office, serving as the state’s chief lawyer. She has been a champion for consumer advocacy. Bravo. But Madigan also has faced criticism, even within her party, for failing to pursue public corruption cases.
With her father, Michael Madigan, serving as speaker of the House and chairman of the state Democratic Party, she was conflicted. Politics and personal relationships deprived Illinois of a truly independent state watchdog. Madigan had to punt this crucial duty to federal and local prosecutors.
Voters this year can make a declaration: We want an aggressive attorney general who will expose, investigate and prosecute public corruption, no matter where it lies.
That’s a key reason the Tribune endorses Erika Harold of Urbana, an attorney with the Champaign-based firm of Meyer Capel, for attorney general. She is a Harvard Law School graduate — winning the 2003 Miss America pageant helped pay for her education — with experience in commercial litigation, criminal law, class action, fraud and contract disputes. On policy, she has been outspoken on the need for criminal justice reform and prison rehabilitation.
Building trust in this office by pursuing allegations of corruption on a nonpartisan basis is among Harold’s top priorities: “The goal would be to ensure that independent decision-making was occurring, the attorney general’s office was involved in legal issues — as opposed to political issues — and the principles of separation of powers and federalism were being upheld.”
Harold also is prepared to help guide the city of Chicago through the next phase of Police Department oversight reform, including fighting, if needed, to enforce the coming consent decree negotiated by Attorney General Madigan and Mayor Rahm Emanuel. She says she would use her office as a bully pulpit and partner with law enforcement on crime-reduction strategies to confront street violence here.
Her Democratic opponent, state Sen. Kwame Raoul of Chicago, is a respected attorney and partner with law group Quarles & Brady. He has served in the Senate since 2004, filling the seat vacated by Barack Obama when he advanced to the U.S. Senate. Raoul’s focus if elected would be protecting minors from online predators, reducing gun violence and expanding transparency through the office’s public access counselor, a position he helped create while in the Senate. He too is committed to following through with the Chicago consent decree.
We are confident Raoul would be an aggressive attorney general for the citizens of Illinois — on some fronts, none of which would offend Illinois politicians. But he oddly downplays the role of the attorney general in pursuing public corruption — “I’m not going to go fishing for it,” he says — and he defends the thin anti-corruption record of the departing attorney general.
That distances Raoul from the millions of voters who’ve watched public officials mire this state in a culture of political sleaze. A third candidate, Libertarian Bubba Harsy of Du Quoin, joins Harold in stressing corruption-busting as a priority. News organizations have done more to expose corruption, with tangible results, than the four-term attorney general with hundreds of attorneys at her disposal.
That has to change. Harold is the change agent. Raoul has focused on Harold’s conservative personal views on social issues. But most of the huff he is puffing in television ads is exaggerated, as fact-checkers have concluded. Yes, Harold is conservative. She’s also independent. She’s been swimming against the current since high school when she was forced to switch schools because of severe bullying. She stood up to Miss America organizers who wanted to control her platform. And she has called out members of her own party, including the GOP official who, in a 2014 campaign, compared her to a “streetwalker.”
Voters: If you’re looking for a smart, well-rounded and self-reliant watchdog in state government, Harold is it. She also is a Republican in a state that, with Democrats controlling most levers of government, needs checks and balances on that oneparty dominion. Erika Harold is the superior choice for attorney general.