GOP leader led Midwest efforts for Reagan presidential runs
Donald Lee Totten was a longtime political figure in Republican circles in the northwest suburbs, serving as a committeeman, state legislator, Cook County GOP chairman and Regional Transportation Authority director.
Totten ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1982, and was the Illinois and Midwest director of Ronald Reagan’s 1976 and 1980 presidential runs.
“He had a complete mastery of the mechanics of getting people elected,” said Chris Robling, a longtime friend. “And I believe that his view of government’s role was always sprung from a respect for individuals and individual liberty and individual selfdetermination, and that came through in how he listened to people.”
Totten, 86, died of heart failure on April 2 at the home of his daughter Kathy Weber, in Cornelius, N.C., she said. He had been a resident of Elgin, and prior to that had lived in Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Totten graduated from Ridgewood High School in Bergen County, N.J., and earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Notre Dame in 1955.
Totten came to the Chicago area in 1955 for a mechanical engineering job. In his early years, he was an industrial plant manager.
In 1966, Totten was elected Schaumburg Township’s Republican committeeman. At that point, he went all-in on the political arena, leaving engineering and starting a political consulting firm called Twin-T.
“He was an unusual political leader in that he was both highly principled and ethical on the one hand, and very pragmatic and street-smart on the other,” said Chicago lawyer Joseph Morris, a friend and colleague. “I have never seen anyone put together a grassroots organization more successfully than did he, nor have I ever seen anyone who was driven in his political goals by as much attention to philosophy and principle as was Don.”
Totten successfully ran for state representative in 1972 in the 3rd District. While in office, he founded the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of conservative legislators across the country, and eventually served as the organization’s chairman for a year. Totten was a state representative for eight years before winning a seat as state senator in 1980.
Totten did not always play nice with GOP party regulars, particularly after James R. Thompson was elected governor in 1976. He often criticized Thompson from the Senate floor.
Totten took a keen interest in national politics. He was the state chairman of a group supporting Reagan for president in 1976, when the GOP establishment stuck with then-President Gerald Ford, and he remained with Reagan during his successful 1980 presidential run. That netted Totten a spot on Reagan’s transition team and made him a finalist for U.S. Secretary of Education. Reagan ultimately appointed him to serve on the bi-national International Joint Commission.
In 1980, he tried to wrest the seat of Illinois Republican national committeeman from party veteran Harold Byron Smith before backing off. In the 1982 GOP primary for lieutenant governor, he finished third behind then-Gov. James R. Thompson’s choice, future Gov. George Ryan.
“He was a principled conservative, and to him there was a right way and a wrong way of doing things, and as far as government was concerned, the government was there to serve the people but not to be a Santa Claus,” said Ed Murnane, who ran Totten’s 1982 campaign for lieutenant governor. “Government was there to make sure everybody had a fair deal, but he didn’t think government owed anybody a living.”
In September 1985, Totten was unanimously elected chairman of the Cook County Republican Central Committee, which was comprised of Chicago’s 50 ward committeemen and 30 Cook County township committeemen. Despite his often-publicized clashes with Thompson, the governor’s promise to raise $300,000 for the party organization clinched the deal for Totten to take the nonsalaried job.
Totten saw his role as figuring out just how to bolster a perennially weak local GOP.
He resolved to “do something about a political realignment similar to what is happening across the South today,” Totten told the Tribune after the vote. “We have to pursue vigorously and attract those people to our party.”
Totten raised $1.3 million for the party in his 2½-year tenure, more than three times as much as it had raised in the previous two years. Totten’s tenure as head of the Cook County GOP ended in March 1988, when he chose at the last minute not to seek a new term. He made the decision after several key supporters, including Thompson, shifted to the camp of his opponent, James Dvorak, a top aide to then-Cook County Sheriff James O’Grady.
Totten continued serving as the head of Schaumburg Township’s GOP, and in 1990, he was appointed to the RTA’s board. He also ran DuPage County State’s Attorney Jim Ryan’s successful campaign in 1994 for Illinois Attorney General and Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra’s unsuccessful 1996 U.S. Senate primary bid.
Another campaign that Totten managed was the 1994 run for Cook County Board president by Morris, who previously had worked for Totten on Reagan’s 1976 and 1980 campaigns.
“I was his boss and (earlier) he was my boss, and he was brilliant in both,” Morris said. “And he was both an idea person and a people person who had a very common human touch. He cared a lot about people, his neighbors, his constituents, his friends and his family, and that showed powerfully in the way he went about doing politics.”
Totten left the RTA board in 2005. He was reappointed to it in 2010.
Totten’s wife of 63 years, Joyce, died in June 2018. In addition to his daughter, Totten is survived by another daughter, Diane Faldstein; a son, Robert; seven grandchildren; and a great-grandson.
Services were held.