Yesterday morning I watched the debate among the candidates for Cook County States Attorney—Anita Alvarez (the incumbent), Kim Foxx (the candidate endorsed by the Democratic establishment), and Donna More. The debate, actually a joint press conference, was hosted by ABC 7 Chicago:
CHICAGO (WLS) — It was a spirited one-hour State’s Attorney debate Friday night in the ABC7 debate studio. The three candidates for State’s Attorney had virtually nothing good to say about each other.
“Both my opponents should be under investigation for their wrong doing,” said Donna More.
Candidate Donna More claimed the outsider’s role as incumbent Anita Alvarez focused on the heavily-endorsed Kim Foxx, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s former Chief of Staff
“She’s standing up here because Toni Preckwinkle has been trying to get somebody to run against me for the past three years,” Alvarez said.
“My work on these issues pre-dates Ms. Preckwinkle and will continue on,” Foxx retorted.
Alvarez repeatedly called Foxx a liar for allegedly exaggerating her trial experience and violating campaign finance laws.
“So what else is she lying about? Don’t you think it’s important for the citizens of Cook County to elect someone who’s not a liar,” said Alvarez.
“Why don’t we elect a prosecutor that we can actually trust?” said More.
For the last half century at least the main job of the Cook County States Attorney has been to protect incompetent, corrupt, or misbehaving Chicago and Cook County elected officials. Over the period of the last 30 years quite literally hundreds of Chicago and Cook County judges, lawyers, and miscellaneous officials have been indicted and many convicted.
Nearly all of this has been done by federal authorities. The Cook County States Attorney’s office has been conspicuous by its absence in these prosecutions. Why? Because the States Attorney is on the other side.
If there is a credible explanation for Ms. Alvarez’s actions over the last year other than that she’s been covering up wrongdoing on the part of Chicago Police Department, I don’t know what it is. But now she’s damaged goods and is being thrown under the bus.
Kim Foxx is her designated replacement and can be expected to maintain the same sorry practices.
The only hope (and it’s a slim one) for reforming Chicago and Cook County would be by electing the only actual reform candidate and that’s Donna More.
