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From the NY Times. John Kraljic
January 17, 2002
Michael Bilandic, Daley Successor in Chicago, Dies at 78
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
ichael A. Bilandic, who became mayor of Chicago after the death of
Richard J. Daley, his mentor, only to see the Daley political machine
sputter to a stop under his leadership, died on Tuesday in Chicago. He
was 78.
The cause was a heart rupture, said Dr. Dan Fintel of Northwestern
Memorial Hospital. Mr. Bilandic was admitted after a heart attack on
Friday and was scheduled for triple bypass surgery yesterday, but he
died after the rupture.
When Mayor Daley died in his sixth term in 1976, his machine selected
Mr. Bilandic as a temporary successor, and the new mayor immediately
promised not to run in the election six months later to fill the
remaining two years of Mr. Daley's term.
His deference reflected the careful personality of the corporate lawyer
he had been for 28 years. Mike Royko, a columnist for The Chicago
Sun-Times, labeled him Mayor Bland.
But Mayor Bilandic quickly found himself in the rough and tumble of
Chicago politics. Within months of taking office, he negotiated labor
agreements involving gravediggers, butchers and members of the Chicago
Lyric Opera orchestra. He brought together warring factions to end a
15-year impasse on building a crosstown expressway, releasing $1.5
billion in federal money.
His romance with Heather Morgan, the director of the Chicago Council on
Fine Arts, added a dash of warmth to his image. They married shortly
after he was elected mayor. He is survived by his wife and their son,
Michael.
He changed his mind about not running, explaining that he was responding
to a groundswell of support. He emphasized his closeness to Mr. Daley,
saying the mayor had given him the kind of education "you cannot get at
Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard or Stanford." He went so far as to imitate
Mr. Daley's speech patterns, with a distinctive grammar and syntax and a
seeming preference for commas over periods in his orations.
The result was victory in the Democratic primary in a city where that
was tantamount to victory in the general election. Several months later,
he delightedly quoted the remark of a child at an elementary school in
the Bridgeport neighborhood, where Mr. Bilandic, like the four mayors
before him, lived.
Someone had asked the child if he knew who the visiting Mayor Bilandic
was.
"Yes, that's the new Mayor Daley," the boy chirped.
But Mr. Bilandic demonstrated that he lacked the iron control of Mr.
Daley. First, Jane M. Byrne, his commissioner of consumer sales, accused
him of being in cahoots with the city's taxi companies to raise their
fares. Though he fired her, their highly visible fight - both passed lie
detector tests - differed markedly from the discipline of the Daley City
Hall.
Second, it snowed, more than seven feet, the most ever recorded in a
season Chicago. The city's snow removal was so terrible that people
guessed Mayor Daley must have taken the snowplows with him; a former
deputy mayor was found to have received a $90,000 consultant's contract
for snow removal.
A joke circulated. First man to second: "If Mayor Daley was alive, all
this wouldn't have happened."
Second to first: "If Mayor Bilandic was alive, it wouldn't have,
either."
The result was that in March 1979, Ms. Byrne, at first viewed as a
quixotic candidate for mayor, beat Mr. Bilandic, ending 48 years of
machine domination of city politics.
Michael Anthony Bilandic, the son of Croatian immigrants, was born on
Feb. 13, 1923, in Bridgeport, on Chicago's southwest side. It is called
Back of the Yards because of its proximity to the stockyards that were
once the economic backbone of the area.
Like Mayor Daley, he attended De La Salle High School, graduated from De
Paul University Law School and got into politics by hanging around the
11th Ward Democratic Headquarters.
He served for four years in the Marine Corps in the South Pacific and
then earned his undergraduate degree from Notre Dame University. He
began as a $25-a-week law clerk at the Chicago firm of Anixter, Delaney,
Bilandic & Piggott, and worked his way to senior partner.
He resumed his political activity, canvassing the 11th Ward for Mr.
Daley, a neighbor, during his first race for mayor in 1955. For the next
decade he was an active, if inconspicuous, figure in ward politics.
At Mayor Daley's invitation, he ran for City Council in 1969, and the
next year was named to its powerful finance committee. In 1974, after
the indictment of the committee's chairman on fraud charges, he was
named chairman.
In 1972, Mr. Bilandic stood in for Mayor Daley at the Democratic
National Convention in denouncing the seating of anti-Daley delegates
led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
After his defeat, Mr. Bilandic returned to private practice, then
started a new career as judge. He was elected to the First District
Appellate Court in 1984 and, six years later, to the Illinois Supreme
Court, the highest in the state. He was chief justice for the last three
years of his 10-year term.
Last September, he was chosen to break the tie on a committee redrawing
Congressional and state legislative districts. His name was drawn from a
replica of a stovepipe hat owned by Abraham Lincoln. The state
Constitution calls for such a random selection when the eight- member
body, split evenly between parties, cannot agree.
----------------------------------------
MICHAEL BILANDIC: 1923-2002
A mayor who had hard act to follow
By Gary Washburn, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune reporters Joseph Sjostrom,
Christi Parsons, Ronald Kotulak and David Mendell contributed to this report
Published January 17, 2002
Purple and black bunting was draped over the entrance to City Hall on
Wednesday as Chicago mourned Michael A. Bilandic, the quiet and unassuming
son of immigrants who rose to become a leader of the City Council, mayor of
Chicago and, later, chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
Bilandic, 78, died unexpectedly late Tuesday at Northwestern Memorial
Hospital on the eve of scheduled coronary bypass surgery. He had been
admitted to the hospital two days earlier after suffering what doctors
described as a mild heart attack.
A former alderman who was the eyes and ears in the City Council for his
mentor, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, Bilandic was picked by council
colleagues to replace Daley when he died in late 1976. But he will be best
remembered for the way his political career unraveled under the weight of
record snowfalls in the winter of 1978-79, which immobilized the city and
led to the historic election of Chicago's first female mayor, Jane Byrne.
But his admirers, of whom there were many in the halls of government, say
the snow debacle unfairly clouded the reputation of a man who was a
dedicated and hard-working official.
Bilandic was a "very good public servant and very committed," said Mayor
Richard M. Daley, whose father, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, had been
Bilandic's political sponsor. "He made a strong contribution to the city."
"He had a full and rich and diverse career," said Ald. Edward Burke (14th),
a longtime friend. "He served in all branches of government--legislative,
executive and judicial--and will be remembered as a very capable, hard
working and loyal public official."
In a written statement, Bilandic's wife, Heather, described her husband as
"a devoted family man, [who] also loved Chicago and its people, was proud of
his Croatian heritage and grateful for the opportunities which this country
provided to his family. He felt deeply honored to have been able to serve as
a member of the legal profession and to have participated in three branches
of government during a lifetime of service."
After his defeat by Byrne, Bilandic returned to private law practice and
then answered what some believe was his true calling when he was elected a
judge, first to the Illinois Appellate Court in 1984 and later to the state
Supreme Court after winning election in 1990.
Every mayor since Bilandic has taken a political lesson from his downfall,
launching Herculean salting and plowing operations after even the gentlest
of snowfalls. Bilandic had to learn the hard way.
A total of 35 inches hit the city over a two-week period, and Bilandic
shrugged off the snow, insisting that conditions were improving even as
buried cars blocked streets, service on the Chicago Transit Authority
faltered and O'Hare International Airport was tied up in knots.
At one point during the crisis, he urged people to move their cars from
streets to school parking lots, which he announced had been cleared. But the
mayor apparently had been given faulty information by underlings; unhappy
motorists discovered that the lots remained waist-deep in snow.
Democratic primary loss
Indeed, the city's response to the snow was perhaps the biggest factor in
Bilandic's stunning defeat in the Democratic primary a few weeks later.
"He was a gentle and sometimes too nice a guy who got caught in a
snowstorm," said Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), who was in the City Council when
Bilandic was mayor. "And, unfortunately, that will be part of his legacy.
But the real Michael Bilandic was a decent Chicagoan who had the best
interest of the city at heart. In all the times I was with him, I never saw
him mean-spirited, vindictive, or ever do anything but try to be a good guy.
And that's what he was."
Born in Bridgeport in 1923, Bilandic learned Chicago politics in the 11th
Ward neighborhood that had produced a host of Democratic politicians,
including Richard J. Daley.
He graduated in 1940 from De La Salle High School and received a bachelor's
degree from St. Mary's College in Winona, Minn., and a law degree from
DePaul University.
Bilandic served as a first lieutenant in the Marine Corps in the Pacific
during World War II.
He became active in the 11th Ward Democratic organization in 1948 when
then-ward Committeeman Daley asked him to become involved in party work.
But Bilandic's real political career began in 1969.
That is when the late Matthew Danaher was in line for appointment as the
clerk of Cook County Circuit Court, and Daley needed a replacement for him
as 11th Ward alderman. The mayor's choice of Bilandic, whose ethnic roots
were Croatian, was a break from precedent in a ward which, for years, had
been represented in the council by Irish-Americans.
Bilandic was reluctant to give up a law practice that was bringing him a
salary estimated at $75,000 a year, but Daley prevailed. The newcomer ran,
swamping the GOP candidate.
As an alderman, Bilandic's long, detailed speechmaking and monotone delivery
gave him a reputation as a colorless man. But he was considered effective
and well prepared.
"Here is a guy who led the fight on the environment right from the start,"
said Ald. Bernard Stone (50th), who served in the council with Bilandic. In
1971, Bilandic pushed legislation that banned phosphates from detergents.
A few years later, Bilandic helped shepherd the Lakefront Protection
Ordinance through the council and a measure revamping zoning requirements
that cleared the way for big multiuse developments, Stone said.
With Ald. Thomas Keane (31st) on trial in federal court on charges of
conspiracy and mail fraud, Bilandic in 1974 was chosen to replace him both
as chairman of the council's powerful Finance Committee and as Daley's
council floor leader.
When Daley died on Dec. 20, 1976, council leaders fought each other to fill
the vacuum, but it was Bilandic who received the support of the Daley family
and ultimately gained the mayoral seat.
Daley, in his later years respected and beloved by a city that had known no
other mayor for a generation, had failed to groom anyone as a successor. The
new mayor was faced with the unenviable task of filling shoes that no one in
Chicago could have filled.
Started ChicagoFest
Nevertheless, he sponsored new initiatives. During his 21/2 years in office,
Bilandic organized the first ChicagoFest and arranged city-insured,
low-interest mortgage loans for middle-income families. A runner and jogger,
he also lent his support to the Chicago Marathon.
Yet Bilandic's personality didn't capture the imagination or adoration of
the voters. In an era when politicians were increasingly becoming
celebrities in their own right, Bilandic could stroll through the Loop in
the city he ran and not be stopped or even acknowledged by a single
passerby.
On another front, the mayor's personal life blossomed.
When he took office, Bilandic was a bachelor who lived with his elderly
mother. It was during his time in office, then in his 50s, that he married
Heather Morgan, the daughter of a prominent Chicago businessman. The
couple's only child, Michael Morgan Bilandic, was born during his mayoralty.
After taking over at City Hall, Bilandic made numerous changes in the city
command structure.
In what turned out to be a major tactical error, he ousted Byrne as the
city's consumer sales commissioner and forced her to give up her spot as
co-chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization's Central
Committee.
The response was furious.
Byrne's attacks on Bilandic and his administration were so strong during the
1979 primary that the mayor at times appeared on the brink of tears as he
compared her offensives, combined with media criticism, to the crucifixion
of Christ, the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and the plight of blacks during
slavery in America.
After losing the primary, Bilandic returned to private law practice.
Although he maintained his Bridgeport home, he and his family spent most of
their time in the Gold Coast apartment he also owned.
Five years after his departure from City Hall, and without party backing,
Bilandic won election to the Illinois Appellate Court's 1st District, which
covers Cook County. At the age of 67, he ran for a 10-year term on the state
Supreme Court, this time slated by the Democratic Party, and won again. He
subsequently was elected by colleagues on the court to a term as chief
justice.
Declined campaign donations
Bilandic spent $32,000 of his own money on the Supreme Court election
campaign and refused to accept campaign contributions. "`This is my last
hurrah," he explained. "I don't want to go there encumbered in any manner."
As a jurist who had served in the other branches of government, Bilandic was
especially attentive to the separation of powers and respectful of executive
and legislative prerogative.
"He always commented, `Let them do the work they do, and we'll do the work
we do,'" said Judge Allen Hartman, a longtime friend who shared the
appellate bench with Bilandic. "He was very proper in that regard."
Nevertheless, one of his most important Supreme Court opinions was highly
critical of a common practice in the Illinois General Assembly, where
lawmakers rolled unrelated measures into a single bill to drum up enough
support for passage.
Writing for the court in Johnson v. Edgar, Bilandic struck down a sweeping
new law because it violated the Illinois Constitution's prohibition of such
bundling. The opinion formed the heart of the court's doctrine on the
so-called "single-subject" rule, and it eventually led to the overturning of
several other measures passed by the Republican-led legislature in the
mid-1990s.
Bilandic also wrote a revolutionary 1999 opinion in a ruling that health
maintenance organizations can be held liable for negligence involving a
patient's medical care. The decision opened the door for a flood of HMO
lawsuits.
"When it came to things like budgetary matters or municipal law, we always
looked to him," said Chief Justice Moses Harrison, who served on the high
court with Bilandic for eight years. "But you also had to admire his general
knowledge. He just knew so much."
The court lowered its flags to half-staff, and Bilandic's portrait was
draped in black bunting. The City Council, meanwhile, began a meeting
Wednesday with a moment of silence in the former mayor's honor.
In what turned out to be his last public role, Bilandic in September cast a
vote that is expected to influence Illinois politics for years to come.
After Democrats won a drawing to gain control of the Legislative
Redistricting Commission, Bilandic was inserted on the panel by the party to
break a partisan deadlock and cast the tie-breaking vote on a redistricting
map that could set the stage for Democratic control of the legislature for
the next decade.
Burke said he talked to Bilandic on Tuesday afternoon to wish him well in
surgery.
"He sounded strong," the alderman said. "He was in good spirits. He said he
was sad he would miss the board of managers meeting of the Chicago Bar
Association on Wednesday, but he hoped to be back on his feet in a couple of
days." Bilandic died of a rare and "uniformly fatal" condition in which the
wall of the heart ruptures, and not of a second heart attack, according to
an autopsy report released Wednesday by Bilandic's physicians at
Northwestern Memorial.
Dr. Dan Fintel, his cardiologist, said that he has seen only two other
ruptures following heart attacks in 17 years of practice.
The rupture occurred on the left side and front of Bilandic's heart, the
area that was damaged by a heart attack he suffered sometime in the early
morning Saturday. That area of the heart was deprived of blood, thereby
leading to the death of a small portion of heart muscle.
Instead of scar tissue forming around the damaged area, which is typical,
the weakened area burst from the pressure of blood inside the heart, causing
the heart to go into acute failure, Fintel said. Such conditions are
impossible to detect in advance, even using modern diagnostic equipment, he
said.
Heather Bilandic had been visiting her husband for most of Tuesday and left
one hour before the rupture occurred at 10 p.m. A heart team rushed in to
try to save the former mayor. He was pronounced dead at 10:30 p.m.
Bilandic's doctors said that tests performed Monday showed he had
significant blockages in his coronary arteries but added that he appeared to
be an ideal candidate for bypass surgery.
The funeral will be private. It will be followed by a memorial service that
has not yet been scheduled.
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