FAREWELL, DICK MELL…SORT OF

7/6/13

Dick Mell announced last week that he will be leaving his post as 33^rd Ward alderman after 38 years on the job.  The Chicago media, generally hostile toward guys like Dick Mell, are, predictably, falling all over themselves with accolades for the City Council’s second longest serving member and something of a living relic of a bygone era, a time depicted in my books, The Chairman and The Chairman’s Challenge.  The press’s apparent hypocrisy, though, is understandable; gentlemanliness, or gentewomanliness, is almost always to be applauded and one of its manifestations is finding something nice to say about people at such milestones in their lives.

As you might guess, yours truly has some thoughts on Dick Mell who, despite being a self-made millionaire even before entering politics and despite running one of the most effective ward machines in this most political of cities will always be known first and foremost as Rod Blagojevich’s father-in-law.  (See my 6/19/13 post MIKE MADIGAN, JOHN CULLERTON, AND PENSIONS:   SOMETIMES A CIGAR IS JUST A CIGAR? for some background on the relationship between Dick Mell and his infamous son-in-law.)

First, Mr. Mell would like his daughter Deb Mell, who is currently a state representative, to replace him.   Mayor Emanuel has instituted new procedures for selecting replacement aldermen that are made to look fair, transparent, and representative.  But one suspects that Mr. Mell would not have left without the fix being in for his daughter, so Ms. Mell will probably have no trouble ascending to the post her father has held since she was seven years old.   She does have at least nominal competition for the job, however, in the person of State Senator Iris Martinez.

Note that I used the verb “ascending” when describing a move by Deb Mell from the state legislature to the city council, and that was no mistake.  Perhaps only in Chicago would a move from state representative or state senator to alderman be considered a promotion.   But this follows a proud tradition.   For example, back in 1973, when Roman Pucinski was effectively moved from the United States Congress to alderman of the 41^st Ward, he, probably rightfully, considered it a promotion and thanked Mayor Daley, and not at all disingenuously, for moving him up the ladder.   We take our aldermen seriously in Chicago.   Sometimes one wonders why, but I digress.

Second, the Chicago Sun-Times should have been more careful in its article about Mell’s retirement (“On way out, Mell talks family ties,” 7/6/13, page 6).   Deep into the story, the Sun-Times says

Mell operated (emphasis mine) one of the strongest ward organizations in Chicago, one that relied on precinct captains even after court rulings loosened the stranglehold the Democratic Machine had on government hiring and weakened other ward organizations.

Even though he is leaving his aldermanic seat, Mr. Mell will remain Democratic committeeman of the 33^rd ward and thus will continue to operate “one of the strongest ward organizations in the city.”   The post of committeeman isn’t what it used to be for a variety of reasons, but a ward’s committeeman controls the party apparatus in that ward.  Mr. Mell is not giving that up, at least not yet.

Third, in his parting comments, Mr. Mell had a few, and one suspects as few as possible, things to say about his infamous son-in-law, to wit…

“People loved him on the campaign trail.  He was phenomenal.   But when it came to actually governing, he was a problem.”

Hear, hear, despite the understatement in the second sentence.

Mr. Mell also said that if he could do it all over again, Blagojevich

“…would have never gotten out of state rep.  He would never have went (sic) to Congress.  He would have been a state rep until he decided to quit or be a lawyer or whatever.”

That’s great sentiment in retrospect.   But you can’t tell me, or anyone remotely sentient, that Mr. Mell only discovered the deep character flaws in his son-in-law only after Blago was elected to Congress and then to the governor’s mansion, both of which would have been impossible without Dick Mell’s help.   Many of us could see what a popinjay Mr. Blagojevich was long before he got to the governor’s office.  (In a later post I will tell you of the time yours truly and then Congressman Blagojevich sparred for an hour on a talk radio program…and will especially note Blago’s parting words to yours truly.  It’s a good story, but not as good as it sounds.)  Dick Mell is no fool and he was far closer to Blago than any of us who followed Blago’s career, so he had to be aware from pretty much the get-go of the poltroonishness of his son-in-law.  Yet Mr. Mell still used all of his powers and all of his abilities to put Blago first in Congress and then in the governor’s office.  For all his hemming and hawing now, and for all his other accomplishments, Mr. Mell’s foisting his son-in-law upon the people of Illinois (And I am by no means absolving our misinformed or simply uninformed, voters; anyone who has read just about anything I’ve written knows that.) will remain his most salient “achievement.”

Fourth, Mr. Mell went out of his way to be not all that uncharacteristically sycophantic toward Mayor Emanuel:

“Of all the mayors I worked with, I really like this guy (Emanuel) because he’ll make a decision based on what he believes is right.”

Mell went on to laud the Mayor’s “courage” in reworking the parking meter deal (See RAHM EMANUEL AND THE PARKING METERS:   “GOT TO MAKE THE BEST OF…A BAD SITUATION”, 4/30/13)…

“You think if I were mayor I would have touched those parking meters?”

It could, of course, be that Mr. Mell genuinely likes Mr. Emanuel and has enjoyed working with him, or at least that he has liked working with nominal north sider Emanuel more than he liked working with south sider Rich Daley.  But one suspects that Mr. Mell is following a not so proud tradition of the supposed tough guy aldermen, committeemen, and other pols around this town:  being shameless suck-ups to whoever happens to be occupying the Fifth Floor at the time. 

Perhaps the esteemed aldermen have no choice.   Beginning with Richard I and continuing with Richard II and Rahm Emanuel, Chicago mayors have almost completely emasculated the ward organizations, so the aldermen have to beg for the crumbs that fall from the Mayor’s table.   In this case, Mr. Mell really needs something from Mr. Emanuel:  the appointment of Deb Mell to the 33^rd ward city council seat.   One wishes, however, that these Chicago pols would stop masquerading as tough guys when, in reality, they have been reduced, and more or less willingly, to lap dogs and lickspittles.

Last, readers of my books, the Chairman and the Chairman’s Challenge, liked to try to guess who Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins is in real life.  When they aren’t guessing Ed Burke, Mike Madigan, Ed Vrdolyak, Bill Banks, or Rich Daley, they are guessing Dick Mell.  People ask me frequently if Collins is one of the aforementioned gentlemen, and Mell’s name comes up a lot.   My answer is the same for Mr. Mell as it has been for any other suggestion:  Chairman Eamon DeValera Collins is nobody in Chicago politics and he is (almost) everybody in Chicago politics.  He is one man who embodies the characteristics of many men.   Collins, as Don Vito Corleone was for the New York Mob of the mid twentieth century, is an amalgam of characters in Chicago politics of the latter part of that century.   Chairman Collins, like Alderman Mell, is an intriguing, enduring character, but, unlike Dick Mell, Eamon Collins is fictional.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.