A former banker, an embalmer and a longtime professional wrestler each want your vote to replace the paratrooper-turned-minor league baseball player and teacher who ended up becoming one of the most popular elected officials in Illinois history.
It’s a wide range of experience on the ballot for Illinois secretary of state, perhaps only fitting for a sprawling office that oversees 21 departments and some 4,000 employees, running the gamut from driver services and organ donation to maintaining archives and policing the state Capitol.
Jesse White — a veteran of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, the Cubs’ farm system and Chicago Public Schools — is calling it a career after an unprecedented six terms as secretary of state, which this year represents the only statewide office without an incumbent running for reelection.
The 88-year-old White — whose prowess racking up massive vote totals is legendary — has thrown his weighty endorsement behind fellow Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, the onetime party wunderkind who’s on the verge of a remarkable political comeback.
Giannoulias, 46, was elected as the state’s youngest-ever treasurer in 2007, only to step off the public stage for most of the past decade after the failure of his family’s bank helped tank his 2010 run for U.S. Senate.
“I’m the only candidate in this race who has held statewide office, who has laid out a budget, who brings private-sector experience that’s germane to the office,” the Old Town resident told the Sun-Times.
But White endorsed one of Giannoulias’ opponents in the primary, and the retiring secretary has also had kind words for state Rep. Dan Brady, the Bloomington Republican who’s trying to give his party control of the office for the first time this century.
Brady, a 61-year-old former coroner and current funeral home director, has represented his central Illinois district for almost as long as White’s name has been plastered on the walls of DMVs statewide.
“I’ve long been known as a consensus builder, no matter what your political party is,” said Brady, a deputy minority leader in the General Assembly.
Looking to play spoiler in the race is Deerfield Libertarian Jon Stewart, better known to fans of the erstwhile American Wrestling Association as “The Illustrious One” Jonnie Stewart, who often assumed the persona of a corporate shark in the ring from the late 1980s until 2008.
A former congressional candidate and car dealer, the 55-year-old Stewart said he tagged in to the contest because the third party’s initial candidate, a downstate man named Jesse White — no relation to the retiring secretary — was “bullied” off the ticket by election lawyers for Giannoulias who promised to mount an expensive challenge to his nominating petitions.
“It’s never going to change in Springfield unless we, the people, change who we send there,” Stewart said.
Giannoulias said he was unfamiliar with Stewart’s campaign and declined to comment on the bullying claim.
Each of the three candidates said their top priority is improving staffing and upgrading technology at driver services facilities, those often dreaded outposts that the average voter interacts with more than any other in government.
Giannoulias — who had more than $2.5 million in his campaign fund entering the home stretch of the race, more than 10 times the total in Brady’s political purse — has pledged to implement a “skip the line” appointment program, introduce digital drivers licenses and offer online vision tests, among other efforts to modernize services.
“We want to make sure people aren’t paying a ‘time tax,’ wasting time and resources that people squander when they’re waiting in line to access vital services,” said Giannoulias, who worked for the Bank of New York Mellon during much of his break from politics.
Brady has also focused on upgrading services that drivers can access online instead of trudging to a facility. On top of that, he says he’d “cross-train” employees on both driver and vehicle services, a distinction he says has multiplied frustration for customers and workers alike. Brady also wants to offer services at some of the state’s community colleges to bolster access around the busiest facilities.
“We have that infrastructure in place, that taxpayers are already paying for, that we can expand on and make things easier,” said Brady, who suggests Giannoulias is only interested in being elected as a “stepping stone” to higher office.
The Republican has also raised familiar questions about the Giannoulias family’s doomed Broadway Bank, an institution authorities say approved loans to some with alleged links to organized crime before it went under in the middle of Giannoulias’ Senate campaign.
“The secretary of state’s office has a division of securities. I don’t think his track record is the kind of person we want in charge of that,” Brady said.
Giannoulias, a loan officer for the bank, was never accused of wrongdoing.
“When you’re down double digits in the polls, and you have no ability to talk about what you do, you make baseless attacks,” Giannoulias said, dismissing Brady’s criticism as “typical politics.”
In turn, he went after Brady for supporting former President Donald Trump, connecting the downstate Republican to Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. “What they’re doing to the very foundation of democracy is dangerous,” Giannoulias said.
Brady waved off that critique, insisting he’s “not a flame-thrower. I’m about getting work done.” Brady also said he has no doubt Joe Biden won the 2020 election fair and square.
Stewart said he’s the only candidate who’s had tangible experience dealing with the secretary of state’s office on a regular basis, having run his family’s Northwest Side car dealership until closing up shop earlier this year.
He’s aiming to net at least 5% of the vote, which would help lower the signature threshold for Libertarian candidates to get on the ballot in future races.
“Illinois can break the two-party dictatorship, and everyone wins when that happens,” Stewart said.
Early voting is underway. The election is Nov. 8.
