Tragically, on December 9th of 2022, his family, our community, and the world unexpectedly lost a role model, leader, and friend to many in Senator Scott Bennett. Senator Bennett represented Illinois’ 52nd district since 2015 when he was appointed to replace now State Treasurer Mike Frerichs. In the wake of his death, once again this seat was vacated and needed to be filled. After a supposedly democratic process played out, the seat has been filled by former Township Supervisor and now Senator Paul Faraci.
In Illinois, after the vacancy of a state legislative seat, it is left to the political party representing the last officeholder to decide who will fill the vacancy. In proportion to the number of constituents across counties that any seat may represent, County party leadership is given a weighted vote in deciding who will fill the seat. The 52nd Senate district covered territory encompassing parts of Champaign and Vermillion counties. Due to the number of constituents in Champaign County versus Vermillion, the Champaign County Democratic Party Chair, County Board Member Mike Ingram, had the power to speak for all the district’s constituents as to would fill the seat.
Ingram delegated this power to the second in command Vice Chair Cari West-Henkelman. Additionally, a process was set up to decide who would fill the seat. This amounted to establishing an advisory committee of leaders from across the state who discussed issues and recommended a candidate to West-Henkelman.
Unfortunately for the 52nd district, despite the guise of committees, processes, and procedures this was not in fact a democratic process as some county party leaders have claimed it to be. There are several reasons for this starting with the obvious; this was not an election.
Clearly, the most democratic way of handling this vacancy would’ve been to hold a special election. However, in defense of county leadership, special elections like those held in many other states are not permitted by law in this circumstance. The legal process for filling this type of vacancy empowers party chairs to appoint a replacement.
Despite this constraint, claims that leadership had democratic ambitions when designing this process persisted without any public advocacy to amend state law. One would think that an institution, like the Democratic Party, which cared about democracy would advocate for changing the laws when faced with the power to appoint a position that should be elected. To this day, the party has yet to publicly call for reform in the process of filling a vacancy.
In all fairness, however, given the constraints that are on the books and the narrow time frame before the new legislative session began, those of us that care about democracy can excuse that an election wasn’t willed into being. However, this does not mean that the process was as democratic as possible. The lack of democracy is ultimately rooted in the stated legal process but extended into the form the advisory committee took and the setting in which it discussed the appointment.
On the first of these points, the legal process is quite possibly the least democratic way of selecting a Senator allowed in our society. At its core, the stated legal process allowed the Democratic Party Chair of Champaign County, a position that is not popularly elected and only represents a portion of the 52nd district’s constituents, to choose who should represent us.
This blatant lack of democracy prompted the creation of an advisory committee comprised of elected and unelected leaders throughout the state. Therein lies the first obvious undemocratic aspect of this process: no unelected or out-of-district leader should have been given the power to speak for the 52nd district’s constituents.
Additionally, even the elected officials whom local constituents may have voted for were not popularly given the power to make this decision. When I, and many others in the 52nd, voted for State Treasurer Mike Frerichs, for example, I was consenting to him maintaining his authority and continuing to manage his department in Springfield. I was not consenting to him choosing my Senator.
At the heart of these examples is this: not only wasn’t there a vote but there was also no public involvement in empowering who would make the appointment. We didn’t choose the party chair, we didn’t choose who was on the committee, some committee members have never been chosen by our constituents to do anything, and those that have been elected by us were not chosen with this task in mind.
Additionally, as we all know, money dominates American politics and neither Illinois as a state nor our local governments in the 52nd district are immune to this. Whether they like it or not, any politician that could’ve been put on this committee would be bringing special interests with them. Any solid progressive knows this and should bring a level of skepticism toward leaders of every public process.
Bringing special interests into this process could’ve been avoided with a slightly different advisory committee. Rather than looking to local leaders to help with this decision, the party could’ve sought out constituents. This might’ve required slightly more work than appealing to those in our society that regularly pursue power -politicians- but wouldn’t be impossible.
There are at least three ways this could’ve been organized. First, if the party was primarily concerned with its own power, it could’ve filled the committee exclusively with constituents who pulled a Democratic primary ballot in the last election.
Second, if the party wanted to live up to the democratic principle of proportional representation, the committee could’ve solicited constituents of both parties and given each party a number of votes proportional to how they voted in the last election.
Finally, the party could’ve followed another familiar democratic process by emulating a jury system; this would’ve demanded asking constituents if they’d be interested in participating in the process, regardless of party, then randomly picking from that list.
All of these practical alternatives are in their own ways much more democratic than the process that played out. Thus, no, this was not the most democratic process possible.
Despite my urge to be skeptical, I believe that the Democratic leaders in our area truly thought that this process was democratic. Sometimes progressives will label moderates as lacking vision and willpower; this seems to be a great example. Each one of those alternatives could’ve been undertaken with minimal effort yet they weren’t even discussed publicly. If it wasn’t clear before, without truly progressive leadership, it’s clear we can’t live up to the ideals of democracy.
This becomes very clear regarding the publicly available online forum. This is because the public was excluded from involvement with the event.
Firstly, there was no public questioning of the candidates. You’d think that if our leaders had democracy in mind when designing this process, the public could’ve at least asked candidates questions they thought to be important. Nevertheless, this was not the case, and the public was limited to participating as observers.
However, unlike how a typical audience can at least be seen reacting to what’s said, even this limited form of public engagement was unwelcome. This can be seen through the decision of the online meeting hosts to disable people’s cameras. So, not only could we not speak to the candidates who could’ve represented us, we weren’t even allowed to quietly display support or opposition to those candidates and/or what they had to say.
It’s hard to spin this in any direction that supports democracy. So, this process was not only less democratic than it could’ve been on paper, but it was actively undemocratic in practice. Any process that actively excludes the public shouldn’t be used to select a representative position and definitely shouldn’t be proposed by anyone that’s part of a pro-democracy coalition.
In the end, this means that it was unlikely that the committee would produce a Senator that the public would’ve chosen themselves. The only way, under this undemocratic framework, that this could’ve been achieved is to have appointed someone who had been selected by the same voters, in the same election, to do the same things that are expected of a Senator.
There was one candidate who met these parameters and that was State Representative Carol Ammons. Ammons is the only Democrat state legislator who shared Senator Bennett’s constituents and was re-elected in the most recent election. Despite this, the committee and party chairs went in another direction.
With all of the layers of anti-democracy at play, it’s extremely clear that democracy had nothing to do with this process. Rather than appointing someone that’s representative of our interests, it seems that the party attempted to pick someone that Senator Bennett would’ve approved of.
While at an interpersonal level, I understand why someone may pursue this course of action, in a democracy our politics and public institutions, supposedly are not, and shouldn’t be a playground for pleasantries. Unlike how some have framed it, this seat was never Scott Bennett’s, it has always been the people’s. It was never the role of any of these leaders, including the late Senator, to interpret what constituents liked about Senator Bennett and replicate that. The only group that could’ve engaged in that interpreting would be constituents themselves i.e., those who were excluded from participation.
Claims about this process being democratic were at least untrue and at worst lies. It’s clear that if we value democracy we need to promote truly progressive leadership in our area. I have nothing but respect for the late senator and his family nor do I wish anything but success from our new State Senator. However, I believe this process has illuminated many of the faults in the Champaign County Democratic Party that need to be remedied through activism, reform, and, if necessary, replacement.
Trent Chassy
Prospectus Editor