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38 2 Serving in the Illinois Statehouse During the early part of 1950, an election year, it became clear there might be a contest in the primary balloting for the two nominations for state representative on the Democratic ticket in the Forty-Ninth Legislative District, which covered Saint Clair County. A contest seemed likely when East Saint Louis attorney James W. “Jim” Gray, the junior of the two incumbent Democrats in the Illinois house from the district, decided to run for the district’s seat in the Illinois senate. The likelihood became a certainty when I decided at the age of twenty-two to throw my hat into the ring for state rep. Each of the state’s then fifty-one legislative districts had three seats in the Illinois house and one in the senate. As for the house seats, a system in effect at the time—a cumulative voting procedure dictated by the Illinois Constitution of 1870, then in effect—virtually assured the weaker party in each district would hold one of its three seats. That was pulled off through a provision that each district voter could cast one vote for each of three candidates, one and a half for each of two, or three votes for any one candidate . This last option—called “plumping”— was designed to guarantee minority representation in the lower chamber, where all members served two-year terms. In my memory, only one district was so overwhelmingly of one political persuasion that each of its three reps, for a brief time, was a Democrat. It was a Chicago district that in 1936 sent a third Democrat to Springfield on the Republican ticket—the man who later became Chicago’s greatest mayor, Richard J. Daley. The way the house system worked out in Saint Clair, a Democratic county, the party’s two nominees for state rep seats coming out of the primary virtually were assured of victory in the fall general election. The district’s third house seat would go to one of the Republican candidates. Serving in the Illinois State House | 39 From a statewide perspective, this system had considerable merit in that it led to diversity in the house membership that otherwise might not be the case. For instance, great Democratic liberals could be elected from conservative Republican districts. One was Jeanne Hurley, who served in the House from a Republican district north of Chicago (she was to marry my longtime legislative confidant Paul Simon and later worked with me when I was state treasurer). On the other side of the coin, strong Democratic districts, such as most in Chicago, still might send a Republican fiscal conservative to the house, such as Noble W. Lee, dean of the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. However, the cumulative voting system, which well served Illinoisans’ governmental interests, was ruined by “do-gooders.” Back in his self-styled populist days, Patrick J. Quinn—who ascended from lieutenant governor to governor in 2009—was the main mover behind a state constitutional amendment to eliminate cumulative voting and reduce the membership of the house from 177 to 118. Called the Cutback Amendment, it was ratified by Illinois voters in 1980. Naturally, the people always will vote to throw out politicians. Jim Gray deciding to run for the senate created an opening for somebody. By Gray not seeking reelection to the house, the only incumbent left on our side was Frank Holten, a musician and onetime East Saint Louis city treasurer , who was considered the dean of the house because he had served in the chamber continuously since he first was elected in 1916. His reelection in 1950 was a given. As for the Democratic nominee for the house seat being vacated by Gray, the early favorite for the nomination was Jack Wellinghoff, the president of the Belleville–Saint Louis Coach Company and a man who’d served several terms in the house as well as serving as sheriff of Saint Clair County. He was a fine man and widely known, but he also was regarded as a lackadaisical campaigner who would depend on his reputation to win. He also had just engaged in an argument with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which was not useful in a Democratic primary contest. I may have been only twenty-two, but I had the “fever,” some knowledge, and some good friends. I met with major union leaders in Belleville and conferred with Henry Haas, the chairman of the Belleville Democratic Central Committee...

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