Mike Quigley

As Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias launched his campaign to run for Chicago mayor in 2027, he left one important detail unsaid: He’s also running for reelection in this November’s election.

The first-term secretary of state and mayoral candidate nonetheless responded with a succinct “No” when a reporter inquired after last month’s announcement whether it was hypocritical to ask millions of Illinois voters to return him to his statewide office while he also campaigned to lead the nation’s third-largest city. It’s a dynamic facing a North Side congressman running to unseat Mayor Brandon Johnson in the February 2027 race, as well as a Cook County elected official considering a mayoral run — and a situation that has emerged many times before in Illinois where insider Democratic politics rules the land.

But this year could be different as some critics are taking the opportunity to attack politicians for trying to have it both ways. On Tuesday, mayoral candidate and lawyer William J. Quinlan sued Giannoulias, U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley and Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, all Democrats, for being on the ballot this November for another term in their current seats while also launching, or in Pappas’s case saying she intends to launch, campaigns for mayor.

“Alexi, Mike and Maria want to run for Mayor, but none of them are willing to give up their current job to do it,” Quinlan wrote in a statement. “Most Chicagoans can’t afford to hold out for a better job while still collecting a paycheck from the one they’ve got. In this economy, they’re lucky to keep the job they have. These politicians think the rules are different for them.”

Quinlan, an attorney who’s worked for former Democratic Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and disgraced former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, decried the three as “career politicians keeping one seat warm in case the other race doesn’t go their way.”

Quinlan’s suit argues Giannoulias, Quigley and Pappas would violate the state’s election code, which bars candidates from appearing on the ballot for two “incompatible” offices at once — reelection to the offices they currently hold as well as mayor.

“Each of the offices that the (three) Defendants are also running for — Illinois Secretary of State, United States Representative for Illinois’ Fifth Congressional District, and Cook County Treasurer — is clearly incompatible with the office of Mayor, as the competing loyalties and significant responsibilities that each of these offices entails means that (they) could not ‘faithfully, impartially, and efficiently (conduct) the duties of both offices,'” Quinlan’s suit alleges.

Because municipal elections occur in odd years and state and county elections are held in even years, many politicians have historically run for one type of office while holding the other. But Quinlan’s lawsuit hinges on a 2024 change to Illinois’ election code that moved up the deadline for mayoral candidates to file nominating petitions to Oct. 26 — before the Nov. 3 general election in which Giannoulias, Quigley and Pappas are seeking new terms in their current offices. Under the old rules, the mayoral filing deadline fell after the general election, avoiding the overlap.

“For the first time, petitions to appear on the ballot for Mayor of Chicago must be filed prior to the general election,” Quinlan’s suit states. “Illinois law is clear that candidates may not appear on the ballot for two or more incompatible offices. That is precisely what is occurring here. In light of the amendment to the Election Code that advanced the petition filing deadline, it is illegal for candidates to run for Mayor of Chicago and another incompatible office in the general election.”

Quinlan is seeking a ruling by Oct. 18. He argues that if the court sides with him and the three don’t withdraw from the November election, they “would be disqualified from running for one or both of the offices they seek and any votes cast for them would be invalidated,” opening a path for their Nov. 3 challengers to win.

Matt Dietrich, a spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections, said he could not comment on pending litigation.

State Board of Elections officials have generally maintained that the “incompatible” office standard applies to a single election and single ballot, not to separate elections and differing ballots. That view was shared by some legal experts who asked not to be identified so as not to look like they were taking sides on the issue. But that standard applied before the change in the mayoral filing date, which creates a new opening for Quinlan’s challenge.

Regardless of the court outcome, the lawsuit provides Quinlan a politically strategic vehicle to raise the dual-office question against his mayoral race rivals.

So far, at least 10 candidates have thrown their hats into the ring to unseat incumbent Johnson in the next mayoral election. Giannoulias, by far the most well-funded, was elected secretary of state in 2022, and he faces a largely uncompetitive general election this November. If he wins both offices, the secretary of state seat would be vacated early in the next term, and the governor would appoint a replacement to serve until a special statewide election on the 2028 general election ballot.

On Tuesday, Giannoulias’ campaign spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh responded to the lawsuit with a statement that didn’t address it.

“Alexi is focused on talking to Chicagoans about the issues they care about, making Chicago a safer, more affordable place to live,” she said.

Asked recently why he decided to seek both offices, Giannoulias said, “I love being Secretary of State,” but he can’t predict what the future holds.

“I don’t know whether or not I’m going to win this race,” Giannoulias said about running for mayor. “That’s up to voters. My job is to talk about policies that I think will make the city a better place.”

Pappas, who has been teasing a mayoral run for nearly a year but has not formally entered the race, said in a phone interview Tuesday that she expects to be removed from the lawsuit because she is not an announced mayoral candidate.

“I’m going to be the last one in,” Pappas said. “I’m not getting in this now. It’s like a clown show. I’m going to announce when I’m good and ready. This election is very different than any election, and I’m not going to play my cards until I’m ready.”

Her successor, if she left office, would be chosen by the Cook County Board, usually on the recommendation of the Democratic Party’s state central committee.

Bill McCaffrey, a Quigley campaign spokesperson, responded to the lawsuit with a statement that said, “This is a frivolous lawsuit, without merit, filed by someone best known for being Rod Blagojevich’s general counsel.”

If Quigley vacated his congressional seat, the governor would have to call a special election to fill it.

That’s all a sea change from how Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s successor is being chosen. Mendoza announced last year she would not seek reelection, opening a competitive Democratic primary this March. She told the Tribune Giannoulias is disenfranchising voters by denying voters the same open field.

“I believe that when you know this far ahead — and he’s known this far ahead, that he was going to run for mayor — that the right thing to do is to allow the people to choose your successor,” said Mendoza, who declared her mayoral candidacy in June. “It’s democracy, right? I do believe that Chicagoans deserve a mayor that is all in. … Let me remind folks that this is not the private sector.”

It’s a lesson Mendoza learned personally. The last time she ran for mayor was in 2019, a race she lost amid grumbles after she had just won her reelection bid as state comptroller months earlier, in the fall of 2018.

Illinois politicians have long timed their campaigns and retirements to help allies and line up successors, a practice rooted in the old Democratic machine. It drew national scrutiny last year when U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia of Chicago announced his retirement at the last minute, leaving his chief of staff as the sole Democratic primary candidate for his seat.

Johnson, who made his reelection bid official earlier this month, suggested candidates who cannot commit to one race at a time are “vacillating on who they are and what they want to be.”

“I have one job, one assignment, and that’s to build the safest, most affordable big city in America. Here’s what I can tell you: you can’t serve two masters, right?” Johnson said. “You can’t serve two masters, and you have people who are in this race that have already been bought and have sold out working people.”

Businessman Willie Wilson, now in his fourth run for mayor, went further and called on Giannoulias to either resign from being secretary of state or drop out of the mayoral race.

“Alexi Giannoulias and these other ‘double dippers’ are disrespecting the voters and ripping off the taxpayers by running for two offices at the same time,” Wilson wrote in a statement earlier this month. “As a self-made businessman and philanthropist, I will only answer to the people of Chicago and will always fight for honest, ethical government — Giannoulias and these other double dippers can’t say the same thing, and they need to either do the jobs the people elected them to do, or get out of this race.”