Despite allegations of using dirty tricks, 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn beat the college kid again — this time in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by David Krupa, who as a 19-year-old DePaul University student ran an upstart campaign for alderman in 2019 but lost. Krupa in the lawsuit accused Quinn and then-Speaker Michael Madigan of violating his civil rights following the alderman’s overly aggressive efforts to keep Krupa off the ballot and defeat him.
The lawsuit is separate from the federal criminal case filed in March in which Madigan is charged with racketeering and bribery tied to utility giant Commonwealth Edison, a case in which the dethroned Illinois House speaker has pleaded not guilty.
Krupa’s attorney, Tony Peraica, acknowledged in an interview that the lawsuit was an “uphill battle” and said he did not plan to appeal. A spokeswoman for both Quinn and Madigan said neither had a comment on the ruling.
In 2019, Quinn defeated Krupa with more than 86% of the vote, but it was the way he allegedly conducted the campaign that became the focus of the suit.
Krupa alleged Quinn and Madigan, also the 13th Ward Democratic Organization’s committeeman since 1969, conspired to sabotage the college student’s campaign with a series of edgy tactics, including sending “political heavies” to harass Krupa while the college student went door to door campaigning.
Quinn and Madigan repeatedly denied Krupa’s allegations, stating in one court filing that Krupa’s suit was “generally false, often defamatory, and periodically delusional.”
But the political tactic from Quinn’s team that drew the most attention was the all-out push to get voters to revoke their signatures on Krupa’s nominating petitions. Krupa called it a “sheer fraud.”
Krupa turned in 1,703 voter signatures on his nominating petitions to get on the ballot, more than three times the 473 signatures required. But the pro-Quinn crew collected statements from 2,796 voters who said they wanted their signatures removed from Krupa’s petitions.
In his ruling on Thursday, Seeger said those working for Quinn “overshot the target” and noted that only 187 of the 2,796 people who signed the sworn statements were included in Krupa’s original paperwork.
While sympathetic to Krupa’s plight, Seeger said in his ruling that Quinn and Madigan didn’t violate Krupa’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights because “he still got on the ballot and it didn’t cost him any extra money or time.”
Still, Seeger wrote critically about the pro-Quinn effort.
“Someway somehow, 2,609 people signed something saying that they wanted to revoke signatures on documents that they had never signed,” Seeger wrote. “On a human level, one can imagine that the political lackeys felt pretty pleased with themselves when they turned in 2,796 signatures from voters that purported to revoke support for Krupa.
“One can only imagine how they felt when they realized that their attempts to railroad Krupa had gotten them nowhere,” the judge continued. “It must have been deflating to see 2,609 phony revocations go down the drain.”
The unusually high number of revocation requests from voters drew scrutiny from a Cook County grand jury, which subpoenaed city election records, but no charges have ever been brought.
It’s the second time in recent months that Madigan has prevailed in the civil courts over campaign issues. In November, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a long-shot appeal in a federal court case brought by Jason Gonzales, who accused Madigan of putting up sham candidates to help him win the 2016 Democratic primary for the Southwest Side Illinois House seat he’d held for decades.
Despite Madigan being implicated in ComEd’s agreement in July 2020 and stepping down as state Democratic chair in February last year, donations continued to flow into the 13th Ward Democratic Organization political fund.
A total of $539,869 was given to the ward fund during calendar year 2021, largely from labor unions — the most recent contribution was $5,000 from the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers in February of this year. The ward political fund contained $2,526,935 at the start of 2022.
Chicago Tribune’s Rick Pearson contributed.
rlong@chicagotribune.com
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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