Posted by Rick Pearson at 12:55 p.m.
The number of finalists to become Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn’s running mate has dropped by one with today’s announcement that state Rep. Mike Boland has stepped aside in favor of state Rep. Art Turner.
“It is my strong belief that the nominee to replace Scott Lee Cohen should be someone who ran for the office of lieutenant governor in the February primary,” Boland, D-East Moline, said in a statement distributed by Turner’s campaign today.
“To not choose someone who has already campaigned extensively throughout this huge state and garnered over 180,000 votes would be to tell all of the hundreds of thousands of voters who took the time and made the effort to vote in the primary election that their votes meant nothing,” Boland said.
Turner, a veteran Chicago Democrat and member of House Speaker Michael Madigan’s leadership team, finished second behind the embattled Cohen in the Feb. 2 primary. Cohen gave up the nomination following politically damaging disclosures about his personal life.
Boland has long sought the office of lieutenant governor and has long been a political acolyte of Quinn’s, going so far as to propose a further cutback of the General Assembly to turn it into a one-house or unicameral branch of government.
But Boland’s decision could carry some consequences with the Democratic State Central Committee, headed by Madigan, which meets Saturday in Springfield to choose a lieutenant governor nominee. Boland’s wife, Mary, is among the 38 state central committee members who will make the decision.
Boland was among 17 finalists recommended for the post following six hearings held across the state among more than 100 applicants last Saturday.
The current favorite for the post is state Sen. Susan Garrett of Lake Forest, whom Quinn encouraged to apply for the job and met with last week. Quinn has had trouble appealing to suburban women voters, a key voting bloc in the November general election.
Turner has said he is surprised that Garrett has emerged as a favorite, given his longer legislative tenure. An African-American legislator from Chicago, Turner said the support he received from Boland, the only downstate candidate for lieutenant governor, shows “that my home address does not impede my ability to understand and affect the issues being faced by downstate Illinois residents.”