{"id":252275,"date":"2010-01-30T17:41:28","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T22:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef01287736101a970c"},"modified":"2010-01-30T17:50:26","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T22:50:26","slug":"quinn-hynes-escalate-democratic-governor-contest-along-racial-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/252275","title":{"rendered":"Quinn, Hynes escalate Democratic governor contest along racial lines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Rick Pearson and Monique Garcia<\/em> at 4:40 p.m.<\/p>\n

A heated tossup race for the Democratic nomination for governor escalated along racial lines today as Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes traded charges of incompetence fueled by the scandal at Burr Oak cemetery and a TV ad featuring the late Mayor Harold Washington.
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<\/br>Quinn was joined by U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush today to criticize Hynes, the state\u2019s three\u2013term comptroller. Quinn alleged that Hynes knew for years about disinterred human remains at Burr Oak, a predominantly African-American cemetery near Alsip.
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<\/br>Hynes, however, said Quinn is \u201ctrying to fan the flames\u201d of anger in the black community over the alleged reselling of grave sites and dumped human remains at the cemetery in order to keep his job as governor.\n<\/p>\n

The African-American vote traditionally is a crucial voting bloc for Democratic candidates and had been one of the last vestiges of support for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich prior to his ouster a year ago, when Quinn was elevated to the post. Quinn and Hynes are scheduled to spend Sunday on the city\u2019s South and West Sides attending churches with large African-American congregations.
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<\/br>At issue on the Burr Oak controversy are two documents: an internal corporate memo involving the cemetery owners and a later letter from Hynes\u2019 office to the cemetery owners. Each document uses the term \u201chuman remains,\u201d but in different context. Hynes\u2019 office oversees cemetery trust finances.
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<\/br>A Friday night report on WLS-Ch. 7 detailed what it described as a 2003 internal corporate memo in which the Burr Oak chief executive in charge of the cemetery at the time allegedly noted that its previous owners had buried over or cleared out old graves for new ones and expressed concern that older human remains had been dumped.
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<\/br>A separate 2004 letter from Hynes\u2019 comptroller office to the same Burr Oak executive noted that the cemetery owner wanted to construct a mausoleum on the grounds, but in the process of excavation had found human remains. The Hynes\u2019 letter instructs the cemetery to contact the state\u2019s Historic Preservation Agency or the state\u2019s cemetery association.
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<\/br>Quinn has seized on both documents, tying them together to allege that the issue of grave re-selling and dumping of human remains was known to Hynes\u2019 office as a result of the comptroller\u2019s memo. Hynes said the two documents were unrelated and that it would not be unusual for excavation in a century-old cemetery to unearth human remains in an area not previously charted.
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<\/br>Following a get-out-the-vote rally with members of the Service Employees\u2019 International Union, Quinn alleged Hynes knew of improper disposal of human remains and didn\u2019t do anything about it.
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<\/br>\u201cThey were given specific information that they knew, that they acknowledge there were human remains not properly disposed of at the cemetery,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cNow the proper thing to do would have been to immediately investigate that, as he did with other cemeteries in Illinois, but they decided not to do anything. And I think they owe the people an explanation for why not and an apology for not acting properly.\u201d
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<\/br>Rush, an African-American congressman from the South Side, said Hynes\u2019 failure to act earlier was a disservice to the black community.
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<\/br>\u201cHe was so uncaring, so callous, so cavalier that he didn\u2019t even lift a finger. Didn\u2019t bat an eye, didn\u2019t do anything,\u201d Rush said. \u201cThe gall of this man to come now to ask for our votes for governor– when he has been probably the most callous comptroller in the history of this country when it relates to the pain and suffering of our community.\u201d
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<\/br>Rush was an immediate supporter of the disgraced Blagojevich\u2019s appointment of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate, despite Blagojevich\u2019s arrest for allegedly trying to sell the seat. At the time of the appointment of Burris, who was the first black elected to statewide office a quarter century earlier, Rush asked critics \u201cto not hang or lynch the appointee.\u201d
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<\/br>Quinn has sought to use the Burr Oak scandal for weeks in TV advertisements against Hynes to try to shore up his soft support among African-American voters. A recent Tribune poll found Quinn with 44 percent support from black voters, compared to 40 percent for Hynes \u2014 percentages that were identical to the overall statewide poll. The poll had an error margin of 4 percentage points.
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<\/br>But Quinn\u2019s attempts to draw linkage between the cemetery firm\u2019s internal memo and the comptroller\u2019s office memo on Burr Oak also are a way to respond to Hynes\u2019 TV advertising that shows the late Harold Washington, the city\u2019s first African-American mayor. The ad, using footage from a 1987 interview, shows Washington calling Quinn incompetent and saying it was a mistake that Quinn was hired as city revenue director in his administration.
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<\/br>\u201cIf anybody asks, why should I vote on Tuesday, what\u2019s a stake? I\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s at stake,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cWhich way is our state going to go? Are we going to go backwards? Are we going to go back to those days in the 1980s when people were divided against each other? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d
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<\/br>Quinn\u2019s campaign has noted that Hynes\u2019 father, former Cook County assessor and state Senate president Tom Hynes, a powerful 19th Ward Democrat, briefly left the party to try to mount a mayoral campaign against Washington. Hynes has said Washington\u2019s words speak to Quinn\u2019s competency to hold office and are not aimed at racial and political divides that existed during Washington\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Rick Pearson and Monique Garcia at 4:40 p.m. A heated tossup race for the Democratic nomination for governor escalated along racial lines today as Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes traded charges of incompetence fueled by the scandal at Burr Oak cemetery and a TV ad featuring the late Mayor Harold Washington.Quinn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}