Don Rose: Friends of Parks in smart tradition of citizen suits

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A 2015 rendering of the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

A rendering of the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art on Chicago’s lakefront. | Lucas Museum of Narrative Art

Lucas Museum of Narrative Art/Distributed by the Associated Press.

It pains me to see several friends and allies attacking Friends of the Parks for simply fulfilling their mission of protecting our parks and lakefront by suing to prevent the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Art from being built on what they perceive is protected land.

Remember, FOP did not themselves stop the museum, as many would like us to believe. Rather, the organization exercised the decades-long tradition of a citizen group — or individual — asking a federal court to determine whether the site would be legal. Their ingenious attorney, Thomas Geoghegan, found an argument that Judge John W. Darrah agreed was valid for litigation. He has not yet tried the case, but apparently the Lucas family and Mayor Rahm Emanuel feared he would go against them.

OPINION

Unfortunately, federal lawsuits have become the prime means of achieving reforms in this town, where the mayor makes the decisions and the City Council and various commissions and zoning boards he appoints vote “Yah.” And all too frequently local judges, who must stand for election with the backing of the political structure, go merrily along.

Consider, however, it took a lawsuit filed by Michael Shakman, who in 1969 was an independent candidate for the state’s Constitutional Convention, to eventually find the entire patronage system was unlawful and open our political system to unannointed candidates. Observing the damage the Shakman decree was doing to the political machine, Mayor Richard M. Daley kept trying to circumvent it, but was knocked down time and again by various federal judges.

Another case, filed by the late Bernard Weisberg, further leveled the political playing field by successfully suing to have ballot position determined by lottery rather than have a Machine office-holder give favored positions to favored candidates.

The Independent Voters of Illinois sued the Chicago Board of Elections for various infractions and won a series of reforms that helped end much of the vote fraud of the era.

Around the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Alliance to End Repression merged in a successful federal lawsuit to prevent the illegal spying of Mayor Richard J. Daley’s police Red Squad.

The People’s Law Office fought endlessly and tirelessly to expose and finally jail Police Commander Jon Burge, who ran a torture mill to extract false confessions from African-American prisoners, among its many deeds.

The ACLU and the non-profit law firm Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI) filed numerous suits finding racial discrimination in public housing, the schools and the hiring practices of the police and fire departments. Needless to say, the results did not sit well with the city.

Friends of the Parks, themselves an offshoot of BPI, gained prominence by suing the Chicago Park District over the fact that parks in black and Latino areas were more poorly maintained and offered fewer services that those in white areas. An out-of- court settlement was reached and the park district was put under federal surveillance for six years. No one criticized that action except the then-boss of the park system.

But not all citizen lawsuits and court decisions prove popular. When the village of Skokie passed ordinances to prevent neo-Nazis from marching through the town, where many holocaust survivors resided, the Illinois ACLU — whose mission is to uphold the First Amendment — sued successfully to find those ordinances unconstitutional. Yes, toxic organizations such as the Nazis have the same right to march as those celebrating St. Patrick’s day. (It’s possible we wouldn’t have the LGBT Pride Parade without the Skokie ruling.)

The backlash against the ACLU and its Jewish attorney was prodigious, costing it financial and moral support — far greater than the complaints against FOP about the Lucas Museum. Eventually the fuss subsided and the ACLU gained new respect for acting on its principles.

You might support the Lucas Museum and believe it has a place on the lakefront. There are those who believe the lakefront location is illegal. I wish the supporters had the patience to wait for the judge’s ruling — but let’s not condemn those who chose to put it in his hands.

As we celebrate our nation’s founding, remember, that’s the American way.

Don Rose is a political consultant who writes for the Chicago Daily Observer.

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