Voters should look closely at race for state’s highest legal office

The battle to determine Illinois’ next attorney general is finally cutting to the chase.

“If J.B. Pritzker is elected governor, he and Mike Madigan will have total control over state government. That much power in the hands of any one political party isn’t good for Illinois,” Erika Harold declares in a new campaign ad.

“I’ll be a check on the Pritzker-Madigan agenda and work for you, not them.”

The Republican nominee is making her best and final case for election on Nov. 6.

This year the campaign chatter has been consumed by record-breaking spending at the top of the ticket. The brutal, though lopsided contest between Pritzker and Gov. Bruce Rauner is making history.

But voters should take a closer look at the contest for the state’s highest legal office. It’s making history of its own, featuring two African-American nominees for the first time.

Democrat Kwame Raoul is the son of Haitian immigrants who was appointed to Barack Obama’s state Senate seat on the South Side of Chicago. Raoul, a lieutenant of powerful Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, is a beneficiary of Pritzker, the billionaire gubernatorial nominee, and House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Harold is a Champaign-based attorney and Urbana resident who won the 2003 Miss America Pageant and parlayed that into a Harvard Law School degree. In 2014, the Republican made a failing bid for Congress in Illinois’ 13th District.

In this race, Harold is trying to stay competitive via the beneficence of wealthy GOP Gov. Rauner and Ken Griffin, Illinois’ richest resident.

If elected, Harold would become the state’s first black female attorney general. Libertarian Bubba Harsy is also in the race.

Raoul has spent millions to, among other things, paint Harold as an arch conservative who would deploy the office to eliminate a woman’s right to choose and demolish LGBT rights.

Harold has responded by accusing Raoul of “fear mongering” at a Chicago Tribune editorial board meeting. “This job is not about usurping the role of the legislature, it’s about upholding your constitutional obligation to defend the rule of law,” she said.

That’s a side show.

What Harold’s ad doesn’t explicitly say, but what voters should know, is that if Illinois Democrats pull off a blue wave, they lock down every statewide constitutional office and both houses of the Legislature.

With all that power, Democrats would be like pigs in you-know-what.

That’s no prescription for good government or bipartisan collaboration.

Harold might also remind voters about troubling questions about Raoul’s conflicts of interest.

Raoul is spending millions of campaign dollars on misty-eyed commercials that detail his health challenges and passion for social justice.

He’s not telling you that he has received at least $100,000 from tobacco-related interests, and thousands more from utility companies and red-light camera operators. Neil Bluhm, the billionaire real estate and casino magnate, recently donated $100,000 to Raoul’s campaign, according to records complied by Reform for Illinois, a nonpartisan watchdog. All this courtesy of industries and interests regulated by the attorney general’s office. Raoul says he’s not for sale.

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I am not taking sides.

But as the November race makes its final turn, Harold’s best case is that she could be a crucial check on a Democratic sweep and an ethical watchdog against corruption.

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