Like many progressive Democrats, U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia has accused President Donald Trump and Republicans of posing a threat to the future of American democracy.
It was just 20 months ago that Garcia, during a debate with Chicago Ald. Ray Lopez, who was challenging him during the primary, said, “I believe that most of the threats to democracy have come from right-wing extremists in the country — are fueled by the rhetoric of Donald Trump and other enablers in Congress.”
Yet in a gambit straight out of the Democratic Machine playbook, Garcia waited until hours before the filing deadline for next year’s elections to announce his decision not to run, clearing the way for Patty Garcia, his chief of staff but no relation, to file for the party primary race to succeed him and ensuring she would have zero competition in a district that’s safely blue.
Guess who’s a threat to democracy now?
“Not a good look for the party of ‘No Kings,’” Lopez told Fox 32 journalist Paris Schutz.
No, Alderman Lopez, it surely is not.
We acknowledge that this kind of anti-democratic maneuver wasn’t hitherto unknown around these parts. In just this cycle alone, Illinois Rep. Marty Moylan, D-Des Plaines, pulled the same stunt, announcing his planned retirement Monday, with his chief of staff magically prepared with petitions to get on the Democratic primary ballot to succeed him.
But Chuy Garcia isn’t just your average Illinois Dem. He’s the man who challenged Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the behest of the Chicago Teachers Union and forced Emanuel into a 2015 runoff for a second term. Garcia lost, but he won the gratitude of the progressive left in Chicago and made himself a well-known name throughout the Chicago area. Many young people admire him.
His elevated stature within the party and progressive movement led to the unusual sight of Garcia catching heat from fellow Democrats, including those on the national stage. Lis Smith, a high-profile Democratic political operative posted on X that “this … is why people hate politics.” “Chuy ran as a man of the people, but he’s acting like a cog in the machine,” she wrote. Exactly.
Garcia may well admire and be grateful to his chief of staff and, of course, he would have been free to endorse her. But rigging the system so she cannot lose doesn’t ennoble either of the two public servants here. Time and again, it seems, we have to remind Illinois Democrats that voters deserve to make choices and do not deserve to be disenfranchised.
In an interview with Capitol Fax, Garcia said he’d planned to run until nine days ago, when his cardiologist advised him to retire after a checkup. Garcia said his wife asked him not to run the following day, which was last Tuesday, Oct. 28. He apparently made his decision at some point later last week. We’re sympathetic to Garcia’s health issues and rightly personal decision. But that doesn’t explain waiting until the last second to disclose the news while his organization circulated petitions over the weekend to get his chief of staff on the ballot.
“I think I followed the rules,” he said.
Whatever. That’s not the point. He could have given others interested in the seat a heads-up and a few days to gather signatures. It was a deliberate choice not to do so, and it was regrettable.
Garcia has represented Illinois’ 4th District in Congress since 2019, succeeding Democrat Luis Gutierrez who in November 2017 announced he wouldn’t run for reelection with just six days remaining before the filing deadline and endorsed Garcia. Critics derided the timing of Gutierrez’s announcement at the time as a coronation for Garcia. Sound familiar?
The difference, though, is that there were two candidates who ran against Garcia, so at least primary voters had a choice, even if the challengers were low profile. Garcia didn’t provide 2026 voters even that courtesy.
Before the face-off with Emanuel, Garcia was a relatively obscure Cook County commissioner who had forged his political reputation largely on his status as a supporter of Mayor Harold Washington as an alderman, first elected in 1986.
Garcia’s legacy could have been built around his roots in helping Washington defeat his Council Wars opponents and the scare he gave Emanuel as a progressive challenger. Now, part of his legacy will be the way he’s exiting the political stage — handing his congressional seat to a loyal staffer and disrespecting his own voters by denying them a choice of who their next U.S. House member should be.
We have no doubt our more cynical readers will roll their eyes at the thought of any Illinois politician doing the right thing when it comes to our famously hardball politics. But that has happened. Recently, too.
U.S. Rep. Danny Davis earlier this year announced his plans to retire after decades representing the West Side and near west suburbs. But, while he immediately endorsed Illinois Rep. La Shawn Ford, he left plenty of time for others to contest the seat. And at least eight others are doing just that.
Another example: Illinois Rep. Lance Yednock, a moderate Democrat from downstate Ottawa, decided in 2023 not to run again for his DeKalb-centered seat. But he made the announcement at the end of August of that year. His chief of staff, Amy “Murri” Briel, ran to succeed him and he backed her. But he left enough time for others to get in the race, and she got a spirited contest from two highly qualified Democrats. She prevailed in the primary and went on to eke out a general election victory in one of our gerrymandered state’s few bona fide swing districts.
Trump deserves the criticism he gets for the way he’s cast aside many of the democratic norms that have served this republic well for more than two centuries.
We will kindly thank Garcia during the remainder of his time in Washington, D.C., for refraining from joining his party’s ongoing chorus of opprobrium.
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