October 8th, 1997 to October 14th, 1997

A Decade of IMPACT

Lesbigay PAC folding as merger with Illinois Federation falls through; final donation to Lambda will honor Bob Adams

Part One by P.J. Engelbrecht

The decision became public Sept. 18. The Chicago lesbigay political action committee IMPACT is making final contributions to spend down remaining financial resources and close out its books. Months of merger negotiations between IMPACT and the Illinois Federation for Human Rights had broken off in August. IMPACT will suspend all activity Nov. 1.

On Oct. 3, IMPACT board member Michael Bauer confirmed that IMPACT's final philanthropy would help to develop a law library at the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Midwest Office, in Chicago. "What we're probably going to do is make a donation to a memorial fund [honoring] Bob Adams, our first executive director," said Bauer. He estimated the final donation would be $1,000.

In September, IMPACT announced a $4,000 contribution to the re-election campaign of State Rep. Larry McKeon, a Chicago Democrat and the first openly gay and openly HIV+ member of the Illinois legislature. Of the PAC's remaining monies, several thousands will satisfy final administrative expenses.

Over its ten-year lifespan, IMPACT's annual total budgets ranged from $75,000 to $120,000. Donations to candidates ran as high as $25,000 some years, assistance augmented by public voter education and political advertising, which also composed significant annual expenditures. Executive directors' salaries averaged less than $55,000 per year.

Current IMPACT co-chair Brian Bates summed up the IMPACT situation by saying, "clearly, we think there's a need ... for a PAC to represent gay and lesbian individuals. ... People were supportive of the idea of the merger. ... [But] some people like conflict ... [and it's] hard for some people to put aside past history, [but] that alone wouldn't have killed the merger."

Bates said the merger was unsuccessful because "there was not a whole lot of people ... who were able or willing to participate in a new merged organization. ... [Federation President] Art Johnston [and Federation staff] worked in a spirit of good will to ... make it happen ... but you need people willing and able to take leadership positions." Johnston is a former IMPACT board member.

Illinois Federation Political Director Rick Garcia said the "stumbling block [was IMPACT's] internal problems and power struggles." He attributed the merger failure more specifically to the IMPACT and Federation boards' inability to come to terms on "the structure of the [combined] organization," on the new board's composition and on what to name the new organization. "Everybody on both sides just got fed up," Garcia concluded.

When the IMPACT board decided to suspend operations this fall, it had shrunk to five members: Brian Bates, Michael Bauer, Jay Cohen, Garry Huebner and Dick Huitema. "It was really an interim board," said Bates, who added that the lack of female members resulted coincidentally from women members' term expirations and resignations. Board attrition was but one example of IMPACT's morbid condition.

Last winter, the 1997 IMPACT gala dinner, the PAC's major annual fundraising mechanism, almost did not happen, due to "significant problems ... the chair of the board and the executive director in getting it off the ground," according to Bauer. Before the dust settled, then-Executive Director Garry Huebner relinquished his leadership post (though he was on the board of directors), and board chairperson David Ormsby suffered a board vote of no confidence and resigned at the end of December.

Still, the $150-a-plate 1997 benefit gala was held as hoped on Feb. 23, with about 400 community members and "a significant number of politicians" in attendance. It grossed more than $50,000. More funds might have accrued to IMPACT accounts, had the usual silent auction and 'party-favor' ad book come to fruition. Bates blamed "internal controversy" and "disorganization on the board" for the dinner's limitations. He praised lesbigay community members for their staunch support even in the face of the shaky dinner plans.

Opinions vary, however, on the precise causes of IMPACT's ultimate demise. Former board members describe years of squabbling within IMPACT, with persistent hard feelings on almost all sides, as well as internecine rivalry with the Federation. Few sources were willing to talk openly about the power struggles.

Bauer believes "the issue that adversely affected IMPACT for years is that people were using IMPACT for their personal advantage. ... The ultimate problem [was that] rather than recusing themselves [when facing conflicts of interest] they would try to persuade the board."

Former IMPACT chair Amy Maggio sees the internal disputes from an historical perspective, having left the board several years ago. "There was always a lot of controversy with IMPACT ... [and] there's always been such to-do about an organization ... learning how to present ourselves to the [lesbigay] community," she said.

Of IMPACT's death-throes and the effect on Chicago lesbigay politics, Maggio summarized the words of many other sources when she commented, "Frankly, I don't think anything has changed. It's the same old backbiting crap that goes on. [Yet] the future of our community depends on laying down our swords and ... coming up with consensus."

How to Make an IMPACT
IMPACT entered Chicago politics late in 1987, with organizers announcing its formation at City Hall.

Ronald and Nancy Reagan still held court in the White House. The spring March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights drew over half a million demonstrators to the Capital from all across the U.S., but Newsweek, Time and other major media almost completely ignored the event, touted by backers as "the largest civil-rights march in history."

Racist homophobe and Arizona Gov. Ed Mecham was indicted on charges of perjury and campaign finance malfeasance and was soon impeached. Conservative Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was rejected by the Senate. Sharon Gless won an Emmy for Cagney and Lacy. And in Chicago, Richie Daley was planning his (unopposed) race for Cook County State's Attorney the following spring.

Big changes were afoot in the trenches, however. That November, a heady atmosphere surrounded the Gay and Lesbian Town Meeting group's drafting of a municipal Human Rights Ordinance, and the measure's first proposal in the City Council. Like more recent lesbigay-friendly legislation, the Human Rights Ordinance met immediate denunciations from Rev. Hiram Crawford and other anti-gay figures.

Earlier in 1987, the late Dr. Ron Sable had run unsuccessfully as an openly gay candidate for 44th Ward alderman, the "Boy's Town" seat still occupied by Bernard Hansen today. (Sable's second run also failed.) Yet Sable and his 'out front' candidacy galvanized the Chicago lesbigay community: perhaps politics was not just for machine politicos anymore.

"Ordinance drafted; anti-gays protest" read then-weekly Outlines' front-page headline Nov. 26, 1987. The story also described Sable's latest venture in "the political growth of the gay and lesbian community in Chicago," the formation of a lesbigay PAC. The nascent organization's major goals would be "to provide financial support to progressive, pro-gay candidates and to advance gay and lesbian issues on the local, state and national levels."

Sable had developed the PAC idea after a conversation with openly gay Boston City Councilman David Scondras, according to former IMPACT chair Nancy Katz. Activist Joe Alongi joined Sable in founding the organization. (Both men later died of AIDS, as has the PAC's first salaried executive director, Bob Adams.) Sidetrack owner Art Johnston was a founding board member; Johnston later co-founded the Illinois Federation for Human Rights.

When IMPACT was officially announced the next week, the PAC coffers already held over $10,000 in donations raised within the previous two months, and the group hoped to raise an additional $30,000 before the March 1988 primary elections.

Always IMPACT's main fundraising mechanism, the first annual gala dinner kicked off Feb. 12, 1988-the 179th birthday of the so-called Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. The evening's keynote speakers, openly gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and San Francisco lesbian activist Pat Norman, posed for photos with Sable, the men in black-tie, Norman in pearls. The $100-a-plate inaugural benefit surpassed projections by collecting more than $40,000, over half of which the PAC earmarked for contributions to "pro-gay candidates."

Shortly before the March '88 primary, Outlines reported IMPACT campaign donations to date: $4,150 had been disbursed, including $1,000 to help the Illinois Democratic Party combat Lyndon LaRouche-ites. The PAC had contributed to five candidates: $1,000 to Migdalia Collazo, running for State Rep.; $1,000 to Jeff Smith, for Board of (Tax) Appeals member; $500 to Chuck Kelly, for 46th Ward Democratic Committeeman; $500 to State Rep. Ellis Levin for re-election; and $150 to Rebecca Drake, for Springfield-area State Rep.

IMPACT "played a key role," as Katz sees it, as the first and foremost organization "to support lesbian and gay and straight candidates who support the lesbian and gay agenda." Among those who have received funding from IMPACT are current office-holders U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, D-Ill., U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Chicago, and Illinois State Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, R-Park Ridge.

Bob Adams was IMPACT's first paid administrator, followed by Laurie Dittman, Tom Swift, and Garry Huebner. "Adams did a wonderful [job] ... and left to go to Washington, D.C., and ultimately worked for [gay Congressman] Gerry Studds," recalled Katz. She said Adams had entered lesbigay politics after being refused partnership in a "very conservative medical malpractice law firm."

Adams left the law firm. Then he organized the first Chicago display of the NAMES Project Quilt at Navy Pier in and worked for the Chicago corporation counsel, before joining IMPACT. Adams died of AIDS complications. His memorial fund, benefiting Lambda Legal Defense, has been organized by Bauer, Katz, Pat Logue and openly gay Illinois judge, Hon. Sebastian Patti.

IMPACT activities were not limited to fundraising, though candidate support must be a principal focus of a political action committee. IMPACT interviewed and polled candidates during election cycles to determine who should receive PAC donations. In election years, they also published a "report card" of candidates' views, to assist lesbigay voters. These scorecards resembled sample ballots; they informed and eased voting decisions particularly in Chicago's numerous judicial races.

Before IMPACT, "there was not one forum" to examine candidates' views on lesbigay community issues, to "hold their feet to the fire," as former board chair Amy Maggio put it. Maggio and former board member Ann Christophersen both point out that IMPACT was not only concerned with such broadly significant lesbigay issues as the Chicago Human Rights Ordinance, but also with progressive issues, such as abortion rights for women.

"IMPACT was the first political organization that established itself as an institution ... [and it] played a formative role ... [developing] the lesbian and gay vote in Illinois politics," said Christophersen.

To be continued. Next week, "Diminishing IMPACT and the Future of the Federation."

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