Attorney Jacob Meister, a longtime participant in LGBT activism and politics, is running to unseat incumbent Dorothy Brown as clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Meister—the only openly gay candidate in the county primary races—contends that Brown has let the office flounder under her watch, and that he has better ideas to better automate and connect it for the 21st century.
Despite Brown's massive legal problems, Meister still faces significant challenges. Brown still enjoys significant name recognition and another contender, Ald. Michelle Harris ( 8th Ward ), was a latecomer to the race and quickly received the backing of the Cook County Democratic Party.
But Meister has been able to score some significant endorsements, among them the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women PAC, Judge Abner Mikva and a large coalition of Latino politicians that included U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, state Reps. Iris Martinez and Luis Arroyo as well as Alds. Raymond Lopez and Carlos Ramirez-Rosa.
Meister is also the founder of the LGBT-rights organization The Civil Rights Agenda, which he launched in 2010. This is not his first run for political office; in 2009, he tried to become the first openly LGBT member of the U.S. Senate, but dropped out of the primary race. That seat eventually went to U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk.
Windy City Times: Why did you set your sights on the Circuit Court clerk's post?
Jacob Meister: I've been practicing in the Cook County courts for 25 years, and in courts around the country and around the state. I've seen how desperately broken the court clerk's office is, both operationally and ethically. Dorothy Brown came to office on a promise of bringing the computer systems and the electronics systems up to date. That was 15 years ago and I was a supporter of hers.
The office has continued to get further and further behind. It has a devastating impact on the administration of justice in this county. There's near-universal recognition among lawyers and judges that the office is nearly broken. It's still a paper-based system, which, in 2016, is unacceptable. Files regularly get lost or there are huge amounts of missing papers from files. Things get misfiled. We actually know why that is—inconsistencies, broken systems, a lack of operational integrity and ethical integrity.
This is an office that not only impacts my profession—the ability of judges to do their jobs—it also impacts the most economically challenged in our community and it also disproportionately impacts persons of color. At any given time we can have 100 people sitting in Cook County Jail whose cases have been dismissed—but they're still sitting in jail because their paperwork has errors in it, or their paperwork is lost, misplaced or misdirected. That happens every single day, without fail. There's one case we're aware of where a young kid did his time and stayed in the prison system six months after his term was up. He was still in prison because the clerk of the Circuit Court got the paperwork wrong. That's a horrible injustice and it's very expensive to the taxpayers.
Municipalities are wasting a tremendous amount of money because they don't have access to computer link-ups. They don't have access to court files and schedules. So police officers regularly show up to court only to find out that the case was dismissed weeks earlier and that they weren't needed. The best estimate we have, only in the City of Chicago, in wasted police officer time is probably about $20 million a year, which is huge—that's a couple hundred police officers that could be out on the streets.
The clerk is the chief operating officer and chief record-keeper of the entire court system countywide, and what the clerk does or doesn't do impacts the ability of the court system to achieve justice.
WCT: What kind of financial commitment would be required to implement changes you want to see?
JM: It would require about a $25-30 million capital investment in infrastructure. That would be rolled out over a two-year, two-and-a-half-year period. The cost savings would be recognized almost immediately, within a year. There's direct cost savings in the clerk's office, but then you also achieve cost savings within the sheriff's office, the state's attorney, the public defender's office—at the county level—and there are municipal savings. It's hard to quantify it exactly. We can cut down $20 million to the city of Chicago in police officer time. The systems will easily pay for themselves very quickly. Venturing a guess, I think we could be saving $50-70 million across all levels of government.
WCT: Do you think it would be difficult to get the county to make that initial investment?
JM:I don't think so. I think there is a desire to get it done. I've had a lot of conversations with County Board commissioners, members of the General Assembly, a lot of members of the judiciary. There is an absolute desire to get it done and a fundamental lack of confidence in the current court clerk's ability to get it done.
WCT: You are the only gay candidate in the county race. What are your thoughts on that?
JM: The field of gay candidates running for office is very slim, and I'm proud to say that if I win this office, it would be the highest office ever held in the state's history by an openly LGBT candidate. I think our community in general doesn't do enough to support gay candidates. I think it's one of our big failings in an environment where we're post-marriage and we've achieved quite a bit in terms of securing rights.
We, as a community, haven't worked to move ourselves forward in terms of elective office. We're missing a very big opportunity. There are other people who've run who've had a similar experience, and they won't run again, because they're not supported by their own community. That needs to change.
WCT: Do you think that's a weariness about politics in general, on everyone's part? What do you attribute it to?
JM: I somewhat attribute it to a complacency that I see—we've "won" marriage and some people look at that and think our work is over. They don't look at that and say, "We have more work to do." We've got these bundles of rights, now we've got to make sure we achieve those rights. We have those rights in the Human Rights Act, but just having those laws on the books doesn't achieve equality. It's only the legal recognition of the right to equality.
WCT: Will you continue on with the Civil Rights Agenda? Where does that organization go in the landscape you are speaking of here?
JM: We've returned to our core mission, which is to protect the rights that we've gained—it goes back to the Human Rights Act. We've got a long list of legal cases that we're still fighting. We're still fighting against Chick-fil-A. We're still fighting against taxicab companies who kick people out for kissing in the back seat. The Hobby Lobby case—we won, but I expect Hobby Lobby is going to appeal, and appeal, and appeal that decision.
But I anticipate that we're going to continue to fight it and score a huge victory in the court system. We've been doing LGBT non-discrimination training. We continue to do our work, but it's just the next generation of work. If elected, I certainly can continue to work with a not-for-profit. My role will certainly change; I won't be practicing law but we've got a core group of people who are still very active. It will continue.
See JacobMeister.com .
