Politics: UAW slams Mayer’s criticism of Gordon
In a way, the contest between Jehan Gordon and Allen Mayer is starting to remind me of the 1996 primary battle between incumbent 92nd District State House Rep. Don Saltzman and challenger Ricca Slone.
On one hand, there was Saltzman. He was tight with the building trades unions. He’d been there was a long time and pretty much represented traditional working-class Democrats. Then along game Slone who dared to challenge this party insider. The primary battle left a lot of hurt feelings behind, and some of that played into Slone’s 2004 loss to Aaron Schock, handing the mostly Democratic district over to the Republican Party.a
Now we have Mayer, who — while not the incumbent — is certainly the “party insider” in the race. Mayer works for State Comptroller Dan Hynes and serves on the Peoria County Board. Gordon holds office as a member of the Pleasant Hill school district, but was essentially an unknown before the race began.
Her political credentials come from being a graduate of Barack Obama’s leadership school for young people,
And as everyone who’s following this primary race knows, Mayer was one of the Peoria Democratic Party leaders who recruited Gordon to run. The thinking was — to be blunt — that a young, attractive, professional, smart Black woman was just the ticket to beat Schock. Then U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood decided to retire at the end of his term, and Schock decided immediately to run for that seat, legally preventing him from being on the ballot for the 92nd statehouse district.
Once Schock was out of the race, Mayer decided to run. Gordon stayed in the race, and several prominent Dems honored their commitments to back her all the way. This included county Chairman Billy Halstead, State Sen. Dave Koehler and former State Sen. George Shadid. This kinda ticked off Mayer, since it was known at the time that he was considering a run.
At first, it looked like Mayer and Gordon were going to run a campaign based on their varied qualifications, but because they agreed on most of the issues, intended to fully support the other if he or she lost.
It’s looking more and more like a divisive campaign with every single day. First, I got a press release from the Mayer’s campaign stating that the Teamsters and the Operating Engineers were furious at Gordon for her work on behalf of the North America Free Trade Agreement. They also accused her of being a member of an anti-union school board. The release also criticized the United Auto Workers for supporting her.
The Mayer’s campaign sent out supporting documents, including this one and this one, which shows that her biography states:
“After college, Jehan began working at the Small Business Development Center/NAFTA Opportunity Center at Bradley University.”
And the Gordon camp sent out the following press release from the UAW, which denied that she ever worked to spread and wonder that is NAFTA:
“The allegation was that Jehan Gordon had worked for the NAFTA Opportunity Center. We investigated the allegation and determined that it was untrue. Jehan Gordon worked for the Illinois Small Business Development Center. These are two completely different entities.”
First, Gordon’s own Website suggests the two entities are at least linked. Whether that means Gordon personally went out and closed factors and drove the jobs down to Mexico, I’ll leave to idle speculation.
Second: For all the teeth-gnashing coming out of the Mayers camp, this needs to be noted: Mayers must have known about it at the time he and Billy Halstead recruited her to run. Why is it suddenly a problem, other than the fact that Mayers thinks he ought to be getting the nomination?
In my opinion, this hurts Mayers more than Gordon. It’s hard to win a contested Democratic Party nomination in Peoria without the labor votes. How can Mayer’s win it with the UAW being actively accusing him of being unfair to the UAW? I wouldn’t discount the strength of the building trades unions — especially the Operating Engineers and the Teamsters. But methinks they are outnumbered.
What seemed to start as a friendly competition among Democrats has turned into a slug-fest that going to divide party insiders and party leaders, and leave a lot of hurt feelings behind. If the attacks continue, the Democrats in the 92nd District are going to find themselves on the outside looking in.
The full version of this UAW press release is printed below:
Mayer’s Attempted Smear Discredited
UAW Local 974 Debunks False Allegations Against Gordon
Local 974 of the United Auto Workers today set the record straight regarding recent comments made by the Allen Mayer campaign and local unions questioning their endorsement of Jehan Gordon and her campaign for State Representative.
UAW Local 974 President Dave Chapman made the following statement.
“We received an anonymous letter two weeks ago that contained the same inaccurate information that has been spread to the media by the Mayer campaign over the past few days. The allegation was that Jehan Gordon had worked for the NAFTA Opportunity Center. We investigated the allegation and determined that it was untrue. Jehan Gordon worked for the Illinois Small Business Development Center. These are two completely different entities. It’s unfortunate that the Mayer campaign has chosen to take this inaccurate information, and use it to make outlandish charges against the candidate we’ve chosen to endorse.
“Our Union has a long and proud history in this country and especially this area. We take our endorsements very seriously. For the Mayer campaign to imply that we would endorse a candidate for any office that is not 100% behind the working people we represent is offensive.
“These accusations against our union and Jehan Gordon further illustrates that we chose the right type of candidate to win back this seat for the Democratic Party. On behalf of the more than 2000 members we represent in the 92nd district, I want to state very clearly that we have chosen to endorse Jehan Gordon for State Representative, and we will continue to support her.â€
“I am so grateful for the support of the UAW and the working families they represent, said Gordon. “Their values are my values: education for our children, more jobs in the 92nd District and access to quality health care. As State Representative, I promise to bring a different kind of leadership to Springfield, one where we focus on issues important to the working families of Peoria County.â€
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Bill,
WEEK 25 ran a retraction earlier this week stating that Mayer did not recruit or nominate Gordon for the 92nd Race. That is the story that the party chairman has been telling for several months now. For WEEK to run a retraction/correction of an earlier report is rare, as they are usually dead on in their reporting.
Maybe Gordon did very little in NAFTA/Small Business Opportunity center, but she saw fit to claim it as part of her resume, until she reversed course. One of you commenter’s earlier this week said it was a temp job. If that is the case then she is padding her resume, not a criminal offense, but also not something to do during a campaign. Remember the damage Alicia Butler did to herself by padding her educational resume? A small gaffe on Gordon’s part, whoever wins the primary will face this same scrutiny from the Republican’s in the general election.
“not something to do during a campaign” – right, no one on either side pads their resume in a campaign… Keep telling yourself that one.
And Alicia Butler completely lied and never made an effort to address it, not even in the same universe as the Gordon case.
As for the retraction, all Mayer (or someone else from his campaign) would have to do it place a call to WEEK and complain about the story to get a retraction. Not too difficult and certainly a normal tactic for a campaign.
Sorry, Bushwacked. I’ve heard this from too many people in a position to know.
[...] run is or isn’t an endorsement is a matter of semantics. So, can we please dispense with the comments that cite the WEEK retraction as proof Mayer had nothing to do with recruiting Gordon to run. Fact: [...]