In a heated race won by 753 votes of a total near 40,000 ballots cast Richard Schmack ousted Clay Campbell as the DeKalb County State’s Attorney. Campbell won the Republican primary race handily over challenger Sean Smith and seemed poised for an easy re-election. But DeKalb County Democrats caucused Schmack who had been unsuccessful as a challenger for the office during Michael Coghlan’s tenure. He served as an assistant State’s Attorney for the county under Ron Matekaitis.
Richard Schmack
At candidate forums Schmack consistently levied criticisms of Campbell’s management of the office that echoed those of Sean Smith. Campbell had earlier suspended the popular Drug Court program almost immediately after Judge Robbin Stuckert issued a not guilty verdict on a rape case with criticism of Campbell’s office for not asking the right questions. Campbell publicly fired back and criticisms of Stuckert’s decision. The suspect charged but acquitted of the rape, Jack McCullogh aka John Tessier, was later convicted of the murder of Maria Ridulph in the 50 year old case.
But Schmack’s website published statements he attributed to Campbell that belittled the Stop The Mega-Dump organization’s effort in appealing the landfill expansion. Those statements were widely shared on the social networks.
The first election results posted on the county website after the polls closed showed Schmack with a substantial early lead. According to John Acardo, DeKalb County Clerk and Recorder, the first posted results came from early voters mostly from NIU and parts of Sycamore. Among those early voters, Richard Schmack developed a commanding lead receiving 4009 (58.77%) early votes to Clay Campbell’s 2812 (41.23%) votes.
| Contest: STATES ATTORNEY | ||
| Candidate Name | Total Votes | Vote % |
| Richard H. Schmack (DEM) | 19876 | 50.96 |
| Clay Campbell (REP) | 19124 | 49.04 |
[info]*Unofficial results: DeKalb County Clerk & Recorder’s Office [/info]
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4 Comments
Hello Michael. Four thousand miles? I remember you well. You never ran a campaign for office that wasn’t fun to cover.
Personally, I just hope he doesn’t ignore the issues recently unsurfaced at NIU. As an NIU grad… I want any potential corruption over there found and removed. NIU deserves a better reputation than it has but ignoring the problems doesn’t do it.
Those of us around town who are watching, are very concerned with allegations of corruption at NIU. I’ve read too many reports from alumni and staff that suggest corruption exists from the top, down. Ignoring it will not bring us more students nor make our town a better place to be. Please Mr. Schmack, don’t bring us back to the days of sweeping things under the rug. Traffic is not our only problem.
My thoughts exactly Gracie. Schmack seemed to campaign on a platform of ‘don’t rock the boat’, just the opposite of Campbell. I certainly hope we don’t lose the momentum gained over the last couple years. We were just starting to see some real transparency. With so many state legislature seats going to Democrats, and Michael Madigan still in control, I am very worried about state politics. Locally, it could be just as bad. But I am willing to give local democrats a bit of time and see what they pursue and hope they don’t sweep much under the rug. In past DeKalb county politics, there was always across the aisle cooperation in maintaining status quo. That was changing, in part due to Campbell. I hope newly elected officials continue to search for and root out corruption, no matter their party affiliation. Schmack absolutely should pursue investigation of NIU, along with the State Police.
Sometimes I wonder how people can complain about all our Illinois and local problems, and then vote right back into office the same people that caused the problems or at least continue to refuse to fix them. Why does the electorate keep doing this?
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One crook against another – typical DeKalb/Sycamore election. Way downhill from the days of Coghlan and Matekaitis. I’m glad to be 4000 miles away from the action.