LT High School board president to challenge Lipinski in ’08

Mark Pera, the president of the Lyons Township High School District 204 school board is set to announce that he will challenge incumbent third district Congressman Daniel Lipinski in the 2008 Democratic primary.

“I will be announcing officially at some point,” said Pera last week. “I have filed all the appropriate documentation with the Federal Election commission (FEC) and I am a candidate.”

Pera, 52, is a 25-year resident of Western Springs. An attorney, Pera is supervisor of the Environment and Energy Division of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. He has been president of the LT District 204 school board for six years and has served on the board since 1997. He also served on the District 204 school board from 1993 to 1995. Lipinski is also a Western Springs resident.

Pera claims that Lipinski’s positions are out of step with those of Democrats in the district which includes Riverside, Brookfield and the Forest Park south of the Eisenhower expressway. It also includes much of the southwest side of Chicago.

Pera charges that Lipinski is a Democrat in name only and has mostly supported the war in Iraq.

This year, Lipinski voted in favor of a resolution disapproving of President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq. On June 29 Lipinski and four other Congressmen called on President Bush to reconvene the Iraq Study Group.

Lipinski is pro-life on abortion and voted in 2005 not to lift President’s Bush’s restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research.

Pera says he strongly opposes the Iraq war, supports the federal funding of stem cell research, and is pro-choice on abortion.

“I’m running because it’s time for a change,” said Pera. “It’s time for a change of direction, a change of policy. It’s time that we had a Congressman for our area. I have lived in the district for 25 years. I know the district well. I reflect the values of the Democratic primary voters and my positions reflect the views of the core Democratic voters.”

Phone calls to Lipinski’s Washington office seeking comment for this story were not returned prior to deadline.

Pera believes voters still resent the way Lipinski was first selected to run. In March 2004 longtime Congressman William O. Lipinski, Dan Lipinski’s father, won the Democratic primary. But nearly five months after the primary, and less than two weeks before the deadline to replace a candidate on the November ballot, the elder Lipinski announced he was withdrawing as a candidate in the November general election.

Party leaders then met and chose Dan Lipinski to replace his father on the ballot, even though at the time Dan Lipinski was a political science professor at the University of Tennessee and had not lived in Illinois for 15 years.

“I honestly believe that people are ready for a change,” said Pera. “They don’t like the fact that an out-of-state political science professor was suddenly foisted upon them as their Congressman.”

Pera, who ran for state representative against Eileen Lyons in 1996 and lost, is promising to mount the strongest and best-funded challenge that Lipinski has seen.

In 2006 Lipinski faced two challengers in the Democratic primary, John T. Kelly and John P. Sullivan. Lipinski won with 54.4 percent of the vote. Lipinski’s share of the primary vote was called sub par by the book “Politics in America, A Guidebook to Members of Congress.”

In the 2006 general election, Lipinski rolled to an easy victory with 77.1 percent of the vote, defeating Ray “Spanky the Clown” Wardingley in a largely Democratic district.

“Until now he has not had a strong challenge like he is going to have this time,” said Pera.

Pera says he has already hired a veteran professional campaign manager, Patrick Botterman, who managed the campaign of Scott Waguespack, who unseated incumbent Chicago 32nd Ward Alderman Ted Matlak this spring.

Pera is reaching out to liberal activists, both in the district and outside of the third district.

On July 5 Pera will speak to the Edgewater/Rogers Park Chapter of Democracy for America (DFA), a nationwide activist group that is a spin off from the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Howard Dean. The DFA has been active in opposing Democrats who have supported the war in Iraq.

“My candidacy will result in the core constituencies of the Democratic Party coalescing around my candidacy and that is happening, to a very large degree as we speak today,” Pera said last week.

But Lipinski will be difficult to knock off. An incumbent has many advantages, especially in a primary election, and Lipinski has the support of his father’s powerful 23rd Ward Regular Democratic Organization.

One political consultant who worked for Sullivan against Lipinski in 2006 said that the political calendar will help Pera this year.

The February 5 primary will feature presidential candidates, including Illinois Senator Barack Obama and is expected to draw a big turnout.

“This is really the right year for an opponent of Lipinski to run,” said Chicago-based consultant Kitty Kurth. “The thing that Pera really has going for him is the number of more liberal and moderate Democrats who come out in a presidential primary year.”