A crusading attorney who has made a career out of fighting City Hall on behalf of pensioners and retirees is joining the crowded race for the Illinois Supreme Court.
Clint Krislov tried to stop the widely-despised parking meter deal. His marathon battle to prevent the city from abolishing its $108 million-a-year subsidy for retiree health care cost him so much time and money, he might have to close his law firm.
Now, the Don Quixote of City Hall is embarking on another uphill battle that, he hopes, will be aided by his previous crusades.
Krislov is circulating nominating petitions to gather the 5,050 signatures needed by mid-November to become the eighth candidate vying to replace retired Illinois Supreme Court Justice Charles Freeman.
“Somebody who has fought for people against the ‘Chicago Way,’ the Illinois system, the corruption — whatever you want to call this. That’s different from all of the rest of the people running,” Krislov, 70, said Thursday, pointing to the burgeoning corruption scandal that has spread from City Hall to the state capital in Springfield.
“I understand what it’s like to have to fight through the system to get justice. Hopefully, my accomplishments will speak louder than the money people are putting into” this race.
Retirees and pensioners are notorious for their political involvement. They sign nominating petitions. They go to the polls, particularly when they’re motivated by anger and fear.
That’s what’s happening now. Chicago’s retires in particular are furious that former Mayor Rahm Emanuel got away with abolishing the city’s 55 percent subsidy for retiree health care and rubbed salt in the wound by bragging about the savings in one of his private emails.
“They are certainly involved. I would hope they would find what I’ve done justifies supporting me. ... The people we have fought for over 40 years — I’m gonna depend on them to get out petitions,” Krislov said.
Krislov got his start as an anti-City Hall crusader in 1983.
He filed a lawsuit accusing the city of delaying state-mandated payments to city employee pension funds, investing the money and pocketing the interest. The city was ordered to replenish the pension funds — to the tune of $35 million.
That was followed by the long-running retiree health care saga and countless other battles along the way.
Most recently, Krislov accused cash-strapped Chicago of essentially receiving an $11 million, interest-free loan because it failed to abide by a law requiring checks left uncashed for three years to be turned over to the state.
Being on the right side of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s frenzied sell-off of city assets could also prove popular with voters.
Krislov tried to get the parking meter and garage deals declared illegal on grounds that the city can’t legally sell the public way.
He further claimed the garage deal both restricted development in the Loop and subjected the city to giant penalty payments, like the $62 million the city spent to compensate the owners of the Millennium Park and Grant Park garages for allowing the Aqua building, 225 N. Columbus, to open a competing garage.
Both lawsuits were thrown out after the Emanuel administration defended the deals.
“I hate the term ‘fought the good fight’ because it always means you lost. But we’ve fought some really unfortunate deals that the city got itself into,” Krislov said.
“With the parking meters, if the city had just bonded the improvements to the system itself [and raised meter rates], it would have a couple billion dollars more. … And the way the garages deal was set up, it could have cost them as much as $250 million in compensation on a deal they had only gotten $500 million for in the first place.”
If he gets on the ballot, Krislov would be the eighth candidate in a crowded field.
Sitting Supreme Court Justice P. Scott Neville Jr. was appointed to serve out former Justice Charles Freeman’s term. Neville was slated by the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization in August.
Krislov will face Neville, as well as appellate court justices Jesse Reyes, Nathaniel Howse, Margaret McBride, Cynthia Cobbs, Sheldon Harris and lawyer Daniel Epstein.
If Howse, Cobbs or Neville win, they would be the second African American elected to the bench.
Contributing: Rachel Hinton
