Progress Illinois

On Thursday, Prairie State Blue blogger Yoda examined the state-of-play in the 5th Congressional District, where a dozen candidates have already formed committees for the eventual race to replace Rep. Rahm Emanuel.  The post highlighted Cook County Comm. Mike Quigley and State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz as the two "top-tier" contenders, noting that "bonus -- both are progressive."

Well, it looks like another accomplished progressive may be interested.  I'm hearing murmurs that labor lawyer and celebrated author Tom Geoghegan is considering a stab at the seat.  To wit, his good friend Rick Perlstein created the Facebook group "Geoghegan For Congress" yesterday.  Here's the intro:

Tom Geoghegan, labor lawyer and warrior for justice extraordinaire, may well run for Rahm Emanuel's congressional seat in Illinois's Fifth District. Nothing's official yet—let's recruit Tom to run!  

While I've read his fantastic writing, I've never met Geoghegan or heard him speak, so it's hard to tell how he would fare as a candidate.  What I do know is that he's spent decades fighting for working people and this experience has led him to develop some interesting proposals on the policy front.

Take, for instance, his idea to amend the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination "on the basis of union membership."  David Sirota explained the concept back in July:

Geoghegan reminded me that data show the more union members in an economy, the better workers’ pay. The problem, he said, is that weakened labor laws are allowing companies to bully and fire union-sympathetic workers, thus driving down union membership and wages. [...]

Under current law, if you are fired for union activity, you can only take your grievance to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) - a byzantine agency deliberately made more Kafkaesque by right-wing appointees and budget cuts. Today, the NLRB takes years to rule on labor law violations, often granting victims only their back pay - a tiny cost of doing business. [...]

His proposal says rather than being forced to rely on an unreliable bureaucracy for protection, workers should be empowered to defend themselves.

The six words would do just that. Regardless of whether the NLRB is strengthened or further weakened, persecuted workers would be able to haul union-busting thugs into court. There - unlike at the NLRB - plaintiffs can subpoena company records and win costly punitive damages.

Would such an amendment be feasible on Capitol Hill?  Hard to tell.  But it's an innovative idea.

In short, here's what we know about Geoghegan: he's a top-tier progressive with a top-tier intellect who will attract some support from top-tier national activists. 

Whether he can create a top-tier political organization, however ... that's yet to be seen.