Editor’s Note: The IR Editorial Board offered Stephen Boulton an opportunity to submit a piece that we would publish in its entirety. And Mr. Boulton accepted that offer. The same invitation remains for any other IL GOP leader. It’s important that readers hear directly from party leadership on our platform.
I am grateful for the opportunity to inform people about both me and the Chicago Republican Party. Neither is being accurately portrayed in social media, and I commend the new Publisher of Illinois Review for allowing me the chance to respond.
I have been a GOP activist in Chicago since in 2000. I have held a number of posts in the Chicago and Cook County Republican Parties. I put in untold hours in volunteer work during the period 2004-2012, such as around $250,000 worth of free legal work defending candidates and attacking corruption, including a successful appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court. Unlike many others, I never asked for or took a penny in compensation, because I considered it an honor to be General Counsel of the Cook County Republican Party and later the Chicago Republican Party.
After leaving Party leadership in 2012, with Tony Peraica I have sued Michael Madigan in federal court for election misconduct in two different cases. These suits were hotly litigated and followed in the papers, and Madigan had to submit to his first and only deposition under oath, at a time when Madigan was at the height of his power. One suit against Madigan remains active in federal court, and we have more recently filed suits against both the Chicago Teachers Union and Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough. They were not “safe” moves, but we did it because they were the right ones, and no one else would do it. I was asked to return to Party leadership by becoming a Committeeman and Chairman of the Chicago Republican Party in April 2020. I agreed because GOP development in Chicago is crucial, with 21% of the state population living in the city borders. No Republican statewide candidate has ever lost with just 20% of the Chicago vote. With a consistent 20-25% Republican vote in Chicago, Illinois turns Red, electing Republican Governors and U.S. Senators, while becoming a battleground in Presidential races.
As the new chairman, I found only 28 out of 50 Wards filled by election. But we got to work, first recruiting a team of staff members, then starting the long road back in the middle of a pandemic. We recruited about 20 new Committeemen even as many were departing for other states, and this year we have 15 new Committeemen taking office, and six ready to be appointed, putting us well over 40 wards filled as we start the new term.
Under my leadership we have totally revamped the Chicago GOP. Internally, I formed regional “GOP Clubs” in which Committeemen of an area can work together as a team instead of “dying on the vine” alone. We established a “Policy Committee” of experienced people so the Republican Party can issue well-considered conservative proposals for reform, not just empty complaints. We have pursued an aggressive program of press releases and op-eds. Externally, I made it a personal objective to build a Chicago GOP that reflected the entire population of Chicago, starting with three years of development in the Black communities. In a big change, the GOP has come to minority areas not just for one election only to disappear, but full time and permanently, seeking to help find answers. We now have emerging strength and leaders in Black communities. The recent videos of Black Chicagoans seeking to turn GOP are no coincidence, as the Chicago GOP has been on Black radio and podcasts and at Black political events for three years, while placing a float in the Bud Billiken parade for two consecutive years. Also, several of the activists in those videos are already working with Chicago GOP. We will be doing much more in 2024 and will be turning to development in Hispanic wards.
A separate objective was to end ballots being empty of Republican candidates, which had depressed GOP turnout. In 2020, only 4 state legislative ballot spots in Chicago were filled. With substantial assistance from outside groups, the GOP filed with over 30 candidates in 2022, and should do just as well or better in 2024.
But there has been so much more: a great new headquarters in Lincoln Park, two different protests at Mike Madigan’s political office demanding his resignation, a protest at a City Council meeting over migrant funding, attending multiple local meetings on the migrants, bringing Fox News down to the first school housing migrants to film the open air drug dealing, marching in the South Side Irish, Polish Independence and Mexican Independence parades with a 28 foot GOP float, and a March against Violence through the Austin neighborhood. Being the unpaid Chairman has cost me thousands of dollars and 15-20 hours a week for four years straight. But it’s been an interesting ride already, with more to come!
A large population of conservatives in Chicago have voted Democrat for generations, mainly because of the Chicago Machine, the Daleys, and the lack of an effective citywide Republican Party. Because of outright socialists taking control of the Democratic Party in the city, as well as crime, illegal migrants and the decline of Chicago, many are now willing to switch to the GOP. The Chicago GOP now has a structure to capture that wave. In a controversial move, I have actively recruited conservative Democrats to the Republican side, such as South Side Irish, conservative Hispanics, and conservative Blacks, to gain that 20%. (I remind all that Ronald Reagan was a Democrat for years before turning Republican.)
In all, we have substantially succeeded on all our initial objectives, and are well on our way to a diverse, center-right Republican coalition that can compete across Chicago. Plus, we did it in the middle of a pandemic, losing a year to a year and a half. We have raised the “base Republican vote” from about 13.5% to about 16.5%, heading towards 20% in 2024. Beyond 2024 we have our sights already set on the 2026 Election and the 2027 races in Chicago for Mayor and City Council. Many have given many hours to achieve this growth, not just me.
Anyone creating change will create enemies, so I now have plenty! Stopping me has been a goal for the Democrats in power, with the recent peculiar decisions of the Chicago Board of Elections on my nomination petitions being just one example. (“Peculiar” was not my word, it was used by the most respected Hearing Officer at the Board upon reading the decision.) Unfortunately, I also now have enemies within the Republican Party, mostly from petty personal jealousies or those seeking personal empowerment through destruction, preferring to burn down the entire structure of the Party so long as they can either attack me personally or rule the smoking ruins. By attacking me they have played right into the hands of the Democrats who want to undercut the growing Chicago GOP by eliminating me.
The “politics of personal destruction” have become mainstream in America, with a media focused on agendas, controversy and hate in order to gain viewers. Character assassination, paranoia and smears have replaced reason, compromise and respect for differing views in our political discussions. Unfortunately, Illinois Review has at times practiced such politics, at least in regard to me. The dark, malignant picture painted on social media simply is not true, shown by the positive, energetic, standing room only and racially diverse crowd at a public meeting of the Chicago GOP just this week. While I have been castigated by the “Grassroots” for being the unlucky pick for Sergeant at Arms at the infamous State Central Committee meeting in Bolingbrook, I was doing the thankless job of keeping order with a raucous crowd that had a lot to say. But behind the scenes, I was a voice stating that the Grassroots were not wrong at all, and needed to be heard at the highest levels. In sum, I am a member of no “establishment” and no “insider club” in the ILGOP. I am simply what I have always been: Steve Boulton, building the GOP in Chicago, now as Chairman, looking to win. I invite all to come with us in this New Chicago GOP.
As for the future, I have several options on Committeeman and Chairman, in and out of court. In truth, at my age I never intended to serve more than one term, as I didn’t take the job to be a “boss”. I took the job to fix the Republican Party in Chicago, both to restore a two-party system for the citizens and to allow conservative candidates of the future to win. At the end of the first term that job is not quite done, mainly due to losing so much time in the Pandemic. But I’m a happy warrior, for whatever becomes of me personally my allies have already won a huge majority in the Chicago Republican Central Committee for the new four-year term. My vision of the GOP in Chicago will be the future, not the narrow, vindictive, unsuccessful Chicago GOP of the past that is still envisioned by my critics and opponents. I have already won the war.
