Born into a politically active Chicago family,Hartigan began his political career under Mayor Richard J. Daley. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of Illinois in 1972 alongside Dan Walker. Although he won renomination for a second term,Hartigan and Micheal Howlett lost the 1976 election.
Hartigan went on to be elected attorney general in 1982 and was reelected in 1986. He was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Illinois in 1990,but he narrowly lost the race to Republican Jim Edgar. In 2002,Hartigan was elected to the Illinois Appellate Court and retired in 2004. He was later appointed to the Illinois Court of Claims and served from 2013 until 2019.
Early life and education
A lifelong resident of Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood,Hartigan was born into a large Irish Catholic family that was involved in local Chicago politics but never part of the inner circle that ran the city.[2] His father,David,served in the city treasurer’s office,and his paternal uncle,Matthew,was a longtime municipal judge on the city’s South Side.[3]
Hartigan’s father was appointed City Treasurer of Chicago by Mayor Martin H. Kennelly and held the office from 1954 until 1955,when he was elected Alderman of the 49th Ward.[1] Although he was re-elected in 1959,he died in office soon afterward.[4]
Upon graduation from Georgetown,Hartigan was hired by Mayor Richard J. Daley to shovel coal in the basement of the Chicago Board of Health building while attending law school at night.[2] However,he soon became an assistant to the city’s health commissioner. Then,upon passing the bar,he was the attorney for the Board of Health and the general counsel for the Chicago Park District.[3]
Hartigan became a protégéof Mayor Richard J. Daley during this time. He was Daley's administrative assistant and worked as the city’s legislative counsel,acting as an emissary between Mayor Daley and the Illinois Legislature. He also held other roles in Daley’s mayoral administration,including as a deputy mayor and an organizer for the mayor's re-election bids.[7]
In 1968,Hartigan was elected the Democratic Committeeman for Chicago's 49th ward,the same ward his father had represented. He stepped down from the role in 1980.
Lt. Governor and Attorney General
In 1971,then-lieutenant governor Paul Simon recruited Hartigan to be his running mate in the 1972 gubernatorial election.[4] At the time,the lieutenant governor and governor were nominated through separate primaries. Hartigan won the lieutenant governor nomination,but Simon lost the gubernatorial nomination in an upset to political outsider Dan Walker.[4] Hartigan and Walker were elected on the same ticket in the general election,defeating the incumbent Republican governor Richard B. Ogilvie and his running mate Jim Nowlan.
At the time of his inauguration,Hartigan was the youngest person ever elected lieutenant governor of any state. During his tenure,he was a leading force in establishing the Illinois Department of Aging,which was made to run the state’s government programs for the elderly.[4] Late in his term,Hartigan became chairman of the National Conference of Lieutenant Governors.[3]
In 1976,he ran for re-election. He won renomination as lieutenant governor,but Governor Walker lost the primary to Secretary of State Michael Howlett. The Democratic team of Howlett and Hartigan went on to lose handily in the general election. A Democrat would not hold the lieutenant governor’s office again for 26 years until Pat Quinn was inaugurated in 2003.
After losing in 1976,Hartigan worked as an executive for a bank. He returned to elected office as Attorney General of Illinois in 1983,having defeated the Republican incumbent in the 1982 election. During the 1986 election,Hartigan initially decided to run for governor. However,when Adlai Stevenson III entered the Democratic primary,Hartigan dropped out and ran successfully for re-election as attorney general,winning by a large margin. As attorney general,Hartigan was the highest-ranking Democratic official in Illinois during the 1980s.[8]
Hartigan ran for governor in the 1990 election,winning the Democratic nomination unopposed. Campaigning as a moderate Democrat,he advocated for lowering the state income tax and increasing funding for social services,such as education. Hartigan narrowly lost the general election to Secretary of State Jim Edgar by about 80,000 votes out of the over 3.2 million cast.[9]
Later years
Following his defeat in 1990,Hartigan left elected office again. He worked for a Chicago law firm and served as chairman of World Trade Center Illinois.[10] During the 1990s,Hartigan considered possibly returning to elected office. News outlets named him as a potential leading contender for the Democratic nomination in the 1996 U.S. Senate race and the 1994 and 1998 gubernatorial elections.[11]
In 2002,Hartigan won election to the Illinois Appellate Court from the First District,which covers Cook County.[14][15] After two years,he chose to retire voluntarily from the bench.[16] On March 22,2013,Governor Pat Quinn appointed Hartigan to the Illinois Court of Claims. He served as a judge on the court from May 2,2013,until retiring on March 21,2019.[17]
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