Illinois comptroller race: Margaret Croke, Bryan Drew vie for open seat as Democrats seek statewide sweep

Illinois Democrats have held every statewide constitutional office since early 2019, and a sweep on Nov. 3 would extend that lock on state government to 12 years.

Along with the governor’s race, voters will decide contests for attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and comptroller. Only one of the five is an open seat — comptroller — as Democrat Susana Mendoza announced she is leaving after a decade in office to run for Chicago mayor next year.

Two candidates from opposite ends of the state are vying to replace her: Democratic state Rep. Margaret Croke of Chicago and Republican Bryan Drew, a lawyer from southern Illinois.

Drew, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary, acknowledged earlier this year that the office under Mendoza has paid the state’s bills on time. But he said someone with differing viewpoints on public finance should hold the job for purposes of “checks and balances,” since Democrats control every constitutional office.

Croke, who is endorsed by Gov. JB Pritzker, said she can be “fiscally responsible” while also “making sure I’m investing in our most vulnerable communities.”

Elsewhere on the ballot, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Treasurer Michael Frerichs, all Democrats, are seeking reelection against Republican challengers.

The comptroller is often described as the state’s chief fiscal officer, responsible for paying the state’s bills on time, ensuring fiscal compliance, tracking contracts and transactions and issuing reports that guide the governor and legislature on budget matters.

“If it breaks down, everyone freaks out,” Croke said of the office. “These are people’s livelihoods. These are, you know, checks go into the rural hospitals that are afraid that they’re going to close in two weeks. These are contractors that need to make payroll. I take that incredibly seriously. These checks are funding the dire-(need) services that our communities rely on.”

Croke has served as a state representative for a district on Chicago’s North and Near North sides since 2021. She said her role as chair of the House Financial Institutions and Licensing Committee, which considers legislation on banking and other financial matters, dovetails with the comptroller’s job.

“There are things that the private sector does and the financial institutions do that would be interesting to implement within the comptroller’s office. There are also things that they do which would be terrible decisions to do within the comptroller’s office,” Croke said. “But it’s all very technical, and I think that that is a good foundation for this new position.”

Drew is from Benton, a town of roughly 6,600 people about 300 miles south of Chicago, perhaps best known as the small town where George Harrison of The Beatles visited his sister in 1963, just months before the band became world-famous. Drew owns a cafe with his wife and has run his own law firm for more than 25 years, handling personal injury, civil litigation and other cases. Two years ago, he finished second in a Republican primary for a downstate judicial seat, and he brands himself as an outsider to state government and politics.

“A lot of people like to say, ‘well, he doesn’t have political experience.’ Good,” Drew said in an interview earlier this month. “That’s exactly what the comptroller shouldn’t have, is to be a part of the machine that’s going on currently.”

During a hotly contested primary against three other Democrats, Croke talked about revamping the office’s vendor payment program, especially as President Donald Trump and other Republicans in Washington have made, or threatened to make, funding cuts that could hurt nonprofits and businesses.

She also wants to make it easier for small municipalities, which Croke said are often short-staffed and have limited accounting expertise, to submit their legally required audits.

“And they’re all different sizes. They have all different revenues. They all don’t have a dedicated staff member to be able to do these annual audits,” she told the Tribune last month. “Making it work for every type of government and tiering out the requirements, I think, would do a lot of good.”

Drew said the comptroller’s office “needs to evolve from where we’re at now” to concentrate on rooting out “fraud, waste and abuse.” He pointed to the recent criminal charges against state Rep. Carol Ammons, a Democrat from Urbana, who prosecutors allege used state grant money improperly, among other finance-related violations.

“I think the comptroller should be focusing on that. That’s where we’re at now. And I think we don’t need another rubber stamp for all the spending in Springfield,” he said. “That’s about putting the finances on trial.”

Drew also said the comptroller should use the office to critique the state’s economic policies.

“You’re going to have an increase in utility bills, which is what we’re seeing. And I think that’s a place where the comptroller can come in and say, ‘Look, the financial repercussions of this is what we need to look at,'” Drew said. “That’s why I think my experience is so good as being a business owner, because I’ve actually had to make payroll every week. All those taxes that come in, I’ve had to implement those. I’ve seen how hard it is to run a business doing that.”

One of the office’s more obscure functions — oversight of private cemeteries and crematoriums — has drawn wide attention in recent months.

In early August, the remains of more than 50 people were found improperly stored at the South Chicago Chapel funeral home on the Southeast Side. The funeral home is tied to Johanna and Clark Morgan, who previously came under scrutiny from the comptroller’s office after officials found improperly stored remains and other problems at a crematorium they operated in Chicago Heights.

In response to the Chicago Heights findings, a law taking effect next year gives the comptroller’s office, which conducts on-site inspections of crematoriums, more oversight power. But the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation — not the comptroller — is tasked with licensing funeral directors, and while the department may investigate funeral directors, it is not tasked with regularly inspecting all facilities.

After a similar scandal at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip in the 2000s, a state task force recommended funeral and burial oversight be consolidated under IDFPR’s authority. But that hasn’t happened.

Croke and Drew agree there should be some consolidation of duties over funeral homes, crematoriums and cemeteries.

Croke said she previously raised the idea with other legislators, before the South Chicago Chapel scandal, when lawmakers in Springfield were discussing a measure that would have codified regulations for natural organic reduction, also known as human composting, a process that turns a person’s remains into soil.

Drew said that certain death care duties are split among state agencies, which is “indicative of Illinois government.”

“We spread out duties all over, and everyone says, ‘it’s not my job,'” he said. “And then it becomes no one’s job.”

Like other Democrats running statewide, Croke has had a financial advantage over her Republican opponent. She spent close to $2 million in the first three months of the year, when she had to outspend her primary rivals to win the nomination, and reported about $149,780 in her campaign fund at the end of March, Illinois State Board of Elections records show. At the end of June, she had a little more than $108,500 on hand, while Drew reported just over $54,000.

Croke’s campaign has received money this election cycle from trade and labor unions, businesses and other interests. That includes $72,800 earlier this year from the campaign fund of Pritzker, a billionaire, records show.

Before joining the legislature, Croke worked for Pritzker’s 2018 campaign as a women’s outreach director and later as a deputy chief of staff for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, a state agency that helps entities acquire state infrastructure funding.

She has maintained that as comptroller she would have no trouble remaining independent of Pritzker and other wealthy donors.

“I’ve spent my career building those relationships, and I’m really proud of them. It also pertains to the fundraising side that people believe in me,” Croke said. “I’m a very independent individual. The people of Illinois will always come first, and they’re who I’m thinking about.”

Since the end of June, Drew has received money from Republican donors including Don Tracy, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate and former state party chair, U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood of Peoria and state Sen. Jason Plummer of Edwardsville.

Drew said volunteers are helping spread his message statewide. As for winning over voters in heavily Democratic Chicago and its suburbs, which is key to any statewide victory, he said voters there have the same economic woes as those elsewhere in Illinois.

“Everyone’s trying to raise a family and live their lives,” Drew said, “and government’s not making life easier. It’s making it harder.”

Secretary of state

Giannoulias is running for a second term as secretary of state despite recently announcing his candidacy for Chicago mayor in 2027. If he wins both elections, the governor would appoint a new secretary of state, though mayoral candidate William Quinlan is challenging Giannoulias, along with two other mayoral candidates, in court over their ability to run for two offices at once.

The office arguably interacts with the public more than any other in state government, issuing driver’s licenses and other state IDs and handling registrations for vehicles, lobbyists and businesses, among other services.

Since succeeding longtime Secretary of State Jesse White in 2023, Giannoulias has taken steps to modernize the office and helped with legislation intended to give motorists fairer auto insurance rates. The secretary of state also serves as state librarian, and Giannoulias championed a measure that requires public libraries to adopt policies against book bans as a condition of receiving state library funding.

His Republican opponent, Diane M. Harris, spent more than 30 years working for utility giant Commonwealth Edison and has served as a precinct committeewoman for more than a decade. She has run unsuccessfully for other offices, including state senator and mayor of Joliet.

Harris has called for reducing fees for vehicle stickers, titles and other services, especially for seniors and veterans. A vehicle title can cost as much as $165 and a standard renewal sticker $151, according to the secretary of state’s website. She has also suggested the office’s online services can be a problem for people who don’t want to do business online.

The fundraising disparity is stark. Through June, Giannoulias had close to $22 million in his secretary of state campaign account, records show. Through the end of September, Harris had just $134.

Attorney general

Raoul is seeking a third term against Republican Bob Fioretti, a former Chicago alderman with a background as a civil rights attorney who has unsuccessfully run for a number of offices.

The attorney general’s office handles consumer protection issues, prosecutes some crimes and defends state laws in court.

Since Trump took office again last year, Raoul’s office has filed or often partnered with other states’ attorneys general in filing dozens of lawsuits over federal policies ranging from immigration enforcement agent tactics used during deportation actions to the president’s attempt to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago against Pritzker’s wishes.

Since leaving the Chicago City Council more than a decade ago, Fioretti has run for and lost several public offices, including as a Democrat. Two years ago, he ran as a Republican in the Cook County state’s attorney race and lost to Democrat Eileen O’Neill Burke.

If elected attorney general, Fioretti’s campaign has said he would withdraw Illinois from Raoul’s lawsuits if they “seek to impede law enforcement officials from doing their sworn duty, interfere in cleaning up the corruption in Illinois elections, target the rights of law-abiding gun owners, or substitute Kwame Raoul’s judgment for parental decision making regarding the education, health care and general welfare of their children.”

Among his goals for the office, Fioretti wants to revisit the pretrial provisions of the state’s 2021 criminal justice overhaul, known as the SAFE-T Act, by possibly strengthening its electronic-monitoring and judicial-discretion sections.

Campaign funding-wise, Raoul had more than $1.7 million in his campaign account through June, while Fioretti had around $28,000, records show.

Treasurer

In the state treasurer’s race, Democratic incumbent Michael Frerichs is seeking a fourth term. His Republican opponent is Max Solomon, who got his party’s nomination as a write-in candidate after the GOP failed to field its own nominee during the primary through the regular nomination process.

The treasurer serves as the state’s chief investment and banking officer, investing money on behalf of state and local governments. This includes encouraging college and trade school savings plans, helping Illinoisans secure unclaimed financial resources and increasing their financial literacy.

Before being first elected in 2014, Frerichs was a state senator, served on the Champaign County Board and was the county’s auditor.

Solomon, who came to the U.S. from Lagos, Nigeria, more than 30 years ago, is an attorney from Chicago’s south suburbs. His goals as treasurer include “modernizing Illinois’ investment strategy to maximize returns while maintaining fiduciary responsibility” and strengthening the state’s college savings plans, according to his campaign website.

Through June, Frerichs had more than $1.7 million in his campaign account, and Solomon had just over $7,100, according to the state campaign records.

jgorner@chicagotribune.com