Adeline Geo-Karis: Role Model and Cautionary Tale

With the passing of former State Sen. Adeline Geo-Karis of Zion a few weeks ago a host of glowing tributes were offered to that pioneering woman. Though well-deserved, Geo-Karis’ story was a lot more complicated than the tributes indicated. If Geo-Karis showed the way for many Republican leaders, particularly women, she also became an object lesson in how not to pass on the torch without damaging a life’s work.

I was in high school when she was first elected to the Illinois Legislature. Right from the start she cast a large shadow in politics in Lake County. In the late 70’s a couple friends of mine and I took an extended trip meandering about the country. It was a marvelous experience, but for all the adventure involved, one still gets a little homesick. One crisp fall night we were all feeling a bit melancholy, wandering the streets of Bar Harbor, Maine. Coming around a corner we were startled to see an old Buick plastered with stickers urging us to re-elect Adeline Geo-Karis. “Good God, the woman’s everywhere,” one friend exclaimed as we all busted out in laughter. It was the secret to her success.

As she rose Geo (as everyone called her) served as mentor to a whole generation of politicians and activists in Lake County. From the mid-80’s through the early 90’s I was one of them. I drove her around, wrote some one-liners for her and plotted strategy with her. Traveling with her was astonishing. We would hit a couple of events – and that would be the shortest part of the day. She knew about every funeral, every christening, every wedding and every bar mitzvah that went on in her district. We would stop by unannounced at three to seven such events every time I accompanied her. There was no room for any sort of life beyond politics for her. It was an electoral strength, but I began to think the woman was terribly lonely sometimes, even amidst the crowds in which she was the constant center of attention.

There was a joke in those days that the most dangerous place to be was between Geo and a microphone or a TV camera. During the Bears great Super Bowl season, we even joked that the real test for the offensive line would be to try to block her out from a public microphone. I benefitted from that trait in 1988 as Ronald Reagan was making his valedictory tour around the country. He threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game and gave a speech that evening at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Geo asked me if I wanted to take her there. Gosh, the chance to listen to Reagan at the end of his great presidency; that was a no-brainer. When we arrived, Geo had ordinary tickets. But she was Geo and bulled her way right to the front row, dead center. So I got to watch and hear Reagan from a distance of 15 yards.

Geo was not particularly ideologically motivated; constituent service was her hallmark. She was very good at it, doggedly working to solve any problem a constituent brought her. In her heyday, she was the one I would go to when anyone brought me a problem they were having with government. Whether they were in her district or not she would almost always get action – and always cared to make it happen. She had no family of her own. In a very real way, the people she served became her surrogate family.

Sometime in the early to mid-90’s something began to change. Geo did become far more ideologically driven on certain matters. One evening we went to dinner after a series of events and she told me earnestly that the party had to get off this pro-life stuff. I was a bit taken aback and told her that for many of us, including me, it was a key principle and one of the main reasons we were Republican. She told me it was a loser and we really needed to drop it. I don’t know who was more shocked; me, to hear her say this or her, to hear me say I would cease to be a Republican before I would cease to be pro-life. From that time on I don’t think I ever saw her without her earnestly trying to convince me to drop the pro-life business. It was the classic divide in politics: some choose issues to advance their party while others choose their party to advance their issues. Both are a little bewildered by the other.

Without adopting the fringe politics of the feminist movement, Geo became very decidedly feminist in political practice. She began to reflexively support any woman running against any man, while candidly saying she thought we needed more women in office. It was the one form of identity politics she unabashedly supported. Some of her old alliances became strained, even broken as it continued. Former Illinois House Majority Leader Bob Churchill had been one of her closest protégés as he rose in politics. I never knew exactly what happened, but the relationship between them did not just get strained, it got broken. Though a dramatic break, it was not an aberration. It was symptomatic of an undercurrent that was developing between Geo and a lot of her old comrades.

For much of her career Geo was a pioneer, storming the barricades of country club Republicanism. She was the first woman this, the first woman that…so many firsts you couldn’t keep up with it all. She was the pride of the very large Greek community in Lake County. If you ever spend time there and note that there are quite a lot of Greek office-holders and judges, Geo had a lot to do with it. In the 70’s, 80’s and into the early 90’s she played a huge role in building the Republican Party and bringing in a host of new people who had either not been in before or, despite great talent, had been shut out.

Throughout her career her constituents adored her. Heaven knows, she had danced at most of their weddings, mourned at their funerals, prayed at their baptisms – she was one of the family for almost every family in Lake County. My own children still speak of her as Auntie Geo. But the tensions from internal feuds began taking their toll in the last 15 years. Though the feuds rarely entered into public view, more and more frequently colleagues and Geo found themselves working at cross purposes in muffled battles over both issues and political predominance. Some became irritated at what they considered a sense of entitlement growing in her. They would complain that Geo more frequently expected people to do things her way because it was she who wanted it rather than to advocate on the merits.

As illness and age took their toll, many political leaders began worrying that her Senate seat was beginning to look vulnerable. When longtime Congressman Phil Crane was unexpectedly toppled by Melissa Bean in 2004, local leaders sat up and took notice. Crane had been a local hero in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. But his seat got progressively more vulnerable as he stayed on long past the period when he had had impact. Many Republicans began to fear that in Geo, they had a Crane scenario in the making if they didn’t do something. They feared, though, that Geo wouldn’t have it. It was a terrible irony: she who had successfully stormed so many barricades in building the Republican Party was now considered to be the main barricade by many who sought to continue that work.

But Geo surprised them. She, too, understood the toll that age and illness was taking. She had groomed a longtime protégé, Warren Twp. Supervisor Sue Simpson to replace her and was clearing the field for Simpson. Many insiders breathed a deep sigh of relief. Lake County Dem. Chairman and State Sen. Terry Link was obviously targeting that seat. Few, even among those who loved Geo best, believed the seat could be held under sustained assault if Geo were to run again. In public she often nodded off, traveled with an oxygen tank in tow, and more than occasionally lost track of what the subject at hand was in public debate. The best hope to retain the seat was to have a younger, vigorous successor supported by Geo. Everyone believed that was what had happened.

Something went wrong, though. Somewhere along the line Geo decided it was not time to move on, after all. But her designated successor, Sue Simpson, did not bow out. After spending several decades as Geo’s protégé, Simpson was now treated as her bitterest enemy. A deep, new feud burst into public view. An already divided Republican Party in Lake County became even more divided as good people settled on either Geo or Simpson. I will confess that I thought Geo was going to win the primary going away, that her surrogate family was going to give her one more tour of duty. It didn’t happen that way. Though her constituents still loved her, they sent her the painful message as gently as they could – that they loved her but it was time. Geo was hurt. Sadly, the pain of rejection morphed into a bitter repudiation of all that she had stood for in her long career. She, who stormed the barricades, who expanded and grew the party, who put service first, now threw her support to the Democrat, Michael Bond, doing everything she could to defeat her old protégé, Simpson, and, in the process, shrink and divide the local party she had done so much to grow and unite. While her old constituents had told her it was time to go, they still loved her and honored her by making the Democrat she supported into their new state senator.

There are still some Republicans in Lake County who bear each other ill will because of that bitter election. Those who loyally supported Geo to the end did not act dishonorably. Those who thought it time to move on did not, either. Most likely the only way the seat could have been held was with a successor who had her support. It was an impossible situation for Republican leaders.

I loved and admired Geo. The first 20 years of her career serve as a real lesson in how to build and grow a strong organization. The last few serve as a cautionary tale to leaders on how easy it is to damage what they have spent a lifetime building. She was an archetype of politician as noble servant to her constituents. May all remember that as her enduring legacy – and remember that when it ceases to be about service and begins to be about entitlement, it is time to move on, lest you mar the best work of your own hands.