South Cook News

Democrats and Republicans across Chicago's South Side and southwest suburbs have spoken out loudly against the so-called SAFE-T Act, which requires the release from jail of thousands of accused criminals and encourages anonymous complaints against police officers.

But curiously quiet has been State Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago), who represents more Chicago police than any other state legislator in Springfield.

Cunningham's silence on the SAFE-T Act has attracted a challenger in Mt. Greenwood realtor Christine McGovern, who says the community needs representatives who will speak up for police.

State Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago) is under fire for refusing to speak out against the SAFE-T Act. | ilga.gov

“Our community is known for our first responders. It’s a neighborhood that sticks together, that helps each other out, that appreciates the value of what our first responders do,” Shanahan McGovern told South Cook News. "But Cunningham has done nothing. He hasn't said anything in support of police until now, because it is election time.”

"Our businesses were looted. Our kids are being attacked in our local parks. Moms are being carjacked in their driveways with their children. This is what's happening in my community. From Cunningham, silence," she said.

Shanahan McGovern says Cunningham acts one way in Springfield and another in his 18th district, which includes Chicago's 19th Ward neighborhoods of Beverly, Morgan Park and Mt. Greenwood as well as Oak Lawn, Evergreen Park, Hometown, Worth, Alsip, Chicago Ridge, Palos Heights, Palos Hills, Palos Heights and Orland Park.

She says Cunningham, who sat on the Senate Assignments committee that allowed the SAFE-T Act to go to a vote, is trying too hard to personally win the favor of the "progressives" who now control the Illinois Democrat party, like Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), a leading proponent of "defund the police" efforts and a close ally of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Shanahan McGovern said her frustration with Cunningham and others' refusal to stand up to Lightfoot, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and anti-police activists led her to get politically active.

“A Mt. Greenwood police officer was hurt at the (Grant Park) Columbus statue riots. Police-- our neighbors-- were attacked purposefully there by Antifa, Black Lives Matter and people without a moral compass. They threw bricks. They threw human feces. They made homemade cocktail bombs," Shanahan McGovern said.

“Now, we do live in a Democratic area. But none of our elected leaders would publicly say that this behavior was wrong," she said.

In 2020, Foxx, a leading proponent of the SAFE-T Act, lost the 19th Ward, earning 36 percent of its vote (10,693) to 64 percent (18,852) for her two opponents.

Foxx won a slim, 52-48 majority in 11 Morgan Park precincts (3,010-2,827 votes) and lost Beverly by a slimmer margin, 50.2-49.8 (6,552-6,496 votes). Mt. Greenwood voted heavily against Foxx, 89 percent to 11 percent, or 9,473-1,187 votes. Foxx lost Beverly's 24 precincts and Mt. Greenwood's 20 precincts. 

In Worth Township, Foxx lost Oak Lawn's 41 precincts, getting 30 percent of votes to 70 percent against (18,794-8,211) and she lost Evergreen Park's 15 precincts with 40 percent of the vote to 60 percent against (6,171-4,130).

McGovern, who has lived in Mt. Greenwood for 25 years, organized "Back the Blue" rallies in response to the George Floyd riots of 2020. She also spoke out publicly against Gov. J.B. Pritzker's lockdowns of 19th Ward businesses and schools.

Cunningham has received criticism from voters in the 19th Ward for his silence on the SAFE-T Act. In a letter to the Beverly Review newspaper, West Morgan Park resident Stephen Majka called Cunningham's campaign mailing touting his record "a nauseating attempt at revisionist history.”

"The senator... ignores the greatest threat to public safety that this state has ever seen: the Safe-T Act," Majka wrote. "Cunningham failed to support the police in 2016 when they put down an armed threat in Mt. Greenwood. He failed again in 2020 to speak against the riots and attack allegedly conducted by Antifa that injured dozens of officers in Grant Park. He failed to support police after two separate shootings where police were called murderers, despite the incidents being recorded on video.”

"If Senator Cunningham were serious about keeping us safe, he could have been working to repeal parts, or all, of this act," he wrote.