It was 2:30 a.m. when Anne Brekke woke from a dead sleep. She heard some empty cans clinking around the front yard, then suddenly she heard a car screeching away from her.
The next morning, Breaky went outside and saw again that someone had stolen the sign on her lawn from the political arena.
Sign theft and other campaign stunts are par for the course for municipal elections in the Chicago area.
Back in 2007, this disease was particularly widespread in the 50th district, where the Wasmer-Brickey family lived. At that time, the family was engaged in a hot war. Every time they put up signs for Naisy Dollar, they get beaten up. They thought of ways to catch the thief, including the one that woke Bricky up in the middle of the night: tying the empty cans with a deceptive tag, so they would be alarmed if they were taken away.
Recently, the Wasmer-Brekke family asked Curious who was behind what appears to be an election-time tradition of stealing yard signs.
Today the family laughs off the sign-stealing saga, but what they went through is rooted in Chicago's political history. It's a tradition that dates back more than 100 years, when the city was rebuilding after the Chicago Fire, and saloon and brothel owners had a major influence. Although it's not what it used to be, election scams still happen today.
Salons, politicians and the machine
“Sign stealing has been going on as long as signs have been printed,” said Dick Simpson, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The tactic goes back more than 100 years in Chicago, said Simpson, who served as alderman for the 44th Ward in the 1970s. It was particularly prevalent in difficult times of machine politics when patronage and patronage jobs were given in order to win elections.
“The owners of saloons, bars, brothels — (they were) paying the politicians and the politicians were asking the police not to raid these upscale business establishments,” Simpson said.
The saloons will also offer free lunch and beer to anyone who votes for their favorite candidates, Simpson said. Saloons became so synonymous with politics that in the late 19th century some of the most prominent aldermen were saloon owners.
Machine politics reached its peak in the mid-20th century, under former Mayor Richard J. Daley.
By then, constituency leaders and ward committee members were considered party soldiers, charged with consolidating voter support, and often taking extreme measures.
They did the dirty work or assigned campaign workers tasks like stealing signs.
After the Shakman consent decree in 1972, hiring and promotions in Chicago and Cook County government were placed under federal court oversight. As a result, Simpson said the position of ward committee member is much weaker today, primarily because there are almost no caring jobs to offer.
However, federal oversight did not fix patronage politics in Chicago overnight, and as a result, campaign workers remained tasked with removing opponents' signs into the 2000s.
Dirty tricks
The late Bernard Stone was the longest-serving alderman in the 50th Ward, where the Wasmer-Brickey family has lived since the late 1990s.
So they tag in for his opponent, newcomer Nessie Dollar. But like many of the other dollar signs in the pavilion, it's gone. “Sign stealing business as usual in the 50th Ward,” came a Chicago Sun-Times headline from the 2007 election season.
The Wasmer-Brickey family had suspicions about who was behind the theft.
“I kind of imagined it was the district commander doing his routine,” Dan Wasmer said. After all, the neighborhood has been a machinery hotbed since the early 1900s.
WBEZ even asked Stone at the time if there was any truth to the rumors that his supporters were pressuring residents to remove his opponents' signs.
“Well, that's tough,” Stone replied. “I don't know if that's happening, but if so, I don't see anything wrong with it.”
For her part, Dollar expected some political vilification, but she didn't know how far these dirty tricks would go.
“Our signs will be stolen, our cars will be moved,” she said.
Later, two former Stone political operatives, one of whom was a precinct captain, were sentenced to nearly a year in prison for trying to tamper with absentee ballots in that election.
Ultimately, Dollar lost the election by about 700 votes. Although she doesn't think the sign theft contributed to the loss, it was dirty politics in general that left her feeling drained and she stopped running for office again.
“Signs don't vote”
“The machine may be broken, but there are certainly a lot of old soldiers left in the business,” said one Chicago campaign worker who wished to remain anonymous.
While many long-serving robot politicians who used sign stealing as a tactic are no longer in office, old habits die hard, the campaign worker said.
Ask any Chicago City Council alderman about sign theft today, and it's an almost foreign topic. They have all been victims of this.
“We had areas in the 26th Ward where signs were put up and they were completely wiped out overnight,” Ald said. Jesse Fuentes of the 26th Ward. “A lot of it has to do with wanting to remove names, so that there is no building to recognize the names.”
Stealing signs is illegal, and people have been arrested before. In 2010, former Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica was convicted of a misdemeanor for tearing down his opponent's signs in the western suburb of McCook.
In 2017, a former library board member in suburban Elgin was convicted of misdemeanor theft for stealing signs in a local municipal election. A witness notified police after seeing him carrying signs in the back of his car.
But these days, local candidates are less interested in lawn signs than they used to be, since there are so many ways to get the word out about the campaign — including social media and text messages. Lawn signs can cost about $5 apiece, but sending a text message to a voter is less than 10 cents, the campaign worker said.
“The new lawn sign is the text message. It's more valuable because we're all tied to our phones,” he said.
I give birth. “(Sign stealing) is annoying, but it's really a small problem within the scope of most things you care about in the campaign,” said Maria Hadden of the 49th District. “There are always more signs.”
“It's very important to remember: signs don't vote.”
Tessa Weinberg covers city government and politics for WBEZ. Follow her @Tessa_Weinberg
