1994 Cook County, Illinois, elections

The Cook County, Illinois, general election was held on November 8, 1994.

Primaries were held March 15, 1994.

Elections were held for Assessor, Clerk, Sheriff, Treasurer, President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, all 17 seats of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, both seats of the Cook County Board of Appeals, seats on the Water Reclamation District Board, and judgeships in the Circuit Court of Cook County.

The Democratic Party performed well, winning a full sweep of all countywide offices and 11 out of 17 seats on the Cook County Board of Commissioners. This came despite 1994 having been a strong Republican election cycle nationally, including in Illinois’ statewide elections (with the national election cycle being dubbed the “Republican Revolution”).

Election information
1994 was a midterm election year in the United States. The primaries and general elections for Cook County races coincided with those for congressional elections and those for state elections.

Primary election
Turnout in the primaries was 34.58%, with 911,577 ballots cast. Chicago saw 555,937 ballots cast and suburban Cook County saw 23.95% turnout (with 355,620 ballots cast).

General election
The general election saw turnout of 48.16%, with 1,267,152 ballots cast. Chicago saw 586,235 ballots cast, while suburban Cook County saw 50.54% turnout (with 680,917 ballots cast).

Assessor
In the 1994 Cook County Assessor election, incumbent assessor Thomas Hynes, a Democrat, was elected to a fifth full-term.

General election
Democrat Hynes won by a roughly 35-point margin. He defeated Republican nominee Sandra C. Wilson-Muriel, as well as Harold Washington Party nominee Donald Pamon and Populist Party nominee Loretha Weisinger.

Clerk
In the 1994 Cook County Clerk election, incumbent first-term clerk David Orr, a Democrat, was reelected.

General election
David Orr was reelected by a roughly 30-point margin. He defeated Republican nominee Edward Howlett, as well as Harold Washington Party nominee Herman W. Baker, Jr. and Populist Party nominee Curtis Jones.

Sheriff
In the 1994 Cook County Sheriff election, incumbent first-term sheriff Michael F. Sheahan, a Democrat, was reelected.

Republican
No candidate ran in the Republican primary for Sheriff. The party ultimately nominated John D. Tourtelot.

General election
Michael F. Sheahan was reelected by a roughly 40-point margin. He defeated Republican nominee John D. Tourtelot, as well as Harold Washington Party nominee William A. Brown and Populist Party nominee William J. Benson.

Treasurer
In the 1994 Cook County Treasurer election, incumbent fifth-term treasurer Edward J. Rosewell, a Democrat, was reelected.

General election
Rosewell was reelected by a more than 20-point margin. He defeated Republican nominee Jean Reyes Pechette, as well as Harold Washington Party nominee Robert J. Pettis and Populist Party nominee John Justice.

President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners
In the 1994 President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners election, incumbent first-term president Richard Phelan, a Democrat, did not seek reelection. Democrat, John Stroger, was elected to succeed him in office. Stroger was the first African-American to be elected to the office.

Republican
Joe Morris received the Republican nomination, running unopposed on the ballot in the Republican primary.

Originally, Palatine village president Rita Mullins was running for the nomination, but she withdrew her candidacy.

General election
Morris' candidacy was considered a long shot. It struggled with a lack of funds. During the general election, Stroger did not campaign heavily.

Morris proposed drastically restricting the county's government, abolishing all of the county agencies except the State's Attorney's office and replacing them with a different arrangement of departments that would have been under greater control of the president of the Cook Cook County Board of Commissioners.

Stroger won by a more than 25-point margin over Republican Joe Morris. He also defeated Harold Washington Party nominee Aloysius Majerczyk and Populist Party nominee Jerome Carter.

Cook County Board of Commissioners
The 1994 Cook County Board of Commissioners election saw all seventeen seats of the Cook County Board of Commissioners up for election to four-year terms.

This was the first for the Cook County Board of Commissioners conducted with individual districts, as previous elections had been conducted through two sets of at-large elections (one for ten seats from the city of Chicago and another for seven seats from suburban Cook County).

Six of those elected were new to the Cook County Board of Commissioners.

The number of commissioners each party held remained unchanged.

Cook County Board of Appeals
In the 1994 Cook County Board of Appeals election, both seats on the board were up for election. The election was an at-large election.

Incumbent Democrats Joseph Berrios and Wilson Frost were reelected.

This was the last election to the Cook County Board of Appeals, which was reconstituted in 1998 as the three-member Cook County Board of Review.

Water Reclamation District Board
In the 1998 Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago election took place on November 8, 1994, with primaries on March 15, 1994.

Judicial elections
Partisan elections were held for judgeships on the Circuit Court of Cook County, due to vacancies. Other judgeships had retention elections.

Property tax cap advisory referendum
An advisory referendum was held on whether the voters of Cook County wanted the Illinois General Assembly to pass a cap on property taxes. Voters overwhelmingly supported a tax cap.

Other elections
Coinciding with the primaries, elections were held to elect the Democratic, Republican, and Harold Washington Party committeemen for the suburban townships.

Suburban Cook County elected a superintendent for the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education, with Republican Lloyd Lehman running unopposed in the general election.