Dan Cronin

Daniel J. Cronin (born November 7, 1959) is an American politician and attorney who served as county board chairman of DuPage County, Illinois from December 2010 until December 2022. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served in the Illinois General Assembly from 1991 through 2010.

Cronin was born in Elmhurst, Illinois. He received a bachelor's degree from Northwestern University and later graduated from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Cronin spent his early legal career as counsel for the Illinois House of Representatives from 1985 to 1987, then as a prosecutor in DuPage County from 1987 to 1989. Since 1991, he has worked in private practice. He comes from a family that has been politically prominent in DuPage. His father, a sports physician who ran his practice and owned a medical office building in Elmhurst, helped with Dan's campaigns. Dan's brother, an attorney, managed campaigns for Republican candidates at the state and county levels in 1994, then ran unsuccessfully for DuPage state's attorney during the 1996 elections. His sister, an accountant, previously served as city treasurer of Elmhurst and later as a member of the Illinois Liquor Control Commission; she was elected to the DuPage County Board in 2022.

Cronin was elected to the House of Representatives in 1990, after defeating Republican incumbent Gene L. Hoffman on an anti-tax and anti-abortion platform. He supported cutbacks to taxes and government spending, and earned a reputation as a conservative Republican. He then ran for the Senate during the 1992 elections. Recent redistricting pitted Cronin against Ted Leverenz, an incumbent Democratic senator, in what was considered one of the "liveliest and most bitter contests" of the election season. Cronin won the election. He became chairman of the Senate's education committee, where he sponsored or debated several bills concerning reforms of Chicago Public Schools. He also sponsored legislation that restricted Medicaid funding for abortions, but the bill was vetoed by Governor George Ryan.

After becoming chairman of the DuPage County Board in 2010, Cronin launched initiatives to consolidate units of local government in the county. His reforms included merging the county's election commission into the county clerk's office in 2019, with the approval of voters during a non-binding countywide referendum. Cronin was re-elected to a second term in 2014. His accomplishments included reducing the county's sales tax by 0.25 percentage points. While running for his third term in 2018, he faced a strong challenge from Democratic candidate Lynn LaPlante, and narrowly won re-election. Following the 2018 elections, DuPage was no longer a Republican stronghold, and Cronin lamented increased political infighting on the board. In 2020, Democrats won a majority of the seats on the board for the first time since the 1930s. He submitted budgets for fiscal years 2022 and 2023 – his last as chairman – which kept property tax rates unchanged and took advantage of surpluses from rising sales tax revenues. Cronin decided not to run for re-election at the end of his term in 2022; he was succeeded by Democratic state representative Deb Conroy.

Early life and legal career

Cronin was born on November 7, 1959, in Elmhurst, Illinois. His parents, Richard Cronin and Claire Cronin (), had nine children: five sons and four daughters. The family lived across the street from York Community High School. Cronin graduated from Immaculate Conception Grade School and Fenwick High School. Cronin earned a bachelor of arts degree from Northwestern University and a Juris Doctor degree from the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. From 1985 to 1987, he served as legal counsel to Lee A. Daniels, minority leader of the Illinois House of Representatives, where Cronin helped oversee the movement of legislation presented on the House floor.

From 1987 through 1989, Cronin worked as a prosecutor in DuPage County, serving under Jim Ryan, the county state's attorney. He worked alongside Joe Birkett, who would eventually become state's attorney in 1996 and Appellate Court judge in 2010. In 1991, he began to practice law at Cronin & Ruggiero, where he specialized in criminal law, family law, and real estate. He was also associated with Kemp & Capanna Ltd. In 1993, he transferred to Power & Cronin, based in Oak Brook. He eventually became a senior partner at that law firm.

Family

Dan is married to Juliann Ashley Cronin, owner of A&H Lithoprint, a lithography company in Broadview. Juliann is also a part-time yoga instructor. The couple became engaged in October 1991 and married in May 1992. They have three daughters and one son, and they are members of Immaculate Conception Parish in Elmhurst.

Cronin is part of a large, Irish American, Catholic, Republican political family. Most of the family lives in DuPage, several in Elmhurst. Around 50 family members and friends attended his inauguration to the House of Representatives in 1991. After Dan was elected to the Senate in 1992, the Cronin family was called the "Kennedys of DuPage" or "Kennedys of Elmhurst", not necessarily a compliment in the Republican-dominated county. The family was seen as politically ambitious, potentially prompting animosity and wariness from incumbents and insiders.

Dan's father, Richard Cronin, was born in Oak Park. Richard played football while attending Fenwick High School and the University of Notre Dame, where he graduated in 1946. He earned a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1950 at the Stritch School of Medicine, part of Loyola University Chicago, and completed his residency at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System. He and Claire Cusack married in 1952. Richard enlisted in the Air Force in 1954 and served as an orthopedic surgery resident for two years at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul. He then opened a medical practice in Chicago's west suburbs, and in 1960 the family moved from River Forest to Elmhurst. Within the next few years, he organized a group of around ten doctors who purchased land to construct a medical office building at Palmer Drive and Kenilworth Avenue in Elmhurst. He specialized in sports medicine, and was crucial to the recovery of John Huarte, who suffered an injury in 1964 while playing football at Notre Dame and later went on to play for the National Football League. In 1986, Richard acquired full ownership of his office building after buying out the other partners. Richard was also a clinical medical professor at Loyola, and served as the vice chair and program director of the school's department of orthopedics. He retired from practicing medicine in the 1990s, but continued to manage the office building. He subsequently helped Dan with his senate and county board campaigns. Richard died in 2016, aged 89.

Tom Cronin, Dan's younger brother by four years, was interested in politics as early as when he attended York Community High School. He and Dan worked at the Elmhurst office of Daniels, their state representative. Tom pursued undergraduate studies in political philosophy at Harvard University, and continued to work for Daniels during summer breaks. He then received a Juris Doctor and a Master of Business Administration at the University of Chicago. From 1990 to 1992, he clerked for William J. Bauer, chief judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and former state's attorney of DuPage. Tom then worked as an attorney at Winston & Strawn starting in the fall of 1992. He took a leave of absence to work on campaigning during the 1994 elections, managing Ryan's successful campaign for attorney general and Gayle Franzen's campaign for DuPage County board chairman. He earned $3,400 per month while serving as campaign manager for Franzen, who had turned to Tom and Dan for help in asserting Franzen's independence from party leadership. Tom's and Dan's mother, Claire Cronin, and two sisters also volunteered for Franzen's campaign.

Tom had political ambitions of his own. In 1994, he expressed interest in running for the US Congress if Representative Henry Hyde, whose district included northeastern DuPage, were to retire. (Hyde did not retire until 2007, and Tom did not run to replace him.) Tom ran for DuPage state's attorney in 1996 against Birkett, who by then had worked in the state's attorney's office for 14 years and was endorsed by DuPage Republican leaders. Tom positioned himself as the outsider candidate, despite having managed the campaigns of Ryan and Franzen. At a forum between the two candidates, Dan asked a question attacking Birkett for accepting campaign contributions from criminal defense attorneys. During the campaign, Dan also protested language in sample letters circulated among Republican precinct workers that endorsed Birkett and criticized Tom. Additionally, Tom faced criticisms for receiving traffic tickets and failing to appear in court to answer them, causing his drivers license to be suspended. Tom lost to Birkett.

Dan's and Tom's sister, Cindy Cronin Cahill, was the first in the family to enter politics. A part-time accountant with her own company, Cahill ran for city treasurer of Elmhurst in 1989. The Cronin family helped with canvassing, including Juliann, who had not yet married Dan. Cahill was the youngest candidate in the race, and defeated her two male opponents by a wide margin. After four years, she stepped down as treasurer in 1993 to care for her children. Cahill later served as a member of the Illinois Liquor Control Commission from 2012 through 2019. She was elected to the county board during the 2022 elections.

Illinois House of Representatives

Cronin considered running for the General Assembly in 1986 and 1988. Daniels, by then the House minority leader, advised him to wait both times. Cronin declined to wait at the 1990 elections, when he ran for the 40th district of the House of Representatives. During the Republican primary, he defeated incumbent Gene L. Hoffman, who had been in the legislature for 24 years and was the longest-serving Republican in the House. Financing for the campaign came primarily from Dan's father, Richard Cronin. The campaign was managed by Tom Cronin, Dan's brother, and also Tom Manion, a political operative from Elmhurst who previously directed field operations for the campaigns of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and US representative Dan Rostenkowski. Pam McDonough, chief of staff for Daniels, regarded Cronin as a "good campaigner".

Cronin touted an anti-tax platform, which appealed to voters, especially the conservative wing of the Republican Party. He portrayed Hoffman as being aligned with special interests. Cronin also criticized his opponent for supporting a temporary increase to state income taxes to fund education, suggesting that Hoffman was more interested in his dream job of becoming Illinois State Superintendent. Cronin, an anti-abortion candidate, contrasted himself from Hoffman's support for abortion rights. He positioned his campaign as a change from the incumbents, and he pledged to make government more responsive and accessible to the public.

A few weeks before the primary in March, Cronin's campaign claimed that roughly 150 yard signs were removed from properties along major roadways in Elmhurst. Supporters speculated that Hoffman's backers had removed the signs ahead of the arrival of Governor James R. Thompson, who was visiting Elmhurst to endorse Hoffman. Cronin's anti-establishment positions, though they helped him win the primary, did not endear him to the party's leadership. He referred to Daniels, a Hoffman supporter, as "ineffective", and the relationship between Cronin and Daniels became strained. By the general election, Cronin would eventually ease the criticism and work with Daniels again. Tom and Dan Cronin worked afterwards to further improve their relationship with Daniels.

In the general election, Cronin faced Democratic nominee Truman Kirkpatrick, a retired chemist from York Center. Cronin estimated that his campaign debt could reach $60,000–70,000, of which $25,000 was a personal loan, compared to Kirkpatrick's much more modest campaign. He urged an audit of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, and pledged to give the DuPage County auditor the authority to audit school districts and agencies of county government. Cronin supported amending the state constitution to provide for more referendums and to promote tax accountability. Kirkpatrick, an abortion rights advocate, believed 70% of voters in the district to be against Cronin's anti-abortion stance. Further, while Cronin supported requiring a supermajority in the General Assembly to increase taxes, Kirkpatrick countered that the scheme would make it easier for a simple majority of the legislature to spend without being able to back it up with revenue.

Cronin won the election and began his term in the House in January 1991. He credited his victory against Hoffman for attracting statewide attention to rising property taxes. He supported cutbacks to state programs and personnel, and sponsored legislation that capped property taxes in the suburban counties. However, he opposed property tax-capping legislation sponsored by Daniels and Senate Minority Leader James Philip, claiming the bill extended or made permanent a surcharge on the state's income tax.

As of October 1992, Cronin was the youngest member of the General Assembly. He earned a reputation as a conservative Republican. However, he supported paid family leave, opposed by Republican leadership and business constituents.

Illinois Senate

Senate campaigns and political activity

In 1991, Republicans took control of the redistricting of the state's legislative districts, and drew maps that gave partisan advantage to Republican candidates, especially in the suburbs of Chicago. Under the new maps, suburban voters controlled more legislative districts than Chicago or Downstate voters for the first time, reflecting population shifts. For the upcoming elections in 1992, Cronin decided to run in the new 39th senate district, solidly Republican territory with two-thirds of the district in DuPage. Two suburban senate districts in Chicago were eliminated. Senator Ted Leverenz, a Democrat of Maywood, was forced into the 39th district, losing much of his base to another district.

The race between Cronin and Leverenz was considered one of the "liveliest and most bitter contests" of the election season. Democratic colleagues regarded Leverenz as a strong campaigner to help overcome his steep odds. He touted his lengthy career as a state legislator for more than 16 years, and his pro-suburban record. Cronin, already being mentioned by observers as a possible candidate for statewide office in the 1994 elections, cast the race as a choice between a suburban conservative and a "wheeler-dealer