Cook dinner County Clerk Karen Yarbrough, a fixture in state and native Democratic Social gathering politics who efficiently championed laws to ban the dying penalty in Illinois, died Sunday. She was 73.
For many years, Yarbrough and her husband, Henderson, had been political mainstays in west suburban Maywood, the place he beforehand served as mayor, and Proviso Township. She represented the realm for years within the Illinois Home, finally serving on then-Speaker Michael Madigan’s management staff.
Her alliance with Madigan, a longtime Illinois Democratic Social gathering chair, accompanied her rise in state and native Democratic events and continued by her profitable runs first for Cook dinner County’s recorder of deeds after which county clerk. Yarbrough was elected in 2018 because the county’s first African-American and feminine clerk.
A spokesperson for the county clerk’s workplace introduced on April 2 that Yarbrough was hospitalized with a “serious medical condition,” and confirmed her dying Sunday night.
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Tributes from colleagues poured in Sunday, describing Yarbrough as a devoted public servant who fought for veterans, owners and civil rights. In a launch, Mayor Brandon Johnson referred to as her “both a pioneer and a tireless legislator, committed to social and economic justice throughout decades of public service. Her passion for ensuring that communities experience the full support of their governing bodies and benefit from the fruits of our democracy will truly be missed, as will her radiant smile.”
Cook dinner County Commissioner Stanley Moore met Yarbrough in Springfield when he was a funds analyst.
Later on the county, they labored collectively on a program to document navy service data at no cost, and the 2 “would host property after death seminars all over the county teaching people to protect their most valuable assets,” Moore stated in a written assertion to the Tribune. “She will be truly missed.”
Yarbrough was a local of Washington, D.C. Her household got here to Maywood within the early Nineteen Sixties. She studied enterprise administration at Chicago State College and obtained her grasp’s in Inside Metropolis Research from Northeastern Illinois College.
She turned a licensed actual property dealer and based Hathaway Insurance coverage Company in Maywood in 1975. It adopted a path charted by her father, the late Don Williams Sr., who established the primary African-American-owned pharmacy within the village within the Nineteen Sixties and branched out into residence constructing, actual property and insurance coverage, in response to his Tribune obituary.
Williams, who was energetic within the native NAACP and a up to date of activist Fred Hampton, was elected to 1 time period as mayor of Maywood, and headed up its chamber of commerce. Yarbrough herself later led the chamber beginning in 1993.
She first ran for the Home in 1998 in opposition to incumbent Rep. Eugene Moore however misplaced by 544 votes in a four-way main. In 2000, after Moore left the legislature to develop into recorder of deeds, Yarbrough received the seat.
Yarbrough and Moore usually clashed. She misplaced to him in a 2002 race for Proviso Township Democratic committeeman however beat him 4 years later. When Moore retired as recorder, Yarbrough succeeded him within the county put up and left the Home place she held for greater than a decade.
Her most high-profile accomplishments in Springfield included efficiently engaged on laws to make Illinois the twenty second state to ban indoor smoking in 2008, however she additionally secured cash for primary native initiatives starting from repaving a library car parking zone to redoing native alleyways and streetscapes.
Yarbrough garnered her largest accolades for her Home sponsorship of the ban on executions in Illinois, culminating within the dramatic passage of the laws on the second of two votes taken throughout one of many closing days of a lame-duck session in January 2011.
After the invoice fell brief by one vote within the first spherical, Yarbrough introduced it again a second time and handed the historic measure. It was the primary time a dying penalty ban handed the Home since executions had been reinstated in Illinois in 1977. The proposed ban was closely criticized by some lawmakers and prosecutors who argued violent criminals may homicide a number of victims with out concern of being killed themselves.
The measure shortly handed the Senate, and Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn signed the invoice in a personal ceremony in his Capitol workplace with Yarbrough and then-Sen. Kwame Raoul, now the legal professional common, trying on with different supporters.
The approval got here greater than a decade after Republican Gov. George Ryan unilaterally positioned a moratorium on the dying penalty following revelations that a number of individuals despatched to dying row weren’t responsible.
As soon as a supporter of capital punishment, Yarbrough later stated the exonerations served as a “painful and stirring reminder that death is an absolute penalty. Once imposed, there is no second chance, no reversal and no way to correct a mistake.”
Home Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch shared his condolences in a social media put up. “Serving our west suburban community together for more than two decades, I was lucky enough to see her generosity, kindness, and the way she fiercely loved her family and friends, too,” Welch stated. “Our entire community mourns this loss and Karen will be deeply missed, but I know her spirit will always remain a guiding force.”
“She’s got a strong legacy in Springfield,” State Rep. LaShawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat from the West Aspect who served with Yarbrough within the Illinois Home, informed the Tribune Sunday.
Ford admired Yarbrough’s “love for family” and the way she and her husband caught collectively as a political energy couple for therefore lengthy. The partnership served as a robust instance for the Black neighborhood, he stated. “Karen Yarbrough and her husband actually showed us about how to be a couple in the Black community and how to love one another and be strong together through a lot of adversity.”
He additionally famous her loyalty to native Democrats and the way she labored her means as much as be influential throughout the get together. Yarbrough served each on the state’s central committee and was the Cook dinner County Democratic Social gathering’s treasurer.
“She’s a giant in Cook County and in Illinois,” stated Ford. “I think, many times, people don’t understand just your value until you’re gone. People will now see her value to the Democratic Party.”
State Rep. Will Davis, a Democrat from south suburban Homewood who additionally served with Yarbrough within the Home, referred to as Yarbrough “a strong advocate, particularly for the African-American community.”
“Certainly being in Springfield with her, she was always firm, she was always fierce, she was always decisive,” stated Davis, who has served within the Home since 2003. “She knew exactly what she wanted to accomplish.”
When Yarbrough received the recorder’s workplace in 2012, she inherited a federal court docket anti-patronage monitor ordered to supervise the workplace beneath Moore’s tenure, however she couldn’t shake it throughout her time in that workplace.
For years, reformers pushed for the recorder’s workplace, which oversees land transactions, to be mixed with the clerk’s workplace, which oversees suburban voting and data like start certificates, and voters permitted the merger in 2016.
Regardless of her early opposition to consolidation, Yarbrough received on board when elected clerk.
Former Cook dinner County Commissioner Ed Moody, then a detailed Madigan affiliate who now’s anticipated to testify within the ex-speaker’s upcoming federal corruption trial, was appointed as interim recorder till the merger was full.
In an announcement, Moody described that merger as successful, and stated Yarbrough’s efforts “have and will continue save the Cook County Tax Payers millions of dollars.”
Yarbrough sprinkled her workplaces with Madigan allies, and served as interim chair of the state Democratic Social gathering when Madigan misplaced his speakership and gave up the get together put up amid a burgeoning ComEd lobbying scandal in 2021.
As county clerk, she as soon as was accused of “running an illegal patronage operation” by Michael Shakman, the legal professional whose lawsuit filed half a century in the past in opposition to Democratic machine politics led to a collection of anti-patronage decrees and finally federal screens overseeing a number of workplaces, together with hers.
Regardless of steadily being dinged over defying finest employment practices, Yarbrough persistently denied the allegations and finally took benefit of a federal appellate court docket determination that lifted the oversight of Illinois authorities.
Because of this, Yarbrough’s county clerk’s workplace, the final public workplace beneath a federal monitor, was in a position to finish the Shakman case first launched to struggle the cussed and unfair use of Democratic politics to determine most hiring, firing and promotion in state and native authorities.
A federal choose formally launched her from that oversight final yr regardless of some reservations from watchdogs that she hadn’t totally addressed problematic personnel practices.
Yarbrough briefly thought-about a run for secretary of state in 2021 when Jesse White introduced he wouldn’t search re-election.
She in the end determined in opposition to operating statewide, partially, as a result of her husband, Henderson, was being handled for prostate most cancers.
“He is my rock,” the county clerk stated of her partner, in response to the Solar-Instances. “There’s nothing I have done in the past 30 years that he hasn’t been by my side for. He’s quiet, soft-spoken, but he’s got a lot of wisdom — especially as it relates to this rough and tumble business I’m in — and he’s the head of our family.”
Yarbrough had a novel capability to bridge racial divides, Cook dinner County Treasurer Maria Pappas stated in a launch. “We were soul sisters and gossip buddies. She is irreplaceable in politics because she represented kindness and compassion,” Pappas stated. “She never had two stories. It’s a totally different ball game today. Karen had an innate, God-given talent of compassion that can’t be taught. She was born with a gift of kindness. I don’t know who in the Democratic party is that gifted. I will miss my locker buddy across the hall.”
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