Thursday night, Cook County GOP township and ward committeemen chose Lemont Township Republican chairman Sig Vaznelis as Cook County GOP chairman, to succeed Lee Roupas, who resigned in August after serving three years.
For those who are not familiar with Sig Vaznelis, we did some Googling, Facebooking and Tweeting to find out more about him. In the Daily Herald story about Thursday night's election, Vaznelis said he wanted to open up the Cook County GOP to social media. What better place to find out about our new Cook County chairman?
Chairman Vaznelis' Facebook page lists him as the CEO of Morris Engineering. He likes to fish and is a graduate of Illinois Institute of Technology. He's married. Vaznelis is also Lemont Township's Highway Commissioner. According to OpentheBooks.com, Vaznelis has been working for Lemont Township for the last 11 years, earning a total of $246,869.
Vaznelis' win was a triumph for Cook County Commissioner Liz Gorman, also Orland Township GOP Committeeman. Gorman was behind Roupas' chairmanship bid three years ago. She's rumored to be threatening to challenge Cook County Board of Review Dan Patlak in the upcoming Spring 2012 GOP primary. Her motives are to bring more GOP power to the South and Southwest suburban region.
The Chicago GOP website puts it like this on an August 2011 post predicting Wheeling Township GOP Committeeman Ruth O'Connell would be elected Thursday night over Vaznelis:
The more serious effort is coming from the South Side of the county, as Comissioner Liz Gorman seeks to hold on to the Chairmanship she has effectively controlled since 2007, in her own term and that of Lee Roupas, whom she got elected. Rumblings hears that Committeeman Pat Rea was approached, but does not appear to be interested. The South Siders now are approaching Sig Vaznelis of Lemont Township. Out of sheer size the South and Southwest parts of Cook County hold significant weighted votes. Whether they are enough remains to be seen. Speculation has been made that Del Mar may be a North Side vote splitter working for Gorman.
Besides support from Gorman, Vaznelis has close ties to at least one nationally-prominent RNC leader, as well.
His Twitter page shows that his last Tweets were back in January, 2010, during the Republican National Committee's chairman election. Multiple times Vaznelis pushed RNC Chairman wannabe Saul Anuzis and passed along links to articles critical of the chairman that was finally elected, Reince Priebus.
Anuzis appears to be a personal friend of the fellow proud Lithuanian-American Vaznelis, and is in a photo on Vaznelis' Facebook Page (as shown to the right, Anuzis far left, Vaznelis middle). Anuzis was Michigan's state party chairman from 2005 to 2009, but his controversial support of moving to the popular vote for presidential elections and away from the electoral college didn't bode well with Republican National Committee members, and Priebus was elected in January.
Vaznelis will have a challenge as Cook County GOP chairman, there's no doubt. As Crain's Chicago's Greg Hinz writes Saturday, 40 percent of Illinois' voting population lives within Cook County, and the GOP organization has no office or contact phone number listed. The Cook County GOP's competitor, the Cook County Democratic Party, has Cook County Assessor -- a very powerful position -- as its party chairman.
Thankfully, the two other GOP candidates for chairman vowed to support Vaznelis while he completes Roupas' term next spring, when he will then face re-election.
