Dems back Huffman's bid

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ROCK FALLS - Whiteside County Democrats have voted to back Lee County Assistant State's Attorney Amy Huffman's write-in run for the Whiteside County state's attorney's office in the November election. The endorsement, passed late Wednesday night by an undisclosed vote, gives Huffman access to the Democratic Central Committee's support structure, including financial backing and campaign workers in every precinct of the county. Both Huffman, who declared her candidacy 6 days ago, and Whiteside County Assistant Public Defender Elwin Neal, who joined the race 3 days after that, approached the committee for support. Both candidates live in Sterling. The two are jockeying to unseat incumbent Gary Spencer, who has enjoyed an uncontested 27-year tenure. He recently has come under criticism, however, for his unwillingness to reach out to the community in the wake of five local homicides tied to Sterling native Nicholas T. Sheley. In his pitch to the committee on Wednesday evening, Neal suggested Spencer's long and unchallenged tenure has allowed him "to become complacent and perhaps arrogant." Neither candidate, however, has taken a Democratic ballot in primary elections since at least 1990, the earliest year for which readily accessible county records are available. The committee blasted Neal for having voted in only one primary election - as a Republican - over the past 16 years. "I honestly don't make it out to the primaries very often, but in general elections, I typically vote Democrat," Neal said. Huffman has declared as a Republican in three of the last four primary elections. She did not vote in this year's March primary. She has worked for both Gary Spencer in Whiteside County and Lee County State's Attorney Paul Whitcombe, both of whom are Republicans. Huffman has always leaned toward moderate Democrat, she said, but felt obligated to support her bosses. Spencer has voted Republican in every primary dating back to 1990. Neal blasted Huffman for her string of Republican primaries: "To the extent that she has embraced the Democratic party, it's taken her 30 years to do that," he said. Both Neal and Huffman said party politics have little place in a prosecutor's office. "I don't want this to be about partisan politics," Huffman said. "The state's attorney's job is to uphold the laws without prejudice." Some on the committee suspect Neal of running expressly to dilute the write-in pool and spoil Huffman's run. "I'm not sure what his position was to begin with other than to bog things down," Committee Chairman Lowell Jacobs said. Neal said he would "bring both perspective and balance" to the state's attorney's office. An e-mail Huffman wrote to Spencer on July 2, the morning after Sheley was arrested in Granite City, also stirred emotions at the committee meeting. In it, Huffman called Spencer "a good lawyer and a great prosecutor" and told him to "hang in there" as public criticism heated up. Neal questioned Huffman's loyalty, and said that e-mail, coupled with her entry into the race two weeks later, shows she is "willing to change her allegiance - able to turn on a dime." Huffman said she sent the e-mail to a former boss and mentor "in a time of crisis in this community" and "hoped that by hearing those words of encouragement he would have risen to the call of the community." While Jacobs would not divulge the actual results of the committee's vote, he did say that one of the reasons the party decided to support Huffman was that, win or lose, she intends to run again for the position as a Democrat in 2012.