Patrick Wohl was watching a political movie when the idea came to him.
“I thought to myself, I know a story that’s as interesting as this (the story told in the 2011 Ryan Gosling-George Clooney film ‘The Ides of March’ about a political newbie’s schooling in dirty politics) — and it’s all true,” he said.
Wohl, a Park Ridge native and 2012 graduate of Maine South High School, grew up hearing about the 1990 Republican primary for state representative, in which Penny Pullen and Rosemary Mulligan battled for the nomination in one of the closest races in Illinois history. The local election became a proxy fight on the question of legalized abortion, drawing national interest and money into the district.
“Growing up, it was this legendary story that people talked about,” he said. “You know, back in the day, this race was so close that they flipped a coin. I had no idea that it had gained all this national attention or had anything to do with abortion before I started going back to research it.”
The more he dove into the race — the coin flip was, in fact, true — the more he was drawn into the story. Four years later, the election is the subject of his first book: “Down Ballot: How a Local Campaign Became a National Referendum on Abortion.”
“It was something that nobody had really written about,” he said. “And the parallels to today are uncanny.”
In 1990, Penny Pullen was an incumbent state representative in the 55th district, which has been redistricted but includes Park Ridge and parts of Niles, known for her strong conservative positions. She gained notoriety as an opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and had become a champion of the anti-abortion movement. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Missouri law allowing for some restrictions of abortion in 1989, Pullen worked in Springfield to enact a similar law in Illinois. Her bill would fail by one vote in committee, but she expressed her desire to continue pressing the issue.
Rosemary Mulligan had almost no political experience at the time, but she was involved in local women’s groups that advocated for legalized abortion. After attending a political rally, one of the speakers said, according to Wohl’s book, “One of you has to step up to beat Penny Pullen.” Mulligan decided to go for it.
“When you look at the polls in Illinois now, it’s easy to forget that this was such a contentious issue 30 years ago,” Wohl said. “It was a 50-50 issue. You had Catholic Democrats who opposed abortion. Black Democrats opposed it, based on faith. You also had a lot of suburban Republicans who were supportive of abortion rights. This was a Republican primary, and it was an issue that split the party.”
Indeed, when the votes were initially counted in the primary, Mulligan finished on top by a mere 31 votes. After a recount involving many of the same issues that would arise 10 years later in a presidential election, the final tally ended up 7,387 for Mulligan and 7,387 for Pullen — a tie.
That led to the famous coin toss, ordered by a judge to take place at the State of Illinois building in Chicago.
“Everyone remembers that the election was decided by a coin toss, but in reality, the coin toss was more of a formality,” Wohl said. “The coin toss determined who would appeal the case.”
According to Wohl’s book, Mulligan’s son told her to call tails, which ended up being the right call. That meant Pullen’s team would file the appeal, which went to the Illinois Supreme Court. At issue was whether or not to count ballots containing “dimpled chads,” a term that would gain national notoriety during the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. At the time, voters used paper ballots and indicated their preference by poking out a perforated hole next to the candidate’s name. If the person didn’t push hard enough, the paper could remain in place, and counting machines would not register the vote.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that “where the intention of the voter can be fairly and satisfactorily ascertained, that attention should be given effect.” Justice Daniel P. Ward wrote in his ruling: “To invalidate a ballot which clearly reflects the voter’s intent, simply because a machine did not read it, would subordinate substance to form and promote the means at the expense of an end.” (The case would be used by both the Bush and Gore legal teams in 2000 as precedent for the Florida recount.)
After counting the disputed ballots Pullen was declared the winner by just six votes.
Wohl’s book dives deep into the contest, highlighting the backgrounds of both candidates and the movements that brought so much attention to Park Ridge. While politics is obviously at the center of the book, he strove to create an impartial narrative that didn’t pronounce judgment on either candidate.
“I worked hard to avoid a bias in any way,” he said. “I felt like I was here to tell this story, not make any kind of a political statement. I think my background in politics has been helpful in getting people to understand what it’s like to be on a campaign. But politics doesn’t inform how I write the story.”
Wohl, now in his third year of law school at Georgetown University, grew up in Park Ridge as part of a politically involved family — and he loved it.
“I think I was in sixth grade, and there was a ballot initiative in Park Ridge. I was out there knocking on doors,” he said. “I got kind of hooked on the energy and the fun of being part of a campaign.”
He later worked various campaign jobs, including for state senate and house seats and other local offices. In 2014, he joined the gubernatorial campaign, and in 2015 he helped with the ballot access process in the presidential campaign. He’s also been employed in issue advocacy and ballot initiatives nationwide with public affairs firms in Washington, D.C. But as for writing a book, this was a new experience for him.
“I didn’t have a background in writing — I’m not a journalist and hadn’t written a book before,” he said. “I’m not famous or a politician. I had to write the book first and hopefully find someone interested in publishing it.”
He eventually found an agent, who had success shopping the book around to three different publishers. Wohl ultimately decided on 3 Fields Books, an imprint of the University of Illinois Press.
“I knew as a first-time writer, I wanted to find someone who could give me guidance and make the book better,” he said. “They’ve done that. From the start, they felt there was a home for this book.”
While the events may have happened more than three decades earlier, Wohl found people still held strong opinions about the election.
“It took some work to get people to talk about it,” he said. “I contacted people who worked on both campaigns, and they would sometimes be hesitant, worrying that I would be too conservative or too liberal. They were worried I might write something horrible about them.
“I think it helped that I had some separation from the events,” he said. After all, he hadn’t yet been born when the election occurred. “I told them I was just here to tell the story, not win any political points.”
Wohl found that while some political factions may differ in Illinois 30 years later, many of the same issues continue to draw contentious debate.
“Rosemary Mulligan and Penny Pullen represent different ends of the political spectrum in a fight that’s still going on today,” he said. “Pullen is what I would describe similar to the evangelical Republican we talk about today — very conservative and deeply religious. She’s not a showy politician. She’s the one who works behind the scenes, and she became effective in that.
“Rosemary Mulligan is the opposite,” he said. “She’s sort of the type of moderate suburban woman who maybe used to vote Republican but might not now. She’s someone who became known for bucking her party line constantly on all sorts of issues.”
While Mulligan lost that 1990 race, she ran again two years later and defeated Pullen. She would continue representing the 55th District of the Illinois House of Representatives until 2013.
One of Wohl’s goals for the book is to draw more attention to the local races that are often neglected in the current media landscape.
“Both women are illustrative of the thousands of legislators across the country who impact our lives, but get very little attention,” he said. “Issues that really impact us today are happening in state capitals, not in Washington, D.C. And it’s become a lot harder for people to even pay attention to these races with fewer reporters covering them. I think the book shows just how important policy gets made by those working at the local level.”
