red lining, open housing and public school desegregation alienated African-Americans and Latinos voters. Though Daley himself never faced any criminal charges, a number of his associates did, including Thomas Keane and Arvey. After Daley's death in 1976, no mayor has served as chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party. Michael Bilandic, Daley's successor as mayor, lost in a 1979 mayoral primary to Jane Byrne. In Bilandic's obituary, The New York Times wrote that the operation of the Cook County Democratic Party as a political machine ended during Bilandic's mayoralty. Byrne's base of support was on the Northwest side of Chicago, and to a lesser extent the Southeast and Southwest, and she also benefited from independent African-American electoral support. Originally a Richard J. Daley appointee, Byrne did not have the backing of the influential ward committeemen such as John Daley, Michael Madigan, or Thomas Hynes. For a short while after Byrne's election Richard J. Daley's successor as Democratic County Party Chairman George Dunne supported her. In 1979, Oak Park Democratic committeeman and State Senator since 1970, Philip J. Rock became the Illinois State Senate's top Democrat. He would serve as such for the next 14 years and he would retire as the longest serving President of the Senate and Majority Leader in state history. George Dunne had a falling out with the mayor and in 1982 he lost the party chairmanship to 10th Ward committeeman Edward Vrdolyak, an ally of Jane Byrne. When Richard J. Daley's son Richard M. Daley challenged Byrne for mayor in 1983, a coalition of African-American, Hispanic, and "good government" or "lakefront liberals" coalesced. Latinos who had been displaced for years from the downtown and lakefront neighborhoods joined the West Town Coalition and the Young Lords, and both groups backed Harold Washington. He won the three-way primary election with 80% of the Latino vote. The Young Lords leader Jose Cha Cha Jimenez introduced the new mayor in June 1983 in Humboldt Park before a crowd of 100,000 Puerto Ricans. For the next three years, the Cook County Democratic Party was divided by crippling Council Wars in the city of Chicago. This was essentially a racially polarized political conflict that blocked the agenda of Washington and his allies. After Washington was elected – and in spite of the fact that African Americans and Latinos comprised 55 percent of the votes in the city's 49 wards – only 15