Thornton Township Supervisor Tiffany Henyard won’t be the Democratic party’s nominee to run for reelection, and her attorney is blasting the process after Tuesday’s vote.
Henyard, who was appointed the township’s supervisor in 2022, saw Illinois State Sen. Napoleon Harris win the nomination to run on the Democratic ticket for the 2025 municipal election during a caucus meeting on Tuesday in suburban Homewood.
Officials told NBC Chicago’s Regina Waldroup that candidates for the supervisor nomination had to be slated along with seven other candidates, including a highway commissioner, clerk, assessor and four township trustees.
Henyard, according to officials, did not have a slated nominee for assessor, and therefore was ineligible for the vote.
An attorney representing Henyard blasted the process by which the vote was held, and did not rule out legal action in the case.
“What Napoleon Harris and the Democrat party led tonight was not a caucus, and definitely not a nomination of candidates. It was a planned and egregious coronation,” an attorney for Henyard said.
Henyard is still running for reelection as mayor of suburban Dolton, but now faces the possibility of losing one of her elected positions unless she mounts a successful legal challenge in the case, or if she decides to run as a write-in candidate.
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Democrats in Thornton Township opted to hold a caucus instead of a primary election for their elected positions in the coming municipal elections, and held a meeting Tuesday in Homewood to determine their slate of candidates.
Harris, who was first elected to the state senate in 2013 and also serves as a precinct committeeman for Thornton Township Democrats, was selected to head the party’s ticket in the township race during that caucus vote.
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Henyard said that many of her supporters were not allowed into the building while the caucus was taking place.
“All them people outside…they not letting one person in here,” she said. “The people’s voice was taken today.”
Democratic Party officials in Thornton Township defended the caucus, saying the “process was followed.”
Henyard was first appointed as supervisor in 2022. She has been the subject of plenty of controversy both in her role on the Thornton Township board and in her role as mayor of suburban Dolton, where she is under investigation in a wide-ranging probe of the village’s finances.
Harris has served in the Senate since 2013, serving as the chair of the Insurance Committee and the co-chair of the Pension Investments Special Committee. He graduated from Northwestern attending business school at the Kellogg School of Business Management.
He also had a seven-year NFL career, appearing in 100 games with the Raiders, Vikings and Chiefs.
