Dorothy Ann Rabb Brown Cook (born September 4, 1953) is an American lawyer and politician affiliated with the Democratic Party who served as the clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County from 2000 through 2020.
Brown's tenure was criticized for inefficiency in the clerk's office and a failure to adequately update the office's operations with digital systems. She was also criticized for sizable use of political patronage. Her tenure was plagued by many scandals regarding her ethics. She and numerous associates have been the subjects of criminal investigations into alleged involvement in corruption schemes.
Brown was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Chicago in the 2007 and 2019 elections, an unsuccessful candidate for Chicago city clerk in 1999, and an unsuccessful candidate for president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2010. After her tenure as clerk of courts ended, Brown spent several months as the village administrator of Dolton, Illinois.
Early life, family, and education Brown grew up in Minden, Louisiana, one of eight children. Her father worked in the laundry room of the Louisiana Army Ammunitions Plant near Minden. He also owned a cotton farm in Athens, Louisiana, where Brown and her seven siblings helped him pick and chop cotton. Brown's mother worked as a cook and a domestic.
At Webster High School, Brown was captain of the girl's varsity basketball team, and graduated in the top ten percent of her class. Brown studied at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and graduated magna cum laude. In 1977, Brown received her license as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). In 1981, she received her Master of Business Administration (MBA) with honors from DePaul University in Chicago. In 1996, Brown received her J.D. degree with honors from Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Early career Brown worked for Arthur Andersen and Commonwealth Edison as a certified public accountant. She also helped to start a minority public accounting firm. From 1991 to 2000, Brown worked as the general auditor for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).
Brown unsuccessfully ran for City treasurer of Chicago in 1999, losing to incumbent Miriam Santos by a 2.8% margin.
Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County (2000–2020)
Cook County voters elected Brown as the Clerk of the Circuit Court in 2000, and reelected her four additional times. Brown served for 20 years and retired in 2020. As the official keeper of records for all judicial matters brought into one of the largest unified court systems in the world, Brown was responsible for managing an annual operating budget of more than $100 million and had a workforce of over 1,800 employees.
While Brown was initially seen as a reform-minded politician when she was elected, by 2014, Natasha Korecki of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that over the course of her tenure Brown had come to be, "increasingly viewed as an entrenched politician who for years [has] signed off on dubious practices in her office."
Elections In 2012, during Brown's third reelection campaign, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune declined to endorse any candidate, citing "Brown's years of failed assurances to modernize the obsolete, paper-choked office she heads."
In August 2015, the slating committee of the Cook County Democratic Party narrowly voted to endorse Brown for reelection to a fifth term in the March 2016 primary elections. In early October 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at Brown's home and seized her County-issued cell phone. On October 23, 2015 the Cook County Democratic Party withdrew its endorsement of Brown and endorsed challenger Michelle A. Harris.
Both the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune declined to endorse Brown or her opponent in the 2016 campaign. Brown went on to win both the Democratic primary and the general election, being reelected for a fifth term.
In August 2019, Brown announced that she would not seek reelection to a sixth term in 2020.
In 2018, political consultant Delmarie Cobb described Brown's dedicated political supporters as being churchgoers and a grassroot base. In 2024, journalist Gregory Pratt recalled that Brown received loyal support from "'the church ladies' –older Black women voters who worship every Sunday and gave her their backing." Pratt also observed that Brown had benefited from the lack of interest from "big-hitter" politicians in seeking the office of circuit court clerk.
Pursuits of other offices during tenure Brown unsuccessfully ran mayor of Chicago in 2007. She was the only established political figure challenging incumbent mayor Richard M. Daley. Brown failed to attract strong enough support from the African American community to mount a true challenge to Daley, and lagged severely behind Daley in terms of campaign funds.Daley: A Retrospective: A Historical Exploration of Former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley by Chicago Tribune Staff Dec 18, 2012 She ultimately finished in second place out of three candidates, with 20.12% of the vote, 51 points behind Daley.
Brown ran for president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2010. At one point, she led the Democratic field in at Chicago Tribune poll. However, she ultimately lost the Democratic primary to Toni Preckwinkle, placing third out of four candidates, behind Preckwinkle and Terrence J. O'Brien. Brown received 14.45% of the vote.Multiple sources:
Despite the scandals she had faced, Brown attempted to run for mayor of Chicago in 2019, but was removed from the ballot for failing to complete the required paperwork. Following her removal from the ballot, Brown endorsed Amara Enyia for mayor. However, Enyia failed to qualify for the runoff election, which was won by Lori Lightfoot.
Patronage Brown was characterized as running an office full of patronage hires. In 2014 the Chicago Sun-Times described the Clerk's office as "a 2,300-employee office, one of the last true bastions of political patronage in Illinois".
Beginning in August 2018, a federally-ordered monitor was appointed under to audit the hiring and employment practices of Brown's office in an effort to monitor the office's compliance with the Shakman Decrees. This federal oversight of the office's hiring and employment practices would not cease until November 2022, during the tenure of Brown's successor.
In 2015, an employee of Brown's office testified that the "going rate" for a job in Brown's office was $10,000.
Modernization efforts and shortcomings When she first campaigned for the office in 2000, Brown promised that she would make sure that the clerk's office kept pace with new technology. However, Brown was seen as falling significantly short of this promise in her tenure. In 2014, Natasha Korecki of the Chicago Sun-Times described Brown as, "synonymous with questionable ethics and woefully outdated technology." In 2017, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune characterized Brown as leading a, "patronage-packed office...stuck in a land that time forgot," with a, "well-earned reputation as a fortress of inefficiency." In 2024, journalist Gregory Pratt recalled,
Projects and services developed under Brown's leadership include: Two Electronic filing (e-filing), a Clerk of the Circuit Court mobile app: "Court Clerk Mobile Connect," an Electronic Tickets (eTickets) system, Mortgage Surplus Search, SmartForms (Online Order of Protection service), Smart Kiosks (court information terminals), and IDMS (Imaging Document Management System).
Brown was criticized by advocacy groups who alleged a failure to sufficiently modernize the court system. The court's case management system had been characterized as "archaic". In 2012, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune criticized Brown for, "years of failed assurances to modernize the obsolete, paper-choked office she heads."
Brown numerous times failed to meet deadlines for the modernization of the court's filing system. In late-2017, Brown announced that an e-filing system that the Illinois Supreme Court had mandated be created for lawsuits and other civil cases was ready to be launched. However, a month after this, Brown called-off the launch and requested that the court allow a delay. The eventual July 2018 rollout of the electronic filing for civil cases was plagued by confusion and disorder.
A partial system update that digitized criminal courts filing was first phased-in in November 2019, but proved to be problematic. This update led to the records it made available often being incomplete and taking longer to be updated. This proved so problematic that the court itself in October 2020 ordered that Brown halt its implementation.
Failure to provide records and notices in timely fashion For much of her tenure, Brown was criticized for failing to provide stored records that had been requested in a timely fashion.
In May 2018, The Chicago Reader detailed how the removal of documents case files to warehouses as part of the slow-moving effort to digitize documents had placed more 600 appeals cases in flux due to the unavailability of needed documents. At this time, the Illinois Appellate Defender's Office called delays in obtaining records from the Brown's office was an "ongoing problem".
In June 2020, Legal Aid Chicago filed a lawsuit accusing Brown's office of, during the COVID-19 pandemic, failing to provide domestic violence and sexual assault survivors with copies of their orders of protection immediately after they had been granted, which the office had a statutory duty to do. The lawsuit by Legal Aid Chicago further accused Brown's office of failing to transmit such orders to the Cook County Sheriff's Office in a timely fashion so that they could be entered into that office's Law Enforcement Agency Data System. The lawsuit argued that these alleged failures on the part of Brown's office endangered survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
Also during the pandemic, Brown received criticism for failure to mail out the notices in a timely fashion to tell individuals that their court appearances would be conducted virtually, with some notices having been mailed out after the date of the court appearances had already passed. When questioned by WGN-TV on this, Brown alleged that "unconscious racism" was at the root of both that story, and other negative stories reported on her during her tenure.
COVID-19 pandemic Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Brown received criticism from court clerks and the clerks' union, who argued she was not doing enough to protect them and the public amid the pandemic. Some clerks walked off the job. Brown faced lawsuits for her alleged failure to send out notices of virtual hearings in a timely fashion, and for failing to produce documents in a required timely fashion.
In November 2020, Brown was caught by WGN-TV holding a retirement party that appeared to possibly violate the city and state's 50-person limit on gatherings amid the pandemic.
Political fundraising controversies In 2024, the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune recollected,
In 2012, the Chicago Tribune published a report documenting in excess of $315,000 of political donations which Brown had accepted from employees of her office and at least $75,000 which she had accepted from relatives of employees. After winning election to a fourth term several months later, Brown promised to stop accepting campaign contributions from her employees.
In May 2006, Brown chaired the host committee for a Chicago fundraiser to support the reelection of Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, Louisiana. Information technology contractor Mark St. Pierre, who had worked contracts for both the city of New Orleans and Cook County government and contributed to both Brown and Nagin's political campaigns, organized the event. Nagin was indicted on corruption charges on January 18, 2013, with the fundraiser being cited in the indictment.Multiple sources: He was convicted in 2014.