Like many county Democratic parties, the Monroe County Democratic Party has a close working relationship with the ILDCCA—the Illinois Democratic County Chairmen’s Association.

The ILDCCA is a statewide Democratic political organization which consists of the Democratic county chairmen of all 102 counties in the State of Illinois. The ILDCCA provides grass-roots organizational support to Democratic county chairmen, county parties, and Democratic candidates at all levels including: helping with recruiting and training Democratic precinct committee people and volunteers in counties across the state; informing Democratic county chairmen about issues and events of importance; providing county parties with free access to, and training and support on VoteBuilder , the state-of-the-art voter database used by the campaigns of President Barack Obama, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, and many other successful Democratic candidates; and, doing many other things which help Democratic candidates win elections for offices from the county courthouse to the White House and all offices in between.

The reason the Monroe County Democratic Party’s relationship with the ILDCCA is particularly close is that the Monroe County Democratic Party’s chairman, Alan Pirtle, is also the president of the ILDCCA. In April 2008, Chairman Pirtle was elected by his fellow Democratic county chairmen from all parts of Illinois to lead the ILDCCA as its president; he succeeded long-time ILDCCA President John Gianulis, former Rock Island County Democratic Chairman. Pirtle was the first Southern Illinois Democratic county chairman to be elected to the position and the first one from a smaller Illinois county to hold the position.

Chairman Pirtle resides in Columbia, Illinois with his wife Cathy and three children, John, William, and Michael. He is a practicing attorney with the law firm of Becker, Paulson, Hoerner, & Thompson, P.C. in Belleville, Illinois.