On June 26, the Illinois legislature finally sent HB 723 to Governor Pat Quinn. HB 723 had passed a month earlier. It makes it more difficult for qualified parties to nominate candidates after the primary is over, in cases in which no one had been nominated by that party at its primary. The Green Party, which is a qualified party in Illinois, hopes to persuade the Governor to veto the bill. Already, half of state legislative races in Illinois typically only have one person on the November ballot, and the bill will make this situation even worse.
Hmm. Why not grant automatic ballot access to say, the top six political parties?
#1 Under Illinois law, a “qualified party” is qualified to have a primary where voters who affiliate with the party choose the nominees of the party. What the Green Party apparently wants to do is have the party bosses choose the nominees of the party.
The only way that no one is nominated by a party is if no one files to run in the primary (or runs as a write-in candidate).
HB 723 simply provides that in the event that no one is nominated, that the various party committeemen (also elected in the primary) may choose a nominee, who then simply has to gather as much as many signatures as he would have if he had been nominated in the first place.
Since Illinois holds it primary in February, the Green Party should be recruiting candidates now.
As an Illinois resident let me comment:
The Green Party may protest this move, but there is a whole lot of wisdom to it as well. For decades the law allowing party committemen to choose a nominee after the primary has been abused by politicians of both major parties to install their son/daughter/hand picked flunky into their seat without one iota of input from the voters. Perhaps another step in the process will keep it from happening quite so often, but in Illinois politicians will surely find a way around the law.
train111