On October 4, an Illinois State Court of Appeals upheld a decision of a lower state court, keeping the Constitution Party statewide slate of nominees off the ballot. The State Court of Appeals says the slate has 24,935 valid signatures. 25,000 are needed. Here is the six-page decision, Constitution Party v State Board of Elections, 1-10-2813, First Appellate District.
The Court upheld an unclear Illinois law that seems to say that if anyone circulates a petition for any partisan office during the primary season, that person is barred from collecting signatures for any independent or minor party candidate in the general election, even if the two petitions were for entirely different office. If the court had struck down that law, or interpreted it differently, the statewide slate would have had 25,017 valid signatures. The party may appeal that to the State Supreme Court. The State Supreme Court earlier this year put a Republican candidate for the legislature on the ballot, even though he had voted in the Democratic primary last year. The Constitution Party will be able to argue that it is absurd to let someone run for office even though he or she had that connection with a different party in the recent past, and at the same time disallow anyone from petitioning for two different parties in the same year.
The primary in 2009 was for a local election. Your interpretation would requires someone to complete sit out the partisan portion of the consolidated (odd year) election, in order to switch party affiliation between general (even year) elections.
In many cases, there are no primaries for local offices because there are no primary contests, so you could be introducing equal protection issues.
Any law that tells anyone that he or she can’t petition for one candidate in one race is an obvious violation of the First Amendment. That’s like a law that says if someone makes a campaign speech in favor of one party/candidate in primary season, that person must not say anything in the general election season about other parties and candidates.
Every election is NEW and has ZERO to do with any prior stuff.
Much too difficult for MORON ballot access lawyers and even worse MORON judges to understand — who would not understand even if a zillion pound U.S. Code having the Equal Protection Clause fell on their MORON heads.
Is the U.S.A. doomed or what ??? — due to the many party hack MORON judges.
Gut wrenching, but I would like to publicly commend Randy Stufflebeam and all who worked with him in Illinois for their heroic and Herculean efforts for the Constitution Party. The Constitution Party is getting much closer in the Land of Lincoln.
I agree with Richard’s analogy and would like to see an appeal.
Nuts!
I hope they take this to the state supreme court.
The law is totally unclear. It mentions primary, general, and consolidated elections without clarifying at all if they are independent or combined for purposes of the petition restriction.
However a court decided years ago that the primary & general are linked while the consolidated is separate. The state legislature never corrected it, so the likely assumption is that the court’s decision is the legislator’s intent.
#2 Illinois grants to political parties authority to nominate slates of candidates. It is a reasonable restriction under such a system to restrict a person to participating in the nominating activities of a single party.
See why it is better to not a vest a mediating role in the election process with political parties. If Illinois were to adopt the Open Primary such as has been done in Washington, California, and Louisiana, they wouldn’t have this problem.
And candidates without a boatload of money would never stand a chance and the general elections would give us nothing but special interest, establishment certified candidates.
Let’s remember one thing, the purpose of a primary is to narrow down and exclude. They have been simply a way for parties to nominate in the past So, OK, if you really want it open…don’t narrow it down to just two, but rather make the General Election open. Only the special interests who don’t want any change in the status quo gain from limiting the general election to two people. All the baloney about “open primaries” is just that…baloney. If the choice isn’t in the General election, there is no choice at all.
#8 Are too stupid to vote in the primary?