On February 22, Illinois Representative Jim Watson (R-Jacksonville) introduced HB 2854. It eliminates mandatory petitioning for candidates who pay a filing fee of 1% of that office’s annual salary. It applies to all candidates, whether they are running in a partisan primary, or whether they are independent candidates, or the nominees of unqualified parties. Thanks to Christina Tobin for this news.
Currently, the only states that allow all candidates to use a filing fee instead of a petition to get on any ballot are Louisiana, Florida, and Oklahoma (and in those latter two states, independent presidential candidates can’t choose the filing fee option). However, a majority of states now make it possible for candidates to get on a partisan primary ballot with no petition, if they pay a filing fee.
Does this not circumvent democracy and ensure that we only easily get candidates who have deep enough pockets to get on the ballot by paying for the privilege? What are the pros and cons of this that I’m not seeing?
The existing laws already have that aspect. No one completes petitions that require 15,000 or more signatures any longer by volunteer labor. Instead, paid petitioners end up doing the work. So the existing law has a de facto filing fee already, especially for minor party and independent candidates, who need 25,000 signatures for statewide office and about 15,000 for U.S. House in Illinois.
Michal would have a good point, if not for the fact that the filing fee of 1% of salary is nominal enough to greatly expand the choices we have; and make sure that once a person files their candidacy papers, they STAY on the ballot through the election.
What the average voter might not realize, is that all public office candidates, in Illinois, have to file with 2 or three times the number of signatures required by law, to successfully survive the challenge. So the 500 signatures, for a House seat, for example, is actually 1,000 to 1,500. And a lot more, correspondingly, for other offices.
Not only is the petition process very expensive, but especially, defending a petition in front of an elections board, including the cost of legal representation and hiring people to sit at terminals, and pick through signatures, that many non-incumbent campaigns are broke before they get to the primary, let alone the General Election.
I’m willing to predict that we’ll see twice the number of candidates in 2 years, with this law’s passage, and maybe 4 to 5 times the number of candidates in 4 to 6 years.
Don Quixote type bills like this are good for headlines but little else.
There is no worry of this law ever passing as long as the Democrats have the majority in both chambers of the legislature AND the Governor’s office AND the majority of seats on the Illinois Supreme Court.
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