Jason Gonzales, Foe of Michael Madigan, Will Appeal “Sham Candidate” Ruling

According to this article, Jason Gonzales will ask a U.S. District Court Judge for a rehearing in his lawsuit, alleging that Illinois Speaker Michael Madigan recruited sham candidates in the 2016 Democratic primary in which the two men were competitors for the Democratic nomination for State House.

UPDATE: see this commentary by Elie Mystal, on “Above the Law”, criticizing the decision.


Comments

Jason Gonzales, Foe of Michael Madigan, Will Appeal “Sham Candidate” Ruling — 1 Comment

  1. Agreed, the sham candidates were a dick move. But do you really want a court or any other government entity deciding who is a “real” candidate? That would become a tool to beat down third party and independent candidates. Heck, it would be plausible that Madigan would use such a process against opponents such as Gonzales!

    Mystal’s opposition to the ruling also concerns me.:

    courts refuse to punish electoral wrongdoing on the theory that voters knew about the wrongdoing when they went to the polls.

    The “informed voting public” is a legal fiction. Voters are ill-informed. Even when you try to inform them, we live in a world choking on so much fake news that we can’t even agree on a common set of “facts.” Refusing to punish candidates or campaigns for electoral shenanigans is an INVITATION for unethical campaigners to engage in more shenanigans.

    So if you don’t feel the electorate is informed enough to make good decisions, a court is supposed to make decisions for the electorate?

    That would be a process ripe for abuse. Maybe the judge wasn’t precise enough. It’s not the voters KNEW of the shenanigans, more that they easily had the opportunity to know of them. If they failed to understand the situation, then that’s on them. Maybe a better effort to inform them would have helped.

    Moreover, “the people didn’t know what they are doing in the voting booth” is not something that can hold up in the courts, and no legal argument can hope to touch that undemocratic concept and survive.

    There is a practical solution. Phony candidates to split voting blocks become pointless when Instant Runoff (aka Ranked Choice) Voting is used.

    Democracy is not helped by judges replacing their judgment over the voters’. I appreciate the court’s restraint.

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