Joliet, IL. (ECWd) –
The Will County Electoral Board held a hearing today to hear a petition objection to the candidacy of a State’s Attorney Candidate.
The meeting was live-streamed by us (video below).
Some of the issues with this meeting, which we hope will be corrected during the meeting this Friday, is that there was nothing on an Agenda to adopt rules for the Board, and we believe they went into closed session without recording it and did it by one board member at a time going into another room to talk to their attorney (with the County Clerk’s Chief of Staff with them).
Objector’s Attorney thought he could demand the name and address of people speaking during public comment – he was set straight.
A Motion to Disqualify the County Clerk from the Board was filed and will be decided upon during Friday’s meeting.
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4 Responses
Keep up the good work and reveal our state’s corrupt politics!
There’s a lesson here. The attorney who yells the loudest to make his point, reveals himself to be a false noise, a bully and insecure in his argument. OMA law in Illinois, still governs public meetings.
This meeting looks like a tangled mess between court hearings, pubic meetings procedures and some sort of adjudication process. This is a public meeting.. start there and don’t be bullied by the loudest attorney in the room. By the way, I’m not from Will County either.
And the question is: Will they post a legal agenda for the Friday meeting, legally?
Very good points about agenda items, serial meetings to bypass executive session and not having to give your address for public participation. Oh and was ‘public participation’ on the agenda?
This case is interesting because of the under-laying issue.
As I understand the facts: A candidate filed petitions to run as a democrat in the primary election. The candidate withdrew he petition and was not on the primary ballot. The republican party now wishes to slate the candidate on the general election.
The current issue is Should the Clerk be removed from the electoral board for merely having accepted the candidate’s petition? I say NO, it’s an administrative duty of the clerk to receive and process the petitions. If this were allowed then why would a clerk ever be appointed to the board in the first place. Merely doing your job creates no bias or favoritism towards or against the petitioner.
Now for some questions:
Did the clerk (or any board member) sign the petition for either the candidate or his opponent?
This could show some favoritism towards or against the candidate. FYI: If your elected position requires you to be on an electoral board, please DO NOT sign any petitions, DO NOT place yard signs on your property (It’s not against the law to do either. But, think about it. Can you project impartiality when you are openly supporting one of the candidates?)
In the primary, did the candidate vote Democrat or Republican? If democrat then this could be a very good reason to disqualify the republican slate. Research law having to do with election cycles.