I linked to this in Morning Shorts, but Mark Brown’s column today is about 48th Ward aldermanic candidate Chris Lawrence, who may be booted off the ballot on a technicality.
Correa will recommend that Lawrence be dropped from the ballot because he failed to file a receipt with election officials to prove that he had properly filed another document called a “Statement of Economic Interest” with the county clerk.
As a stunned Lawrence complained afterward that the scenario was “Kafkaesque” and the punishment draconian, Raucci had to remind him that “politics ain’t bean bag.”
What flabbergasted Lawrence was that he had actually met the requirement of filing the Statement of Economic Interest, sometimes referred to as an ethics disclosure because it requires candidates and officeholders to divulge information about where they make their money. But Lawrence admits he screwed up on the receipt.
Question: Should Illinois’ ballot access laws be loosened to allow more candidates to run? Or should the tight rules remain intact to discourage tons of amateurs from “cluttering” up the ballot.