DOES THE REDISTRICTING REFORM CAMPAIGN’S APPEAL HEARING “SMELL OF POLITICS?”

Yes for Independent Maps worked to gather signatures for a ballot question about a constitutional amendment that would put legislative redistricting in the hands of an independent panel instead of elected political leaders. The elections board said the petition didn’t have enough valid signatures to appear on the ballot, a decision which Yes for Independent Maps has tried to appeal. Campaign manager Michael Kolenc told the Chicago Tribune the signature-counting process “smells of politics.”

For the proposed amendment to appear on the ballot, the campaign needed to gather 300,000 valid signatures (real people who are registered voters who have only signed the petition once). State election officials reviewed 5 percent of the more than 500,000 signatures the campaign submitted to the board and concluded only 46 percent of that sample appeared to be valid, far less than the 60 percent required by law.

The campaign appealed that decision, saying the board’s process for reviewing the signatures was flawed and uneven, noting the job previously was done by county clerks. The maps campaign asked for time to prove there were enough valid signatures. Elections board hearing officer Barbara Goodman set a June 13 hearing date so the campaign could present its appeal.

But according to the Tribune:

The political intrigue was heightened when the state elections board abruptly decided to overrule its own hearing officer and shorten a key deadline for those seeking to prove the proposal has enough valid signatures to be placed on the statewide ballot in November.

The hearing was still scheduled to take place today (June 13), but the elections board its own hearing officer and told Yes for Indpendent Maps they only had until June 6 to prove they have enough signatures. Proponents say powerful political forces might be behind the decision to shorten the campaign’s evidence-gathering period. The campaign’s opponents include Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, whose close ally, election lawyer Michael Kasper, has filed suit against the map effort and a term limits effort that also still must be resolved. Board of elections officials say the decision was not about politics.

From the Tribune:

In an interview with the Tribune, the chairman of the Illinois State Board of Elections said the board’s May 30 decision was an attempt to respond to growing pressure and take heat off the hearing officer by moving the case more quickly toward an inevitable court battle.

“It was becoming a big issue, mostly because of who is for it and who is against it,” said the board chairman, former Bloomington Mayor Jesse Smart. “It was growing faster than anyone could imagine, and all of the accusations.”

The decision came after a meeting May 30 in which state election officials said they wanted to speed up the hearing process, though they only changed Yes for IndpendentMap’s deadline to prove it had enough signatures, not the hearing date.

“That evidence is sitting in a taped box right now, and we’re not going to have a hearing until Friday,” Kolenc told the Tribune. “It really raises questions.”

Smart acknowledged it was the first time in his decade-plus tenure on the board that the members met to overrule a hearing officer on a scheduling matter.

Asked to explain how the board’s actions sped up the process when it didn’t change the timeline for making a decision, Smart told the newspaper, “I don’t really know how to answer that.”

Though the Tribune reports that the board was “urged to act” to move the evidence deadline by Madigan supporter Kasper, election officials say the decision was not political. They wanted to finish the administrative process of disqualifying signatures as quickly as possible and didn’t think more time for the campaign would change the outcome.

“We weren’t appointed to carry anyone’s water,” Smart told the Tribune.

“There was nothing sinister about doing that,” Smart said of the board’s decision. “It wasn’t somebody’s sinister plan.”

Goodman, the hearing officer, is expected to rule whether or not the petition has enough valid signatures for a redistricting reform question to appear on the November ballot sometime after the June 13 hearing.

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Caitlin Wilson is a staff writer for Reboot Illinois. She graduated from Loyola University Chicago, where she studied journalism and political science. Caitlin has become both endeared to and frustrated with her adopted home state and wants to bring Illinoisans the information they need to actively participate in the politics that directly affect them.  You can find Reboot on Facebook here and on Twitter at @rebootillinois.