By PORTER McNEIL

Election reform: reacting to LaRouchian Democrats'

"IT WILL take time to sort all this out," Adlai E. Stevenson III said April 2 to an Illinois Chamber of Commerce conference, referring to his legal and political options in the wake of the stunning March 18 Democratic primary. This could be the greatest understatement in the history of Illinois politics.

Not surprisingly, the issue of election reform took on an unusual sense of urgency, pushing predictable issues like campaign finance and statewide recount into obscurity. Legislators tend to move quickly in the face of a crisis. Backed up against the wall by two followers of Lyndon LaRouche's political cult, who crashed the party's statewide ticket, Illinois Democrats have been scrambling for ways to solve a short and a long-term problem.

The immediate concern was how to remove Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stevenson from Mark J. Fairchild, his unwelcome LaRouchian running mate who knocked off state Sen. George E. Sangmeister (D-42, Mokena), without jeopardizing the entire Democratic slate of candidates. The Illinois Constitution requires that candidates for governor and lieutenant governor of the same party must run as a team in the general election. In other words, a vote for Stevenson is a vote for Fairchild. The long-term concern is how to prevent something like this from happening again.

Stevenson had announced his personal escape plan — an independent candidacy — within nine days of the primary after exploring options with party leaders, key aides and election law experts. But there is a legal obstacle: The deadline for filing nominating petitions with 25,000 signatures as an independent candidate was December 5, according to state election law. Stevenson will be challenging the constitutionality of that deadline, contending that it is too early and unfair, according to Stevenson's press aide Bob Benjamin. The Stevenson camp will also question the eight-month difference in filing deadlines for independent candidacies and "third party" slates of candidates. In Illinois, individuals who wish to file for statewide office as candidates of a political third party for the November election have a deadline of August 4, but the party must field an entire slate of statewide candidates from U.S. Senate to University of Illinois Board of Trustees. An individual wishing to run as an independent can do so without filing an entire slate of candidates, but the filing deadline was in December, at the same time candidates filed for the Republican and Democratic party March primaries. One of Stevenson's back-up plans is to file as a third party if he can't get the filing date changed for independent candidates. But the problem with the third-party approach is that he would have to field candidates in all positions on his slate, and they might draw votes from the regular Democratic ticket. Could these nominal candidates withdraw just prior to printing the ballots? Stevenson's people are not sure.

However uncertain his options are, Stevenson has made one choice crystal clear: "I will not ask the people of Illinois to vote for me tied like a Siamese twin to a LaRouchite."

It appears that the legal challenge to the deadline is his main hope. Stevenson's attorneys will likely hook their arguments on a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Anderson v. Celebrezze (460 U.S. 780), in which an Ohio deadline for filing as an independent was ruled unconstitutional. In that case, former presidential candidate John B. Anderson argued that the statute requiring an independent candidate for president to file a statement of candidacy and nominating petitions by March in order to appear on the November general election ballot violated his constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth amendments. The court agreed with Anderson, ruling that the Ohio statute violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment by treating independents and major parties differently in terms of candidacy deadlines. The early deadline represents a "significant state imposed restriction on the electoral process" and a "burden that falls unequally on independent candidates," wrote the court.

The General Assembly probably won't be the place for an effort to change the deadline requirement. The Stevenson camp had been planning on a two-pronged attack: legal and legislative. After a two-hour Democratic caucus April 1, in which House members were divided on whether to attempt to change the deadline statute via legislation, House Speaker Michael J. Madigan (D-30, Chicago) announced that they would leave it up to the courts — at least for now. One of the reasons some Democrats opposed the deadline change is that it would open the way for more independent challenges in legislative races; a key reason for moving the deadline to December in the first place was to keep losers in the primary from running in the general election as independents.

The threat of a probable veto by Gov. James R. Thompson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate trying for a fourth term in November, may also have dissuaded the Democrats from pursuing the Stevenson election law change in the General Assembly. Would Thompson sign a bill to move back the deadline for filing as an independent? He did not mince words in an April 1 press conference: "I doubt that this legislature would pass, nor would I sign, a bill just for Mr. Stevenson. We don't do business that way. This is America. We don't change the law just because of the likes or dislikes of one person."

May 1986/Illinois Issues/27

Well, there are times the law is changed to protect the parties. The General Assembly has passed election reform laws in the past as a result of specific instances or individuals. Take the independent filing deadline law that Stevenson is challenging. That 1975 law (H.B. 526, P.A. 79-1100) was inspired by events in the 1974 Illinois House elections in which regular organization Democrats who lost in the primary reentered the race as independents and won (Reps. Thad S. Lechowicz, D-17, Lawrence DiPrima, D-18, and Taylor Pouncy, D-26). Or how about the so-called "Nimrod Rule" (H.B. 2055, P.A. 83-882). That law was named after incumbent Sen. John J. Nimrod, Glenview, who lost to state Rep. Robert W. Kustra, also of Glenview, in the 1982 Republican primary in the newly redistricted 28th Senate District. Nimrod then filed as an independent and ran against Kustra in the general election, but lost.

When the difference between the majority and minority are only a few seats in a legislative body, as in the Illinois Senate, potential splitting of one party's votes between two candidates in a legislative race could throw the general election to the other party's candidate. It also does make sense to forbid someone who lost an attempted nomination from nominating himself or herself by petition. In any event, the two slated Democrats who lost to La-Rouchian candidates cannot be candidates in November for the same offices.

The other LaRouchian candidate who won the Democratic party nomination is Janice A. Hart. She beat the party's choice, Aurelia M. Pucinski, a Chicago Metropolitan Sanitary District Board member and daughter of Chicago's 41st Ward Alderman and Democratic Committeeman Roman Pucinski.

Once the shock wore off after the primary, it took legislators only a week to start piling election bills into the hopper.

• H.B. 2929 and H.B. 3041, sponsored by Reps. Ellis B. Levin (D-5, Chicago) and Woods Bowman (D-4, Evanston), respectively, are similar bills that would allow candidates to run for the same office under more than one party label. The votes cast for any candidate on the ballot under different labels would be added together for one total. According to current election law, candidates in a general election are permitted to be listed under only one party label.

Levin says there is no case law barring this and that New York, a state with similar election statutes, allows double listing. "We compared the statutes between the two states . . . and there is no difference," says Levin. He says that the "viability of this proposal" rests with Gov. Thompson who could play campaign politics with the proposal by exercising his veto power. If passed, these bills could affect this November's general election ballot.

• House Joint Resolution 18, also sponsored by Levin, would undo the 1970 state Constitution's requirement that candidates for governor and lieutenant governor must run as a team in the general election. If passed by the General Assembly and approved by the voters in November, H.J.R. 18 would not be in effect until the 1990 gubernatorial election.

Traditionally, election reform has moved
in the direction of closing options for independents
and protecting the two major parties

"I was never a big supporter of putting the offices together [in 1970]. . . . if we had left things the way they were, we wouldn't be in this situation today," said Levin. "People ought to be judged on their individual merits." He said there is nothing wrong with having a governor and lieutenant governor of opposite parties. The constitutional change was inspired by the election in 1968 of Republican Richard B. Ogilvie as governor and Democrat Paul Simon as lieutenant governor. H.J.R. 18 must be passed by three-fifths of the elected members of the House and Senate by May 3 in order to be placed on the statewide ballot in November.

• H.B. 2931, sponsored by Rep. Bowman, would link candidates for governor and lieutenant governor as a team in the primary, as well as in the general election. The 1970 Constitution, which requires the two candidates to run as a team in the general election, specifies that the General Assembly "may provide by law for the joint nomination of candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor." Bowman said his proposal follows up on the constitutional suggestion and "makes really good sense...If we're going to elect candidates in tandem in the general election, we better nominate them in tandem."

State Sen. Dawn Clark Netsch (D-4, Chicago) tried unsuccessfully to pass a similar measure in 1977. Netsch wanted to ensure that the lieutenant governor played an active role, and she said in 1977 during debate on the Senate floor that that would be "better realized if the governor is permitted to make the choice of a lieutenant governor and not have it, if you will, determined by the vagaries of an election." She said she supports having the General Assembly look at the issue again, but she is concerned that in the aftermath of the primary, legislators may try to deal with the question too hastily.

• H.B. 2930, also sponsored by Bowman, would eliminate an election code provision enabling voters to vote a straight party ticket. Voters would have to go through the ballot and vote office by office; they would not be able to push one button for one party's candidates on the ballot. Bowman said that he has considered introducing this bill in previous legislative sessions, but that now a greater "political possibility exists" of passing the bill as a result of Stevenson's predicament. Bowman said that he is concerned that if Stevenson runs as an independent or third-party candidate, he may lose votes from Democrats voting straight-party. This bill could also be in effect for the November election.

While Democratic lawmakers seek legislative solutions, State Board of Elections director Ron Michaelson believes it is the party's responsibility to weed out candidates like Fairchild and Hart. Party officials or anyone may challenge any candidate's petitions and signatures before the primary to find irregularities, Michaelson said, and the Democratic party should have considered this before the March 18 primary.

Michaelson said factors more important than Illinois' election laws were primarily to blame for the upset victory of the LaRouche candidates. "In the final reckoning, it is the responsibility of the party leaders to make sure you don't have these kinds of candidates," said Michaelson.

Whatever remedies the Illinois General Assembly or the courts may or may not cook up in coming months, some observers believe they will only be band-aid solutions. They believe that the real problems, as far as the Democratic primary debacle is concerned, revolved more around disunity in Chicago, a misinformed electorate, napping media and a lack of a party effort on behalf of the statewide ticket.

A real problem for Stevenson is that the Illinois election process is somewhat stacked in favor of the two major parties. The deadline for filing as an independent is one example. Independents have one deadline for becoming a candidate (December 5), while parties have options, like filling empty ballot slots after the primary, for example. Though he has one of the state's most respected names, and is one of a few Democrats with solid statewide name recognition, there are those who don't consider Stevenson a Democratic party insider. And here he is in 1986, after winning more than 88 percent of the Democratic primary vote, struggling to keep alive any realistic chances of avenging his 1982 loss to Thompson. In that closest gubernatorial race in the state's history, Thompson won by 5,074 votes out of 3.6 million, or one-seventh of one percent.

Traditionally, election reform has moved in the direction of closing options for independents and protecting the two major parties. An ironic twist in all of this is that Stevenson is trying to change a law that his own party helped pass to discourage candidates from running as independents.

Netsch provided a different view of the wave of new proposals to amend the election code. "This is sort of typical. The legislature moves in after the horse leaves the barn. . . . We are great when something happens. . . . we jump right in," she said.

As Hercules may have said at the Augean stable door and Stevenson has rephrased: It will take time to sort all this out.

28/May 1986/Illinois Issues