Is there really room on ballot for mayoral term limits referendum?

I can’t help but wondering who with the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners is going to wind up being punished politically for giving aid and comfort to the notion that a referendum question about term limits for the mayor may have some legal merit.

Somebody gave thought to what was right; how dare they!

That question, along with one whether a position of Chicago city consumer advocate ought to be created, are the latest initiatives by Pat Quinn – the former governor who is trying to remain politically active as a man inclined to throw a wrench into the political works.

THUS FAR, THE courts have ruled in ways that say the measures are not valid – saying there already are too many referendum questions on the ballot for Nov. 6 AND that Quinn screwed up in the way he filed the referendum questions.

But as the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Sunday, elections board officials went ahead and had ballots printed up WITH the referendum questions on them. Also, voting machines used in polling places in Chicago will include the issues so people can cast their “yes” or “no” votes.

Officials say they went ahead and did so because they wondered if an appeals court of some form will come up with a ruling making the referendum questions legitimate.

If elections board officials had not shown the initiative to put the issues on the ballot, it would be possible for a court to say they were legitimate questions that could not be on the ballot because there wasn’t enough time to reconfigure everything to include them.

WHICH IS EXACTLY the kind of political chaos that people opposed to including the referendum questions on the ballot would like to see happen.

Just like the intent of the Chicago City Council to come up with three other referendum questions for consideration wasn’t so much because anybody in city government cares about the use of plastic straws in restaurants (an environmental threat), but so as to screw up the intent of anyone who’d want to use a referendum question to measure public support for a concept.

Such as whether or not people should be limited to two terms (of four years apiece) in the office of Chicago mayor.

Emanuel's choice makes term limits issue a moot point, … 

Nobody in a position of political authority really wants anybody messing around with that issue. Out of fear that voters might give a knee-jerk response and say “yes” to the idea. Which would then put political people in a real predicament.

SO IF YOU are of the perspective of the “goo goo” (the good government activist who has some sort of high-minded noble concept of what government ought to be all about), you are probably very pleased with the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

Because somebody there thought it important enough for votes to be recorded so as to put the issue on the record, even if nothing is done with the vote tallies – an attitude the political hacks of the world most definitely want nothing to do with.

As for the “hacks,” I suspect their priority now will be to ensure that those votes are NEVER counted, or disclosed in any way.

Which if it turns out that the courts continue to say the referendum questions are invalid, is exactly what will happen.

THERE WILL BE no reason to count the votes that people cast on these particular referendum questions. In fact, they will become the ultimate non-issue of the Nov. 6 election cycle.

… but Quinn likely to pursue regardless

In fact, I’m sure there will be some activist types who will start making demands that those votes be counted regardless, and that the vote tallies be publicly disclosed. Something I’m sure the “hacks” will consider to be an act of political heresy

How dare you tell people that maybe a majority of people who bothered to cast ballots would want to limit the stint one can serve as mayor – similar to how we limit the time of anyone as U.S. president! As though the will of the public serves any point in an election.

What next? We’ll probably start hearing from people who say we’ve had too many “Daleys” serve as Chicago mayor. Sorry Bill!

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Claypool for chief of staff – how circumstances change with time!!!

Mayor Rahm Emanuel turned to an experienced political hand in choosing a new chief of staff; shifting Forrest Claypool away from his CTA post and putting him in charge of running the staff that does the actual work that the mayor gets to take credit for.

         

Not that I think Claypool is incompetent. He did hold the very same position twice under Mayor Richard M. Daley. He’s been around a number of local government positions. He knows how things operate.

IT’S JUST THAT the circumstances under which Claypool was picked by Emanuel actually amuse me.

Let’s not forget that Emanuel is now the guy whom all the good-government types demonize. He’s the ultimate political hack, as far as they’re concerned. They desperately wanted to dump him in this month’s municipal elections.

Except that Emanuel was the candidate with the big bucks that allowed him to spend the living daylights out of opponent Jesus Garcia – who had become a darling of those people who like to think they’re the good-government types.

Now Emanuel turns to Claypool to make sure things get done the way he wants them to.

YET I CAN remember back in 2010 when Claypool ran for Cook County assessor, ultimately losing to Joe Berrios.

Berrios managed to win that election cycle despite being demonized for being a political hack – a walking ball of conflicts of interest. The guy who conducted himself in ruling on tax appeal cases in ways that made it clear he was getting some sort of benefit (if not quite criminal in nature) that enriched himself.

Claypool’s election as assessor was supposed to be the move that would save us from the political hack days of old – the days when now-corrupt behavior was commonly accepted as standard practice.

The fact that a majority of voters picked Berrios in that election was supposed to be some sort of sign of our political stupidity – just as some, I’m sure, think the fact that Rahm Emanuel took 56 percent of the vote (not far off from those pre-season polls that said he’d take 58 percent) is a sign that we STILL haven’t learned any better.

DOES THIS MEAN that Claypool, who also ran the park district once and also served on the board of appeals that handled tax cases, has gone from being the goo-goo to being the guy who’s going to keep “politics as usual” operating in local government?

It’s probably more a piece of evidence that the people who were ready to anoint Claypool to political sainthood some five years ago were seriously over-exaggerating his good government sensibilities.

If he’s able to work with Emanuel – who actually was the guy who got him into the CTA position that he’s held in recent years after he lost that assessor election – then he’s probably got a practical politics streak. Although it could also mean that some of those practical political people also have a touch of government altruism flowing in their veins.

Although I do find one bit of irony. Berrios managed to get re-elected despite all the goo-goo griping because his Puerto Rican ethnic origins made him attractive to the Latino segment of the electorate.

THE SAME SEGMENT that this time around was the hard-core base of the Anybody But Rahm voters. Which amounted to all of 44 percent of the vote this month!

And which is what can make the Latino electorate unpredictable – because it often splits between those who want to be practical and back the winner and those who have an ideological streak for what they perceive to be the right thing.

Let us hope that Claypool, in trying to run Emanuel’s city government operation in a professional manner, can strike some sort of balance. That ultimately is what would benefit Chicago as a whole.

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