Tuesday, December 18, 2007
News / Clout City First round: Fritchey
Posted by Ben Joravsky on Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 1:17 PM
I'm never really surprised when the board of elections bounces a rookie candidate off the ballot. In fact, I work on the assumption that the board will always favor the well connected over the neophyte in these matters. It's sort of like taking out a champion in boxing. If the rookie wants a win, it better be a knockout.
That being said, it was Christmas comes early for state rep John Fritchey last week, when hearing officer Lynne Ostfeld booted Roger Romanelli, his wannabe opponent in the 32nd Ward Democratic committeeman's race. Her ruling was a stretch even by election board standards.
On November 16 Fritchey challenged Romanelli's petitions in part on the grounds that they contained "the names of persons who did not sign the papers in their own proper persons." "Such signatures," his challenge urged, "are not genuine and are forgeries."
After Fritchey filed, the case moved to what they call a record review. That's the mind-numbing process where representatives from both sides sit around a computer screen while a clerk from the board of elections compares signatures on the nominating petitions to the signatures on voter registration cards. If the clerk thinks the signatures don't match, or if the address isn't in the ward, she recommends that they be stricken.
Romanelli submitted 710 signatures. At the records review, 483 signature were ruled invalid, leaving Romanelli with 227 valid signatures, 20 below the 247 he needed to make the ballot.
So Romanelli retraced his steps. Accompanied by notary publics, he and his aides went back to the homes of voters, asking them to sign sworn affidavits affirming they had indeed signed his original petitions or that they lived in the 32nd Ward. All told, he gathered 49.
"I could have got more, but I didn't think I needed more," says Romanelli. "I didn't think they were going to rule against 49 personally sworn affidavits."
Almost. On December 13 Ostfeld issued a ruling dismissing 45 of the statements. According to Ostfeld, it's not enough that voters signed notarized affidavits swearing that they signed the original petitions. They also have to explain why the signature on the petition looks different from their signatures on the voter registration card.
As more than one lawyer has explained to me, it doesn't matter why the signatures are different so long as the voter swears that he signed the original nominating petitions. "A sworn, notarized affidavit is what we call prima facie evidence," says one election-law attorney, who'd rather not be named because he has friends on both sides of the debate. "It's evidence that's established as a fact unless it's rebutted. But the hearing officer isn't rebutting the evidence. She's changing the issue."
Ostfeld also removed seven voters who'd signed affidavits attesting to the addresses at which they were registered. In this case her finding was that Romanelli "presents nothing to show" that the voters were "registered there on or before" the day in November when they signed his nominating petitions. Well, I suppose it's possible that all seven of these voters moved between signing the petition in November and signing the affidavit one month later. But is there any reason to doubt them on their word?
On Sunday Romanelli held a press conference to announce that he would appeal Ostfeld's ruling to the Cook County circuit court. On hand were four residents whose affidavits Ostfeld had dismissed. They showed me their driver's licenses to prove that they lived at their addresses and all but raised their right hands and swore to God that they were telling the truth. "They accused us of fraud, and the only way to debunk that is to sign an affidavit. So I signed," said Craig Gould, a 32nd Ward resident. "And now they say my affidavit's not good enough? I shouldn't have to prove I'm me. If they don't believe I'm me, they should have to prove it's not me."
For his part, Fritchey says he thinks the hearing officer made the right ruling. But he can understand why Romanelli and his supporters would be disappointed. "If people feel these rules should be changed, I'd be happy to sit down when them," he says.
By the way, Fritchey was represented by Michael Kasper, go-to guy for house speaker Michael Madigan and many others. Kasper's made a name for himself convincing the board to bounce independent Democrats and third-party candidates from the ballot. Fritchey says that his statehouse alliance with Madigan has nothing to do with him hiring Kasper or with Kasper taking his case -- they're old friends from law school.
Fair enough. But if the board's going to keep on making rulings like this one, I suggest we do away with the time, money, and inconvenience of elections altogether. Let's just give the oath of office to any candidate Kasper represents.
Comments (213)
Showing 1-50 of 213
When I read Romanelli's statement calling for a federal investigation, he lost any credibility that I may have been willing to give him. You win or you lose - accept it, appeal, or move on. I don't think that I agree with the ruling, but I give Fritchey credit for being a gentleman about it. He didn't write the ruling, the hearing officer did. I'm sure that if Romanelli had won the case, he would have thought that the hearing officer was just fine.
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Ben, It sounds like you're either saying that something improper went on or that you're knocking Kasper for being very good at what he does. If there's no grounds for the first part of it, the second part doesn't seem very fair.
You have to admit that it's hard to blame the hearing officer for doubting the affidavits submitted by Romanelli when over 400 other signatures that were sworn under oath to be good were tossed off for being bogus. Getting 250 valid signatures in the 3 months of time given for circulating petitions doesn't seem like it should be that hard to do.
Any bets how long it takes that poor guy in the 48th ward to start crying about himself again?
Osterfeld went too far. She should be removed immediately. Kasper is a talented, but without the fix he could not have succeeded. Statements made by Romanelli, outlandish or not, are irrelevent. Anyone would have been mad. What matters is ordinary citizens got mugged in broad daylight by a sworn official. How many votes does it take to elect an insider as Ward Committeeman? None. A tremendous victory for State Representative John Fritchey.
"Kasper is a talented, but without the fix he could not have succeeded." That's just the type of thing I was talking about. If you are going to make serious claims like that, you need to be able to back them up with something other than 'I just know it was fixed'. On the other hand, if you think that the wrong legal decision was reached, appeal it like 'that's life' said. To simply rant without facts makes a person look desperate, bitter, and a little crazy.
This is not about Romanelli winning or losing, 49 registered voters signed affidavits that they signed a petition to allow Romanelli on the ballot. The fact that these notarized affidavits were tossed aside with less concern than one would dispence a bag of dog ----, speaks volumes as to the lack of respect Fritchie has for the rgistered voters in the 32 nd ward. If "That's Life " thinks this injustice shows Fritchie bathed in a light of being a gentleman, God help us. I would rather have my rights as a registered voter upheld than allow Fritchie to slam the doors on my rights in a democratic society. It's an affidavit!
To be fair, Fritchey did not toss those affidavits aside. 1. He challenged Mr. Romanelli's petitions. 2. Romanelli submitted affidavits to refute the challenge. 3. A hearing officer then ruled. Rep. Fritchey took no action between "2" and "3," so I'm not really sure what you're saying he did.
Only problem with your rant is that Fritchey didn't toss the affidavits, the hearing officer did. Fritchey asked for a review of Romanelli's petitions, and over 450 signatures were tossed, apparently without objection of Romanelli. The way I see it, it turns out that Fritchey had a good reason to challenge the petitions; Romanelli fell short by virtue of an iffy ruling; and now Romanelli is trying to blame Fritchey for the decision of the hearing officer. If Romanelli hadn't turned in so many bogus signatures, it wouldn't have turned on the affidavits. That's life.
This is great precedent for doing just about anything you want to the legal system. Affidavits? We so don't need no stinkin' affidavits...this is COOK COUNTY! I make my call to my good buddy Mike MAdigans lawyer, and bye bye Roger and any others who stand in the way of the good old cook county democratic party. It is interesting to how well some politicians hide it better than others. Please don't cry Roger& friends, Fritchey will sit down and console you.
Voters in this place can be fooled by almost anyone. Fritchey should get an academy award,playing a progressive, Independent,anti Machine Hack,along with Tom Dart as a co-star. Two Machine Hacks. Fritchey with his Bank's backing,and Dart with his Jerry Joyce,and Tim degnan connection. One is seeking the A.G office ,the other wants to be Mayor, one day. A good joke on the citizenry if they pull off this scam.
To reg. voter- What about everything else I said? To Affs- Should Fritchey have flipped them off? You'd whine no matter what he said.
Interesting that you would pair the Fritchey and Dart. But since you did - does your rep. have a better record than either of them do/did? Doubt it.
Fritchey deletes challengers from the ballot just like he deletes comments on this blog. If there's an opponent someone is going to ask for a debate and Fritchey doesn't want to answer questions
smoke and mirrors, dog and pony show. Support a lot of feel good legistation and maybe ,we can fool everyone. Not me bucko!
Bought and paid for whores will do what they've been bought and paid to do. In the grand scheme of things, both the Democratic party and the Republican party are obsolete creations of archaic minded control freaks. No one need care about who gets 'elected' to 'lead' either of these stagnant pools of decayed mentalities. Regardless of who either party chooses to run in the General Election, all the voters need to do is remember to: REGISTER TO VOTE VOTE IN EVERY ELECTION HAVE NO DOUBT, VOTE INCUMBENTS OUT When given the chance, vote for any independent candidate. When only a Republican and a Democrat are running, vote for whoever is NOT the incumbent. Successful criminal conspiracies, which accurately describes the activities of both the Democratic party and the Republican party, require as many co-conspirators in positions of influence and authority as possible. Deny Republicans and Democrats these positions and you deny them the ability to successfully conspire. Shake up their comfortable and cocky worlds and see them reveal themselves for who, and what, they truly are. Just Do It.
The 45 voters could have appeared that day and it would't have made a difference. Romanelli could have needed 500 signatures or 250. The outcome would have been the same. A sworn official tossed just the right number of legitimate documents, sprinkle in a few extra. Romanelli deserved to be on. Forget the bad signatures -he got enough good ones and proved it. Was there testimony from one or two of the 45? Osterfeld must be a handwriting expert, right? And she is on record requesting research on the affidavits, right? Because it took days for them to come up with this and she took days to diligently review the information. I know she did a super job because as an appointee she is probably being carefully scrutinized by her squeakly clean superiors. By the way, if Fritchey is not the person who signed the complaint, who did? He personally had to vouch that the signatures were fake didn't he? The fix was clearly in, or 45 people are lying.
"The fix was clearly in, or 45 people are lying." Wrong. Take the time to read the ruling. She said that the affidavits were insufficient under the Supreme Court rules. She didn't question the integrity of the signers, she said that the affidavits did contain the required facts and it was because Romanelli and his lawyer used 'form affidavits'. You might not agree with her, but far far from a 'fix'.
why does have no doubt and this jolt creeps call Fritchey andTom Dart Machine Hacks. These two individuals are honest and the best of our party can produce. Can you guys do any better?
John Fritchey is not the best we can do Fritchey never once came out and challenged Gabinski who begat Matlak. Then he sat out the first real Aldermanic race in my entire lifetime. This is not honorable. I wanted a contest for the position of Committeemen. As for how the judge ruled it is mumbo jumbo. Romanelli got the proof he needed to get on the ballot. She insults all of us by twisting logic until it came out to cancell the signatures. I would rather have a mistake made that will let a candidate on the ballot than keep them off. It is the voters who should make these types of free decisions in the election.
I have a Zoning problem . Do you think Fritchey can help me. I will take care of him and his uncle. Upzone the land around the Bishop Ford Hwy for condos.
here come the black helicopters. Romanelli's petitions were crap or he never would have had this problem. Only issue. End of story. But when you can't argue facts, argue conspiracies and non sequiturs. The chatroom posse rides again.
"...Fritchey and Tom Dart...are...the best of our party can produce." That says it all. This shows just how obsolete the Democratic machine is. (Not that the Republicans are any better.) "Can you guys do any better?" Well, when Fritchey pulled the strings to knock his challenger(s) off the ballot, he made this statement, by a machine minion, clearly a ludicrous and dishonest attempt at deception. As for the imbecilic "Read, the speak" knucklehead, even if there is any validity to your 'argument', it deceptively avoids addressing the issue, namely, if free, fair and open elections are what the Democratic party supports, why are so many challenges filed and granted, said challenges being made for the sole purpose of eliminating any competition for publicly elected offices? Go ahead, asshole, tell us it's because the Democrats, and Republicans alike, all are just protecting the electorate's best interests. Go ahead. Say it. You know you want to.
"when Fritchey pulled the strings to knock his challenger(s) off the ballot" - prove the facts or shut up. Like they said before, anything else makes you sound desperate and wacky. And how does 'Read, then speak''s argument avoid the issue? It goes to the heart of the issue. Romanelli screwed up, and now he's crying foul. Almost 490 bad signatures out of 710? There's your 'ludicrous and dishonest attempt at deception.' (But you do come off as very macho when you swear and type real tough)
Romanelli had at least 45 good petitions thrown out. We know that because 45 people signed again. They stood up. They got a a smirking manipulation of technicality. How many more signers/voters were cheated? . "Petitions were crap." Really. Why, the ink wasn't black? What do you call a State Representative who hasn't got the balls to go toe to toe against such ineptness? Spend thousands on well known machine lawyers to snake through the system instead spending time and money speaking directly to voters. "affidavits were insufficient under Supreme Court rules." Oh that is rich. We see the influence of the High Court on the "brethren" of the 'committeemen , like Todd Stroger's coronation. When Romanelli got those 45 affidavits he won. No matter what happens in his career, John Fritchey is a loser. I don't want to ever see the words integrity and Fritchey in the same sentence.
the vast majority of challengers that file are able to stay on the ballot. It's the sloppy and fraudulent ones that get tossed. And what about challengers that knock other challengers off the ballot? Are they part of the 'fix' too? Roger can blame himself, he can blame the hearing officer, he can blame the Board, he can blame global warming, but he can't blame Fritchey for making sure that the same rules applied to everybody. Even if Fritchey would have lost, there was a legitimate question as to the number of valid signatures. Romanelli had to resort to getting affidavits to even have a shot, and he screwed that up.
you dropped your tinfoil hat. Takes a lot of 'balls' to talk crap from behind a keyboard. Whiny loser. I wish 'your boy' would have survived, so we could hear what whiny crap you would spout once he got his creepy clock cleaned at the polls. Whether it's today, February 5, or sometime after that, the only losers will be Romanelli and the two-faced hypocrites who helped him. And you know who you are. Happy Holidays everybody!
You wrote... "in part on the grounds " You should have reported the rest of the "grounds," which included a lot of people who DON'T LIVE IN THE WARD.
Please stop disparaging Romanelli for getting "fraudulent" signatures on his ballot. Anyone who has ever passed around petitions or has been a candidate knows that you ask people if they live in ward or district and if they will sign. They say yes and do sign but it turns out they live nowhere near the district. People either don't know what ward or district they live in or they are being polite to get you out of their face. There was no intent of fraud which is the ONLY reason these petitions should have been challenged.
I don't care how you slice it the ballot process is fraudulent. The head of the election board,has a law firm and receives millions in city contracts. Have no doubt, what these Hack don't realize all good things eventually come to an end. This not 1950 or 1960 one day the voters will rise, and flush the faecal matter down the toilet.
The rules provide for affidavits. The rules,if followed, supported Romanelli. Fritchey resorted to avoiding a campaign. Fritchey ducked a public airing of his record. He chose to challenge not to run. He spent considerable resources to shutdown the first election for committeeman in recent memory. John Fritchey did not defend election law, he got a friendly "interpretation" to stop an election. These actions show voters who State Rep. John Fritchey really is.
The real emeny is the Cook county democratic party. There is no diffence between Ward committeemen and Russian politburo members.
for this guy until I read all these comments. I bet that the majority of people who file petitions stay on the ballot. And that the ones who screw up and get challenged off, accept their mistakes and learn from them. EXCEPT this guy who thinks that the whole world has nothing better to do than gang up on him. Your 15 minutes are up. People don't care about you or a committeeman election. The process is fraudulent? Gimme a break. By this guy's OWN math, a boatload of his signatures were bad. And if somebody attests that they're good when they're not, that's fraudulent in my book. Sorry. Problem today is people always want to blame somebody else when they screw up. I screwed up my petitions? Not my fault. Must be the hearing officer's...or the Board's...or the guy who challenged me...or the flying spaghetti monster...or anybody but me. The rules are the rules. You played fast and loose with them and got called on it. You tried to save your hide with affidavits. You got ruled against. Not that complicated.
Ostfield is a terrible hearing officer and should be removed. She is dense, does not understand the law, has no sense of judicial economy.
Fritchey's lawyer is MICHAEL KASPER. KASPER is the corrupt idiot who brought us the Venezuelan Hugo Chavez vote fraud touch screen machines (with Victor Reyes) as a lobbyist. There are City and County election employees that will reveal more. MICHAEL KASPER is also the lawyer and does the election challenges for the Hispanic Democratic Organization (HDO) the group that has convicted drug dealers like major baller heroin dealer George Prado and the Hired Trucks program under TWO SIX (the same gang as Senator Tony TWO SIX Munoz) gang member Angelo Torres. Kasper makes money from challenging people.
Let's not waste any time here in linking some mope getting tossed off the ballot to gang violence and Hugo Chavez. I wasn't going to bring this up, but I heard that the hearing officer is the daughter of Lee Harvey OSWALD (Oswald - Ostfeld, it's so obvious) and that somebody saw her writing her decision on some blue container that she got from Drew Peterson. Are you guys trying to help or hurt public opinion on this thing with this Forrest Gumpian defense?
Kinda hurts doesn't it? The boys get caught clouting their way into a no-vote election. First -timer Romanelli messed up SOME petitions. Your problem is he didn't mess up ALL of them. He got enough. There was nothing wrong with his numbers. He followed proceedure. But that wasn't the plan. Fritchey thought no one was watching or cared. After days and days of goons looking to throw a true independent off, they winked to Lynne Ostfeld about affidavits not being "inadequate" or "technically" correct. Nevermind they were accurate representations of real voters in 32 expressing their desire for an honest election. You can scream, threaten, laugh and probably you can continue to get the system to cover for you. Doesn't matter. John Fritchey put his efforts into snuffing out the competiton in an election he would have very likely easily won over an unknown. How come Rep. Fritchey couldn't let 32nd ward voters have the final say?
The only one that got caught was Romanelli. The test isn't whether he messed up ALL his signatures, it's whether he had enough to stay on. It was ruled that he didn't. If he disagrees with the ruling, he can appeal. That's how the process works. The only ones screaming and threatening is you. No wonder your coworkers don't like you.
Why all this effort over a partisan, political party position? Is it because there is only one political party in Chicago? So the only competition is between members of this one party? And these members don't want any outsider competition? Sort of an incredibly incestuous environment, don't ya think? And we all know what happens when a species experiences excessive inbreeding, don't we? Can we spell imbecilic offspring correctly?
Good Morning. I commented on this before and my point seems to be lost in the back and forth. The question we are asking Representative Fritchey is why did he not let the voters here have their choice for who should get the position. I do not believe harm would have resulted if we had an election for committeeman between these two people. I think that is a fair question given the history of this Ward. Mr. Fritchey should have been sensitive to that. I am retired and have do not have co-workers any longer.
"How come Rep. Fritchey couldn't let 32nd ward voters have the final say?" Nice question, the answer to which I'm sure you know. I'll take the liberty of putting that answer into words, to wit: Because members of a dictatorship have absolutely no interest in the opinions of those they dictate to. Because the concept of candidates for elected offices 'letting' the voters have the opportunity to actually have more than one candidate to choose from, which is, by definition, what a contest is, is an alien concept to those who prefer dictatorship to Democracy. Because, given this city's long standing history of one party rule, one party rule being the definition of dictatorship, it would be surprising if anyone in the Democratic party were to genuinely support 'allowing' the voting public to actually have a say in anything concerning their governments. The only mildly encouraging thing we citizens have is the fact that these default dictators still find it necessary to pretend to care about what the 'voters' think, want or believe. Why do they still find it necessary to pretend they care about our opinions? We also know the answer to this question. Because they still haven't figured out how to completely deny us our Right to Vote. Because, so far, they haven't needed to deny us our Right to Vote. Because, so far, they've been successful, at maintaining their default dictatorship, effectively using their skills at bullshitting us to keep 'electing' and 'reelecting' their sorry asses. Don't think the Republicans are any different, though. They just haven't had the right bullshit to sell, here in the city, though they've had some success, in the recent past, at selling their particular brand of bullshit on some state and federal levels. What is left for the citizens to do, besides resign themselves to being the servants of rulers? A good start would be to read our Constitution and Bill of Rights, just to see if any light bulbs begin to illuminate within one's noggin. If said readings fail to jump start one's thought processes, well, perhaps each individual citizen must then conclude that they are more suited to serving than to living their life as a free man or woman.
If Fritchey's petitions were bad enough that he might get tossed off of the ballot, would Romanelli have challenged them? My guess is that, of course he would have, and nobody would have blamed him for doing so, and these same people would be talking about how easy it is to get on the ballot, and that Fritchey deserved to get challenged, and that the same rules apply to everybody. Challenges get filed, some win, some lose.
Audit the last, say, 20 years worth of elections in Chicago. Determine exactly how many candidates were challenged. Determine exactly how many challenged candidates were successfully denied ballot access. Determine how many Incumbents were denied ballot access. Determine how many slated party candidates, be they Democrats or Republicans, were denied ballot access. Determine how many non-party-slated candidates were denied ballot access. Compare the numbers, as in, do the math. Then try to tell us that "...some win, some lose..." with a straight face, and, with that same face, that "...the same rules apply to everybody...". (Nice try at selling the bullshit, though)
But in the 32nd Ward no one has run against Democratic regulars for almost 100 years. Rep. Fritchey did a disservice to voters in my opinion. He should have understood Ward history and been willing to participate in a contest once Mr. Romanelli proved he had received support for a candidacy. It is disheartening.
You can go do the math thanks, and keep avoiding what I thought was a pretty fair question while you're at it.
And my proposed questions weren't fair? And the answers to my questions wouldn't answer your 'question'? "If Fritchey's petitions were bad enough that he might get tossed off of the ballot, would Romanelli have challenged them?" Now, why would Romanelli waste his efforts challenging the petitions of a slated, party hack? Said party hack being assured of successfully withstanding any and all challenges, by having the hack-filled party machine backing his candidacy? Since the very same, hack-filled party has had the power, to select the individuals who are empowered to determine the outcome of all challenges, for generations? The only slim ray of hope here is for Romanelli to have the financial resources to challenge the denial of his candidacy in civil court, said court being populated by, you guessed it, individuals primarily selected by the very same political party hacks that selected those individuals who've denied him access to the ballot by upholding the party-slated hack's challenge in the first place. Try as you might, you have no valid or fair question. The only thing you have is the chutzpa to think that your agendas aren't showing. Because the only honest question is the one posed by 'S', that question being: "The question we are asking Representative Fritchey is why did he not let the voters here have their choice for who should get the position." Any answer you may choose to give, other than, 'Because he could' "...not let the voters have a choice for who should get the position." will be you avoiding the question.
Dump Fritchey and Romanelli. Fritchey is a mob associate of Alderman Banks. Fritchey is a well dressed mob boy and he is losing his hair from all his lies. Romanelli is a "Green Freak" and a close pal of Frank Coconate, which could not get a Daley on the Ballot. Romanelli close ties to Coconate scares me and everyone else. Advantage to Chicago Mafia, Go "Pretty Boy"Fritchey. Clout runs Chicago.
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