Appellate Court Rules Terry Link Improperly Slated Candidates; Will Lake Dems Ever Learn to Take What They Dish Out?

Well, the Second District Appellate Court has spoken, and affirmed the prior ruling of the Lake County Electoral Board rejecting the Democratic nominees for three Lake County Board seats (for background, see this Daily Herald article and some of our previous posts here and here) and the circuit court's decision rejecting the Dem challenger for State Rep. Sandy Cole's seat (62nd Dist.)(for more background on Cole, see here). You can download both the appellate court's decision on the county board seats and the decision on Cole's race here.

In the county races, it was determined that Terry Link, as Lake County Democratic Chairman, improperly tried to slate the nominees though the central committee, instead of convening a separate county board district committee. This means that the three county board members, Chairwoman Suzi Schmidt, Diana O'Kelly, and Bonnie Thompson Carter, will not have a Dem opponent on the ballot. Way to go, Terry. Bet this really helps your already tarnished image as Dem leader.

Cole's challenger, Terry Hall, was also rejected, again. After the circuit court ruled against her, Hall was notable for crying a river over the injustice of the challenge to her nominating petitions. Well, sorry, lady, the rules are there for a reason, and next time, don't put down a "Mailboxes, Etc." address as your mailing address. Although, ironically, the appellate court ruling was not made on the basis of a bad address, but because Hall herself realized the potential error and tried to cure it by withdrawing her original papers, and re-filing, but after the deadline had already passed. Whoops.

The Hall letter mentioned above was followed by a ridiculous letter by 8th District Democratic State Committeewoman Nancy Shepardson that sought to divert blame to the Republicans that filed the challenges to the Dem nomination petitions, claiming that the GOP challenges should be withdrawn so the County Clerk (a Republican) could do her job by printing the ballots (you can read the biting response to Shepardson by Lake County GOP Chairman Dan Venturi here).

What Hall and Shepardson so easily overlook is that Terry Link and his right-hand man Pete Couvall regularly file challenges to GOP nominees, as well as nominees of other parties, such as the poor green guy, Dave what's his-name, who was running in the 10th District congressional race against Mark Kirk (oh, yeah, and Dan Seals). The Dem challenges to 30th Senate Candidate Keith Gray and 59th State Rep. candidate Dan Sugrue were particularly baseless and quickly dismissed, as the only claim was that the nominating meetings were held on the same afternoon, which the Dems couldn't seem to fathom could have actually occurred (two meetings on the same day??? no one (in the Dem party) is that efficient... must be a lie!).

If the Dems are going to try to play hardball, they need to start learning that what's good for the goose is good for the other goose.