CHICAGO | Voters in Calumet City who want to cast absentee ballots or use other early-voting methods that begin Wednesday will have the option of voting for police Sgt. Pam Cap for mayor -- at least for the next week.
Then the question to leave Cap on the ballot should be resolved.
Thus is the ongoing saga on the city's mayoral contest.
Cook County Judge Susan Fox Gillis on Monday issued a stay that prohibits Calumet City officials from enforcing the electoral board order that bumped Cap from the Feb. 24 Democratic primary ballot on grounds that her duties as a police officer made her ineligible to run for a municipal office.
Without that stay, those wishing to vote early in the city's Democratic primary would only have the option of casting ballots for Mayor Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush. Should a court ultimately remove Cap from the ballot, any early ballots cast for her will not be counted.
Attorneys for both Cap and Calumet City used a 20-minute hearing in Gillis' courtroom at the Daley Center to establish a schedule by which both sides will file legal briefs in support of their cases. Attorneys for both sides then will get to file written responses to those legal briefs. This process is expected to take up the rest of this week.
"This means I'll be a busy reader this weekend," Gillis said.
Actual oral arguments in Cap's appeal will be heard Feb. 3 before Gillis.
Among the documents that Cap's attorneys plan to file to support their case is a copy of a legal brief in support of a police officer in west suburban Cicero.
That officer's attorney is James Nally, who also is the attorney who argued before the electoral board in Calumet City earlier this month to get Cap removed from the ballot.
Attorneys for both sides had little disagreement over setting up a schedule for the upcoming week, except for one legal motion by Cap's attorney that sought to prevent the Calumet City electoral board from acting as an advocate in support of their own ruling.
Attorney Keri-Lynn Krafthefer argued it was too much of a professional conflict for the board to act as an expert authority on its own actions.
But attorney Burt Odelson, an elections law expert hired by the city, said such a restriction was wrong. "They are asking for sanctions and attorney fees (against the electoral board), yet we're supposed to stand back with our mouths closed," Odelson said.
Krafthefer said she is confident the court ultimately will rule in a way that keeps Cap on the ballot permanently, while Odelson had little to say on Monday.
"I have a lot to say, but I'm putting it all in my (written) briefs," he said.
In a separate matter, Gillis will hear arguments next week Thursday (Feb. 5) in an appeal by Mitchell Johnson, who wants to run for alderman. He was removed from the ballot on the grounds that his disbarment as an attorney qualifies as an "infamous" crime making him ineligible to hold office. Johnson says being disbarred is only a civil offense, and not a criminal one.
