State Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi has a fight on his hands, and his Democratic bosses have only made it worse.
Party leaders brought out the big guns to try to blow Republican challenger Cedra Crenshaw off the November ballot for the 43rd District seat. But a Will County judge ruled Wednesday that Crenshaw’s ballot petitions are valid, rejecting the argument contrived by the Democrats who wanted Wilhelmi to coast to victory unopposed.
Grasping at the straw extended to them by the state Democratic Party’s top elections attorney, Michael Kasper, the pliant Democratic majority on the Will County elections commission had swiftly thrown out Crenshaw’s petitions based on a hypothetical — or shall we say imaginary — quandary.
Crenshaw’s petitions stated that the signatures were collected within 90 days prior to the filing deadline. But the wording — supplied by state law — didn’t fit her candidacy precisely, since she was recruited to fill a ballot vacancy after nobody ran in the primary. She was nominated March 30, leaving only a 19-day window to collect signatures before the filing deadline. If you squint really hard, the elections commission said, the wording “leaves open the possibility” that Crenshaw collected signatures before she was nominated.
As Will County Circuit Judge Bobbi Petrungaro pointed out in her ruling, that could have been addressed by granting Crenshaw a hearing, but the electoral commission refused. Petrungaro rightly declined to base her ruling on an unchallenged “possibility.” Democrats produced zero evidence that Crenshaw circulated her petitions illegally.
So she’s officially in the race.
It’s going to be a good one. Once a long shot in a heavily Democratic district, Crenshaw has become a tea party sensation thanks to the heavy-handed tactics of her opponents. Her story line — suburban mom standing up to the Chicago Machine — has scored her plenty of national media attention.
That’s not what the Dems had in mind when they decided to bully her off the ballot. Wilhelmi has said he won’t appeal the judge’s decision. That’s good. Like it or not, it’s time to face the voters.
