While the state supreme court was at work restoring Rahm Emanuel’s name to the mayoral ballot, election-law attorney Adolfo Mondragon sat at the back of a nearly empty courtroom in the Daley Center, trying to keep his client’s fledgling aldermanic campaign alive.
In 2007 a man named John Cinkus decided he wanted to run for trustee in Stickney, a southwest suburb. Stickney’s electoral board bounced him from the ballot on the grounds that he owed the town $100 in an unspecified fee or fine.
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A circuit court judge ruled in his favor. But the Illinois Appellate Court overruled him. The state supreme court upheld that ruling, and suddenly election-law lawyers had a new toy to play with.
Of the more than 400 nominating-paper challenges filed against various mayoral and aldermanic candidates, roughly a quarter are Cinkus violations, according to the board of elections. “It’s been the flavor of the month,” says election-law lawyer James Nally, who happens to be leading the charge against Iniguez.
In the case against Rowans, the named objector was Tom Courtney, a rival aldermanic candidate.
In Iniguez’s case, he and Oscar de Luna, his business partner, used to run the Taylor Made Deli, at 1010 S. Western. The formal owner of the deli was the Con Safos Corporation, which Iniguez and de Luna set up to shield themselves from personal liability. “Corporation law shields shareholders from liability,” says Iniguez. “We ran the business from about 2008 to 2010, and then we had to close because of the recession. But the city still charged us for a business license.”
But Guerrero or Cardenas—or whoever really is behind the challenge—wouldn’t let the matter die, and asked Nally to appeal the board of elections ruling to the circuit court. “I’ll tell you why they appealed,” says Mondragon. “They’re fucking with Jesus—they’re just fucking with him.”
