Hastert: Special Election Is Off The Table
Dennis Hastert is dismissing rumors that he will resign early and trigger a special election to coincide with the presidential primary. Hastert suggests that while he is still undecided on whether he'll complete his term, his resignation would be timed in such a way as to make a special election unnecessary. "I don’t see a primary before the primary," Hastert said.
An early special election in this district would give an advantage to self-funding candidates Jim Oberweis, a Republican dairy magnate who has run unsuccessfully in several statewide Republican primaries, and Democrat Bill Foster, a physicist and businessman. While the district has tilted Republican in the past, Democrats are hoping that an exodus of Chicago voters to the suburban 14th district could provide the right conditions for an upset.
This is very disappointing for Democrats, who were hoping to benefit from a special election to get their turnout up and devote more attention to the district.
Check out these House rankings.September 27, 2007 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, second in line of succession to the President last year, is resigning from Congress.
Illinois Govenor Rod Blagojevich will appoint the new congressman, who will be a Democrat.
What is really happening with Dennis Hastert's retirement?
Why would Dennis Hastert resign this term when he already scheduled his retirement for next term?
September 27, 2007 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two things. First of all, there is another democrat whom a special election would benefit. John Laesch has the name recognition already from his run last year that Bill Foster does not have. A special election may not give him time to build up enough name recognition to defeat John Laesch.
As for the governor appointing Hastert's successor, that is not true in IL. As far as we can understand, the party chairs of all the counties in the district come together and caucus to select their party's nominee. Their votes are weighted depending on how many voted in the last election. This basically makes the deciding vote Kane County, as they have twice as many voters as the rest of the counties combined. Now, if a candidate who was not selected wishes to challenge these selections, a special primary election date would have to be chosen by the governor. Otherwise, the two parties' nominees face off in a special general election, to be held within so many days of the congressman's retirement. (I believe it's either 90 or 120 days, but I could be wrong on that.)
All speculation is that, if Hastert retires early, Blago will set the special election date for February 5th, the same day as the IL primary. This gives a further advantage to the democratic candidate, since all the democrats will be flooding the polls to vote for Obama. It also has the added advantage of saving the state money since there will already be an election happening that day.
There is also speculation that Hastert will retire early, but not until after the primary, in which case he will probably wait to do so until the special election can be held the same day as the general election, effectively, as the article says, making the special election unnecessary, and therefore minimizing the advantage of the democratic candidate.
September 29, 2007 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink