Skokie moves to crush election reform initiative

James Johnson and Gail Schechter launched a Skokie electoral reform initiative last December.

The Skokie Caucus Party has been accused of turning the big village west of Evanston into a closed one-party state. The leadership has now unwittingly proven the point.

“I was telling people that I didn’t think they would stoop this low,” electoral reform activist James Johnson, a Skokie trustee, said Friday. “I was wrong.”

For months, the Skokie Alliance for Electoral Reform he founded with Skokie activist Gail Schechter has been collecting referendum signatures seeking electoral reform. The changes might give an independent candidate half a chance of breaking into a government run by one group for 56 years.

But Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen and his merry band of caucuscreatures just moved to stop the alliance in the only way they can: at Monday’s village board meeting, they plan to pass three advisory referendums for the same November election. Villages don’t need signatures; the measures will automatically go on ballots, in a state that only allows three questions at a time. This would put off the alliance’s initiative until next year, at least.

It’s the same thing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel did four years ago when he wanted to stop an attempt to limit mayoral terms.

Johnson, who was elected as a fluke in 2021, knew that the Caucus could pull this shot. And the Caucus knew he knew. But nevertheless, the Skokie establishment has now committed not only to attempting to strangle the political process, but doing it in the open, optics be damned.

“If the village board goes through with this it will be one of the most blatantly undemocratic things it has ever done,” Johnson said.

His alliance has garnered 1,300 of the 1,800 signatures it needs for three binding referendums: for staggered elections, nonpartisan ballots (no affiliation after names) and a blend of wards and at-large representation. The changes are relatively vanilla. Almost all towns have the first one, and many have the other two.

The village is planning to ask about banning plastic grocery bags and gas-powered leaf blowers, and changing the frequency of garbage collection.

Van Dusen, Skokie’s 23-year mayor, did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.

But he revealed in another fashion that he and his people had been planning this move for a while.

In an April 14 letter to the editor of the Evanston Roundtable, attacking the alliance, he wrote, “Rather than changing a system of government that works by all Skokians we should be concentrating our attention on important issues confronting us — continuation of twice-a-week garbage pick-up, ending the use of plastic bags, banning leaf-blowers in the village and making improvements to our co-responder program.”

Curiously, the village has already floated a survey to ask residents about such sustainability issues. The results are scheduled to be released Tuesday, according to the alliance.

The Skokie Village Board meeting will start at 8 p.m. Monday at Skokie Village Hall, 5127 Oakton St. The issue is scheduled for early in the session.

Alliance supporters say they’ll gather outside an hour before the meeting preparatory to a 7:30 p.m. press conference.

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