[Imc-newsroom] Mackaman press conference (fwd)

[Zachary C. Miller]

> PRESS RELEASE:  SOCIALIST EQUALITY PARTY CANDIDATE CALLS 
> PRESS CONFERENCE FOR FRIDAY, 1:30 P.M., ILLINI UNION, ROOM 
> 215.
> 
> CONTACT:  Jerry White
> (phone) 248-515-0938
> (e-mail) white at wsws.org
> 
> Champaign, Illinois (July 15, 2004) ? Tom Mackaman, 
> Socialist Equality Party (SEP) candidate for State 
> Representative in the 103rd District, has called a press 
> conference for Friday at 1:30 P.M., to announce the request 
> he has filed with the Illinois Office of the Inspector 
> General to launch an investigation into Democratic Party?s 
> apparent use of state employees to remove him from the 
> ballot.  
> 
> Mackaman and his supporters on June 21 filed 2,003 
> signatures?far more than the 1,325 required--to place the 
> SEP candidate on the ballot. The Democratic Party of 
> Champaign has been engaged in a concerted effort to 
> discredit the signatures of legally-registered voters on 
> Mackaman?s nominating petitions by arbitrarily challenging 
> their validity.
> 
> Mackaman has asked the Inspector General to investigate the 
> role of Kristen Bauer, the legislative aide of State 
> Representative Naomi Jakobsson, who has coordinated the 
> Democrats? effort to remove the valid signatures during this 
> week?s review of the nominating petitions by the Champaign 
> County Clerk?s office. Also named are Brendan Hostetler, a 
> member of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan staff, and 
> Elizabeth Brown, another House Democratic staff member, who 
> were involved in copying and reviewing Mackaman?s petitions. 
> 
> Bauer, Hostetler and Brown are all state employees, who are 
> paid at taxpayer expense. Illinois? 2003 Governmental Ethics 
> Act bars state employees from performing partisan political 
> activity during compensated time. The Illinois Election Code 
> also prohibits publicly paid employees from such activities. 
> 
> In addition to their effort to bar Mackaman from the ballot, 
> the Illinois Democrats are currently attempting to toss out 
> more than 20,000 out of the nearly 35,000 signatures 
> submitted by supporters of independent presidential 
> candidate Ralph Nader. In Champaign local candidates of the 
> Green Party are also facing a bad faith challenge from the 
> Democrats.   
> 
> These efforts are aimed at protecting the political monopoly 
> of the two corporate-controlled parties and preventing any 
> public debate during the election on the war in Iraq and the 
> growth of social inequality in America, which both John 
> Kerry and George Bush defend. 
> 
> Also attending the press conference will be Jeff Trigg, 
> Executive Director of the Libertarian Party on Illinois, who 
> will be discussing the challenge to Nader?s petitions, as 
> well as Zachary Miller, a Green Party candidate for 
> Champaign County Board whose petitions are being challenged 
> by the Democratic Party.
> 
>                                                              
>         ###
> 
-- 
Zachary C. Miller - @= - http://wolfgang.groogroo.com/
IMSA 1995 - UIUC 2000 - Just Another Leftist Muppet - Ya Basta!
 Social Justice, Community, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Feminism,
 Sustainability, Responsibility, Diversity, Democracy, Ecology