Q. Why doesn’t Illinois have an early primary like Iowa and New Hampshire, which would give our state more influence in the presidential race?
A. Do you really want the holidays ruined by all those candidates and members of the national press in town for a January primary?
Seriously, folks, the third Tuesday of March has been our statewide primary date since 1969. Furthermore, the state legislature, which sets it, has been more inclined to make it later, not earlier, says former Illinois Senate President Phil Rock.
Doing so, Rock maintains, would cut down on the length of the regular campaigns leading to November elections, when races for offices are costlier because more are contested than in the primary. Illinois elects more than 40,000 public officials and has well over 6,000 units of local government, more than any other state.
Rock indicated it’s pretty much moot: Early primaries are so important to some states that they’d make their balloting even earlier if Illinois tried to steal their limelight. Other factors he cited for a March primary as opposed to, say, January: Unpredictable weather in a large state such as ours could be problematic; and the prohibitive size of our large ballot.
And then, of course, there is the spring farm plowing to be done. Rock said that when the date was established — and we had more small farms in Illinois — Downstate legislators had a lot of say in the selection. They didn’t want it any earlier because of the icy roads, and they didn’t want it later because of spring fieldwork.
Cynics point out that Illinois legislators also aren’t likely to make it earlier because it might give challengers a better chance to upset incumbents (think Blair Hull). And it could be a drain on the time, money and resources of the local party establishment trying to get their own guys elected on the same ballot.
