Political veteran George Cardenas has likely won his way back on the March Democratic primary ballot after resurrecting hundreds of petition signatures.
Cardenas, the former 12th Ward alderman and current commissioner on the county’s Board of Review, was 273 short of the 4,941 minimum signatures he needs to run for reelection after a county records review last month. It was a surprising shortfall for a fixture of Chicago politics well-acquainted with the cutthroat nature of petition gathering and nominating challenges.
The effort to boot Cardenas was launched by his Democratic opponent, Juanita Irizarry. Her team contended Cardenas came up far short and tried unsuccessfully to argue that the large number of duplicate signatures — including from one of Cardenas’ government staff — was indicative of a greater fraud.
Cardenas acknowledged those repeat signatures, which for a few individuals appeared 20 times, were inappropriate.
“I think that more training needs to be done with circulators, to be honest with you, on the dos and don’ts. Letting people sign without knowing that it doesn’t count, it’s wrong,” he told the Tribune.
Even so, he was heartened to be restored to the ballot.
“I was confident on the forensic evidence, it comes down to evidence, right?” Cardenas said. “Technicalities are used, I get it, it’s part of the game, it’s part of the process, but it all comes down to evidence and it comes down to, are the people real? And there were real people that signed those petitions.”
The three-member Board of Review is a quasi-judicial body that hears property tax assessment appeals and is supposed to be an independent arbiter of value.
Irizarry, a consultant who works with nonprofits and housing organizations, said she is running “to make big corporations pay their fair share in property taxes and to deliver real relief for working families,” echoing criticism from Assessor Fritz Kaegi that the board favored business interests over residents.
Tenoch Rodriguez, Irizarry’s campaign manager, said they respected the hearing officer’s recommendation, but “it does not change the serious concerns surrounding how Cardenas’ campaign collected signatures. His petitions contained countless egregious errors, duplicate signatures, and signature fraud. … Voters and homeowners deserve a candidate who follows the rules and respects the electoral process — especially someone with authority over property tax appeals and assessments.”
She has the endorsements of several progressive members of the Chicago City Council, Congress and the Cook County Board.
Cardenas said her contention that the board favors big building owners is misplaced. “When you correct systemic errors, you’re going to get the blame,” he said. “You’ve got to blame the system that you created: these assessments are flawed to begin with.”
Cardenas turned in nearly 12,000 signatures and launched a comeback legal battle to get hundreds of tossed objections restored. Over four days, his attorney presented affidavits from voters attesting their signatures were real and brought in a handwriting expert to compare the petition signature against voter registration files and affidavits.
Eventually, the hearing officer, Laura Jacksack, told attorneys for both sides to review the mountain of evidence and see what they agreed on. The attorneys reached consensus that about 600 signatures should be restored and another roughly 200 thrown out.
In the end, that put Cardenas above water by 129. Irizarry’s team said they had more evidence, but it wouldn’t be enough to get Cardenas kicked off the ballot.
Jacksack’s recommendation in Cardenas’ favor will be considered by the county’s electoral board Friday.
