ANDY MARTIN asks Appellate Court to put his name on the ballot

Illinois corruption-fighter Andy Martin, whose brawling style of pursuing Chicago gangster politicians and judges fits snugly in the Illinois milieu, has asked the Illinois Appellate Court in Chicago to place his name on the November 2nd ballot. Martin says Illinois politics is hopelessly corrupt, from the father daughter “crime family” of Lisa and Michael Madigan, to crooks in the Illinois Republican Party. Martin says that machine politicians in both parties want to deprive voters of meaningful choices in November. Martin says Mark Kirk is unfit to hold office.

NO: 1-10-2726


IN THE
APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS
FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT
__________________________________________________

ANDY MARTIN,

Appellant,

vs.

ILLINOIS STATE BOARD
OF ELECTIONS, et al.,

Appellees.
__________________________________________________




EMERGENCY MOTION TO EITHER ORDER THE PLACEMENT OF
APPELLANT’S NAME ON THE BALLOT PENDENTE LITE OR TO SUSPEND
THE PRINTING AND DISTRIBUTION OF GENERAL ELECTION BALLOTS

Pursuant to Local Rule 6 Appellant moves this Honorable Court to order the placement of his name on the General Election ballot, pendente lite or, in the alternative, to direct the State of Illinois and its subdivisions to suspend the printing and distribution of ballots.
I.
THE FACTS APPLICABLE TO THIS MOTION
A. Who is the Appellant?
The Appellant has been fighting corruption in Illinois politics for forty-four years, since he was a law student at the University of Illinois College of Law. He first gained some notoriety in 1968 when he exposed that Secretary of State Paul Powell was collecting bribes; Powell died shortly thereafter and left behind shoeboxes stuffed with cash.
It is axiomatic that someone who has devoted his entire .professional life to fighting corruption is highly unpopular in both the political and judicial spheres of Illinois.[1] And appellant is unpopular, precisely because he seeks to protect and vindicate constitutional rights and oppose the corrupt practices which are so prevalent in this state.
Nevertheless, it is precisely because Appellant is willing to fight for the Constitution that this Court should afford him some measure of respect.
B. What is the State’s strategy?
The Attorney General told the circuit judge that the state wanted new hearings before the State Board of Elections if the Appellant prevailed in court. In other words, the state wants hearings after the election is over concerning whether a candidate is qualified to run in already-conducted election. The political machine of Michael Madigan and his daughter Lisa Madigan is just as corrupt and odious as the political machine of Pat Brady and the Illinois Republican Party who are acting against Appellant.
The current “joke” in the media is that Madigan has chosen his own Republican to run against. See attached Chicago Tribune story. What the author John Kass leaves out is that the Republican Party is chiding Madigan to draw attention from its own corrupt shenanigans against Appellant and other candidates before the State Board, employing straw men, conduits and illegal payments under federal law.
Can it get any worse? Should appellant be ridiculed for trying to clean up the Illinois cesspool one campaign for office and one election at a time?
C. The Emergency

Every two years Illinois courts conduct “election litigation” while votes are being cast in the very election where the courts are reviewing the qualifications of candidates. This year is no different. The attached articles confirm that (i) votes are being cast and ballots are being distributed while Appellant and other new political parties are fighting to be on the ballot; and (ii) in an ultimate paean to absurdity, election officials hope that citizens will not cast votes because of the unsettled state of the ballot.
D. The Illinois judicial system as an institution is
delegitimized when it participates in the electoral charades and sham election litigation involving straw men, conduits and perjured testimony that have become a hallmark of the election process in Illinois

When a court allows itself to be a part of a charade, the court suffers as an institution. Citizens believe that Illinois politics are corrupt. To the extent that the courts participate in a corrupt process the courts ultimately and eventually lose legitimacy as impartial arbiters of constitutional rights and procedures.
There is no rational reason why Illinois should be unlike other states, almost all of which manage to avoid electoral litigation altogether by prohibiting straw men/conduit “objectors” and endless proceedings over ballot access, and which (ii) manage to resolve ballot issues before the ballots are printed and distributed, not after.
The current system of conducting Illinois elections serves the interests of corrupt public officials and corrupt political parties. Ipso facto, the system violates the U.S. Constitution as applied to candidates for federal office.
II.
LEGAL BASIS TO GRANT RELIEF
A. The Court has authority to award relief pendente lite

The Court has the authority to issue orders which protect the rights of the Appellant while the Court considers the unusual constitutional issues presented. And, after placing Appellant on the ballot pendente lite, the Court can always remove him nunc pro tunc if it later finds he should not prevail. But voters will be allowed to “cast their votes” on Appellant’s candidacy “at a meaningful time and in a meaningful manner.”
B. The Court owes a higher duty to federal candidates
State courts are presumed to be competent to adjudicate federal constitutional rights and enjoy concurrent jurisdiction, Taflin v. Levitt, 493 U. S. 455, 458, 110 S. Ct. 792 (1990).
Regrettably, federal courts have held that state and local candidates are entitled to less procedural and substantive protection in electoral disputes than candidates for federal office. But there is a principled constitutional basis for that distinction.
Federal candidates are created by the U. S. Constitution; their candidacies are supervised by federal election officials at the Federal Election Commission and U. S. Senate; state officials play a limited, ministerial role as to candidacies and even ballot procedures must conform to the higher standards of the U.S. Constitution and federal law. Thus the Court has a basis to order the placement of Appellant’s name on the ballot.
The Court certainly reserves the right to rule adversely to the Appellant a later date, but the Court will no longer be conducting serious constitutional litigation under the hydraulic pressure of voters who are literally voting in the election where Appellant is a candidate.
Ironically, if this Court were to take a strong stand against present practices and issue a favorable interim ruling in Appellant’s favor, the General Assembly might in the future amend the election laws to afford judges a more rational period of time to resolve election disputes before ballots are printed and voters start voting. The current system is “broken.”
This is the classic case in which to order relief because the decision of the circuit court is objectively illogical and absurd: the court ruled that despite a very explicit and detailed statutorily-mandated procedure for service of process created by the Election Code, the fact that the respondent State Board of Elections failed to serve the Appellant was irrelevant and meaningless. The Appellant was deemed to be “aware” of the proceedings because he fled a lawsuit protesting the lack of proper statutory-mandated service!
Nothing could be more calculated to make the Illinois courts look ridiculous than a ruling in which protesting you have not been served suspends the need for actual service of process.
As long as the Courts act in a supine manner and pretend to ignore the reality of what is going on, the charade will continue.
DATED: September 23, 2010
Respectfully submitted,

ANDY MARTIN

PRINCIPAL ADDRESS FOR
SERVICE OF NOTICES:
ANDY MARTIN
NATIONAL LITIGATION CENTER
P. O. Box 1851
New York, NY 10150-1851
Toll-free tel. (866) 706-2639
Toll-free fax (866) 707-2639
E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com (text only)

Additional courtesy copy (not principal
address for service) requested to:

ANDY MARTIN
REGIONAL LITIGATION SUPPORT
30 E. Huron Street, Suite 4406
Chicago, IL 60611-4723

SERVICE OF NOTICES IS RESPECTFULLY
REQUESTED BY FAX OR E-MAIL

Additional e-mail address available
upon request

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I certify I have served the parties as set forth in the Notice of Filing on September 23, 2010

ANDY MARTIN
[1] The Illinois State Senate once passed a resolution condemning State Senator (later U. S. Senator) Paul Simon for authoring an article calling his body a corrupt institution. Prophets are indeed without honor in Illinois politics.