Franchise

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Author’s Note:  This post is dedicated to fellow Chicagoan, Fred Nachman.  Old friend and standup guy. Thanks for the lunch and the story about Arthur Wirtz and the judge, Fred. Both were terrific.

Now back to our show…

Last week I went to cast my early vote in the Illinois election.  I must admit that I wasn’t much interested. Local politics don’t always fully engage my attention.  (I don’t get a Chicago newspaper so I never know what’s happening here until it makes my AP or Reuters Twitter feed.  Or the New York Times.)

Ok, chastise me if you want.  I am an uninformed voter.

But I always vote.

History has put me on the right side of that issue.  Women fought- and died- for this power of enfranchisement in the not-so-distant past. The 19th amendment was ratified in 1920.  That meant my grandmother was twenty years old before she was considered the equal of any man at the polling booth.

I consider it a duty and a privilege to cast my ballot, and so last Friday, I reported to my local library to do my bit.

I knew the process was going to be perfunctory because there didn’t seem to be any issues that outraged my sensibilities- or  my checkbook.  And I was dispirited by the race for governor- a dead heat at this juncture.  It was going to be a case of voting for the lesser of the two evils.  Ugh.

Alan Dershowitz Sidebar: Illinois governors seems to go to the slammer at an alarming rate.  Of the state’s last seven governors, four have ended up in prison.  While I was in Colorado, two went to the big house.  What’s up with that? Disgraceful.

I flashed my i.d. and got a card.  I shoved it into the voting machine slot, touched the screen (no hanging chads here to muck up the results) and began the act that is the very hallmark of democracy.

Pretty boilerplate.  Until I got to the section about re-electing the judges.

There she was.  The venal, inept, corrupt joke of a jurist who presided over my divorce case for four, long, torturous, ruinously-expensive years.

Instantly my mood changed.  The atmosphere in my little cubicle was now charged with electric anticipation.

I hadn’t realized that this judge would be coming up for re-election in 2014.  Now here was my golden opportunity to tell her exactly what I thought of the crooked job she was doing.

Clarence Darrow Sidebar: A good friend of mine recently asked me how I could have lost my trial if I – and my fourteen witnesses- had been just telling the truth.  Obviously this guy has never been on trial in Chicago.

Of course, I know that chances are she’ll be returned to office and she will get another shot at making life-changing decisions based on her pocketbook and prejudices rather than her wisdom, fairness and encyclopedic knowledge of Blackstone’s Commentaries.

(Sadly, that’s the “Chicago Way.”)

But for one brief, shining, glorious moment, her career was in MY hands.  And so I voted “NO.”

It felt great.

Not a perfect solution to the corruptness rife in the Chicago political scene, but better than nothing.

So use your vote next week.

And as for the name of that judge…

My ballot is secret.  And it wouldn’t be ethical to use our blogging relationship to influence your vote.

But if you really want to know who she is, see me in the smoke-filled back room later and I’ll tell you.

(That’s the Chicago Way.)

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17 Responses to Franchise

  1. Michael Shindler says:

    I always say that I vote with my head and my heart and not with my wallet.

    You got to do all three.

    Attagirl.

  2. Good morning, Ellen, and sorry for the late comment but your arithmetic captcha had me stumped for a while. Your post was very evocative, a combination of spellbinding narrative, gentle humor, and a dose of sadness, too. It sent me scurrying to Mr. Google, to locate the origin of the quote “… democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” While widely attributed to Winston Churchill, he himself acknowledged the source as “anon” — please correct me if I’m wrong.

    The clip from “The Untouchables” reminds me that this film came out in 1987, the same year my son Michael was born. All through our dating days and the beginning of our marriage — right through the last week of her pregnancy — my wife Barbara and I had a Friday evening routine: Chinese dinner followed by a movie. And then it stopped suddenly, in April of that year. I went almost overnight from being the most important male in her life to the least important. Finally, on a hot summer night in August, I couldn’t stand it any more, and for possibly the first time in my life, headed to the cinema unaccompanied (with her acquiescence, I might add). I still remember that evening, and what was on the screen, as if it was yesterday (so glad you didn’t show the scene of Robert De Niro, as Al Capone, using a baseball bat in a manner not befitting a fan of either the Chicago Cubs or White Sox).

    Say what you will about Chicago politics, but had the first Mayor Daley not “delivered” in November 1960, American history might have been very very different. Thanks again, Ellen, for sharing your own perspectives.

    • Ellen Ross says:

      Wow. This post really got you going this morning, Doc. You probably don’t need to stop and buy that Starbucks and a chocolate croissant now. Thanks for the effort, here. Most informative and appreciated.

  3. Jimmy Feld says:

    “In 2003, Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich ordered mandatory online ethics training for all state employees. Illinois had a reputation for being a politically corrupt state, and Blagojevich was determined to put an end to that.”

    As a professor in the college of medicine I have to take the above ethics training and exam every year. Several years ago they finally removed Blagojevich’s name at the top of the exam. Not sure if your judge was required to take the course/exam but then again – does it really matter in Illinois?

    • Ellen Ross says:

      No. If you had spent one hour in that courtroom, it was painfully obvious that ethics never entered into her education. Sadly for me. Blago…? He’d be a joke if it wasn’t so despicable. Thanks, Doc. Love to all.

  4. John Yager says:

    I always vote. And, like W.C. Fields, I never vote FOR a candidate, I only vote against.

    • Ellen Ross says:

      Anything Wiilliam Claude Dukenfield says is ok by me. I don’t drink water for the same reason, either. Thanks, John.

      • John Yager says:

        If you haven’t read “W.C. Fields, His Follies and Fortunes”, you’ve missed an outstanding biography about an outstanding life.

        • Ellen Ross says:

          Haven’t read it. Will do. Thanks for the tip.

          • John Yager says:

            I think you’ll like it a lot. A childhood of hideous hardship. Juggling in crazy early Broadway-type stage shows. Eventually, wealth and fame for maybe the funniest comedian of all time. Worth it for the quotes alone. “My first wife drove me to drink. It’s the one thing I’m indebted to her for.”

  5. Bernard Kerman says:

    So sad we have elected the most anti-American, anti-business, anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, under qualified and most inept administration in U.S. history the last two cycles.
    So sad that the lie of a “War on Women, the elderly, minorities”, etc. has influenced so many uninformed voters.
    Yes, W.C. Field was correct when he said “I never vote FOR a candidate but against one”, is the major reason I haven’t voted for a DEMOCRAT since Hubert Humphrey…..even in local elections.
    Gee whiz, I wonder how many friends I just lost??!! But, I’m ready for the nastiness.

    • Ellen Ross says:

      My readers are never nasty. They’re opinionated and strong-minded. And smart about which blogs they read. Thanks, Bernie. See my W.C. Comment above.

  6. Mitchell Klein says:

    Vote early vote often that’s the Chicago way. And Ellen, Jake Arvey up on the sky is still looking for that guy who voted for Dewey.

    • Ellen Ross says:

      The Colonel is still angry. My uncle Jack used to get the cemetery vote out for Marshall Korshak. The Chicago Way. Thanks, Mitch.

  7. Herbie Loeb says:

    Since casting my first presidential vote in 1952 I have voted in every election, national and local. Herbie

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