You know what to do, punch #82!
The Tribune’s recent editorial “The ballot mess in Cook County” misleads readers into thinking that the “old machine” is behind the political assault to which I, the first female Democratic candidate to run for Cook County assessor since 1932, have been subjected.
Here are five other qualified female candidates removed from the county ballot: Jan Kowalski McDonald, Stephanie Joy Jackson-Rowe, Elizabeth Joyce, Rene Avila and Toni Williams.
Women make up less than a third of Cook County primary candidates.
Many of these local women candidates had their reputations slandered by biased challengers, while some were confronted with a herculean number of required signatures at 8,236 (when statewide governor and attorney general candidates needed 5,000).
That is why several have filed appeals for fair ballot access, not only at the Circuit and Appellate courts, but also with the federal district court. We’ve joined open-government ballot-access organizations to cease the silencing of women’s voices in the state- and countywide election process.
The Tribune misses a critical point — it’s not just “machine style” tactics by entrenched incumbents and party slate-makers that have been challenging my candidacy and others.
Indeed, it’s the very so-called progressives, whom I have worked with for over three decades in good government causes and progressive candidate campaigns, who have prevented me from getting my message out to voters.
It was wrong for the Cook County clerk to openly endorse my opponent and urge me to withdraw. It was wrong for the self-proclaimed progressive candidate, with absolutely no record on property tax reform issues, to continue to object to my candidacy for two months and three weeks.
Your readers deserve to hear the truth. Both the so-called progressive leaders and their organizations are lockstep with the good-old-boys of the Democratic Party as tag-team slate-makers in races of their interest. Both set the women’s movement in Cook County many steps backward.
I am still on the ballot and will fight until the end because now — more than ever — women deserve the right to run for office and not be intimidated by machine-style political operatives and the new machine progressives.
The Cook County assessor’s seat should never be for sale at the cost of disenfranchisement of voters who should be allowed diverse choices.
— Andrea Raila, Chicago
Defending our 23,585 signatures from double objections by both opponents Tax Assessor Berrios Asset Manager Fredrick Kaegi today. Of the 170 Cook County candidates 26% are women~ 36% face challenges. I’m the only candidate with double challenges attempting to deny access to the ballot for minorities and women. Our smart 2 member legal team faces off with their 7 legal team next week….Thank you supporters from 2010 and 2017!!
Today’s Chicago Tribune’s Daily Herald talks about the same disparities in Cook County’s tax rates as we discussed in our article to the Chicago Lawyer Magazine in 2015!
Chicago Lawyer Magazine 2015:
http://www.chicagolawyermagazine.com/archives/2015/11/letter-to-the-editor-nov15.aspx
Chicago Tribune’s Daily Herald:
ANDREA RAILA on WVON Radio
ANDREA RAILA on WVON Radio from Ben Hollis on Vimeo.
Heartland Media of Chicago & the Live from the Heartland Radio Show
Andrea Raila is reminding all owners of Class 9 incentive properties that the Cook County Assessor’s deadline to file an annual affidavit in order to re-establish their incentive class assessments is this Friday, November 17, 2017.
Follow this link http://bit.ly/2hyC8GF to obtain the required affidavit available on the Cook County Assessor’s website.
Andrea is urging an extension of this Friday, November 17, 2017’s Deadline for Class 9 incentive properties to allow hard pressed landlords, who were given no warning that their incentive program would be removed, to have the opportunity to control their escalating taxes that on average could increase almost 50%.
Download a PDF version of the class 9 documents shown below by clicking here
