More than 10 months after Harvey Mayor David Johnson won a re-election battle by 12 votes, the Illinois Supreme Court declared him the victor Wednesday.
The state high court said Johnson could stay in office despite his filing of an inaccurate candidate ethics statement by inadvertently neglecting to list his government employment, a teaching job at South Suburban College.
That omission resulted in a state Appellate Court decision last year to invalidate the election and call for a new one.
Johnson claimed that his college job was ”common knowledge” among Harvey voters and that another error in failing to list a $500 honorarium was a simple mistake.
The Supreme Court seemed to agree.
Invalidating Johnson`s election would be too drastic a remedy, Justice Charles Freeman concluded in the court`s opinion.
Johnson said he was relieved by the ruling. ”We always felt this was a minor technicality,” he said. ”There was no criminal or fraudulent intent on my part. Everyone knew where I worked. What would I gain by trying to conceal that?”
Wednesday`s decision also ended a yearlong tug of war between Johnson and political foe Damon Rockett, who lost the mayoral election to Johnson and took the ethics issue to court.
”I`m disappointed,” Rockett said. ”The court looked at something else besides the law. They looked at a man`s state of mind. It was not the right decision, but justice is a long, narrow road.”
Rockett said he would still pursue a suit in Cook County Circuit Court seeking an election recount in hopes of picking up more than 12 votes.
”I`m not giving up this fight,” he insisted.
In its ruling, the state Supreme Court appeared to make a distinction between filing a statement of economic interest with an unintentional mistake and failing to file any statement or knowingly including false information.
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Failure to file, the court said, could be reason for removing a candidate from the ballot, and knowingly including false information is a misdemeanor crime. But the law does not intend to penalize such a minor mistake as Johnson made, the court said.
Freeman wrote that Johnson`s opponents raised serious arguments, but he concluded that the remedy they sought was too drastic.
The decision apparently cleared the way for Johnson`s swearing-in for a third four-year term, which could take place at Monday`s City Council meeting. Johnson has been serving as interim mayor until the court battles had been decided.
The ruling is not expected to have an immediate effect on the bitter political battles between pro- and anti-Johnson forces on a divided six-member City Council that was also elected last year. Johnson frequently has cast a tie-breaking vote on the council.
Before last April`s election, Harvey was one of the few cities in the state with a commission form of government. In 1990, Johnson led a successful referendum campaign to replace commissioners with aldermen elected from six wards.
Johnson said he hoped the court`s validation of his election would cause the council to ”change the way it transacts its business.” He said it was
”time to bury the election and move forward.”
But the mayor said that the legal battles during the last 12 months will eventually cost him about $20,000.
The ”inadvertent error” he said, ”was the most expensive mistake of my life.”