Oh joy! Another election....

Unlike many judicial elections (which, at least in theory, are more genteel events than elections for Chicago's Mayor and City Council) Chicago City Council elections are seldom uncontested.

Ten candidates, you may have heard, have lined up to oppose Mayor Lori Lightfoot's reelection bid.

Second Ward Alderperson Brian Hopkins faces no opposition in his reelection bid. Neither does 17th Ward Alderperson David Moore, 27th Ward Alderperson Walter Burnett Jr., 32nd Ward Alderperson Scott Wauguespack, or 47th Ward Alderperson Matt Martin. But that's it. There are at least two candidates (pending the outcome of possible petition objections) in each of the other 45 aldermanic contests.

There are currently 14 candidates for the open 21st Ward seat (although current Ald. Howard Brookins, Jr. was unsuccessful in his 2022 countywide judicial bid, he nevertheless opted not to run for reelection to the City Council). Thirteen candidates filed to replace outgoing 6th Ward Ald. Roderick Sawyer (he's opted to run for Mayor); twelve more filed to replace outgoing 5th Ward Ald. Leslie Hairston.

Judges, once elected, are freed from the burden of future contested primaries. Their continued employment is determined in 'yes or no' retention elections (every six years for judges of the Circuit Court, every 10 for judges of the Supreme or Appellate Courts).

Chicago alderpersons, of course, have no such luck. While, as noted, five City Council incumbents will have no obstacle to their reelection, every alderperson in my area of the City (just as an example) faces one or more challengers.

Ald. Nicholas Sposato will have to overcome five challengers (Cynthia M. Santos, Ed Bannon, Franco Reyes, Gregory T. Schorsch, and Bruce Randazzo) in order to win reelection in the 38th Ward. In the 45th Ward, incumbent Ald. Jim Gardiner also faces five challengers (Susanna Ernst, Megan Mathias, Marija Tomic, Ana Santoyo, and James Suh).

Incumbent Ald. Samantha "Sam" Nugent faces a challenge from Denali Dasgupta. In my own 41st Ward, incumbent Anthony V. Napolitano faces a challenge from attorney Paul Struebing.

Interestingly, neither the incumbent City Clerk (Anna M. Valencia) nor the incumbent City Treasurer (Melissa Conyears-Ervin) drew a challenger to their reelection bids. Every rule has an exception.

The complete list of candidates filing for the 2023 Chicago primary can be found at this link.

Today is International Tolerance Day; did you get your cards and gifts mailed in time?

I looked this up so you don't have to: Today, November 16, has been declared the International Day of Tolerance by the United Nations. The U.N. established this annual observance in 1996.

Perhaps you missed the memo. You weren't alone.

But in a world where people find it increasingly difficult to acknowledge the common humanity of anyone who disagrees with them on seemingly anything, perhaps a day to celebrate the virtue of tolerance really is necessary.

Unfortunately, Tim Rickard, in today's Brewster Rockit comic (reproduced at the top of this post) probably has nailed the way the International Day of Tolerance would likely be celebrated, if it were celebrated at all....

Cook County judicial wannabes may want to bookmark this one: County launches "Find My District App"

Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est, as Julius Caesar wrote, but the old Roman mapmakers did not have a patch on the cartographers of modern Cook County: They have managed (as FWIW readers well know) to divide all of Cook County into 20 judicial subcircuits.

Problem is, we don't yet have maps of the new subcircuits.

They're coming. They're just not here... yet.

Meanwhile, though, Cook County has launched a new, interactive map to help voters (and would-be judicial candidates) figure out all the various districts in which they live... including, obviously, their new subcircuit.

Here's the County's press release, issued yesterday:

President Preckwinkle has announced a new transparency and civic engagement initiative with the launch of “Find My District,” an interactive web map that shows a majority of the overlapping political districts of any address in Cook County, using public data provided by the County Clerk.

Visitors to the site can enter an address or point to a location on the map and find its districts as well as the district’s elected representatives and their contact information. Visitors can also use their phone or computer’s built-in GPS to find the information for their current location.

“Illinois has more units of local government than any other state in the nation,” said President Preckwinkle. “Our Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Department created this interactive map to make it easier for residents to find and contact local officials and learn about their responsibilities.”

"The Clerk's Office is pleased to partner in this new interactive initiative that will help Cook County residents identify the government offices that serve their communities and provide them with the information that they need to contact their elected officials to make inquiries, access services, and make their voices heard," said Cook County Clerk Karen A. Yarbrough.

At the County level the app covers:

• Commissioner Districts
• Board of Review Districts
• Judicial Districts [meaning subcircuits -- all of Cook County is the First "Judicial District" -- ed.]

At the local level the app covers:

• School Districts
• Fire Protection Districts
• Library Taxing Districts
• Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts
• Municipalities
• Wards
• Political Townships

The app also covers:

• State Senate Districts
• State Representative Districts
• Congressional Districts

At some point, this app could be very useful for judicial wannabes -- but not yet. I checked.

The app says I'm still in the 10th Subcircuit -- which I have been since the Cook County subcircuits were first created -- but, under the new map, I believe I will be in the 11th. The app doesn't say that. Yet. It will.

Pete Rose seeks reinstatement for the 4,256th time

A Cincinnati television station has this latest story and a link to the above letter, which it says was obtained from TMZ Sports.

Don't hold your breath waiting for MLB to respond favorably.

MLB is much, much too busy watching its stake in Draft Kings, one its "co-exclusive" official betting partners (along with BetMGM), to respond to the increasingly desperate pleas of one old man who gambled on baseball before MLB decided to plunge headlong into gambling itself.

Even if that desperate old man does have more hits than any other man who ever played the game.

Look, I get it: Pete Rose has done nothing to endear himself to the Lords of Baseball. According to a great many accounts, Rose hasn't been an endearing sort. If there were a Top 10 list of "Nice Guys in Baseball," Rose wouldn't be in the top 4,256. What does (what should) that have to do with his amazing baseball résumé?

Now that professional gamblers and MLB have openly entered into a myriad of lucrative professional partnerships, Rose -- whose unforgiveable sin, remember, was gambling, not being a jerk -- belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Otherwise Commissioner Manfred looks sillier than Claude Rains did in this scene from Casablanca:

The only thing I ask -- and I ask this only because the record does not support that this individual actually compromised his performance one iota, even when gamblers' money was allegedly strewn about his hotel room -- is that Joe Jackson, a member of the White Sox (the same team that is now the official sports betting partner of Caesars Sportsbook and the exclusive casino partner of Caesars Entertainment), be reinstated and enshrined in Cooperstown before Rose.