6th District candidate down, not out

A challenge by a fellow Democrat to get Stan Jagla booted out of the 6th Congressional District race has left him hanging onto the ballot by little more than a chad.

Robert Flynn has thus far succeeded in stripping 150 signatures from Jagla's nominating petitions after an official review. That's left Jagla with a cushion of only 27 signatures beyond the minimum requirement to stay on the ballot.

Now Flynn wants to knock the stuffing out of that cushion, by re-challenging 55 signatures. If successful, Army Reserve Col. Jill Morgenthaler would be the lone Democrat on the Feb. 5 primary ballot.

The Illinois State Board of Elections will make a ruling by Dec. 14.

Morgenthaler's campaign staff claims Flynn as a supporter, but has said Flynn is not working directly for the campaign.

Jagla said he believes all of the signatures already ruled invalid are authentic. He spotlighted the signature of Arthur Remus, the chairman of the Addison Township Democrats as one of the signatures that was knocked off.

"I know the guy personally," Jagla said. "But they don't like the way he signed the petition. They said it doesn't look like the signature on his registration card. The guy is 73. You can't expect a guy to sign the same way he did 20 years ago."

Remus said he did, indeed, sign Jagla's petition. He blamed carpal tunnel syndrome for the mismatched signatures.

"I hope he doesn't get knocked off the ballot," Remus said. "If I sign something and they say it's not my signature they should have to prove it."

That won't happen, but Jagla remains hopeful.

"We'll see what happens," Jagla said. "When you're knocking off good signatures you can do as many as you want. But that's politics."