The Winnebago County Electoral Board decided today to remove Brian Jenkins Leggero from the March 20 ballot.
Leggero, a Winnebago County Board District 8 candidate, had his nominating petitions challenged by Luther Landon and C. Wayne Gano Jr. They claimed his papers failed to provide a record of his former name, Brian W. Jenkins.
Landon was removed from the proceedings because he did not live in District 8, as required for an objector.
A candidate must list any former names used in the past three years. Leggero argued that he went through common-law name change more than 10 years ago and should therefore stay on the ballot.
However, his legal certificate for a name change was done on June 23. That led the Electoral Board to find in favor of Gano and remove Leggero from the ballot.
Leggero, who would have run as a Republican, declared a party for the first time in this election. He had run under the name Brian Jenkins Leggero as an independent starting in 2008, when he ran for Rockford alderman.
He said he will consider running as an independent in District 8 in November. Or he will put his support behind another candidate.
Leggero started using his current name — rather than Brian W. Jenkins — as a tribute to his mother, who raised him without a father, he said.
More on this one later at rrstar.com.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Marla Wilson and the others. I believe that she will probably be tossed. The process, ironically, is this exactly what is wrong with this state. It allows too much lawyering and not enough democracy. No one pulled this stunt even 15 years ago. Barack Obummer must have been the first when he had his opposition tossed in the first election. These rules aren’t even applied impartially or else Rahm would have been tossed and left on the side of the road.