I don’t have any time to do this subject justice, but the Court of Appeals has ruled that Republican Duke Bennett who won the 2007 Terre Haute mayoral election was ineligible to hold office and, therefore, his election was invalid. However, former mayor, Democrat Kevin Burke who Bennett replaced does not automatically get to be mayor because he did not win the election and voters were unaware of Bennett’s ineligibility when they cast their votes. Instead, the Court ruled that a vacancy exists, and a special election must now be conducted.
Very interesting. The avenue is still open for Duke Bennett to appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court, I think.
Trib-Star says that a press conference will be held around 4 PM today, though.
Frankly, Duke Bennett has been a better Mayor than Kevin Burke would have been in another term. Former Mayor Burke had already forgotten what he should have been there for. And, if a Democrat cannot win the Mayor’s office in Terre Haute, then something is out of kilter anyway.
Besides, Duke Bennett is a much nicer person.
Wow, they should have figured this out earlier.
This goes to show how unaware we often are of the eligibility of some of these so called leaders.
Also, apparently he was ineligible due to his violation of the Little Hatch Act according to the site linked to.
This has been an “issue” since former Mayor Burke actually figured out that he lost the election. It just takes a while for the wheels of justice to grind.
What loses former Mayor Burke my sympathy is that he never made this an issue, until he lost. It isn’t as if he didn’t know beforehand, just that he was too smug to worry about it.
Republicans rarely win the Mayor’s office in Terre Haute (the “why” of which is too long to describe here). Last time I can think of was in 1968, Leland Larrison, who was more of a character it appears than I can remember (being too young to care).
Still, here is a little article from the on-line archives of Time magazine that proved amusing (to me). It used the word “trollop” in it (and not in describing the Mayor). The big thing the article leaves out is that the vices described were long, long, long winked at by all his Democrat predecssors.
Terre Haute’s Tenderloin