Voters Reject Lake Forest Caucus Bylaw Changes To Reduce Role Of Voters

LAKE FOREST, IL — An effort by the leadership of the Lake Forest Caucus to cut out the chance to vote on which candidates to endorse for local elected municipal office was defeated Tuesday at the organization's annual meeting.

A package of proposed changes to the 88-year-old local political action committee's bylaws — touted as the "Caucus Preservation Act" by its backers — was drawn up after caucus leaders decided to ignore a vote rejecting their pick for mayor at last year's meeting.

Of the more than 1,500 people who voted at the 2023 annual meeting, 831 of them — 54.5 percent — voted against the bylaw changes, which would have required a two-thirds majority to pass, according to the caucus.

Chris Benes, president of the Lake Forest Caucus, described the proposed changes as "clarifying" clauses in the bylaws regarding "how to actually deal with the operating procedures" during an appearance last month at a forum where leaders of other local caucus organizations discussed the role of their members and voting.

"We had an interesting scenario last year that these these clarifying procedures will help put us on a path to ensuring that we're not going to have as as much ambiguity on a path to proceed after a particular elected person is put forward at an annual meeting," Benes said. "And that's going to be a focus point at our at our annual meeting this year."

Caucus membership is made up of every registered Lake Forest voters. Voters separately elect members of the caucus leadership committee via a vote-by-mail system.

Backers of the bylaw changes argued that voting at the annual meeting of the caucus is "easily manipulated" because so few people show up.

"As typically less than 1% of Lake Forest registered voters attend a Caucus Annual Meeting, individuals can exploit a small turnout to adversely influence our elections to serve their own agendas, thereby undermining the Caucus mission," according to the caucus website, which declined to mention how the organization had ignored its membership's vote at the previous annual meeting.

According to representatives of the group Lake Forest for Transparency who opposed the bylaw changes, Tuesday marked the largest turnout at an annual meeting of the Lake Forest Caucus in the history of the town.

"While this is a victory of local government preservation, we still face an uphill challenge in restoring trust and involvement within our Caucus system of government," wrote John Trkla, Susan Sailor Daly, Jennifer Karras and Dianne Casuto. "It is incumbent upon the residents of Lake Forest to continue to strive for openness and transparency from our Caucus Committee and demand fair representation for all."

About 30 people remained at the meeting to hang out with the five City Council candidates recommended for endorsement by the caucus committee and approved by meeting attendees by a roughly 4-1 margin, according to the caucus website.

Paul Blahanka, chair of Vote Lake Bluff, also appeared at the Oct. 18 North Shore caucus forum, which was hosted by the League of Women Voters of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff.

"One of the reasons we take a vote at our town hall meetings is because it's our belief that people want to have a voice, even though it's not the official vote, it's not the consolidated election," Blahunka said.

"But it helps us get a temperature of the community in terms of favored candidates or directions or people who are best positioned to affect positively the various issues that these boards are presented."