Are the Dems Committing Vote Fraud?

The last thing Melissa Bean, the freshman Rep from Illinois' 8th CD, wants to see leading up to November's election is Bill Scheurer.

Scheurer, whom Bean defeated in the 2004 primary en route to becoming the first Democrat to take the seat since the New Deal era, is running as an independent this time around. His platform is simple: get out of Iraq, balance the budget and provide universal health coverage -- in that order.

For Congressional Dems, holding the seat is crucial to retaking the House; for the GOP, the seat is a prime pick-up opportunity. The DCCC and the NRCC are both expected to pour tons of cash into the district. Both view Scheurer as a potential "spoiler" for Bean. The question is: to what lengths are the Dems willing to go to keep him from getting the 13,950 signatures required to get on the ballot?

That's where our story gets fishy.In mid-May, a man claiming to be Anthony Constantine from AR Consulting got in touch with the Scheurer campaign and pitched the firm's services: for a fee, they'd help collect the needed signatures. They met, and Scheurer hired the firm.

Anthony Constantine's day job is in the Chicago office of Rep. Dan Lipinski, who, in 2004, won the seat his father had held since Ronald Reagan's first term.

According to Scheurer, his campaign got a progress report every week from AR Consulting telling them how many signatures were in the bag. At the beginning of this week, they were to meet and exchange the first payment for the first batch of signatures. Scheurer was confident that he would have about 18,000 signatures in all by the July 3 filing deadline -- the required number plus some extra to withstand the inevitable challenges from the Bean camp.

At the last minute, Scheurer got a call postponing the meeting -- the man claiming to be Constantine said he had a desperately sick relative in the hospital. Messages and e-mails in the days following went unreturned until, finally, Constantine returned a call after being threatened with legal action.

Constantine says it's the first he's heard of any of this. He never met with Scheurer, AR Consulting never cut a deal with his campaign and he definitely doesn't have the thousands of signatures that Scheurer needs to get on the ballot. It's a hard blow for the peace candidate's long-shot candidacy.

There's no evidence linking any of this directly to Bean, or to the Democratic leadership. But Illinois Dems have come out in force against Scheurer -- DCCC Chair Rahm Emmanuel has been particularly vocal.

The only thing that's certain is that Scheurer finds himself missing several thousand precious signatures just ten days before the filing deadline.

The race is a tricky one for progressives. Scheurer has little chance of winning -- he's raised less than $50,000 dollars -- and a good chance of taking just enough votes from Bean to elect Republican David McSweeney.

But Bean is one of the House Democrats most beholden to corporate interests and most likely to vote with the Republicans on the worst items on their agenda. Bean is one of the "CAFTA 15" -- the 15 Dems who were crucial to the passage of the terrible Central American Free Trade Agreement -- and voted for the Bankruptcy Reform Bill, the repeal of the Estate Tax, curbs on class action suits and, last week, was one of 42 Dems to vote for the Republicans' More of the Same in Iraq Resolution. She gets an 'F' from the Drum Major Institute for her many votes against the middle-class, but won the Chamber of Commerce's "Spirit of enterprise" award last year, for voting "more often with the chamber than any other Illinois Democrat and even a few points ahead of a downstate Republican, Rep. Timothy Johnson of Urbana."

But wherever you come down on the question of Scheurer's candidacy, this is an issue of small 'd' democracy. Scheurer tells me he's going to demand an investigation, and that he'll run as a write-in candidate if need be.