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Thornton Township Supervisor Tiffany Henyard will not appear on the April ballot after her lawsuit over the results of a Democratic Party caucus were rejected.
A Cook County judge affirmed the results of the caucus in a ruling issued this week, giving a victory to State Sen. Napoleon Harris, who won a December caucus to determine the Democratic Party’s candidate for supervisor.
Barring any future appear, Henyard’s only chance to be reelected as supervisor would be via a write-in campaign.
Henyard sued Thornton Township Democrats and Harris, alleging she was unable to properly compete in the December caucus because she wasn’t given the rules with adequate time to fulfill her responsibilities.
The suit claimed unfair caucus rules, voter suppression and venue manipulation left Henyard unable to properly compete.
Cook County Judge Caroline Moreland dismissed the case on multiple fronts, specifically ruling that Henyard failed to follow proper procedure in the case because she did not file an objection to the nomination of Harris prior to a Dec. 23 deadline, five business days after the caucus took place certifying him as the nominee.
The objection must have been “made in writing within five business days after the last day for filing the certificate of nomination or nominating papers,” according to Illinois state law.
As a result, defense attorneys argued that Henyard did not file the objection in the proper jurisdiction, and that there is no path for her to do so a month removed from the caucus, and the judge in the case agreed.
“(Since) an electoral board can no longer hear objections relating to nominations for the April 1, 2025 township election…the jurisdictional issues in this case cannot be remedied by a transfer to another court,” the judge ruled.
The judge finished the ruling by saying there was “no set of facts that would entitle plaintiff to recover in this case,” and dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning that Henyard cannot refile the suit.
Henyard is still a candidate running for reelection as mayor of suburban Dolton.