The Lake Forest Caucus mission is to find, vet, and recommend the best candidates to serve the City and its residents in our municipal government and school boards without personal or other pre-established agendas.
The Caucus Preservation Act (“CPA”) is an amendment to the Caucus Bylaws to preserve the Caucus’ objective and transparent process that has made Lake Forest municipal government free from agenda-based politics for 90 years.
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. The CPA shields the Caucus mission and process from such manipulative behavior.
Since Lake Forest residents vote for their Caucus Committee representatives, and also for their chosen candidate in a general election, a third, easily manipulated Caucus candidate ratification vote is not needed for residents to have sufficient opportunity to influence the election of their municipal government officials. Given the consistently very low turnout of residents for Caucus candidate ratification votes at a Caucus Annual Meeting, there is no reason to believe a vote at this meeting has been or will be representative of a large portion of the Lake Forest community.
The Caucus Committee operates on a short timeline to search for, vet, and recommend qualified candidates for elected positions. This timeline is dictated by the Illinois State Board of Elections. It is impractical to codify in its processes a timeline whereby a candidate search, vetting, and recommendation process must be repeated multiple times.
The Caucus process has served our community for 90 years as a primary driver for the quality of life we all enjoy in Lake Forest. Please support the Caucus in its mission to keep agendas out of Lake Forest municipal government. Vote in favor of the Caucus Preservation Act on November 7th at the Caucus’ Annual Meeting at the Gorton Center. The proposed Caucus Bylaw amendments can be found HERE. Frequently Asked Questions about the CPA can be found HERE. Please feel free to reach out to a Caucus Committee member with any questions.