Ever since she got married in 2012, Ashonta C. Rice has used her given name with her friends, her law clients, and even on many public documents.
But last month, Cook County elections officials — and the Illinois First District Appellate Court — ended her candidacy for judge by removing the 45-year-old lawyer’s name from the primary ballot under a law enacted to prevent candidates from duping voters with name changes.
Illinois legislators enacted the law in 2007 after a Cook County candidate changed his last name from “Rhine” to “O’Brien” to gain an advantage in a county once dominated by Irish American political figures. Historically, having an Irish-sounding name helped boost some candidates in past elections, according to a DePaul University analysis of Cook County judicial elections. The law says candidates who change their names within three years of an election cycle must include their former name on filing papers, with exemptions for name changes because of life milestones such as adoption, divorce, gender affirmation, and marriage.
The Cook County Electoral Board ordered Rice’s removal from the ballot in January, arguing because her divorce isn’t yet final, she should have added her married name to her nominating paperwork. It didn’t matter to board members that a judge in her divorce case last year issued an order officially changing her name back to “Rice” on June 15, 2023, court records show.
Rice and her attorney told Injustice Watch her exclusion from the ballot was an unfair interpretation of the law.
“The election code was radicalized into a sword and was abused by objectors to help the competing candidate,” said Andrew Finko, Rice’s attorney. “She’s not changing it to gain some advantage on the ballot or to conceal her identity or misrepresent to the voters. She’s using a name that she has consistently used.”
An Injustice Watch examination of public records suggests Rice is among a handful of candidates challenged under similar circumstances since the law was enacted.
In most cases, those candidates were women involved in divorce proceedings. And in every case — including Rice’s — the women kicked out of their races were not endorsed or supported by the Cook County Democratic Party.
In Rice’s case, one of the three board members who voted to eject her from the ballot has professional and political connections to her opponent, Judge James Murphy-Aguilú, who now runs unopposed, Injustice Watch found.
Experts agree this was not the kind of behavior the 2007 law was intended to address. One of the key sponsors of the law, former Illinois state Rep. John Fritchey, said the way the law is being applied suggests it needs clarification.
“The original purpose of the law was aimed at people who very admittedly were changing their name to improve their chances of being elected judge,” said Fritchey, who left the Illinois House of Representatives to become a Cook County commissioner. “I’m in no position to know what the intent of the candidate was in this case. But there is an obvious and legitimate question about that and one that could be addressed through amending the Dissolution of Marriage Act.
“The fact that the present case exists demonstrates there’s still an ambiguity with respect to orders entered during the pendency of a divorce proceeding,” said Fritchey, who has run for judge and no longer holds public office.
Even Appellate Judge Freddrenna Lyle — who sat on the three-judge panel that rejected Rice’s appeal — lamented how the law has unfairly affected female candidates.
“Clearly, the acts of the candidate are not those sought to be prohibited by the legislature,” Lyle wrote in her special concurrence of the panel’s decision last month. “It is also clear that this issue is one particular to female candidates seeking nomination to elected office. … Only female candidates find themselves in litigation about surnames.”
Although Lyle said she disagreed with how the law is being enforced, she agreed with the two other judges who heard the case that the elections board made no fatal errors in applying it. The Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear Rice’s emergency appeal petition.
Conflict of interest concerns raised
Rice filed for divorce from her estranged husband, Christian Akiwowo, in 2022. Her name officially changed back to “Rice” on June 15 last year, court records show. Because the change fell within the three-year window under the law, her failure to notify elections officials of her former name left an opening to challenge her candidacy. The 328-page challenge was filed in December, arguing Rice should be removed under the law because she failed to comply with the rules.
Records show Rice changed her name on her voter registration, driver’s license, and Social Security card in the weeks after receiving the official name change. Because her divorce isn’t final, her opponent’s attorney argued it doesn’t fall under the divorce exception to the three-year rule under the law.
Rice, through her attorney, argued she always used her given name — professionally and personally — registering with the Illinois Supreme Court, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission , and the Cook County Circuit Court using her given surname. She’s also registered with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening using “Rice,” records show.
The board’s hearing officer assigned to hear the objection case recommended the board sustain the challenge because the altered driver’s license, Social Security card, and voter registration are “uncontroverted” evidence Rice changed her name.
At a Jan. 4 hearing before the three-member electoral board, both sides were allowed to make their cases. The three members include representatives of Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Iris Martinez, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, and Cook County Clerk Karen Yarborough.
Steven Laduzinsky, an attorney who argued Rice should be removed from the ballot, said the divorce exception to the three-year rule did not apply because Rice’s divorce was not yet final.
“You’re either divorced, or you’re not. Parties reconcile. They dismiss the divorce. That order is gone,” Laduzinsky said.. “This order got entered, and this name change was effective June 15, 2023. Was it within the three years? Yes. Was it a result of a dissolution of marriage? No.”
Finko, Rice’s attorney, argued the divorce exception did apply because of the judge’s ruling in her divorce case allowing her to resume full use of her given surname. He also raised concerns at the hearing about Murphy-Aguilú’s ties to one of the board members, Martinez’s proxy Gloria Chevere, a retired Cook County Circuit Court judge who is now a senior policy adviser in Martinez’s office.
Until he was appointed to the bench last year, Murphy-Aguilú served as Martinez’s chief of staff and contributed to her political campaigns. Chevere was one of four members of an advisory panel that recommended Murphy-Aguilú for his temporary judicial appointment last year.
The panel recommended Murphy-Aguilú to Illinois Supreme Court Justice Joy Cunningham, who appointed him in July to fill a vacancy on the bench temporarily.
“There’s loyalty, and that is the concern here,” Finko argued to the panel. “So the elected officials have to in their conscience evaluate whether there is an appearance of bias, actual, or potential of bias. And the key here for the integrity of the entire process is neutrality.”
Chevere responded Martinez isn’t currently slated by the Democratic Party, nor was she during her initial run. She did not address Finko’s concerns over Murphy-Aguilú’s professional connection to Martinez’s office.
Finko said he knew of Murphy-Aguilú’s past work in Martinez’s office but not how instrumental Chevere was in advancing him to the bench.
“That would’ve been very helpful to know ahead of time,” Finko told Injustice Watch. ”That’s a definite ethical concern for me.”
Contacted by telephone, Chevere declined to be interviewed and referred all questions to James Nally, the electoral board’s legal counsel. Nally declined to comment.
This isn’t the first time Chevere has been criticized for failing to recuse herself from an electoral board decision.
In the 2022 race for Cook County sheriff, she voted to keep Carmen Navarro Gercone — one of Tom Dart’s top opponents — on the ballot in the primaries that year after Dart’s campaign filed an objection to her candidacy.
The objection centered on Navarro Gercone’s lack of credentials as a certified police officer, which at that time was a new legal requirement for anyone running for sheriff. Navarro Gercone was a top official in the sheriff’s office but had never worked as a certified police officer.
At the time, Chevere — an aide to Martinez, who publicly endorsed Navarro Gercone in the race — told the Chicago Tribune Navarro Gercone should remain on the ballot because she had received FBI National Academy certification, which should’ve sufficed under the law.
“Electoral boards in Illinois courts have always favored ballot access, so that deference must be given to the candidate’s right to run for public office,” Chevere said.
Rice said the objections to her candidacy are part of a larger culture of political tactics some candidates use to boost their chances of winning.
In “Cook County, a regular strategy to eliminate opponents from the ballot is to file these challenges,” she told Injustice Watch. “It’s almost like part of the campaign process — to see how many other candidates can be eliminated from your race.”
In the 2020 and 2022 election cycles, Rice was slated by the Cook County Democratic Party as an alternate candidate under the name “Ashonta C. Rice.” In 2018, she ran under the name “Ashonta Rice-Akiwowo.” Rice described her choice to use her married name in 2018 as a “family” decision. The electoral board cited that decision as proof she had used her married surname “either singularly or as a hyphenated name.”
“I’ve never gone on the record in court using my married last name. I am always Ashonta C. Rice,” Rice told Injustice Watch.
‘You can’t win if you’re not in the race’
Injustice Watch found three other female candidates challenged under similar circumstances.
In 2018, then-judicial candidate Erika Orr faced a name challenge. Her opponent’s campaign argued she was using her given name to run because it was similar to the retiring judge she was running to replace, Judge Orville E. Hambright Jr.
Orr changed her voter registration from “Erika O. Menefee” to “Erika Orr” just days before Hambright announced his retirement. In her case, the electoral board overruled the objection and allowed Orr to stay on the ballot, records show.
“In our opinion, the purpose of the statute in question is to force candidates who have recently acquired new names in processes — outside of the ‘ordinary’ name changes that occur in life — to divulge those former names,” the board ruled. “The candidate herein does not fit into that class of candidates.”
Read More
Cook County judicial hopeful kicked off ballot over concealed name
Caroline Golden uses her married name in her legal practice, which has included representing disgraced Chicago police officers. But she sought to run for judge using her given name. A Cook County judge has struck her from the ballot as a result.
In 2020, the electoral board voted unanimously to allow Caroline Golden to remain on the ballot for judge under her given name, “Caroline Patricia Jamieson.” However, that ruling was overturned by a Cook County Circuit Court Judge, who ruled she had consistently used her married name professionally.
In 2022, Dart’s campaign also objected to LaTonya Ruffin’s candidacy for sheriff after she used her given name on her filing papers. Although her divorce was finalized, her voter registration still listed her married name, “LaTonya Stanford.” At the time, Dart was backed by the Democratic Party for reelection.
Injustice Watch found only one case in which a male candidate was challenged under the name-change statute in Cook County or Chicago.
In 2019, Byron Sigcho-Lopez’s candidacy for the Chicago City Council was challenged by his opponent, who argued Sigcho-Lopez hadn’t regularly used ‘‘Lopez” as part of his name. So adding it to his nomination petition during his first run for 25th Ward alderman constituted a name change.
The Chicago Electoral Board overruled the objection, citing his birth name as “Byron Francisco Sigcho Lopez.”
Despite how the law has been applied, its intent and logic are sound, Fritchey told Injustice Watch. Rice’s case demonstrates a need for specification in the law, he said.
Laws are created and changed “in response to specific situations,” Fritchey said. “The reality is that we don’t presently know just how many times this law has effectively prevented somebody from gaming the system. Unfortunately, the real issue is that names oftentimes on the ballot drive voters more than qualifications do. And that’s something we can only address through voter education.”
Rice said she thinks she was targeted on a technicality not because of her name change but because those in power favored her opponent.
“You can’t win if you’re not in the race.”
Senior Reporter David Jackson contributed
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
