Day 81: "I'm the Mayor! No you're not!": The story of Thomas Hoyne

     The year is 1875.  Thomas Hoyne has just been elected Mayor by a free and fair vote of the citizens of Chicago.  However, the Circuit Court declares the election null and void and returns power to the incumbent.  This sounds like the set-up to a political thriller.  And in many ways, it is. However, to gain a fuller understanding on the back story of this case, we must go back 3 years prior to this.

     On April 10, 1872, the Illinois General Assembly adopted the Cities and Villages act, which served to provide a blueprint for towns to incorporate without requiring special legislation to be passed each and every time.  On April 25, 1875, the city of Chicago voted to operate under the Cities and Villages Act, and changed mayoral elections from November to April(yes, there was an election that year; yes, the elections were moved to April at the end of the month; and yes, this was COMPLETELY an act of political hucksterism on the part of the City Council[a la this, as well as this]).  At the time of the Act's adoption, Mayor Harvey Doolittle Colvin was in office.  His attorneys informed him that according to their interpretations, the Act cancelled the April elections and extended his term for another year.

     However, the Act left a fairly large loophole in place, because it didn't implicitly include OR exclude the office of Mayor from the changes in election dates.  Because of this, a Mayoral election was held in November 1875 anyway.  Neither the Republicans or the Democrats fielded a candidate. Thomas Hoyne captured 33,000 of the 40,000 votes cast, and was summarily declared Mayor of Chicago.  Mayor Colvin wasn't too pleased with this, and refused to give up his office.  He was supported in this quest by the city's comptroller.  Eventually, the Circuit Court ruled Hoyne's election null and void, which allowed Colvin to continue his term unimpeded.  Finally, a special election was held on July 12, 1876; one that Colvin lost.  Thomas Hoyne later died in 1883 in New York as a result of a railroad accident, but his name lives on as the name of a street on the North Side of Chicago.