Court documents are public record. The norm is that they are unsealed absent some reason to seal them. The divorce records were originally sealed because a Trekkie was stalking Jeri Ryan and the judge agreed that the information in the documents could be used by the stalker to further harass her.
It continues, basically saying that voters deserve to have a wide variety of information about their candidates and that it is unfair and unjust to seal records that should be public.
I feel compelled to note a couple other points -
The Chicago Tribune is the Republican-leaning daily in this city; it’s the Chicago Sun-Times which is the Democrat-leaning one. So this was not politically motivated.
The front-runner Democrat in the primary for this seat was hit by his own divorce records being unsealed. After it was revealed that his then-wife had asked for an order of protection, and had accused him of hitting her and threatening her, his approval rating dropped, and he came in third in the primary.
Not trying to turn this into a debate, I’d like to ask a follow-up question…
Has the former Mrs. Ryan ever gone on record about her ex-husband’s candidacy? IOW, has she said “He’s a dick, don’t vote for him.” or anything like that? I would think her statements would have been all over the Illinois media. But then again, she’s out in California, where Illinois politics have little bearing on her life, so it’s possible that no one thought to ask her…
Mr. Ryan has withdrawn from the Senate race, so most of the meaning has drained out of this thread. If you want to hang around and sift the ashes, feel free.