* The Chicago Tribune was given exclusive access to cover the governor’s signing of the death penalty abolition bill.
As you might imagine, that didn’t go over too well with the rest of the Statehouse press corps. It’s not that reporters bore a grudge against the Tribune reporter. Heck, most of us would probably have accepted the exclusivity offer. But this was a huge, momentous bill, perhaps the most important legislation that Gov. Pat Quinn will ever sign. So, the decision rankled.
Yesterday, this letter was hand-delivered to the governor’s office…
We, the undersigned members of the Statehouse press corps, object strenuously to your decision to single out one particular news organization to witness and photograph the signing of historic legislation repealing the death penalty.
Your enactment of Senate Bill 3539 carries enormous impact. It affects the accused, judges, juries, prosecutors, the 15 death row inmates whose sentences you commuted and the family members of those murdered in some of the state’s worst crimes. No one media organization deserved greater access than the others in covering this official action and disseminating the historic news to Illinois’ 13 million residents.
Think for a moment what our democracy might be like if a judge could give one news organization exclusive access to a jury verdict. What if a legislative leader could bar all journalists _ except one _ from covering an important vote of the General Assembly? We would all regard those hypotheticals as anti-democratic and serious breaches of the First Amendment.
Our aim in writing this letter is to emphasize the importance of doing government business in the open and to urge you to renew your commitment to that ideal for the duration of your time as governor.
You have said the state’s residents deserve an “open, ethical and transparent government.” Yet, this week, you slammed your office door on that principle by letting only a cherry-picked few witness your official action on one of Illinois’ most important days.
We hope you would acknowledge that no single news organization should arbitrarily be granted special access to an official event.
Regards
I signed the letter as well.
* Meanwhile, in other reform news…
Illinois Republicans are collecting online petition signatures to prevent former state Rep. Careen Gordon, D-Morris, from being appointed to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.
Nominated for the post by Gov. Pat Quinn, Gordon’s appointment has been pending since she left office in January. Republicans charged Gordon, who now lives in Chicago, voted for the 67 percent Illinois income tax increase in exchange for the review board salary of $86,000.
The tax increase passed by one vote in the House and one vote in the Senate.
Republicans oppose the nomination because Gordon voted in favor of the tax increase during a winter lame duck session after denouncing the Quinn’s tax hike ambitions during her failed re-election campaign against Sue Rezin, R-Morris.
The online petition is here.
* And then there’s this…
If you are running for office, should you be able to change parties in the middle of the campaign?
Lawmakers are attempting to answer that question with a proposal that a House committee approved Tuesday.
Sponsored by Rep. Mike Fortner, R-West Chicago, House Bill 2009 will bar candidates from running for office if they have already run under a different party in the same election year. Flip-floppers must wait for the next election cycle before they become eligible again.
“This makes it clearer to the candidates, clearer to the voters what is acceptable under state law, and it really just captures what the Illinois Supreme Court told us,” Fortner said.
But not everybody is happy…
For example, under this measure someone couldn’t run under one political party’s banner in a primary and a different political party’s in the general election.
Ron Michaelson, a political studies professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, found fault with this idea.
“We should not make it difficult for people to run for office. It should be relatively easy for people to run for office, and then let the voters decide whether these people are indeed qualified candidates,” Michaelson said.
Scott Lee Cohen would’ve been barred from running for governor as an independent last year if this bill had been the law of the land. So, it has that going for it.
What do you think?
* Related…
* Suburbs’ big-money campaigners could face more limits
* Challenges levied at open government
* VIDEO: Fortner on Flip-Floppers
* Flood of legislation greets Illinois lawmakers, lobbyists, interest groups
- fed up - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 10:12 am:
I think letting people who lose in the primary run as Independents is fine. Closed primaries where you have to declare party affiliation and only vote for candidates from one party hurt candidates that are moderate and don’t appeal to the far right or left. If someone has the support to make a go of it as an Independent more power to them.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 10:16 am:
–The Chicago Tribune was given exclusive access to cover the governor’s signing of the death penalty abolition bill.–
This is so stupid, and so wrong, on so many levels it defies belief.
First, the stupid: Does Quinn think the Trib is going to be his pal now? Laughable. Does Quinn understand he just poisoned the well with every other news organization in the state? Believe it. Does he have anyone on staff who recognized these obvious points and could wave him off? Apparently not.
Now, the wrong. The historic moment is not his item of value to trade for another item of value, as in presumed future goodwill from the largest media organization in the state. It’s unethical.
Sometimes, this guy just makes your head explode.
- Highland, IL - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 10:47 am:
I like the idea of primary losers not being able to run again under a disfferent party banner. Why should they get a second bite at the apple? Especially runnning as an “Independent”….that’s not even a party.
- winco - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 12:52 pm:
I think the governor’s reasoning on the Tribune exclusivity was not to buy good coverage in the future, but because the Tribune is as responsible for the repeal of the death penalty as anyone outside of Northwestern journalism class. If they had not been arguing for repeal for the last decade or so, it wouldn’t have happened.
That being said, they are a news organization, and, by appearances only, he was playing favorites. It was a “big f-ing deal” that should have been done in public, albeit without a celebratory atmosphere. If the other news organizations change their coverage of him because of this, then their pettiness and disloyalty to objective news coverage exceeds the governor’s political ineptitude.
- just sayin' - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 12:57 pm:
The State GOP has yet another online petition? Really? Seriously?
That seems to be all that outfit does. A new online petition every week that will never be sent to anyone. Just harvesting email addresses from gullible souls.
- reformer - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 1:15 pm:
I thought we already had a sore loser rule to prevent losers in a party primary from running under a different label for the same office in the general. If not, we ought to have one.
THe related issue is whether someone can vote in one party primary, and then run in the same year as a member of another party (a la Rauschenberger).
- Jake From Elwood - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 1:30 pm:
One wonders what type of influence PQ is attempting to obtain with the Tribune by this move. Wordslinger nailed it on the head–there is no political capital to be gained by offering up a benefit like this to one of his harshest critics. I don’t get it either.
- jake - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 1:45 pm:
Re the Fortner bill–If we went to open primaries with run-off general elections, as in the Chicago mayor’s race, the issue would go away, as people would not run in a primary for one particular party.
- Just Asking - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 2:28 pm:
Have the letter signers agreed to stop accepting exclusive leaks?
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 2:48 pm:
===Have the letter signers agreed to stop accepting exclusive leaks? ===
A leak is one thing. An official event is quite another.
- Anon - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 3:11 pm:
But what does it say for ILCA President Ray Long? Shouldn’t he be advocating for more open and transparent government within the statehouse? Instead he chose to promote his own selfish interests.
- It's Just Me - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 3:15 pm:
Tribune issue: Sounds like something Blagojevich would do. Just sayin…
- amalia - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 4:58 pm:
who’s on topinka’s Advisory Committee? maybe that group can take a look at all sorts of transparency, after all, keeping things in the dark is how we get into a fiscal mess too.
- irisheyesrsmilin' - Wednesday, Mar 16, 11 @ 5:04 pm:
Highland, IL: That is already a rule. You cannot run under a different party name for the same seat that you lost in the Primary. Same seat is the key word. Lost in the primary is also a factor, whereas Cohen WON.