Here we go again
Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller
* You may remember this from last year…
The House Agriculture Committee might seem like a proper venue to debate the state’s approach toward crossbow-hunting, soybean rust or farmers markets, but it became a battleground Tuesday over abortion.
By a 13-0 vote, before a standing-room-only room of angry abortion-rights supporters clad in “Women are not livestock” T-shirts and buttons emblazoned with a cow, the panel advanced legislation putting new financial burdens on abortion clinics.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Darlene Senger (R-Naperville), would require abortion clinics to be retrofitted to resemble outpatient surgery centers, meaning equipment such as defibrillators and ventilators would be required for the first time while hallway and parking-lot dimensions would have to change. […]
The House Agriculture Committee, stocked mainly by socially conservative Democrats and Republicans from Downstate, has been the conduit to get guns-rights and anti-abortion legislation to the House floor for years — a fact critics of Senger’s bill zeroed in on.
The clinic bill didn’t survive a vote by the full chamber and it died. But nothing ever dies for long.
* House Bill 4117 is basically the same bill as last year’s bill. It was originally assigned to the House Human Services Committee on February 7th and then moved to House Ag on February 8th. The reason is that the House Speaker has tried to balance interests by accommodating both sides. So, for instance, pro-gun bills go to Ag, anti-gun bills go to wherever they can pass. The idea is to allow members to get their social issue hot-button bills to the floor and let them have their debates, or find out that their bills have not nearly enough support.
Anyway, as with last year, the ACLU of Illinois is not pleased with allowing Agriculture Committee members deal with abortion clinic regulations. From a press release…
“No one should be fooled by this effort to play politics with women’s health care,” said Colleen K. Connell, executive director of the ACLU of Illinois. “If the politicians and ideologues behind this effort have their way, the effect will be to shut down many clinics in Illinois that provide abortion and contraceptive care.” […]
“We heard the debate in the Agricultural Committee last year,” added Connell. “Those legislators know a lot about livestock, crops and salt licks. They do not know women’s health.”
“This is simple – women are not livestock and our health care should not be treated as politics.”
Discuss.
- CircularFiringSquad - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 3:11 pm:
we believe this was done to keep the committee too busy to interview Director Flider!
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 3:23 pm:
An incredibly bonehead move by Madigan and crew, again. Does Currie have to sell this strategy? You better hope more people don’t pick up on it.
Why do it, to give some Downstaters committee votes on social issues? It’s incredibly insulting to Democratic and Independent women. Last I checked, they are kind of important to the election of Democrats.
Lucky for them, there is no GOP opposition to herding issues important to the swing vote in this state to the livestock committee. But if there were…
- titan - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 3:44 pm:
Well, are abortion clinics under-regulated or not?
Do they have to comply with the same sorts of requirements as other facilities that perform same-day or out patient surgeries, or not?
- Dirt Digger - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 3:49 pm:
Nice present to Personal PAC. They’ll have a field day raising money off of this.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 3:50 pm:
It’s a sure sign that Legislation has big problems ahead when you can’t even get it through Exec Committee.
To be fair, the Contraceptive Equity Act passed through Health Care Availability and Access.
- That Guy - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 3:57 pm:
Gotta keep the old red herring front and center in an election year.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 4:00 pm:
Members of the Ag Committee get to issue two press releases this way.
- hisgirlfriday - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 4:10 pm:
End the charade Madigan and just create a Conservative Affairs Committee or if you want to get specific… a God, Guns and Gays Committee… and leave the farmers out of this stuff.
Are there even any rural abortion clinics in this state to regulate to begin with? If there are maybe this could make sense, but considering this legislation has chief sponsors in a couple of Republicans from Palatine and Naperville I am a bit skeptical that this legislation has anything to do with rural affairs.
And this ticks me off. It ticks me off as someone who grew up in a rural community, as someone who collected my first paycheck from farm labor and as someone who has ancestors who have been farming in this state dating back to the 1830s.
Maybe if Madigan didn’t use the Ag committee as a dumping ground for bills to bolster the social conservative credentials of his lieutenants from Little Egypt, we could actually have a committee focused on addressing the real concerns and economic struggles of the dying farming communities in this state instead of these phony culture wars.
My hometown will die if it cannot keep its award-winning, top-notch small school open and it cannot keep its school open much longer if the state keeps up its shenanigans with failing to make payments to the school and throwing the funding for school busing on the chopping block.
This stunt just reinforces the notion of Downstaters that the Chicago Democrats that run this state think everyone who lives south of I-80 is a stupid rube, as if every Democrat Downstate can just have an abortion restriction dangled in front of them in one committee and suddenly they’ll love Democrats. Give me a break.
- Dooley Dudright - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 4:37 pm:
As he leans once more into the giant crank on his well-worn grinder, Dan Rostenkowski laughs. “My Springfield franchise, they’re doin’ real good,” he grins. “These days, they’re makin’ some of the best political sausage in the country!”
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 5:16 pm:
HisGirlFriday, awesome!
- D.P. Gumby - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 5:19 pm:
Unfortunately, hisgirlfriday, having grown up and living throughout downstate, much of it is populated by “stupid rubes” who are distracted by this kind of wedge social issues just as described in “What’s the Matter w/ Kansas?” If the Bishops can still get traction on birth control when the majority of their own flock say they are wrong, why should we be surprised at this?
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 7:05 pm:
@HisGirlFriday -
In Senger’s “defense” there has been some uproar over an abortion clinic in Aurora.
- hisgirlfriday - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 8:04 pm:
@D.P. GUMBY:
I am well aware of the phenomena of social conservatism in the rural part of the country resulting in folks voting against their economic interest on occasion.
But the Chicago Democrats leading the party in this state seem to be offering little or nothing to Downstaters to make the case that voting Chicago Dems into power is in their economic interest even if they don’t agree with the Chicago Dems on social issues. And meanwhile they pull stunts like this to pander to anti-abortion folks who will never vote Democrat anyway? It’s just madness to me.
As for the rubes… I fully agree there are a lot of rubes Downstate. But after moving up to Chicago I’ve come to learn there are a lot of rubes everywhere… that is… if I wasn’t already under that impression when Chicagoland reelected Blagojevich as governor in 2006 when Downstate had been on to him for years.
- amalia - Wednesday, Feb 15, 12 @ 8:24 pm:
what the what? this again? the typical Madigan strategy becomes a funds boon for both sides of the issue but is also the kind of vote that madigan will use against reps running in Chicago suburbs. Machiavellian, but maddening.