Question of the day - Golden Horseshoe Awards
Wednesday, Dec 3, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The 2014 Golden Horseshoe Award for best political bar in Springfield goes to DH Brown’s…
Good atmosphere and service. Also agree that it is starting to attract both political parties, which is great to see.
Brown’s used to be known as a “Republican tavern,” but it’s now far more “bipartisan.”
* The 2014 Golden Horseshoe Award for best political restaurant in Springfield goes to Obed & Isaac’s…
Their food is fantastic (leg of lamb sandwich, anyone?!), brews and spirits are some of the tastiest in town, and some of the best political convos among staffers take place there. Not to mention their beer garden is great in April for its bocce ball.
O&I is a tad bit outside the usual “sandbox” area, but it’s still close enough to attract a sizable Statehouse crowd.
* OK, on to our next category, with last year’s winners in parentheses…
* The Beth Hamilton Golden Horseshoe Award for Best House Secretary/Admin. Assistant: (Jody Aiello)
* Best Senate Secretary/Admin. Assistant: (Anita Colvin-Barth)
Remember to explain your vote, please.
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Union local stabs Rahm in the back
Wednesday, Dec 3, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
Chicago mayoral hopeful Jesus “Chuy” Garcia more than doubled the amount of cash in his campaign fund Tuesday by depositing a single check from a major government workers union, but it did little to close the growing money advantage Mayor Rahm Emanuel has in his bid for a second term.
Garcia, a Cook County commissioner, reported a $250,000 contribution from the Service Employees International Union Healthcare political fund, driving up the amount he’s raised to $477,000.
* Subscribers know a bit more, but here’s Greg Hinz…
News of the big donation came on the same day that the City Council overwhelmingly approved Emanuel’s plan to boost the city’s minimum wage to $13 an hour over the next five years. Some activists had pushed for a $15 figure, including Garcia.
The SEIU Healthcare donation came even though SEIU’s state council a few days ago tentatively decided to remain neutral in the race for mayor.
* And then Greg updated…
In a statement, SEIU State Council President Balanoff confirmed something he wouldn’t tell me earlier: That last week’s meeting resulted in “a formal vote . . . to remain neutral in the Chicago mayor’s race.”
He adds, “The subsequent contribution to a mayoral candidate by SEIU Healthcare Illinois Indiana is in direct violation of that vote and the constitution and bylaws of the Illinois State Council. The violation will be addressed through SEIU’s official internal processes.”
Looks like the fight is on.
So, the SEIU Healthcare local spends a fortune on voter registration and GOTV for Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign and his $10 an hour minimum wage proposal, then pushes the state council to endorse Garcia over Emanuel, even though Emanuel is for a $13 an hour minimum wage, but after the state council votes to remain officially neutral, the local violates its own union constitution to give a quarter million bucks to Garcia.
Oy.
And, from what I’m told, SEIU Healthcare now wants to disband the state council, but that can’t be done, either.
* From SEIU’s constitution…
Any Local Union or affiliated body willfully neglecting to enforce the provisions of this Constitution and Bylaws shall be subject to suspension or revocation of its charter or such other sanctions as may be determined by the International President.
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Irony alert!
Wednesday, Dec 3, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* You’ve probably already seen this story about Elizabeth Lauten…
“Dear Sasha and Malia, I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re part of the First Family, try showing a little class,” she wrote in a Facebook post. “Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar.”
The remarks didn’t go over well. After a wave of negative publicity, Lauten on Monday resigned her position with Republican Rep. Stephen Lee Fincher of Tennessee. “After many hours of prayer, talking to my parents, and re-reading my words online I can see more clearly just how hurtful my words were,” Lauten explained in a statement, saying her comments had been extemporaneous.
* The Tribune talked to her former boss…
The staffer, Elizabeth Lauten, has been working for Rep. Stephen Fincher of Tennessee after a 2011 stint as the congressional spokeswoman for controversial one-term U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, an Illinois Republican.
Walsh, now a radio talk show host, told the Tribune on Monday that “Elizabeth should have kept her mouth quiet.”
Fill in the blank: Joe Walsh saying somebody “should have kept her mouth quiet” is like ______.
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* Tribune…
In residential treatment centers across Illinois, children are assaulted, sexually abused and running away by the thousands — yet state officials fail to act on reports of harm and continue sending waves of youths to the most troubled and violent facilities, a Tribune investigation found.
At a cost to taxpayers of well over $200 million per year, the residential centers promise round-the-clock supervision and therapy to state wards with histories of abuse and neglect, as well as other disadvantaged youths with mental health and behavioral problems. On any given day, about 1,400 wards live in the centers, although far more cycle through each year.
In the best cases, the facilities rebuild and even save young lives. But the Tribune found that many underprivileged youths — most of them African-American — are shuttled for years from one grim institution to another before emerging more damaged than when they went in.
* Just one example…
At Indian Oaks, which specializes in treating children who have endured sexual trauma, the Tribune identified 17 reports of sexual assault or abuse during a 21/2-year period starting in September 2011. Facility reports to DCFS and police dismissed nearly half of those incidents as consensual, even when alleged victims were not old enough to consent or had cognitive impairments.
* And…
The state’s beleaguered child welfare agency, which has had four directors in the past year and seen its budget sliced by more than 10 percent since 2009, is more than a year behind in analyzing facility performance records that show how many days kids go on the run from each center, or are sent to jail or psychiatric hospitals.
Go read the whole thing, but prepare to be thoroughly disgusted.
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* From In These Times…
AFSCME’s and other unions’ efforts failed to prevent Rauner’s victory over Quinn, and Illinois public employees now face an uncertain future. When their contract expires in July 2015, workers will have to renegotiate with a governor who has questioned the very validity of collective bargaining rights for public employees (and even refused to say whether he believes such rights are valid for any kind of worker).
The union is planning to meet with Rauner for the first time in early December to talk contracts. In preparation, the 200-plus members of the AFSCME contract team convened in Springfield, Illinois, last week to hold a “demands meeting.”
No one knows but Rauner how he will engage with AFSCME, says Brent Eliot (not his real name), a delegate from an Illinois city, and this led to a tense demands meeting.
On the one hand, says Eliot, the union emphasized readiness in case “things go badly” with Rauner, setting up a phone tree among members to quickly communicate about workplace actions such as a “button day” (when all employees at a given workplace don pins with a common message), wearing all the same shirt to work, or going out to the street on lunch break to picket.
Because of a no-strike clause in their current contract, AFSCME members are not allowed to strike—Eliot says that AFSCME discourages workers from even using the word “strike.”
“It was stressed to us at the meeting that we’d have to [report] back to our members that we’ve got to get ready—not to strike, but to do something,” says Eliot.
On the other hand, Eliot claims that leadership at the meeting censured some of the more ambitious proposals for demands that came from the contract team, pushing for more “modesty” in their bargaining, though he declined to give details about what those scaled-back proposals were.
Discuss.
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He may very well be underestimating the problem
Wednesday, Dec 3, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From yesterday…
Rauner also outlined a series of financial pressures he said totaled $1.4 billion, citing budget gimmicks mostly identified when the General Assembly left town last spring. The items included borrowing as much as $650 million from state funds set aside for myriad specially designated purposes.
The Republican lashed out at what he called “dishonest” Democrat-approved financial tricks, saying the price tag of the current year’s budget was masked by absorbing some of the costs in a previous budget to make the current one look better. In other cases, Rauner maintained that expenses were deferred and will be pushed into the coming year.
* Here is Rauner’s breakdown. You can click the pic for a larger image…
* But Rauner shouldn’t have been so surprised. This is what I wrote back in June of this year…
I based what follows on what I know about how the budget was crafted. But whatever the final number ends up being, it’s crystal clear that whoever wins the governor’s race will face a monstrous challenge after he’s sworn in next January.
Borrowing $660 million from special state funds, as this new budget does, is a one-off affair. The money is being put into the state’s spending base and will have to somehow be replaced the following year. A two-year repayment plan means another $330 million will also have to be found in the next budget, for a total hole of about a billion dollars.
Using about $500 million in one-time revenue increases from this fiscal year to pay forward some bills in next fiscal year means that same $500 million will have to be found again when the next budget is crafted.
Not funding employee salary and health insurance-benefit-cost increases kicks another $380 million down the road. So, now we’re at $1.9 billion. […]
Also, Rep. Greg Harris, who chairs a House appropriations committee, told reporters last week that the new budget could create as much as a “couple of billion” dollars in past-due bills in the coming fiscal year. If that’s accurate, then the FY16 hole becomes much, much worse, plus there’s all that new debt owed to providers which will eventually have to be paid back.
…Adding… Don’t forget that the state’s pension payment is expected to rise by almost a billion dollars next fiscal year.
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Always bet on nothing
Wednesday, Dec 3, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* That sound you hear is a big House thud…
House Speaker Michael Madigan told fellow Democrats on Tuesday that the 98th General Assembly will adjourn with the end of business, state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, said. Lawmakers will next reconvene Jan. 14 with the seating of the 99th General Assembly.
This also means that there will be no January lame-duck session in which legislation can get rammed through by outgoing lawmakers, including any extension of the 2011 income tax increase set to substantially expire Jan. 1.
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown confirmed the news, and said that while Madigan firmly believes in raising the minimum wage, the number of different versions and conflicting interests are preventing him from marshaling the needed votes.
Franks said the move also may be a gesture of good faith on Madigan’s part.
“I think maybe he wants to work with the new governor. Who knows?” Franks said. “This might be an olive branch.”
* Greg Hinz…
The “complications” that Brown referenced was a decision by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to move ahead on his own with a city wage hike that is even higher than one that had been contemplated by state lawmakers.
A state bill, raising the current $8.25 figure to $9 to $11 an hour, “is totally dead,” said state Rep. Jack Franks, a McHenry County Democrat, “because of what happened in Chicago.”
Earlier in the day, the City Council voted 44-5, at Emanuel’s request, to raise the minimum wage to $10 in July and $13 by mid-2019. Emanuel said he acted in part because one version of proposed state legislation would have pre-empted action by Chicago, holding the city to a rate no higher than that of the rest of the state.
Mr. Rauner, who takes office in January, has said he’ll sign a wage hike only if it is linked to pro-business moves such as enacting tort reform and changes in the workers’ compensation system.
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Good morning!
Wednesday, Dec 3, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From the New York Times…
Bobby Keys, a Texas-born sideman whose urgent, wailing saxophone solos wove a prominent thread through more than 40 years of rock ’n’ roll, notably with the Rolling Stones, died on Tuesday at his home in Franklin, Tenn. He was 70.
His family announced the death, without specifying a cause.
A self-taught musician who never learned to read music, Mr. Keys was a rock ’n’ roller in every sense of the term. Born (almost literally) in the shadow of Buddy Holly, he was a lifelong devotee and practitioner of music with a driving pulse and a hard-living, semi-law-abiding participant in the late-night, sex-booze-and-drug-flavored world of musical celebrity. […]
Mostly playing tenor and sometimes baritone saxophone, he recorded with a Who’s Who of rock including Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, John Lennon, George Harrison, Carly Simon, Country Joe and the Fish, Harry Nilsson, Joe Cocker and Sheryl Crow. He toured with Delaney and Bonnie and was recording with them in 1969 when they shared a Los Angeles studio with the Stones, who were making their album “Let It Bleed.”
* He was our greatest ever rock saxophonist, and here he is at his very best. Turn it up…
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* A cynic might say that this is the beginning of Bruce Rauner’s “Jim Thompson Moment”…
At a Statehouse news conference, Rauner said the state budget passed by lawmakers last spring is full of “booby traps” that make the budget worse than it appears on paper.
“The deficit is far worse than has been discussed,” Rauner said.
Rauner distributed a paper outlining $1.4 billion in additional budget pressures facing next year’s budget that he said are the result of “gimmicks” used to make the current state budget appear balanced. That is on top of revenue the state expects to lose from the partial expiration of the temporary income tax increase.
“It was a phony budget. It was not even close to balanced,” Rauner said.
However, Rauner again declined to offer specifics of how he plans to address the budget problems, including whether it will be necessary to keep some of the temporary income tax hike in place.
“We thought it was horrible, but it’s sooooooooo much worse than we ever could’ve possibly imagined!!!”
* More…
So, now he can blame Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn for whatever comes next.
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* For whatever reason, state treasurer-elect Michael Frerichs’ campaign staff is still trying to distance their guy from the notion that Chicago put Frerichs over the top. From a press release…
Official Returns Show Central Illinois Key to Victory for Frerichs
Nearly 30,000 Rauner-Frerichs independent voters stretching from Quincy to Danville, Peoria to Hillsboro
SPRINGFIELD, IL –The Illinois State Board of Elections certified results from the November election on Sunday, declaring Michael Frerichs the next State Treasurer by a margin of only 9,225 votes out of more than 3.5 million cast in the race. The slim margin of victory is the third-closest statewide race in Illinois over the last century, according to the Associated Press. An analysis of the official results by the Frerichs campaign confirms a strong showing by the downstate Democrat, particularly in Central Illinois.
The 38 counties belting Central Illinois from Danville to Quincy and from Peoria to Hillsboro generally vote nearly 2-to-1 for Republican candidates. Frerichs, a native of rural Champaign County, appealed to independent voters in the region by focusing on his financial experience and his downstate roots with a promise to invest in the Illinois economy. As a result, Frerichs received 29,168 more votes across the region than Governor Pat Quinn, shrinking Tom Cross’ margin of victory in all but three of the 38 counties. The Central Illinois native also received about 30,000 more votes in Central Illinois in 2014 than Alexi Giannoulias, Pat Quinn or Robin Kelly received in their Democratic statewide bids in 2010.
“Tens of thousands of Rauner-Frerichs independents in Central Illinois were critical to this race, and the decisive role of downstate sends a clear message,” says campaign spokesperson Dave Clarkin. “Independent voters want leaders who are focused on solutions, and they want results. Mike Frerichs pledged to make smart investments that offer a strong return to taxpayers while growing Illinois jobs, and voters responded to the list of reforms he has planned. Now, it is time to get to work.”
OK, please get to work and stop rubbing it in. You won. Move along.
For a list of central Illinois counties where Frerichs did better than expected, click here.
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FOIA bill stalls out after “firestorm”
Tuesday, Dec 2, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Remember the odd FOIA bill that was blasted by Attorney General Lisa Madigan and government reformers yesterday? Well, it wasn’t moved yesterday and may not be…
The sponsor of the plan, state Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat, said she filed the plan on behalf of Senate Democrats.
“If they want a discussion, I think we certainly have started one,” Currie said. “Possibly not just a discussion, a firestorm. But we will see where we go from here.”
Currie said she doesn’t know if the plan will move forward this week. Lawmakers aren’t scheduled to be in Springfield again after this week before a new class is to be sworn in next month. Days could be added, though.
* More…
Currie says the proposed changes weren’t actually her idea; rather — it’s a plan pushed by another prominent Democrat, Senate President John Cullerton.
“I think that the ideas came from people who thought that some of the agreements that resulted in the 2009 legislation no longer seem to apply, but I think others disagree,” Currie said of the measure’s origins.
The plan was supposed to be heard by a House committee yesterday, on Mon., Dec. 1. Instead, after a swift backlash, Currie declined to call it.
Still, she hinted of a looming fight over changes to FOIA.
“We’ll see where the conversation begins to take us. There certainly is a lot of opposition,” she said. […]
Cullerton’s office says it’s working with the House to fine-tune the measure this week.
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Question of the day - Golden Horseshoe Awards
Tuesday, Dec 2, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Our Golden Horseshoe Award for best Statehouse-area bartender goes to Mike at Brown’s…
Mike at Browns deserves a win this year. Often pulling bartender/waiter double duty, he’s always quick and accurate and never forgets what I drink. He’s always willing to engage in friendly conversation, but never forces it or intrudes. Similarly, he’s up for talking shop with us Statehouse people, but is just as happy to talk sports or local gossip and won’t bug you about work unless you bring it up.
Mike is hanging ‘em up this month and he will be sorely missed. He’s a big part of Browns’ atmosphere. It’s not everyone’s favorite, but if you’re looking for a drink or two after work in a quiet place, Browns is the place to be. It won’t be the same without him.
Agreed.
* Our Golden Horseshoe Award for best Statehouse-area waitress goes to someone who isn’t actually a waitress, but how could we pass up this nomination?…
I’d like to nominate a gal that’s not really a waitress, but does basically the same service. I hope you’ll accept this nomination, Rich. Her name is Kim and she works at the Stratton Building Cafeteria. Kim is a great cook when you want something special. She is always helpful even when she’s slammed with orders and the line is long. It’s a thankless job and most people don’t realize how good their food is until they’ve left the area. I would like to nominate her because she is a hard worker and deserves a big THANK YOU and this award! Great job, Kim!
Congrats!
* OK, on to today’s category, with last year’s winners in parentheses…
* Best political bar in Springfield (Boone’s Saloon)
* Best political restaurant in Springfield (Sebastian’s)
As always, intensity counts way more than mere votes. Make your case, please. Thanks!
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Motion or movement? We’ll know soon enough
Tuesday, Dec 2, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* A long-stalled state-run health insurance exchange bill is starting to move in the House…
A House committee in a 9-6 vote Monday approved legislation creating a state-run website as the legislature begins its final week of the fall veto session.
Supporters of creating a state-run website say an impending end-of-year deadline to receive up to $300 million in federal funding plus a coming U.S. Supreme Court decision on tax credits spurred legislative action. Illinois residents currently purchase insurance on the national HealthCare.gov website.
* More…
During Monday’s meeting of the House Human Services Committee, [Rep. Robyn Gabel] turned aside concerns raised by Kristina Rasmussen, an opponent of the bill and spokeswoman for Illinois Policy Action, a wing of the right-leaning Illinois Policy Institute.
Rasmussen said several states running their own exchange have experienced massive technical problems. Gabel and Sarah Myerscough-Mueller, an aide to Quinn, pointed to other states in which enrollment went smoothly.
Rasmussen said creating a state-based exchange “locks us into larger costs down the road.”
Myerscough-Mueller said a state-operated exchange, which would begin enrolling people in fall 2015 for coverage that begins in January 2016, would cost $72.5 million to run during its first year, $57.5 million the second year and about $50 million each year thereafter.
The $270 million in start-up money from the federal government, which requires action by the legislature on a state-based exchange by the end of 2014, would help cover those operating costs and continue a marketing campaign and other outreach efforts, Gabel said.
* It’s paid for with a provider user fee on policies…
The measure that passed a house committee Monday allows for a 3.5 percent assessment on insurance plans to pay for the exchange.
During a house hearing Monday State Representative Norine Hammond asked Representative Robyn Gabel if the three-point-five percent of health insurance costs to pay for the program could rise with the federal rate. Gabel said the law would cap that, but there are ways around expected increased costs.
“So, and there may be some advocates that aren’t thrilled about this, but a big section of the money would go to marketing, so there would just be a little less marketing,” Gabel said.
Gabel says if the cap of 3.5 percent doesn’t generate enough money to run the state-based exchange lawmakers could come back with a new bill to raise more revenue.
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Off the rails?
Tuesday, Dec 2, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* It certainly appears that local preemption on the minimum wage issue is now off the table…
Prior to returning to Springfield for the final scheduled days of the legislature’s fall session, [House Speaker Michael Madigan] dismissed talk that lawmakers — if they act to raise the state wage — would take away Chicago’s ability to do so.
“Without describing what we’re going to do, we would not interfere with what they’re going to do in the city,” Madigan told the Tribune after watching his former top House lawyer get sworn in as an appellate judge. Asked if that meant Chicago would be allowed to have a higher minimum wage rate than the rest of the state, Madigan replied, “Yep.”
Still, Madigan and other House Democrats acknowledged difficulties in coming up with votes needed to hike the state minimum wage rate.
“Well, we’re working on it,” Madigan said.
* Mark Brown has more on that last part…
Nearly 78 percent of those voting last month in state Rep. Mike Zalewski’s suburban legislative district cast ballots in favor of raising the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour.
But as a minimum wage proposal is considered by the Illinois House this week, Zalewski (D-Riverside) is among many Democratic legislators whose support is far from certain.
Zalewski said he prefers a uniform minimum wage hike across the state, which will become less likely Tuesday if Chicago aldermen, as expected, endorse Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plans for a $13-an-hour city minimum wage.
Despite two-thirds of Illinois voters endorsing a minimum wage increase, despite Democratic candidates making it a central focus of their 2014 election strategy and despite Democrats holding super-majorities in both legislative chambers, there remains a strong possibility lawmakers this year will leave untouched the state’s $8.25 an hour minimum wage.
For those hard-pressed to understand how that could be, some guidance can be found in the example of Zalewski, who insists he favors a minimum wage increase, too.
“We all want to see a higher minimum wage,” he said.
But Zalewski said he doesn’t see the wisdom of allowing the city of Chicago to have its own separate minimum wage that is higher than the rest of the state.
There’s a whole lot of finger-pointing going on here, but business groups which were willing to accept a $10 statewide minimum wage as long as it preempted Chicago’s ordinance met this morning and decided to work against any minimum wage bill that doesn’t include preemption.
The end result could be a Chicago minimum wage that’s $4.75 an hour higher than anywhere else in the state.
* It’s gonna be a heck of an economics experiment if the state bill fails. The naysayers claim that businesses will move across the street to the suburbs, or close or not expand, while low-paid suburban workers will flock across the border into the city, possibly creating worker shortages or pushing up suburban wages. We’ll find out pretty soon.
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* From Voices for Illinois Children…
If revenue plummets starting on Jan. 1, 2015, when current income tax rates expire, discretionary portions of Illinois’ general funds budget — over which lawmakers have the most control — would face aggregate cuts of at least 25 percent to balance the state’s budget in fiscal year 2016. And if the annual budgetary savings from the pension law passed last year disappear because the law is struck down by the courts, aggregate cuts to the discretionary parts of the general funds budget would need to be about 33 percent to balance the budget.
In arriving at these estimates, the Fiscal Policy Center methodically went through the state’s general funds budget, estimating resources available in FY 2015 and FY 2016 if the current income tax rates decline, then categorizing state spending as “mandated” or “discretionary,” depending on the degree of authority lawmakers have over the spending. Based on the projected deficits in FY 2016, all discretionary areas of the budget were then cut by an equal percentage until total general funds spending matched available resources.
We considered the following as “mandated” spending areas: those protected by federal law; Medicaid; state statutory contributions to the state-funded retirement systems; statutorily required transfers out of the general funds; debt service; and payments to the State Group Health Insurance Program, the Teachers’ Retirement Insurance Program, and the College Insurance Program. While the General Assembly could decide not to fund some of these areas (as happened for years when the state failed to make its annual pension contributions), doing so would be grossly irresponsible and would either increase the state’s unfunded liabilities or have other extremely harmful consequences such as default or the loss of significant federal matching funds.
We took great care to make conservative assumptions. We considered most spending that is required by state law to be “discretionary,” since the General Assembly could alter that spending requirement by changing or ignoring the underlying statute. We also made conservative assumptions about the timing of repayment of $650 million that the state is borrowing from other funds this year and that must be repaid within 18 months, by assuming the funds are borrowed in the second half of FY 2015 and thus could be repaid as late as FY 2017. We also did not set aside any money in FY 2016 for the state to pay down its nearly $4 billion in unpaid bills. Finally, we considered two special state funds — the Advancement for Education Fund and Commitment to Human Services Fund — as part of the general funds. While both funds are supposed to supplement, not supplant, general funds spending for education and human services, the General Assembly ignored this requirement in FY 2015.
Go read the whole thing.
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* Dave Dahl…
The Illinois General Assembly is trying to expedite a bill to make Election Day registration permanent as part of a passel of election-related ideas. Another bill would expand early voting for both mail-in and in-person balloting and do away with the term “absentee ballot” in favor of what State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago), carrying the bill for House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago), called “voting.”
The bill, which is still being put together despite it passing committee Monday evening, is moving too fast for some people’s liking.
State Rep. Ed Sullivan (R-Mundelein) quizzed Currie: “It was (Sunday) when the ballots were certified. And yet the day after that we have this omnibus election bill we’re going to push forth without any data analysis of what went right –“
“We know who won,” Currie interrupted. “What else do you need to know?”
* Mike Riopell…
State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat, said Election Day registration is already common elsewhere and election authorities haven’t asked lawmakers to do away with it.
“A lot of other states have been there, done that,” Currie said.
The election proposal is lengthy. It even includes a provision that if election officials are providing mementos to some people such as “I Voted” stickers, no one can be denied such a sticker.
The proposal moves to the Illinois House floor for further debate. All Democrats on the panel voted for it and all Republicans voted against it.
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