* I apologize for coming so late to this story…

Terry L. Bruce, 82, of Olney, passed away April 17, 2026 at Memorial Hospital, Springfield, IL. […]

He practiced law at the Shumaker and Bruce Law Office in Olney and in 1970, he was elected to the Illinois State Senate. He was part of the Democratic Study Group referred to as the “Crazy 8” and also served as assistant majority leader from 1975-1984.

From 1984-1992, he served as U.S. Representative for the 19th Congressional District of Illinois. While in Congress, his focus was on legislation that would improve the lives of people in the district. A member of the Energy & Commerce and Agriculture committees, among others, he worked on bills to protect food safety, on the Clean Air Act, a number of health care bills and worker retraining programs. He also authored the Plastic Recycling Act and sponsored the Home Health Care Act providing support to the families of Alzheimer’s patients. One of his proudest achievements was securing funding for the establishment of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in his district.

* Former state Sen. Don Wooten was the founder of the “Crazy Eight” and he wrote a great column explaining how it all went down…

One day a reporter asked Terry if [Democratic Study Group] members were truly independent. He laughed and said “Those crazies are so independent, if you’d put them in a truck, it would drive off in eight different directions.” In his story, the reporter dubbed us “The Crazy Eight,” and the name stuck, even when the group occasionally ballooned to twelve.

You really should read the whole thing. Wooten is a treasure.

* This state Senate pension funding debate transcript from 1983 zoomed past me on my Facebook timeline last night, which reminded me that I hadn’t posted about Terry Bruce’s passage. Many thanks to John Amdor for this long-ago warning about shorting the pension funds…

SENATOR BRUCE: And what you’re going to do today, gentlemen, is you’re grabbing hold of a hot poker that New York took ahold of many years ago when they started rating pension
funds. And it’s the mother’s milk of legislative irresponsibility. You won’t be able to get off of it. This is the beginning for Illinois irresponsibility. This is it.

It’s theft without penalty, and I enjoy doing it just like you do. And you’ll do it today, and if you need another ten million dollars on June the 15th, you’ll come back, because you can’t stay away from it. It’s like a drug, you can’t get away from it.

We took them last year. We’re going to take them this year, and we’re going to take them every year it is that we need more money because they can’t do a darn thing about it.

And that’s the truth of it. And you’re going to rue the day you did it last year, and you’re going to regret doing it today. And I tell you, this is irresponsibility, with you, the Governor and the House.

Terry was right, and 43 years later we’re still digging ourselves out of that hole.