* Press release…

The Illinois House is expected to vote next week to override a bill that Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed, Senate Bill 1229. This bill would strip Rauner’s ability to bargain with the government union representing almost all state workers, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME. Instead, if an agreement is not reached within two months of negotiating, the state’s next AFSCME contract would be decided by an labor arbitrator.

Last week the Illinois Senate voted to override the governor’s veto of this bill, and the measure now needs House approval. Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan is urging Democrats to follow the Senate’s lead and strip Rauner’s ability to set the terms of the next union contract, but that might not be what voters want, according to a new poll released today by Illinois Policy Action.

The poll was conducted by Ogden & Fry across suburban Chicago legislative districts. In all districts surveyed, very few voters said their opinion of their state representative would improve if the lawmaker consistently voted with Speaker Madigan. Also, in all of the districts surveyed, more than half of voters said they actually would think more negatively of their state representative if he or she voted with Speaker Madigan the majority of the time.

“Suburban lawmakers hold tremendous sway in the budget battle going on in Springfield, and that’s why these poll findings are so important. Even though voters in these districts elected Democrats to represent them, the poll results show they don’t want their representatives to be proxies for Speaker Madigan,” said John Tillman, CEO of Illinois Policy Action. “Speaker Madigan is putting intense pressure on these suburban lawmakers to support his agenda and to override the governor’s veto of the AFSCME bill. But the polling data is extremely clear: Voters think very negatively of politicians who vote consistently with Madigan.”

POLL QUESTION: Do you think of State Representative [NAME] more favorably or less favorably if s/he votes with Mike Madigan 90 percent of the time?

POLL RESULTS:

State Rep. Deb Conroy, 46th district: 51.4 percent less favorably, 22.2 percent more favorably for voting with Madigan;
State Rep. Scott Drury, 58th district: 57.8 percent less favorably, 18.1 percent more favorably for voting with Madigan;
State Rep. Marty Moylan, 55th district: 54.9 percent less favorably, 19 percent more favorably for voting with Madigan;
State Rep. Michelle Mussman, 56th district: 51.6 percent more favorably, 21.5 percent less favorably for voting with Madigan;
State Rep. Elaine Nekritz, 57th district: 52.2 percent less favorably, 16.5 percent more favorably for voting with Madigan;
State Rep. Carol Sente, 59th district: 55.7 percent less favorably, 21 percent more favorably for voting with Madigan;
State Rep. Sam Yingling, 62nd district: 54.1 percent less favorably, 18.1 less favorably for voting with Madigan.

Those Mussman results are kind of odd, no?

…Adding… The group misprinted the Mussman results. From the pollster…

More favorably 76 21.5%
Less favorably 182 51.6%
Undecided 95 26.9%

…

Also, in order to confidently “move” voters to base their election day decision on a single issue, you generally need numbers in the 70s. We’re a long way from that point right now.

Plus, the campaign hasn’t even started yet. The incumbents haven’t fully made their own cases.

In other words, we’ll see.