Posted by bambenek on 09/15/10

It is no secret that Illinois’ finances are in dire shape. Despite a balanced budget requirement in the state constitution, politicians have spent vastly more money than was coming in for a decade. Combine that with the economic downturn and you get the expected result, a massive deficit combined with a state that can’t pay its bills. The solution from the tax hikers is, of course, to increase taxes.

Illinois enjoys a relatively modest flat tax on income at 3% and a corporate tax at 5%. They want to increase rates 66% to 5% and 8% respectively. Legislators, for their part, are afraid to vote for such an economy-killing tax increase because they rightly fear their voters.

The tax hiker special interests have come up with a solution for them. Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability has come up with a solution for them with the help of Mike Lawrence, former PR flak for Republican former Governor Jim Edgar. They suggest that legislators pass a tax increase with a “confidential vote” so they don’t have to face the wrath of their constituents. You read this correctly, they want to have a secret vote. I’ll pause for a moment while your heads explode.

The tax hikers wrap this all in your typical “it’s for the children” rhetoric by saying Illinois is 49th in state funding of education. Of course, they ignore that Illinois funds education by property taxes and when you look at per-pupil funding, the metric that really matters, Illinois ranks 17th in overall education funding. They just want a bigger piece of the pie.

Many of you may not live in Illinois and may not care what the tax rate is here. You should care about this anti-democratic stunt. If it is successful, you will see this idea used in more places very quickly.

Illinois’ legislature is known for antics to diminish public participation. Massive legislation is written behind closed doors (usually by lobbyists) where even most legislators are not privy to the details. The day legislators are to vote, hundreds of bills covering thousands of pages are dropped on their desk in the morning. Then they are told how to vote by their leadership.

Sound familiar? When the United States elected a former Illinois State Senator by the name of Barack Obama to the presidency, we exported these same antics to Washington DC. Imagine what Congress could do with “confidential votes”.

While the Illinois Constitution (which I refer to as the mala carta) does allow for the Legislature to close sessions to the public, it does not allow them to simply declare votes as confidential and hide them from the public because the public might not like what the politicians are doing.

It should frighten us all that the political aristocracy of Illinois is even considering such a stunt while openly admitting that they want to do it because voters might retaliate at the ballot box. Only in Illinois does the concept of checks and balances get used to check the power of the voters. The bad news is that we’ve exported that nonsense to the White House too.

Posted by bambenek on 09/15/10

The ability of voters to recall corrupt or ineffective governors was a hot topic in the days after the arrest of Rod Blagojevich. Voters will get the chance to adopt an amendment that purports to give citizens this right. I support recall. The public needs a means to fire public servants who no longer serve the public. However, I will be voting no on the recall amendment in November. The reason is simple; this amendment is a sham.

In order for citizens to initiate a recall election, they need to collect about 550,000 signatures from voters in 150 days (15% of the number of votes in the last governor election). In reality, it should be double that to deal with the inevitable signature challenges and court fight to throw out signatures. That, however, isn’t the worst provision.

Before a single signature can be gathered, an affidavit signed by at least 20 State Representatives (10 Republicans, 10 Democrats) and at least 10 State Senators (5 Republicans, 5 Democrats) needs to be filed with the Secretary of State. You see, in Illinois politicians will let you hold them accountable only when they think it is ok.

To show you how absurd this is we can examine the lay of the land during the Blagojevich administration to see if this recall would have worked. After Rod was arrested, every legislator was stumbling over themselves to impeach the governor and they did it far faster than 150 days.

Before he was arrested, however, you would have been hard pressed to get 10 Democratic State Representatives to sign an affidavit for a recall. You most certainly would not have gotten 5 Democratic State Senators. You might not even get the Republicans.

Gathering over a million signatures is no easy prospect with no assurance of being successful. During the time a recall petition was undertaken, those legislators would be exposed to every manner of retaliation at the disposal of the governor’s office. You would have to get 30 state legislators, many of whom epitomize the definition of timidity, to stick their necks out on a difficult process that may not be successful.

In short, this recall amendment would have been useless to get rid of Rod Blagojevich. If we couldn’t have recalled Rod with it, what good is it?

Adding the legislator affidavit was a “compromise” because politicians were afraid that voters might actually avail themselves of the recall process for reasons they did not deem valid. To put it another way, politicians felt the affidavit provided an “important” check and balance against citizen action. You read that correctly; our Illinois politicians are so afraid of citizen action they introduced a constitutional amendment to actually check the power of the voters and subject it to their discretion.

What makes this an even more laughable position is that the recall amendment can only be used against the governor. Of the 18 states that already have this process (with some states having it over a century) it has only led to recall elections twice against a governor. In one case, the governor was impeached before the recall. The latest instance was Gray Davis in California who was equally a disgrace. Illinois will be the only state to have recall that is subject to the discretion of the state legislature.

I believe in recall, it is an important tool to hold politicians accountable but this recall amendment is a sham and a disgrace. It was designed to give voters the appearance of reform. By the time we come around to actually try to use it, we will discover the con job too late. Join me in November in voting no on this preposterous amendment so we can push for a real recall amendment and real accountability in Springfield… accountability not requiring us to get a permission slip from our legislators to use.

Posted by bambenek on 06/16/09

We see the news every day, Springfield is in chaos and no leadership is emerging with real solutions from the General Assembly.  Washington is poised to socialize the health care industry and reduce it's effectiveness somewhere to "DMV levels".  There are few voices that are championing the liberty-based ideas and ideals that most of this country adheres to. The media believes that the center-right is dead and only the "progressive" message is vibrant. The truth is, our message isn't losing because it's flawed; it's losing because we lack serious candidates to advance it!

Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat or a third-party/independent, now is the time to lend your voice to the fight. In Illinois, I'm recruiting candidates to run for the General Assembly and Congress. Quite simply, we need you.  Yes, YOU!  Our ideas aren't being advanced in Springfield or Washington because people like us aren't there to promote them.  Politicians care about getting re-elected and when no serious challenges are presented in the ballot box, they are free to do what they want.  Consider this:

The reason the 50%-67% income tax increase didn't pass last month in Illinois wasn't because it was bad policy (though it was).  Lawmakers didn't want to vote for a massive unprecedented tax increase two months before people could circulate petitions to run against them.  They didn't want to anger the electorate while they still have time to respond!  Once the candidate filing period is over, they will have all the latitude they need to increase taxes because they will know whether they have a challenge or not.  Now is the time to keep the pressure on!

Consider running for the General Assembly or Congress.  Many of our elected leaders have simply rarely (if ever!) had a primary challenge.  Many run unopposed in the General Election!  That means they don't have to concern themselves with your issues because they simply have no risk to losing re-election.

No matter what your political leanings, please consider running.  If you are interested, contact me at jcb@illinoiscitizenscoalition.com and I will do what I can to assist you.  I provide policy advice and political advice for free and I can connect you to low-cost resources to help with your campaign as well.  The current crop of leadership has failed... now it is YOUR turn to lead.

Posted by bambenek on 11/24/08

In politics, the outcome of policy battles is often determined by who shows up. This is especially true in local politics.  Often candidates for local office face no opposition.  Occasionally, no candidates even file to run for a local office, leaving the seat to be filled by a backroom appointment.  And as you and I know, all too rarely are our shared values represented in the halls of government.

The way to ensure our values are represented is to show up and help shape policy.  Have you ever thought of running for local office?  Perhaps you are frustrated at your local schools that make decisions based on political considerations instead of what is best for our children.  Perhaps you are a homeschooling family who keeps being harassed by your regional office of education.  Maybe you are interested in the public libraries or local parks. Perhaps you are just angry that a local governing body has poorly managed their funds and continues to ask for tax increase after tax increase. Illinois has almost 7,000 units of local government and most of these are lead by elected officials.

If you are like many citizens, the prospect of running for office seems daunting filled with endless paperwork and rules.  That is why the Illinois Citizens Coalition will be running a series of seminars to help normal people like me and you run for local office.  It’s easier than you think.

As it is said, “All politics is local” and the best way to ensure that sound policies that are fair and equitable to hard-working Illinois families is to run for these offices and help guide the decisions yourself.  All too often only the connected and detached elite are in office and they disregard our voice.  It is time to push back and show them that public servants are there to serve the public, not serve themselves.

If you have ever been interested in running for local office or know someone who is, contact John Bambenek at the Illinois Citizens Coalition at jcb@illinoiscitizenscoalition.com and we’ll guide you through the process of filing papers to run, everything you need to know about campaign finance law and to run a successful local campaign all absolutely free of cost.  Illinois is in dire straights and we need fair-minded every day people like you to talk the helm. Join us and help get Illinois back on the right track.

Posted 12/12/08 WhiteSoxFan Volo, IL

Thanks for the info, I hope people take advantage of this.