Green Party Watch

From the Illinois Green Party:

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

House Bill 723, the “Protect Incumbents Act”, is scheduled for a vote in the Illinois House on Wednesday, October 14.  This vote is on a motion to override an amendatory veto on the bill.  A “no” vote will help kill the bill.

URGE YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE TO VOTE *NO* ON THIS MOTION.

Find your State Representative’s contact information at
http://www.ilga.gov/house/ – and then call or fax today on Monday or Tuesday.

Background:

HB723 amends the process of “slating” in Illinois, whereby established parties can place candidates on the general election ballot.  This process provides a necessary balance because the signature requirement for certain offices – especially State Representative and State Senator – are much too high for primary ballot access.  If HB723 passes, slated candidates would need to collect a great deal of signatures in a narrow period of time – an extreme difficulty compounded by a law that’s already tilted in favor of incumbents.

The bill is specifically designed to keep incumbent legislators, regardless of party, from having to face any opposition at all in the general election.  The “slating” mechanism is almost always used by a minority party in a given area – Democrats in DuPage County, Republicans in Cook County, Greens all over the state – and it is precisely these “outsider” candidates that the insiders in Springfield want to keep off the ballot.  These incumbents do not want there to be even a glimmer of accountability to their constituents – only to their party bosses.

In November 2008, 59 out of 118 State Representative and 20 out of 40 State Senate races in Illinois were completely unopposed.  If HB723 passes, this number will increase significantly.  Since 2002, 42 Republicans, 29 Democrats, and 15 Greens were nominated after the primary election.  HB723 directly undermines the rank and file of all parties, while supporting the corrupt officials who are in leadership positions in Springfield.

For more information on HB723 and about incumbency and slating in Illinois, go to http://www.ilgp.org/groups/gov/otherfolder/incumbency for a short paper on the subject.

TAKE A STAND FOR MORE CHOICE AND LESS CORRUPTION IN ILLINOIS POLITICS.
SAY NO TO HOUSE BILL 723.

Tags: corruption, Illinois

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 8:08 pm and is filed under State Party News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.