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.

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In a detailed post at On The Wilder Side, Green Rainbow Party co-chair Eli Beckerman says that the indictment of Massachusetts’ former Speaker of the House Sal DiMasi’s indictment for official corruption is just the tip of the iceberg. The Green Rainbow Party is the Massachusetts chapter of the Green Party of the United States.