Constitutional Convention for Illinois

An article by Greg Hinz in the July 3 edition of Crains Chicago Business details how the opponents to the constitutional convention have hired David Axelrod's firm to develop their $2-3 million advertising campaign to defeat the referendum on the November 4 ballot. You can read the entire article at:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=30073

The following op-ed piece ran in the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, July 1.
You can access it at this site, and I have also copied it below.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0701conconjul01,0,488...

If not now, when?
By Gregory F. Augustine Pierce
July 1, 2008

Wanna send a message to Springfield? Better yet, wanna change the way they do business there?

I received a letter from an Illinois judge friend of mine whom I had asked to support the constitutional convention. She had come to the conclusion that a constitutional convention was "unnecessary, costly, and ill-advised." Here is my response to her:

How are you going to feel the morning after?

You vote "yes" on the constitutional convention: proud, hopeful, excited, enthusiastic, empowered.

You vote "no" on the constitutional convention: ashamed, doubtful, regretful, cynical, powerless.

Q: Why did we revolt from England?

A: The arrogance of the king.

Q: Why do we need a constitutional convention in Illinois?

A: The arrogance of the kings and queens of Illinois.

Latest examples:

-- recall amendment
-- Grant park land grab
-- capital budget/health care/school funding/etc fiascos
-- Daley 3.0 (Sun Times)

Q: What can the average citizen DO about this?

A: Toss the tea into the harbor: Vote “yes” on the constitutional convention.

Q: But what if “bad” things happen because of a constitutional convention?

A lot of progressives are coming out against a constitutional convention. Here is one such blog: http://progressillinois.com/2008/05/30/features/is-con-con-the-answer

Here is my response:

United Power for Action and Justice in Cook County has endorsed a new constitutional convention and is actively promoting it through its member institutions. Our goal is to talk with 100,000 people before November 4 to convince them that a yes vote is needed for the following reasons:

United Power for Action and Justice, which is also supporting a yes vote on the constitutional convention, welcomes Judy Barr Topinka to the growing list of public officials who recognize that we need a constitutional convention to send Springfield a message that what is going on there is not acceptable. Here is the text of her statement in the Riverside/Brookfield Landmark:

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Time for state constitutional convention

Judy Baar Topinka

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Anyone who is surprised that a recall amendment will not be on the ballot this November please raise your hand. I thought not. The politicians in Springfield are never going to vote to make themselves more accountable to the people.

Tribune columnist Eric Zorn has a column today bemoaning the "shenanigans" of the legislators on efforts to place a recall provision on the ballot this November.

Is this the same Eric Zorn who wrote a couple months ago that we've got absolutely no chance of winning the vote on holding a new constitutional convention on November 4?

Springfield just keeps providing us with more and more examples of exactly why the citizens of Illinois have to take matters into our own hands and exercise our right to change the way they do business.

We have tried to talk with the public employee unions, but so far they are not really open to the possibility of supporting or even being neutral about a constitutional convention. We have tried to convince them that we are not out to take away their pensions, but that many other issues need to be addressed. Many teachers do understand this. One of the biggest supporters of the constitutional convention at my church is an active union teacher.