Constitutional Convention for Illinois

You will be told that the changes you want to see in Springfield can be better (and more easily) made in other ways. Not true. A constitutional convention is the best and quickest way to make these three changes:

1. Accountability. A constitutional convention could look at a variety of ideas for holding public officials more accountable: recall, term limits, merit selection of judges, campaign contribution limits, etc. The delegates could then recommend one or more of these remedies to the electorate in the form of a constitutional convention. If you think that the legislature is ever going to put any of these measures on the ballot, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you!

2. Fiscal reform. There is a reason that the state is in such a financial mess, and it lies in the regressive nature of the state income tax and the 8-to-5 ratio of coporate to individual taxes. Only a constitutional convention can address this problem at its root cause and propose a solution for voters to vote on. Don't hold your breath until the legislature proposes something!

3. Priorities. Education, health care, mass transit, you name what you care about. A constitutional convention could offer priorities with real power to the voters, instead of letting the legislature continued to offer crumbs from the pay-to-play table. Their solution whenever these questions come up is "let's open another casino."

The opponents to the constitutional convention, the Alliance for the Preservation of the Status Quo, will tell you that there are other ways to get these changes made. They aren't telling the whole truth. The truth is that while there technically might be other ways to get these changes made, none of them have worked and none of them will work.

The emperor has no clothes. The only way to change the way they do business in Springfield is to vote "yes" on the constitutional convention.