Voters: No No to Con-Con

By Prescott Carlson in News on Nov 5, 2008 6:35PM

Despite a rally for "yes" votes a few weeks ago, the people of Illinois gave a resounding "no" to a Constitutional Convention. For those that didn't pay attention to what they were voting for yesterday, a Constitutional Convention is proposed every 20 years, and allows changes to be suggested to the state's charter which then need to be ratified by voters. Supporters like Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said it would be great opportunity to reform education funding, and give us the right to recall public officials.

Sounds great, so why didn't it pass? Because the fear mongers of the Combine came out in force, warning that the convention was expensive, would be hijacked by "special interest groups" and be "influenced by the same politicians who have caused the current gridlock in Springfield." They even brought out the big guns and had former Governor Jim Edgar cut a TV spots against it. The chances of it passing were also hampered by questionable language on the ballot, informing voters that the measure failed by a large margin last time it came up in 1988. A ruling was made that a separate sheet of instructions was to be handed out telling voters to ignore the ballot wording, but at our polling place we didn't even see one person pick up the sheet, much less read it. Oh, well, better luck in 2028.

Photo by Jeremy Farmer