You may have heard. Illinois has a budget problem.. Illinois politicians want to distract voters away from this fact and exploit the hysteria against public employees to do it. Illinois public employees need your help with this vote.
For decades our politicians have avoided dealing with budget issues via a number of sleights of hand. The biggest trick they pulled year after year was diverting funds that were supposed to be applied to pension coverage into general expenses and pork.
And now politicians eager to avoid accountability and eager to avoid the hard decisions as well as conservative businesses who want to weaken unions have joined hands in labeling this crisis as "the pension problem". (There are some pension issues to be sure but they are much smaller in scope than the budget crisis and are often exploited as diversionary tactics these days.)
No. It's the Illinois budget problem.
Your working sisters and brothers need your vote in Illinois so please continue below...
I'm going to let Edward McClelland summarize why voting 'NO' is the right thing to do. Please don't skip this part. Please be aware of how this hurts working families:
For decades, politicians have misdirected money owed to the retirement systems that provide the modest pension benefits earned by teachers and child protection workers, caregivers and other public servants in Illinois. Those pensions are just $32,000 a year on average. Eighty percent of Illinois public employees don't have Social Security; their pension is their primary and often sole source of retirement income. For their entire career, they have paid faithfully and full from every paycheck, 8 to 10 percent. All that time, the politicians were shorting or even outright skipping their required contributions to the five state-funded systems. That is what has caused the $80 billion pension debt, and this change to the constitution would not do a thing to address that very real. This should be called "The Politician Protection Amendment," or the "Cover Your Butts Amendment." The only thing it does is give the politcians a fig leaf for their misuse of monies that should have gone to the retirement systems, and their inaction as the pension debt got worse.
Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/...
Playing cynical games with union pensions could do serious harm to working families.
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The Chicago Tribune summarizes nicely how we're being set up:
You, little voter, are supposed to see on your ballot wording that includes the hot-button word "pension" and think fond thoughts of all those legislators who, golly, must have passed pension reforms.
I'm not happy with a lot of the Trib "analysis" but they get the phoniness at work here. They call this amendment a "head fake" and tell us, "Vote 'No' on this amendment. Then demand real reforms." So...
REASON #1 to vote NO - It's sole design is to let politicians dodge their responsibilities yet again.
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The amendment language itself does not appear on the ballot. And there are numerous complaints about the amendment language. And in fact there is controversy and a lawsuit already for the misleading way the amendment is phrased on the ballot. The ballot language mentions something about a constitutional convention which apparently no one intended:
Thousands of Illinois voters have already gone to the polls for early voting, but their choice on a proposed constitutional amendment could be set aside because of language that lawmakers did not intend to appear on the ballot.
...
“It is confusing. It is introducing right out in front of the voters the idea of a constitutional convention. I’m absolutely floored [that it was included in the ballot language],” said Ann Lousin, a law professor at the John Marshall Law School and a member of the research staff during the 1970 constitutional convention. “I think a mistake obviously occurred, and it could confuse voters.” She said the issue might have been caused by a drafting error when the legislation was written.
http://illinoisissuesblog.blogspot.com/
A badly worded constitutional amendment put on the ballot in a badly worded summary. What could go wrong?
REASON #2 to vote NO - A poorly written amendment badly understood by the electorate as well as lawmakers is going to tie up the courts in useless waste of taxpayer dollars.
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The Illinois League of Women Voters opposes the amendment saying:
Some people mistakenly assume that the higher the vote required to take an action, the greater the protection of the members. Instead the opposite is true. Whenever a vote of more than a majority is required to take action, control is taken from the majority and given to a minority.
Why do people want to make Illinois less democratic?
REASON #3 to vote NO - It's undemocratic - all other laws, ordinances, etc. can be enacted with a simple majority vote.
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The amendment isn't budget reform nor pension reform. It's postured as some kind of device to slap the hands of the legislators when they abuse "pension sweeteners". The Trib again:
The proposed amendment is aimed at making it harder to approve what's known in Springfield parlance as "pension sweeteners." Those are enhancements, often buried in complex legislation, that end up rewarding a select few people. Because they are contained in more comprehensive measures, those obscure but financially lucrative sweeteners get approved by overwhelming margins — margins even greater than the proposal's three-fifths voting requirement.
The sweeteners get passed with overwhelming margins anyway so what is accomplished?
REASON #4 to vote NO - It won't accomplish anything.
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That's just the four reasons I have time to type up now. I've got to get this done so I can get back to the phones. Thank you faithful Democrats for supporting labor and not buying into the demonization of public employees.
So in addition to the teachers unions and other public employee unions, who else opposes the amendment?
Look who else is voting NO!
Illinois League of Women Voters: "Some people mistakenly assume that the higher the vote required to take an action, the greater the protection of the members. Instead the opposite is true. Whenever a vote of more than a majority is required to take action, control is taken from the majority and given to a minority."
Chicago Tribune: "The proposed pension amendment is a misleading gesture ... please give [it] your enthusiastic vote: 'No.'"
Chicago Sun-Times: "[U]surpation of local control and a violation of basic democratic principles, just one of many reasons why voters should say 'No' to the proposed amendment. ... The amendment also is harmful because it gives campaigning politicians cover."
Bloomington Pantagraph and Decatur Herald & Review: "[C]hanges to the basic frame of government should be well-reasoned and solidly outlined with facts, and this proposed change to the constitution contains neither. ... We strongly recommend a 'no' vote on this misguided attempt to change the state constitution."
Protestants for the Common Good: "Let us not be confused. This amendment does nothing, not one jot, towards solving the public pension problems of our state [but] could have serious unintended consequences. ... To protect recent and future public employees and the quality of public services, vote NO".
Citizen Action/Illinois: The state's largest public-interest organization "has taken a position to oppose the pension amendment to the constitution. Please vote NO when you are asked to vote on a measure to change the Illinois Constitution to require a three-fifths majority of any public body to improve public-employee pensions."
Peoria Journal-Star: "The full text of the abysmally written and probably purposely indecipherable amendment - leave it to the lawyers - will not appear on the ballot, so this is the equivalent of signing a contract you haven't read. ... It's a virtual invitation to legal challenge and even greater expenditures of your tax money. You know a measure is flawed when liberal labor groups and some conservative organizations alike oppose it ... Constitutional amendments are big deals. Nothing about this one feels right. Vote no."
Southern Illinoisan: "It’s a smoke-and-mirrors, feel-good measure to make it appear the General Assembly is doing something about the problem. ... This amendment is unnecessary, confusing and could have unintended consequences. Sink it."
Better Government Association: "In addition to doing nothing to address Illinois’ growing unfunded pension liability ... the amendment presents several technical problems. It uses new terms found nowhere in the pension code or in the regulations governing pension funds, making it impossible to understand the practical implications of the proposed language."