Every 20 years, Illinois voters get to vote on whether to hold a constitutional convention to rewrite or amend our state constitution. I was more or less ambivalent to this (only vaguely aware the vote was goign to take place) until I saw this piece on Progress Illinois that lays out the discussion nicely.
To be fair, we have a dramatically incompetent governor who is unfortunately a democrat. He was elected after the previous republican governor went to jail for corruption that ended getting dozens killed. Republicans are in minorities in both chambers of our legislature as well as this state has long since realized the destructiveness of their ideas.
That is why it was with shock and horror I realized that a convention is being driven by the right and no one in the progressive community has called them out on this yet. It's not just any republican, but it is radically right-wing psychopath, John Bambenek, who is leading the effort to rewrite our state constitution.
The name of John Bambenek should be familiar to the people of this site because he once tried to get the FEC to shutdown the Daily Kos.
Apparently, Bambenek has founded a group called the Illinois Citizens Coalition and even wrote a book called Illinois Deserves Better. And this entire time the press and the groups he has spoken to apparently haven't caught on.
Let's see how we'd fare under a constitution written by John Bambenek.
First, women's rights. I think this covers Bambi's views on women nicely. We'd be lucky if all we lost was the right to choose if Bambi had his way.
Second, free speech and press. Well, Bambi's forays with the FEC show him to be more than willing to use the government to shut down views he disagrees with.
Third, separation of Church and State. Bambi ran for the local school board once (and got embarassingly slaughtered, Alan Keyes style)... part of his campaign... you guessed it, Intelligent Design So science will get shellacked and we'll have Bambi's religious views slammed down our throats.
Last, let's talk about civil rights for those accused of criminal behavior. Bambi has been a vociferous supporter of the Bush administration's suspension of civil rights for those accused of terrorism.
Having a constitution written by John Bambenek would be a nightmare... the kind of nightmare that only begins with the burning of the Recihstag. Progressives everywhere need to stand up to prevent this coert attempt to hijack our state constitution before we wake up and its too late.