The Chicago Tribune's editorial yesterday expressed the frustration and disgust we at Illinois Review share with the Tribune about the Democrat-dictated failed General Assembly. We, too, resolve to focus during the next 22 weeks on electing fresh, energetic and determined potential state lawmakers who are willing to turn this state upside down. Thank goodness, there are lots of candidates that fill that description chomping at the bit to assume legislative seats that have been worn and beaten down to dishonor.
As the Chicago Tribune writes:
It is with that conviction that this page looks beyond another inconclusive legislative session to focus primarily on the general election just 22 weeks away. The people of this state need solutions to three crises that have Illinois in a downward spiral. We believe Illinois is worth fighting for. We hope voters share that belief, and react less with hot anger than with cold resolve:
Because it looks impossible right now to rid the state of House Speaker Mike Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, we can do only one other thing to strip them of their insatiable political control: reduce or eliminate their party majority in each house. As the Trib writes:
Illinoisans need a solutions-oriented General Assembly. But with their combined 72 years in the legislature, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton are embedded in the ossified status quo. Shooing their underworked troops home last week for yet another paid vacation, the two Democrats proved again that they cannot — or, more likely, will not — risk their party's hold on power to solve those three crises. To do so would infuriate public employee unions and other constituencies fattened by overspent, overborrowed Illinois.
But the number of average citizens, if they engaged in state politics, could easily overwhelm Illinois' corrupt Democratic Machine by starting Downstate and in the collar counties. The Tribune writes:
Throughout this session we've written about the crises — the need for Madigan and Cullerton to make jobs-starved Illinois attractive to employers, to pass the anti-corruption reforms they ducked in 2009, and to end the chronic money mismanagement best summarized as: "Splurge. Borrow. Repeat." In a March 21 editorial titled "Last chance," we noted that voters are financially liable for our leaders' wreckage — their legacy of unpaid bills, astonishing debts and still more borrowing. If Madigan and Cullerton didn't start meeting epic challenges with epic responses, we said on that day's front page, then "we'll try to defeat as many of their caucus members as we can."
And we have just 22 weeks left to get the job done.
