Constitutional Convention in Illinois

Remember my post about a Constitution Convention in Illinois. It was reported on the Capitol Fax Blog that yesterday that the Illinois House had approved a resolution calling on the people of Illinois to pay attention to this initiative of calling a convention. Today is an article from STL Toady talking about this process a little more...

Frustrated Illinois lawmakers on Thursday approved a resolution slamming their own stewardship of government and calling on citizens to intervene by overhauling the state constitution.

"For reasons known and unknown, the General Assembly has been unwilling or unable to tackle some of the most significant problems facing the State of Illinois," reads the self-flagellating House resolution, which passed by a 48-47 vote.

The nonbinding resolution goes on to list a litany of issues the Legislature has failed for years to address: education funding, campaign ethics reform, the state's property assessment system. It suggests that, "given the inability of the Legislature to achieve results on these and other worthwhile issues," Illinoisans should take the state constitution apart and start from scratch.

"All you have to do is read any newspaper throughout the state to understand public frustration with state government right now," the sponsor of the measure, Rep. John Fritchey, D-Chicago, said after the vote. Advertisement

He suggested that lawmakers might never have the will to take on some of the long-unresolved issues. "Perhaps (constitutional) delegates, who are not worried about their re-election, would be more willing or able to do so," Fritchey said.

The November 2008 statewide ballot in Illinois already will offer a referendum to voters asking whether the state should conduct a constitutional convention to overhaul Illinois' core structural document, something that was last done in 1970. The resolution that the House passed Thursday merely encourages voters to support the measure on the ballot.

The biggest issue for many proponents is education funding. Illinois' current constitution says the state government has "the primary responsibility'' for funding public education, but courts have since ruled that that vague language isn't a mandate.

As a result, the state actually funds less than half the statewide cost of education, leaving the rest to local property tax payers — a situation that critics say has made property taxes outrageous in some parts of the state and has created vast inequities between different areas. Among likely goals of a new constitution would be to more specifically require that more than 50 percent of funding come from the state.

Nonetheless, almost half the House voted against the resolution, led by some of its highest-ranking members in both parties.

"I don't fear the people. But I do think that our constitution, the 1970 Illinois Constitution, is a good strong statement of principles that were good in 1970 and they're good in 2007," said Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, the House majority leader and its second-highest ranking member. "I think there's a big risk in saying let's throw the whole thing open, let's start from scratch. We don't need to start from scratch. We have a good, sound framework."

Among other "no" votes were Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, the assistant majority leader, who called the idea of a constitutional convention "dangerous for this General Assembly." Many members of the House Republican minority also opposed the measure, including Minority Leader Tom Cross of Oswego.

The vote came as lawmakers ended their first week in overtime session, after the Legislature failed to pass a new state budget and adjourn for the summer by its regular May 31 deadline.

A lot of stuff to look into and consider. There been some talk about this in the Illinois blogosphere. Indeed I ran across this post at IlliniPundit where they seem to want a Constitutional Convention.