Posted on 02/16/2010 11:09:21 AM PST by Springfield Reformer
If you’re like us, you’ve witnessed the mess in Springfield with utter shock. We were told it was just Rod Blagojevich but now he’s been removed and the mess remains. The only consistent feature of our dysfunctional state government is the legislature. That is why we started this non-partisan reform effort to reform the General Assembly and put the people back in charge.
The “Bambenek Put-Back Amendment” is a comprehensive package of reforms designed to end the backroom dealings of the General Assembly. Did you know that most legislation is written behind closed doors and is never seen by most legislators (much less the public) before they are required to vote on it? Did you know legislative leaders have complete control over what bills get consider and which ones die? We send 177 legislators to Springfield, but the power is only vested in 4 of them. It’s time to end the gridlock, end the backroom dealing, and end the imperial legislature. It’s time YOU are put back in charge!
Learn more about the Bambenek Put-Back Amendment with the links at the right, including how you can help us acquire the 500,000 signatures to get this important amendment on the ballot.
BTW, while revising the Illinois legislature to a unicameral form may resolve some of our problems, I do not believe such a solution is appropriate at the federal level, although I am open to suggestions as to how we might eventually tweak the federal system to prevent the current situation from recurring.
I don’t think unicameral legislatures are ever a good thing.
In fact, I would prefer to see county-wide elected assemblies select the state senators for their area (just as the state legislatures were originally the electors of federal senators).
Just as the states, and their budgets, suffer under federal mandates, so to do county and local jurisdictions under state mandates - because those jurisdictions - the entities themselves - are not represented at the state level.
*IL ping*
Wow what a horrible idea. Taken to new heights.
Yup reducing the number of electors that choose State Senators to a few assembly members (who'd you have to waste money electing) is a swell idea. Surely that would make things much better rather than MUCH WORSE. Having politicians choose politicians. Swell. Surely they'll chose a better caliber of candidate then the voters at large. What a thoroughly amusing notion.
By the way counties are just subdivisions of states. They (meaning their local governments) don't need to be directly represented in the leg. 100% of their citizens already are.
In the past some states had 1 Senator for each county or some such. That was abolished by the Supreme Court who ruled districts must be equal in population.
“Yup reducing the number of electors that choose State Senators to a few assembly members”
No, I did not say “assembly members”.
In fact in most states one cannot be a member of the state legislature/assembly and an appointed or elected official in another part of government in the state.
I said senators elected by the elected body of the county(ies) they represent - so that they represent the county(ies) as an entity. Try to get state imposed mandates on counties and localities, without the funds for them through that body!
The idea would be a reflection of “federalism” at the state level.
So the Cook County board should select dozens of State Senators? How brilliant. That would cut the number of Republicans from Cook districts from less than none to none. Wonderful! Not.
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