“Yes” For Illinois

The Last Convention Cost $14,000,000

Galesburg’s News-Register covered last night’s debate in Galesburg.

Is it time for a constitutional convention?
Debate raises awareness of November ballot question

GALESBURG —Illinois government is broken. On that much both debaters at Thursday night’s Knox County Democrats event could agree.

But the sticking point became what is to be done to fix the problems facing the state.

“The state’s broken, the politics are broken and the state is pretty much broke,” said Bruno Behrend, a talk show host from Waukegan and co-founder of the Illinois Citizens Coalition, who argued that Illinois needs to hold a constitutional convention. The problems, he said, are “a function of the leadership, but the leadership is a function of the constitution and there’s really no way to fix Illinois without a convention.”

…

Jim Reed, director of government relations for the Illinois Education Association, disagreed, arguing against a convention in the nearly hour-long debate at Cherry Street Restaurant and Bar.

“We have a very good document” now, he explained. “People sat down and talked about the issues that were going to be addressed and then they addressed them.”

One of Reed’s main contentions against holding a convention now is that there is no overarching plan for what citizens want changed in the current document, which would make a convention lengthy and costly.

Again folks, to hear Jim Reed, Dawn Clark Netsch, and rest of the “No” crowd, ONLY the experts and insiders can decide what needs to be done.

Experts and Insiders have been running Illinois into the ground since 1970. It’s time to reverse that process.