The forum will feature Bruno Behrend and John Fritchey for the “Yes” side, and Dan Proft and another “No” defender to be announced. It will take place at English, located at 444 N. LaSalle - 3rd floor.

This will take place Tuesday evening, August 12th, at the Lincoln Restaurant, 4008 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, IL. This is near the corner of Lincoln & Irving Park.

The book “Illinois Deserves Better,” will be available at a deep discount. A great deal of time for Question and Answer will be available.

In short, it is 3 elections. First, you need to organize to get to a 60% “Yes” vote in November. Next, you should find the best fresh new face in your SENATE district to run against the Party Hack (or their proxy) who has been part of wrecking this fine state. Lastly, after the convention passes any changes, you have the opportunity to vote for any and/or all of the possible changes.

At every step of the process, it is the ILLINOIS CITIZEN that is in control, NOT the special interests. All the special interests are lined up against a convention. If they really believed they could control the delegate races, they would be for it.

Democratic leaders need constitutional jolt

Why do Illinois Democrats keep voting for those clowns of theirs?

They’d probably reply that their clowns are a cut above the Republican clowns, and they may be right. But that still leaves the question: How can Democratic voters keep electing the very people who keep assaulting health care, child welfare and other social programs so dear to the Democratic heart?

Even the most reactionary, right-wing troglodytes have not been as successfully obstructionist as Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan—Democrats all—whose budget stalemate is giving social service providers fits.

The cuts in this budget prove the point that government has become an engine of hand-outs, contracts corruption, and public employee largess. People are hurting because Illinois leader of both parties are too busy dividing up pork (which Emil calls “Steak”) to fund necessary programs

MP3 File

Tom Roeser, host of WLS Radio’s “Political Shoot Out” show, will have Bruno Behrend on as a guest, along with Nancy Kazak, of the Alliance to Protect the Status Quo and Special Interests. (our name for them, not theirs)

Tune in to WLS-AM 890 at 8:00 PM on Sunday, August 3rd, where we will be discussing the vote on November’s vote on a Constitutional Convention, what happens after it passes, as well as other important Illinois issues on the horizon.

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We hope many businessmen and women attend to ask Mr. Murnane why the Illinois business community is wasting this golden opportunity to burnish its image by working to empower businesses and individuals in Illinois.

You may also want to attend just to ask him why the Illinois Civil Justice League is walking hand-in-hand with the Illinois Trail Lawyer’s Association in working to keep Illinois bankrupt, over-lawyered, and opaque from citizen oversight.

Also at the event, but not debating each other, will be Tony Peraica and Anita Alvarez, candidates for Cook County States Attorney.

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If you can’t attend, remember to tell 10 friends to vote “Yes” in November. And don’t forget to BUY OUR BOOK! (Click the ad to the right) We are told by readers that it is very persuasive in convincing people to vote “Yes.”

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.

I was presenting/debating the Convention Issue in front of a the “Knox County Democrats” yesterday evening (Check out “Events” tab for our schedule), and Jim and I put on an enlightening debate for a great group of people.

With out going into too much detail, (HEY! call us and sponsor your OWN debate/presentation), I found the evening fraught with irony. Here we were, in front of a group of Democrats, and the spokesperson for the “No” side was telling them “trust the IEA, trust the Illinois Business Roundtable, trust the experts and the insiders. Only they can decide what we can and should do in a convention.”

And there I was, telling the crowd to trust the people, trust that good delegates will get elected, trust that the voters of Illinois won’t ratify a bad Constitution. Too many of us fall prey to the cynicism of the times. It seems that the best hope for the “No” campaign is that most citizens have become so jaundiced that they can’t even conceive the possibility of positive change.

We trust the people, and the “No” campaign wants you to trust the “status quo,” the 2 parties, the legislature, and the same class of characters that made Illinois a laughing stock of a state.

There is plenty of time for you to decide how to vote, and you don’t have to fall for soundbites and slick, but misleading, 30 second spots. Donate $6.00 (click the ICON below) to the “Yes for Illinois” campaign, and we’ll send you a copy of our very persuasive and enlightening book.

If you want to mail a check, send it to

Illinois Citizens Coalition
823 Forest Avenue
River Forest, IL 60305

It’s a steal at $6.00/copy!

-our constitution enables bad government and comprehensive change is necessary
-our opposition is the campaign for the status quo
-the people deserve a constitutional convention to voice how they want government to work for them and not for the political elite

Fixing Springfield

Dennis Byrne
July 21, 2008

If the powers that be in Illinois are so all-fired determined to prevent the electorate from calling a convention to reform the state’s constitution, then maybe the special interests should come up with a better way to flush the corrupt, wasteful and incompetent politics out of state government.

But they haven’t. Instead, business and labor, the self-righteous and greedy, along with some pure of heart folks are spending a ton of money to get you to vote “no” when you are asked in the November election whether you want to call a state Constitutional Convention.

The response of these folks, calling themselves the Alliance to Protect the Illinois Constitution, is to throw a big wad of money, which the rest of us don’t have, to the usual suspects for a public relations campaign to preserve the status quo, which we all know is, oh, so fine. To those who might suggest that some things in the constitution might be changed for the better, the alliance says: “The best way to fix Springfield is to pick new elected officials.” Swell, and how? The same wonderful constitution has endowed the rat pack that runs the state with the power to hold onto its power. Personally, I’m not all that hot to open up the entire constitution to revision by whoever clutches the reins of a Con Con, as the convention is informally known. The question is: Is it worth the risk of losing what’s good in the constitution to address what’s wrong with the state? Well, it’s beginning to look like it. Here are just a few items:

Ethics: The ethics “rules” are so laughable that they deserve to be taken out of the hands of the governor and legislature. Even the latest “reform” is so minimal that it is, at best, a cynical charade. The constitution needs a strong ethics article.

Recall: Let voters remove state, local and county officials from office.

Legislative tyranny: One reason the state is in such bad shape is the undemocratic power that Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan have to block votes on bills. End that power.

Public servant reform: Don’t just free public employees from doing political work to keep their jobs, bar them from it. It wouldn’t exactly be a shot between the eyes of the corrupt Chicago Democratic machine, but it would be more than a flesh wound.

Secession: Allow Cook County taxpayers to throw off the yoke of Board President Todd Stroger by making it easier for them to remove their communities from the county.

Townships: Their duties can be handled elsewhere. Get rid of them.

We’re just getting started: In the area of fiscal reform, the constitution badly needs to be amended to cure the staggering sickness of the state’s pension funds. The budgeting process stinks, allowing the governor and the legislature to get away with approving huge deficits. How that would be done, I don’t know, but finding a way is imperative to limit the deficits and indebtedness that are creating one of the state’s worse crises.

Taxes: My brother-in-law, a small businessman recently visiting from Florida, was so astonished to hear that corporations are taxed at a higher rate than individuals that I had to go back and look it up to make sure I was right. Here’s what the constitution says: “[For an income] tax imposed upon corporations the rate shall not exceed the rate imposed on individuals by more than a ratio of 8 to 5.” This clearly isn’t a way to keep the state’s economy competitive; the rates should be equal.

And more: Why do we elect comptrollers and treasurers and clerks and the secretary of state; why not professionalize the offices? How about merit selection of judges? How about cleaning up the language of the education article (”The state has the primary responsibility for financing the system of public education”) to mean that the state has the primary financial responsibility for education, if that’s what the people want? How about term limits? How refreshing would it be to put up no longer with Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his arrogant, anti-democratic ally, Emil Jones?

There’s a lot more, but here’s the challenge to the alliance: Your cooperation with the rat pack has nurtured the stink. If you are so convinced that the only way to improve Illinois government is a new cast of characters, then form an alliance to throw the bums out.