Highway chief's license plate oops
SPRINGFIELD - The wife of the state's transportation secretary has been driving around central Illinois with her husband's old, no longer valid state lawmaker license plates.
This week, Betsy Hannig was seen driving around Springfield in a Cadillac bearing the "3" Illinois House license plate on the back and a "deputy majority leader" plate on the front.
That plate and designation had been registered to her husband Gary Hannig when he was a senior member of the Illinois House. But the downstate Democrat was named state transportation secretary by Gov. Pat Quinn earlier this year.
Hannig's wife Betsy was then named to serve out her husband's term in the Illinois House. She's been assigned plate No. 118B. House license plates are assigned based on seniority. The lower the number, the higher ranking the lawmaker and vice versa.
"Yes I drove the Cadillac from Second Street to here today, I did not drive all the way from Gillespie," Betsy Hannig said Tuesday, referring to her home, which is nearly an hour south of Springfield.
When asked if she knew the "3" plate was no longer valid, she said they had requested new plates from the Illinois Secretary of State's Office but hadn't received them yet.
The secretary of state's office said it notified Gary Hannig after he left his position three months ago that he had to get special retired House member plates for his car and that as of Tuesday he still had not picked them up or paid the fees needed to transfer them.
Once Hannig resigned from the House, he was no longer allowed to use the plate, said a secretary of state's office spokeswoman, adding that they'd be calling over to Hannig's office about it.
Contacted soon after by the Daily Herald, Gary Hannig said he'd just paid for his new, "retired" plates Tuesday.
Betsy Hannig's 118B House plate is assigned to a Mercury Mountaineer. While her husband enjoyed a parking spot just outside a Capitol office building, Mrs. Hannig's been spotted parking her Mountaineer on the street. But when driving her husband's car, she'd been using his parking spot.