New constitution needed in Illinois

I am more than a little discouraged with the major, and still unaddressed, issues that plague, and will continue to plague Illinois.

As you know, no less a highly regarded organization as The Wall Street Journal has found that Illinois has the most unfriendly, "Byzantine" constitution in the nation. It is unfriendly in that it does little, or nothing, to garner, or encourage, citizen involvement in their government. There are some 30 or so states that have some form of binding referendum, or initiative. Illinois referendum/initiative is limited to advisory only. When governments fail to act as their citizens desire, even when the legislature is "advised" to do so, it needs to be removed.

But it is impossible to do so in Illinois. The existing committee/initiating system ensures all we get is a vote for a representative.

The other main award we won in Illinois is on graft.

We needed only to get a constitutional convention that needed only to get one thing on the ballot: Should the referendum/initiative clause in the existing constitution be changed to binding, but our elected reps walked around talking such a convention down and convincing everyone that they could fix everything with existing procedures.

My point here is that the convention was voted down and nothing has changed.

No matter what our legislature says, nothing will ever change in Illinois. I'm a cynic as most American voters are.

Stephen McMahon

Mount Prospect