Recall option is the best for residents
The recent recall vote in the Illinois Senate fell short of the needed 36 votes to send a constitutional amendment to the citizens for a vote in November.
The vote was 33-19. The proposal was to let voters recall statewide elected public officials. Regardless of which party is in office, I think that the people of Illinois would want this option based on the performance of our government (Democrats and Republicans alike) over the last decade or so.
In response to the vote, state Sen. Terry Link, a Waukegan democrat who voted against the recall, said the recall push was fueled by animosity against Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Years ago when former Republican Gov. George Ryan was under investigation, the recall idea never came up. In this statement by Mr. Link, he provides the main reason to have the recall vote as an option.
Ryan is now in prison where he belongs. If you were to poll Republicans, I am quite sure that most of them would agree that Ryan was a corrupt governor, who deserves to spend his remaining days behind bars. If a recall option were in place when Ryan was governor, Republicans and Democrats both would have jumped at the chance to remove him before he could do any further damage in office (i.e. randomly release murderers from death row, for which most of them there was no doubt about their guilt).
Mr. Link is correct in making this comparison, however. Prison is also where Blagojevich belongs and hopefully will have a cell next to Ryan. The problem is he is still in office.
Senate President Emil Jones suggests that the recall measure was some sort of pay back for "tough" or "unpopular" decisions that Blagojevich has made. First of all, Blagojevich rarely makes any decisions or provide any type of leadership even though his party controls all of Illinois government. Raising taxes to pay for public transportation (while giving away freebees to senior citizens) is not a difficult decision, since most of our legislators are falling all over each other over how they can raise taxes at every turn.
It is time to give power back to the people of Illinois; both Democrats and Republicans. If both can agree on a recall vote, I think that it is safe to say that only truly lousy and corrupt public officials would be subject to such a vote.
Dennis McNally
Grayslake