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Letters
Cutback amendment EDITORS: It is time for the Coalition on Political Honesty to be honest. It distorts facts and "makes up" facts to promote a constitutional amendment to reduce the size of the Illinois House from 177 representatives to 118. The coalition says the cutback would save $7 million. Actually, the savings would be less than $3 million, something like $2.6 million. The coalition says Illinois legislators are the highest paid in the country. The fact is that California and Michigan legislators are paid more than Illinois, Ironically, the $3 million or so saved could conceivably go to pay increased salaries for the representatives because of increased work load or additional staff. The coalition says the cutback would bring government closer to the people by cutting the geographic size of the state representative districts in half with one representative per district instead of three. The fact is, with the present districts, there are 63,000 people per representative. With the cutback, there would be about 85,000 people for each single-member district, an increase of almost 50 percent. Under the proposed cutback, if an election resulted with Democrats and Republicans both electing 59 representatives, the majority party would be determined by the political affiliation of the governor, giving the governor absolute control. Since the legislature is one of the three 28/May 1980/Illinois Issues branches of government, it should be kept comptetely separate from any such control by a governor. Further, the coalition says that single-member districts would enhance political election competition. Actually, they would almost guarantee no representation for minorities. In 1970, the voters were given a choice between single-member districts and the present three representatives per district. They approved the present system. Finally, the coalition says that the Illinois General Assembly is one of the most costly, unproductive, and unresponsive of all state assemblies. Interestingly enough, the Citizens Conference on State Legislatures rated the Illinois Legislature third among the 50 states based on the criteria of responsibility, accountability, functionalism, independence, and being informed. Rep. Ted E. Leverenz Cutback' amendment and cumulative voting EDITOR: As chairman of the Committee for Legislative Reform, I would like to correct an error in your February magazine. In the article, "Pat Quinn — a man politicians love to hate," the Union League Club of Chicago is incorrectly reported as contributing to the Coalition for Political Honesty (CPH). The Union League Club has not contributed to the CPH. It has, however, supported the Committee for Legislative Reform which is an umbrella organization encompassing the many groups seeking this amendment, including the CPH, the League of Women Voters, Citizens for an Accountable Legislature and others across the state. The Committee for Legislative Reform has on two occasions contributed postage and mailing expenses to mail petitions for this amendment to persons on the membership roster of CPH. The cumulative voting system which we seek to abolish was promptly rejected by the one or two local governments which ever tried it, and it is not now in use in any other government in the world. It denies to the citizens an accountable and representative legislature responsive to the will of the majority, in that with the diversity of three representatives and the attendant vagaries of the "bullet vote," the citizens cannot express their will in hiring and firing the representatives from their district. In 1978, in eight of the districts the party which polled a majority of the votes elected only a minority of the representatives. The Survey Research Institute at Champaign-Urbana reports that after a century of use of the system, less than a third of the voters understand how it operates and how their votes are tallied. It leads to collaboration between incumbent majority and minority party representatives. It also motivates candidates to attack primarily their own fellow party members with pleas for the bullet vote, instead of encouraging the parties to address the issues and nominate the best possible candidates for election in a one-on-one contest. It is time that this referendum was achieved, and we welcome all groups which wish to help us get these petitions on file by May. George C. Townsend May 1980/Illinois Issues/29 |
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