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Illinois 58th District State Representative Newsletter |  |
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Recall Yes, Pay Raise No I voted in favor of giving Illinois citizens the chance to vote on a November referendum which would provide for a constitutional amendment allowing for the recall of officials elected to executive branch positions. Although House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 28 passed the House with a vote of 75 - 33, maneuvering in the Senate at the end of the process ended the referendum effort. The perennial question of providing a pay raise to legislators arose again last week. I am firmly opposed to such a pay raise and signed on as a sponsor of House Joint Resolution 132 to reject the pay raise. My opposition is officially recorded in the House transcript.
The millions of white goods (appliances) pouring into landfills unnecessarily add to the accumulation of toxins in our environment. For this reason, I have worked hard to get a bill passed that would require that white goods cannot be accepted into landfills without first having their hazardous recyclable components removed. The bill provides support to manufacturers and retailers to assist consumers in returning discarded white goods for recycling. I am proud that the bill passed the House unanimously. The measure now awaits action in the Senate.
People with no health insurance usually wind up paying significantly more for hospital care than people with health insurance. A study conducted last year found that hospitals charged the uninsured 2.5 times more than what health insurers paid and more than 3 times more than Medicaid paid for the same services. To me, this is profoundly unfair as these 1.75 million uninsured Illinoisans are generally the least able to afford such discriminatory pricing. For this reason, I am introducing a new amendment to House Bill 684, the Hospital Discount Pricing Act. This bill would make Illinois the first state in the country to cap the amount that uninsured patients would have to pay in a 12-month period. It would also limit the amount that hospitals could charge uninsured patients and would reduce their medical bills by up to 50%. I am pleased that both the Illinois Hospital Association and Attorney General Lisa Madigan are supportive of this initiative and worked hard to negotiate an agreement.
I celebrated not just Earth Day, but Earth Month! On Earth Day, it was wonderful to visit with Highland Park elementary school children at Braeside, Ravinia and Wayne Thomas Schools. The students gave me such creative suggestions for ways to help our environment and showed examples of the numerous ways in which they are becoming eco-aware and involved in environmentally positive projects. Highland Park's Earth Festival had its inaugural event on May 3 at Jens Jensen Park in Ravinia. Despite a rainy day, the festival was well-attended and featured vendors and events showcasing sustainable living opportunities. I also had the pleasure of celebrating Earth Month in Lake Bluff at Lake Bluff Middle School's Environmental Awareness Fair on May 3. The fair had wonderful hands-on activities and information available and was a fund-raiser towards a zero-waste lunch initiative. These students did a wonderful job! If you are looking for ways you can make every day Earth Day, please stop by your public library and pick-up a copy of my bookmark featuring 10 Ways You Can Help the Environment, specially designed for young children.
I voted against the doubling of the income tax for those making over $250,000 because I thought it was poorly crafted legislation with an arbitrary amount and a "cliff" so those who make just over $250,001 have to pay double the amount from dollar one.
House Bill 4403 proposes a controversial requirement of photo identification for voting. My whole life I have worked to register voters and provide election information, so I do not support this restriction on voting rights. The League of Women Voters opposes this measure, but the Chicago Tribune has editorialized in favor of the photo id requirement for voting. I believe this is a discriminatory obstacle to a citizen's right to vote and that we have more educating to do. For instance, Indiana requires photo id's in order to vote. During the primary, a group of elderly nuns were denied voting privileges because they did not have photo id's, even though the registrar was a fellow nun of the same order. This type of requirement could have impactful consequences on the integrity of our voting process.
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