Score One For Heather.

I have given Heather Steans, my state senator, a hard time in the past for this and that, including for how she got her job in the first place, but she did something good recently for which she deserves due credit.

On October 1st, Senator Steans, in her words, "was able to do something as a Senator that has never made me feel more proud or honored." She filed the Equal Marriage Act, a bill that would allow same-sex couples in Illinois the right to marry. Senate Bill 2468 will clarify equal marriage rights for same-sex couples across the state - a right which, she says, "is already enshrined in our constitutional language and traditions."

Rep. Greg Harris (D-13th) has introduced civil union and equal marriage bills in the House each session for each of the past two General Assemblies, but nothing had ever been filed in the Senate. Harris is my state rep. I've given him a hard time too, but they both have my support on this one.

Dear Senator Steans, Reform Begins With You.

It seems like every time Senator Heather Steans (D-7th) sends me a legislative update, I get a blog post out of it.

Since Senator Steans does a poor job of keeping her web site updated, I'm posting her most recent one, which I received via email, here.

It's about what you would expect, including the last two paragraphs, which follow:

Today the sun is shining and I - like people throughout the state - am breathing a sigh of relief that we can start a new chapter. Clearly Illinois suffers from a culture of corruption that requires ethics reforms such as campaign contribution limits and greater transparency and oversight. We have an enormous budget deficit that has to be tackled. And we need a capital plan to restore our infrastructure and put Illinois residents back to work. I am confident that our new Governor, Patrick Quinn, and the House and Senate will now pull together to start the real work that needs to be done.

Please call or email me if you have any questions or would like further insights into the impeachment trial. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.

Since she asked, here are my thoughts and suggestions:

Dear Senator Steans,

Respectfully, we do not need more ethics legislation from the same people who gave us all of the previous ethics legislation, then immediately figured out how to get around it and continue to do business as usual.

The current situation presents a unique opportunity for every Illinois legislator to lead by doing. What will you do to be more open and transparent about the way you conduct your own official business? What will you do to help expose the existing corrupt systems, individuals and groups of which you and every other legislator are aware? What will you do to demonstrate to your constituents that they and they alone direct your actions, even above and beyond the Senate and party leadership?

What will you do to show us—-prove to us-—that this really is a new chapter and not a repeat of the last reform movement, which as you may recall was led by the now disgraced ex-governor and his running mate, the new governor?

What can you say to us that we haven't heard a thousand times before? What can you do to show us you are really different?

Perhaps a good place to start would be the confession of past sins. What do you think?

We Won't Forget You, Heather.

Today the Chicago Tribune editorial page--the same editorial page Illinois Governor Blagojevich is accused of trying to suppress--provided a useful history lesson.

Although it seems like a lifetime ago, it was only last spring that Governor Blagojevich enjoyed enough support in the Illinois Senate to defeat a House-sponsored recall bill. Had it passed, we probably would be voting right now to remove him. Back then, Emil Jones was Senate President and Rod's buddy. The Trib today lists all the Senators who defeated one recall proposal and kept another one from coming to a vote.

One of those faithfully lined up behind Jones back then was my own state Senator, representing the 7th District, Heather Steans. She was even trotted out at the time to carry the governor's water on Chicago Tonight and elsewhere, ironically arguing against the recall but for a measure that would reform (i.e., increase) the state's income tax.

It was a sorry spectacle, as I told her in a letter I shared with you blog readers here.

The surprise retirement of Jones back in August may have been the beginning of the end for Blago. Or maybe it was the Rezko conviction in June. The feds were clearly getting close, the guys behind the guys were cutting their losses, and the front men and women were scrambling for cover. It's hard for somebody like Steans, used to following orders, to know whose orders to follow when everything is falling apart. Her most recent constituent report described at length, but bloodlessly, the impeachment process and how the all-important U. S. Senate seat at the center of it all might be filled. It was distributed on December 17, before the Burris appointment. Here is the closest she came to taking a position or even expressing an opinion about any of it, but even with all of her careful weasel-wording, she got it so very wrong.

She wrote:

Harry Reid, the majority leader of the Senate, has indicated he will not seat anyone who the Governor appoints, and the Governor's legal defense attorney has stated that the Governor will not act to fill this seat. Thus the threat of the Governor trying to fill this vacancy no longer exists. We have some time over the holidays to see if the Governor resigns or steps aside before the U.S. Senate reconvenes in the new year. There is no perfect solution for filling the vacant Senate seat. I continue to prefer conducting a special election despite its downsides, but there is no consensus on this in Springfield.

(Emphasis mine.)

As the citizens of Illinois pour their outrage onto Rod Blagojevich, we should not forget his many enablers, including what the Tribune today called "The Blagojevich 26."

Voters have notoriously short memories so I won't speak for anyone but myself. I won't forget you, Senator Steans. I won't forget how you got your seat, nor what you did with it, no matter how many food drives for the needy you promote.

My Rep Panders Too.

I've given it to my State Senator Heather Steans lately here and elsewhere.

But I shouldn't let Greg Harris off the hook. He's my state representative (D-13th) and he and Senator Steans are close allies. If my pet peeve with her is the Alcopop Law, which he supported, my pet peeve against him is the civil unions bill, HB1826, which she also supports. She bragged about Alcopop in her Legislative Update a few days ago. He brags about HB1826 in the one I received from him today.

Hummm. Direct mail Legislative Updates? Is there an election soon? Sure enough, both Harris and Steans will be on the November ballot. Steans is running to complete the balance of Carol Ronen's term. (I wrote about that sweet piece of business here.) All rep seats are up this year.

So what do I have against civil unions? Nothing, except in Illinois, and apparently some other states, legislators have gotten civil unions passed by expressly permitting heterosexual seniors to use civil unions to scam Social Security. I've written at length about this issue before, so I won't go into a lot about it here. Suffice it to say I think it taints the righteousness of demanding equal spousal privileges for same sex couples.

Finally, I plead with you to pay as much attention to your local elections as you do to the presidential race. The your-vote to effect-on-your-life ratio is much greater for elections that are closer to you, like for your representatives in the state legislature.

The Difference Between Right and Legal.

One of the first things you learn in law school is the difference between law and morality.

I’ll pause for a moment as you fill in your own punch-line.

The simple point is, things aren’t necessarily right because they’re legal and they’re not necessarily wrong because they’re illegal. The second of those two statement is the more complicated one, and doesn’t really concern us today. We’ll stick to the first concept.

Just because something is legal, that doesn’t make it right.

This comes up in part because of my recent comments about the Social Security scam that is being used to promote domestic partner/civil union legislation in Illinois. A similar arrangement is already law in California. The argument has been made, and acknowledged by me, that if the practice is legal, as it apparently is, then there should be no stigma attached to people taking advantage of it.

Maybe, but that doesn’t make it right.

If this concept still seems a bit hazy, here are some other illustrations, all helpfully provided by that same cast of characters.

One of the advocates for the civil unions scheme is my State Senator, Heather Steans. Ms. Steans got her job through some shenanigans involving the carefully-timed resignation of her predecessor, Carol Ronen. Though dubious ethically, it was all legal.

In the Senate, Ronen was Governor Rod Blagojevich's floor leader. Earlier this year, he hired her as a $120,000-a-year senior advisor. She resigned eight weeks later, ostensibly to volunteer in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, although that organization has yet to acknowledge her presence.

In doing all this, Ronen “earned” a state pension whose amount is based on her final salary, so her yearly pension (Ronen is 63-years-old) will be $102,000. That is $38,000 more than she would have gotten as a retired senator. Her old salary as a senator was $75,000 a year. How many hard-working Americans get to retire on a pension that is higher than their salary?

In the military, it is customary for lifers to get one last promotion just before they retire, so their pension will be figured at the higher pay grade. The difference is that everyone there is treated the same. Everyone gets the extra bump before they retire. What Ronen got was a special reward for a loyal insider, available to only a select few. That's the sin of the thing.

Governor Blagojevich, who because he says nothing with a straight face can effectively say anything with one, claims he didn’t know about Ronen's scam (there’s that word again) until he read about it in the newspapers.

Pension scammers like Ronen are entitled to say they haven’t done anything illegal, but I contend they can’t say they haven’t done anything wrong. Here is how one state legislator characterized this pension enhancement practice: "It's an outrage. It's not the way people expect government to run. It's not the way government should run." Who said that? Senator Carol Ronen, in 2003, when the outgoing Republican administration was pulling the same stunt. She predicted that the incoming Blagojevich administration would set a higher standard.

Is the practice actually legal? Quite possibly not, technically, but it is effectively legal since there is no way to prove the conspiracy to defraud that would be necessary to call it illegal. That it is wrong should be clear to anyone with even a passably-functioning moral compass, but those are pretty rare in Springfield.

Illinois Legislator Promotes Civil Unions as Social Security Scam.

Once again, my representatives to the state legislature are not making me proud.

Greg Harris (D-13th District) is promoting civil union legislation with a unique argument. He is touting it as a way for heterosexual senior citizens to get certain benefits and privileges without jeopardizing their spousal Social Security benefits as they would by remarrying. He isn't calling it a Social Security scam, of course. Here is how he positions it:

While a lot of attention has been focused on how civil unions would benefit same-sex couples, little attention has been given to the largest group of potential beneficiaries of civil unions in Illinois: senior citizens. This week, I along with Senator David Koehler, Senator Heather Steans and a group of seniors held a press conference to highlight these benefits. The fact is that many seniors who are widows or widowers stand to lose their pension or social security benefits if they remarry. However, without legal recognition of their relationship, such as a marriage or civil union, these seniors can be denied the right to visit partners in the hospital, participate in healthcare decision making, and disposition of a deceased loved one’s remains.

(The underlining is mine. The non-parallel dependent clauses are all his.)

As you may recall, Harris's ally Senator Heather Steans is my state senator, and I've had some past complaints about her and Rep. Harris. This story is useful because it illustrates how their political minds are wired.

In fairness to Harris and Steans, this district has a high concentration of senior citizens and pandering to seniors seems to be key to political success here. The current U.S. Representative, Jan Schakowsky, built her political career as a senior citizens advocate.

The late columnist Mike Royko proposed that the Latin phrase "Ubi Est Mea" ("where's mine?") should be the Illinois state motto. Many Illinois seniors are way too comfortable with that particular ethos of Illinois politics.

Unfortunately, the benefits to seniors in this proposal are illusory.

Rep. Harris is the only openly-gay member of the Illinois General Assembly and if he does not support same-sex marriage, I'm sure the vast majority of his gay constituents do. I support same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage you can support on principle. Supporting civil unions always involves situational political considerations, since they are to marriage law normalization what medical marijuana is to drug law normalization.

One of the arguments for same-sex marriage and, by extension, civil unions is that life partners without legal status cannot access spousal benefits in Social Security and pensions. The simple argument in favor of civil unions in lieu of marriage has always been that they allow the redress of certain clear injustices without getting into the emotionally-loaded same-sex marriage argument.

Unfortunately, as civil unions have become more common, this use of them has been undercut in significant ways, probably most notably in 1996 by the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which, by the way, was signed by President Bill Clinton.

DOMA defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman, and explicitly denies to same-sex couples marriage-based federal benefits. These include Social Security benefits, veterans' benefits, spousal benefits under qualified retirement plans, the unlimited estate and gift tax marital deduction, the ability to file income taxes as a married couple, and the ability to make split gifts as a married couple.

While DOMA makes civil unions useless for claiming federal benefits and privileges, they can still provide a number of benefits under state law, including the ability to receive state benefits, and the right to be involved in health care matters that normally are restricted to family.

HB1826 and SB2436 are the two pieces of civil union legislation pending in Illinois. They are unique in that they would provide for civil unions for both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. In all states that currently recognize civil unions, they are an option for same-sex couples only. The only rationale I have heard for allowing opposite sex couples in Illinois to opt for civil unions instead of marriage is the Social Security scam proposed by Rep. Harris.

The scam is also being promoted at CivilUnionsIllinois.org

If, in fact, Illinois does recognize civil unions between opposite-sex couples, how long do you think it will take for Social Security and every other affected entity to plug that loophole? DOMA defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman. Would it not then be reasonable to argue that DOMA effectively also defines marriage as any legally-recognized union between a man and a woman, regardless of its name?

Barack Obama, who Steans and Harris support for president, is on record as against same-sex marriage but for civil unions for same-sex couples. He also has said he supports allowing the states to legalize same-sex marriage if they want to, and to that end he opposed DOMA. (Symbolically, as he wasn't in a position to vote on it.) One can certainly imagine DOMA being repealed or substantially revised early in an Obama presidency especially if, as expected, Democrats control both houses of Congress. Assuming anyone falls for this silly proposition in the first place, how do you think heterosexual seniors who supported civil unions on this basis will feel when their little scam blows up on them?

Government and politics as practiced by Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his legislative supporters gets more surreal by the day.

See Heather Carry Water For The Machine.

For my fellow politically-frustrated Illinoisans, spend a moment with this editorial from today's Chicago Tribune.

The hapless Senator Steans is my State Senator. Last year, the incumbent senator from the 7th District announced that she would not stand for reelection because she was joining the Blagojevich administration. She also announced that, after the primary, she would resign her office so that the winner of the Democratic primary could be appointed to fill her unexpired term. The announcement was unexpected and carefully timed to leave a minimal amount of time for potential successors to decide to run and secure a ballot position. Heather Steans just happened to be ready. One opponent, who helped expose the charade, managed to scramble and get on the ballot too.

In the campaign, Steans called herself an "independent Democrat," but she has shown herself to be machine through-and-through, her sad water-carrying today being only the most vivid example.

For more background about what passes for democracy in Illinois, go here.

The point of the Tribune's editorial was that we residents of Illinois should contact our senators and let them know where we stand; on the recall amendment as well as the income tax amendment. I say recall-recall-recall, and let's not give the guy any more tax money in the meantime. (Illinois has a flat rate income tax. The amendment would double the rate for persons with incomes over $250,000/year.)

So I wrote to my State Senator. Here's what I wrote:

Dear Senator Steans,

I just read the Tribune editorial from today. Welcome to life as a machine politician.

I am one of your constituents. I voted for your opponent. I didn’t know anything about you, but didn’t like the way you got your office. From your campaign materials, you seemed like a nice person. It’s a familiar story. You want to get involved in the political process in a serious way and make a difference, but in Chicago there is only one way in. If you’re on the outside you can’t do anything. On the inside you might be able to do something. So you take the deal.

Today you got a good dose of why it’s a lousy bargain, even if there isn’t any better one available.

But maybe you liked the Tribune’s editorial. It said your seat is safe for as long as you want it, but you know that’s not true. You know it’s safe only as long as you’re on the team. Just see what happens if you start to think and speak and vote for yourself, instead of according to party discipline.

It’s hard to hate the machine. We like the bread and circuses. But at the end of the day it’s just not democracy.

So for the record, please vote for placing the recall amendment on the fall ballot. I also oppose changing the income tax under the present circumstances.