Nope, Nothing Suspicious About This.

This is about Illinois government. I promise to keep it brief.

I got a Legislative Update from my State Rep, Greg Harris. It explains the House's proposal to lease the Illinois Lottery and how it differs from the governor's proposal to lease the Illinois Lottery. Here is his list of the key differences:

Among them are the inclusion of strict ethics requirements, anti pay-to-play provisions, requirements for competitive bidding of the lease, caps on transaction fees, dedicated funds to guarantee use of the proceeds of the lease only as intended and not for political purposes, protections against exploitation of poor communities by the lessor, requirements for MBE/WBE/DBE participation, and protections for lottery employees.

Despite, or perhaps because of all those explicit ethics protections, I feel like my pocket is being picked. Oh wait, state-run gambling taxes only gamblers, and I don't gamble, yet I still feel like my pocket is being picked. Why is that?

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.

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.