Posts
By Dennis Byrne
Election Day cometh ...
Asked by a talk-show host if she would be willing to vote for Tony Peraica, the Republican candidate for Cook County Board president, a newspaper reporter suggested that she'd be throwing away her vote.
Her presumption is one shared by many voters--a vote for a potential loser is a wasted vote. I guess people who believe this think a vote is like money: If you spend your dollar, you should get something in return. Otherwise, you're just giving it away.
Of course, it's nonsense. But how sad to find that kind of thinking by a journalist who is supposed to know something about public affairs. Thankfully, the reporter was quickly challenged by the host of WTTW-Ch. 11's "Chicago Tonight: Week in Review," Joel Weisman, who pointedly asked, "Why would you be throwing away your vote?" By then, the conversation had moved on, and an answer never came.
"Throwing away your vote" ranks right up there in the stupid department with another Election Day cliche: "I'd love to vote for someone for a change, instead of having to vote against someone." Considering the two major candidates running for Illinois governor, I can understand the sentiment. But let me ask:
What's wrong with voting against someone?
Where is it written that you must vote for someone? Why is it wrong, when so many candidates are unsuited for office, and prove it after they are elected? Why does voting against a blockhead somehow demean democratic ideals?
I've voted against people for decades, because they're the worse of two. It's not my fault that political parties stock the ballot with fish. Our job is to cull the real stinkers.
Speaking of voting against someone, I hope voters inclined to vote for Todd Stroger for Cook County Board president realize something. The Democratic Party selected Stroger in a most undemocratic way. Actually, it wasn't even the party, but a crew of ... ? Come to think of it, we don't even know what or who. As if the Kremlinlike secrecy surrounding the health of Stroger's father, John, wasn't enough, Cook County will be run by a camarilla. We won't really know who's in it until the contracts and jobs start getting handed out.
Speaking of undemocrats, some believe that we shouldn't be able to vote at all, especially when there's a chance they might lose. Thus, the misnamed Fair Illinois coalition fought against an advisory referendum on the November ballot asking if the Illinois General Assembly should consider a state constitutional amendment saying that a marriage between a man and a woman is the only legal union that shall be valid or recognized in Illinois.
Never mind that approval wouldn't create the amendment; the referendum only asked if the General Assembly should submit the amendment to the voters in a referendum. In other words, it was a referendum suggesting that the legislature think about conducting another referendum.
More than 400,000 citizens petitioned to have the advisory (first) referendum placed on the ballot, but the undemocrats, including the American Civil Liberties Union, found enough flaws in a small sample of the signatures to meet a legal requirement to have the referendum thrown off the ballot.
Fair Illinois' justification for challenging the advisory referendum in the first place ultimately comes down to this: Citizens don't have the right to vote away the "rights" of gays. Point taken.
But I guess that means citizens can't even express their views on the matter.
Jesse Smart, chairman of the Illinois State Board of Elections, was mystified when the technical question came before the body: "Personally, I can't understand why anyone would object to allowing the people to give their opinions. ... People in America have the right to make some choices."
Wrong, this is Illinois.
Trouble ahead
A return to last week's topic, as required by the soaring irresponsibility that Rep. George Scully (D-Flossmoor), House Utility Oversight Committee chairman, revealed in his reaction to ComEd's warnings that it might go bankrupt if the General Assembly extended a rate freeze for three years. He said he wouldn't mind a judge overseeing the utility.
Two words for Scully: Chicago Skyway. For years, the highway linking Chicago and northwest Indiana kept tolls artificially low, in response to political pressure. The skyway came under the oversight of a federal judge, who approved a 15 percent toll increase.
If you think ComEd's rates are high now, wait until a federal bankruptcy judge, who answers to no one but the law, gets his hands on them.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
