Conscious Choice: The State of Progressive Politics

Barack Obama is the state’s best-known candidate, but there are plenty of other local progressives up for election November 2.

October 2004 | Election 2004 Special

The State of Progressive Politics

by Erin Meyer

In the upcoming November election, most voters, television remote in-hand, are fixing their attention on the race for the White House between the candidates of the two dominant political parties: incumbent Republican George W. Bush and Democrat John Kerry. But in some ways the officials we elect to state, county and municipal offices will more greatly impact our daily lives, especially as the federal government continues to wash its hands of important progressive issues, ranging from open-lands acquisition and wetlands preservation to education, healthcare, housing and energy. We talked to advocates in all of these fields to find the top ten progressive candidates vying for state legislative seats in our area.

Okay, there are two national exceptions. We couldn’t resist putting in Democrat Barack Obama, even though he’s running for the U.S. Senate.

And we really wanted to bring attention to the campaign of Christine Cegelis, who is trying to unseat entrenched Republican Henry Hyde in the 6th Congressional District.

Cegelis, who has racked up an impressive list of wide-ranging endorsements from the conservative Chicago Tribune to liberal former Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, has put on the top of her to-do list health care issues and Bush’s new Medicare prescription drug bill, which she has said is in need of critical examination.

Whether you live in a lakefront North Shore community or in a far Southwest Side area, chances are there is a progressive near you vying for office.

Far North

Illinois residents in the far north suburbs have no shortage of environmental candidates to watch for on the November ballot. Here are the standouts.

KATHY RYG State Rep. Kathy Ryg (D-59-Vernon Hills) is champion of open-lands acquisition. “Open land, whether it’s parks, beaches, bike trails or natural habitat is the foundation of quality of life,” she said. Ryg is running for a second term in the Illinois House of Representatives. She came out of the corner swinging in defense of the environment in the 2003-2004 session, according to local environmental groups.

“Kathy Ryg made a big difference for open-space protection almost immediately,” said Jack Darin, director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club. “She wasted no time by providing key support for wetlands protection and land preservation.”

In 2002, Ryg won by only 107 votes. It is really important for supporters of the environment to get out and vote because this may be a close race, Darin added.

Ryg was among the progressives who made sure that the state’s 2005 fiscal-year budget did not allow monies set aside for land acquisition in the Natural Areas Acquisition Fund (naap) and the Open Space Land Acquisition and Development Fund (oslan) to be emptied into the ravenous General Fund.

“Retaining the funding levels for the naap and oslan was a huge success,” said Jerry Adelmann, executive director of the Openlands Project, a 41-year-old regional land conservation group. “With all of the competing goods, open space still represents a vital part of the equation for a healthy society.”

Illinois ranks a disheartening 47th nationally for the amount of state-owned open land, according to Illinois Land at Risk, a study released in 2002 by the Illinois Association and Trust for Open Land. State funding set aside for the purchase of open lands has been cut by 86 percent in the last 5 years.

KAREN MAY State Rep. Karen May (D-58-Highland Park) is heralded by preservationists as a leader of pro-wetland legislation. May spearheaded the wetland protection program in the House for the last two years. Progressives who voted for the Wetlands Protection Bill, HB 422, are also working diligently to protect the Illinois environment and preserve open space.

According to May, wetland preservation has fallen into the hands of the counties because both the state and the federal government have backed out of wetland management.

“My role in the wetland protection effort was meant to be,” May said. “The Supreme Court ruling that removed federal wetland protection in 2001 came down the day after I arrived in Springfield.”

Later, in 2003, May reserved bill number 422 for wetland protection. “April 22nd is Earth Day,” she said.

Unfortunately, the wetlands bill is now collecting dust on the shelf in the Senate.

The Illinois Environment Council, a coalition that lobbies for state environmental organizations, awarded May the 2003 Environmental Leadership Award for her wetlands efforts.

May and Ryg both garnered 100 percent on the iec scorecard for their voting records last session.

Real progressives recognize that cleaning up the environment can have a positive impact on public health. May and Ryg expect mercury to be a high-profile issue in the coming years.

“All of Illinois’ lakes and rivers have unsafe levels of mercury,” May said.

Mercury is a chemical that can be harmful to pregnant women and young children when they consume fish that live in mercury-tainted waters.

SUSAN GARRETT State Sen. Susan Garrett (D-29-Highwood) is pushing the envelope on health and environmental issues.

Garrett, another noteworthy progressive in the north, co-sponsored SB 2551, the Mercury Reduction Act recently signed into law by Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The bill limits the sale of mercury-added products in Illinois but does not specifically address mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants. Currently there are 23 coal-powered factories in Illinois built before 1970 that would be affected by new emissions controls. They emit more than 6,000 tons of mercury into the air each year, according to Illinois Public Interest Research Group (PIRG).

“We have made the first steps on the mercury issue but we can’t stop until we have emission control for coal-burning power plants,” said Rebecca Stanfield, environmental attorney for pirg.

Still the bill goes further than any federal legislation. “If state legislators allow the federal government to set the tone for environmental issues, we are going to be in pretty bad shape,” said Garrett.

Garrett also wrote and sponsored SB 3112, the Bottled Water Safety Act.

“Bottled water is the biggest growing industry for Pepsi and Coca Cola and they are one powerful special interest,” Garrett said. Blagojevich signed the bill into law in August.

Garrett is also an aggressive health care reformer.

ELAINE NEKRITZ Rep. Elaine Nekritz (D-57-Des Plaines) is another environmental progressive in the north who deserves mention. She proposed HB 5915, which would have established a program for recycling of electronic products. Nekritz also recently introduced clean air legislation. HB 6555, currently under consideration by the House Environment and Energy Committee, would require the insulation of the latest pollution control devices for coal-burning plants making facility improvements. “The federal government is not doing an effective job of enforcing laws that reduce air pollution and protect air quality,” Nekritz said.

Near North

JULIE HAMOS State Rep. Julie Hamos (D-18-Evanston) led a progressive offensive on the Illinois public housing front. After last year’s public housing shortage, Hamos is only now starting to see the fruits of her labor.

She was a chief sponsor of HB 2345, which the governor’s office recently adopted, reinforcing the legislation as an executive order. The pro-active bill established the first Housing and Urban Development Committee along with the Illinois Housing Initiative, a five-year plan to spur more construction and rehab of affordable housing for populations with the highest risk of becoming homeless.

Hamos pledged to make sure the new housing law does not wind up a report that just gets buried. “As a state legislator, one of my most important roles is to make sure that government agencies are held accountable for their responsibilities, laid out in the new law,” Hamos said. “That is one of my key concerns for next session.”

Hamos chairs the Housing and Urban Development Committee.

LARRY MCKEON State Rep. Larry McKeon (D-13-Chicago) wrote and sponsored HB 3857, a bill that will allow hiv positive organ donors to save the lives of other people infected with hiv. McKeon’s bill, signed into law in July, is the first of its kind in the nation.

Northwest

CHRISTINE CEGELIS “The Medicare Bill was the final straw for me,” said Christine Cegelis, a Rolling Meadows mother of two, accomplished technology firm director, and now Democratic candidate for the U.S. Congress in District 6.

Cegelis said she felt the call to run earlier this year when many senior citizens across the country realized that Bush’s new Medicare prescription drug bill does little to enable them to pay for prescription drugs. The problem may grow even more acute as the number of uninsured Americans rose from 14.2 percent in 2000 to nearly 16 percent, or 45 million, in 2003, according to a report released in September by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“I never imagined a political career,” Cegelis said.

Only when Cegelis sat down with her mother to see how the Medicare bill would help pay for her prescription drugs did she realize how strongly the bill favored the pharmaceutical companies.

“It just struck me that [the pharmaceutical companies] do not have a vote, and our U.S. Congress had just sold our vote to corporations.”

Near South

BARACK OBAMA Long before Barack Obama became a name recognized in most households across the country (following his inspiring keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention), the Democratic Party’s nominee for Illinois’ U.S. Senate seat was well known to health reform advocates. As the Illinois State Senator from District 13, Obama sponsored HB 2268, the Health Care Justice Act, which was signed by into law in August. It calls for the General Assembly to assemble a task force that will strategize on the best way to implement the Universal Health Care Act in Illinois.

“I believe health care coverage should be a right for everyone, not a privilege for the few,” Obama said.

Obama and Cegelis agreed there are shortfalls in recent federal laws regarding prescription drugs for the elderly. “I want to go to Washington to reform the recent Medicare prescription drug bill,” Obama said. “The bill, which was written largely by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, does little to reduce skyrocketing drug costs.”

Near West

MIGUEL DEL VALLE State Sen. Miguel del Valle (D-2-Chicago), an avid education reformer, is in the midst of an uphill climb to improve the public school system. He sponsored SB 1550, titled Grow Our Own Teachers. The bill provides funds and programs to retain teachers in moderate- and low-income neighborhoods.

“Ever since Miguel became the first Latino senator in Illinois back in 1987 he has been a phenomenal ally to low- and moderate-income families for education,” said Madeline Talbot, head organizer for Illinois Association of Communities Organizing for Reform.

According to Talbot, del Valle and other education reformers have a lot on their plate. At least 75 percent of the state’s 891 school districts have budgets in the red, according to A+ Illinois’ website, an organization for comprehensive school quality and funding reform.

Legislators tabled del Valle’s school funding reform bill, HB 750, last session. The bill laid out a new structure to fund education, shifting the burden from property tax to income tax, which would narrow the education gap between the poor and wealthy communities.

The bill is currently open to public discussion. While it is possible that it will come up on the agenda during the November session, it’s more likely to be an issue in the spring.

Far Southwest

PATRICK WELCH State Sen. Patrick Welch (D-38-Peru) is leading Illinois lawmakers into the future of renewable energy. Welch, from LaSalle County, is the chief sponsor for most of the progressive energy legislation proposed during the last session of the General Assembly. The Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS), is a bill that required incremental increases in renewable energy generated in Illinois until 2020 at which time 15 percent of all state produced energy would be renewable. But special interests have slowed passage of the bill, according to Welch.

“Senator Welch has been an absolute stalwart on energy efficiency and renewable energy for the last two years,” said Barry Matchett, policy advocate at the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Welch said Illinois is in dire need of power producing alternatives to old coal factories. “The statistics on the increased number of people, especially children, suffering from asthma is a powerful indication that we need to focus on renewables,” Welch said.

Erin Meyer is the associate editor of Conscious Choice.

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