Con on the con-con

I was diasappointed to find out last week that the Con-Con referendum was defeated heavily in Illinois. It would be suspected that it had something to do with the approved Con-Con question and the remedy to correct the original question that seemed biased. The remedy being that the corrected question was to be handed on a flyer.

The reason for that was more or less economical. When that ruling came down from Cook County Circuit Court the idea was certainly to use the ballots that were already printed. The idea was that it might be expensive or indeed cutting it too close to just print new ballots with the corrected and improved question.

Well there might have been a number of reasons for it's absolute defeat at the polls. Perhaps the people of Illinois wasn't ready to make any revisions. Of course that's not to say there aren't those who are still whining about it. There could be another lawsuit because of the results although there are those who will say that's not likely because of how the results aren't even close.

Either way I want to point out this post from Clout City about the Con-Con vote in Chicago...

The referendum lost statewide, so there will be no convention, thus ending my never-really-existed political career.

In Chicago it wasn't so much that it lost -- which it did -- but that relatively few people bothered to vote one way or another. Citywide, roughly 66 percent of the voters who took a ballot voted on the referendum.

The I-couldn't-care-less-one-way-or-the-other totals were particularly high in the 14th Ward (76 percent), the 12 th Ward (70 percent) and the 15th Ward (69 percent).

I know that vote totals generally fall with referendum questions, if for no other reason than that they're buried at the bottom of the ballot, beneath all those freaking judges. But this issue had draw considerable media attention -- it was the subject of rallies and ads both pro and con. And the vote came as poll after poll showed that voters in Illinois and Chicago are hugely dissatisfied with the general drift of politics in state government. So you'd figure folks would at least venture an opinion on things.

By the way, the "no" vote was highest in southwest- and northwest-side wards, most likely because seniors on fixed income in those parts didn't trust the convention delegates -- whoever they might be -- to convene without somehow or other mucking up their pensions.

Well it had to boil down to the pensions. Well for many reasons the pensions aren't doing well in this state. They are said to be underfunded anyway, yet those who were in the employ of state government still expect theirs. It's probably another issue that could use some work.

Of course pensions probably aren't the only reason we're not going to have a con-con in 2010. There are those who didn't believe that the state constitution didn't need to be changed and it had nothing to do with pensions. Either way if anyone believes in reform in Illinois, it's going to be an uphill battle, unfortunately.