I opened up my local newspaper today to see an "Election Guide" interviews for candidates on why we should hire them for the next 2 years. Since I live in a red-leaning area, this usually means that I'm not gonna be represented very well. We've been getting a lot of campaign compost(the stuff that's sent through the mail that you really don't pay much attention to--just throw it into the recycling bin) and I noticed a bit of "Republicans Eating Their Own" going on....hmmm, could be a bit entertaining.
I live in the 81st District(State house) and we(Democratic Party) don't have a candidate running this time and although I know I'm not voting for either of them(thinking I'll write in Noam Chomsky, even tho he doesn't live in the district), I found myself researching both to see how mean spirited the local election may be...
First, we have Ron Sandack, who's best known in our area for being anti-worker and getting into a pretty large bruhaha with the fire fighters and the police officers during contract negotiations. Oh and some pretty mean-spirited words towards others that don't agree with him. See, Mr. Sandack doesn't believe in allowing employees to have pensions...actually doesn't like them having many rights at all. His history is of a corporate lawyer who represented banksters and other financial institutions, not the little guy. He has a "business litigation and business transactional practice" which represented small and medium businesses involved in civil action, employment litigation matters; read: anti worker/labor/consumer. And the business transactional practice? Making sure his client gets as much as he can out of the poor sot going through a bankruptcy, foreclosures, etc. Yes, it could be between two businesses(over 70% of all court time is spent on a business suing another business or business suing an individual), but the business acumen usually wins over the little guy...
Now, Mr. Sandack was DG mayor and seemed to enjoy belittling council members and others who did not agree with him, to the point of some thinking him abusive with his title. In fact, at least one newspaper contributor(more editorial than reporter) has also seen the wrath of this jock bully--if they don't agree with you, intimidate them; such a patriotic, adult thing to do. He's also made many disparraging remarks against public employees, specially fire fighters and police by saying that, "When I meet retired firefighters and police, I thank them for their service and then tell them they(stuck the taxpayers for pensions)are on the dole, we shouldn't have to pay for them after retirement". Lovely man, eh? People risk their lives everyday while working and this idiot wants them to oh...I don't know...finish off being a greeter at mallwart????
And there is the rub(one of them) with me, I worked and paid into my pension for about 28 years and this guy thinks we're living lavishly! I know people who are living on about $1000 a month(and no Social Security) and he talks about "lavish pensions". Well, he made a big deal about refusing the lavish pension and health care benefits when he was appointed to finish off the state senate term, but he isn't even close to being vested, so I don't know how big a deal that is. He does take the salary. He is still listed as one of the attorneys(and a partner) at the law firm so I'm pretty sure he already has health insurance and some type of retirement plan and receives at least a percentage of the profits.
In the Senate his voting is your regular republicon style-- he voted against SB 4 which increased the amount of exemptions over a 3 year period for all taxpayers, increased EIC over 3 years for the less fortunate tax payers...it passed without his graces. Guess some of our legislators do care about the little guy. He also voted against civil unions, refuses the idea of gay marraige...and, yes, he's anti-abortion and will not vote for marijuana legalization...have I hit the far left pinko knee jerk items for my 'con friends? He loves to say how Illinois is 48th in job creation, although in the past year Illinois has created more jobs than Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri and Kentucky(hmm, didn't know we had 52 states) and Illinois is just toxic to businesses...although we have the 5th largest economy in the country...and if we were a country our GNP would be greater than Saudi Arabia! Nope...he must not have studied economics or facts...but then we do have the mean girl to consider...
Deborah Boyle has lived in DG all of her life. In 2006, she requested a boundary exemption from the school board because all of her family had attended Downers Grove North and she wanted her son to attend there also...funny thing...I wanted my children to attend DGN so I bought my house in that district! Imagine that! So anyway, the district denies the boundary exemption, Ms. Boyle sues the school district...and loses; again, imagine that! Its not that the school her son would be going to was not up to par, it was just cuz of the family tradition and I guess Ms. Boyle thought she was above the rules.
So a couple of years later, she runs for the school board. I remember her candidate interview and when asked if she attends school board meetings, she replied no, she felt they were a waste of time or something like that. So why run for the office? I thought to myself that anyone that voted for her either was a moron or didn't pay attention...to this day I wonder how many were just morons, because she won. Let the fun begin.
It seemed that every meeting now became a battle, to the point that Ms. Boyle seemed to pad the audience at least at 2 meetings(one that I was at) Ms Boyle took it public, that's when I learned that she sued the school board because she blamed the other members as holding a grudge against her because of the lawsuit. Her biggest and most public outburst was because the board had this silly little policy that if a board member had a family member that was employed by the school, the board member must recuse him/herself. Again, Debbie feels that policy shouldn't apply to her even tho her brother works for one of the high schools. Now, she could vote on anything but employee benefits(salaries & insurance, etc.), but you'd have thought the board had told her she couldn't vote on anything and locked her in a closet! I sure wish they had about then, but no. The board changes the rules and Debbie finally gets her way, I guess. Our very own Caribou Barbie, without her shooting moose.
Now she's running against the jock bully for state rep. She does the perfect mean girl about how Sandack was endorsed by a Teamsters local once in early 2000's so that means he's actually a friend of unions(I figure the Teamsters didn't know what a jerk he was until the next year...and haven't endorsed him since). He sends out flyers about how much havoc she caused on the school board and yells about how he's the true conservative. She flings back that she is the true conservative because the tea party endorsed her! And Sandack voted for evil liberal things...like....the smart grid! OH MY GOD, how heinous. And he's being mean to her.....sorry, but she reminds me of the blond in Mean Girls that gets hit by the bus.
So, where do these candidates stand on the issues? Both want to bring back the death penalty, strip employees' pension rights, cut taxes for those poor rich people, trim government(even tho Illinois has the least amount of state employees, per capita in America, they want to cut more) and so on and so on and so on. So for all their bickering, they pretty much agree on most things...just trying to see who can be meaner or more of a bully to the working stiffs of Illinois District 81.
Let's see how I feel next term...we need some reps that actually care about the people, not the corporations.
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