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Reviewing the primary
Now that the primary is over, the State Leg- islature will be back at work for much of April and May and attempt to wrap up this session by May 31. As of this writing, there is still no official state budget for this fiscal year which began on July 1, 2015. And there is no end
ed Anita Alvarez. Foxx is now the heavy favorite to win the November election.
Chicago nominated Democrat Theresa Mah for State Representative to succeed retiring Representative Eddie Acevedo. If victorious in the fall, Mah will become the first Asian American to serve in the Illinois Legisla-
DAVE
DAVE
SULLIVAN
SULLIVAN
in sight for a solution to this impasse.
I don’t think there were many sur- prises in the results from the primary. Speaker Madigan handily won his battle against a
LEGISLATIVE
Rep t
ture.
Other Chicago-area legislators who won prima-
ries included Rep. John D’Amico, Rep. Christian Mitchell, Rep. Jaime Andrade, Sen. Patricia Van
Pelt and Sen. Mike Hastings.
So the question becomes: now what? I wish there
well-funded opponent.
Chicago Democrat Rep. Ken Dunkin lost after a
multi-million dollar campaign which even featured Pres- ident Obama endorsing his opponent and the eventual victor, Juliana Stratton.
In the Springfield area, Gov. Rauner endorsed a state trooper for Senate over the incumbent Sen. Sam McCann. The State FOP Lodge endorsed Sen. McCann who was victorious in this multi-million dollar campaign.
There were other legislative races around the state that the governor’s allies became involved in and won despite these two losses.
In Cook County, the only surprising aspect of the State’s Attorney race was the margin by which Kim Foxx defeat-
was an easy answer. This battle appears to be long from over. We will continue to fight for the interests of the men and women in blue. While the budget standoff continues, there have been many bills introduced regarding polic- ing issues. We will continue to work with the Illinois State FOP and our allies in the legislature to stop the bills that would adversely impact your efforts to protect the peo- ple of Chicago. In addition, pension issues continue to be discussed. The Illinois Supreme Court struck down Chi- cago’s attempt to lessen pension benefits, so that discus- sion goes back to square one. The court has again ruled that pensions cannot be diminished. d
22 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ APRIL 2016