Fax check Judy Baar Topinka leads
the pack for the Republican nomination for governor. She’s also the
only Republican who holds statewide office. Lately, it seems,
Topinka’s office has been cranking out a news release a day — a
marked increase in communications — on everything from lenders’
forums to an African-American History Month reception. Is it a coincidence?
Is it political? T’s press secretary, John
Hoffman, who rejoined Topinka last fall after
a stint as executive director of the state GOP, denies that there’s
been an increase — even though the treasurer’s Web site
confirms it. For her part, Topinka says that her office is using up
fax-machine cartridges from Chicago to Cairo — and the west side of
Springfield — because Hoffman is great at what he does: “I
don’t think that’s gotten higher than it normally is . . . but
we may have more activity out of John because he’s John.”
Weed bill pulled Asked how his support of anti-tobacco-smoking
legislation jibes with his pushing a bill supporting medicinal marijuana,
state Sen. John Cullerton, D-Chicago, says simply that both efforts promote health. After
clearing the Senate Health and Human Services Committee last week,
Cullerton’s medical-marijuana bill now goes before the full Senate,
though Cullerton says that he’ll wait to call it for a vote until the
fall veto session so that lawmakers won’t have to make a decision on
the controversial measure during an election year. The proposal would make
it legal for folks with diseases such as multiple sclerosis and AIDS who
have a prescription to grow as many as eight cannabis plants and possess 2
1/2 ounces or less. Besides, Cullerton — who also authored a bill
allowing counties to ban cigarette smoking in unincorporated areas —
points out: “You don’t have to smokemarijuana; you can take it in your
brownies.”
Bring ’em home Springfield resident and Illinois College grad Michael Ziri wants Springfield
citizens to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to the Iraq war through a
referendum that he hopes will appear on the November ballot. With liberal
U.S. senators such as Hillary Clinton of New York and Joe Biden of Delaware reluctant to call for an immediate end to the
war, Ziri says, “we have to take it to the streets, so to
speak.” For the question to appear on the fall ballot, Ziri’s
group, Springfield Citizens Against the War, must gather signatures from at
least 3,700 Springfield voters by August. Petitions may be downloaded from www.letscomehome.com.
This article appears in Mar 9-15, 2006.
