President Barack Obama addressed the Illinois General Assembly on Feb. 10, sharing memories, words of encouragement and advice for politics in America, without addressing Illinois’ prolonged budget stalemate.
Despite the lack of talk about Illinois’ fiscal crisis, the president provided the General Assembly with a dose of reality, bringing to the forefront problems with the existing political culture.
“I want this democracy to live up to the people’s expectations,” Obama said. “We can’t move forward if all we do is tear each other down.”
He called for four specific changes to the nation’s political culture. Obama first discussed the need for changes to existing campaign finance laws, which can only be done by a constitutional amendment.
“Today, a couple of billionaires in one state can push their agenda, dump dark money into every state – nobody knows where it’s coming from,” Obama said.
Knowing that a constitutional amendment would take time, the president suggested that government find “immediate ways to reduce the influence of money on elections.”
The second area discussed may have been enough to satisfy Governor Rauner’s expectation of the President’s visit. Prior to Obama’s visit, Rauner released a statement suggesting that Obama talk to the legislature about compromising on structural reforms that involve education, redistricting and term limits.
Education and redistricting were on the President’s list of proposed changes, but he mentioned nothing about term limits.
Obama said he supports rethinking how congressional districts are drawn.
“This tends to be popular in states where Democrats have been drawing the lines among Republicans, and less popular among Republicans where they control drawing the lines,” Obama said. “So let’s be very clear here – nobody has got clean hands on this thing.”
After establishing that no fingers could be pointed on the topic of gerrymandering, the president called for automatic voter registration to be considered in every state. This is the same legislation that Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, and Representative Robyn Gabel, D-Evanston, are currently pushing for in the Illinois General Assembly.
“This shouldn’t be controversial, guys,” the president said, addressing the Republican side of the House chamber. “You liked the redistricting thing, but not letting people vote. I should get some applause on that, too.”
Obama received applause from both sides of the aisles at that comment.
The fourth issue that the president called on the legislature to address was re-establishing respect for government. Obama said he believes children don’t just learn in school, but they learn by watching the way people treat each other.
“If they see us insulting each other like school kids, then they think, well, I guess that’s how people are supposed to behave,” Obama said. “The way we respect – or don’t – each other as citizens will determine whether or not the hard, frustrating, but absolutely necessary work of self-government continues.”
Contact Brittany Hilderbrand at intern@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Feb 11-16, 2016.
