TAKE THAT, EVANSVILLE!
If you thought Springfield tilts conservative, a new
report suggests you may be, um, right. A national study of voting patterns
by the nonpartisan Bay Area Center for Voting Research ranks the capital
city as the 59th most conservative of U.S. cities with populations
exceeding 100,000. Springfield was just a tad less conservative than Baton
Rouge, La., and a little more conservative than Evansville, Ind.
Conversely, Abe’s hometown was the 178th most liberal in the nation.
Detroit, Mich., was ranked the most liberal of the 237 cities in the
survey; Provo, Utah, the most conservative. See the study and rankings at
www.votingresearch.org.
MORNING-AFTER ORDER AFFIRMED
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s emergency order directing
state-licensed pharmacists to fill all birth-control prescriptions was
approved and made permanent on Tuesday by the Joint Committee on
Administrative Rules. The governor issued the order on April 1 after
several pharmacists declined to dispense the morning-after pill, citing
moral objections [see Joan Villa, “Right of refusal,” June 16].
For info on the rule, go to www.idfpr.com/emergencyruleguidance.asp.
THE MONEY’S IN THE BANK
The Springfield City Council voted Tuesday to accept a
$100,000 grant from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency to pay for its
recent citywide disaster drill [see R.L. Nave, “Target
Springfield,” July 28]. The money will be used to reimburse the city
for a week’s worth of overtime costs for the Springfield Police
Department and other agencies that participated in the exercise.
NO GO FOR MORATORIUM
A proposed moratorium to block any new Get ’n Go
Express vending oases was narrowly shot down on Tuesday by the Springfield
City Council. Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards sought to regulate vending machines
and proposed removing all unattended, outdoor machines in the city. Edwards
cited public safety hazards, but Get ’n Go founder Jeff Parsons
argued he was being targeted by retail convenience stores that
couldn’t take the competition and by bottling companies. The issue
was tabled for further review so, for now, Springfieldians’ right to
guzzle quarter sodas is safe.
This article appears in Aug 18-24, 2005.
