District 6 News

In these turbulent times you might wonder why I’m spending my time and energy searching for Democrats, planning events and then getting them all out to vote. These District 6 pages on the Democratic Party website are my newest tool.

Let’s start with me explaining “why” I’m doing it all:

My first three years of teaching in a very poor neighborhood on the west side of Chicago was at Samuel Morse Elementary School. Politics was the furthest thing from my mind.  It took so much energy and planning and food prep just to survive. Yes, food prep!

Students came to school hungry every day.  If fed them egg salad on crackers, peanut butter, cheese and whatever fruit I could get.  The stories I could tell… The day I became a democrat was the day President Ronald Reagan announced catsup was a vegetable and that catsup would suffice for students in the free lunch program.

That day politics became real for me.

That is the “why” in my story. I’ve mostly worked for Democratic candidates over the years.  I’ve been elected for nonpartisan local offices a number of times.  I  joined McHenry County Democrats a number of years back when I finally attended a few meetings. I felt an energy and caring and determination gathering. I ran for County Board in D6 and lost the same day Trump was elected.

Disgusted and yet determined Ruth Scifo and I organized a bus to go to the Women’s March in Washington DC. And “politics” became something even more. We felt the power marching with over a million others and realized that “we” can determine our future if we are smart.

We have six month until Nov.3^rd. Let’s see how many Dems we can find and engage. Let’s focus on those really important issues and let’s get new voters registered and all out to vote Nov. 3^rd. (Hopefully mail in ballots will be available for all.)

Let’s use this space to draw in democrats and maybe a few new voters into our County party. Let’s start with your story. When did you realize you were a democrat? Would you share it with us? 

Democrats in McHenry County are a compassionate community. No matter what we look like, where we live, or what's in our wallets, getting sick reminds us that at our core we’re all just human. We are worried about how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting our neighbors and our democratic processes.  Because we believe good government and good leadership are vital in times of crisis, we are posting the below links to public and community resources to help you stay healthy, stay safe, and stay connected. We are in this together, apart.

Stay connected with us -  Sign up here

Oh boy, if your scratching your head on the wording of the Regional Superintendent question on the ballot its because 24 County Board members decided to amend the original referendum question in open session......in other words making sausage.

When you stay home, someone else makes your decisions for you.
So if you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, vote.

The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.

Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy—not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected.

This is the transcript of the speech given on Dec. 18, 2019 by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer prior to the impeachment vote.

Madam Speaker, I have had the honor of serving in this house for over 38 years. I’ve served during six presidencies.

I’ve been here through moments of tremendous progress and terrible tragedy. I have seen periods of rank partisanship and patriotic bipartisanship. I’ve seen our two-party system work. And I’ve seen it break down. Never in all my years of serving in this great institution that I love and the people of my district did I ever expect to encounter such an obvious wrongdoing by a president of the United States.

Nor did I expect to witness such a craven rationalization of presidential actions that should put our national security at risk, undermine the integrity of our elections, and defied the constitutional authority of the Congress to conduct oversight.

We’ve heard from Republicans that this impeachment really has to do with policy differences though on how we feel personally about the president, about his temperament or that we simply dislike him. Throughout the Trump presidency, Democrats have resisted pursuing impeachment even as we watched with dismay and disgust at a pattern of wrongdoing.

That pattern included ordering federal agencies to lie to the public firing the FBI director for refusing to end investigations of his campaign. Siding with Vladimir Putin against our intelligence agencies. Taking funding away from the military to put towards an ineffective border wall. And setting policies that have led to the separation of families and caging of children.

First, up front, let me state that this is a personal opinion and not an approved position of the local Democratic Party.  We Democrats are in a quandary over the impeachment question and understandably.  The question on whether to impeach the current President of the United States is one of the those cases in which something is obviously justified, but just as obviously wrong. 

We are besieged on a daily basis by the narrative of the Republican Party that all government is bad bad bad and can't do anything right.  I believe people are susceptible to this spin because they are unaware of all the task government does do.  At a recent Committee of the Whole meeting, Chairman Jack Franks highlighted a feature on the County's web site that addresses this issue.