District 6 News

The League of Women Voters hosted a candidate forum at McHenry County College Monday night for candidates running in the 6th and 14th Congressional Districts.  Both incumbent Congressman Roskam and Congressman Hultgren were no shows.  Congressman Hultgren declined the request to attend and Congressman Roskam did not have the courtesy to respond. 

Sean Casten, Democrat candidate 6th Congressional District and Lauren Underwood, candidate 14th Congressional District provided detailed and insightful answers to questions ranging from the environment, health care, tax reform, school violence and returning civility to the political arena.  

Voters in District 2 were not given the opportunity to hear an exchange of ides and policies between incumbant and challenger; too bad.

      The Italian poet Dante Alighieri is credited with the statement that "the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who during a time of moral crisis, remain neutral."  In Dante’s great tri-part poem, Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno, the neutrals, those who in this world had never taken any side on any issue, occupy the mouth and vestibule of Hell. There they are condemned to  swirl unceasingly in clouds of red sand, their faces bitten by wasps and hornets. They are doomed to pursue in a blind, fatal, and ultimately hopeless way, a flag which never stays for a moment in one place. Dante denies them the moral dignity of a place even in hell itself. “Heaven will not have them, and the deep Hell receives them not lest the wicked there should have some glory over them”—lest the wicked, that is, looking at these neutrals, should be able to feel a sort of superiority over others. What was the sin of these neutrals? Only this: they had never taken a side.Their ongoing moral neutrality condemns them to an eternity of this treatment. 

      Today we face strongly defined choices. We can pull back into our safe homes and send indignant tweets, instagrams, emails,assure ourselves that somehow,somewhere, some vaguely defined, but immutable, justice will prevail, and we can cry bitter tears over children being separated from their parents at our borders, ala Hitler and the Jews...OR, we can take a position of moral and ethical rectitude.We can work to change the inequities of the situation. How do we do this? We vote. We go out and walk the streets of our precinct, we knock on doors, we talk to citizens, we press out points and we push the need for the population to VOTE. GOTV--get out the vote is our strongest weapon. Trump won election based on the Electoral College, Clinton had considerably more of the popular vote. This time around, Trump can't hide behind the EC--this time, his party has to face the people and defend itself for disrupting families, for the wealthy oriented budget, for the ongoing corruption of this administration and a near endless litany of sins.

      We need every vote, every voter to show up and express their indignation. There is talk of a "blue tsunami," in the mid-terms. Personally, I don't believe it. I want to be proven wrong. The only way to do that is to bring out every voter, to offer the opportunity for transportation to the polls and reaffirm the right of our citizenry to vote and determine its own political destiny.  Another quote, this one in dispute as to its author. Most think it from Edmund Burke. Burke was an Irish political philosopher, Whig politician and statesman who is, ironically, often considered the father of modern conservatism. Burke said ,All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Let us heed his wisdom. Get out and vote, bring out your neighbors si they vote, bring out your precinct so it votes; bring out the vote.----Dan

At the June 14th Committee of the Whole meeting the County Board tabled a Resolution o Authorize Precincts Boundary Adjustments.  The Resolution would have added 117 new voting precincts effective December 1, 2018.  The Resolution never went through a County Board Committee or had any input from the Democratic Party.  The new boundaries would have made precinct work, especially canvassing, more difficult.  It was apparent from discussion that Board Members were completely blindsided by this Resolution, and in the spirit of bipartisanship, Republican Board Members, Democratic Board Member Paula Yensen, and Democratic Party leadership who spoke during public comments, concluded that this Resolution was not properly vented to merit consideration.  County Clerk Mary McClellan, who made the recommendation for boundary changes, was not present to answer the many questions County Board Members had regarding her proposed boundary changes.

However, this issue is not over!  The County will still need to consider the size of precincts to comply with State guidelines.  Toward that end, County Board Chairman Jack Franks proposed a committee consisting of non-elected citizens to make recommendations on precinct boundaries.  The question now is whether this should be accomplished after the Nov. 6th election or whether it should be considered as part of a larger package including information from the 2020 Census, redistricting, and the future size of the County Board.  Stay tuned!

Occasionally some truth is told on Fox (especially when Tucker Carlson shuts up).

This is long, but well worth the time to watch.

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