Dan Vock

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Category: Politics

The Tea Party in Illinois

November 1, 2011 / / 0 Comments

Members of the Tea Party say they are non-partisan, but their success, especially in a Democratically controlled state like Illinois, depends largely on electing Republicans. My story from Illinois Issues.

To many Tea Party leaders in Illinois, state government needs more people like Arie Friedman.

A pediatrician from Highland Park, Friedman first entered politics just two years ago to protest the passage of President Barack Obama’s federal health care law. Friedman is a business owner, a Navy veteran, a conservative and a candidate for the Illinois Senate. He says he does not need a job as a career politician — joining the state Senate likely would mean a pay cut — and he has no plans to do it forever. Most of all, though, Friedman is fed up with how the state is being run.

But if all that makes Friedman a good Tea Party candidate, it also makes him a good fit in today’s Republican Party. As he campaigns for the state Senate, Friedman has met plenty of folks serving on Republican township boards and showing up at Tea Party meetings. “It’s the exact same people,” he says. “One meeting a month is not enough for them.

“There is a sense that the Tea Party is a separate part of the Republican Party,” he says, “but that has not been my experience. There’s a lot of crossover.”

Still, many leading Tea Party activists in Illinois want to turn their attention to state government during the 2012 elections.

Illinois Tea Party leaders recognized that state government remained firmly in Democratic hands, once Quinn squeaked by Republican Bill Brady to hold onto the governorship. So some 40 Illinois Tea Party leaders gathered on November 20, 2010, at a Lisle hotel to take stock. “We basically decided as a state Tea Party that we would allow some of these other states that had things better under control to work on the federal issues,” says Jane Carrell, coordinator of the Tea Party of Northern Illinois, which is based near Rockford, “while we focused more on our corrupt, lousy state of Illinois and helped to elect a different legislature next election.”

Drive to reverse SB 5 in Ohio is labor’s last, best hope for 2011 win

October 31, 2011 / / 0 Comments

From Stateline:

Public employee unions spent most of 2011 suffering setback after setback in negotiating sessions, at state capitols and at the polls. But surveys suggest the labor movement is on the verge of a big win in Ohio next week. If it materializes, it could resonate in other states as well.

An explanation of why unions fared so well in Ohio compared to Wisconsin:

Unions had a similar all-hands-on-deck mentality in the recall elections this summer in Wisconsin, when they fell one seat short of flipping the state Senate to Democratic control. But there are key differences that could go a long way toward explaining why labor seems to be faring better in Ohio.

First, the Ohio law would restrict the collective bargaining rights of police and firefighters, who were exempted in Wisconsin. These groups have been the face of the campaign over SB 5. Both sides have used them in their ads.

…The second major difference between the Wisconsin and Ohio elections is the actual matter on the ballot. While the Wisconsin recall elections tended to be proxy battles between labor and business groups, the campaigns also addressed many unrelated issues. Furthermore, the contests were limited to nine Senate districts. Ohio, by comparison, will have a direct statewide vote on a single question.

Ohio voters repealed the law in November.

Democrats face a reckoning in Deep South legislatures

October 17, 2011 / / 0 Comments

From Stateline:

Bobby Shows, of Ellisville, Mississippi, has represented a rural district in the state House of Representatives for nearly 20 years. But about a year ago, he took a step that used to be rare — and even risky — for any white Democratic lawmaker in the South. He changed parties and joined the Republicans.

“My granddaddy, if he were still living, he would turn over in his grave if he knew I was a Republican, because he served in the legislature during the Depression as a Democrat … when they didn’t have nothing but Democrats,” Shows says. “But I’ll tell you something else, he wouldn’t be a Democrat today with the way the Democrat Party is.”

But times are changing.

This fall, the Mississippi Democratic Party must defend its last power center in Jackson — the state House of Representatives — in the November elections. If Republicans prevail, it would mark a milestone in a process two generations in the making: the takeover of Southern statehouses by a party once anathema to white Southerners.

Republicans are claiming victory in the Mississippi House, and they narrowly — with the help of the lieutenant governor — took over the Virginia Senate in November, too.

The infographic we ran with the story is worth checking out, too.

Recall elections in Wisconsin test support for Republican program

July 12, 2011 / / 0 Comments

A Stateline curtain-raiser from the Wisconsin Senate recalls.

MILWAUKEE — When Wisconsin state Senator Alberta Darling, a Republican, first started gearing up for a recall election in the wake of mass labor protests, it looked like the race would focus on her support for a law that substantially weakened labor unions. But now, with little more than a month before the election, the message — if not the opposition — has changed.

These days, Darling’s opponents attack her for cutting aid to schools. They say she should do more to help the unemployed get government checks for a longer period of time. Darling has even come under fire for supporting changes to Medicare, the health insurance program for seniors which is run by the federal government, not the state.

“They are obviously trying to find the issue, or the set of issues, that will build together to recall me,” Darling says. “They are doing a lot of polling, they’re doing a lot of testing, they’re trying a lot of things.”

The race between Darling and challenger Sandy Pasch ended up being the race that determined control of the Wisconsin Senate. Darling fended off the challenge, and Republicans maintained control of the chamber.

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