March 22, 2019
Chicago Tribune
Illinois already has permissive abortion laws. Let them stand.
For more than two decades after the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, Illinois lawmakers bitterly debated a question important to many families: Should parents know that their daughter, who’s younger than 18, intends to have an abortion?
Lawmakers passed what are known as parental involvement laws in 1977 and 1983, only to have the courts strike them down. But in 1995 proponents and opponents of abortion rights negotiated a moderate compromise bill that required the notification - significantly, not the consent - of a parent, stepparent, guardian or grandparent that a girl under 18 was planning an abortion. The bill permitted exceptions for medical emergencies, and allowed a judge to waive the requirement if notifying a family member would not be in the girl’s best interest and if she was mature enough to make the decision on her own.
Legal squabbles delayed implementation of parental notification until 2013, when the Illinois Supreme Court, led by a Democratic majority of justices, unanimously ruled in its favor. “The state has an interest in ensuring that a minor is sufficiently mature and well-informed to make the difficult decision whether to have an abortion. . We agree with the defendants that the Act is crafted narrowly to achieve its aim of promoting the minors’ best interests through parental consultation,” the justices wrote.
Remember, the law requires notification, not consent. In practice, it mandates that abortion providers check in with an adult at least 48 hours before performing an abortion on a minor. That’s the only restriction. Even the pro-choice American Civil Liberties Union acknowledges that Illinois has some of the least-restrictive abortion laws in the Midwest.
Now, however, the Illinois General Assembly is considering legislation to repeal that law.
While the notification requirement surely provokes heartbreaking conversations, you could argue it is working. Nearly 400 girls statewide since 2013 have obtained a judge’s permission to proceed without informing their parents. The ACLU says only one girl has been denied. That means the thousands of other girls who’ve had abortions since the law took effect did inform an adult in their lives.
Even girls who can’t tell a family member and who use the judicial bypass option do have responsible adults - a judge and other advocates during the process - watching out for their interests. That’s a good thing. We’re grateful for the ACLU’s deep and passionate involvement in helping girls navigate the system.
But that system does not block girls’ access to abortion. It enhances their emotional support system along the way.
Supporters of repeal, including the ACLU, describe the difficulty minors who use judicial bypass encounter. They have to get to a courthouse during the week and appear before a judge. With travel and school and other commitments, and the need to do it all in secret, the bypass option is too burdensome and should be removed, the ACLU argues.
We can’t say logistical problems, however, are persuasive enough to repeal a law that is there to protect the girls. Should the bypass option be modernized to take advantage of new technology, such as allowing girls to make court appearances via Skype-like telecommunications? Should the circle of family members eligible for notification be expanded, perhaps to include adult siblings or others with close ties to young women? School counselors, school nurses, social workers, juvenile law enforcement officers? Perhaps that’s a more commonsense conversation for the General Assembly than a full repeal of the notification law.
But the ACLU and other abortion rights groups, emboldened by an all-Democrat controlled General Assembly and the support of Gov. J.B. Pritzker, instead are pushing a package of bills that would make this state’s already liberal laws more permissive for minors.
Taken together, the bills not only would repeal the parental notification requirement, but would lift Illinois’ ban on so-called partial-birth abortion late in pregnancies; require private insurance plans to cover abortions the same as contraception, fertility and maternity care; and would allow advance-practice nurses, not just physicians, to perform abortions in Illinois.
The bills go too far, especially the potential lifting of parental notification. Nearly every opinion poll nationally shows support for parental notification laws, not less restriction. Why? Because parents have broad rights over their minor children - but also broad responsibilities to help them navigate the challenges of adolescence. We acknowledge these parental roles in many other areas of the law - including most medical treatment decisions. The ACLU tells us that 37 states have parental involvement laws in place.
In Illinois, neither side has entirely had its way. That has spared this state much of the “Gotcha!” pattern of wild swings on abortion policy that have buffeted other states when political power swings left and right.
Illinois’ abortion laws - the parental notification law included - made sense when lawmakers enacted them, made sense when courts upheld them and make sense now. Let them stand.
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March 23, 2019
The (Springfield) State Journal-Register
Illinois needs a smarter approach to funding infrastructure needs
Are you one of the 23,000 drivers who use the bridges that carry Interstate 72 over Sixth Street in Springfield on an average day? If you are, chances are it was unnerving to learn that those bridges are among the 21 in Sangamon County that are considered “structurally deficient” by the Illinois Department of Transportation.
That doesn’t mean the bridge is unsafe, according to IDOT. What it does mean is that a main component of the bridge - which could be the deck, the supports of the deck or the foundation of the structure - needs to be repaired. About 8.6 percent of the bridges in Illinois are classified as structurally deficient, although in Sangamon County, less than 5 percent of its 458 bridges have that classification. Still, many of the state’s bridges undoubtedly need work: Illinois ranks fifth nationally for the highest number of structurally deficient bridges, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Even though IDOT and the county highway department assure us that bridges would be closed if they can’t safely carry traffic, it would be better to know those bridges were in tip-top shape. It’s also frustrating to know there is a small likelihood that any of these infrastructure problems will be addressed quickly. At least $13 billion to $15 billion is needed for maintenance on the roads and bridges in Illinois, according to IDOT acting secretary Omer Osman. An additional $30 billion would cover the costs of the work needed to be done in aviation, public transportation and railways.
Also likely to be hotly debated is how to pay for these projects. A bill introduced last week in the General Assembly would double the state’s share of the gasoline tax, which for almost two decades has sat at 19 cents. It also proposes increasing fees for things like driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations.
Federal funding is also being sought: U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth have asked the Federal Highway Administration to release $475 million in new federal funding for risk-based bridge repair and replacement. We’d be happier if talk of a federal capital bill was a more urgent discussion in Congress.
A capital plan to address these needed repairs is long overdue, as the last bill occurred a decade ago. The state tends to aim for one big capital plan every so often, and by the time it comes around, the needs have become critical enough that it is a matter of fixing the most glaring problems.
The smarter approach would be to ensure there is funding on a regular basis for maintenance, which would make costs more manageable by addressing issues before they become more serious.
Legislators need to get a capital plan done this year. We want to hear more about how they will pay for it and how they will prioritize the vast needs. But we also hope their discussion includes shifting from periodically infusing a bunch of money into a capital plan to deal with pent-up infrastructure needs, and focus instead on crafting an ongoing maintenance program that deals with issues as they arise.
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March 24, 2019
The (Carbondale) Southern Illinois
Dunn’s deception knew no bounds at SIU
Stunning. Shocking, Disappointing.
There are plenty more words that appropriately describe the amount of wrongdoing perpetrated by former Southern Illinois University president Randy Dunn as outlined in a report by the Illinois Office of Executive Inspector General.
Among other things, Dunn is accused of ignoring accepted hiring practices, lying to the SIU Board of Trustees and SIU’s general counsel, and misleading university employees during the hiring of former SIU Carbondale chancellor Carlo Montemagno, Montemagno’s daughter, Melissa Germain, and her husband, Jeffrey Germain, as well as Brad Colwell, the SIU vice president for student and academic affairs.
Dunn resigned as system president last year. Montemagno passed away in October and the Germains no longer work for the university. Colwell is still employed in that role.
The sordid affair is rooted in Montemagno’s request that the university provide employment for his daughter and her husband. It must be noted that Montemagno, nor his family members, are implicated in any wrongdoing by the report.
The OEIG report outlines a series of lies, deceptions, omissions and half-truths by Dunn that are worthy of a Tom Clancy novel. He told SIU General Counsel that hiring of Montemagno’s family members would be completed according to normal hiring protocols - the report indicates they were not.
When the board of trustees agreed to hire Montemagno as chancellor in July of 2017, members were not aware of Dunn’s behind-the-scenes shenanigans. The OEIG report also accuses Dunn of ignoring accepted hiring procedures to find employment for Jeff Germain through the “Extra Help” protocol.
But, Dunn dug the hole deeper. The OEIG report accuses him of using an inappropriate search waiver to facilitate the hiring of Colwell, a former colleague. Because Colwell’s salary exceeds $150,000, it requires a formal search and interview process.
Dunn failed to apprise the board, which hired Colwell without knowledge of the corrupt process.
When Dunn resigned, he was given a $215,000 severance package. He was also promised a $100,000 teaching position at SIU Edwardsville. Shortly after the OEIG report was completed, SIUE announced that Dunn would no longer be employed at the university. However, it has never been confirmed that rescinding the position was tied to the OEIG report.
But, there were still other layers of Dunn’s deceit. He openly lied to The Southern Illinoisan’s editorial board concerning funding and his role in a possible break-up of the Southern Illinois University system. He provided false information to The Daily Egyptian.
It’s not clear what legal steps will, or can, be taken against Dunn. However, given the web of legal issues he created and the divisions he cultivated, merely piercing his golden parachute by rescinding the teaching position is not enough.
The OEIG report concluded that both SIU and the State of Illinois could seek remedial actions against Dunn, and we suggest they do so.
There apparently is a silver lining in this fog of stench.
As a result of this litany of corruption, SIU Carbondale is updating hiring practices, updating its spousal waiver policy and implementing training programs in the “Extra Help” category.
Rewriting the rules is no guarantee that integrity will be restored to the hiring process. But, the sordid affair exposed weaknesses in several areas of the system. Hopefully, the loopholes will be closed to the extent future scandals will be avoided.
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