Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States. The GOP was founded in 1854 by opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had expanded slavery into U. S. territories. The party subscribed to classical liberalism and took ideological stands that were anti-slavery and pro-economic reform. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president in the history of the United States; the Party was dominant over the Democrats during the Third Party System and Fourth Party System. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party after being rejected by the GOP and ran unsuccessfully as a third-party presidential candidate calling for social reforms. After the 1912 election, many Roosevelt supporters left the Party, the Party underwent an ideological shift to the right; the liberal Republican element in the GOP was overwhelmed by a conservative surge begun by Barry Goldwater in 1964 that continued during the Reagan Era in the 1980s. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the party's core base shifted, with the Southern states becoming more reliably Republican in presidential politics and the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic.
White voters identified with the Republican Party after the 1960s. Following the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, the Republican Party made opposition to abortion a key plank of its national party platform and grew its support among evangelicals. By 2000, the Republican Party was aligned with Christian conservatism; the Party's core support since the 1990s comes chiefly from the South, the Great Plains, the Mountain States and rural areas in the North. The 21st century Republican Party ideology is American conservatism, which contrasts with the Democrats' liberal platform and progressive wing; the GOP supports lower taxes, free market capitalism, a strong national defense, gun rights and restrictions on labor unions. The GOP was committed to protectionism and tariffs from its founding until the 1930s when it was based in the industrial Northeast and Midwest, but has grown more supportive of free trade since 1952. In addition to advocating for conservative economic policies, the Republican Party is conservative.
Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by abolitionists, modernizers, ex-Whigs and ex-Free Soilers, the Republican Party became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the popular Know Nothing Party. The party grew out of opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and opened Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory to slavery and future admission as slave states; the Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil. The first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement, at which the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party, was held on March 20, 1854 in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin; the name was chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party. The first official party convention was held on July 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. At the 1856 Republican National Convention, the party adopted a national platform emphasizing opposition to the expansion of slavery into U. S. territories. While Republican candidate John C.
Frémont lost the 1856 United States presidential election to James Buchanan, he did win 11 of the 16 northern states. The Republican Party first came to power in the elections of 1860 when it won control of both houses of Congress and its candidate, former congressman Abraham Lincoln, was elected President. In the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket. Under Republican congressional leadership, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution—which banned slavery in the United States—passed the Senate in 1864 and the House in 1865; the party's success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s. Those who felt that Reconstruction had been accomplished, was continued to promote the large-scale corruption tolerated by President Ulysses S. Grant, ran Horace Greeley for the presidency; the Stalwart faction defended Grant and the spoils system, whereas the Half-Breeds pushed for reform of the civil service. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was passed in 1883.
The Republican Party supported hard money, high tariffs to promote economic growth, high wages and high profits, generous pensions for Union veterans, the annexation of Hawaii. The Republicans had strong support from pietistic Protestants, but they resisted demands for Prohibition; as the Northern postwar economy boomed with heavy and light industry, mines, fast-growing cities, prosperous agriculture, the Republicans took credit and promoted policies to sustain the fast growth. The GOP was dominant over the Democrats during the Third Party System. However, by 1890 the Republicans had agreed to the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission in response to complaints from owners of small businesses and farmers; the high McKinley Tariff of 1890 hurt the party and the Democrats swept to a landslide in the off-year elections defeating McKinley himself. The Democrats elected Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892; the election of William McKinley in 1896 was marked by a resurgence of Republican dominance that lasted until 1932.
McKinley promised that high tariffs would end the severe hardship caused by the Pa
2018 Illinois Senate election
The 2018 elections for the Illinois Senate took place on November 6, 2018 to elect senators from 39 of the state's 59 Senate districts to serve in the 101st General Assembly, with seats apportioned among the states based on the 2010 United States Census. Under the Illinois Constitution of 1970, senators are divided into three groups, each group having a two-year term at a different part of the decade between censuses, with the rest of the decade being taken up by two four-year terms; the Democratic Party has held a majority in the Senate since 2003, gained a net of 3 seats. The elections for Illinois's 18 congressional districts, statewide constitutional officers, all 118 seats in the Illinois House of Representatives were held on this date; the Republicans needed to win eight seats. However, the Democratic Party picked up three additional seats and increased the party's supermajority to 40 seats. Democrat Omar Aquino has represented the 2nd district since 2016; the 2nd district includes all or parts of Belmont Cragin, Hermosa, Humboldt Park, Logan Square, West Town.
On November 27, 2017, Aquino filed to run for reelection. Democrat Mattie Hunter has represented the 3rd district since 2003; the 3rd includes Armour Square, Bronzeville, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, Fuller Park, Gage Park, McKinley Park,Near North Side, New City, Washington Park, West Englewood, Woodlawn On November 27, 2017, Hunter filed to run for reelection. Democrat Patricia Van Pelt has represented the 5th district since 2013; the 5th is located in Chicago. On November 30, 2017, Van Pelt filed to run for reelection. Democrat John Cullerton, the President of the Illinois Senate, has represented the 6th district since his 1991 appointment to succeed Dawn Clark Netsch, elected Illinois Comptroller; the 6th district is centered on Lincoln Park in Chicago. On November 27, 2017, Cullerton filed to run for reelection. Democrat Ira Silverstein has represented the 8th district since 1999; the 8th Senate District consists of Forest Glen, North Park and West Ridge in the City of Chicago and its surrounding suburbs of Park Ridge, Morton Grove, Niles and Skokie.
Silverstein filed to run for reelection on November 27, 2017. In November 2017, lobbyist and victim's rights advocate Denise Rotheimer testified that Silverstein sexually harassed her while she was lobbying for a bill's passage through Silverstein's committee. Afterwards, several Democratic challengers emerged to run against Silverstein. Ram Villivalam, former political director for Brad Schneider, filed on November 27, 2017. Zehra Quadri, David Zulkey, Caroline Mcateer-Fournier have filed to run in the Democratic primary. Villivalam has been endorsed by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Congressman Brad Schneider, State Senator Laura Murphy, Alderman Ameya Pawar. On December 29, 2017, it was reported that Senator Silverstein was forty five signatures short of the required 1,000 signatures to be eligible for ballot access in the Democratic primary. Silverstein was found to have sufficient signatures and remained on the ballot. Villivalam defeated Silverstein in the Democratic primary on March 20, 2018.
Democrat Daniel Biss has represented 9th district, since January 2013. The 9th district includes all or parts of Evanston, Glenview, Morton Grove, Northfield, Skokie and Winnetka. Biss is vacating his Senate seat to run for the Democratic nomination in the 2018 gubernatorial election. On July 28, 2017, State Representative Laura Fine announced her intention to run for the 9th Senate District. On December 4, 2017, both Fine and her Republican opponent, 2016 congressional candidate Joan McCarthy Lasonde, filed petitions. Democrat Martin Sandoval has been a member of the Illinois Senate since 2003, he represents the 11th district which includes all or parts of the Chicago neighborhoods of Brighton Park, Gage Park, Garfield Ridge, Little Village, West Lawn and the suburbs of Bedford Park, Cicero, Forest View, Lyons, McCook, Illinois and Riverside. On November 27, 2017, Sandoval filed to run for reelection. No other candidates filed to run. Democrat Steven Landek has been a member of the Illinois Senate since his appointment in 2011.
He represents the 12th district which includes all or parts of Bridgeview, Bedford Park, McCook, Riverside and Cicero. Landek filed to run for reelection on November 27, 2017. No other candidates filed to run. Democrat Emil Jones III has represented the 14th district since 2009; the district includes Washington Heights, Morgan Park, West Pullman in Chicago as well as the suburbs of Oak Forest, Alsip, Blue Island, Calumet Park, Tinley Park. On November 30, 2017, Emil Jones III filed to run for reelection. No other candidates filed to run. Democrat Napoleon Harris has represented the 15th district since 2013; the 15th district stretches from Blue Island in the north, Calumet City in the east, Homewood in the west, Steger in the south, includes all or parts of Crete-Monee, Flossmoor, Thornton, Midlothian, Oak Forest, Harvey and South Holland. On December 4, 2017, Harris filed to run for reelection. Terry Brown a Phoenix resident, has filed to challenge Harris in the Democratic primary. No Republican candidates filed to run.
Terry Brown was removed from the ballot due to an insufficient number of signatures. Democrat Donne Trotter had been a member of the Illinois Senate since 1993; the 17th district includes Burnside, Chatham and South Deering in Chicago and the suburbs of Burnham, Calumet City, Ford Heights, Sauk Village, Beecher and Grant Park. On November 27, 2017, Trott
Illinois State Capitol
The Illinois State Capitol, located in Springfield, houses the legislative and executive branches of the government of the U. S. state of Illinois. The current building is the sixth to serve as the capitol since Illinois was admitted to the United States in 1818. Built in the architectural styles of the French Renaissance and Italianate, it was designed by Cochrane and Garnsey, an architecture and design firm based in Chicago. Ground was broken for the new capitol on March 11, 1868, the building was completed twenty years for a total cost of $4.5 million. The building contains the chambers for the Illinois General Assembly, made up of the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. An office for the Governor of Illinois, additional offices, committee rooms are in the building; the capitol's footprint is in the shape of a Greek cross with four equal wings. Its tall central dome, tower roofs, are covered in zinc to provide a silvery facade which does not weather. Architecture scholar Jean A. Follett describes it as a building that "is monumental in scale and rich in detail."
The interior of the dome features a plaster frieze painted to resemble bronze, which illustrates scenes from Illinois history, stained glass windows, including a stained glass replica of the state seal in the oculus of the dome. With a total height of 361 ft, the Illinois capitol is the tallest non-skyscraper capitol exceeding the height of the U. S. Capitol in Washington, D. C. In contrast, the shortest skyscraper capitol stands a mere 241.67 feet tall. The only state capitols taller than it are the non-classical designs of Louisiana and Nebraska, whose governments opted for more modern structures; the dome itself is 92.5 ft wide, is supported by solid bedrock, 25.5 ft below the surface. It is the highest building in Sangamon County; the Wyndham Springfield City Centre is taller than the capitol, however it is on lower ground, making the capitol building higher. A city statute does not allow buildings taller than the capitol; the building itself is shaped like a Latin cross aligned to the major compass directions, measures 379 ft from the north end to the south end, 268 ft from the east end to the west end.
The capitol occupies a nine acre plot of land. William Douglas Richardson served as one of the principal contractors for the construction of the capitol building, Jacob Bunn, an in-law of W. D. Richardson, served as chairman of the capitol construction steering committee; when the capitol was constructed, several empty shafts were included for the future installation of elevators. The original water-operated elevators were installed in 1887 and were sometimes the subject of ridicule by local newspapers as they were deemed inadequate for a building with the prestige of the State Capitol, it is unknown when the first electric elevators were installed, but the first mention of them occurs in 1939, when the legislature appropriated $30,000 for their repair. In 2011, the facility underwent a $50 million renovation focused on the west wing, to upgrade life safety, ADA accessibility and mechanical and plumbing infrastructure as well as architectural improvements to bring the capitol closer to its original 1870s appearance, the "period of significance" for the building.
Improvements included refinishing of exposed brick arches in the basement. The addition of the maiden statues is notable, since they had been intended for the building since the 1870s when architect Alfred Piquenard designed them as part of the original plan. Piquenard was the architect for the Iowa State Capitol, of a similar style, albeit 3/4 the size. Illinois legislators of the 1870s thought that the scantily clad women were too risqué but the Iowans had no objection. Illinois therefore had plain lamps installed at the base of its grand staircase, whereas the maiden lamps intended for Illinois were instead delivered to and installed at the Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines, where they remain to this day; the lamps now installed at Illinois as part of this renovation are replicas of those at Iowa's capitol. In 2014, the renovation achieved LEED Gold certification under the US Green Building Councils New Construction and Major Renovation program; the current Capitol of Illinois is the sixth such building in the history of the state.
The first was located in Kaskaskia, Illinois, a city on the Mississippi River founded by the French in 1709. Kaskaskia had been the territorial capital of Illinois since 1809, so it was deemed an appropriate location for the capital of the new state; the state leased a two-story building, for the sum of $4.00 per day. Wishing to site the capital in the state's interior, the first General Assembly petitioned Congress for a grant of suitable land. Congress offered, the state accepted, a land parcel up the Kaskaskia River about eighty miles northeast of Kaskaskia; this location, which would be named Vandalia, was selected with the hopes of encouraging settlers to relocate to other parts of the state which were still uninhabited. The state relocated to Vandalia. Located in Vandalia, 38.961199°N 89.093980°W / 38.961199. In 1820, with the completion of the new, or "second", Vandalia became th
Florence Fifer Bohrer
Florence Fifer Bohrer was an American woman politician in Illinois. She was the daughter of former Illinois governor Joseph W. Fifer and was the first female senator in the Illinois General Assembly, she served for two terms from 1924 to 1932. Florence Fifer was the youngest of three children born to Gertrude and Joseph Fifer in Bloomington, Illinois, she lived on Franklin Square until her father was elected as Illinois governor in 1889. That year, the family moved to Illinois. Florence first became interested in politics after listening to her father's discussions with fellow politicians, such as Richard J. Oglesby, David Davis and Jesse W. Fell; when she was 15 years old, Florence attended the Hillside Home School in Wisconsin. After graduating in 1895, she returned to Bloomington. Shortly after coming home, she met Jacob Bohrer, who taught Latin and German languages at Illinois State University while studying law at Illinois Wesleyan University, they married on May 5, 1898. Their first child, was born in 1899 and their second child, was born in 1901.
After marrying, Florence became an active member of the community. She was on the committee that founded the Bloomington Country Club and was a member of the Amateur Musical Club, she formed the "Mother's Club," which merged with the national Parent-Teacher Association. In 1910, Florence's daughter contracted tuberculosis. Seeing the need for a local sanitarium, she formed the McLean County Tuberculosis Association with four other community members. Florence began traveling across McLean County, educating citizens on the symptoms of tuberculosis and checking children's health with the help of a nurse. Florence was successful in her efforts, a sanitarium opened on August 17, 1919. Additionally, in response to concerns about children's health, the county initiated a hot lunch program in rural schools. Florence continued her involvement in the community, serving as chairman on the committee to create a new Girls Industrial Home in 1917, as well as chairman for the Home Service Committee for the Red Cross during World War I.
During Florence's sanitarium lobbying, she became acquainted with numerous citizens of McLean County. In 1924, four years after the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, a few friends suggested she run for the Illinois Senate because she was well known in the community and was the most qualified woman to run, her candidacy was announced on January 25, 1924. Her platform included progressive welfare work, balancing power between Chicago and downstate, lessening taxation. Florence's friend, Sara Forsyth, became her campaign manager, women in the county formed the Florence Fifer Bohrer Club to support her campaign, she succeeded in defeating the current Senator Frank Hanson in the primary election. In the fall elections, Florence's campaign focused on increasing law enforcement, the protection of agricultural interests, the reduction of taxes, she won the election by a two to one margin. Before leaving home for Springfield, her father advised her, "Never forget that the welfare of the state is more important that the welfare of your political party."
The day Florence was seated in the senate, sixty members of the Florence Fifer Bohrer Club and 600 other women from across the state traveled to Springfield to witness the event. Florence served on numerous committees in the senate, including ones related to charity, civil service, the economy, public safety, she introduced and sponsored multiple bills, such as the Dance Hall Bill, which limited the operation of dance halls, a bill that opened the way for a state park system in Illinois, a bill that made "Illinois" the official state song. Florence introduced the Midwife Bill, which would have provided training and state licensing for midwives, it was not voted into law. She sponsored 20 bills related to child welfare, half of which became law. In 1932, Florence ran for senate for a third time; the recent death of her husband and mother hindered her ability to campaign, support for the Republican Party was waning. Florence was not reelected, she returned to Bloomington, became chairman of the McLean County Emergency Relief Office.
Additionally, the Florence Fifer Bohrer Club was converted into a League of Women Voters chapter, Florence served as president. She was elected to the National League Board in 1936. In 1934, Florence was awarded the Bloomington Community Service Award and in 1945 the Illinois Welfare Association recognized her for her service in social action and justice; the Fifer-Bohrer Papers Collection - McLean County Museum of History
Illinois
Illinois is a state in the Midwestern and Great Lakes region of the United States. It has the fifth largest gross domestic product, the sixth largest population, the 25th largest land area of all U. S. states. Illinois is noted as a microcosm of the entire United States. With Chicago in northeastern Illinois, small industrial cities and immense agricultural productivity in the north and center of the state, natural resources such as coal and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base, is a major transportation hub. Chicagoland, Chicago's metropolitan area, encompasses over 65% of the state's population; the Port of Chicago connects the state to international ports via two main routes: from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois Waterway to the Illinois River. The Mississippi River, the Ohio River, the Wabash River form parts of the boundaries of Illinois. For decades, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports.
Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and, through the 1980s, in politics. The capital of Illinois is Springfield, located in the central part of the state. Although today's Illinois' largest population center is in its northeast, the state's European population grew first in the west as the French settled the vast Mississippi of the Illinois Country of New France. Following the American Revolutionary War, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky in the 1780s via the Ohio River, the population grew from south to north. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. Following increased commercial activity in the Great Lakes after the construction of the Erie Canal, Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River at one of the few natural harbors on the southern section of Lake Michigan. John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden.
The Illinois and Michigan Canal made transportation between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River valley faster and cheaper, new railroads carried immigrants to new homes in the country's west and shipped commodity crops to the nation's east. The state became a transportation hub for the nation. By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars; the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in the state, including Chicago, who founded the city's famous jazz and blues cultures. Chicago, the center of the Chicago Metropolitan Area, is now recognized as a global alpha-level city. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Barack Obama. Additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was born and raised in the state.
Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan Land of Lincoln, displayed on its license plates since 1954. The state is the site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield and the future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. "Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers' name for the Illinois Native Americans, a name, spelled in many different ways in the early records. American scholars thought the name "Illinois" meant "man" or "men" in the Miami-Illinois language, with the original iliniwek transformed via French into Illinois; this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for "man" is ireniwa, plural of "man" is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has been said to mean "tribe of superior men", a false etymology; the name "Illinois" derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa - "he speaks the regular way". This was taken into the Ojibwe language in the Ottawa dialect, modified into ilinwe·.
The French borrowed these forms, changing the /we/ ending to spell it as -ois, a transliteration for its pronunciation in French of that time. The current spelling form, began to appear in the early 1670s, when French colonists had settled in the western area; the Illinois's name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans; the Koster Site demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and urban center of the Pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois, they built an urban complex of more than 100 platform and burial mounds, a 50-acre plaza larger than 35 football fields, a woodhenge of sacred cedar, all in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology.
Monks Mound, the center of the site, is the largest Pre-Columbian structure north of the Valley of Mexico. It is 100 feet high, 951 feet long, 836 feet wide, covers 13.8 acres. It contains about 814,000 cubic yards of earth, it was topped by a structure thought to have measured about 105 feet in length and 48 feet in width, covered an area 5,000 square feet, been as much as 50 feet high, making its peak 150 feet above the level of the pl
John Cullerton
John J. Cullerton is an American politician, a Democratic member of the Illinois Senate, representing the 6th district since his appointment in 1991, he was elected President of the Illinois Senate in 2009. Cullerton is involved in an ongoing corruption scandal in which he is accused of pressuring the Cook County Department of Transportation and Highways to pave public green space at taxpayer expense to enable a real estate development that he co-owns. Cullerton is a native of Chicago, he received his bachelor's degree in political science from Loyola University of Chicago, where he earned his law degree. After graduating from law school, Cullerton served as a Chicago Assistant Public Defender, he went on to work at the law firm of Haber. In 1979, he was elected to the Illinois General Assembly where he served for twelve years as a member of the House of Representatives, he served as Democratic Floor Leader. According to Cullerton's campaign website, he sponsored the most bills and had the most bills passed of all legislators in the 93rd and 94th General Assemblies.
After being appointed to fill Dawn Clark Netsch's seat in 1991, Cullerton was elected to the state senate in 1992 where he was appointed Senate Majority Caucus Whip. Cullerton has been recognized for sponsoring more bills than any other legislator and having more signed into law by the governor. Cullerton was chosen as the senate president by the Senate Democratic Caucus on November 19, 2008 to begin serving in 2009, replacing the retiring Emil Jones, his first legislative priority as senate president was to pass the first Capital Bill in 10 years, which allocated $31 billion for public works projects and created tens of thousands of jobs in Illinois Public Act 096-0036. Cullerton led the senate during the impeachment trial, subsequent removal, of former Governor Rod Blagojevich. Cullerton served as a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Senator Cullerton supported SB-1; the Illinois Supreme Court found these legislative changes to be unconstitutional. As the Illinois Supreme Court ruling stated: "These modifications to pension benefits unquestionably diminish the value of the retirement annuities the members…were promised when they joined the pension system.
Accordingly, based on the plain language of the Act, these annuity-reducing provisions contravene the pension protection clause's absolute prohibition against diminishment of pension benefits and exceed the General Assembly's authority," Since the rejection of the constitutionality of SB-1 Senator Cullerton has continued to support the reduction of pension benefits of Illinois State employees. In May 2017, Cullerton led the state Senate Democrats in passing a bill that increased the state individual income tax from 3.75 to 4.95 percent, along with a number of tax increases on businesses. The tax increases, if signed into law, were projected to bring in $4.453 billion from individuals and another $1 billion from businesses. In May 2017, Cullerton intervened in a land dispute outside of his district when he advocated, on behalf of the Keefe Family Trust, to pave over a section of publicly owned wetland to build a 28 foot long driveway, which would require killing 48 mature trees in a small old-growth forest.
Despite the opposition and objections of the Village of Wilmette, the City of Evanston, the publicly operated Canal Shores Golf Course and numerous community organizations, Cullerton met with local officials on multiple occasions to argue in favor of a driveway to access a landlocked parcel so the Keefe Family Trust could build a subdivision of three houses. The parcel had been landlocked. Cullerton serves part-time as an Illinois state senator. Fagel Haber merged with Thompson Coburn LLP in 2007, Cullerton continues as a partner practicing in the areas of government relations, licensing, real estate tax assessment, nonprofit law. Cullerton and his wife, have five children together: Maggie, John III, Kyle, Josephine. Biography and committees at the 98th Illinois General Assembly By session: 98th, 97th, 96th, 95th, 94th, 93rd Illinois Senate President John Cullerton legislative website Senate President John J. Cullerton at Illinois Senate Democrats Profile at Vote Smart Collected news and commentary at the Chicago Tribune
Illinois General Assembly
The Illinois General Assembly is the bicameral legislature of the U. S. comprises the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818; the State Senate has 59 members while the House has 118 members, all elected from single-member districts. A Senate district is formed by combining two adjacent House districts; the current General Assembly is Illinois's 100th. The General Assembly meets in the Illinois State Capitol in Illinois, its session laws are adopted by majority vote in both houses, upon gaining the assent of the Governor of Illinois. They are published in the official Laws of Illinois; the Illinois General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. The state did not have organized political parties, but the Democratic and Whig parties began to form in the 1830s. Future U. S. President Abraham Lincoln campaigned as a member of the Whig Party to serve in the General Assembly in 1834.
He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, supporting expanded suffrage and economic development. The Illinois Republican Party was organized at a conference held in Major's Hall in Bloomington, Illinois on May 29, 1856, its founding members came from the former Whig Party in Illinois after its members joined with several powerful local political factions including, the Independent Democrat movement of Chicago that helped elect James Hutchinson Woodworth as mayor in 1848. During the election of 1860 in which Lincoln was elected president, Illinois elected a Republican governor and legislature, but the trials of war helped return the state legislature to the Democrats in 1861; the Democratic-led legislature investigated the state's war expenditures and the treatment of Illinois troops, but with little political gain. They worked to frame a new state constitution that gave the southern portion of the state increased representation and included provisions to discourage banking and the circulation of paper currency.
Voters rejected each of the constitution's provisions, except the bans on black settlement and office holding. The Democratic Party came to represent skepticism in the war effort, until Illinois' Democratic leader Stephen A. Douglas changed his stance and pledged his full support to Lincoln; the Democratic Party swept the 1862 election. They passed resolutions denouncing the federal government's conduct of the war and urging an immediate armistice and peace convention in the Illinois House of Representatives, leading the Republican governor to suspend the legislature for the first time in the state's history. In 1864, Republicans swept the state legislature and at the time of Lincoln's assassination, Illinois stood as a solidly Republican state. In 1922, Lottie Holman O'Neill was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, becoming the first woman to serve in the Illinois General Assembly. From 1870 to 1980, the state was divided into 59 legislative districts, each of which elected one senator and three representatives.
The representatives were elected by cumulative voting, in which a voter had three votes that could be distributed to either one, two, or three candidates. This system was abolished with the Cutback Amendment in 1980. Since the House has been elected from 118 single-member districts formed by dividing the 59 Senate districts in half; each senator is "associated" with two representatives. Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, he served in the Senate until 2004. In 2002, a Democrat won a gubernatorial election for the first time since 1972. Members of the House of Representatives are elected to a two-year term without term limits. Members of the Illinois Senate serve one two-year term each decade; this ensures that Senate elections reflect changes made when the General Assembly is redistricted following each United States Census. To prevent complete turnovers in membership, not all Senators are elected simultaneously; the term cycles for the Senate are staggered, with the placement of the two-year term varying from one district to another.
Each district's terms are defined as 2-4-4, 4-2-4, or 4-4-2. Like House members, Senators are elected without term limits; the officers of the General Assembly are elected at the beginning of each number year. Representatives of the House elect from its membership a Speaker and Speaker pro tempore, drawn from the majority party in the chamber; the Illinois Secretary of State convenes and supervises the opening House session and leadership vote. State senators elect from the chamber a President of the Senate and under the supervision of the governor. Since the adoption of the current Illinois Constitution in 1970, the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois does not serve in any legislative capacity as Senate President, has had its office's powers transferred to other capacities; the Illinois Auditor General is a legislative officer appointed by the General Assembly that reviews all state spending for legality. The General Assembly's first official working day is the second Monday of January each year, with the Secretary of State convening the House, the governor convening the Senate.
In order to serve as a member in either chamber of the General Assembly, a person must be a U. S. citizen, at least 21 years of age, for the two years preceding his election or appointment a resident of the district which they represent. In the general election following a redistricting, a candidate for any chamber of the General Assembly may be elected from any district which contains a part of the district in which he or she resided at the time of the redistrictin
