Illinois House votes to abolish death penalty

How the death penalty abolition bill passed on the second try
* As you know by now, the House passed a death penalty abolition bill on the second try yesterday. Democratic state Rep. Pat Verschoore voted against the bill the first time, then changed his vote after the bill’s sponsor appealed to him… “I’d been back and forth on this since they started talking about abolishing it,” Verschoore said. State Rep. Karen Yarbrough, D-Maywood, the proposal’s sponsor, asked him to reconsider his vote, he said. “She’s helped me o

Illinois House Votes To Abolish Death Penalty
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois House has approved a plan to abolish Capital Punishment in a whirlwind reversal on a historic vote. The Legislation to halt state-sponsored execution gained the necessary 60 votes Thursday after an earlier vote fell short. The landmark action comes nearly 11 years after then-Gov. George Ryan cleared death row and declared a Moratorium on Capital Punishment in Illinois. The Legislation now moves to the Senate, where President John Cullerton says he support...

Illinois House Votes to Abolish Death Penalty
Action Comes Nearly 11 Years after then-Gov. George Ryan Cleared Death Row, Declared Moratorium on Ill. Capital Punishment Like this Story? Share it: Learn about the people, economy and geography. (AP) SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois House has approved a plan to abolish capital punishment in a whirlwind reversal on a historic vote. The Legislation to halt state-sponsored execution gained the necessary 60 votes Thursday after an earlier vote fell short. The landmark action comes nearly 11 year...

Illinois House Passes Death Penalty Ban, Senate Next
Source: Reuters Illinois House passes death penalty ban, Senate next Thu Jan 6, 2011 11:18pm EST Chicago (Reuters) - The Illinois House on Thursday voted to ban the death penalty, moving the measure on to the Senate a decade after a Moratorium on executions was put into place by former Governor George Ryan. Thursday night's vote came after a first vote failed, according to Illinois State Representative Elaine Nekritz, a Democrat who voted in favor of the ban. The final vote was 60-54 in favor of...

Illinois House passes death penalty ban, Senate next
Chicago | Thu Jan 6, 2011 11:18pm EST Chicago (Reuters) - The Illinois House on Thursday voted to ban the death penalty, moving the measure on to the Senate a decade after a Moratorium on executions was put into place by former Governor George Ryan. Thursday night's vote came after a first vote failed, according to Illinois State Representative Elaine Nekritz, a Democrat who voted in favor of the ban. The final vote was 60-54 in favor of the ban. "I believe the history of the death penalty in...

Ill. House OKs abolishing death penalty
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Jan. 7 (UPI) -- A bill that would abolish the death penalty passed the Illinois House of Representatives and moved to the Senate where, observers say, its fate is uncertain. The vote Thursday came a decade after then-Gov. George Ryan issued a Moratorium on the death penalty after it was learned that several people on death row were Not Guilty, the report said. Observers say the bill's future is unclear in the final days of the Legislature's lame-duck session. Backers say Senat...

Illinois House passes death penalty ban, Senate next
Thursday night's vote came after a first vote failed, according to Illinois State Representative Elaine Nekritz, a Democrat who voted in favor of the ban. The final vote was 60-54 in favor of the ban. "I believe the history of the death penalty in Illinois demonstrates that we are not in a position to get it right 100 percent of the time," said Nekritz, explaining her vote. Ryan ordered the Moratorium in January 2000 following a series of revelations that more than a dozen people had been sent ...

Plan to kill death penalty in Illinois fails by single vote
A move to abolish the death penalty in Illinois failed by a single vote in the House today. The vote came 10 years after then-Gov. George Ryan first placed a Moratorium on the death penalty following revelations that several people sent to Death Row were later exonerated. Read more in Clout Street. ...

Illinois House Votes to Abolish Death Penalty
"You can release an innocent man from Prison but not from the grave" said Gordon "Randy" Steidl, who spent 17 years in prison, including 12 on death row, after being wrongfully convicted of a double Murder. Thursday, the Illinois House voted to abolish the death penalty. The bill now goes to the Senate, where passage will be difficult, but not impossible. Thirty-five states now have the death penalty... Three states — New York, New Jersey and New Mexico — have eliminated the death ...

House Votes to Pass Key Hurdle to Repealing ObamaCare, 236-181
Just got a tingle up my leg, now I know what Chris Matthews feels like watching Obama speak. WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronting President Obama, the new Republican-led House took a first step Friday toward a symbolic vote to Repeal his landmark Health Care overhaul law, which would provide coverage to more than 30 million Americans without Health Insurance. But the 236-181 largely party-line vote is unlikely to amount to more than a political message, since Democrats who still run the Senate ha...

Capital punishment foes, allies gear up for battle in Illinois
Illinois State Capitol, Springfield, Ill. SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • Death-penalty opponents are racing the clock to pass Legislation abolishing Capital Punishment in Illinois before the middle of next week, when the seating of a new Legislature will make the move more difficult. Death-penalty supporters are poised to fight them on it. About 30 proponents of abolishing the death penalty gathered at the state Capitol Tuesday, lobbying lawmakers to complete work on a bill that stalled last month ...

Illinois House debating death-penalty abolition
St. Louis stocks SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- The Illinois House has just started debating a bill to abolish the death penalty. If it passes, it would return to the Senate. Supporters are trying to get it passed to Gov. Pat Quinn as early as today. We'll update here....

Health-care repeal not popular among House Democrats
The private Recession vs. the public Recession Over the weekend, Rep. Fred Upton, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, predicted that so many Democrats would join in the effort to Repeal the health-care Reform Bill that the House might get near the two-thirds that could overturn a Veto (this is presumably after Republicans take the Senate in 2012). That'd mean about 50 Democratic defections. Today, the House voted on the rule governing health-care repeal, and rule votes tend to be ...

The Amazon Tax
The Amazon Tax It seems the State of Illinois is so desperate for revenue that it is instituting an Internet Sales Tax. Chicago, Jan. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Internet Tax Bill (HB 3659) was passed in the Illinois Senate on January 5, by the House of Representatives on January 6 and brought to the Governor, who may sign it into a law as early as Friday, January 7. The tax Legislation relates to out-of-state merchants like Amazon.com and Overstock.com that do not have a physical presence in ...

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton's son sentenced after DUI in state SUV
The young Cullerton’s Guilty Plea was in relation to the April 18, 2010 incident in the popular River North area of Chicago when he was stopped by Chicago police while driving a state-issued 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid in the 800 block of North Dearborn.  Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, father of the DUI-convicted driver, admitted that the state-owned vehicle should not have been driven by his son.  After the inexcusable incident in April, John Cullerton returned the vehicl...

Illinois Dems Push Plan To Boost Income Tax By 75%, Double Cigarette Taxes...
SPRINGFIELD (AP) — Top Illinois Democrats have agreed to push a plan that would temporarily boost income taxes by 75 percent and double Cigarette taxes, Senate President John Cullerton said Thursday. Illinois’ Personal Income Tax Rate, now 3 percent, would climb to 5.25 percent for four years under the plan Cullerton outlined. After that, it would drop to 3.75 percent. That means someone who now owes $1,000 in state income taxes would owe $1,750 at the new rate, then $1,250 after fou...

Jailed Gov. Ryan visits dying wife
Published: Jan. 7, 2011 at 1:01 PM Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan was able to leave Prison to visit his dying wife, officials said. .bg/wy/Bill Greenblatt UPI Ex-Gov. Ryan seeks to be with dying wife Former Ill. Gov. Ryan to remain in Prison Ex-Ill. Gov. Ryan loses Pension rights Chicago, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Federal Prison officials in Terre Haute, Ind., allowed former Illinois Gov. George Ryan to visit his dying wife at a Kankakee, Ill., Hospital, prosecutors said. Ryan, convicted in 2006 on fede...

House Fixes Votes-Without-Oaths Problem
Pete Sessions (Credit: Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images) The House officially took action today to right a wrong committed in the first days of the new Republican House of Representatives. On the very first day of the 112th Congress, three members were missing when Speaker John Boehner administered the oath of office to members-elect. One Democrat, Rep. Peter Defazio (D-OR), had an excused absence because of a meeting in his district about a local Veterans Hospital. Two Republicans just flat-out ...

Illinois businesses, come to Indiana; we won't tax you to death!
Dear Chicagoans and Illinois residents, how much longer are you going to stand for the insane taxes that Illinois imposes upon you for the privilege of living in the Land of Lincoln?  What don't these politicians understand?  Did they not hear the uproar of the last election?  People are fed up with Big Government.  Instead of asking us to pay more to fund your corrupt and inefficient practices, maybe you can downsize the bureaucracies that don't contribute at all to the econ...

Senate president's son pleads guilty to DUI in state car
A son of Illinois Senate President John Cullerton pleaded guilty today to driving under the influence of Alcohol after he was stopped in downtown Chicago last April in an SUV registered to the state. In addition to the Misdemeanor DUI charge, Garritt M. Cullerton, 27, also pleaded guilty to an improper lane usage citation, according to the Cook County state's attorney's office. Cullerton was sentenced to two years of conditional discharge--a form of Probation--when he appeared today in Cook Co...

Ex-Ill. governor allowed to visit dying wife
Source: MSNBC (AP) Chicago — Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan was quietly let out of Prison this week and spent two hours visiting his gravely ill wife, Federal Prosecutors revealed in a court filing Friday. The federal filing, in which prosecutors opposed a motion to let Ryan out on bail, said the Bureau of Prisons granted the former Governor an escorted trip Wednesday evening to the Kankakee, Ill., Hospital where his wife Lura Lynn Ryan is being treated for Cancer. A motion filed by Ryan's la...

House leaves town and the Taxpayers Federation posts the rates
* As you’re probably aware of by now, the House has left town without acting on the proposed tax hike… “The votes aren’t here in the House yet,” said Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, a House Budget expert. “There’s not 60 votes.” House Speaker Michael Madigan has not commented on the proposal yet, but was expected to meet with Gov. Pat Quinn behind closed doors today to fine-tune the plan. The Governor also has been asking individual lawmakers into his o

How NJ congressmen act in HCR repeal debate
One of the shortest bills ever introduced in the House of Representatives is now scheduled for a vote next Wednesday, under a "closed rule." New Jersey's House members are all voting strictly according to party lines. This morning, the full House approved the rule for debate and voting on HR 2, the Repealing the Job-killing Health Care Law Act. The vote was 236-181, with 232 Republicans and 4 Democrats voting in favor, 2 Republicans (the same two who missed the swearing-in ceremony when new Spea...

Sen. Manchin takes aim at part of healthcare law
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has been under fire from Republicans to reveal where he stands on healthcare Repeal, announced Friday that he's co-sponsoring a bill to repeal one provision of the law.  Along with Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), Manchin is co-sponsoring a bill to eliminate the so-called 1099 provision of the healthcare law, which imposes an additional tax filing requirement on small businesses for transactions over $600.  Manchin did not endorse a full repeal of the law.  "As sm

House Transportation Committee Chair Wont Commit to Defunding Obamacare
Friday, January 07, 2011 By Dan Joseph FILE - In this May 20, 2010, file photo Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo) Washington (CNSNews.com) - House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL) says that he favors full Repeal of ObamaCare, but would not commit to defunding the bill in its entirety if Repeal efforts fail. CNSNews.com asked Mica this question: “Rep. Steve King of Iowa advocates including language in every a...