making elections fair and inclusive in Illinois (amending Illinois Constitution)

Below is a brainstorm amendment to the Illinois Constitution.

It is an attempt to make elections significantly more fair and inclusive.

Elections shall be fair to individuals as well as political, religious, ideological and ethnic minorities. 

All Illinois citizens shall have the right to vote except for individuals convicted of attempting to influence elections through fraud or other criminal acts. 

The State of Illinois shall make voting as accessible as possible through implementing best practices, including those used in other states, countries, jurisdictions or in the past.
How individual citizens vote shall be secret. 

Efforts to prevent election fraud shall be as effective as possible without reducing participation in elections. 

A citizen shall vote from his/her primary residence. 

The definition of "primary residence" shall be established in law by the General Assembly.
Any citizen who does not have a primary residence shall explain under oath why the address s/he is voting from is more appropriate than any other address. 

Illinois shall use voting and tabulation systems and technology secure from tampering, fraud and failure. 

Election results shall be audited for accuracy in accordance with best practices. 

All elections won by less than one quarter of one percent of the votes cast shall be recounted. All campaigns within one percent of victory shall be allowed to witness the count. The General Assembly shall pass law governing the rules for citizens and media to observe the count. 

The General Assembly shall determine when the right to vote is returned to those who have lost the right to vote through criminal acts. 

The citizenry shall have the power to compel the General Assembly to vote on best practices when 100,000 citizens petition the General Assembly to vote on a proposal. If the proposal fails to become law, the petitioners shall be able to challenge existing law in court. If the court determines the proposal is an improvement to existing law, the proposal shall become law.

increasing accountability on sexual assault in U.S. military

Because I was a whistleblower about misconduct at Navy Recruiting District Chicago and in Navy Recruiting Command I have significant experience of the limitation of the inspector general system.

On July 3, 1996, I contacted the Department of Defense Inspector General who gave my complaints to the Navy Inspector General. It was passed down the chain of command to Navy Recruiting Command. Since part of my allegation was misconduct/negligence by the Navy Recruiting Command Inspector General, a separate O-6 was assigned to investigate the misconduct by three other O-6s and an E-9 (among others) within Navy Recruiting Command.

There is an approach to sexual assault in the military that will provide ongoing pressure for the system to improve and maintain commander discretion for the military. Democracy Now:

Top military leaders appeared before the Senate on Tuesday to refuse calls for independent oversight of sexual assault in the armed forces. The military has faced renewed calls to remove oversight from the chain of command following a report showing around 26,000 sex crimes within the ranks last year.

The military considers commander discretion on disciplinary matters essential to military culture.


Call the approach "oversight and accountability for sexual assault".

1. If an individual reports sexual assault or sexual harassment to the command, the default will be to be report the incident to an office within DOD IG. This is not a big change in policy since Admiral Mike Boorda enacted mandatory reporting when he was Chief of Naval Operations.
2. DOD IG will track the resolution the cases.
3. DOD IG will survey the complainants to see if they are satisfied with the resolution.
4. When servicemembers and officers are transferred they will be surveyed anonymously about sexual assault and sexual harassment at the commands they are leaving.
5. DOD will report to Congress annually on the data collected.
6. When officers are submitted to Congress for promotion to flag ranks, Congress will have access to the data on commands where the officers were either commanders, chief of staff or executive officer.

The military is going to complain about anonymous surveys, but the fallback could be to make the surveys not anonymous and have them submitted three months after transfer. The former admin officer in me makes me think this would be a headache for the gaining command admin/personnel officer.

two things I want regarding gay marriage in Illinois

1. A list of Democratic representatives who refused to publicly commit to supporting gay marriage.

2. Polling data on each one of these representatives.

With these two things, the people can begin to organize themselves.

BGA should create and enforce a no hate speech policy for its Facebook page

On its Facebook page, the Better Government Association asked me to file a complaint by email about a post on the BGA page that crossed the line to hate speech. BGA's initial reaction was to say that because Daniel Cannucci's statement that Michelle Obama should go back to Kenya wasn't "profane", it didn't violate BGA's standards.

My critique of BGA has two major points.

1. BGA should have a zero-tolerance approach to racism and hate speech. People who engage in racism and hate speech may be part of the "Conservative" political coalition, but they are not part of the good government movement.

2. BGA increasingly seems to be a home for people who hate government. Hating government is not the same as making government less corrupt or more efficient.

Below the fold for more details.

Firearm Owner Funded Buyback Program

The is a correlation between firearm ownership homicide. See Harvard School of Public Health.

Illinois could reduce homicide and gun violence by reducing the number of firearms in circulation. Below is a simple proposal.

Firearm Owner Funded Buyback Program

1. There would be an annual registration fee per firearm of $10-45.
2. At least 80% of this money would go to buying-up firearms.
3. There would be a reward program for tips about people and households keeping unregistered firearms.

Judge Rules Bradley Manning Mistreated; Orders Goofy Remedy

With the caveat that I am not a lawyer...

Judge Lind's response to the government mistreating Bradley Manning seems flawed. Background:

After two weeks of intense litigation by Bradley Manning's defense, and hearing how Quantico brig staff blatantly disregarded Navy Rules in their mistreatment of Bradley, military Judge Denise Lind acknowledged that Bradley was punished unlawfully before trial and she has awarded him 118 days sentencing credit.

This isn't a remedy at all if Manning is found "not guilty".

So, Judge Lind's remedy to the unlawful actions by the government pretty much tells that the trial is a sham. Manning is going to be found guilty.

IVI-IPO needs more members to be credible

I am the secretary for the South Chapter of IVI-IPO. In the case of the special election to fill the vacancy caused by Jesse Jackson, Jr's(*) resignation, the South Chapter is currently organizing both and endorsement session (January 20th, Regent's Club, 51st & East End) and a candidate forum before January 20th.

The South Chapter is closely aligned with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle's Fourth Ward Democratic organization.

One of the things that is frustrating about the instructions I'm getting is the emphasis that the forums and endorsement session are supposed to appear objective.

It's an insult to the intelligence of everyone to pretend that this endorsement is going to be objectively decided.

Ivory Mitchell, the chair of the South Chapter, will make sure that the endorsement session is filled with Preckwinkle loyalists. And these loyalists with endorse the candidate preferred by Preckwinkle.

There are two scenarios where this doesn't happen. 1. If Preckwinkle stays truly neutral. I would be astounded if this happens. 2. If Clerk of the Courts Dorothy Brown decides she wants to order her employees who are members of IVI-IPO to show up and vote for one of the other candidates.

The problem is that IVI-IPO is weak and has willing allowed itself to be taken over by ward organizations.

IVI-IPO needs to get its act together. It needs to accomplish two major things.

1. IVI-IPO needs to have a system of recruiting members beyond relying on politicians to get their employees and loyalists to buy membership dues.

2. IVI-IPO needs to take seriously the organization's credibility problems in the larger Chicago progressive community. (Outside Chicago, few know what IVI-IPO is.)

* When IVI-IPO voted to endorse Jackson in 2012, I was the only person in the room who did not vote to endorsed Jackson.