Ok Illinois Members, pour it on....This is our chance to flex some muscle.
Jeff
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...323E609618385903862570AB001453C2?OpenDocument
Jeff
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...323E609618385903862570AB001453C2?OpenDocument
Gov. Blagojevich faces showdown over gun bills
By Kevin McDermott
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
10/31/2005
SPRINGFIELD, ILL.
It's High Noon in Springfield - a showdown between legislators who are trying to loosen Illinois gun restrictions and Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is trying to stop them.
As always, downstate Democrats will be lined up against their party's governor when the shooting starts.
This is the final week of the Legislature's two-week "veto session," the last chance lawmakers will have to override vetoes. Among the bills Blagojevich vetoed are three that would ease state gun regulations and prevent local communities from imposing tougher ones. The Senate last week voted to override Blagojevich on one of the bills, and all three could be on the legislative agenda this week.
If the vetoes are overriden, the laws would go on the books over the governor's objections. The effect would be a new rule requiring police to destroy gun-sale records after the sales are complete; the elimination of the current gun-sale waiting period when guns are being traded; and the striking down of local ordinances in Carbondale and other communities that impose tougher rules on gun-transportation than the state standards.
The fight will again highlight an oddity of Illinois politics: When it comes to guns, the usual left-right, Democratic-Republican battle lines are re-drawn, and the fight rages north and south.
"Downstate Democrats are almost always with us on gun bills," noted Rep. David Reis, R-Olney, who will rely heavily on Metro East Democrats in his attempt this week to override Blagojevich on the waiting-period issue. "It's those collar-county (Chicago-area) Republicans who can go either way."
Indeed, last week's Senate vote to override Blagojevich and prevent local communities from restricting gun transportation wouldn't have happened without the almost unanimous backing of downstate legislators of both parties, including every Metro East-area Democrat.
"Anywhere south of I-80, the NRA holds sway" among state legislators of both parties, said John S. Jackson, political scientist at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. "It's a cultural issue. If you put partisan loyalty against voting what you see as the wishes of your constituency, you're almost always going to go with your constituency,"
The gun-transportation bill would scuttle local ordinances that are more restrictive than state law. State law says guns can be transported in cars if they are unloaded and cased, or broken down, and out of the driver's reach. Some communities - including Chicago, several of its suburbs, and Carbondale - have enacted more restrictive ordinances.
Pro-gun-rights advocates say that could lead to situations in which a hunter driving across Illinois, with a gun legally secured according to state statutes, could find himself breaking the law the moment he crosses into a community with a more restrictive statute.
"We have citizens not knowing what the terms of these ordinances are" when they drive through a town, Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, argued in floor debate last week, in supporting the override. "These ordinances are unknown to passers-by, and that's not fair."
But gun-control advocates point out that cities impose tougher driving restrictions than the state all the time. A cell-phone user who talks and drives without a hands-free device will be perfectly legal until he enters Chicago, for example, and then will be violating that city's cell-phone ordinance.
In Carbondale, city ordinance bans any transportation of firearms in a vehicle. City Manager Jeff Doherty said that ordinance is part of the city's attempt to prevent concealed weapons in the college community.
Among senators voting to override Blagojevich's veto, thus nullifying laws like Carbondale's, were Haine; Sen. James Clayborne, D-Belleville; Sen. Deanna Demuzio, D-Carlinville; and Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton.
The measure passed 38-20, two votes over the three-fifths majority needed for a veto override. It now moves to the House, which even gun-control advocates concede probably will vote to override the veto.
Thomas Mannard, spokesman for the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said he is more optimistic about stopping the other two veto-override attempts expected to come up this week. Both those bills were passed by narrower margins last spring than was the gun-transportation bill.
The gun-transportation bill is SB2104. The waiting-period bill is HB340. The gun records destruction bill is SB57.
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