March 3, 2006

In This Issue:

• Welcome Home, Legislators
• New Report on State Lobbyist Regulations
• Voting and Mapping: ICPR Looks at Redistricting
  

Welcome Home, Legislators
The Illinois House is taking next week off, so Representative will be in their District Offices.  What better time to let them know that campaign and ethics reforms are needed.  Several bills now pending deserve attention, let them know which measures matter the most to you:
    HB 5006/HB 743 (Coulson - Contribution limits)
    SB 1955/HB 671 (Raoul/Delgado; Judicial Public Financing)
    HB 4073/SB 2138 (Fritchey/DelValle; Pay to Play)
    HB 5765 (Fritchey - Lobbyist reform)
    SB 2953 (Garrett/Dillard; Inspector General Disclosure)

New Report on State Lobbyist Regulations
Our friends at the Center for Public Integrity have taken another look at state lobbyist regulations.  The last time they looked, Illinois ranked 45th in the nation.  While the 2003 Ethics Act barred lobbyists from serving on boards and commissions, will that be enough to raise our ranking?  Illinois has a long way to go before the public should be satisfied with state curbs on private influence peddlers.  Read their report.

Voting and Mapping: ICPR Looks at Redistricting
Primary Elections tend to draw much smaller turnout than Generals, but in most parts of the state and for most offices, the Primary is where the next office holder is chosen, especially for offices with partisan boundaries.  ICPR's newest Issue Briefing looks at how legislative maps are drawn and how that affects elections and legislators.

Please consider making a donation to ICPR. We need your contributions and your help to clean up Illinois politics. Visit our online donations page.

ICPR Spotcheck is a publication of The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a non-partisan public interest group that educates, conducts research, and advocates reforms to promote public participation in government, address the role of money in politics, and encourage integrity, accountability, and transparency in government.

You have received this email because you are a subscriber to ICPR Spotcheck, the e-mail newsletter of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. It contains news and information on the activities of ICPR. If your email software does not support HTML, please read Spotcheck online at: http://ilcampaign.org/press/spotcheck.asp. To add or remove a name from this list, please e-mail nelly@ilcampaign.org.