Public initiatives could allow Cook County voters to repeal sales tax boost

Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn and Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool responded Tuesday to widespread outcry over last week's county sales tax increase by calling for voter-approved initiatives that would give taxpayers a chance to repeal the unpopular policy.

The initiative proposal, which would put Illinois in the company of 24 other states with similar systems in place, offers citizens the right to petition for a direct public vote on issues such as the tax increase, as opposed to leaving these measures to the sole discretion of legislators.

Quinn said that if his proposal were to pass, a motion to repeal the tax hike would be very likely to gain enough support to make it onto ballots by year's end.

"If taxpayers want to repeal an unfair tax, one that's not justified, we ought to have a process in our state that believes in government of the people," Quinn said.

"Voters today in Illinois feel the system is out of control, that the tax system is controlled by bureaucrats, politicians and special interests. It's time to put the people back in, and the best way to do that is with petitioned referendums."

Quinn said that public initiatives should be offered at every level of the Illinois government: municipal, county and state. While any changes to the state election system would require a constitutional amendment, the proposal could succeed at the county level through two main avenues.

First, the Illinois General Assembly could vote by the end of the year to grant Cook County residents the right to petition for voter initiatives, he said.

Failing this, Illinois voters could decide at the polls on Nov. 4 to call a constitutional convention in which state lawmakers would convene to discuss changes to the Illinois Constitution. In that event, Quinn said, members of the General Assembly could introduce a new amendment to give the entire state the right to petition for public initiatives.

"The simplest and easiest [way to get initiatives in place] would be for the Illinois General Assembly to respond to the local anger, the waves of citizen complaints that we've seen broadcast over the news media in the last couple of weeks," Claypool said.

In the history of Illinois, voters have passed a binding public referendum only once, in a 1980 initiative that reduced the size of the state legislature. In fact, the only cases in which Illinois voters can vote directly on government policy is when the measure concerns the operations of the legislature itself.

"I would like to see the current initiative that we have broadened to include the revenue article and the finance article of the Illinois constitution," Quinn said. "That would be a great step forward in having more public participation."

Several major cities in the region currently have their own systems of initiatives and public referendums in place, which Quinn said is all the more reason to install them in Illinois.

"Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Milwaukee, St. Louis-in all of those places, right here in the Midwest, their taxpayers have a right at the city and county level to review the system," he said. "Why shouldn't we have that here in Chicago and Cook County, and for that matter everywhere in Illinois?"