Taking it to the Streets

Well, even though there's no stopping the state from laying off the IHPA employees on September 30 and moving forward with the historic site closures, at least people are showing that they are upset about it. When a man from the Illinois state workers' union called me last week and invited me to Saturday's protest in front of the governor's mansion in Springfield, I wondered why they would have a protest there--since Blago doesn't live there, but I found out that it was because yesterday the Illinois State Historical Society was hosting their annual awards banquet at the mansion, and the protestors were hoping to catch the attention of people interested in history. It's kind of ironic that the ISHS would have their awards ceremony at the gov's mansion--since it's the gov who is trying to erase the state's history, but I guess that they might as well use the governor's mansion for something since it's just sitting there empty.

Anyway, this picture is from today's issue of the Illinois State Journal-Register. My favorite is the lady with the big specs sporting the Abe Lincoln hat and beard. Due to the distance factor, I was not able to attend the demonstration (I'm not typically the demonstrating type--usually that's the Democrats--but this is a worthy cause), but it's cool that people showed up to support the historic sites. The Springfield police department even showed up to make sure that the protestors didn't interrupt the traffic flow--now that's a real protest!

Yet, things still aren't looking to bright for the future of IHPA. Even though the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to pass a bill that would temporarily restore funding to the sites, the bill still has to go to the Senate. The Senate's next scheduled meeting is November 12, and though they could have called an emergency session before then, the Senate leader, Emil Jones (who also happens to have been Obama's mentor in the Illinois Senate, but I'll save that tyraid for another day) has adamantly refused to do so. He said that any of the issues they'll be voting on can wait until November 12. Problem: by that time the IHPA employees will have been laid-off, and the sites will have been closed. If the funding isn't restored before the layoffs take place and the sites close, it's going to be a mess to try to get things up and running again even if the Senate does pass the bill (which, unfortunately, is unlikely). And, there's no guarantee that people would get their jobs back right away even if the funding was restored. It's all quite a mess. I'm going to use the online petition as the backing for some letters I will be writing to Illinois senators this week. And hopefully Saturday's protest helped increase public awareness a bit.