On Oct 31st I wrote about Amendment 1 on the Illinois ballot, a constitutional amendment which addresses worker rights and collective bargaining.
Employees shall have the fundamental right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing for the purpose of negotiating wages, hours, and working conditions, and to protect their economic welfare and safety at work. No law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and work place safety, including any law or ordinance that prohibits the execution or application of agreements between employers and labor organizations that represent employees requiring membership in an organization as a condition of employment.
The intent is to strengthen rights to collective bargaining and secure these rights for the future. It drew a lot of opposition from Dick Uihlein, a billionaire who donated 1-2 million to the Illinois Policy Institute to work up some opposing propaganda. They have circulated the same debunked material thoughout the state’s news organizations. (BTW, Dick also had a hand in supporting propping up Johnson in Wisconsin and paying for the racist ad campaign.) The opposition to the Illinois amendment was so active, though it all seemed to be sourced from IPI. More on that here. I had serious doubts about its chances, and the graduated tax amendment in 2020 did not pass. So I thought the votes might break much the same.
There are two methods by which the amendment can pass:
The vote requirement for constitutional amendments was either (a) 60 percent of votes cast on the ballot measure itself or (b) a simple majority of all of those voting in the election.
As the vote stands right now with 93% reporting we don’t have the 60%:
YES 58.5% 1,964,076
NO 40.5% 1,395,626
I do not know how to find out how many people voted in this election so far. Not sure that number is available. But the US Senate and the governor seats were likely where the highest number of total votes accumulated.
With 93%, reporting governor votes were a total of 3,907,079
Also 93%, reporting US Senate votes were a total of 3,897,876
The gov contest had more votes and 50% of those amounts to 1,953,540 . People voting YES were 10,536 votes more than that 50%.
That is encouraging but this will be very close and can go either way.
.
I won’t be able to hang around to discuss this. I’ve been keeping an eye on it and though I should share this. I had surgery today and right now am crashing fast with fatigue. I hope my numbers are right. Thanks for reading.