Illinois House Speaker Emanuel 'Chris' Welch doesn't rule out a 2024 ballot question on abortion rights, which could drive Democratic turnout.
Chicago Tribune reporter Rick Pearson, center, speaks with House Speaker Emanuel"Chris" Welch, right, and House Republican Leader Tony McCombie on April 27, 2023, in Springfield.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed graduated-rate income tax amendment was overwhelmingly rejected by voters in 2020. But when Welch became House speaker in early 2021, he suggested the state make another attempt to put the question to voters, with the intention of helping to pay down Illinois’ massive pension debt.“One of the things I’ve learned is you learn a lot from losses. You know, we got our butts kicked on that. And we had to find a different way to go,” Welch said.
In rattling off abortion rights legislation the Democratic-led legislature has passed in the last few years, including the 2019 Reproductive Health Act, Welch hinted that an abortion rights amendment could provide an extra jolt of motivation for the state’s Democratic voters in November 2024. To pass, amendments enshrined in the state constitution require 60% of those voting on the question to vote “yes,” or more than 50% of all ballots cast to vote in favor of the question.Last year, a few months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Pritzker told CNN that the right to choose should be put “on every ballot across the country in 2024,” especially “where right-wing politicians are stripping those rights away.
During the panel discussion, McCombie acknowledged that she’d support a “pro-choice” Republican from the Chicago suburbs, but she also said some of the state’s recently enacted abortion laws are “too much,” particularly the repeal of parental notification requirements for minors getting the procedure.
Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, accused Pritzker and his Democratic allies in the legislature of “trying to silence pregnancy care centers.”
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