Whether you rent or own your own place, get ready to vote YES! for the Fair Tax Amendment this November. We need to get rid of the flat income tax and replace it with a progressive tax. We need to let our Legislature set higher rates for the top 3 percent and lower rates for everyone else. Our schools need to be freed from the property tax, which leads to inequalities in our education system--the rich get better schools than the poor. More than ever, we need to vote YES on the Fair Tax this November.

Applications for a mail-in ballot are now open! Last week, Gov. Pritzker last week signed legislation authored by State Sen. Julie Morrison for "Virus-Free Voting." Anyone who voted in the last three elections -- going back to the Blue Wave November 2018 Election--will automatically be sent an application for a mail-in ballot. And anyone who has registered to vote since the 2020 March Primary also will be sent an application for a mail-in ballot. The new legislation also makes Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020, a state holiday! You can apply online for a mail-in ballot if you have moved, or if you haven't voted since 2017. Or, if you want to make sure you get your own ballot!  

Make sure you send in your application. When you get your ballot, make sure you Vote Blue All the Way Through! And mail it in! You can apply online for a mail-in ballot at the Cook County Clerk's office.

America has tolerated slavery far longer than it has embraced freedom for all. This year marks 157 years since slavery ended in the United States, when the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect Jan. 1, 1863. This Friday, June 19, is Juneteenth, the celebration of African American freedom that marks when a Union general read aloud the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, Texas, in 1865, freeing the enslaved Black people in that state. Texas was the last of the Confederate States to free its slaves, since the Proclamation had actually gone into effect two-and-a-half years earlier. But slavery already had existed in America for 254 years, beginning when twenty enslaved Africans were brought to the Jamestown colony in 1609. No other group in America has endured this history of brutal enslavement for generations, followed by more than 100 years of denied civil rights.

Now, after weeks of rallies and marches protesting police brutality against African American men and women, there are calls to "Defund the Police." We are talking about Racial Justice, which encompasses many issues. One is the need to Reform the Police. Reform the Police by demilitarizing the police. Reform by committing to community policing. Reform by re-allocating funds from the police back toward education and  social services, both of which we have been defunding for years. Reform by moving toward state licenses for police officers, as advocated by our Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. We need Racial Justice. Black lives matter. Reform the Police.