State Senate President John Cullerton is ready to pass the state's equal marriage bill a second time.
Cullerton, who backed Senate sponsor Heather Steans in passing the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, said that his work on equal marriage will not end until the House passes the bill. He added that if the bill needs to be amended (to change the effective date to next June, satisfying a rule about passing bills after spring session) he will push the bill in the Senate a second time.
The Senate easily passed the bill on Valentine's Day, a date Cullerton selected.
Cullerton sat down with Windy City Times to talk about progress thus far, how he plans to keep pushing for equal marriage and why the bill passed the Senate so comfortably but got snagged in the House.
Windy City Times: So, my understanding is that the Senate vote on Valentine's Day was actually a coincidence.
John Cullerton: Well, first of all, my commitment was to pass the bill as soon as possible. I got re-elected a third time in January, and I knew Heather [Steans] was going to be the sponsor and that had been negotiated with Senator Koehler. He wanted it to happen and Heather wanted it to happen, and she's a great sponsor.
We made this one of our top priorities. The other was the expansion of Medicaid because Valerie Jarrett called me, and she was with the president and wanted me to try to pass Medicaid expansion. So those two issues were the top items.
So, I was at the Sun-Times editorial board, trying to get editorial support. They asked about the timing. There were some people missing on Feb. 13. So, I said, I think it will be Feb. 14, and they were like, "oh, that's Valentine's Day." Some of the opponents, they…
WCT: Did not like that.
John Cullerton: [Laughs] did not like that. I kinda enjoyed that a little bit. But, we have been taking so many tough votes in the last five years. We have been taking things away from people. We've been cutting budgets. We've been threatening to take away people's pensions. … It's all been really negative stuff.
And the three votes, where it was such a personal vote, and it was so profound. One was abolishing the death penalty .For the people that voted yes, it was a huge emotional involvement. Civil unions though was celebratory, and Koehler being the sponsor was so perfect. It was so uplifting. And the same thing was true, obviously, of marriage.
I am committed. To brag a little bit— there's no one around to refute this so it makes it pretty easy—I am fairly certain I have sponsored more bills that have become law in the last 34 years and probably in the history of the state. I really want to pass this bill. It's incomplete by just passing it out of Senate and saying, "Hey, I've done my job." We have to pass the bill.
WCT: Sure.
John Cullerton: The reason why I'm so hopeful that this is going to pass is, we knew we had enough votes to pass this bill. One of my closest friends who happens to be a state senator was my chief of staff, Andy Manar. I worked tirelessly to get him elected from a district that is very conservative. He's a Democrat, but he's from a little farm town, Bunker Hill, and he's up for election. I said, "Andy, you know, we've got 30 votes here." I just assumed he was not going to vote for this bill. He goes, "I'm voting for it." And I go, "you're up for election." And he goes, "I'm voting for it." I said, "you don't have to." I didn't lobby him. I'll be honest with you. I would have lobbied him if he was number 30, but he said, "Everybody I know who is under 40 years-old is for this."
Next door to him is a freshman Republican. I drew the maps. It's the most Republican senate district out of 59. And Jason Barickman … when he voted for it, adjoining district to Andy. I went up to him, I said, "Thank you so much." He said basically the same thing. "It's the right thing to do."
WCT: So, Barickman voting for it was a surprise?
John Cullerton: Oh, yeah; it was a shock. I expected no Republicans. We worked some Democrats, but Heather was great. Obviously it helps to have the largest Senate caucus in America and the largest Senate Democratic caucus in the history of Illinois.
WCT: Heather Steans said that it didn't take a lot of arm-twisting, that senators really wanted to do this.
John Cullerton: Andy is the perfect example. As it sinks in to these legislators that their younger constituents are not just marginally in favor of this, this is overwhelming. It's such a generation gap here. And that has to be a positive thing. Just think, if you're for a position but it's just the older people are for it, and there's more and more younger people coming up, you'd much rather be in the other position.
WCT: Why do you think the bill passed comfortably in the Senate and then was such a difficult push in the House?
John Cullerton: I'm not into the blame game because I'm into results. I think that some people don't realize that we had a spectacular election last year. We have a lot of Democrats. If you compare us to the House, it's as if we have 80 Democrats, and they have 71 [currently]. So obviously, I have more Democrats to work with.
The first chamber to vote on a bill that passes it, it makes it easier on tough votes. On the other hand, opponents tend to wait for the second chamber.
But it seems to me is that the best thing is not to blame anybody but to just go out and get the votes.
WCT: Are you at all worried that senators that took a chance in voting for this have now made their positions public on a bill that hasn't passed? What are you hearing from senators?
John Cullerton: It's this hope that the future will only be creating more and more support.
WCT: Heather Steans said she was not worried about amending this bill and passing it again in the Senate if that needs to happen.
John Cullerton: That's right. And that is another tactic that we would use. I used to be in the House for 12 years. There's a protocol. If the Speaker was working against the bill, it would be a problem. But since he's for it, I can go over there and work with the House members. I would be more than happy if he wants us to vote on it again to push it to do that.
WCT: What do you think LGBT people should be doing right now to help that push?
John Cullerton: This is kind of elementary 101 lobbying. The first thing that's extremely frustrating for people from the Chicago media market is that nobody knows who the hell we are. You can go to Rockford and Decatur and Springfield and Rock Island, and the state senators and state reps are, like, 82-percent name recognition. In Chicago, it's like they know their alderman.
So people have to know who their state reps. are. It's the swing areas where people have to know who their state senators are and then contact them politely. Not an email blast. It's personal contact. It's humanizing an issue.
