{"id":418899,"date":"2010-03-11T13:38:30","date_gmt":"2010-03-11T18:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef01310f8e6b58970c"},"modified":"2010-03-11T16:21:20","modified_gmt":"2010-03-11T21:21:20","slug":"illinois-primary-election-headed-back-to-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/418899","title":{"rendered":"Illinois primary election headed back to March"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by Michelle Manchir<\/em> at 12:38 p.m.; <strong>updated at 3:20 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>SPRINGFIELD &#8212; Illinois&#8217; primary election would be pushed back to March under legislation the House sent to Gov. Pat Quinn today.<\/p>\n<p>If the governor signs the measure into law as expected, the state&#8217;s experiment with a February primary would end after just two elections.<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers pushed back the 2008 presidential primary to February to try to help then-Sen. Barack Obama get an early win in a big state. That worked. But last month, the early primary date was partly blamed for the debacle that left Democrats with Scott Lee Cohen as the party&#8217;s lieutenant governor nominee before he dropped out under pressure. Democrats are still searching for a Cohen replacement.<br \/><\/br><\/p>\n<p>&quot;The experience with the February primary, I think, was not a good one for voters or the candidates,&quot; said sponsoring Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook. &quot;Coming on so quickly on the heels of the holidays and being in the middle of winder didn&#8217;t help turnout and also was a real difficult hurdle for a grassroots campaign. Someone who wanted to rely on volunteers and get their message out that way. This really was an impediment to having a successful campaign.&quot;<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Supporters contended the change, back to the third Tuesday in March, would help boost voter turnout, which hit a modern record low Feb. 2.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&quot;Anything other than a February primary is better than what we just went through,&quot; said Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville,\u00a0 &quot;The February primary was a disaster, and at least this is a step forward.&quot;<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The measure would move Illinois&#8217; primary to the<br \/>\nthird Tuesday in March, where it had been for decades. The House approved it 114-1, with one lawmaker voting present. The Senate\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/newsblogs.chicagotribune.com\/clout_st\/2010\/02\/illinois-primary-would-be-pushed-back-to-march-under-measure-senate-approved.html\">signed off<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n<p>Quinn supports the legislation and &quot;looks forward to signing it,&quot; said Marlena Jentz, the governor&#8217;s spokeswoman.<br \/><\/br> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by Michelle Manchir at 12:38 p.m.; updated at 3:20 p.m. SPRINGFIELD &#8212; Illinois&#8217; primary election would be pushed back to March under legislation the House sent to Gov. Pat Quinn today. If the governor signs the measure into law as expected, the state&#8217;s experiment with a February primary would end after just two elections. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}