Not a huge surprise, except possibly the overhwhelming majority. From the AP…
The Illinois House today approved making the presidential primary election earlier to favor favorite son Barack Obama. Lawmakers voted 110-to-four to move the primary from March 20th to February Fifth next year.
House Speaker Michael Madigan sponsored the measure.
He says moving the date would benefit Obama — a freshman U-S senator and fellow Democrat. He says presidential nominations often are decided by the time Illinois voters get to choose.
The Senate still has to take up the measure before it gets to the governor’s desk. The governor has promised to sign it.
The bill’s status and full text can be found here and the rollcall will eventually be posted at this page.
*** UPDATE *** Off topic, but related to the 2008 campaign, the highlight of today’s House Government Reform Committee’s grilling of General Services Administration chief Lurita Doan was a PowerPoint presentation prepared by the White House political office which was allegedly shown at a GSA meeting.
The presentation was about upcoming 2008 political targets in the US House and Senate. A Democratic committee member claims two GSA witnesses say the director asked at the end of the presentation what could be done to help these candidates.
Setting aside the fact that doing something like this at a government office in Chicago or Springfield would probably result in an immediate FBI raid (slight exaggeration), check out the video below starting at “5:14.”
The title of the slide is “Battle for the Senate 2008.”
Illinois’ upcoming US Senate race between Dick Durbin and an as yet undetermined Republican candidate is listed as “non competitive” by Karl Rove…
Not surprising at all, of course, but food for thought.
Also, if you enlarge the image you’ll see that no Illinois Congressional races are listed in another slide (at 8:05) of the top 20 House targets for 2008.