* This could cause quite a bit of hilarity next week…
More than 100 religious leaders from the Chicago area are threatening to take over the Illinois legislature if lawmakers fail to pass a state budget in the next week. The potential protestors say they will storm the capitol and occupy every seat in the Illinois House. […]
“We are prepared to take our complete delegation to the capital to take over,” said Rev. Ira Acree, Ministers Alliance.
The budget battle in Springfield escalated Monday as more than 100 activist ministers claiming to represent 500,000 parishioners threatened to take over the Illinois House in Springfield next Monday, sit in the lawmakers chairs and vote on a symbolic budget with more money for education, health care and mass transit if Governor Blagojevich and the other elected officials can’t agree on a real budget by then.
“Since we have elected officials down there fighting, we are going to say enough is enough. People are suffering, because folks want to play politics,” said Rev. Roosevelt Watkins, Ministers Alliance.
“You have seven days to get it together. Seven days,” said Rev. Steve Jones, Ministers Alliance.
* More…
Rev. Steve Jones, President of the Baptist Pastors Conference, says ministers by the bus-load will descend on Springfield next Monday if no budget is passed by then, and he says they’ll take over the House Chamber and try to pass their own budget:
* If you use the Google on all the names mentioned in the stories you’ll see that every one of the ministers endorsed Gov. Blagojevich’s health insurance proposal. Interesting, that. I can’t help but wonder whether the governor was behind this stunt. I also wonder how the House will react when the ministers show up next week. Should be fun.
In addition, Rev. Watkins co-founded the Ministerial Alliance Against the Digital Divide. The group’s name was apparently shortened in the story. MAADD, which never answered an e-mail or a phone message I left with it several weeks ago, has been shilling for AT&T’s effort to open up cable competition.