* The AP finally updated their over-the-top story from yesterday which completely bought the claim by some Downstate Republicans that Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) had injected racial hatred into a committee debate. But maybe they should’ve just retracted the whole thing. The lede is the same from yesterday morning…
Three Republican state representatives accused a Democratic colleague of spreading “racial hatred” during a committee meeting Wednesday and demanded that the speaker of the House investigate the incident.
“That type of racial hatred that was displayed in committee went out with the ’70s, and I respectfully request that you review the transcript,” Rep. Jim Sacia, R-Pecatonica, said on the House floor.
* And this paragraph was added later…
A recording of the hearing shows that while Davis alleged some lawmakers want to keep crime rates up so that prisons stay full, the racial content was minimal: She argued that her fellow African-American legislators must fight hard for legislation to help former criminals go straight.
* The only people who really injected race into the debate yesterday were the Republicans making the accusations…
Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Greenville, alleged that Davis specifically said some lawmakers want to keep prisons filled with “black people from Chicago.”
He called it “Alice in Wonderland kind of stuff” to suggest any lawmaker would want to keep crime rates up. Suggesting a racial motivation is even worse, he said.
“That is a criminal insult and she should be sanctioned,” Stephens said. Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, agreed. He accused Davis of “race-baiting.”
* Sorry, guys, but you’re the ones doing the race-baiting. From the Tribune…
But a tape of the hearing shows that Davis never accused the Republicans of protecting prisons on the basis of race. In fact, she said it was a matter of economics.
“Illinois must recognize there’s some people in the Illinois General Assembly who have prisons in their district and their whole objective is to keep them filled,” Davis said at the hearing. “Anything — anything — that would create an atmosphere to get those prisons with fewer people, were threatened to close, it’s a war. ‘We’ve got to have those prisoners. They got to come down here from Chicago and we got to keep em filled because that’s how we get work. That’s our economy. We no longer plant corn. We no longer have farms. We don’t raise cows and pigs. We keep prisoners.’ So if you don’t have prisoners you will not have the economy to keep their livelihood going.”
* What Rep. Davis did was impugn the motives of Downstaters with prisons in their districts. That was over the line. But if anybody ought to be “sanctioned” (and I’m not arguing for sanctions, just throwing their words back at them) it should be the legislators who shouted the bogus claims about “racial hatred.”
“Her comments were definitely racial,” [Rep. Jim Sacia] said after the hearing. “They were directed at white Republicans. It was totally unacceptable.”
What does their reaction say about those legislators? Davis talked economics and they heard race. Not a banner day.