Scores of Chicago-based activists trekked to Springfield Wednesday, descending on the governor’s office, House and Senate galleries and even the Executive Mansion. They wore T-shirts with “We Rise” emblazoned on the front. On the back was a question they want the governor to consider as he makes fiscal plans for the cash-strapped state: “Who will you choose?”
Brittney Berry fought back tears as she handed an aide from the governor’s office a stack of petitions asking that Child Care Assistance Program remain in place. The subsidized daycare program, which legislators had funded for only six months of the current fiscal year, ran out of money in January, putting in jeopardy child care resources for thousands of families and providers. It needs $300 million. Under the program, low-income families are charged a co-payment for care of children from birth to age 12, and the state picks up the remaining cost. The idea behind the program is to make it easier for more people to join the workforce.
Berry said she received a letter from the Department of Human Services indicating she had been approved for child care assistance for her special needs daughter. But then she got a call from the center where the child would have attended and was told funding issues meant she couldn’t come after all. Berry had to find alternate care for her 2 year old, who suffers from epilepsy and has several physical and developmental disabilities.
“I just want him (the governor) to feel the pain that I’m going through … as a single mom,” said Berry, a fast food worker earning minimum wage.
'I just want him to feel the pain that I'm going through ... as a single mom.'
Capitol police standing guard outside Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office told coalition members that the governor was not in. Rauner’s schedule of late, including Wednesday, has him crisscrossing the state, giving speeches in support of the fiscal and policy changes he wants to implement. Still, the demonstrators, several of them locked arm-in-arm, advanced toward the doorway — chanting, blowing whistles, pumping fists in the air and even singing “We Shall Overcome.”
“People are angry and scared about the proposed budget they heard,” said Jennifer Ritter, executive director of ONE Northside. Her organization brought 150 participants to the state capital as part of the We Rise coalition. She says the governor’s plan would affect issues such as youth homelessness and violence prevention, with which ONE Northside assists.
As the demonstration unfolded outside the governor’s office, more We Rise participants were in the House and Senate galleries, draping banners over the balcony before being escorted out of the chambers. Noise from protesters massed in the rotunda spilled into the House chamber, at one point halting the session.
Marian Young, 73, came with the group to let the governor and lawmakers know that she depends on Community Care Program benefits. Rauner has proposed a $124.9 million cut to that program, which is intended to help people remain in their homes, rather than going to assisted living or a nursing home. It subsidizes workers who visit elderly residents with limited abilities — if any — to clean, cook and do other household chores.
“If they cut those things, then we just won’t have nobody to help us,” said Young, who has multiple myeloma and arthritis.
Another set of We Rise demonstrators marched to the governor’s mansion, a few blocks from the state Capitol building. Several men carried a black casket bearing a red cross, with “99 percent” written on it. They said the casket was a symbol of how fatal they believe the governor’s budget plans would be to the state’s poor and “ordinary” citizens.
Rep. La Shawn Ford addressed a crowd of demonstrators waiting in a committee room. The Chicago Democrat took questions, described where the House was with getting the Child Care Assistance Program funded and offered his own take on the governor’s budget proposal.
“Hopefully the child care funding will be resolved next week,” he said. “Right now it’s all political.”
'Our belief is if we give him the authority he wants, he will not fund child care.'
Rauner said in his February 18 budget address that a solution for the funding was “days” away. House Speaker Michael Madigan agreed with that estimate. But some senators have been saying a resolution is not imminent. The governor wants the legislature to give him free rein to sweep state funds to fill gaps in child-care assistance and other programs. That hasn’t happened, leading to the current impasse.
“Our belief is if we give him the authority he wants, he will not fund child care,” Ford told the protestors. Members of the Legislative Black Caucus recently met with Rauner. The reportedly abrasive meeting yielded no announcement of a funding agreement, leaving many who depend on state services in limbo.
“It’s all or nothing with him. He wants $1.6 billion. We were not willing to give him the authority and the discretion to cut without letting us know what his priorities were going to be,” says Sen. Jacqueline Collins, a Chicago Democrat who attended the meeting. “The trust factor was not really there … to give him the discretion to cut where he wanted to fill the $1.6 billion.”
