I was fortunate to be the delegate from the LWV of Greater Peoria at the national League Convention in Dallas June 5 - 10, 2014. The convention was packed full of learning, sharing, and LWV business. The schedule for caucus, training, and plenary sessions started early at 7:30 am and ended at 10 pm. There were 637 delegates from 47 states, and those delegates were engaged and productive!What impressed me the most was the focused energy of both plans and successes to stop voter suppression throughout the country. Regardless of whether the voter suppression was man-made (campaign contributions overshadowing votes), a force of nature (Hurricane Sandy), or just plain outrageous (Texas Secretary of State sent letters to 80,000 people telling them they were deceased and off the voters rolls), League members have been, and will be there, to fight for the right and access to vote. Who else in this country is going to be vigilant, and take action, to make sure voters get registered and get to the ballot boxes to cast their votes?
There was a lot of discussion about the urgency to fix campaign finance and to use program to drive less than robust membership numbers. The PMP (Per Member Payment) to LWVUS was frozen at $31 for 2014-15 and increased one dollar for the next year, with delegates knowing that money is needed to fund program support and action, including legal action.
Existing program positions were retained and there were additions for a concurrence on human trafficking and a new, enthusiastically supported three-part program focusing on key structures of American democracy, including campaign finance reform, the constitutional amendment process, and redistricting reform for the U.S. Congress.
We were also reminded of the substantial amount of training materials and resources available through the LWVUS web site. Arriving back home I checked out that site and was amazed at what was found (on first page click on upper left hand corner on MEMBERS) on issues and every activity associated with the League....what a treasure trove.
Thank you to our League Board for selecting me as our delegate, allowing me to attend and share our successes and come back with ideas and resources to keep making democracy work.
Pat Landes

LWVIL Charter School position update: The LWV of Illinois has asked local Leagues to complete a member consensus on possible updates to our Charter Schools position. The Greater Peoria League's Board agreed to participate in this update and we formed a committee. The committee is co-chaired by Hedy Elliott and Jan Deissler.

The LWVIL (state) committee worked for 9 months figuring out the questions that will be discussed by local Leagues. The questions surround 3 issues: transparency, accountability, and finances. 


Our committee may include League members and interested community members. They study the background information suggested by the state committee, hold panel discussions, community discussion meetings, interview local leaders in the field, publish articles in our newsletter and on the website, and do fact finding. Our League will hold a general membership meeting in December to determine if our members agree or disagree with any of the LWVIL questions. We send our League's response to the state League by Jan 31, 2015.


The state League's Charter Schools position committee will compile all the local Leagues' responses. The committee will decide whether there is strong enough agreement on each question to suggest to the state League Board to make changes to our current Charter Schools position. The LWVIL Board may make changes to the state committee's report and findings. And, then that approved updated position will be sent to delegates who will attend our statewide convention in June. Those delegates will vote on the update at the June 2015 LWVIL Convention in Chicago.


The updated position is included in our LWVIL positions for local Leagues to use for possible local action. If the LWVIL Board prioritizes this item in their budget and work plan for 2015-16 at the convention, considerable effort could be used to push the issue within the state legislature.


Our committee has completed interviews. We will have articles in our newsletter in Oct, Nov, and Dec. We encourage member and public participation at our meetings:

• Oct 7, 2014 at 1:30 Lower Level conference room seats 40 - topic "Transparency" - Hedy
• Oct 14, 2014 at 1:30 Lower Level conference room seats 40 - topic "Accountability" - Jan
• Oct 21, 2014 at 1:30 Second Floor community room seats 20 - topic "Finances" - Lisa

The current local study started out with the list of questions provided by LWVIL to be presented to various parties involved in charter schools. Click here to see the questions.


Click here to see the Sept 2014 summary of the interviews.


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History:
In 2001 the Illinois State LWV published its position on Charter Schools. To read the 2001 position, click here.