Fund for Campus Democratic Activism

The American Prospect and TPM Cafe blogger, union activist and Progressive Populist columnist Nathan Newman focus on the progressive legislation Governor Blagojevich has signed into law the last few years. Its actually quite impressive and worth national attention. We should be proud of our elected officials. Illinois is leading the way!

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/02/index.html#009164

http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/26622

here are some of the highlights (from Newman's column)

This is just an examples of how Illinois has been quietly emerging as a national font of progressive ideas and legislation. Folks wonder what the progressive agenda should look like, but what's been enacted in Illinois in recent years should give you pretty good guidance. From labor rights to health care, the state has been chartering out new innovations.

To give just a few other examples:

• A new health care program for children was enacted that extended coverage for 250,000 previously uninsured children of working and middle class parents.
• To protect patient care and ease the burden on overworked nurses, the state banned mandatory overtime for nurses in the state.
• The state raised the minimum wage to $6.50 per hour a few years ago.
• Victims of sexual or domestic violence were guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave to recover.
• "Sexual orientation" was added to the state civil rights law, protecting gays and lesbians from employment discrimination.
• Corporate accountability was increased through a whisteblower law that protects employees from firing or other retaliation if they disclose information to law enforcement agencies about potentially illegal activity by the company..
• Limited english speakers were protected in their rights to talk in Spanish or other languages to fellow workers under an amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act to combat abusive "English-only" rules in the workplace.
• Illinois passed legislation to crack down on abusive and unsafe working conditions in the day labor industry, improving the lives of 300,000 day laborers in the state.
• Protected union rights by providing unemployment insurance benefits when companies unilaterally lock out workers during a contract dispute.
• Blagojevich signed an executive order helping day care workers unionize, leading to unionization and better working conditions for 49,000 child care workers in the state.

(cross-posted at rocketrichards.blogspot.com)