It’s time again for the state of Illinois to pay for the private elections of the Democrats and Republicans. Yes, these are private elections, despite the claim that they are open. They are not open; the voter must declare a party.
As an independent, I have not voted in any primary because I cannot choose the candidates I want. I may want Robin Kelly for Senate and Darren Bailey for governor. I cannot make these choices on the same ballot.
Yet my tax money goes to pay for the election where the candidates for these and other offices are chosen. I’m told that I can go choose a ballot to vote, but I cannot always choose the candidates I want.
I understand that the party leadership is afraid that members of the other party will try to skew the primary vote. If enough of the other party is willing to waste their choice to affect your election, you probably need to take a closer look at your choice of candidate to begin with. Besides, they can do that now just by requesting the other party’s ballot. How often does that currently happen?
Illinois either needs to have properly open primary elections, where all candidates can be voted on, or the Democratic and Republican parties need to start paying for their private elections.
— Paul Valentine Pomykala, Rantoul, Illinois
Frustrations about primaries
Regarding the editorial “When 20% of Illinois voters decide primary elections, democracy cowers” (March 12): Thank you for saying what I have been complaining about for years. I haven’t missed a primary since 1972; I vote always in person and always as a Republican.
One other problem is not making it easier for people to learn who is on the ballot ahead of time and a fair record of each of their accomplishments or promises.
— Sally A. Bolton, East Dubuque, Illinois
Runoffs make a lot of sense
Marj Halperin in her op-ed (“Crowded Illinois primary races frustrate voters and weaken candidates,” Feb. 25) notes a real flaw in the primary elections in which many candidates are running. A candidate may win the primary, and thus the election, with less than 20% of the vote. This is fundamentally unfair to the other candidates and to the voters. Her proposed solution is ranked choice voting.
Ranked choice voting has multiple steps and is somewhat convoluted. We do not yet know, and possibly may not imagine, all the weaknesses in the system.
An alternative (which has been proposed by many) is simpler: a runoff between the top two candidates when the leading candidate receives less than 50% of the vote.
We have had municipal runoffs for many years. The results, although sometimes unsatisfactory, at least represent the will of the majority of voters. Other states have runoffs even for general elections, such as in the recent Georgia Senate races. With a primary in March and the general election not until November, there is plenty of time to hold a runoff a month or two after the first primary. It would give the prevailing candidate more than enough time to rest, recuperate and reenergize for the fall general election.
I think we should leave ranked choice voting to the political scientists. For the rest of us, the solution is simple: runoff elections.
— Frank L. Schneider, Chicago
The SAVE America Act
We all deserve the right to have our voices heard in all elections. As a mature citizen, I have watched military veterans and all people fight and die for our right to vote. The so-called SAVE America Act (Senate Bill 3752) would cripple that right for many citizens, including married women who took their husband’s name, people without passports and anyone who would have difficulty getting their birth certificates. We do not need to show these papers when states already have many rules in place to protect how we register.
Contact your senators to urge them to reject this bill and ask family and friends in other states to do the same.
This is not a political or partisan issue.
— Patricia Walter, Glenview
Threat to participation
As Congress advances new voting restrictions and debates birthright citizenship, Catholics cannot remain silent when policies threaten the dignity and civic participation of immigrants and their families.
We join with our Catholic bishops in affirming that ending birthright citizenship would deny the innate dignity of the human person and inflict harm on vulnerable people. Our faith calls us to evaluate public policy through a moral lens rooted in the dignity of every human person and the right of all people to participate fully in civic life. Catholic social teaching reminds us that a just society is measured by how it treats the most vulnerable, including immigrants, refugees and their families.
The SAVE Act, or H.R. 22, would have required in-person documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, to register to vote. Requirements like these increase harmful anti-immigrant rhetoric. They also risk placing disproportionate burdens on many citizens eligible to vote, including U.S.-born children of immigrants and naturalized immigrants and refugees.
Yet the issue is not settled. A new version, H.R. 7296, the SAVE America Act, has passed the House, continuing to imperil the rights of citizens from immigrant families.
Equally troubling are efforts to eliminate birthright citizenship for certain children born on U.S. soil. The 14th Amendment affirms that those born in the United States are citizens, a powerful expression of equal human dignity. Undermining that protection would create tiers of belonging and punish children for circumstances beyond their control, disproportionately harming immigrant and refugee families.
People of faith must speak clearly in defense of human dignity, immigrant families and equal citizenship. Our democracy and our moral witness depend on it.
As we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and the contributions of Irish immigrants, we strongly urge our senators to stand with all immigrants and oppose H.R. 7296/S.3752. We invite readers to contact their senators to share their convictions and affirm the promise of the 14th Amendment.
— The Rev. Patrick McGrath and Krista Chinchilla-Patzke, pastoral ministry associate, Old St. Patrick’s Church, Chicago
How we make a difference
What makes our country great is active participation by millions of citizens, each of whom can contribute to making our democratic republic work. We have been and continue to be the greatest country in the world because we are educated, law-abiding, peaceful people, committed to preserving the world’s most successful experiment in governance. As many as two-thirds of those who are eligible vote. Active participation fuels our model. If we fail to participate, the atrophy from indifference will lay to waste the efforts and achievements of those who went before us. Democratic republics work best when those governed watch, learn, communicate, choose leaders and otherwise participate in governance.
Keys for success are:
• Register and vote. Cast informed ballots, the result of learning the issues and the candidates. This is especially important in local elections and primaries in which there are lower turnouts and a less informed public.
• Exchange and refine your views. Get involved in forums that promote understanding of candidates and issues. One’s influence extends far beyond individual votes.
• Avoid being pedantic or judgmental. People are seldom receptive to change when they are on the defensive.
• Listen. You will seldom offend when you are attentive.
• Sow seeds (ideas) that inspire fact-checking by those who can be persuaded. Get others involved. Friends are generally respectful to civil conversation.
The underlying ask here is that we accept, individually and collectively, responsibility to actively participate in governance through education (our own and our fellow citizens’), engagement in supportive activities, placing trust in our system and in its rules, and commitment to sustained effort to advance and protect that with which we have been entrusted.
Each of us can make a difference. Each of us has the potential to extend his or her influence well beyond one vote through active participation.
— Del Bloem, Lake Barrington
What shapes flight schedules
Regarding the editorial “Here is what’s really going on at O’Hare as American and United battle it out” (March 4): I applaud the Tribune Editorial Board for weighing in on developments involving the airline schedule at O’Hare (ORD). But there’s about as much chance of ORD experiencing the delays Newark (EWR) once did as there is of the Chicago Bears building a floating stadium in Lake Michigan.
U.S. hub airports with fewer runways and more flights operated by their largest carriers are getting none of this regulatory attention, if not hysteria. ORD, with its most-in-the-U.S. eight runways, and United Airlines, even with up to 780 flights per day, are not as congested as Delta at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta with 1,000 flights operating with five runways and American at Dallas/Fort Worth with 900 flights using seven runways. I’m not aware of any Federal Aviation Administration-mandated schedule cuts at those airports.
What seems to be really going on is one of ORD’s hub airlines wants the government to step in and put its hand on the scale to help one carrier at the expense of another. I don’t think American would have any patience for that if another airline tried to do the same in Dallas/Fort Worth, Charlotte or Miami or any of the other airports where American is the largest airline and can set schedules as it chooses.
The Chicago Department of Aviation and ORD travelers, through passenger facility charges paid with each ticket, have invested in runway capacity to enable growth and reduce delays. Now that the Aviation Department’s vision is making life more difficult for one of ORD’s hub airlines, inflated fears of delays are being raised.
Making judgments about the number of flights an airline operates between its hub and a spoke city, such as between ORD and Grand Rapids, Michigan, as the editorial does, ignores how airline hubs work. Less than half of the passengers on flights through a hub are traveling between those two cities alone. Many are connecting to another city. As airlines add flights, organized in “banks,” for example at 3 p.m., 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., flights are added to feed those banks. Flights from many smaller markets feed passengers to flights with larger aircraft to larger markets. It makes both flights viable.
The FAA seems to be approaching this topic with a solution to a problem that hasn’t been defined. Instead of arbitrary limits, let economics shape schedules for United and American at ORD, just as they have for American in Dallas and Delta in Atlanta.
— Kurt Alan Ebenhoch, St. Charles
The truth about CVTs now
Regarding “Here’s why CVTs are the worst kind of car transmission” (Feb. 27): As a former manager of four high-mileage car dealerships, I believe the op-ed overstates the reliability concerns surrounding continuously variable transmissions (CVTs). A decade ago — particularly in certain pre-2019 Nissan models — there were higher failure rates. However, most of those issues were addressed in redesigns, and modern CVTs from manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda have proved very dependable.
While older Nissan CVTs may carry somewhat higher risk (10% failure range versus 5% for traditional transmissions), those vehicles also sell at meaningful discounts, and buyers can mitigate risk with an extended powertrain warranty.
The 5% better fuel efficiency not only helps manufacturers meet efficiency standards, but it also lowers fuel costs for owners over time, making a worthwhile trade-off even 10 years ago.
— Anders Stubkjaer, Forest Park
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