LEGISLATIVE FICTION

How can a reporter tell it’s election season? The flood of bloviating emails from candidates is a dead giveaway. One of our favorite offenders is Rep. Sue Scherer, a Democrat from Decatur who represents part of Springfield. Last week, Scherer sent an email taking credit for the passage of a law to improve early childhood education. This supposedly “Scherer-backed legislation,” as she put it, was sponsored by 31 members of the Illinois House. Curiously, Scherer wasn’t one of them. We don’t doubt Scherer’s devotion to education – she was a teacher for 30 years, after all – but typically in the General Assembly, saying you backed legislation means you sponsored it, not simply voted for it after someone else did all the work. However, it’s election season, which means anything candidates can do to hype themselves is fair game. Another serial offender is Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner, who earlier this week sanctimoniously asked “When will Pat Quinn answer questions?,” referring to an ongoing investigation into the governor’s botched anti-violence program. The question is pretty irritating coming from a candidate who literally runs away from reporters and refuses to answer even basic questions about his stances on pressing issues. As long as there are elections, we’ll be rolling our eyes.