In the News

Springfield Journal-Register, May 12, 2008

Bickering among state senators over whether to grant themselves a pay raise degenerated into something resembling a war over race and class on Thursday.

Sen. Rickey Hendon, an African-American from Chicago’s rough and tumble West Side, said he would attempt to modify a measure that must be approved in order to stop the pay raises from taking effect. When Senate leaders these days say they plan to amend a measure everybody realizes they don’t like, what they’re actually saying is that they plan to make it unpalatable to others in order to doom it.

But dooming the effort to curb lawmakers’ pay raises wasn’t enough for Hendon. He rhetorically smacked Sen. Susan Garrett, a fellow Democrat from Lake Forest, one of the nation’s most affluent communities. Garrett, who is white, is promoting the effort to block pay raises, and Hendon labeled her the senator from “Richville.”

“It just blows my mind how the filthy rich are always the ones saying we don’t need the raise. No, she don’t,” Hendon said.

Hendon is a former Chicago alderman who drew a salary from Cook County government even as he served in the Senate, then won county contracts worth nearly $50,000 when he resigned his county post in 2006. He doesn’t exactly appear to embody a poor public servant.

No matter, Senate President Emil Jones, another Chicago Democrat and African-American, piled on. As Garrett explained her position to reporters, Jones walked by and quipped, “I’ve got to get me some food stamps.”