From the hometown rag, The Beacon News, quoting my brother, who's nickname could be Sly, but to most it's Murph.....
Jim Murphy figured the 25 people who packed this week's Aurora Township annual meeting weren't all there to review the annual financial report.
About 15 of them, it turns out, were part of an Illinois anti-war coalition using a little-known state law to put a referendum on township ballots in November. The referendum question asks:
"Shall the United States Government immediately begin an orderly and rapid withdrawal of all of its military personnel from Iraq, beginning with the National Guard and Reserves?"
The Iraq issue has raised partisan hackles in a pivotal midterm election year, and the Aurora Township annual meeting featured the familiar rhetoric in addition to questions about the purpose of a local, nonbinding referendum on a national issue.
But, in the end, the participants unanimously agreed to put the question up to the voters, which Murphy, the Aurora Township supervisor, deemed a victory for direct democracy.
"I'm very surprised that townships wouldn't allow that to be put on the ballot," said Murphy, a Democrat. "That's anti-democratic to me, but maybe, by definition, it's republican."
Posted by nora murphy at April 14, 2006 08:45 AM | TrackBack