Let Freedom Ring
Jeff Smith will be a strong advocate for freedom and a defender of civil and human rights.
- Representative Activities:
- Editorial board of Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review
- Advanced coursework in constitutional law
- Experience representing individual victims of discrimination
- Contributor to groups working to end human rights violations
- Worked with Lawyers Committee on Central America to oppose governmental support of oppressive regimes
- Public signer of letter opposing abuses of constitutional rights by U.S. Attorney General
- Support for candidates of merit regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation
- Past endorsee of, e.g., N.O.W., Cook County Democratic Women, IMPACT
Government that has grown to enormous levels, never contemplated by the Founders, has the potential to impinge on basic freedoms, as do changes in a society that has likewise seen enormous population growth and technological change since the Revolution. The pace of cultural change since, especially, the 1960s, has often pitted holders of sets of values against each other. Lawmakers, eager to claim that they have worked against some evil, pass hundreds, even thousands of laws, but far too few make us any freer. The challenge for government remains how to respect individual freedom, and where to draw lines when choices made in exercise of liberty conflict.
First Amendment. The freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the federal Constitution, reflected generally in the Illinois constitution, remain as vital as ever to an open society, if not more so. Illinois, like all states, should be in the vanguard of preventing impingement upon these liberties. Erosion of freedom can occur not only through direct governmental action, but when government cedes or outsources public functions. I will be a vigilant guardian of liberty, an opponent of encroachment upon civil rights, and an advocate for increasing, rather than decreasing, our collective freedom. The important role of open space, parks, and libraries should not be underestimated in this regard. Neither should the freedom of the Internet, which should be guarded and protected.
The role of print publications deserves special mention. Hard copy promotes thoughtful reading and writing, archival value, professional standards, and jobs in journalism and publishing. Much of the growth of new media has occurred with direct or indirect government support, and we should be vigilant that our enthusiasm for the new does not unintentionally burden an historic and valuable sector.
Privacy. The very concept of privacy is under assault by a combination of forces, some of our own making. Ultimately, no right is safe if citizens cannot converse and conduct themselves, or even read and think, free from fear that someone is watching or collecting data. The invasion of home and thought was a concern in 1776, and the erasure of privacy remains a hallmark and tool of oppression in today‘s world. I oppose the use of fear (usually of internal or external threats) as a wedge for the invasion of personal, family, and group privacy, and will advocate for a clearer governmental expression in Illinois of this fundamental right.
Gender Issues. American society, on the one hand, advanced far more quickly than most cultures ever seen in the history of our planet in extending equal opportunity to women. Nevertheless, we retain in many respects the legacy of officially sanctioned inequality.
I support women‘s rights, beginning with ratification of the ERA. I will defend measures intended to provide equal opportunity for all. I support the right to reproductive choice, and oppose efforts by the state to dictate personal bodily and health choices. I would prefer to see our approach to balancing competing concerns of rights and policy codified rather than subject to never-ending judicial revision, and will bring to bear in Springfield years of experience as an advocate in cases involving gender-related and domestic issues. I will also work to span gender-based divisions in political rhetoric, because men and women are partners, not opponents, in our work toward a fairer society.
LGBT Issues. Conversation on issues involving sexual orientation has been unnecessarily polarized in a culture that both sensationalizes anything involving sex, yet shies from frank and open discussion of sexuality. On topics such as same-sex marriage, rhetoric has been dominated by unproductive oversimplification, misunderstanding, ignorance, and fear, rather than review of what purposes are served by state recognition of marriage of any kind, and what considerations warrant extending the institution to non-traditional structures. On matters of individual rights I favor equality. As to couples’ and family issues, which blend policy choices with rights analysis, the legislative route is more productive than litigation. The current patchwork of partnership and family law that LGBT couples must use to provide for each other is unsatisfactory, as is a "civil unions" approach if it neither provides real equality nor thinks through what marriage entails. If by the time I take office in 2011, Illinois has not addressed this issue, I will work to enact law that better serves the community.
Racial Issues. Existing law both forbids and addresses, on paper, discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, or national origin. Yet a visit to any traffic call in any suburban courthouse, or to any school cafeteria, like time spent listening to the accounts of those in the workplace, confirms that as a society we have more work to do. Most of that remaining work has more to do with socioeconomics than with overt or conscious discrimination. We need to give a greater eye to the degree to which policies and programs perpetuate unwanted legacies or hamper those who seek to better themselves. The disproportionate impact of both crime and the criminal justice system on minority populations requires that we craft a better approach to these issues than simply building more prisons or escalating a failed war on drugs.
— Jeff Smith
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