-By Warner Todd Huston
Russell Geisler was an Illinois State Representative from the 105th District… for one day.
You see, when the 24-hour stint occurred Geisler was an aide to State Rep Shane Cultra of the 105. Cultra was appointed by the party to fill State Senator Dan Rutherford’s vacated seat because Dan was elected to the State Treasurer’s office. Since Cultra left his seat to take his appointed Senate seat, that left the 105’s state rep seat empty until the new legislature was sworn in and the next man could that the 105’s seat.
So, Cultra thought that instead of leaving the 105 unrepresented for the last day of the session, he’d appoint his aide to the seat. And that is exactly what he did.
This isn’t a sudden story, though. Cultra announced that he had plans to do this weeks ago.
His plan did not meet with the approval of everyone in his party, however. Some Republicans have been grumbling that the idea is a slight to the voting process and treats the State Rep’s seat in a trivial manner.
Geisler’s big vote was to take away from seniors the free rides on the CTA.
So, I guess this means that the one-day State Rep. now has a $100,000 a year pension, free healthcare, and a state car for life, now… right? It IS Illinois we are talking about, isn’t it?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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