Illinois Senate sworn in

Posted on January 14, 2021
Senate President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park). (Dave Dahl/WJBC)

 

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – There was no intrigue over someone who’d been in office fifty years, and nobody used an acceptance speech to settle a political score. But the Illinois Senate did indeed have its swearing-in ceremony Wednesday.

“The pandemic may limit our social gatherings,” said President Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), “but it can’t stop the Senate from working together. I can sum it up in one word: Zoom. A year ago, it was a stranger. Now, it’s like we’ve been married thirty years.”

Sen. Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) is the chamber’s new minority leader. “This is a commit to our home, to our state, that is our common equalizer here on this floor. It has been easy to forget this common ground when personal offense has been made a sport – and our politics have been so divisive.”

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]

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