45 years later, three unsolved issues from 1970 won’t go away

Law and Public Issues

By Ann M. Lousin

Ann M. Lousin has been a professor at The John Marshall Law School since 1975. Before then, she was a research assistant at the 1969-1970 Illinois constitutional convention and parliamentarian of the Illinois House of Representatives. Her treatise “The Illinois State Constitution: A Reference Guide” was published in December 2009. She can be contacted at 7lousin@jmls.edu.

Posted June 30, 2016 1:49 PM

Forty-five years ago, on July 1, 1971, the 1970 Illinois Constitution became effective. Almost all of the burning issues before the convention in 1970 have been solved, either by the constitution itself or by subsequent developments.In 1971, 18-year-olds won the right to vote through the 26th Amendment; that was a burning issue in 1970, during the Vietnam War. The General Assembly abolished the death penalty in 2011; that was another burning issue in 1970.In 1980, Illinois voters decided to change the method of electing …

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