From State Rep. Dan Ugaste:
House Republicans call for repeal of Democrats’ “damaging and dangerous” SAFE-T Act.
January is the one-year anniversary of Illinois Democrats passing sweeping legislation to defund, disarm, and disrespect our police. House Democrats voted yes, House Republicans voted NO.
Violent crime is up, police retirements are increasing, and our communities are less safe. House Republicans are sponsoring legislation that would repeal the so-called “SAFE-T Act.”
On Thursday, House Republican Leader Jim Durkin held a press conference with former state’s attorney Rep. Patrick Windhorst and Assistant Republican Leaders Deanne Mazzochi and Ryan Spain to call for the repeal of the ill-conceived SAFE-T Act, which was passed by Democrats on the final night of the January 2021 lame-duck session.
Since the law was enacted, many neighborhoods in Chicago and surrounding suburbs have witnessed an increase in violent crimes that include murder, expressway shootings, carjackings, assaults, armed robberies, smash & grabs and mob retail theft. Compared to 2019, crime is up 7.5% in Chicago.
Spain called the SAFE-T Act “damaging and dangerous with real consequences for the people of the state of Illinois.”
Spain said crime has skyrocketed in Illinois with increases in retail theft, carjacking and murders, citing 800 murders last year in Chicago.
“Illinois has become the wild, wild Midwest,” Durkin said.
Tweaks to the bill, including a measure passed last year diluting some of the use-of-force language in the original bill, aren’t good enough, the Republicans said on Thursday, and the SAFE-T Act should be repealed entirely. Mazzochi said it would only take a few Democrats to cross over to get it done.
“Repeal is a realistic solution. The original, underlying legislation passed with a bare minimum of 60 votes,” Mazzochi said. “ … It almost didn’t pass the first time.”
“As a member of the Illinois House Judiciary Criminal Law Committee and as a member of the Illinois House in the 101st General Assembly, I voted against the sweeping package of reforms that make up the SAFE-T Act,” Windhorst said. “Now, I’ve introduced legislation that would repeal the anti-police reforms in the law. This is one step Illinois can take to restore law and order and stem the tide of spiraling crime.”
The abolishment of cash bail was part of the omnibus criminal justice reform bill that was passed in the final hours of the lame-duck 101st General Assembly. While the new bonding system enacted within the 764-page bill is very complex, the expectation of the sponsors was that the great majority of defendants who have been arrested – including persons arrested for violent criminal offenses – will be released back into the community while awaiting trial. House Republicans strongly opposed this change, as it will allow dangerous criminals back into our communities.
House Bill 3653 contained many controversial provisions that make extensive changes to Illinois’ criminal justice laws. The legislation abolishes cash bail, makes it more difficult for prosecutors to charge a defendant with felony murder, adds further requirements for no-knock warrants, gives judges the ability to deviate from mandatory minimum sentencing requirements, makes changes to the “three strikes” law, and decreases mandatory supervised release terms, among other changes.
One of the most controversial aspects of HB 3653 was the numerous changes and additional requirements it places on Illinois’ law enforcement officers. The legislation mandates body cams be worn by all officers, creates a new felony offense of law enforcement misconduct, creates an anonymous complaint policy, and makes changes to use of force in making arrest, duty to render aid and duty to intervene. The bill makes significant changes to the law enforcement officer certification and decertification process, including the creation of a new Law Enforcement Certification Review Panel.
The new SAFE-T Act has made Illinois a less safe place to live for just about everyone. Something needs to be done to address violent crime in Illinois, but it is clear rushing legislation through the General Assembly was not the right solution.
House Republicans have filed legislation to repeal the dangerous SAFE-T Act and we have established a petition to get your input. If you agree we need to repeal the SAFE-T Act, please sign our petition at ilhousegop.org/repeal.
Now may be you get it ugaste Dem = Dumb…. and Dumber… Tell the Obydumb this is why we can’t stand ’em .. when he spews what do the GOP want? how about the LAW … not their un- LAWfulness, the peoples LAW …
Left wingers, liberals, and Democrats often choose a nice sounding name for bills that create laws that are contrary to, 180 degrees opposite, of what the name or title suggests.
Take for example the “Keeping Youth Safe and Healthy Act (SB 818)” passed in Illinois in 2021. The title sounds nice. An innocent and innocuous title. Who would not want to keep youth safe and healthy.
But within that bill, school children as young as eight will learn about gender identity and sexual orientation. Children as young as eleven will learn about different types of sex, sexual exploitation, and trafficking. Children will also learn about deviant sexual acts. These topics are properly the domain of parents and parental education of their children at an appropriate age and maturity.
All of this “sex education” was cloaked in the nice sounding “Keeping Youth Safe and Healthy Act (SB 818)”.
So now we find the Republicans fighting the Democrats’ SAFE-T Act. “SAFE-T” Act. How nice sounding. What upstanding and honest and law abiding citizen would oppose safety. But, again the wretched Democrats put a nice sounding name on a bill that had awful elements. It included no-cash bail and would allow “the great majority of defendants who have been arrested – including persons arrested for violent criminal offenses – be released back into the community while awaiting trial.”
These deceitful terms and titles are intended to lull the populace to sleep while giving alleged and real criminals and violators more rights and possibly have them harm people while being free and awaiting trial.
There are many terms invented by Democrats or liberals or the media that are deceitful. Another one is “undocumented immigrant”. Sounds not too bad. An immigrant missing papers. Should Americans worry about undocumented immigrants? After all, it is only about missing papers. But, the real truth and facts are that so-called undocumented immigrants are really illegal since they were not authorized to come to or stay in our nation and they violated U.S. laws. They were not properly vetted. They are really invaders in our nation and should properly be called invaders or illegal aliens.
Our mostly corrupt and dishonest news media, the so-called fourth estate, has failed to report the truth about invaders and illegal aliens and the impacts to our society and they continue their misinformation by referring to illegal aliens as simply “undocumented immigrants” and also JUST “immigrants”.
Bred, I salute you!
https://www.unz.com/article/integration-has-failed-now-what/