“Don’t lawmakers have anything more important to do?”
Every time I wrote about the process of replacing the state flag, at least one reader would respond with some variation on that common theme: even considering a new design was an utter waste of time. Some folks were simply bewildered, others a combination of irate and vulgar. My typical response aimed to land squarely in the middle:
“I suspect many people who vote in this process will select to keep the current design, and I expect a few lawmakers to be on the same page.”
As we now know, that’s exactly what happened. Public voting from mid-January to Valentine’s Day revealed an overwhelming preference for the status quo, with about 43% of almost 385,000 votes opting against any change whatsoever. The current flag fared better than the combined total of the next five choices.
“The process must be completed,” I wrote in March, pointing to an April 1 Flag Commission report deadline, “but it’ll be shocking if lawmakers do anything other than formally accept the current flag.”
On the surface, it appears the General Assembly did even less, more or less defaulting on the matter altogether. The Secretary of State’s website no longer mentions the commission on its main page. There is still information at ilsos.gov/stateflag, but there is no direct link to any of the 4,800 proposals or 10 finalists or any voting data. The most recent link is an agenda for the commission’s March 25 meeting, but no minutes are posted as there are from three 2024 sessions.
I emailed the commission’s address on that page and instantly got an automated response: “Thank you for reaching out to the Illinois Flag Commission. Voting for the new state flag redesign ended on Feb. 14. Visit www.ilsos.gov/stateflag to get more information and learn about next steps in the process.” A Tuesday morning note to the Secretary of State’s media office remains unanswered.
Other information is available with a little searching. The SOS website quickly returns the March 6 press release summarizing the vote, but you’ll need an outside search engine to find the details of all 10 finalists or to reach the CapitolFax blog post where Isabel Miller shared the results of a Freedom of Information Act request on the rejected designs (tinyurl.com/FlagRejects).
There’s little reason to care about sweeping the commission’s work under the rug. Everyone who argued this was a waste of time and resources should be happy it died on the vine. But it was official state business, enacted via votes and signatures, and it shouldn’t be difficult to complete the process legally and publicly.
Allowing inconsequential work to disappear doesn’t inspire confidence regarding more significant tasks.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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