Daily Egyptian TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2016
SINCE 1916
VOL. 100 ISSUE 60
Prairie restoration: It’s lit DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
Autumn Sukyo | @AutumnSukyo_DE George Manning, a Ph.D. candidate from Fort Wayne, Ind., studying restoration ecology, sets flame to a field on Sunday at a school-owned prairie plot on campus. “Before SIU, I worked restoring prairie wetlands in Fort Wayne for eight years,” Manning said. “It’s important because we’ve lost so much of it [tall grass prairies]. More people need to become educated on our land, we need to come up with interesting ways to protect it.”
In time of budget Obama backs challenger crisis, governor’s Stratton over Rep. Dunkin in approval ratings Democratic state rep primary drop, but not much RICK PEARSON | Chicago Tribune
ANNA SPOERRE | @AnnaSpoerre
Just 9 percent of Illinois voters believe the state is going in the right direction, according to a Paul Simon Public Policy Institute poll released Thursday. Of those polled this year, 84 percent believe the state is on the wrong track — up 21 percentage points from last year. The poll used the opinion of 1,000 voters via telephone after interviewers requested to speak with the youngest registered voter in the household. Pollster also asked about approval of Gov. Bruce Rauner. Half of those polled disapproved
of the Republican governor’s job performance, 41 percent approved and the 9 percent were undecided. Approval and disapproval ratings increased since last year’s poll because more people voiced an opinion one way or another, but overall disapproval ratings increased 19 percentage points since last year. John Jackson, a visiting professor at the Paul Simon Institute, said he assumed the disapproval rating would be higher, but instead the results — with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points — indicated a deeply divided state. Please see RATING | 2
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In a rare political move, President Barack Obama has inserted himself in a Democratic state legislative primary race in his home state, backing challenger Juliana Stratton over Rep. Ken Dunkin of Chicago. In a TV and radio ad, Obama says he learned from his days in Chicago that “follow-through is everything.” “The people of Chicago deserve leaders who follow through. Juliana Stratton has spent her career serving our community, improving the juvenile justice system and protecting public safety,” Obama says in the TV ad. “Juliana will fight to get guns off our streets and fight for tougher
penalties for violent offenders. I’m Barack Obama. I’m asking you to vote for Democrat Juliana Stratton for state representative.” Stratton is the union-backed opponent challenging Dunkin, who has been getting campaign help from allies of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Dunkin has broken ranks with Democrats on several Illinois House votes, denying House Speaker Michael Madigan a 71-vote veto-proof majority. It is uncommon for a sitting president to get involved in a primary race of his own party, let alone for a lowly post of state lawmaker. But his involvement shows the intensity of the battle between Rauner and his union-
weakening agenda and Democrats and their union allies who hold supermajorities in the Illinois House and Senate. During a February visit to Springfield, where he served as a state senator, Obama singled out Dunkin, a 13-year lawmaker, in a statehouse speech. Obama said reaching political compromise across the aisle “doesn’t make me a sellout to my own party.” Dunkin jumped out of his chair and shouted “Yes!” before Obama cut him off. “We’ll talk later Dunkin. Sit down,” Obama said as Democrats — and even some Republicans — erupted into wild cheers. Dunkin later tried to portray Obama’s remark as the president agreeing with him.