ANOTHER OPEN LETTER TO REPRESENTATIVE SARA FEIGENHOLTZ

Dear Representative Feigenholtz:

I was horrified to read the ugly reply to Lori Jeske's email post to you on April 26, 2010. How in the world can you, an elected public official, condone such an outrage as this post? Didn't they teach you anything in politician school?

From Lori to Representative Feigenholtz:

The bill and your efforts to pass this bill are inhuman. This bill will prove to a huge population of citizens that Democrats should no longer govern the State of Illinois. It is with deep regret, as a Democrat, to see this bill and your inability to stand up for ALL citizens in the State of Illinois.

Lori Jeske, Spokane, WA

We will never know for certain if you, in a temper fit, fired off the nasty reply below, or if it was someone in your office who is authorized by you to answer your mail. Either way, Representative Feigenholtz, you are ultimately responsible for what is sent out from your state contact Email address.

From: Sara

To: Lori Jeske

Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 10:00 PM

Subject: Re: HB 5428

Thank you so much for your kind remarks about HB 5428.

We will pay for your travel expenses if you will come here and start working on a new bill that completes the effort so that all adoptees get their obc. Are you ready to move to Illinois and sacrifice your life to work for adoption reform for the next fifteen years in the frigid winter tundra of Illinois?

Would you consider giving Representative Feigenholtz the key to your (delusional) Eutopian worldwhere all ungrateful bastards think it's easy to pass a bill that makes everyhone happy AND CAN ACTUALLY PASS? Pass a law? what a concept!!

Many Illinois born 65+ year old adoptees will get their birth certificates BEFORE THEY DIE -- very soon.

We wil tell them that you would prefer to throw good under the bus while waiting for perfect and that you think they should wait a little longer. Good luck in Washington State with your efforts. We can hear the unsealing now........

NOT.

[reprinted with permission of Lori Jeske]

Didn't you know how much opposition there was to HB 5428? It's true that Illinois adoptees had very little chance to write to you before this because frankly, Sara, you kept this bill a secret from us just as long as you could. So perhaps you've been insulated from our opposition to HB 5428. Nevertheless, I would have expected a seasoned public servant such as yourself to be able to control your temper (or that of a staff member) when answering the mail, even from your opponents.

We in Bastard Nation call ourselves Bastards - with a capital B. We reclaimed the name of Bastard which had been placed on us by those who would attempt to shame us for our parents' marital status at the time of our births. We use this name because we see nothing shameful in being adopted nor in having been born out of wedlock. We use it to take the sting out of the shameful name-calling of yesteryear.

What unbelievable irony it is that you, an adoptee yourself, or one of your co-workers, would hurl the term bastard at us in the "old-fashioned" way.

And then, you coupled it with a very special adjective resented by so many adoptees over the years - "ungrateful." This incredible insult, "ungrateful bastard," is the last straw! This time you or someone who works directly for you has sunk to an all time low. We won't forget. And neither should you.

BTW, I have lived in the frigid white tundra of Illinois all my life. I work well in the cold weather so I guess I have good qualifications. Believe me. One phone call or one Email back in icy January or snowy February and my colleagues and I would have been elated to work with you and your staff to pass a bill that would help all adoptees attain equal rights. It would have been a labor of love.

Adoptees & Free Speech

It's starting again. Deformers who want to pass conditional access legislation love to throw tomatoes at those of us who do not agree with them. When we wipe off the tomatoes and still speak out, they tell us we don't really understand what's going on in their state and therefore, we should zip it.

Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You don't tell me what to say and I don't tell you. Adoptees do not all belong to one huge fraternity. We have not taken an oath of allegiance to each other. We have never sworn to uphold any "party line." We are individuals who happen to have been adopted.

If I believe that an adoptee rights bill is a bad one, I will speak out. It doesn't matter in which state this is happening. What matters is that my conscience tells me that this is a bad bill and so I will continue to respectfully and publically state my opposition in any public forum of my choosing.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees that we are able to travel freely between states. Our ideas and words must be able to freely cross all state borders as well.

IL HB 5428 DO NOT PASS

URGENT ACTION ALERT – ILLINOIS HB 5428
PLEASE FORWARD FREELY

Illinois HB 5428, the bill that is supposed to help adoptees get their obcs, but doesn’t - is on the move again. It was rushed through the House and passed on the House floor by a vote of 74 – 67. Now it’s going quickly through the Senate. It must be stopped right now in the Judiciary Committee.

The Illinois Judiciary Committee has scheduled a public hearing for HB 5428. It will be held on Tuesday, April 13, at 2:30 pm in Capitol 400, Springfield, IL. We hope that some of you will be able to attend and speak to the committee. This will be our opportunity to speak out and talk directly to these senators.

If public speaking isn’t your thing, then please consider coming anyways because we really need to have the committee members look out into the audience and see a lot of people who object to this bill. Your very presence in that room is extremely important!

We are also asking everyone to write and/or call the committee members before the hearing on the 13th. (Contact Information below)

The only way for Illinois to be a truly open state some day is to stop conditional legislation such as HB 5428 from getting a foot in the door now. We want a state where every single adoptee is free to request his obc, with no restrictions or alterations. We want a state where adoptees will be equal among themselves as well as with all other non-adopted citizens.

We need an unconditional bill to accomplish this goal. HB 5428 won’t help. It is a conditional bill (see specifics below) which will keep some adoptees locked out of the system for good.

The legislators will not revisit adoptee problems any time soon if they can get HB 5428 in the law now. History has proven this to be true.
The legislators do not care about the percentage of adoptees whose birth mothers will file a disclosure veto and keep them from getting a birth certificate. If the law makers really cared, they would change this bill right now so that 100% of Illinois adoptees could get their obcs. The legislators have absolutely no incentive to come back again another year – and they won’t.

Here is the law from Oregon. It is simple, to the point, and does the job. This is the kind of law we want but we will NEVER get it if HB 5428 passes.

“Upon receipt of a written application to the Illinois Dept. of Public Health, any adopted person 21 years of age and older born in the State of Illinois shall be issued a certified copy of his/her unaltered, original and unamended certificate of birth in the custody of the Dept. of Public Health, with procedures, filing fees, and waiting periods identical to those imposed upon non-adopted citizens of the State of Illinois.”

The State of Illinois must no longer be allowed to honor an archaic sealed records law enacted in 1946 that took away from 100% of the adoptees their right to access their original birth certificate without restrictions or falsifications. Now, in 2010, we want the State of Illinois to restore that right to 100% of the adoptees in the state. We want all adoptees to be equal to all other adoptees and to all of the non-adopted citizens when it comes to accessing their birth certificate.

WHAT ARE SOME SPECIFIC OBJECTIONS TO HB 5428?

1. HB 5428 would give birth parents a right to stop an obc (original birth certificate) from being issued to their adoptee. Any birth parent would have an entire year to file a Denial Form. The bill details several ways in which the state will advertise the new bill to try to reach as many birth mothers as possible and let them know about their new option to file a denial form. And remember, these are the very same birth mothers who irrevocably relinquished all legal rights to their children decades ago.

2. The state will allow birth parents to legally veto an obc. Therefore, it follows that the state is actually transferring to birth parents a part of its statutory authority to issue official birth certificates. Birth parents have no legal standing in the law and must not be given any such standing.

3. This bill would permit the state to white-out historical birth information from either a copy or an original document that the state officially issues – both unacceptable.

4. The bill would divide adoptees into two arbitrary categories: those born before January 1, 1946, and those born after. The adoptees born before this date would be allowed to get their obcs without any restrictions or falsifications. Those born after Jan. 1, 1946 will comprise the pool of all adoptees who will be eligible for a birth parent veto.

5. This bill will cost the state a lot of money and the state is nearly broke; it’s laying off teachers and closing public schools right now.

6. HB 5428 is a search and reunion bill – not an adoptee civil and human rights bill. If adoptees want help from the state in search and reunion matters – then let the social workers and the searchers write a separate bill. Search and reunion issues do not belong in a bill to own one’s birth certificate.

7. HB 5428 is a birth mother- rights bill – not an adoptee civil and human rights bill. Birth parents have no standing in the law and should not be given standing in an adoptee bill. If birth mothers want the state to protect their anonymity, then let them write their own bill.

The archaic 1946 law should be repealed. In its place a new and simple law can then be enacted, one similar to the states of Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, and Maine. Kansas and Alaska never sealed their records and adopted adults in those states have always been able to freely access their birth certificate. Unsealing obcs for all adoptees can be done very easily. Just ask anyone from these 6 states. They have been no litigation, no birth parent uprisings, no citizens coming back to the legislature demanding that the law be changed, and no social upheaval, as some had predicted.

You can read the full text at: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=76&GA=96&DocTypeId=HB&DocNum=5428&GAID=10&LegID=50466&SpecSess=&Session=

Status of the bill : http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=5428&GAID=10&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=50466&SessionID=76&GA=96

IllinoisOpen Organization
www.ilopen.org

Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization
www.bastards.org

Questions? Please write to anita5000@comcast. net or obc@ilopen.org


CONTACT INFORMATION

We are very much aware that some of these email addresses may not be correct. It is extremely difficult to get any senate email addresses. They “don’t want them to be given out.” So please do the best you can and try and get through to as many as possible.
A short phone call to the senator’s office is an excellent alternative. FAX’s are good too.

ILLINOIS SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
REPUBLICANS
KIRK DILLARD
Phone 217-782-8148 FAX (630)-969-1007
http://dillard.senategop.org/index.php/contact-us-mainmenu-3
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RANDALL M. HULTGREN
Phone 217-782-8022 FAX (217)-782-9586
senatorrandyhultgren@gmail.com.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
MATT MURPHY

Phone 217-782-4471 FAX (847) 776-1494
http://www.murphy2010.com/connect.aspx
DALE A. RIGHTER
217 – 782-6674 FAX (217)-235-6052
template on personal page
http://www.dalerighter.com/index.php?option=com_contact&view=contact&id=1&Itemid=3


DEMOCRATS

WILLIAM R. HAINE
217-782-5247 FAX (217) 782-5340
whaine@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

TERRY LINK
217-782-8181 FAX (847-735-8184)
senator@link30.org or
tlink@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

MICHAEL NOLAND
217-782-7746 FAX (217) 782-2115
mnoland@senatedem.state.ilga.gov
KWAME RAOUL
217-782-5338 FAX (773) 681-7166
raoulstaff@gmail.com or
kraoul@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

IRA SILVERSTEIN Co-Sponsor of bill
217-782-5500 FAX (217-782-5340)
isilverstein@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

DON HARMON
217-782-8176 FAX ( 708) 848-2022
dharmon@senatedem.state.ilga.gov.
A.J.WILHELMI Chief Sponsor of the bill
217-782-8800 FAX (815) 207-4446

http://ajwilhelmi.com/ajwilhelmi/?page_id=42
campaign page template or
awilhelmi@senatedem.state.ilga.gov

Representative Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chgo) is the main sponsor of the bill in the House of Representatives.

HOW A BILL BECOMES A LAW – IN ILLINOIS

Illinois HB 5428 is a 72 page bill that purports to give adopted adults access to their original birth certificate. This bill deals with a very controversial law that has been debated back and forth for over 40 years:

Should the State of Illinois continue to honor a sealed records law enacted in 1946 that took away from adoptees their right to access their original birth certificate without restrictions and falsifications?

The sponsor of HB 5428 is of course Representative Sara Feigenholtz (Dem-Chgo).The thrust of the bill is to give obcs to some adoptees, some of the time. But this bill contains a birth parent denial form masquerading as a Contact Preference Form. It has a section on when identifying information can be redacted. It splits adoptees into two distinct groups: those born before Jan. 1 and those born after this date and each group is treated differently.

Representative Feigenholtz knows that there is a very strong and out-spoken contingency in Illinois as well as around the United States that believes ALL adopted adults must have equal access to their obcs.. IllinoisOpen Org. and Bastard Nation: The Adoptee Rights Organization are two such groups. They do not accept compromises, restrictions, or falsifications. So the problem for Representative Feigenholtz became – how to keep this bill out of those brash adoptees’ hands until it’s too late for them to act.

Representative Feigenholtz and her cronies began by building up an invisible wall of silence and secrecy around her and the bill.

Tracking the bill was made harder by giving the bill a "generic" name; a name that wouldn't call attention to itself as being about adoptee rights or birth certificates. HB 5428 is titled "Adoption Registry - Info - No Sunset."

There were no press conferences called, no press releases sent out, and no newspaper articles written about this bill. Silence was maintained on the Internet too. Nothing on FaceBook or MySpace and no twitters or blogs.

But the most surprising thing of all –there is nothing at all on Sara’s official website at http://www.staterepsara.com/index.php?pageId=4 She writes about lots of her legislation, but not one word about a bill called HB 5428.

Representative Feigenholtz did not play on an even field. She kept all info about the bill on her side while the public didn’t even get into the ball park. There were no opportunities for the public to read about the bill and conversely, no opportunities for the legislators to hear any feedback from Illinois adoptees.

What really makes me the angriest is that there were no public hearings called by the Adoption Reform Committee. Oops, did I forget to tell you who is the Chairperson of this committee? Why it’s Representative Sara Feigenholtz, of course.

Normally a public committee hearing is scheduled by the sponsor so that both supporters and opponents can come to Springfield to testify before the Committee. Both oral and written testimony is accepted. When a lot of people show up from one side or the other, it often has a lot of influence with the committee. New amendments are deleted or added, wording is changed, and alterations are often made to whole sections of the bill following the public hearing . Legislation is not supposed to be discussed only in the smoke filled back rooms that Cook County is so famous for.

The silence worked for Representative Feigenholtz. At the end of the day, HB 5428 passed on the floor of the House by a vote of 74 Yes to 39 NO. The bill is now in the Senate awaiting a committee assignment.

Usually, Representative Feigenholtz would call a press conference to announce and celebrate her victory. After all, this is the first time an adoptee rights bill has actually passed in the full House. Lesson Number One in politics: Keep controversial bills far away from the media.

Since we uncovered the news of this bill, we have been blogging, twittering, calling, writing and faxing our legislators and media all around the state. It is imperative for us to inform the public about the bill’s very existence and of course, express our opposition to it.

And finally our efforts have begun to bear fruit. Last week, Mary Lynn Fuller, Co-Founder of IllinoisOpen Org, had her Letter to the Editor published in both the Champaign News Gazette and The Paxton Record. Yesterday (Monday) Triona Guidrey had one letter in the Chicago Sun Times and one in the Chicago Daily Herald. At last! The bill is beginning to take on an identity to go with its number.

Talking and writing about a bill validates its existence Now that we have been instrumental in getting this bill some publicity, it’s no longer just a number– it’s a real adoptee bill, it’s actually written down, it’s terrible, and it’s really very important to oppose it.

So everyone – keep on writing! Continue to break Representative Feigenholtz’ sound barrier!

WHY HB 5428 IS NOT A GOOD BILL AND SHOULD NOT PASS

1. HB 5428 would give birth parents a right to stop an obc (original birth certificate) from being issued to their adoptees. . Birth mothers would have an entire year to file a Denial Form. Remember, these are the very same birth mothers who irrevocably relinquished all legal rights to their children decades ago.
2. The state would be transferring a part of its statutory authority to issue birth certificates to Illinois citizens by allowing birth parents to have a legal role in who does and who does not get an obc.

3. HB 5428 has provisions in it where the state can actually redact all identifying information from some adoptees' original birth documents. The bill would permit the state to white-out historical birth information from either a copy or an original document that the state officially issues – both unacceptable.

4. The bill would divide adoptees into two categories: those born before January 1, 1946, and those born after. The adoptees born before this date would be allowed to get their obcs without any restrictions or falsifications. Those born after Jan. 1, 1946 are the ones whowill be eligible for a birth parent veto.

5. This bill would have to have a fiscal note. Illinois is laying off teachers because it can't pay them. It's outrageous to think of the state spending even one dollar of taxpayer's money on a year-long campaign to tell birth mothers of their new "right" to file Denial Forms. This unique campaign is spelled out in the text of the bill.

STOP ILLLINOIS HB 5428





There is a very bad adoptee rights bill going through the Illinois General Assembly. HB 5428 has already passed the House of Representatives and is in the Senate Assignments Committee now, awaiting a referral to a regular committee.


1.HB 5428 would give birth parents a right to stop an obc (original birth certificate) from being issued to their adoptee. Any birth parent would have an entire year to file a Denial Form. Remember, these are the very same birth mothers who irrevocably relinquished all legal rights to their children decades ago.


2. HB 5428 has provisions in it where the state can actually redact all identifying information from some adoptees' original birth documents.


3. The bill would divide adoptees into two categories: those born before January 1, 1946, and those born after. The adoptees born before this date would be allowed to get their obcs without any restrictions or falsifications. Those born after Jan. 1, 1946 will comprise the pool of all adoptees who will be eligible for a birth parent veto.

4. This bill would have to have a fiscal note. Illinois is laying off teachers because it can't pay them. It's outrageous to think of the state spending even one dollar of taxpayer's money on a year-long campaign to tell birth mothers of their new "right" to file denial forms. This campaign is spelled out in the text of the bill.


5. HB 5428 would also need new monies in order to print all of new forms that the bill calls for. Money will also be needed to hire people to manage the several layers of new red tape that is written into this bill.


We must stop this bill in its tracks. HB 5428 has already passed in the House, which means it's half-way home. The bill's sponsor, Representative Sara Feigenholtz (Dem-Chgo) put this bill on a fast track in order to keep the bill hidden from the public.It was kept so quiet that it did not even have a public hearing to accept oral and written testimony from the citizens of the state. Not one word about the bill was ever written about or talked about in the IL media. I guess that's what the reps do with a contentious bill.

Tracking the bill was made difficult by giving the bill a "generic" name; a name that wouldn't call attention to itself as being about adoptee rights or birth certificates. HB 5428 is titled "Adoption Registry - Info - No Sunset."

Ironically, I read about the bill on March 18 or 19th, a day AFTER the bill passed on the House floor. I opened one of my Google Alerts and what do I see but a link to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Newspaper - yep, that's St. Louis, MISSOURI. I understand that some folks in southern Illinois read this newspaper. But it sure is odd that this is the one and only place the bill has received any publicity. If this were such a wonderful bill, I would expect Representative Feigenholtz to have called a press conference to announce that her bill had been approved by the House of Representatives.

The best thing that could happen to this bill would be for it to be pulled. Since I don't envision Representative Feigenholtz doing anything of the sort, the next best thing could happen in the Assignments Committee. This committee could chose not to release this bill, and the result would be a dead bill in June.

If the bill does get a referral to a Senate Committee, then this will be the next place to kill the bill. We'll keep you informed.

Please write a short letter to the members of the Assignments Committee, asking them to keep this bill out a Senate Committee until the legislative session is over. You can also write to the sponsors of the bill in the Senate. Ask them to please revisit and reconsider the ramifications of HB 5428. Ask them to change the bill so it becomes a true adoptee rights bill.

CONTACT INFORMATION
ASSIGNMENTS COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Senator James F. Clayborne, Jr. jclayborne@senatedem.ilga.gov,
Senator Don Harmon dharmon@senatedem.ilga.gov
Senator Louis Viverito, lviverito@statedem.ilga.gov
Senator Kirk Dillard senator@kdillard.com
Senator Dale Righter drighter@consolidated.net

SENATE SPONSORS OF HB 5428
Senator A. J. Wilhelm awilhelmi@senatedem.ilga.gov
Senator Ira Silverstein isilverstein@senatedem.ilga.gov
Senator Iris Martinez imartinez@senatedem.ilga.gov