By Cole Lauterbach/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois House lawmakers in Springfield voted Tuesday on whether President Barack Obama’s birthday should become a state holiday.
The bill, sponsored by State Rep. Sonya Harper, D-Chicago, would make Aug. 4, Obama’s birthday, an official state holiday in which all non-vital state services would close. She said the commemoration of such a historic figure is fitting.
Others in the House, such as Rep. Tom Demmer, R-Dixon, asked whether Illinois should be incurring lost productivity and nearly $20 million in annual overtime costs to keep vital state employees working.
“We have a couple of different costs there,” Demmer said. “First, in the lost productivity and the difficulty of our state’s residents to access services on this day as well as the ongoing cost of what would be a normal day’s business, now suddenly it costs us more to have those folks come to work.”
Harper said that if the state can afford the other days off, they can afford one for Obama.
“If we can find the resources and the time to continue to celebrate all of the other state holidays, I really don’t see how adding one more day to celebrate our wonderful president that came from the state of Illinois would be that much more of an impact,” Harper said.
Demmer also asked about the only native-born Illinoisan to hold the nation’s highest office: Ronald Reagan.
“President Reagan’s the only president who was born in the state of Illinois. The only president who went to grade school, high school, and college in the state of Illinois. But we don’t have a holiday for President Reagan,” he said. “Why exclude?”
Harper pulled the bill for further consideration once she saw that it wouldn’t get the votes to pass.
Illinois has 12 paid holidays, 10 of those federal, according to the Illinois Department of Central Management Services.
Those are: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Lincoln’s birthday, Washington’s birthday (Presidents Day), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, General Election Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
The public-sector workers of Perry County, Alabama, take the second Monday in November off to celebrate Barack Obama Day.
