By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

Elected officials, activists and community members gathered for a reception at Garfield Park Conservatory Nov. 17 to celebrate last month’s passage of the Quality of Life legislation.

Enacted Oct. 17, the measure creates a “Quality of Life” endowment fund with monies from a lottery scratch-off game. Proceeds would be used by the Illinois Department of Public Health for HIV/AIDS prevention education and for grants to public and private organizations in Illinois that serve disproportionately affected communities.

The legislation was sponsored in the House by state Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D-Broadview) and in the Senate by state Sen. Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago).

Yarbrough said she generally is opposed to gaming and lotteries, but when she became aware of statistics illustrating that the African American community was being decimated by the disease, she set those objections aside.

“When they laid that statistic on me that 60 percent of new infections were African American females, I knew I had to take a step back,” Yarbrough said. “I thought about it at length, and realized that I can set aside my personal prejudices.”

State Rep. Constance “Connie” Howard (D-Chicago), a co-sponsor, said she had no such misgivings. Gambling, she said, “doesn’t bother me in the least, as long as children don’t get involved. (This) is a way for us to get the appropriate funds to fight this problem in the way that’s necessary.”

The bill faced a huge hurdle when Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed an amendatory veto. Blagojevich authorized only two special-purpose scratch-off tickets at any given time with each game lasting only nine months.

The changes were overridden in the Senate 39-8 Oct. 3 and in the House 72-38 Oct. 11. Yarbrough credited U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Chicago) with helping make the last-minute phone calls that got the veto overridden. Davis further enlisted the aid of state House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Plainfield).

Davis said that he had been kept abreast of the bill by activist Ben Montgomery, who works for him, adding that he stepped in when “it got to be a critical point” and the bill was in danger of dying.

He said he appreciated the assistance that the scratch-off game would give to persons with HIV/AIDS and that overcoming the devastation from the disease would very likely happen after a long series of small victories.

“Small things become big things, if you’re persistent. This is one victory, but this group has had lots of victories,” Davis said.

At the Conservatory, Davis joined the other politicians in front of a large mock-up scratch-off ticket. They were flanked by Montgomery and fellow activists Marc Loveless and Michael O’Connor.

Montgomery, Loveless and O’Connor made regular trips to Springfield to lobby for the bill and were usually able to talk others into joining them.

“All we kept hearing from people is, ‘What can we do to help?’” Loveless said. “This is a community victory.”