(Pictured above, a team effort led by Kathleen Kane Willis, left front, and Chelsea Laliberte, fourth from left near door, in a conference room near the Illinois Senate chamber leads to victory in overriding a gubernatorial veto).
CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–September 25, 2015. Sometimes it takes a community effort to make positive change, as members of the Roosevelt University community proved recently when they succeeded in convincing state lawmakers to override the Illinois governor’s veto of the Heroin Crisis Act.
During a month-long campaign, a Roosevelt University alumna who heads the Live4Lali Foundation and members of Roosevelt’s Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy succeeded in making the case for the act that became the first – and only – bill of the state’s ongoing legislative session to overcome a veto.
“The people who came together on this deserve a lot of credit,” said Democratic State Rep. Lou Lang, one of the sponsors of the act that is aimed at fighting the state’s growing heroin epidemic by making treatment more readily available. “They were effective in communicating with legislators and in educating and persuading them about the need for this bill,” added Lang. In a nutshell, “their advocacy work was critical,” he said.
Spearheaded by Roosevelt alumna Chelsea Laliberte (IMC, ’07) and Roosevelt drug policy researcher Kathleen Kane-Willis (BA, ‘01; MA, ‘06), the push for an Illinois Heroin Crisis Act actually began in 2013 when they and other supporters began to rally for Naloxone expansion and implementation of the Good Samaritan law, which was passed in 2012.
Providing heroin users with easy access to the overdose-reversal drug and making heroin treatment available to those on Medicaid, the act enjoyed bi-partisan support and was approved overwhelming by the General Assembly earlier this summer. Then in late August, it was vetoed in part by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner who contended the state couldn’t afford to fund treatment for Medicaid recipients.
“No one had thought we could get the bill passed in the first place,” recalled Kane-Willis, who testified on four different occasions and also, with a team of Roosevelt student researchers, recently released a study that documents how heroin treatment in Illinois is in free fall, even while the heroin crisis is worsening – a strong indicator and direct evidence of the need for Illinois’ new Heroin Crisis Act.
“To get the bill approved, only to have it vetoed by the governor, was just devastating,” she said. “It kind of took the wind out of me, and I wasn’t really sure at that point that we’d be able to do anything about it.”
Illinois Senator Melinda Bush initially sponsored the legislation known as “Lali’s Law,” which in part makes it possible to dispense Naloxone at pharmacies. She credited advocates from the Roosevelt community with scoring the only victory of the legislative session in overriding the governor, who has successfully vetoed approximately 70 bills so far.
“If there’s a lesson to be learned from this, it is that you have to stand up when you believe in something. You fight for it. You articulate your belief. And you inform,” she said.
“First I was surprised by the veto and then I got angry,” recalled Laliberte, whose foundation began as a family affair in January 2009, one month after her brother died from a heroin overdose. Today, Live4Lali has more than 40 volunteers who work to increase awareness and education about the heroin crisis in Chicagoland’s Cook and Lake Counties.
“The veto made no sense, and I knew we had to do something about it,” added Laliberte, who credits her Roosevelt education with giving her an understanding of the importance of civic advocacy and for making her a bona-fide social justice change agent.
In response to the veto, Kane-Willis, Laliberte and dozens of supporters from around the state called and visited legislators while they were in session this month in Springfield, asking them to “stand by” their initial bi-partisan vote in favor of the bill.
“I was mainly in the background, gathering data and evidence to make the case,” said Justyna Czechowska, a Roosevelt Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling student who did research for the Roosevelt study and also called legislators on the eve of one of the veto override votes.
“I didn’t think initially that my work at the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy would make a difference,” she added, “but this experience has emphasized for me that my efforts can create positive results.”
With the Illinois House overriding Rauner’s amendatory veto by a vote of 105 to 5 on Sept. 2, and the Illinois Senate following suit by a vote of 44 to 11 on Sept. 9, the Heroin Crisis Act now is law – and all that remains is its implementation.
On that front, Kane-Willis and Laliberte are in agreement: Fully implementing all components of the state’s new comprehensive Heroin Crisis Act in Illinois may present the biggest challenge of all. Both say they are ready for the long road and many hours of work that lie ahead.
Source: www.roosevelt.edu
