Barbara Flynn Currie

Political career

Currie was first elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1978, and assumed office in January 1979. She represents the 25th District in Chicago which includes the communities of Woodlawn, South Shore, Hyde Park, and Kenwood. Rep. Currie serves as majority leader of the Illinois House of Representatives, a role she has had since 1997. She is the widow of the legal scholar David P. Currie.

Impeachment of Rod Blagojevich

In December 2008, following the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Currie was named by Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan as the chairperson of the Illinois House committee to investigate Governor Blagojevich for possible impeachment as a result of federal corruption charges against him. Blagojevich was subsequently impeached by the House and removed from office by the Illinois Senate.

Burris controversy

In February 2009, Currie was caught in a follow-on controversy over the impeachment testimony of Roland Burris. Burris had been named by Blagojevich to fill President Barack Obama's Senate seat, after the emergence of the corruption charges against Blagojevich but before Blagojevich's removal from office. Burris had neglected to mention fund-raising contacts by Blagojevich's brother, Robert, in his testimony, but then filed an affidavit with Currie, listing three such contacts, shortly after February 5, 2009.

Word of the new information did not reach the public, or the Republicans in the House, until its release in the Chicago Sun-Times on February 13, leading to questions of Currie and the Democrats by Republicans including ranking impeachment committee member Jim Durkin and House party leader Tom Cross.

State employee pensions

Representative Currie supported SB-1; a plan that amended state employee pension plans by drastically reducing the constitutionally protected benefits of Illinois state employees in retirement. The Illinois Supreme Court ultimately found these legislative changes to be unconstitutional.

As the Illinois Supreme Court ruling stated: “These modifications to pension benefits unquestionably diminish the value of the retirement annuities the members…were promised when they joined the pension system. Accordingly, based on the plain language of the Act, these annuity-reducing provisions contravene the pension protection clause’s absolute prohibition against diminishment of pension benefits and exceed the General Assembly’s authority,”