Dozens of home care workers, child care providers and community advocates rallied outside a downtown Chicago fundraiser held by State Representative Jack Franks Friday to make it clear that a vote against an income tax increase is a vote against the safety and wellbeing of Illinois seniors, children and working families.

“It’s time for Representative Franks to put politics aside,” said Sondra Ramos, an SEIU Healthcare Illinois member and home care worker from Woodstock.  “He has already failed seniors, children and working families in his district and across the state. Now, tens of thousands of seniors are going to be forced out of their homes and into nursing homes they can’t afford if he doesn’t show some courage and reverse his vote.”

Rep. Franks voted for a budget that includes billions of dollars in cuts to critical human services programs set to take effect July 1st – leaving 80,000 working parents without child care, over 40,000 seniors and people with disabilities without home care and countless other families devastated by drastic cuts to the programs they depend on.

Protesters chanted and carried signs demanding that Franks put people over politics by voting for a budget that funds services his constituents need and includes a fair increase to the state’s income tax.

Representative Franks has said that he’s opposed to raising the revenue needed to fund critical child care and home care programs, but he told the Northwest Herald that the work is both important and necessary. “How can he acknowledge that my program is vital to seniors and people with disabilities, but refuse to fund it? If that’s not playing politics with people’s lives, I don’t know what is,” added Ramos.

Friday’s protest comes a week after SEIU Healthcare Illinois picketed Franks’ district office demanding that he stop the budget cuts before it’s too late. Since June 11th, the Campaign for Illinois’ Future and its coalition members have demonstrated outside the offices of 24 members of the Illinois House of Representatives who voted against the income tax increase needed to save essential services.

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