SPRINGFIELD, Illinois, April 12, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The head of a pro-abortion political action committee is getting a seat on Illinois’s human rights commission, now that the state’s Democrat-controlled Senate has confirmed the appointment.
The state Senate approved pro-abortion Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn’s selection of Terry Cosgrove, the president and CEO of Personal PAC, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars getting the governor into office.
The Senate approved Cosgrove’s appointment on a 30-25 vote last Thursday.
Republicans and defeated pro-life gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady said Cosgrove’s nomination smacked of “pay-to-play” politics. Brady lost to Quinn by 20,000 votes in the November 2010 race. Personal PAC had spent $400,000 attacking Brady, particularly over his opposition to abortion for women victimized by rape and incest.
Cosgrove will now get a $46,960 per year paycheck for sitting on the 13-member commission, which determines whether employers have committed human rights violations against employees.
“Terry Cosgrove will be a valuable member of the state’s Human Rights Commission,” stated a message from Quinn’s office. “Mr. Cosgrove has made advocating for human rights his life’s work, and the Governor appointed Mr. Cosgrove to serve on the commission based on that work, as well as their shared desire to support equality for all Illinoisans.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that one GOP Senator, Dan Duffy (R-Lake Barrington), strenuously opposed Cosgrove’s nomination to the human rights commission on the basis that Cosgrove was unfit for the office, allegedly because he engaged in lies and distortions of his pro-life opponent’s positions.
Duffy called into question whether Cosgrove’s actions as head of Personal PAC indicated “an honest person with integrity and dignity, a person that we would want to represent our state?”
“I adamantly oppose this person to represent the state of Illinois. Based on your past, based on your experience, based on your actions, and based on the hundreds of thousands of dollars that you donated to Gov. Quinn, and other candidates that are sitting here on this committee and senators that are on the floor,” Duffy said.
Duffy took exception to Personal PAC campaign literature that stated the pro-life legislator wanted women “behind bars” for getting an abortion.
“You know that that’s not true,” Duffy said to Cosgrove in a committee hearing. “It’s a complete lie, and I never want to put women in jail for having an abortion.”
Cosgrove dismissed Duffy’s characterization of his actions, saying instead that Illinois politics is a “rough and tumble world.”
Quinn, however, said he did not pay attention to political donations, according to the Tribune. “I only look at people based on their qualifications,” he stated. “That’s my life history.”