To subscribe to Capitol Fax, click here. Fracking question sparks huge Johnson County turnout Thursday, Mar 20, 2014 * Johnson County voters in deep southern Illinois were faced with a non-binding referendum this week… Shall the people’s right to local self government be asserted by Johnson County to ban corporate fracking as a violation of their rights to health and safety? * Some background… More than 1,000 signatures, twice the required number, were collected on the petition, rural Vienna resident Richard Craig said at a news conference held in front of the county clerk’s office in Vienna Thursday. The petition effort took place after Johnson County commissioners declined to vote on placing the question on the ballot, he said. “We felt like the people in the county should have a voice in what’s going on around them,” Craig said. […] At last count, almost 195 leases have been signed in the county. * Hopes were high… McMichael thinks the ballot initiative has a solid chance of passing, especially given the results of an October poll by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University which found 20 percent of voters undecided on the issue, with the rest evenly divided. The poll, which surveyed 403 voters in 18 counties, including Johnson, found native southern Illinoisans were more supportive of fracking than non-natives, and women were more opposed than men. The poll also found very strong support for the region’s coal industry, meaning that even many people who support fossil fuel extraction in general have reservations about fracking. “That was much stronger support (for limiting fracking) than a lot of people had anticipated – we feel very good about what’s going on,” McMichael said. * Southern Illinoisans Against Fracking Our Environment gathered the signatures, and the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund assisted in the campaign. Proponents freely admitted that the referendum was dividing the county… Phyllis Oliver, a retired schoolteacher who lives in Cypress, Ill., on Monday said the fracking debate in Johnson County is like the never-ending story that keeps getting uglier. “I never thought Johnson County would get so … People get so angry with each other,” she said. […] Oliver said she would not be surprised either way the majority votes today, and the argument that has turned neighbors against neighbors “will be interesting.” “If they vote ‘no,’ we’re not going to go away,” she said. * And it sure was divisive… The fracking campaign bruised egos and drove a rift in this rural county of about 12,000 people. The Goreville Gazette and The Vienna Times both refused to run advertisements in support of the fracking ban. That lead the editor of the Goreville paper to quit in protest. * The Pennsylvania group wasn’t the only outside interest involved. Will Reynolds… The oil industry is trying to buy democracy in Johnson county. Residents have the chance in Tuesday’s election to decide they want control over their own future without more division and destruction by outside oil interests. * Election day turnout was a very high 49 percent - more than double just about everywhere else in Illinois. And the anti-fracking referendum proponents lost big… With all 16 precincts and absentee ballots counted, the countywide referendum failed by a vote of 2,223 against to 1,602 for the measure, or 58 percent to 42 percent, respectively. - Posted by Rich Miller

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