William A. Redmond Memoir - Illinois Digital Archives

Q: (pause) Were there any things that you felt like you wanted to steer clear of when you
came down or any things that you feared when you first came down here?
A: No. No, nothing. I just wanted to - I wanted to be on the best - you know on the
committees that I thought would be most helpful. And as I say although there was only
a handful of committees at that time - my memory is that there were only eight - I
wanted to be on Judiciary, which most lawyers want to be on. And that was a hard commit-
tee to get on when you were a Democrat because there were more Democratic lawyers than
there were Republican lawyers at that time. See, a lot of the Republicans would be farmers,
downstate people. And whereas most of the lawyers - there were many of them - were
Democrats and from up in this section. So it was kind of hard for a freshman to get
on. And I wanted that Judiciary, Education - Municipalities at that time included all local
government except schools - cities, villages, townships, counties. They've got it broken
down now but then that included all of them. And then the fourth was the one that I
wasn't particularly interested in, those three I was. The fourth I was on was Personnel
and Pensions.
And of course the big problem was how do you get on the committee when the committee
assignments are made by the man that you voted against and how much influence the major-
ity leader would have when he was opposed to the Speaker was the problem. So I didn't
take any chances. I requested my assignment posts from Bill Clark who was majority leader
and also Bill Pollack who was a friend of mine from law school who helped engineer the
Apollo thing. So I asked both of them to ask Powell to put me on. And I was put on both
of them. Now whose intervention was most effective I don't know. But I know I was put
on and I enjoyed them. You know they were three of the hardest - well four of the
hardest-working committees in the house.
Q: When you requested those committees did you have an idea in your mind at that time
about the issues that would be dealt with in that session?
A: No, no. See, now there are two judiciary committees, one criminal, one civil - at that
time there was only one - and I thought as a lawyer that that was the best committee
to keep me abreast of anything in - pretty nearly anything that involved the legal profes-
sion would come in there, whether it was probate or civil practice or criminal justice. You
know, those things that are the lawyer's concern, it was like a post-graduate course in
law. That was far and again the best committee for a lawyer to be on.
And it was a wonderful committee. Some of the members - I don't happen to have my
handbook here, I have one someplace - but really some of the best members, throughout
those early years when there was only the one commmittee, some of the brightest lawyers
in the house were in it. Abner Mikva; Tony Scariano; Paul Rink, who later was a judge
out in Rock Island; Jeanne Hurley, who married Paul Simon, she was a very bright lawyer;
Bernie McDevitt, a Republican who later chaired that committee when they had the majority,
a very bright lawyer. I don't remember, I get all mixed up in sessions, but Dick Elrod who
is a sheriff from Cook County was in there. Bob Mann, a famous member of the house;
Bob Marks; Noble Lee, the dean of John Marshall Law School. Really an outstanding
membership, and really was a veritable course of instruction.
And I may say that politics certainly was at the very minimum in there. Hardly anything
had a political flavor. You know there's no Republican or Democratic way to probate an
estate. There's no Democratic or Republican way to amend a criminal code I would
say. Very very rarely would there be any political intrusion. Competent, professional, fine
committee.
And I think I could say pretty much the same thing for Education, a lot of people in there
that were as interested in education. I was the attorney for the school districts up
here. There were a lot of people who were interested in education. And of course you know
William A. Redmond Memoir - Archives/ Special Collections - Norris L Brookens Library - University of Illinois at Springfield - UIS