Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

A: Bill Stratton.
Q: I assume you knew him pretty well, too.
A: Oh, I knew him very well,
Q: What type of person was he?
A: I always got along with Bill Stratton, always. I remember the first
session I was there. I had three bills that I had passed and I went in to talk
to him and he had an assistant with him, a fellow we called "Smokey" Downey. I
was just delighted that the governor signed all three of my bills.
Q: Oh? What were those bills? Do you recall?
A: (chuckles) I knew you were going to ask me that. (pause) One of them had
to do with a closer inspection of casualty insurance companies. Prior to
that time a casualty campany could open up in Illinois and operate far two
years before they were audited very closely by the state. And many of them
had just come in and milked the public and took the money the first eighteen
months and then phased out the last six and not fulfilled their claims and
not paid off their claims and so forth. So the one bill changed that. We
had a lot of people, in my community particularly, who had bought insurance
from companies and had not gotten service and had not gotten claims honored.
The other two--you know, I don't remember. (chuckles) I really don't remember
what they were.
Q: Do you recall how that bill came up, the one on the casualty insurance
companies ?
A: Well, it just was obvious to me that there had been a lot of reason for
having a bill like that, so that you could get rid of those fly-by-night
operators.
Q: What were the mechanics of preparation of the bill to get . . .
A: Well, you would get your idea together and you would go into the Legislative
Reference Bureau and there were lawyers in that bureau who would draw the bill
in the language that would be most acceptable for statutory enactment. You
would introduce your bill, take it to committee, and you would testify on it
or you would have other people to testify for it. Get the favorable vote nut
of the committee, get it back to the floor and resist any amendments that you
would feel would not be palatable and get it passed in that house and then you
would go to the second house and do the same thing.
Q: Did you have any particular problem with that bill, that first one?
A: Well, I guess I did have a little bit at first--1'm trying to remember
who was against it. But I got it passed.
You know, you've opened up a whole new subject to me.
I've had so much