Illinois Republican Party chair Pat Brady has quit:
With same-sex marriage legislation pending in the Illinois legislature, Brady this year voiced his support for the proposal despite a plank in the state GOP platform that said marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman. Brady said he made the endorsement personally, not as Republican chairman, but conservatives in the top echelon of the GOP party quickly complained.
Though Brady survived immediate attempts to dump him, a meeting of the Republican State Central Committee in Tinley Park last month made clear his fate. GOP leaders agreed to put together a succession plan, allowing Brady, of St. Charles, an exit strategy that made clear his days were numbered as they began a search for a new chairman.
Meanwhile, Minnesota today passed marriage equality in the State Senate, clearing the way for the state to become the 11th to enact such a law, possibly as early as Friday. Illinois will almost certainly pass the legislation this term as well.
The Illinois GOP is on the wrong side of this, as Brady well knows. I'm sorry they're following Jim Oberweis into legislative irrelevance. A healthy democracy needs a healthy opposition, to keep the majority from over-reaching. We don't have that in Illinois right now, largely because the state GOP has become a rigid, ideologically-hidebound caricature of itself. And we're all suffering for it.