Last week, voters in 23 Illinois counties, including Rock Island, overwhelmingly supported a referendum question calling for full and mandatory federal funding of veterans' health care and other services.

Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, a state advocate of veterans' issues, joined

Rep. Hare, D-Illinois, for a news conference in Springfield on Monday and said the ballot initiative is part of a push to put pressure on those in Washington, D.C., to boost funding for veterans' health care.

"(The referendum votes) send a message to the president of our country who is commander and chief, to make sure that we do take care of those who bear the battle," Lt. Gov. Quinn said.

Too often, funding for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, previously known as the Veterans Administration, is among the victims of protracted federal budget battles, Rep. Hare said.

While federal lawmakers haggle over the budget, the department is left waiting to find out how much funding it might receive that year. And that can negatively impact veterans who are waiting for medical care.

"It doesn't have assured funding so every year the Veterans Administration doesn't know how much money they're going to have to operate the clinics, our veterans' hospitals, all the different things that go with the Veterans Administration," he said.

A better solution, Rep. Hare said, is to have mandatory federal spending levels established for Veterans Affairs, much like Social Security or Medicare. Funding also must be increased so that better health care can be provided, he said.

"It's so important to have assured funding in there, mandatory funding for these programs so that when we have a budget fight we don't take it out on the backs of our men and women who served," Rep. Hare said.

Rep. Hare is hopeful his bill will have momentum. He has gotten 115 of his colleagues in the U.S. House to sign on as co-sponsors, but he would like to see that climb to 200.

In the meantime, Lt. Gov. Quinn said they will try to get more Illinois counties to put a similar referendum question on the ballot this fall. Rep. Hare said he would like other states to take up the question too.