Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » 2005

Wednesday, Dec 7, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

Yellow Dog Democrat looks at the smoking debate in Chicago and how it impacts the Quigley-Claypool match.

Jim Muir has this to say about Rauschenberger:

I find it interesting that Rauschenberger has already stated that if Gidwitz — his new political ‘bedfellow’ — is not elected and he is he will immediately resign. Admittedly, I’m not a political analyst, but that statement by Rauschenberger does not give me much incentive, reason or desire to cast my vote for a guy who very well might promptly resign as soon as the votes are counted.

Fran Eaton and One Man also weigh in on Gidwitz/Rauschenberger.

John Ruberry writes about Pat Quinn’s proposal to ban picketing near veterans’ funerals.

The Illinois Shadow has hilarious poll results.

The Dude writes about the Bears.

David Morrison of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform talks about (what else?) reform.

And much, much more. Find it all here.

Comments Off

Rauschenberger won’t run with anyone else

Wednesday, Dec 7, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

People have been mentioning this in comments, so I thought it deserved its own post.

Rauschenberger vowed to resign as the lieutenant governor nominee if Gidwitz doesn’t win the GOP nomination for governor in March.

UPDATE: He apparently left a little wiggle room during the Chicago press conference, however, saying he would resign if Topinka won, but not expressly saying that he would get off the ticket if Brady or Oberweis won.

In Springfield, he said he would allow the nominee to choose his/her own candidate.

UPDATE 2: I should have also included this quote from John Kass’ column this morning:

“I’m running for lieutenant governor, and we’re a team, because reforming our party and this state is more important to me than any personal ambition,” Rauschenberger said. “But I won’t serve on any administration but Ron’s. If someone else wins the Republican primary and I win the primary for lieutenant governor, I’ll resign.”

Plus, I think people are making too much of what I wrote above. I’m not accusing SR of flip-flopping. Semantics arguments are a little boring here.

Anyway, back to the question, what do you think of this?

66 Comments

Question of the day

Wednesday, Dec 7, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

Now that Steve Rauschenberger has dropped down from the governor’s race, do you think that either Jim Oberweis or Bill Brady will drop out, or will they end up splitting the conservative core?

66 Comments

More on Gidwitz/Rauschenberger

Wednesday, Dec 7, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

Here are some more links to follow-ups to the Gidwitz Rauschenberger story that I broke yesterday afternoon.

AP:

The plan would combine Gidwitz’s personal fortune with Rauschenberger’s appeal to conservatives, creating a potentially powerful challenge to the front-runner for the GOP nomination, state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka.

Rauschenberger is one of several candidates who have been splitting the support of the party’s right wing. Gidwitz, a social moderate, has been unable to jump-start his campaign despite a series of early television ads.

Lynn Sweet:

GOP powerbrokers had tried to persuade some in the five-candidate field to drop out, but until Tuesday night no one budged.

Neither Rauschenberger nor Gidwitz have been registering beyond the single digits in any polls, but their proposed coalition makes a certain political sense.

Rauschenberger, a 13-year legislator from Elgin, has a conservative, anti-abortion base. Gidwitz, a former state Board of Education chairman from Chicago, appeals to the moderate wing with his support for abortion rights.

And the best of this particular bunch is from the Daily Herald:

But Rauschenberger also could be hurting his credibility with his conservative base of support by joining Gidwitz, who supports abortion and gay rights. Rauschenberger also will face questions Wednesday about how much money heâ€™s getting from Gidwitz to run his lieutenant governor campaign.

For Rauschenberger, a move down the ticket is a way to stay in the political game after his governor bid failed to catch fire. Campaign fundraising long has been a problem for Rauschenberger, who had to let go campaign staff in recent months. Polls showed his support lagging in the single digits, well behind his strong third-place showing in last yearâ€™s U.S. Senate primary in which nearly every major newspaper in Illinois endorsed him. […]

Ironically, Rauschenberger now could end up as Topinkaâ€™s running mate â€” the governor and lieutenant governor candidates run separate campaigns during the primary. Topinka is the early front-runner in the governor primary, and Rauschenberger, given his experience, would be the nominal front-runner in the lieutenant governor race.

They’re missing the all-important reform angle, which is what I focused on in today’s Capitol Fax.

15 Comments

CUB fights back

Wednesday, Dec 7, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

The Citizens Utility Board fights back against ComEd’s media blitz in a Daily Southtown column penned by Cub director Dave Kolata.

It’s no coincidence that former Citizens Utility Board head Martin Cohen, the first consumer advocate ever to be appointed chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC), also became the first ICC nominee of any kind ever rejected in our state’s history. ComEd lobbied for his ouster because it wants to rig the game at the ICC in favor of its controversial proposal to buy power through an auction system beginning in 2007.

ComEd’s proposal would lead to higher bills almost immediately while eliminating the power of state regulators to prevent unlimited rate hikes in the future. Rather than talk turkey and confess to these facts, ComEd prefers to play Chicken Little and tell tall tales. ComEd claims that without an auction system, Illinois will sink into a California-like energy quagmire with widespread power outages and a bankrupt utility. These scare tactics are being administered through a multimillion dollar ad campaign financed by ComEd under the name of a front-group known as “CORE.”

The truth is that the state has plenty of power to keep the lights on, and all that talk of ComEd bankruptcy ignores the fact that Exelon’s profits have soared to record highs under the current regulatory system. Moreover, analysts predict that the company will make more money in the future even if ComEd power rates stay frozen through 2010. And, of course, Exelon recently agreed to cut rates by $120 million in Pennsylvania and freeze those rates through the end of the decade.

Consumer groups have said all along that ComEd can have its auction, or any other power-buying system it wants, as long as Illinois regulators retain the authority needed to assure fair rates. Unfortunately, ComEd’s auction is just another way to lift reasonable regulations that have allowed it to earn a healthy profit while protecting consumers.

SEIU and CUB have also teamed up to begin running TV ads.

(Hat tip: Yellow Dog Democrat at Illinoize)

7 Comments

The other side of tenure

Wednesday, Dec 7, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

I offered Dave Comerford of the Illinois Federation of Teachers an opportunity to respond to the Small Newspaper series on teacher tenure that I wrote about earlier this week. It seemed only fair, since the series is pretty hard-hitting.

The Small Newspaper Group series on tenure is unfortunate, misleading, and in some cases flat out wrong. The Illinois Federation of Teachers believes a number of points need to be made:

* Sixty-five percent of school districts have successfully dismissed a tenured teacher. The tenure process simply gives teachers due process rights when there is a dispute.

* In many cases, tenured teachers resign before a dismissal hearing is held. That data is not tracked by the ISBE, giving a misleading picture of the number of teachers actually removed from the classroom.

* School administrators are required by law to be trained in proper evaluation procedures. There is no reason for an administrator not to give a bad evaluation to an employee who deserves one.

* The four-year probationary period for teachers allows ample time for administrators to decide which employees to retain. Nearly half of teachers leave the profession in the first five years of employment.

Again, teachers leaving the profession who decided they could not handle
the demands of a teaching career would not show up in the numbers tracked by the reporter.

* The IFT does not support keeping bad teachers in the classroom, but believes strongly every teacher has a right to a fair hearing.

* Legal fees for most dismissal cases are less than half of the $100,000 figure used in the newspaper article. Dismissal hearings usually last 2-3 days. Well documented cases take even less time for an attorney and the cost is even lower.

* In 1997, the IFT supported legislation that reduced the remediation period from 1 year to 90 days. The IFT also supported legislation requiring continuing professional development for teachers that is mandatory for them to keep their certification.

* The Cicero case that the reporter cites involved a school employee, not a classroom teacher, who worked in multiple classrooms and was not supervised adequately. The article implies that the dismissal process for the employee stretched out over seven year s. This is not true. As soon as the district attempted to dismiss the employee, she resigned. The case did not go to hearing. Tenure played no role in this case.

* The reporter attempts to bury the fact that the assistant principal in East St. Louis was acquitted. Later, when DNA testing proved the allegations, the district fired the employee. Again, tenure was not the reason for the assistant principal remaining on the job; his acquittal by a jury was.

Your turn.

15 Comments

« NEWER POSTS