Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » 2005

Friday, Dec 16, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

Tammy Duckworth says we should support the troops, but “Going to Iraq was a mistake.”

Interviewing her now.

UPDATE: Duckworth claims she and her husband made the decision to run back in August/September. “I know the speculation out there is that the DCCC reached out to me, and that’s not the case.”

UPDATE 2: On the speculation that she was asked to run: “Nobody’s drafted me for anything I’ve done in my life.”

UPDATE 3: “We need an aggressive plan based on benchmarks for bringing our troops home. There’s one out there now that for every Iraqi battalion that stands up we bring an American battalion home” […]

“I think the administration has failed to come up with a plan to aggressively train the Iraqi troops.” […]

On reading blogs, and the vitriol in comment sections directed at her: “It’s been kind of interesting to sit there and read and not be able to get back on there and say anything. It’s been very frustrating for me to sit on my hands…

“The negative attacks and stuff, that’s not me, that’s not who I am. I think it’s great people are expressing their opinions, that’s why I became a soldier… Ultimately we’ll let the voters decide…

“I would never ask anybody to drop out of the race just because I was in it, and I certainly wouldn’t want anybody to ask me that I should drop out of the race.”

(She said she regularly reads three blogs, mine, Daily Kos and DuPage blogger Wurfwhile.)

On her residency: “I think that I can certainly adequately represent the district without living in it. Voters are going to decide who shares… their value system… I think I’m that person… My identity is with the 6th District. I live in the Village of Hoffman Estates. Part of Hoffman Estates is in the 6th, part is in the 8th.”

I’ll have more later this weekend, but I need to go Christmas shopping now.

UPDATE 4: I intentionall tossed in several local issues questions to see how she’d respond. She did pretty well. I’ll post those answers Sunday afternoon/evening.

I’ve interviewed a lot of political novices in my day, and she did better than most. Her talking points were evident, but they didn’t overwhelm the conversation. You can’t coach that or create it out of whole cloth. It’s an innate talent and she’s obviously got it.

Meanwhile, the Daily Herald has a pretty good Q&A on their site. Not much in the way of local stuff, though, so this blog may be the only place to find it tomorrow.

63 Comments

State split on immigration

Friday, Dec 16, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

A new SurveyUSA poll shows that a slight majority of Illinoisans think that immigrants do jobs that Americans don’t want.

“Which of these 2 statements do you agree with more:
One: Immigrants take jobs away from Americans.
Two: Immigrants do jobs that Americans don’t want.”

43 percent of Illinoisans chose “one,” while 52 percent said “two.” That’s almost the same as the nationally weighted average of 42/53.

Notice, though, that the question didn’t ask about illegal immigrants. Just immigrants in general. Also, SurveyUSA didn’t ask whether people believed that access to cheap immigrant labor keeps wages down.

22 Comments

A bit much

Friday, Dec 16, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

Kinda over the top if you ask me.

Tollway officials are quietly attempting to add a laundry list of penalties for I-PASS users, including revoking transponders for traffic tickets and charging $25 for drivers whose accounts run dry or who forget the device.

The proposals, of which even some tollway directors were unaware, are drawing criticism from a watchdog group, which called them â€œridiculous,â€ and a tollway reform leader, who says they â€œgo too far.â€

Under the proposed rules:

â€¢Get a traffic violation and you could lose your I-PASS

â€¢Fail to properly use your I-PASS, and it may be cut off

â€¢Let your I-PASS account go into debt and pay a $25 fine

â€¢Forget your I-PASS and pay $25

â€¢If you drop change near a toll basket, it belongs to the tollway, and you could face a $75 fine for picking it up.

The new penalties were found in a 46-page document of rule changes submitted to a lawmaker panel charged with overseeing state agency rules.

There was no debate on these new rules at the tollway board in October, and members told reporters they were merely voting on minor changes.

Not.

The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules has three months to approve or disapprove the proposals.

29 Comments

Question of the day

Friday, Dec 16, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

I thought this was a nifty bit of spin.

Topinka, who favors abortion rights, and Birkett also said they agree on one aspect of the abortion debate: the need for a state law that requires parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion.

“This is an invasive procedure and parents should be involved,” Topinka said, adding that any law should allow for minors to ask a judge for an exception.

Both criticized Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich on the issue, saying he supports parental consent for minors getting tattoos but not for abortion.

Blagojevich’s spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said the governor does not support such a notification law because he believes minors who become pregnant after they were raped by a stepfather or other relative should not be forced to tell a parent or a judge.

Further, she said, “To compare rape and incest to tattoos shows a complete lack of understanding and sensitivity of the issue.”

Even though bringing rape and incest into the equation avoids talking about well over 95 percent of the parental consent issue, I thought it was a pretty good pivot.

What do you think about the comparison between the two parental consent issues? Can it be an effective attack on the governor? What do you think about the governor’s response?

29 Comments

Veterans’ preference skirted

Friday, Dec 16, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

Two short stories from the AP were up last night.

Illinois officials in Governor Rod Blagojevich’s (bluh-GOY’-uh-vitchz) administration hired a man to work in Cook County for a job located in another part of the state.

The Department of Employment Security put George Rada (RAY’-dah) in the administrative post that had been transferred to Freeport just three weeks before his March 2003 hiring. But Rada has always worked in Chicago.

Transferring the job to Stephenson County meant I-D-E-S could hire Rada without having to confront state laws that give veterans preference in state hiring. Federal prosecutors already are scrutinizing Blagojevich’s hiring practices.

I-D-E-S had no plans to reverse what it acknowledged was a “flawed” hiring process until The Associated Press asked about it. A spokeswoman says the agency began the paperwork today to return the position to Cook County.

The second quotes a governor’s spokesman saying they would not reopen the job after it was discovered that the hire was improperly executed.

What appears to have happened here is they moved a Cook County job out to Freeport so that no veteran in that region would likely qualify. Then they gave the job to Rada and moved it back to Cook County, thereby skirting the veterans’ preference hiring mandate.

33 Comments

Thompson in legal trouble?

Friday, Dec 16, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller

Oy.

The scandal swirling around the Hollinger company hit close to home with word Thursday that former Illinois governor Jim Thompson is the target of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.

Thompson was on the audit committee of the company which owns the Chicago Sun-Times and several suburban newspapers. Bloomberg News reports Thompson was served with papers warning him that SEC investigators may be close to seeking civil charges against the former governor.

Governor Thompson said by e-mail Thursday that he can’t talk about the on-going investigation. This comes on a day when the federal government lodged new charges against Conrad Black, the one-time head of Hollinger, charges that include obstruction of justice. […]

Former governor Jim Thompson and two other members of Hollinger’s audit committee are reportedly under SEC investigation for supposedly turning a blind eye to widespread fraud at the company.

David Ruder headed the Securities and Exchange Commission in the late ’80’s. He says it almost unheard of to see a corporate board member face this kind of scrutiny.

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