Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » 2006

Friday, Jan 20, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Talk at you Monday.

If you want to comment somewhere this weekend, the Illinoize folks will be busy.

Meanwhile….

This is my newphew, Nicholas George Miller. Nicholas was just accepted into Stanford University’s highly prestigious All Star Baseball Camp.

Nicholas is not just a spectacular athlete. He’s an “A” student and, as I’ve written here before, one of the finest young men I know. Congratulations, Nicholas!

UPDATE: On another baseball-related note, congrats to Ozzie Guillen on becoming a citizen this week.

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SurveyUSA - Updated x3

Friday, Jan 20, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

I forgot to post the SurveyUSA tracker for January. Sorry about that.

Blagojevich job approval is 42 percent, disapproval is 53 percent. The crosstabs are here and the trendlines are here.

Read and discuss.

UPDATE: For a little balance, Eric Krol has an interesting column today about Topinka.

In a year when ethics will be the dominant issue in politics, Republican governor candidate Judy Baar Topinka might have left her flank a little exposed with her choice of campaign manager.

The magenta-haired state treasurer, after a long search, settled on Terry Barnich to run her show. Heâ€™s a former Illinois Commerce Commission chairman under Govs. Thompson and Edgar. He also agreed last year to resign from the Chicago Athletic Association board amid conflict-of-interest allegations by feuding members.

The financially troubled club, one of those rarified, old-boy-network-type places downtown, reached an agreement to part ways with Barnich and his business partner at a telecommunications consulting firm.

Some club board members accused Barnich of setting up a favorable office lease deal for himself inside the club building and profiting from a takeover of the buildingâ€™s telephone system. […]

Critics point to the Barnich hire as one of the several signs Topinkaâ€™s campaign isnâ€™t firing on all cylinders yet, despite her nominal front-runner status as a three-term statewide officeholder. She could be leaving the door open for her three opponents in the March 21 Republican primary…

Barnich was run out of the ICC on a rail. Second worst ICC chairman ever, in my opinion (hard to top Ed Hurley for that dubious distinction).

UPDATE 2: Josh Goodman makes a very good point:

SurveyUSA’s newest approval rating polls reveal the secret to being a popular governor: Don’t be a former member of Congress.

Ten current governors who once served in Congress average 46% approval and 47% disapproval in their home states. (The polls were conducted before an eleventh, New Jersey’s Jon Corzine, took office.) If that doesn’t sound too bad, consider that among the other 40 governors the average is 56%-37%.

There are a few similarities between these troubled congressmen-turned-governors that might explain the phenomenon:

* At least to some degree, four of them (Illinois’ Rod Blagojevich, Kentucky’s Ernie Fletcher, Maryland’s Robert Ehrlich and Alaska’s Frank Murkowski) have been accused of hiring improprieties involving selecting partisan supporters, financial backers or family members for government posts. While it would probably be too simplistic to say they were corrupted by Washington, D.C., and some of these accusations haven’t been proven, no one ever became more ethical by serving in Congress.

I think I may have made the same point either here or in the Fax, but I’m too busy right now to look it up. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE 3: An internet ad? From a press release:

Democratic challenger Eisendrath will release first Internet commercial of this year’s Democratic primary race for Governor of Illinois.

Where’s the TV?

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This just in… Madigan sues over cellphone privacy - Updated x1

Friday, Jan 20, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

From a press release:

Identifying such abuse as â€œprivacy theft,â€ Attorney General Lisa Madigan today filed a lawsuit against a Florida company that for roughly $100 and a cell phone number will use allegedly illegal means to access an individualâ€™s cell phone or land line records.

Madigan filed the complaint today in Sangamon County Circuit Court against Kenneth Gorman, director; Steven Schwartz, secretary; and 1st Source Information Specialists, Inc., d/b/a locatecell.com, celltolls.com, datafind.org and peoplesearchamerica.com. The company is located in Tamarac, Florida.

Madigan, who subpoenaed locatecell.com approximately two weeks ago, sued the defendants under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.

â€œThis entire enterprise is an outrageous invasion of personal privacy that could put lives in danger,â€ Madigan said. â€œThe possibility of harm from this â€˜serviceâ€™ to victims of domestic violence and law enforcement is enormous. As Attorney General, I will do everything in my power to stop this abuse.â€

Madiganâ€™s complaint alleges that 1st Source made misrepresentations to telecommunications companies to obtain phone records by calling companies and posing as the customers, agents or employees of the company; made misrepresentations to telecommunication companies online by posing as consumers to gain unauthorized access to online accounts; sold phone records illegally obtained; and misrepresented to consumers via the Web sites that they had legally obtained the call records.

Madigan said the defendants only need to be provided with a third partyâ€™s cell phone or land line telephone number to achieve their goal of obtaining the cell phone records. In fact, some of the sites offer a discount if the customer includes the consumerâ€™s name and address along with the cell or land line number.

UPDATE: From Crain’s:

A Cook County Circuit Court Judge Friday denied Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madiganâ€™s petition to stop state utility regulators from approving Commonwealth Edison Co.â€™s plan for an auction among power generators that is expected to sharply increase electricity rates next year.

The decision by Judge Nancy Arnold, which originally was expected next week but instead was issued Friday afternoon, clears the way for the Illinois Commerce Commissionâ€™s scheduled vote next Tuesday on the plan. Commission staff and an administrative law judge have recommended approval. Gov. Rod Blagojevich has urged commissioners to vote against.

Judge Arnold ruled that the attorney general has alternative avenues to appeal the commissionâ€™s decision if it approves the auction. Foremost among those is appeal directly to the Illinois Appellate Court, which the law allows, she wrote.

â€œThe court sees no reason to interject itself into what has been, and will no doubt continue to be, an orderly process,â€ she wrote.

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Question of the day

Friday, Jan 20, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

If you had a chance to sit down and have a private chat with the underdogs in the governor’s race - Edwin Eisendrath, Jim Oberweis, Bill Brady and Ron Gidwitz - what would you tell each of them?

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Chamber wants more

Friday, Jan 20, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

The U.S. Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform doesn’t want Illinois to stop at medical malpractice insurance reform. From a press release issued earlier this week:

Lisa Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, issued the following statement tonight:

â€œIt is disconcerting that Governor Blagojevich failed to address Illinoisâ€™ reputation as one of the worst states in the country for lawsuit abuse. That reputation is contributing to Illinoisâ€™ jobs crisis, and is one reason why the state continues to lag behind the rest of the country in terms of economic growth.

â€œThe medical liability reforms enacted last year are a good step forward, but Governor Blagojevich and the state legislature need to finish the job by passing more lawsuit reforms. This will help Illinois employers escape the onslaught of opportunistic trial lawyers getting rich at the expense of Illinois employers and working families.â€

A Harris Survey of corporate executives ranked Illinois 46th out of 50 states in legal fairness, having dropped 12 spots in three years. An astounding 81 percent of respondents in that survey said a stateâ€™s legal climate affects important decisions, such as where to locate or invest.

This is exactly what the trial lawyers predicted would happen when the GA passed med-mal reform last year. I highly doubt that any bills will move this year, but it appears the issue won’t go away.

Your feelings?

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Odds and ends

Friday, Jan 20, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

A futile attempt to clear out my “in” box.

Not to take anything away from the Sun-Times’ very good series on cellphone privacy, but Macleans had a story about this very disturbing subject last year.

You can find AFSCME’s prison report that I wrote about yesterday here.

The Kentucky legislature won’t accredit bloggers. I went through much the same thing that a lot of bloggers are going through now back when I first started covering the General Assembly. Maybe I’ll tell that story one day.

Failed Supreme Court candidate Gordon Maag’s defamation suit was dismissed for the second time.

Here’s a nice piece on Joel Brunsvold’s retirement as IDNR director. This happened during my Christmas vacation and I never wrote how much I have enjoyed knowing Joel over the years.

Andy Plonka has a photo of Governor Blagojevich jogging in his neighborhood during the day. Check Andy’s comments after I asked what time that photo was snapped.

I’d like to make this a local news update thread. What’s going on in your town, ward, county, etc?

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