Question of the day
Monday, Jan 8, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
Use this as an open thread to discuss the Governor’s inaugural address, which will start around noonish. Listen here when the time comes.
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Things that make you go “Hmmmm…”
Monday, Jan 8, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
Interesting.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration has fired a state employee who is challenging a City Council ally of Mayor Richard Daley’s in the Feb. 27 election.
Carina Sanchez said she lost her job last week because she is running to unseat Ald. George Cardenas (12th). Cardenas is supported by the pro-Daley Hispanic Democratic Organization.
“If they didn’t think I could beat Cardenas, they would have left me alone,” said Sanchez, who was paid $60,000 a year as director of policy and community relations for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. “This is how they play.” […]
“Running for office is a full-time job,” [state spokesperson] Hofer said. “Because she was in a senior policy-level position, there was just too much potential for conflict.”
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Fun, fun, fun
Monday, Jan 8, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
My syndicated newspaper column this week takes a look at the Better Government Association’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the governor’s office and Lisa Madigan’s upcoming role.
Madigan will reportedly not be joining the Better Government Association’s lawsuit. Instead, Madigan likely will represent the governor’s office in the case.
Madigan is, per the state constitution, the state’s chief legal officer, and she therefore has the sole authority to represent any state official or office that is sued in an official capacity. The governor’s office can request that the AG appoint a special attorney general to handle this case, but Madigan reportedly will resist.
We got a taste of this sort of thing last fall when Madigan dumped the law firm she had appointed to defend some top Illinois Department of Transportation officials, including Transportation Secretary Tim Martin, in a case of alleged politically motivated firings. Madigan took over the case herself and began doing things that were pretty obviously not in the defendants’ best interests, but were in what she concluded to be the state’s best interests as a whole. For instance, Madigan began negotiations with the plaintiffs in the case to comply with their subpoenas, which Martin and the other defendants previously had fought tooth and nail, contending the subpoenas were “overly broad and burdensome.”
Martin and the other defendants sued, claiming Madigan had a conflict of interest, but a judge ruled in August that Madigan, as the state’s chief legal counsel, was “fully authorized to represent the state in this case.” A couple of months later, a different judge ordered Springfield attorney Mary Lee Leahy to give a deposition in the IDOT firing case, which Martin and his co-defendants had tried to block for months, contending they had an attorney-client privilege. Leahy had advised several state agencies, including IDOT, about hiring practices. After Madigan took over the IDOT case, she concluded there was no attorney-client privilege and didn’t argue against Leahy’s deposition.
The bottom line here is that we very likely will be treated to the spectacle of Lisa Madigan “defending” Rod Blagojevich’s office in a FOIA case where the plaintiffs are using Madigan’s own opinion to make their arguments that the subpoenas should be made public.
It’s gonna get real fun, real soon, campers.
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Finance reform discussed
Monday, Jan 8, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
Lee Newspapers continues its series on campaign finances with a report on reform ideas.
But now, after another year of heavy spending bought nasty television ads and bitter mailers, campaign finance reform hopefuls say 2007 could be their year.
Most agree leadership on the issue will have to come from the top if anything is to happen.
“A lot of this is going to depend on the governor and how much energy he wants to put into it,†said state Sen. Dan Rutherford, R-Chenoa. […]
Others want to end the potential conflict of interest that comes from campaign donors being awarded millions in state contracts — a practice known as “pay to play.†The issue hounded both Blagojevich and Topinka in the last campaign.
Go read the whole thing. Lee also has a story about Green Party financesFinance during the last election.
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No Durbin opponents stepping up
Sunday, Jan 7, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
The state GOP’s woes continue.
The 2008 Senate election may seem far away, but the battered Illinois Republican Party already is running late if it plans to challenge Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.
No Republicans have stepped forward to say they will run against Durbin, and no one seems to be on the sidelines preparing to jump in.
“This is really becoming a problem for us,” said Illinois Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson, R-Greenville.
Although the election is 22 months away, that’s not a particularly long time in politics; the deadline to qualify for the ballot is less than a year away.
Peter Fitzgerald is quoted in this piece saying Dick Durbin will be “hard to beat.” And a spokesman for Bill Brady said he’s looking at another run for governor.
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“Buying” votes?
Sunday, Jan 7, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
Lee Newspapers has a big to-do this weekend about contributions from state legislative leaders to targeted candidates.
[M]ore than $8 million was funneled from the campaign war chests of the leaders into 10 select races for the state House and Senate.
Observers say the amount of money dumped by the leadership into those battles raises concerns about the independence of locally elected representatives.
“When someone is elected after having a legislative leader drop 65 to 75 percent of the funds into that race, there is an indebtedness. It is much harder for a candidate in that position to buck the wishes of the leader,” said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. […]
“The big issue is that it put these races in the hands of the legislative leaders, as opposed to putting it in the hands of constituents. So, the (campaign) decisions aren’t even made by the candidates based on what the people in their districts want to hear,” Canary said.
“It’s a much more centralized approach to elections,” she said. “It’s a campaign that’s being produced off site.”
The Herald & Review has an accompanying editorial.
The fact is that the statewide elections and most contested legislative elections come down to who can buy the most votes. The system effectively leaves many voters out of the loop and virtually guarantees that the cost of government will continue to increase.
As a chart with today’s stories points out, in every case, the candidate who spent the most money per vote in the November election won. In Central Illinois, Rep. Bob Flider, D-Mount Zion, spent $37.60 for every vote in his favor. His opponent, Republican Dick Cain, spent $32.88.
That’s a bargain, compared to some other areas. In the Centralia area, Democrat Kurt Granberg spent $67.15 per vote in order to defeat his rival. In February, after year-end reports are filed, the Herald & Review will report specifically on where the money comes from and where it’s spent.
The chart can be viewed here.
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“I am not a loser”
Sunday, Jan 7, 2007 - Posted by Rich Miller
I can understand that she’s frustrated, but wasn’t this a bit much?
Hurt, incensed and moved to tears, mayoral challenger Dorothy Brown on Friday accused state Sen. James Meeks of sexism and calling her a “loser” unworthy of endorsement in her race against Mayor Richard Daley.
“I am not a loser. I am a winner. I am the epitome of the American dream and Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream,” said Brown, clerk of the circuit court.
“To make the kind of statement he made in the face of my hard work — the challenges and discrimination I have overcome in growing up poor and becoming a respected countywide elected official in this town — I see it as a direct disrespect for me as a human being, as a woman and as an African-American.”
Brown said the Meeks insult is particularly infuriating on the heels of the all-but-endorsement of Daley by vanquished mayoral challenger Bobby Rush.
Meeks, of course, said he wouldn’t be backing any losers when asked if he would endorse Brown.
But he didn’t exactly smooth things over with his reply:
“Why would she automatically assume that means her?” Meeks said. “Why would she declare herself as the loser?”
Meeks said his appearance with Daley was not “part of any political campaign of any candidate.”
“For her to take a statement like that and automatically crown herself as the loser, I feel real bad for her for doing that,” Meeks said. “I’ve supported her in every race she’s been in, and she’s a nice person.”
And…
“Just because she doesn’t have a possible chance of winning this particular election, it doesn’t mean my comments are sexist. It’s reality.”
The Chicago Reader’s new blog “Clout City” also covered Brown’s presser and closed with this:
In fact, the toughest question of the afternoon, posed by a veteran sitting on a table to the side, had nothing to do with Meeks or Daley: “You know, Harold Washington once said, ‘Politics ain’t beanbag.’ Do you think you have thick enough skin to do this?â€
Brown gripped the podium and gazed back at him. Maybe she couldn’t get outraged—not on public display, at least—but she could show everyone that she was serious. “Yes,†she said. “I’m in this race to win it.â€
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