* 1:34pm - The leaders meeting had been scheduled for 2 pm. Check back later for updates and audio.
* The Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association just released this joint statement which more than just implies their continued support of an income tax hike…
…There are proposals before the legislature, including those that increase the income tax. We believe that the General Assembly should consider any proposal on its merits, regardless of the political promises of any one elected official. Lawmakers need to find the courage to step up and vote for a proposal that truly provides education funding reform. The General Assembly has the power to make this happen.
When the new legislature was sworn in on January 10, 2007, Senate President Emil Jones said “We should be the leaders in doing the right thing. We must bring about real change to the outrageous, inequitable system that funds our schools.” On that same day House Speaker Michael Madigan spoke about making tough choices. More recently he said, Before we finish our budget in May or June, Illinois is going to see a tax increase.
Political infighting is not an excuse to ignore the school funding needs in Illinois. The time for change is now.
Tony Rezko appeared in federal court Tuesday morning on new criminal charges related to the Blagojevich administration. Rezko, a friend of the governor, is charged with three counts of wire fraud. His co-defendant, Ali Ata, is the former executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority. Ata, who was appointed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to his six-figure position, is charged with aiding and abetting.
This doesn’t start out as Illinois-related, but we’ll get there in a moment…
Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), the target of a 14-month public corruption probe, was videotaped accepting $100,000 in $100 bills from a Northern Virginia investor who was wearing an FBI wire, according to a search warrant affidavit…
A few days later, on Aug. 3, 2005, FBI agents raided Jefferson’s home in Northeast Washington and found $90,000 of the cash in the freezer, in $10,000 increments wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed inside frozen-food containers, the document said.
The 83-page affidavit, used to raid Jefferson’s Capitol Hill office on Saturday night, portrays him as a money-hungry man who freely solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, discussed payoffs to African officials, had a history of involvement in numerous bribery schemes and used his family to hide his interest in high-tech business ventures he promoted in Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria.
Through it all, much of the Congressional Black Caucus has stood by Jefferson and against the Democratic leadership. And yesterday, Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), a veteran caucus member, said it would be “as supportive of our colleague as possible, in terms of saying a person in America is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty.”
The hugely trafficked Daily Kos blog, which is about as Democratic as one can get, has long been pushing for Jefferson’s ouster, and today Kos himself had this to say about Davis’ remarks…
Yes, in a court of law, there is a presumption of innocence. In Congress, our elected officials must be held to a higher standard. If Jefferson is acquitted of those charges, he can always run again and take back this seat. It’s clear his constituents have no problem voting for him even after finding out about his $90,000-stuffed freezer.
Kos does post this caveat from the above article…
Senior leadership aides cautioned that a quick resignation under pressure could set a dangerous precedent, suggesting that a politicized Justice Department could target troublesome lawmakers with specious indictments.
But then he mostly dismisses it…
(I)n this case, this wouldn’t be a “quick resignation” — this issue has festered for over a year — and the 16-count indictment is as solid a case as can ever be made for public corruption.
I’m curious what you think of Congressman Davis’ reaction. Should congressmen stick up for their fellows even when they’re busted with ninety large in the Frigidaire?
By the way, I’ve called Congressmen Rush and Jackson to see if they agree with Davis. I’ll let you know what they say if and or when they call back.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Congressman Jackson, who last year supported Nancy Pelosi’s bid to oust Jefferson from the Ways & Means Committee, just called. Here’s what he had to say…
“[There is a] presumption of innocence, and Rep. Jefferson is entitled to that presumption. That notwithstanding, these charges and allegations are serious and if proven have very real consequences for Mr. Jefferson and his life. Members of Congress and public officials should [hold] themselves to the highest possible ethical standard and that standard I believe is the ‘appearance of impropriety.’ The evidence that has been detailed in the indictment by the Justice Dept. suggests that the line for appearance [in this case] crossed that chasm a long time ago.”
[Should he resign?] “That’s a matter for Congressman Jefferson to decide. The question is, with these enormous charges confronting him how effective can he be as a member of Congress? The people of New Orleans who have been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and at this hour are dispersed across many states in the union need a full-time representative who is not preoccupied with personal matters.”
[On the impact on Democrats and the institution of Congress] …”This is an embarrassment to the institution of Congress and the 434 other members of Congress who are trying to earn and maintain the trust of the American people. A bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.”
Propose your ideas for a billion dollars in state spending cuts. Be as specific as possible. And if you can’t come up with a billion dollars in total, real cuts, don’t bother posting.
Two fired Blagojevich administration employees filed a lawsuit Monday to get their jobs back.
The Illinois Civil Service Commission is already reviewing whether Dawn DeFraties and Michael Casey should be rehired, but the two claim in Sangamon County court that the commission missed its deadline for deciding the case. […]
The claim contends that according to state law, the commission lost jurisdiction over the matter by failing to make a decision within two months after the end of a hearing on the terminations. That date was June 2.
Instead, the commission is seeking more evidence in the case, and an administrative law judge has set another hearing for Friday.
“If the finding and decision is not rendered within 60 days after receipt of the transcript of the proceedings, the employee shall be considered to be reinstated and shall receive full compensation for the period for which he was suspended,” the personnel code says.
The 60-day deadline passed on Saturday, Draper said in the suit filed Monday. […]
The case has dragged on for more than a year. The hearing before Dos Santos began Jan. 29 and lasted until March 23, when the state rested its case.
This entire case has been a sham from the get-go. DeFraties was deliberately made a scapegoat by the governor’s campaign last year. They used her as an “example” of the corruption that they supposedly unearthed while they were diligently presiding over an honest government.
Doug Finke was absolutely right when he referred to this case as “Kafkaesque.” Everything, from the initial allegations, to the neverending hearings, to the campaign scapegoating by an allegedly corrupt administration, to the blatant misuse of their case by a supposedly fair and impartial Inspector General on the state employee ethics exam, to the appointment of the governor’s babysitter to the Civil Service Commission has screamed Kafkaesque…
[Kafkaesque] can also describe an intentional distortion of reality by powerful but anonymous bureaucrats. “Lack of evidence is treated as a pesky inconvenience, to be circumvented by such Kafkaesque means as depositing unproven allegations into sealed files …” Another definition would be an existentialist state of ever-elusive freedom while existing under unmitigatable control.
It’s time to end this disgusting nightmare once and for all.
* Newspaper blogs are often used as dumping grounds for quotes and items that don’t make it into the print version. I tend to enjoy those online items more than the resulting stories. Here’s one from the Trib’s blog quoting the governor’s spokesperson about his demand that legislators meet five days a week during June. The grilling is exquisite…
Rebecca Rausch, the governor’s spokeswoman, said Blagojevich spent the weekend in “countless meetings” about the budget in Chicago and was in Chicago again Monday. She brushed aside questions about why Blagojevich was not at Monday’s announcement, saying, “Well, he’s working. He’s got a lot of things he’s got to do. He is governor.”
When pressed on whether the governor would be in Springfield five days a week during the budget crisis, Rausch said: “Again, I can’t speak to the governor’s whereabouts for the next 30 days.”
Asked whether the governor would call a special session to keep lawmakers in Springfield until a budget is worked out, Rausch said: “I think all options are on the table. But, you know, lawmakers come back to town tomorrow. So we’ll just see how it goes.”
* None of those priceless quotes made it into the Trib’s dead tree version, which focused instead on the Republicans’ newfound Statehouse influence…
House Republican leader Tom Cross will enter budget negotiations Tuesday facing Democrats who didn’t want him in the room, and he will carry the agenda of a party that has been entirely shut out of the last two state spending plans. […]
The GOP wish list that Cross carries is most heavily focused on what Republicans don’t want. His top concerns are blocking tax hike proposals and resisting expensive new programs like Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s health-care initiative.
* The Daily Herald went with an AP version of yesterday’s Blagojevich staff announcement for their newsprint edititioned, but managed to get this tasty little tidbit into their bloggy type thing late yesterday…
Obama, until the end of 2004 a state senator, was asked about the overtime session in Springfield, where his party controls the House, Senate and governor’s mansion yet still couldn’t get a budget passed on time. And Obama was asked about his political patron, Senate President Emil Jones, and how he handled ComEd electric rate hike relief. Here’s Obama’s response to the latter question:
“I apologize, guys, but I really have not followed closely what’s been happening in Springfield. I’ve had a little bit of other stuff to do,” Obama said.
* So, how did spokeshumans for the Democratic legislative leaders react to the governor’s announcement? Not exactly positive…
House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, didn’t commit to attending the governor’s proposed meetings. His spokesman, Steve Brown, said last week’s confrontation between Blagojevich and Sen. Mike Jacobs would make it more difficult to resolve the budget impasse.
“The conduct of the administration has kind of a chilling effect on people sitting down for talks, obviously,” Brown said.
Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, had no comment on the governor’s proposed meetings, a spokeswoman said.
* And Zorn makes some good points about the Jacobs-Blagojevich blow-up in today’s column, entitled “Who’s afraid of governor? Well, no one,” including this one…
The headline here is not that Blagojevich got frustrated in the wake of last week’s legislative impasses and cartoonishly lost his cool in private — if, indeed, he did.
It’s that Jacobs feels so comfortable in relating his tale to the world and in taunting his party’s top elected official with raw, deeply personal insults.
It’s that Blagojevich is so enfeebled he can’t rise even to this challenge.
I had Paul post this in Morning Shorts today, but it immediately received several comments so I figured it deserved its own thread. Ladies and gentlemen, Revenge of the Blago…
“What you saw here was an attempt to cover up a pile of manure with some flowers,” said the Republican from Mattoon. “It looks OK from a distance, but when you get close to it, it really stinks.”
A key provision of the bill is the doubling of financial penalties for doctors or clinics that violate patients’ rights, said David Munar, associate director of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. Breaches such as unauthorized disclosure of a person’s HIV status or testing without consent would carry a fine of up to $10,000.
