* 1:01 pm - The guv went on the attack again today. No surprise…
Gov. Rod Blagojevich slammed CTA leadership today, accusing the agency of being dishonest to the public, and “scaring” the General Assembly into passing sales tax hikes.
Blagojevich said everyone on the CTA board takes its marching orders from City Hall, and he plans on appointing new members to the CTA board who will think independently.
It appears the House is positioning itself to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in project and program funding cut by Gov. Rod Blagojevich to balance the budget. Cuts and closings of state parks, historic sites and jobs at DCFS and the Department of Human Services would be reversed.
However, it also appears at this point that the House will restore for more spending than it will come up with money to support. A quick glance of the “uncuts” found more than $880 million restored. But a run through of the money in the special state accounts the House would tap came up with less than half that amount. [emphasis added]
The fund sweeps would produce about $266 million in revenues if all were tapped. That’s a whole lot less than the $880 million which would be restored, if all of those pass.
CLARIFICATION: What’s going on here is that the House will advance about $214 million in funds sweeps and a like amount in budget restorations, including for alcohol and substance abuse programs and state parks and historic sites. The rest, about $371 million in GRF and a bunch in federal match (mostly payment cycle stuff) is not yet funded, but the House Dems say they are willing to work with the governor, the Senate and the Repubs to come up with funding streams.
ComEd customers in Illinois will soon pay 6 percent more, but a consumer group plans to appeal the decision to increase utility bills.
The Illinois Commerce Commission approved the delivery rate hike for the utility giant Wednesday, adding about $4.50 to the average consumer’s bill.
* 3:12 pm [Posted by Kevin Fanning] - WBEZ has posted audio from the Governor’s comments regarding the CTA. Also included in the audio is Blagojevich answering questions from reporters on the capital bill and the debate over education funding.
* 4:05 pm - The House has overriden the governor’s amendatory veto of the ethics bill. Just three members (Hoffman, Granberg and Collins) voted against the override.
* So, back in 2003, state Sen. Barack Obama voted for a bill in commitee that expanded non-mandated sex education classes to far younger students. Previously, sex education was available by state law only to children in grades 6 through 12.
The proposal, sponsored by Sens. Carol Ronen, Maggie Crotty, Susan Garrett and others (but not Obama) passed Sen. Obama’s Health & Human Services Committee on a 7-4 vote.
It was backed by the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the Lake County Health Department, the IL Public Health Association and the IL Champter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, among others.
* One of the changes, besides the school grade range, was this (all changes underlined)…
All course material and instruction shall be age and developmentally appropriate.
* One of the stated goals of the bill was to make sure that younger children were informed how to avoid sexual predators, and the language on that section of existing law was tightened up (again, proposed additions are underlined)…
Course material and instruction shall teach pupils to not make unwanted physical and verbal sexual advances and how to say no to unwanted sexual advances and shall include information about verbal, physical, and visual sexual harassment, including without limitation nonconsensual sexual advances, nonconsensual physical sexual contact, and rape by an acquaintance. The course material and instruction shall contain methods of preventing sexual assault by an acquaintance, including exercising good judgment and avoiding behavior that impairs one’s judgment.
“Well, I had noticed that, in your voting, you had voted, at one point, that sex education should begin in kindergarten, and you justified it by saying that it would be “age-appropriate” sex education.”
“We have a existing law that mandates sex education in the schools. We want to make sure that it’s medically accurate and age-appropriate.
“Now, I’ll give you an example, because I have a six-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter, and one of the things my wife and I talked to our daughter about is the possibility of somebody touching them inappropriately, and what that might mean.
“And that was included specifically in the law, so that kindergarteners are able to exercise some possible protection against abuse, because I have family members as well as friends who suffered abuse at that age. So, that’s the kind of stuff that I was talking about in that piece of legislation.” [Emphasis added]
Keyes was so outrageous on everything else that nobody really bought into his argument.
* Sen. Susan Garrett, one of the co-sponsors, said today that, as she remembers the bill, it never required schools to teach sex education and it allowed an opt-out, both of which are correct.
“‘Nobody’s suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it,’” Obama told the Daily Herald. “‘If they ask a teacher ‘where do babies come from,’ that providing information that the fact is that it’s not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that’s going to be determined on a case by case basis by local communities and local school boards.’”
* However, the proposal was certainly controversial. It was never brought to the full Senate for a vote and the Republicans were against it. Even so, former GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney tried to make it an issue, but it never caught fire.
* And, now, it’s become part of the presidential campaign via an ad by Sen. John McCain…
* From the ad…
“Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family.”
McCain’s ad is to air in parts of Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri and Wisconsin, as well as on the Discovery channel.
* Mclatchy fact checks the ad and pronounces it way off base…
This is a deliberately misleading accusation. It came hours after the Obama campaign released a TV ad critical of McCain’s votes on public education. As a state senator in Illinois, Obama did vote for but was not a sponsor of legislation dealing with sex ed for grades K-12.
But the gap between the implication (Obama has liberal, radical views about sexuality) and the reality in this ad is pretty big and fairly consequential.
“It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was. Now we know why,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
* My own take: The bill in question was just too hot to deal with at the time, and remains so today. Too often in Springfield, legislators vote for legislation in committee just because it’s supported by a friend, or a fellow party member, or to advance it along because they support the concept but realize that it needs further work.
Obama has said time and again that he supports the concept of teaching sex ed to kindergartners to help them avoid sexual predators, but that’s not completely what this bill was about. If he wanted to just help kids learn the warning signs, he could’ve sponsored a bill to do only that. This bill went beyond that scope.
For instance, here is some of the proposed language…
Course material and instruction shall present the latest medically factual information regarding both the possible side effects and health benefits of all forms of contraception, including the success and failure rates for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
Again, this was all supposed to be age and developmentally appropriate, but the above language had absolutely nothing to do with keeping very young kids safe from sexual predators.
Still, McCain’s TV ad is way, way, way over the top and is terribly misleading, if not downright scandalous. It probably deserves whatever criticism it gets.
We had a version of this question during last week’s Republican National Convention, so it’s only right that we have one for the other side as well.
Who is your favorite Illinois Democrat? Explain.
Bonus Questions: Who is your least favorite Illinois Democrat? Explain.
As before, please answer the first question before you get to the bonus question. Also, let’s leave the governor, Mayor Daley and the two legislative leaders out of the equation. It’s too easy. Dig deeper, please. Thanks.
*** UPDATE 2 - 11:28 am *** Both parties are now going to caucus and committees will start at 12:30 pm.
*** UPDATE 3 - 11:41 am *** From a lobbyist…
We’re holding a press conference today at 12:00 in the blue room announcing supplemental approps bills to restore the DNR funding cuts. I expect both statewide and local advocates plus legislators.
The famous hug last month between Gov. Blagojevich and House Speaker Michael Madigan at the Democratic convention did not signal a full-blown detente.
But in its wake, the unthinkable has happened: Madigan signaled a willingness to entertain one of Blagojevich’s boldest ideas.
Madigan called the House back into session today to consider a proposal he rejected long ago: privatizing the lottery to pay for a sorely needed statewide road, transit and school construction program.
Actually, Madigan has been talking about a Lottery lease with his members for several weeks, as I and others have previously reported. Days before “the hug,” Madigan told State Fair attendees that “the prospects look very, very good” for a Lottery lease deal.
* Anyway, on to today’s session. Finke probably has the best MSM coverage…
Illinois House members return to Springfield today with plans to lease the Illinois Lottery, restore some money cut from the budget and to override Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s amendatory veto of a major ethics bill.
[Rep. Gary Hannig] said he does not expect the House to take up a spending bill that would allocate money to capital projects.
“We would have to engage the Senate and the governor’s office to do that,” Hannig said. “We could send something over to the Senate, but it wouldn’t really be a compromise. Why would you want to put out false hopes?”
Republicans complain that while the speaker and governor could finally agree on how to raise the revenue for the capital plan, the Democrats have not listed in detail how they’ll spend the money.
“Not talking about spending certainly begs the question is this real when the complete package is revenue and spending,” said Rep. Cross.
If there are no spending specifics, lawmakers cannot return home before the election to tout their accomplishments. The Republicans want a capital bill with spending details by October 1.
But Madigan–who has said publicly he doesn’t trust Blagojevich–reportedly wants it written in a capital bill that the terms of any lottery lease must be approved by State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes. Both Giannoulias and Hynes identify themselves as Blagojevich opponents.
On Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman for the governor’s office released a statement about those terms:
“We don’t see any problem with that. It’s a good first step for them to at least agree in substance with leasing the lottery”.
Hannig said the House is looking at taking $250 million from such programs, although the amount could be slightly higher by the time representatives vote on a bill.
That’s less than half of the $530 million Blagojevich wanted to use earlier this year.
The best-known amendatory veto involves House Bill 824, which would ban campaign contributions from people or companies that do more than $50,000 a year in business with the state. Although the ban applies to all statewide officials, the measure was mainly directed at Blagojevich, who collects large sums from those contractors.
What about schools? The lottery provides roughly 3 percent - $600-some million - of all K-12 public education spending annually. So far, lottery lease plans have called for setting aside a portion of the upfront payment to ensure the education budget is not shorted.
Insiders take: To outsiders this two-day session rightly appears rather incremental. But to insiders any indication that House Speaker Michael Madigan and Gov. Rod Blagojevich are working together would be monumental. The two have been bitter rivals but at the Democratic National Convention in Denver were prodded into a public hug in an alleged show of unity.
The optimist says: This could be a good-faith effort among the state’s Democratic leaders to move ahead and put political gridlock behind them.
The skeptic says: Only the House is returning for a vote. The Senate is not, so this is a long way from being a deal. And the House is only considering the money-raising side of the equation, not the project-spending side that is sure to create its own controversies.
Instead of creating jobs, instead of working to expand access to health care, instead of building schools and fixing bridges and instead of protecting taxpayers from higher taxes, some lawmakers are more concerned with simply taking care of their own.
A drug treatment center in Elgin is laying off staff members and eliminating beds because of state budget cuts, the group that runs the center announced Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for Lutheran Social Services of Illinois said a $1.4 million state funding cut means five staff members in Elgin have been told their jobs are being eliminated.
The cuts also mean the halfway house and residential treatment programs at the Elgin site will each eliminate one bed. That could mean as many as 38 fewer people being treated between the two programs each year.
Lutheran Social Services, one of many agencies providing counseling and treatment on behalf of the state, announced Tuesday a total of 21 staff cuts between its programs in Elgin and Chicago and urged lawmakers to restore funding.
* Based on an inaccurate media report yesterday, I criticized a Republican proposal as “pandering in the extreme.” It’s actually not as extreme as we were led to believe…
The Illinois House’s top Republican said Tuesday he’s crafting legislation designed to stop the longtime practice of outgoing elected officials anointing their successors without any say from voters. […]
[House GOP Leader Tom Cross] said his bill is still being drafted but that if a seat were left vacant before June 30, a special primary election would be held within 70 days.
If a vacancy occurred after that date, party leaders would name a temporary candidate to fill the general election ballot spot.
But a special primary and special general election for the seat would be required if the temporary candidate won office.
The bill wouldn’t apply to congressional vacancies, but it would apply to statewides, legislators and Cook County.
The key change in the proposed law is that even if an officeholder decides to resign just before a general election, and hand her place on the ballot her child or other insider, there would still be a special primary and another election right after the general, so there would not be a full term.
It’s not clear that any of this will go anywhere. The Illinois State Senate president is Emil Jones, Jr., who just gave his state senate seat to his son, Emil Jones III.
* The Tribune ran an editorial yesterday about pending CTA fare hikes and blamed much of the problem on Gov. Rod Blagojevich…
More evidence came Monday that Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s efforts to buy off the electorate voter by voter come at a real, significant cost. The Chicago Transit Authority announced it will eliminate 80 more jobs. Fare increases and service cuts could be on tap for next year.
Why? Several reasons. But here’s a big one: Blagojevich insisted that the CTA and other state transit agencies give away their services to certain people.
Last week, Blagojevich signed a bill that requires public transit agencies to provide free rides for poor people who have disabilities. Earlier this year, he insisted on those agencies give free rides for senior citizens. (The Chicago City Council also got in the act, telling the CTA to give free rides to soldiers and disabled veterans.)
Meanwhile, Blagojevich has cut the state funding that transit agencies counted on to help pay for free and discounted transit rides. That’s putting a squeeze on the people who have to provide the services the governor loves to give away.
Providing free rides will cost the CTA $34.5 million in 2009. Blagojevich just took away $32 million in annual state subsidies to the CTA intended to offset reduced fares.
Daley is pointing at the free rides for seniors as a reason the CTA tightened its bureaucratic belt by another $40 million this week to lay the political groundwork for a fare hike and service cuts.
Daley said Tuesday the agency’s financial woes can be blamed partially on the governor’s veto of the state’s reduced fare subsidy, and his executive order mandating free rides for low-income people with disabilities. He said those problems were exacerbated by the Chicago City Council’s decision to extend the freebie to active military personnel and disabled veterans.
“To think that a $66 million program in a $1.2 billion budget is causing all this is hard to believe. It amounts to two-to-three-cents-a-rider. They’re using seniors as a scapegoat. It’s just not right. It’s not fair,” [Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero] said, suggesting that the CTA follow the state’s lead and cut jobs instead of raising fares.
Guerrero argued that the slumping real estate market, declining retail sales and rising fuel costs are even more responsible for the CTA’s budget crisis. The CTA expected the real estate transfer tax hike to produce $7 million in May. The actual take was $2.7 million, he said.
* Guerrero appears to be correct. According to the CTA itself, May sales tax receipts were $1.8 million below budget, and real estate transfer tax receipts were $4.3 million below the average monthly budgeted amount.
Those two factors alone work out to an annualized budget shortfall of $73.2 million.
By contrast, fare revenue continues to exceed budget due to higher ridership and a higher average fare.
In other words, they’re bringing in even more fare revenues than expected despite the free rides.
* The bottom line is this: Yes, the free rides and the governor’s veto of subsidies has probably hurt the CTA’s budget. But those factors don’t appear to be the sole or even the most significant source of the problem.
Disappointing tax receipts - from the stalled housing and retail economy along with people leaving Cook County to shop - appear to be the real problem here.
* Related…
* CTA plans comment sessions - Public can discuss good, bad about city’s transit agency
For some reason, the fax I sent out this morning didn’t process correctly, so I’m now resending to the entire list. You can scroll down for a text version if you can’t wait. Sorry about that. Hopefully, it won’t happen again.
Springfield has hosted conventions of every description from toothpick holder collectors on up, or on down, depending on your perspective. This weekend, in what is surely a first, we are hosting bloggers.
Staffers from the Illinois Bureau of Tourism have spent the last six months identifying and tracking down bloggers. The state has invited them to spend this weekend experiencing what Springfield has to offer. They expect about 10 to come to town.
Again, normally this would be an innovative step, even if the state has hired a gaint PR firm to handle the meetup and only about ten bloggers are planning to show. It takes time to develop a program like this, and, besides, why should dead tree reporters get all the attention?
Will this meetup also include a tour of the historic Lincoln and other sites that the state is closing down soon?
* The comment inspired a response…
Rich -
The itinerary does include a couple of the sites whose hours of operation are affected to some extent; however, all of those included in the itinerary remain open to the public for at least one day a week.
The Illinois Bureau of Tourism (IBOT) continues to promote the sites affected, and encourages travelers to explore these and other area attractions.
* The FB meetup page still includes a stop at the Dana-Thomas House, which is closing its doors on October 1st. It won’t “remain open to the public for at least one day a week.”
An early itinerary for this weekend included showing the bloggers the Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site. That turned out to be unfortunate, considering that the house will close on Oct. 1. Instead, blogger weekend will focus more on Springfield’s Lincoln sites and restaurants.
“Unfortunate” is right.
* What we have here is a public relations push for Illinois tourism at exactly the same time that the governor and the General Assembly are combining to devastate Illinois tourism in areas throughout Downstate Illinois. Also, I want to make this as clear as I can: The PR firm isn’t to blame, and neither is the tourism agency. They’re doing what they do.
But it would be nice if the bloggers who attend (I have lots of family members coming to town this weekend so I probably won’t be able to make it, but I might) would ask some pointed questions about the site closures and how this will impact tourism.
— Dana-Thomas House, Springfield
— Lincoln log cabin near Charleston
— David Davis mansion, Bloomington
— Fort de Chartres, Randolph County
— Vandalia statehouse
— State center at Bishop Hill, Henry County
— Carl Sandburg birthplace, Galesburg
— Cahokia courthouse
— Bryant Cottage, Bement
— Jubilee College, near Peoria
— Apple River Fort, Elizabeth
— Fort Kaskaskia, Randolph County
— Pierre Menard home, Randolph County
* Related…
* Kickapoo concerns dominate Vermilion County Board meeting
David Hartke, president of the Illinois Counties Solid Waste Management Association, urged that pharmacies be required to take back unused medications and to dispose of them by incineration.
“It would be ideal to have pharmacies take back all substances,” he said.
But Garrett also took Hartke to task.
“I feel like you are passing the buck and everyone is saying, ‘Let’s have so-and-so take care of it,’” she said. “Our goal is to work with each entity in a collaborative way.”
A candidate seeking the highest law enforcement job in Cook County ought to be the first to distance himself from even potentially misleading campaign propaganda. And this flier goes beyond “potentially.”
Instead of ceasing and desisting, Peraica has responded to the U.S. attorney with . . . an invitation to lunch. So far, no response.
Mr. Peraica, quit trying to be clever. This stunt doesn’t inspire confidence that you’d be a judicious prosecutor—or that you’d enjoy the respect and cooperation of the U.S. attorney’s office.
Fitzgerald doesn’t want to be a prop on your flier, and he won’t be a prop at lunch. Better to apologize, recall the misleading fliers—and put all half-million out for recycling.
Richard Means, a campaign-finance attorney, said an organization that raises at least $3,000 for a candidate has 10 days to register with the state as a political committee. As of Tuesday, the X Company had not registered, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections’ Web site.
Two years ago, John Kosiba was the highest-ranking City of Chicago official to testify how he helped rig city jobs to reward the mayor’s political workers. Now, Kosiba is facing the loss of his law license as a result of that testimony.
The solution is so simple. New mothers have up to seven days to leave their babies at hospitals, police stations, staffed fire stations and emergency medical care facilities — no questions asked. It’s the result of a law drafted on Dawn Geras’ dining room table, and her tenacity got it passed.
“We want Illinois to be a leader when it comes to keeping credit card companies off campuses,” he said.
The legislation would ban credit issuers from offering free gifts when marketing credit cards on campuses.
“I know a lot of you college students are not happy about (not receiving) free gifts,” Giannoulias said to the crowd. “But over the long term, you’ll be grateful.”
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Tuesday announced $4 million in state financial assistance toward development of a $275 million ethanol production facility in Madison.
“He doesn’t have full range of motion yet,” Halvorson said. “This is what rehabilitation is going to take care of. The doctors say in nine to 12 months, he’ll be 100 percent.”
