* 2:47 pm - I just got these fresh numbers from the first round of bids to operate the long-dormant 10th casino license. Backgrounders are linked on each project…
None of these are as high as many had hoped, but Rosemont at the top has to make some people squirm. The state, including Attorney General Lisa Madigan, spent years fighting a license for the town. This is a new bidder, however.
There will be another round of bidding after the field is winnowed down to three.
A Cook County judge today issued a fresh order banning state officials from making payments under Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s expanded health care program.
And Judge James Epstein added that the time has come for officials to explain how they intend to comply. […]
The legislature repeated turned down efforts to expand state health insurance for the needy. Despite that, the Blagojevich administration enlarged the state’s FamilyCare program anyway, leading to a court challenge. […]
On Wednesday, Epstein renewed his order and refused to stay it pending possible appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, saying a blueprint for compliance was now his top priority. [emphasis added]
* 2:53 pm - Moved here from a different post. Report by the AP…
The Illinois Supreme Court says a review of how to fix inaccuracies on the November ballot should be decided by an appellate court.
The Chicago Bar Association, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn and others asked the high court to directly reverse the remedy for the faulty ballot because so little time remains before the Nov. 4 election. But the court turned down that plan. […]
The bar association and Quinn want ballots themselves fixed. An appellate court hearing is scheduled later in the day.
* Buried down deep in this otherwise non-news story is this prediction from state Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Evanston)…
She predicted that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan will run for governor, and as part of the run, her stepfather, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, will step down.
I don’t think Rep. Hamos knows the final decision. I asked Madigan about that once several months ago. I mentioned to him that lots of people believed he should step aside if his daughter ran for governor. His response was unprintable, but definitely on the negative side.
Also, MJM isn’t Lisa’s stepfather. She’s adopted. He’s her father.
The Illinois House of Representatives has canceled half of an upcoming veto session.
Word of the change came Tuesday in a memo from House Speaker Michael Madigan that didn’t give an explanation.
Madigan’s spokesman, Steve Brown, says lawmakers already addressed business that would’ve been handled in the November session. He says they’ve returned repeatedly to Springfield since the spring session ended in May.
House members will still return from Nov. 19-21. The Nov. 12-14 session was dropped.
Cindy Davidsmeyer, spokeswoman for Senate President Emil Jones, says the Senate also could alter its schedule, but that hasn’t been decided.
“We are disappointed by this announcement because there are real issues out there that are still unresolved, including autism,” said spokesman Brian Williamsen.
Blagojevich supports a plan that would require insurers to provide coverage for autism treatment.
* If you’re a state or local government employee or retiree, and you have access to the Intertubes, then chances are you’ve received a variation of the following e-mail…
(I)f people vote yes to have a new Illinois Constitution then ALL PENSIONERS RECEIVING A PENSION FROM ANY GOVERNMENTAL UNIT IN ILLINOIS WILL BE IN SEVERE JEAPORDY OF HAVING THE CONSTITUTIONAL GUARANTEES OF RECEIVING THOSE PENSIONS PAID REMOVED AND THEIR PENSIONS WILL BE IN JEAPORDY.
Everyone receiving a pension and their spouses who reside in Illinois should VOTE NO regarding the proposed Constitutional Convention. EVERYONE, whether residing in Illinois or anywhere else, should advise their family and friends who live in Illinois to VOTE NO regarding the Constitutional Convention.
We have fought very hard over the years to secure our pensions. Government mismanagement is rampant in the State of Illinois. The State Pension Funds are among the lowest in the country. They cannot get their hands on our pensions under the present Constitution.
About a year ago, Lisa Vessi and I won a huge case, IOVINELLI vs. FRANKLIN PARK, which ruled that the municipality is required to fund the firefighters pension according to the funding statute (section 4-118). It means we can at long last enforce funding. In a federal case stemming from that case, the court ruled that insurance companies are NOT LIABLE for the attorney fees run up by municipalities is fighting pension funding. Since then towns such as Alton, Illinois and others have been settling their funding cases.
If our present Constitution is terminated all will be lost because the government will then be able to amend the funding statute and really underpay the pension funds. Hope this helps you understand the gravity of the situation.
* The original letter was sent by Palatine attorney C. John McCauley. It’s been forwarded countless times, and several people have sent it to me.
I was able to get ahold of McCauley yesterday.
* Did he really believe that current pension recipients would be in “severe jeopardy” of losing their guaranteed pension payments?
We danced around quite a bit over semantics, but McCauley maintained that if a constitutional convention is held, then the provision in the current constitution guaranteeing benefits will “absolutely” be eliminated. I asked why he was so certain of that end result. McCauley said the nation’s current economic woes all but assured that a con-con would strip or alter the consitutional provision.
Membership in any pension or retirement system of the State, any unit of local government or school district, or any agency or instrumentality thereof, shall be an enforceable contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired.
* The teachers unions - which are probably the most heavily against a convention - aren’t even claiming that current retirees will lose their pension payment benefits if the above language is deleted or altered, so why, I asked McCauley again, would he use that “severe jeopardy” language?
McCauley said there would be no guarantee what happens if the case goes to court. A judge could uphold contractual obligations made under the current constitution, or not. McCauley claimed that no state had ever changed its constitution in the way he fears will happen here, so the courts could do just about anything.
* My own opinion is he’s engaging in over the top fear mongering.
But, as I wrote the other day, I don’t personally blame state employees and even retirees for being against a con-con. I can understand their fear. I just don’t agree with it.
While I do not totally dismiss [the opponents’] stated concerns, which range from the cost of a convention to the possibility of special-interest wackos hijacking the process, I would first submit to you my own interpretation of what could persuade so many individuals and groups from such diverse situations to come to the same conclusion.
Simply put, these are the powers that be. They’re comfortable with the way things are.
They’ve got their share of the power and the ability to exert their will on the process. Everything doesn’t always go their way, but they have a seat at the table, and with that comes a certain level of predictability about what influence they can have on public policy.
Their common worry is that if the wrong people — people from outside the normal channels — are allowed an opportunity to tinker with the state Constitution, it might upset that balance of power and put them at a disadvantage.
What you might want to consider, then, is whether you’re as satisfied with the status quo as them. I’m not.
* From a Martin Ozinga congressional campaign press release…
This morning, the Ozinga campaign was notified that the Vice President will not be able to attend today’s scheduled reception at Marty Ozinga’s home. The campaign is referring all media inquiries to the Vice President’s press office
* The campaign did take at least one call, however…
Seré did not know the specific reason for the cancellation, and was unsure whether the $500-per-person luncheon would go on without the vice president or be rescheduled.
* From the VP’s office…
STATEMENT FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT’S PRESS SECRETARY MEGAN MITCHELL
Vice President Cheney will no longer attend a campaign event for Marty Ozinga in Homer Glen, IL today.
During a visit with his doctors this morning, it was discovered that the Vice President is experiencing a recurrence of atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the heart.
Later this afternoon, the Vice President will visit George Washington University Hospital for an outpatient procedure to restore his normal rhythm.
Do a Google news search on Ozinga’s name now, and hundreds of news stories pop up from news outlets across the country and around the world. Previously, an Ozinga search would pop up only a few local news stories.
Cheney is going in for an outpatient procedure this afternoon to fix an irregular heart beat. Since these outlets are reporting on Cheney’s health, it logically makes sense to report the Ozinga connection as well.
The potential good for Ozinga:his name is being circulated on an international level.
The potential bad: his name is now linked on an international level with Cheney, who is quite unpopular at the moment.
North Shore Democratic congressional candidate Dan Seals’ campaign on Tuesday defended using an Iraq War veteran with ties to the 9/11 conspiracy movement in a new TV ad attacking Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk for supporting the war.
Seals spokeswoman Elisabeth Smith said she didn’t “really see what is so controversial” about using Caleb Davis in the ad. Davis, 25, is a Peoria native who spent five months in Iraq as an Army diver and got an honorable discharge in 2004.
Last June, the Peoria Journal Star reported that Davis wore a black T-shirt proclaiming “Investigate 9/ 11@911truth.org” while sitting at a table at a Peoria library where books, fliers and DVDs supporting conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks were on display. The organization argues the government’s version of the terrorist attacks is fraudulent and offers a “Top 40 Reasons to Doubt the Official Story” and an “Official Coverup Guide.”
Kirk, who was in the Pentagon when the airplane crashed into it Sept. 11, 2001, called on Seals to stop airing the ad.
* Meanwhile, the AP has a new story on GOP congresscritter hopeful Aaron Schock…
Aaron Schock, a Republican state lawmaker making a strong bid for an open U.S. House seat in central Illinois, once notarized documents with false dates while helping his parents set up tax shelters, his own father testified in federal court.
The backdating raises the possibility Schock committed official misconduct, a misdemeanor under state law.
The issue came up in the July trial of three people accused of selling sham trusts and financial packages. The Schocks were victims of the scheme and were accused of no wrongdoing.
There is no indication that Schock or his parents benefited financially from using the incorrect date, and Schock’s father testified that he used it because that was when he first set up the tax shelters. In an interview with The Associated Press, Schock did not dispute his father’s testimony.
Callahan says the document raises questions about her rival’s conduct and judgment. Schock says the controversy is all part of a political ploy to make his campaign look bad.
Area political pundits are torn as to what effect the information about state Rep. Aaron Schock notarizing documents with false dates could have on his current bid for Congress.
But they agree the timing - just three weeks before the three-way race for the open 18th Congressional District seat - is not good.
“It’s terrible timing for him, but it’s maybe not as bad as it could be because there’s time to put up an explanation,” said Brian Gaines, a professor at the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs. “It sounds like it’s something he could certainly need to explain and could potentially throw him off track.”
I guarantee that if Schock were the underdog in this race, and there was undisputed court testimony saying Colleen Callahan fudged a date on documents, in apparent violation of state law, Schock’s campaign Steve Shearer would be whispering the ear of every reporter in the 18th District.
* Democrat Jill Morgenthaler has a clever new Internet ad slamming Republican incumbent Peter Roskam over his position on in vitro fertilization…
* Related…
* Council defers talk on charging for dignitary visits
* Marty Ozinga: “I still feel like I’m middle class”
* Mayor Daley’s brief government “shutdown” proposal is naturally getting a lot of media play…
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley wants to close government offices for a few days to help balance the city’s budget. He says the partial shutdown would help address a $469 million deficit.
Daley says most city offices would close for 3 days around the holidays this year and next.
Emergency services would not be effected. Daley says he’s doing his best to balance the budget during tough times.
The six-day shutdown will save $20 million, according to the Daley administration. The mayor hopes to save another $42 million by eliminating vacancies and putting in other cost-saving efforts.
Daley said he would refrain from filling 1,350 vacancies on the 38,000-strong city payroll, accounting for $29 million of that total.
There will still be layoffs, although the mayor declined to say how many. Daley previously has estimated that the city would let go more than 1,000 workers.
Labor unions that represent the vast majority of the city’s work force recently rejected a proposal from the Daley administration that their members take five unpaid days off work each year for the next four years.
Lou Phillips, business manager of Laborers Union Local 1001, branded the partial shutdown a “backdoor furlough” that would cost his members 12 days of pay — not six — through 2009.
“In our contract, our members have to work the day before and the day after a holiday to get paid for it. So in effect, he’s taking away two days pay [for each day of shutdown] unless he agrees to pay the members for the holiday without working the day after,” he said.
“It’s a backdoor furlough. You’re shutting down city business. I don’t know if he can do that legally. The members are losing money. It’s not their fault. They have a job to do. At General Motors, they have no cars to make because nobody’s buying them. Everybody’s still throwing garbage out.”
With no garbage pick-ups on the day after Thanksgiving, Phillips also warned that Chicago alleys would stink to high heavens.
It might not seem like it after last year’s record $83.4 million increase, but fear of political backlash has prompted Daley to keep Chicago’s property tax levy unrealistically low. He should have raised taxes a little bit every year to keep pace with rising costs.
Union contracts
After his 2007 re-election campaign got the cold shoulder from all but one labor union, Daley cozied up to organized labor in a way that guaranteed labor peace through the 2016 Olympics. The 10-year contract with members of the building trades locked in the prevailing wage paid to their counterparts in private industry
The cost of corruption
It’s not easy to calculate the cost of the Hired Truck, city hiring, minority contracting, Building and Zoning bribery, police corruption and garbage collection slacker scandals. But rest assured Chicagoans pay a heavy price.
Inspector General David Hoffman has pegged the annual cost of refuse collection waste alone at $20 million.
Cook County judges on Tuesday began using a new court document for foreclosure evictions that specifically names tenants living at the foreclosed property and states how long they are allowed to remain in units — the length of their lease or 120 days, which ever is shorter — before deputies haul out their belongings.
The new language in court eviction orders aims to quell Dart’s concern that renters might not get proper notice their landlord had lost the property in foreclosure.
But Dart isn’t backing off his no-eviction pledge just yet.
Under the plan, the Toll Authority will introduce “Green Lanes” into the busiest segments of the tollways. The idea is to reduce congestion and create “free-flow” lanes that would reduce braking and acceleration, thereby cutting emissions.
A collection of politically connected firms handpicked by Cook County President Todd Stroger’s administration is set to reap the profits from fees associated with the sale of $364 million in bonds up for board consideration today
Mesirow Financial, whose chairman, James Tyree, is chairman of the City Colleges of Chicago, was selected as the lead financial adviser on the sale of $260 million in self-insurance bonds.
Those bonds will be managed by a group of companies with strong local political ties, including:
• • J.P. Morgan Chase, whose Midwest chairman is William Daley Sr., Mayor Daley’s brother.
• • George K. Baumn, which employs Tony Fratto, brother of Stroger’s chief of staff, Joseph Fratto. […]
Burke, Burns and Pinelli, which employs state Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park), was selected as the underwriter’s counsel for the sale of $104.1 million in pension fund bonds.
Mayor Daley’s nephew Robert Vanecko said Tuesday that he and his business partners no longer plan to invest city pension funds in a proposed Chicago Housing Authority development along the south lakefront
In the coming year, one government agency will lead the charge in what could be an ambitious effort to clean up the waterways of the Chicago area, beginning with smarter ways to divert clean rainwater from our sewage system.
* Google News shows 29,061 mentions of the phrase “Main Street” in connection with the phrase “Wall Street” within news articles during the past two weeks.
How downright homespun of them.
Anyway, onto the roundup…
* The Daily Herald has yet another article about how Jim Oberweis has gone from riding in a black helicopter over Soldier Field to being Mr. Nice Guy…
[Oberweis campaign manager David From] recognizes Oberweis hasn’t been the most popular guy in the Illinois Republican Party. Attack-filled primary campaigns have been the norm in just about all the contests Oberweis has competed. That’s where timing comes in again, From believes. With no primary in this November contest, From said he believes Republicans in the district will have had sufficient time to get over any grudges lingering about their favored candidates not making the cut.
From said that at the start of the campaign, Republicans in the district gathered with Oberweis for a gripe session where not everything said was easy for Oberweis to hear. But it provided the tools for a makeover. Indeed, perhaps Dennis Hastert summed it up best when he openly told Oberweis in the news media that he needed to revamp his image.
That started with redirecting public attention on the issues. Immigration is still a hot-button issue for Oberweis, but it hasn’t played as prominent a role in the campaign as in other races, largely because of the economy taking center stage. While that’s bad for most Republicans this year, Oberweis has used it to position himself as the guy with the business and investment acumen to do the right thing at the right time.
In fact, the Oberweis campaign has tried to make the economy the one and only issue in the race. Recently, Oberweis told voters at a forum to vote for Foster if they think he and Congress got the $700 billion bailout package right. If not, they should vote for Oberweis. […]
In other words, there will be no helicopters or chicken feathers in this race. Indeed, the campaign doesn’t expect much help from the Republican Party nationally or locally to fund much advertisement at all. Instead, the approach to winning will be a hard line on the economy and a soft serve on the attacks that’s gotten Oberweis in trouble in the past.
“I haven’t changed,” Oberweis said. “I hope the perception of me has changed.”
As I told you yesterday, Charlie Cook has moved this race from from Lean Democratic to Likely Democratic.
Ozinga has campaigned on a platform proclaiming “I am not a politician,” while the Democrats have tried to link his policies to those of President George Bush.
Doesn’t the Cheney connection only add fuel to that fire and stymie the “I am not a politician” mantra? Sere doesn’t think so.
“In response to Debbie Halvorson’s attacks, I would say, I think voters are smart enough to see the real issue in the campaign is not what the vice president is doing for Marty’s campaign but what Debbie Halvorson has done for Rod Blagojevich at the expense of working families in the 11th District for a number of years,” Sere said.
In response, Halvorson’s campaign noted it was Ozinga who has given $23,000 to Blagojevich’s campaign throughout the years, including a $10,000 donation for a meeting with the governor to discuss concerns over statewide construction projects.
It’s so nice seeing both sides sticking to the issues in that campaign. lol
Republican Rep. Judy Biggert’s opponent criticizes her for first opposing the $700 billion bailout package but later supporting a revised version.
Democratic Rep. Bill Foster, who was sent to Congress in March through a special election, backed both versions of the bailout and faces an opponent - Jim Oberweis, a Sugar Grove businessman who made a fortune as an investment manager - with the money for a last-minute advertising blitz to make an issue of the votes. Oberweis said he would have voted against either incarnation.
And Rep. Peter Roskam, a freshman Republican, opposed the measure from beginning to end. His challenger, Jill Morgenthaler (D-Des Plaines), says she would have backed the bailout, reluctantly, because something had to be done to prevent an economic catastrophe.
Biggert’s challenger, former Chicago businessman Scott Harper (D-Lockport), sees the Hinsdale incumbent’s vote to be an asset to his own campaign. Harper, given little chance of winning on traditionally GOP turf in Chicago’s suburbs, said the five-term congresswoman has struck out in dealing with the nation’s worsening economic crisis.
The candidate with the most opportunity to make something of this bailout vote appears to be Oberweis, mainly because he’ll have the dough to finance the TV ads.
* Something to keep in mind when you hear all this talk about “swing” or “undecided” voters…
(M)any of those who claim to be undecided are not. Some don’t want to admit their preference. In their paper, “Swing Voters? Hah!” political scientists Adam Clymer and Ken Winneg amassed substantial data suggesting that very few undecided voters are truly indecisive. Examining the 2004 election, Clymer and Winneg found that even the most hard-core of undecided voters were fairly predictable.
They asked the 4% of their sample that claimed to be undecided to rate the two candidates in early October. When they went back to the same people after the election, more than 80% had in fact voted for whichever candidate they’d rated most highly a month earlier.
What this could mean is that pollsters who push their respondents the hardest to make a choice (which is generally the automated polls like the highly successful SurveyUSA) may be the most accurate at predicting the eventual results because the vast majority of undecideds really aren’t undecided.
* Another point from the same piece…
Examining nine presidential elections, [James Campbell, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Buffalo] compared the size of the swing vote (defined here as voters with weak leanings before the heat of the campaign) with the size of the non-swing vote. Swing voters are known to be a minority of the population, but it turns out that they’re not a particularly decisive minority. “In only one of the nine elections, the 1976 race between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter,” writes Campbell, “did the swing vote majority override an opposite majority among non-swing voters.”
In other words, in eight of the last nine elections, the winner could have lost swing voters but won the race. In a second test, which examined voters who were undecided at a later point in the race, Campbell found that the last campaign in which they were decisive was 1960.
McCain advisers say they’re saving their best material for the last ten days of the race, when, the campaign hopes, three quarters of the remaining undecided voters will make up their minds, and their minds will be concentrating on Barack Obama. When the urgency of the presidential election impresses itself, the hope is that these voters will swing back to the familiar, rather than the unknown.
They’d better have enough cash and message discipline to burn that in. So far, it doesn’t look like they have either. But, whatever floats your boat, man.
The hype surrounding the Bradley Effect has evolved to where some political pundits believe in 2008 that Obama must win in the national pre-election polls by 6-9 points before he can be assured a victory.
That’s absurd. There won’t be a 6-9 point Bradley Effect — there can’t be, since few national polls show a large enough amount of undecided voters and it’s in the undecided column where racism supposedly hides.
Bottom line: Since all undecideds are not racists, any “Bradley Effect” will not impact the outcome, as current polls stand.
Even though Tom Bradley had been slightly ahead in the polls in 1982, due to sampling error, it was statistically too close to call. For example, the daily Tarrance and Associates tracking polls for the Deukmejian campaign showed the following weekly summations (N=1000 each) during the month of October:
But what about exit polls from that election day which showed Bradley far ahead?
Bradley actually won on election day turnout, but lost the absentee vote so badly that Deukmejian pulled ahead to win.
…ADDING MORE… What about Ronald Reagan’s big 1980 comeback? Not so much…
A post-election summary of polls by then-CBS News pollster Warren Mitofsky shows that at no point over the final two weeks did Carter have a lead bigger than three percentage points. There is a published Gallup poll not included in that report showing Carter up six among likely voters in a poll conducted Oct. 24 to 27. Whether six or the eight points cited today, Carter’s advantage in Gallup polling was offset by similarly large Reagan leads in NBC-Associated Press or DMI (Reagan’s pollsters) polls.
The bottom line is that there was no evident momentum for either candidate as the 1980 presidential election neared its completion. That is until Reagan’s breakthrough debate performance.
* Illinois political history shows no signs of any Bradley Effect in any major political contests dating back to Harold Washington’s 1983 mayoral victory. This year, though, it’s the Rod & Todd Effect which most troubles Democrats…
Rep. Tom Cross said Illinois Republicans think they can clip the coattails of Barack Obama here in his own home state. They are reminding voters that should Obama move to the White House, several other local Democrats will stay behind to run things in Springfield and Chicago.
“Not only Governor Blagojevich, Speaker Madigan and Emil Jones have done things, Todd Stroger has done an awful job at Cook County government,” Cross said. “But as you move down that ballot, you say to yourself, ‘What? Why another Democrat in the Illinois General Assembly? It makes no sense.’”
Republican polling shows Obama running strongly in suburbs around Chicago. It also shows Gov. Blagojevich and Cook County Board President Todd Stroger are extraordinarily unpopular.
But Cross appeared to admit to CBS 2 that McCain’s negative campaign against Obama wasn’t helping his efforts to hold onto GOP seats here, and advised a retooling.
* The Obama Effect is what’s keeping Illinois Republicans awake at night…
Suburban folks flooded polling places in Democratic strongholds including Orland Park, South Holland and Evanston. By 5 p.m., 7,616 suburban residents had cast ballots, county election officials said. That’s nearly five times the record turnout on the first day of early voting — 1,591 early votes cast on Jan. 14 before the February primary.
In Chicago, voters cast nearly 11,735 ballots — nearly three times the record for first-day early voting. Monday’s turnout was just short of the single-day early voting record of 11,971, which came on the last day of early voting before the February primary.
“Normally, we don’t see a number like this until the last four days of early voting,” Chicago elections board spokesman James Allen said.
* Obama is running TV and radio ads on Chicago network channels to boost his Indiana effort. That will undoubtedly run up his suburban vote. Whether the down-ballot candidates can attach themselves to his coattails is the big question, however…
“I don’t think it’s going to be quite the wipeout that maybe we feared a few months ago,” said former Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican.
Here’s a bit of free public relations advice to Gov. Blagojevich, boiled down to three words.
Release the checks.
We’re talking about the recent furor that erupted over a Chicago Sun-Times report that federal agents are investigating whether the governor’s former key fund-raiser, Tony Rezko, paid for all or part of a $90,000 rehab on the governor’s Northwest Side home.
Rezko is now a felon after being convicted of political corruption. The work on the governor’s home happened in 2003, right after Rezko successfully placed his cronies on state boards that control big-money deals.
You can see why this might raise questions.
Blagojevich insists he paid for all the work done on the house, but he won’t release copies of the checks proving it. Nor has he has been clear why he won’t.
Maybe he feels it’s an invasion of privacy. Or that it’s nobody’s business. Or, in the worst case scenario, he can’t produce the checks because Rezko, in fact, did pay for some or all of the work.
We don’t know the answer to that question, but one thing is clear: This issue isn’t going away.
Seriously, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Just release the checks. What harm could it possibly do?
* Tomorrow at 4:30 pm I will be hosting a debate on the merits of a Constitutional Convention for my master’s program in conjunction with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs.
The debate will feature two experts on state politics and governance, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn and Kevin Semlow, director of state legislation for the Illinois Farm Bureau. It will be held in Room 100 of Gregory Hall, 810 S. Wright St., on the Urbana-Champaign campus. Admission is free and the event is open to the public.
* If you’re in the area come on by. To view the press release click here.
The latest chapter in Illinois’ long-running saga to open a casino in the Chicago suburbs will begin to unfold this week as regulators move forward with plans to reissue the state’s only dormant gambling license by year’s end.
The decade of delay, however, could cost the state millions as companies weigh the value of a gambling license amid a faltering economy in a state with a new indoor smoking ban and high casino taxes. […]
Waukegan, Des Plaines, Country Club Hills and Calumet City all have business partners submitting bids for the license by Tuesday’s deadline, and the Illinois Gaming Board plans to announce the full list of those vying for a casino on Wednesday.
Former Illinois inmates exonerated of wrongdoing now have another recourse after enduring long delays for clemency decisions by the governor.
Lawyers at Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions plan to take advantage Wednesday of a new law that allows the exonerated to circumvent the governor and file for certificates of innocence directly from circuit courts.
Previously, those who were wrongfully convicted needed the governor’s pardon to obtain compensation for their time in prison, even if their convictions had been thrown out. As a result, many waited years for Gov. Rod Blagojevich—who had amassed a sizable backlog of petitions—to make a clemency decision.
Amtrak ridership topped 1 million passengers in the past year for the first time in at least three decades on routes between Chicago and Downstate cities, the railroad reported today.
In addition, Amtrak trains between Chicago and Milwaukee carried about 750,000 riders, a 25 percent increase from a year earlier
City Hall has canceled supply contracts worth tens of millions of dollars with a Chicago company after an investigation concluded the firm failed to hire minority and women-owned businesses listed as subcontractors
The fall season is here and the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) want to remind motorists that deer are more active during the fall, which increases the likelihood of vehicle crashes involving deer.
With a Wednesday, October 15 deadline looming, AARP is working hard with the IRS to get the message out and help people get their money before it’s too late. Nearly 70% of those who haven’t filed in Illinois are over the age of 65. Since the summer, AARP has undertaken an aggressive effort to ensure people have the facts they need to claim the stimulus rebate money. On October 7, nearly 10,000 individuals connected online with U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, AARP State Director Bob Gallo and IRS leaders, in a Tele Town Hall to get critical information on how to claim their $300-$600 federal rebate checks.
Twelve hundred workers at the GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, learned Monday that the factory will close in December. The plant is one of GM’s oldest, it makes full size SUVs, like the GMC Yukon and the Chevy Tahoe.
Chris Lee is a spokesman for the automaker.
I’m a member of a union. My father was a proud union member. His father was a union member and, for a time, a union organizer. I own a business. My maternal grandparents, whom I cherished more than anyone else when I was a kid, were farmers. My mother was a public school teacher for several years. Both of my parents are now retired and rely heavily on their government pensions.
What the heck does any of that have to do with anything?
Well, unions, business groups, the Illinois Farm Bureau and, most of all, groups representing retired public employees and retirees are all up in arms about the upcoming state constitutional convention referendum.
Every 20 years, Illinois voters are given the right to call for a constitutional convention. And all those aforementioned groups want you to vote “no” next month for various reasons.
I’m on the other side. I want you to vote “yes,” but because of my personal history, I’m often a bit puzzled to find myself on the other side of this issue.
The union people are worried about the introduction of a right-to-work provision, or other erosions of their hard-fought gains in this state.
Business groups fret that a constitutional convention could come up with crazy liberal ideas, or mess with the way income taxes can be levied on businesses.
The farm bureau sees reason for concern in the very nature of Illinois politics. The convention, they warn, would be “stacked in favor of urban areas.” Farmers’ property taxes are lower than residential rates, for instance, and that might go out the window.
Public employee and teachers unions and associated retiree groups are probably the most intense in their opposition, however. That’s probably because their members may have the most to lose.
Two years ago, Gov. Rod Blagojevich attempted to reduce pension benefits for future state and local public employees and teachers. Senate President Emil Jones, his only real ally, backed him up. House Speaker Michael Madigan, who doesn’t get along with Blagojevich, announced his keen interest in the governor’s plan. The unions freaked, and it took a huge effort to defeat the proposal.
The unions and retirees figured that if “friendly” politicians who had accepted millions of dollars in campaign contributions from them had turned against their interests so quickly, then a constitutional convention, which can’t possibly be controlled as easily as the General Assembly, would be an absolute nightmare.
They’re right. The state’s underfunded pension systems are draining the state budget at an alarming rate, causing outcries of reform from numerous corners. And then there are those who regularly whip up public resentment by pointing to the average Joe taxpayer, who has no guaranteed pension benefits for life. A constitutional convention may very well address this issue.
However, some of the retirees have unfortunately resorted to distortions, brazen fear tactics and outright lies to frighten pensioners into voting “no.”
Let me clear up a few things.
No matter what happens at the constitutional convention, state and local governments cannot legally reduce pension payments to current retirees. A convention cannot legally take away pension payment benefits already earned by current employees. The chances are nil that the delegates would do anything weird such as force the combination of the Chicago teachers pension fund and the downstate teachers pension fund.
And, of course, everything decided at the constitutional convention would have to then be approved by the voters in a statewide referendum.
A convention could, however, change a few words in the current constitution that would allow the General Assembly to eventually make changes, such as reduce future pension benefits, including health care benefits, for current workers or workers yet to be hired. But it’s highly improbable that the convention delegates themselves would micromanage pension funding proposals.
Personally, I wouldn’t blame public employees and teachers for voting “no” on the constitutional convention question. On the other hand, I think most, maybe not all, of those other groups mentioned above are probably overstating their case.
But, for me, there are just too many other issues - like the power hoarded by the very few at the expense of the many - which so desperately need addressing in this state to pass on this once in a generation opportunity. The people need to take back their constitution for themselves. So, please, vote “yes” on the constitutional convention. Thanks.
Public-sector retirement benefits are not as rosy as one might think. After all, many public employees, such as teachers, are not eligible for Social Security and government employees oftentimes have paid in more toward their retirements than others.
But in a world of sound bite political campaigns, expect those facts to get lost in the mix.
The perceived retirement disparities between government workers and everyone else are ripe for political exploitation. (The only other option would be for politicians to own up to their own irresponsibility — which will happen when pigs fly.)
Illinois taxpayers owe almost $10,000 per household in teacher and state employees’ pension payments. That shortfall will have to be made up somehow.
It’s a sad situation, but one ripe for political exploitation.
* The proponents of the convention referendum are trying to leapfrog the appellate court and go right to the Illinois Supremes…
Undeterred by a Cook County judge’s ruling that the constitutional convention question will appear on the Illinois ballot as drafted — mistakes and all — Con-Con proponents have appealed to the state’s highest court to intervene on behalf of voters.
With only three weeks until Election Day, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn and the Chicago Bar Association (CBA) are petitioning both the Illinois Supreme Court and Appellate Court to reverse Cook County Judge Nathaniel Howse Jr.’s recent decision on the matter. Howse found the Con-Con ballot language to be both “misleading and false,” but decided it was too late to do anything but distribute flyers at the polling places with better wording, as well as a warning to disregard the language on the ballot.
The plaintiffs would rather see a separate paper ballot issued for the Con-Con question. This idea, however, has drawn opposition from state election authorities who say that dealing with a hand-count of upwards of 8 million ballots would be a nightmare.
Contrary to articles written by Shaw Newspapers in recent weeks, the question as to whether voters want a constitutional convention will not be on a separate ballot, but on the same ballot as everything else.
Where did the newspaper get the incorrect information on the procedure for amending the 1970 Illinois Constitution? The 1970 Illinois Constitution, Article 14, Section 1(c): “The vote on whether to call a Convention shall be on a separate ballot.”
The straightforward statement in the document where the buck stops for Illinois law and government begs an important question — could the losing side challenge the constitutionality of the vote? […]
Everyone interviewed for this story — all of whom have law degrees — agreed that the language of Article 14 opens up the possibility of a legal challenge. But they said they hoped no one would do that.
“Any citizen can challenge anything they want on a convention or an election,” said Nancy Kaszak, spokeswoman for the anti-convention Alliance to Protect the Illinois Constitution. “But the question is, would they get past the motion to dismiss?”
