* Mother’s Day is this weekend, so I’m looking forward to seeing my mom. Also, my brother Doug is coming up from Texas and we’re going to the Sox/Rangers game. Should be a good one.
Authorities say winds that reached 100 mph and included possible tornadoes snapped trees and downed power lines in southern Illinois.
Carbondale Township Fire Capt. Mark Black says trees are down and siding from homes is strewn everywhere. He says his firefighters are cutting trees out of the roadway so they can get their trucks out.
My brother Devin lives near Carbondale and my mom just called to say his house is wrecked. He wasn’t home at the time, thank goodness. Neighbors have lost roofs and the roads are jammed.
* 3:33 pm - “My neighborhood is a disaster area,” Devin just said. “This is insane, man.” Part of his house, which is in Carterville, actually separated from the rest of his house. His house was surrounded by very tall trees and now they’re almost all gone.
Devin said he drove 45 miles home from a meeting and there were trees down and damage the entire way.
Rep. John Bradley was just on local radio and said he has already called the governor to seek assistance.
“Carbondale, Marion, everywhere, there’s no power,” Devin said.
* 3:38 pm - Two reported deaths in Missouri, but nothing yet in Illinois, thankfully…
A TV station in Carterville, Ill., has suffered damage to its roof and has gone off the air temporarily, KFVS reported on its Twitter feed.
Illinois State Police have reports of storm damage in seven counties. Police are reporting tornados in Jackson and Perry counties.
According to the National Weather Service, winds were blowing between 70 and 90 miles per hour in the area at midday Friday. And wind gusts near the southern Illinois community of Carbondale reached 100 miles per hour.
*** 3:51 pm *** Rep. John Bradley described the storm as a “hurricane.” His own house lost its roof and he’s out now with neighbors trying to clear the roads.
“We need state resources down here. It’s a disaster area,” Bradley told me. He said Gov. Quinn’s office is “on top of it, I think,” but he added, “We need help. There’s a lot of damage.”
Bradley also said he was sure the locals would accept any sort of assistance from central Illinois communities that can spare it.
* An official with Gov. Quinn’s office says they’re on top of things and are now working on an official disaster declaration. IEMA is coordinating with locals and the guv’s office has been in touch with Rep. Mike Bost as well as Bradley.
Carbondale Township Fire Capt. Mark Black said the “winds were just amazing. They were howling and the siding on the trailers was flying through the air and there was a pretty hard rain.”
Trees were down and siding from homes strewn about, he said. Firefighters had to clear trees off roads to get their trucks out. Black said he’s heard of some injuries but had no details. He said some people abandoned their cars and sought shelter in the fire station.
IEMA claims there have been no local requests yet for state resources, but they have dispatched people in the area to identify those needs. IEMA has pulled in people from various agencies, including IDOT, state police, CMS, etc. to the central emergency center.
* 4:35 pm - From Ameren…
Severe storms have left about 52,000 Southern Illinois Ameren Illinois Utilities customers without electrical service, while downed electrical wires and debris have created hazardous conditions. […]
The Ameren Illinois Utilities have activated their Emergency Operations Center, which is directing the service restoration work. AIU personnel are now assessing the damage to both high voltage lines and the electrical distribution system that brings power to homes and businesses. When this process is completed the Ameren Illinois Utilities will be able to determine estimated restoration times.
Health officials say a truck driver who had to be extricated from an overturned semitrailer was in serious condition at a [Carbondale-area] hospital.
Rosslynd Rice of Southern Illinois Healthcare says about six other patients with minor injuries were being treated at the Memorial Hospital of Carbondale.
* 4:53 pm - I’m about to shut things down for the weekend, so here’s an automated news feed…
* The Tribune takes a look today at one of the reform commission’s proposals: Giving state’s attorneys and the attorney general more tools to prosecute corruption. This opinion was telling…
Besides, some judges and prosecutors say, the state’s criminal code, with its laws for conspiracy, bribery, theft and official misconduct, already gives prosecutors ample tools. County prosecutors, they say, simply do not use them.
“There’s all this whining when there are statutes on the books right now that let them do their jobs,” said Cook County Circuit Judge Daniel Locallo, a former county prosecutor.
Some county prosecutors covet the ability to use wiretaps without informing targets. The commission also wants a new law that would make lying to a state or local investigator a crime, like it is with the feds. But the judge is right that they do have plenty of tools already.
* Another widely heard push-back on the bill…
“States attorneys are political. The assistants are beholden to a political officeholder,” said state Sen. William Haine (D-Alton), who was a state’s attorney Downstate for 14 years. “Giving them a hammer and a saw is one thing. But giving them a large crane and a backhoe is something else.”
There are 102 state’s attorneys in this state and many of them are partisan animals. Is that enough to deny them these broader investigative powers? Well, that’s a big part of the debate.
* Here’s another good point, this time about the attorney general’s office…
Critics point out a potential pitfall in providing such investigative tools to an office that’s traditionally been a steppingstone for ambitious politicians. Madigan is the daughter of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who’s also chairman of the state Democratic Party. The critics say she could investigate his political foes and ignore wrongdoing by his allies. But the attorney general has pledged to go after corruption no matter where she finds it.
Lisa Madigan is not her daddy’s handmaiden, but many Republicans don’t feel comfortable giving her these powers and it’s hard to blame them. The same goes for Democrats who probably wouldn’t be overjoyed if somebody like DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett got the AG’s job and had this sort of latitude.
[Former Illinois Attorney General Bill Scott] sued GM, Ford and Chrysler for conspiring to avoid installation of anti-pollution devices in cars. He sued the major airlines and power utilities for air pollution. He sued major industries like US Steel and Inland Steel for air and water pollution. He sued these utilities, industries, and the cities of Milwaukee, Wisc. and Hammond, Ind. for dumping toxic chemicals and raw sewerage into Lake Michigan, poisoning the largest body of fresh water contained within the United States. He sued GM for installing Chevy engines in their Oldsmobiles.
And then Attorney General Scott was imprisoned for a year and a day on tax fraud charges.
We have a habit in this state of electing corrupt people, including to the AG’s office, so giving those people the power to investigate their political rivals for corruption could be a dangerous idea.
* Semi-related…
* Do the expanding [national] pension scandals have a Chicago connection?
* Blago’s lawyers: Evidence will take 51 years to get through
“Blagojevich Democrats continue to show they cannot bring change to Illinois,” said Illinois Republican Party Chairman Andy McKenna. “These same Democrats who endorsed and enabled Rod Blagojevich for six years are still fighting to keep the Blagojevich era of higher taxes, no reform, and arrogant power plays alive in Illinois.”
* I’ve heard this through the grapevine as well, but I don’t know it it’s true or not…
Hmmm. Sneed hears White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is privately telling folks Chris Kennedy — if he runs — may potentially be the strongest candidate for the U.S. Senate seat once occupied by Barack Obama.
• • The buckshot: State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, an Obama basketball buddy, has raised buckets of cash in his exploratory push to capture President Obama’s old Senate seat . . . and is a close friend of Rahm and White House senior adviser David Axelrod.
• • The backshot: Kennedy, who runs the Merchandise Mart and is the son of the late U.S. Sen. Bobby Kennedy, is weighing his options. But top Dems are predicting Kennedy is going to run.
And wags are quietly wagging their tongues about this too…
Poll ‘em: Sneed hears GOP U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, who has been pondering a U.S. Senate run, may also be concerned about a Kennedy bid.
The upshot: Sneed is told Kirk has included Kennedy in his polls, but Kirk spokesman Eric Elk said that was not accurate.
• • The buckshot: Pundits have been all over the place recently predicting Kirk’s future. Kirk and his wife, Kimberly, are separated. Is a divorce in the near future? Does Kirk feel that may have an impact? Stay tuned.
I’m not at all convinced yet that the separation is a huge part of the equation right now, but this Kennedy thing has definitely caused Kirk to rethink the plan. Kirk spent a lot of time planning a race against Giannoulias, but Kennedy changes the game and Kirk is a careful man. He needs a bit more time to think things through, so people should take a breath.
By the way, it’s good to see Sneed getting her groove back on politics. “DId you see Sneed today?” used to be a regular question asked by people in this business. I found myself asking it again today. Made me smile.
* Sen. Roland Burris has a lame excuse for his campaign finance report’s, um, lameness…
Burris has been so out-of-the-loop on the campaign side of things that he actually expressed surprise at having to file his first fundraising report last month, as well as his personal financial disclosure.
“Those rules kind of came up on me in terms of having to file a quarterly report,” Burris said. “Nobody told me that.” […]
[Burris] raised just $845 in the first quarter of 2009 compared with another Democratic candidate who has raised more than $1 million.
Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias threatened [yesterday] to drop Wells Fargo as the treasurer’s office’s money custodian and to take the bank off its list of preferred vendors if Wells Fargo doesn’t back off its efforts to force Chicago suit maker Hartmarx into liquidation.
* Steve Huntley looks at the crop of GOP gubernatorial candidates and concludes his column thusly…
“I’m not sure the party knows what they are looking for,” says Doug Whitley, the president of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, who recently ended his bid for governor largely because of a money shortage. “It’s not a highly centralized structure. You’ve got the so-called money people, the county chairmen, the state central committeemen and [state chairman] Andy McKenna. But there is no statewide officer holder who is an obvious leader, there’s no obvious council of decision-makers.”
Whitley says his travels found voters frustrated with the lack of leadership in Springfield and a political class “who don’t care about jobs lost, about companies going to other states.” The question: Can the GOP get its act together?
* As I told subscribers today, Speaker Madigan’s “fumigation” bill will likely be changed. Rep. Gordon urges people not to believe that the legislation unveiled yesterday is the final word and Sen. Dahl has a valid point that I believe will also be addressed…
“It’s a good starting point to look at,” said state Rep. Careen Gordon, D-Morris. “I don’t think that this is going to be the final bill by any means. But I think it’s definitely something to start negotiations with.” […]
State Sen. Gary Dahl, R-Granville, expressed concern of the timeline outlined in the legislation — Madigan wants the process done in 60 days.
“We’ve tried to do things around here for years and can’t get it done,” Dahl said. “I just hope that if they’re going to put a time limit on it and it gets to crunch time that they’re taking a serious look at what they’re doing and not just chopping to get it over with.”
Double exempt folks are likely in line for fumigation. The rest - mostly professionals - may not be. And I doubt it’ll be a 60-day time frame.
I usually don’t divulge subscriber-only stuff, but the online debate is so heated on this matter that I thought I’d try to settle people down a bit.
* And for all you folks who immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was a shot at Quinn, you’re wrong…
“I think it’s a good idea,” Quinn said. “I think it’s one we need to use to reassess everything in state government, and if we see anything that is improper, we can act accordingly.”
The governor has said previously that he would like to keep some Blagojevich appointees, and he didn’t see the legislation as an attempt to hinder his power to appoint people to boards and commissions.
“I think it will pass, and I’m open-minded to that for sure,” Quinn said. “Because it gives us a thoroughgoing opportunity to look at all of those who are appointed and even those who have terms that don’t expire for several years.”
The governor loves this concept for a whole lot of reasons.
Madigan also justified the General Assembly getting involved with executive branch operations on the basis that it was the General Assembly that ousted Blagojevich and allowed Quinn to become governor.
“Quinn is governor only by the extraordinary action of the legislature,” Madigan said.
Yet Madigan’s move represents another indication of how leading lawmakers are driving the state’s agenda more than Quinn as the new governor approached his 100th day in the office Friday.
Rep. Ron Wait, R-Belvidere, said that if mass firings did occur, he questions what role Madigan would have in the selection of the new hires.
“Madigan would have his pulse on all these openings,” he said. “If they were replaced, hopefully they would hire competent people, and not just patronage people.”
Republican bills that would have overhauled only specific boards–where problem Blagojevich appointees were suspected–were shut down this week in the House. That would have been a better plan, according to [GOP state Rep. Mike Bost]. […]
“This is truly Madigan at what Madigan does,” Bost said. “He can now go out and tell people, ‘I was for radical reform. if you vote no you choose not to do that.’”
* My Sun-Times column takes a look at our state’s lousy predicament…
I’ve been talking about Illinois’ mess lately with an old-timer named Jerry Shea.
Shea has been around forever. He served five terms in the Illinois House, beginning in the early 1960s. He was a majority leader and Mayor Richard J. Daley’s floor leader. He has been on the RTA board of directors, was a member of the the U. of I. board of trustees, taught law classes at John Marshall and has a Statehouse lobbying client list that’s more than a mile long.
Shea knows everybody and remembers everything. But he’s not exactly the type of person who would hang around with “reformers” like Gov. Quinn.
As Shea remembers it, Gov. Richard Ogilvie helped pass the state’s first income tax by agreeing to allow legislators to roll all of their local government pension credits into the General Assembly’s retirement plan. Because lots of legislators worked for the City of Chicago and Cook County, or were former mayors of suburban and Downstate towns, that pension bill secured a whole lot of income tax votes.
Was it what we would now call a corrupt bargain? Sure. But it worked. The state desperately needed the revenues, and if a handful of hacks got a pension bump in the process, well, that’s just the way it had to be done.
Today, that deal would be an abomination, of course. The FBI might even start poking their noses around.
But here we are once again faced with a horrific budget problem and the need for a tax increase and — unlike during Ogilvie’s time — major budget cuts to boot. So, what’s our reform governor to do?
Gov. Quinn rightly recognizes that Illinois is facing two bone-crushing crises at the same time. The first is fiscal — the government is flat broke. The second is ethical — our last two governors got pinched by the feds.
Illinois has something in the neighborhood of $12 billion in red ink to deal with. There’s no way to tax ourselves out of this mess, and there’s no way to fully cut our way out of it, either. The solution has to be a combination of both, plus some borrowing, either from the pension funds or through the bond houses. That three-pronged approach of taxes, cuts and borrowing is exactly how California got out of its deep financial hole this year. But it wasn’t easy.
The governor has appointed a reform commission, which has now proposed all sorts of ideas — some good, some goofy and some in need of tweaking. The “sexiest” stuff revolves around campaign finance reform. The commission wants to cap contributions at the current federal level of $2,400 for individuals and $5,000 for political action committees so we can be as clean as Washington, D.C., is.
Hooray.
The commission also wants to limit the terms of, and cap the fund-raising by, the all-powerful state legislative leaders, who run the Statehouse and raise the money to fund most of their members’ campaigns.
Pressure is building to a fever pitch in the media to pass the commission’s recommendations and clean up government. The governor has said he is in full agreement.
But how do you persuade legislators to raise taxes and cut precious spending programs, and then force them to commit yet another political suicide by capping their campaign contributions and hobbling their legislative leaders so they can’t easily defend themselves against outraged taxpayer/ voters — and get it all done in a way that shuns old-style horse-trading and is completely ethical, moral and aboveboard?
“You can’t do it,” Shea told me Thursday. “There is no way to do it.”
The session ends on May 31. We’re about to see if Shea is right.
* Related…
* Deep deficit demands permanent tax courage : No one wants a tax increase, but Illinois needs it.
Surveyors from the Illinois Department of Transportation have asked sheriff’s deputies to stand watch as they inspect the properties of homeowners hostile to the airport plan. Meanwhile, officials in rural Will Township and a local roads commissioner have drafted stern letters to lawmakers in Springfield, calling the proposal a disastrous waste of taxpayer money that would forever change Peotone’s rural character.
On a recent Friday, more than a dozen airport opponents staged a rally at Governors State University where Gov. Pat Quinn was scheduled to appear. A confrontation was avoided when the governor failed to show, but the residents didn’t leave without making their stance known.
“It’s nothing short of a total betrayal by Gov. Quinn, who is supposed to be the people’s advocate,” said Peotone area resident George Ochsenfeld, president of STAND (Shut This Airport Nightmare Down).
Commissioner Earlene Collins missed Tuesday’s surprise vote. At a committee meeting today on a different topic, she made a point to bring it up.
COLLINS: If we talking about saving money, getting rid - and especially now. Everybody want to lay off everybody. I don’t know how you going to violate these union contracts you already signed on to next year when you find out you don’t have any revenue coming in.
After her speech, when asked what she thought of the sales tax repeal, Collins laughed and walked away. Collins has been a key Stroger ally on the board.
“There’s no corroboration — no reliability or verification of any of these complaints. Yet, we’re chasing ‘em and making pie charts and graphs and all kinds of gibberish to prove their productivity,” Allen said.
“These are asphalt guys. They’re not scientists. They’re not clerks. When they get done on a street, they’ve got to count how many potholes they fixed. They should just fix ‘em. I’m not saying shut down 311. “
“When you talk about a glimmer of hope, I don’t know what that meant,” Daley said. “I don’t know where you see it. Maybe you see it in Washington, D.C., but I don’t think you’re seeing it across the country.”
Mayor Daley said today he cannot agree to a no-layoff guarantee — even if organized labor joins 3,600 non-union employees in taking two weeks off without pay by Dec. 31 and comp time instead of cash for overtime.
Last month, Daley threatened to lay off 1,600 city employees — none sworn police officers and firefighters — unless organized labor agrees to another round of givebacks to erase a $300 million shortfall.
Chicago is taking another step toward Mayor Richard Daley’s goal of opening 100 new schools by 2010. The district is calling on community groups, teachers, and school operators to submit proposals for its next round of schools.
The state will pump nearly a million dollars into developing two parks in suburban Loves Park.
City and Rockford Park District officials announced two grants of $400,000 each, obtained through the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development Program, at a news conference this morning.
* My intern Mike Murray has outdone himself with videos today. We’ll add a couple more later from the press conference held by Senate President John Cullerton and Pat Collins.
Our first is Speaker Michael Madigan talking about his position on tax hikes and the budget. As I’ve already told you, Madigan won’t support a tax hike to “grow” the government. He also talks about the capital bill, gaming, etc. But make extra sure to check out the very last question…
* Madigan on reform proposals, including reducing the number of state patronage employees and any other reforms he could support, including contribution limits…
* This next one is Speaker Madigan talking about Leader Cross and their dueling fumigation plans. Cross tried and failed yesterday to pass an amendment to dump a couple of people off the Health Facilities Planning Board. Cross’ district includes a planned hospital expansion that the board has blocked, so Madigan went after that aspect…
* And here’s Madigan on his grand fumigation plan…
*** UPDATE *** Senate President Cullerton and reform commission chairman Pat Collins make their opening statements at today’s press conference…
“That’s a great question. Would I vote for the whole thing? Probably not. But I don’t believe that’s what we’ve asked.”
“We never felt we had all the answers. That’d be pretty naïve.”
“Nobody said it had to be “all or none.”
So, I just called Noland and read to him a passage from the commission’s report…
As such, we cannot endorse efforts to selectively implement some reforms while ignoring other key proposals. Half-measures will not suffice to repair our State’s troubled infrastructure or our citizens’ broken confidence.
Noland said he didn’t even know that statement was in there.
* Senate President John Cullerton and commission chairman Pat Collins just held a press conference to say they are negotiating on a reform bill. That’s good to hear.
Collins, however, insisted that he hasn’t been confrontational or ever demanded an “all or nothing” approach. OK, here’s another line from the report which was widely quoted by newspaper editorial boards…
This blueprint for reform will be meaningless unless the changes we have envisioned become reality.
Collins was never confrontational? From his City Club address…
“We should get people in there who will take a position and vote, or we should shrink the legislature even further”
He later retracted that shrinking comment, but he can’t possibly say he was never confrontational…
“What this state needs a little bit more of is people who aren’t cowering in their shadow because they’re afraid of how somebody is going to react to the truth,” Patrick M. Collins told the City Club of Chicago on Wednesday.
Collins also took a shot at me today. Perhaps if he had returned the last three phone calls I’ve made to him he could’ve said this stuff to me, personally.
Questioning the details or the consequences of some of your proposals is not somehow evil, Mr. Collins. It’s the American way.
* 12:47 pm - House Speaker Michael Madigan just told reporters that he’s introduced a bill that will wipe out all Rod Blagojevich [and George Ryan] appointees to all state boards and commissions and state jobs. We’re talking hundreds and hundreds of people [actually, about 3,000 state employees and 90 boards and commissions] here.
Madigan said he was acting because he didn’t think Gov. Pat Quinn was moving fast enough on his fumigation pledge. More in a bit.
Madigan also said he would support an income tax increase as long as it doesn’t grow the size of government. Paying existing bills, he said, was the top priority.
House Speaker Michael Madigan says he has no objections from other top Democratic leaders to his idea to fire 3,000 state workers appointed and hired by two ex-governors.
Madigan says he’s discussed House Bill 4450 with Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate President John Cullerton. Madigan says Quinn did not object to the idea, and Cullerton favors it.
From the bill’s synopsis…
The designated officials and employees are (i) the heads, assistant heads, and deputy heads of executive State agencies who were nominated by the Governor between January 11, 1999 and January 29, 2009 for a position that requires the advice and consent of the Senate,
(ii) members of executive boards or commissions who were nominated by the Governor between those dates for a position that requires the advice and consent of the Senate,
(iii) employees of executive State agencies or executive boards or commissions, whose employment in a exempt position began between those dates,
(iv) employees of executive State agencies or executive boards or commissions, appointed to a term appointment between those dates, and
(v) any other official or employee who was nominated by the Governor between those dates for a position that requires the advice and consent of the Senate. Executive State agencies and executive boards or commissions are those of the executive branch not under the jurisdiction and control of the Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, or Comptroller.
There’s a 60-day transition process in the bill.
Click here for a list of the agencies, boards and commissions impacted by this legislation.
* Slate has Attorney General Lisa Madigan on a list of 20 possible US Supreme Court nominees. I kid you not…
Lisa Madigan, 42, is a rising star in Illinois politics, a friend and former colleague of Barack Obama’s from the Illinois state Senate, and the current attorney general of the state. She is said to be considering a run for governor, and the New York Times named her among a roster of down-the-road candidates for the first female president.
Consider this for Madigan’s column: She successfully argued a case before the Supreme Court, the first attorney general to personally do so in 25 years—while seven months pregnant. The case, Illinois v. Caballes, gave police the authority to use drug-sniffing dogs on the outside of a stopped vehicle without a warrant or reason to suspect possession.
As Law.com notes, Madigan has other serious law-and-order bona fides, such as advocating for stricter supervision and registration of sex offenders, stronger methamphetamine laws, and scrutiny of the state’s gaming industry… Like Obama, Madigan has a background in community organizing. She also taught young women in South Africa during apartheid.
Pat Quinn can only hope, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was him. Thankfully, I’m not.
Others close to Kennedy, 45, say the decision to run is a done deal and that in 2010 he will seek the Democratic slot for Obama’s old Senate seat, currently held by controversial appointee Roland Burris.
* Republican gubernatorial hopeful Joe Birkett takes yet another shot at fellow hopeful Bob Schillerstrom…
“I haven’t seen him anywhere in the state other than DuPage and Cook,” Birkett said. “I’m the top Republican vote-getter in the state of Illinois for the past 10 years. I get more votes per dollar than any candidate and that’s a fact. And the reason for that is I have strong record and strong roots here in Illinois.”
Highlighting your perennial candidacies is probably not the greatest idea in the world.
* Speaking of perennial candidates, David McAloon is running for the 11th Congressional District.
…Adding… Springfield Alderman Frank Edwards is running for governor? I don’t get it.
An effort by lawmakers to not let former Gov. Rod Blagojevich benefit financially from media deals was approved unanimously by a Senate panel Wednesday.
The proposal lets the state seize any money that a convicted public official makes from a book, movie, television, radio or Internet deal. […]
Officials’ earnings would be safe if they aren’t convicted or have already served out their sentence.
Mayor Daley today will order 3,500 nonunion employees to take up to 16 days off without pay by Dec. 31, turning up the heat on union leaders to agree to similar concessions.
Last month, Daley threatened to lay off 1,600 city employees — none sworn police officers or firefighters — unless organized labor agrees to another round of givebacks to erase a $300 million shortfall.
They were asked to pick their poison from a $68.9 million menu that includes two furlough days a month for nine months ($24.9 million); comp time instead of cash for overtime ($17.8 million); making six remaining 2009 holidays unpaid ($9 million); a 5 percent pay cut ($12.9 million) and eliminating the July 1 increase in the prevailing wage ($12.9 million).
So far, none of the unions has agreed to cuts. Some are concerned about how city givebacks would impact private-sector negotiations. Others want a guarantee that, if concessions are granted, there won’t be layoffs for the next two years.
“The county sales tax . . . was very detrimental. . . . The retailers will tell you that. This is very, very serious for them,” Daley said.
He said county commissioners “realized what an impact it had upon everyone in Cook County — a very negative impact. . . . It was strictly something that, I think, they had to do.”
Saying he’s not trying to pick a fight, Stroger told the Sun-Times: “The city has raised nine different taxes in the last two years.”
The mayor has raised taxes, fines and fees by a whopping $329 million, including the largest property tax increase in Chicago history. In 2005, his $85.7 million tax package included a one-quarter of one percent increase in the Chicago sales tax.
“All the independent Democrats, all the Republicans on the county board, have been saying the sales tax hike wasn’t needed,” Murphy said. “So I decided to vote to repeal the tax hike, and now we’ll see what they do. I want to see how they deal with all the program cuts, how they balance the budget. Let them deal with all the criticism.”
Murphy still believes the higher tax is necessary.
“The president (Stroger) did the right thing,” she said. “There are county governments all over the country in deep financial trouble today, but not Cook County because we passed the sales tax hike.”
“It’s not my job to stop it,” he said. “I have enough problems.” Asked if the unpopular tax increase has left Stroger, who’s seeking reelection next year, dead politically, Daley said, “No, I don’t think so. I don’t know why you would say that. He’s very hard-working.”
Board President Todd Stroger says the tax repeal would cost Cook County $300-million. To make up for that, Stroger says several health clinics and two hospitals would have to be shut down.
Lawrence Msall is with The Civic Federation, a government watchdog group. He says he’s surprised the administration threatened to cut health services, seeing as a lot of the money from the sales tax increase has gone toward the county payroll.
* Stroger should skip veto of sales tax repeal, manage better
[Gov. Pat Quinn] still wants to raise the income tax and increase the personal exemption to shield low-income families from the increase, but he said he’s willing to negotiate on the personal exemption.
Just the other day, Quinn was refusing to negotiate on his proposal to triple the personal exemption to $6,000. While the personal exemption idea would be welcomed by familes with modest incomes, the resulting income tax hike has to be much higher to raise enough cash to help balance the budget.
* So, maybe Quinn will eventually back off any opposition he has to a temporary income tax hike as well…
The top Senate Democrat on Wednesday floated the idea of a temporary income tax increase as an alternative to Gov. Pat Quinn’s controversial plan to permanently raise the tax. […]
“If somebody says, ‘OK, I guess we need an income tax, but it ought to be temporary as we’ve done twice before in the last 30 years,’ that would be something that would be negotiable,” [Senate President John Cullerton] told a gathering of manufacturers and retailers. […]
Later asked about a temporary tax hike, Quinn said, “I really think we have to solve our problems. I don’t think it’s prudent to focus on the short term. … It’s better to roll up our sleeves and address the problem, once and for all.”
It’s always tough to get a read on a new governor, but I think I’m slowly figuring out how this one operates. Stake out a very tough position, adamantly refuse to compromise, then quickly move away from that position when opposition builds in order to cut a somewhat acceptable deal. He’s done this on ethics, he did it on personal exemptions and, as we already know, he backed away yesterday from his proposed 2 percent increase in state employee and teacher pension contributions…
Gov. Pat Quinn Wednesday dropped his proposal to have teachers, state workers and others pay more toward their public pension benefits.
And one can only wonder if his multi-billion dollar pension fund skim will survive…
A just-released report from the General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability said that, under Quinn’s plan, the financial health of the pension systems actually would get worse over the next few years. The report called for a new, long-term payment plan to ensure that Illinois’ pension debt can be eliminated over time.
The big question, however, is how far Quinn can ultimately be moved from his original positions. We’ll know in a few weeks.
* Meanwhile, this spat got a lot of attention yesterday…
House Speaker Michael Madigan said the disagreement had reached the point where he had avoided talking to House Republican Leader Tom Cross concerning a construction plan.
“I have no ill will towards Tom Cross … but my experience with Tom Cross has not been too good,” Madigan said. “The best way I say it is, in the case of the construction program, when the rubber hits the road, he’s not going to be there.”
While he hasn’t meet with Madigan, Cross said he has met with both Senate leaders and the governor and talked about revenue ideas. “The bottom line is we’re all talking,” Cross said. “And they’re, I think, fairly productive talks of narrowing down some revenue streams to raise about $1 billion. I think it’s all good.” He specifically mentioned conversations about the House’s idea to legalize video poker and to the Senate’s idea to privatize the Illinois Lottery.
* Cigarette tax phase-in proposed: The study suggests increasing the tax over four years, a quarter per year, to avoid a sticker shock to smokers. The study claims that this model would result in more revenue in the long run because people would be more likely to accept a gradual increase and continue buying cigarettes in Illinois.
* Quinn, legislative leaders spar at Business Day event: House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, said he doesn’t know if an income tax increase or major construction program will get approved this spring. He’s working with House Democrats to prioritize spending because of the state’s severe budget problems. “This is uncharted territory for everybody in the legislature,” Madigan said.
With less than a month until lawmakers are set to leave for the summer, Quinn says he is not willing to compromise on his reform commission’s six part plan.
The Governor says “we have to get all” reforms pitched by the group of statehouse outsiders.
Gov. Pat Quinn said Wednesday he’s willing to negotiate to get ethics reform approved…
“There’s always room in a democracy for negotiation,” Quinn told reporters after a speech to the Illinois Retail Merchants. “The idea is there is an excellent blueprint for reform and we want to use it to guide our steps forward. I’m optimistic about that. I think that in the next several weeks we’ll be able to make some substantial progress.”
I’m getting whiplash from all this back and forth.
* Senate President John Cullerton promised yesterday that all of the governor’s reform commission proposals would be addressed by his chamber…
“Absolutely. Every area that the commission raised we’ll have a response and more so,” Cullerton said, noting that lawmakers have taken several important actions, some even before Quinn’s panel took up the cause.
But the Tribune editorial board ridiculed Cullerton’s plan to route the commission reform proposals through the Executive Committee…
Letting committees decide which reforms to bring to the full House and Senate, and which ones to let die, would insulate many of the 177 legislators from having to take public stands on reform. The custom in Springfield is for leaders to protect vulnerable incumbents from casting votes that could lead to their defeats in the next election. Those vulnerable legislators love to say, “I would have voted for that bill, if only my leader had brought it to the floor.”
So let’s exterminate that charade now:
If Democrats abandon a reform proposal in committee — that is, without calling it for a vote of their full chambers — then citizens fairly can view that as if every Democrat in that chamber voted to kill it. This should encourage each rank-and-filer to tell Madigan and Cullerton: “I like being a legislator. So, please, bring every proposal to the floor for a vote.”
That assumes, of course, that voters will cast their ballots in 2010 based on this one issue. I’m not so sure.
Speaker Madigan took a shot at the Trib’s “up or down vote on the floor” threat…
“That’s the politics of Pat Collins. You want to make one guy look clean by making another guy look dirty,” said Madigan, a reference to the former federal prosecutor selected by Gov. Pat Quinn to head the commission.
He has a point.
* Cullerton, meanwhile, plans to meet with Pat Collins today. I’d like to be a fly on that wall.
State Senator Bill Brady wants to push reform in Illinois by strengthening the state’s “whistleblower” laws.
Brady would make the reporting of official misconduct mandatory for state employees, board members and commissioners.
Currently, suspected misdeeds are reported to “ethics officers,” .but not necessarily to law enforcement.
I’m curious what you think about this idea.
* Related…
* Measure to block automatic pay hike for elected officials moves to House floor
* Editorial: Don’t forget voters’ need for recall power
Comcast Internet service is down in my intern Mike’s part of Springfield and in my neck of the woods. I have an alternate Intertubes connect, but Mike doesn’t so MS may not posted for awhile. I’m also running late, yet again, so just hang loose and use this as an open thread to discuss state politics and government. We’ll be with you shortly.
…And, we’re back… Things should go more smoothly now. We’ll have posts in a few.
