* On one level, it’s easy to understand why the legislative leaders don’t want to place contribution caps on their caucus campaign committees. They love their power and they want to keep it.
But they ought to just go ahead and cap themselves and avoid all the negative press they’re getting for rejecting this demand by the governor’s reform commission.
Why? Because nobody except the reformers, some columnists and the newspaper editorial boards really believe that caps on leader committees and state parties will do much of anything to limit campaign spending. The very idea is a complete folly once you look at the real world.
* The governor’s reform commission wants to import Washington, DC’s campaign contribution caps. DC limits contributions by caucus committees and party organizations. But they’ve gotten around the caps by doing what are called “independent expenditures.” On just one day last October, for instance, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent over $7 million on 41 congressional races. In a single day.
During the final week of the 2008 campaign, the DCCC spent a grand total of $23 million, while its Republican counterpart, the NRCC, spent $9.5 million on independent expenditures.
In Illinois, the DCCC did over $4 million in independent expenditures on two races last year. Incumbent Republican Mark Kirk was hit by about $2 million in DCCC independent expenditures and the open 11th Congressional District contest experienced about the same level of spending.
All told, the DCCC spent $76.7 million on campaigns last fall, while the NRCC spent $23 million. That’s $100 million by Congressional caucus committees alone. The Senate caucus committees and the national parties spent millions more.
* Independent expenditures do make life a little more difficult. The candidates, by law, can’t have any input into the expenditures or be told anything about them.
The only requirement in the reform commission’s draft legislation is that when independent expenditures rise above $5,000 they must be reported to the State Board of Elections because the IEs can’t legally be stopped.
Again, there’s no real reason for the legislative leaders to continue allowing the reformers and the newspapers to attack them and possibly derail a budget balancing deal with any screams of “No more money for a corrupt government.” They should just play along with the game.
Rich, could you post that the Tuesday White Sox Caucus meeting has been postponed until 9 p.m. Wednesday night, at the Alamo II on Fifth Street. Tuesday’s game is broadcast on WCIU, Channel 26 in Chicago. Under the Major League Baseball blackout rules, it cannot be shown in Springfield. The why is somewhat incomprehensible.
And that’s my good deed for the day. I’m done until Tuesday. Have a wonderful holiday weekend.
* Ronnie Wood will play us out. This one is for everyone enduring the final days of session…
* 4:31 pm - The gaming bill just came up shirtshort in the Senate, 28-28-1. It was put on postponed consideration. As the roll call was proceeding, its sponsor, Sen Terry Link, warned his colleagues loudly that it was either this or a tax hike.
* 5:48 pm - Conflict between Senate President John Cullerton and reform commission chairman Patrick Collins over whether Collins was advised to get his own sponsors for his legislation…
* 5:50 pm - The AP has a follow-up to my “Extra” from earlier this afternoon…
Gov. Pat Quinn says a campaign aide made an embarrassing mistake by calling Springfield interest groups to raise political money.
But the Democratic governor denies he had any intention of demanding contributions in exchange for special access to him.
Quinn said Friday that the aide was supposed to contact groups that had offered to raise money for him and make arrangements.
He says the aide went further and called groups that had never volunteered to help. When asked how much they should donate, the aide suggested $15,000.
*** UPDATE *** From Governor Quinn’s office…
On Friday, Governor Pat Quinn was questioned by reporters about a mistake made by one of his campaign aides in the course of making fundraising calls. In response, he acknowledged that a campaign worker had made a mistake, and affirmed that the mistake would not be repeated.
Governor Quinn said a campaign aide made calls to a number of political action committees of Illinois trade associations to ask if their members might be interested in holding a breakfast or luncheon fundraiser for the Governor. These events were being scheduled for June and July, after the end of the current legislative session.
Governor Quinn said the aide was supposed to contact political action committees that had previously offered to raise money for the campaign and make arrangements for future events. He said the aide went further without his knowledge and called groups that had not previously volunteered to help.
At no time did any campaign staff member suggest that access to the Governor would be limited to campaign donors, nor was any promise of special treatment made to campaign supporters. The Governor added that it was regrettable that campaign staff did not anticipate that some political action committees might misunderstand a straightforward inquiry about a future event.
Throughout his life in public office, Governor Quinn has earned a reputation for accessibility; his door is open to any association member, elected official, or private citizen who wishes to discuss any pressing issue that affects the people of Illinois.
The campaign staff member who made the mistaken calls in question has been reprimanded and will be reassigned to duties that do not involve further fundraising solicitations.
Additionally, Governor Quinn offered his personal apologies for the mistake made by his campaign staff.
He still doesn’t get it.
You don’t do fundraising calls to groups with bills before the legislature during the final weeks of session, even if they’ve offered to set up funders in the past. The staffer made the mistake of cold-calling associations, but it was the governor’s order to call groups that had expressed interest in contributing. That was the worst mistake because he’s the governor and should know better.
And, frankly, he shouldn’t be contacting any groups that have bills in the hopper until after he’s taken action on those bills.
The governor shouldn’t be throwing that staffer under the bus. He should take full responsibility for the full program.
Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) postponed action today on a series of ethics proposals, with aides saying he wanted to spend more time working with members of Gov. Pat Quinn’s reform panel. […]
But Senate Democrats were concerned when they learned that Republicans had offered to pick up recommendations from Quinn’s reform panel that were at odds with what Democratic legislative leaders had proposed. There has been ongoing tension between the most zealous reform advocates and legislative leaders who have been more cautious about a number of proposals that target the concentration of power at the Statehouse.
Some key Senate Republicans have blasted the SDems’ idea of capping all contributions except for transfers from leadership campaign committees and state parties to candidates. Like I said, more in a bit.
* 10:56 am - Gov. Pat Quinn just told reporters that he will not sign the capital bill until the budget and reform legislative packages are completed. Quinn had promised earlier not to link capital with the budget. We’ll have video in a few minutes.
* 11:02 am - The Senate Executive Committee meeting scheduled for today will be postponed until sometime next week. Reform commission chairman Patrick Collins was scheduled to testify today. The Senate does plan to take up House-approved reform bills today, however.
* 11:10 am - We missed this today. I’m very happy for Shaw. He’ll be a great fit over there…
Sneed hears former Channel 7 political reporter Andy Shaw is this/close to becoming the new head of the Better Government Association, an independent government watchdog group.
*** 1:31 pm *** Change of plans. Patrick Collins will testify before the two Senate committees. Actually, he has testified to one, and he’s heading to Senate Exec soon. Stay tuned.
*** 3:14 pm *** The Executive Committee did not hear testimony on the commission’s proposal after all, and Senate GOP Leader Christine Radogno accused Democrats of trying to run out the clock. More soon.
* I noticed something when scanning through a list compiled by Dick Simpson and others at UIC of all the people busted in corruption cases since 1973: Only a tiny handful were state legislators. [The list starts on page 7.]
One of those listed, Roger Stanley, hadn’t been a legislator for years when he was caught up in the George Ryan scandals. Another, former Rep. Pat Bailey, was convicted for not living in her district. Almost all the rest didn’t appear to be involved in anything that had to do with their official legislative duties. Former Sen. Bruce Farley pled guilty to taking a ghost-payrolling job, but his co-defendant, former Rep. Miguel Santiago, was acquitted of the same charge.
Does that mean the GA is much cleaner than they’re given credit for? Whatever the case, it’s worth discussing, particularly since many of the reforms proposed by the governor’s independent reform commission are aimed at the legislature.
* Patrick Collins claims he’s being deluged with contacts by state legislators…
“[Today] I’m going to Springfield to present some of our core proposals and I’m getting calls and e-mails every 15 minutes from legislators and others who want to try to compromise so that we don’t cause a ruckus down there (Friday),” Collins said. “And the reality is we’re not going there to create a ruckus but we’re also not there just to compromise so that everyone can say there’s reform but then when everybody goes home and takes credit for reform we really haven’t reformed much.”
* The Daily Herald tries to counter this week’s breathless propaganda by the Illinois Press Association about a draft proposal on FOIA…
Take a deep breath, people.
A day after Illinois legislative leaders floated a proposal for changes in the state’s Freedom of Information Act that seems at polar opposites with what the Illinois Attorney General and the Illinois Reform Commission wants, some are saying don’t panic.
This, they say in short, is how legislation works. The attorney general and the Illinois Reform Commission put forth one proposal, and now legislators put forth a different one.
“The sky is not falling,” said Cara Smith, deputy chief of staff to Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
The main architect for many of impeached ex-Gov. Blagojevich’s most controversial and failed budget ideas will leave the state payroll in July, the top House Democrat said today.
House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) said he was told today by Gov. Quinn that former Blagojevich budget director John Filan — a nemesis of Madigan’s — will resign as chief of the Illinois Finance Authority as part of a legislative deal designed to rid state government of Blagojevich’s holdovers.
The city always planned to levy amusement taxes on Chicago Bears season ticket licenses, a city Department of Revenue spokesman said Thursday.
Ed Walsh also said a 7 percent amusement tax was paid by the Bears on the initial sales of the permanent seat licenses between late 2002 and early 2003. The amusement tax was raised to 9 percent this year.
“The amusement tax is applicable when a license is sold,” Walsh said. “The tax burden is on the purchaser. This includes initial sales and re-sales, as any amount paid for the right to witness a game is subject to the tax.”
His statements, made via e-mail after business hours, came a day after the cash-strapped city informed some PSL owners they might have to pay the amusement tax. In some cases, the taxes would be levied on 5-year-old sales
Controversial? You bet. Super. And this is coming at exactly the wrong time for the General Assembly, which may consider an income tax increase in the coming days. Thanks, Daley. Heckuva job.
* Here’s my Sun-Times column which talks about the difficulties of passing an income tax hike, among other things. If I’d known about the PSL tax, I would’ve include it in the piece…
Toward the scheduled end of the state legislative session every May, I’m usually chronically tired, sick, cranky and hungover.
In other words, I pretty much embody Illinois right now.
I shouldn’t joke like that. Things have never been worse here. People are losing their jobs, homes and businesses in depressing droves. The economic bust has taken a huge toll on the state government’s budget, which was already out of whack even before the economic meltdown because of mismanagement and destructive political games and abject cowardice — and is now in deficit beyond anything that anyone has ever seen.
And then, of course, there’s the not-fun fact that our previous governor was removed from office and appears headed for prison, perhaps to join his own predecessor in Indiana’s federal pen.
At a time when our leaders desperately need to pull the public together behind bold solutions, the public is so cynical and angry about the recent and not-so-recent past that they refuse to be led.
It’s not hard to blame them.
One of the “hottest” debates this past week was over whether the budget should be passed before legislators finished work on a massive public works bill. Gov. Quinn and a group of liberal House members angrily lined up in favor of finishing the budget first, while the legislative leaders and the Illinois Senate decided the other way was better. Never mind that, with just nine days left in the session, all of these bills will likely be passed within hours of each other.
There’s a reason why some folks refer to the Statehouse as an adult day-care center.
Then again, those who argue that the budget should take priority did ask one good question: If Republicans and Democrats in the Senate could overwhelmingly agree to fund the public works bill by expanding gambling via legalized video poker, raising taxes on alcohol, candy and beauty products and increasing fees on driver’s license services, then why has it been so difficult to raise the income tax by a single percentage point or so to make sure schools don’t close, poor people keep their health insurance, state cops stay on the job, prisoners aren’t released early and on and on and on?
The answer is that the public generally has faith in things they can see with their own eyes, like a new bridge or a rebuilt school. People just don’t believe that the budget deficit is as bad as it is, partly because they can see that the schools, hospitals, nursing homes and prisons are still open and functioning. The public works bill allows legislators to give voters something tangible for their money. Raising taxes to balance the budget just means that government continues to function in its “natural,” mostly unnoticed state.
I used to wonder how states allowed thousands of schools, hospitals and police stations to close during the Great Depression. I’m getting quite an education on that topic now. Only, in Illinois’ case, it’s even worse, because Rod Blagojevich’s and George Ryan’s corruption has exponentially deepened the loss of faith in the government.
Legislators are worried sick that if they vote to raise taxes to balance the budget they’ll get the same treatment as the hapless Cook County Board President Todd Stroger.
Understandably, nobody wants to be roasted alive. But their job sometimes requires them to do what’s right, not what’s easy or popular. And sometimes that means doing things that nobody appreciates, like making sure the government doesn’t collapse, even though a furious public doesn’t believe a collapse is imminent.
And if they get tarred and feathered, well, that’s just the price they pay for getting themselves elected at the worst possible moment in history. No sympathy here.
* Related…
* Taxpayer group chief disputes Quinn’s claim of crisis: “We don’t need state troopers at all. We have too many cops,” [Jim Tobin] said. “We have local, state and federal cops. That’s three layers of police. We have over 2,000 state police. It’s a waste of money. We could save a least $400 million a year.”
* Ald. Fioretti: Reduce or nix Chicago’s gas tax : The six-month break that Fioretti suggested at minimum would cost $27 million at a time when the city can least afford it.
WGN-AM 720 this morning announced it is discontinuing the “Kathy & Judy” show, the ground-breaking mid-morning coffee klatch that former Chicago newspaper columnists Kathy O’Malley and Judy Markey hosted for 20 years.
But state records show the Illinois Commerce Commission stripped Caruso’s company of authority to operate as a trucking firm in January for lack of insurance. Caruso did not have licensed trucks and, in at least one case, hired another company to do its share of a project at O’Hare.
Caruso could not be reached for comment. Her company’s phones are disconnected, and she did not reply to e-mail.
Since the federal corruption charges were filed last month, city officials have begun auditing payments to Veronica Contracting and have sought proof Caruso is still in business. A Daley administration spokeswoman said Caruso recently told city officials that her company remains in business. The firm remains certified to do work for the city.
