* 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.
- Gov. Pat Quinn no longer wants teachers to pay an extra 2 percent of their paychecks on pensions next school year. […]
Officials with the Illinois Education Association, however, say they’re still fighting against Quinn’s plan to skimp on pension plans for incoming teachers.
Check out the video. He was booed more than once, and scolded the teachers about being “impolite” for interrupting. “Will you let me finish? You can yell at me all you want”…
* 1:36 pm -SB600, which requires direct elections for the Republican state central committee, passed out of a House committee on partisan lines today - meaning Democrats supported it and Republicans opposed it.
The bill now goes to the House floor for final passage. The state GOP has threatened to sue to block implementation if it becomes law.
Gov. Pat Quinn, who is asking voters to pay more in state income taxes, indicated Tuesday he would also like them to cover the costs of statewide campaigns next year as part of reforms to clean up Illinois government.
The new governor has yet to say whether he will seek election to the job but suggested lawmakers should approve public financing for the governor’s race before they go home May 31.
Quinn said a similar idea passed in 1983 but was vetoed.
He told a Rotary Club of Chicago audience Tuesday that if the law was in place, it might have prevented the pay-to-play scandals of his predecessors, former Govs. George Ryan, a Republican, and Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat.
* The Question: Do you favor or oppose public financing of gubernatorial campaigns? Explain fully, please.
* Bonus Question: Would public financing have “prevented the pay-to-play scandals” of Ryan and Blagojevich? Why or why not?
* This all or nothing gambit obviously won’t work legislatively, but it’s probably a good political move for Gov. Quinn, who can point the finger of blame at others…
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.
That would include campaign contribution caps, term limits for legislative leaders, a new way to draw the state’s political map, and even recall for voters. […]
The Governor is now saying he’s the “quarterback” and he’ll have to soon “call some plays.” But it is his all or nothing approach that may eventually doom his reform agenda.
This is now all about politics and public perception because Quinn obviously knows he can’t possibly pass the commission’s complete agenda.
DuPage County Board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom made it official Tuesday — he’s eyeing a run for governor in 2010.
The Naperville Republican has put an exploratory committee together, and said he will be ready to announce his intentions by mid-summer. The committee is the first step towards a long-rumored Schillerstrom campaign.
Schillerstrom said he had cut taxes in seven of the past 10 years in DuPage County and said his executive experience should play to voters statewide. Still, Schillerstrom’s tenure has not been without controversy on various fronts. Last year, state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna publicly criticized Schillerstrom for pushing Springfield for higher local taxes and the county later benefited as an offshoot of a sales tax increase for the Regional Transportation Authority.
That didn’t stop Schillerstrom from criticizing Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn’s state budget plan calling for an increase in income taxes, offset for some by higher personal deductions. “He essentially passed on the tough decisions to the hard-working men and women of Illinois and that’s the wrong thing to do in a recessionary period like this,” he said.
DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett takes a swing…
Birkett said Schillerstrom’s potential run for the office would not be a factor in his decision, and said running a statewide campaign might be more than Schillerstrom is ready for. Birkett has won two state primaries, one for attorney general in 2002 and one for lieutenant governor in 2006, but lost both general elections. […]
“I understand Illinois, I appreciate Illinois, and I look forward to discussing and arguing with Joe Birkett and other candidates about what we can do,” [Schillerstrom] said.
[Schillerstrom] noted that because of the work needed to clean up the state’s financial health, “It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the next governor may be a one-term governor.”
Viewed as a social moderate, Schillerstrom acknowledged that the battle within the GOP among conservatives and moderates has hurt the party and said his exploration of a run for governor is based in part on whether rank-and-file Republicans understand “we don’t want to waste all of our assets—whether they’re emotional, financial or issue driven—in a primary” that helps a Democrat to win.
U. S. Rep. Mark Kirk, preferred by GOP ticket-planners to run for either governor or senator, will decline both jobs in order to seek reelection to his House seat, I have been told on what I believe is excellent authority. The reason is not political but personal. His decision will likely be spun as acknowledgment that no Republican can win either race… a conclusion the liberal media will quickly buy and propagate: but the true reason lies not in politics but with other concerns.
* Almost since the day he was arrested, Rod Blagojevich has demanded that the federal government release full copies of the tapes made during its covert surveillance. That way, he said, we could put his remarks into their proper context. Well, he has those tapes now…
Prosecutors have turned over to Rod Blagojevich’s lawyers 400 hours of recorded calls and at least 1 million pages of documents they say are evidence in the massive corruption case against the ex-governor. […]
There are an additional 300 boxes of documents Blagojevich’s lawyers can go through, another 2 million documents involved in the case and at least another 500 hours of recorded phone calls that were deemed not pertinent, lawyers in the case say. The evidence was so voluminous, it came with a 185-page index.
If Blagojevich appears on any radio or TV shows in the future, he should be pressed to release those tapes. All of them.
* In related news, the Sun-Times reports today that Blagojevich pal and mega fundraiser Chris Kelly has talked to the feds, but isn’t yet cooperating. The Tribune’s headline: “Another former ally may cooperate with feds,” is actually far more than the actual story reveals.
* Also yesterday, partisanship flared during a joint legislative reform committee hearing. House Republicans tried to pass legislation to “fumigate” the hospital planing board. Background…
The hospital CEO and whistleblower who helped ignite the FBI’s corruption case against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Tuesday that the state’s controversial health planning board should be scrapped.
Edward Hospital CEO Pam Davis said the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board denied Edward’s 2004 request for a hospital in Plainfield because of her refusal to partake in pay-to-play politics. Davis called for an end to the planning board, which she said weighs hospital proposals totaling $5 billion.
House Republicans, led by Minority Leader Tom Cross, want to fire Jeffrey Mark, executive secretary of the Health Facilities Planning Board, and David Carvalho, a deputy director of the Illinois Department of Public Health that oversees the employees. “In our efforts to continue to fumigate state government, this is another board that needs to be sanitized and start fresh with new players from top to bottom,” Cross said.
Cross added, however: “While we are not alleging that either of the two that held these positions themselves did anything illegal, corrupt activity happened under their watch. They were there before, during and after corrupt activity occurred.”
House Democrats said there was no reason to legislatively fire the two, and the bickering commenced.
Executive Secretary Mark was recommended for his job by Tony Rezko. But Democratic Sen. Susan Garrett claimed that Deputy Director Carvalho was also a Rezko guy…
Garrett asked Carvalho about a conversation they had at the Statehouse Inn. Carvalho said he told her that in the Tony Rezko documents Mark had a ‘TR’ next to his name (meaning Rezko helped him get the job) and it would surface, but Garrett said she remembered it differently.
Garrett said Carvalho told her Tony Rezko recommended him for his job.
Carvalho denied the claim and maintains that he has never met Rezko.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Daley jumps aboard the bandwagon…
Mayor Daley threw his support today behind an effort to the repeal a 1 percent Cook County sales-tax increase that was approved last year.
Daley said that doesn’t mean he’s withdrawing his support for Cook County Board president Todd Stroger, who pushed for the increase and said Tuesday he will veto the repeal.
*** UPDATE 2 *** CBS2 raw video of the county board meeting is here.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Click here to listen to President Stroger say a veto of the tax rollback could be an “excercise in fertility.”
[ *** End of Updates *** ]
* This vote was completely unexpected, as was the turmoil it caused…
Cook County commissioners voted Tuesday to repeal last year’s unpopular sales tax increase — but taxpayers shouldn’t hold their breath that they’ll soon be paying less at the cash register.
The 12-3 vote to roll back the 1 percentage-point increase next January was a political body blow to Board President Todd Stroger, who immediately vowed to veto the measure.
Commissioners acknowledged they may not have the votes to make the tax repeal stick. An extraordinary 14 of 17 County Board members are needed to override a president’s veto.
* Chicago Public Radio has a great play-by-play. A gradual rollback was initially introduced after the TV cameras had left the chamber. But then after some debate, Commissioner Roberto Maldonado moved to amend the bill to immediately repeal the one percent sales tax…
STROGER: And when you talk about this tax increase, know something about it! Talkin’ about the world and all that crap. What do you know about the world?
A normally reserved Daley stepped out of character and took on President Stroger.
[MAYORAL BROTHER JOHN DALEY]: And you might want to listen for a change.
And there was a preview of what’s likely to be a highly contentious Democratic primary in 2010 between rivals Forrest Claypool and Todd Stroger.
CLAYPOOL: We have a real problem here with a board only being able to do so much to reform and streamline this government without a chief executive who’s willing to do those reforms.
STROGER: That’s exactly what I like. Passing the buck. We can’t do anything. We’re only elected. We only make $85,000 a year to do nothing!
* As noted above, Stroger threatened a veto, which will likely be impossible to override. But then later in the evening came this…
In an absolutely scorching statement released late Tuesday, Mr. Stroger threatened “thousands” of health and public safety layoffs and the closure of “at least one — and possibly two” of the county’s three hospitals. […]
The statement says the repeal would cost the county $245 million this year and roughly twice that next year. The “quarter-of-a-billion disaster” is occurring only because its advocates “have once again chosen to put their political opportunism ahead of the public well-being,” the statement says.
“Their dangerously responsible (sic) position threatens health care for hundreds of thousands of our patients, and will force the layoff of thousands of union workers at a time when the economy is facing its deepest crisis in 60 years,” it states.
Doomsday cuts might help Stroger make his case that the tax hike was needed, but, then again, he’s so unpopular that the cuts would probably only damage him more. A veto, of course, would just drive on more nail into his political coffin. He’s got more nails in that coffin than True Value.
Also, you may see movement on a bill soon in the state Senate which will greatly lower the veto override requirement from the currently outrageous four-fifths majority.
The governor of Illinois kicked off a massive wind power convention today at Chicago’s McCormick Place. Chicago is making a play to become the nation’s wind power hub, but it faces stiff competition.
At least eight major wind power companies have their corporate headquarters in Chicago. The region also has a number of factories churning out turbine parts, and officials would love to get their hands on some more of those green jobs. But Illinois was a bit late to the game in crafting policies and incentives to lure them, says Josh Magee with Emerging Energy Research. He says states like Iowa have already sopped up a lot of the demand.
MAGEE: We’ve already seen a substantial amount of investment in many of these components. Illinois or any other state that is looking to attract new investments is, in a very real way, now playing catch up.
The report describes encouraging results for the Chicago Housing for Health Partnership, the first program in the country to link hospitals serving homeless, chronically ill patients with organizations that help people find federally subsidized housing.
The organization was formed in 2002 to deal with a common and unfortunate situation: Ill, homeless people are discharged from hospitals and end up back on the streets without regular medical care. Inevitably, their health deteriorates.
Between September 2003 and May 2006, Stroger Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago recruited more than 400 homeless individuals with chronic medical conditions to participate in a study testing the hypothesis.
Two-hundred-seventy-five Bartonville Employees were notified today they will likely be laid off.
The potential layoffs come after Caterpillar terminated two major contracts with X–PAC, a supply chain service provider. X–Pac’s Bartonville facility handles parts packaging and export consolidation services for CAT.
As we recounted yesterday, the 120-year-old suitmaker is currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and has attracted three potential bidders — two of which want to revitalize the company and another that reportedly favors liquidation. Recent reports indicated that Wells Fargo, which provided a “debtor in possession” loan to keep operations afloat during the restructuring, has been leaning towards the idea of liquidation, which would provide a quick return but result in the loss of over 3,000 jobs nationwide. The bank — which accepted $25 billion in federal bailout funds and reported a first quarter return — will likely select a “stalking horse” bidder this week.
The union that represents HartMarx’s 1,000 Illinois employees, Workers United, has been ramping up efforts to save the company. Helping out has been Rep. Phil Hare, who worked at HartMarx’s Rock Island factory for 13 years before entering politics. Today, Rep. Jan Schakowsky leant a hand as well.
In an interview moments ago, the Illinois congresswoman told us she spoke with Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf this afternoon. “I made it clear that I had thought, even without the $25 billion they got in TARP funds, we wanted him to take into consideration that jobs would be lost and to accept a bid that would actually keep Hartmarx open,” she said. Stumpf apparently told Schakowsky that he has an obligation to his shareholders. Her response: “I reminded him that taxpayers, including people who work at Hartmarx, have a stake in this too and are helping to bail out the company.”
Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed budget calls for scores of new prison guards to be deployed at facilities across Illinois. At a time when private industry is shedding jobs, that potential increase in employment has drawn positive reviews in Illinois’ prison towns.
The County Board on Wednesday approved another $190,000 in payments to former employees who made the allegations against Moore.
One of the patronage suits was brought by Carmen Fludas, a 39-year office veteran laid off from a job as a troubleshooter and interpreter in March 2007. Fludas, who had won several employee commendations, will be paid $90,000 under her settlement. James D’Antonio, a 10-year employee who rose to assistant supervisor, will get $100,000.
But that doesn’t mean Crestwood officials can rest easy. As unusual as it would be for prosecutors to file criminal charges in connection with the village’s well usage, one recent case suggests such a move would not be completely without precedent.
Just last Thursday, the former supervisor of a municipal water treatment plant in Fort Gibson, Okla., pleaded guilty to a federal charge of making a false statement to state regulators in a report certifying the safety of the plant’s drinking water.
They must show that someone acted willfully, knowingly doing something he was aware the law forbids, according to David Uhlmann, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School who was chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section.
That “higher burden” is one reason why “there are precious few criminal cases brought under the Safe Drinking Water Act,” Uhlmann said.
But some on a House panel expressed concern over what they characterized as panic when news of the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, first broke.
Illinois Department of Public Health Director Damon Arnold told lawmakers they’re urging people not to overreact. But he said officials had to first treat the H1N1 virus as potentially deadly, because they didn’t yet know whether it was.
The Illinois Department of Public Health director told state lawmakers Tuesday that it’s important to remain vigilant in the face of the H1N1 flu virus, but fears of a pandemic flu are overblown.
“We have to keep these things in perspective, look at them rationally, know what the threat is and deal with it in a rational way. We know right now that this virus is acting very similarly to the regular seasonal flu,” said Dr. Damon T. Arnold, head of the state public health agency.
The number of confirmed cases of H1N1 swine flu statewide has jumped to 82, from nine on Monday — a rise state health officials attribute to a move to get test results more quickly.
Illinois has 40 probable cases awaiting confirmation.
After the legislative Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability recommended last week to close Howe Developmental Center in Tinley Park, Gov. Pat Quinn decided this week to conduct his own investigation to determine if the facility should be closed. The committee also recommended closing Tinley Park Mental Health Center, although the governor has not announced if he will conduct an investigation of that facility.
“I learned from the process of killing the Blagojevich gambling proposals that gambling is not a wholesome activity,” Madigan said in the statement, “and we’re not going to deal with that this year.”
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 - Posted by Capitol Fax Blog Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Severe overcrowding in Chicago’s public schools has long placed barriers on the potential of the city’s Hispanic students. Overburdened facilities in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods have denied students opportunities for individualized attention and created other hassles such as multi-tracked calendars, staggered scheduling, and busing.
This is why UNO is calling on state legislators to support construction of new public schools in overcrowded Hispanic neighborhoods. However, UNO is also putting forth its own proposal to build 8 new UNO schools over the next 4 years that would add 4,890 new seats to overcrowded neighborhoods.
To fund this proposal, UNO is calling on the state for a $99 million investment which it will use to leverage an additional $99 million through private partnerships. This 50/50 matching program brings together public and private support to improve educational opportunities for our communities at less cost to the public and it is guaranteed to bring quick results.
Already, each new UNO campus can be built at half the cost of a traditional public school and in half the time. Furthermore, because UNO elementary schools open at full capacity, they will bring immediate relief to nearby overcrowded public schools.
UNO’s proposal for a public/private partnership goes a long way in rethinking the model for new school construction and creating new solutions to overcrowding.
Specifically, the Commission recommends [limiting] a person’s total service in the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives, President of the Senate, Minority Leader of the House and Minority Leader of the Senate to a total of (a) ten years in any one office and (b) fourteen years combined in two or more offices.
* The Question: Do you support this reform? Explain fully, please.
* Bonus Question: The commission also wants to bar outside income for the Senate President and House Speaker. Do you support that idea? Explain.
Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias on Monday defended using proceeds from the state’s troubled college savings program to purchase a hybrid SUV, saying it was a cost-saving move that allows staffers to more effectively promote the Bright Start program.
While Giannoulias said the vehicle is primarily used to promote the savings plan, he could not give details on how and when the vehicle was used. He said his office would begin to keep a vehicle log, saying it was “probably an oversight” not to do so from the beginning.
The problem isn’t so much the SUV, but combine that with one of the investment funds in the Bright Start program losing big bucks and creeping journalistic shorthand and the thing is quite toxic…
The college savings plan is supposed to allow parents to put away money and earn interest for their children’s education, but the fund lost more than $85 million last year.
Again, just one of the investment funds in the program lost $85 million, so the Tribune and others are making things look worse than they actually are. However, Crain’s points out that two other funds lost money as well, although less than the $85 mil.
The state’s senior U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, who traveled overseas with Giannoulias earlier this year, has not decided whom he will support to become his colleague from Illinois. Durbin said in the meantime the treasurer would have to diffuse his own controversies.
“He is going to have to show in this early stage he can answer questions directly and satisfy any concerns people might have. He will come to learn that standing in front of these microphones is part of this business,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, (D) Illinois.
Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is threatening banks that fail to invest in their communities. He says financial institutions will have to sign a pledge before they can receive state deposits. Giannoulias says banks must promise to make small business loans, and work to prevent home foreclosures.
GIANNOULIAS: I do think there’s a lot of potential for future legislation to put even more stringent requirements. But this is, what we think is a reasonable first step. We don’t want banks to lose even more money we just want them to pay attention to their communities
That will make a nice TV ad. Money overcomes plenty of negatives, and he has tons of dough. But that’s no excuse for Giannoulias not having a full handle on his office.
State Sen. Matt Murphy of Palatine is the latest Republican to publicly consider throwing his hat into the 2010 Illinois governor’s race.
Murphy said Monday it’s a “definitive maybe” as to whether he’ll enter the GOP primary. “I’ve got to see what the interest level is and if I can rally enough support to make the run,” Murphy said. He expects to make a decision by the end of May.
One of the report’s key recommendations for a Medicaid global waiver is a block grant approach that would lock in the State at its currently poorly funded level while shifting ALL of the risk to the State – without the State having total control of the Medicaid program.
In other words, if Medicaid costs skyrocketed, the state would be left with the bill.
Much of the work and resulting conclusions from the consultant (the Lucas Group) underlying the report’s recommendations appear to be substandard and outdated, and in many cases, based on flawed assumptions.
Steven Guerra, a holdover from the Blagojevich administration as the governor’s deputy chief of staff for social services, was fired Friday. […]
He made news in late 2008 when the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he had served 23 months in prison after being convicted of contempt of court in New York in 1983. He had refused to testify in connection with investigations of a Puerto Rican separatist group that claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings in the U.S. that killed six and injured dozens from 1974 to 1983.
Schakowsky’s strong numbers carry through to the general election, according to Lake Research findings. In a poll of 600 likely Senate race voters last month, respondents who were asked to choose between Schakowsky and Kirk in a general election chose Schakowsky by a six-point margin of 36 to 30 percent.
As I already told you, that poll was taken in December and the 36-30 number included a surprisingly large number of leaners. The base numbers were 23-20.
* This e-mail just arrived…
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, will host the Ultimate Women’s Power Lunch with special guests Valerie Jarrett and Tina Tchen on May 11, 2009.
* Fox Chicago’s Jack Conaty has produced a well-done and quite interesting profile of House Speaker Michael Madigan. It’s our must-watch video of the day…
Former state representative Robert Molaro takes a slightly different view. “Not to take a line from the godfather, but Mike will ask for something and when you refuse it he doesn’t ask a second time, he doesn’t ask a second time when he’s been refused the first,” says Molaro.
Dr. Robert Sawicki, medical director of OSF Home Care Services, said 95 percent of symptoms for patients seeking pain relief are managed with available therapies, such as medicines, implantable pumps and surgeries.
“In the studies I have read, the evidence in favor of medical marijuana is not very compelling,” Sawicki said. “If it would be no better or worse than what is already out there, why bring it to market?”
Exactly. Why allow terribly sick people to just smoke a joint when they can be prescribed highly addictive opiates, cut open on operating tables or have pumps implanted in their bodies? Yes, that’s so much better.
The Chicago Crime Commission today issued a stern warning on the implications of legalizing marijuana in Illinois. There is serious apprehension among law enforcement that the pending medical marijuana legislation will provide protection for drug cartel operations and their drug trafficking efforts.
The Department of Homeland Security has identified international drug cartels as a serious threat to the United States. Cartels are already working with gangs in the Chicago area to traffic marijuana and other drugs. “There is concern in law enforcement circles that, if passed, the Illinois medical marijuana law could legitimize cartel operations and provide cover for their trafficking efforts,” according J.R. Davis, Chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission.
“Cartel members, posing as legitimate marijuana growers, would be difficult if not impossible to detect. As a consequence, they will easily expand their influence in Chicago and extend their reach into other Illinois communities,” he added.
Notice how this argument was framed. Cartels will expand their influence in Chicago and then infect the pristine hinterlands. Nothing like fanning the flames of urban fear.
If they’re worried about illegal drug cartels, perhaps they can just come out in favor of total legalization and then American corporations can get into the act. I doubt the Walgreen family would hire gun-toting thugs to attack Osco’s turf.
Faced with a grim financial picture, state lawmakers are mulling over proposals to raise taxes on certain unhealthy habits: smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol and sipping soda pop.
Supporters of the tax hikes view them as “win-win” propositions because they would generate funds for state government while simultaneously reducing people’s consumption of tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks. […]
“As the economy gets worse, more people turn to drugs and alcohol,” said the [Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association’s] chief executive officer, Sara Moscato Howe. That triggers a greater demand for addiction treatment and prevention services, she said.
If enacted, the nickel-a-drink tax would generate an estimated $254 million a year, Howe said. IADDA wants to use $74 million of that to boost funding for substance-abuse treatment programs. The rest would help state government plug its budget hole, she said.
I can think of one non-addictive drug that is consumed totally tax free. How about you?
* Thank you, Gov. Quinn, for your common sense advice on not listening to the idiotic swine flu hysteria…
This grotesque media and political overreaction ought to serve as a valuable lesson to us all.
If media sources that you normally trust grossly overreacted and helped feed the panic out of ignorance or in order to bring attention to themselves, then you’ve now hopefully learned that your trust was horribly misplaced. Don’t believe them again.
And the same goes for politicians who screamed and wailed about closing the Mexican border (as if that was possible), or staying off trains or whatnot. Morons.
Yes, H1N1 has a past history of horrific problems. It wiped out thousands of people during World War I. So, any outbreak should obviously be handled with extreme care and media attention is deserved. But the simplistic overreaction to a handful of tragic deaths in a dirt poor region of a very poor country with a lack of both clean water and any real health care infrastructure was just disgusting from the get-go…
As dust begins to settle from the swine flu crisis, some health officials here say the pandemic grew from hype and hysteria. In the past 10 days, Americans have rushed into emergency rooms, bought out medications and glued themselves to the news for updates on H1N1. […]
“This is absolutely an overreaction,” said Dr. Rene Santos, infectious disease specialist at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey. “We see 36,000 deaths in the United States a year from influenza and its complications yet we don’t have the same amount of hype and alarm.”
No doubt, this was and still remains a serious story and it deserves serious reporting. Instead, we mostly got Bizarro World craziness.
Feared pandemics that prove to be slower moving and less deadly than predicted, such as the swine flu scare of 1976 and the SARS scare of 2003, always look overhyped in the rearview mirror.
Actually, they looked overhyped to many in real time.
* Illinois prisons: Low-level inmate is killed by cellmate with violent past when Illinois prison officials OKd housing them together
Joshua Daczewitz was a first-time inmate at a minimum-security prison when he tested positive for cocaine.
So corrections officials transferred the pudgy, bespectacled Daczewitz to one of the state’s toughest prisons as punishment and put him in a cell with Corey Fox, a lifer in for murder.
That turned out to be a fatal mistake.
With a history of violence even behind bars, Fox had been locked up alone for a year not long after pummeling and threatening to kill a cellmate and confessing to his desire to kill again. Yet after Fox was transferred to Menard Correctional Center in late 2003, several staffers at the maximum-security prison cleared him to share a cell with Daczewitz.
LAZ Parking, a company that does business in 16 states and brings in more than $200 million annually, was poorly prepared to take over Chicago’s parking meters when the handoff from the city took place Feb. 13, the firm acknowledges.
It relied heavily on mall security guards and workers from a temporary job-placement agency — all with no experience in the parking industry — to reprogram the city’s approximately 36,000 meters and change over the decals that provide drivers with rates and rules, company officials said.
But LAZ did not have nearly enough of the hand-held devices that shoot an infrared beam to reset the meters so that they provided the correct amount of time for each quarter inserted into the coin slot, according to workers hired for the task.
“My premise is that the papers have great content. It’s content that people want and they find valuable,” Tyree said. He said the challenge is figuring out how the company can operate on revenue that’s still falling from heydays of more than $400 million a year. In 2008, the company’s revenue was $323.8 million. Like other newspaper companies, Sun-Times Media Group has struggled with declining advertising income as business and some readership moves to the Internet. But circulation at the Chicago Sun-Times has held steady or increased while other major papers declined.
Tyree said he expects the company will be sold via the bankruptcy proceedings within 60 days. The company’s biggest creditor is the Internal Revenue Service, which alleges it is owed $608 million. Bankruptcy could induce the IRS to settle for whatever a buyer pays.
