* A couple of items to close the week. First up, we still need to keep Carlos Hernandez Gomez’s spirits up, so his friends should head over to Carlos’ FaceBook page and give him some encouragement.
Pat Quinn’s campaign has yet another new video. This one is is from Quinn’s endorsement by Congressman Gutierrez. Go take a look.
Prosecutors and lawyers for Springfield power broker William Cellini have filed an agreed motion in federal court that would remove Cellini from the sweeping corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, expected to start next year.
The filing notes that the September death of political fundraiser Christopher Kelly eliminated the need to keep Cellini in the case.
* Just in time for the holidays, we’ve got the release of a 40th anniversary deluxe box set of Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!, perhaps the greatest live rock ‘n’ roll record of all time. I played the heck out of that album when I was younger, and it still holds up today. Here’s the opening track…
* As if the Democratic Party doesn’t have enough problems, Rod Blagojevich now wants his trial moved to September - the heart of the fall campaign season…
Lawyers for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich are seeking to delay the start of his trial next summer, court records show.
The attorneys want the the trial moved from June to September to give them time to review a ruling expected in the spring from the U.S. Supreme Court on the “honest services” provision of the federal mail fraud statute.
That statute criminalizes conduct in which public officials–and others–breach the “honest services” they owe to the public or under their contracts.
“While a subsequent filing will challenge the integration of ‘intangible rights-honest services,’ this court will judicially note that the U.S. Supreme Court has a trio of (such) cases on its docket,” the motion states.
The Supremes could strike down the honest services law, or at least part of its application, so Blagojevich does have a point.
But the political impact of a September trial would be even bigger than if it was held in June, as scheduled. The guy is just so unpredictable and hates Pat Quinn and the rest of the Democratic establishment so much that he’s liable to say or do anything during the election.
Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher and former Bear Terry “Tank” Johnson are among those who wrote letters late last year praising the character of former Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak before he was sentenced to probation for fraud in a controversial decision by a federal judge.
Documents made public this week show Johnson and Urlacher wrote letters to U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur, who sentenced Vrodlyak to 5 years of probation in February. Vrdolyak had been captured on an undercover recording discussing a plan to collect a bogus finder’s fee in a corrupt real estate sale. […]
Johnson — now with the Cincinnati Bengals — wrote that he was friends with the former alderman while Johnson was in Chicago. Johnson was in court here last month testifying in the case of his childhood friend’s murder in a River North nightclub. He admitted lying to police because he feared further legal trouble could end his football career. […]
Urlacher wrote that he met Vrdolyak through Vrdolyak’s youngest son, Eddie. He wrote that he felt like part of the family.
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A February primary usually means a timeout in campaigning while voters are preoccupied with the holidays. But McKenna is exploring using his money advantage to press his message in December.
* Congressman Luis Gutierrez has endorsed Pat Quinn. From a press release…
Pointing to Pat Quinn’s decades-long fight for “kitchen table” issues and reforms that really matter to working families, U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) today announced his endorsement of Governor Quinn.
“Pat Quinn is a champion for consumers, for senior citizens, for veterans, for Latinos and for all of the people of our state,” Gutierrez said at a news conference at Caballeros De San Juan (Credit Union 1) in Chicago. “Governor Quinn understands that every day in Illinois, families are sitting at their kitchen tables making tough decisions about how to make ends meet. Pat Quinn is the person I want in the Governor’s office helping those families.”
* Dan Hynes got off a pretty good zinger in his first ever head-to-head with Gov. Pat Quinn…
“All of a sudden [Hynes] says he’s for a graduated income tax, but it was on the ballot in 2004, he voted against it,” Quinn said. […]
“If the competition is who was for raising taxes first, I guess you win,” [Hynes] told Quinn.
Heh.
The two met at a Rock Island County Democratic “town hall” last night. Quinn appeared to be a bit testy at times. For instance, when asked if they would support whomever won the Democratic primary, Hynes said he would…
Quinn said Hynes’ answer couldn’t be trusted, but didn’t answer the question directly himself, only saying, “I’m a Democrat. I always have been.”
Walls is the only African American running for governor. He says Quinn is trying to knock him off the ballot to improve his own chances of getting most of the black vote in the primary election.
“it’s racially based challenge of petitions of a candidate who’s qualified to be on the ballot for a nefarious purpose,” said Walls.
A Quinn spokesman says Walls has experience on both sides of the petition challenge process. The spokesman says Walls once failed to get on the ballot for city clerk because he didn’t have enough legitimate signatures and another time unsuccessfully challenged Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s nominating petitions.
Topping ballots in Feb. 2 primaries for governor will be William “Dock” Walls of Chicago for the Democrats and state Sen. Kirk Dillard of Hinsdale for the Republicans.
In the races for nomination for U.S. Senate, the lottery showed that Robert Marshall of Burr Ridge will be on top in the Democratic contest, while Don Lowery of Golconda is to lead the GOP ballot.
In the field of six Republicans and six Democrats seeking the post of lieutenant governor, attorney and family businessman Don Tracy of Springfield finished first in the GOP while state Rep. Art Turner of Chicago won the top spot among Democrats. Turner’s petitions face a challenge.
In the race among three Democrats and three Republicans for the state comptroller nomination, Democratic state Rep. David Miller of Lynwood got the first ballot position while former state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka won the GOP’s top placement for the office.
* Democratic US Senate candidate Jacob Meister is trying to get a bit of traction by attacking his opponents…
Meister called state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias a “career politician” and made note of Cheryle Jackson’s work as a one-time spokeswoman for disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“Cheryle Jackson comes right out of the inner sanctum of the Blagojevich administration,” Meister said. […]
Meister criticized former Chicago inspector general David Hoffman for trying to make the race about ethics.
“Hoffman is playing the slick game of trying to make this election about corruption and his plan for fighting corruption,” Meister said.
He has a very long row to hoe, to say the least. Trying to get your name known before Feb. 2nd is pretty near impossible without a multi-million dollar warchest.
* State Sen. Cronin will top ballot in DuPage chairman’s race: If conventional wisdom holds true, state Sen. Dan Cronin picked up an extra 5 percent of the Republican votes Tuesday in his bid for the DuPage County Board Chairman’s seat.
* Ethics complaint filed against Lake County’s Linda Pedersen: The complaint was filed by Eighth District Democratic Central Committeewoman Nancy Shepherdson on Thursday with the Office of the Legislative Inspector General in Springfield. It says that Pedersen used Republican State Rep. JoAnn Osmond’s office phone to accept RSVPs for a fundraiser for County Board Chairwoman and Republican state Senate candidate Suzi Schmidt. Pedersen is a legislative aide for Osmond and works in her Antioch office.
* My Sun-Times column today is about an issue I’ve discussed several times since the federal “stimulus” plan was first debated. The states are getting the shaft and it is hurting everyone…
This winter, when you’re freezing your tail off waiting extra long for a city bus because of CTA budget cuts, you might want to blame President Obama.
OK, maybe not just Obama. The people responsible for the financial systems meltdown started this disaster.
The economic meltdown that began on Wall Street and then morphed into our current “Great Recession” has all but dried up state and local government revenues.
Obama did support a major cash infusion to state and local governments, but he backed away from a more ambitious plan when “moderate” Republicans and rural Democrats objected. You can blame them for your long bus wait as well.
Illinois did get some money out of the deal, but it wasn’t nearly enough, and the resulting deficit is absolutely crippling.
The political climate makes it impossible to raise taxes to stem the state’s frightening wave of red ink. It’s so bizarre out there that moderate Republican gubernatorial candidate Kirk Dillard now refers to Obama as a “socialist.” That’s the same Kirk Dillard who made a TV ad for Obama’s presidential campaign.
Without revenues, Illinois has been cutting services, borrowing short-term and delaying billions in payments to human service providers and other vendors.
And because the state is in such a bind, it can’t help properly fund the CTA. Gov. Quinn came up with a plan this week to let senior citizens keep their free rides, but it amounts to chump change, and the overall reorganization plan merely delays the day of final reckoning for a year or two — if that.
Meanwhile, transit routes are being slashed and jobs are being cut during the worst employment market in memory.
Even worse, an absolutely essential public asset is being allowed to whither on the vine. Politicians such as Quinn fear that a fare increase will result in a voter backlash. Voters are just fed up with Illinois politicians getting in their pockets, so he and the others do have a point. But how long can the transit system remain viable if it’s being scaled back year after year?
Now, back to Obama.
The projected state deficit is about 2 percent of Illinois’ gross domestic product. Because we can’t print money or borrow long-term like the federal government does, the deficit is a direct drag on Illinois’ economy. For instance, when the state pays a vendor six months late, that vendor has to borrow to make payroll, and because businesses can’t borrow like they used to, workers are let go, or vendors go under.
Illinois is not alone. Revenues have dried up for almost every state and local government in the nation, so they’ve cut, cut, cut. While Obama is trying to hit the economic gas pedal, state and local governments are slamming on the economic brakes. National liberal blogger Duncan Black has taken to calling governors “50 little Hoovers” for their Herbert Hoover-like economic policies of cutting their budgets during an economic catastrophe.
Black, who has a Ph.D. in economics from Brown University, is part of a growing chorus of people who are demanding that the federal government do something to prevent state and local governments from derailing a recovery.
The Democrats who run things in Washington, including Obama, ought to listen. If they want to get re-elected next year, they have to fix the economy. And they can’t make the fix stick if every forward step they take is partially or totally nullified by the states’ budget problems.
Your long bus wait is just a symptom of the overall problem. And it’s going to get worse unless Obama acts soon.
* Eric Zorn takes us through the long, disgusting road that was the wrongful prosecution of Rolando Cruz and Alex Hernandez. The context is a statement by DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett during Brian Dugan’s trial in the Jeanine Nicarico case that eventually led to Dugan’s death sentence: “We got it right! We got it right, Brian! You raped and killed Jeanine Nicarico!”
Zorn disagrees…
Dugan’s public defender told DuPage County authorities this fact in 1985 after Dugan was arrested and confessed to a strikingly similar rape and murder in LaSalle County. But DuPage didn’t get it. They’d already put Rolando Cruz and Alex Hernandez onto death row for the crime, and so dismissed Dugan as a liar.
A state police investigator subjected Dugan’s claim to extensive scrutiny and came away “totally convinced” he was telling the truth. DuPage didn’t get it.
A series of journalists beginning with Rob Warden, now director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, pored over the evidence and, to a one, concluded that the county had cynically botched the prosecution of Cruz and Hernandez and that Dugan was Jeanine’s killer beyond any doubt. DuPage didn’t get it.
Activists all over the world used the Nicarico case to highlight the dangerous flaws in the capital justice system. DuPage didn’t get it. An assistant Illinois attorney general assigned to contest Cruz’s appeal examined all the evidence in 1992 and resigned rather than participate in what she deemed “this ugly prosecution.” DuPage didn’t get it.
Under the leadership of then-State’s Attorney Jim Ryan, the same Jim Ryan who is now running in the Republican gubernatorial primary, DuPage County continued to brand Dugan a liar and to press the state to execute Cruz and Hernandez. Thursday afternoon, Ryan issued an extraordinary statement acknowledging that he failed to achieve a just outcome in the Cruz-Hernandez case. “And for that I am sorry,” he said.
In 1995, a new round of DNA tests performed at the insistence of Cruz’s defense attorneys excluded Cruz as the source of the semen found inside the victim and put Dugan in the 0.03 percent of the male Caucasian population that could have been the source. DuPage didn’t still didn’t get it, though in attempting to retry Cruz prosecutors began at last admitting that Dugan was “involved” in the crime.
* Meanwhile, all but two Republican candidates for governor support lifting the death penalty moratorium first imposed by Gov. George Ryan or abolishing the death penalty altogether…
Of the seven Republicans, only political consultant turned candidate Dan Proft opposed the death penalty and only former Attorney General Jim Ryan said he’d keep the moratorium in place.
Proft said he would support abolishing the death penalty. “It’s still a fallible justice system presided over fallible human beings,” he said. He would lift the moratorium only because it was, in his view, an illegal act to begin with. As governor, Proft said he’d use his executive power to stay executions or commute death sentences to life in prison if the death penalty wasn’t abolished.
“We have rewritten our death penalty statute. The safeguards are in there, so we can lift it now,” said Kirk Dillard, who supports the death penalty. […]
Andy McKenna said he supports the death penalty but wouldn’t say whether he supports or opposes the moratorium, offering only that he’d “review” it if elected.
McKenna doesn’t have many opinions. I talked to him yesterday for a while and got almost nothing out of him on any topic.
* And the SJ-R editorialized yesterday on the subject…
Illinois’ death penalty record from 1976 until 2000 was abysmal: 12 executions, 13 exonerations. The executions stopped in 2000 when Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium that still stands.
A slew of reforms instituted in the years since now provide safeguards against execution of the innocent. They can’t guarantee that an innocent person will be put to death, but they do guarantee that Illinois’ capital punishment system is more expensive, cumbersome and resource-draining than ever before. Dugan’s attorneys have already indicated they will appeal his sentence, a process that likely will take well over a decade.
We believe the real problem with capital punishment is that it is meted out as an act of revenge, not an act of justice. It is not delivered uniformly according to criminal codes, but by the caprice of individual juries. That’s why Brian Dugan can be killed by the state but the Brown’s Chicken massacre killers and Maurice LaGrone can’t.
Our justice system can never define “the worst of the worst.” It can’t codify revenge. Illinois, which sent 13 innocent people to death row in less than 14 years, can never guarantee it won’t happen again. As our moratorium on executions nears its 10-year anniversary, it’s time for Illinois to recognize this and formally abolish capital punishment.
* And there was reaction from Birkett to Jim Ryan’s apology for repeatedly attempting to execute two innocent men…
In an October 2002 debate, Ryan and Blagojevich were asked to name their biggest political regrets. Ryan did not name any regrets in that forum, not even twice prosecuting Cruz for Nicarico’s murder. […]
On Thursday he said, “If I am elected governor, I will not lift the moratorium on capital punishment until we have created a more limited and accurate system of capital punishment … While Illinois has made significant progress, other reforms have been left on the table, such as a reduction in the number of eligibility factors that trigger the death penalty.”
Ryan’s stance on the moratorium drew condemnation from his one-time top aide in the state’s attorney’s office and the man who successfully prosecuted Dugan, DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett.
“While I respect Jim Ryan, I strongly disagree with his announcement … that if elected governor, he would not lift the moratorium on the death penalty,” Birkett said. “The moratorium put in place by former Gov. George Ryan is legal fiction. The power to pardon, grant clemency or commutation should be used on a case by case basis as the framers of our constitution intended.”
* Related…
* Did Dugan kill even more? - Birkett wants other unsolved crimes investigated to stop him from offering last-minute info in bid to delay execution
Mayor Richard Daley’s administration believes it has cleaned up the city’s corrupt hiring system and early next year will seek to end court oversight of its personnel practices, his top lawyer told aldermen Thursday.
Mara Georges said she plans to tell a federal judge that the city is in “substantial compliance” with the decades-long Shakman decree, the legal threshold for getting out from under court control. Georges’ brief comment came during a question and answer session with a City Council budget committee.
The Daley administration has longed chafed about its hiring system being under the scrutiny of court-appointed monitor Noelle Brennan. She was named to the position in August 2005 after authorities arrested Daley’s patronage chief and others on charges they rigged the hiring system to reward the mayor’s political allies with jobs and promotions.
And it gets worse: Schools aren’t even testing many 11th graders who wouldn’t perform well. As the Tribune recently reported, school districts across the state use a loophole that allows them to liberally define who is a high school junior. The Tribune found that 20 percent of sophomores in the state didn’t advance to junior status last year.
Voila! You’re not a junior, you don’t take the test! And the school’s results aren’t weighed down.
About 70 workers at a vacuum-cleaner warehouse in Will County are losing their jobs. The vacuum company says it’s because a contract for their services is ending. The workers say it’s because they joined a union and complained about their pay and conditions.
According to a Forbes magazine report released this week, the NHL had its most profitable year in 2008-09 and team values rose $3 million to an average of $223 million.
The Hawks, however, increased in value the most. They had ranked 14th in 2007-08, with a value of $205 million. Last year, their value climbed to $258 million — a whopping 26 percent increase. So, the Hawks now rank seventh in financial value among the 30 NHL teams.
* Stringing the Holiday Lights on the Illinois State Capitol - Nov 12, 2009…
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s campaign is launching a new online video series called Quinn Stories. This first video is an introduction to the series. Have a look…
Keep in mind that these videos are not your normal TV advertisements. Too many of you have assumed as much when we’ve looked at online videos from Quinn and others. You gotta get past the old way of doing things. These are meant solely for online viewers, mainly supporters. So please take that into consideration when you rate these types of videos. Thanks.
Also, Quinn’s campaign uses an in-house guy to do these videos. They’re not farmed out to an expensive consultant. Everything from the shooting to the editing is done by a low-paid, over-worked yet highly talented staffer.
* This is a worthwhile event, and I hope to see as many of you as possible this Saturday night. I’ll be there…
A trivia night fundraiser will be held on Nov. 14 in Springfield to raise money for the Public Affairs Reporting Vu Nguyen Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship was created in memory of Vu Nguyen, a 2008 graduate of the University of Illinois at Springfield and talented statehouse reporter who died in May 2009.
The trivia night begins at 7 p.m. at Floyd’s Thirst Parlor, 210 S. 5th Street in Springfield. Doors open at 6 p.m. Tickets are $10 each, and participants are welcome to form teams up to 10 people. The winning team will be given a cash prize, and a 50/50 prize will be given at the event. The trivia night will be emceed by WUIS public radio personality Jenna Dooley. Participants can register in advance or come to the event when the doors open.
Trivia night is one of many grassroots efforts by Nguyen’s Public Affairs Reporting classmates to raise scholarship funds in his memory. Nguyen, 34, was a talented journalist who considered no conversational detail trivial and who took a great interest in his friends and the state he covered for The Associated Press.
A native of Vietnam, Nguyen spent most of his life in California before moving to Springfield for his master’s degree. After graduating in 2008, Nguyen got married and worked as a newspaper reporter in California. He was actively pursuing his lifelong dream of teaching journalism.
More than $10,000 has been raised for the Vu Nguyen Memorial Scholarship, to be awarded annually to other aspiring journalists in the Public Affairs Reporting program at UIS. The PAR Class of 2008 has set $25,000 in endowed scholarship funds as its goal. This scholarship is administered through the University of Illinois at Springfield Foundation.
For more information on Nguyen and how to donate to the memorial scholarship, check out www.remembervu.webs.com.
On Wednesday, Brian Dugan was sentenced to death for the murder of Jeanine Nicarico. In the case of Brian Dugan, the criminal justice system worked. In previous prosecutions, it did not. I said in interviews in 2002 that I had less confidence in the accuracy of the criminal justice system than I did earlier in my career. I continue to believe that.
In the Cruz-Hernandez cases, prosecutors, detectives and police officers acted in good faith and still came up with the wrong result. In the Cruz-Hernandez cases, the system and I failed to achieve a just outcome. And for that I am sorry.
Although I continue to believe that the state has the right to take a life under limited circumstances to protect society, I also believe we must do more to ensure the accuracy of the system of capital punishment and limit its application to the “worst of the worst,” such as Brian Dugan.
I believe we must do more to ensure the accuracy of the criminal justice system. Good intentions are not enough when human life is at stake.
If I am elected governor, I will not lift the moratorium on capital punishment until we have created a more limited and accurate system of capital punishment. While Illinois has made significant progress, other reforms have been left on the table, such as a reduction in the number of eligibility factors that trigger the death penalty.
Is it enough to erase the stain?
* From the Mark Kirk for US Senate campaign…
- Five-term GOP Congressman and Navy veteran Mark Kirk released a new poll today that shows him maintaining a six-point lead over likely general election opponent Alexi Giannoulias.
- In a survey of 772 likely Illinois voters, Kirk leads Giannoulias 44-38 with 18 percent undecided. The poll, conducted by Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies on November 3, 2009 with a 3.5 percent margin of error, follows an October 8, 2009 survey that showed Kirk leading 42-35 with 23 percent undecided.
- In the same survey Kirk leads other potential Democrat opponents by larger margins: David Hoffman 43-32; Cheryle Jackson 45-33; and Jacob Meister 45-28.
* Sen. Bill Brady responds to today’s endorsement of Andy McKenna by House GOP Leader Tom Cross…
I have great respect for my legislative colleague Tom Cross, but his support for Andy McKenna in the race for Governor is just the opinion of one man. Andy McKenna champions himself as an outsider, but House Minority Leader Tom Cross is anything but an outsider.
Illinois needs a clean break from the politics of the past. We need to take the control away from the political dynasty that has ruled Springfield far too long, and give it back to the people of Illinois.
I believe voters are looking for a candidate who stand up to the political insiders and power brokers so their votes count. I believe that the people of Illinois want a Governor who represents all of Illinois, and not just one corner of the state. I am that candidate.
My campaign is about Illinois’ future, a future with more jobs, more integrity and a greater voice in their government for all Illinois citizens. In this spirit, my campaign continues to grow stronger every day with grass-roots endorsements from voters who are seeking decisive leadership and a new direction for all of Illinois.
Pretty standard stuff. Brady’s the one fighting the insiders? Huh. OK. And he’s the break from the politics of the past after being in politics for years?
More on today’s endorsement here and in the Sun-Times.
* SEIU is spending more than a few bucks attacking specific congressmen on TV, including in Illinois…
The Service Employees International Union has put together a new group to launch health care ad campaigns targeting specific members of Congress who voted against Democratic reform plans–the Foundation for Patients Rights. So far, they’re going after four lawmakers, spending $400,000 on the first week of TV ads against Reps. Patrick Tiberi (R-OH), Mike Castle (R-DE), Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Mary Bono-Mack (R-CA).
* Democratic US Senate candidate Jacob Meister said this morning: “This race is not about who is the most ethical.” McDermott has the reasoning…
Meister’s point (made in the course of explaining why he won’t accept opponent David Hoffman’s challenge to all candidates to release their income tax records) is that jobs and the economy are the issues that people actually care about; that ethics is “a starting point” but not the end-all issue that politicians and the media have made it out to be.
“People are sick to death of hearing about ethics,” he said.
* Usually, conservatives are the first to decry anyone of color who plays the “race card.” But Illinois Review reversed the polarities this week…
Democrat Quinn showing his racist side?
Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn refuses to deny that his campaign is behind the effort to remove William Walls, the only African-American candidate, from the Democratic governor primary contest. Like Obama, Walls is a community activist, which, according to the Democrats and ACORN, is an honorable professions…like child prostitution.
Seems like yet another example of racism by the Democrats.
Quick note. Jack Roeser’s Champion News is misreporting that William J. Kelly is exiting the Comptroller’s race. We should have a statement on this shortly. Thought you should know.
* Back in 1996 when Dick Durbin, Pat Quinn and Clint Krislov were all running for the US Senate, Durbin challenged Krislov’s nominating petitions. Krislov eventually dropped out of the race. Durbin stomped Quinn in the primary and went on to win the seat of retiring US Sen. Paul Simon.
At the time that Durbin challenged Krislov’s petitions, Pat Quinn was quoted in the Sun-Times saying this…
“Never in a million years would Paul Simon in his 40 years in politics have tried to keep an opponent off the ballot. I think Dick Durbin should be ashamed of himself.”
Gov. Pat Quinn acknowledged Wednesday that his supporters may be behind a challenge to knock a Democratic rival off the primary ballot, a day after saying he didn’t know whether his campaign was involved.
The effort to remove William “Dock” Walls, the only African-American candidate in the Feb. 2 gubernatorial primary, could be contentious. Quinn has worked to reach out to black voters, even creating a new post of diversity officer.
At the same time an attempt by his supporters to remove the lone African-American candidate could alienate a major Democratic voting bloc.
Look, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with challenging petitions. The law is the law, and too many candidates don’t bother following it. But this latest flip-flop shows that Gov. Pat Quinn has either “matured” as a politician or has sold his soul.
Actually, that might make a good question.
* The Question: Has Gov. Quinn matured as a politician or has he sold his soul to get himself elected? Explain.
…Adding… I should’ve been more clear that this is a snarky question. Snarky responses are heavily encouraged.
Illinois is poised to fork over a record amount of late penalties and interest payments this year to pay off vendors who are waiting months to be paid what they are owed from the state. […]
All told, the price tag for being a deadbeat state this year will be an estimated $60 million that won’t be spent on anything other than borrowing or penalties.
“It’s getting to be a huge number,” said Dan Long, executive director of the General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, which compiled a recent report on late penalties.
* There are no surprises in this new report on the state’s fiscal condition. The only real news is Illinois’ ranking…
Illinois is one of the 10 most financially troubled states in the country, a new report says, warning that it struggles with many of the problems that led to “economic disaster” in California.
The report, “Beyond California: States in Fiscal Peril,” portrays Illinois and eight other states as facing fiscal hardships that are just as tough as California’s, which at one point this year was making payments with IOUs.
Authors of the report, issued by the Pew Center on the States, cited Illinois for “its lack of fiscal discipline to balance its state budget.” They noted that Illinois’ $13.2 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2010 was among the top three in the country.
“Officials have used all sorts of short-term approaches to address the budget gaps, but two of the most significant and consequential are to put off paying bills and skimp on the state’s annual pension payments,” the report said.
With $115 million in missed payments from the state as of Nov. 1, Southern Illinois University President Glenn Poshard is calling for faculty and staff to chill out on spending.
In fact, the situation at Southern is so tight, payroll after this month is iffy, according to university spokesman David Gross.
In a memo to faculty and staff at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Poshard urged everyone to slow or halt expenditures not related to salary. The goal, he said, was to protect the university’s ability to meet payroll. […]
“We haven’t been paid anything since July 1 by the state,” Poshard said. “It’s a very difficult time, and we’re doing the best we can to survive.”
* One of the problems mentioned in that Pew study above was how Illinois has constantly used temporary, one-off budget fixes. The state is now applying those fixes to the RTA, so the Tribune is spot on with today’s editorial…
When we heard that Gov. Pat Quinn was hunkered down with transit officials, trying to solve their budget woes, our first thought was uh oh. When a guy with no money comes to the table insisting that riders shouldn’t pay more and seniors shouldn’t pay anything, you know what’s coming next: money from heaven.
Sure enough, Quinn has hatched a plan that sounds painfully familiar: We’ll borrow our way out of a tough decision!
The Regional Transit Authority will issue bonds for $166 million worth of capital projects in the next two years, freeing up federal dollars to feed the Chicago Transit Authority’s operating budget.
The state will pay the debt service on the bonds for at least two years, estimated to be $15.3 million. The Illinois Department of Transportation, meanwhile, will chip in $17 million to help Pace provide door-to-door paratransit service. In return, the transit agencies agreed not to raise fares in 2010 or 2011. […]
Quinn’s plan addresses only the fare hikes. That means CTA riders can hang onto their change, but a lot of them will still have to wait half an hour for the bus and ride while standing because service will be cut. And the RTA will be another $166 million in debt, plus interest. And don’t forget, seniors ride for free!
Not to mention 1,100 layoffs during a deep recession.
Asked if he was kicking the can down the road at a time when the state has scant dollars, Quinn called the move prudent given that many riders are facing tough economic times and can’t afford higher fares.
“We brought people together to come up with a fiscally responsible plan. The voters will like this,” he said. “This is exactly what we have to do in an emergency.”
OK, but what about the riders who need to get to work on time but their bus has been canceled because of budget cuts?
QUINN: Every major government in the United States of America at the state or local level is under fiscal strain right now because of the economy. And so we have to manage this like never before, and I’ve done that. I think the people of Illinois know I know a lot about economics. As a matter of fact, I majored in economics at Georgetown University. And I’ve been the state treasurer. I’ve been commissioner, board of tax appeals. I’ve done a lot of economic things.
* Related…
* Study Says Illinois Is At Risk of Fiscal Calamity: The Pew Center on the States looked at 6 factors to determine a state’s financial shape, including foreclosure rates, unemployment numbers and state budget gaps. California scored the worst with a financial shortfall of about 49 percent of its total budget. Managing director Sue Urahn says Illinois isn’t doing so well either. It has the second highest budget gap.
* Illinois foreclosures spike in October: A state law that gives distressed homeowners an extra grace period to help avoid foreclosure may have created some pent-up foreclosure activity in the state. After the law went into effect in April, Illinois foreclosure activity decreased for three months before going up again, the RealtyTrac report said.
“This election is about jobs,” Cross said in a separate telephone call on Wednesday. “It’s about the economy. Andy has demonstrated the ability to run a company and really has taken a regional company to a global company. … We need somebody that can balance a checkbook and find a way for us to prosper as a state, and he brings that.” […]
“We’re not looking in this election for somebody that’s flashy or the great orator,” Cross added. “We’ve had enough of that in our former governor (ROD BLAGOJEVICH). We need somebody that’s just down to earth, that can make things happen from a jobs and economic standpoint in this state.” […]
Cross also thinks the fact that McKenna has never held elective office and that Murphy, of Palatine, is in his first state Senate term, actually improves their chances.
“It’s hard to attack a guy like Andy or Matt,” Cross said. “What we see in a lot of elections is pulling out old votes and saying … ‘How do you explain yourself?’ They’re in a position of not really having to worry about that.”
* The AP has finally noticed that tea party candidates forum which was held a week ago…
Five of the seven Republican candidates claim rising temperatures have nothing to do with pollution from cars, factories or power plants.
“I don’t accept the premise that man is the cause of global warming, if global warming even exists,” Kirk Dillard, a state senator from Hinsdale, said at a candidate forum last week. […]
“Global warming is not created by man and anybody who says that, it’s just bad science. It’s not true,” said Bob Schillerstrom, chairman of the DuPage County Board.
Dan Proft, a Chicago-area public relations consultant, said Al Gore and other global warming activists are “kind of enviro-terrorists.”
Whenever I’m trying to relax these days, it seems that another political commercial for a candidate running for governor of Illinois appears.
There’s a Republican candidate running a spot about the “Culture of the Hair” in Illinois.
A Blagojevich-type wig appears on the top of the Capitol dome, and then governors out of the past appear with Blagojevich hair transposed on their heads. They’re all crooks is the implication.
It was sort of funny the first time I saw it. It made me chuckle, especially because the commercial is for Andy McKenna, who has been part of the political scene in Springfield for a long time.
But by the fifth time I saw the commercial, all I wanted to do was take a spritz bottle and point it at McKenna’s face.
* Related…
* Is Kirk leaning to right in Senate bid? He says ‘I am who I am’ : “I am a social moderate, fiscal conservative. But this is a big race, and we are building a broad coalition, and it will be, for a Republican candidacy, a center-right coalition,” said Kirk, a five-term North Shore congressman who is seeking a promotion to the Senate next year. “But for me, I haven’t changed my views.”
* This is not what I’m hearing, but I should have more for subscribers soon…
Carolyn Brown Hodge said Wednesday that she resigned last month as deputy chief of staff to Gov. Pat Quinn to avoid any “cloud” over his administration, but she’s hopeful that an inspector general’s probe will clear her of any question of wrongdoing.
“Anybody that will talk to you will tell you that that I made a really concerted effort to keep politics out of my government job,” Hodge said in a telephone interview from her home in rural Paris, Ill.
Hodge’s seven years working for Quinn included being director of rural affairs in the lieutenant governor’s office and deputy chief of staff in the governor’s office.
The Chicago Sun-Times first reported that she quit her $119,158 job in the governor’s office late last month amid a probe of whether she had done political work on state time.
People looking for part-time work over the holidays can blame an unemployment rate of more than 10 percent and a cautious retail sales outlook if they find the sledding a little rough.[…]
The Philadelphia-based Hay Group, a global management consulting firm, surveyed 25 top U.S. retailers earlier this fall and found that 40 percent of those responding plan to hire 5 percent to 25 percent fewer seasonal workers this year. It found that 64 percent already have lower-than-normal staffing levels.
Chicago’s moved up from its place last year, but it’s still not doing well. Of the 200 largest metro areas, Chicago comes in at 148 of the nation’s best performing cities. An annual report released by the Milken Institute ranks metropolitan areas by how well a city can create and continue economic growth.
Chicago’s low ranking shows the decline in jobs and the stagnation of salary and wages. The areas where the city saw the sharpest declines in employment were manufacturing and the financial sector. The loss of those jobs had a negative affect on administrative and support positions. But the report says Chicago remains a major business center and will eventually benefit from a national recovery.
Facing eviction for not paying $10,000 in back rent on office space in Westchester, Flowers moved into a Broadview building a little more than a week ago.[…]
In addition, sources close to the office said, employees - who should have been paid Nov. 6 - have yet to receive their paychecks.
The closure is unrelated to a Cook County state’s attorney’s office criminal investigation that resulted in a raid of the Westchester office and Flowers’ home, or a lawsuit alleging he engaged in a scheme to defraud Cook County and avoid officials after defaulting on a $190,000 loan.[…]
“They didn’t apply for a business license, which would require an inspection,” Fornaro said. “No certificate of occupancy was issued.”
High-scoring kids were being rejected simply because of the order in which they listed their college prep preferences.
“I couldn’t believe it,'’ schools CEO Ron Huberman said. “It’s terrible.'’
CPS officials said Wednesday they have decided to let any eighth-grader who applied to a college prep for fall 2010 admission re-rank their preferences to better conform with a new selection system.
A year after Barrington Community Unit School District 220 banned flavored milk from its lunch menus, the students persuaded administrators to give it another chance. Now the sweetened drinks are served on Fridays as the district tries to decide whether the benefits of calcium and vitamin D are worth the added sugar.
* Narcoleptic police dispatcher reaches settlement with Hillside after firing
Thousands of Illinoisans live in fear that someone they know may try to harm them. All told, more than 27,000 active orders of protection are on the books.
Problem is, about one-fifth of these court orders have not been served to those accused of abuse. If they violate an order for which they have not been notified, the offenders cannot be arrested, leaving their victims vulnerable to further attacks or harassment.
A new initiative by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office is aimed at closing this gap in the justice system and providing enforceable legal protection to more victims of domestic violence.
A spokeswoman for Quinn denied comment on whether the Quinn campaign was behind the challenge to Walls’ petitions. Quinn’s Downstate campaign director did request copies of Walls’ petitions.
* Quinn won’t say if he’s behind effort to remove only African-American candidate from governor’s contest?
Gov. Pat Quinn vowed transparency when he succeeded the disgraced Rod Blagojevich as the state’s chief executive, but today neither Quinn nor his campaign would discuss whether they’re behind the effort to remove the only African-American candidate from the Democratic governor primary contest.
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady put out a statement calling on the Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights to immediately expel the Council on American-Islamic Relations from its list of affiliated agencies over alleged ties to Hamas in the Middle East.
Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR’s Chicago chapter, called that “utter garbage,” “dirty politics” and part of a “coordinated misinformation campaign” by a GOP leadership “lacking in guts.”
Sneed hears Gov. Quinn is going to appoint two new members to the CTA Board: John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, and Katie McClain, the Chicago director of the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation.
A suburban Cook County Board member is leading an effort to quash President Todd Stroger’s attempt to open a Cook County Film Commission Office.[…]
Stroger’s 2010 budget proposal allotted about $250,000 for creation of the film office, but the lion’s share of that would go to salaries: $100,000 for an executive director and more than $78,000 for two assistants.
The No. 2 man at Chicago’s 911 emergency center has resigned his $149,832-a-year job to avoid being fired for alleged contract irregularities that cost taxpayers $2.25 million.
Chicagoans likely will never see the names of the 662 Chicago Police officers with 10 or more complaints against them.
A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that an independent journalist and 28 Chicago aldermen “lacked standing” to file a lawsuit asking to see the list because the case the list was compiled for has been settled.
“The unwillingness of the Police Department to provide information to public officials about officers whose conduct may be questionable is a real problem,” said Ad. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), a leader of the 28 aldermen.
The Illinois Student Assistance Commission says it still has $66 million for low-interest, federally secured loans to students for the 2009-2010 academic year.
For the first time, the income levels of students’ neighborhoods will help determine whether kids win seats at one of the city’s elite college prep high schools or elementary schools for the gifted.
* Chicago changes criteria for admission to magnet, selective schools
* CTA president says mom’s stroller story ‘plausible’
Transit agency investigation focusing on train operator
* Safety of timers at red-light camera intersections debated
City transportation officials told aldermen at a budget hearing that they don’t favor adding the countdown signs at red-light camera intersections. Drivers check the countdown to see how many seconds they have until green lights change instead of watching to see if the car in front of them is slowing down, said Thomas Powers, acting commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation.
“What that tends to do is, you would see an increase in rear-end collisions. It would actually decrease the safety value of the camera, having those countdowns,” Powers said.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit against two telemarketers Tuesday alleging they scammed Illinois consumers with false promises of reducing their credit card interest rates, and her office advised consumers on how to avoid being ripped off.
Illinois veterans of the National Guard and U.S. Military Reserve can now get $10,000 low-interest loans when their duties end because of changes in a state program.
A trivia night fundraiser will be held on Nov. 14 in Springfield to raise money for the Public Affairs Reporting Vu Nguyen Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship was created in memory of Vu Nguyen, a 2008 graduate of the University of Illinois at Springfield and talented statehouse reporter who died in May 2009.
