* 6:08 pm - It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but the Illinois Federation of Teachers’ executive board just voted to endorse Dan Hynes for governor.
That’s a significant boost to the campaign, especially ahead of the IL AFL-CIO’s endorsement session early next week.
The teachers union has been upset at Quinn for numerous issues, not least of which is the governor’s stated goal of messing with their pensions.
Three other unions also endorsed Hynes today: Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1546, and the International Brotherhood of the Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers, and Helpers Local 1. According to a Hynes campaign press release, that’s about 40,000 people.
The two most well-known Democratic contenders running for a North Shore congressional seat split sharply today on the war in Afghanistan and extending federal tax cuts.
* 4:17 pm - Mark Doyle has withdrawn from the treasurer’s race. This isn’t much of a surprise to subscribers. As I told them earlier this week, Doyle, a Democratic campaign operative, had serious petition problems.
Doyle’s withdrawal leaves Robin Kelly and Justin Oberman in the Democratic primary.
UPDATE: Doyle’s withdrawal was posted on the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website. It has since disappeared. I’ll get back to you.
UPDATE 2: The board’s “Latest withdrawn” page no longer displays Doyle’s withdrawal, but when you look at Doyle’s individual page (nothing directly linkable because the ISBoE’s website completely sucks) you see this…
UPDATE 3: I was able to reach Doyle, who confirmed that he had, indeed, withdrawn. “I have neither the resources nor the money” to keep up the fight, Doyle said.
[ *** End of Updates *** ]
Also, Sen. Don Harmon has withdrawn from the 7th Congressional District Democratic Committeeman’s race. The incumbent there is Congressman Danny Davis. Joseph Sneed and Thomas Simmons have also withdrawn, leaving Davis, Brian Henderson and Edward James as the remaining candidates to date.
* In other news, state Rep. Julie Hamos announced the endorsement of Teamsters Joint Council 25 in her 10th Congressional District race and the Illinois Painters District Council #30 and the Sprinkler Fitters Local 281 today endorsed Raja Krishnamoorthi for Comptroller.
A coalition of political reform groups today launched an uphill effort to change the way legislative districts are drawn in Illinois, suggesting that power be taken away from political bosses and giving it to an independent board.
Dubbed the “Illinois Fair Map Amendment,” the would-be reformers are attempting to change the Illinois Constitution to establish a 9-person board to draw districts. The idea is to make the process more transparent and to prevent political leaders from carving out portions of the state to sway partisan leanings of districts.
Under the proposal, the panel that draws the maps will be required to release the plans for public viewing before they are voted on by the legislature. If approved, the legislature would have to approve maps by a 2/3rds margin, but if they rejected them more than twice the board would have the power to chose one of the proposed maps to automatically become law.
Further, the proposal attempts to prevent gerrymandering by requiring districts to follow geographic and municipal boundaries as much as possible. Further, area voting history cannot be taken into consideration when creating boundaries.
Click here for the proposal’s language and click here for the fact sheet. [Fixed links.]
* We spent a lot of time yesterday talking about Gov. Quinn’s false claim that Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias had signed off on a $500 million short-term borrowing plan and that Dan Hynes was the lone holdout. Giannoulias hadn’t signed off and Hynes said the governor’s office changed the plan several times and then set an arbitrary and almost immediate deadline for approval without providing any specifics.
Anyway, the governor’s office, which has not exactly been honest on this topic, responded to a few points in the coverage. One of those responses was to something I had written…
Back in October, Gov. Quinn was talking about borrowing $900 million short-term for healthcare and college scholarships. Behind the scenes, however, that number fluctuated wildly almost day to day and finally settled on $500 million.
The guv’s response…
Governor’s office has adjusted the dollar amount to accommodate the concerns of the Comptroller and Attorney General offices.
I asked the comptroller’s office for comment and here it is…
The Comptroller’s Office has consistently sought clarity from the Governor’s Office as to the details of their various borrowing proposals which they have been unable to provide. We don’t know what the Governor’s office is talking about and it seems increasingly apparent that they don’t either.
Oof.
The attorney general’s office said last night that they had simply asked the governor’s people to match their short-term borrowing request to statutory requirements.
So, once again, more distortions from the governor’s office.
The thing is, if Quinn had just waited until Giannoulias was really on board, he had a pretty good hit to use against the comptroller. But he didn’t wait, and he blew it. Badly. No excuse for that.
By the way, I just called the treasurer’s office and there’s nothing new to report from them.
* Meanwhile, some folks are complaining that the governor will deliver his State of the State address a few weeks before primary day…
His State of the State address could be a State of the Campaign address as well, some lawmakers say. Quinn delivers it Jan. 13 — less than three weeks before he tries to win the Feb. 2 Democratic primary election.
“It would appear to me that it’s nothing less than for the governor to take advantage of his office,” said Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield.
Meh. He’s the governor. He’s entitled to give a SOTS address in January if he wants.
Hynes didn’t specify a philosophical opposition to the [slots at tracks] idea, but said, “It’s just not part of my plan.”
That may sound like inconsistent policy, but it’s consistent politics. Hynes’ campaign to wrest the governor’s office from Gov. Pat Quinn, a fellow Democrat, is based largely on Hynes’ asseration that Quinn has had a shifting, seat-of-the-pants approach to governing. [Yesterday] morning, Hynes presented Quinn’s apparent openness to exploring the racetrack-slots idea as another example of that.
“One thing I don’t want to do is budget on the fly,” said Hynes. “ . . . This week it’s slots at the tracks. What’s it going to be next week?”
Good point, but we need to get something done somewhere. I don’t really blame Quinn for trying to find an opening.
* In other campaign news, I received a rather weird e-mail from the Dan Seals for Congress campaign this afternoon…
Dear Friend,
Our opponents continue to spread outright lies about our campaign. One opponent sent out a campaign e-mail on Tuesday attacking Dan and another candidate. This other candidate then sent out an e-mail today. We’ve now received multiple e-mails and phone calls from people who, based on her e-mail, think that Dan made these false claims..
It is simply not true.
As we mentioned before, our opponents are bound to do anything. It’s time to stop the “he said, she said” political pettiness. Enough is enough already.
Apparently, Elliot Richardson sent out an e-mail making claims about Julie Hamos and then Hamos shot back in an e-mail, but didn’t mention Richardson’s name and just blamed the hit on an “opponent.” Some people evidently assumed that Hamos was referring to Seals, and that’s why Seals “responded” today. But that Seals e-mail certainly doesn’t clear up the issue. If anything, it just muddies things even more.
* Related…
* Hinz: Dan Hynes finally gets it right — on job-creation plan: But the plan doesn’t just propose expenditures. Mr. Hynes would make the existing EDGE tax credit and enterprise-zone programs contingent not just on jobs but jobs that pay higher wages. And he’d require companies that get incentives to pay the state back if they fail to meet the objectives of the deal.
* Quinn and Hynes trade shots over budget plan: “The problem is that the proposal changed four times over three weeks,” Hynes said. “And then yesterday we were told: Just sign off and we’ll work out the details later.”
* Democratic US Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is going up on TV for the first time. Here’s the ad…
As I’ve told you, rival Democrat David Hoffman is already on the air [refresh your memory and watch it again by clicking here]. He’s reportedly spending in the neighborhood of $250K a week for two weeks with his ad, and the Giannoulias people say they’re essentially matching that number, but that their ads are also running Downstate. I should have the competitives soon, so I’ll let you know. The ad starts running tonight, but kicks in to higher gear tomorrow.
It’s noteworthy that this spot is about how he stepped in to stop a bank that was attempting to “liquidate” an Illinois business. That’s probably a subtle response to Hoffman’s ad, which CQ Politics pointed out includes these lines…
“Let’s take that fight to the U.S. Senate,” Hoffman says in the ad. “The bankers, the lobbyists and insiders have owned Washington for too long.”
The reference to bankers is an obvious jab at the Giannoulias, who used to manage his family’s Chicago bank.
Also, this ad is about jobs. Not enough candidates are talking about jobs right now.
…Adding… Script…
[Open to Hartmarx Plant]
Hartmarx Worker 1: I work here at Hartmarx
Hartmarx Worker 2: 32 years
Hartmarx Worker 3: 46 years
Hartmarx Worker 1: 43 years
HM Worker 3: Banks were looking to liquidate.
HM Worker 1: We were going to lose our jobs.
Alexi Giannoulias: I wasn’t sure if we could help the workers, but I knew we had to try.
HM Worker 1: One man, speaks from the heart.
HM Worker 2: Alexi really stood up with us.
[On Screen: Giannoulias to Wells Fargo: Back Off Hartmarx. Chicago Sun-Times, 5.7.09]
Alexi Giannoulias: We sent a message to this bank: If you want to do business in Illinois, you have to save these jobs.
HM Worker 3: There’s almost 600 jobs here that were saved.
Alexi Giannoulias [stand by your ad]: I’m Alexi Gianoulias and I approve this message.
HM Worker 3: We need more people like Alexi in politics; a person that cares
* If you’re an angry Republican and you live in the 10th Congressional District, you might love candidate Dick Green’s new TV ad…
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard people repeatedly yelling “Yeah!!!” at the end of a campaign ad before, but it may be right for these “town hall” times. More info…
The first Republican is on the air in the race for Rep. Mark Steven Kirk’s (R-Ill.) suburban Chicago seat. The ad buy is significant for businessman Dick Green (R), who is relatively unknown in the district with the GOP primary exactly two months away on Feb. 2.
Green, who pumped $230,000 of his own funds into his campaign last quarter, is up with a $100,000 cable buy over the next three weeks, according to his campaign. […]
There are several candidates running to for the GOP nomination, and the most competitive of the bunch are Green, fellow businessman Robert Dold and state Rep. Beth Coulson.
* The Question: Rate it?
…Adding… You should always watch an ad a couple of times before you rate it. Try watching it without the sound off first, since viewers get the vast majority of their information from the visuals, not the audio.
* It’s not often that I praise a state entity, but one surely deserves it today.
As most of you know, we started posting a whole lot of videos on the blog during session days last spring. The videos, most of which contained timely and important news, were warmly received and got tons of views.
The problem was that people at the Statehouse - particularly those with mobile devices - couldn’t watch them if they were using the WiFi network run by the Legislative Information System.
I want to post even more videos next spring (I’m adding an additional intern for that purpose), so I called LIS a couple of weeks ago and asked them if they would please, pretty please reconsider their policy. I said I understood they were worried about bandwidth problems, but that YouTube, at least, was now much more bandwidth-friendly.
I’m happy to report that LIS did, indeed, change its policy and that videos are currently watchable on its WiFi network.
Hooray!!!
LIS will be monitoring the load on its system, but I’m hoping it won’t be too bad and we can keep the video access forever.
Now, if we could only convince the Illinois State Board of Elections to revamp its horrific website and drag itself into the 21st Century I’d be a truly happy man.
The president of the Illinois Senate cast doubts Wednesday on thousands of slot machines sprouting up at Arlington Park and other horse tracks.
“I don’t think there’s a need for that right now,” Chicago Democrat John Cullerton told reporters at a Capitol news conference.
His comments came a day after the state’s racetrack owners pushed the idea as an alternative to legalized video gambling in local restaurants and bars. A network of video gambling terminals is supposed to help pay off billions worth of construction projects lawmakers approved this year.
State Senate President John Cullerton says he’ll again push for a higher tax on cigarettes. A dollar increase passed the Senate earlier this year, but the proposal stalled in the House.
CULLERTON: Maybe I can go over and help lobby, if the Speaker will let me come over to the House, I can go walk, walk and talk to some of the members and see if I can convince some of them to vote for it. […]
He says fewer smokers would save Illinois more money, by reducing Medicaid costs attributed to smoking-related health problems. Cullerton says he expects there will be enough votes to get a cigarette tax increase passed.
Bud Kelley is 77 years old and has never smoked his first cigarette.
But that hasn’t stopped the affable Kelley, who will step down at the end of the year after 34 years as executive director of the Illinois Association of Tobacco and Candy Distributors, from working to allow others to have that choice.
“I know it bothers some people, and I’m not saying it’s good for your health,” Kelley said. “But it should be up to you and me as a businessman to have freedom of choice.”
“It’s a great industry,” he said. “Tobacco was our first currency. It’s been around a long time, and it’s going to be around. Prohibition isn’t going to work. We’ve tried that once.”
I’ve known Kelly since I started writing about Illinois politics almost 20 years ago (whew, I’m getting old). He’s a darned good lobbyist and tells it straight. He’ll be missed.
* Related…
* Illinois Senate to study discipline gap - Analysis indicates that suspensions of black students have jumped 75% in past decade; similar punishments for whites fell in same period: Senate President John Cullerton told his staff Tuesday to write a resolution creating the task force, spokeswoman Rikeesha Phelon said. It will look at suspension and expulsion numbers, the reasons behind them and how they affect students, Lightford said. Gov. Pat Quinn was noncommittal. A spokeswoman said he believes school should be “free from discrimination” and added that he looks forward to working with lawmakers on the issue.
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* I’m not sure why anyone would release a poll that showed themselves at one percent, but whatever…
To: Jacob Meister Campaign Team
From: Dave Fako, Fako & Associates, Inc.
Re: Meister for Senate Benchmark Survey
The U.S. Senate Democratic Primary election is wide open, without a dominant frontrunner and Giannoulias in a weak position.
• Nearly half (49%) of Democratic primary voters are uncommitted in the election for U.S. Senator.
• Giannoulias holds a marginal lead in the primary with 33% of the vote. A significant majority (61%) of Alexi’s support is weak and vulnerable.
• Despite a late entry into the race, Meister starts in a similar position as Hoffman and Jackson. Meister holds 11% name recognition and earns 1% in the initial trial heat of the election, indicating significant growth potential.
• Hoffman’s name ID is very low (25% name recognition) and he gets 7% in the trial heat. Robinson-Jackson is recognized by 32% of the Illinois’ Democratic primary voters and starts with 10% of the vote in the primary election.
Fako is a good pollster, and he knows Illinois, so these results are trustworthy. It breaks down thusly…
Giannoulias 33%
Jackson 10%
Hoffman 7%
Meister 1%
Uncommitted 49%
Interesting…
• Giannoulias has a very weak job performance grade as State Treasurer. Only 36% of Democrats rate his performance positively while 30% rate it negatively. One-third of all Democratic primary voters cannot rate his performance as Treasurer.
The high negative kinda surprises me, but the “cannot rate” doesn’t. Statewide officials below secretary of state are usually unknown quantities to voters, especially during their first terms. Heck, Comptroller Hynes has struggled to bring up his name ID and he’s in his third term.
Meister also did an “informed” trial heat, meaning push questions. He doesn’t tell us what those push questions were, but this is how it ended up…
• In the informed test, Meister captures twice as many undecided voters as the other candidates. His message persuades nearly one-third (30%) of all uncommitted voters to
back him. Among initial undecided voters, Hoffman only gets 16%, Giannoulias takes
14% and Jackson only moves 9%. One-third of initial undecided voters remain
uncommitted in the informed trial heat.
That still leaves Giannoulias solidly on top.
MOE is +/- 4.03%, poll conducted November 17–19, 590 likely Democratic primary voters.
…Adding… Giannoulias’ campaign manager, Tom Bowen, has posted some of his campaign’s own poll numbers in comments. According to Bowen, Giannoulias’ job approval numbers are 60-17, far different than the Meister poll. The Giannoulias poll was taken Nov 12-16, of 600 likely voters, and had an MOE of +/- 3.9 percent.
* Related…
* Bernard Schoenburg: Senate candidates’ Afghan views are widely varied
Illinois college graduates who borrowed money to meet expenses are leaving school owing an average of $20,102 — up from $18,584 the previous year, according to a new study.
Chicago’s 75-year, $1.15 billion parking meter windfall would be nearly drained in just one year to provide token property tax relief and stave off tax increases, thanks to a $6.1 billion 2010 budget approved Wednesday.[…]
Despite complaints that Chicago’s future was being mortgaged, the City Council voted 38-to-12 to approve Mayor Daley’s plan to drain reserves generated by asset sales to solve the city’s worst budget crisis in modern history.
The Chicago City Council voted 38-12 today to approve Mayor Richard Daley’s $6.1 billion budget proposal largely intact, but not before aldermen offered a smattering of complaints.[…]
Ald. Thomas Allen, 38th, announced he would vote against Daley’s budget for the first time in his aldermanic career. Allen said the spending plan would fail to uphold the council’s pledge to maintain at least $400 million in parking meter lease money in a long-term reserve fund to replace the parking meter proceeds the city lost.
The Chicago City Council Wednesday signed off on Mayor Richard Daley’s budget for next year. That followed three hours of debate, and relatively tepid criticism from some of the twelve aldermen opposed to the plan.
Up to 100 jobs at the Chicago Park District could be eliminated from the payroll next year if unions do not accept furlough days, General Superintendent Timothy Mitchell said Wednesday at a district budget hearing.
However, race, income, or any other measure of diversity is irrelevant as long as a college-prep course is the exception for a Chicago high school student. We have a system that, in effect, puts high-achieving seventh graders on track for college and assumes that everyone else will choose between joining the Latin Kings and working at a fast food restaurant. Would parents in Winnetka stand for this? Why do we?[…]
College isn’t for everyone, but the fact that the Chicago school district has two high schools that are harder to get into than Harvard indicates that something is seriously wrong.
For the owner of a home with an assessed value of $100,000, the increase would amount to about $61, assuming the value of the home stayed the same. It would generate about $5 million for the city’s coffers.
While local law enforcement agencies are happy to receive grant money to pay for increased patrols this time of year, the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office says a resulting increase in DUI cases could put a strain on the system.
In all, there have been 30 burials since Oct. 1 — even though the cemetery didn’t reopen officially until November — but in two cases cemetery staff began digging only to find caskets in the ground, cemetery officials said Wednesday. And in one case a bone, believed to be human, was found in the ground.
* Gov. Pat Quinn went off on Comptroller Dan Hynes today, claiming that his rival in the Democratic primary was dragging his feet on approving a $500 million short-term borrowing plan. Quinn also claimed that Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias had signed on…
“I’m ready to go, Alexi Giannoulias is ready to go, it’s time for Dan Hynes to stop dragging his feet and tell his people to sit down with our budget people,” Quinn said. “Now to be lollygagging along and meandering along instead of getting the job done is inexcusable. The people of Illinois expect every constitutional officer to do his or her job without politics and this is very important.”
“I talked to my budget director on Monday and on Tuesday, and I said, ‘What is the problem here with the comptroller’s office?’ ‘They’re still studying the matter.’ I know personally from my own experience as state treasurer it takes about an hour, maybe a half hour, to get this done. Now let’s get it done for the people.”
The only problem is that Treasurer Giannoulias hasn’t signed off on anything and hasn’t even seen the proposal…
“We haven’t seen anything from the governor’s office yet,” said spokesman Scott Burnham. “We haven’t been given any documents and if and when that happens, we’ll review it and make a decision based on the merits. The treasurer has previously expressed concerns about continuing to borrow, the state can ill afford to go into debt, but we also have a backlog of bills to health care providers that provide critical services.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. I’m told Quinn’s office just reached out to Giannoulias’ office today.
You can listen to the audio of the governor’s rant by clicking here.
The governor has long been irked at Hynes for daring to run against him in the primary. Whatever. That’s politics.
But Quinn’s temperament really needs to be questioned when he does something as goofy as this. I mean, did he not think anybody would check out his story? What is wrong with him?
*** UPDATE *** It’s even worse than I thought, and I thought it was pretty bad.
Back in October, Gov. Quinn was talking about borrowing $900 million short-term for healthcare and college scholarships. Behind the scenes, however, that number fluctuated wildly almost day to day and finally settled on $500 million.
But that’s not the only thing that fluctuated. There are two kinds of short-term borrowing, failure of revenue and cash-flow. For weeks, Quinn wanted to do a failure of revenue bond, but then about two weeks ago he changed to cash-flow, so all the work that had been done by the attorney general’s office to make sure all the legalities were met was, at that point, for naught.
And it gets worse.
The governor’s office was apparently unable to provide the attorney general’s office with a list of expenditures for this fiscal year that was separate from last fiscal year. It’s too complicated to get into here, but the AG, for legal reasons, needs a separate list. Instead, after some back and forth, the AG’s office was told they’d have to get the numbers themselves from the comptroller’s office because the governor’s office couldn’t do it. That’s just bizarre and completely unprecedented.
And it gets worse.
The governor’s people gave conflicting accounts to the attorney general’s office about how much federal stimulus money was expected, but hadn’t yet arrived - the whole reason for the cash-flow borrowing plan. The accounts given by Quinn’s office varied by about $200 million.
And it gets worse.
Late Monday, Quinn’s office gave the AG a deadline of 6 o’clock Tuesday night to approve the borrowing plan - without the numbers and other information AG Madigan’s office needed to certify the borrowing as legal and proper.
Then, sometime yesterday, the AG’s office asked the governor’s people if the comptroller and the treasurer had given their approval. The AG’s folks were told that the treasurer had signed off - something we now know was untrue.
The problem, of course, is that the attorney general cannot act until both the comptroller and the treasurer approve the borrowing, so the 6 o’clock Tuesday deadline was absolute nonsense.
The governor’s office is planning to do a much bigger borrowing plan early next year to help the state catch up on its $4.5 billion in past due bills, so the interest and financing costs of this $500 million proposal seems a bit unnecessary in that context. As one person described it, this is like taking out a $25 payday loan when your house is being foreclosed. I think I may have an idea what may be going on here, but I think I’ll wait on that and fill in subscribers later in the week.
In short, this appears to be a complete foul-up from beginning to end and the governor and his people have displayed a gross lack of competence and truthfulness.
But, other than that, everything is fine.
*** UPDATE 2 *** From the governor’s office…
The source told you the Governor’s just reached out today to discuss short-term borrowing with the Treasurer’s office: Talks have been underway between the Office of Management and Budget and Treasurer’s staff, and Comptroller’s, for weeks on this issue.
State Treasurer has not signed off on borrowing plan yet: The Treasurer’s office has not been an obstacle to the plan going forward and has expressed an open mind about approving the short-term borrowing.
The sentence above was probably inartfully worded. The reaching out was a formal contact of the treasurer’s top attorney. As for the second part, saying the treasurer has an “open mind” is not the same as saying, as the governor did today, that the treasurer “is ready to go.” In fact, it’s completely different. More distortions.
*** UPDATE 3 *** This is kind of a long update, but it supports the attorney general’s office account. A quick e-mail from the comptroller’s office…
The Governor’s Office has proposed at least 4 different borrowing ideas in the last 3 weeks.
The Governor’s office has yet to satisfactorily explain specific details of the plan or how we can pay back another $500 million on top of the $2.25 billion we’ve already borrowed and the current $4.4 billion backlog (we also have to pay back $276 million to the rainy day fund).
We’ve asked the Governor’s office to tell us which of the outstanding bills he wants paid — $250 million would go to Medicaid (doctors, hospitals and nursing homes already are being paid within 30 days under the federal stimulus). That leaves $250 million to pay a backlog of $4.4 BILLION. The Governor’s office says agree to the borrowing, we will give you the details later. Well, since the plan keeps changing by the day, how can we do that? He’s telling vendors their problems will all be solved with this borrowing. They won’t be solved. It will just further delay payments because we will have another $500 million we will have to pay back before the fiscal year ends on June 30.
We’ve worked closely with the Gov’s office and his agencies to prioritize critical payments and will continue to do so. In fact, we recently paid more than $20 million the Gov’s chief of staff asked to be paid.
And here’s a timeline of events, according to the comptroller starting on October 27th. By the way, “IOC” means Illinois Office of the Comptroller” and “OMB” means “Governor’s Office of Management and Budget”…
Quinn emerges from leaders meeting and tells reporters he wants to borrow $900 million to keep state government afloat through the lean winter months. Says the traditional slowdown in tax collections between November and February could cause the backlog to grow even larger. “It’s a cash management device,” Quinn said. (Bloomington Pantagraph, Oct. 27, 2009) “You need to make sure we manage our cash” (Associated Press, Oct. 28 from Chicago Tribune) Says it will be paid back before the end of the fiscal year (Chicago Public Radio Oct. 28, 2009) Of the $900 million some $250 million would be dedicated to Medicaid (Illinois Issues Oct. 27)
Quinn says state will run out of money before the end of the year without emergency borrowing, says state can short term borrow nearly $1 billion for only 1 percent interest (Channel 7/ABC . Oct. 28, 2009)
Two weeks later……….
Nov 10, 2009
OMB officials make first telephone contact with IOC regarding borrowing. Indicate that they intend to issue $900 million in short term notes under “ failures in revenue” meaning a 30 day notice must be published with a corrective plan addressing said failures, in accordance with state law. Suggests possible two phase loan of $450 million each directed to MAP grants and Medicaid and other unspecified priorities. Law permits borrowing to be paid back over 12 months. IOC indicated that MAP grants were not due for payment until March or April and asked if plan was to reserve money until payments due. No response.
Nov 12, 2009
OMB Bond Director meets with IOC staff. Failures in Revenue borrowing discussed and OMB states intent to publish 30 day notice/ Corrective Plan by following day in order to finalize loan in late December. IOC expresses concerns about payback plan and asks for information on what bills will be prioritized under plan. $200 million in Map grants, $250 million in Medicaid referenced. Group health care also mentioned but no dollar amount. OMB provides tentative schedule of other bond sales planned during FY10.
Nov 18th, 2009
Bond Director calls IOC. Says Failures in Revenue borrowing no longer planned due to difficulties in projecting revenues/spending in FY 11. Wants limited borrowing of $250 million to be directed solely toward healthcare providers. Money must be paid back at end of June 2010. IOC asks questions about plan details and expresses concern with repayment given $2.25 billion in existing loans to be paid back between March and June. No deadline referenced.
Nov 19th, 2009
Bond Director calls again. Apologizes and says new plan is to borrow $250 million for Medicaid and $250 million more for general purposes. IOC again asks for details about where $250 million should be directed given $4.4 billion in unpaid obligations. IOC also again expresses concerns about repayment in context with existing loans. No deadline referenced. IOC asked about Quinn plan to bail out RTA/CTA and whether that was part of borrowing plan. Response was that another $10 million had been promised to Transit entity but when IOC said that we already owed RTA $180 million in unpaid obligations, there was no response.
Later that day Quinn announces $ 70.8 million in new spending allocations from lump sum appropriations.
Nov 23rd, 2009
Bond Director calls again to discuss concept of selling state payables, known as factoring, to financial institutions to provide relief to vendors who may qualify for such a program. Prior borrowing plan only mentioned in passing.
Dec 1st, 2009
Bond director says concurrence needed on borrowing by the end of the day to meet self imposed OMB Christmas Eve deadline for finalization. Only prior reference to any critical dates was in context with abandoned 11/10/2009 borrowing plan. No prior communication as to significance of 12/1/2009 as decision date. Attempts by IOC to once again obtain specific plan information unsuccessful.
* A supporter of Adam Andrzejewski’s GOP gubernatorial campaign e-mailed me earlier today to remind me that I hadn’t yet posted his new TV ad. Here it is…
* Cook County Board President Todd Stroger was not a happy man yesterday when the board overwhelmingly overrode his veto of the partial sales tax rollback. He lashed out at Gov. Quinn, who has been patting himself on the back for signing the reduced override threshold bill into law…
“Governor Quinn says he supports the rollback and this would probably stimulate Cook County. Well the state takes six and a quarter. I suggest they take a quarter off. Let’s make a resolution and send it to the governor. Maybe he’d like to stimulate all 102 counties instead of just Cook County.”
He also repeated his threat to challenge the new state law in court.
“This is just a piling-on, what happens when the mob mentality happens,” Stroger said, comparing himself to the three men lynched for a crime they did not commit in “The Ox-Bow Incident,” a 1943 movie starring Henry Fonda. “It’s the same thing. Just get enough people riled up and they’ll hang the first person they see.”
Commissioner Jerry “Iceman” Butler, said Stroger’s damaged credibility with commissioners likely hurt his push to keep the sales tax in place.
“No matter how much truth you tell them or how many facts you put on the board, they do not want to hear it because your credibility has been damaged. Even though you’ve fired all your cousins, you’ve still been damaged,” he said, an apparent reference to former county CFO Donna Dunnings, a cousin whom Stroger fired last spring.
The name “Stroger” has come to mean “toxic.” He has no credibility left.
Reducing the sales tax would force the independent board that oversees health care to shut two of three county hospitals and “many if not all of our neighborhood clinics. … Some people will die needlessly for lack of the health care our system provides today.”
Stroger said the lion’s share of new revenue from the sales tax increase is going to the health care system. That contention is disputed by the Civic Federation, a non-partisan government budget watchdog group, which determined only $46 million of the new tax revenue went to the health care system in the previous year.
“We are the government of last resort,” “Never in government before has a penny, the value of a penny, been worth so much, and we are talking about half a penny.” [said Commissioner Joseph Moreno, D-Chicago.]
A lot of this is psychological. The tax hike meant the sales tax burden hit ten percent and people simply freaked out. Suffredin is right…
They cut the county’s share of the sales tax from 1.75 to 1.25 percent and dropped the overall sales tax below 10 percent in the city of Chicago and other municipalities - the highest in the nation for major metropolitan areas - thus removing what Evanston Democratic Commissioner Larry Suffredin, the prime sponsor, labeled a “psychological barrier” for local consumers.
Everyone in Cook County is now going to save 50 cents on every $100 they spend. If you spend $10,000 on stuff during the next year, you’ll save $50.
He also points out…
Still, people are calling this “Crook County,” and the feeling is that every half-cent they can save is a half-cent less that the crooks can steal.
Yep.
* Meanwhile, the Sun-Times uses the override to look at the upcoming Democratic primary…
If pre-Barack Obama racial voting patterns hold, O’Brien might be expected to sweep the Northwest and Southwest Sides and the suburbs, leaving Preckwinkle, Stroger and Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown, who’s still fighting a petition challenge, to divide the South and West sides.
Maybe, but I think Preckwinkle will do a lot better on the lakefront than pundits are currently realizing. O’Brien’s history of old-style politics won’t play well there at all. Preckwinkle’s message is aimed right at that demographic, and her campaign manager is smarter than the rest of the campaign managers put together. Her biggest question mark is money.
One Northwest Side committeeman predicts Daley will ultimately back the most electable African-American candidate — he thinks that’s Preckwinkle — so as not to anger African-American voters in advance of his next race for mayor. Could Daley, Madigan and the others officially stay neutral while quietly backing one candidate? Some committeemen let their workers circulate petitions for both Brown and O’Brien.
* The Chicago Tribune’s questionnaire for gubernatorial candidates poses just one question about job creation, and it’s way down the list. Odd, considering the state’s unemployment situation. Some candidates offer a few specifics, like Sen. Bill Brady…
I am proposing a $2,100 tax credit to businesses for every new job they create.
…Form the Illinois Jobs Creation Council to facilitate meaningful and ongoing dialog between business and labor in order to find ways to make Illinois more competitive with the frictional costs of doing business.
I will immediately put in place a Council of Economic Advisors composed of economists, university researchers, economic forecasters, business, and labor leaders to make policy recommendations that will make our state more productive and competitive.
Speaking in Rockford to launch a two-day tour to tout his “Clean Start for Illinois” plan, Hynes’ proposal calls for deferring taxes on qualified small businesses for three years, eliminating state taxes on new software and patent royalties to spur innovation and refocusing current business tax breaks and incentives to modernized job-producing industries.
You can see the plan in its entirety by clicking here. You should take a look. Some of it is quite good, but there are plenty of missing details.
As I told you yesterday, Hynes also slammed Gov. Quinn for dithering on the capital bill. Quinn responded…
“I’ve been working on job creation since I was elected state treasurer of Illinois,” Quinn said. “I worked night and day back in the early 90s on putting deposits in financial institutions, linked deposits, that created jobs all over our state, in agriculture, in small business, in housing. We helped women-owned business owners, we helped disabled people, minority business, I know a lot about creating jobs. I don’t think he knows much about it at all.”
“You know, so, people on the sidelines can complain all they want, all I know is I got the job done after 10 long years,” Quinn said of Hynes’ criticism.
The guv sure does get irritable with Hynes, doesn’t he?
But Hynes makes some good points about the delays in job creation. The governor is doing a fly-around today to cut ribbons on new projects around the state, including in Chicago, Urbana, Edwardsville and Murphysboro. That Murphysboro stop is the subject of a Pantagraph article…
When Gov. Pat Quinn arrives in Murphysboro Wednesday to break ground for a new building at Southern Illinois University, he’ll be just a short drive from three school districts still owed state money from seven years ago.
But, Quinn hasn’t made any plans to stop by and distribute any checks in Benton, Du Quoin or Johnston City.
Rather, the Chicago Democrat said Tuesday that money for the long-sought statewide construction program will only be trickling in for at least the next two months because of other pressures on the state budget. […]
And, though [Quinn] said some money will be raised for construction projects, the bulk of that cash won’t be rolling in until sometime next year.
The ripple effect from the state’s budget crisis keeps growing. […]
For 22 years, Norman has worked for Asi, a 34-year-old not-for-profit agency that provides in-home services for the elderly. It depends on the state of Illinois for 95 percent of its funding and over three hundred employees here have missed their last three paychecks because the state has not reimbursed Asi since last summer. […]
Even though they haven’t been paid since mid-October, most of ASI’s office and field staff continues coming to work. Executive director Rebecca Cruz has written letters to the department of aging asking desperately for reimbursement and in return, was threatened by another state agency. […]
Meanwhile, Addie Norman is afraid to quit $10.40 an hour job because she’s afraid that in this economy she wouldn’t find anything else. And there’s another reason she hasn’t quit.
“All my clients seem to need me. So, I don’t want to leave them. That’s why I haven’t quit,” said Norman.
As I’ve said many times before, these social service agency workers are our angels. And we’re screwing them.
* Meanwhile, some folks in the south suburbs are worried that Gov. Quinn is focusing on the proposed Illiana Expressway to the detriment of the Peotone airport…
Airport advocates, among them U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2nd), fear the governor is shifting his attention away from the airport project and onto the Illiana, an unfunded project that lags far behind the airport in terms of investment and development.
Additionally, a Quinn source leaked to Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed recently that Quinn is eyeing the Illiana as his “legacy” project - a jobs creator that would forever be linked with his name. Within a few days of that report, U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D-11th), a longtime supporter of the Illiana project, announced she would seek $5 million in federal funds to pay for further Illiana studies.
Quinn spokeswoman Ashley Cross declined to address the “legacy” issue and said the governor isn’t favoring one project over another.
* Related…
* Hynes: Innovation key to increasing Illinois jobs: llinois Gov. Pat Quinn [yesterday] told reporters in Chicago that he thinks the state should “take a look” at a controversial proposal by the horse racing industry to have slot machines at the tracks as a means of helping pay for a huge new infrastructure program.
* Illinois video gambling: Municipal bans fail to hurt plan’s dollar estimates, state says
* Legalized video gambling still at least a year away, regulators say
In the ads, McKenna - who headed the Illinois Republican Party for five years - maintains he is the “only outsider businessman running” in the seven-person GOP primary. Opponents have disputed McKenna’s contention that he is an outsider, and there are two other “businessmen” in the race who have never held elective office, Adam Andrzejewski of Hinsdale and Dan Proft of Chicago.
* Democratic US Senate candidate David Hoffman also has a new TV ad. I’m checking around to see how much money is behind it. Rate this one, too…
The message isn’t bad, but, man, could they have used a take where he didn’t blink his eyes so much? It’s kinda distracting to me.
But a group of credit agreement lenders who hold more than $4 billion in Tribune debt objected to another extension and asked for permission to submit their own reorganization plan focused on Tribune subsidiaries.
* Are high school juniors skipping out of state testing?
Huberman said the new policy was dictated by a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling and by a federal judge’s more recent decision to void a 1980 desegregation consent decree that allowed CPS to use race to decide admissions to coveted schools.[…]
“This has absolutely nothing to do with any one racial group — white or otherwise — paying private school tuition. This is about the best system that we could come up with that is lawful, that will continue to ensure we have an inclusive system,” Huberman said, after joining Mayor Daley at an unrelated news conference.
