* The setup is about the news that the House approved a bill that would require legislators to formally approve the sale of Thomson prison to the federal government. The feds, of course, want to use the prison to incarcerate Guantanamo detainees, among others. Anyway, this is from the debate…
The legislation would allow lawmakers to vote on the sale of any state surplus property valued at more than $1 million, but the Thomson prison issue was the main topic of debate Wednesday.
Supporters of the Thomson deal argued loudly against the plan because it could prevent or delay the sale of the mostly unused maximum-security facility to the federal government. Local officials want the jobs that fully staffing the prison could create. […]
But others argued that because lawmakers had to approve the spending to build Thomson years ago, they should get to vote on whether the state sells it.
* The Question: Do you agree or disagree with this proposal? Explain.
We’ve had many, many debates here about the merits of the Thomson sale. Let’s just stick to the bill today, OK? Thanks.
[Shortened because long setups tend to make for fewer answers. Also, this question may not have enough pop, but oh well.]
* The train is close to running off the rails. Literally, in some cases…
In a letter to Gov. Pat Quinn, the RTA complains that the ongoing delay in receiving $250 million due it [from the state] is forcing it to use borrowed money to pay debt service on outstanding bonds.
The RTA is approaching a “crisis point” regarding funds for current expenses, it said in the letter.
“If state funding is not forthcoming in the near future in amounts sufficient to pay our ongoing debt service obligations and resume providing … money to the service boards, disruptions to transit service across the region may be inevitable,” said the letter from Executive Director Steve Schlickman.
A swelling, multibillion dollar deficit has left Illinois months behind in its payments to providers across the state.
For instance, the Williamson County Early Childhood Cooperative in southern Illinois is planning to send layoff notices to its 41 employees in the next few weeks because money from the state has not come through.
Not only is the state totally negligent in terms of their responsibility, but it is effectively privatizing higher education. We’re very close to that now, as it is, but we’re looking at schools that may not be able to keep their doors open to the end of the semester.
What are the prospects that these pols will — out of public view — divine fixes that are fair to people who rely on state services, fair to health and other providers that deliver those services, and fair to taxpayers who bear the burden for it all?
We appreciate the Tribune’s call for transparent action from the General Assembly. But what specific “fixes” do they propose? And what is their definition of “fair”? Without more detail, these editorials are meaningless.
A plan to borrow $250 million to capture matching federal Medicaid funds and start paying medical providers more quickly is now tied to a measure that would allow state universities to borrow money to fund their operating budgets. Both proposals are intended to address the issues of the state’s millions in overdue bills.
The short-term borrowing plan passed the House with Republican support, including approval from Minority Leader Rep. Tom Cross. It went on to stall in the Senate amid rumors that it lacked Republican support in the chamber. […]
Republican senators said [yesterday] that they support the plan to let schools borrow but are opposed to the state taking out another short-term loan because they say no plan has been offered for paying the money back.
They accused the Democrats of playing political games by putting the two proposals up for one vote as SB416. Sen. Dale Righter, a Mattoon Republican, called the meshing of the proposals “an ill-arranged marriage” that “creates concern” for legislators such as Righter, whose districts contain universities.
Illinois was rated the most troubled pension system in the nation, with a 54 percent funding level and a total liability of more than $54 billion, according to a study of state-administered pension funds being released today.
Pew also said that Illinois had set aside less than 1 percent of the funds it need to pay for $40 billion in health care and other benefits promised public sector retirees.
* Illinois public libraries face 16 percent funding cut: The General Assembly had asked that 23 percent be cut, but the decrease was held to 16 percent with the addition of some federal money into the pool, according to Pat McGuckin, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.
* Lawmakers call for study of college affordability: That’s a particularly tough assignment now. State government owes universities hundreds of millions of dollars in overdue payments.
* Senate panel approves borrowing measure for state universities, Quinn
* Group warns that Illinois budget suffering: “What might have been a total package of approximately $9-10 billion over the whole lifetime of (the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act), you’re down to the last third of that, when making decisions for the FY11 budget,” said Michael Bird, senior federal affairs counsel with the organization.
* Senate President John Cullerton was forced to back down yesterday and promise not to hold another closed to the public “joint caucus” with the Republicans…
“You know what? Since everybody seems to be pretty upset about it, it’s not that big a deal. We just won’t do it anymore,” Cullerton told reporters, who were barred from the Wednesday morning session with representatives of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
He shoulda thought of that earlier. The Tribune editorial was predictably harsh…
Cullerton, D-Chicago, and every Democratic and Republican senator who played along, didn’t think you — or the reporters who try to keep an eye on politicians for you — had any place in that room. The open-meetings provision of the Illinois Constitution be damned. And never mind that you pay for the salaries, staffs and offices of every lawmaker in attendance: Sorry, citizens, it’s your money, not your business.
* Speaker Madigan doesn’t usually get much positive press, but his proposal to do away with the lt. governor’s office in four years is earning him at least a few plaudits. Southtown Star…
We don’t often use this space to offer an “attaboy” to Mike Madigan. But finally he’s listening. And making some sense. While the 38-member Democratic State Central Committee tries to dream up an electable, scandal-free running mate for Gov. Pat Quinn’s re-election bid in November, we urge lawmakers to listen to us and House Speaker Madigan and seize the opportunity to abolish the useless office of lieutenant governor once and for all.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan moved quickly after the Cohen problem to propose a state constitutional amendment to abolish the office. Others have spoken up to suggest altering the office to avoid problems similar to those posed by Cohen.
But reform comes hard in Illinois, and Speaker Madigan has been criticized by Chicago politicians who don’t want to lose an office one of their fellow Democrats might someday seek. […]
The committee members were also correct to remind Madigan that he wears two hats – as Speaker of the House and as chair of the Democratic Central Committee – and sometimes they work at opposite interests. If the Speaker is unsure where one begins and one ends, perhaps he ought to step down from one, or the other, so he can be clear.
* The Tribune also blasted Madigan and applauded what it called a “political stunt” by the House Republicans to advance legislation to cap leadership contributions during fall campaigns…
So [House GOP Leader Tom Cross] put them on the spot by asking for a vote. Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan told his members to block it. They did as they were told. They always do. That’s the point.
Sure, it was a political stunt, but an effective one. Cross raised the reform flag and invited the Democrats to salute. At least we know where they stand.
Actually, all we know for sure is that the Democrats voted against an admitted political stunt and that the Tribune despises them for it.
* And Mark Brown rightly bemoaned the fact that Illinois doesn’t keep track of the unofficial vote tally…
As strange as it may seem, Illinois keeps no running statewide tabulation of election results.
The State Board of Elections, which oversees elections in Illinois, collects no results on Election Night or even in the days afterward. The state’s 102 county clerks aren’t required to report any results to the state board before Feb. 23, which most will accomplish by mail. The state board will then have until March 5 to announce its official tally. […]
The only way for news organizations or candidates to compile a statewide total is to individually contact each of the state’s 110 different election jurisdictions and collect the numbers, which those jurisdictions are allowed to update right up until they are transmitted to the state. […]
By the next statewide election cycle two years from now, we should take one more important step toward modernizing our election administration and insist they adapt the electronic reporting system to give us the voting results from Election Night to completion.
The problem, of course, is that there’s no way that the State Board of Elections could possibly cope with this new responsibility without a complete and drastic overhaul of its pathetically outdated and ridiculously inadequate Internet infrastructure.
However, as I wrote yesterday about a different proposal to give the SBE more duties, if average citizens actually started visiting the board’s website and saw how horrible it was, the board might finally have no choice but to change their stupid ways.
* When the state becomes a deadbeat: If it were a typical debtor, the state of Illinois would no doubt be trying to change its phone number right now - if it could even afford the phone.
* In the wake of another attempt for presidential clemency for her husband, Lura Lynn Ryan tells Michael Sneed that she hoped for more help from President Obama than she’s been getting. According to Mrs. Ryan, the wife of imprisoned former Gov. George Ryan, Obama approached her during last year’s Abe Lincoln 200th birthday celebration and inquired about her husband…
.”He was very concerned,” she said. “I asked him to please bring my husband home. . . . And the president, who knows George well because they both served . . . together, was so kind and caring. He assured me not to worry and that everything was going to be OK. But then nothing happened.”
Ryan’s son, George Ryan Jr., said he made a recent written appeal to Obama.
“My mother is now on oxygen 24 hours a day for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis,” he said. “We are not asking for a pardon, we are asking for him to come home.”
“I wrote to President Obama [that] mom was incredibly sick and not deserving of being alone now . . . and if nothing else please do this for my mom,” he said. “Mom went to the hospital in November thinking she had pneumonia. Instead, Mom was diagnosed with an incurable disease.
“There has now been a serious change in her condition, and that has resulted in a new push to free Dad to come home and be with her,” he added. “Her doctors feel my father should be home taking care of her.
I ran into George, Jr. a few months ago at a reception in Chicago - not long after Mrs. Ryan was diagnosed. I said I had seen Obama speaking to his mom at the Lincoln birthday event and asked what he had said to her. From what I recall, George said Obama told her to “hang in there.”
I get that Mrs. Ryan is devastated by these turns of events and that her children are very worried about her health. So many people still hate the former governor that it’s almost impossible to defend him. And he didn’t make it any easier with his defiant attitude all the way up to the day he left home for prison. There are also plenty of other women in Illinois who face problems every day because their husbands are behind bars, but they don’t get any publicity because their men weren’t famous or powerful.
In the end, though, it’s very difficult for me to just coldly turn away from Mrs. Ryan because I always had such a soft spot in my heart for her. I told George, Jr. that I would go see her, but I haven’t kept my word - partly because I’ve had to cope with the emotional rollercoaster of the deaths of two friends, partly because I’ve been so busy with the campaign, but also because I truly dread the experience. I know myself well enough to understand that I’d come away feeling incredibly sorry for her. I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with that.
* Carol Marin is also wondering whether another public figure is being unfairly treated…
At the risk of sounding soft on crime and corruption, I’m having a few pangs of sympathy for Betty Loren-Maltese.
That would shock her more than anybody.
But it’s true.
As I watched the former president of the town of Cicero report to the Salvation Army halfway house on Ashland Avenue to finish out the final weeks of her eight-year federal sentence, it seemed as though we in the media might have gone a touch overboard. A gaggle of reporters swarmed her Monday — with video run by virtually every print and television outlet in town including my own — as the 60-year-old Maltese wordlessly made her way from the parking lot to the door.
Public Enemy No. 1? That was Al Capone, also of Cicero.
• The kicker: Sneed is told [former City Water Commissioner Don Tomczak] is staying at the same Salvation Army halfway facility, 105 S. Ashland, as former Cicero President Betty Loren-Maltese, whose homecoming this week netted her headlines and an unwanted headache.
• The irony: “It’s shocking. This guy has come back with no cameras or swarms of media looking to get a grunt or comment,” said a Sneed source. “He ran a political army under two mayors — and when he got caught he flipped. Ironically, Maltese, who is now homeless and penniless, seems to be a better prison release story to the press. Amazing.”
• Backshot: A source who witnessed Tomczak’s corrupt largess once told Sneed: “He [Tomczak] knew how to turn on the city’s water spigot in order to pay his electioneering troops. He would pay you off with overtime money — although you never worked for it. He’d hand new recruits an expensive cigar with the quip: ‘Hey, Babe. You’re on the team.’ ”
• Slingshot: When Tomczak flipped, he told the feds: “Everything in the indictment is true. I did it all.” Maltese always maintained her innocence.
Some of the fascination about the return to the Chicago area of former Cicero Mayor Betty Loren-Maltese after her long stint as a guest of the federal government surely relates to a lingering suspicion some of us have that, somehow, someway, she’ll be ba-a-a-a-ack. […]
Illinois law — 65 ILCS 5/3.1‑10‑5 (b) — says “A person is not eligible for an elective municipal office if that person…has been convicted in any court located in the United States of any infamous crime, bribery, perjury, or other felony,” but state and county offices are still possibilities. Something is telling us we haven’t heard or seen the last of Betty Loren-Maltese.
* Before we get all teary-eyed for the infamous, though, here’s something to sober you up…
The Chicago City Council is unlikely to go along with Mayor Richard Daley’s idea to allow the inspector general to investigate aldermen, but they might come up with an alternative to provide some measure of oversight, influential Ald. Ed Burke said today.
The longest serving aldermen, Burke, 14th, said he doesn’t think his colleagues will approve Daley’s proposal without changes.
“I haven’t taken a head count, but from what I’m hearing from comments, I would doubt it,” Burke told WLS-Radio reporter Bill Cameron.
* Here’s something you don’t see every day. The Champaign city council voted to reject a small federal grant to expand underage-drinking enforcement. The reasoning may surprise you…
Prior to the vote, council member Tom Bruno said he would vote against acceptance of the grant because it raises questions about “the morality of accepting federal grant money for local purposes.”
Bruno said he has heard comments questioning the practice of taking dollars from nationwide taxpayers for a project that only benefits the local community.
Even the mayor voted to reject the grant, and hinted that he might also support rejecting a far larger, $30 million federal grant for high-speed Internet infrastructure…
Mayor Jerry Schweighart’s comments prior to Tuesday’s denial foreshadowed an anticipated vote on whether the city should accept a much larger grant to build a high-speed Internet network.
“We should be careful in accepting this grant in a small amount or a large amount like $30 million that’s coming down the pipe,” said Schweighart, who also voted not to accept the grant.
The irony here, of course, is that the area is awash in state and federal money because of the University of Illinois. All the K-12 schools get state and federal money. Champaign gets its portion of local government revenue sharing from the state.
So, if the Champaign city council wants to take this to its logical extreme, they’d start funding everything locally. One wonders what they’ll think about “outside” funding if a natural disaster ever strikes.
On Feb. 26, Lang is set to be the special guest at a job creation luncheon organized by [Aurora Alderman Stephanie Kifowit]. The luncheon is being arranged through the alderman’s office, and Kifowit has asked that the $30 ticket price be made payable to the city of Aurora. The money, she said, will go toward paying for the lunch and for postage for the invitations.
Earlier this week, Kifowit sent an e-mail blast to nearly 1,000 people, inviting them to the event. But when she did so, she used an e-mail program paid for by her campaign committee, Friends of Stephanie Kifowit, and this program automatically appended the committee’s information to her message.
Below the body of the message, in fine print, each e-mail read “Paid for by Friends of Stephanie Kifowit,” followed by her campaign address.
The legal status affords cities greater powers of taxation and other matters of government, such as code enforcement.
State law provides that a community automatically gets home rule status when its population reaches 25,000 or greater.
Belvidere was at 20,820 in 2000. Loves Park had a special census in 2005 that put the city at 22,476, and a year later a special census in Machesney Park found 22,704 living within its borders.
Rockford had home rule taken away by voters in 1983. Various attempts to reinstate it since have failed.
* Related…
* [Rockford], police union say talks have been ‘productive’
* Monmouth [city] council favors tax changes: One would increase the sales tax 1 percent and the other would eliminate the wheel tax sticker. If the council approves the measures, the city also would lower its portion of property taxes by an estimated 20 percent when the tax levy is set in December.
* Peoria councilman: Address middle-class flight: Spears also accused the council and the city’s staff of making decisions over the years that have helped drive away the middle class. He provided an example of a resident within his district who moved out because that person did not have a big enough driveway for a boat or an extra vehicle.
The union proposals would cost the CTA more money by bringing back conductors on trains, replacing some CTA managers with union employees and using union labor for some snow-removal work that the CTA now contracts out, board Chairman Terry Peterson said.
* CTA cuts: no progress, disagreement on call for meeting
The Rev. Jesse Jackson appeared with bus union members at the CTA’s 95th Street Red Line L terminal today and said he wanted a meeting with CTA leaders but hasn’t gotten any response.
Crews braved cold weather to use nets and electric prods in an attempt to see if the invasive species has made its way into the chicago Area Waterway System from the Illinois River.
Ms. Madigan says she has received 13 complaints against Glamour Model Talent Inc., 820 N. Orleans St., and its president John Vuolo,and Latte Model & Talent Agency Ltd. and its owner Robert Owczarek.
Deputy Commissioner Tommie Talley has five days to respond to the dismissal, then Water Management Commissioner John Spatz will make a final decision on his employment, department spokesman Tom LaPorte said.
* McHenry Co. OKs $4 mil bond issue for building expansion
* Groundbreaking for Mississippi River bridge attracts big names
With an overall cost of about $685 million, the four-lane bridge project will link St. Clair County to downtown St. Louis, diverting Interstate 70 traffic from the overcongested Poplar Street Bridge two miles to the south. The bridge project also calls for extensive reconstruction of bridge approaches in both Missouri and Illinois, as well as interstate interchanges in Illinois.
* 3:03 pm - The House has just passed HB 4744 by a huge margin of 81-31.
The bill would require a vote by the General Assembly before state property worth more than $1 million is sold. The bill applies to the Thomson prison sale. The Obama administration, of course, has said it wants to use the prison for Guantanamo detainees - although that plan has apparently been sidetracked. The administration could also use the prison for “regular” inmates as well.
Needless to say, if the GA has to vote on the Thomson sale, the deal would probably be toast unless there’s no “danger” of terrorists coming to the prison.
Keep in mind, however, that this bill could always get buried in the Senate.
* Democrats remain more popular than Republicans in Illinois. Despite what we are seeing elsewhere, Democrats are still significantly more popular than Republicans in Illinois. Just 34 percent of Illinois voters have a favorable impression of the GOP, while 46 percent have unfavorable impressions. By comparison, views of Democrats are evenly split (41 – 42 percent favorable-unfavorable).
* President Obama remains very popular in Illinois. President Obama continues to have very solid standing in Illinois. The President’s 59 – 31 percent favorable/unfavorable rating is as high as in any state we’ve seen recently. Even among Independents, Obama has a positive, 51 – 35 percent favorable/unfavorable rating. Sixty-four percent of Illinoisans approve of the job Obama is doing as President.
“Every [Illinois] Democrat I know, every politically knowledgeable and interested Democrat is worried. The combination of factors is potentially pretty lethal,” said John Schmidt, a Chicago attorney who ran unsuccessfully in 1998 for the Democratic nomination for governor.
The $62.4 billion unfunded liability [of all the state’s pension systems] reflects the money the state needs, but doesn’t have currently, to cover all the earned pension credits if they were cashed in all at once. While that’s an unrealistic situation, it is a financial measure used to gauge the health of pension systems. It’s akin to having enough money in your savings account to cover your mortgage if the bank called the entire loan at once.
You can make a lot of trouble with numbers, and that unfunded liability stat is always one of the bigger trouble-makers.
…allowing McPier to audit the books of the two large companies that actually operate conventions for trade groups to make sure cost savings are passed on to their clients.
Until they can get a handle on those two companies, nothing major will change. Trouble is, nobody really thinks that the McPier honchos actually want a “real” audit for fear that the companies, which control a huge percentage of the national convention industry, will turn McCormick Place into a ghost town.
Voters may soon look to the State Board of Elections for information on candidates in primary races.
Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat, said that her bill, which would require the board of elections to create voter guides for the primary, is not a direct response to this month’s election and noted that she filed the legislation in January.
However, she did say the election, with its tight races and low voter turnout, underscored the need for voters to be more informed about the candidates. She said including primary candidates in the voter guides — which contain basic information submitted by each candidate — that the board of elections now provides for general elections would be a good start.
The bright side is that if the public finally sees for itself how woefully decrepit the board’s site is, maybe the resulting outrage will force the board to get its act together. I’m not holding my breath.
Legally - as I tried to point out in comments on an earlier post - the General Assembly is not covered under the Open Meetings Act.
Constitutionally, the SDem view is that Supreme court rulings dating back to the 19th Century essentially only force the GA to abide by what’s in the document itself. If, as is the case here, the Constitution insists that sessions and committees be open to the public, then only sessions and committee hearings are covered. Since the Senate adjourned after announcing a “joint caucus,” the meeting was not technically a session or a hearing. They did agree, however, that they probably ought to revisit the political aspects of these full-chamber secret meetings.
Donald Craven, a longtime attorney for the Illinois Press Association who also has represented the Chicago Tribune on open government issues, said the meeting should have been open no matter how big or small the topic.
“The topic is not important,” Craven said. “If the Senate can go into a joint caucus to talk about this topic, what’s the logical extreme?
“Can they also go into a joint caucus to debate the budget bill? Can they go into a joint caucus to debate the hundreds of other bills that go before the state Senate?” Craven asked.
* I had a pleasant little chat with Gov. Pat Quinn last night. We talked about several things, and then he stunned me by revealing that he was following the Brady/Dillard vote count on the blog yesterday.
Yes, you read that right. The governor is a Capitol Fax Blog reader. He’s not a commenter, however… or so he says.
* The Question: Lobby the governor on one state issue.
Please, keep this respectful. Whether you agree with him or not, he’s still the governor. Also, we’re busy today and we don’t have time to play nanny.
It’s the annual kickoff to the session. Lawmakers file thousands of bills covering all kinds of issues — from spending to sex offenses — that they want considered by the House and Senate.
Only a few hundred will make it all the way through the process to become law. And this year, that number could be down for a couple of reasons.
Lawmakers aim to deal with only “emergency issues” and the budget in even-numbered years. These also are election years, during which politicians have more incentive to avoid controversy. And in this election year, there’s plenty to do on the major budget problems alone.
* Bills often are introduced just for a press pop, or for a nagging constituent or an insistent lobbyist. Often, the sponsor has either no intention nor any real hope of ever moving that bill to the governor’s desk. Sometimes, the bills are introduced just to send a message. Like this one, for instance…
Words like “coercive” and “ridiculous” were used at the Kane County Government Center Tuesday to describe a pair of state bills designed to deny funds for communities that enacted local bans on video gambling.
In a unanimous vote, the County Board’s Legislative Committee moved to oppose two virtually identical measures in the Illinois House and Senate which exclude communities that have the bans from obtaining funding from the state’s $31 billion capital bill. The measures also would require those entities to pay back the revenue lost to the state that the video gambling licenses would have generated.
The county board members are right to be upset, but it’s far more likely that the bills were introduced as a not-so-gentle warning to locals than measures which could actually become law this year.
* Some bills, however, become law without people even really knowing about it, and that can cause serious aggravation. For instance…
School districts and police officials are using e-mails, letters and warnings to publicize a new state law that has taken many parents by surprise because it prohibits the use of a hand-held cell phone while driving in a school zone.
Since the law took effect Jan. 1, officials have scrambled to inform parents who dial away while performing the daily rite of dropping off or picking up their children amid a thicket of cars, buses and darting pedestrians. Many find the law confusing, and even some police officials complain that it will be difficult to enforce.
“Personally, I think the police have better things to do than sit in the parking lot of schools and watch for people talking on the phone,” said Sue Anderson, a parent at Rose Elementary School in South Barrington. “Am I guilty of it? Yes.”
Anderson has not been ticketed but knows that police have cited others for violating a law that largely has fallen under the radar. The law, which does not apply to hands-free devices, also bans the use of hand-held phones in construction zones.
* Some bills ought to become law, but may not make it past the partisan screen. GOP Rep. Ron Stephens has sponsored one such bill…
Amends the Whistleblower Act. Provides that a State agency may not retaliate against an employee of that agency who discloses information about the policies or operations of that State agency in a court, an administrative hearing, or before a legislative commission or committee, or in any other proceeding, where the employee has, at the time of the disclosure, reasonable cause to believe that the information is true. Provides that a State agency may not retaliate against an employee of that agency who discloses information about the policies or operations of that State agency to a government or law enforcement agency or to the media where the employee has reasonable cause to believe, at the time of disclosure, that the disclosed information is true.
The governor’s gag order on Department of Corrections employees after word leaked out about his botched prisoner release program is probably the target here. The DHFS inspector general’s often bizarre pursuit of Tamara Hoffman, including a finding that she broke the rules by talking to me about Rod Blagojevich’s corruption, would fall under this proposal as well.
A move to end the use of red-light cameras in Illinois has been pushed to another day after lawmakers on Tuesday banished two separate proposals to a subcommittee.
State Sen. Dan Duffy, R-Barrington, proposed legislation to eliminate all red-light cameras from Chicago and suburban communities. Members of a Senate Committee sent his legislation, along with a proposal sponsored by State Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, to a subcommittee for more study.
These bills got a lot of publicity lately, but they may never again see the light of day - at least, not in their present forms. Hendon was also upset that the minority party member Duffy had “bill jacked” his idea, which is one reason Duffy’s bill got stuff in subcommittee.
* The Senate really doesn’t have a good reason to keep this session closed to the public…
The Illinois Senate plans to meet behind closed doors this morning to hear a presentation by experts about state budgets and the national economy, a move that open government advocates called baffling.
The unusual secret gathering is being billed as a “joint caucus” of the majority Democrats and the minority Republicans, two groups that represent the entire 59 members of the Illinois Senate. The caucuses routinely meet separately to plot partisan strategy, and the public is not invited. But a joint meeting is very rare.
The spokeswoman for Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, said the event will be closed because the presentation to be given by the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures will not fall under the state Constitution’s requirements to be open.
It won’t violate the Constitution? Really? From the Constitution…
Sessions of each house of the General Assembly and meetings of committees, joint committees and legislative commissions shall be open to the public. Sessions and committee meetings of a house may be closed to the public if two-thirds of the members elected to that house determine that the public interest so requires
And if you read the Senate’s rules, the term “caucus” is solely used to define political party membership. They don’t really have a leg to stand on here.
“Setting aside the legal issues, I can’t imagine what the NCSL is going to say that’s so top secret that the general public will not be allowed to hear it,” Morrison said.
Exactly.
Heck, I even obtained the PowerPoint presentation that the NCSL person will use at today’s meeting…
The scariest graph is probably in Part 1. Click the pic for a better look…
I think that may be too optimistic. Our own state’s deficit is projected at $13 billion in Fiscal Year 2011, which would be about a quarter of the NCSL’s projected all-states deficit of $55.5 billion - although only 30 states provided data for the year in question, as compared to 35 for the current FY.
* Is Chicago throwing away $40 million?: Chicago is turning its back on $40 million in guaranteed revenue over the next 10 years — and 25,000 free trash/recycling bins — by ignoring an Aurora company’s offer to install “Free Green Cans” bearing advertising across the city.
“I talked to the Senate President of Texas, a Republican, and he told me about this idea of having joint caucuses. I said we have individual caucuses. He said we have a really bipartisan Senate. We have people who really get along. I said we’re trying to improve that. We didn’t have a very good atmosphere in Springfield. So, that’s why we started last year with a dinner, a social gathering with all the Senators, this year the staff, that you guys wanted to come to. It was meant to be like a Christmas party for the office.
“The idea for having a caucus like this, this is a joint caucus, just like a caucus that we have, that we call on the floor. But this is meant to be one where just the senators are there to get information, but where they can also feel like they can ask questions and have a free exchange of ideas without having to be worried about what the press might report.”
“Now you’ve got five people in there running for higher office. Two governors, a county board president, a congressman – they want to have their thoughts and comments about this material without them having to worry about what’s going to be reported or looked at in their campaign. OK? So none of this stuff that’s going to be reported is secret, as a matter of fact I want you all to see it.”
“I know you guys are trying to show that we’re all bad down here and we’re secret and we’re trying to do things in a bad way, I just find it ironic that, yeah, you’re right we’ve never done it before. I’m proud of it, because we’re trying to bring people together socially and in a working atmosphere. We’re not trying to keep the media out of our business. You can ask anybody you want to afterward what they think, what the materials were. We’re going to have a press conference.”
On Tuesday, CBS 2’s informal survey found Dillard reducing Brady’s lead to about 250 votes. Brady’s own McLean County won’t tally its final absentees until later Wednesday so he’ll likely gain some. But there just aren’t many people downstate.
Take two Brady strongholds, for example. In Peoria, Brady added just three votes to his margin and, next door in Tazewell County, just two votes.
Dillard’s total is closer to what commenters came up with yesterday…
Dillard did downplay talk of a costly and legally difficult recount if he remains on the short end of the final vote tally. He said Tuesday his losing margin would have to be “something less” than the roughly 220 he believed he had Tuesday to consider a recount.
Late unofficial vote counts from election authorities in the more-populous six-county Chicago region showed Dillard cutting into Brady’s lead by nearly 200 votes [from the original 420 AP total]. Still, final tallying continues in downstate counties where, despite fewer votes being cast, Brady has held an advantage over Dillard.
* Dillard repeated yesterday that he likely won’t call for a recount unless the margin is within 100 votes. As the Trib rightly points out, this could become a long, involved process if Dillard goes through with any recount…
But a challenge based on provisional votes could become a messy one, and Dillard said he’s unsure he would press for more of them to be counted. Dillard’s low threshold for considering a recount reflects the advances in electronic vote-tabulation technology. Local election officials have until Feb. 23 to re-test their results and send them to the state.
“The local election authorities need to canvass and have time to double-check their math,” Dillard said. “And I’d like to see a preliminary tabulation by the actual election authority, the State Board of Elections…especially when you’re talking about 200 votes out of about three-quarters of a million cast. Mistakes do happen.”
“We’re talking about a five-ten-thousandths of 1 percent difference in a statewide race with three quarters of a million votes cast. I want to make sure every vote is counted,” Dillard said.
* Sen. Brady talked with my intern Barton Lorimor yesterday about the counting process and where it stands. Have a look…
* And Brady got his first gentle (considering its notoriously over the top ways) scolding from the Tribune editorial board over his proposed constitutional amendment to forbid gay marriage and civil unions…
Brady’s idea is faulty on several grounds, starting with the merits. Civil unions are a reasonable compromise between those who think gays should have access to marriage and those who think the state should not redefine an ancient institution that has strong religious connotations. But even if you don’t favor same-sex marriage, there is no reason to change the constitution if public opinion should come to view it more favorably than today.
Brady ought to focus on the precarious position Illinois is in. The answers lie in the realm of fiscal policy, ethics and economic growth. It’s not the prospect of same-sex marriage that is chasing away employers. The option of civil unions has not burdened future taxpayers with draconian financial burdens. […]
The gay marriage/civil union proposal, though, is a big favor to Gov. Pat Quinn. Citizens are divided on that issue — but very few are clamoring for a constitutional fix. Brady, if he is the GOP nominee, will need to convince Democrats and independents that they should give the Republicans another chance in the governor’s office. A campaign that focuses on the state’s financial chaos and the Legislature’s unwillingness to push genuine ethics reform could provide that chance. But Brady suggests he has other things on his mind.
