* 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.
