* We’ll have more on this later, including some video, but the Senate Appropriations II Committee held a hearing this morning on a ten percent across-the-board budget cut. The idea was to illustrate what would happen if the likely Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady is elected.
Stan Ikenberry, head of the U of I, said the cuts proposed would mean a $74 million cut in state support to that university’s campuses. For perspective, he said that is the amount of support combined for Illinois’ Springfield campus, law school, med school campuses, dental school and college of education.
Glenn Poshard said such a cut would immediately trigger a 15 percent layoff across the SIU campuses, something he said is “not practical, prudent nor possible.”
The underlying but publicly unmentioned goal of today’s discussion in a Senate budget committee — discussion that will carry over to tomorrow — is to focus political ire on state Sen. Bill Brady, a Bloomington Republican and the likely GOP nominee for governor. On the campaign trail, he’s denounced tax increases and called for across the board 10 percent cuts.
The Democrats who control the General Assembly are now giving members and the public a taste of what Brady’s budget would do. So far, the state’s two largest public universities are describing layoffs, program cuts and double-digit tuition increases, which will further drive up the costs of a degree.
They’ll continue the hearing tomorrow. Check back for some videos in a few.
*** UPDATE *** Senate Approp II Chairman John Sullivan was asked repeatedly today what his committee was supposed to accomplish with this hearing and whether it was a shot at Sen. Bill Brady. He denied everything. Sullivan did, however, say that Brady was free to testify if he wanted. Have a look…
* I showed this video to subscribers this morning, but it’s worth showing everyone. Watch Rep. Julie Hamos and Rep. John Bradley go after each other over a provision in Bradley’s concealed carry bill that would not allow guns in schools…
The state’s school superintendents are cutting costs in a gruesome budget cycle, but they can take some consolation: Their own paychecks are growing comfortably.
The average salary and benefits of Illinois’ top school executives grew 4.1 percent last year, about 10 times faster than raises enjoyed by other wage earners in the Chicago metro area, according to state data. A record number of superintendents — 150 — earned $200,000 or more.
The earnings report comes as school districts from Amboy to Zion have threatened to trim teaching positions, close swimming pools or cancel lacrosse and band programs — all in an effort to balance budgets.
The new salary information, provided by the Illinois State Board of Education, shows that the average compensation of full-time superintendents grew from $145,000 during the 2007-08 school year to $151,000 in 2008-09.
We see the same thing in the private sector all the time. Corporate boards award lavish salaries to CEOs and high-level execs. Look at the Tribune Co.’s recent request to a bankruptcy court to award $45 million in management bonuses. Meanwhile, the Trib lays off reporters.
The difference, of course, is that this is taxpayer money we’re talking about here.
If the locals won’t control themselves, should the state step in? Worth pondering.
* No statewide repeal of red-light cameras: State Sen. Dan Duffy, a Lake Barrington Republican, admitted he’ll have to do “a lot of selling” to get others on board with his proposal to purge cameras from the state except in construction zones and railroad crossings, but he’s confident he’ll be able to work with colleagues to refine camera enforcement.
* House committee approves break for hair braiders: The measure would require hair braiders to take 300 hours of training, including 70 classroom hours and 230 hours as an intern. But that would be a break from the current rules.
* Alexi Giannoulias told the Sun-Times today that his family’s bank may very well go under…
“The bank has always been well-capitalized and has always been prepared for a 10- to 15-percent, even 20-percent, decline in real estate values, which, that would be almost unprecedented, But I don’t think anyone, very few people could have foreseen a 40 percent drop in real estate values and that’s why we’re in the position we’re in,” Giannoulias said.
When pushed, Giannoulias conceded he had little hope for his family’s bank to survive, “And that breaks my heart. … It was my father’s whole life.”
Will the bank still be there in November for the general election?
“It’s quite likely that the bank will not be around,” Giannoulias said. “There’s not a lot of capital out there for somebody to find $60, $70 million [as federal and state regulators want the Giannoulias family to reinvest in the bank in the next two months]. I hope I’m wrong.”
He also owned up to his share of the problems…
“I take my share of responsibility for possibly concentrating too much in commercial real estate,” Giannoulias told the Sun-Times’ editorial board. “Obviously, it’s easy to look back four or five years and say that, but I think in my role, that’s part of what I should be doing. This is not something I’m shying away from. This is not something I’m hiding from. I’m here to answer as many questions as I possibly can.”
This does not sound like a guy who would be pushed out of the race if his family’s bank does, indeed, go under. Just the opposite.
*** UPDATE *** We have two press releases. The first is from the Illinois Republican Party…
Appearing before the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board this morning, Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias denied he helped a former campaign staffer become Illinois’ top banking regulator get his job – a role that could ultimately determine whether regulators close the Giannoulias family’s Broadway Bank.
“Giannoulias denied having any role in getting his former campaign policy director in 2006, Brent Adams, his current post as Acting Secretary of Financial and Professional Regulation for the state of Illinois, which would have jurisdiction over Broadway Bank,” the Sun-Times reported.
On January 26, 2010, Broadway Bank entered a consent decree with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) and the FDIC. When banks are closed, the IDFPR makes the final decision to close and then names the FDIC as the receiver of the bank. IDFPR is headed by Brent Adams, whose official state biography shows he served as Giannoulias’ Policy Director in 2006. Additionally, Illinois State Board of Elections records show Citizens for Giannoulias paid Mr. Adams $500 in salary in July 2006.
“We already knew about loans to organized crime and Blagojevich insider Tony Rezko,” Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady said. “Now we see Broadway Bank’s fate in the hands of a Giannoulias insider. We deserve a full accounting of how the State of Illinois will deal with this obvious conflict of interest and why this conflict was never declared.”
The second is from Kirk for Senate…
***FACT CHECK***
Giannoulias Misleads Chicago Sun-Times on Risky Investments, Loans to Organized Crime
False Giannoulias Claim: “I would vehemently disagree that these are reckless or risky loans,” he said. The only reason Broadway Bank appears ready to collapse is because the bottom fell out of the real estate market, he said. (Chicago Sun-Times, “Giannoulias ‘clears air,’ denies risky loan-making, 3/3/10)
Get The Facts:
On January 26, 2010, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and the FDIC ordered Broadway Bank to “cease and desist from engaging in unsafe and unsound banking practices.” (www.idfpr.com)
From 2002 to 2006, Alexi Giannoulias increased Construction & Development loans from $80 million to $356 million – expanding such risky investments from 25 percent to 46 percent of the bank’s total loan portfolio. (Chicago Reader, Alexi’s Albatross, 12/3/09)
From 2002 to 2006, Alexi Giannoulias increased the bank’s brokered deposits (also known as “hot money”) fourfold to $640 million. The typical bank at this point was growing brokered deposits at about 9 percent a year. (“As Lender, Senate Candidate Impacted Bank Woes,” New York Times, 1/30/10)
When Alexi Giannoulias left the bank, the ratio of brokered deposits to total assets at Broadway was 68 percent, according to FDIC records. The average for all federally insured banks nationwide was 4.5 percent. (Chicago Reader, Alexi’s Albatross, 12/3/09)
False Giannoulias Claim: “The bank has always been well-capitalized.” (Chicago Sun-Times, “Giannoulias ‘clears air,’ denies risky loan-making, 3/3/10)
Get the Facts:
From 2006 through 2009, the Giannoulias family took over $100 million in dividend payments out of the bank – money that could have been used to shore up capital reserves. (Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income for A Bank with Domestic Offices Only)
In 2006, the bank set aside $2.2 million as a provision against loan losses, a safety measure that federal regulators require banks to take. Despite its large increase in risky loans, Broadway only doubled its bad-loan reserve in the time Mr. Giannoulias was there. (“As Lender, Senate Candidate Impacted Bank Woes,” New York Times, 1/30/10)
False Giannoulias Claim: But, Giannoulias said, he did his due diligence on those loans and never knowingly gave loans to people linked to organized crime. (Chicago Sun-Times, “Giannoulias ‘clears air,’ denies risky loan-making, 3/3/10)
Get the Facts:
In 2005, Alexi Giannoulias authorized $15.4 million in loans to a convicted mob bookmaker and pimp named Michael “Jaws” Giorango. (“Boulis kin, 2 felons own Martha’s site,” Miami Herald, June 18, 2006; “Loans cast pall over candidate; Treasurer nominee oversees mortgages to crime figures,” Chicago Tribune, April 9, 2006)
Alexi told the Chicago Tribune he once discussed Giorango’s criminal past with him. (David Jackson, “Giannoulias Speaks Up On Loans,” Chicago Tribune, 4/27/06)
Alexi Giannoulias said he traveled to Miami to inspect property the bank had financed for Giorango and met with him there. Giannoulias declined to provide details of that meeting. (“Giannoulias ‘Embarrassed’ By Remarks About Convicted Felon,” Chicago Tribune, 4/27/06)
In 2005, Alexi Giannoulias authorized a $3.6 million loan for Demitri Stavropoulos of Oak Brook, who was convicted in 2004 for his role as ringleader of a multistate sports bookmaking operation that grossed about $1 million a year. (David Jackson, “Loans Cast Pall Over Candidate,” Chicago Tribune, 4/9/06)
Stavropoulos was in federal prison in June 2005 when the $3.6 million Myrtle Beach loan was made. The inmate’s wife signed the loan papers as his ‘attorney in fact,’ land records show. (David Jackson, “Loans Cast Pall Over Candidate,” Chicago Tribune, 4/9/06)
* The Tribune editorialized today in favor of Sen. James Meeks’ school voucher bill…
Meeks’ bill would focus on 49 elementary schools and 15 high schools, the worst-performing schools in Chicago. As many as 35,000 kids would be eligible. The vast majority of those kids are poor.
They would qualify for vouchers to pay tuition at any school that admits them.
The Meeks plan wouldn’t cost the state an extra dime. It would match the money the state already provides for the children.
And it would actually leave the Chicago Public Schools with more money to spend on kids who stay.
A suburban congressional candidate who’s stressed the need for fiscal restraint lost a condominium to foreclosure last October, the same month he announced his bid for office, court records show.
Joe Walsh, the Winnetka Republican running against Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean in the 8th House District, used to own a condominium on the 1400 block of Sherman Avenue near downtown Evanston. The two-bedroom unit went into foreclosure in 2008 and Walsh was evicted last fall, Cook County circuit court records and real-estate reports indicate. […]
Walsh now opposes abortion and a weapons ban, but he didn’t when he first ran for Congress in 1996. Earlier this year, he told the Daily Herald his views on abortion changed after a spiritual journey, and he shifted on gun control after being “educated” on the issue.
He also said he had a more liberal stance on gay rights in 1996 “because I was running in Evanston, Ill.,” a reference to the largely left-leaning city.
Cook County President Todd Stroger has quit his post as Democratic committeeman in Chicago’s 8th Ward, and he all but announced his retirement from politics after today’s County Board meeting.
“I’m going to continue to be involved in public service,” Stroger said, “but I won’t be running for office any time soon.”
Quitting the committeeman position was more than symbolic, as Stroger’s father, John Stroger, built the 8th Ward Democratic organization into his political power base as he became the county’s first black president.
Ald. Michelle Harris is taking over the committeeman’s job. More on Stroger…
A Sneed spotter claims since his election loss, outgoing Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has become a fixture at the East Bank Club. “I guess he doesn’t need to be bothered by his current job,” said the Sneed source.
* It will be interesting to see how the editorial boards handle these interviews today…
Illinois Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias will face the editorial boards of the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday to answer questions about his connections to his family-owned troubled Broadway Bank.
Giannoulias, the state treasurer, has to factor into his campaign the potential for the bank to fail in the coming weeks as his GOP rival Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), makes the Giannoulias tenure at the bank as a loan officer a central part of his campaign. On Tuesday, the Kirk campaign sent out a memo titled, “Mounting questions surrounding Alexi Giannoulias’ risky lending practices take center stage in Illinois Senate race.”
* So far, the only applicants for lt. governor are people who haven’t done much in politics. Here’s a coverage roundup…
* Sen. Kirk Dillard talks about the ongoing vote-counting process. Not much new here, but take a look if you get the chance…
* I don’t write about it much, but some of you know that my wife is an Assyrian from Iraq. Mark Brown has an interesting read today on how the Christian exiles/immigrants are not pleased with the voting venue for Iraq elections this year…
One of the little tricks of the old Chicago Democratic Machine was to screw around with the polling places in areas where the opposition was expected to run strongest by moving them to locations that would tend to discourage voters from turning out.
Strange, but that’s exactly what some members of Chicago’s Iraqi community say has been done to them in advance of their national parliamentary elections, the balloting for which opens here Friday.
The one and only Chicago area polling place for Iraqis living in the U.S. is located inside a martial arts studio in the back corner of an out-of-the-way Glenview industrial park with no access via public transportation and limited parking.
And when I wrote “exiles” I meant exactly that. My wife’s family home was bombed three times and a Muslim gang demanded that they hand over my brother-in-law so he could be martyred for their cause. They finally left for Syria, obtained UN refugee status and are now in Finland, of all places.
Want more evidence that video poker has links to the mob?
Look no further than Tuesday’s arrest of Casey Szaflarski.
As part of a federal investigation into the Chicago Outfit, Szaflarski has been charged with running an illegal gambling business, not paying $255,000 in business income taxes and filing no return for 2007.
Szaflarski owns Amusements Inc. of Berwyn, which distributes video gambling machines. The government accuses it of involvement in illegal gambling. Moreover, Szaflarski shared gambling proceeds with Michael Sarno, the reputed head of the Cicero mob, according to an affidavit filed in the case.
In July, Gov. Quinn and the General Assembly legalized video gambling machines to help pay for a $31 billion statewide construction program. The worry is that the expansion of video gambling will funnel new revenues to the mob.
Yes. We all know that video poker machines have been linked to the Outfit. That’s why legalizing video poker is important.
Right now, if you own a tavern and allow gambling on your machines, you split the cash proceeds with the distributor. Some of these distributors are allegedly unsavory types, and the long-held suspicion is that tavern owners don’t report all their cash profits to the taxing authorities.
With legalized video gaming, the Outfit is cut out. The Gaming Board is super-sensitive to this problem and is developing a process to make sure the Outfit stays out. The board has also decreed that any tavern owner busted for illegally paying out winnings will automatically be denied a video terminal license.
Currently, video poker machines are licensed as “for amusement only.” Under the new law, those machines would be subject to seizure by the police. No more long, expensive sting operations would be required to bust tavern owners for paying out.
So, if you want organized crime out of video gambling, do what this country did after inadvertently allowing the Mob to control alcohol via Prohibition. Legalize it.
The same goes for illegal drugs. You want the gangs busted up? Kill off their top money source. Walgreen’s and CVS won’t be shooting bullets at each other to vie for street corner space. I guess I should do a Google search first, but I really doubt that Budweiser and the Miller Brewing Co. resorted to armed violence after Prohibition ended.
* Related…
* Illinois Capital Construction Plan Gets Slow Start
* James R. Thompson Center Facelift 2 Years Away - Chicago Landmark Will be Under Scaffolding Until Money Comes Through For Repairs
* Former Gov. Jim Edgar echoes what many of us said over and over last spring: Not nearly enough emphasis was being placed on the budget mess because of the intense fight over ethics…
“To me the big issue was not ethics, it was finance,” Edgar said.
I asked if he meant campaign finance, and he said no, government finance. He said lawmakers, pressured by the media, missed a unique opportunity to actually do something about the state’s crippled economy and sinking budget.
“Last year I think the media blew it,” Edgar said. “Last year was a huge disappointment. I thought something positive might happen, not ethics, just making government function again. And it didn’t happen. Last year nothing happened. It was just a huge disappointment.”
It’s not right to completely blame the media for the failures. The leaders could’ve found a way to end the ethics debate far earlier, instead of allowing it to shove aside the budget until after the end of May - when a three-fifths majority was required to pass anything.
Still, I can’t argue too much with him. Edgar’s conclusion was that last spring was “one of the worst sessions, if not the worst session I’ve ever seen.” True dat.
* Speaking of the budget, let’s revisit the Chicago Tribune editorial board’s budget cutting proposals. Greg Hinz obtained some revealing quotes this week…
Civic Committee President R. Eden Martin told me that it is true, as the editorial posited, that trimming state employee benefits via later retirement and other shifts would save roughly $20 billion in coming decades, allowing the state to trim its annual pension payment by $2.1 billion.
But, Mr. Martin added, Illinois’ unfunded pension liability was most recently estimated at around $80 billion, so cutting $20 billion still would leave a $60-billion hole. The cut suggested by the Trib “doesn’t save that kind of money,” he said.
In other words, Illinois still would have to do something else to close the hole — like raise taxes.
There’s more to it than that, as subscribers know, but I can’t fault the Trib for not tackling the entire unfunded issue all at once. This is a crisis that simply cannot be solved today.
At the Civic Federation, President Laurence Msall agreed that cutting most state operating expenditures 7.2% to 2007 levels would indeed save $2.5 billion a year. But extending those cuts to grade and high schools — and applying them to state aid to municipalities, as the Trib proposed — would be extremely painful and politically difficult, he added, placing pressure on local governments to raise their property taxes.
Those proposed cuts to local governments were described this way in the Tribune’s editorial…
This subsidy gives municipalities a free ride: A dollar from Springfield is a dollar they don’t have to conserve, or fight citizens to raise in local taxes.
That’s some pretty harsh language, particularly in an era when revenues are drying up and more people are in need of more services. Here’s a roundup of related municipal revenue stories for today alone…
* Gurnee eyes hike in phone tax; Increase to 6 percent would give $650,000 boost
Putting pressure on municipalities to trim costs is a laudable goal, but the Tribune seems to be on board with the idea that government ought to be practically strangled to death.
Thankfully, though, the Tribune isn’t making their editorial a must-do for legislators, which would mean precisely the sort of thundering editorials that Edgar complained about above…
The Tribune’s John McCormick, who wrote the editorial, noted that the piece was titled “A no-tax-hike option,” and stated in its second paragraph that, “We haven’t voted yes or no on this.” In other words, he said, it was just a discussion starter.
It has certainly started a discussion. I’ll give them that.
* I’ve been telling subscribers about this for at least a couple of weeks now. Speaker Madigan and Senate President Cullerton are both hoping to run a six-month budget this May…
Just days after the Civic Federation’s Lawrence Msall cast an ominous warning on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight that absent new tax revenue, “we run the risk of the state’s entire financial system collapsing,”a team of journalists convened on the set Friday night to talk about the political calculations for actually passing an inevitable income tax increase.
At one point, host Joel Weisman asked his panelists: “Where does Mike Madigan stand on it?”
“Where he’s always been,” veteran political reporter Mike Flannery responded. “He wants to protect his Democratic caucus. Madigan has set the earliest ever adjournment deadline, May 7 … [T]he thinking in Springfield is [pass] a six month budget, get the heck out of town.”
In theory, the “six month budget” would allow the Democrats to get through Election Day without putting any votes on an income tax hike.
The “theory” would be to pass another budget like the one they did last year, giving the governor tremendous authority to decide which budgetary line items to save and which to cut. If Quinn is reelected, then they’d take up a tax vote (if needed) in the January lame duck session. If Bill Brady is elected, they’ll just dump the problem in his hands.
* The Question: Your thoughts on this idea?
…Adding… Yes, the story is wrong about the “earliest ever” adjournment date. They adjourned April 15th one year. Stick to the question, please.
Picture this scene: Six or seven police officers struggle for a half hour on the floor with an uncooperative man while a phlebotomist repeatedly jabs the man’s hand with a needle, trying to draw blood.
It’s not a pretty picture. But it’s one you could see in Illinois if a bill that last week passed out of an Illinois House committee becomes law.
As the law stands now, police — even with a subpoena — are not allowed to use force to draw a suspect’s blood. House Bill 4969 would change that, allowing “all necessary and reasonable force” to obtain a blood sample.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Keith Farnham (D-Elgin), says he introduced the bill at the request of the Kane County state’s attorney’s office, which has staged occasional “no refusal” weekends since 2008 to crack down on DUI suspects who refuse Breathalyzer tests. […]
The scene described above — cops fighting a suspect for a blood sample — did in fact take place in Arizona, where the man was left with a hand so swollen he couldn’t use his thumb. Former Cook County Judge Daniel M. Locallo, who sits on the Illinois State Bar Association’s Criminal Law Section, calls it an example of “frontier justice.”
Farnham barely won his race last year, so apparently he thinks he has to look super-tough on crime and cooperate fully with his local prosecutor to win this time around. But this seems to be a bit much, no?
Legislation pending in the Illinois House would prohibit businesses from hiring based on a person’s credit history to spare people who lose their jobs and their homes from being “double victimized” when they can’t find new work, its top supporter said Monday.
“Can you imagine you’re someone who, at no fault of your own, you lose everything — you’re laid off, you can’t afford your mortgage so you lose your home — and then when you’re trying to get back on your feet, you got companies running credit checks on you while you’re looking for jobs?” said Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock), chief House sponsor.
I have a pretty good life, so I really can’t complain about much. However, I’d like to see some legislation to stop mobile phone companies from running those over-long explanatory messages (often with several-second pauses) during voice mail messages. I’m pretty sure everybody knows how to leave a message at the beep. I’m also pretty sure that those several seconds add up to huge profits when taken in the aggregate.
Chicago Children’s Museum officials said they plan to amend the museum’s federal tax filings to reveal its City Council lobbyists and how much they were paid in recent years after the Tribune asked why it had failed to do so.
According to council members, several professionals were hired to lobby aldermen — who in June 2008 sided with Mayor Richard Daley and approved a controversial plan to build a museum in Grant Park.
But those lobbyists weren’t disclosed, as required, on the museum’s Internal Revenue Service reports for a two-year period ending June 30, 2008, according to recent not-for-profit filings at the Illinois attorney general’s office.
“It was an administrative error, and we are currently amending those tax returns,” said museum spokesman Natalie Kreiger.
That’s a pretty big error.
* Related…
* Meeks’ School Voucher Plan Moves Ahead: His voucher proposal would allow parents of students in the academically lowest 10 percent of Chicago Public Schools to have the option of sending their children to a private school, if space is available.
* Alexi Giannoulias’ campaign is obviously planning to paint Mark Kirk as a definite vote to perpetuate the DC gridlock on President Obama’s proposals. Kirk is a smart guy, however, and is already trying to show that he won’t be an automatic “No” on everything…
U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk of Highland Park, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois, opposes a Kentucky Republican senator’s stand against extension of unemployment benefits.
Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., is blocking action in the Senate to extend the benefits. The blocked legislation also includes some highway money and Bunning’s action has temporarily shut down more than 40 projects nationwide, including a $1 million road project in Alexander County in far southern Illinois.
“I voted for the unemployment extension last week,” Kirk told The State Journal-Register during a visit to Springfield Monday. “In Washington, 41 senators can stop something, but one senator can only delay it. My read on this is the vote is pretty much 99 to one.”
Kirk’s campaign recently admitted that their own polling showed pretty high approval ratings for Obama in Illinois. So, he has to make sure he is more identified with, say, the new Republican Massachusetts Senator, who broke the impasse on a recent jobs bill, than people like Bunning.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk said Monday the fate of his Democratic rival’s family bank should be an issue of concern for voters.
“I think there’s no question that Alexi Giannoulias bears direct personal responsibility for reckless loans that could bankrupt the Broadway Bank,” Kirk said of the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee. “I also worry that the possible collapse of the Broadway Bank will leave taxpayers left paying for Alexi’s reckless loans.”
Kirk’s comments came after the Tribune reported Sunday that the bank’s chief executive, Demetris Giannoulias, said the family must raise at least $85 million by the end of April to prevent a government seizure of the financial institution. Demetris Giannoulias is the older brother of Alexi Giannoulias.
“While Alexi hasn’t been at the bank for four years, Mark Kirk has been in Washington for a decade supporting the failed and reckless Bush policies that got us into this economic mess,” Strand said.
It’s not a bad point, mind you, but it just oozes “DC talking point” blandness.
In addition, the Indo-American Democratic Organization is trying to collect 10,000 signatures on Krishnamoorthi’s behalf to present to House Speaker Mike Madigan.
I just can’t see how they could skip over an also-ran in the lt. governor’s race and give the slot to an also-ran in the comptroller’s race. But both parties are actively courting Indo-Americans, who haven’t quite yet established themselves here. It’s a delicate balancing act for sure. And that may be why more are saying they should just leave the slot open, including, apparently, Senate President John Cullerton…
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery has learned top Dems are seriously considering leaving the slot open while simultaneously asking Illinois voters to abolish the office entirely. […]
Wiping out the office of lieutenant governor would save millions of tax dollars. And Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, said Monday that having nobody as lieutenant governor would be preferable to the rookie Republican candidate.
He’s Jason Plummer, a 27-year-old whose main experience involves working for his father’s downstate lumber company. Democrats saw an opening last week, after Plummer stumbled repeatedly during an interview on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight.”
Cullerton on Monday expressed interest in floating a constitutional referendum to abolish the office of lieutenant governor, following the embarrassment his party endured over Cohen. Voters could be asked to approve the measure on the November ballot, if super-majorities in the House and Senate can approve the proposal this spring.
*** UPDATE *** The Democratic Party of Illinois has published the list online of everyone who has applied to be considered for the open lt. governor slot, as well as their applications and their resumes. Some even supply references. Click here to see the list. Some of the bigger names aren’t on the list, like Rep. Art Turner, Raja, etc.
…Adding… The links on that page appear to be working now.
Nice try, governor, but when you asked the people of Illinois how to balance the state budget, you got thousands of responses, but not one that I could see who said cut my services or raise my taxes.
* Raising user fees (driver’s license, car registration, etc)
As I’ve been monitoring the comment section for the past few days, however, I have noticed that almost nobody has demanded that their own pet programs be cut. The teachers are flooding the site demanding no cuts to schools - or even saying they want more money for schools - and pretty much everyone else is focusing on cuts to “the other”…
* KEEP THE TEACHERS AND THEIR UNION OFF THIS WEBSITE!! THIS IS FOR HARD WORKING TAXPAYERS, NOT FOR A BUNCH OF WHINY OVERPAID FUTURE MILLIONAIRES!
* Have all elected and appointed state officials take off one day per week with no pay just as companies are asking of their employees.
Byrne’s conclusion…
The truth is that much of what the state spends is for things that someone in Illinois wants. If we’re to come anywhere close to balancing the budget, it will require more than a debate over bigger cuts versus higher taxes. It will require a fundamental downsizing of our expectations of what we, ourselves, can milk from the government.
That’s a good point. And as I’ve said many times before, when newspapers and their employees start editorializing in favor of getting rid of their industry’s bigtime tax breaks, I’ll be far more inclined to take their other positions more seriously. Just about everybody has their fingers in the state government pie. And that’s a big reason why it’s so hard to do anything about the size of government.
…Adding… Several people are leaving budget-cutting proposals in comments. As with the state site, these are all aimed at other folks. We’ve had numerous posts here about ways to cut the budget. Your little cut ideas don’t interest me unless you propose cutting something that you depend on. I may start deleting these comments if they continue. Don’t waste our time.
Cook County’s post-Sept. 11 security initiative, dubbed Project Shield, which has come under fire for being sharply over budget and years behind schedule, is proving to be an even bigger drain on taxpayers.
The city asks a judge to quash a defense subpoena seeking to call Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to testify at the bribery trial of developer Calvin Boender. Boender is set to go on trial next week on charges he bribed then-Ald. Isaac “Ike” Carothers to obtain support for a large project.
“Why are there no Poles on major boards and commissions?” Pucinski asked. “Why, on the short form for the Census are we not allowed to identify ethnic identity?”
On her way to work in Glendale Heights on Dec. 8, a deer jumped onto Locklin’s car, crushing the windshield. Locklin slammed on the brakes and caught her breath.[…]
The Westchester resident suffered only minor injuries, a few cuts and scrapes from the damaged windshield.
What hurt far more was a $350 bill from the Glenside Fire Protection District, a fee critics refer to as a “crash tax.”
“These fees are a hidden tax on all of us, and they hit the poor especially hard,” said the study’s author, Robert Shapiro, who was undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton administration.
To pay for the rewards programs, which are heavily skewed toward the higher-income brackets, the card companies have boosted the processing fees retailers pay. “The result is massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich” in the checkout line, said Shapiro.
* Downstate judge resigns after alleged threats: [Judge] Brunton was suspended for allegedly making threats, though the nature of them never has been spelled out. No charges have been filed.
Two weeks ago, Village President Debbie Herrmann surprised the community by announcing she placed Police Chief Anthony Sciarrone on administrative leave.
* Our quote of the day goes to Chris Mooney, a professor of Political Studies with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois Springfield speaking about the governor’s new budget.illinois.gov website, which allows people to post suggestions about ways to cut the state budget…
“I think blogs are a terrible thing in the American public because there is no responsibility,” Mooney said. “It’s interesting and a good thing that many people [on the governor’s budget site] are owning what they say, which is unlike a lot of blogs.”
Actually, the worst commenters are found mostly on newspaper websites, not blogs. Whatever the case, Mooney’s thesis is not wholly correct. There are lots and lots of pseudonymous and anonymous comments on the governor’s budget site. Have a look for yourself. And quite a few of the ideas are a little silly…
“It won’t save millions of dollars, but is it really necessary to use a new pen, that I’m sure isn’t a 10-cent Bic pen, every time the governor signs his name on a document?” Kevin Taylor, Chicago.
Susan Nikka Chicago Since most of the budget goes to the employee payroll and all benefits, I suggest taking back the last pay raises of ALL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, which means local and state-wide, administrative, congressman, alderman — EVERYONE!
“Most” of the budget does not go towards employee payroll and benefits. And how is cutting congressional and aldermanic salaries gonna help the state budget?
Several commentators wrote to promote hospital funding. They appeared to be form letters. Suggestion to writers: Don’t use form letters. Quinn may be an exception, but many politicians routinely ignore form letters.
“How could anything on this (Web site) have an impact on what is going to be said?” Mooney said. “The budget is put together over the course of an entire year and has the input of hundreds of people and specialists. And now two weeks before, (Quinn) sets up a blog to get input?”
What Professor Mooney fails to grasp is that Quinn can use some of the more lucid suggestions for political cover in his budget address. He can incorporate the suggestions into his speech and portray himself as a man of the people. Used properly, it could be an effective little gimmick.
* The Chicago Tribune laid out its own budget cut proposals yesterday. The paper wants a two-year solution with not tax hikes. One item on the list was the pension funds…
The most ambitious initiative to rein in costs now and in future decades comes from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which has proved up its legal and financial implications. The plan would freeze, and guarantee, pension benefits already earned, but would set somewhat lower benefits going forward for current state employees and new hires. Retirement ages would increase, while accrual rates and annual cost-of-living bumps would decrease. An offsetting drop in employee pension contributions could put more money in some workers’ pockets.
These changes appear to be constitutional and parallel how private-sector employers have moved tens of millions of workers to less costly retirement plans, such as 401(k)s. One huge difference: The Civic Committee proposal keeps all employees in a defined-benefit plan — a golden nest egg that many private-sector workers no longer have. None of this would affect current retirees, whose pensions are constitutionally guaranteed for life. Actuarial studies estimate that these changes would reduce the state’s unfunded pension obligations, now approaching $95 billion, by about $20 billion. Budget savings: At least $2.1 billion.
A $2.1 billion savings right away? I haven’t been able to find anything at the Civic Committee’s website with that number, but I’ve been told an answer will be forthcoming. I’ll share the info when I get it.
That editorial also called for cutting local government revenue sharing in half, which would only transfer the problems to somebody else.
* Related…
* Dems must OK cuts to get tax increase: If, in the end, the Republicans refuse to play ball, Madigan should move forward without them, the political price be damned. He owes it to Illinois to use his power to deliver for the state — not just to accumulate even more power.
* Quinn: Lawmakers not cheering for tax increase: But Quinn has said he won’t back down from an income tax increase if House Speaker Michael Madigan and Illinois Senate President John Cullerton ask him to do so because lawmakers hesitate to support one in an election year.
* Range of services at risk due to city, state budgets: Like a frog in a gradually warming pot of water, not everyone notices the trouble brewing. But budget problems have already hurt the Chicago area’s way of life — public transit is shrinking, library hours have been cut, and public schools are laying off employees by the hundreds. And it looks like things can only get worse.
* A Titanic mistake or nothing at all: This ship of state is steaming full speed ahead as people scream, “Iceberg!” That’s what this State of Illinois budget mess looks like to me.
* College tuition costs causing heartburn: One year at Illinois State University, my alma mater, costs more than $16,500. If prices kept pace with inflation from the time I graduated, one year at ISU should cost $10,000. Instead, the price more than doubled.
Fridays are getting tense in the Chicago campaign office of Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat seeking the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama. That’s the day regulators announce which troubled banks they’ll close.
Broadway Bank in Chicago, owned by Giannoulias’s family, must attract at least $75 million in capital by late April to meet terms of a consent order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prompted by losses on commercial real-estate loans. Even if successful, the family could lose control before November’s election, dealing a blow to Democrats and an Obama friend.
“The last thing that Alexi Giannoulias needs right now is another round of bad news stories and stories raising questions about the family’s business,” said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. “The one thing you don’t want to spend in a campaign is a lot of time defending yourself.”
Demetris Giannoulias, a Yale University economics and sociology graduate, said one of the few options for Broadway Bank to raise money is through private-equity firms.
But that won’t be easy. For one thing, many private-equity firms won’t bother doing deals of less than $100 million, he said. For another, banking regulations make it unappealing for private-equity firms to take more than, say, a 25 percent ownership stake. Exceeding that threshold would force such firms to register as bank holding companies. That would open up a typically secretive industry to more scrutiny in the highly regulated banking world.
A purchase of Broadway by another bank is virtually off the table, Demetris Giannoulias said. That’s because many healthy banks believe it makes more sense to wait until a lender fails before swooping in for the deposits, assets and branches. That way, the acquiring bank can usually strike a deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that limits its losses.
Also, with only four branches, including its 5960 N. Broadway headquarters, Broadway has scant franchise value, providing little incentive for another institution to fashion a deal before its collapse.
Sen. Durbin said over the weekend that he believes Giannouolias will address all these issues soon…
“There are a lot of people who want to attribute all sorts of things to him, but most people in fairness will say, you know ‘he’s been away from this for four years, and banks are failing’ he needs to answer these questions, he’s prepared to answer these questions and it will happen soon.”
[Giannoulias’] campaign presented figures showing 9 percent of about $240 million in non-performing assets now on the bank’s books originated while he was there.
Watch Giannoulias being asked about the bank by the Sun-Times…
* You may have noticed the new polling app in the center column for the US Senate race. I’m gonna keep it for a while unless it slows down the site (as these sorts of apps often do). I’ll also be adding the gubernatorial trendlines as soon as some more polls are taken so we can have some trendlines.
* John Patterson at the Daily Herald has a must-read retrospective today about what went wrong last year with the Illinois Reform Commission. Go read the whole thing, but this excerpt is quite important. Former GOP state Sen. Duane Noland was a member of Patrick Collins’ hand-picked Illinois Reform Commission. He was the only former legislator on the commission and has now become the first commission member to openly criticize the way the IRC handled last year’s push for reforms…
[Noland] said many of his commission colleagues had no idea what awaited at the Capitol and when advised what was coming chose not to engage the system even if it meant their proposals might falter.
“I tried to talk about ways we could be more effective,” Noland said in a recent interview. “But they wanted to be independent and above the fray.”
Noland said his advice was “hit singles and advance runners,” but the feeling of the commission was they’d been assembled “to hit a home run.”
The problem, he said, is those who swing for the fences often strike out.
“I sensed real quickly - it’s getting ugly and our people don’t know how to engage the process,” Noland said. “I could just see it, we were grinding to a halt.”
While that may look to many of my readers like common sense advice, engaging the system and coming up with reasonable compromises was obviously seen as somehow dirty by the commission.
Patterson’s article revolves around the controversy over Collins’ and the commission’s apparent overreaction to what looked like a fairly benign meeting between one commission member and the spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan. Former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar added his own two cents…
Edgar said negotiations are part of the process, the earlier they begin the better the outcome, and, while some things shouldn’t be sacrificed, wiggle room is needed. He said Collins should have reached out to legislative leaders.
“I can’t believe … that everything there was chiseled in stone,” Edgar said of the reform report. “And if it is, then you’re going to have a tough time.”
* Meanwhile, the Sun-Times has a report about how Northwestern University allegedly managed to keep a lucrative county traffic school contract. A cousin of Mayor Daley was involved. And so was Senate President John Cullerton. The Sun-Times provided his full explanation…
Like most members of the General Assembly, Cullerton serves as a part time state senator while continuing his professional career. As a partner with Thompson Coburn LLP, he continues to practice in law in areas of zoning, licensing, assessments, nonprofit law and other matters that come before Cook County and City of Chicago. The City of Chicago and Cook County lobbyist registration ordinances broadly define the term what constitutes “lobbying,” including traditional legal services. Out of an abundance of caution to ensure compliance with these ordinances, Cullerton has registered as a lobbyist for the traditional legal services he provides to clients with matters before the City of Chicago and Cook County.
The [National Safety Council] asked Cullerton for representation in the traffic safety school bid. Later the NSC issued a Request for Proposal for general representation on all legal work across the U.S. After submitting a proposal, competing with other law firms for the work, and a series of interviews, Thompson Coburn (the largest firm in St. Louis with offices in Washington D.C., Chicago and Belleville) was awarded the representation.
* As you already know, Sen. Bill Brady gave up his sponsorship of a bill last week to re-legalize mass euthanasia of dogs and cats by gas chambers after the press got wind of the legislation. But that wasn’t the only bill which Brady dumped…
The Illinois State Senate is considering a bill (SB3447) to roll back some protections of the Illinois Human Rights Act, which currently prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. […]
The bill was authored by State Senator Bill Brady, Republican gubernatorial hopeful, though the chief sponsorship has since changed to State Sen. John O. Jones. The bill has been assigned to the Judiciary Committee and a hearing on the bill is scheduled for Tuesday, March 2.
I wish I had known about that when I wrote my syndicated weekly newspaper column on Friday. The beauty of the column is I can somewhat bypass the Associated Press if they’re not covering an issue. The column appears in over 100 newspapers statewide, so I do reach a lot of eyeballs. This time around, the AP has so far completely ignored the uproar over Sen. Bill Brady’s bill to re-legalize gas chambers for dogs and cats. My column uses the legislation to partially illustrate how Brady’s campaign is doing so far, along with another related development…
Jerry Clarke is not easily ruffled. Not only has he seen it all in his years running campaigns in Illinois, but he’s served several tours of duty in Iraq as a combat helicopter pilot.
But I thought Jerry might actually faint last week when I called him with an update on his candidate’s latest piece of legislation. Clarke is running state Sen. Bill Brady’s gubernatorial campaign.
Sen. Brady’s bill would undo a compromise worked out over two years to stop the practice of mass euthanasia of dogs and cats. The animals were often put into auto exhaust gas chambers and killed en masse, sometimes allegedly by so-called “puppy mills” when the animals weren’t sold. The gas chambers were deemed cruel because it could take as long as 30 minutes for the animals to die, and some even survived the ordeal.
One of the state’s animal gas chambers is in Brady’s Senate district, and Brady has said he sponsored the bill on a local veterinarian’s behalf. Brady’s new legislation would delete the law’s requirement that “companion animals” be euthanized one at a time.
The Humane Society of Illinois blasted Brady’s legislation. “This bill would allow numerous animals to be gassed at the same time, in the same chamber, which will cause fear and panic, at the same time these dogs will be gasping for their final breath.”
That’s not exactly the image you want associated with your gubernatorial candidate, to say the least.
The point here is that Bill Brady is obviously not yet thinking like a statewide candidate. For crying out loud, you can’t introduce a bill to help out your local puppy gas chamber when you’re trying to be governor. I mean, seriously, what kind of thought process concocts an idea like that?
Clarke called me back to say that Brady would introduce an amendment to delete the bill’s content. The next day, Brady handed off sponsorship to someone else. At least his campaign is finally learning that they’ll have to keep this guy on a short and tight leash.
Jerry has no time to spare, either. As I write this, the Senate Democrats are drafting a state budget based on Sen. Bill Brady’s proposals from his Republican primary race.
During the primary race, Brady told the Chicago Tribune: “I believe Illinois needs to prioritize its programs and cut state spending by approximately 10 percent, saving $5.5 billion on the $55 billion base budget.”
Brady’s answer was dismissed by most budget experts because about half that $55 billion figure can’t really be altered much. You can’t, for instance, just tell Wall Street that you’re cutting your bond payments by ten percent. So a ten percent across the board cut to the operating budget would only provide about half of Brady’s projected savings.
And now the Senate Democrats have decided to show the world just what, exactly, Brady’s proposed ten percent cut and billion dollar tax cut would mean to Illinois - agency by agency.
The Senate Democrats have already passed a legislative scholarship “reform” that was specifically designed to call attention to Brady’s granting of a tuition waiver to the child of a campaign contributor. The ploy didn’t work, though, because Brady uses an independent committee to award the scholarships. Also last week, the Democrats forced a hearing on Brady’s campaign finance reform bill. The legislation was so poorly drafted that Brady was forced to agree to make numerous fixes, but the hearing got absolutely no media coverage.
The “Brady budget” proposal may finally break the media logjam, so this budget hearing could be a major test of Brady’s campaign, and its early reaction was fairly strong.
“When are they going to hold hearings on Quinn’s budget?” Clarke thundered last week when told of the planned budget hearings. Brady’s campaign manager accused the Democrats of using a Senate committee and state agency higher-ups for pure political gamesmanship while their own party - which has a huge majority in the chamber - hasn’t yet come up with solutions of their own. Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget address will not be unveiled until a full week after the scheduled “Brady budget” hearing.
If Jerry can just get a hold on his guy, he may have a real shot here.
As subscribers already know, the Senate appropriations hearing is scheduled for Wednesday morning.
“As long as I am governor, we’re never going to pass any kind of legislation that allows cruelty toward animals, whether it be dogs, cats or any other living things,” Quinn said to applause, barks and woofs.
Quinn spoke amid the booths of organizations that rescue abandoned pets and finds homes for them, holding the leash of a German shepherd.
“The governor has a veto pen and we’re going to make sure we protect our animals from any kind of cruelty,” he said, then added, “There are some folks in our society unfortunately they have dollar signs for eyes, and that’s all they think about is money. We’re not going to let that kind of monetary compulsion get in the way of treating our animals in a proper, dignified, friendly manner.”
Asked if that was a direct shot at Brady and his bill, Quinn said, “That was a terrible piece of legislation and I think everybody in Illinois knows it. A bill was put in to allow a mass killing of dogs and cats in the gas chanber. Putting all those animals together… many of them obviously very fearful as you put them in a small, contained place, perhaps fighting with each other, for them to be subject in their last minutes on earth to that kind of cruelty, is just plain wrong… There may be firms out there that think they can make money by mass killings of dogs, puppies and kittens. But that’s not what our state stands for and that law will never be approved.”
