* A political battle, of sorts, is starting to break out on Facebook. It’s providing us a nice preview of the upcoming assessor’s race between Joe Berrios and Forrest Claypool.
Scott Cisek, who ran Toni Preckwinkle’s campaign and is now political director of the Cook County Democratic Party under chairman Berrios (who is being challenged by independent candidate Claypool for assessor) got the ball rolling…
Cook County Democrats, remember what Benjamin Franklin once said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
A FB friend of Cisek’s then posted this…
Toni Preckwinkle winning is wonderful. Joe Berrios is all around bad for the people. Simple as that.
Cisek responded…
I remember hearing the same thing about Glenn Poshard. It seems to me breaking with the party to back George Ryan didn’t serve the Democratic voters - or the state - very well. History repeats and Franklin was right.
Claypool’s campaign manager Tom Bowen jumped into the fray…
Hey Scott, suggesting that Democrats will be disappointed by a vote for Forrest over Berrios is a little confusing to me, especially after you trotted out a comparison to George Ryan - Glenn Poshard, so how about a clarification. What issue differences are there between them that you think will be bad for Democrats? And, since you mentioned Ryan, please comment on whether you think Forrest will be more corrupt or dishonest somehow than Berrios will.
The two then got into it…
Scott Cisek: Tom, you should know me better. Do you think I am going to jump at bait from you?
Thomas C. Bowen: You’re voting for him man, if you can’t explain it in public, I’m not sure how much confidence you’re going to inspire.
Scott Cisek: I am sure you are aware there will be a lively debate in public. My Facebook wall hardly qualifies as “public”.
It qualifies now, Scott.
* In other social media politics, the Quinn campaign has started a “Pets for Pat” FB page…
Calling all political hounds here! This is the place to share stories and pictures with pets so we can rally for Pat Quinn and other candidates who share our love for our pets and animal welfare.
Paws Up for Pat Quinn!
The page was apparently started after reports surfaced that Quinn’s GOP opponent had sponsored a bill to re-legalize the mass euthanasia of dogs and cats.
* Congressman Mark Kirk recently posted a FB video of an MSNBC report slamming Alexi Giannoulias. And Giannouolias posted a FB video of Sen. Dick Durbin whacking Mark Kirk.
* The Illinois Senate Democrats’ new Facebook page shows they have over 600 friends, but they’re not getting much of a response yet. For instance, nobody responded to this recent post…
Any thoughts on Pres Cullerton’s response to the Trib’s editorial accusing us of a “delay and deny” strategy?
* Republican treasurer candidate state Sen. Dan Rutherford reveals that he has a nickname for his car…
early morning jog & now on road with Pongee (my Pontiac G6) & Josh the Road Warrior. Late arrival in Spfld for Senate Session Tuesday after Canton meet & greet, Macomb lunch with Rep. Rich Myers, then Quincy meet & greet and media.
* Believe it or not, some people are still leaving complimentary comments on Scott Lee Cohen’s Facebook page…
Paul Christofersen You go, Scott!
Terrisa Lashmett Best of luck in all you do!
David Ingram U R A good man!
* Tribster Tracy Swartz FBs about being featured in a story about reporters and social media. The article is here.
* Have you seen anything I missed?
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* Last week, a federal judge said he was inclined to make public the prosecution’s “proffer” - essentially a blueprint to the prosecution’s case - for the combined Rod and brother Rob Blagojevich trials. The judge said he would allow the defendants to object to specific aspects of the proffer, and brother Rob’s attorney filed a motion today…
The government should release the entirety of certain FBI witness statements and tape recorded conversations to the public rather than selectively publicizing sections, defense lawyers for Rob Blagojevich said today.
A new filing in the case of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his brother, Rob, argues that the government at times is “deceptively misleading” in a now-sealed proffer that a judge ruled will become public on Wednesday.
Their complaints come as they request that certain sections of the proffer are not made public before the June 3 trial.
“Our position is that it is manifestly unfair to make public only portions of sealed tape recorded conversations, which are taken out of context by the Government. To be fair to the defendant, we urge this Honorable Court to keep everything sealed or, in the alternative, unseal everything,” Rob Blagojevich attorney Michael Ettinger wrote in the court filing. “We submit that this proffer will be summarized and quoted by the media again and again every week leading up to the trial. Parts will be quoted on television, in print, on radio and on the Internet.”
Here’s a sample from the filing…
We strenuously object to footnote 24 regarding a conversation between (redacted) and Rod Blagojevich wherein, once again, the Government has omitted significant parts of a taped conversation, which deceptively misleads anyone who reads the footnote to believe that there was an agreement for a quid pro quo.
The actual recorded conversation shows just the opposite. We move to strike this footnote in its entirety or, if this Court sees fit to unseal it, replace the footnote with a transcript of the recorded conversation to allow the public to see the true facts.
* Meanwhile, our quote of the day goes to Rod Blagojevich. Transcript via Eric Zorn…
(On Elvis Presley’s) great 1968 comeback special, which was on NBC, he wore all his black leather and he sang “If I Can Dream” at the end of that show. That was his big comeback. Incidentally, NBC was the host of “Celebrity Apprentice.” Also the host of “I’m A Celebrity… Get Mm Out of Here!” I feel like there’s a connection. Patti and I have done business there on TV. Elvis had his comeback concert. I kinda consider that there’s almost a divine kinda connection maybe. I can hope that that’s the case anyway. [Rod Blagojevich, Sunday on his WLS AM 890 radio show.]
Full disclosure. I bought Blagojevich the DVD of that Elvis special. Sorry about that.
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Today’s maps for thought
Monday, Apr 12, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* This first graphic is a map of how states fare on their tax dollars. Those in red receive more than a dollar back for every tax dollar they send the federal government. Those in blue (including Illinois) receive less than a dollar…
And this is the electoral map from the 2008 presidential election…
[Via]
Thoughts?
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Question of the day
Monday, Apr 12, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* House Speaker Michael Madigan has a new proposal on the foreclosure crisis…
Under the legislative proposal, a copy of which was obtained by the Tribune, a $1,000 mortgage prevention fee would be collected during the sheriff’s sale process from the purchasers of residential buildings with four or fewer units. The fees would go into a mortgage foreclosure prevention fund and would be distributed to organizations assisting delinquent borrowers, court-sponsored mediation programs and for legal services and temporary loans to homeowners.
The proposal would most directly affect lenders, which at sheriff’s sales most often buy back properties they have foreclosed upon. In February, 6,454 properties in Illinois received notices that a sheriff’s sale was scheduled, according to RealtyTrac.
* The Question: Do you agree with this idea? Explain.
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* As I’ve told you before, the Alexi Giannoulias US Senate campaign has been focus-grouping the problems at his family’s bank and believes the media is out of touch with the citizenry…
The effort to reshape the campaign has started with a push to explore ways that Mr. Giannoulias might burnish his image if Broadway Bank collapses. In mid-March, the campaign conducted 12 hours of focus groups — six groups of swing voters, over three days, at sites both in suburban Chicago and downstate — testing the impact of the bank’s troubles on voters’ views of the candidate.
In an edited video clip of the focus groups that was shown to the Chicago News Cooperative, a moderator asked participants about their impressions of Broadway Bank as it related to Mr. Giannoulias. The strong majority of the people who saw the video played down the relevance of the issue.
“This is where I think there is a little bit of a disconnect between all the geniuses and the voters,” Mr. Adelstein said.
As part of the planning for the focus groups, Mr. Adelstein made a test campaign commercial in which Mr. Giannoulias stares into the camera lens and tries to relate the plight of his family’s bank to the larger context of the country’s economic struggles.
While the campaign has decided not to take to the air with that kind of ad yet, “the key take-away from that is we are ready, we have our plan,” Ms. Strand said.
* But the Kirk campaign is not giving up. Not by a long shot. Their opposition research turned up a tax lien that they leaked to Crain’s…
At issue is a $10,204.49 Internal Revenue Service tax lien filed against Broadway for alleged underpayment of money owed, plus interest and penalties. A copy of the lien, which was filed with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds office last September, was provided to me by a political opponent of Mr. Giannoulias.
According to the bank, the taxes do not involve normal bank operations — like Social Security taxes on Broadway or its employees — but deal with an apparently small number of customer accounts from which the bank is supposed to withhold 28% of due interest.
The accounts could lack or have incorrect personal identification numbers, or involve taxpayers who previously had problems with IRS. Whatever the case, the IRS says the bank didn’t pay enough.
“We properly paid the backup withholding taxes back in 2003 and filed a tax return with the IRS,” Broadway Chief Financial Officer Kaushik Pancholi said in a statement. “We have been communicating with them about a technical issue concerning whether a small amount of interest was correctly calculated by the government.”
* And the Illinois GOP issued a statement today claiming the Giannoulias focus groups were nefarious…
Giannoulias recently conducted several focus groups to find the perfect misleading message to successfully deceive the voters.
* Giannoulias is preparing to fight back today during a Chicago luncheon address.
Thoughts?
*** UPDATE 1 *** Commenter “Chicago Cynic” is at the Giannoulias event and providing some highlights in comments.
*** UPDATE 2 *** The Giannouolias campaign released some of his prepared remarks. An excerpt…
As people get introduced to Congressman Kirk and his policies over the next seven months, they’ll find out what he really stands for, which really is nothing at all. And he certainly hasn’t stood for the people of this great state during this critical time in our nation’s history. Illinois voters will learn that after six straight months of job losses, he voted against extending unemployment benefits, saying that unemployment is not “a big issue.” He’s repeatedly voted for tax breaks for the richest one percent and for companies that ship American jobs overseas. He’s cheered for every single one of George W. Bush’s irresponsible, failed budgets that doubled our national debt. Doubled it. This during a time of great economic growth. And despite the carnage we see around us because of those negligent budgets, record unemployment, and an outrageously shrinking middle class - he refuses to change his views or admit his failures. In fact, even during a recession, he voted against one of the biggest middle-class tax cuts in history.
***
But I won’t let Congressman Kirk get away from the issues. I’m not going to let this campaign be overshadowed by his negative attacks and lies. Not when the people of Illinois desperately need solutions. Real families are dealing with real problems. It’s time to elevate this debate.
***
And the day I announced my US Senate campaign, I became the first senate candidate in Illinois history to refuse money from federal lobbyists and corporate PACs. I made that pledge because I believe that Corporations have far too much influence on the policy-making process. Just take a look at Congressman Kirk’s donors and his votes, and the connection is clear. And today I renew my call for Congressman Kirk to match my standard and reject all corporate cash.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Sun-Times…
Giannoulias waved off any suggestion that the bank controversy may lead to him pulling out as the party’s nominee.
“That will never happen. We’re going to win this race,” Giannoulias said. “We’re out there talking about creating jobs. We’re out there talking about rescuing a plant in peril … helping small businesses … pre-existing conditions, when the congressman is against all these issues.”
Kirk held a news conference last week touting his support for stem cell research. Giannoulias warned voters not to accept Kirk’s description of himself as a “moderate.”
Giannoulias said Kirk’s positions “change based on the political winds.”
“This image out there that Congressman Kirk is a moderate is just an absolute farce,” Giannoulias. “Behind closed doors he says, ‘Barack Obama is a one-termer’ and ‘As your next senator I would repeal Health Care,’ and when you ask him about it, he backs off and says he’s not sure where he stands. He says Sarah Palin wouldn’t be a vice-presidential choice he would choose and yet behind closed doors he begs for her support.”
* Related…
* GOP’s Kirk Takes Lead Over Democratic Giannoulias in Illinois Senate Race
* GOP Candidates Can’t Rest on Early Leads
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Quinn offers locals an option
Monday, Apr 12, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Buried way down in this Sun-Times story is something I told subscribers would happen the day after Gov. Quinn unveiled his budget. Quinn’s trying to get the mayors to agree to lobby for his income tax hike in exchange for killing off all or part of his proposed $300 million cut to local governments….
To settle the differences, Quinn has lobbied members of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, a consortium of 272 Chicago-area mayors, to back his 1 percent income tax surcharge by offering them a portion of the $3.1 billion it’s expected to raise to offset what they’d lose in income tax proceeds, said David Bennett, executive director of the caucus.
Quinn spokesman Bob Reed would not confirm the governor offered such a trade-off.
It’s been on the table all along.
* Meanwhile, Quinn has taken one major item off the budget cutting table…
State officials have dropped plans to increase monthly fees for residents at four veterans homes in Illinois.
That’s according to letters from Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs director Dan Grant, which were delivered Saturday.
The increase would have been about $400 a month.
The letter says that Gov. Pat Quinn has directed the fee increase be postponed until further notice.
Yet one more reason why nobody really believes Quinn will ever go through with his threatened cuts.
* This makes little to no sense…
That’s why [GOP state Sen. John Millner] personally feels protecting special education funding for children is a much higher priority than providing free public transportation for seniors without first considering their income levels.
The costs for those free rides is mostly borne by the locals
* Related…
* Groups up budget pressure on state lawmakers
* Glen Ellyn school for blind, deaf children to stay open
* Making decisions, Springfield-style
* Concessions, pay freezes good moves
* Cook County’s big, fat tax lie: Trouble is, [Houlihan] sent out notices to homeowners emphasizing the lower assessment percentages without warning homeowners that they would see a jump in market value. So tax bills actually are going up, despite assessment notices showing a drop. And by the time homeowners figure it out, they may miss deadlines to appeal their assessments.
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A little perspective on the pension mess
Monday, Apr 12, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* We’ve read a lot lately, particularly from the Chicago Tribune editorial board, about how Illinois hasn’t met its pension obligations. But we’re not alone…
New Jersey’s governor, a fiscal conservative, has proposed not making the state’s entire $3 billion contribution to its pension funds because of the state’s $11 billion budget deficit. Virginia has proposed paying only $1.5 billion of the $2.2 billion required pension contribution. Connecticut Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell is deferring $100 million in payments this year to the pension fund for state employees to help close a $518 million budget gap […]
“Of 71 pension plans that submitted 2009 contribution figures so far, the Center for Retirement Research found that more than 50%, or 39, reported not paying their full pension bill.
And another study shows it could be years before the problems get any better…
“The numbers are not going to look good for the next five years,” said Alicia Munnell, the director of retirement research at Boston College, who compiled the study. “But a continuing deterioration in the funding numbers should not be headline news going forward.”
Nor is there any apparent magic bullet to solve the pension funding problems.
“States and localities have little in the way of public options to fix the problems quickly,” Munnell said. “Really what we need to do is wait — wait for the economy and the stock market to recover.”
Illinois has the most underfunded state pension systems in the country, but it’s important to remember that we’re not totally alone here. This is a national trend.
And most governments that are changing benefits have done what Illinois has just done: Reduced bennies for future employees. From the Center for State and Local Government Excellence…
Among the 21 percent whose governments have changed their retirement plans, 73 percent say the changes have not affected current workers and 60 percent say the changes have not affected new hires.
* Recently, Steve Preckwinkle at the Illinois Federation of Teachers pointed out a major flaw in pension opponents’ outrage…
The [existing] Illinois teachers pension plan is mainly employee-funded in the first place. The state pays just 4.6 percent of a new teacher’s salary today toward a pension; the teacher pays 9.4 percent. The state’s cost is about 25 percent less than the 6.2 percent private employers pay for Social Security alone, already making it one of the lowest cost plans for taxpayers in the country. And Illinois teachers are not part of the Social Security system and therefore receive no Social Security benefit when they retire. Their pension is all they have to live on. […]
.
Teachers gave up the option to be part of Social Security years ago because they believed in the fairness of the existing pension plan, which was jointly funded by teachers and the state. Illinois taxpayers save more than $700 million per year by not paying Social Security payroll taxes for 78 percent of all active employees in the five state-managed plans, including all public school teachers. Unfortunately, the state routinely skipped its payments, causing today’s mountain of pension debt. Teachers never missed a contribution.
Preckwinkle wrote that the union is now looking at putting newly hired teachers under the Social Security umbrella…
So now we will look again at the Social Security option for new teachers. Under state and federal law, they still have the right to be covered. And yes, it will cost hundreds of millions of new taxpayer-funded dollars should they choose coverage. Sorry, General Assembly, but even you can’t skip out on Social Security taxes once your employees are part of the system.
That’s a pretty big hammer, should they decide to use it. At least one freshman Democrat hopes to undo part of the changes…
d Democratic Rep. Farnham believes the pension changes were rushed and hopes to follow up with legislation allowing teachers to retire earlier than age 67 with full pension benefits.
At an Elgin Area School District U-46 “Principal for a Day” event April 1, Farnham said he felt negotiations between legislators and local unions had made significant progress over recent months.
“I hope the conversation isn’t over,” he said. Farnham said he’d spoken to Illinois Education Association leaders about efforts to cancel parts of the proposal.
Don’t hold your breath…
“If anything, there are discussions about bringing similar reforms to other budgets,” Brown said, referring to police and fire pensions which were not affected by last month’s changes. “I think the idea would be to embrace all of the (pension) funds.”
* Semi-related…
* Is it unions that prevent bad teachers from getting fired?: In Georgia, where 92.5% of the teachers are non-union, only 0.5% of tenured/post-probationary teachers get fired. In South Carolina, where 100% of the teachers are non-union, it’s 0.32%. And in North Carolina, where 97.7% are non-union, a miniscule .03% of tenured/post-probationary teachers get fired—the exact same percentage as California.
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The media goes bonkers
Monday, Apr 12, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* My syndicated newspaper column looks at an all-too-familiar trend in the Chicago media these days…
It seems like everywhere you look these days, the Illinois Democrats are getting hammered.
Most of the Democratic carnage is self-inflicted, like the Scott Lee Cohen debacle, or the brutal gubernatorial primary, or the troubles at U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias’ family bank, or the decision to run a lobbyist with close connections to House Speaker Michael Madigan for Cook County Assessor.
But some of the media coverage is going far over the top lately, and a few people in Chicago really need to take a breath already.
The media went off their collective rocker in the closing years of George Ryan’s term, and the Republican Party paid a steep price for a very long time. I wrote quite a few stories about media overreach back then, and I think it’s past time for another one. Let’s look at just a few examples, shall we?
* On behalf of a law firm client, Senate President John Cullerton persuades Cook County to open up a decades-old no-bid traffic school contract to competitive bidding. Millions of dollars are saved and Cullerton’s client loses the open bidding process, but the Sun-Times whacks Cullerton for engaging in a “clout fight” because the other side had a lobbyist with ties to the Daley family. This story really crystalizes how truly strange things have become with the Chicago media. Money is saved, the people are better served, an old contract is finally opened up to competition and it’s somehow a bad thing. Bizarre.
* Giannoulias’ family bank is allegedly ripped off by a widely respected business owner (Boston Blackies, Carson’s Ribs) who also contributed to Giannoulias’ state treasurer’s campaign. The bank is obviously a victim here, but Giannoulias is repeatedly hammered because the reporters and editors engaging in a wild feeding frenzy apparently don’t stop to think about what they’re really doing. Overboard.
* The disgraced, notoriously unstable former governor Rod Blagojevich says on a Chicago radio show that he suspects the White House wants to push Giannoulias off the ticket and the city’s punditocracy picks it up and repeats it as gospel, without, of course, attributing the theory to the discredited, unreliable Blagojevich or identifying a single source - even an anonymous source - at the White House who will confirm it. And now it seems that some are trying to will the crackpot Blagojevich’s theory into existence. Crazy.
* The Tribune editorial board slams Democrats in the General Assembly on the front page of the Sunday paper for not balancing the budget, which the board says shouldn’t be so difficult. The edit board puts forth its own budget-cutting plan, which consists of cutting half the deficit and then claiming those reductions will magically solve the whole problem in two years. Um, $13 billion minus $6.5 billion does not equal zero, Tribune. Not to mention that many of the Tribune’s cuts aren’t really spelled out. Stupid.
* The Tribune editorial page and Crain’s Chicago Business loudly tout a recent study that claims Illinois “would collect an additional $2.1 billion in annual tax revenue” if it had as many jobs as it did a decade ago. Well, sure, but if the sky was green then grass might be blue. Anybody notice China over there? Or Mexico? Or the two recessions in the last decade, including this really big one we’re in now? Sure there’s a lot of work to be done here, but how much cash would the sainted Indiana have if it had all the jobs it lost in the last 10 years? Even more ludicrous is the stated claim that the $2.1 billion the state would get from those lost jobs would be “enough to fill roughly half of (the state’s) fiscal 2011 budget hole.” Half of $13 billion is not $2.1 billion. Not even “roughly.” Nuts.
The problems in this state are wide and deep. No question about it. The Democrats deserve the blame for many of the problems because they’ve been running the show (although you can hardly blame them for the national economic collapse). But this very disturbing media trend of making stuff up or creating controversy out of thin air really needs to end. It’s wholly irresponsible and is yellow journalism of the worst kind.
There’s more than enough material to jab the Illinois Democrats without all this insane goofiness.
* Speaking of which, the Sun-Times has an article today about how a winner of a competitively bid contract also makes campaign contributions. NBC5’s blog has a piece about how Toni Preckwinkle is a “backsliding independent” because her campaign manager left to run the Cook County Democratic Party’s political organization. Chuck Sweeny wrote a column claiming that liberal Democrats are “the only kind now” in Illinois, even though quite a few Dems are on the conservative side. And a Tribune editorial claimed that the Democratic majority in the Senate passing a Democratic redistricting plan is “an apt illustration of what’s wrong with the Democrats’ redistricting proposal.” Senate President John Cullerton, by the way, published a stinging response to a recent Trib editorial.
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