* 4:07 pm - The striking Local 150 has split off another employer group. From a press release…
Today, the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 150 reached a tentative agreement with the Illinois Valley Contractors Association (IVCA), the major employer association covering LaSalle, Putnam, Bureau, and Livingston Counties. The agreement, like yesterday’s tentative agreement with the Chicago Area Independent Contractors Association, would provide an annual increase of approximately 3.25 percent for three years.
“The IVCA represents small and large contractors, and historically, they have agreed to the same terms that we reach with the Mid-America Regional Bargaining Association (MARBA),” said James M. Sweeney, President-Business Manager of Local 150. MARBA has stalled negotiations with Local 150 until July 19th, calling the Union’s proposals “unrealistic.”
The Illinois Valley Contractors Association represents approximately 150 contractors, ranging from small local employers to national contractors.
“This tentative three-year contract with IVCA will protect our members’ healthcare and benefits,” said James M. Sweeney, President-Business Manager of Local 150. “Both sides sat down to negotiate and we found this to be a fair agreement that benefits the union members as well as the employers.”
“Obviously, employers across Northeastern Illinois find our proposal reasonable,” said Sweeney. “We are not looking for wage increases or to expand our benefits. We have committed $150 million of our money to stabilize our funds, and we are just asking employers to share the costs so workers can maintain what they have.”
Local 150 joined the Laborers’ District Council on strike against MARBA on July 1st in protest of unfair labor practices. MARBA has stalled negotiations once again until July 19th. “We once again repeat our offer to meet with MARBA earlier to try and work toward an agreement,” said Sweeney.
More than 100 contractors signed on to the CAICA agreement between this morning and noon, according to Sweeney. He continued that “MARBA’s stalling tactics were apparently meant not only to starve out union members, but small contractors as well. Now the contractors who are not on board with MARBA’s agenda have an alternative and they have been lined up since this morning to sign on with an association that wants to work instead of play games.”
* All the goofy hype notwithstanding, the state’s borrowing costs were actually lower than expected on yesterday’s bond offering. From the Wall Street Journal…
Illinois didn’t appear to have trouble attracting investors to a $900 million taxable municipal bond deal Wednesday, despite weak tax revenue, persistent fiscal woes and a yawning pension hole.
Investors bid up prices on the longest maturity part of the taxable Build America Bond deal, due in 2035, pushing down the risk premium to 325 basis points, or 3.25 percentage points, over the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond. Before the sale, the premium–the bonus investors demand to buy the bonds instead of extremely safe Treasurys–was forecast at 340 basis points, give or take 10 basis points.
The municipal market was unchanged to slightly firmer yesterday, amid light to moderate secondary trading activity, as Illinois launched $900 million of taxable Build America Bonds in the primary and the municipal scale stayed below 4% on the long end.
More than $2 billion in orders came in Wednesday for Illinois’ $900 million taxable Build America bond issue, a show of strong demand, said John Sinsheimer, the state’s director of capital markets. […]
The sale drew 93 investors, including 17 from overseas who bought about 29 percent of the issue.
“The fact that 17 highly sophisticated international investors made the decision that Illinois credit was worth their investment for the long term … is a true statement of their view of the creditworthiness of Illinois,” Sinsheimer said.
“The farther we traveled away from all of the noise that is in the US market on Illinois, the more focused investors were on the strength of the state’s economy and the statutory support we give our bonds,” said John Sinsheimer, head of capital markets for Illinois.
A big selling point for Illinois was that its state constitution requires that it make bond payments before any other bills, including education, public safety and entitlements.
“The whole muni sector hangs under this sovereign cloud from Europe,” said Scott Minerd, chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners, a US money manager who bought the Illinois bonds. “If you look at how secure you are in the Illinois deal [with the priority of payments], you can pick up some bonds that are relatively cheap basically because no one wants to own them right now. The time to buy securities like Illinois is when you are being paid to take the risk.”
* None of this means that Illinois doesn’t have serious problems. It does. But investors know that bonds are absolutely the first to be paid, and I’ll bet that many believed like Minerd does that they could let the crazy hype boost earnings on an otherwise strong investment, even at the lower payoff rate.
Brady for Illinois today announced it raised $3.6 million in campaign contributions through the first half of this year.
In a report to be filed by July 20 with the State Board of Elections for the reporting period January 1st to June 30th, the Brady campaign will report contributions from every one of the state’s 102 counties. The campaign received contributions from over 4,200 individual donors, 2,500 of which were donations under $100.
Through June 30th, the campaign had approximately $2.3 million on hand.
The campaign also today announced the addition of businessman and long time Republican Party leader Ron Gidwitz as Chairman of Brady for Illinois.
That’s pretty good, and better than I think a lot of folks thought he’d be doing at this point. Thoughts?
…Adding… A search of the Board of Elections site shows Brady raised just $243,200.95 between Jan. 1 and primary day. So he’s raised about $3.4 million since then. He had about $190K in the bank as of Jan. 1st as well.
* As I’ve told subscribers, the Cedra Crenshaw campaign has kicked up a whole lot of national interest and local media is finally starting to take notice.
Crenshaw is a Republican candidate for the Illinois Senate. Actually, she was a candidate before she was knocked off the ballot. Her petitions had the wrong wording on them…
The [Will County] Electoral Board voted 2-1 to remove Crenshaw because her forms stated that signatures could be collected no earlier than 90 days before the filing deadline. A new state law requires that signatures be collected no earlier than 75 days before the deadline.
Those sorts of technicalities drive reformers up a wall. A different candidate in a different county faced the same objection, but was kept on the ballot. That drives reformers nuts as well, but we currently have two competing appellate cases on whether someone who votes in one primary can be appointed to the ballot on the other primary or run as a candidate with the other party.
Crenshaw is a tea partier, and she’s been touted nationally as a symbol of a simple mom who wants to run for the General Assembly. She’s also black, and tea party types have used her skincolor to counter claims by the NAACP and others that they are racists. As Fox Chicago reported last night, a Will County event with Gov. Quinn was interrupted yesterday by one of her white supporters, who made special mention of Crenshaw’s skin color…
Crenshaw herself has consistently claimed that the “Chicago Machine Democrats” who’ve kicked her off the ballot are racists…
I have yet to hear from the NAACP about this injustice to my campaign and the voters of Illinois’ 43rd State Senate District.
I encourage the NAACP to confront and condemn the explicit racist behavior of groups like the New Black Panther Party and to acknowledge the racial politics played by the Chicago Machine Democrats.
She’s also known for way over the top statements, like this one on Fox Chicago last night…
“Right here in the State of Illinois, the vote is being denied to the voters of the 43rd State Senate District by a frivolous challenge.”
No voters are being denied a right to vote. Just a “right” to vote for her.
These days, she’s running hard against the Chicago Machine, which seems quite afraid of her. […]
Crenshaw was bounced from the ballot, which just goes to show you how panicked the Dems are about the prospect of being held accountable in November.
“The Chicago Machine is afraid of me because I am a conservative black woman, backed by the tea party, with a winning message that is winning over typical Democratic constituencies,” Crenshaw says.
She deserves a chance to prove that. She needs to be on the ballot in November.
I don’t know a single sane Republican who thinks Crenshaw is gonna win that campaign or that the Democrats are afraid of her. Rod Blagojevich won that district in 2002 with 60 percent of the vote. John Kerry took 57 percent in 2004. State Sen.Wilhelmi took 70 percent in his last race. Only a partisan goofball would say this challenge was filed out of “fear.” They did it for the same reason Republicans and Democrats often challenge opposing candidates. They don’t want to bother with the distraction.
Crenshaw, herself, challenged a third candidate in the district. That candidate only filed one signature, but she could’ve let it slide. She objected because he’s a conservative who might take votes away from her.
* What the Democrats have done here is manage to create a massive PR headache for themselves. They could’ve just let it go, but they (like the Republicans) are what they are, and they just had to challenge those petitions. So, now they’re getting whacked by the Tribune and by at least one local columnist…
Crenshaw is a black homemaker and former accountant who is fighting for the chance to contest incumbent state Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi (D-Joliet) on Nov. 2. Wilhelmi’s 43rd District includes most of Homer Township and all of Lockport.
But as any newcomer knows, running for office often is the easy part. Getting on the ballot requires armor.
If you read this column on a semi-regular basis, you won’t be surprised at my indignation. More and more, incumbents expect to be carried through campaign season on chariots. Perhaps we can kiss their rings as they careen down the next parade route.
The Republicans are pretty sure they’ll win this on appeal. They may be right, but the red-hot racial rhetoric and the mindless Tribune rants really need to be toned down in the meantime. The Democrats didn’t challenge Crenshaw’s petitions because she was black, they challenged the petitions because she’s a Republican. Period.
* Rod Blagojevich’s attorneys are running into another brick wall with Judge Zagel. The judge is tossing their requests to play recordings out the window…
Of the 20 recordings Blagojevich lawyers asked to move into evidence Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Zagel said he’ll allow just two to be played and gave a “maybe” on a handful of others. Another 10 new recordings are likely to be played after an agreement with the prosecution.
In all, Blagojevich is seeking to play 38 recordings secretly made by the government, but he must get an OK from the judge in hearings held Wednesday and today.
Apparently, the lawyers are trying the judge’s patience by making frivolous requests…
U.S. District Judge James Zagel at times seemed to search for new ways to call the recordings irrelevant to Blagojevich’s corruption trial.
“Excluded on the grounds of uselessness,” he said of one transcript.
Just about every lawyer I talk to figures that Zagel is gonna throw the book at Blagojevich when the jury finds him guilty. Blagojevich and his lawyers have made a mockery of this case since the beginning. At times, it has appeared that the lawyers are deliberately trying to get under Zagel’s skin so he makes a mistake that will force a mistrial or move an appellate court to overturn his conviction. The real danger for Blagojevich is that Zagel will sentence him to so many years in prison that he won’t qualify for a minimum security lockup. No Club Fed for you!
Many of the conversations Rod Blagojevich wants jurors to hear have to do with his contention that he was acting with the advice of lawyers. Zagel tossed a number of those conversations, saying they didn’t qualify as advice of counsel argument, in some cases because Zagel deemed the discussions political in nature.
Zagel said one proposed recording was akin to a man who tells his lawyer friends he thinks he’s going to poison his wife and they say nothing.
“Can you take from that the answer is to murder your wife?” Zagel said. “The answer is obviously no.”
* Meanwhile, Blagojevich’s “advice of counsel” defense is probably doomed…
An advice-of-counsel defense must demonstrate that Blagojevich approached his advisers “for the purpose of securing advice on the lawfulness of his possible future conduct” and that he provided them with all necessary facts. The prosecution has argued that Blagojevich sought political advice, rather than legal advice. He was, the argument goes, gauging how much President Barack Obama’s former Senate seat was allegedly worth, rather than seeing if it was legal to allegedly trade it for campaign donations or cabinet posts.
Heaton is not the only one surprised by the move. Zagel told the defense he has only seen one person with a law degree argue advice-of-counsel during his 23 years on the bench.
Giannoulias, the Illinois treasurer, collected slightly more than $900,000 during the quarter that ended June 30, with the bulk of the money donated in June, said Kathleen Strand, a campaign spokeswoman.
The campaign for Representative Mark Kirk, the Republican Senate candidate, said July 1 that he raised $2.3 million during the second quarter. Kirk had about $3.9 million in the bank for his Senate race at the end of the quarter, according to his campaign.
Giannoulias, 34, had about $1 million in the bank at the end of the quarter, Strand said.
Strand said Giannoulias lagged behind in fundraising because of a self-imposed pledge to reject contributions from corporate political action committees and federal lobbyists.
Giannoulias’ fund-raising was hobbled most of the last quarter because of a cloud over him because of the April failure of his family owned Broadway Bank. Giannoulias, the state treasurer, is also declining to accept donations from federal lobbyists and corporate political action committees. […]
This morning in Chicago, Giannoulias is hosting a press conference where he is expected to highlight Kirk’s opposition to Wall Street reform–a Senate vote is possible today on the overhaul bill–and on Kirk’s accepting donations from the financial services industry. Kirk voted against the House version of the main Wall Street reform bill.
Giannoulias won’t be able to sugar-coat this or excuse it. Kirk now has almost a four-to-one cash advantage over him, and there’s no sign that Kirk has slowed down. He raised more than Giannoulias in June, which should’ve been a prime fundraising period for the Democrat since Kirk was getting bashed over not telling the truth about his military record. Time’s running out to raise the big bucks necessary to compete in this state’s expensive media markets. His supporters better hope he has a plan.
* Related…
* Journal-Star: $30 million on a useless special US Senate election? No way
“It has nothing to do with race,” co-writer township clerk Steve Balich said, reports the Southtown Star. “It has to do with the law and whether or not a person is a legal immigrant.”
With a population that is 94% white, we didn’t realize the Homer Township had such a bad immigration problem.
But a rival tanker aircraft built by European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. would create roughly the same number of jobs at six subcontractors in the state, using some of the same suppliers Boeing plans to use, such as Rockford’s Hamilton-Sundstrand, which makes onboard power generators, and the Rolling Meadows plant of Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp., which provides an anti-missile defense system.
The money, totaling about $11.4 million in Illinois, is part of $713.2 million to be pulled from about 309 “high-priority” projects that didn’t get off the ground or consume all the money earmarked by members of Congress in surface transportation bills dating to 1987.
The proposal by the county’s independent hospital board passed a County Board committee by a 9-3 vote, though some commissioners worried the strategy will shortchange some of the neediest neighborhoods by closing acute care services at Oak Forest Hospital and scaling them back significantly at Provident Hospital.
The Illinois Department of Insurance, which oversees public pension funds, has asked for a copy of the transcript of the pension board’s meeting last week, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Last Thursday, the board fell one vote shy of approving the pension of longtime Melrose Park Police Chief Vito Scavo but unanimously approved the pension of his deputy, Gary Montino.
The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to name the post office near Wrigley Field after musician Steve Goodman. U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley sponsored the resolution to rename the post office the “Steve Goodman Post Office Building.” President Obama must now sign the resolution.
