Saddler is the Director of the Department of Human Services. She’s an African-American female and Quinn is desperate lately to appeal to black voters, who appear to be shunning him. She also worked for Quinn when he was state treasurer. He prefers people whom he knows.
The governor’s press conference is about to start, so we’ll see if the sources are right soon enough. Sadler’s name surfaced late.
Saddler’s background includes working as Quinn’s director of investments when he served as state treasurer in the 1990s. She has a bachelor’s from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a master’s from Northwestern University’s Kellogg graduate school of management.
* Grace Hou, DHS’ Assistant Secretary for Programs, has been appointed acting secretary of DHS.
* Quinn is now taking questions on the Stermer fiasco. He began by saying “someone violated” state law by giving the inspector general’s report to a reporter.
“It has not a shred of truth,” Quinn said about any connection between the inspector general’s Stermer report and Wright’s firing.
“On the 23rd of July, we e-mailed” their executive appointments person about a replacement for the inspector general. Quinn said his chief counsel went to the EIG and told him personally on the morning of the 13th that he was being replaced. “I don’t think he labored under any assumption that I was going to reappoint him,” Quinn said about James Wright.
“I did not know anything about the report until I arrived at my office” at about 5 o’clock on the afternoon of the 13th. That’s important because the report arrived at his office the day before.
“I was planning to discipline my chief of staff Jerry Stermer” and Stermer was willing to accept that discipline, Quinn said. But after the Sun-Times reporter called, Quinn said he called Stermer and his chief said he did not want to be a “distraction.”
Quinn said he planned to mete out a “strong punishment,” involving “a suspension” for Stermer.
Quinn said his brother made a “keystroke error” when he sent that campaign e-mail to Stermer.
The governor said he interviewed several people for inspector general, started the vetting process and was then told that the candidates decided to go elsewhere.
* 3:29 pm - End.
* I thought he did a pretty decent job, as far as these things go. We’ll see how Brady reacts. Stay tuned.
* In case you missed it, the audio archive of the entire presser can be downloaded here.
Enjoying my evening at the Probation Challenge’s 31st Annual dinner.
The man has no sense of irony.
More importantly, though, a considerable number of prominent African-Americans were likely at that dinner. I wonder if Gov. Pat Quinn was anywhere near there.
For the first time, they also included “leaners” in the poll. In other words, those who say they are undecided are asked whom they are leaning towards. The margin narrows a wee bit…
Brady: 49%
Quinn: 41%
Some Other Candidate 3%
Not sure 7%
It really would be nice if Rasmussen started polling the other candidates in this race.
This race now moves from Leans GOP to a Toss-Up in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Gubernatorial Scorecard.
From far away, maybe it looks that way. I still don’t see it up close, though.
Back to the pollster…
Brady receives support from 85% of Republicans, while Quinn is favored by just 68% of Democrats. Among voters not affiliated with either political party, Brady holds a commanding 61% to 17% lead.
Quinn, who took over from impeached governor Rod Blogojevich more than 18 months ago, continues to face a $13-billion state deficit, one of the country’s worst. Eighty-seven percent (87%) of voters in the state know someone who is out of work and looking for a job. Forty-three percent (43%) say the job market is worse than a year ago, while only 15% say its better.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of Illinois voters approve of the job Quinn is doing as governor. Sixty percent (60%), however, disapprove of his job performance.
Brady is viewed Very Favorably by 19% of the state’s voters and Very Unfavorably by 17%. Quinn earns Very Favorable marks from 10% and Very Unfavorable reviews from 31%.
Both candidates are well-known in the state, but at this point in a campaign, Rasmussen Reports considers the number of people with strong opinions more significant than the total favorable/unfavorable numbers.
* A check of the crosstabs shows Quinn doing quite well with African-Americans. The Illinois Chamber, you may recall, claimed that once those black voter numbers firmed up for Quinn, this could be a 5-6 point race. But with 75 percent black support, it’s still a 9-point race. And Scott Lee Cohen hasn’t ramped up his campaign yet. Quinn’s black support rises to 80 percent with leaners, which accounts for just under half of Quinn’s one-point narrowing because Brady picks up an additional point among African-Americans and rises to 10.
The survey of 750 Likely Voters in Illinois was conducted on August 23, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/-4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
Illinois 11. Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D) finds herself in deeper trouble than she expected, as GOP challenger Adam Kinzinger has emerged as a serious threat to her. The state political environment is increasingly toxic for Democrats, and polling shows Halvorson, a former leader in the state legislator, in bad shape. Move from Toss-up/Tilt Democrat to Pure Toss-up as Halvorson’s prospects deteriorate.
Other pundit ratings on this race, from Halvorson’s opponent…
The Cook Political Report - Toss-Up (moved from Lean D, 8/17/10)
Real Clear Politics - Leans GOP
* As I’ve already told subscribers, Gov. Pat Quinn will hold a press conference this afternoon at 2:30 to announce his new chief of staff and take questions from reporters. IIS will have a “watch it live” link here.
* While we’re waiting on the guv’s newser, check out this press release from Bill Brady’s campaign…
PAT QUINN’S ILLINOIS: NO JOBS, NO REFORM
Brady Says Quinn Obsessed with Politics, Not Jobs
Chicago – Republican Gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady today said Governor Pat Quinn’s firing of the state’s Executive Inspector General on the very day he learned of an ethics probe involving his chief of staff suggests he’s focused on politics, not jobs during our fiscal crisis.
“In the middle of a recession, people need a governor focused on creating jobs and cleaning up state government,” said Brady. “Instead, Governor Quinn has gone down the same road of his predecessors - ethical lapses, investigations, and protecting political insiders at taxpayer expense.”
“Illinois lost 20 thousand jobs last month alone,” he said. “This latest revelation proves we won’t ever solve our fiscal crisis under a governor consumed by politics, not jobs,” he said.
Questions over the firing of the state’s top ethics official are the latest in a string of published reports that call into question the Governor’s commitment to government reform, and the priorities of his Administration.
Previous examples include:
· Secret pay raises for political appointees, including his Budget Director
· Questionable use of official state time and resources for his political campaign
· Supporting the honesty and integrity of convicted Governor Rod Blagojevich months after federal officials revealed their investigation
· Quietly signing a video poker bill to allow known criminals into gambling against the recommendation of the Gaming Commission
· Failing to support the recommendations of his own reform commission
· Keeping a majority of Rod Blagojevich’s officials in top government positions
* Many years ago, I made a huge mistake and got into an automobile with someone who had way too much to drink. He was pulled over and arrested for DUI, and the cops told me I was on my own.
It was very late at night during the work week, it was freezing cold and I was so poor back then that I didn’t have enough cash for a taxi. But I knew right away that there was one person I could call for help: Jason Hammond.
Jason answered the phone on the first ring, then high-tailed it all the way across town to get me. He had coffee and cigarettes waiting for me as I stepped into his car, freezing, tired and feeling stupid. What a guy.
Jason was one of the most unusual people I knew. He served in Vietnam. He was wounded in action, but reenlisted as a medic. That second tour really screwed up his head, but he said his life was saved because he was discharged in San Francisco at the tail end of the summer of 1967.
He spent the next several years hanging out with hippies and honing his skills as a master carpenter. The guy could build anything. He and his wife raised their children in a modified Bluebird bus and a tipi in southern New Mexico. Not exactly your typical middle class family, but it worked well for all.
Jason eventually ended up working on the National Park Service’s massive Lincoln home restoration in Springfield. The master carpenter was matched up with one of the more difficult and painstaking restoration jobs ever done in the Midwest. He was in Heaven.
After that job ended, Jason decided to move back to New Mexico. His friends were universally bummed out. Jason’s house was the center of most of our gatherings. He had a great fire pit and even an outside bar area. I decided to rent the place to help preserve our little communal spot, but I knew it wouldn’t be the same without Jason and it wasn’t.
We kept in touch, and some friends and I occasionally visited him. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, but sometimes we’d go months without talking then gab like we’d just seen each other the day before.
Anyway, a mutual friend saw a disturbing post on Facebook yesterday and went to Jason’s page and to her great sadness saw that people were leaving condolence messages. Jason had died.
We eventually discovered that Jason had a recurrence of cancer, but didn’t really tell anybody about it. That was his way. He wouldn’t want us fussing over him when we could be laughing with him instead.
I guess my only real regret is that I didn’t visit him more often, particularly after he set up an awesome recording studio in his house and was bringing musicians in almost every Friday night for extended jam sessions. He had quite the scene going on. I often called on Friday nights just to catch the vibe.
On my way to visit him in the late 1990s, I stopped at a friend’s house in northern New Mexico and we wound up at a beautiful American Indian-owned mineral springs spa out in the country. I was chatting with the masseuse about my trip, and discovered that she was from Springfield. I told her that my next stop was to visit Jason and she said she had met him once in Springfield and recalled her entire conversation with him. Jason made a lasting impression on just about everyone he ever met. He was a different sort of human, and I loved the man like a brother.
The former CEO of Helene Curtis Industries Inc., who ran for governor in 2006 and now chairs Republican Bill Brady’s gubernatorial campaign, is donating his own money and raising more from other Chicago executives to help Tea Party groups in various parts of the state. The money helps the activists get organized, a largely behind-the-scenes effort that could benefit candidates up and down the Republican ticket this fall.
“I see energized people,” Mr. Gidwitz says. “A lot of people are angry. We want to identify people who are dissatisfied with the status quo in Illinois and give them the opportunity to make a change.”
Mr. Gidwitz chairs and helps fund the Illinois arm of Americans for Prosperity, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative, anti-tax group that has a political organizer—longtime Illinois GOP operative Joe Calomino—working with Tea Party groups here.
“They’re very good at putting the plan on the ground,” Mr. McQueen says. “They’re instrumental at showing us what we need to do to be effective.
That move by Gidwitz seems logical, but there’s always the danger of tying his candidate too closely to the more “out there” tea party types.
After seeing the list of the targeted districts, I thought it odd that AFP would neglect Illinois—given all the competitive races in Obama’s adopted state. So I called Joe Calomino who, with just one other staffer, runs the Illinois chapter of the 1.2 million member national group. Calomino told me that a new AFP project, November is Coming is, in fact, dispatching by bus grassroots activists armed with anti-spending petitions to “educate” voters in the 11th, 14th, and 10th districts on September 15th, 16th, and 17th, respectively.
One can safely bet that although the AFP bills itself as nonpartisan, its brigades will not be promoting Democrats Debbie Halvorson (11th), Bill Foster (14th), or Dan Seals (10th), the Democrat who is seeking the seat now held by Mark Kirk. The culmination of the Illinois events is an appearance in Hoffman Estates on September 18th by Glenn Beck who bashed Obama on air for his criticism of AFP.
* In other campaign news, Rich Whitney has come up with some pretty good spin…
Green Party candidate for governor Rich Whitney went on the attack Monday, saying Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has “peaked” and can’t beat Republican state Sen. Bill Brady.
At a Springfield news conference, Whitney referenced recent independent polls that have shown Brady leading the race for Illinois governor. Whitney urged voters who don’t want to vote for Brady to vote for him instead of Quinn.
“He’s peaked,” Whitney said of Quinn. “He can only go down.”
If Whitney knew how to take advantage of this situation then he might have a legit shot. So far, at least, there’s no indication that he does.
* Emphasizing Whitney’s point, Quinn’s running mate Sheila Simon just admitted that her boss’ budget is a disaster…
“It boils down to jobs and education and they are thrown in together,” [Simon] said. “The concern now about jobs is much more personal. It’s not a generic concern. The folks I am running into say they are concerned about their own jobs or the jobs of family members. The state budget and the disaster it is really has an impact on anyone at the school level.”
* Campaign 2010 roundup…
* Illinois Review: Despite the base of the Republican Party and the Party’s platform itself being staunchly prolife, Congressman Mark Kirk, also the IL GOP’s nominee for U.S. Senate, continues to hold firm on his commitment to despicable and up-until-now non-productive human embryo experimentation. This response sent out by Kirk campaign to the U.S. district judge’s decision to strike down President Obama’s stem cell executive order is disappointing and disturbing, because it assures us where a U.S. Senator Kirk would be if presented with a decision on the ever-important issue of the sanctity of life.
* Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.
It’s not unusual or illegal for police officers to flip on a camera as they get out of their squad car to talk to a driver they’ve pulled over.
But in Illinois, a civilian trying to make an audio recording of police in action is breaking the law. […]
“It’s a stretch to apply surveillance laws to a situation on the street with an encounter between the police and the public,” said Maryland defense attorney Steven Silverman. “An officer has no expectation of privacy when he makes a traffic stop or arrest in the course of his workday.” […]
Mark Donahue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Chicago, said he believes the state’s eavesdropping law is a good one. Allowing people to make audio recordings of arrests “could potentially inhibit an officer from proactively doing his job,” Donahue said.
According to the ACLU, six people have been arrested in Illinois and faced felony charges for making audio recordings of police officers (usually in conjunction with video).
* The Question: Should the state law which makes it a felony to make audio recordings of police be repealed? Explain.
* Rod Blagojevich may be yapping through Christmas about his “persecution” by federal prosecutors, according to the Sun-Times…
Rod Blagojevich’s retrial may not start until next year, and if he wants the public to pay for his defense, he will get only two lawyers — down from seven.
In a private conference last week, Judge James Zagel told lawyers a quick retrial on the corruption charges wasn’t likely because of the logistics of getting a new jury pool.
Zagel said he didn’t want to put a “Christmas burden” on jurors, pushing a retrial possibly to January at the earliest, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting.
The two lawyers are not likely to be Sam Adam Jr. and Sam Adam Sr., who sources say intend on filing a request to leave the case.
Bad news for the Democrats. Very bad.
* Meanwhile, Jon Stewart busted Rod Blagojevich but good last night…
Stewart played back a tape of Blagojevich from a year ago when he then tried to explain his words on tape: “I’ve got this thing and it’s f—ing golden.”
In 2009, Blagojevich explains that in the next few words that prosecutors didn’t reveal at the time, he talks about health care for Illinois. But the now-released tape shows Blagojevich actually discussed parachuting himself into the Senate seat spot and calling President Obama a “demigod.”
“The reality of what you said is very different,” Stewart says.
Blagojevich hems and haws as he tries to explain: “Listen to the whole tape.”
Stewart cuts him off: “Is this why you didn’t take the stand?” the audience laughs.
“You’re a guy that’s the most adamant about his innocence of anyone I ever met, so you’re either the victim of a terrible persecution or you’re a sociopath,” Stewart said.
There’s nothing quite like listening to imbeciles rant about Illinois politics. The Wall Street Journal writes that, “If (U.S. Attorney Patrick) Fitzgerald doesn’t resign of his own accord, the Justice Department should remove him …”
The Washington Post, in commenting on the likely retrial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, says that “(Fitzgerald) should stand down before crossing another fine line - the one that separates prosecution from persecution.”
You want to talk about persecution, try living in a state where a “For Sale” sign seems permanently posted on the governor’s mansion.
Quinn’s office added new clarity Monday to the timeline of Wright’s ouster. His removal occurred on the morning of Aug. 13 while the governor did not get formally briefed about Wright’s report against Stermer until that evening, a Quinn spokeswoman said. […]
Many in state government’s political circles were stunned Monday by Stermer’s decision to quit Quinn’s staff over three “inadvertently” sent political e-mails, particularly given that Wright reported scouring 38,700 of Stermer’s e-mails looking for a political angle.
Stermer brought those three e-mails to Wright’s attention in January, the same time Stermer briefed Quinn about the possible violations of a state ethics law. In his Aug. 11 report to Quinn, Wright recommended that Attorney General Lisa Madigan file a complaint against Stermer, 67, before the state Executive Ethics Commission for the political e-mails.
The penalty for such transgressions generally has been light. Earlier this year, the commission imposed a $250 fine against a high-ranking Department of Human Services administrator for a 2008 correspondence to four state workers from his government e-mail address encouraging them to support Barack Obama for president and Howard J. Brookins Jr. for Cook County state’s attorney. The DHS administrator was allowed to keep his job.
I don’t believe that Stermer really resigned over those three e-mails. As the article makes clear, that’s barely a petty offense. And Stermer did, indeed, report every wrongly sent e-mail to the OEIG because the the OEIG spent seven months going over every one of his 38,700 electronic messages.
I believe Stermer resigned because Quinn fired Executive Inspector General Wright the same day he was formally briefed on Wright’s Stermer report. This was either a ham-fisted attempt at retaliation or an extremely unfortunate coincidence. Quinn will answer questions from reporters today, and they need to ask whether he was at all aware that Wright had sent his office a report on Stermer, not just whether the governor knew what the exact wording of the report was. It would also be interesting to know whether Stermer was in on the decision to replace Wright. But don’t hold your breath on getting full answers.
An influential adviser to his brother, Thomas Quinn sent an e-mail headlined: “PQ, the tax cutter.”
“I believe that it’s true to say (that) Pat Quinn has implemented more budget cuts than any other governor in Illinois history,” the e-mail said. “Isn’t that a powerful antidote message to push back at Hynes when he tries to paint Pat as a tax and spender. Also a powerful message for the general election as well.”
Through the governor’s campaign spokeswoman, Thomas Quinn said he inadvertently sent the political e-mail to Stermer’s state account. He then left Stermer a voice mail to “ignore that e-mail.”
Quinn campaign consultant John Kupper, who also got the e-mail, replied that the idea about the governor’s budget-cutting would be a “great fact, if true. Also something to test in our next poll.”
A day later, Stermer hit “reply to all” from his government account. Stermer said he would “work with the budget office to get the precise amount.”
Within minutes, Stermer then sent a separate note to David Vaught, the budget chief, asking for the total amount of money Quinn has cut from the state budget since taking office.
A third e-mail exchange took place in December, when another Quinn campaign aide asked Stermer to weigh in on proposed answers to a candidate questionnaire by the Tribune’s editorial board.
Stermer should never have replied to those e-mails, but he owned up to his mistakes. Also, the campaign folks should’ve known better than to send Stermer e-mails to his state account.
And Quinn’s opponent, Republican Bill Brady, didn’t hesitate to draw a straight line between the two events: “On the very day Pat Quinn was confronted with evidence by the inspector general of an ethics violation, he put his political interests before citizens yet again and fired the inspector general himself,” Brady said Monday.
It’s now up to Attorney General Lisa Madigan to determine whether to file a complaint with the Executive Ethics Commission, which could impose a fine or other discipline on Stermer.
Is there more to this story? Does there have to be? Nobody in Illinois should need to be reminded why the ethics act prohibits the use of state resources for campaign purposes. Quinn’s interpretation of the rules is liberal enough to justify a public schedule chock-a-block with barely disguised campaign appearances — four stops in a single day, for example, to “encourage shoppers to take advantage of Illinois’ first-ever back-to-school sales-tax holiday” — but there’s no question that Stermer’s actions did cross the line.
Sure, the actions crossed the line. That’s why Stermer reported it himself. And I, too, would like to know if the firing was connected or not. But, pardon me for asking, when has the Tribune published an editorial blasting state Sen. Bill Brady for voting three times for legislation that directly benefited his own construction business? Brady wouldn’t even cop to a conflict of interest, even though that was probably one of the most direct legislative conflicts many of us have seen in a very long time.
Exelon Nuclear said in a statement Monday that the $4.6 million planned program should create more than 4,200 jobs in Illinois over the next five years. The program also includes equipment upgrades at six nuclear plants.
The Zion Station decommissioning is to begin in September as a $1 billion, 10-year project.
A mix-up in issuing violation notices to Indiana drivers has the Illinois tollway figuring out how to collect an estimated backlog of $7 million from 116,129 Hoosiers.
The glitch spans nearly two years from summer 2008 to spring 2010 and originated from problems related to duplicate Indiana license plates.
The duplicate license plates meant erroneous violations were going out to Indiana motorists. As a result, the Illinois tollway halted sending out fine notices in May 2008 to reprogram the electronic toll system.
Chancellor Cheryl Hyman and board Chairman Gery Chico are not talking about abolishing City Colleges’ admissions policy.
What they’re saying is that a lot of kids who are admitted to City Colleges’ seven campuses aren’t ready to take college courses. They need an alternative because the current system isn’t serving them or taxpayers well.
Yes, those students hold a diploma, often from a Chicago public high school. But many of them have been finished with high school for several years before they seek to start college. And in some cases, their high school diploma doesn’t count for much. They’re not ready for college.
In an effort to extend what is one of the nation’s shortest school days, Chicago Public Schools plans to add 90 minutes to the schedules of 15 elementary schools using online courses and nonteachers, sources said.
The project will improve drainage to Orchard Lake and alleviate frequent flooding that has occurred in the neighborhood north of Illinois Avenue on the West Side, FEMA officials said.
Jason was one of the most unusual people I knew. He served in Vietnam. He was wounded in action, but reenlisted as a medic. That second tour really screwed up his head, but he said his life was saved because he was discharged in San Francisco at the tail end of the summer of 1967. 
