The House approved legislation Thursday that would require swift action by Quinn when appointees leave or reach the end of their terms. Quinn would have to nominate a replacement or reappoint the employee.
He could no longer leave agency directors in office after their terms end or give someone a “temporary” job that runs indefinitely.
Lawmakers argue such moves interfere with the Senate’s duty to review appointees and either approve or reject them.
This impacts hundreds of positions, many of them unpaid. Quite a large number of openings will be created if Quinn doesn’t get his act together soon.
* Meanwhile, the home school fracas may have come to an end…
Senator Ed Maloney (D-Chicago) tabled SB 136 on the Illinois Senate floor just a few minutes ago, and was confirmed by a full Senate voice vote. No roll call was taken.
Maloney wanted to force home schoolers to register with the state.
State Sen. Dale Risinger, R-Peoria, is submitting his letter of resignation today. His last day in office will be Feb. 28.
The news comes despite speculation that Risinger’s resignation would come later rather than sooner. Last week, the 67-year-old, who was first elected to the 37th Senate District seat in 2002, told the Journal Star he will not seek re-election in 2012 and that he planned to step down. He did not say when.
“This is quicker than what we expected,” said Peoria County Republican Party Chairman Rudy Lewis. “I tried to encourage him to stay on through redistricting, but he felt that he couldn’t accomplish what he wanted to accomplish and I think there’s a little bit of frustration there.”
Reasons cited for the resignation include disappointment in the outcome of the November general election and inability to get things done in the minority party in Springfield.
* If you think the reception of Pat Quinn’s budget address was harsh, check out this story. And I can’t help but wonder how many of those missing Wisconsin Democratic Senators fled to Illinois…
Police officers were dispatched Thursday to find Wisconsin state lawmakers who had apparently boycotted a vote on a sweeping bill that would strip most government workers of their collective bargaining rights.
The lawmakers, all Democrats in the state Senate, did not show up when they were ordered to attend a midday vote on the legislation.
The proposal has been the focus of intense protests at the Statehouse for three days. As Republicans tried to begin Senate business Thursday, observers in the gallery screamed “Freedom! Democracy! Unions!”
Republicans hold a 19-14 majority, but they need at least one Democrat to be present before taking a vote on the bill.
First, Gov. Walker called up the National Guard. And now this. Oy.
- Sources tell NBC15 News the Senators are out-of-state.
- Meanwhile, Democratic Assembly members are wearing orange t-shirts as a show of support.
Orange t-shirts? Are they in Champaign rooting for the Illini, perhaps?
Should we give those Cheesehead Senate Democrats asylum or send them back?
…Adding… Full coverage and background is here. Apparently, there’s a huge protest today. Schools have shut down after students and teachers walked out. It’s plain crazy up there.
Sen. Jon Erpenbach told WisPolitics this afternoon Senate Dems left the state in an attempt to force Republicans to negotiate a compromise to proposed changes to the bargaining rights of public employees. Erpenbach would not disclose where he was or how many of the Dem senators were with him. But he said he believed all 14 were already out of state by early this afternoon. “We were left with no choice,” Erpenbach said. Erpenbach said Republicans should look at how the proposed changes are tearing the state apart and realize a different path is needed. “This isn’t anything that we do lightly at all. This isn’t a prank. This isn’t a joke. This is Democrats standing together saying slow down.”
Law enforcement officials have been looking for at least one Democratic senator to bring in for a quorum required for a fiscal measure, but Democratic Senator Jon Erpenbach confirmed to Newsradio 620 WTMJ that he and all of his Democratic colleagues boarded a bus and left the state.
“We’re not in Wisconsin right now,” Erpenbach said. “The reason why we’re doing this is because there are some jurisdictional issues that we’d be dealing with.”
I tried calling the hotel earlier, but nobody was answering. I presume they’re being slammed with calls.
Thursday, Feb 17, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
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AARP strongly opposes House Bill 14. Illinois’ regulatory framework exists to balance the interest of utilities with those of the residential and business customers they serve. ComEd’s legislation would render a system that’s been in place for nearly 100 years useless, and would leave millions of residential and business consumers without a voice and at the mercy of utility companies.
* House Speaker Michael Madigan appeared on the Illinois Lawmakers program yesterday after the budget address. He was asked about his pension reform plan.
“I’m not saying that we’re going to go back to a public employee and say ‘OK, there was a promise and now we’re going to take it away from you,’” Madigan said. He continued…
“What we’re saying is that there’s a benefit plan up in place up until today, but starting tomorrow, there’s going to be a new benefit plan that’s not going to be as rich as the old,” said Madigan, speaking on public television’s “Illinois Lawmakers” program. “Whether the Illinois Supreme Court approves this idea, that’s a matter for the court.” […]
“The conditions are such, given the overall condition of the state budget and state finances, that we should move forward with a well-thought out, constructive plan that would simply say, relative to everything that you’ve done up until today, promises made, promises kept,” Madigan said. “Starting tomorrow, there’s going to be a different program.”
* The Question: Do you support or oppose the concept of reducing future pension benefits for current state employees? Explain.
*** UPDATE *** Mayor Daley weighs in on the “Judas” epithet…
Mayor Daley on Thursday denounced as an anti-Semitic “disgrace” a union leader’s reference to Rahm Emanuel as a Wall Street “Judas” with “bags of silver” who sold out union workers when he helped muscle NAFTA through Congress.
Daley called on Gery Chico, his former chief of staff, to “refute” the remarks made by a union leader who has endorsed Chico, formerly an all-purpose mayoral trouble-shooter who also served Daley as school board and park board president and chairman of the City Colleges board.
“Everybody should refute it. I think it’s a disgrace,” Daley said. “It’s wrong for a campaign. Win on the issue and not on the ethnic origin or the religious [background] of anyone. Do not take that point. That lowers the campaign for the city of Chicago. It’s a disgrace.” […]
Asked if he considers the remark anti-Semitic, Daley said without hesitation, “Yes, I do. Definitely. Definitely. Yes. To refer to somebody because of their ethnic or religious heritage? Yes. It doesn’t matter who they are. We don’t refer to people dealing with their religious or ethnic origin. We do not do that. That is unacceptable. They should apologize.”
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Gery Chico’s latest TV ad talks about his hard-scrabble upbringing and contrasts that with how Rahm Emanuel “grew up in suburban safety and privilege. Maybe that’s why Rahm has a plan that hits our working families with the largest sales tax in history.” Rate it…
The Emanuel campaign’s response…
“What a sad note for Gery Chico to close on: instead of outlining his vision for the city and his plans to meet the challenges we face, he resorts to personal attacks against Rahm for growing up in another neighborhood. Rahm will stand up for every neighborhood: he has introduced detailed plans to make our streets safe and our schools and economy strong across the city and he’s got the strength and experience to deliver those reforms.”
* Back in 1984, Paul Simon was endorsed by several kooky folks on the far Right. They despised Republican US Sen. Chuck Percy’s middle-of-the-road ways and wanted him purged from the party at any cost. Simon refused to accept the endorsements.
That bit of history came to mind the other day when Gery Chico’s campaign “welcomed” the endorsement of a small splinter faction within the Chicago Tea Party. “That’ll come back to bite them,” I thought. Chico eventually repudiated the endorsement, but it was too late…
Mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel’s campaign is sending robo-calls to Hispanic voters around Chicago, telling them that rival Gery Chico has been endorsed by an “anti-immigrant group, The Chicago Tea Party.” […]
“He was endorsed by the Tea Party and he did accept the endorsement of the Tea Party,” Emanuel said at the former USX plant Wednesday. “For 24 hours it was not considered a mistake. It was welcomed and and and appreciated.” […]
Emanuel’s robocall notes the Tea Party opposes immigration reform and supports Arizona’s crackdown on undocumented residents. The call says Emanuel supports a local version of the proposed federal Dream Act to provide college scholarships for children of immigrants.
Chico’s campaign is fighting the robocalls with a Spanish-language television ad featuring immigration reform champion U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez. Gutierrez praises Chico’s stance on immigrants’ rights and notes that when Emanuel had the chance to push reform as Obama’s chief of staff, “He turned his back on us.”
Chico apparently learned from that mistake. He refused an endorsement from Dick Morris this week.
* Meanwhile, when Carol Moseley Braun kinda/sorta compared Rahm Emanuel to Hitler the other day, Emanuel, who is Jewish, brushed it off as no big deal and accepted Braun’s explanation that she wasn’t trying to compare him to Hitler.
But then a Gery Chico supporter called him a “Judas”…
During a union rally for Chico Tuesday, Jim Sweeney, president of Operating Engineers Local 150, said union workers don’t need Emanuel to tell them about the economic struggles people live with every day, and he blamed Emanuel for his role in passing the North American Free Trade Act.
“Rahm Emanuel doesn’t live it,” Sweeney said. “He’s nothing but a Wall Street Judas, with a bag of silver he collected when he went and passed NAFTA. That’s exactly what he is, and he’s going to come here and tell us what to do.”
“We all know the history of that comment, and we know the history of that reference. Which is why I have absolute confidence in the people of the City of Chicago and what they’ll see it for and they will not accept it or any of the connotations or the values behind it,” Emanuel said.
Sweeney indicated he wasn’t trying to imply anything offensive.
“My reference to Judas is like Judas would be to anybody else — like Kleenex is to tissue paper. He’s a traitor,” said Jim Sweeney, Operating Engineers Local 150.
Chico’s campaign issued the following statement:
“Gery is the father of three Jewish children, and it didn’t once occur to him that Jim was implying anything besides the fact that Rahm betrayed the workers of this city. Let’s call this what it is — signature Rahm-style, divisive politics.”
* So, what does all of this tell us? Emanuel wants to avoid a runoff by keeping Chico down as much as he can. He also doesn’t want to rile up African-American voters by whacking Braun’s campaign. She’s doing that all by herself. Chico is seen as the real barrier to avoiding a runoff. And the fewer votes Braun gets, the better, because Emanuel’s campaign is tirelessly working the black wards. Fairly simple stuff.
* But Braun is hoping to get some publicity today by attacking Emanuel again. From a press release…
Senator Carol Moseley Braun will hold a press conference to call on Mayor Daley to investigate how Rahm Emanuel obtained names and addresses of City workers for a political mailing.
She will also ask that United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, investigate the Emanuel campaign’s access to secure locations at O’Hare International Airport.
Mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel has sent a personal letter to the homes of city employees — and to other households, he says — in an attempt to clarify his position on the city’s pension crisis, but the tactic may have backfired.
City employees and union leaders are demanding to know how Emanuel got their names and home addresses.
They’re wondering aloud whether someone at City Hall might have leaked the sensitive information to Emanuel to benefit the mayoral candidate with the closest ties to Mayor Daley.
The Emanuel campaign claims that this was a broad mailer to lots of households. The city denies any involvement. Not mentioned is the possibility that somebody at the campaign might have a union mailing list.
And so not only have union leaders begun to take on front-runner Emanuel on their website, the I-Team has learned that AFSCME has begun a robo call campaign-against Mr. Emanuel, with recorded anti-Rahm messages being phoned to the thousands of AFSCME members in Chicago.
It’s a call that says we’re calling from your union to make you aware of the city election coming up on February 22nd, and talking about those services that our members provided particularly during blizzard that is so fresh in people’s minds,” said Lindell.
“So it was very incongruous that in the immediate aftermath of that storm, that Rahm Emanuel was up with a television commercial attacking city employees, impugning their integrity and trying to discredit them for his own political gain. That was disturbing to our members,” he went on to say. “At the conclusion of the call it says that although Emanuel is the front runner, he’s not won yet, and if we vote together we can impact this election.”
The Chicago News Cooperative reported the other day that AFSCME was having trouble raising cash for a TV ad.
* As you’ll recall, Rep. Careen Gordon voted for Gov. Pat Quinn’s tax hike and then soon after was given a spot on the Prisoner Review Board. The nomination caused an uproar because Gordon had not been a pro-tax Democrat during her losing race last year and the whole thing looked a bit fishy.
An Illinois Senate committee approved the nomination of three University of Illinois trustees and several agency heads, but postponed acting on the appointment of a former state representative to an $86,000 position on the state Prisoner Review Board.
Former state Rep. Careen Gordon, a Democrat, sat in the front row of the committee hearing room, but her nomination was never called and apparently will be put off at least a week.
Senate Republicans are prepared to vote down Gordon’s appointment, according to Sen. Dale Righter, R-Charleston. They oppose Gordon’s nomination because after losing her race for re-election last fall, she returned to Springfield and voted for an income tax increase after telling constituents she opposed it.
Days later, she was nominated for the Prisoner Review Board position by Gov. Pat Quinn, who had pushed for the tax increase.
I want to stress again that proving a quid pro quo on this would be next to impossible. This was almost assuredly not a crime. It was simply a maneuver which completely ignored public perceptions. So it’s no mystery why the Republicans would be looking to make some political hay out of this.
* Gov. Pat Quinn wants to cut transportation spending for schools by $95 million - a 50 percent cut from two years ago But, at the same time, he’s pushing a new a massive school consolidation plan to eliminate more than two-thirds of all school districts The Champaign News-Gazette gets to the heart of this contradiction…
Gary Lewis, superintendent of Catlin schools, said Quinn’s proposal is at cross purposes.
“He proposes consolidation, but you will have to have more transportation when schools consolidate,” Lewis said. […]
“School consolidation means more busing and less local control,” [Heritage Superintendent Allen Hall] said. “Quinn had better not cut transportation funding if he wants consolidation.”
Rep. Roger Eddy, a Republican from Hutsonville where he’s school superintendent, said studies show the targets of consolidation – small schools where less money is spent per pupil – typically have higher standardized test scores, with smaller class sizes and more parental involvement.
“It’s hard to make the argument that we’re doing this for education purposes and to save money because the data doesn’t show that,” said Eddy, who has served on several consolidation study panels in the past two decades.
Consolidation has historically pitted progress and efficiency against local control and sentimentality. Since there were 12,000 school districts as late as World War II, in small towns the school has been the community center and local point of pride. But merged schools mean pooled resources, and advocates say they are better able to retain top teachers and afford the latest technology.
Efforts to force consolidation of school districts and trim regional offices of education have been blocked in the past. Lawmakers, in a sweeping 1985 education reform package, required consolidation with the goal of no fewer than 1,500 students in any district with kindergarten through 12th grade. It became an issue in the campaign for governor and the legislature repealed it months later. In 2003, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, in his first budget address, proposed eliminating regional offices of education, a plan that never bore fruit.
I noticed plenty of debate over this issue in yesterday’s live-blog. I was actually pretty surprised by it. So, let’s continue today. Your thought?
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget proposal was one of the more obtuse I’ve ever seen. For example…
[Quinn] estimated the savings would reach $663 million, though Quinn’s budget officials said in a briefing before the speech that cuts would total roughly $1 billion.
Contradictions like that don’t help matters at all.
House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), who praised Quinn’s speech as good “by the governor’s standards,” said he believes Quinn’s plan exceeds caps on state spending that were imposed as part of the January income-tax hike.
“We feel that this budget is in violation of those spending controls by about $720 million so that will be the first point of difference between the governor and the Legislature,” Madigan said on the “Illinois Lawmakers” public-television program.
“I’m confident we’ll work our ways through those differences, but my commitment in Illinois budget-making this year is to live within those spending controls,” Madigan said.
His aides admitted later that the proposed budget doesn’t exceed the spending caps. Madigan was talking about something else. Subscribers know what that is all about.
Even so, when Madigan highlights a problem, then it’s a problem. The governor is in some hot water with the Speaker.
* Few are ever happy with a governor’s budget, and this one is no exception. For instance, human service groups are outraged at the steep cuts aimed at them so soon after a tax hike…
Health and human services providers were looking at a bitter pill Wednesday, worried that they’ll actually be asked to swallow it.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed budget calls for cutting payments for doctors, hospitals and nursing homes to treat poor patients on Medicaid by $552 million, or about 5 percent, and eliminating Illinois Cares Rx, which helps senior citizens and people with disabilities in financial need to pay for prescription medicines.
Other proposed reductions are to substance abuse treatment programs, crisis nurseries, child care funding assistance for low-income families and home-delivered meals for older adults. […]
Eliminating funding for crisis nurseries would devastate the nursery at the Children’s Foundation, where admissions are up, Pieper said. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time. We’re already turning families away.”
Based on the details of the state budget he’s proposing, this is the speech Gov. Pat Quinn could have delivered Wednesday:
///
“Fellow Illinoisans, I’m thrilled to report that your higher income tax payments already are pouring into Springfield!
“So I want to increase spending from our operating budget — the general funds — by $1.7 billion, to $35.3 billion. That’s nearly $100 million a day, year-round, and you’ll be glad to know we need every penny! Cuts to current employees’ future pension benies, ending freebie health care for retirees, outsourcing costly internal services like janitorial and info technology, a hiring freeze — don’t worry, I propose none of that. In fact, I want to grow the state payroll by 800 heads, which is 800 more lifetime pensions. But never you mind because … Great news! Sure, our debt plus unfunded pension and retiree health obligations may total $160 billion, but if you just let me borrow another $8.75 billion, I get to pay some old bills and keep right on spending and … even spend more!!
“Now before you whine about sticking taxpayers with a little more debt they’ll have to pay on for 15 years. …”
Paying off those debts should be a top priority, but massive borrowing isn’t the way to do it.
The answer is to radically reduce government costs, including taking on some of the state’s biggest-ticket items. Scaling back pensions for some current employees and reducing state costs for retiree health benefits must be on table. Controversial, we know, but Quinn failed even to mention them on Wednesday.
Education funding for transportation is slated for a $95 million cut, a move that local districts can handle, according to Quinn’s chief of staff Jack Lavin.
“When you see layers of layers of administration — you see 240 superintendents making more than the governor of the state of Illinois makes — I think that they can afford to tighten their belts and be able to pay for transportation,” Lavin said.
“I think he’s absolutely wrong, and he doesn’t understand schools,” said Granite City Superintendent Harry Briggs. “I take offense to a bureaucrat in Springfield saying, ‘You can just cut administrators.’ I would challenge him to come down here and tell me how I can cut my admin staff to make up $750,000.”
Republicans, who vehemently opposed the tax hike and are resisting taking on more debt, said part of the bond sale would be used by Quinn to lift spending $1.7 billion from a year earlier. Republican votes are needed to approve the bond sale.
“Some of that borrowing is actually used to support a level of spending we can’t afford,” Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno told Reuters.
However, the budget proposal also calls for hiring more than 550 new state workers at an as yet undetermined cost, while still calling for an apparent $53 million cut for new social services field workers to handle a growing caseload.
“There will be some slow growth and already has been in some areas,” said Vaught. “When we’re running a capital program, for instance to give you two or three examples, you need more engineers at IDOT (Illinois Department of Transportation). When you’re adding nursing home inspectors under the nursing home reform law, you need more nursing home nurses that you’re going to add. When you have a larger prison population and you have overtime problems at Corrections, you’ve got to stem the attrition there. So, there’s going to be hiring in all those areas.”
Quinn said he has made significant cuts, but will be open to any ideas for further cutting. He also challenged people to avoid simply saying “No” to his budget proposal, and instead have specific ideas to bring to the table.
That statement didn’t sit well with state Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, who said Republicans have had plenty of ideas, only to have them fall on deaf ears in the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Last year, Bost said, more than 60 specific ideas were proposed, most of which were summarily dismissed.
“To stand and say we don’t have our ideas - we presented those ideas,” Bost said. “The only one they’ve taken up with us was Medicaid reform.”
The House Republicans have not proposed a single line item appropriations reduction the last two years. They ran away from the Illinois Policy Institute’s appropriations proposal because the cuts were just too steep for them. It’s time to truly get in the game.
“Perhaps his actual budget has those cuts outlined and he didn’t mention them in his speech. But if that’s it, there will have to be significantly more cutting to have a balanced budget,” said Sen. Mike Frerichs, D-Champaign.
“Obviously for someone who is as involved in human services as I am, (budget cuts are) always a concern. But we can’t spend more money than we’ve got,” Jakobsson said.
Deeper cuts are needed, she said, “and some of the increases I saw in there are not going to be able to happen.”
* I received an e-mail from a stunned higher-up at Scribble Live yesterday. He told me no independent website has ever before produced the sort of traffic we did yesterday during the budget address live-blog.
Kinda cool, eh?
* I did make one promise yesterday that I couldn’t fulfill. I forgot that Scribble Live doesn’t offer live video. I actually had another program set up for that and forgot to post the code on the blog. By the time I remembered, it was too late to do anything about it. Next time. Promise.
The Scribble Live program also allows comments, but since we have comment space here, I turned them off. We can also have guest-bloggers helping out in the future. This is one heckuva program, campers.
* Anyway, what were your thoughts on our little live-blog experiment yesterday? Suggestions are always appreciated.
Thursday, Feb 17, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
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