State Senator Rickey Hendon has resigned his office. He denies any federal “problems.”
The spokeswoman for Illinois Senate President John Cullerton confirms that the senate secretary has received Hendon’s letter of resignation.
Hendon has served as senator for the 5th District since 1992.
Hendon’s hypertension has been a serious problem lately. I’ve talked to him a few times about that federal investigation and he appeared wholly unconcerned. I seriously doubt that was the reason he left. Subscribe for more info.
The Senate just won’t be the same without Rickey Hendon.
*** UPDATE *** Gov. Quinn was asked about Hendon earlier today. His response…
“He’s been a friend of mine for a very long time… I’ve always liked Rickey Hendon… I know he’s had a few health problems of late. I know he’s a good man.”
Hendon, 57, told the Tribune he was upset about the “pathetic” black turnout in Tuesday’s election and negative stories written about him over the years.
“I’m out,” Hendon said by telephone. “Out is out.” […]
In Springfield today, Rep. Annazette Collins, a Democrat who represents half of Hendon’s Senate district, said she called Hendon once she heard of his plans.
“He just said he’s frustrated with politics, you know, at this time,” Collins said.
“Today is a wonderful day and as much as I have enjoyed working with you and all of my fellow senators, I have decided to call it a day and retire from this wonderful institution,” Hendon wrote in a letter to Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago).
Nicknamed “Hollywood” for his TV and film-production aspirations, Hendon, 57, was a member of Cullerton’s leadership team, had hypertension and frequently was a lightening rod for controversy.
* Rep. Mike Tryon (R-Crystal Lake) just rose on the House floor to demand legislation which would require “non resident legislators” who’ve fled to Illinois to pay income taxes. Tryon said that the Wisconsin and Indiana Democratic legislators should pay taxes here just like the Green Bay Packers players had to pay taxes when they played the Bears during the NFC Championship game.
* From tongue-in-cheek common sense in Springfield to cheekiness in DC…
In his first interview since voting to eliminate a $230 million federal grant to build an Amtrak line from Chicago to Iowa City, U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling sat down with News 8 to discuss his decision, and how he thinks that rail service through the Quad Cities could still eventually happen. […]
Ironically, Schilling said two players from opposite sides of the aisle will make sure the rail comes across his desk again.
“Durbin and [Sen.] Mark Kirk aren’t going to let a lot of this stuff flow through, and then it’s going to come back and then we break it down on an individual basis,” he said. “You know, that’s just how the process works.”
Schilling said he met with Paul Rumler, the executive director of the Quad Cities Passenger Rail Coalition, and for the first time he was willing to go on the record on the issue.
“Rumler, he’s explained to me exactly why the rail will help our area and I’m in agreement with almost 100 percent of what he’s had to say,” he said. [So if it comes down to it] I’d be with it, yeah.”
So, he voted against it, but he finally checked into the biggest project in his district in years and now he’s OK with it.
A long-simmering standoff between Gov. Pat Quinn and the Illinois Senate over the nomination of Illinois Commerce Commission Acting Chairman Manuel Flores is coming to a head, with signs pointing to Mr. Flores’ imminent departure.
The Senate Executive Committee has scheduled a vote for Tuesday on Mr. Flores, who’s been acting as head of the state’s utility regulatory body for over a year but hasn’t been confirmed. People familiar with the matter said Senate President John Cullerton privately has told the governor’s office in recent months that the votes aren’t there to confirm Mr. Flores, a former Chicago alderman who has run into a buzzsaw of opposition from some members of the state Senate’s Latino caucus and from utilities who see him as pro-consumer.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Cullerton referred questions about the nomination to Sen. Willie Delgado, D-Chicago, in whose district Mr. Flores lives.
Sen. Delgado is vice-chairman of the committee and an ardent opponent of Mr. Flores due to a long-standing feud over their differing political allegiances within the Hispanic community. In an interview, he predicted Mr. Flores will be voted down in committee if the governor doesn’t withdraw the nomination.
They’re looking for another job for Flores, but he doesn’t want to move. And the problem isn’t solely with Delgado. Subscribers know more, and they may know even more tomorrow if the stories I’ve been hearing this week are true.
Illinois and Missouri will share the nearly $5.3 million cost of emergency repairs to a Mississippi River bridge just south of St. Louis.
Missouri Department of Transportation spokesman Jack Wang tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the Jefferson Barracks Bridge remains safe and accessible to traffic.
A year ago, nearly 80 percent of Republican primary voters voted for somebody other than Bill Brady to be their candidate in the general election. Brady’s support was astoundingly poor in the six-county Chicago area. His best showing: 8.5 percent of the vote in McHenry County. He got less than 6 percent in Cook, DuPage and Lake. […]
Take note: There also would have been a runoff in the general election. Gov. Pat Quinn’s 46.79 percent on Nov. 2 wouldn’t have gotten it done.
The drawback to adding a round of balloting is the cost. It’s expensive to run a state election. But what if Illinois fully adopted the Chicago system: Everybody runs without party labels on the first ballot, and there’s a runoff if necessary. That would be two trips to the polls, same as now. Both elections could be held in the fall, so we wouldn’t have the ridiculous nine-month gap between the primary and general elections.
* The Question: Should Illinois have non-partisan primaries for all state offices with a runoff if anyone doesn’t score at least 50 percent plus one vote? Explain.
Blue is for Emanuel (who won 2,087 precincts), red for Chico (410), orange for del Valle (47). Oh, and green for Carol Moseley Braun, but you can’t tell with her, since she won exactly one precinct. There were also 11 ties. (The dashed line toward the top represents Rahm’s old congressional district, IL-05, now held by Dem Mike Quigley.)
* Perhaps the only person in the entire city more clueless than Carol Moseley Braun is Rob Halpin…
Rob Halpin, the cantankerous tenant of Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s house in Ravenswood who refused to budge before his lease was up, tells Sneed he wouldn’t mind staying! […]
† Quoth Halpin, who lives in Rahm’s two-story family house on North Hermitage: “The lease is up at the end of June 2011. I doubt that they would move back here, as it is a long way from City Hall and the Latin School, where we heard their children may attend.
“It is also a security nightmare as the house has abundant glass and open space. If they wanted us to stay on we would consider it. There aren’t any hard feelings on our part.”
Absolutely hilarious.
Mr. Halpin should take a cue from a good friend of mine who lives in the 19th Ward. My friend’s entire family backed Chico for mayor. He called yesterday to ask if he and his family could move in to my Springfield house until the heat blew over.
Emanuel’s pledge not to entertain a property tax increase of any size came in response to a question about how he planned to solve the city’s pension crisis.
A bill approved by the Illinois General Assembly over Mayor Daley’s objections would saddle homeowners and businesses with a $550 million property tax increase in 2015 unless pension concessions are negotiated or another new revenue source is found.
During the campaign, Emanuel ruled out raising property taxes that much, which would amount to a 90 percent increase. On Wednesday, he was asked whether he would entertain a property tax increase of any size. His answer was an emphatic no.
No sooner had Rahm Emanuel taken the stage Tuesday night as mayor-elect than his thoughts turned toward restoring confidence in the city’s fractured public school system.
Emanuel pledged to try to improve student safety in violent communities, boost the fortunes of struggling neighborhood schools and urge parents to take a more active role.
But Emanuel knows the problems at CPS, the nation’s third-largest school district, run much deeper, and even before his sweeping victory Tuesday he made enemies of the Chicago Teachers Union with his strong support of charter schools and his plan to keep the school board under mayoral control.
The divide culminated last week when union president Karen Lewis stood before reporters and said: “The fact is Rahm Emanuel does not seem to support publicly funded public education as we know it.” The union chose not to endorse a candidate for mayor.
Watch for Emanuel to appoint Dr. Byron Brazier as a co-chair of his transition team. Brazier, an old friend of Carol Moseley Braun and an ordained minister and pastor of the Apostolic Church of God
Gov. Pat Quinn today was asked about Rahm Emanuel’s victory in the Chicago mayor’s race and somehow got into a comparison of energy levels.
The Democratic governor said he called the mayor-elect Tuesday night and offered congratulations on the big win and “oustanding campaign.”
“He’s a person of great energy and idealism. I’ve known Rahm Emanuel for 31 years. And he’s a person who has as much energy almost as I do. And I think I look forward to energetically working for the city of Chicago, where I live, as well for the whole state of Illinois,” Quinn continued.
Wait. I thought the governor said he lived at the mansion because that’s where he kept his undergarments?
Scott Cisek, who lives in the 47th Ward and is political director for the Cook County Democratic Organization, said O’Donnell ran an old-fashioned campaign in an upwardly mobile ward.
“They were counting on a model that doesn’t exist anymore,” said Cisek, who ran Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s successful Democratic primary campaign last year. “They were counting on a buggy-and-whip model.”
The outcome was also partly a result of “people being upset with Schulter trying to endorse a successor,” said Dick Simpson, a former alderman and political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who lives in the 47th Ward and gave Pawar advice on his campaign.
The 47th Ward hasn’t been up to snuff in years. Back in the 1990s, Speaker Madigan’s operation put Lisa Madigan into the state Senate over the strong objections of the “Fighting 47th.” But it was still better than some organizations, and Pawar avoiding a runoff was no easy feat.
* Most Carbondale voters stay home: A total of 1,897 ballots were cast Tuesday in Carbondale’s primary election out of 11,040 registered voters, good for a turnout rate of 17.2 percent, according to official precinct-by-precinct numbers released Wednesday morning by the Jackson County clerk’s office.
Illinois legislators are facing tough budget problems and many are asking if our minority party could follow in the footsteps of Wisconsin and Indiana’s. However to some of them walking out just isn’t an option.
“I may lose that battle but at least I go on the record and I fight for my community,” says Illinois’ 34th District Senator Republican Dave Syverson.
Republican senators in Illinois have been the minority party for nearly a decade. In that time a walkout has never been staged and according to some senators it will never happen.
“They understand that their job is not to run away even when the decisions are hard. The people send them down there to have debates about the issues and stand up for what they believe in,” says Illinois’ 35th District Senator Republican Christine Johnson.
It’s pretty easy to say you wouldn’t follow in others’ footsteps when you are barred by law from doing so. The minority party simply doesn’t have the option of walking out in Illinois. Our state Constitution requires only a majority be present and accounted for, unlike the extraordinary majorities in Indiana and (on fiscal matters) Wisconsin. So, unless a whole lot of Democrats are missing, the Republicans cannot halt business by bolting the chamber.
I’m not sure what the quorum rules were in the 19th Century, but Abraham Lincoln infamously jumped out a window during a failed attempt to prevent an Illinois House quorum call. Lincoln was eventually elected the House Minority Leader.
* After taking a kinder, gentler approach to fleeing Democrats earlier in the week (and getting blasted by his party’s right wing for doing so), Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels changed his tune yesterday…
Indiana House Democrats stayed away from their desks for a second day on Wednesday in an attempt to block a proposed law curbing union power, prompting Gov. Mitch Daniels to say they were showing “complete contempt” for the Democratic process.
“You know, if they persist, the Democratic Party of Indiana will need a rebranding effort because this is as anti-democratic as behavior can be,” Republican Daniels said.
Like their counterparts in Wisconsin, most House Democrats left Indiana for Illinois to prevent the Indiana house from voting on “right-to-work” and other Republican-sponsored legislation. The measure would have made it a misdemeanor for an employer to require workers to become or stay members of a labor union.
“I can tell you I don’t know what will happen,” Daniels said. “I can tell you what won’t happen: We will not be bullied or blackmailed out of pursuing the agenda we laid in front of the people of Indiana. That agenda is going to get voted on. If it takes special sessions from now to New Year’s, we will hold them. We will send the bill to (former) Speaker Bauer and to the Democratic Party of Indiana.”
How far apart are they? Miles.
[House Minority Leader Pat Bauer, D-South Bend] called House Bill 1003, the voucher program for private school tuition, and Senate Bill 575, the bill limiting teacher collective bargaining to only wages and wage-related benefits, “deal breakers.”
Daniels called those bills “non-negotiable.”
* Gov. Pat Quinn has apparently reached out to welcome some of the fleeing Democrats. The governor was asked again about the situation yesterday…
Gov. Patrick Quinn of Illinois seemed to delight in the new arrivals, some of whom said Quinn, a Democrat, had telephoned them to offer his personal welcome.
“We believe in hospitality and tourism and being friendly,” Quinn said Wednesday, quickly adding: “I also believe in unions.”
While its proximity made it the obvious choice, Illinois seemed a fitting hideout. As Republicans seized control of many statehouses in the Midwest in November, Illinois was one of the few where Democrats had held on to theirs.
“It seems like very friendly territory,” said state Rep. Win Moses, 68, one of the Indiana Democrats who say they have been meeting in a hotel conference room, working on business as usual (so far, they have drawn up 105 amendments to the Republicans’ proposed state budget), dining at the Cracker Barrel and waiting for some sign from Indianapolis that efforts to limit unions would be dropped.
* At least we don’t have to worry about our southwestern border being breached…
The situation in Missouri is much different than Wisconsin’s. From a practical standpoint, Missouri does not allow collective-bargaining for public employees like teachers and firefighters. Another difference: Teachers, firefighters and police in Missouri have separate pension agreements with school districts and local governments that don’t count on any financial contributions from the state government.
The other big difference between Missouri and Wisconsin? Missouri has a Democratic governor who has no desire to challenge the state’s unions because they are likely to be key in Gov. Jay Nixon’s quest for re-election in 2012.
* But the Wisconsin standoff - and our “guest” situation - continues…
The 14 wayward Wisconsin lawmakers have given no hint about when they might return, even amid recall threats, a Senate rule change that forces them to appear in person if they want to receive their paychecks and the GOP-controlled Legislature returning to work on other business without them.
Gov. Scott Walker has implied that if the Democrats don’t come back soon, they’ll be responsible for thousands of state workers losing their jobs because Wisconsin won’t be able to refinance its debt.
* Ohio has the same sort of quorum rules as Illinois, so their Democrats won’t be arriving soon…
Ohio Republicans edged back on a plan to strip public workers of their union rights while their counterparts in Wisconsin slogged ahead on a similar proposal, pushing through a punishing debate that stretched into its third day in the state Assembly. […]
Republicans in Ohio offered a small concession on Wednesday, saying they would support allowing unionized state workers to collectively bargain on wages — but not for benefits, sick time, vacation or other conditions.
That Ohio GOP “concession” was Wisconsin’s starting point. Wow.
…Adding… I forgot to post this one from the News-Gazette…
A majority of the Democratic members of the Indiana House of Representatives have temporarily moved to an Urbana hotel in an effort to prevent votes on bills they consider to be bad for teachers, workers and families.
“This is not a walkout; it’s a seminar that is taking place in a lovely place: Urbana, Illinois,” said Indiana House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer of South Bend.
I’ve been wondering whether they’re ordering food from Jimmy John’s.
* This article pretty much tells us all we need to know about how the muni bond hysteria is overblown and how it’s costing taxpayers a pretty penny…
Investors skimmed over Illinois’ well-known financial troubles to vie for a piece of a $3.7 billion taxable pension bond sale on Wednesday.
The state received $6.1 billion in orders from a record 128 investors, according to John Sinsheimer, the state’s capital markets director.
“Well, I have $6.1 billion of bids to tell me the market was comfortable with the budget. And 128 investors must have reached that conclusion as well,” he said. […]
Bonds due in 2014 were priced at a 280 basis point spread over comparable Treasuries, versus 285 basis points from Tuesday. The spread on the longest bonds, due in 2019, also narrowed 5 basis points to 240 basis points over Treasuries.
The amped-up hysteria causes prices to jump, and smart investors know a good buy when they see one. They understand, unlike the freaked out tribe, that Illinois hasn’t missed a bond payment since 1818. The problem is, the hysteria causes prices to jump, which means taxpayers are on the hook for higher interest rates.
The longest maturity in the Illinois bond deal, due in 2019, was sold at a yield of 5.877%. In comparison, a $400 million “junk” bond issued by auto-parts maker Dana Holding Corp. and maturing in 2019 had a yield of 6.24%.
Sheesh.
* Speaking of the state’s budget troubles, right now, Downstate and suburban school districts pay only about half a percent of payroll to the Teachers Retirement System. Senate President John Cullerton wants the districts to increase their payments by about $700 million a year…
The shift from the state being entirely responsible for downstate and suburban teachers’ pensions to a hybrid of state and local funding would be phased in, Cullerton told The State Journal-Register’s editorial board on Wednesday.
School districts would be responsible only for the “normal costs” of pensions – the cost of paying out benefits to retirees for the current fiscal year and funding part of the future benefits for teachers still on the job. The state would continue to pay down the debt created by decades of underfunding by legislatures and governors, Cullerton said.
Cullerton estimated that normal costs account for one-third of the state’s annual ($2.1 billion) payments to the state Teachers’ Retirement System.
Teachers currently contribute 9.4 percent of their salary to the pension fund.
Thoughts?
* Meanwhile, the furor over the governor’s decision to immediately zero out all funding for substance abuse programs continues to resonate…
Jacksonville’s Wells Center is preparing to shut down by the end of March unless Gov. Pat Quinn changes his mind about drastically cutting funding for addiction treatment and prevention.
Providers of such services were notified this week that state funding will end March 15.
“For us, the cuts began on Tuesday,” said Bruce Carter, Wells Center executive director. “We have already begun to prepare layoff notices and patient discharges, creating medical risks involved in the sudden disruption of a patient’s addiction treatment.”
* Legislators call on Quinn to reverse cuts for drug programs: A Chicago legislator says she will request a symbolic vote in the Illinois House today that calls on Gov. Pat Quinn to rescind an immediate $28 million cut in state funding for substance-abuse treatment programs.
* Lawmakers trying to block cuts to treatment facilities
Prosecutors in the Rod Blagojevich corruption case said today they will move to throw out racketeering counts against the former governor because they’re “duplicative,” and to help streamline the case.
All the underlying conduct in those counts are charged in other counts, however.
They also moved to dismiss a fraud count.
The move came after jurors in Blagojevich’s first trial complained they were confused by the case. […]
“It doesn’t change much for us,” [Blagojevich] attorney Sheldon Sorosky said. “Every wrong is still there, nothing has changed.”
The charges in question are racketeering charges, specifically counts one, two and four of the indictment. Act one is conspiracy to commit bribery and bribery, act two involves attempted extortion and attempted bribery and act four includes conspiracy to commit extortion, conspiracy to commit bribery and wire fraud.
Prosecutors said they decided the counts were redundant and they only need to try Blagojevich on the remaining 20 counts.
Jurors at the first trial needed a super-complicated map to connect all those charges against Blagojevich. The whole case was needlessly confusing.
* Todd Wathen of Mattoon and his male partner began planning a civil union ceremony shortly after Gov. Pat Quinn signed the civil unions bill into law. So, they contacted a couple of swanky Downstate bed and breakfasts. Both B&Bs turned them down…
In an e-mail reply to Wathen, Jim A. Walder of the TimberCreek Bed & Breakfast wrote: “We will never host same-sex civil unions. We will never host same-sex weddings even if they become legal in Illinois.
“We believe homosexuality is wrong and unnatural based on what the Bible says about it. If that is discrimination, I guess we unfortunately discriminate,” Walder wrote.
When informed of the new law, Walder replied, “The Bible does not state opinions, but facts. It contains the highest laws pertinent to man. It trumps Illinois law, United States law, and global law should there ever be any.”
There are a couple of public accommodations exceptions in the Illinois Human Rights Act. Owner-occupied inns with 5 or fewer rooms to let don’t have to follow the racial, gender, religion, sexual orientation laws. Timber Creek has more than 5 rooms, so the business apparently must comply with the law of the land. From the statute…
Civil Rights Violations: Public Accommodations. It is a civil rights violation for any person on the basis of unlawful discrimination to:
(A) Enjoyment of Facilities, Goods, and Services. Deny or refuse to another the full and equal enjoyment of the facilities, goods, and services of any public place of accommodation;
(B) Written Communications. Directly or indirectly, as the operator of a place of public accommodation, publish, circulate, display or mail any written communication, except a private communication sent in response to a specific inquiry, which the operator knows is to the effect that any of the facilities of the place of public accommodation will be denied to any person or that any person is unwelcome, objectionable or unacceptable because of unlawful discrimination;
* The Question: What are you thoughts on this story?
Try to be civil in comments, please. I have lots of work to do today and don’t want to spend too much time policing y’all. Thanks.
* I called around yesterday to find out why a provision about possibly seeking federal backing of state pension debt was slipped into a bond offering last week and was told that it never should’ve been included and that it got by the folks who monitor such things. Whether that’s true or not, it’s proving to be an embarrassment…
The No. 4 House Republican in Congress Tuesday shot down Gov. Quinn’s trial balloon of possibly seeking federal help to ease the state’s crushing $86 billion pension shortfall.
Quinn floated the idea in the fine print of his 2012 budget proposal last week, but U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) began laughing Tuesday when asked about the chances of a federal pension bailout for Illinois and other states with retirement systems that are financially underwater.
“There is no appetite in the House for a federal guarantee for a state pension obligation. None. It’s a non-starter,” said Roskam, the U.S. House’s chief deputy whip and highest-ranking Republican in Illinois’ congressional delegation. […]
“Notwithstanding any media reports to the contrary, the state of Illinois has no current plans to request a federal guarantee on any of its bonds or pension debt,” said Kelly Kraft, a spokeswoman for Quinn’s Office of Management and Budget.
“To date, we have not requested any guarantee,” she said in a prepared statement.
And they never will request it, unless DC does a complete 180. What a stupid move.
* I mentioned this numbers problem with Gov. Pat Quinn’s boasts last week on the Illinois Lawmakers TV program after the governor’s budget address…
Gov. Pat Quinn often boasts that Illinois leads the Midwest in job growth. He made the claim at least twice last week and said in his budget address that Illinois is enjoying “an impressive recovery.”
What he doesn’t say is that by another measure, Illinois ranked eighth out of 12 Midwestern states for job growth last year.
The Democratic governor sticks to raw numbers when he discusses jobs. He says, correctly, that Illinois added 46,300 jobs in 2010, more than any other state in the region.
But Illinois also is the largest state, so it might be expected to see bigger job swings. Another way to measure is by looking at the number of jobs compared to the population.
Illinois ranked fourth in the nation for job growth last year. But factor in population, and it ranked 24th - the middle of the pack.
* One of the big problems with Gov. Quinn’s elimination of all non-Medicaid funding for substance abuse treatment programs is that defendants without serious criminal records can often avoid prison by entering a treatment program. Quite often, those people are young, male and poor. Those folks don’t qualify for Medicaid. So, they’ll end up behind bars and learn how to be better criminals. Great…
According to The Illinois Alcohol and Drug Dependence Association, the measure means 80 percent of patients will lose substance-abuse services. It also will mean lost jobs.
An estimated 55,000 people will have their substance-abuse treatments ended, about 32,000 of them under age 21.
“It’s been one crisis after another the last three years,” Ron Howell, executive director of Recovery Resources, said. “We’ll just have to wait until the smoke clears.”
Most items under the cap are hard costs, like debt service and pension contributions, over which neither the governor nor General Assembly have any discretion. Those hard costs increased by more than $1 billion from last year, meaning something had to give. The governor chose [to cut] social services, the circuit breaker and Medicaid reimbursement rates. If he didn’t, he would have had to cut education and public safety. In other words, no good choices were available.
Compared with Illinois’ finances, Wisconsin is on easy street, but you wouldn’t know it from the approaches the governors of these states are taking.
Illinois’ money woes are the worst in the nation, according to a study by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Illinois is at least $13 billion in debt and can’t pay its bills in a timely manner. Add in the worst unfunded pension liability in the country and you get a truly bleak picture.
Wisconsin is not well off, but its hole is not nearly as deep. Yet, from the way Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn are acting, you’d expect the reverse to be true.
Walker is acting with a sense of urgency to fill a projected $3.6 billion budget hole. Wisconsin has a biennium budget process, which means the budget hole is a two-year one.
That NCSL study was conducted before the tax hike, so Illinois’ budget deficit is considerably smaller now. Also, the highly respected National Journal took a look at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal and found it needlessly focuses on the controversial stuff…
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has sparked massive protests by proposing to curtail public-employee unions and give his administration the power to cut back health care and sell state public utilities through no-bid contracts.
But while Walker argues that his budget-repair legislation must be passed soon to avoid job cuts, the most controversial parts of his bill would have no immediate effect.
The state’s entire budget shortfall for this year — the reason that Walker has said he must push through immediate cuts — would be covered by the governor’s relatively uncontroversial proposal to restructure the state’s debt.
By contrast, the proposals that have kicked up a firestorm, especially his call to curtail the collective-bargaining rights of the state’s public-employees, wouldn’t save any money this year. [Emphasis added]
* Roundup…
* High yield may up demand for $3.7B Illinois bond: According to a term sheet, initial price talk for the longest maturity in the offering, dated 2019, is about 2.40 percentage points above comparable Treasurys, for a yield of about 5.85%. That is about 1.79 percentage point more than comparably rated nine-year debt from cigarette maker Philip Morris International Inc., which traded at 0.61 percentage point above Treasurys on Tuesday. It is also 0.05 percentage point tighter than the initial price target on the deal for that maturity.
* Charter school says its exempt from IL labor law: A Chicago charter school that received millions of dollars in public money is now arguing it is a private institution that does not have to follow an Illinois law giving public school workers the right to unionize.
* Ameren asks ICC for electric, gas delivery charge hikes
* Regional school chiefs plot strategy to fight extinction
Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel told WGN AM 720s Greg Jarrett this morning, “I’m going to order, on day one, a forensics audit of all the departments and all of how the resources are spent.” (full interview mp3)
Either way, that pretty much puts the lie to the claims that the Daley folks backed Emanuel because he wouldn’t dare go so far as to order such a massive audit of city government.
Emanuel won 40 of the city’s 50 wards, getting more than 70 percent of the vote in the heavily populated lakefront wards. Emanuel also won with more than 50 percent of the vote in wards with large African-American populations, racking up margins of at least 2-to-1 over the major black candidate, Braun.
Chico won the remaining 10 city wards. They were primarily Latino-heavy wards on the Southwest Side, where he was raised, and the West Side. Chico, Daley’s former chief of staff, also won the 19th and 41st wards, both with large populations of police and firefighters, whose unions endorsed him. Still, Chico’s vote advantage over Emanuel in those wards was not significant.
Turnout was 41 percent, nearly 10 points lower than election officials predicted.
Emanuel appeared to be the “consensus candidate” of the black community, garnering a larger share of the votes than former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who came in fourth behind City Clerk Miguel del Valle. Braun had just under 9 percent, del Valle just over 9 percent.
Braun’s collapse opened the door for Emanuel to claim the black vote and made a run-off impossible […]
In her concession speech at the Parkview Ballroom in Bronzeville, Braun said, “It is a very painful thing to lose an election, but I believe that hope springs eternal. We will continue to try to inspire people and get them engaged and involved in government.”
She thanked a supporter and mentioned how she told him minutes before the concession, “I’m really so sorry this didn’t come out better. I’m sorry if I did anything that messed it up.”
Braun also said last night that she hoped someday the city could elect its first female mayor - apparently forgetting that Chicago elected Jane Byrne.
The lessons black politicians can take away from Braun’s miserable loss is the same as it has always been: Black voters matter, and you’ve got to be able to raise money.
Black voters turned out in a mighty big way for Emanuel. They didn’t turn out for Braun.
After all the fuss, in the end, being the “consensus” candidate meant nothing.
I think the take-away for black leaders on this campaign should be: Quality black candidates matter to black voters. They have never just “voted black” for mayor because the candidate happened to be the same skin color. They vote for viable African-American candidates who can prove they can win. Braun was a disaster. And the leaders should’ve known that after watching her implode in the US Senate.
Rahm Emanuel’s Round One victory gives him a running start on confronting problems so severe, the painful solutions could seal his fate as a one-termer.
Whether Emanuel can avoid a one-and-done scenario — assuming he even wants to serve more than four years — will largely depend on how he tackles the biggest financial crisis in Chicago history.
The city is literally on the brink of bankruptcy with a structural deficit approaching $1 billion when under-funded employee pensions are factored in.
Mayor Daley borrowed to the hilt, sold off revenue-generating assets and spent most of the money to hold the line on taxes in his last two budgets. The city even borrowed $254 million to cover back pay raises long anticipated for police officers and firefighters.
The city is only “literally on the brink of bankruptcy” if it refuses to raise new revenues. Failing companies with lousy products can’t just sell more goods as they go down the drain. That’s what makes governments different from private business. They can, and do, raise new reveunes.
The problem with new revenues, of course, is that voters won’t like it. Chicagoans have been blessed with relatively low residential property taxes (even though they think they pay way too much). Those days may have to end unless Emanuel can find another way.
* Meanwhile, big changes are coming to the city council…
Even Oprah Winfrey couldn’t have given Chicago’s City Council a more massive makeover than the one it got Tuesday.
At least 10 new people will fill the Council chambers, and there could be even more fresh faces as at least nine incumbent aldermen appeared headed toward runoffs on April 5.
That included the Council’s oldest member, Bernard Stone, in the 50th Ward.
The other aldermen heading to runoffs include Toni Foulkes (15th) and JoAnn Thompson (16th) on the Southwest Side. Ald. Willie Cochran (20th) will go one-on-one with hip-hop artist Che “Rhymefest” Smith on the South Side. In the 24th Ward, first-term incumbent Sharon Denise Dixon will go head-to-head again with former Ald. Michael Chandler, whom she previously defeated in a tight runoff. Roderick Sawyer, the son of former Chicago Mayor and Ald. Eugene Sawyer, appeared to have forced 6th Ward Ald. Freddrenna Lyle into a runoff as well.
A star is born out of this Chicago election. And, no, I’m not talking about Rahm Emanuel.
State Rep. Susana Mendoza’s victory Tuesday night over Water Reclamation District Commissioner Patricia Horton for the post of city clerk now lifts Mendoza onto a new path. One where the audience will be wider. And the political possibilities greater.
Mendoza, 38, a Mexican-American who represents Chicago’s Pilsen-Little Village neighborhoods, went to the Illinois General Assembly a decade ago as its youngest member. In her time in Springfield, Mendoza has been a reliable vote for the Democratic agenda, gone from proponent to opponent of the death penalty, and vigorously argued for the impeachment of Rod Blagojevich.
She is energetic, collegial, and more often than not, candid.
* Roundup…
* Mayor-elect greets commuters at South Side ‘L’ stop
* Steinberg: Some Chicagoans unaware of mayor’s race
* Conflict in 45th aldermanic race: Sneed hears state Rep. Joseph Lyons, who backed 45th Ward aldermanic candidate Marina Faz-Huppert, reportedly got into a shouting match with a poll watcher — whom he allegedly chest-butted and chin-slapped, but no charges were filed.
* Dixon To Take On Ex-Ald. Chandler In 24th Ward runoff
* Cochran To Face Rapper Rhymefest In 20th Ward runoff
* Lake County coroner quits, pleads guilty in methadone clinic case
…Adding More… A must-read…
* City needs ‘the Carlos treatment’: As the snow fell Tuesday and Chicago residents came out to vote for a new mayor, I recalled my late friend, Carlos Hernandez Gomez, the former political reporter for CLTV.
Indiana House Democrats who fled to Illinois like their counterparts in the Wisconsin Senate say they’ll continue their boycott until Republicans assure them they won’t debate public education and anti-union measures the Democrats oppose.
The House Democrats won a small victory on Tuesday when their absence at least temporarily blocked a GOP-backed labor bill. Republicans, who control the House, planned to try again Wednesday morning to resume business.
In a statement Tuesday night, the Democratic caucus said members were in Urbana, Ill., “for the immediate future” to continue reviewing Republican proposals on public education changes and the right-to-work bill that would prohibit union representation fees from being a condition of employment at most private-sector companies.
“By staying here, we will be giving the people of Indiana a chance to find out more about this radical agenda and speak out against it,” the statement said. “We will remain here until we get assurances from the governor and House Speaker Brian Bosma that these bills will not be called down in the House at any time this session.”
“When your political life and the things you stand for are on the edge, you don’t have many options in the minority,” State Representative Dale Grubb said.
They said they needed to clear their heads.
“We needed a chance to get away and be able to think without interruption,” State Representative Pat Bauer said. […]
“We simply need the opportunity to sit down and negotiate on those things and talk about the areas of concern without it being rammed through and shoved down everybody’s throat,” Grubb said.
* Unlike in Wisconsin, the Republican governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels is trying to calm things down…
Speaking of the Democrats’ tactic of reportedly fleeing for one of Indiana’s borders to shut down the House, Daniels called it “a perfectly legitimate part of the process.” […]
“Even the smallest minority,” he added, “has every right to express the strength of its views — and I salute those who did.”
During an afternoon statement outside his office, Governor Mitch Daniels admonished Republicans almost as much as Democrats.
“I thought there was a better time and place to have this very important and legitimate issue raised,” Daniels said, adding there were other items on his agenda more important to accomplish during this year’s legislative session.
The governor said he will not order Indiana State Police to seek out and return those missing lawmakers. Many are in Illinois and Kentucky anyways, where the state police cannot force them to return to work.
Democrats say they won’t come back to Indianapolis until the right-to-work bill is dead. Daniels held out hope that it would be sooner.
“I’m not going to divert a single trooper from their job protecting the Indiana public. I trust that the people’s consciences will bring them back to work. I choose to believe that our friends in the minority, having made their point, will come back and do their duty, the jobs that they are paid to do,” he said.
Americans strongly oppose laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. The poll found 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to such a proposal in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law. […]
The poll found people were divided on whether public employee unions were a good thing. A slight majority of 46% said unions were generally more harmful to states while 45% thought they were helpful. […]
Republicans supported limiting bargaining by a 54%-41% margin. However, only 18% of Democrats favored restrictions while 79% were opposed. Independents were against bargaining restrictions by a 31% to 62% margain.
More results. Notice that a majority is against cutting pay or benefits for public employees…
As usual, people are split on cuts, but nobody likes a tax hike.
* Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Dems are still in Illinois. They had a caucus meeting in Harvard, near the border…
Some of the 14 Wisconsin state senators who have been living outside of the state met Monday and Tuesday in Harvard.
The senators continue working while on the road to fight an anti-union bill proposed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
“When he’s talking about ‘we need to do this,’ it’s a joke,” Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, said. “I think the biggest thing right now is for Walker to take this bill, throw it out, let’s start from scratch, let’s figure out how to tackle this deficit without going after the workers, without going after the working class.”
The Democratic senators caucused and granted TV interviews in a rented conference room at the Heritage Inn and Suites in Harvard, 7 miles from the Wisconsin-Illinois border, although they did not stay in the hotel.
Four [Wisconsin] Democrats who were reached by The Associated Press said none of their daily expenses would be charged to taxpayers, and none will accept any per diem funds. Larson did say his hotel room Monday was paid for by the State Senate Democratic Campaign. He said the group might pay for more nights depending on how long he stays.
Others have donated food, he said, but he declined to name them.
“Let’s just say the senators have friends over here who’ve been more than generous in sharing with us,” Larson said.
Sen. Tim Cullen said he already planned to donate some of his pay to a food pantry in Janesville.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker got punked by someone pretending to be billionaire far-right causes financier David Koch. The fake Koch talked to Walker on the phone for twenty minutes yesterday…
FAKE KOCH: What we were thinking about the crowds was, planting some troublemakers.
WALKER: We thought about that. My only gut reaction to that would be, right now, the lawmakers I talk to have just completely had it with them. The public is not really fond of this.The teachers union did some polling and focus groups…
It’s unclear what Walker means when he says he “thought” about planting some troublemakers, but it seems fair to ask him for clarification.
NSFW audio of the conversation is here and here. Walker went on and on about his plans. Oops.
*** UPDATE 2 *** The right to work billw as withdrawn in Indiana, but the Democratic Hoosiers still won’t leave Illinois…
Republicans have killed a controversial labor bill that has sparked a Democrat work-stoppage and large union protests at the Statehouse. […]
Democrats, though, were meeting in an Urbana, Ill., hotel room behind closed doors discussing their next steps. Last night they issued a statement saying they had concerns about 11 bills, including other labor-related bills, education reforms and the proposed next state budget. They singled out two in particular: the right-to-work bill and one which lets state tax dollars pay for private school tuition for some families. […]
Brown, who left the private meeting for a short break, said Democrats were not returning to Indiana.
“We don’t value that,” suggesting the decision to move the matter to a study committee would not sway the Democrats because they have additional issues they want to be resolved.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Former GOP Rep. Cal Skinner caught up with the fleeing Cheeseheads yesterday and was quite impressed…
I asked him why he and his colleagues had not been evoking Abraham Lincoln’s jumping out the Old State Capitol’s window to break a quorum in Springfield back in the mid-1800′s.
He replied that was one of the reasons they had come to Illinois. He was really quite elegant and I wished I had had a tape recorder so I could do justice to his rhetoric.
Barring a late surge of voters, election officials are estimating voter turnout in today’s mayoral election could be as low as 40 percent, well off the 50 percent predicted.
* I was told tonight that Rahm Emanuel’s poll last Thursday had him at 47 percent, which was way down from polls earlier in the week.
* 7:38 pm - 75 percent of the vote is in and Emanuel has 54.44 percent.
* 7:41 pm - with 75 percent of the vote in, Rep. Susana Mendoza has 60.5 percent of the vote in the city clerk’s race.
* 7:44 pm - With 60 percent of the vote counted, Ald. Berny Stone has 37.66 percent to Deb Silverstein’s 34 percent. Looks like a runoff there.
* 7:51 pm - CNN is projecting Emanuel the winner without a runoff. Makes sense.
* 7:53 pm - I’m really getting tired of watching WGN. Anybody find an alternative yet? Sheesh, that panel is awful.
* 7:56 pm - The upset of the night looks to be the 47th Ward, where the anointed Tom O’Donnell is in second place behind Ameya Pawar, who has just over 50 percent with 83 percent counted.
* 8:01 pm - Huge news in Springfield, where former mayor Mike Houston is in first place with 28 percent. Sheila Stocks Smith is in second with about 20 percent. Mike Coffey and Frank Kunz are basically tied for third at 17 percent. The top four advance to the runoff in Springfield. Over 40 percent of the vote has been counted.
* I told subscribers about this major demographic change in this morning’s Capitol Fax. The stuff about Madigan moving his ward Northward into some of the 23rd Ward was told to subscribers months ago…
Meanwhile, with both the 13th and 14th Wards now overwhelmingly Hispanic, the question is how long both can continue to hold on. Unlike Mr. Burke, Mr. Madigan is not an alderman. But I’m already picking up talk that Mr. Madigan would like his ward to shift into still non-Hispanic white territory in the 23rd Ward.
Whatever happens, the new mayor will have huge influence over the new map. That will give him or her a nice card to keep Messrs. Burke and Madigan in line until the new map is approved.
Good point on the map.
You can see an interactive ward map detailing the population changes by clicking here. Latinos now outnumber whites by about 3-1 in Speaker Madigan’s 13th Ward.
(T)he central core of the city – around the Loop and out toward the Near Northwest Side – are population-heavy. That area could get a new ward. […]
Three of the four largest wards in town now are in or near downtown, the location for dramatic growth in the past decade. Those would be Alderman Brendan Reilly’s Near North Side/Loop 42nd Ward, with 78,742 residents, according to the Census; Alderman Bob Fioretti’s 2nd Ward to the south and west of the 42nd, with 69.367 residents, and Alderman Scott Waguespack’s greater Bucktown 32nd Ward, with 63,701.
As Greg says, that’s about a new Downtown ward right there with just those three numbers.
The best news Rahm Emanuel got last week didn’t come from his pollster. It came from the United States Census Bureau, when it released the population figures for Chicago.
The city’s population declined by 200,000 — but those were mostly people who wouldn’t have voted for Emanuel. Englewood lost a quarter of its population. The black population that Carol Moseley Braun has been trying to rally accounted for nearly all of Chicago’s population loss.
“The trend is a result for the plan for transformation of the Chicago Housing Authority, and the displacement of 110,000 people,” mayoral candidate William “Dock” Walls told Ward Room. “Some of ’em have left Chicago. They’ve gone to the suburbs, or Indiana.”
On the other hand, the Loop’s population increased 76 percent. The Loop is Rahm Country. Emanuel is getting his best numbers from high-income whites who live along the Lakefront.
House Democrats are leaving the state rather than vote on anti-union legislation, The Indianapolis Star has learned.
A source said Democrats are headed to Illinois, though it was possible some also might go to Kentucky. They need to go to a state with a Democratic governor to avoid being taken into police custody and returned to Indiana.
The House came into session this morning, with only two of the 40 Democrats present. Those two were needed to make a motion, and a seconding motion, for any procedural steps Democrats would want to take to ensure Republicans don’t do anything official without quorum. […]
Today’s fight was triggered by Republicans pushing a bill that would bar unions and companies from negotiating a contract that requires non-union members to kick-in fees for representation. It’s become the latest in what is becoming a national fight over Republican attempts to eliminate or limit collective bargaining.
Amazing.
…Adding… Y’know, if this keeps up, we may have to build a fence.
* As you probably know by now, Wisconsin’s new Republican governor wants to strip collective bargaining rights from most public employee unions for everything but wages. Wages, however, would be capped at the Consumer Price Index (raises beyond that would have to approved by a public referendum) and unions would face annual retention elections.
* The Question: Should public employee unions in Illinois be stripped of their collective bargaining rights for benefits like health care and pensions? Explain.
Try to stick to the question, please.
* Related…
* Wisconsin senators living day-to-day south of border - Escape to Illinois to avoid vote on budget leaves lawmakers short on essentials
* In Illinois, Wisconsin Senate Democrats vow unity
* I’ve heard of throwing rocks through a campaign headquarters’ window before an election, but a volunteer? That’s a new one on me…
A volunteer working for 19th Ward aldermanic candidate Anne Schaible’s campaign was injured Monday night when he was thrown through a campaign office window, her campaign manager Tom Mannix said.
Mannix said the volunteer appeared to be scuffling with a man outside the office, 10319 Kedzie Ave., at about 5:30 p.m. Mannix said he turned his back to call 911, and the volunteer was thrown through the window, with pieces of glass hitting Mannix in the back.
The volunteer suffered facial cuts and was taken to a local hospital, but didn’t appear seriously injured, Mannix said.
The unknown assailant got into a red two-door coupe that had been parked on Kedzie Avenue and fled, Mannix said. He said police arrived and took statements from witnesses.
The Southtown-Star reports that as of two hours after the incident there was no police report on file. Wouldn’t that be something if it was just a stunt? Throwing your own volunteer through your own campaign window would be the craziest twist yet on Chicago politics.
Seriously, though, I hope nobody was hurt too badly.
*** UPDATE *** With thanks to a commenter for the link, it appears to be some domestic battery nastiness…
A 44-year-old Chicago man faces two misdemeanor charges after police say he confronted his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend and threw the man through a plate glass window at the campaign office of 19th Ward aldermanic candidate Anne Schaible.
Mark Smith, 44, of the 9700 block of South Union Avenue, faces a count of domestic battery and another of simply battery in the altercation, Chicago police officer Mike Sullivan said. The fight took place about 5:30 p.m. at Schaible’s office at 10319 Kedzie Ave. on Monday.
Campaign staffers were organizing an Election day training event when the men crashed through the window, according to Tom Mannix, Schaible’s campaign manager.
Mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel’s campaign was surprised when high profile backers of rival Carol Moseley Braun–Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) showed up a the South Side restaurant where his campaign planned a photo op of him dining with supporters in an African American neighborhood.
Emanuel was dining with a campaign co-chair, Zipporah Hightower and her son, Jack at the Chicago’s Home of Chicken and Waffle at 3747 S. Martin Luther King Dr., not far from Jackson’s Operation PUSH headquarters at 930 E. 50th St.
Jackson was already seated when Emanuel came in and Rush followed a little later. Things got a little raucous. “Everybody for Carol, up on your feet,” Rush called out, with Jackson and chunk of the room standing up as Emanuel munched on his lunch.
“This is a favorite eating place on the South Side,” said Jackson. “He comes as a tourist, we come as residents” (An Emanuel spokesman said he has been to the Chicken and Waffle two or three times.)
Don’t come complaining to me afterward about how the media did this and the media did that, because I’ve been doing this long enough to know the media can’t elect a candidate on its own. You can ask Joe Berrios and Forrest Claypool about that, just to mention a recent example.
And don’t blame it all on the money, because even though money makes a difference, history is replete with the names of political candidates who had lots more money than their opponents and couldn’t get elected because voters weren’t buying what they were selling.
Certain pundits may say otherwise, but Brown is spot on here, especially with the Claypool reference. The Chicago media went all-in for that guy and he got creamed. Their preference for Rahm Emanuel was mostly confined to that ill-advised challenge to his residency. Through it all, the other candidates have done their best to hurt themselves. Carol Moseley Braun and her friends led the pack in that regard, and they continued to do so over the weekend. For instance, check out this new radio ad featuring Congressman Danny Davis…
Script…
VO: Every community has its interest. Congressman Danny K. Davis speaks on why you should vote on February 22nd to protect yours.
Danny Davis: I remember two principles of liberation and self-determination that my parents taught. My mother often told us that it is a poor dog that will not wag its own tail. My father would tell us that the Bible says any man who will not support his own house is worse than any infidel. In honor of my parents during Black History Month, I am voting for Carol Moseley Braun for mayor, and ask that you vote for the best candidate. Punch 3 for Carol Moseley Braun for mayor. This is Congressman Danny Davis.
Infidels, eh? And you thought we should be worried about Egypt. Silly rabbits.
If Carol Moseley Braun doesn’t end up with double digits or a runoff spot in the mayoral race, the loss will confirm something most African Americans in Chicago already know.
African-American leadership in this city is impotent.
A black consensus candidate should have had the support of the influential black movers and shakers in the religious, business, civic, activist, and political arena — not because of black unity, but because of self-interest.
The lackluster support of a candidate that was pushed forward by a coalition of African Americans purporting to represent the black community is shameful because blacks have lost a lot of ground since the city’s first black mayor, Harold Washington, died in office.
Braun was only a “consensus” candidate until she made herself unelectable - which was pretty much right away. As I’ve often written, black voters will vote for black candidates if they see those candidates as viable. Braun proved she wasn’t. That’s not to say she won’t do better than the polls currently have her. I’ve had enough experience to not trust Chicago polls at all. Things happen when the precinct workers kick into gear. Then again, Emanuel could do better than the polling shows. I have no idea.
Anyway, the problem with this consensus candidate process is the same basic dilemma Barack Obama faced in the presidential primaries. The Old School African-American leadership was behind the choice of Braun. Nationally, three years ago, the Old School mostly went with Clinton. The local and national leadership has held power for so long that they no longer fully understand what’s going on at the precinct level. I mean, Carol Moseley Braun? Really? Many of those who remember her don’t care for her. She threw away what should’ve been a long, glorious career in the US Senate, then humiliated herself with a presidential bid of zero consequence. And the young folks don’t even know who she is, and probably don’t care.
Chicago’s black “A” bench is a problem as well. Jesse Jackson, Jr. is horrifically damaged goods. Sen. James Meeks has fundamental problems communicating outside his district and can’t pull the trigger. Pat Horton, running for city clerk, is underwhelming.
There are some up-and-comers, but they have yet to prove themselves outside their wards or districts and the folks at the top are so well-known and entrenched that they have no desire to step aside (Bobby Rush and Danny Davis, to name just two).
A generational change is absolutely needed. Airing reruns of the greatest hits from the 80s and early 90s just doesn’t work.
* Illinois’ Gross State Product is about $630 billion. That means the $8.7 billion Gov. Pat Quinn wants to borrow on the bond markets to pay off old bills is about 1.4 percent of GSP. Injecting that kind of cash into the economy provides a definite boost. It’s not new money, of course, so the boost isn’t as big. But it is money that’s long-owed to vendors, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, human service providers etc. And those past-due bills are a drag on the state’s overall economy. No doubt about it. Just think of all the little local banks that could be lending money for jobs-producing business ventures that instead have been using precious (and still very tight) capital to keep state vendors afloat.
Merriman agreed that Illinois might cut procurement costs by paying its bills and attracting more bidders. He snickered at the idea of payment boosting the economy.
“It strikes me as a very weak argument,” Merriman said.
1.4 percent of GSP is not a “very weak argument” no matter how you slice it. And, more specifically, try telling all the businesses and other vendors who are owed money that the state’s past-due debts to them don’t matter, or haven’t caused hardship. It’s a very real thing to them and to their employees and to their own vendors. These overdue bills have a rippling effect throughout our economy.
The borrowing proposal can surely be scaled back. And I believe it will. But if “state budget specialists” like Merriman and others think the government ought to make cuts to pay off the old bills without going to the bond markets, then they ought to detail how they’d pay for it. Simple as that.
And while I’d personally prefer, as some have suggested, a gradual payoff of the old bills of, say, five years, in combination with a lower bond offer, I understand that a lot more cuts will have to be made before the state is able to do that. Perhaps the state budget experts can show us the way. And I also fully understand that a gradual pay-down will mean stringing out the state’s vendors for another half-decade, which is not going to be a pleasant thing to do.
I’ve always held Merriman in pretty high regard. I don’t understand why he completely brushed off the impact of this proposal, however.
“While I am all for paying our providers in a timely manner, $8.75 billion is an excessive amount of money to borrow and it will cost taxpayers another $3 billion in interest to repay,” [GOP state Rep. Mike Bost] explained. “Limited borrowing may make sense, but his plan simply backloads the debt. The bulk of the money will be due just as the Democrats’ tax increase is set to expire. This is their way of ensuring that the tax increase will become permanent.”
Bost is right that the repayments are backloaded. There’s a ramp. It starts at $100 million, and then rises to $765 million by Fiscal Year 2016. But, half a point of the income tax hike is dedicated to the bond repayment, and that won’t expire until the bond is paid off. That half a point is more than enough to make the payments.
* And, no offense, but I’d like to see his alternative…
“I came away from the Governor’s speech thinking there had to be more to the budget proposal. The Governor’s plan is based on an additional $9 billion in borrowing,” [GOP state Sen. Dave Luechtefeld] said. “I know we have severe problems in the state, but the Governor needs to be serious about cutting our state’s budget. These are tough times, but a tax increase alone will not get the job done.”
He’s absolutely correct that a tax hike alone won’t get the job done. And as I wrote elsewhere today, I think Quinn made a big mistake with his budget proposal. But is Sen Luechtefeld ready to cut SIU-Carbondale’s budget to help out?
* This press release by Democratic Sen. Gary Forby deserves the same treatment…
The bottom line is that we must continue to look at responsible places to cut spending and pay our bills before we can spend any more.
OK, great. Start listing stuff in your district that you’d be willing to give up, Senator.
* Related…
* Decline in bond market has states nervous: All told, more than $178 billion of the bonds were sold, according to Bloomberg. The states and local governments in four states — California, Illinois, New York and Texas — accounted for nearly half of the bond sales. But as states and localities rushed to sell them before the December 2010 deadline, there was a glut in the bond market, depressing demand for traditional types of municipal bonds.
The extension of the Bush-era tax cuts last year may also have played a role in the declining popularity of municipal debt. With less income subject to taxation, the tax-free aspect of government bonds holds less allure.
Child care advocates thought they had avoided $400 million in threatened cuts to the state’s child care services budget after speaking with top officials in Gov. Pat Quinn’s office earlier this month. And the governor’s budget office then told a Senate appropriations committee that no such cuts were being planned.
But when Quinn unveiled his budget for next fiscal year last week, he listed a $350 million net cut in child care spending, according to House Democrats’ analysis of the proposal.
The child care folks aren’t the only ones who may be feeling double-crossed by Quinn’s new budget plan. Aid to the aged, blind and disabled is decreased by $15 million; mental health centers will see a $33 million reduction. The auditor general will take a $471,000 hit by reducing headcount and by cutting back the number of audits his office will perform.
Legislators also are not happy for many reasons, not the least being that Quinn waited until after his speech to sign legislation that would have made his spending plan illegal had he signed it before his budget address.
The bipartisan legislation requires the governor to use only revenues that are legally available to him at the time he introduces his budget. Since he didn’t sign it earlier, he wasn’t bound by it.
However, House Democrats say they expected Quinn to abide by it anyway, whether he signed the bill or not.
And according to House Democrats, Quinn’s budget uses about $730 million in revenues that would have been prohibited by their bill. Quinn unilaterally lowered the percentage of tax dollars earmarked for the corporate tax refund fund and decoupled the state from a federal tax depreciation law. Neither of those things have been approved by the Legislature.
There appears to be another $700 million or so in unapproved revenues in the budget, according to Senate President John Cullerton and the Senate Republicans. That cash appears to be coming from the governor’s proposed $8.9 billion borrowing plan, which also has not yet been approved by the General Assembly.
So, while Quinn says he made cuts of $1 billion and his total spending is $1.4 billion beneath the new annual spending caps that were put into the tax hike bill, his budget still is around $1.45 billion out of whack, unless and until the General Assembly approves those new revenue streams.
Cullerton canceled his traditional, post-budget-address media availability last week, claiming he had too many unanswered questions about the governor’s proposal to talk to reporters. Cullerton then urged the governor to provide more details.
And House Speaker Michael Madigan seemed determined last week to force the governor to abide by the new fiscal responsibility agenda that Madigan has been touting. Madigan said any new revenues ought to be used to pay down old bills, rather than fund new initiatives.
In other words, we probably can expect more cuts. Budget addresses are the starting point in the game of “Statehouse Give and Take.”
But here’s the problem: What the heck do many of Quinn’s allies have to gain from working to pass this thing? If Quinn had introduced a more honest budget that didn’t include the borrowing plan and the other phantom revenues, he could have gone to all the unhappy groups and said, “You need to help me pass those new revenue streams and then I can try to restore your budgets.”
Instead, human service groups and their legislative allies are furious at the outsized cuts aimed at them. Hospitals and nursing homes are up in arms over Quinn’s Medicaid reimbursement rate slashes. School districts are freaking out about a huge cut to their transportation budgets. So, why would they help convince the General Assembly to approve all that new money if they already knew the governor wants to cut them no matter what?
You’d think that would be an odd way of doing business.
Then again, public employee unions weren’t touched. Money for the state’s school fund actually will increase, even though transportation and other items were cut. Quinn also wants to add 950 new state employees. The unions representing those workers have been under fire in Springfield, even by Democrats, but they backed Quinn to the hilt last year, and he’s now protecting them.
That appears to be the bottom line.
* Here’s a roundup of some of what happened late Friday to this fiscal year’s budget. Subscribers know more. There was more to it than substance abuse cuts, but those groups were the best at getting the word out…
* Dramatic Cuts for Drug and Alcohol Treatment: The Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association predicted that out of 69,000 drug and alcohol treatment clients, 55,000 will be released; more than 5,000 people are expected to be laid off.
* Quinn speeds up social service budget cuts: Sara Howe, who heads the Illinois Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Association, said she spoke with Illinois Department of Human Services Secretary Michelle Saddler this morning and confirmed with another official this afternoon that the cuts are “for real.” “We’ve seen it pretty bad. There were times we didn’t think it could get much worse. But today we’ve hit rock bottom,” said Howe. Many of the 50 private groups in her association stopped taking more patients Friday, she said.
* Substance abuse treatment groups brace for state cut news: “In our system, most of the clients — up to 80 percent — don’t qualify for Medicaid,” Moscato Howe said. “So when they say the system becomes Medicaid-only, it kills the system.”
