* 4:32 pm - It’s late Friday afternoon and Gov. Pat Quinn’s office just sent out a list of bills he’s signed. The death penalty repeal bill is not one of them. I’m told nothing is planned by the governor’s office on that issue today.
We’d been hearing that Quinn would likely do a bill signing at Northwestern University, the home of the Center on Wrongful Convictions.
But Northwestern, of course, has a freaking gigantic national PR headache on its hands right now, so an event there might not be prudent. I seriously doubt the governor would want to answer awkward questions about a live sex act performed for NW students after he signed such an historic bill.
The deadline for deciding what to do about the death penalty repeal measure is March 18th.
Supposedly, we can expect Quinn to take action sometime next week. Perhaps in the middle of the week.
* New Jersey Gov. Christie is a bit on the sensitive side. When he was asked to respond to ads taken out in three New Jersey publications Monday by the somewhat mysterious political action committee For a Better Chicago, he lashed out at Gov. Pat Quinn…
“Let me tell you something: We won’t lose any business to Illinois as long as Pat Quinn’s the governor,” Christie, a Republican, said during a news conference Thursday. “He’s a disaster.”
The Chicago group said it’s taking out the ads to set the record straight on which state has the best business climate.
“We understand that governors have to be cheerleaders for their states, but the claims Gov. Christie is making are so far from the truth,” said Jake Braun, For a Better Chicago spokesman.
The Chicago ads, which say “Rhetoric is nice, reality matters,” focus on New Jersey’s high property taxes and cost of living.
The comment came after a question about a nonprofit group, For a Better Chicago, taking out advertisements in New Jersey publications, such as NJ Biz, highlighting the Garden State’s less-than-stellar tax reputation. The ad claims that “Illinois has a better tax environment for business than New Jersey,” and it printed the telephone numbers of business development offices in Illinois state government.
The ad was in apparent retaliation to an earlier Christie effort to draw businesses away from Illinois to New Jersey, citing a harsh tax climate in Quinn’s state.
Quinn’s press office didn’t meet fire with fire.
“We’re not going to respond to personal attacks like that,” said Brie Callahan, Quinn’s press secretary. “Gov. Quinn is focused on moving Illinois forward, making Illinois an even stronger economic competitor.”
Thoughts?
*** UPDATE 1 *** The complete, official response from Gov. Quinn’s office…
“We were fourth in the nation in creating jobs last year, while New Jersey was last. Site Selection magazine just named Illinois in their top 10, New Jersey was nowhere to be found. Instead of making personal attacks on other governors, Governor Quinn is focused on getting our state’s fiscal house in order and continuing to make Illinois an even stronger economic competitor.”
…Adding… Keep in mind that, unlike Christie’s ads bashing Illinois, these ads on Chicago’s and Illinois’ behalf are privately funded. NJ Biz, where one of the ads will appear, has more…
According to Greg Goldner, chair of FBC — a nonprofit focused on job creation and business development — the purpose of the ads is to change the rhetoric and let people know that Illinois is a good place to do business.
“Our state has taken action to deal with its deficit,” Goldner said. “These governors from other states, notably New Jersey and Wisconsin, have jumped into the fray and developed messages that they have better business climates — and that’s just not the case.” […]
The retaliation ad campaign didn’t come about because Illinois was worried about losing its businesses to New Jersey, Goldner said. Rather, the organization wanted to show the reality, and that no one in Chicago was fooled. He maintained that Illinois has a better business climate, but granted that New Jersey has other advantages, such as location.
*** UPDATE 2 *** I just talked to Goldner via e-mail. Apparently, more ads are in the works, including for Wisconsin. My own suggestion: “Escape From Wisconsin.” Do you have any ideas for Goldner’s crew?
A dugout scuffle between Carlos Silva and Aramis Ramirez occurred Wednesday after the Cubs gave up six first-inning runs in an exhibition game vs. Milwaukee.
The fight was quickly broken up by players and coaches and order was restored. It began when Silva gave up six runs and watched his teammates commit three errors behind him, including one by Ramirez.
“You’ve got two ticked off people,” manager Mike Quade said. “It was a brutal first inning. Plenty of blame to go around. Maybe it’s what we freaking need — maybe we need to get ticked off. It’s Day Four of spring training. I’ve got no business getting all fired up on four days of work, but today was really tough to watch, and it hasn’t been fun to begin with.”
I got news for you, Quade. Managing that minor league team won’t ever be fun. You’re doomed.
* The Question: How good will the White Sox be this year? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
Newly fiscally conservative Democrats in the Illinois House unveiled numbers Thursday they say will limit state spending. Lawmakers said they will base the next state budget on $33.2 billion in state revenue. […]
Quinn’s budget office came up with a $33.9 billion number. The differences stem from varied estimates as to how much Illinois will get from the new personal and corporate income tax increase passed in January. COGFA is guessing $2.1 billion. Quinn’s budget office is guessing $1.8 billion.
The governor’s spending plan comes with a price tag of more than $35 billion.
Notice the difference between the governor’s proposed spending and the House’s new revenue projections. About $2 billion.
The plan, though, is for Bradley and other Revenue Committee members to talk to appropriations committee chairs to determine how much money each will have to allocate. Those committees deal with broad areas of government, such as elementary and secondary education, higher education, human services, public safety and general services.
“We will allocate as fairly as possible,” Bradley said. […]
The House is also only half the equation. The state budget must be approved by the Senate as well, and the Senate is taking its own approach to the budget.
“The Senate president is aware of the House’s approach, but the Senate Democratic caucus will not rely on House projections,” said Rikeesha Phelon, spokeswoman for Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago. “We will do our own evaluations while analyzing (various revenue estimates).”
The financial hole in Illinois’ government pension systems grew even larger last year, the state auditor reported Thursday — a problem that tends to increase pressure on a state budget already stretched too far.
The long-term gap between what Illinois owes future retirees and the money available to pay them jumped 21 percent under a new measuring system, Auditor General William Holland reported. Even under the old system, the gap grew by 10 percent.
Illinois government employees, downstate teachers and university staff have been promised $139 billion worth of retirement benefits, but the pension systems have only $63 billion in assets. Eventually, the state will have to come up with money to make up that difference. […]
The amount owed [for pensions] in the next budget will top $5.4 billion, the auditor said. That’s part of the massive budget deficit haunting Illinois.
More than two dozen seniors and advocates from local social service agencies gathered Thursday at the Decatur-Macon County Senior Center to protest the cuts to senior services in Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed budget.
The budget calls for the elimination of the Circuit Breaker and Illinois Cares Rx programs, which assist low-income seniors and people with disabilities. Among the benefits of the programs are access to transportation and help paying for prescription drugs and property taxes. […]
“Please don’t balance the budget on the backs of low-income seniors,” Groendal said, adding that some who rely on the programs could face hospitalization, life in a nursing home or even death without them.
She shared part of a letter she wrote to Quinn, including some possible alternatives to cutting the programs completely - part of her “tweak it, don’t take it” approach.
* Meanwhile, State Superintendent of Education Christopher Koch is saying that suburban schools won’t have to worry too much about Gov. Pat Quinn’s consolidation idea…
For any unit district, there wouldn’t be as high a need for consolidation,” Koch said. “But we do have an issue in some populated areas of a disconnect with some high schools and their feeder elementaries. The need for consolidation really depends on the region. And communities have to be engaged in that conversation.”
Gov. Pat Quinn pitched the elimination of about 600 school districts via consolidation in his budget address last month. The idea is to save $100 million by reducing unnecessary administrative costs.
But Koch said that may not be a realistic goal or even the best selling point for consolidation. Indeed, consolidation may not even be on the table when it comes to most suburban school districts, he said.
“It’s an issue of what kids have access to,” Koch said. “In some areas of the state it’s hard for kids to have access to an advanced placement course or a rigorous curriculum. We know that that’s going to make a huge difference for them in being successful in college and careers.”
* And, as expected, one consolidation proposal was at least temporarily shelved while others are not being rushed…
Backlash over one plan reportedly has caused its sponsor to change his mind on the bill, which was scheduled for discussion in a committee meeting Thursday morning. That bill, sponsored by state Rep. Robert Rita (D-Blue Island), would have dissolved all school districts in the state, replacing them with one district per county, effective in July 2012.
Several other consolidation plans have been introduced in the state House and Senate this spring.
State Rep. Frank Mautino (D-Spring Valley) said it’s not likely any of those will be rushed through the General Assembly. The deadline to file bills passed last week, and committees have about three weeks to review bills.
State Rep. Richard Morthland, R-Moline, has received more than 200 e-mails from school officials voicing their concern.
“I’ve heard from superintendents and school board members across the state, literally, everywhere in the state, because I am on the committee that was hearing this before it would go to the floor,” said Morthland, a member of the House Counties and Townships Committee.
* Taxes not enough, Republicans want schools to charge more for Drivers’ Ed
* Taxpayers can’t afford costly tuition waivers: For years, Illinois taxpayers have been subsidizing tuition waivers for students selected by legislators and the children of state university employees. Sen. Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, wants the practice to end. She’s right, and the Illinois General Assembly should follow her lead.
* Editorial: State can’t get fiscal house in order if its books remain muddled
* Right up to the end, the cheerleaders in Carol Moseley Braun’s campaign were predicting she’d run up huge numbers in the black wards and among women. This is from a memo sent by the campaign to supporters on February 3rd…
Never has credible African-American received less than 75 percent of African-American vote.
Never has lone credible woman candidate lost woman vote in multi candidate race with three credible male candidates.
The problem, of course, was that she wasn’t a “credible” black or female candidate.
As late as the Thursday before election day, Braun adviser David Schaffer was still predicting Braun would score at least 60 percent among black voters. That’s some serious denial.
* Also, Braun campaign manager Mike Noonan has apparently decided to protect his reputation by going public…
Mike Noonan, Ms. Braun’s campaign manager, said the candidate and aides like Mr. Schaffer changed campaign strategy on the assumption that Ms. Braun was guaranteed the support of blacks when black leaders chose her as the community’s consensus candidate.
“It was a terrible mistake,” Mr. Noonan said this week. “The thinking was: ‘Why waste our time with African-American voters? They have no other place to go.’.” […]
Soon after that [nominating petition-gathering] success, Mr. Noonan said, he clashed with her. “We had fundamentally different views of how campaigns should be run,” he said, adding that Ms. Braun had made it impossible for him to schedule even the most basic campaign activities.
One e-mail shows that Ms. Braun canceled a meeting with an alderman on the eve of the event in December. “Nobody asked me about meeting with” the alderman, Ms. Braun wrote. “It can be rescheduled for another time that we clear.”
After a campaign loss like this, staff will almost always try to blame the candidate. In this instance, it’s almost entirely true. But going public is a bit on the gauche side.
* Meanwhile, if you want to see what can happen if you repeatedly fail to return a reporter’s calls, just read this story about Ald. Brendan Reilly’s involvement in the 46th Ward campaign…
One of [Reilly’s] top lieutenants in ousting longtime 42nd Ward Alderman Burt Natarus four years ago, Dave Clarkin, is likely to take over as manager of Ms. Phelan’s runoff campaign, she says. And there are lots of other rumors about precinct help Ms. Phelan is getting from Mr. Reilly — who, like Mr. Clarkin, once worked for Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.
So, what’s up?
The answer appears to be that, just like Mr. Madigan, Mr. Reilly is trying to carve out a role for himself as an influence peddler in the new City Council, someone who has allies not just because of his beliefs but because of his wallet.
Mr. Reilly — who’s failed to return several phone calls on what he’s doing in other wards this season — certainly won’t be the first Chicago official to try to build a coalition. At the legislative level, Mr. Madigan long has been a master at doing so.
But I find it a bit odd that someone hailed as a big reformer, like Mr. Reilly, can be so quiet about his reasons in messing around in wards that are dramatically different than his.
It’s a classic pile-on. I’ve done versions of this myself with people who won’t call me back. There’s a penalty for not cooperating. Usually, though, I prefer to stick to simply berating them for their silence.
After Reilly finally called Hinz back, he explained that Molly Phelan supported his first aldermanic campaign and that Clarkin lives in the ward. Clarkin told me this week that he’s now hearing gunfire in his neighborhood during the day, when his wife takes their new baby outside, rather than just at night. That, he said, was a big motivation to get more involved in the runoff.
Also, the “influence peddler” accusation seems a bit much since Reilly was only apparently involved in two races. Madigan never confines himself to such minor power plays. These are the real players…
Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel called on a secretly funded political group Thursday to disclose the names of donors behind its efforts to elect a pro-business, pro-Emanuel City Council.
Emanuel’s request came in response to Thursday’s Tribune story about the group For A Better Chicago. In turn, the group’s leader said future donations to council candidates will be transparent, and one alderman said she would return the group’s money.
Emanuel reiterated that his campaign is “totally independent” from the group that is aligned with his interests. But the group, run by a Chicago political consultant who managed Emanuel’s successful 2002 bid for Congress, shouldn’t use a “quirk in the law” to avoid revealing its donors, Emanuel said. […]
The Tribune reported that of the 14 runoff races for aldermen, For A Better Chicago has endorsed eight candidates. Seven of those eight candidates told the Tribune that Emanuel offered his support to them after his Feb. 22 election victory. The paper reported Thursday that none of the candidates in the other runoff races had received offers of support from Emanuel.
Emanuel dodged questions about why he has only offered help to runoff candidates who also are being backed by For A Better Chicago.
* What Does the For a Better Chicago PAC Want From Rahm Emanuel, Aldermen, and Us?: You can take a look at their endorsements. I added up how many times their 34 endorsements intersected with the endorsements of others, and it went like this: Sun-Times (29 out of the Sun-Times’s 43 endorsements), Tribune (26 out of 44), Chicago Federation of Labor (26 out of 38), Chamber of Commerce (23 out of 34), AFSCME (21 out of 29), Citizen Action (16 out of 25), SEIU (15 out of 29), IVI-IPO (11 out of 26), Chicago Teachers’ Union (10 out of 25).
* Rahm Emanuel likes Wilco, Lucinda Williams and idea of music district
* What is Emanuel thinking? Dropout solution is ridiculed: “Students who drop out of school should face consequences that force them to reconsider their action. Rahm will push for a law that immediately revokes the driver’s license of any student who drops out of high school.”
Pro-union labor laws and policies are the only thing standing between Illinois and the creation of about 44,000 more jobs and almost 3,000 new businesses, according to a 50-state study issued Wednesday by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
* Wide-ranging state employment discrimination laws beyond federal requirements
* Significant restrictions on employer inquiries into applicant or employee history
* Not a right-to-work state
Those “wide-ranging” anti-discrimination laws above and beyond federal laws include sexual orientation protections. The “significant restrictions” on employer inquiries include worker credit histories. And, yes, we’re not a right-to-work state. That idea was even dropped by Indiana’s conservative Republican legislature the other day.
The large [Illinois] union presence is a major influence on the development of state labor and employment policy. State law provides a host of protections and benefits for union members. The state provides unemployment benefits to striking workers, and there are state laws permitting picketing in public rights-of-way and a requirement for an employer’s hiring advertisements to specify whether there is an existing strike or lockout.
* What states are their heroes? The Chamber’s “top tier” includes Alabama, with a 9.1 percent unemployment rate, Florida, which has a 12 percent unemployment rate, and Georgia, with its 10.4 percent unemployment rate. All of those rates are higher than ours. Others on their favorable list had lower unemployment rates, including Mississippi, Texas, Idaho and Kansas. Only Texas has a somewhat comparable economy to ours, but it also has rich oil and natural gas deposits, and that sector is booming right now.
* So, does this study have anything to do with reality? After all, Site Selection magazine measures real world behavior, not ideology-based projections. It put Illinois in its top ten and ranked the Chicago metro region as number one.
“We’re not pretending these are the only factors,” said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative, noting that companies also looked at taxes, infrastructure, education and other variables when they decided where to invest. But the point of the study was to isolate the impact of labor laws and regulations, he said.
* Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. We have a very high number of labor and employment lawsuits here - about the same as Florida, which was one of the Chamber’s “top tier” states. And then there’s stuff like this…
Two Internet-based marketers Thursday urged Gov. Pat Quinn to veto a bill aimed at collecting state sales tax on website purchases and threatened to leave the state if Quinn did not.
“I spent the last 12 years of my life creating jobs,” said Tim Storm, chief executive officer of FatWallet.com, which employs 52 people. “I’m not asking for anything of Illinois but a veto.”
Storm’s website displays discounts from online merchants, such as Amazon.com or Overstock.com. He receives a commission when customers purchase from those sites.
The legislation would force Internet retailers to collect Illinois’ 6.25 percent sales tax on all purchases made in the state. Illinoisans are already required to pay that tax, but it is up to them to declare it.
* And, of course, our workers’ compensation premiums are outrageously high. The “reform” effort five years ago, which was agreed to by the business lobby, has failed miserably. It needs to be revisited. Gov. Pat Quinn said this week that he’s working on a fix, but nobody knows yet what it will be or if it can pass. But the very real problem of workers’ comp premiums is barely mentioned by the Chamber. Instead, the Chamber’s analysis is almost all about the unions.
