* 4:38 pm - Gov. Pat Quinn has used his amendatory veto stamp on Senate Bill 1. The bill would boot from office within 30 days of becoming law hundreds of paid and unpaid appointees who have not been reconfirmed by the Senate for new terms.
From the governor’s veto statement…
My recommendations for change would honor the intent of the sponsors but would also give citizens ample time to apply for a vacant position and allow a reasonable amount of time for identifying and recruiting qualified candidates.
Therefore, pursuant to Article IV, Section 9(e) of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return Senate Bill 1, entitled “AN ACT concerning government,” with the following specific recommendation for change:
On page 5, by adding immediately below line 22 the following:
“(e) The provisions of this Section pertaining to a salaried office apply on and after July 1, 2011. The provisions of this Section pertaining to an office other than a salaried office apply on and after October 1, 2011.”.
In essence, the AV gives him more time to get his act together and appoint or re-appoint people to these positions.
The list of salaried holdovers is here. Unsalaried holdovers are here. A little bit of background is here.
* As you can probably guess, Senate President John Cullerton was very big on this bill. You don’t give it the “1″ spot unless you want to highlight it. More and more, governors have simply ignored term lengths to bypass the Senate’s advice and consent role, and Cullerton wanted that stopped.
We’re awaiting an official react from Cullerton. Stay tuned.
* 5:11 pm - From Cullerton’s press office…
“At this point we’re going to study the governor’s action to see if it complies with the Constitution.”
* Republicans dissed Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget proposals at a McLean County Republican Party lunch event this week…
“Gov. Quinn’s budget is a catastrophe,” said state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, Quinn’s opponent in the 2010 election. “Under his plan we will be $20 billion in debt in four years.”
State Rep. Keith Sommers of Morton called on Quinn to work with everyone in the General Assembly on creating a good budget for the state.
State Rep. Dan Brady of Bloomington said a GOP proposal would cut $3.5 billion from the state’s budget by making “surgical cuts” to programs in education, Medicaid and general services.
“We can’t take a large chunk but let’s at least start by looking at how we can spread out the cuts,” Dan Brady said. “The first thing we have to do is stop digging the hole and making it bigger.”
There’s no denying that the governor’s budget proposal was a huge miscalculation and even a disaster. I’ll give Sen. Brady that.. Quinn proposed increasing state spending and borrowing billions of dollars. Not a great plan, and it’s been thoroughly rejected by both legislative chambers.
What we haven’t seen, however, are actual Republican bills that would cut Quinn’s budget. They speak of a plan, but a plan isn’t real until it’s in bill format. So far, nothing. I’m really getting tired of repeating myself, but until I see a bill, there’s no plan.
* Rahm Emanuel’s choice of Jean-Claude Brizard to run the Chicago schools has been mostly met with high praise. He stands up to the unions, according to the Tribune, and his appointment means sweeping change, according to the Sun-Times.
The Rochester City School District’s press release announcing Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard’s contract renewal cited possibly misleading numbers about graduation data.
“Under Mr. Brizard’s leadership, the Rochester City school District is seeing improvements in student performance and more students graduating high school in four years. A total of 1,334 students who entered high school in 2005 graduated in four years, an increase of 16 percent over the 1,153 students who graduated in four years after entering in 2004.”
But according to the state, Rochester’s four-year graduation rate actually fell during Brizard’s tenure to 42 percent in 2008-09, down from 48 percent in 2007-08.
The 2010 graduation rate did rise again to 51 percent last school year. So, he showed some recent progress. Brizard has only helmed Rochester’s schools for three years, so it’s difficult to know whether that was a temporary spike or a permanent upward trend.
New York State education officials released a new set of graduation statistics on Monday that show fewer than half of students in the state are leaving high school prepared for college and well-paying careers. […]
In Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers, less than 17 percent of students met the proposed standards, including just 5 percent in Rochester.
Rochester City School District Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard has the most expensive cabinet in district history.
Brizard has said the district needs to reduce administrative costs. Through the Freedom of Information Law, 13WHAM News learned he is doing the opposite when it comes to his top-level staff.
The Superintendent Employee Group, traditionally referred to as the cabinet, is covered by its own employment contract. They receive severance pay and other benefits that other district employees do not receive. This non-union group has 36 administrators and 14 secretaries who earn a combined $5.05 million.
That’s an increase of 13 staff members and $1.5 million in payroll expenses in the two years Brizard has been superintendent.
* Illinois political reporters often complain that Gov. Pat Quinn rambles on and on without answering our questions. Well, it’s not just us. Gov. Quinn was at Rich South High School in Richton Park over the weekend and was asked rather banal questions like what his first job was after college and what got him into politics.
He droned on and on and on. He never did answer the question about what got him into politics, but after at least a five-minute soliloquy about nothing, he finally answered the question about his first job - which was with a campaign, but he didn’t say which campaign.
It’s truly painful to watch. I felt sorry for those kids. View if you dare…
* Since you probably didn’t get through all that, I clipped the final question about what he thought his legacy would be. Ramble, ramble, ramble…
Anheuser-Busch reportedly has hired over a dozen Statehouse lobbyists this spring to protect its interests in a long-running battle to control how it distributes its brews in Illinois.
The St. Louis company, in the past, has owned a beer distributorship in Illinois. It sought to buy another one in Chicago, but was blocked by the Illinois Liquor Control Commission. So, the company sued in federal court.
In the process, Anheuser-Busch discovered that two relatively small Illinois “craft brewers” were allowed to distribute their own beer in Illinois, but out-of-state craft brewers weren’t given the same privilege. The brewer’s lawsuit tried to use that contradiction to its advantage.
A federal judge decided last September that the contradiction in Illinois practice didn’t allow him to open up the distributor market to Anheuser-Busch. But he did decide that he could stop the small in-state craft brewers from distributing their own product as long as out-of-staters were barred. The judge, however, agreed to stay his decision until the General Assembly could weigh in this spring.
That ruling has set off a furious Statehouse battle. Illinois, like other states, has a three-tiered delivery system for beer — brewers, distributors and retailers — which was set up after Prohibition ended almost 80 years ago.
The Associated Beer Distributors of Illinois is a major player in state politics. Its political action committee has raised almost $1.7 million since January 2008. The distributors usually get what they want in the General Assembly. But, after slowing down a bill to allow in-state and out-of-state craft distributors to self-distribute, they’ve recently had to jump on board or risk allowing Anheuser-Busch to stop the whole process in its tracks.
The craft brewers came into the legislative session asking to distribute a huge amount of beer on their own — 60,000 barrels a year, or almost 2 million gallons. That was viewed in the Senate as a gross overreach, and an amendment was introduced last week to allow them to self-distribute just 7,500 barrels a year. The distributors say, in practice, any brewery that produces more than 2,000 barrels usually ends up turning to the distributors because distribution becomes just too complicated and cumbersome to do it on its own.
Anheuser-Busch is saying it would like to pass a bill to allow it to self-distribute, or at least to buy that Chicago distributorship. But it’s an out-of-state company with little pull in Illinois and no real history of a Statehouse presence. It needed a lot of help, which is one reason it has hired so many bigtime lobbyists, including former state Sen. James DeLeo, who said last week that he is acting as a “consultant” and wouldn’t actually be coming down to Springfield. DeLeo was one of the most influential members of the Senate for years, and he’s still highly respected by members.
Anheuser-Busch also has lobbyists on its team who are close to House Speaker Michael Madigan, including one of the top insiders at the Statehouse, Madigan’s former House Majority Leader Mike McClain.
As with any big move like this, one should always look at what the players really want. And Anheuser-Busch’s real-life strategy appears to be to stop that bill from moving any further in the General Assembly and then take its chances on an appeal of the federal judge’s decision.
If a bill passed that excluded Anheuser-Busch, the company would have a tougher time explaining to an appellate court that state laws are vague enough to grant its requests. A successful appeal could open up the distributor game to the company, which would result in a huge increase in profits by cutting out the middlemen. We’re talking high-stakes and big money here.
Rival brewer Miller-Coors also jumped into the beer wars late last week, reportedly hiring several lobbyists of its own to work against Anheuser-Busch.
Miller-Coors makes a ton of money in the Chicago area (Miller Lite is the far and away top seller), so it doesn’t want Anheuser-Busch to gain any sort of foothold in the region.
It’s always easier to kill a bill than to pass one, particularly when it comes to legislation as controversial as this. The craft brewers still aren’t totally happy with the legislation, and the bill has to navigate some very complicated political waters.
Who will be crowned Springfield’s King of Beers? We’ll know in a few weeks.
Rob Blagojevich could be facing retrial right now.
Instead, he’s a free man, back in his home in Nashville, Tenn., something he attributes to a critical decision made by his lawyer — and the fact that he testified in his own defense in last summer’s trial.
Now, the older Blagojevich has some advice for his kid brother on the eve of his retrial: Take the witness stand.
“I can tell you that Rod can be his best defense.
“There are a ton of tapes that are favorable to Rod that can make a definite reasonable doubt argument. He’s all over the place in the tapes,” Rob Blagojevich, 55, said in an interview last week. “The only way that can get in is if Rod took the stand to defend himself. If he did that, I think he’d knock it out of the park.”
* The Question: Should Rod Blagojevich take the witness stand on his own behalf? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. Thank you.
* The Sun-Times has been writing about House Speaker Michael Madigan’s attempts to get people selected to associate Cook County judgeships for years. The pool of hopefuls is vetted and winnowed down by a nominating committee, and then selected by secret ballot by full circuit court judges whenever there are enough vacancies to warrant an election. They’ve had five such selection processes since 2003. The Tribune is now playing a belated game of catch-up on its front page…
The letters from Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan are short and to the point.
“Dear Judge,” begins one, written on Madigan’s General Assembly stationery. “I believe that these people would be excellent members of the judiciary.” […]
Since 2003, Madigan has recommended 37 lawyers to become associate judges, and 25 were selected outright, according to documents obtained by the Tribune and interviews. Several more made it to the bench through appointments.
So, a third didn’t make the cut, for whatever reasons. That’s not insignificant when you figure that Madigan plays a big role in helping those circuit court judges get themselves elected in the first place. Still, two outta three ain’t bad. He’s got some pull, for sure. Or he’s at least pushing lots of people who are already favored. But his average isn’t what it used to be.
* The number of people Madigan was able to get onto the bench dropped off a lot in 2007. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that 8 of 15 didn’t make the cut…
But this year, of the 15 names State Democratic Party Chair Mike Madigan sent on a letter to judges’ homes, only seven were chosen. And all 15 had mostly good ratings.
Less than half. That’s not a very good record, which is something not mentioned by the Trib. His letters did help five out of his eight favorites tin 2008. A bit more than half. But only one out of the three he recommended were named to ten open seats in 2009.
Clearly, Madigan’s not as successful as he once was. He’s just 13 for 26 since 2007. And he appears to be slowing down as well, recommending just three people for ten open slots in ‘09.
Also, the Trib never said if any of those judges had ever ruled on Madigan’s cases.
Associate Judge John Thomas Carr was selected after he was named in Madigan’s 2007 letter. He said judges and other lawyers told him being on Madigan’s list would be a good thing, so he wrote a letter to the House speaker stressing his qualifications. He said he heard nothing back.
Madigan has a lot of control over judicial salaries and pensions, so it’s always best to be on his good side, of course.
Take Laura Bertucci Smith, a former Cook County prosecutor whose husband is a regular contributor to Democrats. He gave $1,000 to Lisa Madigan in 2002 and $500 in 2003. Bertucci Smith donated $300 to Ald. Burke in 2004. She wasn’t picked when she was on the speaker’s 2005 list.
* So, to sum up, Madigan’s batting average has fallen over the years, sitting judges think his opinion is important (for several reasons), campaign contributions don’t appear to be a factor and the Tribune established no connections between judicial rulings and Madigan’s recommendations. Other than that, it’s front-page news.
* Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel says he wants to add an hour and a half to Chicago’s school day as soon as possible…
“We’re not going to negotiate or discuss whether children get more instruction — we will work together so that gets done. I’m not deviating from that. I was clear about it,” Emanuel said after speaking at a South Side charter school. […]
“Three or four years ago, [the CTU] rejected a pay raise — 6 percent for 45 minutes of additional instruction time,” Emanuel said.
There are several disagreements about Emanuel’s facts. For instance, teachers say they weren’t offered a pay raise for that extra teaching time. The school district says a 2 percent raise was offered for one year, not a 6 percent raise. More…
A fact-sheet issued by the union noted that the school day was extended 15 minutes following contract talks in 2004. The 4 percent pay raises go back seven years, not nine [as Emanuel repeatedly claims].
And while Emanuel said Chicago students get far less instruction than those in Houston, Los Angeles or Boston, Brown said Houston is an “outlier” requiring far more hours of instruction — 1,304 a year — than any major city. Chicago, which requires 946 instructional hours a year, is between Los Angeles, which requires 954 hours, and New York City, which requires 930, Brown said.
* The Sun-Times was concerned enough about the discrepancies to publish an editorial…
The battle to lengthen Chicago’s shamefully short public school day has begun.
In this fight, we stand firmly behind Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel. He said Friday he wants schools to be open each day another hour or an hour and a half.
But if Emanuel hopes to persuade teachers to go along, he would be wise to get his facts exactly right.
* Emanuel repeated some of those apparently erroneous statements on Fox Chicago Sunday. Watch…
Rahm Emanuel raised $14.5 million in his successful bid to become Chicago’s next mayor, spending roughly $800,000 to fight an attempt to knock him off the ballot by challenging his residency.
Emanuel raised $2.58 million during the first three months of the year, spent $9 million and had $1.86 million on hand to start April, according to a report his campaign filed Friday with the Illinois State Board of Elections. Emanuel raised nearly $11.8 million in campaign donations during the last six months of 2010. […]
Emanuel, who flooded the airwaves for much of the campaign, spent more than $5.5 million on television advertisements. He spent another $473,000 online and $300,000 on radio advertisements.
All told, the mayor-elect spent more than $12.5 million on the campaign to get 326,331 votes. That comes out to about $38.33 spent per vote.
Gery Chico spent $3.7 million between January 1 and election day. Carol Moseley Braun has still not filed her report as of this writing, and her campaign treasurer announced her resignation on Friday. Miguel del Valle reported spending just $138K between January 1 and election day. Sheesh.
* Related…
* Warren: In Springfield, a Week of Change in Education
* Emanuel and Daley oppose CPS tax hike: As Chicago Public Schools officials continue to refine a budget proposal expected this month, Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel and outgoing Mayor Richard Daley said they don’t support raising property taxes to reduce an estimated $720 million budget gap for next school year.
* Old allies Rahm Emanuel and Rod Blagojevich in spotlight again - Blagojevich retrial gets under way as Emanuel prepares to be Chicago’s next mayor
* For decades, reformers have been calling for the abolishment of secret, end-of-session budget negotiations between the legislative leaders and the governor. But now, when a process is finally in place to perhaps accomplish that long-sought goal, the Senate Republicans are balking…
Rather than negotiate a budget behind closed doors, Cullerton said the entire Senate will spend the first week of May hammering out a way to distribute the funds to various agencies and programs.
“We’re going to handle things a little differently than we have in the past,” Cullerton said. “We’re going to have a much more open, transparent process.”
Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, balked at the new budgeting process, saying it could result in a piecemeal spending plan.
“We need to have a sit-down. And it would be very nice if the governor sat down in the process,” Radogno said.
* Backroom deals mean we don’t know where the caucus leaders truly stand. They can say one thing behind closed doors and another in public. It’s much easier to play games when the talks are secret.
But I do understand why the Republicans would be pushing for bipartisan negotiations. They may have a better shot at getting some of their proposals put into the final budget if they can hold up a backroom deal on something else which requires a three-fifths vote, like some borrowing, for instance.
And I can also understand why they don’t want up or down votes on their cuts and on Democratic cuts. If they vote for their much larger cuts (like a proposed $750 million cut to education or a big cut to local governments) they’ll be hammered in campaign mailers. The same basic principle applies if they vote against the Democratic cuts…
Republican lawmakers have often accused Democrats of spending too freely. They have called for deep cuts to education, health care and more.
Cullerton challenged GOP senators to put those proposals into legislative form so they can be debated, implying Republicans may be afraid to go on the record voting for some of their ideas.
“It would be amazing for them not to actually introduce their proposals,” Cullerton said, while disclosing nothing about where he thinks spending should be cut.
Radogno accused Democrats of wanting to arrange “a series of partisan roll calls and then turn around and use them in campaign brochures.”
While I can see where the Republicans are coming from, I’m not sure that the general public would agree with continuing these secret budget deals. The SGOPs are lucky that their stance has been mostly overlooked by the media or buried way down in the stories.
* Meanwhile, for whatever reason, the Tribune decided to focus its story on the RTA’s opposition to a tax bill, but didn’t mention that Cook County, Chicago and lots of others are also opposed…
The Regional Transportation Authority will kick off a campaign this week aimed at defeating legislation in the General Assembly that opponents say could potentially cost Chicago-area transit agencies hundreds of millions of dollars in sales tax revenue.
The measure would allow companies to get around paying some sales taxes in Chicago and the six-county region by effectively migrating the tax to counties where the sales tax rate is lower or no local sales tax is imposed. A Chicago-based company could do this by setting up an office elsewhere and designating it as the point of sale, for example.
The proposed change would not affect direct consumer “cash-to-hand'’ sales, such as buying gasoline at a local station, officials said. But it could apply to a furniture showroom or a catering service where an order is placed.
If the bill passes, the RTA system, which includes the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace, could lose up to $605 million in sales tax revenue annually, a study commissioned by the RTA estimated. Sales tax collections on behalf of the RTA totaled $1.2 billion last year.
Here’s how this works: A large, Chicago-area gasoline retailer contracts for its weekly gas/diesel purchase. It faxes the contract to a one-person “sales office” located in a Downstate county with no local sales taxes. The contract is stamped as “received” and then faxed back up to the Chicago-area office. All local sales taxes - gasoline, transit, retail sales - are then completely avoided. The little Downstate county/town gets a cut of the action. Proponents are hoping to codify a recent Downstate judge’s ruling in favor of that practice. Opponents are not pleased.
* House votes to limit late-career pension boosts - Bill aims to stop salary spikes from pushing up pensions
* Some suburban Republicans vote against state budget plan
* Illinois senators: Cuts are a must to balance budget
* Still no agreement on how to pay off state’s back debts
* As higher tax revenues roll in, backlog still unresolved
* Troubled College Illinois program prompts legislative investigation
* CS-T Editorial: Don’t send university tuition money to Springfield
* Senate gives SW suburbs OK to take over water company: Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont) — who represents parts of Lemont, Homer Glen and Woodridge — acknowledged that her stance against the bill could constitute “political suicide” but described Wilhelmi’s bill as an overreach. “I’m not at all sure this will bring water costs down at the end of the day,” Radogno said. “The cost of water is an easily politicized issue, and we don’t do anyone any favors by jumping on that bandwagon and making it any more political.” “This is not the place to try to resolve something like this, and the precedent it sets up — the casual use of eminent domain because we want to use it as a hammer — is just wrong,” she said.
* Local online retailers say ‘Amazon tax’ shouldn’t have much impact
* City refills parking meter reserve fund: Thanks to more money coming in than anticipated, the city will put $50 million back into an account created when Mayor Richard Daley leased Chicago’s parking meters. Even with that bit of good financial news, the city expects to have only about $125 million left in that reserve fund at the end of this year, less than three years after it signed the 75-year lease that came with a one-time payment of $1.15 billion.
* Preckwinkle talks tough on Oak Forest Hospital proposal
