* The new owners of Boone’s Saloon appear to be looking at the long term because they’re certainly not concerned about the short term. They’ve been working on that place for weeks. Word was the former Statehouse hangout would open by May 1, but that date has long since passed. Warm session nights in that beer garden have truly been missed by many of us.
And I just received a Facebook notice that the steakhouse in Vinegar Hill is reopening - on May 20th. That’s just 11 days before the scheduled end of session.
I wish nothing but the best for the owners of both establishments. But, hurry up already, guys.
* It used to be that you could find just about every session type at just a few places in Springfield. Nowadays, though, everybody has spread out. That makes my job a bit tougher because I do a lot of, um, “work” in the evenings. Actually, there’s no “um” about it. What I do in the evenings may not look like work, and some of it ain’t, but much of it is.
Where have you been hanging this session?
…Adding… In case you haven’t yet heard, the House just canceled Sunday’s session. The Senate is still scheduled to be in Sunday, but there’s a Democratic caucus this afternoon so we may know more when it’s over.
Thursday, May 12, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
…..but a wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf.
ComEd and other Illinois utility companies have revamped their automatic rate hikes bill – House Bill 14 (Amendment #3). They claim the bill is now more “consumer friendly.” The reality: the revamped version of House Bill 14 is now a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
In spite of changes in the way in which rate cases would be brought before the Illinois Commerce Commission, the most troubling aspects of the bill are still in place: locking in rate hikes for Illinois consumers for a number of years; and bolstering utility company profit margins. The consumer is still on the losing end of House Bill 14
The simple fact that utility companies have revamped the bill shows that it was the wrong bill to begin with. The changes are no more than cosmetic, aimed at deflecting some of the public pressure brought on utility companies by a number of elected leaders, including Governor Pat Quinn and Attorney General Lisa Madigan, as well as consumer advocacy organizations.
House Bill 14 is still the wrong bill at the worst possible time. AARP urges lawmakers to oppose House Bill 14.
“I think you need to make the parents responsible. You’re looking at every other avenue. It’s the parents’ responsibility that have obese kids. I think you need to look at a bill to take the tax deduction away for their child if he’s obese. And in poorer families, they actually get money for their kids. I’d take that money away.”
Sen. Cultra later said it was a “tongue-in-cheek comment taken out of context - and should not be taken seriously.” To me, the video doesn’t appear to show any intended irony on Cultra’s part…
The tenor of the debate was that Republicans were mocking the [soda pop] tax and saying it would do nothing to solve childhood obesity. In light of this, it is easy to understand that Cultra was merely being sarcastic with his tax exemption removal proposal.
To back up the idea that Cultra was not seriously proposing this idea we can also note that he’s introduced no legislation to remove the tax exemptions nor begun any process to do so.
This misreported story is a perfect example of how bad our Old Media establishment really is. They look for sensation, not truth. Cultra’s joke was turned into “news” by reporters that didn’t bother to discover the real context of the remarks. Makes one wonder how often this happens, doesn’t it?
Drudge and Bill O’Reilly linked to it, Rush commented on it and Cultra’s been quoted all over the place. The New York Times’ Economix blog took it seriously, as did the, um, Big Fat Blog. And I can’t quite figure out what Kass’ column meant.
For true “tongue-in-cheek,” though, it was tough to beat Gawker…
* There’s been a lot of talk amongst the chattering classes about Rahm Emanuel’s future, even though he hasn’t even been sworn in yet. Some have suggested that he might even run for governor, which I find highly unlikely. A Chicago mayor running statewide? More than tough. Emanuel might possibly have tipped his hand in a recent magazine interview…
In an upcoming GQ interview, Emanuel omits Quinn’s job from his list of the top five chief exec jobs in the country.
† Rahm’s pick: “The president, the governor of California, the governor of New York, the mayor of New York and the mayor of Chicago. I hope I am not insulting anybody else, and if I am insulting a governor somewhere, I apologize.”
He’s probably right about that list.
* For months now, the chatterers have speculated about how Emanuel would deal with Ald. Ed Burke. Burke was just too powerful to roll, they mostly said. Maybe not…
In letting word out that Chicago Ald. Edward Burke (14th) gets to keep the chairmanship of a somewhat diminished Finance Committee in the new City Council, there’s a suggestion of civility in both Burke and Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel that papers over what actually happened. […]
But the pow-wow at 40th ward Ald. Patrick O’Connor’s house aside, this is a lot less about two titans choosing to put their swords down than about the aftermath of a battle that’s already been won – and lost.
And have no doubt about it, Burke lost. And it was epic. That he gets to stay on as chair of the Finance Committee is not a sign of enduring power. What Emanuel is doing is letting him keep the crown while looting his kingdom.
We already know that there will be a new committee, the Workforce Development and Audit Committee, headed by O’Connor, the new mayor’s floor leader. The new committee will take over the most important thing the Finance Committee did under Burke: It will shepherd every single piece of proposed legislation to the City Council.
So it will now be Emanuel’s man, O’Connor, not Burke, who will have the power to move or kill legislation without even taking a council vote. (Yes, it has been an awesome power.)
* Meanwhile, Emanuelchose Matt Hynes as his Intergovernmental Affairs director. Some speculated when Emanuel brought Hynes into the campaign that it was simply a political move to ingratiate himself with the Hynes family. But Hynes was far more than that. And now he’s the top city lobbyist. He also has what appears to be his first win…
In the House, a sweeping education reform package moved a step closer to the desk of Gov. Pat Quinn, who has promised to sign it. The proposal would make it easier to dump bad teachers, prevent strikes and lengthen school days — a wish of Chicago mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel. The measure, which has passed the Senate, moves to the House floor.
The House did not amend the bill to make it more hostile to the teachers unions, as Speaker Madigan has been threatening to do for weeks. Getting the governor a “clean” bill is a win for Emanuel’s team. More on that topic…
The bill makes major changes to teacher tenure and how teachers are hired, fired and reassigned.
The hang-ups involve provisions affecting Chicago Public Schools, not downstate districts. The bill makes it harder for Chicago teachers to strike by requiring 75 percent of members to agree to a strike before it can be called. The CTU wants to make sure that only members of the union count when it comes to tallying such votes, not CPS personnel who fall under the CTU collective bargaining agreement and are assessed dues by the union but are not union members.
The CTU, which is a subsidiary of the Illinois Federation of Teachers, also wants to ensure that the bill’s provisions do not interfere with a case the union has before the Educational Labor Relations Board having to do with layoffs in the district.
“Since passage (in the Senate), a few cracks have developed,” said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, one of the bill’s sponsors. “There are a couple of issues upon which now there is a dispute as to whether the language actually reflects the agreements that were made. How to make those changes is still the subject of continuing debate.”
The changes will be made in a trailer bill. Team Emanuel also managed to hold up a school closure bill until they could negotiate changes…
A bill that stalled in the House, which would force Chicago Public Schools to plan ahead for school closures and capital expenditures, remains a work in progress, according to the bill’s sponsor. […]
Soto described the bill as an accountability measure created with the cooperation of Chicago Public Schools that would simply force them to establish and then follow their own policies on school closures. With Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel being sworn in Monday, his education team wanted to take an extra look at the language, Soto said.
“Senate Bill 620 is being negotiated with (Emanuel’s) education team,” she said. “With the new administration, new education team, we’re going to be courteous and let them review the bill.”
* Yesterday’s hearing of the House Human Services Appropriations Committee was far from a pleasant event as members overwhelmingly approved several spending cuts…
A lengthy list of witnesses registered with the committee Wednesday, all of them opposed to the proposal.
“We were given the absolutely breathtaking, stunning task to reduce the budget by $1.2 billion,” committee chairman Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, said. “It was a hideous task.”
The Republican spokesperson on the committee, Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, R-Park Ridge, was the only “no” vote on the appropriations, saying that she appreciated the work of the committee in rewriting the budget but that “I don’t agree with it.”
The human service agencies took major cuts, with most travel and telecommunications line items reduced by 50 percent, and most personnel lines frozen at this year’s levels. Contractual services were for the most part cut as well. Perhaps the biggest reduction was an 18.4 percent cut in funding for state-operated developmental centers and mental health facilities. Lawmakers said they wanted to make greater use of community-based facilities. In fact, grant payments to some local programs for the developmentally disabled increase under the House budget. […]
Overall, the House committee plan — which could be voted on by the full House as soon as today or Friday — contains more than a billion dollars in cuts for the Department of Healthcare and Family Services and about $650 million for the Department of Human Services.
State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, said she heard plenty of people say they wanted more from the state. In response, she restored 27 different pieces of the human services budget that Quinn zeroed out in the final draft she helped craft.
“He chose to take pharmaceuticals away from senior citizens; we put it back. He chose to take relief away through the Circuit Breaker (program); we put it back,” Feigenholtz said. “We want services and dollars and assistance to get to the people who have earned it, paid for it and worked for it their whole lives.”
Specifically lawmakers added $1.98 million for funeral and burial services for low-income families; the governor had scratched that program from his budget. Quinn also zeroed out money for the Children’s Place, a museum, and crisis nurseries that provide emergency shelter for women with babies and young children, across the state. Lawmakers added $487,500 and 100,000 respectively.
The numbers are included in budgets from the Illinois House. State senators have their own plan, both of which have yet to be voted on.
Feigenholtz said compromise is likely, but she expects a final spending plan to be close to her numbers. She said too many people worked too hard to produce what she hopes will be a “fair” budget.
The budget would extend the payment cycle for Medicaid bills from 24 to 45 days, a $500 million saving.
* Meanwhile, over in higher education, some MAP grants were cut to preserve other funding…
This draft for next year’s budget seeks to prevent the state’s Monetary Award Program, or MAP, from awarding grants to students attending for-profit schools.
For-profit schools operate as a business and receive public funds, according to Education.com. Among the for-profit schools is The School of the Art Institute and DeVry University in Chicago. The House’s proposed higher education budget, which aims to reach its $2.1 billion spending goal, also seeks to cut 1 percent in funding to universities. State Rep. Kenneth Dunkin, D-Chicago, who heads the budget committee on higher education, has said his committee found it easier to make cuts to for-profit schools, rather than deeper cuts to nonprofit schools.
Funding for community colleges, however, will not be cut and may, in fact, receive a financial bump from this proposal.
“The state of Illinois is broke,” said State Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Charleston. “I think the taxpayers would think it’s outrageous that their taxpayer money is going … basically into the pockets of private, for-profit owners of some of these colleges.”
* And in K-12, some cuts the governor proposed were restored…
Quinn made headlines and raised eyebrows in February when he suggested that the state stop paying for regional school superintendents, which totaled $12.6 million this year. The governor zeroed out that portion of the budget for next year, but lawmakers returned $11.3 million in their draft.
State Rep. Will Davis, D-Homewood, who helped craft the education budget, said lawmakers feared that doing away with regional superintendents would cost the state more than the governor’s cut would save. […]
Lawmakers also returned millions of dollars that Quinn wanted trimmed from schools’ transportation budgets. The governor wanted to spend $175 million on school buses, but lawmakers increased that to slightly less than $295 million.
Dan Cox, superintendent of the Jasper County School District, said that with gas around $4 per gallon and a fleet of aging buses, he will need every dollar he can get.
* Budget roundup…
* ADDED: Could state’s bus funding plan hurt suburbs?
* 4-H, Extension back in budget cross hairs: One version projects a cut worth $13 million, which could force layoffs and office closings throughout the state. The latest proposal comes a year after the Cooperative Extension received $7 million less in state funding, resulting in a statewide reorganization that included combining some counties into single operating units.
* Mayors tell Illinois to keep hands off tax dollars: The mayors scheduled a news conference Thursday at the Thompson Center in Chicago to discuss what they call a “hijack” of money designated for local governments. A confidential memo from Gov. Pat Quinn’s office last month mentioned keeping about $1 billion from local governments’ portion of state income tax revenue.
* The press tables at yesterday’s Senate Executive Committee hearing were both completely full. That’s not unusual. Senate Exec is a very powerful committee and as the session grows late Rm. 212 is the place to be.
But most reporters appeared to be waiting for a bill to be called which would lift the casino smoking ban. The AP ran a huge story on the hearing yesterday morning…
An Illinois Senate committee could deliberate Wednesday on a bill to allow smoking in casinos so gamblers don’t escape to Indiana, Iowa and Missouri.
Casino owners blame the bans for the loss of millions of dollars in revenues and the subsequent fall in tax receipts. The American Gaming Association estimates that about 20 percent of casino patrons smoke.
But gambling and smoking opponents say the loss claims are exaggerated and that the loopholes are bad public health policy. The Illinois bill passed the House 62-52, but faces stiff opposition from key senators and Gov. Pat Quinn.
“It’s discrimination against the people who work in casinos,” said Kathy Drea, vice president of advocacy for the American Lung Association in Illinois. “They’re saying their health isn’t worth the same as everyone else’s.”
* I didn’t play up the story much because I looked at the bill status yesterday morning to see where it had been assigned…
Traditionally, the chamber’s leader controls Exec with an iron grip. Bills go there to pass or to die based on orders from on-high. Senate President John Cullerton hates cigarettes with every fiber of his being. He once said he’d support a tax hike on cigs even if it wouldn’t raise a dime in new revenues.
Health activists say they have the votes to snuff out legislation that would allow smoking at Illinois casinos, but they didn’t get a chance to prove it Wednesday.
Sen. Martin Sandoval did not call his bill for a committee vote. The Chicago Democrat said he’s still building support by arguing the change would help create jobs.
Kathy Drea of the American Lung Association did not declare victory, but said she assumes Sandoval knows the bill would fail in the Senate.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has said he opposes the exemption for casinos, and Senate President John Cullerton actually was the sponsor of the statewide smoking ban. Cullerton has said he is “wildly opposed” to making any exemptions in the legislation.
Sandoval said he thinks he can gin up enough support from Republicans and Democrats to clear committee next week, and then take it up in the full Senate.
“I have a significant number of supporters on lifting the smoking ban, and I just want to work over the weekend to continue to solidify those votes,” Sandoval said. “I never underestimate the power of the Senate president. This is his committee. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, we may be able to find a balance.”
Sandoval pointed out that the other chamber’s leader, Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, voted for the measure when it passed the House.
“If it’s good enough for the speaker, it’s good enough for me,” Sandoval said.
That bill will get out of Senate Exec if and only if Cullerton says so…
The sponsor of a proposal allowing smoking in Illinois casinos said the idea might be dead because of opposition in the Senate.
State Rep. Daniel Burke, D-Chicago, said Wednesday he thought Senate President John Cullerton would not allow the legislation exempting casinos from the statewide indoor smoking ban to be called for a vote in a Senate committee. The Illinois House already has approved the measure.
* 9:41 am - My fax service crashed this morning and it’s still not working yet. I just activated my backup system, so today’s edition will be going out soon. Sorry for the delay. In the meantime, you can read today’s subscriber-only report by clicking here and using the password. Share it with others. Thanks.
