ComEd trumps guns at town hall meeting
Monday, Jul 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Last week, the Illinois State Rifle Association urged its members to attend a town hall meeting sponsored by “Anti-gun state Represenative” Karen May. A couple of days later, ISRA sent out another message to its membership headlined: “REP. MAY SEEKS TO SILENCE YOUR VOICE ON THE ISSUE OF CONCEALED CARRY”…
In our earlier alert, we urged supporters of concealed carry to attend Rep. May’s town hall meeting and challenge her on her position against self defense. In response to our alert, Rep. May issued a statement saying that her staff would be checking IDs at the door to the meeting and would deny entry to anyone who did not live in Rep. May’s House District.
Recall that the meeting is being held in the Highland Park Public Safety building – a building most certainly built using state and federal tax dollars – your tax dollars. Therefore, we believe it improper - and possibly illegal - for May to deny any well-behaved person from entering a public meeting in a public building.
Do not let May’s threats deter you! It is now especially important for you to attend Saturday’s public meeting.
* Outsiders were apparently allowed into the meeting, according to a LakeForester reporter who covered the event…
Nearly a dozen attendees, most from outside May’s North Shore district, wore yellow shirts or hats that displayed IGOLD (Illinois Gun Owner Lobby Day) decals and messages. Several more gun-rights activists joined members of the Illinois State Rifle Association to help create the standing-room crowd. […]
Evanston resident Blair Garber and Oak Brook’s Jim Nazarowski changed the subject, asking the first two questions about the state’s conceal-carry policy.
Nazarowski told May her opposition is hypocritical based on her thoughtful positions on the other public safety laws she supported. […]
Garber asked May why Illinois wouldn’t be able to manage effectively a conceal-carry law if 49 other states currently have the regulatory framework on the books. The Evanston resident said May’s opposition is actually an extreme position given the national support of conceal and carry. […]
“We are a very different state,” May responded, prompting one of two crowd uproars.
* Another reporter had a different angle…
Public anger at Commonwealth Edison arising from the severe storms on June 21 and 30 thwarted efforts by backers of conceal-carry gun legislation to dominate state Rep. Karen May’s (D-Highland Park) town hall meeting Saturday. […]
Though the gun legislation dominated the early part of the question-and-answer period, as soon as Jane Mordini of Highland Park told the group about her longstanding issues with electric service, interest in a firearms debate subsided.
“I’ve lived in this home in Highland Park for 14 years and it’s an ongoing problem,” Mordini said. “This year I’ve been without power on 17 different occasions. It’s the whole block; it goes out all the time.”
* And it wasn’t just pro-gunners in the audience…
May then talked about the day in 1988 when Laurie Dann walked into schools in Highland Park, Glencoe and Winnetka murdering a fifth grader before taking her own life.
“I believe in gun safety. It goes back to when Laurie Dann, who was a mentally ill young woman, took a gun and went on a shooting spree in park districts, camps and local schools,” May said.
Mazerowski interrupted May to opine if one of the teacher’s at Hubbard Woods Elementary School had a gun on May 20, 1988, Nicholas Corwin would be alive today.
Phyllis McMillan of Northbrook responded before May had a chance: “I was there when Laurie Dann came in to that school and a teacher in that building having a gun could have done nothing.”
* ComEd outages are a serious issue in the Chicago area. Check out these numbers from today…
Severe thunderstorms swept through the Chicago area Monday morning, pelting commuters rushing to get to work and leaving more than 576,000 Commonwealth Edison without power.
The heavy rain, hail and winds have downed wires throughout the city and sent trees into streets.
As of 11 a.m., more than 576,000 ComEd customers were without power after the storms, a spokesman said. The hardest hit region was in the northern suburbs where 253,000 are without power.
At its height, more than 660,000 customers were affected by the outage.
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* The Tribune ran a story today about a consequence of the state’s new civil unions law…
The state of Illinois has declined to renew its foster care and adoption contracts with Catholic Charities across Illinois, threatening to end a historic public and private partnership initiated by the Roman Catholic Church a half century ago and displace about 2,500 foster children.
Lawyers for three of the agencies will seek an injunction from a Sangamon County judge on Tuesday.
In a letter sent last week to Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Peoria, Joliet, Springfield and Belleville, the Department of Children and Family Services told all four agencies that the state could not accept its signed contracts for the 2012 fiscal year because “your agency has made it clear that it does not intend to comply with the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act.” […]
During a meeting last month, lawyers for the attorney general’s office and DCFS reportedly told Catholic Charities that couples in civil unions must be treated the same as married couples when it comes to providing foster care services, said Peter Breen, an attorney with the Thomas More Society representing Catholic Charities. Spokespeople for the attorney general and DCFS could not comment immediately on Monday.
* The governor was asked about the development at a press conference this morning.
“They made a choice,” Quinn said, about the decision by the various Catholic archdiocese leaders to refuse to place foster children in the homes of couples joined by civil unions. “We’re not going back.”
“If an organization… decides they don’t want to voluntarily participate with the state,” Quinn said, “they have that choice and we honor that choice.”
* Listen to the governor’s full press conference…
* Quinn also claimed that the problem would be solved soon.
“We have other entities that are involved in foster care that are willing to assume that duty,” the governor said, without identifying any particular group. However, one group has already stepped up…
David McClure, executive director of Youth Service Bureau of Illinois Valley, believes Catholic Charities left his agency no choice but to take care of the 330 children affected by Doran’s decision.[…]
Because agencies in the area were already approaching capacity, none could add Catholic Charities’ more than 300 families to its caseload all at once. While distributing the workload among different agencies was a possibility, families would be assigned new caseworkers and staff at Catholic Charities would simply lose their jobs. […]
McClure said he believed it could be done as long as all the resources accompanied the operation. DCFS assured him that would be the case.
“I just couldn’t find a good reason not to do it,” McClure said. “If we have the money to do it and they need it to be done, why would we not?”
* More on the dispute…
Peter Breen, executive director of the Thomas More Society, represents Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Joliet, Peoria and Springfield. “The idea that a religious entity needs to check its religion at the door when it takes state money is a false idea,” Breen says.
For decades, he says, Catholic Charities has referred unmarried couples — regardless of their sexual orientation — to other agencies or back to DCFS, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
“If the theory behind civil unions is live and let live, then those folks who are for civil unions can also be for Catholic Charities, and other religiously based adoption agencies, to provide services to the state which are valuable. And [the agencies] can continue to do it without shutting down — without compromising their deeply held religious beliefs,” says Breen.
Kendall Marlowe, a spokesman for DCFS, says separate but equal just isn’t good enough and the state’s anti-discrimination position is clear.
* Jeff Ward at the Elgin Courier-News also tossed in his two cents…
Since we last talked, the Joliet, Peoria and Springfield dioceses sued the state to force the issue as to whether they’re exempt from placing children with same-sex civil union partners. Those Catholics want to continue referring “unmarried” folks to other agencies, as they’ve done all along.
As much seeing my tax dollars go to a group that unfairly singles out gays makes me cringe, I hope they win their lawsuit. You see, these church adoption services are so superior to any state-run (and most private) programs that by applying their own greater good principle, I can accept something somewhat distasteful in consideration of the more pressing need for these children to find stable homes.
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Question of the day
Monday, Jul 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* It’s summertime, and since the GA isn’t coming back to town to deal with the capital bill, we can all relax. So, in keeping with our more laid back mode, let’s lighten it up a bit today.
* A very good friend of mine recently pleaded with me to give some props to his favorite restaurant, Popeye’s Bar-B-Que. Tedd eats there four days a week and he wants to help them spread the word about an important milestone. The restaurant sent this over…
Clay’s Popeye’s Bar-B-Que is celebrating 50 years in business and has made a major decision to raise the bar higher and higher! Clay’s Popeye’s Bar-B-Que Sauce is going on sale in house this week, now that you’ve tried all the rest, welcome home to the best.
We welcome you to stop in and try the sauce with a recipe that’s over a 100 years old. Try the tantalizing pork and beef and the lip smacking ribs - it will leave you wanting more! While you’re here, don’t forget to ask for a shot of Dee Blazin’ Heifer Sauce.
Clay’s Popeye’s Bar-B-Que is located at 11th and South Grand Ave. East, Springfield, IL. Hours of operation are Tuesday thru Saturday 11:00 a.m. 6:00 p.m. Don’t forget to visit our website www.popeyesbbq.com.
* The Question: What’s your favorite lunchtime eatery? Explain.
And, just as an FYI, I’m not getting anything (other than getting Tedd off my back) out of that little plug for Popeye’s.
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*** UPDATED x2 - Capital bill UPHELD ***
Monday, Jul 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* As you already know, the Illinois Supreme Court will issue a ruling today at 9 o’clock about the constitutionality of the capital construction bill. The Tribune has a good primer you can read while you wait…
The Illinois Supreme Court is expected to decide today the constitutionality of Gov. Pat Quinn’s showcase $31 billion public works program, with an adverse ruling likely to throw a state in financial turmoil into even deeper disarray.
Sinking in billions of dollars in red ink despite adopting a massive income-tax increase, Illinois government could face a tumultuous time resurrecting a funding scheme to pay for the “Illinois Jobs Now” program, begun in 2009 to help build the state out of the recession. […]
The state has borrowed roughly $4 billion to get the construction projects started, said Kelly Kraft, a spokeswoman for Quinn’s budget office. Kraft said $1.3 billion of that is left to spend.
Since the construction program began, the state has raked in more than $640 million from the increases in driver fees and additional taxes, according to documents on the state treasurer’s website.
Check the Supreme Court’s website both here and here. Their Twitter feed is here.
This post will be updated with the ruling.
*** UPDATE 1 *** The decision is here. They reversed the appellate court and upheld the law.
From the opinion…
The appellate court held that the single subject of Public Act 96–34 was revenue, based on its official title, “An Act concerning revenue.” However, defendants assert before this court that the single subject of Public Act 96–34 is capital projects. Defendants are not limited solely to the contents of the title of an act in offering a single subject rationale. Boclair, 202 Ill. 2d at 109-10; see also Olender, 222 Ill. 2d at 140. Moreover, capital projects is a legitimate single subject, one which is not “so broad that the rule is evaded as ‘a meaningful constitutional check on the legislature’s actions.’ ”
Having determined that the subject of capital projects is legitimate, we must examine the provisions in Public Act 96–34 to discern whether they have a “natural and logical connection” to that subject. Sypien, 198 Ill. 2d at 338-39. In doing so, we find that the substantive provisions in Public Act 96–34 clearly are connected to capital projects in that they establish increased revenue sources to be deposited into the Capital Projects Fund. The few provisions that do not directly raise revenue are still related to the overall subject of the Act in that they help to implement the other provisions.
More…
According to plaintiffs, even assuming that the single subject of Public Act 96–34 is capital projects, several provisions in the Act bear no relation to that subject because they have the effect of allocating money to the General Revenue Fund rather than to the Capital Projects Fund. We do not find plaintiffs’ argument persuasive.
* The Court gave some examples of “real” violations of the Single Subject clause, including…
Finally, in Johnson v. Edgar, 176 Ill. 2d 499, 517 (1997), the enactment was held to be an “egregious example of the legislature
ignoring the single subject rule.” What started as an 8-page bill became a 200-page bill, encompassing such diverse topics as child sex offenders, employer eavesdropping, and environmental impact fees imposed on the sale of fuel. Rejecting the State’s suggestion that the subject of the bill was “public safety,” we held, “[w]ere we to conclude that the many obviously discordant provisions *** are nonetheless related because of a tortured connection to a vague notion of public safety, we would be essentially eliminating the single subject rule as a meaningful constitutional check on the legislature’s actions.”
And then concluded…
In contrast to the cases described above, there are no “smoking gun” provisions in Public Act 96–34 which clearly violate the intent and purpose of the single subject rule. On the Act’s face, all of the provisions have a natural and logical connection to the single subject
of capital projects.
Furthermore, a review of the extensive legislative debate preceding the enactment of Public Act 96–34 supports our conclusion that the Act does not violate the single subject clause. […]
In the debate on Public Act 96–34, although a few legislators remarked that they disliked some of the revenue sources, particularly video gaming, they also commented that the bill was reached through compromise and with the goals of putting people back to work and improving the state’s infrastructure. We interpret these remarks as legitimate compromise on a bill which comprised a single subject. Indeed, there is a difference between impermissible logrolling and the normal compromise which is inherent in the legislative process.
* The opponents also contended that the capital budget implementation bill was unconstitutional. Not so, say the Supremes…
Plaintiffs contend that Public Act 96–37 “creates entirely new acts, launches wholly new programs, and initiates laws that have nothing to do with implementation of the State budget.” However, there is no authority to support the proposition that a budget implementation bill may only makes changes to existing programs and may not create new programs. After much consideration, we find that all of the provisions in Public Act 96–37 bear a natural and logical connection to the single subject of implementation of the state’s capital budget.
* From Senate President John Cullerton’s office…
“The Supreme Court’s endorsement of the construction program affirms the bipartisan work done by the General Assembly. This ruling serves as a reminder of just how important the 2009 jobs program was and what the General Assembly can accomplish when politics is set aside and people participate.”
* The opinion knocked down every single objection brought by the plaintiffs, including this one…
In addition to previously existing taxes, the provision adds a new tax of 4.6 cents per gallon on distributors of beer, 66 cents per gallon on distributors of wine, and $4.05 per gallon on distributors of spirits. In count III of their complaint, plaintiffs contend that there is “no expressed or sustainable rationale whatsoever for the huge difference in the gallonage taxes as between the categories of beer, wine and spirits” and, therefore, the tax increases in article 900, section 945, violate the uniformity clause. We disagree.
Plaintiffs acknowledge that the percentage of alcohol is higher by volume in wine than in beer, and higher in spirits than in both beer and wine. It is well established that higher taxes may be constitutionally imposed on alcoholic beverages that have a higher alcohol content, based on the rationale that beverages with a higher alcohol content contribute to various societal ills and higher taxes on those beverages promotes temperance.
So much for Rocky Wirtz’s real reason for challenging the capital bill.
* News coverage so far…
* Sun-Times: Supreme Court upholds state construction bill funded by video poker
* Daily Herald: Illinois Supreme Court upholds video gaming
* Tribune: Illinois Supreme Court upholds construction plan, video poker law
*** UPDATE 2 *** The governor’s press conference this morning will be broadcast live on the Internet. It was supposed to start at 10, but it’s been delayed. Click here to watch or listen.
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“New Rahm” and old style politics
Monday, Jul 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has won deserved praise for shaking things up in Chicago. His latest move is sure to be popular…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is cutting from 500 to just 30 the number of credit cards used by local government agencies — and banning the use of petty cash altogether —after alleged abuses that ousted the chiefs of the CHA and Chicago Park District.
Government employees will also be expressly forbidden from spending taxpayers’ money on everything from alcohol, flowers, office decor and restaurant meals within a 50-mile radius of Chicago to sponsorships, charitable donations and parties celebrating holidays, birthdays and employee appreciation.
To guard against future abuses, only five credit cards will be issued to each of six agencies: the CTA, CHA, Park District, Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges and Public Building Commission. Their use will be confined to top executives, whose expenditures will be posted monthly to shine the light on credit-card spending.
* And so will this…
Security details for several city public officials will be reduced or eliminated, the Chicago Police Department said tonight.
The Police Department offered few details on the moves, but said they will put more cops on the street and save taxpayers more than $650,000.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s security detail already has been reduced and the number of sworn officers guarding Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy will decrease.
The security details for Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, chairman of the Chicago City Council’s finance committee, and City Treasurer Stephanie Neely will be reduced. Burke has had city-paid bodyguards since the “Council Wars” era of the 1980s, and questions have arisen about his continuing need for security at taxpayer expense.
* But, make no mistake, Emanuel’s not completely into “new politics.” There’s a bit of the hack left in the guy…
Dr. Anita Blanchard is widely known as the obstetrician who delivered Barack and Michelle Obama’s two daughters, Malia and Sasha. Her husband, Chicago businessman Martin Nesbitt, is a basketball-playing buddy of the president and has been described as one of his closest friends. […]
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has nominated Blanchard to serve on the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, the panel entrusted with safeguarding the city’s architectural treasures. Could the fact that Nesbitt donated $5,000 to Emanuel’s mayoral campaign have anything to do with the nomination? This is Chicago, after all.
Blanchard, it turns out, is not the only bewildering nominee put up by Emanuel.
At Thursday’s commission meeting, it became clear that the mayor is not going to reappoint four highly respected members of the panel, including two architects (Ben Weese and Edward Torrez), a National Park Service official with a master’s in historic preservation (Phyllis Ellin) and a preservation-minded financial services consultant (Yvette Le Grand).
Instead, he’s backing Blanchard and a well-known local chef, Chinatown’s Tony Hu, along with two career politicians, former Ald. Mary Ann Smith and former Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan, who bring at least a modicum of experience to the table.
Sheesh.
* Less harmful, but even more political, is this recent move…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel… named an attorney who kept him on the Election Day ballot to a board overseeing port authority issues, one of more than two dozen appointments made ahead of the holiday weekend.
Michael K. Forde, a partner at Mayer Brown, will serve on the Illinois International Port District Board, along with four others. Board members are paid $20,000 a year and the chairman gets $25,000.
Forde served as one of Emanuel’s top attorneys after more than 20 legal challenges were filed claiming Emanuel wasn’t eligible to run for mayor because he abandoned his Chicago residency when he went to work for President Barack Obama. The Illinois Supreme Court eventually sided with Emanuel, who went on to win overwhelmingly.
“His private sector experience navigating complex multi-billion dollar transactions will be greatly needed on the Port Authority Board as it moves forward,” said Chris Mather, an Emanuel spokeswoman.
* Related…
* Nonprofit at the head of the class with ‘political establishment’ - Group touted by Emanuel trains teachers for the toughest turnaround schools, but critics ask, ‘What about the rest?’
* Emanuel, Unions Square Off Over Work Rules
* Phil Rosenthal: The mission is the message: “I don’t buy into this ‘government as a job-engine creator’ and I also don’t buy the ‘government is a problem,’” Emanuel said. “I think both of those are wrong. Anybody who’s looked at either economic history or you talk to business leaders, government has a role to play, and what I’m trying to do is focus on that role.”
* Rahm Emanuel, Garry McCarthy support earlier curfew for kids
* At least 11 wounded across city on steamy night
* Police: Chicago crime down for 30th straight month
* Steinberg: City doesn’t need a genius to fix Taste
* Outside experts put Chicago schools under microscope - Team looks for ways to improve teaching and learning
* Walking out on the job - Bitterness smoldered for years afterward
* Chicago parking rates among highest in nation: Chicago drivers pay the fourth-highest daily parking rate, and seventh highest monthly parking rate in the United States, according to a new survey.
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Not enough?
Monday, Jul 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Last week, Attorney General Lisa Madigan trumpeted a national settlement with JP Morgan Chase and 23 other states over bid-rigging. The national settlement totaled $92 million. Illinois received $2.2 million. Bank of America and UBS previously settled with the states for $67 million and $90.8 million, respectively, so this was obviously a very widespread practice. From Madigan’s press release…
[The] agreement centered on allegations that from 2001 to 2005, JPMC conspired with financial institutions and brokers to rig bid prices for municipal derivatives, circumventing the competitive bidding process. In some instances, JPMC and other financial institutions communicated directly with each other, and not through brokers, to fix prices or to fix rates or key terms of these transactions. Brokers also frequently offered JPMC and other financial entities the unfair advantage of reviewing other bids, thus rigging who would win the deal.
Municipalities, schools and other organizations typically issue municipal bonds to fund capital projects. Once bonds are issued, the money is typically placed into accounts to spend as the local entity incurs expenses for the project. Because the money from the bonds does not need to be spent immediately, the entity that issued the bonds typically seeks to invest the money and may also use strategies to manage or transfer the bond’s interest rate risk. These investment accounts and risk management products – which are collectively called “municipal bond derivatives” – are offered by large financial institutions.
* Some are unimpressed, to say the least. The attorneys general settled with JP Morgan Chase at about the same time as the Securities and Exchange Commission hit the company with a $228 million fine. That fine was passed off as a mere slap on the wrist by Matt Taibbi, a vicious critic of the financial services industry…
This is one of the best examples we’ve had yet of the profound difference in the style of criminal justice enforcement for the very rich and connected, versus the style of justice for everyone else. This scam that Chase, Bank of America and UBS were involved with was no different in any way, really, from old-school mafia-style bid-rigging scams.
What these banks did is they got together and carved up territory between them, arranging things so that they wouldn’t be bidding against each other in municipal debt auctions. That means the 18 different states involved in these 93-odd deals all got screwed out of the best prices, leaving the taxpayers in those places severely overcharged for their public borrowing.
This is absolutely no different from what mafia groups in New York used to (and probably still do) do for public contracts – the proverbial five families would get together, divide up the boroughs and neighborhoods between them, and each family would individually buy or intimidate their way into the bidding process, corrupting the game so that the public had to overpay for their garbage collection or their construction labor or whatever. The only difference here is that we’re talking about debt, not garbage. But the concept is exactly the same; it’s the same crime.
If Khuzami’s defendants had been a bunch of Italians from Howard Beach, they would be facing RICO charges and would be looking at years in prison, plus seizure of all their ill-gotten gains, in addition to civil suits and penalties.
As it is, as my friend Eric points out, the endgame for banks like Chase is, “Admit nothing, pay two hours of revenue and all good!”
* And Bill Singer at Forbes wants to see far more serious penalties against these corporations, instead of relatively minor fines…
[The] DOJ and SEC continue to slam the individual employees, frequently with industry bars, but the member firms/banks always seem to be able to obtain an exemption from the Bad Boy provisions. The UBS and BOA cases are perfect examples. At what point does the gestalt result in the simple syllogism that if an organization’s employees are being indicted and administratively pursued, that it’s no longer solely an issue about “our former employees” and becomes an issue about the company itself? If the SEC won’t shut down a UBS or BOA for, say five days, after hundreds of millions in muni fraud, then how about refusing to give the No-Action Letter relief for 3 months, or 6 months, or even a year?
* In other news…
Andrew Davis, executive director of the state agency running the beleaguered College Illinois prepaid tuition program, is out.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s newly installed Illinois Student Assistance Commission on Friday removed him from day-to-day responsibilities and put him on paid administrative leave.
Appointed in his place is an interim executive director, John Sinsheimer, chief financial officer of ISAC from 2007 to 2009. More recently, Mr. Sinsheimer has been director of capital markets for the state of Illinois, responsible for managing state debt issuance.
Mr. Davis will continue collecting his $198,000 annual salary for an indeterminate period. The previous commission gave Mr. Davis a 10% raise in February and extended his employment contract until the end of 2012. He’s due a significant severance if he’s let go unless he’s fired for cause. The exact amount couldn’t be learned immediately.
* Semi-related…
* As unemployment rises, Chicagoans protest
* Illinoisans Fed Up As Job Creation Stalls, Unemployment Rises
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* Overtime, scheduled pay raises and less use of part-time employees all contributed to this phenomenon…
The state of Illinois paid fewer employees more money in 2010 than in 2009, a Dispatch/Rock Island Argus analysis of state payroll reports indicates. It was the second consecutive year that more money was paid to fewer workers. […]
– During calendar year 2010, 78,567 people got paychecks from the state, a decrease of 369 from the 78,936 paid in 2009. In 2008, the state employed 82,681 people at some point in the year.
– Even as the number of people paid dropped in 2010, the payroll went up by $94.8 million, from $4.35 billion in 2009 to $4.45 billion in 2010. In 2008, the state paid $4.30 billion in payroll
And then there was this…
The analysis of the year-end reports also shows that in 2010, as in 2009, the number of people receiving less than $50,000 dropped, while the number making more than $50,000 grew, most dramatically in the $100,000-$150,000 range. The number of people in that range increased by 613, to 3,147 in 2010, after having increased by 314 from 2008 to 2009.
* Meanwhile, my weekly syndicated newspaper column is about the AFSCME pay raise controversy…
There are lots of different angles to Gov. Pat Quinn’s highly controversial decision to unilaterally refuse to pay scheduled, contractual pay raises to unionized state employees, so let’s take them one at a time.
This is not “new” news:
Chicago reporters are the only ones with access to the governor these days (Quinn has held just one Springfield press conference in months). The city’s reporters probably don’t know that the House Republicans — and even some House Democrats — have been agitating since at least April to somehow stop AFSCME’s scheduled pay raises.
The issue burst into the open during a late April hearing of the House Human Services Appropriations Committee when the state’s director of Rehabilitation Services threatened to shut down the Illinois School for the Deaf and the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired if the committee followed through on its proposed overall spending limits. Republicans thundered that AFSCME’s pay raises should be cut before the administration even considered such a drastic closure ideas. Even Democrats got into the act during the hearing, saying the union should, at the very least, be brought to the table to talk about the upcoming raises.
House members openly admitted that they’d eliminated AFSCME’s pay raises from the budget when they overwhelmingly passed an appropriations bill on May 12th. That approp bill shorted numerous agency personnel lines by millions of dollars. Rep. Bill Mitchell (R-Forsyth) even cited the elimination of the pay raises as a reason he voted against the bill.
So, the governor is absolutely right that this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
Both sides have good points
The governor rightly says that the Illinois Constitution gives the General Assembly sole power to make appropriations, then correctly quotes the state’s Labor Relations Act: “Subject to the appropriations power of the employer, employers and [public employee unions] may negotiate multi year collective bargaining agreements pursuant to the provisions of this Act.”
So, Quinn says, the lack of legislative appropriations for raises means there is no legal authority for the raises. And considering that the issue of union pay raises is part of the legislative record on that appropriations bill, it certainly sounds like a valid argument.
Then again, the General Assembly went farther than just cutting pay raises out of the budget. In some agencies, personnel costs were slashed well beyond the price of the scheduled raises. So, it may not be as cut and dried as Quinn says.
Plus, AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer claimed last week that the statute Quinn is using as vindication was actually pushed by AFSCME back in the day. Bayer explained that the law was drafted to allow local governments to negotiate multi-year union contracts.
Union officials also point to a provision in their state contract which mandates that the administration “shall not unilaterally change any bona fide past practices and policies with respect to salaries, hours, conditions of employment, and fringe benefits enjoyed by members of the bargaining units without prior consultation and negotiations with the Union.” That sure looks like Quinn can’t do anything without first negotiating a change.
The union has taken its case to an arbitrator, which could force the administration back to the bargaining table, where the union is under no real obligation to concede anything. They’ve also filed a federal lawsuit.
Hollow blame game
The governor blamed the General Assembly and Rod Blagojevich for his predicament last. The Legislature got the blame for failing to appropriate enough money to fund the pay raises, and Blagojevich was hit for negotiating the contract’s pay raises to begin with. Fair enough.
But Quinn is the one who really hemmed himself in by negotiating an election-year agreement with AFSCME to not lay off workers or close state facilities until next June. Without that agreement, Quinn wouldn’t be in such a bind today. Then again, without that agreement, Quinn might’ve lost the election.
Contradictory explanations
The order to rescind the raises was issued by the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, which oversees the AFSCME contract. The original explanation I got from CMS was that they believed alternate strategies, like eliminating empty job positions, would invite an AFSCME lawsuit. However, eliminating positions has always been held forth as a way to manage the appropriations shortage, and it is clearly within the administration’s right. The governor then said that he wanted to keep the government functioning properly, so he decided to avoid eliminating positions. Quinn also said he’d be “happy” to meet the union in court when it files a lawsuit over the pay raise issue.
The whiplash is palpable.
* Related…
* Finke: : Credibility not a Quinn strength
* Editorial: Salary cuts aren’t optional
* Illinois public workers file lawsuit to stop salary freeze
* Quinn, union members react to AFSCME suit
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