Jim Oberweis said he would not seek the Republican nomination for Kane County Board chairman in 2012, but he is eyeing a run for the 25th State Senatorial District. […]
“I have a number of people encouraging me for the senate in the 25th District,” Oberweis said, referring to the seat currently held by State Sen. Chris Lauzen R-Aurora since 1992. “I am taking that very seriously. I suspect he [Lauzen] is not going to run for re-election.”
Oberweis said he would decide in a couple of weeks.
Lauzen himself is pondering whether to run for re-election, county board chairman or congress against former Congressman Bill Foster in the newly drawn 11th Congressional District.
Think of the nose-diving career expectations here. He ran for US Senate in 2002 and 2004 and lost the primary both times. He lost the GOP primary for governor in 2006. Then he lost two congressional bids in 2008 (a special and a general). Now he’s thinking about state Senate?
Man, that would be weird having him down here. Interesting, for sure, but weird.
“After I won last year, my ex-wife filed a lawsuit against me,” he said. “For the past eight months I have been trying to work it out privately and legally and haven’t been able to. Let me say this – virtually everything in that [Chicago] Sun-Times piece was wildly and off-the-charts inaccurate. When I go to my grave a year or 10 or 100 from now, there’s only one thing I want on my tombstone, ‘He tried to be a hell of a dad.’ My kids have been my life. … This is different because this is personal.” [Emphasis added.]
You’ll recall that the Sun-Times recently reported that Walsh’s wife has sued him for allegedly owing over $100,000 in back child support. His lawyer appeared to admit in the piece that Walsh does owe something…
“Joe Walsh hasn’t been a big-time wage-earner politician until recently — he’s had no more problems with child support than any other average guy.”
Yet, he somehow had enough cash to loan his campaign $35,000 last year. People who are not “big-time wage-earners” don’t usually have that much mad money laying around. You get the feeling from reading the story that it might possibly be about a guy who’s trying to hide assets from his ex. That’s not exactly a rarity in the divorce world.
* Turning this controversy around on the media appears to be Walsh’s concept here…
“It’s an ongoing legal proceeding that involves my kids,” Walsh told the crowd. “This is something I’m going to fight, but I’m going to do it privately and legally. There is no way the media will get me to talk about my three kids. I won’t do it!” [Emphasis added.]
It seemed to work because nobody brought up the subject at the meeting.
Members of a newly formed group, the Northern Illinois chapter of Progressive Democrats of America, together with Catholics United held a protest at Congressman’s Joe Walsh’s office Saturday, July 30 in Fox Lake.
About 25 people attended the protest.
“The purpose was to express our distaste with a deadbeat dad representing the 8th Congressional district,” said group member Steve Williams of Lake Villa.
Whatever you think of Walsh, that action sorta left a bad taste in my mouth.
* How would you rate Gov. Pat Quinn’s job performance on a scale of one to ten? One being the worst, ten being the best. Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments. Thanks.
…Adding… I almost never step in on these questions, but the people who are giving the governor a “1″ really need to get a clue or stop being so knee-jerk partisan. Did you completely forget Rod Blagojevich already?
This isn’t the first time a governor envisioned the pollution board as a cushy sinecure: That’s also where Rod Blagojevich infamously tried to find a lucrative state job for his wife, Patti.
Yes, Rod Blagojevich did think about appointing his wife to the Pollution Control Board. However, he was told by his chief of staff that she wasn’t qualified…
Blagojevich proposed that he appoint his wife to the pollution control board, a post that paid $100,000 a year, but Harris said he was able to dissuade the governor after telling him that board members needed specific qualifications that Patti Blagojevich did not have.
So, that’s a truly disingenuous remark by the Trib.
* Republican Congresswoman Judy Biggert on the GOP’s federal lawsuit against the Democrats’ new redistricting map…
Biggert said there’s a legal precedent for success, that Republicans went to court in 1991 and had the Democratic maps overturned and created the first Latino district.
Um, no. The Republicans drew the maps in 1991.
…Adding… Corrected by a reader. Republicans drew the legislative map, but no congressional map passed, so the courts chose the GOP map. The Dem map, however, was not overturned, so the point is still the same.
On December 8, 2010, the City Council voted 46 to nothing to give CME—a multibillion-dollar company run by multimillionaires—$15 million in property tax dollars from the LaSalle/Central TIF district.
Curiously, almost nine months have passed and the city and CME still have not finalized the TIF deal. While CME did not respond to a request for comment, the city’s official explanation is they’re studying the fine print, making sure that all the Is are dotted and Ts crossed. “It’s not unusual for final details to be addressed as an RDA [redevelopment agreement] is completed,” says Susan Massel, a spokeswoman for the city’s department of Housing and Economic Development. “That’s what is happening.”
The scuttlebutt at City Hall is that the Merc is balking at the deal. Why? Because they’d like to get even a better deal—they’re wrangling with the state to get a tax break. The corporate income tax rate in Illinois increased this year from 7.3 percent to 9.5 percent.
If CME were to take the $15 million the city is desperately trying to give them, they’d have a harder time leveraging the state for a tax break.
Let’s take a moment to review this. In short, we, the happy idiots of Chicago, gave the CME $15 million to keep jobs in town. And now CME is threatening to move if they don’t get a better break.
* Cleaning up the mess created by Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto of funding for regional superintendent salaries is not going to be easy. The governor wants to pay them using funds from the corporate personal property replacement tax. He says that’s the way to do it because many of the tax proceeds already go to local schools. But the cash also goes to local governments, and some of them are not happy in the least about this idea…
Rock Island County chairman Jim Bohnsack said the county simply doesn’t have the funds that could be required under draft legislation to pay the salaries of the Rock Island County regional superintendent and the assistant superintendent. […]
Ms. Kraft said other locally elected officials are paid through PPRT and the governor believes regional superintendents also should be paid through these funds. She said if the draft legislation would be approved, possibly during the fall veto session, it likely would fall to Rock Island County to pay for the regional superintendent and assistant salaries.
Mr. Bohnsack said the county has “no extra money” for these costs. He said the county had a $3.2 million deficit last year and made enough cuts — including eliminating 19 positions — to balance the budget with $2,300 in reserves. He said the county received $2.25 million this year in PPRT and those funds are added to the general fund. He said the majority of PPRT goes toward the justice system, including the salaries of correctional officers.
The governor says regional superintendents are local elected officials and should be paid with local funds.
[Sangamon County Regional Superintendent Jeff Vose] said Sangamon County already provides about $230,000 for employees’ salaries and provides office space.
“The county board is already doing its share,” he said.
* Some regional superintendents are now saying that instead of trying to work out a deal with Quinn, the General Assembly ought to just override his veto this October…
[Debbie Niederhauser, regional superintendent of schools for Adams and Pike counties] said the notion of using PPRT to pay regional superintendents “is not what we’re proposing.”
She said: “He (Quinn) thinks we should be paid regionally even though we do the state’s work and we’re state employees.”
Niederhauser said she would like to see the Legislature restore the salaries by simply overriding the governor’s veto. But there is no assurance that may happen.
But state Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said he would oppose such a move [to pay the superintendents out of the personal property tax replacement fund] because some local school districts, including those in Tuscola and Mahomet, get money from the tax.
“It’s the principle that if you start moving $10 or $12 million today, next year it will be $43 million and in three years it would be $100 million,” Rose said.
Calling it “the stupidest veto ever,” Rose said he would vote to override the veto and restore state funding for the offices.
“He made a mistake; let’s put it back in,” Rose said. “To their credit,, the regional superintendents said that despite the governor’s ridiculous veto that jeopardizes kids coming back to school, they would work until the fall veto session. That’s very statesman-like. They get credit in my book.”
An override looks to be the easiest way around this craziness.
Women will have to wait at least another six months before they can possibly join the Springfield Motor Boat Club.
Gene Hayes, commodore of the private club on Lake Springfield, said late Thursday a vote that would have allowed women to become full members of the club failed because of a procedural problem.
The “no” vote did not have anything to do with the merits of the proposal, Hayes said, and another vote could be taken in six months. […]
The Springfield Motor Boat Club, 17 Club Area, has restricted membership to men since the club was formed in 1933. An effort in 2005 to allow women to be full members failed. The Motor Boat Club did not allow reporters to attend Thursday’s meeting. Hayes commented by telephone after the meeting.
Not only is it supremely offensive and truly goofy that a dinky little boat club would deny membership to females in 2011, but the City of Springfield owns the land that the club sits on. The club leases the land from the town. Yet, Springfield has no ordinances against discrimination by these lake clubs on its very own property.
I don’t belong to any lake clubs, by the way. I just don’t feel the need to shell out bucks every month for the right to buy a hamburger.
Ward 5 Ald. Sam Cahnman wants the Springfield Motor Boat Club, and any other club that leases land from the city, to be required to allow female and male members. […]
The city code already prohibits discrimination against women in employment, financial credit and public accommodations.
“Yet we lease our most treasured public land on Lake Springfield to a club which openly discriminates against women by prohibiting them from being full members,” Cahnman said. “Ninety-one years after women gained the right to vote, this is a form of discrimination we cannot and must not tolerate any longer in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown.”
