Last Thursday, Walsh told constituents at a townhall that he plans to “privately and legally” fight his ex-wife’s claims that he owes more than $100,000 in child support, which he called “wildly inaccurate.” A recent Chicago Sun-Times article reported that his ex-wife is suing him for $117,000 in unpaid support.
Yet, even if Walsh owes just $10,000 in unpaid child support, he could face the added headache of House Ethics Committee scrutiny. Walsh, who was elected in 2010 in a narrow victory over former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) in the Tea Party-induced wave, does not list any child support debt on his financial disclosure form, as required for any liability worth more than $10,000.
“Rep. Walsh is required both by law and by congressional ethics rules to list debts in excess of $10,000 on his financial disclosure forms, including child support back payments,” said Public Citizen’s Craig Holman.
“Technically, he could be taken to task by the Ethics Committee or even the Justice Department for failure to file proper disclosure forms, but in all likelihood the Ethics Committee and Justice would be satisfied if Walsh were to file amended forms,” Holman explained.
But Walsh is in a bit of a bind. Filing an amended form would require him to admit to owing at least $10,000 in back child support, what would amount to an ugly political liability that could knock him out of his role as one of the top spokesmen for the Tea Party GOP freshmen class.
* The Question: Is this alleged failure to pay child support issue relevant or should the media downplay it? Explain.
For the first time, a federal judge has ruled former Mayor Richard M. Daley can be sued as a defendant for his alleged role in what plaintiffs claim is a citywide conspiracy to cover up police torture.
And Daley could be deposed by lawyers representing alleged victims, all African American, who charge their abuse came at the hands of a small band of predominantly white police officers under the command of former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge. […]
Michael Tillman spent 23 years in prison for murder. He confessed, said Taylor, because he was suffocated and beaten by Chicago Police officers. “They used a form of waterboarding, pouring 7-Up up his nose,” Taylor said. “That’s the kind of torture they used over a four-day period with Michael Tillman.”
When he was released in 2010, Cook County special prosecutors concluded there was no reliable evidence against him. Tillman received a certificate of innocence from the chief judge of the Criminal Courts of Cook County.
In his civil lawsuit, Tillman alleges the city conspired to cover up torture cases.
Burge, 63, already has been deposed by Taylor at the federal prison in North Carolina, where he is serving his sentence. During the deposition, Burge, seen for the first time wearing a khaki prison uniform, repeatedly took the Fifth Amendment.
This case just makes me sick. And Daley has never been held accountable.
Daley has been named in three other brutality lawsuits stemming from the torture and abuse that Burge is believed to have perpetrated years ago on dozens of African American men in Chicago — many of whom gave coerced confessions. But as they did in the Tillman case, the city moved to remove Daley from the lawsuits.
Fifteen incarcerated men who claim they were sent to prison by confessions that were beaten, burned and tortured out of them by convicted Chicago police Lt. Jon Burge and his officers are getting some high-profile help - including from a former Illinois governor.
In a friend-of-the-court brief to be filed Wednesday with the Illinois Supreme Court, ex-Gov. Jim Thompson and more than 60 current and former prosecutors, judges and lawmakers are asking for new evidentiary hearings for inmates who say their convictions were based on coerced confessions. […]
The brief “gives the Illinois Supreme Court the opportunity to finally and firmly repudiate the Burge era of the Chicago Police Department,” said Thompson, a former Republican Illinois governor and U.S. attorney.
Lawyers are filing the brief in the case of Stanley Wrice, an inmate who has been claiming since 1982 that he falsely confessed to a brutal sexual assault only after Burge’s officers beat him in the face and groin with a flashlight and a piece of rubber.
Wrice, 57, is serving a 100-year sentence. Attorneys say he’s one of the longest-serving inmates with a Burge torture claim.
* From a press release…
Wrice, who remains in prison, was granted a hearing into the torture claims by the Illinois Appellate Court in 2010. In appealing that ruling to the Supreme Court, prosecutors argue that the admission of Wrice’s tortured confession was “harmless error,” because there was enough other evidence to support his conviction.
In their brief, the group of legal luminaries forcefully condemned this argument, writing:
“It is simply intolerable that any person should languish in prison as a result of conviction that rests even in part on a confession that Burge and his men are credibly claimed to have tortured into being. Our commitment to that position cannot be half-hearted – where, for instance, the use of tortured evidence might be rationalized after the fact as not having mattered to the outcome of the case. Instead, we believe Burge’s torture is so profoundly antithetical to our notions of justice and fair play that it cannot be permitted to taint any conviction, no matter the strength of the other evidence against the defendant.”
The group asks the Supreme Court to:
· Direct the Office of the Special Prosecutor to identify every case where a current Illinois prisoner claims his conviction rested at least in part on a false confession submitted under the duress of torture.
· Order the Chief Judge of the Cook County Circuit Court to conduct hearings into evidence of torture and determine, in each case, whether torture occurred.
· Void any convictions that are ruled to rest in whole or in part on confessions obtained illegally through torture.
* Alexi Giannoulias is back and has a new part-time, unpaid job…
Gov. Quinn on Wednesday will name Alexi Giannoulias chairman of the Illinois Community College Board.
Quinn regularly plugs Illinois’ network of 48 community colleges — the country’s third-largest community college system. For every student at at a public four-year-college in Illinois, two attend a community college, Quinn notes.
Giannoulias, 35, served as state treasurer and narrowly lost a race for U.S. Senate last year to Republican Mark Kirk. Giannoulias ran just two percentage points behind his Democratic ticket-mate, Quinn.
Since losing, Giannoulias has been putting together a political science class he will teach at Northwestern University this fall called “Campaigning versus governing.” He said Tuesday he plans to announce next month a full-time job he’ll be taking.
The federal government is requiring Illinois police to report illegal immigrants who are arrested on any charge from public intoxication to murder, in spite of Gov. Pat Quinn’s opposition.
On Friday, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, canceled contracts with the 39 states participating in Secure Communities — a program in which local and state law enforcement officials share fingerprints with the federal government.
ICE, the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, did not cancel the contracts to end the program, but rather to assert that ICE doesn’t need a state’s permission, in this case via a contract, to operate the deportation program. […]
ICE’s action came three months after Quinn ended Illinois’ timid two-year participation in Secure Communities. Since the program started in November 2009, 76 of Illinois’ 102 counties abstained from participating, the most notable being Cook County, home to Chicago.
“Illinois remains concerned that the program can have the opposite effect of its state purpose,” Brie Callahan, a spokeswoman for Quinn’s office, said. “Instead of making our communities safer, the program’s flawed implementation may divide communities (and) families.”
The federal program, created under Republican President George W. Bush, was engineered to deport illegal immigrants who’ve been convicted of a felony or at least three misdemeanors in the same year in the United States or a previous crime in their home country.
Please, take it easy in comments. I have a lot of stuff to do today and won’t be able to monitor the blog all the time. This topic can bring out the worst in people. Don’t let that happen. Thanks.
* Other stuff…
* Doctors’ detailed histories to go online - Patients can check whether physicians have been fired, convicted of a crime or made a malpractice payment in the last five years
* Illinois horse tracks, owners gets $141M windfall after long court fight
* Gov. Pat Quinn used his State of the State/Budget speech this past spring to call for the abolition of the legislative scholarship program. He was roundly booed by members. Quinn vetoed a reform bill last year because, he said, he didn’t think reform was enough. Abolition, he said, was the only way to go. Legislators passed another reform bill this year, which would bar legislators from handing out the scholarships to relatives and allowing them to turn over their scholarships to the Student Assistance Commission.
Quinn was asked about the program yesterday by reporters in the wake of revelations that former legislator Bob Molaro’s scholarship records have been subpoenaed by the feds. It sounds like he may use his amendatory veto powers to abolish the program this week…
“The essence of the bill on my desk is that it does not abolish the program, and that’s really what I think we have to do,” Quinn said. “I do want to make it clear that there’s no bigger supporter of scholarships than I am. I believe that we need to enhance our scholarship programs in Illinois, but I think having a program that’s had sort of a cloud of scandal around it for decades is not the way to do that.”
Quinn’s comments follow revelations that a federal grand jury has subpoenaed documents related to scholarships former Rep. Robert Molaro gave to children of longtime supporter Phillip Bruno. The Tribune reported last year that Bruno’s children received more than $94,000 in tuition waivers in recent years despite questions about their residence eligibility.
Even the bill’s chief sponsor wants Quinn to do an AV…
The legislation’s chief Senate sponsor, Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale), urged Quinn Tuesday to tweak the legislation to provide for an outright abolition of the program — something that the governor has called for repeatedly but that has never gained legislative traction over the years.
“Rep. Molaro is the latest in a long string of questionable practices of a program that should have been abolished previously. He’s just one more in a string of abuses,” Dillard said.
“The governor, with his amendatory veto power, can rewrite the bill to end the controversial General Assembly scholarship program. Procedurally, we could kill this program in one day during the veto session,” Dillard said.
[Molaro] previously told the Chicago Sun-Times that there was nothing wrong with the scholarships he awarded.
An April 26 subpoena to the Illinois State Board of Education from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald seeks application forms, nomination forms and other documents related to legislative scholarships granted to four children of a Molaro campaign donor.
A July 20 subpoena to the board of education asks for “all documents relating to the Illinois General Assembly Legislative Scholarships nominated/issued” from Molaro.
The Chicago Tribune reported last year that the Molaro supporter’s four children may not have been eligible for the scholarships because of questions about whether they lived in Molaro’s district.
* I asked the spokespeople for both Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan if their respective bosses believe the program should now be abolished.
From Cullerton’s spokesperson Rikeesha Phelon…
Senate President Cullerton has supported efforts to reform the system by specifically addressing the abuses, rather than abolishing a program that has provided educational opportunities for hardworking students in need of financial support.
So, count Cullerton as a “No.”
From Madigan’s spokesman Steve Brown…
I think if you check the roll calls the Speaker has voted to abolish the GA scholarships repeatedly.
* I’m not generally a big fan of creating new laws designed to address a once in a millennia event. But, you had to figure that this was going to happen…
Illinois lawmakers have joined a growing stampede to tighten state laws for parents who fail to report missing children.
At least three legislative measures introduced in the Capitol in recent days are part of a national reaction to the high-profile acquittal of Casey Anthony in connection with the death of her daughter, Caylee.
“There is a groundswell of anger over the tragedy,” said state Rep. David Leitch, R-Peoria, who said his office received 400 emails calling for action after Anthony was set free.
Illinois joins Nebraska, Florida, Maryland, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Ohio in looking for a legal way to punish parents who fail to report a missing child within a reasonable amount of time.
Creates the offense of failure to report the disappearance of a child to a law enforcement agency. Provides that a person commits the offense when he or she, as a parent, guardian, or other person having physical custody or control of a child under 13 years of age, willfully or by culpable negligence fails to make contact with or otherwise verify the whereabouts and safety of that child for a period of 24 hours and to immediately report the child as missing to a law enforcement agency after this 24-hour period expires without contact. Provides that a violation is a Class 4 felony.
Creates the offense of failure to report the death of a child. Provides that a person commits the offense when he or she, as a parent, guardian, or other person having physical custody or control of a child under 18 years of age reasonably believes that the child has died and fails within one hour of forming that reasonable belief, or as soon thereafter as reasonably practicable if compliance within one hour is impracticable, to: (1) notify a law enforcement agency of the child’s apparent death and the location of the child; or (2) seek medical attention on the child’s behalf. Provides that failure to report the death of a child is a Class 4 felony.
* HB3801, sponsored by Democrats, contains everything in both the above bills, but adds an exemption…
Provides that a person does not violate this provision when he or she fails to report due to an act of God, act of war, or inability of a law enforcement agency to receive a report of a child’s death or the location of a child’s corpse.
* The Question: On a scale of one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best, how would you rate Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s job performance since his inauguration? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* Late yesterday, I linked this story from the Sun-Times…
Speculation is that, if S&P downgrades the 50 states’ ratings, Illinois overall rating would drop to A2-Minus, which could mean a one-half of 1 percentage point increase in interest rate payments on future bond issues. For a $2 billion to $3 billion capital plan bond issue such as the state is planning this fall, such an increase would cost hundreds of millions more in interest.
Having to pay higher interest rates on future state bond issues – possibly ½ of 1 percent — is a possibility, said Kelly Kraft, spokeswoman for Gov. Pat Quinn’s Office of Management and Budget.
“However, at this time Illinois has not been downgraded, and we are not issuing bonds until September, which allows the market to digest the situation,” Kraft said in a statement. “If we were downgraded as a result of S&P’s downgrade of federal debt, the other 49 states would be downgraded as well. Therefore, until S&P indicates how states will be affected, offering more specifics on the ripple effect would not be prudent.”
Kraft said the state expects to issue $2 billion to $3 billion in general obligation bonds in September.
Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, said he had been talking with state financial officers throughout the day Monday and there was no consensus about how the S&P action would affect states.
A state’s reliance on federal assistance “would be a factor to consider” for a rating agency, but Pattison said some states might be able to offset those concerns by showing they have a strong rainy day fund or have been willing to make spending cuts to keep their budgets in line with dwindling tax revenue.
“The downgrade is certainly not good news. But on the other hand, we’re really uncertain at this moment as to the direct effect, whether it will have a direct effect or not,” Pattison said. “I think it’s going to be a case-by-case basis.”
* But, as subscribers know, S&P offered up a bit of clarity late last night…
While the worldwide markets continue to decline in a vortex, Standard & Poor’s offers a nugget of good news for U.S. states and municipalities.
Despite S&P’s August 5 downgrade of the long-term U.S. sovereign debt, some state and local governments will maintain or even achieve AAA ratings, according to Standard & Poor’s. That’s in contrast to a slew of entities and companies, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, several private insurers, such as New York Life and Northwestern Mutual, who were downgraded Monday in the aftermath of the government downgrade.
A S&P press release cites a report, “State And Local Government Ratings Are Not Directly Constrained By That Of The U.S. Sovereign,” which explains the factors that allow for this situation to occasionally occur.
“The report notes that many U.S. state and local governments function with a high level of revenue, treasury, finance, and debt management independence compared to their global counterparts,” the press release stated.
The report said much more than that, and some of it certainly applied to states like Illinois which don’t have AAA ratings, but you’ll have to subscribe to find out what that was.
* The biggest problem, however, is not so much the impact of the S&P federal rating on Illinois, but what happens with the economy. And the future ain’t too bright right now…
But the bigger cloud hanging over the municipal bond market is the prospect of evaporating federal support to states and cities at a time when another economic swoon is possible, observers say.
In the current political climate, observers say states cannot count on another stimulus package, for instance, if tax receipts begin to plummet again. For fiscally wobbly states, such as Illinois, a deepening squeeze can translate into higher borrowing costs.
“The market is worried about whether the economy will slip into another recession in 2012,” said bond expert Richard Ciccarone, managing director at McDonnell Investment Management LLC. “That is causing some skittishness, more so than the rating downgrade.”
What we’ve got is a real conundrum, caused mainly by national partisan politics. The economists and business types I’ve been reading are saying that we need a short term stimulus to keep the country on track and long term cuts to prevent real problems down the road. This is from Terry Belton, the head of fixed income strategy for JP Morgan Chase…
“I think, on the fiscal side, what we need — and we have sort of missed the boat here — a little bit of the opposite of what we got. We need long-term reform. We need to deal with entitlements reform and tax reform. That lowers the deficit in the long run. But we actually need stimulus now.
“We’re almost getting the opposite. Coming in to next year, we’re going to have quite a fiscal drag kick in as the 2011 tax cuts run off. That’s going to hurt growth a lot next year.”
What Belton (and loads of other like-minded folks) said makes a lot of sense, but it’s not easily sold in the excruciatingly loud and divisive DC echo chamber. “You want to spend more and cut more? Ridiculous!” Also, try cutting the long term growth of Medicare and see how far that gets you in politics. It ain’t just liberals who will beat you over the head.
* And now a warning: Do not drag your goofy DC talking points into the comment section. I will not be kind to mindless rehashing.
* Related…
* Durbin struggles to find bipartisan solution to financial crisis
* VIDEO: Dick Durbin Refuses to Play the Blame Game - The senior senator from Illinois wouldn’t fault either party directly for the credit downgrade.
* IL lawmakers react to nation’s credit downgrade: “The one that I would blame is Standard & Poor. I think it’s a political ploy by them. They didn’t recognize the crisis that we had with the mortgage bank securities. I think they’re making up for that,” Biggert said.
* Finally, somebody in the mainstream media caught on to some of the crazier hype about the gaming expansion bill. Kristen McQueary at the Chicago News Cooperative decided to take a look at what the bill actually says and then compared it to the fear-mongering…
Former Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis joined the chorus of opposition to the state’s gambling expansion bill last week, warning that if it is implemented, “political corruption and crime syndicate infiltration will follow.”
Yet the concerns of Weis and other critics are largely addressed in the actual text of the legislation, a Chicago News Cooperative analysis of claims about the 400-page bill found.
Weis, who is now deputy director of the Chicago Crime Commission, called the bill “critically flawed due to lack of regulatory safeguards” and said it was “beyond my comprehension how the Illinois legislature passed this bill.” Chicago Crime Commission Executive Vice President Art Bilek said the bill is a “quagmire of gambling sinkholes and hidden reductions of regulatory control.” Members of the mob would be “standing in line” to apply for licenses, he warned.
Jaffe has said the separate oversight creates a dangerous situation by dividing regulatory authority.
But the bill calls for the following checks and balances:
* The five Chicago Casino Development Board members who would oversee development of a casino would be subject to background checks and approval by the Illinois Gaming Board. They could be removed at any time by the mayor or the gaming board if they failed to execute their duties appropriately. Strict rules require them to report any communication between themselves and any entity that could be construed as a conflict of interest.
* An executive director overseeing the Chicago casino would undergo background checks and also must be approved by the Illinois Gaming Board.
Former state Rep. Robert Molaro is facing an investigation into legislative scholarships he awarded to a longtime supporter’s family following a Tribune report on how he doled out the publicly funded tuition waivers.
Newly released records and interviews reveal a federal grand jury has subpoenaed the Illinois State Board of Education and at least one university for documents related to scholarships Molaro awarded to Phillip Bruno’s four children.
The newspaper reported last year that Bruno’s family members had more than $94,000 in college tuition waived in recent years despite questions about the children’s eligibility.
The controversial scholarships came with just one legal requirement: that the students lived in Molaro’s Southwest Side district. The Bruno siblings signed notarized documents stating they resided within the representative’s boundaries, while other public records — including the addresses registered with their universities — indicated they lived with their mother in Oak Lawn, outside Molaro’s district. Their father didn’t live in the district either.
* Other stuff…
* Hundreds of cops could be punished for not filing ethics statements: sources
* Peoria newspaper columnist Phil Luciano is bummed out that Illinois has no state rock song. Luciano is planning to meet with the governor this week to talk about this hole in our state soul…
I floated this idea by Gov. Pat Quinn’s people Monday. Turns out he’ll be in Peoria later this week. And he is to meet with me to talk about the official state rock song.
Yes, I’m serious. Call it The Rock Summit.
After running through several Illinois bands, Luciano chose “Surrender” by Rockfordians Cheap Trick…
Frantic drums intro and then support whamming guitar chords. And the melody urgently bangs away, start to finish.
You can analyze the teen-angst references that wrestle throughout: mommy, daddy, Kiss, sex, drugs. But two lines resonate: “Surrender, surrender, but don’t give yourself away” - as in (sort of, at any age), bend but don’t break; and “We’re all all right,” a delightful chant, especially in concert.
The song is as playful as it is powerful, just as much now as in 1978. It stands the test of time: I mean, do you turn this off when it comes on the radio?
The desecrated Grant Park looks like a rock ‘n’ roll battlefield — the fields are muddy and bare, waste is strewn about and a stench of stagnant water and stale beer lingers in the air.
With Sunday thunderstorms flooding the last day of Lollapalooza, it will be weeks — and tens of thousands of dollars — before the aftermath of the festival is repaired, officials said.
“This is probably one of the worst [aftermaths],” said Bob O’Neill, president of the Grant Park Conservancy. “The turf damage is substantial, bushes were trampled … there’s a little bit of damage to some gardens.”
Last year, the restoration process cost more than $200,000. This year, repairing Hutchinson Field alone, where the Foo Fighters played Sunday night, could cost up to $80,000, O’Neill said.
