* I noticed something missing from my e-mail in-box today. When the Tribune disclosed that union leaders were getting public pensions for little actual public work, House Republican Leader Tom Cross’ office pounced with denunciations and pledges to pass legislation.
So far, though, nothing today from Leader Cross about how Illinois State University put dozens of people into the state university pension plan, including 40 employees of the Special Olympics Illinois, five employees of the Illinois Association of School Administrators, four employees of the Illinois Principals Association, the executive director of the Association of Illinois Middle-Grade Schools and two employees of the Illinois Association for Supervision of Curriculum Development. Not to mention all the retirees currently collecting pensions. Sheesh…
How do these leaders of private organizations get in? Because of Illinois State’s unilateral decision to label them university employees, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has found. Any person with that designation can participate in the State Universities Retirement System, known as SURS, and state law allows colleges and universities to make the determination.
Illinois State, a public university based in Normal with a history of teacher education, does not hire or supervise the employees on its rolls who work for the five nonprofit organizations. Nor does the school fund or determine their salaries. Instead, the groups funnel payroll and benefit payments to the university, which then writes paychecks to the employees and sends pension contributions to SURS.
Illinois State spokesman Jay Groves said the partnerships with the education associations “are all directly aligned with the goals and mission of this institution. It makes sense for us because we are the education leader in the state.” […]
About 40 Special Olympics employees are considered university employees, including Breen, who makes $120,000 a year.
“It is the system we have grown up in and been involved in, and it is such a huge benefit to both groups,” Breen said. “I am not trying to hide anything. I am not ashamed of the relationship. I am proud of the relationship. People will decide what needs to be done or what legislators need to do.” […]
Retired employees of these groups also are collecting benefits, but it’s difficult to track how many because their past employer is listed as Illinois State in SURS records.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. As respected as these groups are, it’s more than a little nuts to allow universities to decide on their own whether to include anyone in a publicly funded pension plan. How about a bill, Leader?
Between 2007 and 2010, drunken driving arrests fell 16 percent, and the number of fatalities from alcohol-related crashes dropped 33 percent, according to figures from state police and the Illinois Department of Transportation. Fatalities this year have fallen even further in preliminary reports, to less than half of what they were just three years ago.
Anti-drunken driving advocates maintain the decrease is tied not just to societal shifts but to the strengthening of DUI laws and their enforcement. Other observers point to the economic downturn that has resulted in fewer people going out drinking.
“What’s the one thing that’s happened in the last three or four years that’s common to everyone? It’s the economy, stupid,” said Don Ramsell, a Wheaton attorney whose reputation defending DUI suspects has prompted the nickname “DUI Don.”
The state smoking ban went into effect on January 1, 2008. Since then, many smokers I know have stayed home rather than go out so much.
I’m not saying this is the only reason, but I think it’s one of them, and an important one at that.
Though Team Emanuel says the new board members are charged with reforming the sports authority, insiders think their ultimate mission will be much bigger, such as reviving Mr. Thompson’s plan of a few years ago to buy or otherwise finance the rebuilding of Wrigley Field.
[Former Senate President Emil Jones, the new board chairman] wants to do it. “Wrigley Field is Chicago,” as he puts it. “If we can do something to help . . . .” Chicago attorney and ISFA board member Manny Sanchez terms it “something that is likely to come up on our agenda.” And Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, as recently as when I talked to him last week, says he still believes in a public role—when the time is right.
What’s missing? Emil Jones is a Cub fan. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Lots of black South Siders of a certain age grew up hating the White Sox because Sox fans were not exactly the most, um, racially open-minded folks on the planet. He’s gonna do what he can for his team.
* And I’m not sure if anything is missing from this pretty comprehensive story about everything that was accomplished by the General Assembly in 2011, but maybe you can read it and see if they skipped over something.
* I’m creating a new award to honor the memory of the late Rep. Mark Beaubien. The Platinum Lifetime Service award for the General Assembly is posthumously given to Mark. Commenter “Oswego Willy” sums him up well…
His service to his district, his caucus and his state make this a deserving nomination. Many times we all say someone can not be replaced. This is one of the rare occasions that it’s too true.
* The Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Republican State Representative goes to Rep. Skip Saviano. He not only had the most intense nominations, but he also had the highest number of nominations by far. Commenter “eddy” gushed…
There is no question just how hard this man works for his consituents, his support for business and labor groups. He participates in negotiations and gets things done.
Tell me who, in the Capitol and in this state does not go to Skip for any type of problem or issue?
Nobody, that’s who. The man is a perpetual motion machine.
* Runner-up is Rep. Ed Sullivan…
Partisan but comfortable crossing the aisle to logically discuss matters. Understands district realities and their impact on voting allowing divisions to not be personal.
* I pondered the Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Democratic State Representative all morning and finally gave up. It’s a tie. Rep. John Bradley…
John Bradley. Risen in the ranks and in the estimation of colleagues and those who work with him on dicey issues. Smart, direct, almost scary in ability to stay focused.
* And Rep. Frank Mautino…
When you need to get something done and you want a guy smart enough to get it and hard working enough to work through institutional obstacles, Frank’s your guy.
Both of those gentlemen repeatedly showed their worth this year. I just couldn’t pick a favorite, so they’ll have to share.
* On to today’s nominations. We’re running out of time, so let’s do three today…
* The Steve Brown Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Government Spokesperson. Speaker Madigan’s spokesman won this thing so much that we had to name it after him.
* Best state agency director
* Best statewide officeholder
Please, nominate in all three categories. And remember to explain your nomination. Just posting somebody’s name will not work because I’ll ignore you. It’s about intensity, my friends, not just numbers.
* A Wall Street Journal editor named Allysia Finley manufactured a nasty little hit piece about Illinois over the weekend…
‘Why would anyone want to live in Illinois?” So muses Curt Wooters, who works for the state and helps his dad run the family’s sporting-goods store in Findlay, 200 miles south of Chicago. Imagine California without the sunshine, New York without the cultural elan, New Jersey without Chris Christie. That’s Illinois.
Mr. Wooters has another five years before he can retire, but he’s advising his kids to leave the state after college. He’s also talked with his dad about closing their shop because it costs too much to run a business in Illinois these days. Plus, “the customers are leaving town.”
Now two downstate Republican lawmakers think that they’ve found a solution for Mr. Wooters and other disgruntled Illinoisans who want to escape but can’t: Cut off the pesky tail that’s wagging the dog—separate Chicago from the rest of the state.
That’s the legislative initiative of State Reps. Adam Brown and Bill Mitchell, who think politicians from the Windy City have blown the state too far left. “At every town-hall meeting I hear, ‘Can’t we separate from Chicago?’” says Mr. Mitchell. […]
…as Mr. Wooters says, a lot “of the money that we have down here goes up there to bail out Chicago.”
* Why do I use the word “manufactured”? Because this was a setup from the beginning. I’m told that the WSJ editor called one of the resolution’s sponsors last week and asked if he could help her find somebody to quote.
You’d think that if this resolution was as popular as Rep. Mitchell claims it is, he could’ve found dozens of people to spill their guts about why they hate Cook County.
Instead, Ms. Finley was apparently sent somebody who could be relied upon to supply the sort of quotes that she wanted. And they came up with a politically active state employee whose wife works for Rep. Mitchell. I kid you not.
* Curtis E. Wooters works for the Illinois Department of Corrections as a stationary engineer at an annual salary of $112,000. I think that might answer his question about why anyone would want to live here. Also, I would assume that if Chicago and Cook County were to split off into a separate state, they’d want to build their own prisons, which would mean lots of highly-paid Downstate Corrections’ employees would be out of jobs. But he was never asked about those holes in his arguments because that wouldn’t suit the WSJ’s Finley.
There’s also a Melissa Wooters of Findlay, IL listed who works for the Illinois House of Representatives. She makes $32,440.16 a year working for Rep. Bill Mitchell, the resolution’s main sponsor. Ms. Wooters is, I’m told, married to Curtis Wooters.
And a Curtis E. Wooters of Findlay filed an objection to the petitions submitted by Rep. Adam Brown’s opponent. Rep. Brown is a co-sponsor of the secession legislation. Curtis E. Wooters, it turns out, is a Republican precinct committeeman…
The State Board of Elections is reporting 139 challenges to various judicial and legislative candidate petitions around Illinois, but only one was in East Central Illinois.
Rob Roman of Chrisman, who is running against state Rep. Adam Brown, R-Decatur, in the new 102nd House District, had his candidate petitions challenged by Curtis Wooters and Bruce Cannon, both of Findlay and both of whom are GOP precinct committeemen in Shelby County. Cannon also is chairman of the Shelby County Board.
John Fogarty, a Chicago attorney who is affiliated with House Minority Leader Tom Cross, had reviewed Roman’s petitions last month.
Thirteen applicants, three of them from Macon County, are seeking the appointment to the 51st Illinois Senate District seat left vacant by the retirement Monday of Greenville Republican Frank Watson. […]
Other applicants are Melissa Wooters…
So, the couple has a combined household income of over $144,000 a year, supplied by the taxpayers of all Illinois counties, including Cook, but the husband wants Cook gone and wants everybody to leave Illinois if he doesn’t get what he wants. Hey, that’s his right. I have no problem with his beliefs, no matter how contradictory. It’s Finley I have a problem with.
* Come to think of it, this is almost comical. It’s lazy quote shopping run amok. But, of course, it’s the bad ol’ bloggers we have to worry about because bloggers have no editors. Finley is an editor at the Wall Street Journal, and this is the crud we get. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.
Ms. Finley kinda sorta tried to redeem herself at the end of her column by saying that the Republicans ought to focus on winning the suburbs. But what she doesn’t say is that resolutions like this aimed directly at Cook County will only reinforce the suburban notion that Downstaters can be more than a little odd.
* Also, speaking of that resolution, Reps. Mitchell and Brown have just two co-sponsors for their legislation, even though it was introduced about a month ago. The two House members are getting lots of state and national media coverage for what is obviously little more than a stunt. And James Krohe makes a good point at the end of his most recent column…
Demonizing Chicago saves our Mr. Mitchells from coming to terms with an awkward truth, namely that it is not Cook County pols who don’t know how to govern Illinois. It is Illinoisans.
* This seems like pretty weak sauce to me, but when your client was just sentenced to 14 years in prison, you’ll take what you can get…
Attorneys for Rod Blagojevich claim the Naperville jury forewoman who helped convict the ex-governor engaged in misconduct for showing copies of her juror questionnaire to students at Metea Valley High School in Aurora.
In an emergency motion filed Friday, Blagojevich’s defense team called for an evidentiary hearing to determine if court rules were broken by Connie Wilson, who addressed about 300 government students on Tuesday. And if so, “her violations must result in a new trial,” attorneys wrote.
The motion cites a Dec. 13 Daily Herald article and Dec. 16 Naperville Patch report of Wilson’s appearance at Metea in which she showed copies of her jury summons and questionnaire.
Defense lawyers say they were told that information would remain confidential.
[Former federal prosecutor Gil Soffer] said it was a “desperate” move and not likely to work.
* The hearing is scheduled for 10 o’clock this morning. The ScribbleLive thingy is set up and ready to go. BlackBerry users click here everybody else can just watch as it happens…
“It was a nice meeting, the bishops of Illinois talking to the governor, who is a member of our church, but it was a pastoral meeting,” George said after the encounter. “We shared some concerns on both sides. It was a friendly and an open meeting. But it was pastoral, so it was on faith and conscience and the way in which the Church engages in public life for the common good.”
* Early Saturday afternoon, though, Abdon Pallasch at the Chicago Sun-Times ran this item…
Gov. Pat Quinn said Saturday that he had a productive meeting with Cardinal George and nine other Catholic bishops from around Illinois Friday. There was only “a little bit” of talk of Quinn¹s position in favor of abortion rights and of the gay rights law that has been interpreted to mean Catholic Charities must get out of the adoption business because it won’t work with gay couples, Quinn said.
Most of the two-hour meeting focused on where Quinn and the bishops can work together to fight poverty, Quinn said. “A lot of the discussion was how we could work together to fight poverty; help the people who are less fortunate and need a helping hand,” Quinn said as he left a Christmas toy give-away on the Far South Side.
Did the bishops and Quinn discuss any ideas for allowing the church to continue its role in helping get children adopted? Quinn said the church has to partner with agencies that will work with gay couples. […]
But the dialogue on that issue was “brief,” Quinn said. “There wasn’t a long discussion about that.” […]
Again, he emphasized there was just “a little bit” of discussion on abortion during the two-hour meeting Friday at the Union League Club.
According to confidential sources of the Rainbow Sash Movement the meeting was full of tension. Cardinal George calmly told the Governor that it was his hope that the Governor would no longer speak out as a public Catholic unless he is in agreement with the Bishops on controversial issues. The Governor sat quietly and respectfully listened to Cardinal George, but then told the Cardinal that he was the Governor of all the people of Illinois, and that he will speak out for all the people of Illinois and not just the Catholic position.
* There’s no link to the first Sun-Times story posted above because it was taken down later in the day and replaced it with a new one. The bishops were not happy…
Gov. Pat Quinn apparently did not understand that when he met with Illinois’ Catholic bishops Friday, they were taking him out to the woodshed. […]
But after reading Quinn’s comments posted on the Sun-Times website Saturday, the bishops that met with Quinn issued a written statement saying Quinn characterized the meeting wrong: The primary purpose of the sit-down, they said, was to admonish the governor for using his Catholic up-bringing to justify views that they say aren’t supported by the church. It was the second time in the past two months the bishops have issued a statement blasting the Catholic governor.
“We share the Governor’s concern for the poor,” they wrote. “From our point of view, however, this was a meeting between pastors and a member of the Church to discuss the principles of faith, not the works of faith. On several occasions, the Governor has referred to his Catholic conscience and faith as the justification for certain political decisions.”
The letter continued: “As Catholic pastors, we wanted to remind the Governor that conscience, while always free, is properly formed in harmony with the tradition of the Church, as defined by Scripture and authentic teaching authority. A personal conscience that is not consistent with authentic Catholic teaching is not a Catholic conscience. The Catholic faith cannot be used to justify positions contrary to the faith itself. It is a matter of personal integrity for people who call themselves Catholic to act in a manner that is consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
The bishops said they were particularly concerned about Quinn’s influence on others “since he holds a highly visible and influential position.”
The letter concluded: “This concern on our part, as pastors of the Church, was the fundamental and primary topic of our conversation with Governor Quinn.”
If at election time I were to say, “You can’t vote for Pat Quinn — he’s a Catholic and will be bullied into strictly following church doctrine” — I’d be accused of bias and rightly so. Yet the cardinal is trying to do exactly that, to exercise an authority over public life he does not and should not possess.
Quinn attended 13 years of Catholic school — the church already had its chance to mold him. Now he is 63 and an adult. It is Quinn, and not Cardinal George, who gets to decide how his faith influences his life. I’m sorry to be the one to deliver the news.
This is far more about Quinn publicly saying that his Catholic faith is influencing his decisions than about the bishops whacking him over making decisions contrary to that faith.
As I’ve noted before, if Quinn accepted an endorsement from, say, the pro-choice Personal PAC and then used that endorsement to justify signing an anti-abortion bill into law, Personal PAC would be outraged and rightly so. This latest uproar isn’t much different.
And I say this, by the way, as someone who is not a Catholic and never was. Groups that politicians associate with have a right to defend themselves when politicians use them to justify a position that the groups oppose. It’s really as simple as that.
CME Group Inc, which has given $22 million to Chicago-area schools and charities over the past five years, has stopped making grants through its main foundation, citing the collapse of MF Global Holdings Inc.
Investigators are still searching for hundreds of millions of dollars of customer funds that CME says were improperly siphoned off in the brokerage’s final days to plug its escalating liquidity needs.
Last month, the exchange operator said it would give former MF Global customers the entire $50 million held by CME Trust, which was originally designed to help traders caught out by a broker default but that in recent years has been a mainstay of the CME’s charitable giving.
Clients of MF Global who lived in Canada lost no money in the collapse. Canada’s regulations do not allow client-segregated monies to be borrowed for speculative purposes. Further, voting and lobbying laws there do not tolerate the sort of corrupt legislative lobbying that is rampant in the United States. Hence, regulators in Canada are far more independent and less affected by lobbying than the regulators in the United States.
* And my syndicated newspaper column looks at the renewed popularity of corporate tax cuts…
A massive turnaround in the Illinois House may have whetted political appetites for even more corporate tax relief. But don’t count on it just yet.
As you may recall, a tax cut plan for corporations and individuals failed miserably in the House a few weeks ago, getting less than eight votes — comically short of the 60 needed for passage.
So, the House went home for two weeks, and some intense lobbying began. When state representatives came back to Springfield, a slightly revised version of the corporate tax cut plan passed with a whopping 81 votes. The bill would grant large tax breaks to CME Group and Sears to keep them from leaving the state, as well as a few broad-based provisions.
Most House Republicans had refused to support a proposed increase in the earned income tax credit program for low-wage workers, which was included in the original plan. The Republicans were opposed — even though the program was considered a GOP idea when it was unanimously approved several years ago and signed into law by a Republican governor.
So, that provision and a small bump in the standard income tax deduction were moved to a separate bill. Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate Democrats had demanded an increase in the EITC in exchange for supporting the corporate tax cuts.
Splitting the bill into two parts meant that Democrats could mostly support the EITC while Republicans could get their corporate tax provisions. The plan worked, both bills passed and the corporate tax cut bill was signed into law a few days later.
House Republican Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) said he thought that the two-week break had cooled some tempers, which was probably true.
A big push by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel helped, and CME Group’s well-publicized meeting with Indianapolis’ mayor about moving the Chicago-based company to that city just a few days after the tax cut bill went down in flames put added pressure on legislators in both parties.
But the day after the House and Senate had left town, Cross upped the ante by announcing legislation to roll back all of last January’s corporate income tax hike.
Cross was beaten to the punch by 24 hours, however. Some House Democrats with tough campaigns next year had introduced a bill the day before to kill the corporate tax hike by Jan. 1.
Rolling back the corporate income tax increase would cost the state budget about $900 million during the next fiscal year, based on current projections. That would be on top of the more than $360 million in tax breaks that the House and Senate approved last week.
January’s corporate tax boost has created a huge uproar in Illinois as one company after another has threatened to move away. Special tax breaks given to some companies to keep them here have only enraged other company owners who are left holding the bag.
The perception is that the connected big boys are making out like bandits while the unconnected and those who can’t move have no relief in sight.
Both the Illinois Manufacturers Association and the Illinois Chamber of Commerce have vowed to push for lowering the corporate tax rate in the spring legislative session. But lowering taxes on corporations while keeping the higher personal income tax might cause even more political trouble.
As it is, two-thirds of all companies don’t pay the state corporate income tax, partly because many small-business owners set up their companies so they pay taxes on profits via their personal income tax. Cutting the corporate rate without touching the personal rate wouldn’t help those smaller businesses.
And then there would be the understandable resentment of all the working people who weren’t getting tax breaks in these tough times as they view corporations again getting special treatment. As with most things, it ain’t as easy as it looks.
These latest proposals are probably all about election-year politics anyway. Barring some unforeseen miracle and/or a newfound desire to cut ever deeper into the state budget, there’s no way Illinois can afford to get rid of the corporate tax hike.
Instead, the governor will likely continue handing out tax breaks on a company-by-company basis, creating ever more resentment by those who are paying full freight.
A home-visiting program operated by Springfield’s Family Service Center for 70 low-income teenage parents will shut down this week because of chronic delays in state payments.
The not-for-profit center’s board voted last week to indefinitely suspend the Young Parent Support Services program — designed to prevent child abuse and promote educational success — after the state’s ongoing budget crisis led to a payment delay of six months and counting.
Federal funds to support home-visiting programs arrived on time at the Illinois Department of Human Services, but that money has been delayed because matching state funds have been unavailable.
The state says it cannot pay out the federal money until a certain level of matching state funds is reached.
* Statehouse Insider: Mystery funding for Illinois business tax cut: Any time talk turns to budget cuts, Republicans cite Medicaid, the program that pays for health care for poor people. Cross said he has met with a firm that looked at the state’s Medicaid eligibility and believes the rolls are rife with people who may not be eligible. Cross believes the state can save $1 billion, much of it coming from booting those who are ineligible. There already have been problems with implementing a Medicaid reform law passed by lawmakers earlier this year, which, incidentally, was projected to save only $774 million over the next five years. Federal regulators decided earlier this year that two of the income-verification methods in the reform bill could not be used. Republicans do not believe the Quinn administration fought hard enough for the bill with the feds.
-Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) will endorse GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Chicago on Monday morning, a move that had been expected. Kirk will be joined at a Loop press conference with Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, who has been organizing Illinois for Romney.
Romney has the deepest Illinois operation of any of the 2012 Republican rivals. People have already been recruited to run for delegates and major Illinois endorsements have been out for months. In backing Romney, Kirk follows a string of Illinois Republicans: former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Rep. Judy Biggert and Rep. Aaron Schock.
“Romney will cut spending, repeal the health care law and restore private sector economic growth. He is a foreign policy hawk who will stand up to Iran,” Kirk said in a statement prepared in advance of his endorsement and provided by his political operation.
“America needs his managerial talent, team-building spirit and hard-nosed sense of economic common sense,” Kirk’s statement said.
The value of Kirk’s endorsement is debatable. Illinois doesn’t hold its presidential primary until March 20, and it is questionable whether a fluid race for the Republican nomination will continue. But Romney has a strong ground operation in Illinois, which has a large number of convention nominating delegates at stake if there is a Republican contest.
Earlier Romney told Fox News Sunday that a drawn-out contest is “certainly a possibility” because of new party rules that allocate delegates on a proportional basis of the popular primary vote in early states, just as Democrats do.
A Brady endorsement would give Mr. Gingrich two things he badly needs here: a big name on his side and, more important, help in putting together slates of delegate candidates for the GOP National Convention.
Right now, despite his national poll motion, Mr. Gingrich has little if any ground game or delegate operation here, with numerous establishment Republicans gravitating to Mitt Romney. Unless the federal courts toss out the new congressional map, the Gingrich campaign will have only until Jan. 6 to file its slates, so signing up someone who ran a statewide campaign like Mr. Brady would be quite helpful.
That having been said, Mr. Brady has not yet committed. “I’m not there yet,” he said, and if Mr. Gingrich helped him during his gubernatorial campaign “so did Gov. Romney.”
But when I asked Mr. Brady if he’s leaning one way or the other, he replied, “I like the energy Newt brings.”
I think they may be waiting a bit to see if Newt crashes and burns like so many other Republicans have this year.
* OK, you know how much I hate national politics, so let’s all do our very best to keep the bumper sticker slogans and DC talking points out of comments, please. Thanks.
* I can’t believe I forgot that Gov. Pat Quinn’s 63rd birthday is today. Gov. Quinn is without a doubt the state’s greatest country music fan and his favorite artist is George Strait, a true country music legend. I’m not a big Strait expert, but I really love this tune…
He was sitting there beside me
Throwing doubles down
* Did you ever have a moment when you heard a song and just knew that your life as you understood it was over? When you realized that you had suddenly and irrevocably changed and there wasn’t anything that anybody could ever do about it? When you had to admit that you had crossed some sort of other-worldly threshold that you didn’t understand, but you knew right down to your marrow that you could never go back to being the way you were just a few minutes before? When you raised up your head and asked “Is this where it is?” Well, this is the song that did it for me. Turn it all the way up…
* 4:12 pm - It’s a late Friday afternoon, so I can’t say that I’m surprised that Gov. Pat Quinn signed the CME/Sears corporate tax cut bill.
However, the governor’s bill action announcement didn’t include the companion bill, SB 400. I gotta figure Quinn will probably want to do a media event when he signs the Earned Income Tax Credit increase into law. That bill would be “good” press, while the corporate stuff is apparently in need of weekend burial.
* 4:27 pm - From a press release…
Statement from Mayor Rahm Emanuel on the Signing of Illinois Tax Reform Legislation
This tax reform legislation will protect thousands of jobs in Chicago and keep the CME Group where it belongs, here in the city. I want to thank the Governor and the Illinois General Assembly for their work to modernize our state’s tax policy and bolster Chicago’s economic competitiveness now and into the future.
* 4:29 pm - From Sears spokesman Chris Brathwaite…
“We are pleased that Governor Quinn today signed legislation designed to keep Sears in Illinois. We applaud the governor for his leadership and recognition of Sears’ contributions to our state – thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of tax dollars. And, we once again thank the General Assembly for the considerable time and effort lawmakers put into this package to ensure it was passed by the end of the year. In particular, Senate President John Cullerton, House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno and House Leader Tom Cross along with Senate Revenue Chairwoman Toi Hutchinson (D- Olympia Fields) and House Revenue Chairman John Bradley (D-Marion) and our local legislators - Senators Dan Kotowski (D- Park Ridge) and Matt Murphy (R- Palatine) and Representative Fred Crespo (D- Hoffman Estates). We look forward to remaining in Illinois and building on our long and rich history here.”
* 4:32 pm - From a press release…
CME Group Commends the State of Illinois’ Efforts to Address Corporate Tax Disparity
CHICAGO, December 16, 2011 – CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today commends the State Legislatures’ efforts to address the corporate tax disparity in Illinois.
“We are pleased that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and the State Legislature have addressed the inequitable distribution of corporate taxes currently levied on CME Group,” said CME Group Executive Chairman Terry Duffy. “This necessary adjustment to the Illinois corporate tax laws will put CME Group on more equal footing with other Illinois companies and other global exchanges. CME Group has been a part of Chicago for more than 160 years and, because of the efforts of Governor Quinn, Senate President John Cullerton, House Revenue Committee Chairman John Bradley, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, Senator Toi Hutchinson and other members of the State Legislature, we will continue to call the great State of Illinois and City of Chicago the risk management capital of the world.”
Duffy also recognizes Mayor Rahm Emanuel for his extraordinary efforts and leadership in securing CME Group as a mainstay in Illinois and the City of Chicago for the next 160 years.
* 4:43 pm - From the Chamber…
Chamber Applauds Measures to Attract and Keep Illinois Jobs
Chicago - The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce commends Governor Pat Quinn today for signing SB 397, legislation that provides much-needed relief for Illinois businesses, large and small. The bill addresses key concerns of the business community and paves the way for Sears and the CME Group to continue their long history as Illinois-based companies. Additionally, all small, medium and large Illinois businesses and farmers will benefit from the bill signed today.
The Chamber also recognizes and thanks the General Assembly for their hard work on crafting and passing the bill earlier this week, especially Senate President John Cullerton, GOP Senate Leader Christine Radogno, Speaker Michael Madigan, and House Leader Tom Cross. Representatives John Bradley and David Harris, and Senator Toi Hutchinson are commended for their determination to see through the passage of tax relief and incentives for businesses to help keep employers in the state.
“This is a move in the right direction by the Governor and Legislature to make Illinois friendly to business,” said Jerry Roper, President and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber in response to the Governor’s action. “Not only will Sears and the CME Group continue to remain in Illinois, but the entire Illinois business community will benefit from these important tax changes.”
* The other day, I asked you to help my former intern Paul Richardson win an online contest for one of the blogs that his fledgling, but growing company manages. What I didn’t know was that the contest was sponsored by LexisNexis. So, it was the big time. Anyway he won. And it wasn’t even close. From an e-mail…
Hey Rich-
I can officially send you a huge Thank You, because I just received this….
Congratulations !! The Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog was chosen by our voters as the LexisNexis Top Tort Law Blog of 2011! Your site received outstanding support from your viewers, garnering more than 40% of the votes. It must be gratifying to know that all your hard work on the site is appreciated by so many. We will post the results on our Litigation Resource Community later today once all of the participants have been notified of their status.
In a 25 person race, I think 40% is considered a landslide. Obviously the CapFaxers support made it happen. You’re the best.
Your votes have been counted and the results are in for the LexisNexis Top 25 Tort Law Blogs of 2011. Congratulations to the Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog, which received the most votes for Top Tort Law Blog for 2011 on the LexisNexis Litigation Resource Community!
We were pleased about the volume of voting and the outstanding list of nominees in this year’s Top Blogs campaign. Our Top 25 Tort Law Blogs contain a wealth of valuable information for Tort Law practitioners. All nominees and those selected for the Top 25 can be proud of the important content, expert analysis and tips these blogs provide to Tort Law attorneys.
And we can all be proud of Paul.
* My mom was apparently rummaging around and found a confirmation letter from WGN TV. Back in 1972, when their five children ranged in age from ten down to a newborn, my parents applied for tickets to attend Bozo’s Circus. The station eventually sent my parents a letter saying we had 8 tickets for the November 8, 1979 show - seven years hence.
We were living in Germany by 1979, so we didn’t go. Here’s the letter. Click the pic for a larger version…
Seven years was the standard waiting period for Bozo tix back in the day. Often, parents would request the tickets just after their kids were born. Every schoolmate of mine desperately wanted to go to that show and my brothers and I were the envy of the schoolyard when we got our confirmation.
Just about everybody we knew back then sent in postcards to enter ourselves for the Grand Prize Game, and my brother Denny’s postcard was picked out of the Bozo Drum. The kid who played for him only made it to Bucket Number Two, but Denny was still a hometown celebrity after that.
* Speaking of WGN TV and my mom, remember Ray Rayner? Ray had a great show when I was a kid (actually, he had two shows a day at one point, one, an after-school show, where he was supposedly an astronaut circling the globe). One of the things he’d do on his morning show was make crafts. The staff would make a finished product, and then he’d demonstrate to his viewers how to make that particular project in real time. Ray’s versions were never as good as the staff version, but it was fun to watch him stumble his way through.
My mom was really into crafts, and still is. When I was a kid, we’d all sit at the table and make whatever craft Mom had come up with, often inspired by Ray Rayner. It was a lot of fun, and we all had a great time laughing at our occasional ineptitude. That’s my mom in a nutshell. She taught us how to laugh at ourselves and not take things too seriously, while still pushing us hard to excel and to broaden ourselves with music, sports and reading.
I still have one of those crafts I made. It’s a Christmas Tree topper that’s supposed to be an angel. It doesn’t really look like an angel, but I thought it was cool back then and I’ve often topped my trees with it.
* I thought about Ray Rayner when Mom posted a link on her Facebook page. It was an article about how to make homemade snow globes. What a great Christmas project for the kids…
Snow globes are magical, whimsical, and fun. And they’re super easy to make at home.
The first thing you need are jars, with nice snug lids. Check out your fridge; I grabbed an almost empty bottle of peperoncini peppers (that I have been using on Greek Salads and Greek Tacos, you’d think I was the pregnant one with the cravings I have for those. I am most definitely not.) I also had a bottle of capers that I finally finished by making one last batch of this Grown Up Dipping Sauce (another obsession, you guys need to all try that one), and a big jar from marinara that we used for dipping Pizza Rolls. Marinated artichoke heart jars work really great for these, as do little teeny tiny baby food jars. Really any size jar works; you just have to find things to fit inside of them.
* Speaking of quality stuff, the Tribune has a fascinating story today about pension funding. According to the article, pension laws have been revised “nearly 700 times” since 2003. Many of those revisions was due to duplication because of the large number of pension funds and regulations here. But check this out…
Not all revisions captured in the review by the Tribune and WGN-TV had a fiscal impact, but the legislative record shows that more than half of the pension laws passed during the last eight years came without any fiscal analysis. [Emphasis added.]
One particularly egregious example of the lack of fiscal analysis was George Ryan’s early retirement program…
The original plan targeted up to 7,000 state employees and had a relatively modest price tag of about $550 million. But as Ryan and legislative leaders gathered around the negotiating table to finalize the incentive, a variety of perks were thrown in. The cost estimates, meanwhile, were not updated in time for legislators to weigh the full impact of the program. […]
In the end, more than 11,000 state employees took advantage of the lucrative deal, which caused the immediate cost of the incentive to climb to $2.3 billion, a fourfold increase from the original cost estimate.
When lawmakers realized how expensive the incentive turned out to be, they asked the staff of the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability for options. The commission offered various scenarios to pay down the debt over time, but the Legislature opted for the most costly — stretching out payments over 40 years.
All it took for former state Rep. Robert Molaro to nearly double his public pension was spending one month as an aide to Ald. Ed Burke, the powerful chairman of the Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee.
Among Molaro’s duties: Write a 19-page white paper about Chicago’s ailing pension funds. For his services, the former lawmaker was paid $12,000.
That paycheck sent his pension soaring, as many lawmakers’ benefits are based on 85 percent of their final pay on the last day of service. When Molaro officially retired on Jan. 1, 2009, his pensionable salary would be calculated at $144,000 — the amount he would have earned had he worked for Burke for a full year.
Oy.
* Not all “hit pieces” are created equal, but this one in the Reader is close to a classic. It’s about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “New Chicago Committee” and includes this priceless paragraph about a $15,000 contributor...
I wondered why Southern Wine & Spirits was keen on reforming Chicago, but my calls to the company’s corporate office in Miami weren’t returned. In 2008 the beverage distributor gave $20,000 to the governor committed to reforming Illinois, Rod Blagojevich.
If you don’t return a reporter’s calls, you’re in danger of getting broadsided. But that company has contributed to tons of candidates over the years, so pairing Emanuel up with Blagojevich is grossly unfair and totally unwarranted and really shows what sort of “story” this is.
* Chicago Magazine ran a pretty good piece about gangs and Chicago politics this month. The piece mentioned legislators, but offered up no names or evidence. A sidebar story tried to make the connection between legislators and gangbangers by listing the Chicago legislators with the most requests for Department of Corrections prisoner transfers.
The two topics aren’t necessarily connected, but Chicago Magazine never makes that clear. Legislators are often asked by families to help them get family members transferred closer to home. It’s been common practice for decades, if not centuries. The top requester was Sen. William Delgado. And here’s the one gangbanger whom Chicago Magazine highlighted…
RONNIE “MAD DOG” CARRASQUILLO, 53, a founder of the Logan Square–based Imperial Gangsters, fatally shot a Chicago police officer in 1976 and was sentenced to 200 to 600 years. In June 2008, Delgado requested that Carrasquillo be transferred from Hill Correctional Center to Dixon, a lower-security facility closer to Chicago. The transfer was denied.
The guy has been in prison since Gerald Ford was president and this transfer request is portrayed as evidence that Delgado is somehow in league with gangsters? Pretty thin soup.
There are too few folks like him left that are not dogmatic, but willing to listen to the facts and *gasp* change their mind when a reasonable argument is presented to him. He understands that good policy is too often hostage to good politics. He will be missed.
Millner is one of the best legislators in the building. He’s intellectually honest and pragmatic, which are always big plusses in my book. Plus, he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.
* Runner-up is Sen. Matt Murphy…
R: Murphy, a message bulldog who always lands punches. Rarely agree with him, but he makes a pretty compelling case for his party.
Murphy is one of those guys who can ably fight the good fight on the Senate floor and then socialize with the other side when he’s “off duty.” Over the years, legislators have seemed to separate themselves both day and night. Murphy is one of the few remaining who understands that building relationships with all his colleagues is important to the process.
* The Golden Horseshoe Award for best Illinois State Senator - Democrat was a tough one. There were lots of very strong nominations. But I went with Sen. John Sullivan because he’s done some things that could hurt him politically, but were still the right things to do…
Any man who is willing to tackle some of the real problems facing our state (bill backlog, paying ROEs after Quinn’s debacle, etc.) by not only supporting solutions , but leading on those issues time and again, deserves our respect. Then, when you learn he does all this with the kind of district he has… Yeesh, he deserves a medal. Especially on bonding–he is going to catch hell in his district for it, but he did it anyway…because its the right thing to do. We could use a few more with this kind of courage.
Agreed.
* Runner-up is Sen. Kimberly Lightford…
Great at the negotiating table. The education reform bill she passed this year is a testament to her “stick to it” attitude and her ability to get all the stakeholders on an issue together to hash out their disagreements. When the process began, nobody thought that she could craft an agreed bill, and she did it.
That reform bill was really quite something. Lightford ran some of the best negotiating sessions that many people had ever attended. If she sticks to what she knows, she’ll be a true star.
* OK, on to today’s categories…
* Best Illinois State Representative - Republican
* Best Illinois State Representative - Democrat
For the umpteenth time, make sure to fully explain your nomination. No explanation means I won’t count your vote. This is about intensity far more than numbers. And let’s leave the two top dogs out of the competition. This should be about the rank and file, not their two overlords. Also, please make sure to nominate in both categories. Thanks much and have at it.
* The key to political spin is that it has to either be believable enough for most normal people to buy into, or have enough red meat that the base can use it at the water cooler. Pat Brady’s react to yesterday’s unanimous judicial decision to approve the Democrats’ congressional map does neither…
Reacting to the decision of the court last night, State GOP Chairman Pat Brady told reporters that “the serious issues in the case regarding Latino disenfranchisement were thrown by the wayside.”
Sorry, but I don’t see this resonating with either the public at large or the base. It’s no secret that preventing “Latino disenfranchisement” has not exactly been all that high on the GOP’s priority list over the past few years. And I highly doubt you’ll see too many hardcore Republicans arguing that their party wants to enfranchise as many Latinos as possible.
Just sayin…
* Senate President John Cullerton might also want to rethink his words a bit. Asked by a reporter after the Senate passed the corporate tax cut bill “Who’s the next in line, and how do you answer this idea that everybody is going to want to get in line…” Cullerton interrupted and responded thusly…
“They can get in line and I guess they need to pass a bill in Springfield,” is probably not the way to go. This is precisely the argument against doing these sorts of tax breaks. The connected get the breaks, the non-connected pay the full rate.
* Talk about an understatement. The Pew Center on the States released its ratings on state election board websites this week. From the summary for Illinois…
(U)sers could have a challenging time finding the content they seek, accounting for a lower overall score.
More precisely, the Board’s front page is a massive jumble of scattered information which is so disorganized that it almost seems designed to confuse. It brings to mind this brief exchange between Capt. Willard and Col. Kurtz…
I don’t see any method, either. Two of the Pew Center’s recommendations…
Use informational labels to guide users to content from the home page, rather than vague filters such as “Top Documents” and “Top Pages.” […]
Organize information logically, so that users do not have to jump around the website or visit multiple pages to find related content.
Yes, do that, please. And soon. The Board of Elections’ site has always been a bizarre mess. It’s time they got a real developer over there.
Chicago Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd was locked up in federal custody Thursday as his stunned teammates learned he had been charged with trying to set up a drug-dealing network following his arrest with more than a pound of cocaine.
U.S. Magistrate Young Kim ordered Hurd held until at least Friday while prosecutors and defense attorneys work out bond details before he is sent to Texas to face charges.
The handcuffed Hurd declined to comment on the charges. Asked before the hearing if he was still a member of the Bears, he said: “As far as I know.” He shook his head when asked if he had talked to anyone on the team.
“Sam intends to fight these charges, and we intend to defend him fully,” said high-profile defense attorney David Kenner, one of Hurd’s lawyers. “We have complete confidence in him.”
Is former Gov. Rod Blagojevich actually addicted to a substance requiring a prison rehab program?
A top Blago source tells Sneed the answer is “Yes” and the substance is . . . alcohol.
“It’s not drugs,” said the source.
The backshot: “Rod can’t sleep without drinking,” the source said. “So he drinks himself into a condition to do so, and it became an addiction. Considering what he has been through for the past few years, it became a problem. He’s not addicted to sleeping pills or anything like that.”
* There is no doubt that the folks at School District 300 in Carpentersville did a bang-up job in their effort against extending Sears’ tax package without modifications. They used protests, massive grassroots organization, visits to Springfield and a harsh media campaign to hammer their area legislators and pressure the General Assembly to bend to their will. For example…
Parents, students and staff staged two massive rallies, one in Springfield and another in a high school gym with TV cameras rolling. They circulated petitions, organized letter-writing and phone campaigns and went door-to-door in the Capitol, catching legislators on the way to the bathroom, if necessary.
At an October rally, attended by about 3,000 supporters, Bregy closed his remarks with a quote from the movie Independence Day. “We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight.”
The signs in front of all District 300 buildings last week read: “NOT GOING QUIETLY.”
Some legislators didn’t like it at all. Rep. David Harris (R-Arlington Heights) scolded the district in a committee hearing for its antics. But that didn’t stop the protests.
* Throughout it all, D300 portrayed itself as a financially struggling district in desperate need of cash. Here’s the latest such story from the Chicago News Cooperative…
As chief financial officer for one of Illinois’s largest school districts, Cheryl Crates watches the money.
Early this year, she was counting on $14 million more rolling in for Community Unit District 300, after the expiration of a tax break at Sears Holdings’ 800-acre headquarters in Hoffman Estates; it is the Sears corporate campus, which includes an on-site auto center, walking trails and even a hair salon for employees. When Crates met with Hoffman Estates officials in March, she learned the money might not be coming after all because the tax break might not expire.
“I cried,” Crates said. “The school district has cut for the last two years. We’ve had no wage increases, and we were planning on that revenue to bring down our class sizes. We have one algebra class with 47 students. It was devastating.” […]
“Nobody around here has cut as much as we have,” Crates said. “Our neighboring high school district spends $5,000 more per student than we can,” she added.
OK, first of all, according to the state, D300’s average high school class size is 23.1. That rose from 19.7 percent the previous year, but it’s way down from a high of 29.8 percent in 2004. Elementary class size is 22.7.
The closest school district to D300 is Elgin School District 46. It does not spend $5,000 more per student than D300, not even close. It actually spends less. The Elgin district spends $9,860 per pupil while D300 spends $10,514..
But even though it spends less, Elgin’s high school class size is actually smaller than D300’s, at 19, although its elementary class size is much larger at 25.1. And Elgin’s district has far more children in poverty than D300, at 52 percent vs. D300’s 39.2 percent. Elgin’s graduation rate is 88 percent, while D300’s is a bit higher at 88.9 percent.
* I guess the point is, congrats D300. You did well. But spare me the tears.
* Oh, and another thing. Sen. Michael Noland (D-Elgin) has been D300’s hero throughout all of this. Noland has gone so far as to publicly bash fellow legislators for not toeing the D300 line.
But here’s the rub. Sen. Noland voted against the tax hike last January. The revenues from that tax hike took enormous pressure off school funding. Noland was also one of two Democratic Senators who blocked a borrowing bill which would have helped pay off old bills, including more than $5 million owed to D300 as of September. Some education “hero.”
