Joe Walsh’s support explained?
Tuesday, Oct 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Lake County News-Sun’s “Talk of the County” is like an online letters to the editor page. I figure that this anonymous opinion posted to the page is pretty much the thinking behind Joe Walsh’s most committed followers…
Rep. Joe Walsh is a man who sticks by his word. He does what he says. He’s not a wimpy wishy-washy politician. I pick my battles. And don’t give me the poor example of not paying child support. The truth will come out. Those who are without sin can throw the first stone. And you have thrown yours by talking about someone without the facts.
Discuss.
* WBEZ’s Sam Hudzik tried to get Walsh’s GOP primary opponent Randy Hultgren to talk about whether he would run a negative campaign. Hultgren carefully dodged every question…
Last week, I chatted with Hultgren about the expected primary. I asked him if he would bring up the child support issue.
HULTGREN: You know, we’re going to talk about what we’ve been doing. I don’t, I really don’t know, what all is going to happen in this. I hope it doesn’t happen. I’m still hopeful that the courts are going to do the right thing and change these districts. So, what we’re going to do is focus on what we’ve been doing, and the good work that we’ve done for the people. […] In this district, particularly, I know that people are sick and tired of negative campaigns. I know in the media that, that people – they like that. But in this, there’s so much positive, that I feel like I can talk about, of what we’ve been doing and what we’ve done and what we’re going to do, that that’s going to be the focus.
I pointed out to Hultgren that his statement left the door open to using personal issues. He replied that his “focus is going to be on a positive race,” but added…
HULTGREN: There’s so many other things that play into it, of what people on the radio will say or what people in newspapers will say, but our focus is going to be positive. I think that’s absolutely what the 14th Congressional District wants.
Noting negative races in the past, Hultgren said, “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
So does that mean he’s personally pledging to run a positive race?
HULTGREN: Well, my focus is going to be on talking about positive things. We’re, I’ve, I’m careful on pledges, other than my pledges to serve the people that I represent as best as I possibly can, and to tell the truth, and to follow through on what I said I was going to do. Those are the pledges I’ve made and those are the pledges I’m going to keep.
That, my friends, is a careful answer.
Yep.
* And speaking of embattled incumbents, Republican state Sen. Suzi Schmidt now has a primary opponent…
Saying that incumbent state Sen. Suzi Schmidt will “have to run against her own incriminating 9-1-1 tapes” in the 2012 elections, former Lake County Board member Larry Leafblad of Grayslake formally declared his candidacy Monday to face his fellow Republican in the March 20 primary.
“The whole world was watching. Suzi mortally wounded herself,” Leafblad said in an appearance at the Round Lake Beach Cultural and Civic Center, referring to three domestic incidents between Schmidt and her husband, Robert, between December 2010 and Sept. 26 this year.
While neither Schmidt nor her husband were charged with any offenses in the incidents, Leafblad said he believes they made her “vulnerable next fall” among voters.
“The politicians that are tied to Suzi’s kite, because she’s got connections, (are) kind of circling the wagons around her right now,” Leafblad said following his formal remarks. “But the people are not. I’ve talked to 250, maybe 300 people throughout the last week or so (who) are very concerned that a Democrat could just walk into the position.”
* Meanwhile, Scott Reeder is rightfully not pleased with former state Rep. Mike Boland, who can’t make up his mind whether he will run for Congress or state Senate and is passing petitions for both offices…
Passing petitions to run for two different offices at the same time is sort like asking a gal to marry you, while still keeping your options open with the girl down the street.
Is Boland a two-timer pledging his devotion to the people of the 17th Congressional district while flirting with the voters in the 36th State Senate District?
* And Scott Cisek was remarkably candid about Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s primary race against former US Rep. Debbie Halvorson…
“Another city person getting in the race could only help Deb Halverson,” Cook County Democratic Party Political Director Scott Cisek said. […]
Though Jackson is already lining up support from local leaders in the black community, most onlookers downplayed the racial dynamic in the contest. Halvorson’s appeal to women could be a bigger factor, local Democrats speculated, especially in light of Jackson’s admitted affair.
Jackson “could have some real difficulty with women voters of every stripe,” Cisek said.
I’m assuming the Jackson campaign will use Halvorson’s pro-gun voting record to prevent her from winning over female voters, but Cisek has a good point.
20 Comments  
|
*** UPDATE *** I can’t believe I forgot to post Mark Brown’s column here. The whole idea for this post came to me when I read his piece about the new Starz series “Boss” starring Kelsey Grammer as a Chicago mayor…
The scene is shot in the actual City Council chambers, which unfortunately may be its only brush with reality.
At one point, Mayor Kane becomes so frustrated with the City Council refusing to go along with him on a particularly outlandish scheme that he clears the chambers of the press and public, shuts off the lights (and presumably the sound system) in the upstairs gallery and decrees:
“Hand over the hardware. Laptops, BlackBerries, phones, iPads. All of it. No word in, no word out. No Twitter. No Facebook. Nothing.”
Mayor Kane goes on to tell the aldermen they will stay there until they vote his way, and if they don’t, he’ll make their votes public. The aldermen grumble, then throw their electronic devices into a box as ordered, but still refuse to vote with the mayor.
Somebody has got to be kidding.
That could happen in the General Assembly, because the Legislature is exempt from the Open Meetings Act. Something similar has actually happened, although it wasn’t done to strongarm members. But there’s no way a Chicago mayor could get away with pulling a stunt like that. And, as Brown points out in his column, there’s almost no way a Chicago mayor would ever need to do something like that.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration has found an interesting way of getting around Freedom of Information Requests: Don’t keep records in the first place…
Hundreds of people saw Lady Antebellum, M.C. Hammer, Jason Aldean and other recording artists at the Illinois State Fair this year for free, courtesy of the governor’s office and the Department of Agriculture. But those agencies did not keep records of who received the tickets.
The state gave out 1,997 tickets, valued at from about $10 to $40, with the majority of them going to television and radio stations for promotional purposes to dole out to listeners and viewers. The governor’s office, the Department of Agriculture and the state fair received their own allotment of 654 tickets. The State Journal-Register filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information on who received the tickets.
* What’s next, a dispute over the shape of the table? Sheesh…
With every passing hour, the meeting between Chicago Public Schools officials and the Chicago Teachers Union to discuss longer school days appears less likely.
Last week, CTU President Karen Lewis had said she and her union officers were ready to talk about the district’s controversial plan, but suggested union headquarters as a meeting location.
CPS countered by suggesting the two parties meet at a school that has chosen to add 90 minutes to its school day.
And since then, the talks have stalled.
* Bad timing all around? Steve Stevlic has resigned as Chicago Tea Party director after it came out that he’d been busted last year for soliciting a prostitute. But according to a rival tea party group, Stevlic ought to also resign from the IPI…
Mr. Stevlic, of the 6800 block of West Cermak Rd in Berwyn, was removed from our tea party two years ago for inappropriate behavior towards a female tea party member. We never worked with him or his group and never will.
We also strongly suggest to all affiliated groups and organizations that support Steve Stevlic to stand him down. In particular, we suggest that John Tillman of the Illinois Policy Institute, where Stevan Stevlic, 36, was hired as an employee last week, fire him. We also demand, as tea partiers, that Steve Stevlic resign from his position and resign today. We just cannot afford him!
Actually, Stevlic is already gone. He resigned from IPI right after the revelations hit the media.
* An errant fax provides some insight into how things are done in St. Clair County…
St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department records clerk Joann Reed wanted a speeding ticket for the son of a deputy dismissed, but she didn’t go to a judge or jury in traffic court.
Instead, Reed faxed a copy of the Centreville Police Department’s ticket from the Sheriff’s Department’s fax machine to Centreville village attorney Carmen Durso, with a handwritten message: “Dismiss this case.”
The problem is, she didn’t fax the ticket to Durso. Reed accidentally faxed it to the News-Democrat’s newsroom.
Oops.
* This is just way too much power concentrated in one alderman’s hands…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee, have agreed to work together to wring $15 million in savings out of the city’s $100-a-year million tab for workers compensation. […]
Burke, who has sole authority to process and settle workers compensation claims and handpick attorneys when claims are challenged, has agreed to more aggressively investigate and manage individual cases.
* Some of us wondered why Chicago’s Census effort was so mangled…
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s Securities Department temporarily has revoked the securities license of Alvin Boutte Jr. after concluding that the Chicago municipal finance banker acted improperly in advising the agency that runs the state’s prepaid tuition program to invest $12.8 million in now-failed community lender ShoreBank Corp.
Mr. Boutte — a board member of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority and recent co-chairman of a committee appointed by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley to provide a total count of the city’s population for the U.S. census — performed the “due diligence” review on behalf of the Illinois Student Assistance Commission for its investment in ShoreBank in late 2008. That investment was wiped out when ShoreBank failed in August 2010.
In its Oct. 3 order barring Mr. Boutte from offering or selling securities or providing investment advice, the Securities Department said Mr. Boutte misrepresented facts ISAC should have known before agreeing to invest and acted both as an adviser to ISAC and as a representative for ShoreBank in soliciting investors.
* This is such a typical Daley move…
In March 2004, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley announced a deal that promised to save taxpayer money, reduce natural gas consumption and bring “green” jobs to Chicago.
But taxpayers might see red when they learn how the deal turned out. More than seven years later, the initiative has been quietly suspended amid problems with some of the equipment — and acknowledgements by city officials that taxpayers will probably lose money on the deal and never realize the energy savings that Daley touted, the Better Government Association has learned. […]
In the end, the BGA found that one of the few beneficiaries of the deal appears to be a businessman with close ties to Daley: United Service Cos. President and CEO Rick Simon, the former chairman of the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau and a South Loop neighbor of the ex-mayor.
* And, of course, so is this…
Former Mayor Richard M. Daley on Monday denounced as “disgraceful” and a “personal insult to my wife” an internal audit concluding that recipients of city subsidies were told to donate to Maggie Daley’s After School Matters program.
The former mayor insisted that no arms were ever twisted to produce donations to the charity that his wife founded to occupy and educate Chicago teenagers. […]
Last week, Ferguson charged that After School Matters received $915,000 in contributions over a ten-year period from companies that received tax-increment-financing subsidies from the city.
TIF recipients interviewed by Ferguson’s investigators reported that, in the vast majority of cases, the charities were “unilaterally chosen” by the city with no specific standards for making those decisions.
* Related…
* Double-dipping in the teachers’ pension system: Michael Johnson didn’t wait until he retired as executive director of the Illinois Association of School Boards to start cashing in on his public pension. Johnson earned $324,785 in compensation from the Illinois Association of School Boards, or IASB, while simultaneously collecting $209,379.43 from the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2008, according to documents obtained by Illinois Statehouse News.
* Union leaders pull down millions in public pensions: Former employees of the National Education Association, or NEA, Illinois Education Association, or IEA, Illinois Federation of Teachers, or IFT, and Illinois Association of School Boards, or IASB, drawing pensions have collected more than $47 million from the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, or TRS, to date.
* Feds investigating Cicero personnel practices: Federal authorities have interviewed dozens of current and former employees of the Town of Cicero, some under subpoena, as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the town’s personnel practices, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, is conducting the investigation to determine whether to file a federal lawsuit against Cicero. Over the last three decades, the federal government has sued the town repeatedly over its hiring practices and alleged discrimination, but this investigation specifically targets practices under Town President Larry Dominick.
* Evans steps down as Country Club Hills police chief
* County commissioners violated Open Meetings Act
15 Comments
|
Question of the day
Tuesday, Oct 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Sox and Cubs had miserable seasons. The Bears were horrible last night. The NBA has canceled the first two weeks of the season. The Blackhawks ain’t what they used to be.
* The Question: Now what, sports fans?
60 Comments
|
The serial exaggerator strikes again
Tuesday, Oct 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Earlier this year, US Sen. Mark Kirk came up with a novel theory about Illinois finances during a Senate committee hearing…
“As Greece has ruined the bond market of Europe, so could Illinois and California ruin the bond market of the United States,” Kirk said.
* But Ben Bernanke appeared to dismiss Kirk’s idea…
“We watch those (states) very carefully,” said Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. “We also look at exposures of banks and other institutions to those states. We don’t see any immediate risk there.”
* This morning, Kirk released a report on Illinois finances that was somewhat accurate, but also out of date and, like his Greek theory, needlessly alarmist. For instance…
Illinois owes $8.3 billion in unpaid bills. That’s 10 times higher than the level in 2002.
Um, no. That number is way out of date. This is from a September report issued by the Illinois comptroller…
(T)he state ended fiscal year 2011 on June 30 with nearly $4 billion in unpaid bills dating back to January. When lapse period spending is included, the end-of-fiscal-year payment deficit balloons to $5.1 billion, which will be paid with fiscal year 2012 revenues.
* More from Kirk’s report…
Indeed, the State has put itself in a classic “debt spiral.” It borrows to cover deficit spending, so credit ratings fall and interest rates rise. Taxes go up but tax receipts still fall short because businesses aren’t growing and taxpayers are moving to other states. So, as if it were paying off a mortgage loan with a credit card, the government starts the cycle all over again by borrowing more and paying higher interest for the privilege.
Actually, there’s no new borrowing built into this fiscal year’s plan. And tax receipts are definitely not falling short since the tax hike.
* And even major budget players like Senate Appropriations Committee II Chairman Dan Kotowski are against more borrowing…
In the meantime, if the governor asks the General Assembly to borrow more money in the upcoming veto session, Kotowski said he would vote no.
“I wouldn’t support borrowing,” he said.
* Look, there’s no doubt that Illinois’ finances are not yet in order. Far from it. But as I’ve said time and again, it took the state decades to get into this mess, we cannot expect to get out of it in one year. It would certainly help if Gov. Pat Quinn were more committed to this goal, because the General Assembly can’t continue to do this on its own. And I’m not optimistic that the budget trend will remain. But Sen. Kirk should probably try using some updated numbers the next time he talks about his home state’s fiscal problems and avoid crying “Wolf.”
Also, the Tribune might wanna check Kirk’s numbers before it allows itself to be used like it was today.
* Chris Wills of the AP Tweeted another problem with Kirk’s report…
No specific recommendations.
* Related…
* A civil war is brewing inside the most influential conservative group in Congress: The Republican Study Committee, which has long served as the conservative policy nerve center for the House GOP, has been beset by infighting and disputes over the group’s mission… Alabama Reps. Jo Bonner and Martha Roby have dropped out of the group, as has Louisiana Rep. Bill Cassidy. At least one other, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, is in the process of leaving, according to a source familiar with his thinking. Bonner, who met with Jordan privately before he dropped out, said he’ll “be damned if I am going to sit by and watch our members fight against each other.” Roby, Cassidy and Kinzinger refused to comment on their departures. “There’s a bit of an überconservative environment that’s going on, and we can’t continue to shoot ourselves in the foot or have what I call a circular firing squad,” said Florida Rep. Allen West, a freshman member of the RSC who is remaining in the group.
* Jacksonville Developmental Center hearing moved to larger site: An Oct. 24 meeting of the legislative Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability to hear testimony about the state’s plans to close the Jacksonville Developmental Center has been moved to the Bruner Recreation Center on the Illinois College campus.
* Mother Warns of Danger If Mental Health Facilities Are Closed: In 2008, Barb Carlson’s daughter, Jennifer, and three of her friends were killed when a woman diagnosed with schizophrenia set her Chicago apartment building on fire. A Cook County judge found Mary Smith not guilty by reason of insanity. During the trial, Smith’s family said they tried to get her help, but no one would take her. Carlson fears if Singer closes it’s a tragedy that could happen again. “I think he needs to consider the ramifications that this is going to cause” says Carlson. “I heard there is no plan in place to put people once they shut these facilities down. I can see down the road if we’re not careful the same thing is going to happen again.”
50 Comments
|
The clock ticks louder as fall session nears
Tuesday, Oct 11, 2011 - Posted by Rich Miller
* As we area all painfully aware, CME Group’s chairman/CEO has announced that he hates Illinois’ tax hike and may move pieces of his company to another state. But a couple of plans are surfacing…
Recent studies have shown, however, that most large Illinois-based corporations do not pay income taxes at anywhere near the official rate. Large manufacturers such as Boeing and Caterpillar, for instance, tend to book sales elsewhere, and because Illinois imposes its income tax taxes only on profits from sales within the state, these companies pay substantially less than if all their profits were taxed.
The CME Group, in contrast, executes the vast majority of its millions of daily trades in Chicago.
CME Chairman Terrence Duffy recently told reporters that the way Illinois apportions income tax liability puts his exchange at a distinct disadvantage. If Caterpillar sells earth-moving equipment to an individual living outside Illinois, the transaction does not incur state taxes in Illinois.
So the CME Group is looking for relief. Under one scenario, its trades could be recorded in the home state of the buyer or seller of the futures contracts. Under another, the state and the city could provide a package of economic incentives-job training grants, TIF financing, property tax abatements – to partially offset the income tax hit. [emphasis added]
I checked with the governor’s budget office on this and they, in turn, checked with the Department of Revenue. The budget office’s response…
As a general matter, their sales should be sited to the location of their customers. It is perhaps an open question who their customers are - perhaps they are the clearinghouses.
So, it’s possible that the law could be tweaked to allow CME Group to avoid state taxes by using a different formula for how the point of sale is calculated. But a decision really needs to be made soon.
* Earlier in the year, Gov. Pat Quinn set a September 13th deadline for a resolution to the labor issues at McCormick Place. Quinn said he’d call a special session of the General Assembly if no deal was reached. But before the deadline expired, Quinn announced that there was no need for a special session because talks were progressing smoothly. Not everyone agrees…
Talks aimed at reviving labor reforms at McCormick Place are dragging on too long, and may end up doing too little to make Chicago competitive with other cities, the head of the city’s convention bureau is warning.
In a remarkably candid interview, Bruce Rauner, the chairman of the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau, says current and potential trade-show customers “are losing their patience” at lengthy talks among Springfield politicians.
With talks already weeks behind schedule, the Legislature’s fall veto session is running out of time to work on McCormick Place matters, he said. “It’s not clear how these negotiations will turn out, or how comprehensive the changes will be,” Mr. Rauner said.
“This decision has dragged on too long and, if it continues they (customers) could go elsewhere,” he added.
* Gov. Quinn has had since the end of May to craft an alternative to the gaming expansion bill. Legislators and others have complained that he won’t say what specific changes he’d like to make to the bill. Doug Finke is rightly unimpressed with the governor’s latest pronouncement…
Quinn said last week that he will detail his concerns about the gambling expansion by the end of the month. Whoopee.
Quinn has been bad-mouthing the bill for months, complaining variously that it’s too big, it weakens oversight of gambling, it will ruin the family atmosphere of the state fairgrounds, etc. etc. etc. But he’s never really detailed all of his objections so that lawmakers can attempt to work on a compromise
But now Quinn is ready to lay out all of his concerns - by the end of the month. The end of the month, of course, is when lawmakers will be back in Springfield for the veto session. They could end up drafting a final compromise on the fly.
You know how well things turn out when they are rushed through the Legislature.
However, Quinn apparently did say that a south suburban casino is out of the question…
Not that all trustees were as concerned about proposals of a south suburban casino. [Lansing] Village President Norm Abbott said Gov. Pat Quinn told south suburban mayors during a recent meeting that it was unlikely any casino would ever be located in the South Side or its surrounding suburbs.
“He (Quinn) told us there just won’t be a new casino on the South Side,” Abbott said.
* Related…
* Durflinger reflects on doing business with China
* Legislative update: Illinois Fall Veto Session looms week of Oct. 25
* Hispanic leaders want seat on health review board
* Editorial: Defense costs an issue for lawmakers
14 Comments
|
CHICAGO TRIBUNE (6/9/11): “The utilities stand to earn a return of 6 percentage points over the 30-year Treasury rate—that’s a profit of more than 10 percent at present. The profit could soar if interest rates rise, and apart from a weak provision written into the measure, the sky’s the limit. The bill also has a rate cap that applies only to part of the period it covers. The formulas for both return on equity and rate caps should be strengthened.”
ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR (6/7/11): “As we wrote in a May 22 editorial, the complex regulatory process in Illinois has served consumers well. There’s no need for the company to do this end run and weaken protections in place for decades.” “…ComEd thinks the regulatory process is broken – and its remedy is a guarantee of double-digit profits for the next decade.”
CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS (6/27/11): “The bill guarantees the utility an investment return of more than 10% annually, paid for by its customers. It also would weaken regulatory oversight of ComEd, the monopoly electric supplier to homes and small businesses in Northern Illinois.”
Comments Off
|
* My weekly syndicated newspaper column digs a bit deeper into the governor’s latest weird move…
Gov. Pat Quinn has been trying to get rid of Illinois Power Agency director Mark Pruitt almost since the day Quinn was sworn into office. He finally did it, but the move is backfiring.
The governor is a big cheerleader for alternative power like wind and solar. But Pruitt, whose main job is negotiating contracts with electricity generators on behalf of consumers, refused to sign some alt energy contracts because they’d cost consumers too much money.
Pruitt’s IPA was created after mega utility ComEd announced that it intended to buy electricity via a weird reverse auction system that was roundly slammed by Attorney General Lisa Madigan and every other reasonable political leader in Illinois. As a result, Pruitt claims to have saved Illinois electricity consumers $1.6 billion since 2007, and he has the numbers to back him up.
The IPA was created by House Speaker Michael Madigan, who to this day lists the creation as one of his greatest accomplishments. Pruitt wasn’t initially Speaker Madigan’s guy, but the speaker grew to respect him and found himself protecting Pruitt against Quinn’s hostility, eventually passing a bill this spring that removed the Power Agency from Quinn’s direct control. Quinn, in a move he’ll likely regret, vetoed Madigan’s proposal this summer.
Pruitt is most certainly an egghead, not an administrator. He initially tried to run the IPA by himself, which resulted in an embarrassing report by the Illinois auditor general. And although the Quinn administration denies it, word from inside is that the governor has blocked Pruitt from hiring staff, and Quinn has repeatedly taken money from Pruitt’s special fund to shore up the rest of the state budget. That turmoil is mainly why Speaker Madigan finally stepped in and attempted to insulate the power agency from Quinn’s meddling.
Back in June, Quinn tried to replace Pruitt with a lawyer who works for the attorney general’s office. The Senate Democrats decided that the lawyer didn’t meet the state law’s job requirements and quietly demanded that his name be withdrawn.
Quinn’s people still insist that the man was qualified. But they also claim, in a bizarre bit of pique, that he was actually pressured into withdrawing by the attorney general. The attorney general’s office flatly denies this allegation.
The governor’s folks say they asked Speaker Madigan for names to replace Pruitt but heard nothing back. That’s not surprising since Pruitt is Madigan’s guy.
Quinn finally ousted Pruitt last week and replaced him with Arlene Juracek, a retired ComEd executive. Juracek actually testified on behalf of the much-ridiculed reverse auction and admits to owning Exelon stock, but she won’t say how much.
Exelon, ComEd’s parent company, will be on the other side of the table when Juracek negotiates power prices. The Quinn people say the job requirements are so strict that they had little choice but to name Juracek to the post. Plus, they say, the Illinois Commerce Commission can veto any unfavorable deals Juracek might negotiate with her former parent company, which is cold comfort to the attorney general.
The bottom line here is that the governor has made a move that would’ve caused a gigantic uproar if Rod Blagojevich had done the same thing. Just imagine the hostile reaction if Blagojevich had appointed a ComEd retiree who still owns shares of her former parent company’s stock as the point person for negotiating power prices with that very company.
And below that bottom line is an even bigger problem. The governor has angered both the House speaker and the attorney general just weeks before the start of the fall veto session which was already looking like a disaster for Quinn as members prepare to override or reject almost all of his vetoes.
It’s not certain yet that Juracek’s nomination is doomed, but it is sure starting to look that way. The governor spent last week flying around to various downstate media markets to gin up public support for his veto of ComEd’s “Smart Grid” bill. How he can bash ComEd on the one hand and hire a ComEd veteran to negotiate electricity prices on the other is more than a bit beyond me.
* The Belleville News Democrat is also puzzled…
Remember the dark days of 2007 when electric rates doubled and tripled because the power companies had been deregulated and they were buying high-priced power from themselves through a reverse auction? Juracek and the utilities loved the reverse auction idea. Obviously.
ADGRPID:|SERVTYPE:
Quantcast
The power agency was set up as an alternative to the reverse auctions, and Pruitt has done a great job for consumers, saving them an estimated $1.6 billion since 2009. We don’t understand why Quinn would replace him at all, but especially with someone who spent her career with ComEd.
Fortunately, the Senate will have to confirm Juracek. Let’s hope the senators have better sense than Quinn and say no to this appointment.
* Quinn explains…
During the news conference, Quinn praised Juracek as his appointment to head the agency, despite criticism from Attorney General Lisa Madigan — who is often a supporter of the governor’s — that Juracek’s role in the 2006 electricity auction played a part in the considerable jump in the utility rates consumers pay.
“I’ve happened to know Arlene for some time. She’s worked with the utility company. We didn’t always agree, but she was prepared and knew the subjects backwards and forwards,” Quinn said. “I think it’s very good to have someone who is well-versed in the area of power procurement to represent the people of Illinois, the governments of Illinois and to get the best deal we can.”
Quinn said Juracek’s experience played a role in her appointment. State law, Quinn said, requires someone with 15 years of utility experience to take over the IPA’s top position.
In other words, despite Quinn’s longtime challenges to the utility industry as both governor and citizens advocate (his efforts helped form the Citizens Utility Board in 1983), he had to pull from the “other” side for this one.
* Related…
* Utilities gave legislators $1.3 million in push for ‘Smart Grid’ bill
* Smart meters the future; get apps ready
* All ComEd bill provides is checkbook pain: He claims SB1652 does not guarantee utility profits. Read the bill: Page 82 clearly states that utility profits are tied to an automatic formula that is based on 30-year Treasury bonds. As bonds increase, so will ComEd and Ameren’s profits. Furthermore, Pages 84 to 86 state that year after year, ComEd and Ameren are guaranteed that their profit margins cannot fall below half a percentage point under what was reported the previous year. Mr. Romero also says that SB1652 includes consumer protections like a 2.5 percent cap. The reality, as stated in Pages 72-74 and 101-102, is that rate cap only applies for three of the bill’s 10 years, and that the so-called cap actually masks continuous increases in the delivery rates.
* Quinn looks to public to fight smart grid plan
20 Comments
|
|
Support CapitolFax.com
Visit our advertisers...
 
...............
...............
...............
...............
|
   
|
Hosted by MCS |
SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax |
Advertise Here |
Mobile Version |
Contact Rich Miller
|
