* Dear state Sen. Bill Brady,
Taking huge, multi-billion dollar short-term gains up front from long-term pension reform will only undermine the reforms, or mean that the reforms are so drastic they couldn’t possibly pass…
Legislators on a panel tasked with bringing the cost of the state’s pension systems under control have yet to identify potential solutions, but the Senate Republican on the committee said he wants no extension of the 2011 state income tax increase past its expiration date in 2015.
“That’s a line in the sand for me,” Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, said in an interview last week. “Everything should be negotiated from a base of the tax increase falling off. Whatever we do, it’s got to be a long-term plan that has a fiscal forecast that coincides with the rolling back of that tax increase as prescribed by today’s law.”
To me, this looks like a setup for voting “No” on a possible compromise.
* Dear Illinois Senate,
What took you so long?…
The Illinois Senate is giving itself some extra options when it comes to weighing in on Gov. Pat Quinn’s top hires. […]
Under the new rules, the Senate panel that screens all appointees before they are brought before the full Senate floor for confirmation can now vote to not recommend prospective agency heads and Cabinet members.
Previously, the Executive Appointments Committee did not have the formal ability to issue a negative ruling on a gubernatorial appointee.
“It strengthens the actual committee to either recommend or not recommend certain appointees,” said Rikeesha Phelon, spokeswoman for Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago.
Seems logical to me.
* Dear Illinois House candidate Danielle Rowe,
When you send out a press release with “Chicago Style Intimidation” in the e-mail subject line, I’m not sure I think of this particular charge…
DANIELLE ROWE WON’T BE INTIMIDATED BY CHICAGO-STYLE BULLYING TACTICS
In the latest Chicago-style intimidation tactics used against tea party conservative Republican candidate for State Representative Danielle Rowe, Rowe’s billboards have disappeared from multiple locations throughout the district. The billboards were 4 feet tall by 8 feet wide, solidly constructed on sheets of plywood, pegged into steel poles, pounded down two feet into the ground, and valued between $1500 and $2000. They are not to be mistaken for paper signs on wire hangers commonly found on the side of the road.
Sign stealing is as old as political campaigns. It’s the height of geocentricity to claim that this is a Chicago thing. It ain’t. Besides, few in Chicago are silly enough to spend two grand on a yard sign.
Also, your “bullying” headline just made me think of this recent story…
Danielle Rowe said she responded sincerely, and what she thought to be truthfully, when she disclosed an 11-year-old arrest on her Daily Herald candidate questionnaire.
Rowe, who’s in a three-way GOP primary race for the 52nd House District seat, wrote that she slapped her sister during a heated argument, but that charges were dropped. However, McHenry County court records show she received one-year supervision and a $342 fine for misdemeanor battery.
Later in the piece, you are quoted as saying, “I don’t even remember being on supervision.” Are you gonna remember your campaign promises?
* Dear Chicago Tribune,
More specifics, please…
Under the federal consent decree, DCFS violates the rules if an investigator is assigned more than 12 new cases a month. For three months of the year, that number may go up to 15. Since investigators must close out their cases within two months, the theory is they will not juggle more than about 24 combined cases at one time.
A Tribune survey of investigator caseloads showed widespread noncompliance. In Cook County, for example, 80 percent of 126 investigators were assigned more cases than allowed during at least one month last year. A majority of them had caseloads that were too high for several months, records show.
“Several months” could be three months, which wouldn’t be in technical violation. How many months is several? And how many actual violations are occurring?
* Dear Fran Eaton,
I’m not sure we ridiculed you at all at the event you referenced today. We (or, perhaps just I) challenged some of your more out there assertions, but whatever…
No one outside Breitbart’s inner circle is privy to exactly where “The Bigs” are headed, but this excerpt from Breitbart’s own fingers is the first in a series that purports to unveil the Barack Obama Chicago and Springfield journalists knew well, but refused to reveal, even when they knew well the nation and the world would be affected.
At a Northwestern University School of Journalism panel in 2008, a couple of those key Illinois journalists ridiculed and mostly ignored Illinois Review when we warned that someday the world would hold them accountable for not doing their jobs and writing about the real Barack Obama they knew so well.
While several excellent books about the Obamas have made their way into the mainstream and New York Times’ best seller list, America should look forward to Big Journalism’s branded vetting. And as the truth comes forward, those who so irresponsibly ignored and kept under cover should be held responsible for aiding and abetting the Obama agenda.
The reason few take you seriously, Fran, is you say things like journalists “refused to reveal” the fact that state Sen. Barack Obama spoke after a Chicago play about Saul Alinksy, along with Cook County Clerk David Orr, Studs Terkel, AFSCME’s Roberta Lynch and a group of old, has-been lefties.
We didn’t “know it well,” Fran. Actually, we didn’t know it at all. And I doubt anybody would’ve cared back then or care today.
* Roundup…
* 2 lives shed light on dispute over Illinois move away from institutions for mentally disabled
* University employees defend tuition break
* With potential oil boom on horizon, IL lawmakers want to update fracking law
* Lincoln Tomb awaiting renovation
* Parents Ask For Notifications Of Pesticide Use: Illinois Legislators Scoff
* Gun group wants extra tax on residents of violent neighborhoods: “After imposition of our proposal, I’m quite sure that homeowners and business people in high-tax areas would be highly motivated to reign in their fellow residents responsible for violent crime,” he says. Great idea! I’m sure that higher taxes is just the kick in the pants that gang-afflicted areas need. Apparently, fear that you and your loved ones might be blown away if you step outside the basement isn’t enough.
* New McPier board rounded out
* Nonprofits Criticize State’s Lack Of Transparency, Public Input
* ADDED: Sheyman goes negative in 10th District Democratic race
- wordslinger - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:26 pm:
–In the latest Chicago-style intimidation tactics used against tea party conservative Republican candidate for State Representative Danielle Rowe, Rowe’s billboards have disappeared from multiple locations throughout the district.–
“Mr. Peraica, can you account for your whereabouts the evening of…”
- A-Noni-Mouse - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:28 pm:
Given Bill Brady’s comments, I guess that we know who’ll be running for Governor again in just a couple of years. Seems like his “line in the sand” is more a “head in the sand” approach to the pension problem.
- soccermom - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:42 pm:
Won’t you go home, Bill Brady? Won’t you go home?
- PublicServant - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:42 pm:
Given Bill Brady’s selection as a member of the state pension working group, I expect nothing less than a partisan standoff as their work product.
- Irish - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:43 pm:
Dear Governor Quinn, You are supposed to be the environmental Governor. How is it that you proposed CMS get almost 2% increase and you cut DNR 13.5%? You admitted that your predecessor cut DNR to the bone and you found fault with that yet you continue to do so. How is the tourism economy supposed to rebound when sites will be in such disrepair people won’t want to go to them? Only a couple other agencies and offices took as much or more of a hit than DNR did. CMS doesn’t need any more money they already take it from every other state agency. Other agencies can’t even recycle their own scrap anymore. CMS takes it and the money it earns.
New Orleans Saints - Give back your Super Bowl trophy. Purposely knocking other players out of games for a bounty is unacceptable.
Rush Limbaugh - Can’t say it, Rich would ban me.
- mark walker - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:45 pm:
Oversized signs missing, in a GOP primary in McHenry, are a “Chicago intimidation tactic”?? Is she crazy?
Dollars to donuts, they were removed by GOP opponents’ operatives, or by local villages if they were placed on public right-of-way land. A lot of new candidates just don’t know the local rules on placement of signs.
- pink - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:48 pm:
Rowe gives new meaning to tax fighter
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:53 pm:
Dear Treasurer Rutherford,
It is good to see that you have been less politically visable in the past few weeks, and the tenor of your opinions have been less “harsh”. I applaud this change of tact, and it will benefit you in the long run. Sometimes making headlines isn’t as important than staying OUT of the headlines.
Continue the work in your office, instead of running for your next office. The Hacks that “seem” to have your best interest at heart need to be reminded that a good job at this job, will make it easier to get the next job. Keep pluggin away and fight the good fight, not just any fight that comes your way, or of your random choosing.
Dear Jason Plummer,
Enough with the taxes. Release them. Money and funding for your race WILL be an issue. It may not show up in the Primary, but come soon after, someone wil ask the SEC about those large contributions and what stocks were sold and when.
If you have hundreds of thousands of dollars, cash, on-hand, heaven help you.
Be smart, be an actual transparent candidate, not the most transparent, according to your definition of transparency.
Dear IL House and IL Senate GOP,
Christopher Wills’ recent AP article about the ILGA’s GOP cannibalizing itself breaks my heart, because it didn’t have to happen, but it did. I must move on and face the realities of both caucuses being “Veto-Proofed”.
My advice? If you both get “Veto-Proofed”, please Mr. Cross and Ms. Radogno, step aside. By staying in, your even more diluted minority, how does that give hope for the next 5 cycles?
This is your wake-up call. Either draw a line in the sand and be remotely relevant as leaders, or get walloped. If the latter occurs, step down.
If you are a member of the caucus and your caucus gets walloped, change the leadership. Be strong.
The relevence of your caucuses… and yourselves … is hanging in the balance.
Sincerely to all, your Pal,
Oswego Willy
- mark walker - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:55 pm:
As to Sen Brady’s comments — I am not sure that any reasonable pension solution will absolutely require extending the higher tax rates. Neither side should be taking absolutist positions at this point.
- Easy - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 1:59 pm:
what kind of snob uses the word “geocentricity”? geez.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:02 pm:
===what kind of snob ===
Actually, I think I just made it up.
- 47th Ward - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:02 pm:
Yes, the great Obama as a left-wing Hyde Park community organizer has finally been exposed so the entire world now knows the truth about our President. We’d never have known this without Breibart’s expose, blowing the cover off the underground communist conspiracy that Rich and others in the media have kept a tight lid on. And the proof is a theater poster (probably from a union printer). How many secrets are printed on posters anyway? I guess that’s how radical Obama really is.
But there’s more to the story. Did you know Obama is also left handed? I kid you not. Less than 20% of Americans are left handed too, further proof that he’s not a real American. I don’t recall Miller ever disclosing that important fact either.
That Breitbart piece was something straight out of the McCarthy hearings. Smearing Obama is one thing, but when you bring Studs Terkel into it and accuse him of being a communist, well sir, you’ve crossed a line.
Radicals, socialists and Marxists, oh my. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto.
- Cheryl44 - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:04 pm:
Chicago-style
They’re dumping sport peppers on her signs? Celery salt?
- Rich Miller - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:07 pm:
But no ketchup.
Never ketchup.
- mark walker - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:08 pm:
Strong, clear positions and arguments are helpful, but “drawing a line in the sand” can make you irrelevant to the real processes of fixing Illinois, no matter how much it impresses your base.
- Bemused - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:11 pm:
Bill Brady makes another move in the chess match that never really ends.
- Team Sleep - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:14 pm:
If you want to make the argument that Obama’s “associations” from his youth and early political career were/are a harbinger of the company he has, does and will keep, I could understand the motive. After all, people typecasted Dubya’s inner circle from the time he won the presidency until he left. But it’s a real stretch to tie Obama’s attendance at an event when he was thrashed in a Congressional primary a year earlier to how he acts as president and with whom he associates and affiliates himself.
- soccermom - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:15 pm:
Yeah. Bill Brady is playing chess. But oddly, he keeps on throwing his hand out flat in front of him and shouting “PAPER!”
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:17 pm:
===Strong, clear positions and arguments are helpful, but “drawing a line in the sand” can make you irrelevant to the real processes of fixing Illinois, no matter how much it impresses your base. ===
“Draw a line in the sand” in my context was to say enough with letting Madigan and Cullerton take any and all seats they want. Make the arguement in the districts, and do what leaders would do to keep your seats … and win more than you lose.
If you want caucuses that spend money foolishly, and in races that are lost … If you want caucus leaders not funding the true close races because hanging on to what you have is not the strategy … then the “line in the sand” makes no sense.
Draw the line, say enough, and be relevent leaders of a caucus … or step aside.
- OneMan - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:25 pm:
Dear Pat Brady,
You need to make up your mind, is Lauzen a Springfield insider or is he a guy who doesn’t play well with members of either party. Because the two seem somewhat mutually exclusive to me.
But thanks for the phone calls, if nothing else our party caucus a few days after the primary is going to be a gas.
- OneMan - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:30 pm:
Yeah just like the media to say they made something up…
The idea that a given entity is the center of the universe and all thing revolve around it is something that is relevant to Illinois politics.
- Easy - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:35 pm:
OW-
Your desire in every post to go after the GOP not withstanding, it appears the GOP have drawn significant policy lines that will ultimately aid them in delivering an effective political message and contrast with the Dems.
NO gop votes for tax hike. no gop votes for borrowing. GOP-driven medicaid and pension reforms. that’s what voters want and it’s where the GOP has positioned themselves.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:42 pm:
-Easy-
1) Since I am a Republican, I would want to give my advice to my party, … they don’t listen, so I give it anyway. If you are the keeper of who should comment on what, forward me that memo … thanks.
2) “effective political message” is great, votes win elections, field operations win elections… just sayin’
3) Gettin a hot dog at the turn on Election Day ain’t going to win seats either. Be engaged, be involved, be relevent … or be gone. If golfing on Election Day is cool with your leaders, then I got a few golf courses out here you may want to check out on Election Day … hopefully not, but ya never know.
- amalia - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:45 pm:
Dear Rush Limbaugh, time for you to go the way of Glen Beck. 9 advertisers smarten up and counting……
- King Louis XVI - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:49 pm:
–…it’s where the GOP has positioned themselves.–
Yep. They’ve positioned themselves in minority. The GOP has got the Dems just where they want ‘em, right?
- hisgirlfriday - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 2:51 pm:
I can’t decide which I find more amusing about Fran’s apoplexy about the media keeping it a secret from voters about Obama having attended/discussed a play about Saul Alinsky in 1998:
1. That the damning evidence of Obama’s radical nature based on his association with Alinsky admirers/commentators that has Fran so incensed includes a poster and a press release that shows his involvement with their activities so insignificant that they didn’t even know how to spell Obama’s first name correctly (both refer to him as Baraka); or
2. That Fran has expressed no concern that I know of regarding the fact that the likely Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, had a father who as a 1968 GOP presidential candidate and Michigan governor associated with Saul Alinsky and recommended that Republicans listen to him.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/mitt-romneys-father-palled-around-with-saul-a
- Rowe - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:03 pm:
I promise to slap , choke , and claw the tax rate down
I am fighting mad this campaign
- Don't Worry About the Government - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:10 pm:
I think people care about who the President associated with, what his beliefs are and what his vision is for the country. If we have to hear about how Mitt rode around with a dog in a crate on top of his car or about how Newt’s infidelity would affect his ability to govern then it is 100% appropriate to shed light on the company our current President kept on his rise from community organizer, to State Senator, to Senator, to President.
- reformer - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:11 pm:
Fran has been silent about the fact that the DuPage GOP chairman, Rep. Ramey, has gotten more than $50,000 from the IEA, which conservatives love to bash. If a Democrat had gotten such big bucks from a public employee union, the right-wing would be all over him.
- reformer - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:11 pm:
I think Bill Brady is staking out the theme for his next gubernatorial campaign.
- Peggy R/Southern - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:16 pm:
I suspect the predominant # of commenters here are state employees. As a taxpayer (and onetime IL state employee), I am with Bill Brady. Public service is not to enrich folks or to provide job security, but to serve the public. Illinois families don’t need to keep sacrificing for the state. The state is to serve, not enslave.
I heard an ad on KMOX about the IL budget cuts and the concern for the middle-class. It was an ad by AFSCME. Since when is AFSCME the representative of the middle-class who pay the taxes to fund AFSCME and its captive members? Quinn is doing something right to get AFSCME to take to the airwaves.
- Demoralized - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:18 pm:
Bill Brady is simply doing what Republicans like to do - saying what they WON’T do. No solutions, just NO period. Way to be a part of the solution. Anybody that doesn’t think the tax increase at least needs to be extended is living in fantasyland. Grow up already.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:19 pm:
===I suspect the predominant # of commenters here are state employees.===
And you base this on … what?
- Rich Miller - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:19 pm:
===I suspect the predominant # of commenters here are state employees===
You’d suspect wrong. Stick to your own opinions and try not to presuppose anything about others.
- OneMan - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:21 pm:
Well I did work as a door guard in a dorm when I was NIU, does that make me a state employee?
- JustaJoe - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:28 pm:
“The Illinois Senate is giving itself some extra options when it comes to weighing in on Gov. Pat Quinn’s top hires”
I’m not impressed. What happened to “fumigation”? What happened to the “fumigation bill”? Who gets to deny all the Rutan-exempt appointees that are “deputy directors” and “liaisons”? Big deal.
- Don't Worry About the Government - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:30 pm:
===I suspect the predominant # of commenters here are state employees===
Maybe it is time for a poll of your subscribers and commenters?
- TCB - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:34 pm:
@OneMan,
You probably qualify for some sort of tuition waiver for your offspring….be sure to look into that
Lot’s of snark intended.
- Peggy R/Southern - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:39 pm:
Oswego,
I possibly may not be able to say, given Mr. Miller’s comments. FWIW, my general sense is that most commenters at Cap Fax seem to have a vested interest in the state budget and do not favor decreasing expenditures, but rather increasing taxes.
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:42 pm:
===seem to have a vested interest in the state budget and do not favor decreasing expenditures, but rather increasing taxes.===
And this … you are basing on … what?
Dunno if this statement is that fact-based either …
- Conservative Republican - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:51 pm:
Miller, what are you afraid of? Don’t you think 47th Ward can defend himself? Everything in my post re Terkel was accurate and verifiable. Kind of takes away from your criticism of Eaton if you actively suppress information regarding Studs Terkel’s “fellow traveling”.
- train111 - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:55 pm:
Up until a couple of months ago I had no clue who Saul Alinsky even was. Now I comment on here occasionally and read political blogs on a daily basis, and didn’t even know who he was–even though I had seen the name several times before making the effort to actually look up who he was. I’d venture to say that even though far right winger’s hearts pitter-patter every time he is tied to Obama, 99% of the general public neither knows nor frankly even gives a rip about who he was. Adding to that, probably 99% of the voting public is going to let out a collective yawn over Andrew Breitbart’s big releases about who Obama ‘really is’. More nonsense to add to the collective Obama Derangement Syndrome pile.
train111
- Rich Miller - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 3:55 pm:
===Miller, what are you afraid of?===
Nothing. Just hate it when commenters violate Godwin’s Law is all. Automatic deletion, man. Try again.
- steve schnorf - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 4:08 pm:
Any pension solution, if it’s real, is probably going to need bipartisan support (unless, of course, we suppose the Ds are willing to screw state employee unions with no R support). If I’m correct, the solution has to be sell-able to some members of each R caucus. I think what Sen Brady is doing is laying down a marker that says “you gotta keep this in mind if you want any Senate R votes”.
- Pot calling kettle - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 4:25 pm:
Ms. Rowe: If you paid $1500-$2000 on 4×8 plywood signs, can we really believe you will stop “runaway spending”!?!
- just sayin' - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 4:29 pm:
So sick of the “Chicago style” nonsense. It’s gotten so cliche for Republicans with no ideas to resort to the Chicago bashing.
Rowe had the equivelent of billboards in a public right of way. Odds are city workers took them down for legitimate safety and zoning issues.
You’re right on Rich that in Chicago they wouldn’t be dumb enough to put those up that way in the first place.
- carbaby - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 4:30 pm:
Perhaps it would have been helpful, dear Chicago Tribune, if you would have also did a little more research to find out about how many DCP workers were also voluntarily taking on additional investigations for additional compensation/overtime. Not all DCP investigations are created equal either- with some being more serious than others- such as sexual abuse and serious physical injury. Good practice is good practice. The critical factors missed in these last two death investigations are practice issues not to be confused with issues of being overwhelmed/overworked.
- Demoralized - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 4:35 pm:
Peggy R:
Who exactly is enriching themself as a state employee? That’s the kind of nonsense that drives people crazy. Wild accusations with no basis in fact. How dare we not sit here and simply be steamrolled and allow our pensions to be obliterated. How selfish. I’m a taxpayer too. I get so irritated at the “taxpayer” argument. You don’t own state workers.
- Demoralized - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 4:37 pm:
Steve:
And the marker Brady established is unreasonable. It’s obvious he’s not interested in any solution. Anybody that automatically rules out things is not serious about it.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 6:09 pm:
Dear Senator Brady:
I’m with you.
Any pension reforms should be tied to a Constituional amendment abolishing the flat tax and the 8/5th rule for corporate income taxes. We need middle class tax relief and we need it now!
YDD
- Coach - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 6:30 pm:
=== I can’t decide which I find more amusing … ===
Or that Alinsky’s book is a handbook for tea partiers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204624204577177272926154002.html
- Oswego Willy - Monday, Mar 5, 12 @ 6:39 pm:
Dear Lori Healy,
Rahm Emanuel is not Rich Daley. Rich Daley is the “nice” one. Hope everyone had time to prepare for this “change”. Good luck, Lori … I am sure the announcement was just a formality, you guys knew all along.
Your Pal,
Oswego Willy