Smith, under pressure to resign his position, accused the FBI of engaging in “shenanigans” during the investigation and said agents pressured people to “say bad things about me.”
“I will not cower,” he said as his family stood behind him in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse lobby after entering his not-guilty plea. “I intend to stand tall.
Smith also suggested he will remain in office while he fights the charges.
“The people in my district elected me on March 20, 2012, even after the government charged me with wrongdoing,” he said. “And that’s because they believed in me.”
Smith has never been elected to his office. He was appointed, then won the Democratic nomination against a white Republican. He’s starting to sound like Rod.
Also, regardless of whether people were pressured to “say bad things” about him or not, the guy is on tape taking $7,000 in cash. I don’t know how you “stand tall” after you do something like that.
Nationwide, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index reveals that 21% of Americans say they smoke. As the accompanying graph illustrates, the likelihood of smoking generally increases as annual incomes decrease. One exception to this pattern occurs among those making less than $6,000 per year, an income bracket often skewed because many in that bracket are students. Among those making $6,000 to $11,999 per year, 34% say they smoke, while only 13% in the top two income brackets (those with incomes of at least $90,000 per year) say the same — a 21 percentage-point gap.
The Well-Being Index also confirms distinctions in U.S. smoking rates relating to gender and race. Among respondents, 23% of men and 19% of women say they smoke. Blacks are the most likely to smoke (23%) and Asians are least likely to smoke (12%). Hispanics and whites fall in between, at 17% and 20%, respectively.
* The Question: Is it fair to increase the state cigarette tax by a dollar a pack to help fund Medicaid costs when such high percentages of poor people will be impacted? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* As I told subscribers on Friday, House Speaker Michael Madigan has introduced an amendment to do away with government subsidies for state and university retiree health insurance…
Legislation to do away with the health insurance premium subsidy available to state retirees opens a new front in the battle between legislators determined to cut the state’s retirement debt and unions representing state workers.
“It would wipe out retiree health care entirely for retired state employees,” said Anders Lindall, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the largest public worker union.
The amendment to Senate Bill 1313 would eliminate subsidies for health insurance for retirees. Instead, the Department of Central Management Services would determine how much the state would contribute to “the basic program of group health benefits on behalf of retired employees, annuitants and survivors.” […]
“This is another place where the state is spending money and it’s important as we go through the whole budget debate to look at each one of these situations and determine if that is the best way to go forward,” said Madigan spokesman Steve Brown.
The subsidy is essentially written into the union’s contract, but that contract expires this year and doing away with the subsidy would likely kill it off.
* Related and a roundup…
* ‘A lot of angst’ among teachers over pensions: Most details about the plan are unclear at this point, but the most worrisome part of the proposal for teachers is a provision that would require educators to be 67 years old in order to retire with full pension benefits.
* School officials decry Quinn’s pension-shifting plan
* Finke: A little of the old Quinn surfaces in pension talks
* Pension presentation in Naperville draws hundreds of suburban teachers: “I think it’s fair to say there’s a lot more work to be done,” Ingram said. “There’s a lot of conversations that still need to take place. This is nowhere close to being a done deal right now. We’re going to be sorting it out over the next six weeks, or perhaps longer.”
* Illinois State Museum faces financial crisis: The Illinois State Museum might have to close one of its six sites — or push for an entrance fee — if its finances don’t improve.
* State Legislators Question State Officials on Animal Disease Lab Closure: “I’m against all the closures because after all is said and done, I think the total amount of dollars that we’re going to earn by closing is $100 million. What is $100 million in jobs, and making things unsafe, and not being able to set the services for the people of this state, for them to come here, to come back home, and for us to run and take our test out of the state, and on and on, it’s just kind of like a circle”, said Cavaletto.
* Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn says Gov. Scott Walker’s budget increases property taxes by $500 billion
* The trouble with cutting programs like Medicaid is that those cuts can cause other, even costlier problems. For instance…
The governor has called for the closure of Tinley Park Mental Health Center, which currently is budgeted to hold 75 residents. It currently employs 195 workers and has an annual budget of $19.8 million.
He also wants to close Singer Mental Health Center in Rockford, putting 145 people out of work and shuttering bed space for 76 residents. It costs about $14 million to operate the facility.
His budget also calls for cutting community mental health programs by $58.4 million.
Quinn’s Medicaid overhaul, designed to save a total of $2.7 billion, would place a moratorium on admissions to intermediate care facilities. The proposal, which would affect people with mental illnesses, would impact about 14,900 admissions in order to save $114 million.
The Medicaid cuts also would place a moratorium on admissions to a mental disease program impacting about 1,800 people. It would save about $36 million.
All that amounts to nearly a quarter of a billion dollars being diverted away from mental health programs and infrastructure. Lawmakers are trying to wrap up their action on the budget by May 31.
Christopher Larrison, a professor of social work at the University of Illinois, said the proposed reductions will likely result in more people seeking treatment in emergency rooms and more mentally ill people being arrested and jailed. Neither place, he said, is an appropriate setting — medically or financially — for someone needing treatment for a mental illness.
Like I told subscribers this morning, anybody who tells you that fixing things is easy has probably never fixed anything.
* Tom Loewy: ‘Entitlement mentality’ runs counter to the facts: But residents of Knox County shouldn’t tolerate a politician who walks into our midst and spouts off about an “entitlement mentality” when our friends and neighbors are struggling to find affordable medical care for their children. We should never tolerate a politician who tries to pit “us” against “them” when we are all citizens of the same state, faced with the same crushing economic uncertainties as those who live in other ZIP codes. Sorry, but that kind of attitude never made our country great.
On April 24, the justices said appellate panels cannot deny a prisoner’s habeas petition based on issues that the state has chosen not to raise.
Ryan’s second appeal to the 7th Circuit argued that jury instructions and several evidentiary rulings were defective in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Skilling v. United States. The errors, Ryan contended, permitted the jury to convict him on an honest-services theory without finding a bribe or kickback.
But the federal appeals court found that Skilling permitted his fraud conviction because the record established that Ryan took bribes in exchange for official services.
“Jury instructions that misstate the elements of an offense are not themselves a ground of collateral relief; likewise with erroneous evidentiary rulings,” Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote for the court.
Whereas lawyers for Jeffrey Skilling challenged the mail-fraud statute directly, Ryan’s lawyers contributed to the jury instructions that they now claim caused prejudice, thus forfeiting the challenge, the three-judge panel found.
“If Ryan’s lawyers had done what Skilling’s lawyers did, the controlling decision today might be Ryan rather than Skilling,” Easterbrook wrote, referencing the fact that Ryan’s petition for certiorari beat Skilling’s to the Supreme Court.
The appeal is based on whether the governor’s defense team effectively waived their objections to the district court judge’s instructions to the jury, even though government prosecutors conceded that those objections had not been waived.
The court ruled that Mr. Ryan’s conviction has to be reconsidered in light of last week’s unanimous Supreme Court decision in Wood v. Milyard, which restricted what a court can do when a government prosecutor doesn’t object to a defendant’s legal argument.
Ryan’s appellate attorney, Albert Alschuler, said that the ruling means the case will be sent back to the appellate court to reconsider the question of whether Ryan waived his objections to the jury instructions.
But Alschuler said there re still many issues to resolve.
“For now, it’s just further appellate proceedings,” he said. “The court is now remanding the case for the 7th Circuit to reconsider its ruling. Ultimately, it means we have a whole lot of issues to consider. But when all of those issues are considered, we’re hopeful the court would give Gov. Ryan a new trial.”
Another Ryan lawyer, former Gov. James Thompson, said it’s likely, though, that rather than a new trial, the defense team hopes ultimately to have some of the counts on which Ryan was convicted thrown out, allowing him to be released from prison on time served. [Emphasis added.]
*** UPDATE *** He may appear, but will he really say anything? We’ll see. From Illinois Issues…
A lawmaker who is set to enter a plea today on bribery charges also plans to appear before a legislative committee charged with deciding whether he will face disciplinary action. […]
Victor Henderson, Smith’s lawyer, said that Smith plans to appear before the House committee. “Yes. He absolutely will be appearing in Springfield in front of the committee,” Henderson said. “The representative will definitely be there and is looking forward to the opportunity to speak in some detail about where he is and his continued desire to serve and represent the people in his district.”
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* It’s been expected all along that Rep. Smith would claim he was entrapped somehow into accepting a $7,000 cash bribe, so this is no big surprise…
Illinois state Rep. Derrick Smith will plead not guilty Monday to a federal bribery charge, according to an attorney for the Chicago Democrat. […]
Vic Henderson is Smith’s attorney, and he’s strongly hinting he’ll argue the government entrapped his client.
“The government’s own information that is publicly available indicates that they manufactured documents, created - I think - fictitious website venues and things of that nature,” Henderson said in an interview last week.
Separate from the criminal proceedings, an Illinois House special investigating committee is looking into the allegations, a process that could end in Smith’s expulsion.
“He’s going to continue to serve as he was elected to do, and we’re going to defend him and business will go on as usual,” Henderson said.
State Rep. Derrick Smith (D-Chicago) may have more legal troubles than his federal bribery indictment.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has told the House Special Investigating Committee that his office’s investigation of Smith has not concluded.
“I can tell you that our investigation of Representative Smith is continuing,” Fitzgerald wrote, which could be an indication that the government may file more charges.
But the active federal investigation also means that Fitzgerald refused to cooperate with the committee, which is looking into the allegations to determine if any legislative action is warranted against Smith. Fitzgerald also asked the committee to not do any investigating beyond what already is in the public record, except for interviewing Smith himself.
Smith cannot be forced to testify to the special committee, but that refusal can be held against him when it comes time to recommend whether punitive action should be taken.
Fitzgerald wrote his letter April 10, but the committee didn’t meet to discuss it until 16 days later. Another hearing may not happen for a couple of weeks. This thing is in real danger of dragging on through the summer if the committee doesn’t get its act together soon.
Last week, a member of the House committee privately defended the slow process to date, pointing to the time it took to kick former Gov. Rod Blagojevich out of office.
But Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 8, 2008 and removed from office by the Senate on Jan. 29, 2009 — a total of 53 days start to finish, including House impeachment hearings, two House impeachment votes (one before and one after new members were sworn in), Senate hearings and a full Senate trial and vote to remove.
Smith was arrested March 13, 45 days before last week’s special committee meeting. By Blagojevich standards, Smith should be removed from office by the end of this week. But as I write this, the House doesn’t appear to be close to completing the first small step in the process.
The special committee is the initial step in the process of removal (or other punishment). If it decides that punishment is warranted, another committee will be appointed to decide what punishment, if any, should be meted out. Then the full House has to debate and vote on the matter. It’ll take a two-thirds majority vote to expel Smith.
There are indications that at least some Democratic members of the House committee aren’t completely convinced that this is a slam-dunk case. As if being arrested after allegedly accepting $7,000 in cash in exchange for providing an official letter of recommendation and having it all caught on tape somehow isn’t enough to warrant some sort of punishment for Smith.
I mean, even if the guy was entrapped (and the feds are pretty good about avoiding that), he’s still heard on an FBI tape while a “cooperating witness” counts out a pile of cash for him.
Cooperating witness: “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Damn, stuck together. Six. Seven. Talk to you later.”
Smith: “You don’t want me to give you yours now? … I’m gonna get you your two, man!”
I can understand why House members don’t want to set a dangerous precedent of kicking out a fellow member after only an arrest. I completely agree that such a radical move should definitely not be a blanket policy.
But Smith was indicted on federal bribery charges directly related to his official legislative duties. This was not a drunken driving case or some minor crime relating to his personal life or something trumped up by a local, partisan prosecutor.
A recent statewide poll I’ve seen shows that just 29 percent of likely Illinois voters approve of the job that the Legislature is doing, while 61 percent disapprove. Endless dawdling on the Smith case won’t do anything to improve that pathetic standing with the public. It’s time to get this Smith inquiry moving, already.
* A different Derrick Smith has been popping up on Google News lately. This Derrick Smith owns a horse that’s racing in the Kentucky Derby. Daddy Long Legs is owned by Smith and others. I’m not sure if that’s a good omen for betting or a bad one. Your thoughts?
Governor Quinn Proclaims “Philip Humber Day” in Illinois
CHICAGO – April 28, 2012. Governor Pat Quinn proclaimed today “Philip Humber Day” in Illinois in honor of the White Sox pitcher throwing only the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history. The Governor will present a framed proclamation to Humber and the White Sox before tonight’s game against the Boston Red Sox. The text of the proclamation is below.
WHEREAS, the people of Illinois are both entertained and inspired by demonstrations of athletic excellence and take great pride in the achievements of their favorite Major League Baseball teams; and,
WHEREAS, on April 21, 2012, Chicago White Sox Pitcher Philip Humber threw a perfect game in a 4-0 victory against the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field in Seattle; and,
WHEREAS, with this accomplishment, Philip Humber became only the 21st pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball ever to pitch a perfect game; and,
WHEREAS, Philip Humber became the first pitcher to throw a perfect game in the month of April since former White Sox hurler and fellow Texan Charles Robertson in 1922; and,
WHEREAS, Philip Humber became the first pitcher to not allow a single base runner against the Seattle Mariners; and,
WHEREAS, this extraordinary occasion marks the third perfect game for the White Sox, combining the achievements of Humber, Robertson, and Mark Buehrle in making the Chicago White Sox the leader in perfect games of all Major League franchises; and,
WHEREAS, in his perfect game, Philip Humber showed extreme poise and pure domination in a 96-pitch outing with 9 strike outs, including striking out Mariners’ pinch-hitter Brendan Ryan on a 3-2 count for the final out of the game; and,
WHEREAS, during his time on the mound, Philip Humber was able to pitch for a full eight innings without allowing a single batter to receive three balls and kept nearly every hitter from threatening to reach base; and,
WHEREAS, other players of the Chicago White Sox exemplified the highest ideals of teamwork in contributing to Philip Humber’s achievement, namely Alex Rios whose over the shoulder catch of Dustin Ackley’s line drive in the fourth stopped the Mariners attempt to get on base in their tracks; Paul Konerko, who struck first with a home run in the second inning and added another RBI in the third, and Anthony John Pierzynski, who not only caught Humber’s perfect game, but also drove in a run in the third and preserved the perfect game with a heads up play in the bottom of the ninth to end the game; and,
WHEREAS, sports fans throughout the world acknowledge Philip Humber’s contributions to the
Chicago White Sox, the State of Illinois, and the game of baseball; and
WHEREAS, Philip Humber’s remarkable performance on Saturday, April 21, 2012, now takes its place among the most memorable moments in the storied history of our national pastime:
THEREFORE, I, Pat Quinn, Governor of the State of Illinois, commend and salute Philip Humber for his exemplary performance on the baseball diamond and do hereby proclaim April 28, 2012, as PHILIP HUMBER DAY in Illinois in recognition of this historic and extraordinary accomplishment.
I heard the studio version of this song on 88.3 the other night as I was driving home and just went crazy for it…
So keep your glass, give me the bottle
I’m headed towards empty moving full throttle
Should you catch yourself worrying about me
Go on and ease your mind know that I’ll be fine
Just me and the whiskey
* I’ve been meaning to post stories on some complicated topics, but it’s Friday, it was a long week and I’m distracted as heck by something else, so let’s go with a story about Michelle Obama instead…
“Are you as big of a White Sox fan as your husband?” a 10-year-old boy asked the first lady, in reference to the president’s well-known support of the South Siders. The child followed up with a query of whether she had congratulated Sox pitcher Philip Humber on his perfect game last weekend against the Seattle Mariners.
The first lady acted quickly to set the record straight.
“Oh, gosh,” she said. “OK, the … no, I’m not as big a fan because I grew up a Cubs fan. We’re a mixed marriage.”
Obama went on to explain, as she has in the past, that her father was a Cubs fan, despite the fact her family lived on the South Side.
I know a lot of South Side African-American Cub fans. Back in the day, the Sox weren’t perceived as all that, um “black friendly.”
* The Question: How does your family deal with divided baseball loyalties? Tell us your story.
* Rep. Greg Harris sent out a “Springfield Update” yesterday which is an absolute must-read for everyone who visits my website…
Yesterday, I watched the faces and listened to the voices of my House colleagues from both sides of the aisle in a closed-door briefing as the implication of each of the Governor’s proposed cuts in Medicaid was explained. If 180,000 seniors lose prescription drug assistance, what were their options? If we eliminate combination therapy for 4,500 people with HIV/AIDS, what would the impact be?
If admissions to supportive living facilities or community care for seniors or people with disabilities was halted, wouldn’t that just drive costs up in nursing homes, hospitals or other more expensive treatment/living options? If the state stops paying for preventive care, aren’t we just shifting costs to ER visits, acute care and hospitals and increased costs for private insurance? And on down the list of pages and pages of charts and fine print.
Outside of that closed room, we were besieged by earnest board members from Catholic Charities, worried about budget cuts in the Homeless Prevention programs that would mean turning away nearly 16,000 families in distress.
Leaders of the Safer Foundation passed out fact sheets showing in the next 12 months how many of the adult population in Illinois prisons will be returning to the community. Their statistics show that the recidivism rate is around 50% for those that get no transition assistance, but only 31% for those that get substance abuse, job-placement and other reentry services at Adult Transition Centers. The proposed budget eliminates most of those.
Then came the hospice nurses with their fact sheets about the impact of the proposed cuts to the hospice program. They compared the costs of home hospice care to hospital stays for people at the end of life: $150-$650 per day to die at home versus $1,948 per day to die in the hospital.
When I got back to my office there were piles of reports. The Families USA report showed that the proposed Medicaid changes would cost Illinois 25,615 jobs. CeaseFire reduced shootings and killings 16% and 28%. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce had a Medicaid proposal and the Illinois Hospital Association had another. The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability research brief indicated that over the last several years the cuts to human service providers had eliminated over 18,000 jobs and $2.14 billion in private economic activity. The minutes of the COGFA hearings on state facilities closures told of job loss and economic harm in communities across Illinois where the facilities are major employers, and the fears of families of those in the facilities for what a closure might mean to a loved one.
The numbers say that we must pay our bills and live within our means. The numbers say that we have to pay debts; we have to cut over $1 billion from last year’s expenses, plus cut another $2.7 billion from Medicaid and further reform our pension systems. That’s what the numbers say. You can read the reports, and see the studies and say what must be done must be done. And at the end of the day we will pass a budget that may make some of these cuts, or may close some tax loopholes, or may “transform”, “modernize” or “right-size” government or “give everyone a haircut” or whatever the consultants and commentators cheerfully call it.
But for those of us who will cast a vote for it, and for those of you who have to deal with the consequences to your family, your town or your business, there are no good choices. We will pick winners and losers and there will be a human toll.
* Rep. Harris also included a list of recent studies…
Friday, Apr 27, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
The proposed Taylorville Energy Center coal plant would leave Illinois families and businesses paying nine times today’s market price for electricity every year for the next 30 years. That’s a cost increase to customers of $400 million every year, which would add up to $12 billion over the lifetime of this project.
Illinois already produces 30% more electricity than its residents use, meaning consumers would be forced to pay more for power we don’t even need.
In 2010 the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) concluded, “The TEC facility features high costs to ratepayers with uncertain future benefits, and uncertainties that potentially add to already-significant costs.” What’s more, natural gas and electricity prices have sharply decreased since the ICC’s study, meaning the Taylorville Energy Center has grown even more costly relative to alternatives.
As a result of the Taylorville Energy Center:
• Local governments and vital service providers would face huge new costs at a time when budgets are already strapped;
• Illinois employers and job-creators would be subject to nearly limitless financial risk from cost overruns and construction delays; and
• Illinois residents would battle more pollution due to the lax emissions limits project developer Tenaska has pursued.
The bottom line: the Taylorville Energy Center would send your hard earned money up in smoke for power that we don’t need. Tell your legislator to oppose SB 678 or any legislation that supports this unnecessary project.
* The Occupy Chicago folks have taken to calling Rahm Emanuel “Mayor 1 Percent” for his policies that favor the wealthy and powerful. But the former investment banker has a leftier side. Rolling Stone interviewed Todd Snider recently about his new album and Rahm came up in the conversation…
Q: Your new album has a song called “New York Banker,” where the chorus is, “Good things happen to bad people.” Is it true Rahm Emanuel gave you the idea for that song?
A: Yeah. Before this show in Chicago, I was working on a song about the military industrial complex or some [stuff]. Rahm, who’s a fan, came backstage, and I was telling him about it. He said that bankers were a bigger threat to normal people than the military, and that if Woody Guthrie was looking for a song, he’d probably be going after those bankers. And I said, “Well, I’ll give it a try.”
All these years, Arkansas, teachin’ at the high school
How was I to know by retirement day
I’d learn a lesson so cruel?
I came to the day I had waited on
Just to find out all the money in our pension was gone
We invested in somethin’ called the Abacus Bond
Sold to us by a New York banker
Good things happen to bad people, bad people, bad people
* Jerry Clarke has taken a ton of flak for being too close to Congressman Tim Johnson. Clarke was once Johnson’s chief of staff and there has been a nagging suspicion among many that Johnson dropped out of his campaign to help his old friend.
Johnson ain’t exactly the most popular guy among Republican political leaders in the 13th Congressional District these days. The GOP big dogs are furious that he would pull a stunt like this, so Clarke’s close ties to Johnson have hurt him with some. And the fact that Clarke reserved a campaign website address almost two months before Johnson’s retirement announcement has only further damaged him with the county party chairmen. Even if Clarke is telling the truth that he was just preparing for a run two years down the line, it sure looks fishy and people don’t like to be lied to, especially people who are about to hand out one of the greatest plums available.
It wasn’t all that long ago that being a congressional staffer was a good route up the ladder. Mark Kirk, Ray LaHood and plenty of others moved up that way. Times have changed, though, particularly in the GOP.
Johnson can be an odd duck, so I’m not sure whether he might’ve thought issuing a statement saying Clarke shouldn’t be considered as a ballot replacement could actually help Jerry, but I really doubt it’s gonna help him. It’s also possible that Johnson just wants to disassociate himself from this entire mess…
U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson said Thursday he doesn’t think former staff members should be among those considered to replace him on the November ballot in the new 13th Congressional District. […]
“At my retirement announcement, I let people know that no one in my family or on my staff would be a candidate for the nomination,” Johnson added. “The exclusion of those individuals should also extend to my former staff as the Republican Party moves forward in the most open and honest way possible.
“Several highly qualified individuals have expressed interest in succeeding me. I believe a number of them can be successful in the general election,” he said.
Clarke’s spokesman said his candidate is staying in the race. I’m not sure whether that’ll actually happen, though. This has become a circus, and that bodes very ill for Jerry. And, really, that’s too bad because I think Jerry would make a heckuva congressman.
* Related…
* Dan Brady decides not to seek Johnson ballot spot
* Watson not seeking 13th nomination: State Representative Jim Watson told the Jacksonville Journal Courier he is not interested in replacing U. S. Representative Tim Johnson.
* Press Release: Plummer Advances to NRCC ‘Contender’
* Gender gap persists among political donors: Two examples of women in Congress who have been able to raise substantial amounts from other women: Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. About 46% of the $10.5 million Boxer raised from individual contributions came from women, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Schakowsky raised about $722,000 from individuals and about 64% came from women.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s job-approval ratings have at times fallen as low as 23 percent. And polls taken so far this year have pegged his rating at between 30 and 36 percent.
He barely won his 2010 election, beating a weak, socially conservative Republican challenger by fewer than 32,000 votes. Quinn had to spend a fortune to eke out that win, partly because his job-approval rating was measured at just 32 percent a few days before 2010’s election day.
In other words, this is not a popular governor. His approval peaked not long after he was sworn into office, in the wake of Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment. But his numbers went straight downhill not long after, when the reality of the state’s horrible fiscal health and the horrors of the “Great Recession” began to infuriate voters.
Quinn hasn’t made it any easier on himself. He has trouble focusing his mind, he has trouble making up his mind, he has trouble following through when he does make up his mind, he has trouble sticking to his word, he has trouble articulating his words, he has trouble getting anybody to go along with his plans.
Some truly important things have been accomplished since Quinn took office. But the governor didn’t really have much to do with any of it, so he didn’t get any of the credit. He’s taken the brunt of blame for the accomplishments that the public hasn’t liked, including the income tax hike, though he never could’ve passed that stuff on his own.
But things have started to change, although the public hasn’t really noticed yet.
Last November, Quinn hired Gary Hannig to run his legislative operation. Hannig is an old Springfield hand. He was one of the most trusted members of House Speaker Michael Madigan’s leadership team before becoming the state’s secretary of transportation. He’s respected by pretty much everyone at the Statehouse.
Hannig brought some of the “Madigan way” with him to the governor’s office. Madigan and his team bat around all possible angles before they do anything. And they may be “yes men” once they’re in public, but that’s only after they have robust debates on how to proceed when they’re behind closed doors.
Quinn, for his part, has actually listened to Hannig. He doesn’t do that often or with many people outside his family. As a result, the ship has slowly, almost imperceptibly started righting itself over the past six months. Those of us who follow Quinn closely have noticed.
Until last week, almost nobody else did.
You probably saw the three editorials this newspaper published over the past week praising the governor’s new Medicaid and pension reform plans. I can’t remember a time when the Sun-Times, or any editorial page for that matter, has praised this governor three times in just a few days. He just didn’t deserve it.
The Sun-Times isn’t alone. Other newspaper editorial pages throughout the state have recently heaped praise on the governor for setting a tough but wholly necessary course for Illinois’ short-term and long-term fiscal health.
The details of Quinn’s reforms probably won’t be popular, and the General Assembly will likely alter the final product. But Quinn has demanded action this spring, and legislators aren’t automatically brushing him off as they have in the past. The public may soon start to see that today’s Pat Quinn is quite different from the Pat Quinn they’ve come to expect.
Quinn talked about running for re-election the other day. If he can stay this new and muscular course, he might just pull it off.
* Including a new one today, the Sun-Times’ positive editorial count is now up to four. Here they are…
* Editorial: Time for statesmanship, not partisanship, for Illinois
* Editorial: Raising cigarette tax $1 makes sense for Illinois
* Editorial: Quinn’s pension reforms will defuse time bomb
* Editorial: Gov’s Medicaid cuts get to what’s morally right
Friday, Apr 27, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Can we raise desperately needed state revenue and create more private sector jobs – all without raising taxes? A new study says – Yes!
A gaming solution under SB 1849 will have a $2.16 billion net impact on the Illinois economy, create nearly 20,500 new jobs and a generate $200 million in increased annual state revenue.
The legislation will significantly boost our state finances and translate into the largest jobs creation program in modern history, according to a study by the respected Spectrum Gaming Group commissioned by the Illinois Revenue and Jobs Alliance (IRJA).
The legislation would allow for a Chicago-based casino, four additional riverboat casinos throughout the state, slot machines at existing racetracks and more slots at existing casinos. Economic benefits include:
• 20,451 more total private sector jobs
• $3.49 billion more in economic output (gross impact on Illinois economy)
• $2.16 billion more in gross state product (net impact on Illinois economy)
• $1.5 billion in personal income
• Creation of $1.2 billion in new construction expenditures that would generate-
o 4,583 construction jobs
o $473 million in wages and benefits
