* I think I’ve told you that I get my brains from my mother and my story-telling abilities from my paternal grandmother. Both women have been very important figures in my life, along with my mom’s late mother. I’ve been truly blessed by the presence and love of those women, not to mention all the wonderful aunts and great aunts who’ve influenced me over the years.
Despite all this love and inherited abilities, I spent much of my twenties kinda bumming around without any real direction or purpose. I finally realized I could write and tell interesting stories and decided I ought to figure out how to build a life around those skills. Somehow, it all came together, so this never happened, thank goodness…
Workin’ hours without rest, wanted me to have the best
Oh she tried to raise me right, but I refused.
Thanks, Mom. Thanks, “Grandma Cuz.” Thanks to all the mothers in my life. I love you all.
Roger C. Marquardt, a longtime Springfield lobbyist who served briefly as a state lawmaker from Lombard, has died, it was announced on the Illinois House floor Friday.
Marquardt served as head of the DuPage County airport starting in 1981, before later working under Gov. Jim Edgar in the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Later, in 2002, Marquardt was appointed to finish a term in the Illinois House, where he served for about a year.
Since then, he had run Roger C. Marquardt & Co., a lobbying firm with current clients including several DuPage County communities, College of DuPage, the Illinois High School Association and others. Past clients have included Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz.
My deepest sympathies to his entire family and his many, many friends. May he rest in peace.
Friday, May 11, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Illinois residents want to cut the deficit and create jobs without tax increases or budget cuts. A recent independent analysis shows that a modest expansion of gaming in Illinois would create 20,500 jobs and $200 million in desperately needed new annual revenue.
That’s why Illinois labor leaders are united in support for the compromise legislation contained in Senate Bill 1849:
“With our unemployment numbers still hovering around 9 percent, the state can’t afford to take a pass on this vital piece of legislation. We’ve got men and women ready to go to work today, and SB 1849 would finally give them the opportunity to earn their living.” Tom Balanoff, President, SEIU Local 1
“More people at work means more tax revenues coming in to help balance our city, county and state budgets.” Dave Whitmore, Business Manager, Ironworkers Local 4
“More than 50,000 jobs are at stake! Not only would SB 1849 create 20,000 new jobs, it would save more than 30,000 agri-business jobs that effect nearly every single one of Illinois’s 102 counties!”Former Rep. Bill Black, Chairman, the Illinois Revenue and Jobs Allliance.
* I Tweeted this concept yesterday because it seemed pretty obvious. It turns out that I wasn’t the only one who saw things that way…
Call it the Rod Blagojevich defense.
Indicted state Rep. Derrick Smith, D-Chicago, refused to answer questions from the Illinois House committee tasked with recommending whether he should be impeached.
Instead, he read from a statement Thursday — “I intended to fight this charge and clear my name” — and then punted to his attorney, Victor Henderson, who didn’t confirm or deny accusations related to Smith accepting a $7,000 bribe to steer a $50,000 state grant to a day care.
Henderson ducked direct answers to questions posed by the committee members and House attorney David Ellis and recycled the strategy used by now-federal-inmate Blagojevich’s law team.
“We want all of the facts out,” said Henderson, a partner in Henderson Adam LLC, the same law firm that represented Blagojevich, during the House Special Investigative Committee hearing.
“We want everything to see the light of day,” Henderson said later.
Blagojevich used this strategy when the General Assembly impeached him and during the federal trial that led to his conviction on corruption charges for trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated when Barack Obama became president.
Blagojevich and his lawyers would claim that if only the public could hear the whole tapes, not just excerpts like when Blagojevich said, “I’ve got this thing and its (expletive) golden and I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing,” they would see he was innocent.
Henderson was unmoved by a warning from Rep. Dennis Reboletti, the committee’s top Republican, who said the panel has a much lower standard of fault-finding than Smith would face in federal court.
“I haven’t heard you disagree that the conversations that are in this complaint, on the wire, ever took place,” said Reboletti, who’s from Elmhurst. “I would suggest that is enough for this committee to take action and most likely deliberate and suggest we move forward with the House to punishment.”
Smith is accused of accepting a $7,000 cash bribe from a fictitious daycare center to write a letter of support for a state grant.
House prosecutor David Ellis told Henderson the panel wants to know if the letter exists, as alleged in the criminal complaint.
“The official act that Rep. Smith is accused of committing is writing this letter of support. Is there something that you want to tell us about this, something that you can point to in the criminal complaint that is incorrect, taken out of context?” Ellis asked. “We’re trying to figure out… did he write this letter?”
Henderson wouldn’t confirm or deny the letter exists. He said he’s waiting for the federal government to release all its information so he can compare it with the criminal complaint. The committee’s timetable is unclear, but Smith is expected back in court at the end of the month.
Victor Henderson, Smith’s attorney, said he will ask a federal judge May 30 to release all available information but noted that prosecutors oppose doing so.
Henderson told lawmakers that he is “not in a position to confirm nor deny” the allegations in the federal complaint because he has not received much information to date. He urged lawmakers to wait until more information is available before the House takes action in the Smith matter.
“You don’t want to shoot and ask questions later. You want to ask questions and then decide,” Henderson said.
Whatever. His client is doomed.
* Related…
* Indicted Rep. Smith refuses to answer House panel’s questions
Today, Congressman Walsh will finally have his first debate with Tammy Duckworth. You can watch the debate live on CTLV or wgntv.com at 6PM Central. For those who still would like to submit their questions for Joe and Tammy, you can submit them on the “Politics Tonight” website.
* The Question: What would you like to see asked at tonight’s debate?
* Back in October of 2010, Gov. Pat Quinn said he fully supported civil unions, but had this to say when he was asked about gay marriage…
Quinn said wasn’t opposed to legalizing gay marriage in Illinois. He said he wouldn’t “stand in the way, if the voters of Illinois want to have it come to pass.”
Asked on Valentine’s Day if he would sign a gay marriage bill, Quinn said, “I haven’t looked at that yet; I’ll take a look at it.”
Soon after, Quinn told Chicago public radio that he looks “forward to working with the advocates on this issue to build a majority.”
* But then President Obama announced recently that he supported gay marriage. The announcement came in the wake of North Carolina’s statewide vote against the issue. The Democratic National Convention is in NC this year, so the plebiscite became a big dealio with the national media. Then there was the uproar about Mitt Romney giving a gay high school classmate a forced haircut, and the vice president’s comments recently about supporting gay marriage.
Spokeswoman Matsoff maintained that Quinn isn’t changing his position, because he had said before that he wouldn’t stand in the way if a gay marriage bill passed the General Assembly.
State Rep. Greg Harris, an openly gay Chicago Democrat who helped lead the successful push to bring civil unions to Illinois, also suggested it was unlikely a push for gay marriage would take place anytime soon.
“I never put a time frame on the civil union vote. I won’t put a time frame on this one. I’ll keep counting noses,” Harris said.
But, Harris said Obama’s announcement this week represents a huge step forward for supporters of gay marriage.
“History was made by the president when he came out and made that statement,” said Harris, who is sponsoring a gay marriage bill. “Change is happening, and it’s happening more quickly than I would have thought.”
Strategically, Garcia said, gay rights activists in the state had no expectation that marriage rights would be politically palatable this soon after the civil unions law passed.
“Our plan was to pass civil unions and then let everybody who voted yes on civil unions get through their next election, which is this November,” he said.
There will be a ton of lame ducks who might be able to vote for this in January, when a simple majority is all that’s needed to pass a bill.
* If you were watching yesterday’s live session coverage post, you saw that the Senate passed a bill to repeal the state law giving retirees with 20 years of active service free health insurance premiums. Gov. Pat Quinn issued a statement not long after the bill passed…
“I am encouraged that legislators have taken this step towards restoring fiscal stability to Illinois. This legislation will help ensure that our retirees continue to have access to quality health care, while also lowering the cost to taxpayers.
“I would like to thank Senate President Cullerton, Senate Minority Leader Radogno, House Speaker Madigan and House Minority Leader Cross for their collaboration and leadership. I plan to sign this legislation and look forward to continuing to work together to make the difficult decisions necessary to return Illinois to sound financial footing.”
The legislation allows the Illinois Department of Central Management Services to negotiate the premium rates annually with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.
Whatever CMS and AFSCME negotiates will be applied to retired lawmakers, retired judges and retired university workers.
If the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules balks at the rate, AFSCME and CMS would return to the negotiating table.
“It will be a collectively bargained retiree benefit,” said Robb Craddick, who is deputy director of labor relations for CMS and the chief labor negotiator for the state. “The intent of this legislation is to allow the Department of Central Management Services to negotiate a means-based plan.” Craddick said that if JCAR rejects the number, then AFSCME and CMS would return to the table.
“I support and respect the collective bargaining process. … These benefits are going to be collectively bargained. So I certainly hope that in the public discussion, there’s no representation that it’s going to be anything but that,” Schoenberg said.
The benefits will be collectively bargained, but the GA has essentially given a super-committee veto power over the end result. So, it’s not exactly collective bargaining.
But union officials say the plan impedes the collective bargaining process and allows CMS to arbitrarily set the amount the state would pay. […]
Cameron argued that while working, retirees gave up other things through collective bargaining, such as raises, as a trade off for their paid health care. “The health insurance is a benefit that was earned. It’s not a perk, it’s not a privilege, it’s not a giveaway,” he said. “While working members, they negotiated to make sure that their retiree health care benefits were affordable. And as a consequence, they took less in salary, less in wage increases. That reduced their pension, so they have less [retirement] income. But again, they were operating under this framework that they were guaranteed affordable health benefits.” He said that the new plan does not give retirees a way to predict what their health care costs would be from year to year.
Cameron said the rising cost of health care is a serious issue, but he said the proposal does nothing to address that problem. “Let’s be clear: What we’re doing here is both breaking a promise to those retirees and shifting the cost of that health care liability onto their shoulders. We’re not reducing it. We’re not eliminating it. It remains unaffordable, but we have decided to stick the bill to those who can least afford it.”
* Not surprisingly, Springfield’s Republican state Senator voted against it…
Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, said he thinks the bill is unconstitutional because it applies to people who retired years ago from the state with the expectation of receiving health insurance at no premium cost if they worked 20 or more years for the state. The benefit was put into state law in 1997. Bomke said the change should only apply to future retirees.
“I don’t disagree we need to do something about the health care and the costs, there’s no question about it, but prospectively,” Bomke said. “To vote yes on this bill will simply mean that we’ll have a court challenge, we’ll spend millions of dollars we don’t have trying to defend it, only to realize it’s not constitutional.”
State Sen. Larry Bomke, R-Springfield, predictably voted against the bill. Too many state workers in his district. Too much union pressure. Not enough moxie.
I had a chance to sit down for half an hour with Mayor Rahm Emanuel when he was in Springfield on Tuesday.
Most of the conversation was off the record. Going off the record was my choice because Emanuel was sticking so tightly to his script that I wasn’t getting anything new or interesting out of him.
“I’m spending my Springfield political capital on pensions.”
“I’m serious about cleaning up this pension problem.”
“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
He didn’t actually say that last sentence, but that’s what it sounded like after a few minutes, so off the record we went.
The unscripted Emanuel was a lot more interesting, but off the record is off the record, so I can’t tell you what he said.
Suffice it to say that he’s pretty much on top of Statehouse events.
The mayor has some definite holes in his understanding of Springfield’s sausage-making process, but that’s to be expected from anybody who has never spent time down there. There’s a reason why people hire lobbyists. Navigating Springfield’s ever-complicated currents is treacherous work for all but the most experienced deckhands.
And while I can’t tell you what the mayor said, I can tell you what I told him.
Emanuel was in Springfield to ask the Legislature to include Chicago’s pension systems in its planned pension reform bill. The mayor had previously indicated to other reporters that he thought pension reform could be put off until the lame-duck session next January. Delaying a vote would give him and other mayors around the state more time to put pressure on the General Assembly.
The reality, though, is that at least one New York bond rating agency has warned Illinois that any delay in fixing pensions and Medicaid (which is bleeding red ink right now and facing a $2.7 billion deficit next fiscal year alone) would result in a dangerous double-downgrade of Illinois’ credit rating. The state has been threatened twice with double-downgrades in the past couple of years. The first time, in 2010, resulted in a drastically scaled back pension plan for new state employees. The second time, in late 2011, resulted in the 66 percent income tax increase. New York bond houses rule the state’s world, unfortunately, and they have to be heeded.
Since that conversation, I’ve been told that top legislative Democrats are hesitant to include a city pension fix in the mix because of worries that it could draw even more opposition to the bill. They think they have the votes for pension reform, but when the city unions crank up the heat, that might all fall apart.
I also talked to him about guns. Downstate is in the process of seceding from the Democratic Party. So every time the brash Chicago Democrat mayor starts screaming about guns, that secession movement grows even bigger.
This is a remap year. Downstate Democratic legislators have tons of new turf to represent. That means they have a lot of new voters who don’t know who they are and likely don’t care.
If Emanuel is perceived as hurting Downstate Democratic interests, he’ll be shunned at the Statehouse.
And, finally, I told him he should probably go a bit easier on Gov. Pat Quinn in private. Emanuel got all up in Quinn’s face last year during a meeting over a Chicago casino and angrily issued some not-so-veiled threats.
Quinn’s favorite line when he feels disrespected is, “I’m the governor!” — usually bellowed when he’s pounding on a table.
He’s like Eddie Murphy’s character on the old “Saturday Night Live.”
“I’m Gumby, damn it!”
Is a wide grin off the record?
* Related…
* Chicago teachers conduct ‘dry run’ for strike vote
Friday, May 11, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
It finally became obvious that Tenaska’s original proposal was too costly for Illinois consumers, didn’t make sense environmentally, and had little support in the Assembly. As a result, Tenaska’s proposal for the Taylorville Energy Center proposal has been seeing a lot of changes lately. But the facts about what remains the same just can’t be ignored. Tenaska’s plan would still mean:
• Electric rate increases for consumers and business;
• A giant subsidy for a private, out of state company that guarantees an 11.5 percent Return on Equity;
• 30-year long term power contracts guaranteed by state law; and
• Unnecessary and unneeded electric generation for Illinois.
Before Tenaska sought support from Springfield for this project, they too opposed the idea of states providing subsidies to private power generators. In fact, when New Jersey passed a law to build new power plants, a top Tenaska executive called it “confiscatory” and warned that it could “ultimately put the entire competitive market at risk”. Now Tenaska is singing a new tune.
The STOP Coalition’s goal, as it has been all along, remains ensuring that Illinois consumers aren’t subject to unnecessary rate increases. We urge legislators to vote “NO” on SB 678 or any legislation that supports the Taylorville Energy Center.
