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!”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, known for his temper and willingness to go toe-to-toe, reportedly lost it with Gov. Pat Quinn in a recent phone call.
A political source with knowledge of the situation who declined to be named told Ward Room Emanuel is upset Quinn wants stronger ethics rules when it comes to gaming.
I seriously doubt that was the real reason why he got so angry, but whatever.
* At that same sitdown, hizzoner and I talked music for a little while. We both love this band, so this one’s for Rahm…
* It’s Friday, so let’s talk about something besides politics.
The White Sox are in St. Louis next week to play the Cardinals. Instead of a question, how about we do some serious trash talking ahead of the three-game series? Cub fans are not allowed to comment.
Enjoy.
…Adding… With a hat tip to a commenter for reminding me, here’s a photo of a typical Cardinals fan…
* UIC Political Science Department chief Dick Simpson released a study earlier this year called “Chicago and Illinois, Leading the Pack in Corruption.” Simpson’s study ranked Chicago and Illinois as the most corrupt places in the nation. But a group called Integrity Florida has released a new study that only uses the last ten years of information, and that examination showed Florida was on top…
In February 2012, the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Political Science and the Illinois Integrity Initiative of the University of Illinois’ Institute for Government and Public Affairs released the report “Chicago and Illinois, Leading the Pack in Corruption.”
While that publication indicated that Florida was the fourth most corrupt state in the nation, the U.S.Department of Justice data examined was from 1976-2010. In the modern era (2000-2010), there has been an upward trend towards more federal public corruption convictions in Florida. Florida was the top state for federal public corruption convictions five times since 1999 (1999, 2000,2001, 2004 and 2006).
The state’s rapid rise to the top position in the nation in five of the last twelve years of available data provides new evidence that reforms are needed to reduce corruption in the Sunshine State.
The only states that came close to Florida’s record during the modern era were Texas and California (Texas in 2008, 2009 and 2010; California in 2003, 2005 and 2007).
2010 is the most recent data set of federal public corruption convictions from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The key measure of spending on elementary and secondary education would be cut by $210 million, or 3.1 percent. When reductions in federal funds are included, the reduction tops $855 million.
State government is supposed to ensure a basic amount of money is available for all students, whether they live in rich districts or poor ones. That foundation level for the coming year is $6,119, and the budget cuts would mean Illinois provides only 89 percent of that amount, down from 95 percent last year.
The number of children getting help from early childhood education programs will fall sharply. Nearly 7,000 children lost services in the last round of cuts, the State Board of Education says, and now the service is slated to lose an additional 7.6 percent of its funds.
This year , the state will help provide about 194 million free or low-cost lunches to needy children. That service faces a 45 percent cut next year.
This year, the budget demanded by the Illinois House cuts another $210 million from education, bringing the total shortchanging of our schools’ and students’ needs to more than a half-billion dollars. It means next year the state-aid payments might stop in May while students are still in school.
This is unacceptable.
Senate Bill 7, the reform package I helped negotiate last year, was approved 112-1 in the House, 54-0 in the Senate. You’d think this overwhelming majority would similarly demand the resources needed for success. Instead, I watched many of these so-called reformers turn their backs on our children and our public schools. In one vote the General Assembly puts teachers and administrators on notice that they need to perform to higher standards, only to turn around and repeatedly slash funding for their training and development.
Make no mistake, resources are available. The Senate twice put the spotlight on hundreds of millions of dollars in special state accounts that somehow annually escape scrutiny. It is time to make education funding the priority we all claim it should be.
The path we’re headed down dooms our hard-fought reforms and, more important, our children.
They deserve better. They deserve more.
The higher education budget was cut about 6 percent, or $152 million.
* The General Assembly cut education, but restored lots of funding to the prisons budget, keeping facilities open that Gov. Pat Quinn wanted to shutter. But despite those restorations, inmate halfway houses are still closing. The Fox Valley facility will shut down in August…
Gov. Pat Quinn still intends to close the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center in August despite receiving enough money from state lawmakers to keep the Aurora facility open.
The women’s transitional center on North Lake Street houses about 130 low-level offenders who work to get back into the community after being released from prison. The center provides education, counseling and workforce training.
In the budget sent to the governor last week, lawmakers gave Quinn $18.8 million to keep the Aurora facility and a number of similar centers across the state open.
Women housed at the Fox Valley ATC work to gain full-time jobs and also participate in GED and college classes, and receive counseling on life skills, child care, anger management and avoiding substance abuse.
* Meanwhile, layoffs are on temporary hold at Tamms…
Worker layoffs at Tamms prison are on hold for now. The supermax prison was slated for closure because of budget issues, but the General Assembly proposed a budget that could keep it open. Apparently the state layoff procedure started on Monday, but ended yesterday reportedly because of a mistake by Central Management Services. Governor Pat Quinn has the final say on whether to close the facility.
* And the Singer Mental Health Center is still on track for closure…
The fate of one of Rockford’s Mental Health Centers is still up in the air. Chris asked us on Facebook when the Singer Center might be forced to shut its doors.
Here’s what we found out: a final date hasn’t been set. Senator Dave Syverson tells us that Governor Quinn’s office must first decide what will happen to the patients there. The plan is to shut it down by this fall, but it could be closer to the end of the year before any action is taken.
* 13th Congressional Democratic nominee David Gill released a poll last month showing he was leading the Republicans who wanted to replace incumbent Congressman Tim Johnson on the ballot. His lead over the eventual choice, Rodney Davis, was 10 points, 41-31.
We Ask America is out with a new poll, however, which has a big Davis lead over the Democratic candidate…
Since our sample was evenly divided between the two parties and Independents, Gill is probably a point or so closer than this nine-point spread.
I’m not sure why the heck they would do that, but whatever. More…
Gill is well-known among a large portion of the Democratic base of IL-13 (especially in the Champaign-Urbana area) due to the fact that he won the Silver Medal in three out of the last three elections. Plus, Gill barely won the March Democratic primary in a real squeaker where he was not the Party’s Chosen One. His openly bitter post-primary attitude has left a lot of area Dems unimpressed. Those wounds may heal, but in the meantime, Davis has received a lot of earned media in the last month. Gill hasn’t had a real chance to “define” Davis yet, so this one is like trying to decide the winner of a horse race a few seconds after the gate opens.
Davis is out to an early lead, but expect Gill to go the whip sooner than later.
*** UPDATE *** Davis was just put into the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program. From a press release…
Rodney Davis, Republican candidate for the 13th Congressional District, has been named to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” program. The program, founded by Reps. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Paul Ryan (R-WI) in the 2007-2008 election cycle, is the primary method for recruiting strong candidates for open-seat races like the 13th District.
“Rodney Davis has met a series of rigorous goals that will put him in a position to win on Election Day,” said NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX). “The momentum behind his campaign is proof-positive that Americans are fed up with Nancy Pelosi policies that spend too much, tax too much, and borrow too much at the expense of hard-working Illinois families. Rodney Davis is leading the pack as Republicans continue to send a loud and clear message that we will hold Democrats accountable for their unpopular partisan agenda.”
Friday, Jun 8, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
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I want to say right off the bat without any hesitation or equivocation whatsoever that I happen to like prosecutors and cops. I respect and honor their difficult jobs. I couldn’t do what they do, so I’m glad they’re there for me and everyone else.
But as much as I revere them, as much as I respect them, I believe they’ve had far too much power over the state legislative process.
For instance, some very well-intentioned, decent people have been trying to pass a medical marijuana bill here for years. Law enforcement always stops it dead in its tracks. Why? Well, the answers range from “We’d be sending the wrong message to children,” to “marijuana is a bad thing.” And you can forget about trying to decriminalize or, heaven forbid, legalize marijuana possession.
For crying out loud, our last three presidents smoked pot, and their lives seemed to work out OK. But imagine if one of them had been busted for possessing a joint back in college. History would’ve been changed. Pot doesn’t usually kill political careers, but pot arrests sure do.
This spring, an attempt was made to finally put some teeth into the state Constitution’s protection of victims’ rights. Prosecutors were dead set against it. When Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez testified against the constitutional amendment, she couldn’t say exactly why she opposed it except to claim that parts of it were too vague. But she also couldn’t say what could be done to make the proposed language less vague.
The fight was over the rights of victims who’ve been shunted aside by the system. The Illinois Constitution guarantees that victims have a right to be notified of court proceedings, the right to speak at sentencing, the right to know when their attacker is being released from prison and the right to have an advocate present at all court proceedings, among other things.
What the Constitution doesn’t contain, though, is any recourse if those rights are denied. They specifically can’t appeal to a higher court, for instance. So their rights can be ignored and nothing happens.
Most prosecutors treat victims well, but some don’t, and that’s just a fact of life. Supporters of the constitutional amendment produced reams of letters from victims whose rights had been ignored. But prosecutors refused to negotiate a reasonable compromise, and the proposal died.
But the coppers may have finally overstepped when they fought a proposal to decriminalize audio recording of police in public areas. Right now, if you use your iPhone to video a cop being shot at by a crack dealer, you can be charged with a felony and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The police complained that citizens would be interfering with their jobs and worried that video and audio could be altered to make them look bad. But even after those complaints were dealt with, the police still stood firm against the bill. The House took the rare step of overriding police objections and passed the legislation, but it stalled in the Senate when the cops persuaded Sen. Michael Noland (D-Elgin) to sit on it. Noland said he believed the police ought to be able to videotape citizens pretty much at will and that the House-approved proposal would create “bad law.” His eventual counterproposal was literally laughed off the Senate floor when he tried to bring it up for a vote.
Law enforcement should most definitely be listened to whenever legislators address criminal matters. But no group, no matter how important or vital, should ever have automatic legislative veto power. Opposing that bill was a big mistake, but it may finally open the door to some much-needed balance between the rights of citizens and the powers of law enforcement.
