* Issuing an official opinion about whether the House and Senate’s pension reform proposals are constitutional would pose a conflict of interest for the AG because she’d be defending whatever passed. But such legal guidance would obviously be of enormous help to the General Assembly as it thrashes out the contentious issue going forward.
* The Question: Should Attorney General Lisa Madigan issue a formal opinion on the constitutionality of both proposed pension reform plans? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
With college tuition on the rise, Illinois House Republicans say they want to give working class families a break, and an incentive to go to a school in state.
Rep. Adam Brown graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign in 2007, but in that short time, tuition’s steadily gone up.
BROWN: “The average cost for tuition, fees and books right now – $26,000 and ten years ago that was $19,000.”
* OK, so I went to the CPI inflation calculator page and plugged in the numbers for 2003 and 2013 and found this…
So, the school cost numbers ain’t a whole lot higher than inflation.
* Word from today’s leaders meeting in Chicago is that after some vitriol between himself and House Speaker Michael Madigan, Gov. Pat Quinn has decided to back away from his stance that the “A-B” combo pension reform proposal should be passed. The proposal would’ve combined Madigan’s pension bill with Senate President John Cullerton’s bill, with Madigan’s taking effect first. If it was struck down, Cullerton’s bill would then become law.
“I kind of felt like I was witnessing an awkward family fight,” Senate Republican Christine Radogno of Lemont said following Friday’s closed-door meeting. “It was uncomfortable and it’s clear there is not even close to an agreement between the Democrats. It was them sort of dancing around the problems they have.”
House Bill 1907, sponsored by Sen. Tony Munoz (D-Chicago) and Rep. Mike Zalewski (D-Chicago), is modeled off the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act that was designed to help law enforcement fight organized crime by treating criminal acts committed by members of the group as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. Under this legislation, law enforcement in Illinois can more effectively target the street gang leaders who order and benefit from the crimes of lower-ranking members.
The bill is here. It had bipartisan support in both chambers. Just one Senator voted against it (Annazette Collins) and 18 House members did so (mostly members of the Black Caucus, but also some white liberals).
* The new law is apparently working well so far. Tribune…
Local authorities, armed with a powerful new state RICO law, said they charged dozens of leaders and senior members of a notorious West Side street gang with operating a violent, $11 million-a-year heroin and cocaine operation responsible for seven murders and untold violence since the 1990s.
In unsealing the charges Thursday, authorities said the probe began after a victim of violence at the hands of the Black Souls gang was shot to death in a daylight street attack in October after he had refused a bribe of $3,000 to drop charges against several gang leaders for his earlier beating and robbery.
Before sunrise Thursday, Chicago police gang specialists and FBI agents armed with “no knock” search warrants fanned out across the Chicago area to arrest suspects accused of being high-ranking leaders of the gang as well as “top runners” and supervisors who authorities said control its street operations. In all, 23 people were charged with racketeering conspiracy and criminal drug conspiracy in the first use of the tough new state RICO law, while 18 others face more traditional drug or weapons charges, authorities said. […]
The Black Souls operation is centered near West Madison Street and Pulaski Road and is thought to have a half-dozen factions with about 750 members, a fraction of the size of gangs like the Latin Kings or Gangster Disciples, according to law enforcement.
“They’re small, violent and hard to infiltrate,” said Chicago police Sgt. Charles Daly, who helped run the investigation. “Tightknit. We never had any luck infiltrating this group.”
The leaders of a West Side gang accused of ruthlessly enforcing a “no-snitch” code — and shooting two Chicago Police officers in the head in 2011 — were arrested Thursday in a massive roundup under a new state racketeering law.
The Black Souls are accused of at least six murders, kidnapping, gunrunning and drug dealing. The investigation, called Operation .40-Cal, began in October after the gang allegedly killed a West Side man who complained to the police about illegal activity on his block.
Authorities said the gang is among the most difficult to infiltrate because the leaders use murders to keep witnesses from testifying against them.
Secret recordings earlier this year captured reputed Black Souls chief Cornel “Corn” Dawson saying he held meetings with younger Black Souls to warn them not to cooperate with the police — and was worried he was under investigation for murder, prosecutors said.
“These leaders tend to insulate themselves and this law helps law enforcement penetrate the veil of secrecy,” Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said.
Dawson, 38, was among the 41 reputed members charged in Operation .40-Cal. […]
The racketeering case accuses the gang of at least six killings dating to 1999. The June 24, 2002, murder of Charles Watson highlights the gang’s use of violence as a disciplinary tool, authorities said.
* Phil Kadner follows up on his story about the disappearing House staffer during the gaming negotiations. Let’s go back a few days to Kadner’s earlier column…
[Gov. Pat Quinn] said he had reached agreement on “language I could live with” with state Rep. Robert Rita (D-Blue Island), the chief House sponsor, and it was given to the Legislative Reference Bureau to be placed in the bill.
But the night the legislation was supposed to be written, Quinn said, “the LRB staff member got himself lost.” I asked what that meant, and Quinn repeated, “he got lost. He couldn’t be found.”
* But Rep. Bob Rita, the gaming bill’s sponsor, tells Kadner that the governor’s story isn’t true (although I heard the same thing the night session ended). The governor’s office stands behind the contention that the staffer went missing with the negotiated gaming language…
During an interview this week in his Blue Island office, Rita rejected as “ridiculous” a contention by Gov. Pat Quinn that the gambling bill, which would’ve created five casinos, was not called for a vote this spring because a House staff member who was writing the bill “got lost.” But Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson called me to say that despite what Rita says, the House staffer “did get lost.”
Rita said there were several staff members working on the bill, that his amendment to a Senate gambling bill was eventually filed, but that he decided not to call the measure for a vote because “I still had a lot of questions I wanted answered.”
Rita said Quinn telephoned several times in the final days of the session, urging him to call the measure for a vote.
That seems strange because Quinn opposed gambling expansion in each of the past two years — once by simply letting it be known he didn’t like the bill and the second time by actually vetoing the measure.
In addition, the governor told me (and Rita) that he would not have signed a gambling expansion bill unless the General Assembly passed pension reform, which it did not.
I think Quinn believed he was gonna get a pension deal by the end of session. He also wanted to get Mayor Emanuel off his back.
* Earlier this week, the Chicago Tribune editorial board surmised that the pension reform impasse was really just a ruse…
And there’s plenty of suspicion that good buddies Madigan and Cullerton aren’t really at impasse, they’re just gaming everybody; failure, for some reason, suits them.
At a meeting this week, House Speaker Michael Madigan urged Gov. Pat Quinn to help get pension reform out of the Senate.
“Let me say it again: The best pension bill passed so far, and the one that does the most cost savings, is the House bill, and that’s in the Senate,” Madigan said. “The governor ought to work to get that passed.”
Mind if we make a suggestion, governor, on an arm that merits twisting?
Madigan’s more aggressive pension bill — the one that would help dig Illinois out of debt more quickly — went down in flames. So-called tea party conservatives who preach fiscal responsibility voted against it, along with Democrats who allowed the pension system to blow out of control in the first place. Senators in both categories should have been on board.
So let’s review the roll call. Over the next few days, leading up to the Wednesday special session called by Quinn, we’ll write about some of the rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans who ignore their constituents’ best interests and stand in the way of saving Illinois.
Well, hmm. Lemme see. If the pension reform stalement is a ruse concocted by the leaders, then trashing the Madigan bill opponents ain’t really gonna help, is it?
Several months ago, I offered Bill Daley some unsolicited advice.
Before you decide whether to run for governor, I suggested to Daley during a phone call, you should take some time off and drive around Illinois.
Cairo, in deep Southern Illinois, is 370 miles from Chicago. It’s a whole other world down there.
Maybe take a day and head out to Quincy, which is about as far west as you can go in Illinois and where the economy usually thrives even during recessions. Quincy is almost 100 miles closer to Kansas City than it is to Chicago.
Tuscola is a 150-mile straight shot down Interstate 57, where Amish restaurants and shops abound. Peoria is home to thousands of Lebanese-Americans whose ancestors arrived 100 years ago.
This is a great big beautiful and weirdly diverse state, I told Daley. You gotta go see it and at least try to get your mind around it before you decide you really want to govern it.
Daley wasn’t interested. The votes needed to win the Democratic primary are in Cook County, and that was where he was staying.
Not long after I talked to Daley, another wealthy Chicagoan began traveling the state on a “listening tour.” Republican Bruce Rauner probably talked a lot more than he listened, but he spent over two months on the road and visited 50 Illinois towns and cities.
I give Rauner a lot of credit for his tour. Yeah, it was something of a stunt, but at least he tried to see a good chunk of Illinois.
Rauner and Daley both jumped into the governor’s race this week. They travel in many of the same circles, so their lists of fantastically monied campaign donors probably overlap more than not. Rauner criticized Daley this week for being part of “the same old political dynasties,” but Rauner gave $200,000 to the campaign fund of Daley’s brother Rich.
Both men have long enjoyed lives of privilege. Rauner made himself super rich with an investment company and helped make Rahm Emanuel a member of the “one percent” with some sweet deals. He has a house in Winnetka, a nice spread in Montana and some expensive Chicago condos. He used one of those condos to establish city residency for himself (but not his spouse) and then allegedly took advantage of his political connections to get his kid into the ultra-exclusive Walter Payton College Prep.
But that bit of alleged graft would be small potatoes for a guy like Daley, the son of a mayor and brother of another, who has had careers in big-time banking, AT&T and the White House under two presidents.
Their messages are remarkably similar. Despite a lack of hands-on experience dealing with state government, they’re both completely confident that their record of lifetime success, superior abilities and exceptional intellects will allow them to forcibly drag Illinois kicking and screaming toward prosperity.
They are, in sum, the embodiment of entitled, wealthy white male rage. Daley freely admits that his anger pushed him into the campaign against Gov. Pat Quinn. It’s a decision he may live to regret.
Rauner obviously has a better chance of winning with an angry rich white guy message in a Republican primary than Daley does in a Democratic contest, even against the unpopular Quinn. And thanks to his “listening tour,” at least Rauner now knows what downtown Effingham looks like. Daley might not be able to find it on a map.
Many Illinois Democrats in Congress are staying far away from the gubernatorial primary, according to a survey of the delegation by CQ Roll Call. The primary could prove pivotal for some Illinois Democrats, whose political future will depend on the gubernatorial race topping their ticket.
But even members who know both candidates, such as freshman Rep. Tammy Duckworth, declined to choose sides. […]
Other Democrats echoed Duckworth, including Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin. His spokesman said via email that Durbin “isn’t going to get involved in the primary.”
Rep. Danny K. Davis proved the exception by saying he backed Quinn for re-election. But many of his Illinois colleagues said they were staying out of the race for now.
Freshman Rep. Bill Enyart “doesn’t plan on any primary endorsements in the foreseeable future,” according to his spokesman. The same goes for Reps. Bill Foster and Cheri Bustos, both of whom could face tough races in 2014.
“Congresswoman Bustos plans to stay neutral in the primary and has exactly one focus right now and that is serving the people of Illinois’ 17th congressional District,” Bustos spokesman Colin Milligan said.
Three more Illinois Democrats declined to comment about the race through their respective offices: Reps. Bobby L. Rush, Robin Kelly and Mike Quigley.
