Caption contest!
Friday, Aug 2, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Funniest commenter wins a free beverage at the Illinois State Fair….
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Rauner talks a bit about Rendell
Friday, Aug 2, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner was in Decatur this week and the Herald & Review’s Ryan Voyles was there…
Rauner took a variety of questions, from his stance on gay marriage to why a self-labeled political outsider has made political donations to Democratic candidates.
He has contributed $200,000 to the campaigns of former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and has supported current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He has also supported former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Randell when he ran for the Democratic National Committee and Forrest Claypoolol, who previously ran for Cook County Board president.
“I will never apologize for those four,” Rauner said, adding he supported the Chicago mayors because they control the schools and little can be done without their support.
He’ll never apologize, eh?
* I reached out to Voyles to see if he had any audio of Rauner talking about former Gov. Rendell. Why? Well, you may remember this story…
As friends and foes assess Ed Rendell’s tenure as governor, few events better illustrate his record in one contentious arena - campaign fund-raising - than his 2001 trip to see a Chicago businessman.
Rendell was in the early stages of the governor’s race. Aides had dispatched him to the Windy City with what they thought was a reasonable goal - a $50,000 check, according to one who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Rendell left the meeting buoyant, but confessed to aides he never asked the would-be donor for a set amount. Rendell “just had a feeling,” he told them.
A week or so later, the Chicagoan, Bruce Rauner, sent a check for $200,000. Another check, for $100,000, came just before the election.
At the time, Rauner’s private-equity firm had business with the state of Pennsylvania. GTCR L.L.C. was managing $110 million in pension funds for the State Employee Retirement System, records show.
After Rendell became governor, the state doubled its stake in GTCR funds, to $226 million. That meant at least $4 million more in management fees to the firm.
* So far, this is pretty much all the Rauner campaign has said about the money to Rendell. Greg Hinz…
As Rauner spokesman Chip Englander emailed me when I asked him for comment on the Philadelphia story, “The vast majority of (Mr. Rauner’s) donations have been to Republicans and conservative and government reform causes, but Bruce is an independent guy, and he has supported some Democrats who he knows personally, or who have pursued education reform or pro-business policies.”
Mr. Englander adds, “Pennsylvania invested in GTCR funds starting in 1997, four years before Bruce ever contributed (to Mr. Rendell). Pennsylvania invested in them, under Republican and Democratic governors alike, because of GTCR’s strong returns and great reputation.”
* My e-mail to the Herald & Review reporter bounced back, so I checked in with managing editor Dave Dawson and received this…
Ryan started vacation today. I texted him to confirm my interpretation of what Rauner said, It boils down to — and this is not a direct quote — we both wanted school reform and I donated because I wanted to start a relationship with him.
I’m sure he did want a relationship. How convenient.
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Question of the day
Friday, Aug 2, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* AP…
Gov. Pat Quinn says if lawmakers don’t like his decision to halt their pay they should take a vote instead of going to the courts.
The Chicago Democrat spoke to reporters Wednesday a day after House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton sued over Quinn’s decision to cut pay. Quinn says his authority is constitutional. He has said he took action because of lawmakers’ inaction on pension reform.
* Greg Hinz agrees there should be an override vote…
Mr. Quinn didn’t grab all of the money and stick it in his sock drawer. Rather, he used his line-item veto to block the appropriation for legislative salaries.
If lawmakers don’t like that, they have a solution well within the traditional separation of powers. It’s called a veto override. If they don’t like how Mr. Quinn used his amendatory veto, they can get together and override him by the required 60 percent vote of both legislative chambers.
From what I’m hearing, the votes are there to do just that. But neither the House nor the Senate has scheduled such a vote. […]
So call a vote, Mr. Speaker and Mr. President. If it passes, you get your money. If it doesn’t, maybe then you have something worth taking to the judge.
* Eric Zorn disagrees with the governor…
[An override vote] would legitimize the salary squeeze as a parliamentary trick, putting the power of precedent behind governors of the future who want to shake down the General Assembly on matters of less importance than pension reform, and to legislators who want to try to use the budget process to starve the governor financially into submission.
Imagine, say, a Republican governor refusing to pay members of a General Assembly narrowly controlled by Democrats until they OK his tax plan or abortion restriction. Or imagine that same General Assembly threatening not to appropriate a dime to a Republican governor’s salary until she signs off on gay marriage or gun-rights restrictions.
There would be no logical end to the nonsense. And Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court by House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, is the best way to put a stop to it
The suit envisions several of the above scenarios and complains, quite rightly, of Quinn’s brazen violation of the principle of separation of powers.
* The Question: Should the General Assembly’s leaders withdraw their lawsuit and attempt to override the governor’s veto of legislative pay? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
survey solution
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* From the Twitters…
* This has been a huge issue in Chicago…
Chicago residents vehemently voiced objections to the state fire marshal’s proposal to require all residential high-rise buildings to install fire sprinkler systems within the next 12 years at a town hall meeting Wednesday night.
The costs associated with implementing the water sprinklers are just too much to bear, far North Side residents said at the fire code meeting, hosted by State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) at Loyola University’s Cueno Hall.
State Fire Marshal Larry Matkaitis is pushing for the rule change, which would require high-rises in Illinois built before 1975 to install sprinklers. Currently, high-rises in Chicago built prior to 1975 are exempt from the requirement to install sprinklers. The buildings without sprinklers have, instead, undergone a rigorous life safety evaluation, according to Asif Rahman, deputy commissioner of the city’s buildings department. The fire marshal’s proposed rule would also mandate sprinklers in all new homes.
* The last straw was probably when Senate President John Cullerton voiced his opposition this week…
In his role as senate president, Cullerton appointed three of the JCAR members.
“If you insist on filing this rule with JCAR, I will have no choice but to intercede and request that the three members of the Senate Democratic caucus who serve on JCAR reject this rule and will ask my fellow legislative leaders to do the same,” Cullerton’s letter continued.
* But the fire marshal is also in hot water with some downstaters…
he Illinois State Fire Marshal wants to mandate fire sprinkler systems be installed in all new residential home construction and existing places of assembly, and time is running out to stop his efforts. State Rep. David Reis (R-Ste. Marie) is sounding an alarm about the proposal and Monday, he called on fellow Illinoisans to speak out before it’s too late to stop the effort.
“Right now families are working hard to save enough money to purchase or build a home, and with this mandate, they will be required to pay thousands of dollars more,” Reis said in a statement. “Additionally, many homes downstate rely on wells for fresh water which cannot accommodate these increased demands, which will lead to additional well drilling costs.”
The Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM) proposed the new regulation on June 28, 2013, requiring the installation of fire sprinkler systems in new one-and-two family homes. Previous OSFM sprinkler mandate covered multi-family housing buildings, and single-family housing was carved out from the mandate. Existing churches and other places of public worship are also affected by this rulemaking.
*** UPDATE *** Statement from the Fire Marshal…
“After months of study into how we can better protect the lives and property of Illinois residents, I directed my office to draft Illinois’ first fire code update in 11 years.
“As the brave first responders alongside whom I have served during four decades in fire protection know, Illinois needs 21st century fire safety standards.
“Since we began this process, we conducted numerous meetings with local officials, legislators, fire safety professionals, community leaders and residents who have all expressed a desire to strengthen Illinois’ fire safety.
“We have received an unprecedented amount of public input and suggestions through emails, letters and public meetings.
“In the course of this process, it’s become clear that any proposed state rule needs additional refinement.
“Therefore today I am officially withdrawing the proposed rule before the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules to take into account substantial public comment and carefully re-examine this issue.”
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Dan Walker redux?
Friday, Aug 2, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Long-ago Statehouse political reporter Mike Lawrence compares Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto of legislative salaries to Quinn’s old boss Dan Walker…
For a governor facing a steep re-election climb and taunted as inept and irrelevant by lawmakers, it was both a payback and a ploy to build his sagging poll numbers.
He cast the move as policy driven, arguing it would jolt lawmakers into helping him fix what Quinn rightly portrays as a grave threat to the state’s viability. However, petty revenge rarely begets positive results, as Walker and constant cycles of vengeance dramatically illustrated four decades ago.
“The free ride is over.” That 1973 quote is from Walker’s inaugural after he won the office by casting himself as a white knight and verbally lancing primary foe Paul Simon as a puppet of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley despite the downstater’s good-government record. Few, if any, phrases uttered by a new governor have been so long remembered. When his administration strayed from the righteous ride he had promised, his credibility suffered. At the same time, most Democratic and Republican lawmakers took the rhetorical flourish as a call to war.
They rejected key gubernatorial appointments. He often flew to media markets throughout the state to denounce what he colorfully painted as their profligate and corrupt ways. They slashed funding for his staff to deplete it. He responded by sneaking aides, including Quinn, onto the payrolls of state agencies to which they had little or no accountability as the aides did his bidding.
Walker nixed funding for pet causes of uncooperative lawmakers. They responded by shooting down his high-flying infrastructure initiative amid a chorus of dive-bomber whistles that reached a surreal crescendo when one of the legislation’s chief sponsors urged colleagues to join him in voting against it.
* A 1980 Illinois Issues story explained the above mention of Quinn’s ghost payrolling for Walker…
During 1975, Quinn was considered one of the infamous “ghost payrollers” of the Walker administration. The former governor placed dozens of assistants on agency payrolls where the employee did little or no work and did not report to supervisors there. Walker was accused of attempting to disguise how he had expanded the number of employees in the governor’s office because of his campaign pledge not to do so.
Quinn was one of those employees. He was hired in January 1973 as an $18,000 a year assistant and was given a title indicating he would be a liaison to the public. The following year, he was given a pay raise to $20,000. The next year, he was shifted to the payroll of the Illinois Industrial Commission and received a raise to $23,000. At that point, Quinn became the target of legislative inquiry. Legislators, many in open confrontation with Walker, grilled agency directors about their payrolls when they appeared before appropriations committees. The chairman of the Industrial Commission, during one question session, admitted Quinn did not work full time for the agency. The lawmakers also accused Quinn of being “in conflict of interest” because he telephoned legislators seeking support for proposed constitutional amendments while on the commission payroll.
Just prior to that charge, however, Quinn resigned from state government, returned to law school and remained politically active by forming a group known as the Coalition for Political Honesty in Oak Park. The coalition has been fueled by individual contributions and money from Quinn’s pocket and kept alive by the help of several dozen volunteers.
“It’s so ironic,” said Rep. Anne Wilier (D., Western Springs). “Here’s a guy who not only was a double-dipper himself, had conflicts of interest and received pay for a job some people say he didn’t do - he has turned around to stir up the public a few years later to get them to oust legislators who are double-dippers, have conflicts of interest and who vote themselves pay raises. I think Pat is very intelligent. But I’d say he is nothing short of a hypocrite. What I resent most about him is he knows better. He knows because he’s been here himself.”
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* I’m not sure Rep. Monique Davis did herself any good by going on Fox News last night, but it’s been my experience that state legislators cannot resist the siren call of the national spotlight, so whatever…
Bill O’Reilly [last night] faced off with Illinois state representative Monique Davis, who said on a radio show this week that many of her constituents have “suspicions” that Chicago police are gunning down black children. O’Reilly told Davis that she unfairly legitimized a “destructive” rumor, and that she had a responsibility in her role as an elected official not to say such garbage in the public eye.
Davis insisted to O’Reilly that she wasn’t alleging anything, just repeating what constituents told her. O’Reilly pressed her on why she didn’t dismiss it as “crazy,” explaining that she has “credibility as an elected official” and she should know better than to say police are killing black kids. Davis suggested that given how such a high number (70 percent) of murders in Chicago remain unsolved, “people are wondering what the heck is going on.”
O’Reilly still insisted she was being “irresponsible,” and switched to overall problems in the black community. Davis told O’Reilly he was “terribly wrong” about the majority of black problems originating in the collapse of the family unit, pointing to poor education and a lack of “resources to help these kids to anything.” O’Reilly brought up the out-of-wedlock pregnancy rate, to which Davis shot back that unmarried actresses get pregnant all the time. O’Reilly said, “Actresses aren’t living in the ghetto.”
* Video…
* More…
“I didn’t say it, Bill. I repeated what members of my community have said to me,” Davis said. “It is crucially important that people realize that was not Monique Davis’s statement.”
“Do I have to say that?” Davids asked when O’Reilly prompted her to refute such statements as falsehoods.
“Yeah, you do,” O’Reilly shot back. “Here’s why you have to say it, two reasons: Number one, you have credibility as an elected official, alight? And number two, people don’t know where you stand…That is destructive to the discourse. Chicago police as you know are not gunning down black children. You know that, right?”
Bill O’Reilly complaining that somebody who doesn’t have a nationally televised cable TV show is being “destructive to the discourse” is more than a tad bit ironic. Just sayin…
The full transcript is here.
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Unintended consequences
Friday, Aug 2, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From David Ormsby…
Because of an oversight in the [federal] Obamacare law, those who require a residential stay to power their recovery are unable to use the vast majority of Illinois drug-treatment residential programs with 17 beds or more because they are prohibited from being Medicaid certified due to an older Medicaid law.
So, what does this mean?…
An unemployed, homeless man who was living in a Chicago homeless shelter managed, through the help of friend, to present himself at a suburban Cook County drug treatment agency, pleading for help to overcome his alcohol abuse. The assessment revealed he needed residential treatment due to severity of his condition.
The response from CountyCare’s HMO provider? Denied.
The individual was denied both because the residential program was not — and could not be — Medicaid certified and because the man, struggling on his own to overcome his alcoholism, had taken no alcoholic drink in two days. The agency was told that the client needed to fail first in outpatient care — he had to resume drinking — before residential treatment became a viable option. Just what the doctor ordered.
What happened?
The man finally reported to the CountyCare HMO that he began drinking again, leading the HMO to hospitalize him in medical detox — a vastly more expensive option than residential treatment. And Obamacare picked up the bill.
Before CountyCare, this man would have received the less costly clinical detox in the agency’s residential program for men under its contract with Illinois Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse. But for those now enrolled CountyCare, the state option is no longer available. The state, which is looking to save money, is no longer willing to expend its own precious tax dollars because the promise of Obamacare was to save states money by having the feds picking up the tab.
Oy.
And, of course, we can’t expect any congressional trailer bills to fix problems like this because the US House is bound and determined to repeal the law.
In the meantime, though, the state needs to revisit its policies here.
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Kirk: No state bailouts
Friday, Aug 2, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* I think this is the third time that Sen. Kirk has filed this resolution. From a press release…
U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), along with Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) today introduced the No State Bailouts Resolution, S. Res. 215, which expresses opposition to the Federal bailout of financially struggling states like Illinois.
“This resolution expresses our support for blocking potential state bailouts and reducing states’ spending - restoring confidence to lenders and lowering borrowing costs,” Sen Kirk said. “Encouraging fiscal responsibility will help protect the Federal Government’s credit rating.”
The No State Bailouts Resolution declares that the States, as sovereign entities, retain control over their spending and taxation, and are therefore responsible for their own debts. The resolution also states that historic precedent opposes a bailout of the states, citing the historic example from the financial crisis of 1842. In the 1840s, several states faced funding crises, having spent so much that they could not repay their creditors. In 1842, the Senate requested then-Secretary of State Daniel Webster report any negotiations with state creditors to the Senate, in order to ensure no promises of Federal Government support were offered. As such, the cosponsors agree that the Federal Government should “take no action to redeem, assume, or guarantee State debt.” States should see this resolution and recognize that the Federal Government is not going to bail them out of a fiscal insolvency and that the elected leaders in these states should take responsibility, and adopt measures to become fiscally responsible— balancing their budgets the way that every American household does.
* No bailouts for states and local governments, but oodles of money for foreign aid…
Detroit may be bankrupt, but more federal aid dollars are set to go to the country of Colombia than to America’s 18th-largest city next year, according to a report from Bloomberg News.
Bloomberg reports that the South American nation will receive almost $323 million through President Barack Obama’s new proposal to fight drug trafficking and violence. A State Department memo cited by the report says three-quarters of the money will be used to maintain “peace and security” in Colombia.
Conversely, Detroit, which filed for bankruptcy almost two weeks ago with at least $18 billion in long-term debt, will receive just $108.2 million in funds from the U.S. government in 2014, according to Bloomberg. Some $33 million of that total award is funded by a Community Block Grant distributed each year to urban cities and counties.
Detroit’s murder rate is nearly twice as high as Colombia’s, increasing 10 percent in 2012 to 53 murders for every 100,000 residents — second only to New Orleans among U.S. cities. Despite that sobering fact, the Detroit Police Department is currently eligible to receive just $2 million in funds next year from the feds.
Discuss.
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O’Halloran doesn’t go quietly
Friday, Aug 2, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Embattled Metra Chairman Brad O’Halloran has resigned…
In his two-page letter, O’Halloran repeated his claims that he referred all Clifford’s allegations — which O’Halloran dubbed “non-specific”— about political pressure to the inspector general and tried to get “the pre-eminent anti-corruption watchdog” attorney Patrick Collins involved.
“My reaction was not to ‘hush’ anything up, but rather to direct the matter immediately to the inspector general, so that he could get to the bottom of it,” he wrote.
In answering Clifford’s charges, O’Halloran maintained that Clifford “misrepresented or outright invented supposed conversations he claims to have had with me.” And writing in a defiant tone, he continued to stand by what he called a “business decision” to avoid costly litigation with Clifford, calling it the “lesser of two bad choices in order for the agency to move forward.”
“While I have been taking the heat, it seems the powerful politicians Mr. Clifford accused escaped the same level of criticism,” he wrote at the end of his letter.
There goes Madigan, right under the bus.
And Bobby Rush.
O’Halloran’s full resignation letter is here.
* Another Metra board member, Mike McCoy, resigned recently, but his reasonings weren’t given much play anywhere…
Prior to the April 3 memo, McCoy said he thought Clifford’s contract would be renewed, despite recognizing that O’Halloran had serious differences with the CEO, who was paid $252,000 a year.
“I think if he’d just gone forward with the contract process he would have gotten a contract extension,” McCoy noted.
But comments in the April 3 letter changed McCoy’s view of Clifford’s career at Metra.
Clifford wrote that his lawyer (patronage expert Michael Shakman) was communicating with Metra attorneys “concerning claims I may have against Metra arising from the facts described in this memo.”
That to McCoy was a threat and, from then on, he felt there was no way to deal in good faith with Clifford.
“After he threatened to sue it was very hard going forward. For example, if he didn’t like my review, would he say that I was retaliating? If we disagree on policy issues, is that retaliating? I became convinced unless we offered him another contract there was going to be a lawsuit.”
Clifford charged that a committee led by O’Halloran and Huggins would evaluate him, making a “sham” of the entire performance review.
McCoy thinks Clifford “implied two people controlled the evaluation process and that was never true. It had to be a board decision and he resisted the process.”
McCoy is a Republican. More…
McCoy said he voted to support the Clifford severance package, strictly on the basis of the numbers.
“I felt the financial risk of litigating and possibly losing the Clifford threatened lawsuit far outweighed the cost of the settlement,” he wrote. “I believe this even more strongly today.”
* Shouldn’t Schaffer also resign if he wants everybody gone?…
Metra Board member Jack Schaffer has denounced the severance package as “hush money.”
On Wednesday, Schaffer stood with GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bill Brady as Brady called for the entire board to be dumped. Brady had harsh words for O’Halloran, saying his behavior “lies in question” and that he should answer questions and be held accountable.
More Schaffer…
“I’ve said for weeks that in order to fix this mess, the first thing we needed was a change in the chairman’s position,” Schaffer said. “Brad O’Halloran had to go.”
Not mentioned is that Schaffer was never happy with O’Halloran’s election. From last year…
Director Jack Schaeffer of Cary poked the so-called appointing authorities, thanking them “for the long, long, long deliberations and giving us advice. I wish them well as they tackle their other great issues … and express the hope they let us now run the railroad. It could have been done better.”
* And then there was this…
A South Side reverend, who was ordered in January to pay back a $91,000 state grant after he couldn’t account for how it was spent, resigned Wednesday from the Regional Transportation Authority.
The Rev. Tyrone Crider’s resignation comes about six months after he was reappointed to the RTA board by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle Feb. 27. The RTA is the agency that oversees city and suburban transportation, including the scandal-plagued Metra commuter rail system.
Preckwinkle was unaware at the time she reappointed him that Crider had been sued by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office and had been ordered by a Cook County Circuit Court judge on Jan. 11 to repay the state grant, said Kristen Mack, a spokeswoman for the County Board president.
Carnage.
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