* I know it’s late in the day on Friday, but I was finally able to track down the audio from last night’s post debate press conference. I wasn’t able to attend, so many, many thanks to Tanya Koonce, the WCBU news director, for passing these along.
* Sen. Kirk Dillard went after Bruce Rauner hard and the assembled reporters all ignored it when it came time to write their stories.
Dillard said that Rauner’s venture capital world was “You do it my way, or we’ll steamroll you.” Dillard then brought up the recent stories about nursing home deaths tied to Rauner’s company. “There is a cost to ‘My way or the highway,’ people have died.” Dillard claimed that “Bruce Rauner is just used to buying things… and he’s not going to be able to buy his 10th mansion in Illinois.”
“Read what the judge wrote in the nursing home case, ‘A callous disregard for human life,’” Dillard said.
Dillard mentioned the Michigan case, he hammered home the Stu Levine stuff. But almost none of this was covered by the reporters who were there last night. [Changed that sentence a bit so I could note that Gatehouse updated its story with the “my way or the highway” snippet.]
* Dan Rutherford said he didn’t need to participate in the “clarification rounds” because he’d already answered the questions. He also pledged to remain totally positive in his TV ads and said he wouldn’t tack one way or another before the primary. He is what he says he is right now, he said, pointing to his “honesty” about his position on new revenue, which is that he won’t commit until he sees what the situation is after the election…
* When it was his turn, Bruce Rauner said: “Here’s the situation, the special interest groups that make their money from government control Springfield… That’s the fact, it’s a tragedy.”
“The government union bosses, the trial lawyers, these corrupt groups, they can’t do anything to me. I’m impenetrable to them,” Rauner said.
He said his opponents are “part of the problem,” for voting “with Democrats” to raise taxes and fees, for big spending increases, for more debt, for bad pension deals, for pay raises for themselves.
“I’m gonna be dragged through the mud, my family’s gonna be dragged through the mud, my businesses are gonna be dragged through the mud.”
Rauner said the reason he was being attacked was because “my message is a threatening one” to the powers that be in Illinois. He said there was “no foundation” to the attacks so far. “There’s no there there.”
Though Quinn didn’t spill the beans in an interview Thursday he did say “it’s important that we have a continued building in our state.”
Adding that Illinois should support the “fundamentals” like building and repairing roads, fixing bridges also making sure schools are in good condition.
Political observers say its also a good bet that Quinn will continue his push to increase the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour, which he recently said should be passed and put into place by the end of this year.
* The Question: Besides a new capital plan and the minimum wage, what do you think the governor will talk about?
* Not that it really matters, but David Earl Williams III and Susanne Atanus are the Republican candidates vying to get clobbered by Congresscritter Jan Schakowsky this fall.
Each of them have their, shall we say, idiosyncrasies. Daily Herald…
“I am a conservative Republican and I believe in God first,” Atanus said. She said she believes God controls the weather and has put tornadoes and diseases such as autism and dementia on earth in response to gay rights and legalized abortions.
“God is angry. We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions,” she said. “Same-sex activity is going to increase AIDS. If it’s in our military it will weaken our military. We need to respect God.”
Republican leaders came out strong against Atanus Thursday morning. Illinois Republican Chairman Jack Dorgan called on the candidate to end her congressional campaign, saying in a statement: “The offensive statements by Susanne Atanus have no place in the modern political debate, and she has no place on the ballot as a Republican. Her candidacy is neither supported nor endorsed by the leaders of our party, and she should withdraw from the race immediately.”
Adam Robinson, chairman of the Chicago Republican Party, emphasized in another statement that Atanus “is not in any way affiliated with any of our efforts in the Chicago GOP, nor have we ever supported, endorsed, or assisted her in any way at any time.”
Atanus, who lives in Niles, continued to stand by her comments.
“I am a Christian. I care a lot about the world and I care a lot about my obedience to serve God the right way,” she said. “I can’t turn my eye and look the other way when I know that abortions, gay rights and civil unions are making God very angry.”
A judge in Washington, D.C., has issued a domestic violence civil protection order against a Republican candidate seeking to represent Evanston in Congress.
Judge Jennifer M. Anderson ruled after a hearing last month that David Earl Williams III stalked his former girlfriend, a DC-area activist on libertarian and conservative causes.
The judge ordered Williams to have no contact with the woman and further ordered him to take a court-supervised anger-management class, undergo a mental health assessment and submit to treatment if the assessment deemed it necessary.
She also ordered him to not contact the ex-girlfriend by email, text messaging or social media.
Williams flatly denies the allegation and says he’s appealing. His campaign called the allegation “frivolous.”
Williams, who says he works in logistics, refused to disclose where he works because he has not yet informed his employer that he is running for Congress, he said.
The Illinois State Board of Education today called on lawmakers and the Governor to invest in students and the state’s economic future by changing their budgeting focus to increase the state’s share of funding for education. In order for Illinois to remain competitive nationally and internationally, Board members contend the state needs to move toward making K-12 education account for one-third of the state budget. As part of their request, the Board is asking that lawmakers honor the General State Aid (GSA) Foundation Level commitment of $6,119 per student. School districts have not received the full share of GSA promised to them under state law for the past three years.
Historically, Illinois’ State General Funds budget has dedicated approximately 27 percent to K-12 education. However, in order to increase economic vitality for the future, the Board is calling for a shift to 33 percent of the total state budget. The increase being sought on behalf of Illinois students is $1.08 billion dollars. When adjusting the FY09 K-12 education budget for inflation, the Board’s request amounts to a 1.5 percent decrease from the adjusted FY09 levels. Based on FY14 funding levels, the Board’s request would account for about 31 percent of the State General Funds budget.
“There is no doubt this is a lot of money, and some may scoff at our request, but we cannot shortchange our students, because we’re only hurting our state’s future,” said State Board of Education Chairman Gery J. Chico.
The bulk of the $1 billion increase, $879 million, is tied to the board’s push to fully fund the base level of funding for the state’s two million public school students.
Other proposed increases outlined in the plan include:
• $27.1 million for districts to administer a new test test called Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, which is similar to the ACT.
• $25 million for early childhood education programs designed to boost the number of students served in preschool programs by more than 5,500.
• $2 million to provide assistance to low-income students taking Advance Placement exams.
* But that’s not all the board wants. Back to the press release…
In addition to the General Funds request, the Board’s recommendation includes a $450 million capital request to support districts as they improve their technology infrastructure. This funding will be targeted toward improving the connectivity of buildings to broadband internet service as well as improving the network capabilities with the classroom. This request does not include funding for individual devices.
* According to a newly released Bureau of Labor Statistics table, union membership rose by 50,000 people in Illinois between 2012 and 2013. During 2012, union membership stood at 801,000. By 2013 it was 851,000.
As a percentage of total employed, union membership grew from 14.6 percent in 2012 to 15.8 percent in 2013.
By comparison, Indiana’s 2013 union membership percentage was 9.3, Michigan’s was 16.3, Ohio’s was 12.6 and Wisconsin’s was 12.3.
In 2013, the union membership rate–the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions–was 11.3 percent, the same as in 2012, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.5 million, was little different from 2012. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, and there were 17.7 million union workers. […]
In 2013, 7.2 million employees in the public sector belonged to a union, compared with 7.3 million workers in the private sector. The union membership rate for public-sector workers (35.3 percent) was substantially higher than the rate for private-sector workers (6.7 percent). Within the public sector, the union membership rate was highest for local government (40.8 percent), which includes employees in heavily unionized occupations, such as teachers, police officers, and firefighters. In the private sector, industries with high unionization rates included utilities (25.6 percent), transportation and warehousing (19.6 percent), telecommunications (14.4 percent), and construction (14.1 percent). Low unionization rates occurred in agriculture and related industries (1.0 percent), finance (1.0 percent), and in food services and drinking places (1.3 percent). (See table 3.)
Among occupational groups, the highest unionization rates in 2013 were in education, training, and library occupations and protective service occupations (35.3 percent each). Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (2.1 percent) and sales and related occupations (2.9 percent) had the lowest unionization rates. […]
Among major race and ethnicity groups, black workers had a higher union membership rate in 2013 (13.6 percent) than workers who were white (11.0 percent), Asian (9.4 percent), or Hispanic (9.4 percent).
By age, the union membership rate was highest among workers ages 45 to 64–14.0 percent for those ages 45 to 54 and 14.3 percent for those ages 55 to 64. […]
In 2013, among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had median usual weekly earnings of $950, while those who were not union members had median weekly earnings of $750. […]
Over half of the 14.5 million union members in the U.S. lived in just seven states (California, 2.4 million; New York, 2.0 million; Illinois, 0.9 million; Pennsylvania, 0.7 million; and Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio, 0.6 million each), though these states accounted for only about one-third of wage and salary employment nationally. [Emphasis added.]
* Politico looks back at an attempt during the Great Depression to rank the nation’s states from best to worst…
In 1931, H.L. Mencken and his fellow editor at the American Mercury, Charles Angoff, wondered the same thing. In a three-part series the magazine called “The Worst American State,” the pair compiled dozens of rankings of population data, largely from the 1930 census, determined to anoint the best and worst of the 48 states (and the District of Columbia), according to various measures of wealth, culture, health and public safety. In the end, Mencken and Angoff declared Connecticut and Massachusetts “the most fortunate American States,” and they deemed Mississippi “without a serious rival to the lamentable preëminence of the Worst American State”
At the time, Illinois ranked 9th on Mencken’s list.
* Politico has compiled its own ranking, “from reputable sources like the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the FBI, and on important factors such as high school graduation rates, per capita income, life expectancy and crime rate.”
The “master list,” which is an overall average, has Illinois 30th in the nation.
* WSIL TV asked the four GOP candidates where they stook on reopening the shuttered Tamms supermax prison…
One of the republican candidates for governor is pledging to reopen Tamms Prison. Kirk Dillard’s running mate was in Murphysboro Thursday to talk about that idea. We were there to ask a few more questions of Lieutenant Governor candidate Jil Tracy. She had plenty to say, not only on the state facility closures, but also on minimum wage and repealing the state’s gas tax.
“We are committed to opening, reopening the Tamms Correctional Facility,” [Tracy said.] […]
“I’m absolutely going to look at ways to open them. Now, it’s got to be done within a process and a place and a way that’s going to be appropriate. But that is mission that I have,” Rutherford explains by phone. […]
Rauner’s spokesperson Mike Schrimpf eventually got back to us after our deadline. He says Rauner would create a strategic assessment to see how best to use the shuttered Tamms prison and the other closed facilities. […]
Brady did not get back to us.
Discuss.
*** UPDATE *** From Brady’s campaign…
Senator Bill Brady, Republican candidate for Governor, today reaffirmed his commitment to reopen Tamms Correctional Center to ease overcrowding in the state’s prison system and to provide needed job opportunity in Southern Illinois.
“Illinois has about 49,000 inmates housed in facilities designed to hold 32,000 inmates, so this is not the time to be closing facilities as the Quinn Administration has done in recent months,” Brady said. “Those closings have further crowded our prisons, and as Governor I will reopen Tamms to lessen the potential for danger to our correctional officers, ease overcrowding, and return job opportunities to Southern Illinois.”
Brady previously had said as early as last August in DuQuoin that he would reopen the shuttered correctional facility at Tamms. Earlier this month, he made the same commitment when he visited Alexander County and met with residents and former employees.
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