Playing Frisbie
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* I worked with Sun-Times editorial writer Tom Frisbie back when I wrote columns for the paper. He’s a good guy and a smart guy and I’m really enjoying his posts at the paper’s website. Let’s look at a few.
For starters, DNR really needs to get its act together…
Last year, Illinois patted itself on the back for enacting legislation to govern hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that has what Gov. Pat Quinn called the best environmental protections in the nation.
Now, some of those involved in the negotiations are fretting that the deal could become the legislative equivalent of a dry well. […]
(T)he rulemaking process under the original legislation is moving slowly. An original draft of proposed rules was released earlier this year, and both environmentalists and industry made suggestions for improvements. Environmentalists believed the rules were weaker than the legislation envisioned, and the drilling industry had its own concerns. Both sides are now awaiting a revised draft that will go to the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources hasn’t missed its deadline yet, but all signs are the department has fallen far behind in processing the thousands of comments it received. Energy companies that have invested leases expiring in Southern Illinois are getting antsy because they’re not sure what is happening in Springfield.
“It’s kind of come to a grinding halt,” says Mark Denzler, vice president and chief operating officer of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association.
* Unintended consequences…
In its law allowing video gaming, the Illinois Legislature included truck stops as places where people could gamble. The thinking was that the pool of potential players was pretty much limited to truck drivers, and a lot of them are from out of state, which means video gaming would bring money into Illinois’ economy.
But it turns out owners of some ordinary gasoline stations have decided to redefine themselves as truck stops so that they can get a piece of the action.
“Right now there are gas stations trying to redefine themselves as truck stops,” said state Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford. “They put up a diesel pump and purchase some land so they get can get three acres [the minimum for being designated a truck stop].”
Flower shops also are getting into the act by obtaining liquor “pouring licenses” and then qualifying as a bar, where video gaming is permitted, he said.
Syverson has a bill that has a much better definition of what a truck stop is. The problem with the bill, though, is that Syverson also wants to double the number of video gaming machines that truck stops could have. Legislators worry that if they give more to truck stops, taverns will want the same treatment. So, the bill stalled.
* And here’s something you almost never see in a Chicago newspaper: A nuanced look at the patronage system. Frisbie writes about a visit to the paper’s editorial board by former anti-machine Ald. Marty Oberman, the new Metra chairman, who has pledged to root out patronage at the commuter agency. Oberman put patronage into the perspective of his city hall service…
Back when he was elected to the City Council as an idealistic 29-year-old, Oberman said, he learned that “people, even if they got hired through patronage, most people want to come to work and do their jobs. They would much rather be rewarded for doing their jobs than having to turn in the votes on Election Day. … Now, some didn’t mind doing both.”
“What I learned in the City Council is that a lot of the people [who were called] patronage hacks, they were good people,” Oberman said. “Their way to get a job was to get a letter from their committeeman. …. I went in and I railed against all these awful people that are working for the city. [But] one of the things that happens when you are alderman is you get to know these people individually. The guy who is on the garbage truck, you’ve got to talk to him. Most of these people, they were really decent people.
“[But]… they didn’t get rewarded for doing their jobs. They got rewarded for bringing the votes in on Election Day.”
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Question of the day
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The setup…
Governor Pat Quinn says his next—and second term—would be his last if he’s re-elected, because he’s long believed in term limits for top officials.
WBBM Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports that at a City Club of Chicago lunch, Governor Quinn suggested it is no surprise that he would only want to serve two terms as governor.
“I believe in term limits. I practised the petition drive in 1994. I gathered nearly half a million signatures with many others for term limits and at that time I thought executive statewide officials should have a term limit,” said Quinn.
* The Question: Post gubernatorial job opportunities?
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*** UPDATE *** AP…
Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk says he doesn’t agree with proposals in Illinois to impose term limits on elected officials.
Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner is pushing a voter initiative to limit state lawmakers. This week, the Republican leaders of the Illinois House and Senate backed an amendment to the state’s constitution that’ll limit statewide officers to two terms. The officers include the governor and comptroller.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* From a press release…
The Illinois Republican Party National Committeeman today called on Governor Pat Quinn, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton to approve a Republican proposal to impose term limits on constitutional office holders and reject a Democrat proposal to impose a progressive income tax on Illinois families.
With both legislative proposals moving through the General Assembly this week, the choice before Illinois Democrats is historic and their decisions will send a clear message about their values and priorities.
“The people of Illinois want term limits and they want lower taxes,” said Illinois Republican National Committeeman Richard Porter. “Pat Quinn, Michael Madigan and John Cullerton have a choice: Do they support more job-killing tax hikes, or do they want to restore Illinois to economic prosperity? The people of Illinois are watching and they will hold Democrats accountable for their choices in November.”
Last week, House Republican Leader Jim Durkin and Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow Illinois voters to approve term limits on constitutional office holders this November. At the same time, Senate Democrats are expected to consider today a progressive income tax hike for Illinois.
This term limits thing appears to be little more than a game. The GOP introduced it this month and Bruce Rauner promptly jumped on board. There are enough calendar days to get the constitutional amendment onto the ballot, but the House would have to add at least one and maybe more session days to accommodate the proposal.
Not to mention that the GOP’s most popular incumbent is Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, who has held statewide office for 16 years. Before that, she served 14 years in the General Assembly.
Topinka has called legislative term limits a “stupid” idea. I’m more of an agnostic, but you gotta wonder why the state party would essentially be saying that JBT shouldn’t run for another term.
* You can always count on somebody around here to gin up an empty, last-second and hopeless political battle. Speaker Madigan’s spokesman said yesterday that he seriously doubted the House would schedule any additional session days if the Senate passed this proposal.
* And as far as the other issue goes, I’m with Doubek on this one…
Word is state Sen. Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat, is planning to seek a vote Tuesday on his proposal to ask voters if they want to change the state constitution to move from a flat to a graduated income tax system, where people pay higher tax rates as their incomes rise. People who make more already pay more, of course, because 5 percent of $200,000 is more than 5 percent of $20,000. Harmon has a separate bill to set rates at three levels. The first $12,500 would be taxed at 2.9 percent, income above that up to $180,000 would be taxed at 4.9 percent, and income greater than $180,000 would be taxed at 6.9 percent. That sounds to me like most of us working Illinoisans would be paying more than the 3.75 percent the law provides for next year. […]
Every House Democrat would have to vote for Harmon’s amendment this week to get it on the ballot. At least one, state Rep. Jack Franks, a Marengo Democrat, has vowed to oppose it.
So, I suspect the veteran statehouse observers at the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce had it right when they suggested to their members that it would be politically unwise for Harmon to pursue a vote on a progressive tax plan sure to fail in the House. Why would Senate Democrats want to go on record for what amounts to a tax increase that won’t ultimately pass?
Unless Harmon has a secret grand plan to get three-fifths in both chambers, he’s gonna be stringing out a whole lot of colleagues if he calls his proposal for a floor vote today.
* As always, keep a close eye on our live session coverage post for updates to these stories and more.
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Specifics, please
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Madeleine Doubek…
The frustrating part of this election year is that few politicians are willing to commit to details that could come back to haunt them. Give Quinn credit for announcing he wants to go back on his word, change the law, and raise taxes to 5 percent. Yet neither he nor Republican challenger Bruce Rauner nor anyone else is giving any of us much detail about how we might create more jobs or live within the 3.75 percent tax rate Democrats passed into law in 2011.
Actually, Gov. Quinn has detailed what would happen if the income tax hike is allowed to expire. It’s all right here.
* What frustrates me so much about the governor is he keeps talking about tons of new spending, like the $700 million net annual cost of sending property owners a $500 check before election day, and every year thereafter.
And then there’s this…
Gov. Pat Quinn [yesterday] dangled a possible replacement to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to raise property taxes to restructure two Chicago pension funds: give the city a bigger cut of state income taxes. […]
Mr. Quinn did not discuss how to fund the move given his prior ideas to boost aid to education, pay off state bills, and hand each homeowner an annual $250-a-year state property tax “refund.”
But Mr. Quinn left little doubt in his remarks to the City Club and in answering reporters’ questions that he thinks a deal is available that would be good for him and the mayor, as well as for suburban communities which face their own woes paying for pensions. […]
Until the “temporary” income-tax hike went into effect in 2011, local municipalities received an automatic 10 percent cut of all state income-taxes raised from their residents. That was not the case with the incremental $7 billion or so a year the state gets from the “temporary” income-tax hike.
If the traditional 10 percent share were applied to the entire proposed permanent income-tax hike, Chicago alone would net $140 million to $150 million a year, according to a revised rough estimate by Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation.
Subscribers know more about how Quinn plans to pay for some of this.
But time is fast running out on the spring session. And legislators who are already nervous about voting to make the tax hike permanent before an election may not be amenable to new revenue streams.
* The truth is that Mayor Emanuel badly botched his pension reform bill. He negotiated an agreement with the unions which included a state-mandated local property tax hike without first checking with anybody to see if it could pass the General Assembly or be signed into law. As it turned out, the plan was dead before the ink was dry on the proposal.
And now Quinn is in a huge bind because he’s claiming that Rauner will raise property taxes with his proposed budget cuts.
But that doesn’t give Quinn an excuse to wish into existence magic budget dust.
So, yeah, Rauner is definitely guilty of running away from all specifics. But Quinn can’t continue to hammer his opponent while also refusing to specify how he plans to address this local pension funding issue.
And if he is “open” to discussions, it’s past time that he got those talks off the ground.
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* A patronage hiring controversy at IDOT started cranking up while I was on break. Today’s update from the AP…
Gov. Pat Quinn says the increase in jobs free from hiring rules at the Illinois Department of Transportation were “absolutely” necessary.
He told reporters Monday that there were federal stimulus dollars that had to be spent quickly and efficiently, along with a massive capital bill. He says policy makers were needed.
Documents released last week by his office showed an increase of 57 percent from 2003 to 2011. The documents showed that in 2011 there were 369 jobs at IDOT that could be given without restriction to those with political connections. That was up from 234 in 2003.
Umm, OK.
* The document release came after a lawsuit was filed April 22nd…
A Chicago lawyer asked a federal judge yesterday to order an investigation into hiring under Gov. Pat Quinn, saying there’s an “embedded culture of patronage practices” in Illinois government and anyone who improperly got a job should be fired.
Michael Shakman, known for bringing the decades-old court case that led to bans on politically based hiring in Chicago and Cook County, filed his motion in U.S. District Court in Chicago as part of that ongoing lawsuit.
The filing accuses Quinn of improper hiring and reclassification of employees in the Illinois Department of Transportation. It cites a 2013 report by the Better Government Association, a watchdog group, that concluded hundreds of IDOT jobs may have been wrongly filled based on “clout instead of competence.”
* The BGA has been pushing this story for a while now, claiming that the hirings were illegal. Transportation Secretary Ann Schneider has avoided commenting on the issue, but finally sat down with the BGA last week. Here’s some of what she had to say…
Patrick McCraney/BGA: As you see it, what did IDOT do wrong when it comes to Rutan?
Ann Schneider/IDOT Secretary: Well, the way that I look at this is that we had gotten position descriptions that were sent over to [the Illinois Department of Central Management Services] for classification, and when they came back, they came back as Rutan-exempt [the job classification that allows a hire to be made based on politics]. We went through the Rutan-exempt hiring for those positions and, I think that as your story rightly pointed out last year, some of those people brought in under those position descriptions ended up performing duties outside of those position descriptions. Thankfully, to you, really, for bringing this to our attention, we found that perhaps people were not performing Rutan-exempt duties that they were hired to perform.
At that point, I thought it was important that we stopped hiring any of these staff assistant positions, and that we do a review of the processes related to the positions, and at the same time that we reviewed the process, that we also audited those positions. In other words, we did a desk audit, there was a team, a third-party, that we brought in to conduct interviews of the people in these positions to find out what their job duties were, also to interview their supervisors, to find out what it is their supervisors expect of those positions.
As a result of those interviews and that desk audit, we drew up these new job descriptions that more accurately reflect the work that these people were doing. Those descriptions were sent to CMS for re-classification, and we have just gotten back, really, just a couple days ago, and we were going through what we got back from CMS, but it appears based on what they sent back to us, that, it appears right now that 48 of the 60 positions, they’re performing Rutan-covered duties, so those are Rutan-covered positions, and 12 of those positions that were sent over came back as retaining their Rutan-exempt status.
* When told that Shakman believes IDOT should only have 20 or so “double-exempt” positions, which are exempt from both US Supreme Court’s Rutan ruling, and the personnel code, Schneider said this…
I think that 20, for an organization of more than 5,200 people, that’s statewide, that covers nine different districts, and beyond those nine districts we have three other offices, people obviously have to run all of those locations, and make sure that the vision and mission of the administration is being carried out appropriately. And then, when we looked at the auditors, and the attorneys, obviously they are all privy to a lot of confidential information, and as we get into labor relations, for obvious reasons we want them to be double-exempt, non-union people, the legislative and governmental affairs are obviously speaking on behalf of the administration, and helping us to move policy through the General Assembly, and our local community liaisons are the same. I think if there was a review done of everybody who is classified for every position as double-exempt, I don’t think there would be much disagreement that where we’re at is closer to the appropriate level.
* She also went into more detail about who was double-exempt…
(W)e have 13 different offices and divisions, each of those offices and divisions have directors. It’s very important in those positions to have people that are able to carry out the mission and the vision of the governor and the administration. Within that, we’ve also got deputy directors, there’s a number of deputy directors. We also have, there are 40 engineers at IDOT that are double-exempt positions… And, those 40 engineers are all a five or above, so they’re all in managerial roles, they’re all in roles to carry out what the agency does. We also have over 20 attorneys that are double-exempt. Our audit staff is also double-exempt. Our labor relations staff, our legislative and governmental affairs staff are double exempt. We also have what we call “Local Community Liaisons,” and these are folks that work for us that are out in the community and dealing with the mayors and the local elected officials and even with constituents, to address their transportation concerns, and also to help us with carrying out the mission of the organization, so they are also double-exempt. We have some support staff, we have some executive secretaries and administrative assistants, that support all of these people in these roles, that are privy to confidential conversations and information, and they are also considered double-exempt.
Discuss.
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HB 4075: Ride-sharing Protections for All
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
In an era of on-demand service, you shouldn’t have to trade in your safety and peace of mind when it comes to transportation. People have the right to know that the same public safety protections are in place for everyone in the transportation business, regardless of what kind of car service they use.
That should include ride-sharing companies, but they currently ignore several state and local laws protecting consumers, including police background checks, drug testing, proper licensing and 24/7 commercial insurance.
You can already see what’s happening in the absence of these important protections: recently, NBC 5 Chicago investigated a ex-convict on probation with a list of felonies spanning over twenty years became a ride-share driver almost immediately after she applied, even after her so-called “background check.” And another ride-share driver in San Francisco hit and killed a 6-year-old girl, only to have the ride-sharing company deny liability and the family insurance.
Allowing multi-billion dollar companies to leave people without basic protections is not an improvement to the public marketplace.
The Illinois legislature should protect consumers and demand the same requirements for ALL drivers. Vote YES on HB 4075!
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The rest of the numbers
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* A recent Gallup poll is getting a lot of play…
The phrase “if you don’t like it, then you can leave” might be a dangerous thing to say in Illinois.
According to a recent Gallup poll, the state would lose a quarter of its population if every resident who didn’t like it decided to leave it. The poll asked survey-takers to rate their state as a place to live, and Illinois had the highest percentage of people who said it is the worst place to live, at 25 percent.
Illinois was followed by Connecticut and Rhode Island, 17 percent of whose residents rated their states as the worst place to live.
The states with the highest rates in the “best possible state to live in” category were Texas (28 percent), Alaska (27 percent), Hawaii (25 percent) and Montana (24 percent). Only 3 percent of Illinoisans put their state in the same category.
* From Gallup…
Illinois has the unfortunate distinction of being the state with the highest percentage of residents who say it is the worst possible place to live. One in four Illinois residents (25%) say the state is the worst place to live, followed by 17% each in Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Throughout its history, Illinois has been rocked by high-profile scandals, investigations, and resignations from Chicago to Springfield and elsewhere throughout the state. Such scandals may explain why Illinois residents have the least trust in their state government across all 50 states. Additionally, they are among the most resentful about the amount they pay in state taxes. These factors may contribute to an overall low morale for the state’s residents.
* Some state residents are, indeed, just bursting with local pride…
When asked to rate their state as a place to live, three in four Montanans (77%) and Alaskans (77%) say their state is the best or one of the best places to live. […]
Residents of Western and Midwestern states are generally more positive about their states as places to live. With the exception of the New England states of New Hampshire and Vermont, all of the top 10 rated states are west of the Mississippi River. In addition to Montana and Alaska, Utah (70%), Wyoming (69%), and Colorado (65%) are among the 10 states that residents are most likely to say their state is among the best places to reside. Most of these states have relatively low populations, including Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, and Alaska — the four states with the smallest populations in the nation. Texas, the second most populated state, is the major exception to this population relationship. Although it is difficult to discern what the causal relationship is between terrain and climate and positive attitudes, many of the top 10 states are mountainous with cold winters. In fact, the two states most highly rated by their residents — Montana and Alaska — are among not only the nation’s coldest states but also both border Canada.
* But Gallup didn’t publish results from another poll question it posed in that survey. When asked to describe their state, one option was “As good a state as any to live in in the United States.”
I asked the company for the responses to that question and they sent it to me late yesterday. Read all responses to all questions in all states by clicking here.
* According to the document, 54 percent of Illinoisans said their state was as good a place to live as any other state. Another 16 percent said Illinois was “One of the best possible states to live in in the United States.” And 3 percent said it was the best possible state to live in.
So, 73 percent had basically positive or neutral things to say about Illinois.
* Do not get me wrong here. We are obviously a messed up place if a quarter of all Illinoisans believe their state is the armpit of the universe. I just thought you’d like to see the rest of the poll.
* Meanwhile, Gallup released another national poll result earlier this month. Respondents were asked if they believed their state taxes were too high.
71 percent of Illinoisans said their taxes were too high, while only 26 percent said they weren’t too high.
Illinois ranked fourth, behind New York (77-21), New Jersey (77-22) and Connecticut (76-23).
Wisconsin residents, which pay higher personal income tax rates than Illinoisans, were way down the list at 51-46. That’s slightly above the 50-47 national state average.
Also, 51 percent of Hoosiers, who have high state rates, say their taxes are not too high, compared to 48 percent who said they were too high.
* The takeaway? The income tax hike is hugely unpopular and in the media almost daily. And the state government appears inept and floundering. It’s not hard to see why residents feel this way.
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* From February 27th…
Gov. Pat Quinn is doing a national search for the next chief of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services in the wake of the current director resigning after only a month on the job, the governor’s office said Thursday.
* Fast-forward to today. No more national search. Quinn has instead nominated his current interim director..
The interim director of the state’s Department of Children and Family Services, which has had four leaders in six months, on Tuesday received Gov. Pat Quinn’s nomination to continue heading the agency.
Bobbie M. Gregg, who has been the interim director since late February, must be confirmed by the state Senate. In the meantime, she’ll assume the title of acting director.
Quinn touted Gregg, a DCFS veteran who has also worked in county and federal government, as the right person to head the child welfare agency.
* From David Ormsby at the Illinois Observer…
Quinn’s choice of Gregg is likely to be, however, a disappointment to lawmakers who sought national talent and to those who witnessed her dismal performance at recent legislative budget hearings.
“We’ve had a rotating door, unfortunately, in the last several months in this department. So it’s been hard for any leadership to gain traction,” said State Senator Julie Morrison (D-Deerfield) when Gregg’s interim appointment was announced in February. “I would encourage the governor to look within the state and outside the state for a director who brings some innovation along with the experience”.
At recent House and Senate budget hearings, Gregg’s performance was panned for her lack of grasp of basic agency financial and operational details, according to accounts. Gregg fumbled for answers regarding recent cuts to the agency’s budget despite being spoon-fed questions by lawmakers. Legislators – Democrats and Republicans – were privately stunned by Gregg’s lack of preparation.
Word is that the governor’s office did interview other potential talented candidates, but political uncertainty over Quinn’s hold on office beyond January 2015 doomed the other candidacies.
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Here’s how we can thank Barton
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Barton Lorimor did a fantastic job while I was on break. I think the best way we can thank him for his services to us here is to donate to his favorite cause. Barton sent me this e-mail today…
Rich,
As you and I discussed earlier, a former colleague and fellow Saluki passed away on this day six years ago. He was 22.
Ryan Rendleman, a student at Southern Illinois University Carbondale and photojournalist for the Daily Egyptian newspaper, was on his way to O’Fallon, Ill., to meet a young girl with Tay-Sachs disease. It’s an incurable and unfortunately fatal illness he was hoping to make more people aware of. Sadly, he was killed en route while his car was stopped in a construction zone just north of Pickneyville, Ill.
I don’t want to sound like I was one of Ryan’s best friends. Ryan and I worked together. My desk in the newsroom was close to the photo lab he managed during my first semester in Carbondale. This anniversary means a lot more to his fellow shooters.
That said, after his passing I realized what Ryan meant to me personally. He was the first person to introduce himself to a scraggly ginger freshman from Carlock, IL on his first day as a reporter. He and a couple of the other upperclassmen even took that runt to lunch that afternoon. It was a little thing, but it made a big difference. I think a lot of us that knew Ryan changed something about ourselves because of him - especially after his passing. My change was to strive to be the first one to welcome the new guy.
Shortly after his death, the SIUC College of Mass Communication and Media Arts established a scholarship that carries Ryan’s name and is awarded annually to a photojournalism student. Since you have used your network to help good causes in their fundraising efforts, I thought your readers might help us keep this scholarship alive. Donations to the scholarship can be made by contacting Ron Graves at the SIU Foundation. Your readers should mention they saw this post on Capitol Fax and would like to contribute to the Ryan Rendleman Scholarship. Ron is a good guy. He will take care of the rest.
Another good way to honor Ryan would be to make a contribution to National Tay-Sachs & Allied Diseases Association, which strives to find a cure to the disease Ryan was on his way to write about. In the years immediately after his death, some of the images Ryan captured were professionally printed and auctioned off at fundraisers with the proceeds benefiting a Tay-Sachs cure. Pretty cool legacy, if you ask me. NTSAD accepts donations online. The link is here.
If anyone is interested in learning more about Ryan, a recent SIUC graduate wrote an amazing tribute to him last year. Based on my interactions with Ryan and the stories I have heard about him over the years, this article seems to have captured him to the tee.
I appreciate your consideration and help with both of these causes.I think you would have liked Ryan. He was a silly guy that loved Bob Dylan’s music, free pizza, and pressing the shutter button on images that would provoke thought and change. Although we cannot take his pictures, perhaps we can still help him provoke change.
All the best,
Barton
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* Whenever government agencies are threatened with budget cuts, they can usually be counted on to highlight the most draconian possibilities which could result. From Illinois Public Radio…
Gov. Pat Quinn and other Democrats say if the [income] tax rate is allowed to drop, there would have to be massive cuts across state government.
For example, Secretary of State Jesse White said his office would have to cut nearly $39 million under the “not recommended” budget. […]
The threatened cuts include the entire state Capitol Police force, which was established about a decade ago, after a deranged man shot and killed an unarmed security officer. The shooting led to the installation of metal detectors and x-ray machines, and hiring sworn, armed law enforcement personnel.
White said unless the legislature makes the temporary tax increase permanent, the entire force will be eliminated — leaving just the unarmed guards.
“We just believe if we have to revert back to the days when this gentleman was killed, that it may not be in the best interests of the members of the Illinois General Assembly, or the people at large,” he said.
There’s no doubt that the cuts would be huge. And there’s also undoubtedly no small amount of poetic justice to White’s argument.
But could it really happen? I’m not so sure.
By the way, White also said he’d have to close 25 drivers license facilities and lay off 200 people and wouldn’t be able to mail notices to remind motorists to renew their licenses and their plate stickers.
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Rate Rauner’s three new TV ads
Tuesday, Apr 29, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From a press release…
Bruce Rauner’s gubernatorial campaign began airing three new television advertisements today, highlighting his extensive efforts to help the community and improve education as well as his cross-party appeal.
The ads all feature racial minorities.
* The first ad we’ll look at is called “Beautiful Thing”…
Script…
“My name is Cornell Nelson. I’m from the South Side of Chicago. I support Bruce Rauner. Early on, I stayed out of trouble. Later on, I got captured by the streets. I ended up at this place called A Safe Haven. Bruce made a great difference. He’s helped provide meals in these neighborhoods. He’s helped provide clothing. People don’t know he’s had his hand in doing this for a very long time. Bruce did that. It’s a really beautiful thing.”
* The next ad is entitled “Principle”…
Script…
“My name is Lula Ford and I taught public school for 22 years, I was a principal for 5 and I was an assistant superintendent. That’s why as a Democrat I’m voting for Bruce because I realize he’s very much about education for children, especially in underserved communities and the inner city. He will follow through on every promise he has made about education, and he is not afraid of a fight. And I think he knows he’s in for one, but I think he’ll be triumphant. Bruce is the real deal.”
* And the third ad is called “Wrong Direction“…
Script…
“I’m Manny Sanchez, former co-chair of Latinos for Obama. The state is going in the wrong direction and has been going in the wrong direction for too long. I absolutely think that Bruce Rauner would be the right and the perfect and the optimal candidate for Democrats, for Independents and for Republicans. We need to have a leader who’s honest, who’s fresh and who’s willing to tell the people, whether they want to hear it or not, the truth and that’s what Bruce Rauner brings to this race.”
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