Rauner and Stroger?
Wednesday, Jul 9, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The gist of a new Greg Hinz piece…
a company [Bruce Rauner] partly owned and on whose board he served just happened to make 11 contributions to Mr. Stroger’s campaign fund and to the Strogers’ 8th Ward Regular Democratic Organization at the time when Cook County was awarding the company a series of contracts over four years. Not to mention a $5,000 contribution to the Democratic Party of Illinois, Mr. Madigan, chairman. […]
Team Rauner responds that the candidate had “no idea” what his company was up to and that, in fact, he gave lots of financial help to independent board member Forrest Claypool.
* Some deets…
Now, GTCR owned a lot of companies at the time. But according to a 1999 filing with the Florida Secretary of State, Mr. Rauner was one of only four names listed on an application to do business with that state. He was one of two directors (the other also from GTCR) with others serving as CEO and president.
HealthRev hit the ground running. On Jan. 6, 2000, the Cook County Board, John Stroger presiding, approved a three-year pact with the company giving it a cut of any Medicaid collections it could make in the county’s huge balance of charity care debt, according to the agenda for that meeting (go to page 11). The pact then was estimated to bring in about $1.2 million a year for HealthRev.
Actually, the company did much better than that. According to the county, the firm was paid $8.8 million between June 2000 and April 2003. It earned another $1.9 million after the contract was renewed late in 2002, with the bulk of that coming before it sold the company to another private group in 2004.
Almost immediately after the first contract was approved by Mr. Stroger’s county board in January 2000, good things started happening to Mr. Stroger’s personal campaign fund and his 8th Ward organization account, which supported the activities of John Stroger and then 8th Ward Ald. Todd Stroger.
* From the union-backed Illinois Freedom PAC…
Hinz notes a “fascinating” pattern in which Rauner companies make political contributions to officials who have influence over government contracts the companies are awarded and Rauner subsequently claims to have no knowledge of such contributions.
* From the Rauner campaign…
* The Healthrev Contract Was Recommended By County Board Staff.
* Healthrev Was One Of The Three Lowest Bidders For The Contract.
* The Healthrev Contract Did Not Cost County Taxpayers Any Money - Healthrev Was Paid Only A Percentage Of What It Managed To Recover For The County.
* Healthrev’s Contract Was Approved Unanimously By The County Board.
* The Motion to Approve was seconded by Commissioner Lechowicz, who was unseated in 2002 by Forrest Claypool. Bruce was A major supporter of Claypool.
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Feds want Audit Commission to “defer”
Wednesday, Jul 9, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From what I gather, the feds have asked the committee to “defer” to them and to let them take the lead on the investigation into the governor’s anti-violence initiative.
There was a Legislative Audit Commission conference call this afternoon and I’m hearing another one is scheduled. Nothing has yet been decided.
The feds, from what I’m told, haven’t exactly come out and flatly told the Commission to back off. But the signal was certainly clear enough that members are reportedly getting the message…
The Justice Department has asked state lawmakers to back away from calling several former members of Gov. Pat Quinn’s inner circle to testify on the governor’s Neighborhood Recovery Initiative to avoid possibly interfering with an ongoing federal probe of the scandal-tainted anti-violence program, sources said.
“There is a signal coming from the Department of Justice that the Legislature not proceed with calling witnesses being subpoenaed due to the current criminal investigation,” a source familiar with the feds’ request told the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday.
The verbal request came from the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs and not directly from the federal prosecutor’s office in Springfield, which would neither confirm nor deny the existence of the request.
What makes the request somewhat unusual is that when ongoing state inquiries have skirted too closely to parallel probes by federal investigators, the requests to stand down historically have come from federal prosecutors themselves – not the Justice Department’s lobbying arm.
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Uber pegs HQ job growth to Quinn veto
Wednesday, Jul 9, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From a press release, with emphasis added for reasons I’ll explain in a bit…
On Tuesday, Uber Technologies was joined by Illinois lawmakers, business leaders and tech community members to showcase their new Midwest Headquarters here. During the event, Andrew Macdonald, Uber’s Regional General Manager for the Midwest and Canada, highlighted the economic impact the company has had on the city of Chicago and announced projected job growth for Uber’s Midwest hub.
Under existing regulations and market conditions, Uber projects it’s Midwest headquarters will more than quadruple in size between now and 2016. The Midwest office started 2014 with 45 employees, a number that quickly grew to 75 staff members and is expected to reach approximately 500 employees by the end of 2016.
* Both highlighted phrases are connected. As Greg Hynes explains, those 500 jobs come with a big catch…
While the company is not seeking state Edge tax credits, tax increment financing subsidies or other incentives, it does want Gov. Pat Quinn to veto or amend a bill on his desk that Uber says conflicts with its business model and imposes heavier regulation than a recently approved city ordinance. Both measures govern ride-sharing companies that rely on smartphone applications and part-time drivers.
“We’d still add jobs” if Mr. Quinn signs the pending legislation as is, says Andrew Macdonald, Midwest general manager at the company, formally known as Uber Technologies Inc. “But to what extent, we don’t know.” […]
The new jobs will include legal, communications, marketing and other support staff, Mr. Macdonald said. On its current path, the company expects to hit the 125 mark by the end of the year and to double that in each of the next two years. That’s well above the 150 or so spots that the company spoke about earlier this year in a story by my colleague Ryan Ori.
But if the state “slams the brakes on,” Mr. Macdonald continued, “We’ll have to keep our eyes on the situation.”
Discuss.
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Quinn once again hits Rauner on taxes
Wednesday, Jul 9, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* As we discussed yesterday, Gov. Pat Quinn held a press conference to slam Bruce Rauner over his tax issues. Sun-Times…
In a campaign in which Democrats are playing up income inequality issues, Quinn held a news conference that called on Rauner to further disclose details related to taxes he’s already released as well as future releases. Quinn’s remarks come after a Tribune report detailing loopholes that Rauner had tapped in previous filings, including avoiding paying Medicare and Social Security taxes in 2010 and 2011.
“The schedules tell the tale, all the details needed to determine if there are conflicts of interest and what loopholes are being used by Mr. Rauner to slash his tax burden and shift that burden onto working people,” Quinn said. “We don’t need a loophole governor and that’s what Rauner is all about.”
Quinn responded to the Rauner campaign calling the news conference a stunt, saying “I think the stunt is … [Rauner] not paying into Medicare or Social Security from their private income.”
Margaret Healy, a sixth grade Chicago history teacher at Chicago City Day School, held up her pay stub and talked of living in a basement apartment and sometimes borrowing her parents’ car to make ends meet.
“If you were to look at my pay stub … you would see that I pay Social Security and Medicare, however, it is somewhat mind-boggling that Bruce Rauner has managed to avoid payment to either of these programs,” said Healy.
* The Rauner response via surrogate…
Subpoenas issued by a federal grand jury for e-mails related to the Neighborhood Recovery Initiative have the Bruce Rauner campaign calling for Gov. Pat Quinn to testify about the program. Those subpoenas asked for e-mails dating to 2010 from several former officials in the Quinn administration. Former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady, who now works for the Rauner campaign, says Quinn should volunteer to testify.
“If he doesn’t come clean now,” Brady said, “I fear for what the grand jury and the U.S. attorney’s office in the Central District of Illinois might do.”
Brady claims the Quinn campaign has tried to draw attention away from the subpoenas by calling for Rauner to release his tax returns.
Brady denies that Rauner is trying to avoid reporters while still attacking Quinn through surrogates. “Mr. Rauner didn’t spend 10, 11 years prosecuting financial crimes like I did,” Brady said, “and he doesn’t have probably the knowledge about this like I do.”
They’re basically just standing there throwing bricks at each other.
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Shakman rebuts Quinn in new filing
Wednesday, Jul 9, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* AP…
Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration should face federal scrutiny to ensure it complies with bans on political hiring for nonpolitical jobs, anti-patronage lawyer Michael Shakman argued in a Tuesday filing, which also disputes the Democratic governor’s claim that a monitor would undercut his authority. […]
Shakman also rejects Quinn’s assertion that the hiring allegations amount to mere speculation, pointing to recent comments by then-IDOT Secretary Ann Schneider that the agency had hired people for positions designated as political, then transferred them to nonpolitical jobs without posting the openings to the public. […]
Quinn said his office had already acted to fix any lingering hiring issues.
Shakman’s filing says that remains to be seen. Quinn gave assurances before, as far back as 2009, that he was addressing the issue. But it says the “assurances, however earnestly made, cannot be relied upon” in the wake of allegations of improper hiring at IDOT.
Shakman also asks the judge again to order Quinn’s office to turn over thousands of hiring-related documents.
I don’t see this going away any time soon.
The governor is facing a far different environment than he did in 2010, when people thought he might be a bumbler, but was at least a non-crooked bumbler.
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* He’s still trailing Sen. Frerichs in cash on hand by at least two to one, but this was a pretty good quarter for Tom Cross. From a press release…
Illinois State Representative and Republican candidate for Illinois State Treasurer Tom Cross announced that his campaign raised over $555,000 in the second quarter, significantly more than any past fundraising performance by his opponent, Democrat Mike Frerichs.
“The overwhelming support and investment in our efforts to balance the budget, hold the line on taxes, and crack down on fraud and corruption is energizing Illinois voters,” said Cross. “The simple truth is that our campaign has strong momentum and great energy heading into the final four months.”
Since entering the race last September:
· 2,201 donors have contributed to Cross for Treasurer
· 65 Illinois counties have donors that have contributed to Cross for Treasurer
· $121,658 has been raised online for Cross for Treasurer
Cross will also file with over $500,000 cash-on-hand. Looking forward, the Cross campaign has 41 finance events scheduled for the third quarter.
In addition to the strong fundraising infrastructure and performance, Cross has led Frerichs in every public poll conducted on the general election contest. Most recently, a June 17th Reboot/We Ask America poll had Cross leading Frerichs 42-35.
Frerichs has reported about a quarter million dollars raised via his A-1 reports.
* Meanwhile, an unfortunate tweet…
That doesn’t look much like a “great event.”
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Rick Perry runs his mouth off again
Wednesday, Jul 9, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Texas Gov. Rick Perry was supposed to be in Chicago this week for his second job-poaching mission. He canceled due to a meeting with the President.
But his office also shopped around an op-ed, which claims in part…
In Texas, we rejected President Obama’s flawed demand to expand Medicaid because we know it’s a broken system that isn’t built to handle its existing caseload, let alone a massive crush of new people. We recognize the simple truth that expansion will undoubtedly lead to higher costs for states already struggling to meet mounting budgetary demands, and will crowd out other essential government functions.
Other states have rushed headfirst into expansion despite massive problems with their existing programs. In Illinois, for example, by the time expansion is complete, one out of every four Illinoisans will be dependent on Medicaid, which was only ever intended to serve as a safety net for those most in need. This makes it even more troubling that Illinois officials only recently realized that roughly 250,000 people had been receiving Medicaid services for which they did not qualify.
* Coincidentally, WalletHub has a new study on Obamacare and Medicaid expansion which looked at 44 of the 50 states. One of its results…
So Perry’s overheated rhetoric about Illinois Medicaid expansion is off-base.
* Then there’s this…
The study found that 24.81 percent of Texans have no insurance, the worst in the nation.
Heckuva job, Ricky boy.
* Gov. Quinn’s office sent this response to Crain’s before Perry canceled…
While we welcome Gov. Perry’s contributions to Illinois’ booming tourism and hope he plans to visit us soon, businesses here should be skeptical of his economic pitch. Compared with Texas, the Illinois workforce is much better paid and educated, healthier and better protected if injured on the job.
Texas’ record of late includes some of the nation’s worst outputs of air and water pollution accompanied by concern about the reliability of its power grid.
While Texas has no income tax, it must rely heavily on sales and property taxes that hit part of its population extremely hard.
After all that, the average tax burden for a business is fairly close in the two states.
Gov. Perry can sell the appeal of wide-open spaces. We think most Illinois businesses will remain convinced that our amenities such as transportation, education, workforce training and quality of life help them get the job done.
* But I really wish Quinn and Mayor Emanuel would watch this next video. It’s about a young woman who tried to set up an innovative little business in Chicago and was thwarted at every turn, so she headed south to Austin. The video is truly a must-watch. If the Illinois Policy Institute just focused on stuff like this and dropped the goofy histrionics, I’d be in their corner 100 percent…
Lots of background here.
Look, I get that Illinois Democratic politicians can’t stand Texas Republicans like Gov. Perry. But, we’re talking Austin here. It isn’t some right-wing bastion. Get with it, people.
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* From today’s Tribune editorial…
We keep wondering when Democrats in the Illinois House — forlorn little mushrooms on whom Speaker Michael Madigan regularly dumps his putrid embarrassments — will decide they’ve had enough of self-serving-antics-by-Mike.
Maybe never. Maybe they’re breathlessly seduced by the campaign money he gives to them and the cozy district lines he bestows on them. Or maybe they draw perverse pride from hobnobbing with clout, even if that means marching in subservient humiliation as his dupes.
Then again, maybe the sorry consequences for Illinois citizens of Madigan’s 44 years in Springfield — witness your broke and broken state — are sparking some dim awareness within his caucus: Even as his legislative giveaways to cronies drove Illinois toward financial ruin, Dear Leader still obsessed on rigging government decisions to help his political toadies. Have we all, um, been chumped?
The editorial then goes on to discus the Metra patronage story we talked about yesterday.
“Dear Leader,” by the way, was the title assumed by brutal North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il.
Thoughts?
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