What: Governor Rauner signs Executive Order on Criminal Justice Reform
Where: Sangamon County Courthouse – County Board Chambers, Room 201
200 S. 9th Street, Springfield
Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Time: Media arrival – 8:45 a.m.
Executive Order Signing - 9:00 a.m.
SEIU Healthcare Illinois launched a television ad campaign today calling on Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Illinois General Assembly to protect funding for the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP).
The Department of Human Services announced a $300 million budget shortfall last month that will leave 160,000 thousand children in low-wage households without safe, reliable child care services.
The ad is one part of an aggressive campaign being led by early childhood education advocates, parents, childcare providers and children’s organizations throughout Illinois to restore funding for the child care program. It will be shown in all major media markets in the state including: Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, Quad-Cities and Champaign. The ad will air Feb. 11 through Feb. 18.
Susan and Jason McWhirter and their two children are featured in the ad. (Click here for a profile of the family). The Peoria family relies on the child care program to go to work.
“We’re very concerned about losing child care assistance,” Mrs. McWhirter said. “’My husband and I both work and I go to school so I can get a better job. Many families have no options but to leave their children in the care of others while they make a living for their family. The child care program gives me and my family options for child care that we can trust.”
The ad comes the week before Gov. Rauner is set to unveil his budget proposal on Feb. 18. The Chicago Tribune called the shortfall an “immediate test” for the governor. Working parents and children’s advocates across the state have been very vocal about the crisis and the devastating impact of not fully funding the program.
Tuesday, Feb 10, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
My name is John Lattner. I grew up and raised my family in the Chicago area. I played football for the University of Notre Dame and was honored to have won the Heisman Trophy in 1953 and went on to continue my football career playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1954.
I have recently learned from my doctors that I have been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma and that I have a challenging prognosis. I am hoping that I get luckier than most folks who get this kind of news. I have been very lucky most of my life and I hope that luck holds up. Any man who has had the life I have had and the family with which I have been blessed with has already had more than his share of good luck.
Back when I was playing at the University of Notre Dame, I was able to get summer jobs working with asbestos in Chicago. No one ever told us anything about it being dangerous and I was happy to have a job at all. I went on to do other things and now learn years later that this asbestos has given me cancer.
My doctors told me that it is medically impossible to get mesothelioma before a minimum of 15 to 20 years of exposure. The outlook for my condition is not good and I’ve been told most people who are diagnosed with this disease die within a year or two. I am someone who has always believed in fairness. I don’t think anyone should have a leg up on any other person. A strong civil justice system in Illinois provides that fairness not just for me, but for the other men and women who get the call from the doctor that I got. I know how tough of a call it is to get.
Tuesday, Feb 10, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
While the state budget crisis increasingly hits struggling Illinois families, Exelon demands a corporate bailout. This is exactly the wrong thing for Illinois’ citizens and businesses.
Exelon is a successful, profitable company and while we appreciate success, when they claim they need more of OUR MONEY, it’s time to be skeptical.
EXELON FIRST QUARTER 2014 PROFITS: $93 MILLION
THAT’S MORE THAN ONE MILLION DOLLARS A DAY
And the rest of 2014 got even more profitable. Tune in every day this week to find out how well they did the rest of the year, culminating with their 2014 earnings report on Friday!
* The company scored high in the licensing process, so whatevs…
A strip club owner was approved by the state Friday to sell medical marijuana from a West Loop storefront.
The approval of Perry Mandera’s Custom Strains came Friday, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation announced in a news release. The approval means Mandera, the owner of VIP’s A Gentleman’s Club, can open a dispensary in a vacant building at 1105 W. Fulton St.; the business will cater to military veterans.
* She has a degree from Cornell in environmental engineering and also has business experience in environmental engineering. She’s probably making less than her fellow graduating class, so, again, whatevs…
State payroll records reviewed by The Southern Illinoisan Springfield bureau show Emily Clamp was hired on Jan. 16 to a $70,008 per year job at the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
While a Rauner spokeswoman says the 25-year-old is “well suited” for the position based on her college studies, her sister, Sarah Clamp, was political director of Rauner’s successful campaign for governor against Democrat Pat Quinn. […]
In her new post, Emily Clamp is a policy adviser at the IEPA, working on a clean power plan, said Rauner spokeswoman Katherine Kelly.
She certainly seems “well suited” and qualified for the job, and it is, after all, a political appointment. Yeah, he campaigned against some of Pat Quinn’s patronage moves, but I just can’t seem to get upset about this.
Tuesday, Feb 10, 2015 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Credit unions are not-for-profit financial cooperatives. They were first exempted from federal income taxes in 1917 to fulfill a special mission as valuable and affordable cooperative alternatives to for-profit banks.
Even though credit unions are exempt from income tax, they still are subject to, and pay, property, payroll, and sales taxes, and a host of governmental regulatory supervision fees. Since their inception, credit unions have more than fulfilled their mission, as evidenced by Congressional codification of the credit union tax exemption in 1951 and 1998. Though the range of services has evolved to effectively serve their members in an increasingly competitive financial marketplace, the cooperative structure, which is the reason for their tax exempt status, has remained constant.
Nationally, consumers benefit to the tune of $6.6 billion annually because credit unions are tax-exempt. In Illinois, by most recent estimates credit unions annually provide nearly $205 million in direct financial benefits to almost three million members. In an era that continuously poses economic and financial challenges, credit unions remain true to one principle - people before profits - and represent a highly valued resource by consumers.
The National Right to Work Foundation is offering free legal aid to public employees seeking to exercise their right to refrain from paying union dues or fees that may result from Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner’s newly-issued executive order.
Governor Rauner issued an executive order late Monday that instructs all state agencies to put in escrow, pending the outcome of a federal court lawsuit the Governor filed the same day, all forced union-fee deductions from nonmember state employees’ wages required by Illinois’ public-sector labor relations statute. The Governor’s lawsuit asks that a judgment be entered declaring unconstitutional the provisions of state collective bargaining agreements that require nonmember state employees to pay union fees, a judgment that would effectively grant those workers Right to Work protections.
The National Right to Work Foundation has a long history of assisting employees seeking to exercise their Right to Work rights, most recently under newly enacted Right to Work provisions in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan. Foundation attorneys also provided free legal representation to Illinois home-based personal care providers who, under executive orders issued by former Governors Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn, were forced to pay union dues or fees against their will. In that case, Harris v Quinn, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Illinois scheme, ruling that individuals who indirectly receive state subsidies based on their clientele cannot be forced to pay compulsory union fees.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, issued the following statement:
“Governor Rauner’s actions may give Illinois public employees the Right to Work protections they so desperately need and deserve. These are bold steps to protect Illinois state employees’ rights not to pay tribute to union bosses as a condition of working as public servants.
“Unfortunately, union officials won’t give up their forced dues power easily. In addition to fighting Governor Rauner in court, it won’t be surprising to see them make it difficult for workers to exercise their rights. State employees who try to exercise those rights may encounter stonewalling, intimidation, or harassment at the hands of union officials.
“Right now, over 6,500 employees of the state government are being forced to pay union dues even though they’ve said they don’t want to support them.”
Those payments by workers opting out of union membership but working in workplaces operating under contracts negotiated by a union are called “fair share” payments.
“The call that ‘fair share.’ Let me tell you it’s anything but fair,” Rauner said, adding that the “fair share” deductions cost the employees who pay them an average of $577 per year.
What’s so unfair about non-members paying $48 a month for services? Argue the amount, perhaps, but the governor really believes people who have state jobs that are classified as union jobs shouldn’t be forced to pay for contract negotiations, grievance procedures, etc.?
“Government union bargaining and government union political activity are inextricably linked,” Rauner said. “As a result, an employee who is forced to pay unfair share dues is being forced to fund political activity with which they disagree. That is a clear violation of First Amendment rights and something that, as governor, I am duty-bound to correct.”
That is some seriously circular logic. The bottom line here is that Rauner believes some folks just shouldn’t have to pay for a legitimate service. They’re perfectly free to quit their state jobs, after all.
Also, when the Catholic Conference sued over being barred from some state programs because of its position on gay marriage, that suit was dismissed because the group had no inherent right to a state contract. Is this issue really all that different? Maybe it is. Lemme know in comments.
* From a subscriber…
Is this some crazy way of setting the table for a pension bill? This is so over-the-top it makes me think it’s a negotiating stance and could be leading to an opportunity to extract concessions on COLAs or increased employee contributions towards pension costs. He could withdraw the order if he gets the concessions, for example, which AFSCME might go for if there is a chance his EO might be upheld by the courts.
This just feels like theater to me and on its own, it doesn’t make sense.
What’s Rauner’s end game? It can’t be to eliminate unions, public or otherwise. That’s not going to be achievable for him, not even with two or three terms.
So if that’s not his end game, I figure the next best prize is public employees eating more of the pension/retiree healthcare costs.
Frankly, I don’t really care how much Tillman makes. I make a decent buck myself, but, hey, I’m in the private sector.
The IEA is a huge organization, while Tillman’s is quite small, so using generally accepted market principles it would stand to reason that IEA President Cinda Klickna would make more than Tillman. But that isn’t the case, unless Tillman has taken a recent pay cut. So, I’m not sure where his beef is. Also, check out his overhead. Whew.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* The Illinois Policy Institute has long bashed public employee unions and has pushed for “right to work” legislation. Yesterday, the group unveiled a new report…
“The anatomy of influence: Government unions in Illinois” takes a close look at unions’ political spending and the influence afforded to government unions as a result. This analysis offers an unprecedented review of the political donations to the current Illinois General Assembly, as well as top recipients of union political giving since 2002. It also highlights how profitable the business of forced unionization can be for those who run the unions by listing a sampling of the highest-compensated employees for the state’s major government unions: the Illinois Education Association; Illinois Federation of Teachers; American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31; and Service Employees International Union.
This book also reports how unions spend the money collected from mandatory dues, according to the unions’ own filings with the federal government. In the state’s largest teachers union, the Illinois Education Association or IEA, only 26 cents out of every $1 in union dues is actually spent on the union’s stated reason for existence: representation of workers. The rest of the union’s dues and fees revenue went mainly toward overhead, administration and political activities. Other unions also fail to spend the majority of dues money on actual representation – which is supposed to be unions’ key function. At both the IEA and the Illinois Federation of Teachers or IFT, the top 20 highest-paid employees all are paid salaries of more than $100,000 annually. Cinda Klickna, head of the IEA, pulls in $235,404 annually.
In addition to salaries, money spent on politics makes up another big chunk of union spending. The Illinois Policy Institute reviewed campaign-finance reports from 2002 to 2014 and found the five major government unions in Illinois spent a combined $46 million in political campaigns in that time. That number offers just a glimpse of union political spending, as it does not include donations by local chapters of government unions.
While the vast majority of government-union political spending goes to Democrats, the review of campaign spending since 2002 showed that Republicans received nearly 17 percent of the unions’ campaign spending during that time. Former Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, sat atop the heap, with $11.1 million in union donations, including nearly $8 million from the Service Employees International Union.
* Now that Gov. Rauner has opened the “debate” over right to work, the Institute will attempt to muddy up the unions by using their own financial disclosures. For instance…
In 2014, the IEA spent $692,203 on hotels and $213,118 on consultants.
The union often sends staff into the field to assist locals, and there’s plenty more cherry picking. The IFT…
• Representation takes up about 60 cents of every $1 of IFT union dues, with 22 cents spent on administration, 12 cents spent on overhead and 6 cents spent on political activities.
• In 2013, the union spent $348,958 on hotels, $104,886 on consultants and $195,854 on attorneys.
• AFSCME spent 51 cents of every $1 in union dues on representation, 28 cents on overhead, 13 cents on administration and 5 cents on political activities.
• In 2013, the union spent $463,943 on hotels, $107,059 on consultants and $654,295 on attorneys.
• In 2013, AFSCME reported spending $31,972 at its “holiday party” for staff and directors. The spending included hotels rooms and other party expenses.
• The main SEIU locals combined spent 60 cents of every $1 on representation, 23 cents on overhead, 9 cents on political activities and 6 cents on administration.
• In 2013, SEIU Healthcare spent $533,218 on hotels, $330,637 on restaurants and catering, $345,030 on airlines, $312,687 on rental cars
and $838,417 on consultants.
• SEIU Healthcare spent $49,619 on its “membership” Christmas party in December 2013. Among other Christmas party expenses, catering cost $34,556 and the tab at Binny’s Beverage, a liquor store, amounted to $6,063, lower than the $6,859 tab for its party the year before.
• SEIU Healthcare spent $7,523 for floral arrangers at an event in 2013. The year before, it spent $6,859 on Christmas decorations for the office.
Mandatory union fees were upheld by the Supreme Court’s 1977 decision in a Detroit school board case that concluded fair share dues were constitutional as long as the fees were not used to support a union’s political activities like lobbying or campaign contributions.
But in ruling on the 2014 home health care case, Justice Samuel A. Alito argued that the court’s analysis in the Detroit case had been “questionable on several grounds.”
“In the public sector, core issues such as wages, pensions and benefits are important political issues, but that is generally not so in the private sector,” Alito wrote. “In the years since (the ruling), as state and local expenditures on employee wages and benefits have mushroomed, the importance of the difference between bargaining in the public and private sectors has been driven home.”
That argument was mirrored by Rauner’s team in its lawsuit filed Monday. The suit asserts that “indeed, the significant impact that Illinois public sector labor costs have imposed and will continue to impose on the state’s financial condition clearly demonstrates the degree to which Illinois state employee collective bargaining is an inherently political activity.”
Rauner’s suit joins another case brought by union opponents in California that was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court this year. That suit was brought on behalf of an Orange County, Calif., elementary school teacher, who objects to being required to pay about $650 a year to the teachers union.
When Unions expend dollars collected pursuant to the Fair Share Contact Provisions to lobby or bargain against reductions to their own benefits packages or to shift more significant reductions to other state programs or services, there is no principled distinction between the Unions and the various special interest groups who must expend money on political activities to protect their own favored programs and services.
Indeed, the significant impact that Illinois public sector labor costs have imposed and will continue to impose on the State’s financial condition clearly demonstrates the degree to which Illinois state employee collective bargaining is an inherently political activity. […]
(I)n Knox v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, __ U.S. __,132 S. Ct. 2277, 2289 (2012), the Supreme Court also recognized that “a public-sector union takes many positions during collective bargaining that have powerful political and civic consequences.” For that reason, “compulsory fees constitute a form of compelled speech and association that imposes a significant impingement on First Amendment rights.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Knox emphasized the “general rule” that “individuals should not be compelled to subsidize private groups or private speech.” […]
Regarding the “fair share” provisions at issue in that case, the [Harris v. Quinn] majority noted that “‘[t]he primary purpose’ of permitting unions to collect fees from nonmembers is ‘to prevent nonmembers from free-riding on the union’s efforts, sharing the employment benefits obtained by the union’s collective bargaining without sharing the costs incurred.’” Harris, 134 S. Ct. at 2627 (quoting Knox, 132 S. Ct. at 2289). The Court continued, however, that “‘[s]uch free-rider arguments . . . are generally insufficient to overcome First Amendment objections.’”
A majority of the Supreme Court also recognized in Harris that “fair share” provisions in public employee collective bargaining agreements impose First Amendment concerns not necessarily presented in the private sector, because the collective bargaining process itself is political when taxpayer funds go to pay the negotiated wages and benefits, especially given the great power of unions in electoral politics and the size of public employee payrolls. In coordination with their express political advocacy, the Unions routinely take positions in the collective-bargaining process that greatly affect the State’s budget.
* The following House Republicans were endorsed by the Illinois AFL-CIO last November…
20th Michael McAuliffe - R
68th John Cabello - R
74th Donald Moffitt - R
87th Rich Brauer - R
99th Raymond Poe - R
100th CD Davidsmeyer - R
101st Bill Mitchell - R
102nd Adam Brown - R
In addition, GOP Rep. Dwight Kay was endorsed by the Illinois Education Association (which isn’t affiliated with the state fed). Sen. Chapin Rose was endorsed by the Illinois Federation of Teachers, as were Republican Reps. Michael Tryon, Robert Pritchard, Michael Unes, Norine Hammond, Chad Hays, Dan Brady, Charles Meier and the aforementioned AFL-CIO endorsees.
It’s not like any of those folks were given the endorsements against their will.
