If you’re gonna ban every artist who “glorifies” violence, your gonna ban acts from a whole lot of genres. After all, Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
* We’ve done this before, but I think it’s time we do it again. Do you think both Illinois state fairs should go ahead as planned or should they be canceled? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
Low income mothers who rely on a supplemental nutrition program for their children may get less help because of the state budget crisis. The organization that operates the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program in Illinois says it will no longer be able to provide crucial services to tens of thousands of women.
At issue: federal money for WIC must pass through Springfield before it can be distributed in Illinois by the Community Economic Development Association (CEDA).
Anna Lopez depends on WIC to help feed her baby daughter, Luna.
“They’re helping me each month. They give me some coupons so I can go and buy some milk, eggs,” Lopez said.
The CEDA office, one of 19 Cook County WIC outlets, will close next week and suspend services to 50,000 low income women and children. The kids include many infants on special diets.
“We are the provider for over 5,000 medically fragile children that require a specialized formula,” Margaret Saunders, CEDA, said.
By law, the state is required to have a fair. But, it remains to be seen how exactly it will all work.
Take the grandstand performers, for example. Traditionally, they are paid on the spot with a check after the curtain comes down on their show.
But, there currently is no appropriation to write those checks for acts like Sammy Hagar, Hank Williams Jr. or Rascal Flatts.
On one hand, the Illinois Department of Agriculture is saying don’t worry about it.
“Grandstand acts will be paid,” spokeswoman Rebecca Clark said in an email.
On the other hand, Clark made it sound like they actually don’t know how this is all going to work.
“Department officials are looking into all options at our disposal in the event a budget agreement is not reached prior to the start of the Illinois State Fair. We are hopeful that Speaker Madigan and the legislature can put aside their differences and come together to hammer out an agreement on the FY16 budget,” Clark added.
* From a letter sent to parents whose children are enrolled at the Rauner Family YMCA’s Teen REACH program…
As you may be aware, the State of Illinois remains without a budget, which means critical funding that the Y relies on has not been decided or disbursed for the fiscal year that began in July. Unfortunately, this limbo has impacted our ability to provide after school programming through Teen REACH, and it is with deep regret and sadness that I am formally notifying you that the Rauner Family YMCA has made the difficult decision to end Teen REACH due to lack of funding to adequately operate the program.
The last day of Teen REACH programming at the Rauner Family Y will be Friday, August 14, 2015. However, the teens’ memberships will remain active until the school year begins in September so they can continue to utilize all that our center has to offer to our members.
We truly appreciate your commitment and trust in the Y, which you have demonstrated by faithfully sending your child to Teen REACH each day. We are dedicated to ensuring the Y continues to be a safe place for our youth. Your teen is invited to apply for our new Pilsen Foodies program⎯a culinary arts apprenticeship funded by After School Matters⎯in the fall and spring. This program will teach youth healthy cooking skills and job readiness. Current Teen REACH participants will be given priority enrollment after they go through a required interview. Three Teen REACH participants in this summer’s session have reported they are having great experiences. Pilsen Foodies will operate three days per week, three hours per day. We will notify you once the application becomes available.
We would also like to share that, through resume development and mock interviews, we were able to assist 90 percent of our Teen REACH participants in obtaining either a summer job or internship. Thankfully, this means the majority of our teens are involved in activities for the rest of the summer.
We will notify you if additional opportunities for your youth become available during the school year. Again, it is with regret that we share this news with you. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at [redacted].
Sincerely,
Maria León
Youth & Family Program Director
This was just one of three YMCA Teen REACH programs that are being shut down because of a lack of state resources. It is, however, the most newsworthy for obvious reasons.
* The full release is here, but this is pretty solid spin, particularly the highlighted text…
Members of a broad coalition of environmental, business, health, faith and community groups said that the Illinois Clean Jobs Bill (SB1485/HB2607) is the best way for Illinois to comply with the standards called for by President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, the final EPA rule released today that calls for states to reduce carbon pollution from power plants by nearly one-third by 2030.
They urged members of the General Assembly and Gov. Bruce Rauner to support the legislation to ensure that Illinois meets the new standards, and can capture new jobs, consumer savings and health benefits.
“The Illinois Clean Jobs bill offers our state the best opportunity to comply with the EPA standard, while also showing that a better environment and a better economy go hand in hand,” said Jen Walling, Executive Director of the Illinois Environmental Council. Walling added that speedy passage of the bill would also make Illinois eligible for incentives available to states that comply quickly.
The Illinois Clean Jobs Bill would meet the clean power goals by increasing the share of energy Illinois generates from renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, to 35% by 2030, and boosting energy efficiency goals to 20% by 2025. Walling noted that the recent comments by Exelon on the future of their nuclear plants makes the need to dramatically increase renewable energy production a necessary step to comply with the Clean Power Plan.
Dave Kolata, Executive Director of the Citizens Utility Board (CUB), said that the bill would also save customers $1.6 billion by 2030 according to a study by CUB. That would translate into average household savings of nearly $100 per year.
“By strengthening state efficiency standards, the Clean Jobs bill is the only measure in the General Assembly that allows Illinois to meet the new power plant standards while helping Illinois families save more than $1 billion on their power bills. This is a win-win for Illinois,” Kolata said.
A series of studies have confirmed CUB’s conclusion that clean energy measures, like those contained in the Illinois Clean Jobs Bill, will save customers money. The Union of Concerned Scientists determined that the bill would save customers 23% (or $22 per month) by 2030. In just the past week, a study by Georgia Tech University predicted that the Clean Power Plan would mean savings of 20% for Illinois customers.
Chris Nickell of Springfield-based American Wind Energy Management said that the bill would employ more than 32,000 additional workers than there are today and sustain that level for the next decade, and said that the bill would help Illinois capture wind and solar projects that have been built in states with more aggressive clean energy policies.
“We can no longer delay getting Illinois’ renewable energy policy right,” he said. “We have now fallen behind Oklahoma for installed wind, and every day that passes, rural communities across our state are missing out on tax revenue and farmers are missing out on lease payments. It’s time to make help Illinois compete in this growing field.”
Yes, those Exelon nuke jobs are important, but Exelon wants to completely shut out other alt power industries from any benefits, even though those industries can employ lots more people here.
If Exelon wants to save its plants, it needs to get its collective rear to the bargaining table and end its unilateral corporate blackmail attempt.
A primary race may be shaping up for the Democratic nomination for Illinois’ 12th District House seat now held by U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro.
On Monday, Belleville lawyer C.J. Baricevic formally announced his candidacy for the seat, while St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Watson confirmed that he will be talking with party leaders in Washington, D.C., about a possible run. […]
Watson, 59, said Monday that he loves his job as county sheriff, but wants to hear the DCCC’s pitch anyway.
“It’s such an honor to be asked,” Watson said. “I have to give it some thought.”
Watson said he has spoken with [Former Congressman Jerry Costello], a longtime friend. Costello held the 12th District seat for nearly a quarter of a century before retiring in 2011.
Baricevic is 30 years old. Sheriff Watson, who was appointed to the spot and then ran unopposed, is 59. Costello’s son, state Rep. Jerry Costello, still has kids to put through college.
You don’t need an advanced political science degree to figure out what’s going on here.
* It came as no surprise that Sheriff Watson turned down the DCCC after his meeting…
Rick Watson, the St. Clair County sheriff, announced Thursday morning he won’t seek the Democratic nomination to run for the 12th U.S. House seat, even as a national Democractic party official was critical of another candidate in the race.
But the national Democratic Party, which tried hard to recruit Watson to join the race, is apparently unhappy that Baricevic — the son of John Baricevic, the St. Clair County chief judge and St. Clair County Democratic Party leader — remains in the race.
Brian Smoot, a political consultant who in 2010 served as director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s Independent Expenditure program, questioned Baricevic’s ability to beat Bost in the November general election.
“I just would say that this is not the type of candidate that DCCC would be interested in,” said Smoot, who in the 2008 cycle served as that group’s political director. “I can’t speak for the DCCC. But I can say he doesn’t reach a certain threshold as a credible candidate.” […]
As for Baricevic’s candidacy, Smoot noted that he raised about $85,000 over the last four months.
“Not good,” Smoot said. “It’s an interesting question. What’s a credible amount? But I can tell you that $85,000 is definitely not credible.”
Smoot probably wouldn’t have stepped up to the mic without prompting from his former employer.
But keep in mind that the DCCC went along with Costello’s choice of Bill Enyart, who turned out to be a guy who eschewed the district work necessary to hold on in an off-year, and ended up losing that seat - which the party has held since World War II - to Mike Bost.
And now they want yet another older white male?
Please.
I know very little about Baricevic and have no idea if he’d be a good candidate, but he does have significant support in the all-important St. Clair County and from two of the deep southern Illinois Democratic legislators. The DCCC had better either find a good candidate who won’t just be a lackadaisical placeholder, or reconsider its bizarre attacks on the only guy who has actually been working the district.
The national party is getting played here.
…Adding… Former Congressman Costello just called to clarify that he wasn’t the original backer of Bill Enyart. That’s true. My bad.
He also said that he fully expects Baricevic will receive the St. Clair County Democratic endorsement.
United Way of Illinois, the statewide association of 52 local United Ways, and collectively the largest non-governmental funder of health and human services in the state, surveyed human service agencies across Illinois to understand the steps they are taking to deliver services in light of the state budget impasse.
More than 400 human service agencies across every county in Illinois responded to a survey conducted July 13-17. Survey respondents represented a range of service categories including youth development, early childhood education, mental health, emergency housing, senior services and employment training, and varied in budget size from less than $500,000 to more than $15 million.
Key findings from the survey include:
o 34% of Illinois human service agencies have already cut the number of clients they serve
o Program categories hit particularly hard include childhood education and job training
o 39% of agencies responding have tapped into cash reserves to continue operations
o Of those agencies using cash reserves 70% have 3 months of cash on hand or less
o 24% of agencies have tapped into lines of credit to shore up operations
o 19% of agencies will deplete their cash reserve by the end of August
“Human service organizations are the backbone of the delivery of state programs to needy citizens,” said Kristi Long, Chairman of United Way of Illinois. “Our leaders in Springfield and the citizens of Illinois need to understand that the ongoing budget impasse is causing genuine disruption and hardship for people in Illinois who need services and for the agencies that deliver them.”
Among the other measures human service agencies reported taking to maintain operations during the stalemate are increasing their waiting lists for services, referring clients to other agencies where possible, not filling vacant positions and laying off staff. Several agencies reported the need for more drastic action in the near term, including the Prairie Council on Aging. Based in Jacksonville and serving 3,000 people across five counties, the agency reported that it would exhaust its reserves by September and face dire choices without some resolution to the state budget situation.
“If the delays continue, thousands of mentally ill clients will be without psychiatric support, including medications,” said Rashad Saafir, President of the Bobby E. Wright Comprehensive Behavior Health Center in Garfield Park. “The result is client suffering, disruption to families, and increases in the use of more expensive emergency room and inpatient psychiatric services.”
The overall survey data indicates that government inaction is causing significant challenges for nonprofit agencies that are impacting at-risk populations and working families.
Just as millions of Americans hit the road last month for vacation, even the governor took a quick break from the mess in Springfield.
Although his aides said nothing before he left town and offered no clue about his whereabouts for the weekend, the governor’s office did confirm he spent last weekend visiting one of his college-age children and participating in Parents’ Day activities.
No further details were released.
I think he meant the weekend before this past weekend.
Seven sitting governors, six incumbent senators and two House members — all Republicans — have flown here this weekend for the Koch donor network conference.
There are 450 donors at a seaside resort here, and the network of conservative advocacy groups they fund aims to spend $889 million in advance of the next White House election.
According to the story, Gov. Rauner was there as well.
*** UPDATE *** From Mike Schrimpf…
This is not accurate. The governor was in Springfield all weekend.
You can check out his twitter to see what he was doing in the area all weekend:
Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, has already said the Senate will vote this week on an override. Presumably, the chamber could succeed. The Senate voted 38-17 to approve the bill. It would take 36 votes to override.
The House is a different story. The vote there was 67-25 in May. It takes 71 votes in the House to override.
But 17 House members, all but two of them Republicans, took a walk. They didn’t vote on the bill. That includes most of the Republicans from the Springfield area, who represent large numbers of state workers. They can always take another walk on an override, but in the meantime, they’ll probably get pressure from constituents to support an override — just as they’re likely to get pressure from Republican leadership to support their governor and vote against it.
Unless something changes, there won’t be enough House votes for an override.
There is doom on the way, and nobody wants to talk about it.
The deadlock over the Illinois budget isn’t hurting bondholders or state employees, but it is about to smash social services providers, which depend on about $3.1 billion a year in state funding. These nonprofits do everything from working with kids on probation and finding foster homes to sheltering the homeless, helping autistic children and running group homes for the mentally ill, troubled teens and the developmentally disabled.
“None of my members have authorized me to release any specific information,” Janet Stover, CEO of the Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, tells me.
All I was trying to find out was how the state budget impasse was impacting or about to impact thousands of social services groups and providers, but I couldn’t find a straight, simple answer.
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, for instance, revealed that it had already closed two shelters and two child development centers and laid off about 40 people. But asked when, specifically, it would get really bad, a spokeswoman only would say they would re-evaluate at the end of the summer.
“There could be a time when we suspend services if the negotiations last months, but we are not at that point yet,” Des Plaines-based Lutheran Social Services of Illinois says in a statement.
All of these nonprofits rely heavily on state funding. So you’d think they would want to get the word out about the coming meltdown.
It turns out, quite a few of these providers are flat-out scared to death about their very existence.
A document issued in June by the Springfield-based rehabilitation association shows us why.
* The Tribune finally comes out in favor of a specific Bruce Rauner proposal, except Rauner himself dumped that idea months ago…
Here’s an option: Entice a foreign automaker to Illinois by making it possible to operate the Normal factory in a local right-to-work zone. Yes, this is the idea that has been pitched by Gov. Bruce Rauner and shunned by Democratic leaders.
Ideology, meet practice: Do those leaders want to secure an empty plant for years to come?
Right-to-work status doesn’t bar union organizing, it does say that workers are not compelled to join or pay dues to a union. Foreign automakers have made it clear that right-to-work status is required for them to make an investment.
Here’s an opportunity. By wooing a foreign nameplate, the state could save the plant and its 1,200 jobs and send a dramatic message that Illinois is open for business.
The global economy knocks down borders, intensifies competition and creates all kinds of surprising bedfellows. Mitsubishi once joined Chrysler in Normal. Let’s do everything possible to get someone to follow in their tire tracks.
If there was any doubt before last week, there’s zero uncertainty now. Gov. Bruce Rauner won’t allow anyone else to interfere with his dominance of the Illinois Republican Party.
When the party was out of power for 12 years, several independent actors were always trying to influence elections from behind the scenes, elbowing people out, putting people in. This is a diverse state, and the party has numerous factions, both economic and social. All of those factions have de facto leaders.
One of those independent actors has been Ron Gidwitz, a moderate, wealthy business executive and one-time gubernatorial candidate with a network that includes lots of his rich friends. He ran the monied wing of the party.
Gidwitz used his and his friends’ money to boost candidates who were to his liking. He backed Sen. Kirk Dillard for governor in 2010, for instance, then switched his allegiance to Bruce Rauner four years later. That move did more to hurt Dillard than it did to help the mainly self-funding Rauner because it totally dried up Dillard’s money, leaving him unable to effectively compete until organized labor finally entered the race on his behalf.
After months of public silence, Gidwitz reemerged last week. Sources say he has been bad-mouthing US Sen. Mark Kirk behind the scenes for quite a while. A recent Michael Sneed item in the Chicago Sun-Times about an anonymous top Republican who wanted Kirk to step down from the Senate was widely pinned on him.
Sen. Kirk has had his problems of late, forced to apologize for, or at least back away from some racially charged and just plain weird remarks. Numerous Republican leaders have privately expressed shock at the bad press he’s generated for himself. Kirk has had to fight off rampant speculation about his future ever since his massive stroke, and his oddball statements during the past few months have kept the rumor mill at a fever pitch.
Kirk also faces the fight of his political career next year, running statewide in a presidential election year when Democratic turnout will very likely be much stronger than during his off-year 2010 victory. National political pundit Larry Sabato’s much-watched “Crystal Ball” publication recently moved Kirk’s race from “Toss-up” to “Leans Democratic.”
So, it wasn’t exactly a surprise when Gidwitz told Greg Hinz at Crain’s Chicago Business last week that Kirk ought to let somebody else run.
“I do not believe he will be a US senator in 2017 and, as top of the ticket, he could cause collateral damage (to other Republican candidates),” Gidwitz told Hinz about Kirk. “I call on him to step aside and allow other Republicans to seek his seat.”
If that reads like a prepared script, it’s because it was. These weren’t off the cuff remarks. It was a carefully planned hit.
Well, perhaps “carefully” is the wrong word here.
If you hadn’t noticed, Gov. Rauner is a bit of a control freak, to say the least, and he has taken full command of the Republican Party’s power and money structure here. “I’m the head of the Republican Party,” the governor firmly declared to WJBC Radio just the other day.
He allows very little to no independence. Republican state legislators may grumble about him in private (boy, do they ever), but they toe the Rauner line when it comes time to vote on the House and Senate floors. Only one legislator, Rep. Raymond Poe (R-Springfield), has ever had the temerity to vote against the governor’s commands – and that only happened once.
The state Republican Party Chairman is a Rauner guy, as is the Cook County Party Chairman.
Much of Gov. Rauner’s top staff came out of Mark Kirk’s Senate office and Kirk’s campaigns. Those high-level staffers still have a strong loyalty to their former boss, and Team Rauner is fully behind the incumbent Senator.
So, not long after Greg Hinz called the Kirk campaign for comment about Gidwitz’s statement, Gidwitz himself got a call. And it wasn’t a very nice one, either.
“He sounded like a beaten man” after the governor’s forceful message was relayed to him, declared one GOP source later that evening.
Soon after, Gidwitz called Hinz to fully retract his comments and endorse Kirk’s reelection.
I should say that I’ve always liked Gidwitz and respected him. But the days of Gidwitz and others successfully acting independently are over.
Gidwitz’s complete backtrack was one of the more humiliating scenes I’ve witnessed in quite a while. Others most surely took notice.
* The House Speaker penned a rare op-ed for the State Journal-Register over the weekend…
Solving the fiscal challenges of Illinois requires a balanced approach.
That is why I pledged to work cooperatively and professionally with Gov. Bruce Rauner. I will keep that pledge and continue working to ensure the governor and the Legislature come together in moderation to help Illinois’ middle class and other struggling families.
In addition to that pledge, I stated that the number one issue facing Illinois was the budget deficit. That has not changed.
In February, Gov. Rauner proposed a budget that was not only billions of dollars out of balance, but also cut the medical care services of the elderly, the disabled and struggling families through Medicaid by $1.5 billion, services for victims of child abuse, and the nursing home care of thousands of frail elderly residents.
But the state cannot rely on cuts alone to solve its $4 billion deficit. Eliminating the budget deficit will take a balanced approach that includes both spending reductions and new revenue.
Legislators did not agree with the governor’s unbalanced approach, so we passed a plan that included hundreds of millions of dollars in spending reductions while protecting middle-class families and others who struggle by increasing funding for schools and preventing damaging cuts to public safety and services for the elderly, children and the developmentally disabled.
In addition to approving hundreds of millions of dollars in spending reductions, House Democrats opposed increasing lawmakers’ pay. In the budget we passed, legislators’ pay was frozen at the same level as last year. However, despite the Legislature’s intentions, when the comptroller made it clear that she planned to provide a pay increase to lawmakers, we took action to make clear that we opposed an increase in lawmakers’ pay.
