Proft: …A story this week about a city attorney who failed to disclose evidence that you’re required to disclose in discovery and now a judge has had to intervene yet again and say there’s going to be a new trial in the wrongful death case of someone else who was killed by a Chicago Police Officer back in 2011. It seems like we need an ARDC investigation, a state investigation—not that Lisa Madigan will do it—, a federal investigation; we need a lot of investigations into a lot of the moving parts in city government.
Rauner: Well that’s right, unfortunately what I’ve heard in the last two days is that Mayor Emanuel has come out and he’s opposed to a federal investigation of the legal department for the City of Chicago, right immediately after one of the attorneys for the city has been accused by a judge of withholding evidence. It’s so…
Proft: Mind-boggling
Rauner: It is. How tone-deaf can you be? I mean how—it’s incredibly disappointing. Why would the mayor fight the investigation of that department, given these facts? Just the way he fought the federal investigation—the civil rights investigation—of the shooting incident. It’s just out of touch and it’s a failure of leadership.
* The Question: Do you agree or disagree with Gov. Rauner’s decision to speak out on this topic? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
Gov. Rauner spoke in Watseka this morning, saying there doesn’t seem to be support for a budget agreement in January.
“Some of my fiends who are members of the Democratic Caucus in the general Assembly, and I’ve got friends on both sides of the aisle, are telling me that [House Speaker Madigan] is indicating that maybe he won’t be taking any tough votes until the primary is done on March 15. I think that will be very unfortunate,” Rauner said.
A spokesman for Speaker Madigan told 13 WREX that Madigan has been saying for several weeks that a budget deal would come sometime in April.
Actually, it could be January, of next year. Maybe.
*** UPDATE *** Brown in comments…
I told the reporter it was the governor who said April before the holidays. The Speaker believes the budget is the state’s #1 issue and should be resolved as quickly as possible.
* Click here to listen. The governor once again kicked the mayor when he’s down (I’m sure that’ll help) and blamed pretty much all the state’s problems on Speaker Madigan. Some Rauner quotes…
It’s so unfortunate the way the mayor is failing the people of Chicago and he’s looking to blame other people for it.
The mayor has done virtually nothing to reform and transform the government of Chicago and the schools of Chicago.
He’s afraid to take on Speaker Madigan… He’s afraid. He’s hiding behind the Speaker.
[Q: Why is the mayor afraid of Madigan?] The Speaker has been the most powerful politician in the state of Illinois for decades. It’s the main reason we’re in such big trouble as a state. And he’s head of the Democratic Party. He controls tens of millions of dollars in political funds, and he controls a massive army of patronage workers and lobbyists and the judges and politicians and you know what he’s an intimidating figure for the Democratic politicians who are under him.
The reason we don’t have a budget is that the existing majority in the Legislature, led by Speaker Madigan, likes the status quo and they don’t want to make any changes whatsoever.
We’re in this long-term, slow death spiral. The reality is, who’s doing well in Illinois is the political class led by Speaker Madigan. The political class is doing great, the lobbyists, the politicians, the insiders [in] the government, the folks who make money from the taxpayers are doing great. But the taxpayers themselves, homeowners, school children, small business owners, your average working family is hurting in Illinois. And unfortunately the Speaker is not sensitive to that. He likes the power. He’s got a great system, he controls it. And right now they’re unwilling to change. And without change, we’ll never get a true balanced budget.
Summary: “Because… Madigan!”
If only life was that simple.
* Certain pundits, columnists and editorial writers will eat this stuff up and shout huzzahs from their own little rooftops. It makes for great copy and reinforces the beliefs of his base, but that isn’t governing.
He’s not completely wrong, of course. Madigan must take his share of the blame - and there’s plenty of it. But can you behave like this and actually get something done? Why would anyone cut a deal with a guy who talks like this?
And does he want to get anything done or is this war gonna continue as long as he’s in office? Right now, it sure looks like it ain’t gonna end.
Madigan needs to give. No question. But the governor also needs to govern.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday it’s “not possible” that City Hall’s Law Department is part of the cover-up culture he’s acknowledged exists at the Chicago Police Department — a day after a federal judge ruled that a city lawyer intentionally concealed evidence in a trial over a fatal Chicago police shooting.
Emanuel also said it’s not necessary for the U.S. Department of Justice to add the Law Department to its investigation into the Police Department’s use of excessive force. And the mayor gave a vote of confidence to his top attorney, saying Stephen Patton would ensure the city’s legal team is operating “at the highest level that the public should expect.”
The mayor’s defense of Patton, a confidant, comes as a federal judge has cited and rebuked five city attorneys within the last year for withholding evidence in two separate police misconduct cases. In the most recent of those rulings Monday, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang faulted lax training and oversight at Patton’s department for hampering the production of Police Department records when officers are accused of misconduct. […]
“There is zero tolerance for not only violating the public trust, but your professional standards and there will be no place for that,” Emanuel said. “Once the decision was made, the lawyer and the city parted ways.”
“Zero tolerance”? Then how come Jordan Marsh was on the law department payroll until just the other day? He admitted to the cover-up in September, for crying out loud, and we’ve known about this story for almost a year.
Zero tolerance for what, exactly?
[Fixed some coding problems which deleted some of my words.]
“I don’t know that we’ve hit the bottom,” said Richard Ciccarone, Chicago-based CEO of Merritt Research Services. “There’s a lot of things yet to happen.”
Ain’t that the truth.
As we learned under Rod Blagojevich, things can always get worse.
Since it last sold general-obligation bonds in April 2014, the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the state’s effort to cut workers’ benefits to help close a $111 billion pension-fund deficit. Its credit rating has been cut. And temporary tax increases have expired, leaving Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic lawmakers locked in a record-long impasse that’s left the state without a budget for more than six months.
The $480 million of federally tax-exempt bonds scheduled for sale Jan. 14 will illustrate the cost of Illinois’ long-building strains, which have caused investors to demand higher premiums to buy its bonds. The state’s 30-year securities yield 4.67 percent, about 1.8 percentage points more than top-rated debt. That gap has risen by more than half a percentage point since April 2014 and is the highest among the 20 states tracked by Bloomberg.
“They’re definitely going to have to pay a higher yield,” said Dan Solender, head of municipals at Lord Abbett & Co. in Jersey City, N.J., which manages $17 billion of the debt, including Illinois bonds. “They’re going to be penalized compared to other bonds of similar ratings.”
We’ll have to wait and see whether the “bond vigilantes” will be as harsh on Illinois as predicted above. It hasn’t really happened in the past. Sales have been heavily over-subscribed.
* And while we’re on this topic, the Illinois Policy Institute’s news service has a story up about the governor’s borrowing plan…
Chris Edwards, an economist with the Cato Institute, says funding road construction and transit projects should be funded by current revenues or cuts in lower priority budget areas because going into debt by selling bonds pushes the costs onto future generations. Edwards says Illinois is the last state that should want to go further into debt because a variety of factors, including having the most unfunded state pension plans.
“That means that in the future Illinois taxpayers will not only have to pay back the money for the bonds they’ll have to probably chip in to pay for this overextended state retirement system.”
Edwards says Illinois’ worst-in-the-country credit rating will also mean selling the bonds will cost taxpayers more because of higher interest rates, however the governor’s office says there was no change in the state’s general obligation bond ratings from the three major ratings agencies. The governor signed a capital bill last summer that gives the state authority to spend bond funds with dedicated revenues to cover the payments.
My own opinion is the state shouldn’t sell a 30-year bond to pay for repairs that will only last 10 years.
Other than that, borrowing for infrastructure is totally legit in my mind.
Chicago Board of Education bonds tumbled to the lowest since September as Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner said he wouldn’t bail out the cash-strapped school system.
The public school system known as CPS has said it needs $480 million from the state to close a budget gap and will face cuts and “unsustainable” borrowing without the funds. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS Chief Executive Officer Forrest Claypool have called for the help, saying the system receives less state money than other Illinois districts. CPS is the only state district that pays for its teachers pensions. Rauner has said he’ll help out only if Emanuel supports structural changes that he has proposed such as limits on collective bargaining.
“Let’s be clear Chicago Public Schools are in dramatic trouble,” Rauner told reporters on Monday. “They’re looking at a disaster somewhere in the next nine months in the Chicago public schools.”
The Chicago Board of Education’s federally tax-exempt, general obligation bonds traded for an average of 82.45 cents on the dollar on Monday, the lowest since Sept. 28, to yield 6.4 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The securities, the most-actively traded over the last three months, have a 5 percent coupon and mature in December 2042.
* Insurance companies which charge higher premiums to their most loyal customers, and are being stopped in other states, but not in Illinois…
Last month, Connecticut became the 16th state to issue a bulletin barring insurers from using “price optimization” in ways that would charge customers with the same risk profile different rates based on their propensity to shop or their likelihood to switch providers. Indiana took similar action in July.
Anne Melissa Dowling, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s choice in May as insurance director, came from Connecticut, where she had been acting director of that state’s Insurance Department.
In a statement, the Illinois department says: “As there is no agreed-upon definition as to what is entailed in the term ‘price optimization,’ we don’t plan to address an undefined notion. We are, however, aware of many new and innovative pricing models, responding to the market demand for more individualized pricing.”
In 2013, though, Keller stepped off the path again, this time with Adam Gerchen, whom he had met at Alyeska Investment Group, a Chicago hedge fund. Together they founded Gerchen Keller Capital to finance litigation in exchange for a cut of the resulting judgment or settlement. Gerchen, 34, is CEO, and Keller, 36, managing director. Travis Lenkner, 36, joined soon after as a partner and managing director.
Gerchen was a former Goldman Sachs banker and Harvard Law School graduate who had never practiced law, while Lenkner, a senior counsel at Boeing, knew Keller from their time clerking together for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. The trio’s collective background was dubbed “resume porn” by David Lat, founder of legal news and gossip website Above the Law.
Today, Gerchen Keller Capital is the largest firm of its kind in the world. Starting out with $100 million from a dozen investors (two were anchors), the Chicago-based business has grown to $1.4 billion in assets under management. In addition to funding early stage lawsuits, it buys legal fee, judgment and settlement receivables from finished cases. It has invested an average of $6.7 million per case since inception and an average of $10 million per case in the past year. The pension fund for Michigan’s state employees has invested $3.5 million with it, and Texas’ pension fund has put in $28.7 million. The firm is profitable, Lenkner says.
The rise in litigation financing in the last decade has attracted attention from lawyers, investors, clients, business lobbyists and the U.S. Senate. There’s the potential to make serious money: Burford Capital and IMF Bentham, public companies based in the United Kingdom, boast respective returns of 71 and 158 percent. There’s also the potential for serious humble pie: Juridica Investments in Guernsey announced in November it would stop investing in new cases after it poured $3.5 million into a trade secrets case expected to yield $9.4 million—and got $2 million back instead. In August, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and John Cornyn of Texas sent a letter to Burford Capital execs demanding to know the scope of its investment in U.S. cases.
While lawmakers have clamped down on payments to workers, doctors and lawyers, little scrutiny has been given to these “cost containment” firms — even though today they arguably have more influence on how injury benefits are handled than insurers and employers.
Highlighting the bounty, there are now more than 150 workers’ comp conferences a year. There’s one for the American Society of Workers Comp Professionals, one for the Association of Workers’ Compensation Professionals and one for the Association of Workers’ Compensation Claims Professionals. At least 26 have golf tournaments. […]
Last year, workers’ comp insurers in California spent 36 percent of premiums on overhead — more than they spent on medical care. That’s over twice what group health plans can spend on administrative costs under the Affordable Care Act.
A glimpse of the Vegas expo shows why. There were companies that provide networks of doctors and companies that review medical bills, firms that provide expert medical opinions and firms that specialize in complex claims. There were defense lawyers, data processing firms, rehab facilities, surveillance companies, outside claims shops, occupational medicine clinics, pain management services, translators, schedulers, headhunters and associations promoting other conferences.
There were labs that test injured workers’ urine for illegal drugs. There were even labs that test urine to ensure workers are taking the prescribed drugs instead of selling them.
In California, the amount of money that insurers spend on medical cost containment programs has more than doubled from $197 million in 2005 to $471 million in 2014, according to the state workers’ comp ratings bureau.
It’s only the first week in January, but I’m pretty sure we can already declare the dumbest TV executive of the year.
Dan Salamone, an executive producer at Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32, this week told the women who report on “Good Day Chicago” not to wear hats during their outdoor live shots this winter, sources said Tuesday.
Salamone’s directive, which he did not issue to male reporters, said the women would “look a lot better without hats” and should go without them from now on. He’d be willing to make an exception, he said, “if it’s 20 below.”
“Growing the ratings in this time period is a big challenge and very important to the company,” Salamone told friends on Facebook. “I’m ready to dig in and help the entire team produce newscasts that will have the Windy City talking!” […]
Reputed to be an innovative news manager, Salamone attracted national attention in 2012 when he used puppets on the air to re-enact testimony from the corruption trial of a county commissioner after cameras had been barred from the courtroom.
Rauner discussed four priorities: “I want to make Illinois the No. 1 state in America for economic growth and job creation. Right now we’re among the worst. I want to make us pro-business, pro-job creation.”
Second, “I want to make Illinois government the most efficient, transparent in America.”
Third, “I want to make the education system the best in America. … Today, the politicians in Springfield are cutting school funding, doing special deals with teacher unions, allowing bad teachers to stay in the system through tenure. We’ve got to change our schools so they’re responsive to our schoolchildren, our parents and our property-taxpayers.”
Rauner’s fourth priority is term limits. Public service shouldn’t be a lifetime, wealth-building career, he said. “Everybody (should) serve eight years and you’re out. No more Madigan power structure for 30 years.”
State Representative David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) hopes to help create manufacturing jobs in Illinois by exempting manufacturers from the state’s income tax.
“We need to have a strong manufacturing base to have a strong Illinois economy,” McSweeney said. “We continue to lag in job creation and manufacturing companies are generally not considering Illinois as a top tier choice for expanding. Eliminating the income tax on manufacturers will create a strong incentive for manufacturing companies to consider locating to Illinois and it will encourage existing Illinois manufacturers to stay in Illinois and even expand their operations here.”
House Bill 4381 would allow existing and new manufacturing operations (corporations as well as LLCs and LPs) to fully deduct their net income, which essentially would exempt them from the state’s income tax. For a manufacturer with $10 million of Illinois net income, HB 4381 would reduce that manufacturer’s tax liability by $525,000 ($10 million x 5.25% corporate tax rate).
While manufacturing jobs have increased in other states, Illinois continues to shed manufacturing jobs. From 2001-2015, Illinois manufacturing jobs have decreased by 38.9%.
“We have to get the Illinois economy moving again and reviving the manufacturing sector is an important step we need to take,” McSweeney said. “The current policies are not working. Raising taxes has only served to drive middle class jobs away from Illinois. Let’s lower taxes and create incentives for manufacturers to invest in Illinois.”
Representative McSweeney has asked the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) to review the full revenue impact of HB 4381. McSweeney said, “The best way to create new revenues for the state is to create new jobs and thus new taxpayers. I’m confident that my proposal will create new jobs.”
HB 4381 has been filed and is awaiting assignment to a legislative committee.
Southern Illinois Senator Gary Forby is making a public stand with local gun owners and calling on President Obama to dial down the anti-gun rhetoric and recognize 2nd Amendment rights.
“Look around. The only gun problem we have in Southern Illinois is people trying to take away our rights. If there’s a problem in Chicago or Washington, D.C., fix it. But don’t take it out on the responsible gun owners of this region,” Forby said.
Police in southern Illinois say a 3-year-old boy is expected to recover after he was shot when someone fired rounds into a Granite City home.
Madison County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Mike Dixon says the boy was playing on the living room floor when the shooting happened early Sunday. Dixon says three to four shots were fired into the front of the home from the roadway. One of the rounds struck the boy in the shoulder. Police believe the rounds were fired from a vehicle and that the home was targeted.
President Barack Obama’s plan to expand background checks for gun sales at shows, on the internet and elsewhere is igniting the usual firestorm of gun-related rhetoric.
But his plan may be much ado about nothing, at least in Illinois. […]
“I don’t think it’s going to affect us at all,” said Richard Thrasher, manager of the Central Illinois Gun Collectors’ shows held four times a year at the Sangamon County Fairgrounds in New Berlin. “We have followed state and federal regulations right to the letter. We watch it very carefully.”
Thrasher said that some skirting of the registration requirement may occur in Illinois, but that most reports of such avoidance of the law come from Southern states.
In fact, Obama has hardly contradicted the will of Congress, let alone made it difficult for law-abiding people to obtain firearms. His proposed changes are far from historic, and their direct effect on crime seems speculative at best. The most politically contentious aspect of Obama’s executive actions is broadening the definition of a gun dealer. He targets sellers who operate from home, a weekend gun show, or via the Internet. Those sellers aren’t currently required to hold a federal firearm license or submit buyers’ names for background screening by the FBI.
But obliging occasional gun sellers to perform background checks wouldn’t have blocked sale of the weapons used in most recent mass shootings—including the December Islamic terrorist attack in San Bernardino or the December 2012 massacre at an elementary school in Connecticut. The killers in those cases used guns obtained legally through conventional outlets that did do background checks.
Moreover, social science research indicates that relatively few guns currently purchased from unlicensed sellers are sold directly to criminals. The Justice Department found in one survey that just 0.7 percent of state prison inmates in 1997 purchased weapons at a gun show. Forty percent of inmates said they obtained the gun used in their crime from a relative or friend—and those transfers wouldn’t be covered by the Obama proposals. Another 39 precent said they obtained a weapon from the black market, another transfer unaffected by the White House action.
Got that nagging feeling you’ve forgotten something?
Better go outside and check the date of your license plate sticker. You could be among the thousands of drivers oblivious — thanks to the state budget crisis — that their vehicle registration has expired.
play video
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White suspended mailing out reminders in September, noting it could save $450,000 a month.
Without that memory jog, renewals plummeted 19 percent in November, when 413,709 Illinoisans applied compared to 512,760 in November 2014.
And as of Dec. 28, only 301,965 people had renewed their stickers in December 2015, as opposed to 475,314 for the entire month of December 2014, the agency reported. That’s a 36 percent drop.
So, it’s costing the state lots more in lapsed plate stickers than it would’ve cost to mail out the reminders. But, eventually, almost all of those car owners will renew their plates, and some will mail their checks after receiving tickets. So, heck, Illinois might even come out ahead if you factor in the fines and late fees.
January is Cervical Health Awareness Month. In a press release issued today by the Illinois Department of Public Health, IDPH Director Nirav D. Shah says, “We know that with routine screening, cervical cancer is highly preventable, and yet more than 4000 women were estimated to have lost their lives to cervical cancer in 2015.” http://www.dph.illinois.gov/news/january-cervical-health-awareness-month-0
Unfortunately for women in Illinois, the Governor’s failure to make passing a budget his first priority means the state has not invested any money into the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program, the entity which provides routine breast and cervical cancer screenings to women across Illinois regardless of income.
While $6 million in federal pass through funds have been released, zero state dollars have been spent, meaning an estimated 15,000 fewer women will have access to these potentially life-saving services.
In addition, in his budget, the Governor proposed cutting Illinois investment in breast and cervical cancer screenings from $13.5 million in GRF, the final appropriated level for FY15, to $4 million, which is about a 70% decrease in state funding.
Cutting cervical cancer detection is an example of the “short term pain” the governor’s willing to endure as he continues to hold the budget hostage to his policy agenda.
Emily Miller
Policy and Advocacy Director, Voices for Illinois Children
Co-Coordinator, Responsible Budget Coalition
Gov. Bruce Rauner told a group of firefighters and first responders here Sunday that the state will be doing “all we can to help the cleanup process” following last week’s flood.
Rauner visited the Villa Grove fire station to thank and shake hands with emergency personnel and volunteers and to look at photographs and maps of areas damaged by last week’s floods.
“My primary reason for coming here was to say thank you to our first responders,” Rauner told a crowd of about 50. “One of the great things about our state is that everybody comes together to help each other out in times of need.”
But if the flooding wasn’t bad enough, it’s what happened months before that upsets many officials and home and business owners, [Alexander County Board chairman Chalen Tatum] said.
It was July when Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration directed county officials by email to halt its flood buyout program, Tatum said.
The reason? Because the state was without a budget, Tatum said, referring to the email notice.
But the funds, $4 million from the state and $8 million from the federal government, were already appropriated, were already in the bank and were already being used to buy flood prone property from their owners and allow them to relocate, Tatum said.
“That money has nothing to do with the state budget. People like that, we could have already bought their home out,” Tatum said, pointing to a home surrounded by floodwater off Illinois 3 in Olive Branch.
The program slated 169 homes and businesses. To date, 42 have been purchased, Tatum said. The buyouts started about a year ago but had picked up pace with eight or nine purchases a month by the summer.
Tatum estimated another 50 properties would have been purchased since July without the state cease order.
Ugh.
*** UPDATE *** The governor’s office called to point out that there was no appropriation authority after June 30th. The money was in the governor’s proposal, but not in the reapprop bill approved by the Democrats, which the governor signed.
* Yesterday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office had this to say in response to the threats from Gov. Rauner to withhold state financial help from CPS if the mayor doesn’t help pass his Turnaround Agenda…
An Emanuel spokesman argued the governor was using Chicago schoolchildren as “pawns” and contended the mayor has been working to bring about a larger budget agreement. The mayor’s office did not provide details, however.
“We’re a little surprised given that at the governor’s own request our team has been actively involved in trying to untangle the logjam in Springfield,” mayoral spokesman Adam Collins said. “It’s unfortunate that yet again (CPS students) are being used as pawns in a political chess match.”
* The mayor continued that theme during a press conference today…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel to IL Gov. Bruce Rauner: "Get the job done. Get the budget done."
I threw that last one in because Ron usually seems pretty tied in to the unsaid, but “real” Rauner mindset.
*** UPDATE *** Response…
Hi, Rich –
Passing along this statement on CPS.
Please attribute the following to Mike Schrimpf:
“As expected, the Mayor is playing the tired political game of blaming others for his unwillingness to fix Chicago’s finances after more than four years in office because he has not taken on any major structural reforms.
While Governor Rauner has increased state support for education to record amounts and has allowed Chicago Public Schools to keep its $600 million special deal, City Hall continues to borrow money for everyday expenses and passed a schools budget that is half a billion dollars short.
Governor Rauner has repeatedly tried to help the families of Chicago by offering the City massive assistance but the Mayor refuses to stand with the Governor to help save Chicago.”
“I strongly disagree” with Rauner’s vow not help CPS avert a financial calamity unless City Hall starts pushing some of the governor’s Turnaround Agenda priorities, Emanuel said. “The children of Chicago are not a political game in Springfield to get a deal done.”
It is wrong to hold education “hostage” to a wider fight, Emanuel continued. Hundreds of thousands of school children “are not a pawn in (Rauner’s) political maneuvers. . . .Get the (budget) job done.”
With a hint of his old cocky smile, Emanuel disclosed that he’d even drafted a New Year’s resolution for Rauner: “That he have his first budget passed before he has to present his second.”
Emanuel shrugged off a question about disputes between Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Mike Madigan over whether to give Rauner something of what he wants in a pending CPS aid bill.
“People can have different takes” on legislation, he said. What counts is that Illinois is “near dead last” nationally in funding schools, and that Chicago suffers “a disparity” within Illinois because it has to pay for its own teacher pension costs.
More than 200 measures passed by each chamber of the General Assembly were signed by Governor Bruce Rauner in 2015, which is about level with previous years under Democrat Pat Quinn, but the number of Rauner vetoes are sharply higher from the year before under Quinn, partly because of budget bills Rauner vetoed saying they were not balanced.
In a compliance audit of the Senate, Auditor General William Holland says 33 bills were vetoed, or amenditorially vetoed, in 2015.
That’s more than three times the number of bills former Democrat Governor Pat Quinn vetoed in 2014 and 2013 combined.
The House had a similar record — 32 bills were vetoed by Rauner in 2015, nearly triple the total in both 2014 and 2013 under Quinn.
Just how far up in City Hall does the code of silence reach?
In the hours after Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke emptied his 9 mm handgun into 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, five other officers at the scene gave statements saying Van Dyke fired in self-defense. The Police Department’s official finding was the same.
After a police dash-cam video soundly contradicted that story, Mayor Rahm Emanuel acknowledged that an unspoken compact shields rogue police officers from accountability.
That culture extends beyond the rank-and-file, however, to a disciplinary system that can take years to run its course and almost never sustains a complaint against an officer.
And it has extended all the way to the city’s Law Department, according to a federal judge’s scathing ruling Monday.
U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang said a top city attorney “intentionally concealed” critical evidence in a 2015 civil trial in which a jury found two officers were justified in killing Darius Pinex during a January 2011 traffic stop.
Jordan Marsh, senior corporation counsel for the city, resigned after a judge threw out a previous ruling and ordered a new case in the wrongful lawsuit death brought by the family of Darius Pinex, killed by officers after a 2011 traffic stop in Englewood, according to the Tribune.
Judge Edmond E. Chang on Monday granted Pinex’s family a new trial, saying in a scathing ruling that Marsh intentionally hid evidence from the family’s legal team prior to the start of the trial.
According to the Sun-Times, Marsh failed to turn over a police radio transmission that proved officers who shot Pinex did not actually hear what they said they did over the radio, which the officers pointed to as their reason for pulling Pinex over in the first place.
“Because of the recording’s untimely disclosure, the first trial was unfair and Plaintiffs’ trial presentation was hurt beyond repair by the surprise,” Chang wrote.
Mosqueda had initially claimed he stopped the Oldsmobile Aurora that Pinex was driving based on an Englewood District police radio broadcast that warned the car might have been involved in a shooting in a different police district about three hours earlier.
Mosqueda said he jumped out of his police SUV with his gun drawn because of the warning.
But the recorded broadcast didn’t actually say anything about an Oldsmobile Aurora being wanted in a shooting or having a gun inside.
It only said cops in the South Chicago District had chased a ’98 Olds Aurora with temporary plates and the pursuit was terminated, according to Chang.
Marsh “buried” the Englewood audio recording and gave misleading statements at the trial — even saying the recording would have been “recycled a long time ago” — before he admitted its possible existence, the judge wrote.
Steve Greenberg, an attorney who represents Pinex’s family, said the ruling raises questions about the Law Department’s role in perpetuating a police culture in which officers believe they can act with impunity.
“There’s just a total disregard for the truth, and it runs to the highest levels,” Greenberg said. “There is a culture to cover up and win at all costs.”
In acknowledging Marsh’s departure, city officials said the conduct outlined by Chang was “inexcusable.”
Question: Why was Marsh allowed to remain on the payroll so long? It’s ridiculous.
* Related…
* PDF: Judge orders retrial in fatal police shooting
* Despite scrutiny, Chicago cops shot fewer people in 2015: The Chicago Tribune reports officers shot 22 people last year, eight of them fatally. That’s a 40 percent dip in the total number compared with 2014 when 37 people were shot and 16 killed. The number of people shot by Chicago police officers has gradually dropped since 2011 when officers shot 56 people, 24 fatally. In 2012, Chicago cops shot 45 people, killing 12. In 2013, officers shot 35 people, killing 14.
* Chicago Tonight takes a look at Jason Gonzales’ Democratic primary race against Speaker Madigan and two others…
There are two other declared candidates in the primary: Joe Barboza and Grasiela Rodriguez. Neither have campaign websites or committee information. Gonzales says they were planted by Speaker Madigan’s operation to dilute the Hispanic vote, which makes up the overwhelming majority of the district. […]
“Madigan thinks Hispanics in my district, which now comprises 70 percent of the district, are stupid,” Gonzales said. “He thinks they’ll punch Rodriguez or Barboza over Gonzales because he thinks we’re not smart enough to figure out they are plants from him to take votes from me. We’ve come up with a strategy to neutralize these two candidates, and they’re not going to do much harm.”
A spokesperson for Speaker Madigan denied any knowledge of so called campaign “plants” or “stalking horses.”
Brown also speculated that Gonzales could be running at the behest of Gov. Bruce Rauner. Gonzales denies this and there is no record of campaign contributions from Rauner’s political committee.
Barboza refused to appear on camera for “Chicago Tonight” but vehemently denied over the phone that he was being put up to this by anyone connected to Speaker Madigan. When asked why he was running, he responded: “I’ve been in this community for 16 years. I’m doing my own work now and have some time on my hands.”
He says he currently works in custom flooring, and he seemed flustered when asked what he wanted to accomplish in Springfield, eventually telling “Chicago Tonight” that he supports unions.
“Chicago Tonight” was unsuccessful in reaching Rodriguez after knocking on her door.
Um, why am I running? Um… Hmm. Unions!
OK.
* Also, Gonzales doesn’t necessarily have to receive money directly from Rauner to be a Rauner-friendly candidate. Some of the governor’s pals have already contributed.
* The Tribune has a story about the high public cost of low wages…
According to the NPA study, 60 percent of the cost of public assistance in Illinois goes to families headed by someone who works. In addition, nearly 1 million people in Cook County live in poverty and either collect public assistance or qualify for it, the report shows. County taxpayers end up covering the cost of nearly $150 million in health care for the working poor. They pay millions more for child care and other expenses, Murray said. […]
For more than a decade, Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center at the University of California at Berkeley, has been examining the number of fast-food workers dependent on food stamps, free day care programs and other subsidies. His report, released earlier this year, estimated that state and federal governments spend more than $150 billion a year on four anti-poverty programs mainly used by working people.
When workers don’t earn enough to support themselves or their families, the effects spill over to other parts of their lives, Jacobs said. Low-wage workers tend to suffer from more short-term and long-term health problems and rely on subsidized health care. Their children perform poorly in school, which sometimes steers them to a life of low-wage work.
* From an Illinois State Board of Elections e-mail sent to Cook County Circuit Clerk candidate Shirley Coleman…
On January 4, 2016, the Illinois State Board of Elections received a Notification of Self-Funding from Jacob Meister, a candidate for Clerk of the Circuit Clerk, Cook County. This filing is available for viewing on the Board’s website, at www.elections.il.gov. As a result, as a candidate for the office of Clerk of the Circuit Clerk, Cook County, you are now permitted to accept contributions in excess of any contribution limits imposed by 10 ILCS 5/9-8.5(b)
The exemption from contribution limits only affects candidates for the office of Clerk of the Circuit Clerk, Cook County, and lasts through the end of the current election cycle for this office, March 15, 2016; except that if Jacob Meister is nominated at the primary election, the exemption from contribution limits will remain in effect through the subsequent election cycle for the office, ending on December 31, 2016.
Raja Krishnamoorthi announced today he raised more than $450,000 during the final fundraising quarter of 2015, with more than $1.25 million in cash-on-hand as the March 15 primary approaches. The fundraising announcement follows recent endorsements of Raja for Congress by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and a string of labor unions including the International Association of Ironworkers, Air Line Pilots Association, the Illinois State Council of Machinists, and others.
“I am thrilled and humbled that this fundraising support will enable me to deliver our progressive message to voters across the 8th Congressional District of Illinois,” Raja said. “When they go to the polls on March 15th, Democratic primary voters will know that they can count on me to protect their Social Security and Medicare benefits, fight for equal pay for equal work, press for an increase in the minimum wage and guaranteed access to paid maternity and sick leave, and push for access to affordable college education.”
Raja’s fundraising success is complemented by his support from more than 100 Democratic leaders and activists throughout Illinois and the Chicago suburbs as well as an active and growing volunteer organization.
In recent weeks, Raja has won the backing of many labor organizations, including the International Association of Ironworkers, Illinois State Council of Machinists, the International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 2, the Air Line Pilots Association, the Office and Professional Employees’ Union Local 45 and Illinois Letter Carriers’ President Ken Christy. Raja is also endorsed by Rep. Jan Schakowsky of the 9th District of Illinois and David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Obama.
“Raja is the best choice to succeed Tammy Duckworth in Congress,” Schakowsky said. “I look forward to Raja joining me in the fight to make equal pay for equal work the law of the land.”
Rauner was more clearly aiming at the mayor’s jugular with his comments on the city’s problems and the prospects of getting help from the state.
“Let’s be clear, Chicago Public Schools are in dramatic trouble, as is the city, but the schools are worse,” he said.
“The mayor will attempt to blame Springfield and say Springfield owes it to us to send us lots of cash. That is fundamentally wrong, fundamentally not true,” Rauner said, arguing CPS already receives more than its fair share of state education dollars.
CPS has a different take on that, which we will explore on another day, but for now what’s important is to understand that the governor doesn’t plan to give unless he gets.
“We’ll work together cooperatively if the city is helping us reform the state,” Rauner said. “If the city is opposing reform for the state, which so far they are, or staying silent and letting the Speaker block reform, no, I’m sorry. We’re doing things to help the city of Chicago, as much as I would like to.”
He always throws in a line about how much he would like to help the city, just so we don’t get the idea he doesn’t like us.
Why can Rauner accomplish in 2016 all that he could not in 2015, starting with a state budget?
“Frankly, there is a lot of impetus, a lot of pressure,” Rauner said.
And he’s only too happy to add to the pressure.
The governor pretty much covered all the bases there.
But the question becomes what happens when the Chicago doo-doo really, truly hits the fan? Will Rauner stand firm? Or will he do what he’s done in the past (FY15 budget, autism cuts, local government money, federal funds, etc., etc., etc.) and work out a deal unrelated to the Turnaround Agenda?
* Progress Illinois has a good report this week on the pain caused by the governmental impasse…
For example, a Meals on Wheels program serving over 700 seniors in DuPage County will be reduced from five to two days a week beginning January 11 due to the lack of a state budget. The DuPage Senior Citizens Council, which delivers the meals to seniors, also plans to cut 55 percent of its staff and close its community dining program next Monday because of the state budget situation.
As many as 1,500 total seniors participate in the Meals on Wheels and community dining programs on a daily basis, said Marylin Krolak, executive director of the DuPage Senior Citizens Council.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do. It just breaks my heart,” she said of the seniors who will be impacted by the program cuts. “We will make sure that we will work with our volunteers to visit them Monday through Friday to make sure they’re OK, but they need food.”
Whacks to the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome program, MAP grants and immigrant services are also detailed. Go read the whole thing.
But, hey, they’re all gonna continue to suffer until we cut the standard of living of union members… or something.
…Adding… From comments…
It’s actually worse than that, this is the prerequisite he’s demanding prior to raising their taxes. It’s the worst middle and lower class double whammy you could imagine.
Yesterday, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner told reporters he was “disappointed” in how Emanuel has handled the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting, and said he would sign a bill to legalize mayoral recall in Chicago if it reaches his desk.
Crain’s Chicago Business stated, “As conservative talk show host and ex-gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft put it on his show today, “Rahm has been nothing but antagonistic to Rauner and his agenda. They may be in the same wine club, but I suggest that if that bill lands on Rauner’s desk, he signs it.”
Rauner also suggested that the bill would not apply to Emanuel in this term, only to future mayors. But that little nuance didn’t get in the way of the bigger message.
Proft’s statements today included:
Where has leadership in the [Illinois General Assembly] been on this? This is an opportunity for Republicans to say to minority families “We stand with you. We want what you want. Where are your party kingpins on this?”
Because Rauner made the statement he made there are fewer dark corners for [House Minority Leader] Jim Durkin and [Senate Minority Leader] Christine Radogno to hide in.
[RE: the question of whether or not the bill would apply only to future mayors, not Rahm Emanuel]: That is not an interpretation of the bill, it’s a look at case history. Nothing in the bill specifies it. It could be a matter that would be litigated if passed and signed–like the pension law and so many other legislative measures.
We argue it should apply to Rahm this term upon signature into law. If Rahm wants to litigate it, let’s do so. The worst case scenario is an appropriate recall mechanism in place for Chicago mayor and aldermen a la the mechanism in place for the Governor and state legislators on a go-forward basis.
The worst possible outcome is a good outcome and the best possible outcome is a better one.
* Kathy Routliffe writes about perhaps the weirdest case of alleged political forgery I’ve ever seen…
Wilmette police are investigating an incident in which a candidate in the 9th District Congressional primary is alleging someone forged her signature on a petition objecting to one of her Republican primary opponents.
Joan Lasonde, of the 600 block of Central Avenue in Wilmette, will face Susanne Atanus and David Earl Williams III in the GOP primary for the U.S. House seat currently held by Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
Lasonde recently filed a report with police alleging the forgery shortly after getting a letter from the Illinois State Board of Elections, telling her that her objection to Atanus’ candidacy had been rejected because she failed to file it correctly.
“I opened it up and I started reading it and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t object to Susanne Atanus. What are they talking about?’” Lasonde said Dec. 21.
She said the signature on the returned objector’s petition was not hers, but “it looked like someone tried to make it look like mine.”
Why the heck would anyone do that? And in such an inconsequential race?
Daily fantasy sports sites like DraftKings and FanDuel will be able to operate in Illinois while the courts decide on DraftKings’ lawsuit challenging Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s finding that the companies’ games are illegal gambling operations.
The attorney general’s office and lawyers for DraftKings, one of the two largest websites in the burgeoning business of daily fantasy sports tournaments, have agreed to not take other legal action over the websites while the DraftKings lawsuit works its way through the courts. A trial is set for June.
“We are pleased that we have reached agreement with the Illinois attorney general’s office today on an expedited court schedule for determining the legality of the daily fantasy sports contests that DraftKings is offering in Illinois,” lawyer Randy Mastro said in a statement issued Tuesday. “We remain committed to providing DFS to the hundreds of thousands of loyal Illinois fans who love the game, and we look forward to our day in court, where we are confident we will prevail.”
* We changed some code on the site yesterday and it may have messed up something else because the subscriber password isn’t working today. I have my folks working on it. Sorry about that.
*** UPDATE *** It’s finally fixed. Sorry about that. Weird stuff, these websites.
* From the AP story about Gov. Rauner’s consolidation task force recommendations…
A task force appointed by Gov. Bruce Rauner recommended more than two dozen ways to shrink Illinois government and cut costs to taxpayers, though many ideas already have faced stiff opposition and the Republican acknowledged getting legislative approval won’t be “just a walk in the park.”
Several of the 27 recommendations announced Monday mirror anti-union measures that Rauner has unsuccessfully pushed since taking office last year, including allowing local governments to opt out of collective bargaining with public-worker unions. Others, such as consolidating school districts, have failed under previous governors. […]
-Allow Illinois voters to consolidate or dissolve local governments through referendum. […]
-Eliminate a 126-square-mile cap on the size of a township, to allow townships to merge.
Everybody says that consolidation will save money. And that could very well be true, although the same services will have to be provided. Reboot took a look at a recent aborted attempt at township consolidation in McHenry County…
At one public meeting in the fall, County Board members discussed the potential impact on taxpayers in the consolidating township with a lower tax levy.
Levies of two townships would assumedly be added together and then divided between their total assessed value, with the lower tax township possibly seeing a tax increase. On that one issue, County Board Chairman Joe Gottemoller of Crystal Lake argued, “We are standing here today looking at something that positively will raise taxes for half our residents.”
I saw the same sort of thing happen years ago when there was an attempt at merging my rural electric co-op into another, debt-ridden co-op.
Not to say there aren’t good ideas in the task force report. There are. I’m just saying we need to look past the feel-good nature of this topic.
Allow school districts to use third-party contractors, rather than union employees, for services such as transportation and building maintenance.
Privatization is pushed by those who say it’s cheaper. And it can be. But it has to be done well, and that just hasn’t been the case in Chicago, where school janitorial services were privatized…
On Saturday, a handful of parents of pre-kindergarten students packed yellow rubber gloves and spray bottles of vinegar and baking soda solution and headed to Suder Montessori Elementary Magnet School, 2022 W. Washington Blvd., on the Near West Side, where they spent the morning cleaning their children’s washrooms.
The parents felt they didn’t have a choice: Upon entering the bathrooms, they found pools of day-old urine on the floor, feces smeared on the walls and clogged, stinking toilet bowls. In the past few weeks, the school had an E. coli outbreak, and more than half of the kindergarten students missed school because of various illnesses, including a stomach bug, diarrhea or vomiting, said Michelle Burgess, head of the school’s parent-teacher association.
“These are preschoolers. They go to the bathroom and miss. The boys play in the urinals. And sometimes can’t get to the toilet fast enough. It’s understandable,” said Angela Morales, the parent of two children who attend the school. “But they need to clean. We can’t have our kids be in this filth.”
Parents claim the unsanitary bathroom conditions, overflowing garbage cans and soiled napping cots are the result of inadequate custodial care following the Chicago Board of Education’s decision last spring to award multimillion-dollar custodial management contracts to two firms, Aramark and SodexoMAGIC.
That outsourcing deal has been a disaster since Jump Street.
[I fixed some broken links. Sorry about that. It’s been one of those days. The password isn’t working either. Sheesh.]
