This Is Illinois
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Exactly right…
The most telling thing about both Dunkin and McCann is that I never heard one of their colleagues in their own caucuses come to their defense.
Not once.
Legislators from Dunkin’s and McCann’s respective caucuses stayed silent not out of fear of angering their party bosses, but because they genuinely don’t like or respect either man. Scott is absolutely correct.
We ended up with a massive, multi million dollar proxy war centered around two of the most flawed legislators at the Statehouse.
Lovely.
* Related…
* McCann mileage hearing set for April 12
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Another hostage calls it quits
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Rockford Register Star…
Rockford police officers are busy enough without adding baby-sitting to their duties, but that’s what will happen because one more valuable program to help troubled youths is disappearing thanks to the state of Illinois budget impasse.
Youth Services Network has been providing vital support for young people, but it is running out of money. The agency had to drop its Redeploy Illinois program in October because the state wasn’t paying. Its youth shelter services have been limited by the state’s budget woes. Last week, the agency suspended its Comprehensive Community Based Youth Services. On Friday, the 24-hour crisis line will be shut off.
It’s become almost a daily occurrence: an agency that does business with the state of Illinois is forced to cut service for people who most need help.
Why should you care? That teenager who could have received help from Youth Services Network might wind up stealing from you — or worse. A police officer might be tied up dealing with a kid across town and won’t be able to respond to your problem as quickly. There will be an effect on the entire community.
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Today’s “outrage”
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Politico…
OUTRAGE OVER GAY RIGHTS GROUP NOT BACKING DUCKWORTH — “Why Did a Major Gay Rights Group Endorse a Republican Senator Over a Pro-LGBTQ Democrat?” by Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern: “The Human Rights Campaign is undoubtedly the biggest and most influential LGBTQ rights organization in the world. It deserves great credit for its work on marriage equality, and has even begun to atone for its questionable record on trans rights by leading the charge against anti-trans “bathroom bills.” But HRC recently committed an unforced error of astonishing ineptitude that necessitates a re-evaluation of the group’s core mission: It endorsed Republican Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois for re-election over his challenger, Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth.” http://slate.me/22uGGO9
OUTRAGE OVER GAY RIGHTS GROUP BACKING KIRK (AND DOLD) — “Two Republicans endorsed by radical LGBT group in upcoming elections,” by Life Style News’ Dustin Siggins: “The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has backed two GOP members of Congress against their Democratic opponents – specifically because the Republicans back legislative priorities of the LGBT movement. On Saturday, HRC announced its first set of endorsements. Out of more than a dozen candidates for office, Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rep. Bob Dold – who took Kirk’s old seat in the House – received support due to their ‘strong commitment’ to LGBT issues on Capitol Hill.” http://bit.ly/1ReK1ti
* Reason for Democratic “outrage,” which was confined to websites like Daily Kos and Slate…
It’s wonderful that Kirk supports equality, but his own leaders—men like Sen. Mitch McConnell—will never let allow his pro-LGBTQ bills to become law. Kirk’s about-face on LGBTQ rights is very nice, and may presage a future shift within his party. But right now there is only one way to pass the Equality Act, and that is to restore Democratic leadership in the Senate. Accomplishing this objective will likely require Duckworth to defeat Kirk. And I am deeply puzzled that HRC, an organization that prides itself on pragmatism, does not seem to grasp that very simple reality.
Meh. Can’t please everybody. If they say they’re bipartisan, then they need to act that way. Plus, the Republicans will filibuster if they wind up in the minority. The idea is to create more allies.
* Reason for hardcore right wing “outrage” by a pro-life group…
Both Kirk and Dold also support federal funding of Planned Parenthood. Many pro-life activists, especially Catholics, consider marriage and abortion two sides of the same life equation. The founder of 40 Days for Life, David Bereit, told LifeSiteNews at the 2015 March for Marriage that “the various moral issues we confront in our culture today are all intrinsically connected. When you look at the various factors that lead to the breakdown of nations and civilizations, they are moral factors. It’s the devaluing of human life, it’s the abandonment of religious belief and practice, it’s immorality – the increase thereof – and it’s the breakdown of the family.”
Right.
OK.
I happen to think it’s highly immoral to judge someone by the consenting adult s/he loves.
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Governor caves after nine-month impasse
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* No, not ours. Pennsylvania’s…
The nine-month-long Pennsylvania budget impasse is over.
In a news conference on Wednesday, Gov. Tom Wolf said while he won’t sign the Republicans’ $6.6 billion no-new-taxes spending package, he won’t veto it either.
That means it will lapse into law on Sunday, and complete a $30 billion budget.
“To allow us to move on from the problems that have plagued 2015-16, I am going to allow this bill to become law,” he said.
But while making the announcement, the Democrat criticized the spending plan, saying “This budget doesn’t work. The math doesn’t work, and that’s a real problem. But we need to keep our commonwealth working.”
So, we’re the last state without a budget. Hooray!
…Adding… Heh…
I think he should shave his head.
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Question of the day
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Eric Zorn penned an open letter to Democratic legislative leaders…
Offer Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner a deal. If he’ll sit down with you and hammer out a state budget, no auxiliary “reform” items included, you’ll give him, say, eight votes in the General Assembly — full floor votes, both chambers, after robust debate — on his version of individual items on what he calls his “turnaround agenda.”
Amend the state constitution to enact term limits and take away from party bosses the power to draw political maps? Alter how compensation for injured workers is calculated? Eliminate prevailing wage laws? Reduce award amounts in civil lawsuits? Freeze property taxes?
Let Rauner make his case with legislation, not sanctimonious sound bites. Let him write the bills — with no if-then conditions to link them — and promise him a small-d democratic verdict from the duly elected representatives of the people on each proposal.
Sure, it’s risky. Some of Rauner’s ideas poll very well — term limits and nonpartisan mapmaking, to name two — and it will be a political liability for some of your rank-and-file members to vote against them (or, more likely, to fail to support them by casting “present” votes).
But the very fact that it is risky will allow you to portray the move as a compromise, a good-faith effort to break the logjam in Springfield that has left the state without a budget since last summer.
* The Question: Do you mostly agree or mostly disagree with Zorn’s idea? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
survey services
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Bad news everywhere
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Illinois State Board of Education released a report the day after the primary, so I didn’t get to it. Let’s circle back…
499 of 852 [school[ districts reporting budget information — 58.6 percent — are deficit spending, meaning they’re spending more than their revenues in main operating accounts, such as for instruction, school maintenance and transportation expenses. That’s the highest percentage since at least the 2010 school year.
A key concern is that districts can look good on paper and increase their financial profile score by borrowing to bolster their operating accounts and dipping into reserves to cover the red ink, among other measures. […]
“They’re issuing debt and leveraging future revenues to sustain operations … and that is not good fiscal practice. It’s not what we do at home and not what any business would do,” [Robert Wolfe, chief financial officer at ISBE] said. […]
One district in the Chicago region, Aurora West School District 129, was on the Financial Watch list in 2015 but got off this year. It was bumped to the second-worst category, the “Early Warning” designation. Getting there entailed issuing bonds in a refinancing deal, dipping into fund balances to cover red ink, and borrowing against future tax collections, according to data in the district’s Annual Financial Report.
* Meanwhile, Mayor Emanuel’s floor leader made a valid point to the Sun-Times that most folks often forget. Union leaders have to face elections, and that often puts political pressure on the candidates…
Ald. Pat O’Connor (40th) told the Chicago Sun-Times that upcoming union elections will complicate contract talks that hit a setback in January, when the CTU’s big bargaining team rejected an offer their leader called “serious.”
“If not closed, it’s pretty well done,” said O’Connor, the longtime chairman of the City Council’s Education Committee now serving as Emanuel’s floor leader. “If you’re looking for collaboration and concession, as you get closer to a union election that becomes harder and harder to do. . . . If they make an agreement, they’re labeled a sellout.” […]
The union will know on March 28 who, if anyone, will challenge the popular Lewis and her leadership team. That’s when nominating petitions are due, but a contested election isn’t expected.
A City Hall source acknowledged that the “likelihood of anyone winning against Karen and Jesse [Sharkey] are remote . . . but they still have to worry about appeasing the left wing” of the union, which opposed the earlier serious offer the source called “a balanced deal with a lot of money and concessions and a lot of things they wouldn’t get in a million Christmases.
* CTU has played politics pretty well with Chicagoans, by the way…
Those are mostly pie in the sky proposals. The union has eschewed ideas like property and sales tax increases. So, they are actually heroes of a sort to beleaguered homeowners who want some budgetary magic to save them from the consequences of their own voting histories.
* Related…
* CTU to decide on 1-day April 1 walkout tonight
* CTU’s April 1 strike legal or illegal? State board would decide: The staff investigates and makes a decision, which can be appealed to the five-person board. Three of them were appointed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has tried to weaken labor unions. [One of those three was a Quinn person reappointed by Rauner.]
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Putting the band back together
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Dan Kleinman…
The map on the [top] details Tuesday’s primary between Kim Foxx and Anita Alvarez. The Green/Purple shades are Kim Fox. The Yellow/Brown shades are Anita Alvarez.
The map on the [bottom] outlines 1987’s mayoral election between Harold Washington and Edward Vrdolyak. The purple shades are Harold. The red is Vrdolyak.
* The eerily similar maps. Click the pics for a larger, side-by-side version…
* Related…
* Zorn: Why Anita Alvarez should resign now
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Living on borrowed time
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Progress Illinois…
The city of Chicago borrowed $220 million for a police and fire pension payment due by the end of the year.
The city took out the loan with a 3 percent interest rate in order to have the pension funds ready by a state-mandated March 1 deadline, officials said Monday.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2016 budget included a $588 million property tax hike for police and fire pensions and school construction. Still, the mayor’s spending plan depends on the state for pension funding changes, which have cleared both legislative chambers but have not yet been sent to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. The governor has called for the Chicago pension to bill to be included “as part of a larger package of structural reform bills.”
The pension funding changes would give the city more time to make its pension payments, cutting pension costs due this year by $219 million.
* And hope is not a plan…
Although the state House and Senate, both controlled by Democrats, approved the bill, they have not sent it to the governor for fear he’ll veto it if they don’t sign on to his pro-business, union-weakening agenda. The governor’s spokesman has said Rauner would sign the bill only “as part of a larger package of structural reform bills.”
That’s the Rauner administration’s alternate phrase for the governor’s “turnaround agenda,” which the Democrat-controlled General Assembly has rejected, keeping the state from approving a budget for more than eight months now.
And there’s no end in sight to that stalemate, given that last week’s primary elections did not change the state’s partisan political landscape despite the record amounts of money spent on some General Assembly contests.
Nevertheless, Holt expressed optimism the governor will eventually sign the bill. “We still believe the (police and fire pension bill) is consistent with what the governor believes needs to happen with pensions,” she said. “I think there are a lot of reasons it’s consistent with his view and we don’t see any reason he wouldn’t sign it.”
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Adventures in reporting
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Amanda Vinicky made a valiant effort to fact check Gov. Bruce Rauner’s claim that he had reached out to Speaker Madigan’s staff to try and set a one-on-one meeting, but hadn’t heard back…
“I really don’t have a way … I don’t have any information on that claim so I don’t really have any comment one way or another on that so,” [Madigan spokesman Steve Brown] said in response.
Okay then. The Speaker’s spokesman — one of his right-hand-men - doesn’t know whether the governor has called Madigan’s office to ask for a meeting. Or if he’s just made the offer through the press. […]
“Well is it maybe time? Would it be prudent for the Speaker and governor to get together and talk about about a path forward?” I asked Brown.
He responded: “I have no thoughts on that.” […]
I pressed Brown to check with Madigan’s secretary, scheduler or administrative assistant.
“I don’t think I’ll have an opportunity to get information about that claim. So that’s really all I have to say about that. So do you have another topic you wanted to go through?” he said.
Um, OK.
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More on ag education funding
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
Flanked by students involved in the Future Farmers of America program, Rauner also found himself defending his latest budget proposal, which would zero out funding for agriculture education. Rauner said he supports beefing up school funding across the board, but local districts should be able to decide how it’s spent.
“Let’s be clear. I’m a strong advocate for agriculture and a strong advocate for education for agriculture,” Rauner said. “What we’re saying is, let’s not have a lot of line items dictating terms of where money gets spent. Let’s put a lot more money in the schools and let the schools decide how they spend their money. I hope the schools in Illinois put more money into agriculture, not less.”
* But the kids don’t see it that way…
Connor Carmody, Illinois FFA state vice president, said he was among FFA representatives asked by the Department of Agriculture to be at the news conference.
“We … wish we could get our direct funding,” he told The State Journal-Register concerning the ag education line item, “because whenever you give it to the schools, obviously, they’re going to try to spread it out everywhere else. And agriculture is an elective in most schools, so it’s one of the first things on the chopping block. I know that’s how it is at my school.”
Carmody, 18, is a graduate of Calhoun High School in Hardin, and is spending a year in his FFA post before attending the University of Illinois at Urbana next year.
“Sadly, at my school, if we get more money, it’s probably going to go into sports,” Carmody said. “That’s just kind of how small town schools like mine are. … Actually, my school ag program has been threatened the past couple years,” he added, and alumni are helping fund the program there.
Some of those same points were mentioned in yesterday’s Question of the Day. But, I thought you’d like to see them anyway.
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Energy companies behaving badly
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Steve Daniels…
Both of the Chicago area’s major natural gas utilities spent hundreds of millions last year to replace aging gas pipes, but suburbanites got a lot more bang for their buck than Chicagoans.
Nicor Gas, which serves 2.2 million suburban customers, spent $273 million on its pipe replacement project, dubbed “Investing in Illinois,” in the 13 months ended Dec. 31. That wasn’t too far from the $232 million Chicago’s Peoples Gas spent in 2015.
But Nicor installed 164 miles of new pipes, according to an SEC filing by its parent, AGL Resources of Atlanta. Peoples last year replaced 79 miles. […]
Nicor isn’t the only utility doing this kind of work for far less money. Dominion East Ohio, which serves 1.2 million customers in northeast Ohio, including Cleveland and Akron, has managed a large-scale pipe replacement program for eight years. In that time, a spokeswoman says, Dominion has spent a little more than $1 billion and replaced 1,181 miles of pipe. Since the inception of Peoples’ program in 2011, it has spent $1.1 billion and replaced only 340 miles.
* Steve Daniels…
Exelon CEO Chris Crane has paid personal visits in recent weeks to House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton to warn them the power-industry giant will begin the process of shuttering its downstate Clinton nuclear plant if it doesn’t get financial help from the state this spring. Exelon also has informed Gov. Bruce Rauner, as well as Republican leaders in both chambers, according to people familiar with the discussions.
It’s far from clear, though, that Springfield will respond to the renewed threats from Illinois’ largest power generator. Exelon, owner of Commonwealth Edison, owns six nuclear stations in Illinois, generating as much as 11,841 megawatts and employing about 2,700. That’s enough juice to power well over 10 million homes.
Exelon last year warned it would have to close as many as three of its six nukes without passage of a bill that would have imposed a surcharge on electric bills statewide to provide as much as $300 million in additional revenue to the company’s fleet. The bill never saw floor action in either chamber as the budget war between GOP Gov. Rauner and Democrats who run the Legislature raged.
Exelon late last year then appeared to back off its threats and agreed to keep its plants open for the near term. Now the threats are back. The company is expected within a month to float a revised version of last year’s bill that likely won’t be quite as generous.
Still, the reception Crane got was tepid.
Cullerton told him a bill could see action if it could strike a compromise with other parties wanting comprehensive energy legislation—green groups, consumer advocates, coal interests, renewable power producers.
* Steve Daniels…
Exelon CEO Chris Crane looks to be a strong contender this year for highest paid utility boss in the land.
Crane last year received nearly $16 million in cash, stock and benefits, 7 percent more than the $15 million he got in 2014, according to the company proxy statement, filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Crane’s cash haul was especially robust, rising 20 percent from the year before. He cleared $3.3 million in cash—a $1.2 million salary plus $2.1 million in incentive plan payments—compared with $2.75 million in 2014, when his incentive plan payout was $1.6 million.
Crane’s pay raise came as Chicago-based Exelon boosted its earnings per share in 2015 for the first time in many years. But the company’s stock fell 27 percent in 2015 compared with the 10 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Utility Index.
* AP…
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has demanded that a financially shaky Peabody Energy prove it has the $92 million necessary to restore Illinois mining land if it shuts down.
Madigan sent a letter Monday to the St. Louis-based coal company seeking details on the bond amount available for its southern Illinois coal mines.
Peabody told federal regulators last week its financial situation might force it to cease operations. It also delayed an interest payment.
Madigan says she fears the company’s bond funds would not be sufficient to follow state law requiring used-up mining land to be restored as timberland, wildlife habitat or rangeland.
AG Madigan’s full press release is here.
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Today’s quotable
Wednesday, Mar 23, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Roger Dow, president of the U.S. Travel Association, speaking in Springfield yesterday…
“It’s important to understand we can’t sacrifice freedom out of fear,” said Dow. “These incidents are tragic. However, if we don’t travel smartly and have smart security, then the terrorists win the game. It’s very important to understand. We must show the terrorists, life does go on.”
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