Proft also says he thinks good could come of the November legislative elections for Republicans even if Madigan remains speaker, as most expect. He says Republicans could forge coalitions with some lawmakers in a weakened Democratic majority on certain issues, such as school choice, despite Madigan.
Redfield, though, doesn’t expect much of anything to get done after voters pick between “wholly owned subsidiaries” of Rauner and Madigan. Usually a cautious academic, Redfield admits he’s become prone to ranting when he considers the post-election prospects.
“What are we really accomplishing by doing this?” he says. “I don’t know how we ended up where we’re at. Unbelievable.”
* The Question: Considering all that’s transpired during the summer and all that will eventually happen during the rest of the fall campaign, do you think there’s a real possibility of any significant stuff getting done in the lame duck session? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
We have serious fiscal mismanagement, giving Illinois one of our nation’s highest unemployment rates and lowest credit ratings. Our neighbors in Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin are not smarter or more hard working than the people of Illinois, yet they are doing far better.
We need change, and Rauner will lead us in the right direction and improve the future for our families. He is a moderate on social issues, and his record on human rights, choice, freedom and equality is excellent. He is not a right-wing Republican.
His wife, Diana (a Democrat) will be a major asset for our state; she runs The Ounce of Prevention Fund, a top-notch nonprofit institution for preschool education, created decades ago by my friend Irving B. Harris. The Rauners have a bipartisan home life, and the same spirit and tone of their politics will animate a Rauner gubernatorial administration. I urge Bruce and Diana to emphasize this fact in the general election campaign.
* Minow penned this Tribune op-ed shortly after the election offering his advice…
1) Send your campaign staff home. The campaign by both sides was disgraceful. Too much money, too many commercials, too much nasty negativism. Campaigning and governing are two very different activities. The purpose of a campaign is to defeat the other side. The purpose of governing is to work with the other side for all the people. So send your campaign staff home.
2) Hire a smart staff and Cabinet of men and women who are not ideologues. You want people, like yourself, who are problem-solvers, who are not partisans, and who know how to compromise. Get some young people who understand the new technologies to bring our government into the 21st century.
3) Some of your supporters booed when you said Tuesday night that you had called the Democratic leaders, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton. Tell those who booed to get out of your way.
4) Illinois voters decided to elect a Republican governor and a Democratic House and Senate. That decision does not make you enemies but rather partners. You, Madigan and Cullerton want the same legacies: to make Illinois a better place than it is now. Working together, you can restore the greatness of Illinois.
5) Successful Republican governors such as Richard Ogilvie, Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar learned how to work with Democrats. Study how they did it.
Eighth-grade boys were shown how to tie ties on Wednesday at Learn 8 Middle School, in East Garfield Park as a part of the ‘Tied to Greatness’ program.
‘Tied to Greatness’ is a national nonprofit organization, dedicated to impacting the image and esteem of inner city males through affirmation, instruction and long-term mentorship connections. […]
“When we have data and research that shows that when our eighth grade boys wore the ties it sets them aside as leaders,” said David Lewis, Learn 8 Principal. “There is a decrease in referrals, decrease incidents with them, and made them feel special.”
“It felt good,” said Miles Burnett, 8th grader at Learn 8. “I means that I will be able to do stuff when I get older. I will be able to tie a tie and look right in a business, for when I have an interview.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Bost released the second television advertisement in his re-election campaign for Illinois’ 12th Congressional District, titled “Belleville Boot.” The ad, narrated by Belleville Boot Company President Mark Ferguson, highlights Bost’s successful efforts to stop a federal rule change that would have made it more difficult for the company to compete with big corporations for supplying boots to our men and women in uniform.
“When Washington politicians tried to change the rules and put big businesses ahead of a Southern Illinois job creator, I went down to the House floor and helped stop them,” said Bost. “Because we were successful, Belleville Boot Company will remain one of the largest providers of military boots in the nation. That’s the type of positive result that hardworking Southern Illinois families deserve.”
FERGUSON: “Belleville is a family owned small business. We’re the oldest and leading manufacturer of boots for the US military. The large billion dollar companies were trying to bully the small businesses and eliminate our ability to win contracts. Mike Bost went right to work for us. As a Marine he’s pretty ferocious. He attacked the problem right away and he got it resolved. We’re going to be able to win more contracts now and we’re going to employ more people in this area. When you need a fighter, you need someone like Mike Bost in your corner.”
A week after the Illinois Supreme Court’s 4-3 Democratic majority refused, without comment, to rehear its rejection of a proposed redistricting amendment to the state constitution, the Republican minority is having its say.
Justice Lloyd Karmeier, in a dissent of rejecting the rehearing that was joined by the court’s two other GOP justices, reaches into the wayback machine for a state Supreme Court decision from 1906 involving proposed changes to the state’s 1870 constitution.
Karmeier noted that the majority tossed the proposed Independent Maps amendment from the Nov. 8 ballot because it assigned new duties to the state’s auditor general. The majority ruled that proposed petition-driven changes to the constitution can only affect the legislative article and not affect other constitutional provisions.
But, Karmeier said, in the 110-year-old ruling, the justices said the fact that “articles of the constitution other than the article expressly amended are changed does not render the express amendment invalid.
“Put another way, those other matters, including the duties of the auditor general, are in no sense the subject of the proposed amendment. The ‘subject’ … is the mechanism for redistricting,” Karmeier wrote.
“The assignment of responsibilities to the auditor general and the other changes that would result from adoption of the amendment are merely ancillary to and supportive of the amendment’s core purpose,” he wrote.
Second, the majority suggested that some alternative plan involving a nonlegislative actor other than the Auditor General could be formulated that would meet the requirements of article XIV, section 3. But Independent Maps, in its petition for rehearing, succinctly and correctly points out that the majority’s approach would preclude the assignment of any new role in the redistricting process to any nonlegislative actor, not just the Auditor General, because any such changes would be barred by precisely the same barriers erected by the majority to rationalize invalidation of the proposal advanced here. If the majority believes that such is not the case, it should take this opportunity on rehearing to explain why.
I think the majority’s ruling wouldn’t preclude assigning duties to any non-legislative actor who is currently mentioned in the redistricting portion of the Constitution.
Forget about endless unconstitutional details on how the map should be drawn. Just set a few simple rules:
• No legislator can ever have any role in the actual mapmaking process.
• Mapmakers cannot take into account any previous election results.
• Home addresses of state legislators and existing district boundaries cannot ever be factors.
All these requirements are in force in Iowa, which is a national redistricting model.
The results might not be perfect, but they’d surely be better than what we have now: a system where one political party draws district boundaries to protect its majority and its legislators. Yes, it’s true: Voters should be able to choose their legislators, not the other way around.
* The governor talked yet again about term limits yesterday. He was asked why it was so important to get a vote on term limits immediately after the election when the limits wouldn’t actually be mandated until over twelve years from now…
The earliest Illinois could amend its constitution to include term limits is 2018. Only then would the 10-year clock start ticking on lawmakers’ careers. If Rauner keeps his own pledge, he won’t be governor then. And Madigan? He’ll be 86. Why, then, is Rauner pushing for term limits?
“The simple answer is nothing would change the performance, and the culture, in our state government faster than term limits.”
Rauner says he expects lawmakers would see the political writing on the wall and resign or quit early.
“If the General Assembly would put those on the ballot … immediately, right today, many elected officials would look and see ‘Wow, the game is kind of over.’ I think you’d see a number of people retire or resign soon.”
Yeah. Because he has so much experience dealing with legislators that he knows exactly what’s in their hearts and minds. Right. Lots of legislators will just quit right away instead of waiting until 2028.
The power of denial is strong in this one.
All he had to say was “The sooner we pass ‘em, the sooner we’ll have certainty when legislators will have to retire.” Instead, we get this muddled fantasy.
The Chicago Police Department will launch a two-year hiring blitz that will add 970 police officers to confront a 50 percent spike in homicides and improve detectives’ ability to solve crimes, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
The hiring surge — the biggest since the mid-1980s — marks a turnaround for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has relied on police overtime in a failed attempt to stop the cycle of gang violence on the streets.
Over the next two years, the police department will add 516 patrol officers, 92 field-training officers, 112 sergeants, 50 lieutenants and 200 detectives. […]
Chicago Police officers spend six months in the police academy before they hit the streets for a probationary period that lasts a year. To get reinforcements on the street as quickly as possible, [Police Supt. Eddie Johnson] said he’s drafting plans to shift the police academy at 1300 W. Jackson into high-gear.
More police would be a good thing, but lots of too-quickly trained cops on the street could do a whole lot of harm. Yes, there’s a crisis. Don’t make it worse, please.
The Chicago Police Department announced Sunday that it will spend about $8 million to buy body cameras for the rest of the force, a rollout officials unveiled though it won’t be complete for years and they aren’t sure who will get the new equipment next. […]
The Police Department started issuing body cameras to officers as part of a pilot program in the Northwest Side Shakespeare District at the beginning of 2015, and about 2,000 cameras are now in use in seven of the city’s 22 police districts. Johnson said the department will use “CPD’s operating budget, as well as grant funding” totaling about $8 million to buy about 5,000 additional cameras. He said the body cameras will come “bundled” with Tasers for officers as well.
So the total number of body-cams is supposed to be around 7,000 […]
Correct us if we’re wrong, but Rahm keeps spouting the line that CPD is manned at 12,000 officers. Every officer is slated to get a camera - not like radios that are passed along watch to watch with a fresh battery. So that’s just over half of our manpower to be equipped with a body camera.
We read once that the US military needed six soldiers at the “tail” to field a single fighting soldier at the “teeth.” CPD isn’t fighting an overseas battle far from friendly shores and flying in supplies, ammo, armor, etc., so that nearly 1-to-1 that CPD appears to be operating at seems a bit….inefficient.
The first-year cost will be $138,000 per officer including salary, benefits and supervision. So the 970 additional officers will carry a price tag of almost $134 million.
So, if 2CC is right, couldn’t the city save more money by using lower paid civilians instead of 5,000 or so highly paid cops (the approximate number who aren’t getting body cams)?
The state elections board this week rejected former state Rep. Frank Mautino’s request to delay a public hearing on his campaign spending until a related federal investigation ends. […]
In requesting the delay earlier this month, Mautino, the state’s auditor general, cited his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
However, the board voted 7-1 against the request Monday. This means a public hearing on Mautino’s spending could take place in the next month or so, said Jim Tenuto, the board’s assistant executive director.
David Cooke, a Streator resident, filed the complaint against Mautino.
The U.S. attorney’s office and state Board of Elections are looking into Mautino’s spending of $200,000 in campaign money on car and gas repairs and a similar amount on bank payments while he was a lawmaker. Campaign money cannot be used for personal purposes.
You gotta figure that the steady Mautino drumbeat in the local press is hurting Mautino’s appointed replacement, Rep. Andy Skoog, who is in a very hotly contested race right now.
“I underestimated how much most of the standard media just doesn’t care about this and doesn’t understand and won’t send our message out. We’ve been too slow in creating our own media channels through social media and other outlets. We’re doing that now.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner hosted his first Facebook Live session on Tuesday, fielding a series of carefully screened questions to once again make his case for everything from term limits for elected officials to lowering property taxes.
Wearing a navy blue jacket and a white shirt with an unbuttoned collar, Rauner spoke from inside his Capitol office, an attempt to appear as if he was having a casual conversation with those who submitted queries on his Facebook page.
The event had a scripted feel, however. Run by the governor’s office, the questions that made the cut weren’t exactly high inside fastballs. The first one came from a friendly Republican lawmaker about the governor’s plans to celebrate the state’s bicentennial in 2018. […]
The 30-minute public relations event ended a bit off-script. Rauner stared quietly at the camera for several seconds before a press aide’s face briefly flashed on screen as the stream cut off.
According to Facebook at 10:22 this morning, Rauner’s video had 12,882 views, even after pushing it for days on social media and convincing major media outlets throughout the state to preview the appearance.
By contrast, state Rep. Litesa Wallace popped up on Facebook without warning the other day and got 1,612 views on a live video about registering to vote.
Nathan Carpenter, assistant director of convergent media at the Illinois State University School of Communication, said holding an event like this sends a signal that Rauner doesn’t feel his message is getting across to the public and that he’s not getting the kind of news coverage he’d like. […]
Because the questions were submitted ahead of time and screened by Rauner’s staff, it can prompt criticisms about the authenticity of the exchange, he said.
The purpose of live-streaming technology is “to feed off of the audience,” Carpenter said, but as Rauner responded to the pre-submitted questions, comments and questions posted in real time went unaddressed.
“In this case, it becomes just another broadcasting tool,” he said, “and if you run counter to people’s expectations with how the medium works or counter to what are the norms for the medium, you can really turn off and frustrate a lot of users.”
He played it very, very safe, which is how he usually does things in public. So, I wouldn’t get your hopes up for a gripping experience the next time he does one. I give him a ton of credit for his ability to stick to his talking points. But he needs a different schtick on Facebook if he is serious about creating his “own media channels.”
In total, Bruce’s first foray into the world of Facebook Live wasn’t groundbreaking or even all that interesting. Rauner stuck to the same script he’s been pushing since his shake up express careened into the Capitol building in January 2015. It’s no secret he’s less than a fan of public institutions, infrastructure or unions, and the near-half hour he spent awkwardly looking into a cell-phone camera was just another opportunity for him to appear Millennial-minded while pushing policies better suited for our Gilded Age great-grandparents.
Even his last comments from a conveniently posed question about the most enjoyable thing he’s done as governor didn’t really make Rauner seem all that relatable. We already knew he loves to take selfies and play dress up as a biker—that’s part of a carefully crafted image. What we still don’t know is how he can sleep at night knowing a state starving for public resources continues to go hungry.
Sen. Mark Kirk’s campaign falsely asserted on its website that the Illinois Republican was a veteran of the Iraq war, a misstatement that comes six years after exaggerations over his military record nearly cost him his state’s Senate seat.
The Republican, now battling for a second term in a tight race in Illinois, stayed in the United States during the Iraq War when he served in the Navy Reserves. But on a public webpage on his official campaign website touting his record on veterans’ issues, Kirk was listed as a “veteran of the Iraq war.”
While Kirk campaign officials said it was a staff error, the issue resembles the controversy that nearly caused his 2010 Senate campaign to implode. Moreover, Kirk is now running for reelection against Democratic Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a military veteran who lost both of her legs during combat in Iraq. […]
Kirk campaign officials said the webpage was not meant to be made public, saying that it was supposed to be a private site while edits were being made to the page.
Campaign officials said a third-party vendor had drafted the language that they said had not been vetted or reviewed by the senator’s staff. The language, they acknowledged, was inaccurate, saying it would be changed when the campaign began a more direct push to court military veterans.
* And in case you don’t remember, Kirk was sharply criticized in 2010 for an earlier claim on his official congressional website that he was “the only member of Congress to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom.” And that wasn’t the only problems he had…
Kirk needed to avoid any repeat of that goofiness at all costs, so whether it was an honest mistake or not, CNN has now glommed on and others may follow.
To Sum it up: Much has changed since Government Technology gave Illinois a mediocre C+ two years ago. In 2016, Gov. Bruce Rauner established the Department of Innovation and Technology and brought on private-sector information technology veteran Hardik Bhatt to run it. The result has been more consolidation, more collaboration and cost savings. The department has become the central agency responsible for technology at 38 other agencies, and has led efforts to find solutions that work for multiple agencies and perform multiple functions instead of establishing a patchwork quilt of systems.
The creation of a portal for enterprise project management has given the state a greater ability to monitor the health of projects, identify priorities and track performance metrics. A CIO council brings together local IT workers in government to collaborate and share ideas. Meanwhile, the state has consolidated 80 percent of its assets and implemented a cloud-first strategy, ensuring that the cloud is the default target for all new solutions.
So far only 3 percent of the state’s workloads have gone to the cloud, but Illinois has plans to change that quickly, aiming to put 28 percent of work in the cloud by the end of 2017, and 70 percent the year after.
The state has also made a push for VoIP expansion, migrating more than 35,000 centrex lines and achieving a cost savings of $9 per line per month in the process. DoIT is also working to introduce an array of new tools such as instant messaging, email/voicemail integration and Web conferencing. Amid everything, the state has established an Internet of Things Center of Excellence and is canvassing its agencies to identify IoT strategies and projects.
Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Tuesday said he’s not considering a run for Chicago mayor or Illinois governor.
The former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, who returned to Chicago after spending seven years in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, is now a managing partner at California-based Emerson Collective, which is seeking to put money into programs in poor neighborhoods while promoting economic growth.
Speaking to the Chicago Sun-Times, Duncan said he is not considering a run for Chicago mayor or Illinois governor. Duncan would not be eligible run for governor in 2018 because of a residency requirement for statewide office.
