Question of the day
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on Thursday pitched her proposed penny-an-ounce tax on sweetened beverages like pop, lemonade and sports drinks as a way to avoid drastic staffing cuts at the state’s attorney’s office, sheriff’s department and public health system.
“I could put forth a proposal that would significantly impair our criminal justice system over the next three years and undermine the progress we are making in public health,” she told commissioners. “It would mean at least 1,000 fewer positions in our criminal justice system, including prosecutors, public defenders, sheriff’s deputies and critical support staff, programs and services.
“Instead of focusing on becoming more fair and effective, we would be focusing on just getting by,” she added. “This budget, instead, calls not only for dedication to criminal justice reform, but a significant investment on public safety.”
Preckwinkle pointed to a proposal to double the amount spent on anti-violence programs to about $6.4 million, as well as an effort to create what she’s calling a community triage center in the Roseland neighborhood, where early intervention services will be provided to people with substance abuse or mental health issues who are at risk of ending up in the county jail or at the publicly funded Stroger Hospital.
* More…
Governments should use tax policy to increase the price of sugary drinks like sodas, sport drinks and even 100 per cent fruit juices as a way to fight obesity, diabetes and tooth decay, the World Health Organisation says.
A 20 per cent price increase could reduce consumption of sweet drinks by the same proportion, the WHO said in Fiscal Policies for Diet and Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases, a report issued on World Obesity Day.
Drinking fewer calorific sweet drinks is the best way to curb excessive weight and prevent chronic diseases such as diabetes, although fat and salt in processed foods are also at fault, WHO officials said.
In the 36-page report, the WHO also cited “strong evidence” that subsidies to reduce prices for fresh fruits and vegetables can help improve diets.
* But…
* The Question: Do you support the concept of a special surtax on sweetened beverages? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
surveys & polls
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Wheeler urging caution on “lockbox” proposal
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Charlie Wheeler has two good reasons to be wary of the proposed transportation funding “lockbox” amendment that voters will weigh in on this November. The first are the license/title surcharges for IDNR…
$2 of each license plate fee and $3.25 of each vehicle title fee goes to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources — almost $30 million a year, according to IDNR estimates. Is each dollar spent on a transportation-related purpose?
No, it’s not. And that’s a very good point since the amendment expressly prohibits using those fees for anything other than transportation. Passing those fees was not easy, so finding another funding source would be difficult without a general tax hike. Also, as Charlie points out, the Illinois Supreme Court is quite literal in its constitutional interpretation these days and likely wouldn’t make an exception here.
* The other reason is historical…
Consider a lesson from almost 150 years ago, embedded in the 1870 Constitution. Determined to prevent the kind of extravagant public works schemes that drove the state and many towns and counties to the brink of insolvency in the mid-19th Century, its framers added extremely tight restrictions on state and local government borrowing that remained in place for 100 years.
As a result, the state resorted to creating quasi-public entities, like the Illinois Building Authority, to sell bonds to finance building projects, which then were rented back to the state, thus getting around the constitutional restrictions, but at the cost of higher interest rates.
Local government officials, meanwhile, couldn’t borrow the cash to build needed improvements like sewage treatment systems, public libraries, waterworks, or other 20th Century amenities their constituents wanted, so they cleverly circumvented the charter’s borrowing limits by creating new units of government with the sole purpose of providing a particular service, usually funded by property taxes. And today Illinois has some 2,000 of those special units, more than any other state.
Probably not the results the 1870 reformers had in mind, but a cautionary note for today’s voters.
* Related…
* $2.5M in ads spent for Illinois transportation amendment
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* Gov. Rauner was asked today about the Trump revelations of the past few days. He said he didn’t want to talk about politics, repeated that he was “outraged by the rhetoric,” but did say this…
I will say as well that I condemn in the strongest possible way sexual assault, sexual harassment in any form.
Such courage. He didn’t say if he believed the allegations were true, however.
* When pressed about whether or not he was supporting or voting for Trump, he said this…
I have not endorsed, I have not endorsed, not supported and I’ve, I’ve said that and I, that’s my position.
Actually, he has never come out and said he wasn’t supporting Trump. So, maybe that’s a bit of sunlight, despite the tortured way it was said?
From May…
Rauner repeatedly had sought to stay out of the presidential race, though he did say that as leader of the GOP in Illinois, he would back the eventual nominee. But Rauner aides stressed there are various levels of “support,” and that the governor would not be giving Trump a formal endorsement.
* Listen to the raw audio because there are more questions, including his funding of legislative races…
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Tribune’s blue boxes disappearing in Chicago
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Lynne Marek at Crain’s…
Blue metal boxes stacked with copies of the Chicago Tribune have nearly disappeared from Chicago’s streetscape.
Not a single Tribune box could be spotted in a sample survey of those placed under the elevated tracks in the Loop. And the only JCDecaux multirack holders that offer the paper are mainly on heavily trafficked Michigan Avenue, according to a website that tracks those outlets. Boxes bearing the Chicago Sun-Times are fading, too, but there are still thousands.
The disappearing boxes are another sign of the distressed newspaper industry’s effort to evolve as advertisers and readers flee print products for digital alternatives. Newspaper publishers nationwide that can’t justify the cost of printing and distribution for slipping coin-operated sales are abandoning the decades-old practice.
“They are pulling the boxes,” said John Murray, vice president of audience development at the News Media Alliance (formerly known as the Newspaper Association of America).
I can’t remember the last time I bought a print newspaper. Can you?
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Today’s number: 92 percent
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Chuck Goudie and Barbara Markoff…
The I-Team has learned 92 percent of the inmates in Cook County Jail have not been convicted of the crime they are charged with, compared with 60 percent nationally. Instead they are here waiting, many times for years, to go on trial.
“And the majority of those people who are pre-trial, at least two-thirds of them have money bonds, so they would be eligible for release if they had sufficient money to pay those bonds. It means we are punishing people because they are poor,” said Sharlyn Grace, Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice.
Max Suchan of the Chicago Community Bond Fund said bond hearings are too fast and incomplete.
“The average bond court hearing, according to recent study, was 37 seconds,” Suchan said.
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* I told subscribers about this earlier today, but yesterday’s Wikileaks dump (courtesy, apparently of the Russians) of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s e-mails included a demand by the campaign manager to move Illinois’ primary date back to April or May in order to help a “moderate” Republican win the nomination…
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook wrote to Podesta in November 2014 about getting [Bill Daley] involved, suggesting the key contacts to get to Madigan were through Tim Mapes, his chief of staff, and Mike McClain, a Springfield lobbyist.
The tone was urgent because the window was closing on Illinois lawmakers to act if the 2016 primary date were to be changed.
“The overall goal is to move the IL primary out of mid March, where they are currently a lifeline to a moderate Republican candidate after the mostly southern Super Tuesday,” the hacked email says. “IL was a key early win for Romney in 12.
“Our preference would be for them to move all the way to May, but if they at least move to April 12 or April 19 they will have the day to themselves and presumably garner a lot of coverage. They will also be influencing a big northeast primary day on April 26.
“They will receive a bonus of 10% extra delegates if they move to April and 20% if they move to May. Mapes has said repeatedly they don’t care about that.
“As we discussed, they don’t really care about being helpful and feel forgotten and neglected by POTUS. The key point is that this is not an Obama ask, but a Hillary ask. And the Clintons won’t forget what their friends have done for them. It would be helpful to feel out what path, if any, we have to get them to yes. This will probably take some pushing.”
* Yep…
Trying to get McClain involved was a pretty good idea, but when MJM doesn’t want to do something, that’s usually that.
Subscribers know more about why this request was turned down.
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Caption contest!
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From last night’s Springfield showing of that Illinois Policy Institute “documentary” on Speaker Madigan…
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Roskam is back to supporting Trump… for now
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Congressman Peter Roskam was for Donald Trump last week, then flipped to undecided this week and now he’s back to being for the guy…
“I think we would get a better result in terms of tax reform, regulatory reform and Obamacare repeal and replacement with Donald Trump,” Roskam said. “That said, he’s got some work to do, in terms of communicating and so forth. But I think we’d be better off with him than with her.”
Roskam also noted his reservations about Hillary Clinton’s integrity.
Both parties are in real turmoil right now,” Roskam said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton is unworthy of the office, and that’s a very harsh thing to say.”
That story was posted yesterday afternoon at 5:25 pm.
* At 12:50 am today, the Tribune posted this story, so maybe Roskam will flip back again…
Five women accused Donald Trump of groping or kissing them without their consent in news reports published Wednesday, just days after the Republican presidential nominee insisted in a debate that he had never engaged in such behavior.
One of the women alleges that Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt during a flight more than three decades ago, the New York Times reported. Another says he kissed her on the mouth outside an elevator in 2005, according to the same report. A third woman says Trump groped her rear end at his Mar-a-Lago resort 13 years ago, the Palm Beach Post reported. The fourth, then a People magazine reporter, says Trump kissed her without her consent when the two were alone in 2005 right before an interview she was about to conduct with Trump and his wife. The fifth, Miss Washington 2013, said in a Facebook post that Trump groped her and invited her to his hotel room.
Not to mention this, this and this.
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Nobel Prize for Dylan
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Wow…
Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, a stunning announcement that for the first time bestowed the prestigious award on a musician for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
Reporters and others who gathered at the Swedish Academy’s headquarters in Stockholm’s Old Town reacted with a loud cheer as his name was read out.
Dylan, 75, is the most iconic poet-musician of his generation. Songs such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’” became anthems for the U.S. anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. He is the first American winner of the Nobel literature prize since Toni Morrison in 1993.
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* Bernie…
A poll in the 99th House District commissioned by Democratic challenger TONY DelGIORNO has him within five points of Rep. SARA WOJCICKI JIMENEZ, R-Leland Grove.
The automated telephone poll of 617 voters taken Oct. 6-7 by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, North Carolina, has Jimenez with 43 percent to 38 percent for DelGiorno and 19 percent unsure. The margin of error is 3.9 percentage points. The firm works for many Democrats.
Respondents self-identified as 44 percent Republicans, 28 percent Democrats and another 28 percent independent or with another party. Just a quarter have a labor union member in their household.
DelGiorno, of Springfield, said his campaign got results about 7 p.m. Oct. 7 — just hours after news broke of GOP presidential candidate DONALD TRUMP’s 2005 lewd comments about women. Thus, it appears that the big story of the weekend probably didn’t affect the numbers much, if at all. The poll had Trump leading Democratic candidate HILLARY CLINTON 46-41, with 7 percent for someone else and 5 percent undecided.
Asked about their views on the candidates in the 99th, the tally on Jimenez was 35 percent favorable, 33 percent unfavorable and 31 percent not sure. DelGiorno’s numbers were 31 percent favorable, 27 percent unfavorable and 42 percent not sure.
Mitt Romney won that district 57-41 four years ago, so most assumed this would be a straight uphill climb for the Democrat DelGiorno. But there are tons of AFSCME members in the 99th. And it pains me to no end to write this, but we’re talking about a white-dominated Downstate district in the Year of Trump’s Wall and a legislator with a Latino married name. Ugh, that was hard to say, especially since I live in her district and I’ve known Sara for a very long time. But there’s just no getting away from it this year. The hate has been ginned up like we haven’t seen in a long while.
Even so, DelGiorno’s got a ways to go before he wins and he doesn’t yet have the cash.
Also, I’ve noticed a stark difference in polling results from both sides this year. It could be the different turnout models they’re using. So, maybe this PPP poll is just way off. We’ll all know for sure in less than a month.
* But there may also be something else going on. FiveThirtyEight published a study of every county in the country this week. As we all know by now, Hillary Clinton is doing better than previous Democrats with minorities and college-educated whites, while Donald Trump is doing better than previous Republicans with non-college-educated whites…
To get a handle on how these shifts could affect the electoral landscape, we modeled how many of Romney’s votes came from college-educated whites and minorities and how many of Obama’s votes came from non-college-educated whites in each state, county and congressional district. The difference between these two vote totals, shown in the map above, can tell us where Clinton and Trump have the most potential to build on 2012.
Then we went a step further: How would the 2016 map look if one out of every five whites without a college degree who voted for Obama in 2012 defected to Trump and if one out of every five non-whites and college-educated whites who voted for Romney in 2012 switched to Clinton? (Why one out of five? It’s a somewhat arbitrary number but represents a realistic shift of these groups, according to polls released over the past few months.) […]
To gauge Clinton’s and Trump’s upside potential, we began by reverse-engineering the 2012 electorate in each state, county and congressional district. To do this, we used population data from the Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey and voter turnout data from its 2012 voting and registration report to estimate the demographic breakdown of the electorate within each geographic area by five groups: college-educated whites, non-college-educated whites, African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians/others.
Then, using using data from 2012 and 2008 exit polls, we estimated Obama’s and Romney’s levels of support from each group within each state. We applied those support levels within each geographic area and adjusted each subgroup’s vote totals proportionally to fit the actual reported votes for each state, county and district. […]
Finally, we used these estimates to calculate, in each state, county and district, the share of college-educated whites and minorities who voted for Romney and the share of non-college-educated whites who voted for Obama. Our “Vote Swap” scenario depicts what would happen if 20 percent of each of those groups switched parties in 2016.
* The 99th is solely within Sangamon County…
This is imperfect because the county is obviously not wholly within the 99th and the bulk of the county’s African-American population is in a different House district. Also, I just have no idea if 538’s thesis is sound. But it gives you an idea of what the 2016 shift could be and may help explain DelGiorno’s polling numbers.
* Do you see anything else in the map that stands out for you?
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You use what works
Thursday, Oct 13, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Finke…
Democratic Illinois House candidate Mike Mathis said a Republican Party mailer linking him to a convicted child sex offender is “slanderous lies intended only to scare voters about a frightening issue.”
The state Republican Party in turn accused the state Democratic Party of sending mail into the district that misrepresents Mathis’ opponent Rep. Avery Bourne’s record, including that she supports cuts to Social Security and Medicare, which are federal programs not considered by the General Assembly.
We’ve talked about both of these issues before. Dan Proft’s Liberty Princples PAC is even running a TV ad in a different district whacking the Democrats for using Social Security and Medicare in a state campaign by quoting this site’s explanation about why they do it. Click here to watch it.
* But that GOP ad tying Democrats to imprisoned former Rep. Keith Farnham is really causing a stir…
“I am shocked and saddened by my opponent’s shameless, lying mailers, attempting to scare people without any regard for the truth,” Mathis said in a statement. “I have never met or done business with the criminal she mentions.”
It’s actually an Illinois Republican Party mailer, and GOP spokesman Aaron DeGroot defended it…
“Mathis for a period of time was chairman of the Illinois Democratic County Chairman’s Association and fundraised for Mike Madigan and Madigan’s candidates,” DeGroot said. “He spoke about Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn publicly and supported them. So that’s the connection there.”
Kinda weak, but, as the headline says, you use what works and they think this works.
* Plus, as I wrote about the other day, this is payback for similar Democratic mailers, including in that district…
Another mailer said Bourne voted to allow “dangerous sex offenders” and other criminals to be released from prison earlier, “permitting felons to get into our neighborhoods and endanger our families.” That was in reference to Bourne voting in favor of a bill that gave prison inmates 30 additional days of sentence credit if they completed a high school equivalency degree in prison. The bill passed the House on a vote of 95-19. Republican Reps. Tim Butler of Springfield, C.D. Davidsmeyer of Jacksonville and then-Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, also voted for the bill.
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