A Chicago big business group says it’s going to keep pushing Gov. Bruce Rauner and House Speaker Mike Madigan to negotiate a state budget deal, even though neither politician seems ready to blink and the effort itself may not be very popular with some.
In a joint interview, the two top executives of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, President Ty Fahner and Chairman Frederick “Rick” Waddell, said they think they’ve had impact with the $1 million spent so far on ads, billboards and other media, and intend to keep talking.
“I think the campaign has been pretty successful,” said Waddell, who on his day job is chairman and CEO of Northern Trust. Specifically, the committee’s LOL Illinois campaign has reached over 1 million people, they say, led to an active Facebook page with 38,000 comments, and generated 700 letters to Rauner, Madigan and other lawmakers. […]
Fahner said he’s spoken with both the governor and speaker, and he sees no sign yet they’re ready to do a deal.
Neither Fahner nor Waddell nor a third Civic Committee member, retired PricewaterhouseCoopers exec Jan Henderson, would say who’s more to blame, Madigan or Rauner. Nor would they lay out terms of a proposed compromise, with Fahner saying that’s up to the Springfield principals to accomplish.
A million bucks to generate 700 letters works out to $1,428.57 per letter. LOL really needs to work on its ROI.
A school bus driver was speeding and swerving when he crashed on Monday, killing at least five students, the authorities said, in one of the deadliest school bus accidents in recent years.
In an arrest affidavit that the Hamilton County General Sessions Court released on Tuesday, the authorities said the driver, Johnthony K. Walker, 24, had been driving at “a high rate of speed, well above the posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour” at the time of the wreck. Mr. Walker has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide.
“Mr. Walker lost control of the bus and swerved off the roadway to the right, striking an elevated driveway and mailbox, swerved to the left and began to overturn, striking a telephone pole and a tree,” said the court filing. It said Mr. Walker was being charged because of “the reckless nature” of his driving.
Details of the crash emerged Tuesday as Woodmore Elementary School, whose student body is mostly impoverished, began a day of mourning. Thirty-seven students were on board the bus when it crashed, and Kirk Kelly, the interim school superintendent for Hamilton County, said at least five students had been killed.
According to the driving history report, 24-year-old Johnthony Walker had a wreck in a school bus two months ago.
On Sept. 20, Walker was driving a school bus on Sylvan Drive in Chattanooga. That’s when, according to the police report, he sideswiped a Kia Soul going in the opposite direction. This reportedly happened at a blind curve in the road. He failed to yield.
The private company that owned the bus involved in Monday’s fatal wreck in Chattanooga that killed five elementary school students has 142 crashes with injuries and three fatalities in the last 24 months, according to federal records.
Durham School Services, based in Warrenville, Ill., has more than 13,000 vehicles and 13,000 drivers, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. They’re a large company, and they have an overall satisfactory safety rating from the administration, but they still have more problems when it comes to driver fitness than their peers, the records show.
The administration’s records on Durham state “93% of motor carriers in the same safety event group have better on-road performance than this motor carrier.”
A safety event group includes other similar bus and truck companies. In the last 24 months, Durham has been involved in 346 crashes, 201 of which were towaway wrecks. That data was last updated in late October.
We’ve talked about these privatized school bus companies before, but that’s not why I posted this story. The company is based in Warrenville, but that’s not why I posted it either.
* I got a text from Steve Schnorf today. His wife has been a Big Sister to a girl named Zoie for the past four years. Zoie was a “beautiful, delightful, sweet and innocent little girl 3 weeks short of her 10th birthday,” Steve said. She was also on that bus. And she was one of the children who died.
Steve, his wife Jane and Zoie were supposed to all have dinner tonight. The authorities identified Zoie’s body by the jacket and bookbag Jane had bought for her.
* Her sister has started a GoFundMe page to raise money for medical and funeral expenses. Zoie’s brother Zach was injured in the crash and is in critical condition. Click here to give. Here’s a photo…
A Chicago agency that thought it had finally solved its pension woes has been dragged back into a nasty underfunding morass, and the situation is complicating its new budget.
Three years ago, the Chicago Park District reached a precedent-setting deal with its unions that called for both workers and taxpayers to pay more, and for the district’s retirement plan to be fully funded by 2049. But then the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in cases dealing with the state and city that benefits could not be reduced for those already on the payroll, and SEIU sued to overturn the park district deal.
“We believe we will lose the court case,” concedes Steve Lux, the district’s chief financial officer. So, as per a preliminary court ruling, both the district and workers are back on their lower, previous funding schedule, even though as of Dec. 31 the park district’s pension fund was roughly $515 million short of the assets needed to pay promised benefits, and was only 43 percent funded.
In the short run, that means extra money for pensions will not have to be included in the $449.4 million proposed 2017 budget parks Superintendent Mike Kelly is unveiling today. The district will contribute $20.1 million toward pensions, about $7 million less than required under the 2013 deal and less than the $36 million that actuarially is required. […]
If the district ends up following the pattern in the city, new hires will pay more, and taxpayers will pay a lot more. In the city’s case, police and fire retirement funds are getting a $453 million property tax hike that’s being phased in over several years. There are other levies for other employee units.
Illinois has not passed a real budget in over a year, the first state to do so since the Great Depression. The ongoing fight over the budget between Governor Bruce Rauner and the Illinois General Assembly has been covered widely, but what do the effects of this lingering crisis look like in people’s day-to-day lives? This new video series—a collaboration between In These Times and Kartemquin Films—follows the families, workers and students living through the de facto budget cuts, showing the ways it deteriorates the fabric of Illinois communities.
Each episode will focus on a different aspect of the crisis—from higher education to social services to housing—as well as who is benefiting from the crisis and what kinds of solutions could ultimately solve it. The series incorporates data connecting the situation in Illinois to long-term trends of austerity affecting the country at large, and how it ultimately costs taxpayers more in the long run.
With Republicans winning the presidential race and controlling both houses of Congress, federal tax code changes may be on the way, and Illinois should prepare by getting its state tax code in order. One of the first changes Illinois should make is to repeal the state’s death tax. The death tax drives out-migration of high-income Illinoisans, and it reduces economic growth in the Land of Lincoln. This tax particularly harms owners of farms and manufacturing firms.
One area of agreement between President-elect Donald Trump and the Republicans who will control Congress is on the need to repeal the federal death tax. U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan’s tax reform plan includes a full repeal of the federal estate tax, as does the plan put forward by Trump.
A repeal of the federal death tax would put pressure on Illinois, the District of Columbia and the 16 other states that still have a version of the tax. Under the current system, state death taxes can be deducted against federal death taxes. Without the state deduction against federal taxes, the state-based death tax will become an even greater driver of wealth flight from states that still impose the tax.
Over the past two decades, Illinois has sustained a net loss of $50 billion in annual adjusted gross income due to migration losses to other states. More than $14 billion of that loss came during the four years of the income-tax hike. This amounts to a severe loss of both economic activity and desperately needed tax revenue.
The largest recipients of wealth from Illinois are states without a death tax and without an income tax – with Florida and Texas in the lead.
Nowhere does the piece mention that the first $4 million is exempt from the state tax. At an average of $7,450 per acre, the first 537 acres of farmland could be willed tax free.
Second, I’m told that the subsidy for coal-fired power plants will likely be dumped.
Third, enviros are saying the best way to satisfy the governor’s demand that ratepayers not be socked with huge increases to subsidize Exelon’s unprofitable nuke plants is to move forward with an ambitious energy conservation program. Ameren has not been happy with that, however. So, we’ll see.
NRDC estimates that the savings from efficiency outnumber the costs by about 3 to 1.
But advocates for large commercial users counter that, with energy costs a major concern, industrials have been investing in efficiency for years—well before it became a cause celebre in the age of climate change. They are resentful that they’re being asked to pay so much more for programs controlled exclusively by the utility that likely will benefit peers and competitors that haven’t invested as much in saving electricity.
IMA’s Denzler says manufacturers want the ability to opt out of the utility program and pursue their own initiatives, which they can do in Illinois to comply with requirements to reduce natural gas consumption. The bill doesn’t currently allow for that.
Also raising the costs for power consumers, both commercial and residential, is that ComEd would be allowed for the first time to earn a profit from administering the efficiency programs. Under current law, ComEd recovers its costs via a surcharge on customer electric bills but isn’t permitted to earn a return.
Neme, representing NRDC, says more-efficient use of electricity benefits all customers, whether they participate directly in the programs or not, by holding down prices and lowering their bills. Efficiency gains are a particularly potent price suppressor if they take hold at peak-demand times like hot summer afternoons. “That’s the challenge of efficiency,” he says. “The benefits don’t show up on your bill in as visible a way as the costs do.”
* More specifically, here’s how the company gets its money…
Under existing law, ComEd collects money from ratepayers to help support energy efficiency efforts. If a consumer decides to upgrade to a new thermostat, for example, those dollars allow ComEd to provide a rebate to help defray the cost. Currently, it’s a pay-as-you-go system with ratepayer dollars being doled out as needed.
The proposed change would allow ComEd to instead finance those costs on behalf of ratepayers, and collect a management fee and interest in the process.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office has likened it to forcing customers to take out a mortgage they don’t necessarily want. Cara Hendrickson, an attorney in Madigan’s office, told a panel of lawmakers last week that the provision would, for the first time, allow utility companies to build profits into the energy efficiency program.
“Of the $3.6 billion in additional spending (on energy efficiency), roughly $1 billion of that would go exclusively to profit,” Hendrickson said. “We don’t think that is a good use of ratepayer dollars.”
Experts on Illinois energy issues will hold a teleconference Tuesday morning to emphasize the role that energy efficiency would play in lowering the bills for residential, institutional and commercial customers under legislation being considered by the Illinois General Assembly.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) commissioned an analysis with energy efficiency experts which points to $7 billion in savings under the bill.
During hearings held last week and in other public statements, many lawmakers suggested that the scope of the legislation might need to be scaled back, singling out the bill’s support for coal plants and potential changes to rate design as two areas that might need to be changed.
Scheduled to join in the teleconference will be representatives of the NRDC, Citizens Utility Board (CUB) and the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club. They will point out that the savings, while significant, would only be available to customers in ComEd’s service territory, and will urge Ameren Illinois to make similar commitments to deliver savings to its customers in Central and Southern Illinois.
*** UPDATE 2 *** From a senior Rauner administration official…
The following is a quick readout from this morning’s productive discussions between Exelon and ComEd senior leadership and senior Rauner Administration leadership.
Exelon and ComEd agreed to remove demand rates and keep the plants open for at least 10 years, potentially 12 years. Following intense discussion regarding potential energy price spikes for both consumers and large employers, Exelon and ComEd committed to working with Ameren on inserting a guarantee into the legislation that would by law protect both consumers and large employers from any significant rate increase.
There are some remaining skeptics, however, so don’t get the champagne out yet.
…Adding… Some headlines were changed as clarity emerged. There’s a “commitment to work on putting a guarantee in a bill” that would cap rates. However, there’s no language yet. And as mentioned directly above, there are still opponents.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Hearing word of a very loud shouting match and real trouble on the deal.
Residents, staff and neighbors of an Uptown shelter, scheduled to close just before Christmas, protested in front of the People’s Church on Monday to call on state legislators to pass a budget when they return to Springfield next week.
The shelter is operated by North Side Housing and Supportive Services and is housed by the church, 941 W. Lawrence Ave. It has 72 beds and serves single men, like Stanley Weatherspoon, who came to the shelter after he was no longer able to afford his rent.
“It’s inhumane to send people out on the streets right as winter arrives,” Weatherspoon said, referring to the planned Dec. 23 closing date. “We need Governor [Bruce] Rauner and the legislators to make the big corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share so that we can keep these shelters open.”
The speakers at the protest support an amendment to House Bill 293, sponsored by Rep. Will Davis, which was filed in Springfield last week. According to estimates, this amendment would raise $2.5 billion by closing corporate tax loopholes. It would also enact a progressive income tax and a [LaSalle] street tax for a total revenue increase of $23.5 billion.
The General Assembly couldn’t (and wouldn’t) pass that stuff when they had veto-proof Democratic majorities and a Democratic governor.
Chicago is wasting a ton of money replacing and repairing garbage carts because “aggressive squirrels” are eating through them, a South Side aldermen said Friday.
Colleagues giggled at the mere mention of what amounts to squirrels on steroids, but Ald. Howard Brookins (21st) was dead serious.
“It’s a pet peeve. It does invoke some giggles. But we are spending too much money on replacing garbage carts because the squirrels continue to eat through ’em,” Brookins, former chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus, declared.
“I get calls [with residents saying], ‘I need a new garbage can.’ I just gave you a garbage can. [And the caller says], ‘Well, the squirrels ate through it in two days and nobody wants trash throughout the community. So they keep asking us for garbage cans.”
Ald. Howard Brookins announced Sunday that a “freak bicycle accident” involving a rogue squirrel left him hospitalized last week.
A photo of the accident’s aftermath posted to Brookins’ Facebook page with a brief note shows a squirrel caught in the spokes of the 21st Ward alderman’s front bike tire.
According to Brookins’ staff, the squirrel sent the alderman flying over his handlebars during a ride on the Cal-Sag Trail, leading to a broken nose, a fractured skull and the loss of five or six teeth. All told, Brookins was hospitalized from Nov. 13 to Nov. 17.
“I am okay and I have been recovering in the hospital since the accident,” Brookins said in the Facebook post. “I will, however, require multiple surgeries to recover from damage to my face and body.”
Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is challenging a decision by the Teachers’ Retirement System to terminate his pension and go after a refund of $222,808, arguing the federal charges he was convicted of last spring are not directly connected to his time as a teacher.
“No specific charges were ever brought against Mr. Hastert in relation to conduct that occurred while he was a teacher,” lawyer Mark DeBofsky wrote in a letter to the pension system, which the Daily Herald obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Hastert, of Plano, is serving 15 months in a federal prison in Minnesota after pleading guilty to money laundering charges involving payments to cover up sexual misconduct. At his April 27 sentencing, Hastert admitted he had sexually abused teenage boys he’d taught and coached at Yorkville High School, where he worked from 1965 to 1981.
“The applicable limitations period for charging any such offense expired long before the federal indictment was issued,” DeBofsky wrote. He also referenced a 1987 Illinois Appellate Court decision that found it is unlawful for TRS to seek to recoup benefits paid prior to the date of conviction.
At the time Hastert worked in Yorkville, Illinois’ statute of limitations on abuse cases was three years. It later was expanded, and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is using the Hastert case in her push to further lengthen the time limit during which charges are allowed.
Is it a stretch to take his pension? I dunno. The charges that he disguised payments to one of his alleged victims in order to avoid IRS disclosures and then lied to the FBI about it do all stem from his time as a teacher.
* We talked yesterday about the Rauner administration’s decision to unilaterally implement an AFSCME bargaining request to grant employees bereavement leave. The SJ-R has AFSCME’s response…
AFSCME said the administration is trying to distract employees.
“By seeking to impose the union’s own proposal providing for bereavement leave, the Rauner administration is again trying to distract state workers and the broader public from the real harm of Rauner’s push to hike employee health premiums by 100 percent while freezing wages for four years, cutting average worker’s pay by $10,000,” AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said in a statement.
From: Jason Heffley, Policy Advisor for Energy and Environment
To: Richard Goldberg, Chief of Staff
Date: November 21, 2016
Re: Impact of Exelon/ComEd Bill on Energy Prices and Jobs
I understand the leadership of Exelon and ComEd requested a meeting with you tomorrow to advocate for passage of their energy legislation. As you know, this legislation has attracted a wide range of viewpoints and public comments. While our office will continue to work diligently to bring all parties together to reach bipartisan consensus, we will also uphold the governor’s statement of principles with respect to any energy legislation:
1) We should protect the high-quality and good-paying jobs at the Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear power plants;
2) We should protect the thousands of other high-quality, good-paying manufacturing jobs around the state, which could be put at risk by saddling job creators with high energy costs;
3) We should protect working families and seniors on fixed incomes from significant rate increases; and
4) We should support efforts to conserve energy and lower energy costs for all families and job creators.
Over the last few days, we have become aware of significant public concerns regarding the most recent draft of Exelon/ComEd’s legislation, which passed out of a House committee last week. These concerns include:
1) The legislation as filed raises energy costs on some of the largest employers in Illinois by more than $100 million over the life of the program, hurting their ability to be competitive and putting jobs at risk. Given our already high workers’ compensation costs and property taxes, rising energy costs would make us even less competitive. Such costs should be mitigated to avoid heavy job losses and lost opportunity across the state.
2) The legislation as filed skyrockets energy prices for working families and fixed-income seniors through so-called “demand rates” that would dramatically alter the way customers are charged for their energy usage. These are not demand rates, these are insane rates – and they should be rejected.
3) The legislation as filed does not provide a long-term commitment to keeping the Quad Cities and Clinton nuclear power plants open beyond six years. These communities deserve to know their jobs are not going away in six short years.
We understand that the legislation as passed by the Committee will not be the final legislation. Therefore, we will continue our work to create bipartisan consensus and uphold the governor’s statement of principles.
The administration is apparently hearing a lot of complaints from business owners about the coming rate hikes and are worried (like many are) about this “demand rates” proposal from ComEd.
On her last night at a Lockport group home, Tina Marie Douglas tossed her few possessions in the trash and warned caregivers that she planned to run away in the morning.
It was not an idle threat. In the last three months, the 48-year-old state ward diagnosed with psychiatric and intellectual disabilities had slipped out of the home eight times and repeatedly run into the street. Her caregivers were considering moving her to a different home, one on a block with less traffic.
But that never happened. Shortly before dawn in October 2013, she broke away again, sprinted down a four-lane state road and was fatally struck by a car.
The Illinois Department of Human Services, which licensed the group home, assigned its inspector general’s office to conduct a comprehensive review.
But a Tribune investigation found the inspector general’s staffers never interviewed a witness, never visited the group home, never left their desks. Instead, they relied on group home employees to help investigate their own business and, based on those findings, determined the home was not at fault.
The Douglas investigation is one of hundreds in which self-policing played a role in determining whether neglect had occurred, including many where group home employees played an even more significant role — not only gathering evidence but drafting the state’s final investigative reports.
These group home employees — dubbed “buddy investigators” by the Office of the Inspector General — handled at least 550 cases, the Tribune determined. And in the vast majority of instances, employees helped clear their own group homes of wrongdoing. […]
The inspector general’s practice of relying on so-called buddy investigators goes back more than a decade, but by the time of Douglas’ death their use was growing, mostly out of desperation by the state.
By 2013, staffing levels had fallen to historic lows at the inspector general’s office. With just 18 investigators statewide, some carried up to 90 open cases, leaving just minutes a day to spend on each, state files show. Some cases languished without action for up to five years.
The “buddy investigations” have now been stopped, thanks to the Tribune. But more resources are most definitely needed.
We continue to receive many questions regarding the Labor Board’s decision and the implementation of the State’s proposals.
One proposal that can be implemented immediately is bereavement leave. Bereavement leave provides employees with paid leave for the terrible circumstance of attending a funeral for their children or step-children. Surprisingly, previous contracts did not provide for this form of time off, meaning that some employees have previously been forced to use sick or vacation time in such circumstances. Unfortunately, in some cases, employees may not have accrued much sick or vacation time.
AFSCME requested that the State correct this issue by providing for bereavement leave and we did so in our offer. While it is my hope that this provision never impacts any of you, putting it into effect as soon as possible just seems to make the most sense. Therefore, the State plans to implement this proposal immediately.
I am sure that many of you will continue to have questions regarding the State’s proposals. If you have additional concerns, please consult the Labor Relations tab on the Team Illinois website, http://www.illinois.gov/sites/TeamIllinois/LaborRelations. There, you will find the entirety of the State’s final offer to AFSCME, as well as the employee FAQs website. The FAQs website is a terrific source of up to date information, where you can review answers to questions submitted by state employees, as well as submit questions of your own.
Sincerely,
JT
John Terranova
Deputy Director
CMS Office of Labor Relations
Whatever else you can say about them, these Rauner guys ain’t stupid.
* My niece Reagan Miller is a wonderful young lady and a senior at Booker T Washington High School in Dallas, Texas. She’s also an incredibly talented singer. Take a couple of minutes and listen…
Wow. I think it’s safe to say that Mozart would be proud.
* Claire Bushey at Crain’s takes a look at several angles on workers’ comp insurance. For instance, the price Illinois and Indiana pay for things like lost fingers…
Payments in Illinois diminish across the palm, from $108,584.24 for a thumb down to $31,432.28 for a pinkie. Indiana, meanwhile, prices the same fingers between $46,848 and $14,000.
You can say, like some do, that we pay too much to injured workers for lost limbs, but try voting to cut those reimbursements in the General Assembly. Not easy.
* There’s also the cost of medical procedures, which is often overlooked…
“The idea that the value of this finger is more in Illinois than it is in Indiana, the fact that a doctor working on a carpal tunnel injury is going to charge $2,700 in a Medicare case and $7,500 in a workers’ comp case—those things have to be brought into line,” [Greg Baise, president of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association] says.
[In Illinois] Forty-five percent of the money covers medical costs; the rest pays a portion of employees’ wages while they recover or goes toward a permanent disability award. By contrast, payers in Indiana shelled out an estimated $589.2 million, with 73 percent going toward medical costs.
Illinois changed its system in 2011, limiting payments for carpal tunnel syndrome and for employees who can still work but whose injuries force them into lower-paying jobs. The heart of the legislation, though, was a 30 percent cut to payments for doctors, hospitals and pharmacies treating those injured on the job. In the end, Illinois saw a 13 percent dip in workers’ comp medical costs between 2010 and 2014, the fourth-largest drop in the country.
Gov. Rauner has proposed yet another 30 percent cut for medical providers except office visits and physical therapy. But the Medical Society’s opposition is the main reason why only one House Republican voted for the last workers’ comp reform bill.
Steve Brown, a spokesman for Michael Madigan, and trial lawyers say insurance companies, not employers, have reaped the benefits from the 2011 changes. Last year 332 insurance companies underwrote workers’ comp policies in Illinois, more than in any other state, collecting $2.83 billion in premiums (226 companies insured themselves). In 2010, insurers reported losses of nearly 11 percent; four years later, they reported the same in profits.
A conspiracy involving 332 insurance companies is possible, but you’d think that somebody, somewhere would try to take advantage of the market and offer lower and still profitable rates.
Catherine Kelly, the governor’s spokeswoman, says in an email that the system is now “absorbing costs caused by heart disease, obesity and other non-occupational health issues; we need to follow the 29 other states that have enacted reforms to protect the system from non-work-related costs.”
Except when you talk about causation, it gets so complicated and politically charged that people just turn off their hearing aids.
So you visited your favorite Illinois state park, saw the upended trash can and garbage strewn across the campground. Being the solid citizen that you are, you cleaned up the litter and righted the can.
A state employee approaches. Will she hand you a certificate of appreciation?
Nope. She reports you to her union for violating her collective bargaining agreement by volunteering. You just took work, and thus food, from the mouth of a state employee with your reckless, unskilled volunteerism. And you did it on the Labor Day holiday, which cost that poor state employee double-time pay.
Sound crazy? Yes, but it’s essentially the way things worked in Illinois. At least it was until last week, when the Illinois Labor Relations Board handed Gov. Bruce Rauner and taxpayers a $3 billion win.
* This is either a deliberate or lazy misreading of a union grievance filed eight years ago…
In 2008, AFSCME filed a grievance over staffing at the Visitor Center at the Illinois Beach State Park. Covering 4,160 acres along Lake Michigan near the Wisconsin border, the park is one of the busiest in the State with over 2 million visitors a year. As staffing was slowly declining at the park, some of the duties normally performed by union employees began being performed by Camp Ground Hosts.
Camp Ground Hosts are campers who, in exchange for a free camping space and a hookup, are allowed to live on the camp ground and help guide other campers. In 2008, they also earned $1 a day. As staffing declined, the Camp Ground hosts began meeting and greeting visitors and answered questions about the park. The Campground Host handbook stated that the campground hosts were expected to live at the campground, welcome other campers in a cheerful and helpful manner, collect camping fees, become familiar with points of interest, set a good example by keeping a neat and clean campsite, and report needed repairs to maintenance staff, as well as other duties.
The union filed a grievance that complained that the use of the campground hosts was eroding bargaining unit work. The grievance was sent to arbitration, and the arbitrator relied on the fact that the Campground hosts were educating the other campers about the “flora, fauna, geography, and geology of the park.” The arbitrator ordered the State to cease and desist from permitting the Campground Hosts to educate the public about the camp where they lived.
* And Illinois isn’t alone. The federal government has the “Antideficiency Act,” which prohibits the government from accepting volunteer services “except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property.”
* Greg Hinz tried to hold a mini peace summit recently during the Alliance for Regional Development’s fourth annual conference…
In a joint interview, [Gov. Bruce Rauner’s top economic development aide, Intersect Illinois CEO Jim Schultz], Indiana Secretary of Commerce Victor Smith and Wisconsin Deputy Development Corporation COO Tricia Brown all pointed to new efforts at cooperation. In fact, while I was interviewing the trio, Schultz asked Smith if he’d be interested in a joint trade mission to next year’s Paris Air Show, the huge convention of the aeronautics industry. Smith said yes.
Then I asked the three if they’d agree to end cross-border job raids.
Smith said Indiana has ended those lovely “Illinoyed” ads—”That campaign was successful”—but added: “We don’t say no to anybody. We recruit companies from all over. That’s our job.” Wisconsin’s Brown turned a thumbs-down, too. “The reality is it’s a competitive environment,” she said. “There’s a role for incentives.”
But Schultz, who earlier had compared the three states to Big Ten football teams that beat the tar out of one another until the bowl games roll around, said he’s sworn off such raiding. “I’ve talked to the governor. Our agreement is we don’t do that,” he said. If a Wisconsin firm calls, Illinois certainly will talk to it, Schultz said. But, in general, luring a company from Zion to Racine or Elkhart to Watseka is “just moving deck chairs. I’m not planning to go into Wisconsin or, for that matter, Indiana.”
Outside the Chicagoland area it was a different story. Trump won the 90 counties outside the Chicago media market roughly 57-37, some in historically commanding fashion. Looking at the vote totals by media market what’s strange is that down the middle Trump’s numbers were downright ordinary. In the Rockford, Peoria and Champaign/Springfield/Decatur media markets his vote totals were very similar to Romney 2012 and all lagged Bush 2004 and especially Rauner 2014. Yet in the remaining media markets Trump’s numbers blew away the other Republican presidential candidates this century and either rivaled or surpassed Rauner’s 2014 numbers. Remember, Rauner won the state by 4 points (with very impressive downstate numbers) and Trump lost it by more than 16 so to rival or surpass Rauner’s performance in these areas was no small feat for Trump.
Kirk just got hammered this time, while Munger did substantially better in the collars and Downstate than Kirk and mostly kept up with Trump. What did her in was erosion in the collars (common in presidential years, except it was worse for Kirk than in the past) and suburban Cook County.
A 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl were ordered held without bail Sunday after being charged with murder in the shooting death of Jovan Wilson, the grandson of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis.
Tariq M. Harris, 16, and Dijae T. Banks, 17, are charged as adults with first-degree murder in an attack that started as a fight over clothes and shoes, police and prosecutors said. The pair were taken into custody Saturday.
Harris, of the 8100 block of South Loomis Boulevard, and Banks, of the 12000 block of South Indiana Avenue, appeared before Cook County Judge James Brown wearing juvenile detention center sweatshirts and with their heads bowed.
Brown ordered both held with no bail in a scathing address.
“The murdering of a young boy over articles of clothing (and) gym shoes demonstrates a total callous disregard over the precious nature of human life,” Brown said. “The citizens of this city need to be protected from these defendants.”
In previous weeks [Dijae] Banks had exchanged clothing with [Jovan] Wilson’s 14-year-old brother, including a pair of shoes she lent him in exchange for a pair of pants, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Bryan Grissman said at a court hearing Sunday.
Banks and [Tariq] Harris arrived Friday at the back door of the Wilson’s second-story apartment in the 5600 block of South Princeton Avenue with a message: Banks wanted the shoes back.
Wilson’s younger brother told Banks she wasn’t going to get the shoes back until she returned the pants he loaned her.
When Wilson’s brother opened the door slightly, both Harris and Banks forced their way in, at which point Banks pulled a gun and began threatening Wilson’s 16-year-old sister, prosecutors said.
Banks handed the gun to Harris and began to fight the girl.
As they battled, Harris held the gun and slid the safety on and off, Grissman said.
When Javon Wilson tried to separate his sister and Banks, Banks punched him with a closed fist. Wilson punched her back, Grissman said.
Banks then yelled at Harris for allowing the siblings to treat her this way.
“Harris then took a step back, raised the firearm and fired it one time, striking the victim in the neck,” Grissman said.
At the time of the shooting, Wilson’s adult uncle and a 19-year-old family friend were in the home, Grissman said.
On the weekend his grandson was shot to death, U.S. Rep. Danny Davis called on state, city and local authorities to declare a “state of emergency” in high crime, low-employment areas of the city.
Davis told POLITICO on Sunday that he does not want a paramilitary state, but a formal declaration that would allow resources to flow quickly into areas of the city that are facing a crisis of violence.
“I would call upon every unit of government to call a state of emergency need for these communities. So yes, I think we need immediate help. We don’t need something that’s going to take five or six years,” Davis said. “There are many inner-city communities throughout Illinois, especially in the Chicago metropolitan area, that need this kind of economic and social development.”
Davis said resources are needed immediately in areas where crime has reached the highest levels since the 1990s. The money would go toward boosting gang intervention, after-school programs, tutoring, job placement, mentor programs and economic development. Davis said some of the communities affected, including Englewood and North Lawndale, have 40 percent unemployment.
“In order to make that happen, the state of Illinois, the governor, would have to make such a determination. Same thing as the city council and the mayor. Individuals like myself can keep pushing,” said the Illinois Democrat.
* From an e-mail sent this morning to House Democrats by Rep. Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago)…
Dear colleagues,
I know that many of us are still reeling from the recent presidential election. I sure am. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about where to go from here, and I’ve landed on two main thoughts. First, no matter what happened everywhere else, Illinois stayed a solidly blue state, and we should do everything we can to push back against the Trump agenda. I loved this letter from the California legislature, and I think we can do the same.
And second, as the Sun-Times pointed out this weekend, it’s time for Rauner to pick sides. He’s trying to have it both ways. Trying to stay moderate on immigration and other issues while also not alienating his Trump base by actually criticizing the man’s rhetoric, his appointments, etc. We can’t let him do that. We need to make him decide if he’s with Trump and his agenda or if he’s with the people of Illinois.
To those two ends, I have filed HB6628, a bill that would divest all of Illinois’s pension funds and investments from any company that builds a border wall with Mexico. It would be a message from us to the people of this state that if Trump wants to build his wall he can, but our taxpayer dollars aren’t going to support it. Those aren’t our values.
We’ll be having a press conference to announce the bill tomorrow (Tuesday) at 12:30pm at the Thompson Center Blue Room. Any of you who wants to come is more than welcome. (I’ve pasted the press advisory below.)
I’m working with leadership to see that the bill gets moved to the floor for a vote the week after Thanksgiving. I’ll come by to ask for your support once we’re down there, but in the meantime, if you’re interested in co-sponsoring, please let me know. And I’ll also put together another press event in Springfield for those who can’t make tomorrow.
Let me know, hope to see some of you tomorrow, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Best,
-Will
Guzzardi was one of the two legislators who didn’t immediately pledge his vote to Speaker Madigan. He told me recently that he did talk to Madigan and that “it went well.” He said he believes the Speaker is “open to us pushing a more ambitious agenda of our own.”
* Gatehouse recently published a story about the Aaron Schock case, which focused on the question of “intent”…
“The amount of money isn’t always the determining factor whether a case gets prosecuted or not,” [Lee Smith, a central Illinois defense attorney who served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office several years ago] said. “The issue here is whether it was an honest error as (Schock) is alleging or intentional.
“But in any fraud case, there has to be intent to defraud. And if someone can show they have made an honest mistake, they could be found not guilty.”
Peter Joy, a professor at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, agreed.
“First of all, he is presumed innocent but assuming that everything in the charges is something that the government can prove, if they can prove that, then it is a big deal,” he said. “That’s because they have alleged that he has misappropriated, embezzled, stole and set up a scheme to defraud the federal government. […]
“At one point, he claimed many more miles than were on the vehicle that he had. If they are honest mistakes, it’s rare that they always fall in favor of the individual. I would suppose he could under-report various expenses, and if he did, then that would definitely help his defense. But if he always over-claims, that definitely goes along with the government’s theory that he was misappropriating funds.”
The indictment of a 35-year-old disgraced former Republican congressman jolted residents of his central Illinois district, shaken by prosecutors’ claims that Aaron Schock illegally dipped into campaign and government coffers to subsidize a lavish lifestyle, including his Capitol Hill office done up in the style of “Downton Abbey.”
Perhaps more stunning was an allegation found on page 34 of the charging document: Schock’s apparent willingness to pocket thousands of constituents’ dollars by arranging annual Washington tours combined with meet-and-greets. […]
The three-day extravaganza attended by Freiburg and about 50 others in July 2014 included bus rides to the National Zoo and a reception at the Japanese ambassador’s residence. Freiburg paid a $785 “Fly-in Conference Fee” to Schock’s office - meant to cover meals, transportation and other hosting costs - on top of $2,000 to $3,000 for a plane ticket, hotel room and other expenses.
Schock, the once-rising GOP star and prodigious party fundraiser, secretly kept at least $11,000 from that event, the indictment said. […]
Prosecutors say in 2011, Schock set up a Florida bank account under the name of a fictitious company, “Global Travel International,” and instructed staff to deposit that year’s fly-fee money into it. He allegedly kept at least $4,482 from the 2011 fly-in
Ticket broker: The former congressman is charged with using $10,025 from a political action committee to buy 2014 Super Bowl tickets, later selling them for a $2,000 profit, while claiming the purchase as an allowable fundraising expense. Profits from other Super Bowl and World Series ticket sales were allegedly left off Schock’s income taxes.
Payback of legal fees: Indictments allege that Schock reimbursed the father of a former staffer for $7,500 in legal fees the father paid to defend Schock’s false allegation that the worker had inappropriately accessed the social media account of one of Schock’s friends. Schock then used PAC funds to pay himself back, later representing the charges to federal election officials as “PAC legal fees,” said the indictment. […]
Staff bonuses: A $6,000 bonus to Schock’s executive assistant was allegedly paid with instructions to pass it along to his chief of staff, with whom Schock was living and owed rent money, said charges. Schock also is charged with providing bonuses to House and campaign staff with money derived from false mileage reimbursements. […]
Travel card expenses: Schock is accused of repeatedly embezzling campaign funds to cover his personal expenses, including as much as $7,000 in travel costs after his March 31, 2015 resignation. The Schock For Congress fund paid for Schock’s trip to Dallas for the American Country Music Awards show less than a month after he left office, according to the charges.
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s people are crowing these days about more than just their net Election Day gain of six seats in the Illinois House and Senate. But there’s a microscopic ray of hope for the Democrats, too.
First, a little background.
Victory Phones is a Republican polling outfit that has been remarkably accurate here, predicting Rauner’s 2014 5-point margin of victory over incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn when nobody else did. Understandably, the Republicans love that company, and they spent over $400,000 with the pollster since the spring primary.
The firm’s last poll, taken the day before the election, had Hillary Clinton’s 16-point margin of victory exactly right. The pollster was off by just a single point in the U.S. Senate race. And it had Democrat Susana Mendoza leading Republican Comptroller Leslie Munger by 4 points—her final victory margin.
The pollster also tracked Rauner’s favorability rating through most of the campaign. Its poll of 775 likely voters taken Oct. 9-10 showed 36 percent viewed him favorably, while 50 percent viewed him unfavorably.
That’s obviously not good, but Rauner’s numbers have never been spectacular. This is no longer a Republican state, after all, and Rauner has been a controversial character. Back in June, Victory Phones had Rauner’s favorable and unfavorable rating almost even, with 43 percent viewing him favorably and 41 percent viewing him unfavorably.
So why are the Republicans not discouraged by that October poll?
That’s the wrong question. It’s what happened next that gives them reason for some optimism.
The day after that October poll was completed, state Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, launched a blistering $10 million advertising campaign against Rauner.
Biss formed a federal super PAC funded by unions and wealthy Democrats like J.B. Pritzker and Michael Sacks. His Leading Illinois for Tomorrow PAC kicked off its effort by airing snippets of Donald Trump saying nasty things about women, immigrants and others, repeatedly interspersed with a clip of Rauner saying he would “support the Republican Party’s nominee.”
Another spot, aimed more at audiences downstate where Trump was popular, used a cartoon image of Rauner and Republicans wearing suits “shaking down” Springfield instead of shaking it up, as Rauner had promised. “Springfield’s got real problems, but Rauner and the Republicans are making it worse,” the announcer said.
All told, Biss’ PAC aired seven ads on TV and online, particularly Facebook.
The last time Victory Phones tracked Rauner’s favorables was Oct. 30 through Nov. 3, just five days before Election Day.
Amanda Vinicky, who’s been a Springfield-based contributor to WTTW-Channel 11’s “Chicago Tonight” since 2015, will move up to full-time correspondent for the Window to the World Communications’ flagship news program, starting in January. She’ll continue to cover state government and the Illinois General Assembly and serve as a general assignment reporter for the show and its website.
“Amanda’s stellar reporting and her experience covering the statehouse has helped our audiences make sense of the political impasse in Springfield and the enormous challenges facing the state,” executive producer Mary Field said in a statement. “We are delighted to welcome her to our team on a full-time basis.”
Vinicky, a graduate of the University of Illinois, has covered politics and government for the Illinois Public Radio network since 2006.
Bad news for Public Radio, great news for Amanda and WTTW. She has worked hard to position herself for that new job, constantly commuting back and forth between Springfield and Chicago, and I couldn’t be happier for her. She loves Illinois politics, returning here after a brief stint in Iowa. We’ve been the better for it.
Mike Riopell, who has been the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald’s Springfield presence for six years, begins this week as an editor on the politics team of the Chicago Tribune. Riopell earlier spent four years as a statehouse reporter for Lee Enterprises.
Riopell recently has also been a group editor of several Southern Illinois papers purchased by Paddock publications, owners of the Daily Herald. […]
Riopell and Vinicky were both statehouse interns in 2005 through the Public Affairs Reporting master’s degree program at the University of Illinois Springfield. Good luck to both of them.
Covering all those Daily Herald suburbs from Springfield is one of the toughest jobs at the Statehouse news room. Riopell did it well and the Tribune is lucky to have him.
On election night, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan started making his usual post-election calls to his Democratic members asking for their support for his own re-election as speaker. But at least a couple said they’d like to sit down with him before providing a firm answer either way.
Reps. Will Guzzardi and Kelly Cassidy, both liberal Chicago Democrats, confirmed they want Madigan to come up with a plan that, as Guzzardi said, involves more than “just saying no” to Gov. Bruce Rauner.
“I’d like to know what his vision of the next two years is,” Cassidy said. “Doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity, so I want to know what the vision is.” She refused to comment further, saying she preferred to share her thoughts with Madigan himself. But Guzzardi wasn’t quite as reticent.
Right now,” Guzzardi said, “Rauner is the only one with a plan to fix this.” Rauner, of course, endlessly promotes his “Turnaround Agenda” reforms and blames Democrats for blocking him at every turn. He’s the one positioned as a change agent, Guzzardi said, and that, in turn, makes the Democrats look like obstructionists.
“We don’t have an agenda,” Guzzardi complained. The Democratic Party needs to show voters that “we want to change things and let people know what the party is doing for the people of this state.”
Asked about the state party’s aversion to social media and other 21st-century innovations, Guzzardi said it wouldn’t matter much now anyway. “We could hire a social media coordinator, but what would they say?”
“It starts with having a message,” he insisted, saying he has been talking with several other members about building “a platform that we can go fight on.”
Others in Madigan’s caucus are undoubtedly nervous about January’s vote for House speaker. Everyone who represents a district that Rauner won two years ago will be watched closely—and there are a bunch of them, although the number was reduced by five via the election.
There is no doubt that something has changed in the House Democratic caucus.
No actual “revolt” is brewing against the speaker. It’s just that members are worried about something that haunts all politicians: self-preservation. A vote for Madigan for speaker in January is, for many, absolutely guaranteed to cause huge problems for them back home unless this almost two-year impasse is resolved.
Even the least active legislators go to enough events to know what’s on their constituents’ minds. And thanks to unprecedented multimillion-dollar advertising buys in Chicago, St. Louis and other broadcast television markets, a large swath of the public has been overexposed to the pettiness and ugliness of legislative politics for the first time. And about half of those ads were focused mainly on one guy: Madigan.
The last time anyone voted “present” on a roll call for House speaker was 30 years ago this coming January, when Rep. Dick Mautino stuck his neck out. He was dealt with harshly, and Madigan put down a potential revolt a year later when he defeated one of the attempted coup leaders in a primary and defeated yet another plotter in 1992. It’s been mostly smooth sailing ever since.
And it’s not like public vilification is anything new to Madigan. I remember the 1988 campaign in the Kankakee area when appointed Rep. Phil Novak, D-Bradley, ran against Iroquois County Clerk John Kuntz. Novak was hammered on local radio and in the mail for his alleged ties to Madigan. But Novak shrugged it off and went on to win. Madigan just wasn’t as well-known back then and Illinois wasn’t in crisis.
But this year is different. The Republicans turned on the biggest anti-Madigan fire hose they could buy to shift as much blame as possible for this horrific two-year stalemate onto the House speaker. Madigan’s job approval numbers were already very low. Actually, they’ve always been low. But at a time of crisis, people look for a scapegoat and Madigan was handed to the populace by Rauner on an expensive platinum platter.
Nobody will say they are prepared to do it themselves, but plenty of House Democrats are speculating that some of their colleagues could vote “present” when Madigan comes up for re-election in January. That would be the rarest of rare events, and Team Rauner would most definitely do all it could to exploit it to the hilt. After Madigan lost a net of four seats on Nov. 8, any wavering of support by Madigan’s membership would be “proof” that the man was losing his iron grip.
The average [Chicago] family will pay nearly $1,700 more a year to the city and Chicago Public Schools than they did before the mayor took office in 2011 once all of Emanuel’s tax and fee increases take full effect. There’s been a series of property tax hikes. There was a water and sewer rate increase, plus a new tax on top of that. Not to mention a new garbage hauling fee, 911 phone tax hike, vehicle sticker fee increase and a tax on cable television.
Even with all of that, taxpayers may be asked for more money in the coming years. Emanuel’s plans for shoring up long-neglected city worker pension funds will require the city to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars more by the early to mid-2020s.
The full breakdown of the additional taxes and fees is at the link.
