* Sadly, I couldn’t get the live stream working due to my own inability to remember how to get it started after my hiatus. That said, video of the speech is here, and I did my best to keep up with him using #CapFaxXMAS on Twitter.
* Using those resources, please discuss your thoughts on the speech. What was your greatest takeaway from it?
The Illinois Department of Corrections is making headway toward the goal of a 25 percent reduction in the state’s prison population by 2025, but continued partisan gridlock over the state budget could undermine that progress.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner set that goal shortly after taking office nearly two years ago and established a commission to make recommendations for criminal justice reforms to keep people out of prisons. The state’s inmate population has dropped from 48,214 on Jan. 12, 2015, the day Rauner was inaugurated, to 43,807 last week, a 9.1 percent decline.
The reasons this is good news are plentiful, and they come from both the social and fiscal sides of things. Here’s the troubling part…
“It’s great that we’re down 9 percent,” said Jennifer Vollen-Katz, executive director of the John Howard Association, a Chicago-based prison watchdog. “We’re seeing numbers we have seen in well over a decade.”
However, Vollen-Katz added, the system is still overcrowded and “we shouldn’t rest on our laurels.”
Alan Mills, executive director of the Uptown People’s Law Center in Chicago, which has used a series of lawsuits over several decades to push for reforms within the Illinois prison system, agreed with that assessment.
“This system would still be overcrowded if we had 35,000 people in it,” Mills said.
So if there were AT LEAST 35,000, which is 8,807 fewer people than are in the system this month, there would still be overcrowding. And, as Dan points out, the budget constraints make lowering that number even harder. Then toss in the administration’s current relationship with AFSCME, which staffs the prisons, and it seems to present an uphill challenge.
Workers who see inmates every day play a critical role in keeping mentally ill inmates stable, said Dempsey.
“What we’re asking people to do is identify, not diagnose or treat mental illness. It’s about patterns” and documenting changes in an inmate’s behavior so issues can be addressed earlier, he said.
The state also is moving forward on its obligation to open four residential treatment units for seriously mentally ill inmates.
According to Baldwin, work was completed Thursday on renovating a former youth facility in Joliet that will provide 360 beds for mental health care when it opens early next year. Work also is finished on a mental health treatment area at the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, and bids have been accepted for a second unit there.
Bids are expected in early 2017 for units at the Dixon and Pontiac prisons.
Related…
* With a swipe of governor’s pen, man’s life changed for the better: Even though he wasn’t in any more trouble with the law, Hendricks felt like he was still under a microscope and eventually left Edwardsville in 2005 and moved to Chicago. When he arrived in Chicago, he enrolled in the Illinois Institute of Art and earned an associate’s degree and a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts. He has worked as a chef for more than a decade.
Each time he applied for a job, though, Hendricks said he was up front with his employers. He told them about the felony conviction, something that haunted him as he got older.
“Being a convicted felon is the ultimate black mark,” Hendricks said. “Telling them you been convicted for selling drugs, it’s an uphill battle. I’ve had to fight for everything that I’ve got.
We’re taking a big step next week. And we’re inviting you to please follow us.
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We started Reboot Illinois four years ago with the help of some seed funding from prominent Chicagoans who were concerned, like we were, that citizens were not getting reliable and fair reporting, in-depth analysis, or a wide range of commentary and infographics about our local and state governments in Illinois.
Our mission has been and remains to inform, engage and activate Illinoisans about the governments we all own.
* “Changin’ is hard. The special interest groups that like the status quo. They’re entrenched. They don’t want a change. It’s taken longer than it should.”
* When asked if he plans to run for re-election: “You know, I’m not focused on politics or elections or races….We’ll think about that in the future.”
* On Trump cabinet: “I haven’t focused very much on the federal issues at all. They’ve got their challenges at the federal government. We’ve got our challenges in Illinois, and I’m very focused on Illinois.”
* “I have long-time said I believe the immigration policy in America is broken, and I have been a strong advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. And I’ve said it repeatedly, I hope the federal government can get its act together and get comprehensive immigration reform. I’m very pro-immigration, but again, I’m focused in Illinois…”
In a stunning admission, the chief executive of a troubled network of group homes told a judge Friday that he didn’t know the whereabouts of six of his residents with developmental disabilities.
It also wasn’t clear that any of the six had their medications with them when they left homes run by Disability Services of Illinois, which lost its license because of safety concerns.
An incredulous Cook County Circuit Judge Kathleen Pantle responded by scolding the operator of Disability Services and sharply questioning his attorney….
The judge encouraged the state to file missing persons reports with police, but Durkin said that couldn’t be done because the state wasn’t given the specific date when each resident was last seen.
At that point, Durkin questioned Goodwin about when each of the five residents had left and asked for the names and phone numbers of the family members they left with. Goodwin said he didn’t have any of those details and only knew that they left sometime after Nov. 28, the date Disability Services lost its license.
Missing person reports have been filed with local law enforcement agencies for the 5 remaining individuals. IDHS and the independent services coordination agencies have been working diligently to locate these individuals and their health and safety remains our top priority. We continue to urge Mr. Goodwin to cooperate fully with our staff, the independent service coordination agencies, and local law enforcement agencies so that we can continue their transition to safe and licensed homes.
*** UPDATE 2x *** - A spokesperson for DHS says the five residents are missing from multiple facilities.
Meredith Krantz, communications director for DHS, said the missing person reports were filed with the Chicago Police Department and the Village of Homewood Police Department. Reports were disbursed among those departments based on where the residents were living at the time they went missing.
Krantz said DHS and Disability Services are due back in Court at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
That’s good as far as it goes, but remember, the people they are surveying still went this year. If they’re worried about the drop in attendance, shouldn’t they be surveying the people who didn’t go?
The answers will be interesting, especially because fair people since forever have said weather more than just about anything else determines the success of the fair. Not much the state can do about that.
Enjoyed international village, but having to dry out the truck after a rainstorm put a damper on the weekend. 2 stars. /snark
Despite provisions of the Racing Act requiring a five day racing program at the Fair, officials were able to stage only four days of races in 2015. Plus, they admit that they overcharged entrants, by requiring a $300 nominating fee, which exceeded 2% of the purses as is required in the Horse Racing Act.
An Auditor General’s report released this week, says that the higher fees were charged in 16 of 36 races in 2014, and 27 of 30 races in 2015.
The report says Fair officials admitted they were forced to charge the higher fees in 2014, “due to the purses for Championship races greatly declining over the years due to less appropriations.”
*AFL-CIO President Michael Carrigan writes in the News-Gazette about parallels he sees between Gov. Rauner’s handling of the budget impasse and the AFSCME contract…
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Rauner’s similar hostage-taking tactics are the cause of the state’s long-running budget standoff. Throughout his term in office, he has refused to work with lawmakers to develop a state budget, instead demanding unrelated — and regularly shifting — changes to state law.
Legislators have rightly refused to knuckle under, but as far as Rauner is concerned, it’s his way or the highway. As a result, everyone from students to seniors is suffering.
Likewise, we all have a big stake in a fair resolution to the contract dispute involving state employees. The 360,000 men, women and children covered by the state health plan — including state and university employees, their dependents, and retirees — need and deserve insurance they can afford. The steep cuts to workers’ income that the governor seeks to impose — averaging $10,000 per employee over three years — would hurt families and communities.
But instead of working to find common ground, Rauner has vowed to force workers out on strike — and to “do it proudly”.
*** UPDATE 1 *** The Governor’s Office sent this in response to the editorial, which was penned by Dennis Murashko and appeared over the weekend in some Gatehouse papers…
What the union now describes as a “scorched-earth approach” is a contract that is nearly identical to contracts that have been agreed-to by 18 other unions, such as Teamsters, the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and Operating Engineers Local 150.
The “outrageous” demands that the union refuses to allow the state to implement include requiring employees to work 40 hours a week, instead of 37.5 hours, before being paid overtime. Moving to a 40-hour overtime requirement is consistent with the private sector, federal law and contracts entered into by other state employees outside of AFSCME.
Related…
* Jim Dey: Madigan still king, but his crown is tarnished…In other words, Drury is thinking it over. In Illinois even that halting explanation counts as a rare display of political courage. Because Der Speaker takes no prisoners, even the fact that a challenge is being discussed marks a major change from the past.
Though he might be leaving the Legislature, Moffitt has not entirely ruled out the possibility of running for local office. He said he would consider running for the Knox County Board within the next few years if a position opened and he felt he could “make a contribution.”
Board member TONY DelGIORNO, D-District 22, posted a copy of Sullivan’s prayer on Facebook, and he also wrote that it is routine for board members to give the invocation.
But, DelGiorno said, the prayer “was anything but usual in my opinion. As the grandson of Italian immigrants, a group that 100 years ago was discriminated against because of our Catholicism, I find religious elitism abhorrent to the 1st Amendment principle of religious freedom in a nation and a community that is made better by our friends of all faiths.”
Sullivan, in an interview later, said he was “merely stating some factual history.”
The department cited concerns about the condition of the buildings at Rend Lake Resort and Conference Center, including mold, peeling paint and other possible health and safety related issues. The resort operator notified IDNR of the plans to close the facility.
According to numbers provided to the newspaper, the number of traffic fatalities statewide has risen from 924 in 2014 to 998 in 2015 to 1,029 for this year through Friday.
While that number is up the past two years, it is still significantly lower than 15 years ago. In 2001, there were 1,414 fatalities, and in the 1970s, the number of fatal crashes each year was in the 2,000 range.
The year with the most fatalities on Illinois highways was 1941, when 2,600 people died, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.
A one-time mentor to President Barack Obama, Jones explained that UIC received his donation because that university already has a vast collection of political papers. “Those papers are very, very important,” he offered. The papers bear tremendous social relevance because Jones’ first term in the legislature coincides with the rise of his former colleague, Harold Washington’s ascent to the mayor’s office in Chicago.
I had hoped to create middle ground based on social moderation and spending moderation, which is increasingly necessary for the future of the country.
I always sought to be a problem solver, thinking about not being with the extreme right and extreme left. And my model was always a 45-year-old married woman with children who lives in Arlington Heights in Illinois, which might be the geographic center of common sense.
* WATCHDOGS: More tax money for Chicago’s booming TV, movie studio
The investigation of IDOT’s Emergency Traffic Patrol Division by the executive inspector general’s office ran from 2012 to 2016. The probe concluded that several IDOT drivers made up reports about helping motorists to make it look like they were doing more work than they were, the inspector general’s report said. In other cases, the drivers recorded inaccurate information in reports about people they actually had assisted.
The $2.7 billion plan, which is not likely to see construction begin before 2020, also would add a lane in each direction between the key bottleneck span of I-290, between Mannheim Road and Austin Boulevard.
* As Bernie pointed out in his column last weekend, a number of Statehouse reporters are leaving the press room for new posts in other bureaus. Amanda Vinicky and Mike Riopell have left their respective bureau chief posts to accept assignments at other outlets in Chicago. Ed Cross is crossing over from the media side to be a government spokesman. Kelsey Gibbs and Ivan Moreno are leaving Illinois entirely, and Seth Perlman was forced into retirement after more than 30 years of filling rolls of film and memory cards for the AP.
Those departures (hopefully) mean a new crop of reporters are headed for the Capitol press room.
* QUESTION: What should these incoming writers and broadcasters know about covering the Illinois Capitol?
Related…
* Robservations: WLS drops Michael Savage….Salem Media news/talk WIND AM 560 has renewed Dan Proft as morning host in a multiyear extension announced this week.
“Well, I’ve commissioned artist Bill Chambers to do it. It will be different. It will be unveiled sometime next year. I’ve been posing on and off for the past two years.”
• Q: Will Quinn be wearing his lucky purple tie?
• A: “I think it would be safe to expect that,” he said.
After her husband was elected governor in 1969, Dorothy Ogilvie and her family found that the mansion, then over 100 years old, had not aged gracefully. The couple found the executive mansion in Springfield to be in serious, even dangerous, disrepair, with temporary braces in place to support the structure.
“It was anything but a showplace,” said Kathy Wonderlic Kolbe, who was special assistant to Ogilvie at the time. “Mrs. Ogilvie worked with the preservation team. … She was very encouraging of that preservation and very proud of the result.”
The family moved into rented quarters to make way for the restoration work.
“She was willing to forego the trappings of the wife of the governor,” said John McCarter, who was the budget director in the administration.
* I am the “old buddy” whose coming was foretold to you.
Rich is in transit to the City Club of Chicago for his annual “Christmas with Rich Miller” speech. We will have full coverage, including a live video feed thanks to our good friends at BlueRoomStream, later on.
* Many of you know the deal from previous experience. I work full-time, and blogging while on the clock is frowned upon. With that, a good portion of today’s content will be posted this morning. Anything that breaks, updates, and anything I ran out of time to finish before having to head downtown will be posted during the lunch hour.
With that in mind, please keep it civil in comments.
*repeats cliche line about banishment hammer of death*
Our old buddy Barton Lorimor will be doing a little part-time blogging on Monday. I’ll be in Chicago speaking to the City Club at noon and have decided to take the day off.
If you’re coming to the speech, please don’t forget to bring a toy for kids aged 3-5. We give them to Lutheran Social Services of Illinois for its vital early childhood programs. You can also donate gift cards from places where toys are sold.
* And the latest from VanillaMan, based on the song “Merry Christmas, Darling.” Click here if you aren’t familiar with the tune…
AFSCME stewards have all met
The lawsuits are going through
But I still have one wish to make…
A special one for you!
Oh, State Worker - Darling
I work for Rauner, that’s true
But I am really, your bestest friend
I’m not messing around with you!
Right To Work is so joyful
Governor Rauner’s for you!
But AFSCME pay’s - no holiday
They demand too much from you!
We want you to have Tier 3!
I’d wish you could see
It’s better to have Merit Pay!
Don’t pay your union dues
It’s the right thing to do
Together we’ll find a union-less way!
We wish you were more ambitious
And less suspicious too
I’ve just one wish I’d like to propose
Call me John, not Tokyo Rose
This email’s from me
So dump your union fee
And believe what I say
We’re really not very malicious
We want the best for you!
We’ve just one thing more to confide
Disagree with us, but you can’t hide!
Your email’s not unclassified!
Merry Christmas!
Oh State Workers - DAHLING!
* AFSCME Council 31 is handing out a new flier to state workers to counter some of the statements made by the Rauner administration. This part was the most interesting to me. Click here for the full flier…
The end of overtime pay? What’s Rauner really up to with his plan to change overtime policy? His administration has informed employees that it plans to impose a new regimen in which the calculation of overtime will only count hours actually worked. What the specifics of the administration’s final offer make clear is that holidays, vacation days, and sick days will not count in that calculation: “Only actual hour worked above 40 will be at the overtime rate.”
In other words, if you’re out sick one day, you can be mandated to work 16 hours the next day, but you wont get paid overtime for those additional eight hours!
Worse, because Rauner’s “final offer” allows management to ignore overtime rotation procedures by picking who will be mandated to work overtime, you can be sure that employees in 24-hour facilities who have to use a sick day will be targeted to work overtime when they return. Managers will be making mandatory overtime assignments based on which employees took a sick or vacation day in a given week. [Emphasis in original]
I asked the governor’s office for a response at about 1:30. I’ll post it if they send one.
* Related…
* Berg: AFSCME’s egomania is betraying its members: The length and cost of negotiations thus far is already insulting to Illinoisans. And AFSCME has acted like a spoiled child at the bargaining table.
*** UPDATE *** From Catherine Kelly…
Hi, Rich:
AFSCME’s talk of mandatory overtime is a distraction and a blatantly misleading tactic to divert attention from the fact they currently do not have to work 40 hours a week to earn overtime. AFSCME should stop these games and stall tactics and work with us on implementing the contract.
* The 2016 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Illinois State Representative - Republican goes to Rep. Ed Sullivan…
These are not normal times, and so I think the award should go to someone who exhibits the traits most likely to lead us out of this mess.
Sullivan is unquestionably conservative. But rather than clinging to orthodoxy like a barnacle, he uses it as an anchor to reach across the aisle, if only for friendship. And unlike the all-or-nothing approach of too many ideologues, Sullivan understands that there is victory in incremental approaches. This year he actually passed a modest improvement to workers comp law almost unnoticed.
Honorable mention goes to Reps. Dave McSweeney and Tom Demmer. Both received strong nominations.
* The 2016 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Illinois State Representative - Democrat goes to Rep. Kelly Cassidy…
Kelly Cassidy for never saying or doing anything that appears not to be in the best interests of her district or the state. And for being a good human being to all.
Honorable mention to Rep. Litesa Wallace, “for her principled stance on social justice issues, especially for persons with disabilities,” and to Rep. Rob Martwick, who appears to have a very strong and vocal following.
* On to today’s nominations…
* Best Illinois State Senator - Republican
* Best Illinois State Senator - Democrat
As always, make sure to explain your votes or they won’t count. And nominate in both categories, please. Thanks!
* This is from Rep. Al Riley (D-Olympia Fields), an assistant majority leader…
Rich,
I read the post the other day about the Tuesday meeting at the Thompson Center and I wanted to add my perspective to it. First of all, it seems like much is being made about the tenor and tone of the meeting. Frankly speaking, in my opinion, the tone of the meeting was not that much different than one would observe in a typical committee hearing. I would not characterize this meeting as “contentious” or one of “stonewalling” or any other related term, at least when I was there. This is even when doctrinal points were being made on both sides. So, my characterization of the overall meeting was more collegial then I would have expected.
Myself and another Democratic colleague were there for the Local Government Consolidation meeting. It was scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m. I got to the conference room at 4:00 p.m. The earlier scheduled Unfunded Mandates meeting was still going on. That meeting went on until approximately 5:15 p.m.; way over its scheduled ending time. Though many things may have been discussed prior to my arrival at 4:00 p.m, it seemed as though issues of collective bargaining and a few mandates issues were being talked about. During the meeting, one of the attendees from the Democratic side commented on untoward “tweets” being made about our meetings, e.g, lack of cooperation by the Dems, etc. I think a reasonable person might have some pause and concern about statements like that being made about our meeting while it was still going on. At that point there was some pointed statements made, but even then, I would not characterize anything that was said as necessarily being contentious. We moved on and had some good discussion.
At or around 5:15, it was said that because of the time and distance that some people had to come, we would suspend the meeting and reconvene at another date to talk about local government consolidation. I stated that we were all there and to not have a discussion about the other agenda topic was not particularly fair. We had a document of about 30 different bullet points of bills and measures dealing with both mandates and government consolidation provided to us before the meeting. Government consolidation subsumed about 12 or 13 of the roughly 30 bullet points. My request was that we give Consolidation at least the 45 minutes originally allocated to it and discuss those 12 or so measures, than we could always reconvene and expand on what we discussed. Everyone agreed, and that’s what we did.
We went over each of the 12 points and we had some very good conversations about them. At no time, did the conversation get testy. We had some differences of opinion, but frankly that may have been on 4 out of the 12 measures discussed. Most of the differences we did have were technical in nature; fairly easy to resolve in true negotiations. At about 6:00 p.m., there was discussion about next steps and possibly calling another meeting. There was some banter about people having to go home to babies or go to holiday events. I shook hands with everyone and we left.
The two GOP members of the committee I know very well. We don’t share the same ideology on many things of course, but there are some that we do. I worked on bills and issues with them. Representative Batinick and I have had lively discussions about things in the past but at the same time, we have worked on major pieces of legislation, been in committee hearings and also forums outside of the Capitol.
I would characterize my relationship with Representative Batinick and the other Republican member who was at the meeting as being personally cordial. So again, I think that all of these negotiations in public and PSYOPS shots across the bow do not lend themselves to what should be the goal of these hearings.
Everyone who was there knows exactly what happened. There were about 15 people on the teleconference down in Springfield. And there were 7 people at the room at the Thompson Center. All of us have our reputations and track records on how we operate and how we categorize things. And, unlike in Rashomon whereby a number of individual people saw an incident from their particular point of view, 22 or 23 people were in that meeting, and saw and heard everything that happened.
Lets move on, keep our eye on the prize and do what we’re supposed to do - create a fiscally responsible budget for the people of the State, focused on equity and not so much on ideology.
* The day after Bernie Schoenburg published an interview of the potential gubernatorial candidate, the Illinois Republican Party has added him to its BossMadigan.com hit list. Not unexpected…
“Andy Manar, Natalie Manley and Anna Moeller have taken over a million dollars from Mike Madigan, and in exchange they have backed his tax-hiking, reform-free Chicago agenda. Manar was one of the chief architects of Madigan’s 67% income tax hike, whipping the votes needed to crush Illinois taxpayers. Likewise, Manley and Moeller have supported Madigan at every turn, repeatedly voting him as Speaker and rubber-stamping his unbalanced budgets. It’s time for Manar, Manley and Moeller to finally show some independence from Madigan.” – Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
Andy Manar
Andy Manar has always aspired to be a career politician like Mike Madigan. Since Manar was 21 years old, he’s held public office, worked government jobs, and received political paychecks from Chicago politicians, often all at the same time. Andy Manar has done pretty well for himself – he’s personally made hundreds of thousands of dollars off Illinois taxpayers.
Andy Manar has held several top positions working for Chicago politicians. For years, Manar served as the Senate Democrats’ Director of Policy and Budget, pushing unbalanced budgets, pension holidays, and higher debt. Later, Manar also served as Senate President John Cullerton’s Chief-of-Staff. During his time with Cullerton, Manar was one of the chief architects of Mike Madigan’s 67% income tax hike in 2011, whipping votes and pressuring lawmakers to crush taxpayers.
Andy Manar was already doing Mike Madigan’s bidding even before he entered the General Assembly. After the 2010 census, Manar was the mastermind behind the redistricting of legislative maps, increasing Mike Madigan’s stranglehold over state government.
Just this month, Andy Manar betrayed the students in his district by voting to bail out Chicago Public Schools with $215 million in taxpayer money. Before the election, Manar voted against the bailout, but now he’s sold out to Mike Madigan. Andy Manar proved that he cares more about Madigan’s Chicago agenda than the families in his own district.
Mike Madigan admires Andy Manar so much that Madigan has showered Manar with over $450,000 in campaign cash for all of the damage he’s done. It’s time for Andy Manar to stand up to Mike Madigan and start working for Illinois taxpayers.
* I always assumed my massive chain pharmacy’s computer system automatically checks to make sure none of my prescriptions interact negatively with each other. I was wrong…
In the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, the Tribune tested 255 pharmacies to see how often stores would dispense dangerous drug pairs without warning patients. Fifty-two percent of the pharmacies sold the medications without mentioning the potential interaction, striking evidence of an industrywide failure that places millions of consumers at risk.
CVS, the nation’s largest pharmacy retailer by store count, had the highest failure rate of any chain in the Tribune tests, dispensing the medications with no warning 63 percent of the time. Walgreens, one of CVS’ main competitors, had the lowest failure rate at 30 percent — but that’s still missing nearly 1 in 3 interactions. […]
In Illinois, pharmacists who detect a serious interaction must contact the prescribing doctor to see if the order is correct or if an alternative therapy is available, according to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. Pharmacists are then supposed to alert the patient. […]
Mayuri Patel, a pharmacist at a Wal-Mart in west suburban Northlake, said she typically fills 200 prescriptions in a nine-hour shift, or one every 2.7 minutes.
At another Wal-Mart where she was trained, it was even busier, she said: “We were doing 600 a day with two pharmacists with 10-hour shifts.” That works out to one prescription every two minutes.
Chris Kennedy, who is moving toward a run for governor as a Democrat, made his first big hire. Kennedy has secured veteran political ad guru and strategist Eric Adelstein, a Kennedy aide told POLITICO Illinois. Adelstein is a top-tier get for Kennedy. As it so happens, Adelstein boasts this tidbit in his bio: “His grandfather, a civic leader in 1960’s West Virginia, campaigned with Bobby Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey.” Chris Kennedy is the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy. He is expected to make an announcement about a gubernatorial bid in early 2017.
Adelstein is a good get, for sure. But Kennedy isn’t the only guy doing some hiring.
* I’m told by one of his advisers that Chicago Ald. Ameya Pawar, a noted city progressive who is also seriously considering a gubernatorial bid, is hiring Sam Hobert. “He’s the equivalent of an exploratory campaign manager,” the adviser said. Right now, Pawar is in outreach mode.
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner earned rare praise from Democratic lawmakers Thursday for his effort to reform the state’s criminal justice system.
Rauner - the super-wealthy, fiscally conservative North Shore Republican - is Illinois’ new criminal justice reform champion. Even Democrats called a truce in the bitter state budget war to give Rauner some credit.
During the noon hour, the governor signed the latest criminal justice reform bill. The measure ensures that released prison inmates have a state I.D. upon release from custody.
“It’s extraordinary that we haven’t had this law, this rule before. But better late than never,” Rauner said. […]
“I want to thank the Governor for his leadership on this,” said State Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago.
The new law was sparked by recommendations from Rauner’s Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform, which is attempting to reduce the state’s prison population by 25 percent by 2025. Rauner has signed 15 criminal justice bills since taking office.
“This bill helps those who made a mistake get re-established in their lives,” Rauner said. “By being productive citizens, they’re less vulnerable to going back and making a mistake and committing criminal behavior, and therefore, we’re keeping our communities safer.”
State Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, a member of the commission, called the new law a “symbol of bipartisan work that is desperately needed in this state.
“I’m hopeful that our work on criminal justice reforms will seep out in other policy areas,” he added.
But the bill signing ceremony was held at A Safe Haven, a West Side homeless shelter that does business with the state and could lose access to taxpayer funding if the governor and lawmakers can’t agree to a spending plan to replace a stopgap measure that expires Jan. 1.
The organization’s president, Neli Vazquez Rowland, organized the ceremony, which included testimonials from two individuals who credit A Safe Haven’s services with helping them out of a cycle of incarceration.
Rauner and his wife are longtime supporters of A Safe Haven, the governor said. The couple’s personal donations date to the organization’s founding more than 20 years ago, when the Rauners provided the “angel dust” that helped get the group off the ground, Rowland has said.
But given the budget stalemate between Rauner and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, taxpayers’ payments to the organization could be snarled in the political fight. Meetings between the two sides came to a halt earlier this month amid disagreement over how to proceed with negotiations. If no deal is reached by the end of the year, state funding for A Safe Haven and some other not-for-profit providers of state services could be held up as a result.
Asked about the budget implications for the organization, Rauner would not respond to the question. His staff had instructed reporters only to ask “on topic” questions.
* Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) told reporters yesterday that he’d “most likely” be for term-limiting Speaker Madigan if that could lead to a compromise with Gov. Rauner on getting a budget…
Yesterday, Democrat Rep. La Shawn Ford indicated his support for term limits as means of compromising with Gov. Rauner to end the budget impasse.
Rep. Ford told CBS Chicago, “What do you think about term limits for someone like Mike Madigan? I mean, that’s a term limit. I would most likely be for that if we could figure out a way to make some compromises with the Governor to help the people that I represent.”
“It’s encouraging to see Democrats break away from Mike Madigan’s irrational opposition to any form of term limits and his unwillingness to compromise. Democrats and Republicans alike should work together to pass bipartisan reforms that the people of Illinois are demanding.” – Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
When cornered, politically vulnerable House Democrats always tell reporters and constituents that they had a binary choice between voting for fellow Democrat Mike Madigan and voting for the Republican, so they went with the Democrat.
But if Drury runs, HDems could conceivably have a choice between voting for the Democrat Madigan and voting for a Democrat who’s also a “former federal prosecutor,” as Drury loves to refer to himself.
* People out there in Voter Land simply don’t know Drury like many Statehouse types do. All they’ll know is that some “reformer” Democrat stuck his neck out and the mushrooms still voted for Madigan, who is the most unpopular politician in this state by far.
That’s a precarious position for Downstate and suburban targets. And, don’t kid yourself, plenty of Chicago Democrats also hear about Madigan at the doors and at events.
Drury could make life seriously complicated for his caucus.
…Adding… Some of you may be missing the point here. I doubt at this point that Drury can actually get elected. He’s Scott Drury, after all, and just about every HDem member has already pledged a vote for Madigan.
This post is about the potential political consequences of voting with Madigan and against Drury.
* I heard this was a possibility a couple of weeks ago, so I checked in with Rep. Nekritz, who asked if the Republicans were smoking medical marijuana. She wasn’t interested.
The Drury thing is fascinating only in the fact that the man actually thinks he could find eight Democrats to vote for him for Speaker…
There are 51 Republicans in the incoming House, and if all of them decided to throw their weight behind a Democrat who wasn’t Madigan, they’d have to find only nine Democrats to defect from Madigan to unseat him. Sources in the Illinois General Assembly tell Chicago Tonight that this indeed is the governor’s plan, and they have floated State Rep. Elaine Nekritz (D-Des Plaines) as a potential challenger.
Nekritz told Chicago Tonight, however, that she was not interested in the position. […]
Another Democratic lawmaker who has voted against the speaker on several issues says he is keeping all options open, including whether or not to throw his own name into the mix.
“I want to understand all the rules of how the nomination works, who can be nominated and how they can be nominated,” said State Rep. Scott Drury (D-Highwood). “When I have a thorough understanding of who can put their name forward and who can get by the challenges of voting for them, I’ll come to a decision.
“I’m convinced I’m the only person really studying this issue closely, and come Jan. 11, I’ll be prepared to do the right thing for the state of Illinois and my constituents.”
I swear to you this is not fake news. Well, it’s from a reputable source, anyway.
