* You really gotta give the governor mad props for the many ways he manages to get so much positive publicity, particularly from local TV types…
Tuesday was moving day for Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and his family.
The Republican governor and his dog Stella were busy moving items into their new residence on the state fairgrounds Tuesday. The family will reside in the new location for about a year while the Governor’s Mansion is under renovation. Rauner will be the first governor to stay on the fairgrounds.
In an exclusive interview with 13 News, reporter Reuben Jones pressed Rauner on whether he plans to run for governor next year. His answer?
“We’re going to deal with that later. Right now my focus is growing the economy,” Rauner said.
…Governor Rauner’s veto of HB 40 would completely betray the trust of everyone in Illinois.
In politics and in life, you are only as good as your word…especially when that word is followed by a signature.
Personal PAC’s questionnaire is a contract of trust and how we the people can hold candidates and elected officials accountable.
Governor Rauner’s intention to veto HB 40 after submitting Personal PAC’s 2014 Questionnaire is not only dishonest, it defrauds every voter who took him at his word and mistakenly believed him to be an honest man.
The only ethical way for Governor Rauner to move forward as the leader of this great state is to honor his 2014 commitment to the voters of Illinois and publicly state TODAY that he will sign HB 40 when it reaches his desk.
“Last Friday, Governor Rauner promised to veto House Bill 40. This legislation, which is pending in the General Assembly, would use public dollars, through Illinois’ Medicaid and employee health insurance programs, to fund elective abortions at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. I thank him for this principled stand. Abortion is a controversial issue in this country, but using public money to provide abortions should not be. The federal government prohibits the practice, and polls show a substantial segment of the American public rejects it.
“I pray that this divisive issue will be put behind us and our government officials will now concentrate on the many difficult challenges facing Illinois. Most importantly, our political leaders must find a way to cooperate and craft a budget that serves all our people. It is essential that we unite in this effort, and I stand ready to help in any way.”
* Ameya Pawar…
“Bruce Rauner is a liar. As a candidate for governor, he said he was pro-choice. Now he says he will veto HB40, a pro-choice bill to provide women access to affordable health care plans that include coverage for abortions.
“We need leaders in government who won’t use women’s rights to score political points when it seems most convenient.
“People are sick and tired of rich men like Bruce Rauner and Donald Trump telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. If we say we have family values we have to start valuing families.
“As governor, I will always defend a woman’s right to choose and will fight to provide access to affordable comprehensive health care to urban and rural communities across the state.”
* Illinois Right to Life…
Today, well-funded, pro-abortion lobbyists are publicly chastising Governor Rauner for stating he would veto HB 40 should it reach his desk. Illinois Right to Life applauds Governor Rauner for opposing the extreme and out-of-touch HB 40.
For approximately 36 years, Illinois has covered abortions in cases of rape, incest, and where the health and life of the mother are threatened. In its current form, House Bill 40 expands Medicaid coverage for all abortions.
House Bill 40 requires Illinois citizens to pay for abortions for state employees and for women on Medicaid, through the full nine months of pregnancy, for any reason. This bill would force Illinois to provide free abortions to a mother whose unborn child’s heart is beating, who can feel the pain of being dismembered, and can potentially survive outside the womb.
Furthermore, HB 40 includes no restrictions, allowing for free abortions of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome and for reasons of birth control, and does not limit the number of abortions a woman can have.
“The majority of Illinoisans agree that providing free abortions for any reason for state employees and for those on Medicaid is outrageous,” said Emily Troscinski, executive director of Illinois Right to Life. “We applaud Governor Rauner for representing the people of our state by opposing this bill that could cost taxpayers millions of dollars by providing free abortions for any reason, including those abortions in which the unborn child can feel the pain of being dismembered.
“Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Illinois has become an ‘oasis for women’ seeking abortions in the Midwest. With HB 40, Illinois could see an increase of 12,000 abortions per year, all at the taxpayers’ expense.”
Troscinski added, “The people of Illinois sent Governor Rauner to Springfield to fix our broken and despairing state. Illinois citizens know that spending millions of dollars to provide free abortions for reasons of birth control doesn’t solve our state’s debt crisis. We applaud Governor Rauner, who is considered pro-choice, for representing the majority of Illinoisans by opposing this bill.”
Bruce Rauner should be ashamed of himself. He told voters in 2014 that he was “pro-choice” and that he would protect women’s access to healthcare, but last week he proved he didn’t tell voters the truth when he said he would veto House Bill 40.
HB 40 would provide safe access to healthcare for women on state employee health insurance and Medicaid, and it would also remove a “trigger provision” from state law that would make abortions illegal in Illinois if Roe v. Wade is ever overturned. […]
This is not just about access to healthcare, this is about a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her body. That’s not a decision that Donald Trump or Bruce Rauner or any other politician should make. It’s a decision that should be left to a woman, her family, her faith, and her doctor. […]
As your governor, I will always fight for Illinois women and families, and I’ll stand up against Donald Trump’s effort to limit women’s healthcare. Unlike Bruce Rauner, I’ll champion women’s health and sign HB 40.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner told a suburban business group today that state lawmakers are “very close” to a budget deal that would break a two-year stalemate.
He offered no details but called it “a big comprehensive package” and asked the crowd at a GOA Regional Business Association luncheon to “stay strong.”
Rauner, promoting his pro-business agenda in the speech in Elk Grove Village, called the suburbs “the backbone of Illinois prosperity.”
The GOA luncheon was one of three stops the governor is making in the suburbs today, with others at Maine East High School in Park Ridge and at a GOP dinner in Palatine.
* From John Patterson, spokesman for Illinois Senate President John Cullerton…
“We appreciate the governor’s optimism. Throughout all of this the Senate President has been working with Leader Radogno to do what’s best for the state, which is restore fiscal stability and stop the bleeding. Keep in mind, the governor’s own budget relies on the Senate’s success.”
* More from the event…
.@GovRauner: "I've got dozens of companies ready to come to Illinois. …I say give me a little time (for) changes I'm trying to make."
* O’Hare Airport is one of our state’s crown jewels, so this Greg Hinz report ought to case some worry…
(F)igures drawn from U.S. Department of Transportation reports indicate that over the past decade, the total number of departing passengers dropped 1.5 percent at O’Hare even as it grew 8.1 percent nationally.
That leaves O’Hare far behind competing hub airports such as New York’s JFK, Los Angeles International, San Francisco Oakland and Dallas-Fort Worth, whose passenger loads rose 38.3 percent, 22.5 percent, 48.5 percent and 12.4 percent, respectively, in the same period. […]
O’Hare international passenger departures did grow 7.4 percent. But among all U.S. airports, international departures leapt five times faster, up 38.4 percent. Airports in the above cities plus Miami, Seattle and Houston all had growth of 20 percent to 90 percent in international traffic. […]
“O’Hare needs both a face-lift and a terminal expansion plan” to go with the new runways recently built on the field, [Joe Schwieterman, an aviation expert who heads the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University] says. “The facilities gap between Chicago and (other) global gateways has grown” as airports around the country and world have built new international terminals while Chicago has decades-old facilities, he adds.
Schwieterman said other factors beyond outmoded facilities and a shortage of gates explain O’Hare’s lagging growth. For instance, big airline mergers have given some carriers incentives to add service on the coasts and in smaller cities, while O’Hare’s biggest carriers, United and American, have been “cautious” in growing, at least here. Also, until 2010, O’Hare was subject to federal capacity limits on the number of flights it could schedule.
* As we discussed yesterday, candidate Bruce Rauner told the pro-choice group Personal PAC during the 2014 campaign that he supported “restoring abortion coverage under the state Medicaid plan” and backed legislation “to restore state employees’ health insurance coverage for abortion.” Both of those provisions are in HB 40, plus a provision to delete the “trigger” mechanism in state statutes that many say would repeal abortion rights protections if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Rauner cited the public funding aspect when he vowed to veto the bill last week.
Personal PAC held a press conference today (click here for video) to publicly release Rauner’s 2014 questionnaire to reporters, saying it was the first time it had ever released one of its questionnaires.
Rauner was also repeatedly criticized during today’s press conference for “lying” to pro-choice voters, particularly by the group’s director Terry Cosgrove. Rauner, you will recall, ran as a pro-choice Republican and his wife Diana and several of her friends helped pay for a full-page Chicago Tribune ad that touted him as a pro-choicer.
The rhetoric was also harsh about Mrs. Rauner today, with Personal PAC founder Marcie Love saying about that newspaper ad, “So, Diana, did you lie to all your friends… or did Bruce lie to you?”
* The feeling is mutual in the Rauner camp. Back in 2014, Personal PAC paid for advertising which claimed that Rauner supports “dangerously restricting abortion.” Rauner, however, only differed with Personal PAC on his 2014 questionnaire by saying he favored parental notification, which the group opposes.
Terry Cosgrove’s decision to attack Bruce is driven by politics, not the issues, and it sickens me because I believe that it is ultimately destructive to our cause. By attacking a pro-choice Republican candidate, he virtually assures we will never see another. Instead of promoting bipartisan support for choice– a great victory!– he has chosen to use innuendo and misinformation to smear Bruce’s views and record. What Terry neglects to mention is that he is a paid appointee of the Quinn administration with a salary and pension.
Cosgrove was appointed to the Human Rights Commission by Quinn, a position he no longer has.
* Anyway, back to HB 40. Cosgrove pointed out today that state fiscal impact notes filed on an identical bill in 2015 by the Rauner administration found little to no actual impact …
Fiscal Note (Dept. of Human Services)
HB 4013 will have no fiscal impact on the Department of Human Services.
Balanced Budget Note (Office of Management and Budget)
This bill is anticipated to have minimal savings to the State.
Fiscal Note (Dept. of Healthcare & Family Services)
The cost for the Department of Healthcare and Family Services would be $1.3 million.
* But Cosgrove also admitted that there aren’t enough votes in the House to override a Rauner veto.
There are committed believers on both sides of this issue. No doubt about it. But there’s also been a ton of speculation that this bill was designed to do what it has done: Put Bruce Rauner on the spot in a big way with pro-choice and pro-life voters. Rauner took big heat from his right flank, so he appeased them and flipped on Cosgrove, whom he doesn’t like anyway and who failed to defeat him in 2014. And now Cosgrove is kicking up dust in the media.
But since there is a credible veto threat, HB 40 proponents have to make a decision: Do they push ahead as-is and dare Rauner to veto their bill; or do they pull out the Medicaid funding and state employee health insurance aspects and just run the “trigger” component?
If they try to call Rauner’s bluff and he vetoes it anyway and Roe v. Wade is overturned and they can’t override the veto, havoc could ensue. But they probably won’t get the full “benefits” of this alleged political hit without Rauner’s veto. And if Rauner signs an amended bill, he could then take victory laps around both the pro-choice track (for guaranteeing women’s rights to choose in case the Supreme Court rules against them) and the pro-life track (for preventing state taxpayer funding of abortions beyond what is already allowed).
* The Question: Should HB 40’s supporters forge ahead as-is, or amend the bill to Rauner’s liking? Give it some thought, then click here to take the poll and explain your answer in comments, please.
Illinois Director of Natural Resources Director Wayne Rosenthal visited Olson Lake in Rock Cut State Park today.
The DNR unexpectedly closed the popular swimming lake and beach March 20 with the explanation that the lake had collected excessive silt, reducing water quality. After state Rep. John Cabello, R-Machesney Park, expressed concern about the lake’s status, Rosenthal promised to dredge the lake in order to reopen it for swimming and other beach activities.
However, Rosenthal offered no timetable and said his department has an $800 million backlog of deferred maintenance.
Also, he said that while the department has a dredging machine, it is broken. The cost to fix it, he said, is $450,000, and there’s no money for that.
Last night, Daniel Biss was asked on WTTW whether he would favor raising taxes immediately.
His response – tax hikes are “needed” and he would raise taxes across the board without reform.
“We can’t afford to wait…We have to be willing to make some compromises, we have to be willing to sit down and put everything on the table and do what’s needed,” said Biss about his tax hike plan.
We can’t afford to wait a minute more than we have to to get a balanced budget that properly funds our priorities. And so, on the road to amending the Constitution enabling us to have a fairer tax system that will finally allow us to ask the richest Illinois residents to pay their share, we have to be willing to make some compromises. We have to be willing to sit down and put everything on the table and do what’s needed to get a balanced budget. But in the long-term, the only way to make sure that our budget is still balanced, and fair and working for the people in 10, 20 and 30 years is to fix the Constitution and enable fair taxation.
“Daniel Biss is interested in actually doing something about Illinois’ problems, not just buying millions of dollars of TV commercials complaining about them. It’s an honest and pragmatic approach. So, it’s not surprising that the Governor and his party machinery aren’t familiar with it.”
Governor Bruce Rauner [yesterday] toured II-VI EpiWorks and reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to fostering innovation and technology in Illinois.
“EpiWorks started at the University of Illinois, and stayed here. Thank you for investing in Illinois, for believing in Illinois and for showing others what can happen here. You are the future and a model for Illinois’ economic recovery,” said Governor Rauner. “Illinois has every resource to be an economic power and lead the nation—except good government. We have got to advocate for real change that fosters innovation and creates good paying jobs.”
As part of his tour, Governor Rauner discussed the administration’s plans to change the broken system in Illinois. The administration is committed to increasing job growth and creating high quality jobs across all sectors to Illinois by making Illinois competitive. One goal is to improve the schools in Illinois including expanding alternative options like apprenticeship programs. The administration has also created the Illinois Competitiveness Council to assist businesses who want to start, expand or stay in Illinois.
EpiWorks is a successful high-tech company founded by Quesnell Hartmann and David Ahmari, along with their University of Illinois faculty advisor, Gregory Stillman in 1997. Hartmann and Ahmari are world renowned experts who have successfully parlayed their expertise to create a thriving semiconductor fabrication company. EpiWorks has maintained a goal to help build a critical mass so UIUC would be a hub for not just semiconductor research, but also for commercialization and production.
There is just so much wrong with this release.
* First, EpiWorks was started at a University of Illinois incubator. One of the founders said in December the company plans to hire 80 employees over three years. It needs engineering and production personnel for its compound semiconductor epitaxial wafer facility.
So, if EpiWorks is the “future and a model for Illinois’ economic recovery,” as the governor says in his release, and those entrepreneurs need high-quality, well-educated workers, then why the heck are we zapping universities in this state?
Look, “expanding alternative options like apprenticeship programs” and creating a Competitiveness Council to help businesses are fine and dandy. But if we want more of these sorts of high tech start-ups, then the best thing we can do is provide them with a higher education system that is second to none, right?
Now, read that press release again and see if you can find any mention of doing that. You didn’t see it? OK, now look for any reference to higher education at all except for a few UIUC name-checks. Nothing?
* Meanwhile, Moody’s announced this week that it could be whacking the U of I’s credit rating in a few months, along with every other public university. But Champaign-area reporters asked only one question of the governor when he did his EpiWorks visit yesterday: “Do you think five weeks is going to be enough to agree on a budget and is bad money better than no money at all?” Click here to listen.
A day before a hearing on Chicago Public Schools’ lawsuit against the state of Illinois over education funding, some aldermen on Tuesday complained that they haven’t received any updates on the district’s latest budget crunch.
“Where is Mr. (CPS CEO Forrest) Claypool, where is the (school) board, and when are we going to get an answer about the future of our children?” Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, said at a City Council Finance Committee meeting. […]
Claypool has warned that the school year could end June 1 instead of June 20, and that most summer school sessions could be eliminated, without a court ruling in the district’s favor. The state has filed a motion to dismiss the district’s lawsuit, which Cook County Chancery Judge Franklin Ulyses Valderrama is expected to also consider at Wednesday’s hearing.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said cutting the school year short is “not the right option, not the right choice,” casting doubt on whether the city would follow through on Claypool’s threats. But aldermen on Tuesday criticized the absence of a public plan to keep schools open and close a budget gap that lingers despite midyear budget cuts and teacher furloughs.
Ald. Harry Osterman (48th) said Chicago Public Schools are “well past the tipping point” and unable to “sustain themselves” financially.
But he warned that a solution in Springfield is unlikely so long as the marathon state budget stalemate drags on. That puts the City Council on the hot seat.
“CPS and this council have to be on the same page. … If Springfield isn’t gonna solve this, we have to work together. But that requires a dialogue,” he said.
“There are real downsides long-term to our city if we don’t get this right and soon. And that is, people are leaving. CPS has lost 30,000 students in the last few years. And there’s more this year and more to come. We have to get this right. If we don’t, it’s gonna undercut the future of our city.”
“I just would like to know what’s the reluctancy of Claypool and [Chief Education Officer Janice] Jackson from coming to talk to this body,” [Ald. Anthony Beale] said.
Ald. Harry Osterman (48th) said CPS will be “waiting a long time” if it’s expecting any financial help from state lawmakers or the governor.
“The main thing I want to say is that CPS and this Council have to be on the same page,” he said.
Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) said that’s not happening.
“We have a non-responsive head of CPS, you know, which is why I’ve been an advocate for an elected school board,” she said.
Emanuel long has resisted using TIF funds to bolster the public schools budget, saying that it was inappropriate to use money from a one-time revenue source to pay for school operations.
“We can’t subsidize the state’s failure,” 27th Ward Ald. Walter Burnett said, noting that he gave up $60 million in TIF funds earmarked for a new high school in his ward to avert the strike.
Burnett accused his colleagues of supporting using TIF money to avoid an early end to the school year to curry favor with the politically powerful teachers union.
“Let’s do this rationally,” Burnett said, adding that he uses funds from TIF districts in his ward to make critical improvements for residents. “This thing has to be balanced.”
A court hearing Wednesday morning could decide if parents of Chicago Public Schools students need to make plans for an early end to the school year. […]
CPS is suing Illinois and Governor Bruce Rauner for discriminatory funding, saying the state is discriminating against the city’s large population of minority students by giving more money to teacher pensions outside Chicago than to CPS.
The district wants a judge to force the state to release more money.
Attorneys for Rod Blagojevich appeared in federal appellate court Tuesday in Chicago to argue that the imprisoned ex-governor should have his 14-year sentence reduced. […]
The hearing follows Blagojevich’s resentencing last August when a lower court judge gave him the same 14-year prison he imposed at the initial sentencing in 2011. Blagojevich was convicted of abusing his power, including an attempt to sell the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Barack Obama.
On Tuesday, lawyers asked for a new sentencing hearing, saying that the previous judge didn’t take into consideration the dozens of letters from fellow inmates about the good work he has been doing in prison.
“It’s an argument the government keeps raising that he’s not truly remorseful. It’s interesting because the government prosecuted him. The reason we’re back here is because the government prosecuted him for something that wasn’t a crime, something that in the history of this country has never been prosecuted and has been done throughout history as the appellate court found,” his lawyer Leonard Goodman said outside court.
In a signal of how high the legal hurdle is for Blagojevich, the same panel of judges who ruled in 2015 that the ex-governor’s sentence was reasonable — Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Ilana Rovner — heard the arguments again this time around. For the case to break Blagojevich’s way, those judges would have to decide that their previous ruling was erroneous.
After court, Goodman acknowledged that the chances were dimming for Blagojevich, whose only other recourse should the 7th Circuit decide against him would be to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a hearing — a move that would be considered a legal long shot at best since the high court already passed on taking up the case last year. […]
In its first ruling in 2015, the 7th Circuit threw out five counts involving the Senate seat on technical grounds. But the court tempered the small victory for Blagojevich by calling the evidence against him “overwhelming” and making it clear that the original sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge James Zagel was not out of bounds. Zagel’s decision in August to resentence Blagojevich to the original 14 years means he’s still slated to remain in prison until May 2024.
In the latest appeal in December, Goodman and co-counsel Michael Nash argued Zagel ignored key evidence presented at the resentencing, including dozens of letters written by fellow inmates about Blagojevich’s character and leadership in the federal prison camp outside Denver.
Nearly all of the questions from the three-judge panel Tuesday came from Rovner, who dwelled on the letters and Zagel’s decision to credit Blagojevich with acceptance of responsibility in 2011 and 2016. She said Blagojevich has “conducted himself admirably in prison,” as described in the letters.
“And perhaps this is something that a different judge would give, you know, more weight to,” Rovner said.
But she also asked whether Zagel was required to do so.
Ilana Diamond Rovner, one of the three 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges who heard the arguments, suggested Blagojevich might have gotten a lesser sentence from a different trial judge.
A prosecutor told the panel that Judge James Zagel was right to stand by the original sentence because Blagojevich, 60, has never admitted serious wrongdoing.
“There’s nothing anywhere where the defendant says, ‘I apologize for putting my own personal interests ahead of the interests of the public I was charged with serving,’” Debra Bonamici said. […]
Outside court later Tuesday, Blagojevich attorney Leonard Goodman said an unqualified apology would contradict his client’s position that he never crossed legal lines.
“It’s ironic that the government is saying that he’s not truly remorseful,” Goodman said. “I’d like to see some of that remorse from the government, for putting him through that and putting his family through that!”
One of McHenry County’s state senators is half of a partnership that has developed and released a proposed balanced Illinois budget that doesn’t raise taxes.
Calling Republican Sen. Dan McConchie’s plan a long shot at ending an almost two-year budget impasse is an understatement. Besides the ongoing stalemate between Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, the Democratic Party holds a Senate supermajority, and all eyes have been on a proposed but apparently stalled “grand bargain” that couples some reforms with massive tax increases.
But McConchie’s proposal, he told the Northwest Herald Editorial Board on Thursday, does what other budget proposals have not by proving that the state budget can be balanced without asking taxpayers for more.
“To date, we’ve said only, ‘We need more of your money.’ We can now say, ‘Here’s what it looks like to live within our means, and let’s have a conversation about this,’ ” said McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods.
Except, his package of bills hasn’t yet been introduced. So far, it’s just a press release. And a press release doesn’t mean that he “has developed and released a proposed balanced Illinois budget that doesn’t raise taxes.”
Mike Madigan publicly professed his desire to raise the income tax back to 5% with no reforms, and House Democrats, under Madigan’s leadership, are now trying to pass a stopgap spending plan to force a massive tax hike without any reforms to fix Illinois and grow jobs.
On Monday, J.B. Pritzker signaled again that he supports Madigan’s borrow-spend-and-tax agenda.
Pritzker previously admitted behind closed doors that he wants to increase the income tax to at least 5 percent, and when asked by WCIA about his comments Monday, Pritzker “wouldn’t answer.”
Then, Pritzker repeated his Madigan talking points, proclaiming that reforms demanded by the people – term limits, a property tax freeze, and pro-growth policies – are “misguided.”
It’s clear Pritzker will do everything he can to help Mike Madigan and raise taxes without reforms.
A stopgap wouldn’t force a massive tax hike. The House proposal would merely use money that’s currently gathering dust in state accounts to keep some social service providers and universities alive while the budget deal drags on.
But they are right that Pritzker put himself on the “wrong” side of public opinion on some pretty popular things like term limits and a property tax freeze.
Rauner twice visited the Quad-Cities in the past week. He twice reiterated well-worn talking points. He twice pinned the blame for Illinois’ failures on the other side of the aisle.
At some point, the bluster becomes destructive. It’s little but positioning for a re-election bid.
Rauner offered one piece of wisdom Monday.
“I tell these folks every day, let’s not think about the next election,” he said. “Let’s think about the future of Illinois.”
If only Rauner took his own advice.
Ouch.
* By the way, you’ll recall that reporters tried to get Gov. Rauner to explain last week why his campaign was paying for a statewide tour if he wasn’t actually campaigning…
(T)he governor insisted [last week] that the proceedings weren’t political. Reporters, Rauner said, shouldn’t cover his tour “in any way other than communication to the people of Illinois.”
“I’ve traveled many times over the last couple years and this trip is not an election announcement,” Rauner said.
The governor struggled to explain the difference.
“Here’s what we’ve got to do. Whether it’s social media, whether it’s visiting with you, a few earned media, whether it’s meeting with the people of Illinois directly, whether it’s running advertising, paid media to get the communication out, we need the people of Illinois, we need the people of Illinois to know what’s going on,” Rauner said after touring a suburban vitamin factory where workers took selfies with him.
Asked why the event didn’t fall under his government duties, Rauner replied: “We want this to be separate and just paid for independently from any government operation.”
Gov. Rauner’s press shop didn’t shed much light when asked why last week’s two-day statewide tour was paid for by the campaign while similar stops Monday in Moline and Peoria were paid for by taxpayers.
On Tuesday, a clearer answer emerged: The governor was filmed during the tour, and the Illinois Republican Party promoted a web ad with footage.
The short commercial clocks in at over three minutes, and features generic uplifting music and plenty of sound bites from the governor.
A happy 75th birthday to longtime Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, who came into this world on April 19, 1942, according to his official bio.
The World War II baby was first elected to the House in November 1970 and convinced his Democratic colleagues to elect him speaker in 1983 (he was minority leader or majority leader for six years before that). As is often mentioned, Madigan has served as speaker for all but two years since then. (The Newt Gingrich-led GOP landslide in November 1994 swept Democrats out of power, but Madigan rebounded in 1996 to regain control of the chamber.)
If Madigan keeps control of the House and his chief nemesis, Republican Gov. Rauner, wins re-election next year, their historic stalemate conceivably could last through 2022. The speaker would turn 80 that year.
We’re celebrating here at the ILGOP by reflecting back on everything that Madigan has done for our state. He’s spent over half of his life - 46 years to be exact - in the Illinois political system. So what has he brought to IL?
* massive job losses
* record income tax hikes
* highest property taxes in the country
* worst state pension crisis in America
Let’s band together to tell Madigan how we really feel on his special day. Sign our card here.
