“This announcement strikes a very familiar tone, one that should bring great caution to the public especially as we enter the final weeks of the legislative session. Two years ago, these same Democrats ‘engaged’ in working group discussions on these very issues only to walk away from the table to pass a budget that was more than $4 billion out of balance. Last year they once again ‘engaged’ with Republicans on these issues only to walk away and pass a budget that was $7 billion out of balance. The fact is, Democrats have a history of creating these working groups in an attempt to waste time and obfuscate from their record of more than 20 years of reckless spending and failed policies. As I’ve said repeatedly, we are willing to negotiate with Democrats to bring an end to this impasse, but that only works when both sides respect the priorities of the other side. We remain willing and ready to negotiate and compromise, but time is running out.”
From what I’ve been told, I don’t think the governor’s office will directly respond to Madigan’s offer, but one never knows for sure about such things.
*** UPDATE *** From Senate GOP Leader Christine Radogno…
“I see Speaker Madigan’s comments today as a ploy, typical of his pattern of behavior. It is clearly a political reaction to the progress being made in the Senate and our good faith efforts to reach a comprehensive solution. We continue to work on significant reforms coupled with a balanced budget. I’m still hopeful we can be successful with legislation in the Senate that can be sent to the House for consideration. The problem is solvable if there is the political will to do it.”
Democratic candidates running for governor turned out for the first forum in Hillside this weekend and none other than former Senate President Emil Jones Jr. surfaced. Jones acted as a surrogate to Chris Kennedy, who had a scheduling conflict.
Jones talked about how a governor (and others in power) can help bring jobs to African Americans. He talks about getting more minority firms in the asset management business.
“They have a great opportunity if they take those dollars, hire asset managers … I found out that the City of Chicago in particular with all that money they have, have very few minority money managers. That minority firm is going to hire a lot of minority people.”
“If you are not given the opportunity, then you are not going to be able to sustain your business. Many minority firms suffer because they don’t have access to capital. That’s one of the things that the governor can do, state treasurer can do, city of Chicago treasurer. Open the doors of opportunity.
There were ripples of laughter over this comparison: “You go to an Italian restaurant, there’s a lot of Italians working. There’s a lot of Chinese working in a Chinese restaurant. There’s a lot of Hispanics working in a Hispanic restaurants. I know Chris’ record. I know what he stands for.”
Um, OK.
* Jones was also asked where Kennedy stood on marijuana. He said he wouldn’t answer the question because he didn’t know what Kennedy’s position was. This tracker video doesn’t show Jones, but you can hear him…
* The former Senate President also talked about guns. Well, actually, he kinda rambled for several minutes. About two minutes in, you’ll hear him say he doesn’t know where Kennedy is on the topic because “We never talked about this”…
Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn unveiled his official portrait at a ceremony Monday in the Illinois State Capitol, revealing images that will bring unprecedented diversity, cutting-edge technology, and a new focus on civics education to the historic Hall of Governors.
“As we look at all these portraits of men who were elected to lead the State of Illinois, it’s important to remember all the women and men whose votes brought them into office,” Quinn said during the unveiling ceremony. “With this latest portrait, we hope to remind visitors that, in a democracy, the highest office is the office of citizen, and that all of us have a responsibility to participate in our government.”
The portrait, painted by renowned Illinois artist William T. Chambers, depicts Quinn standing before a background that features 44 interactive “found items” representing people, issues, and events from Governor Quinn’s long career in public service.
Most notably, the background includes a photograph of Quinn signing a bill that put an advisory referendum on the November 2014 ballot, asking voters whether the state’s minimum wage should be increased. In the photograph, Quinn is surrounded by a diverse group of supporters. This ‘portrait in a portrait’ depicts the first images of people of color ever included in the Hall of Governors.
“When people look at this portrait, we want to remind them that every person in the Land of Lincoln has the right to stand up, speak out, and start taking action to improve our government and change the world,” Quinn said.
A few of the “found items” in the portrait are deeply personal, such as the wedding day photograph of his parents, Eileen and Patrick J. Quinn, and photographs of his brothers, Tom and John, and his sons, Patrick and David.
But the majority of items relate to Quinn’s achievements in public life, including his passage of the $31 billion Illinois Jobs Now! Program, his advocacy for Illinois military families, his expansion of the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit, his leadership in expanding healthcare coverage, and his signing of the Marriage Equality bill.
“We hope this interactive portrait will educate and activate visitors to learn about civics, pursue careers in public service, and support the causes they believe in,” Quinn said. “When you understand your rights as a citizen and learn about the history of your state and your nation, you have all the tools you need to make the will of the people the law of the land.”
The portrait also includes a link to a Bible verse, Isaiah 6:8: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”
“For me, that brief verse sums up the whole spirit of public service and democracy,” Quinn said. “Democracy isn’t about standing around and waiting for someone else to take action. It’s about hearing that call to service and responding swiftly and eagerly, with everything you have in your heart.”
In addition to unveiling the formal portrait, Quinn also announced the creation of the GovernorQuinnPortrait.org website. By clicking on the found items in a high-resolution digital image of the portrait, website visitors can follow links to historical documents, videos, and other information about the issues the items represent.
Another way to experience the interactive nature of the portrait is to download the Thyng app on a smartphone or tablet. Using the app to view and scan the found items brings the portrait to life, displaying video associated with the item.
* If they’d just adopt the California statute I don’t think there would be much opposition. And despite what it says in the article, the burden on small companies won’t be light…
The state Senate on Thursday approved the groundbreaking Right to Know Act, a measure that would require online companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon to disclose to consumers what data about them has been collected and shared with third parties. […]
Major internet companies have been pushing back against the Illinois initiative, ramping up lobbying efforts as the privacy legislation advanced through the Senate, Hastings said. Online trade associations, including CompTIA, the Internet Association and NetChoice, also met with Hastings to voice opposition to the measure. […]
Sen. Chris Nybo, R-Elmhurst, questioned the value to consumers, and the potential burden it might place on e-commerce businesses in Illinois, if it passes into law.
“Every technology company that I’ve spoken to, from Microsoft down to Uber, Lyft … is opposed to this bill,” Nybo said. “People are watching across the country what happens on this bill. I think it sends the wrong message.”
The question of how to fund Illinois schools has become one of the most urgent — yet complicated —issues facing lawmakers.
Last night, as a panel discussed the two proposals pending in the Senate, those two facts were reiterated again and again. The meeting adjourned around 9 pm, after almost three hours of discussion of the bills sponsored by Senators Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) and Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington). They agree on the same basic plan, but disagree on how to ensure that no district loses money.
Manar’s plan aims to hold all districts “harmless,” ensuring they get at least as much state funding next year as they received in fiscal year 2017. Barickman’s plan mirrors that concept, with the exception of Chicago Public Schools.
But testimony at the hearing revealed a mistake in the spreadsheet Barickman distributed last week showing outcomes for each district. Jennifer Garrison, superintendent of Sandoval schools, shared a letter from North Berwyn schools superintendent Carmen Ayala, stating that Barickman’s plan (Senate Bill 1124) would cost North Berwyn more than $500,000. That result appears to run counter to the overall goal of both plans — to replace the state’s infamously inequitable school funding structure with a formula that helps poorer districts. The student body at North Berwyn is 87 percent low-income, and more than a quarter of the students are English language learners.
Protesters chained themselves together on the Illinois Capitol steps. Some on hunger strikes, having gone a month without food, sat inside under the dome. Others staged a House-floor sit-in, forming their hands into illuminati pyramids signifying the few at the top commanding the many at the bottom.
And when the civil disobedience dissolved on June 30, 1982, without legislative action, the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was presumed dead.
But 45 years after Congress approved the ERA and sent it to the states for ratification, Illinois is back at the center of a national movement to revive the issue. An Illinois Senate committee approved the ERA this month, setting up a floor vote not yet scheduled.
Despite threats from the Trump Administration to cut federal law enforcement funding to jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials, Illinois is moving towards becoming the nation’s fifth sanctuary state after California, Connecticut, New Mexico and Colorado.
With one vote to spare, the Illinois Senate passed a SB 031 Thursday, which would set Illinois state-funded schools, health care centers and secretary of state facilities as “safe zones” for undocumented immigrants to find protection from federal law enforcement.
In those locations throughout the state, state and local police would be prohibited from arresting persons based on their immigration status - the same practice now in place in the city of Chicago and Cook County.
Two state lawmakers said Friday that Illinois’ budget crisis and Gov. Bruce Rauner share in the blame for the death of 1-year-old Semaj Crosby.
State Reps. LaShawn Ford and Mary Flowers, both Democrats representing Chicago, said that investigating DCFS for its role is not enough and predicted that without a budget compromise, more children will fall through the cracks.
The state’s budget crisis has forced cuts at social service agencies that once were available to families in crisis. As the two lawmakers see it, Rauner needs to find a budget solution, while a spokesman for the governor said the lawmakers are politicizing a horrible tragedy.
“It’s the governor’s responsibility,” said Ford. “It’s his department and if the governor really cared as much about the children as he cares about selling the Thompson Center—DCFS would get the help that it needs.” […]
The governor’s office refuted the accusations.
“This has nothing to do with the budget, and it’s sad that anyone would try to politicize this horrible tragedy. Like everyone across the state, the governor wants answers on how such a horrific tragedy could happen,” a spokesperson for Rauner said Friday. “The Will County Sheriff, DCFS and other agencies are actively investigating and we are anxiously awaiting their findings. Something like this should never happen – and we need to find out exactly why it did. As an administration, we will remain committed to do anything and everything possible to protect the children of Illinois and improve the Department of Children and Family Services.”
It most certainly does have something to do with the lack of a state budget, but I, myself, wouldn’t directly blame the governor for the death of that little girl.
…Adding… It should be noted that DCFS basically runs without a budget because it’s under a federal consent decree. However, a budget could increase funding for various tasks. Or, the administration could go back to the judge and ask for more money.
Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner today said he blames Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn for the deaths of child-abuse victims whose families previously had contact with the state’s child-welfare agency.
“Yes,” Rauner said when asked by reporters if the deaths of 95 children with past contact with the Department of Children and Family Services from 2011-2013 were attributable to Quinn.
“Pat Quinn is, in the end, responsible for the failings at the Department of Children and Family Services. If it was a one-year problem or a temporary problem you could say, ‘OK, maybe, there was, it’s not really his responsibility.’ But he’s been governor for six years. He’s had a revolving door of failure at Department of Children and Family Services for years and years,” Rauner said.
Rauner’s remarks came as he stepped up his attacks over Quinn’s DCFS oversight with a new TV ad today with a similar message to a radio ad that began airing a day earlier.
Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson has called the ad campaign a “false and malicious attempt to smear the governor.” She contended Rauner was cynically using for political purposes an agency that “intervenes in emergency life and death situations” involving at-risk children.
“To imply the governor is somehow responsible for the deaths of children in the horrific circumstances that this agency enters into while trying to save lives is despicable and a new low,” she said.
Since 1980, Chicago has lost about a third of its black population. […]
“The white population is not falling, and the Latino and Asian populations are slightly growing,” says [Rob Paral, a public policy analyst]. “The big factor that is altering Chicago’s population is the change among blacks.”
Since the early ’80s, blacks in South and West Side neighborhoods have been steadily leaving the city, resettling at first largely in the Cook County suburbs. But over the past 15 years, more and more have been leaving the area entirely for northwest Indiana, Iowa’s Quad Cities, and Sun Belt states, says Alden Loury, the director of research and evaluation at the Metropolitan Planning Council. Today there are roughly 850,000 blacks in Chicago, down from 1.2 million in 1980.
The reasons for this are varied: The foreclosure crisis saw blacks evicted disproportionately from their rental apartments and houses; the Chicago Housing Authority leveled high-rises like the Robert Taylor Homes, scattering public housing residents; the lack of stable employment in South and West Side neighborhoods continues to force residents to look elsewhere for jobs; and school closures further disenfranchise communities. “There are not a lot of messages that Chicago cares about its black residents,” says Mary Pattillo, a sociology and African American studies professor at Northwestern University and author of the book Black Picket Fences. “When you lose the institutions that cultivate attachment, it makes it a lot easier to pick up and leave.”
More than two years after leaving office, former Gov. Pat Quinn plans to return to the Illinois Capitol on Monday to unveil his official portrait — a painting that is designed to not only capture his likeness but also offer a detailed history lesson about his life and time as the state’s 41st chief executive.
The festivities are set to begin at 1:30 p.m. in the Hall of Governors on the second floor of the statehouse. The hall features portraits of previous Illinois governors, and after Quinn’s painting goes up, only one will be missing: impeached and imprisoned ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
* One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the festivities could be dampened by columns like this one…
A top-ranking official a the University of Illinois’ Springfield campus was identified as among the wrongdoers in a court-ordered investigation of the illegal state patronage hiring scandal that occurred from 2009-14 under former Gov. Pat Quinn.
The voluminous report, prepared by independent monitor Noelle Brennan, identified Ryan Croke, a former Quinn chief and assistant chief of staff, as being among a handful of top people in the governor’s office who pressured officials at the Illinois Department of Transportation to hire clouted job applicants “with little to no regard for actual hiring need or whether the candidate was qualified to fill the stated duties of the job.”
When interviewed by lawyers Aug. 11, 2016, Croke, a 2005 University of Illinois graduate, denied any wrongdoing.
The report states that he acknowledged making recommendations for favored job-seekers but said he never “applied pressure or forced a specific candidate upon an agency.”
You are a government worker making $11,000 as a clerk in Washington Park. You want to make more.
You could go to school and improve your job skills, or you could call your political patron, state Sen. James Clayborne, and demand a state job.
When the $55,000 state offer comes, even though you have none of the qualifications, you double down on your weak hand and ask for $75,000. The Illinois Department of Transportation guy doing the hiring writes: “I don’t trust this guy at all.”
Unqualified. Demanding. Untrustworthy. The political juice is so strong with this one you’d think he was one of Clayborne’s female friends getting a state job. Plus Mr. Untrustworthy is hired to buy land for the state — no possibility of corruption there, right?
Former state Rep. Frank Mautino used his influence in state government to get people white-collar jobs at the state Department of Transportation, a federal court monitor revealed this week.
In two cases, employees Mautino sponsored didn’t meet the qualifications for their positions, according to the monitor’s report.
More than 40 deaths in Cook County so far in 2017 have been linked to an overdose of a powerful new opioid.
Between January and early April, at least 44 deaths were attributed to acrylfentanyl, a new fentanyl analog, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. In 2016, only seven deaths were attributed to acrylfentanyl.
There may be more deaths linked to the new opioid, because toxicology tests can take several weeks, according to the medical examiner’s office. […]
Of 1,091 people in Cook County who died at least in part because of an opiate-related overdose in 2016, 562 died after using fentanyl or fentanyl analogs, according to the medical examiner’s office.
* This is what’s known as a “bootleg” drug. A bit of background…
According to the DEA, Acryl fentanyl is being manufactured overseas, smuggled into the U.S., and sold mainly on the dark web.
“We suspect China as one of the manufacturers, Canada, Mexico and the like,” said Battiste.
It’s also resistant to Narcan, which is used to revive heroin overdose patients.
Gov. Rick Scott signed an executive order Wednesday declaring a public health emergency in Florida due to the opioid epidemic, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated the epidemic was nationwide.
The emergency order will allow the state to immediately receive more than $27 million in federal funding awarded Florida April 21 under the 21st Century Cures Act to fight the epidemic.
The announcement comes a day after state officials met with local leaders in Palmetto as part of a series of state-directed workshops to discuss the needs of Manatee, Palm Beach, Orange and Duval counties.
[State Sen. Andy Manar] blasted Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner for his budget proposal not to restore funding in the upcoming fiscal year to addiction-prevention programs.
“In Springfield, the approach lately from Governor Rauner has been to fight the heroin and prescription drug epidemic by slashing programs that deal with this problem directly. That is the opposite approach that we should be taking,” Manar said.
A Rauner spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
The 22-month state budget impasse is about to claim another victim - and it’s one that could have a devastating domino effect on the ability to treat people battling drug addictions.
The Jacksonville-based Wells Center, which provides drug abuse treatment, announced Friday it anticipates closing for good the first week of May. It serves about 500 people a year though its 32 inpatient beds and outpatient programs. It also employs 69 people.
“Having explored alternatives that may have allowed Wells Center to remain open, the Center administration and board have made the difficult decision that the Center will have to close and cease operations,” the Wells Center said in a statement.
It was an abrupt change from last month, when the center signaled its intent to stay open for another three to six months, even though it was receiving chronically late payments from the state. That decision came after Comptroller Susana Mendoza pledged to do what she could to expedite payments; her office said Friday it had provided the available state payments, about $400,000, during the last few weeks.
The Wells Center funding provided fodder for the ongoing battle between Mendoza, a Democrat, and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who have repeatedly traded barbs over who is responsible for the state’s budget woes. This is a situation where who is at fault seems almost secondary, as the impending closure of the Wells Center is a heartbreaking illustration of how lawmakers have created a state where assisting those most in need of help is not as important as chalking up a partisan win under the Capitol dome.
Former Gov. Jim Edgar put the Illinois political world on alert the other night by using the words “somewhat incompetent governor” in what most of his listeners took as a dig at fellow Republican Bruce Rauner.
Edgar told me Friday he wasn’t referring to Rauner at all, but rather to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“Bruce Rauner might be a lot of things. He’s not incompetent,” the former governor said after I called him to clarify remarks he made the previous evening at an event Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. We’ll get to the actual remarks later.
I believe Edgar, just as I believe he really was referring to Rauner when he also noted in the same talk that House Speaker Mike Madigan is “not the big problem here.”
I was glad Edgar saved me the trouble of defending Rauner’s competency, although a little disappointed he wouldn’t help me elucidate the “lot of things” that might better describe our current governor’s shortcomings.
Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs will urge Governor Bruce Rauner [today] to focus on budget negotiations to avoid junk bond status. During Rauner’s tenure, Illinois has incurred six credit downgrades due to two years without a state budget.
Frerichs will outline the financial consequences and address the negative impact Illinois faces if credit agencies move forward with public warnings to downgrade Illinois to junk bond status.
* Treasurer Frerichs has been mostly quiet about Gov. Rauner and the impasse. “I prefer to play my part and do my job rather than to complain about others,” he told reporters today, then explained why he was speaking out: “The future of our state is too important.”
Gov. Rauner “paid big money” to win his election, “but he refuses to do his job,” Frerichs said. “The buck always stops somewhere else.”
“It is embarrassing and downright shameful that Illinois is in this deep of a hole,” he said, pointing to the six state credit downgrades and the recent warning from Moody’s that Illinois “is on a path to junk bond status.”
“Gov. Rauner needs to stop campaigning and start governing,” he said. “You can’t negotiate a budget when you’re out on the campaign trail. You can’t negotiate a budget through press conferences and television commercials,” the treasurer said at his press conference. “You have to be present here, present in Springfield calling the leaders together to work out his deal.”
“I don’t listen when someone says something is a priority, I look at their budget, I look at their actions. And then you can see clearly what is not a priority with this administration,” Frerichs said of the lack of funding for higher education and social services. He later said he was in favor of the House’s “lifeline” budget for those two areas as budget negotiations proceeded in the Senate.
Frerichs also said the lack of a budget would impact upcoming bond sales. “The added interest we’re paying will be ripped out of the wallets of Illinois citizens,” he said, claiming that another credit downgrade could “terminate interest rate swap contracts,” which would trigger some big payouts.
“This is not the Illinois we want it to be,” Frerichs said. “We need a budget and I call upon the governor to do his job now.”
* Frerichs also criticized Rauner for focusing solely on K-12 funding, noting that Rauner constantly crows about increasing education funding while slashing higher education dollars. “Education in this state does not end in the 12th grade,” he said.
I’ll post the Rauner administration’s response if I get one. Frerichs’ press release is here.
*** UPDATE *** From Deputy Governor Leslie Munger…
The fact is that the Treasurer spent years in Springfield voting for the very tax hikes and borrowing that landed us in this place. Instead of playing politics, the Treasurer should encourage members of his party to work with the Governor on real change to get our state back on track to long-term economic growth and balanced budgets.
Speaker Michael J. Madigan issued the following statement Monday:
“For nearly two years, families in our communities have lost critical services as a result of the budget impasse. Educators, social service agencies and countless others have warned that Illinois will be dealing with the consequences of this impasse for many years to come. In the years preceding this impasse, we were paying down the backlog of unpaid old bills and had the bill backlog down to $4.5 billion. The bill backlog today stands at over $13 billion due to the lack of a state budget. The state’s backlog has tripled, and bond rating agencies have made it clear that the lack of a state budget weighs foremost in their minds when evaluating Illinois’ financial standing. For these reasons and due to the impact this impasse is having on every Illinoisan, House Democrats have been resolute in our belief that all legislators and the governor must recognize the budget as the most important issue facing our state.
“While we stand firm that the budget – and the budget alone – must be our top priority, it is also our desire to work cooperatively with the governor. To this end, I am appointing Representatives Barbara Flynn Currie, Lou Lang, Arthur Turner and Jay Hoffman to work with the governor to identify areas of his agenda where compromise can be reached. The House has taken action on several of the governor’s requests, and this group will be able to discuss his further proposals and consider how they would affect the state.
“It is our strong desire that Governor Rauner join us in putting the budget first. By showing the governor that House Democrats stand ready to work with him in good faith, it is my hope that he will return to the negotiating table and work with us to end the budget crisis.”
Looks to me like he’s trying to get out in front of something. Maybe it’s the Senate’s progress. Maybe it’s internal caucus pressure. Maybe both.
“Daniel Biss’ actions don’t match his hollow words. Public records reveal that Biss is loyal to Madigan’s Chicago Machine, taking Madigan money, voting for his unbalanced budgets, backing him for Speaker, and even running his super PAC. Daniel Biss is just another unprincipled career politician who would sell out to Madigan as Governor.” - Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Aaron DeGroot
In an interview with WCIA, longtime Madigan confidant and Democratic candidate for governor Daniel Biss revealed himself as just another unprincipled career politician. Watch the interview HERE.
Biss claims to be running against “money and the machine,” yet his campaign cash and votes show he is a loyal soldier of Mike Madigan’s Chicago Machine.
In 2011, one of Biss’ very first votes as a new State Representative was to make Madigan Speaker of the Illinois House.
Public records reveal Madigan is Biss’ largest campaign contributor. Since first running for office in 2008, Biss has personally taken over $300,000 in campaign cash from Madigan.
Biss even supported Madigan’s rigged legislative district maps, disenfranchising voters across Illinois.
In 2013, Biss moved from the House to the Senate, but that didn’t stop him from doing Madigan’s bidding.
In a nod to Madigan, Biss dropped his bid for Illinois Comptroller as Madigan endorsed his primary opponent, Susana Mendoza, clearing the primary field for the Chicago Machine.
Last May, Biss voted for Madigan’s out-of-balance budget that overspent by $7 billion, even as the budget vote failed and other Senate Democrats voted no. The Madigan-Biss budget was so unbalanced, it would’ve forced a $1,000 tax hike on every Illinois family.
And during last year’s election, Biss embraced both money and the machine as he ran a super PAC for Mike Madigan designed to block Governor Rauner’s reform efforts in Springfield. Biss’ super PAC received $650,000 from the Madigan Family. One Illinois Democrat operative called Biss’ super PAC a “Madigan joint.”
Is there anything Daniel Biss won’t do for money and the machine?
During his 2008 campaign, Biss warned against the “pernicious influence of money in politics.” Biss told the Chicago Jewish Star “I will not be beholden” to party politicians, highlighting that his campaign took no money from the Democratic Party. In that campaign, he took just $5,000 from three local Democratic organizations, and he lost.
Two years later, Biss altered course. He tapped into far greater sums of money which propelled him to his first election win, gaining himself a berth in Madigan’s House. Biss’ 2010 campaign took over $280,000 from Madigan’s Democratic Party and accepted more than $19,000 from Madigan’s personal campaign committee.
Biss claims Madigan opposed his 2010 primary campaign, but later backed his general election against the Republican opponent.
“[Madigan] worked very, very hard to stop me from being a legislator,” Biss said on Capitol Connection. He insisted, “Madigan tried very hard to bankroll a candidate against me in the primary.” That candidate never entered the race. Biss won the 2010 primary election unopposed.
Biss was also hit by the interviewer for taking money from “big pharma” and banks, but pointed to his voting record as proof that he wasn’t in the tank for them, either.
* Still, Biss is running as an independent and is pursuing the Bernie Sanders vote. He may not be pure enough for some of them. But, as far as the ILGOP is concerned, nobody is pure enough, including Ald. Ameya Pawar.
* Related…
* Bernard Schoenburg: Biss tells Sangamon Dems he’s inspired to run: Asked if he supports Madigan, Biss got applause when he said one thing the speaker has done “really well” is “said no” to Rauner. But he also said the Democratic Party led by Madigan “has not done what it needs to do” for decades — lay out “our own progressive agenda of how we solve the state’s problems in a way that lifts people up.” “I believe he’s been there too long,” Biss said of Madigan. “I believe he has too much power.” He said he has long backed 10-year term limits on legislative leaders… Madigan spokesman STEVE BROWN said later that while “everyone’s entitled to their own opinion … the Democrats in the legislature have supported, time and time again, progressive ideas,” from a tax on millionaires, to marriage equality and voter reforms. “The record’s there,” Brown said. “It speaks for itself.”
* This is a perfect metaphor for the last two-plus years. Decades of neglect led to the election of someone who promised major change and a can-do attitude, followed by a self-induced fiscal crisis that made fixing those problems impossible and then disaster ensued…
Restoring the Illinois State Fair Coliseum after years of neglect will take at least two years and millions of dollars — if the state had the money.
The assessment of the state Capital Development Board, the agency in charge of state buildings, is contained in an emergency, $600,000 contract for enclosure of a temporary facility to host horse shows and other indoor events disrupted by the Coliseum shutdown in October. Inspectors said the more-than-century-old Coliseum was no longer safe after years of neglect that resulted in significant structural deterioration. […]
While a formal engineering study has yet to be completed, CDB said extensive repairs ranging from a new roof to replacement of corroded steel support beams would cost between $3 million and $4 million.
The bigger immediate challenge is lack of money. Illinois has been without a permanent spending plan for nearly two years. Lawmakers and the governor also have been unable to agree on a capital spending bill for infrastructure updates and maintenance of state facilities.
“This is significant structural work that needs to be done,” said state Rep. Tim Butler, a Springfield Republican. “It’s not just fixing a piece that is out of place or fallen. The real answer is what do we do if we ever get to a capital bill. We’re talking about rebuilding the Coliseum.
Remember all those promises in the 2014 campaign and ever since about a big capital bill? You can’t do that without a budget.
* I’ve been updating subscribers about these Senate talks for several days now, including this morning. Here’s Mary Ann Ahern…
[State Sen. Bill Brady] has been meeting with Senate President John Cullerton, and while he said “we’re not there yet; we are closer to a comprehensive plan that lays it all out,” more lawmakers now believe a vote will be taken on the Senate’s so-called “Grand Bargain” before the May 31 deadline. After May 31, lawmakers would need a three-fifths majority to pass the bill, rather than a simple majority.
Brady is working closely with Governor Bruce Rauner’s staff, and while the GOP may have enough votes to accept the income tax hike, issues like a property tax freeze and workers compensation reforms – that have been Rauner’s “must-haves” – are not yet settled.
Why might there be a break in the impasse? The governor’s re-election is taking center stage, and his inability to reach a budget deal, according to several Springfield sources, has made Rauner “desperate for a deal.”
At the same time, sources also used the same “desperate” description when noting that Cullerton and House Speaker Mike Madigan are hearing from progressive Democrats who are frustrated by the nearly two-yearlong impasse.
Stay positive, but don’t hold your breath just yet.
Is it a Grand Bargain 2.0? Republican state Sen. Bill Brady didn’t want to call it that in an interview with POLITICO last night, but here’s a summary of where he says the GOP is right now: a five-year income tax increase and expansion of the services tax as long as they’re coupled in time with a five-year property tax freeze. “The hope here would be if Republicans would participate in a revenue increase, that the revenue increase would be associated in time with a property tax freeze,” Brady said Sunday. He said the proposal would call for a cap on spending and reforms with workers’ compensation. “In five years when the increase in the revenues falls off, spending will be in line with new revenues and things will not have the cliff that we were left with under Pat Quinn.”
Are casinos part of the package? “We talked about that. We believe it could be.”
Where is (Senate GOP Leader Christine) Radogno in all of this? Is Brady’s involvement pushing her to the side? “No. Sen. Radogno is the one who asked me to engage in the conversation with Sen. [President John] Cullerton. She has been very involved in everything we’ve done.”
What do Dems say? Cullerton spokesman John Patterson: “When Sen. Brady filed his proposals, we welcomed him to the discussions. The idea here is if people have ideas, let’s see if the numbers add up and if we can make them work,” Patterson said Sunday. “This isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, we’re all trying to work together to find a solution. The original (grand bargain) bills that were filed had Republican bills that were in there.”
None of this is particularly new. The Senate has been talking about a five-year tax hike coupled with a five-year property tax freeze for well over two months. And the Senate has already passed a gaming bill.
The first commercial from Illinois gubernatorial hopeful J.B. Pritzker smartly attempts to minimize what could be large issue for him.
Pritzker, a billionaire entrepreneur and one of a raft of Democrats hoping to face incumbent Bruce Rauner, the presumptive Republican nominee, in 2018, is a man of conspicuous size; girth of the sort that opponents might slyly try to use against him.
But unlike other hefty pols who wear concealing suit jackets and extra-long ties, Pritzker appears in the opening shot of the 60-second spot in button-straining shirtsleeves and an unflattering open collar.
“I’ve been thinking big since the very beginning,” Pritzker says, smiling to the camera next to superimposed photos of him as a chubby baby and husky boy.
The rest of the ad is well-executed boilerplate, but in that first 10 seconds Pritzker humorously deflates the potential overinflation issue by saying, in effect: Yes, I know I’m overweight, let’s get past that, shall we?
It is about as subtle as a playground taunt: a television ad for Gov. Jon S. Corzine shows his challenger, Christopher J. Christie, stepping out of an S.U.V. in extreme slow motion, his extra girth moving, just as slowly, in several different directions at once.
In case viewers missed the point, a narrator snidely intones that Mr. Christie “threw his weight around” to avoid getting traffic tickets.
In the ugly New Jersey contest for governor, Mr. Corzine and Mr. Christie have traded all sorts of shots, over mothers and mammograms, loans and lying. But now, Mr. Corzine’s campaign is calling attention to his rival’s corpulence in increasingly overt ways.
Mr. Corzine’s television commercials and Web videos feature unattractive images of Mr. Christie, sometimes shot from the side or backside, highlighting his heft, jowls and double chin.
Christie didn’t make an issue of his own girth like Pritzker has done. Instead, he waited for Corzine to make the first move and then ginned up a backlash. Here’s one of Christie’s responses…
“There’s a lot of people out in New Jersey who have the same kind of struggles, and I think that kind of stuff is just beneath the office that the governor holds,” Christie said.
Christie also confronted Corzine: “If you’re going to do it, at least man up and say I’m fat.”
* And now that Pritzker has opened the door, the online insults have begun. Here’s just one of them…
JB Pritzker Sumo match vs. Chris Christie. Loser's state gets kicked out of the Union. #fairfight#agoodstart
Ever since former Illinois Republican Gov. Jim Edgar started publicly criticizing current Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, Edgar has been subjected to a steady drumbeat of criticism from the far right.
The focus of most of that criticism is what’s come to be known as the “Edgar ramp.” The phrase describes the ramping up of state pension payments to the current point, where pension expenses are consuming about a quarter of the state’s budget.
There is no doubt the Edgar ramp was flawed, as all compromises are. The annual pension payment increases were too gradual at the beginning, which made them steeper than they should have been years later.
But we don’t live in an ideal world, nor do we live in a dictatorship. You pass the legislation you can pass. And passing a bill that immediately required huge pension payments just wasn’t possible. After decades of not making adequate pension payments, the General Assembly wasn’t going to start doing the right thing right away.
But subsequent governors and General Assemblies could have fixed that problem. Instead, they did nothing. Worse yet, they didn’t prepare for the ramp’s higher payments by narrowing the state’s spending base and expanding its tax base. And even worse, they deliberately exacerbated the problem.
Illinois has elected just two wealthy people to major statewide office in the last 20 years: Former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Both candidates won because they ran as firm, anti-establishment outsiders.
Fitzgerald was best known as a state Senator in the 1990s for railing against the elders who ran his Republican Party, including many who had been supplying the GOP with loads of money over the years and who’d used their positions to handsomely profit off of state business.
Rauner also ran against his party’s insiders when he launched his campaign, dismissing them as bought and paid for by Springfield’s special interests.
What establishment party support both men did receive mostly came at the end of their general election campaigns. Their personal finances, which allowed them to self-fund, kept them free of establishment taint, and that independence gave both of them credibility as outsiders.
As Election Day neared, some establishment GOP figures decided they’d better swallow their pride and get on board. The establishment needed the insurgents more than the insurgents needed the establishment.
Billionaire Democrat J.B. Pritzker isn’t following this pattern as he campaigns for governor. Insiders, elected officials and politically connected union leaders have been jumping on his bandwagon from the get-go, usually after being impressed with Pritzker during one-on-one meetings.
The game plan seems pretty obvious. Pritzker doesn’t want those folks and groups endorsing Chris Kennedy, whose last name is still immensely popular and whose own connections over the decades would’ve guaranteed him support from his party’s elders if Pritzker and his infinite bank account hadn’t stepped in.
Kennedy doesn’t have Pritzker’s kind of money, so Kennedy is perceived as needing support from the people and groups who fund and staff the party’s apparatus. At the moment, those folks are streaming toward Pritzker amid a cacophony of whispers (all denied) that House Speaker Michael Madigan is directing the traffic. Starve Kennedy of money and foot soldiers and maybe he’ll drop out.
Kennedy, whose personal wealth is substantial, but nothing like Pritzker’s, has made some half-hearted attempts to claim that endorsements don’t matter whenever he loses them. But he hasn’t yet embraced (or maybe doesn’t even recognize) the role that’s literally being thrust upon him. Kennedy’s originally preferred path of being the widely endorsed “inevitable” candidate is now owned by Pritzker.
By default, Kennedy’s now the most prominent “outsider” in the race.
After almost two and a half years of Rauner’s rule, the government is in shambles. Rauner’s first campaign video back in 2013 complained that the state had “the highest unemployment in the Midwest,” and that’s still true today. He pointed to the state’s “lowest credit rating in America,” and that’s only gotten worse.
“Springfield is broken; $8,000 in pension debt for every man, woman and child,” Rauner bemoaned in the video. That figure is now $10,000.
So, maybe Illinois voters will yearn for someone who can work with Springfield to solve our massive problems and get us back to a semblance of normalcy after three populist governors in a row couldn’t get anything done. That appears to be where both Pritzker and Kennedy are going.
If Rauner doesn’t obtain a budget deal, he will simply run against the establishment again, claiming the evil powers that be (Speaker Madigan) have blocked him at every turn, but that he is “very close” to breaking their self-serving logjam.
And, indeed, if he is re-elected after what could be four years of gridlock, the Democrats will have to start working with him. Democrats claim that Rauner hid his “real” agenda from voters in 2014. But that agenda is now crystal clear to everyone.
Almost half of Illinois Democrats voted for insurgent presidential candidate Bernie Sanders a year ago. A recent poll by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute showed that Gov. Rauner is slightly more popular than Speaker Madigan in Chicago, of all places.
So, an authentic, independent, populist message from the late Robert Kennedy’s sincere, accomplished and mild-mannered son could very well resonate.
One of the things you can’t help but notice in the press coverage of Kennedy’s downstate appearances is the reports on crowd size. His family name is packing halls all over the place as locals come out to witness a part of history.
The obvious question is whether Kennedy can sustain this. His name and the hints of his family’s famous accent in his speaking voice are working like a charm for him right now. But will it last?
If he embraces a different direction, I think the answer could be yes.
* The guy in the middle holding an American flag is US Ambassador Paul W. Jones. He represents us in Poland and attended Chicago’s Polish Constitution Parade over the weekend. He must be one heck of a diplomat…
