* But he doesn’t propose an alternative. From the Kennedy campaign…
This morning, the Kennedy campaign released the following video message from Chris Kennedy, addressing voters about our broken property tax system. He is inviting voters to share their stories about how relying on property taxes to fund education has affected local schools.
Many of us received a property tax bill recently, and if you opened it, and you read it, you’re probably angry.
If you’re not angry you’re at least confused.
The whole system is designed to keep you that way. In fact, the document that you’ve received makes it very difficult to figure out what the county is assessing your home at. They use a number that’s a “discounted number.” They show you a 10 percent number, they don’t show you the full number and so you think you’re getting a deal and don’t complain.
That’s the way they’ve designed the system, to keep people in the dark. The rich and connected, they hire lawyers and lobbyists to go in and have private meetings in the assessor’s office to change the value of those properties even before the number is ever published.
And because they pay less, we pay more. But worse than that, is because they pay less, our kids get less.
I know how this system works and I’m going to fix it.
In Illinois, we fund our local schools with property taxes. The reason we keep funding our schools this way, though everybody in the legislature knows that this is not the right thing to do, the reason we do it, is because it’s a corruptible system. It’s a way for the insiders to effect the valuation of all the properties in our state.
Because of this racket, the schools are constantly underfunded. That’s why a lot of the schools don’t have a library. They don’t have recess on a playground. They don’t have a computer lab.
We need to move away from the property tax system and have our state pay its fair share of everybody’s local schools.
We’re going to need a mandate for such change and that’s where you come in.
I’d like to hear your story, how your school is impacted.
Let’s shine a little daylight on it. Let’s tell our stories and then let’s confront the government and make a change.
Keep in mind, however, that Kennedy got a $10,000 reduction in the assessed valuation of his own home.
* Related…
* Kennedy-led company used Madigan’s firm for property tax refunds: Madigan & Getzendanner won more than $133,000 in property tax refunds for at least one property owned by Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc., or MMPI, according to two checks the Cook County Treasurer’s Office sent out in 2009. Kennedy served as the president of MMPI from 2000 to 2011. Both checks indicate property tax refunds paid to the order of “Merchandise Mart Prop c/o Madigan Getzendanner.” The first refund of $60,884.17 was for tax year 2003. The second refund of $72,460.08 was for tax year 2005. The checks were sent to the office of Madigan & Getzendanner at 30 N. LaSalle St.
With an expected deficit nearing $6 billion at the June 30 end of the fiscal year and the pile of past-due bills ending the week at $14.4 billion, few people believe the state can dig its way out without new revenue. The plans call for a 32 percent increase in the personal income tax rate, from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent, for seven years. Senate Democrats say that would produce $5 billion more each year when the accompanying corporate tax hike is included.
An expanded sales tax would produce about $150 million. For the first time, the 6.25 percent sales tax would be applied to repair and maintenance; landscaping; laundry and dry cleaning; storage units; cable, satellite and streaming services; pest control; private detectives, alarm and security services; and personal care.
The recession significantly changed the way the state handles its budgeting, said Jak Tichenor, interim director at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Before then, a majority of spending was related to federal mandates such as Medicaid, making for a fairly predictable budget process. State lawmakers negotiated over discretionary spending such as K-12 and higher education funding, but Tichenor said they would enter those negotiations knowing state revenue was stable.
“But if you go back to 2008 to the great recession, and state revenues just went off a cliff,” he said. “You had appropriation committee chairs at the Capitol looking at balance sheets and saying, ‘Well I’m trying to fund a $32 billion budget, and I only have $24 (billion) to $25 billion in income.’
“And that’s where you started to see the real allocation of pain and scarcity instead of budget making as we traditionally did it.”
And when it comes to economic development, it’s hard to overstate the importance of a strong higher education system as a must-have asset for attracting and retaining business. Yet, Illinois’ budget impasse has slashed our higher education system, from community colleges — often on the front lines of workforce development training — to the state’s premier universities, which ought to be catalysts for research and technological development.
Rauner has voiced good ideas in the past about the potential for universities to coordinate on focused tech R&D efforts — but the state has to step up and provide support for that to happen.
Which brings us back, again, to the budget.
It can’t be stated strongly enough: Business owners need to know what they’ll pay in taxes. They need to know how the state plans to invest in infrastructure and other programs. They need to have confidence that state government is able to fulfill its most basic duties.
Many steps are needed to nurture Illinois’ economic development strategies. But passing a budget needs to be the first one.
As Austin Berg of the Illinois Policy Institute points out, state lawmakers have cheered a day off and made time to discuss their basketball and softball teams. Weeks have passed since any of the public hearings or committee working sessions were held that would signal true progress toward any budget, much less a balanced budget, much much less a balanced budget without a massive tax hike.
“My sense is this is probably a last-minute attempt to create a distraction and derail the senators who seem to be making progress and coming close to an agreement,” Rauner said.
Lawmakers are gone May 31. With them goes the fantasy of a budget and starting to fix anything in Illinois.
We have the nation’s highest tax burden at 15 percent of our income. Even with that, we are $14.5 billion behind in our immediate bills and $130 billion in the hole for state pensions. Social services are crumbling, universities are losing students and faculty and 148,000 millennials moved out of Illinois just as they are entering their prime working and taxpaying years.
Springfield doesn’t care to see the current damage, much less the bleak future in which fewer aging workers pay even more than 15 percent. They just see 2018. They just see their campaign calculations.
If something does get out of the Senate, Rauner finally would have a chance to box out Madigan. But the wily House speaker rarely gets boxed out, and though Emanuel could apply pressure to go along with a Senate deal, there are lots of other scenarios that could play out.
That means it’s decision time, folks. Sometime in the next few days, either the big budget deal will come together or it will finally and completely collapse. At which point the question will be whether to pass another underfunded stopgap budget like last year, inviting Wall Street’s wrath, or just say no and block schools from opening in August and September, as Rauner has said he’ll do without his property tax freeze.
Will anyone in Springfield meet the challenge and avoid catastrophe or calamity or whatever else you’d call this collective failure to govern? One can hope. But it’s very, very late.
In a story in today’s paper, Kent Redfield, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said, “If we have no movement until after the 2018 elections, I think it would be a certainty some universities would not open that fall. I think Eastern, Western, Northeastern, and Chicago State are all the top of the list. The Carbondale situation is pretty tenuous as well.”
Is that alarming enough for the folks in Springfield? We hope so.
That’s no way to get the state on better grounds. In order for Illinois to get back to what it once was, the people who live here have to stay here.
And it would all start with funding SIUC and the rest of our public universities. And, don’t forget freezing the state’s sky-high property taxes, but that’s a story for another day.
Earlier this month, State Sen. Paul Schimpf said he’s been given “assurances” that lawmakers will vote by the end of May to get funding to universities on way or another. “Obviously, we would prefer a full budget, but if we have to do this incrementally then certainly a lifeline would be appreciated,” he said then.
Today, on day 691 without an Illinois budget, the JB Pritzker for Governor campaign launched “Crisis Creatin’ Rauner.” This multimedia campaign will highlight the budget crisis of Bruce Rauner’s own making and the families, schools, and social service agencies that continue to pay the price.
The campaign kicks off with the launch of CrisisCreatinRauner.com, a website with a count up clock that tracks the 691 days and counting without a state budget. The website also highlights the new twitter feed, @RaunersCrisis, which will track and report on Bruce Rauner’s daily devastation on Illinois.
In 2015, Bruce Rauner made it clear that creating a crisis in our state was his goal. As some may recall:
“Crisis creates opportunity. Crisis creates leverage to change … and we’ve got to use that leverage of the crisis to force structural change.”
- Bruce Rauner, 4/6/15
In his own words, Bruce Rauner describes what has been clear all along: Illinois’ budget crisis—a record 691 days long—is no accident. Rauner wanted a crisis and so a crisis he made. In the past few weeks alone, Rauner put his staggering recklessness on full display as he:
Hiked Illinois’ unpaid bills $1 billion overnight, bringing total state debt to a record $14.3 billion.
Accepted $20 million from Trump supporter Ken Griffin, who is bent on destroying public schools as our education system continues to suffer.
Lost the support of business leaders and bondholders who are fed up with Rauner’s economic devastation.
Remained silent as Donald Trump tried to strip healthcare from over a million Illinoisans.
Spread fake news to a politically linked outlet to prevent compromise on school funding reform.
“It’s been 691 days without a state budget and one thing is clear: this is a crisis of Bruce Rauner’s own creatin’ and Illinois families continue to pay the price,” said Pritzker campaign communications director Galia Slayen. “Rauner didn’t mince words when he presented his plan to create a crisis and force his agenda on Illinois – so neither will we. Bruce Rauner is a failed governor who is wreaking havoc on Illinois, decimating the economy, holding schools hostage, and leaving the most vulnerable communities behind. Stay tuned in the coming days and weeks as ‘Crisis Creatin’ Rauner’ holds BruceRauner accountable.”
Not a whole lot there yet. I mean, it’s basically just the above press release, which you kinda have to hunt for.
* Meanwhile, from Sam Hobert on the Pawar campaign…
Hey Rich -
Busy weekend for Pawar on the trail. Wanted to send a quick recap your way.
Covered 900+ miles in 36 hours on the road this weekend. Chicago to Springfield to Cairo to Carbondale to E. St. Louis and back to Chicago (Anybody have a plane we can borrow?). As you know, these visits are part of Pawar’s One Illinois tour, announced last week, to speak to the common inequalities communities face around the state, address the intersection of race/class/ and automation, and work to unite people around a new deal that invests in people and public institutions once again. Quick highlights below. Video recaps online here.
Cairo - Ald. Pawar met with Mayor Coleman to discuss the need for port authority funding, the shrinking revenue base that’s threatening to halt city services this fall, and the crises at the public housing authority.
Carbondale - Visits to Southern Illinois University to talk about how the budget crises is destroying the university, the region’s dominant economic engine, Shawnee National Forest - to highlight one of Illinois’s many state treasures, and a well-attended meet & greet. Highly recommend the bison burger at Carbondale’s Fat Patties when you’re down there next.
East St. Louis - Ald. Pawar’s second trip to East St. Louis (First in April). Local teachers hosted an outdoor meet & greet in a downtown park that was well attended. Pawar spoke about the need for state government to reinvest in communities like E. St. Louis to reverse decades of disinvestment and the budget crises, close loopholes that allow chemical corporations to skirt E. St. Louis taxes, combat institutional racism and reform Illinois’s criminal justice system.
In the coming months, Pawar will be taking the One Illinois tour to Sauk Village, Harvard, Kankakee, Charleston, Jacksonville, Macomb, and Galesburg to continue to address the economic inequities that exist as a result of decades of disinvestment.
* Fritz Kaegi writes in Crain’s about how Illinois could learn from California, particularly since Gov. Rauner often invokes Silicon Valley as a model for jump-starting this state…
• Healthy universities are crucial. Stanford University Dean Fred Terman is acknowledged as the father of Silicon Valley. He brought in research funds, gathered leading academic talent, and encouraged professors to engage in business. In Illinois, the last two years of unreliable state university funding have driven out professors and applicants. High school counselors advise Illinoisans look elsewhere, driving record application levels in neighboring states. Smaller state universities face a negative spiral of lower applications, higher tuition, and credit downgrades.
• Noncompete clauses in employment contracts hurt talent acquisition and retention. In California, firms cannot limit employees’ freedom to work at competitors, giving it a leg up on the states that enforce noncompetition agreements. In Illinois, workers can be forced to the sidelines for years before they can compete with their former employers, reducing mobility and entrepreneurship. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg would have never been able to immediately hire Sheryl Sandberg and her team from Google in 2008 if they were based in Illinois. Illinois should extend the path-breaking Illinois Freedom to Work Act sponsored by Senators Patricia Van Pelt and Jacqueline Collins, which banned noncompetes for low-wage workers, to all Illinoisans.
• Business needs to embrace the new. In California, defying large corporations is part of the entrepreneurial ethic. We need more of that here. Too many are wary of stepping on the toes of grandees, whose deference has not been earned. All but two of the top 50 publicly traded Illinois companies, as measured by market capitalization, were founded more than 25 years ago (well done, salvage part vendor LKQ and trailer park operator Equity LifeStyle!). Only 13 of the 100 members of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club are founders of their respective companies, and 11 of these are financial companies. Meanwhile, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Salesforce and Tesla—all less than 20 years old—are now worth more than all Illinois public companies combined. Instead of getting policy ideas from executives who climbed the corporate ladder at companies created by others long ago, maybe we should listen to different people?
California has plenty of problems and we have many homegrown strengths. But we can learn from the example of its governor, Brown, who never badmouthed his own state even when fiscal times were tough and led his state to fiscal stability and entrepreneurial growth.
* Not only does Gov. Rauner often badmouth his own state, he at times seems to be cheerleading the exit from Illinois…
IL property taxes are the highest in the nation and hurt our hard working families. We need to provide them real property tax relief. pic.twitter.com/CtddBabWxt
Not mentioned, of course, is that Indiana also has local income taxes.
…Adding… From comments…
Not mentioned, of course, is that Bruce Rauner supports taxing those home repairs.
Not mentioned, of course, is that Bruce Rauner’s cuts to higher education mean it will cost you more to attend college in Illinois.
Not mentioned, of course, is that you might use the $2,500 to pay off debt, but the state’s debt is more than $130 billion and climbing faster under Bruce Rauner.
Businessman Chris Kennedy became the first big name Democrat to announce his candidacy for governor in February — but he has yet to report some traditional campaign expenditures, including payments for well-known consultants, rented office space, campaign T-shirts and stickers and travel expenses.
Kennedy, the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, announced his candidacy via a video sent to supporters and he reiterated in an email this week that he’s running his campaign for voters, not for “political insiders.” That was in response to reports that the Democratic establishment is instead rounding up early support for J.B. Pritzker instead.
But while Kennedy announced his run on Feb. 8, he didn’t make expenditures until March 28 — nearly seven weeks later, according to his quarterly report filed with the state Board of Elections on April 17. The filing reports expenditures, contributions and debts and obligations through March 31.
Political insiders have criticized Kennedy for his long history of flirting with running for various offices without ever actually taking the plunge. But his campaign staff dismissed any speculation that his light spending reports signal a lack of commitment to the campaign, insisting, “Chris is in this race to stay.”
Kennedy campaign officials say a complete list of expenditures will be detailed on the next quarterly report, which isn’t due until July 15.
“The campaign paid the bills when they were due and any further questions you have will be answered on the next quarterly report,” Kennedy spokesman Mark Bergman said.
A rival Democratic campaign was pushing this narrative a few weeks ago. Kennedy’s not reporting expenditures, so that must mean he’s either shady or he’s not serious about running.
But, as I said above, the story is missing two words: “Mike” and “Kasper.”
Kasper is the attorney for Kennedy’s campaign fund. He is kinda infamous for taking full advantage of a state law (that he probably wrote) which doesn’t require reporting campaign contributions until after they’re deposited and expenditures until after they are invoiced/paid, and then timing those deposits and expenditures to the benefit of the campaign committee. Remember the minor uproar last year when the group opposing the remap reform constitutional amendment didn’t report contributions even though some labor unions reported making them? That was Kasper’s doing.
Gambling expansion was approved in the Senate last week. It was sponsored by Democratic Sen. Terry Link of Waukegan, although a couple of Republicans support it.
A provision in the bill cuts taxes on casinos. Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, said the reduction will cost the state $280 million. Not so, replied Link, who said the cut will give casinos an incentive to expand their operations, which will actually generate more casino taxes.
So ponder for a moment: A Republican is expressing opposition to a tax cut, and a Democrat is touting a tax cut as a way to actually generate more taxes.
“I love the supply-side rhetoric,” Righter said.
Sigh.
* Meanwhile, a late push for a Springfield casino is being made. From the proponent…
A 1,200 position casino near the Old State Capitol will generate major economic benefits
· Drawing tourists visiting the Lincoln Museum and historic sites to spend at local businesses
· Estimated $150 million to $175 million in adjusted gross revenue, with a significant local share
· Those local dollars can invest in:
* New buildings and existing building renovations for city school District 186
* Much-needed renovations at the Illinois State Fairgrounds
* Supporting the Prairie Capital Convention Center, affordable housing and more attractive entryways to the city
* Downtown infrastructure needs
The guy who came up with the idea, Chris Stone, appeared on Rick Pearson’s WGN Radio program yesterday. Click here to listen.
Stone came up with the idea too late to get it into the gaming expansion bill that passed the Senate (again) last week.
At a time when Illinois is sitting on $14.3 billion in unpaid bills, it’s dismaying to learn that the state rented a warehouse for $2.4 million that it could have bought outright for $750,000.
Yes, $2.4 million is a drop in the bucket when it comes to state spending, but such wastefulness begs the question of how well — or, rather, how poorly — the rest of our tax money is being spent. And it’s a miserable sales pitch for an income tax hike that both Democrats and Republics know is coming sooner or later.
Two suburban Chicago legislators — state Sen. Tom Cullerton, D-Villa Park, and state Rep. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills — have called for an Illinois Legislative Audit Commission investigation into the warehouse’s five-year lease.
This being Illinois, home to sweetheart deals, the leasing arrangement involves a secretive newly formed corporation with links to a onetime political powerhouse, William Cellini. According to WCIA-TV in Downstate Champaign, three business people in the single-bid lease had ties to Cellini, who was the onetime “king of clout” and friend of many governors before he was convicted in 2011 of trying to shake down a movie producer for Rod Blagojevich campaign cash. Those with ties to Cellini include the leasing agent, one of the three warehouse owners and the chairman of the Procurement Policy Board, which signed off on the deal. […]
Mike Hoffman, director of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services told the Springfield Journal-Register the lease was in accordance with the state’s standard approval process.
Which just means the state’s standard approval process is a joke.
Democratic state Controller Susana Mendoza has stopped payments for the building’s lease, at best a temporary move if this deal passes legal muster. Further, some Democrats seeking to score political points are trying to wrap the deal around Gov. Bruce Rauner’s neck. It’s hard to imagine he played any role in making the deal.
But Rauner’s office can play a key role in reviewing the matter and mandating a change of approach. If this is the way state bureaucrats think business should be done, they need to be set straight.
McSweeney’s point about digitization also deserves scrutiny. How much paper is the state storing and at what cost? Is there an opportunity here to reduce the cost of doing business?
The big issue, of course, is how the deal went down. Is this the case of a group of sharp businessmen legally taking advantage of disinterested bureaucrats foolishly doing business the way it’s always been done. Or were other influences in play?
* Chicago Tribune editorial board and Illinois Policy Institute…
* As Mark Brown notes, there is little doubt that the cost of the CCP program is becoming unwieldy…
Driving the debate is that enrollment of seniors in the state’s Community Care Program jumped from 40,965 enrollees in 2005 to 83,787 in 2015.
When coupled with projections the population of Illinois residents age 60 or older will more than double by 2030, there’s even some agreement the cost of the current program is unsustainable.
If Rauner had a better track record on social service issues, instead of using the poor and sick as pawns in his political battles, it might be easier to give him some leeway to try it his way.
As it is, there’s not much reason to trust him.
Organizations that provide homemaker services are some of the same groups struggling to stay in business during the budget impasse because the state owes them millions of dollars.
And not coincidentally, most of the home care workers who would be directly affected by the cutbacks are members of SEIU Healthcare, one of the unions Rauner especially despises for its Democratic political activism.
According to [Jerry Kruse, dean of SIU’s School of Medicine], the percentage of his school’s grads who choose to complete residencies in Illinois has plummeted to 21 percent this year—the lowest in school history. The share has decreased 9 percentage points each year since 2014. For decades before that, the percentage of SIU’s roughly 70 annual med school graduates who stayed always hovered between 40 and 45 percent.
Meanwhile, across the four campuses of U of I’s College of Medicine, which include its flagship on Chicago’s West Side, just 28 percent of this year’s graduates are staying in Illinois for their residencies. That’s down from nearly 37 percent last year.
Dimitri Azar, the school’s dean, isn’t ready to say that it’s more than a blip. U of I’s trend line hasn’t gone straight down, as SIU’s has. The percentage of U of I grads who remained in Illinois for their training was 33 in 2015, 41 in 2014 and nearly 34 in 2013. Furthermore, Azar says, students choose their destinations primarily based on the quality of the program, not the quality of the state’s finances.
Kruse, however, ties the exodus directly to the budget fight between Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats who control the General Assembly. “Nothing has changed much over this period except the budget impasse and the atmosphere it’s created,” Kruse says. “Young doctors read about it in the papers every day and suddenly there’s a fair amount of uncertainty about the future.” Illinois has not had a permanent budget since January 2015.
Regardless, private medical schools in the area—which don’t rely on state funding—aren’t seeing the same declines. At Loyola University’s Stritch School of Medicine, the share of 2017 grads staying in Illinois is 39 percent; it was 40 percent last year and 39 percent in 2015. And at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, the percentage of new grads who will complete residencies in Illinois reached a five-year high of 44 percent this year.
Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker is making a $1 million deposit in a black-owned bank in Chicago, taking a page from Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s playbook.
The issue led to back-and-forth attacks from the two campaigns centered on failures of financial institutions Rauner and the Pritzker family have been involved with in their careers.
Pritzker’s planned deposit, like Rauner’s three years ago in a South Side credit union, carries the goal of generating support from black voters.
Pritzker’s campaign tried to draw a distinction between the two men’s actions: the Democrat’s money pledge was only announced on a Chicago radio show, while Rauner’s visit to the credit union was a major campaign event.
The two sides then exchanged barbs much like they’ve been doing on this blog for weeks.
* The Pritzker campaign’s initial release…
Bruce Rauner told Illinois communities that he would fight for them, but then he got elected and left Illinoisans behind. Rauner has stood with his special interest friends to decimate our state’s economy as our most vulnerable communities pay the price. Unlike Bruce Rauner, Illinois communities can count on JB to stand with them as governor because that’s what he’s done his entire career. JB will ensure Illinoisans have a seat at the table as he works to grow jobs, support small businesses, expand access to capital, and bring investment directly into black and brown communities.
* The Rauner campaign’s response…
It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the millions Pritzker made peddling subprime mortgages loans to minority communities, while costing the taxpayers $300 million and ordinary depositors their savings.
In December 2001, the Pritzker family and its business partner agreed to pay $460 million to the U.S. over the bank’s failure and a decade later got a discount on remaining payments of the 15-year settlement by agreeing with regulators to pay off the balance early, Bloomberg News reported in May 2013.
* The Pritzker campaign shot back…
Bruce Rauner is desperate to distract from the fact that throughout his business career and his time as governor, working families have paid the price for his failures. At HomeBanc, Bruce Rauner profited off of predatory loans, preying on the dreams of working families. He then drove the company into the ground, firing approximately 1,100 people, but making sure his CEO got a nearly $5 million golden parachute. Rauner’s distraction tactics won’t change the fact that he has yet to pass a constitutionally required budget for our state.
The new ad focuses on HomeBanc Mortgage Corp., which filed for bankruptcy in 2007. A narrator contends the bankruptcy came after Rauner “took millions out of” the firm, noted HomeBanc’s CEO got a $5 million “bonus” and 1,100 employees who lost their jobs “got a $20 gift card.”
The equity firm Rauner formerly chaired, GTCR, partnered in 2000 to create HomeBanc Mortgage. While GTCR once held a majority stake in the firm, it reduced its holdings after a public stock offering, selling the last of its shares in September 2006, Security and Exchange Commission records show.
GTCR’s actions came just months before the sudden financial unraveling of the mortgage company in 2007 led first to the January firing of CEO Patrick Flood, followed by an August bankruptcy filing. But GTCR had no board members on the mortgage firm involved in its management since 2005, prior to Flood’s firing and severance, and the bankruptcy filing. Records show Rauner was not a board member of HomeBanc in the lead up to its public offering in 2004.
Democrats have been privately grumbling for a while now that Gov. Bruce Rauner isn’t truly interested in good faith negotiations on a balanced budget with economic reforms to end the two and a half year Statehouse stalemate.
But Senate President John Cullerton spent days and days negotiating the details of a four-year property tax freeze with Rauner, only to have his spokesman tell me last week that he hadn’t acceded to Rauner’s demand for a four-year freeze.
Look, in this business, you only negotiate on a bill you flatly oppose if you’re trying to run out the clock. Otherwise, you just kill it. And because of this, people in the governor’s office are saying they don’t think that Cullerton really wants a deal.
Rauner moved off his demand for a five-year freeze to a four-year freeze. The two men then discussed side issues, like the timeline and the process for locally opting out of the freeze or for making it permanent.
The governor wanted a statewide vote, Cullerton wanted local votes. Cullerton appeared to prevail. But Rauner would only agree to limited exemptions from the freeze, bond payments being one of them. Cullerton wanted more exemptions, pension payments being one of those.
Then last week, Cullerton attempted to move legislation with identical language to Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno’s original property tax freeze bill she introduced way back in January. It failed because it required a three-fifths vote to freeze taxes on local home rule governments.
Cullerton said afterward that he may strip out the home rule provision and run it again — which would, of course, mean that the city of Chicago would be exempt.
Without a property tax freeze amenable to the governor, I just don’t know how this impasse gets resolved.
Illinois has some of the highest property taxes in the country. So, if the negotiations fall apart, the Senate Democrats’ refusal to pass a “real” freeze will be a political gift for Gov. Rauner.
The issue also comes neatly wrapped in the governor’s favorite bow: House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The House speaker is, of course, a property tax appeals lawyer. Rauner said the other day for the umpteenth time that Madigan’s legal work was a clear case of conflict of interest and is evidence of how corrupt the state is. Senate President Cullerton has also done some property tax appeals work, so Rauner can easily lump Cullerton in with Madigan on the conflict of interest/corruption stuff.
And Rauner urged the Senate Democrats last week to resist Madigan, who he claimed had sent his special interests to the chamber in an attempt to kill the grand bargain.
And then there was last week’s biggest political new. Billionaire Democratic gubernatorial candidate JB Pritzker was thrashed in the media for obtaining huge property tax assessment rebates and reductions for an empty and “uninhabitable” mansion next door to his own Chicago palace.
The mansion apparently became even more legally uninhabitable after Pritzker had the house’s toilets uninstalled. That was clearly the work of a too clever by half property tax attorney, who Pritzker may want to think about throwing under the nearest bus if this publicity gets any worse.
And, despite firm denials, it’s pretty clear that Madigan is backing Pritzker, which makes this all the better for Rauner.
Even a child could frame this issue for Rauner. You take a universally and intensely unpopular property tax system, combine it with the state’s most wildly unpopular politician (Madigan) and use all that to blame the Senate Democrats for killing the grand bargain and, in the process, throw lots more mud on their “frontrunner” candidate.
It’s the worst possible hill the Democrats could choose to die on. Yes, the Senate president has legitimate policy concerns about the property tax freeze. But this is a political no-brainer.
The best idea I heard last week was to take this issue away from Rauner and Cullerton and allow senators on both sides of the aisle to negotiate it. Doing that very thing seemed to help move the revenue/budget talks and workers’ compensation reform forward, even though they’re not wrapped up as I write this.
If, as the Republicans privately contend, Cullerton’s goal is to deprive Rauner of a clear “win” on a property tax freeze, then nothing will work. The one thing we do know is that taking the issue away from Rauner and Cullerton couldn’t possibly make things worse.
