The field to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez shrank Tuesday as Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa dropped out and backed Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
Garcia adds Ramirez-Rosa’s endorsement to those of Gutierrez and progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as the commissioner tries to position himself as the front-runner to represent the barbell-shaped district that includes chunks of Chicago’s Northwest and Southwest sides.
Last month, a Democratic polling firm released a survey that showed Garcia with a big early lead in the late-developing contest. Garcia enjoys wide name recognition in the city following his loss in the 2015 mayor’s race. […]
“My campaign, like a modern, effective campaign, conducted an internal benchmark poll,” Ramirez-Rosa said while appearing with Garcia at a Near West Side union hall. “What that benchmark poll showed was that if there were a path forward it would require dividing and splitting the progressive movement. And we need a unified progressive movement if we’re going to take on Donald Trump.”
A challenge to state Sen. Ira Silverstein’s re-election bid will spill into Wednesday, after a hearing officer OK’d testimony from a handwriting expert in a last-ditch effort to keep the Chicago Democrat on the ballot by reviving petitions signatures that had been deemed invalid. […]
A preliminary examination of Silverstein’s petitions raised questions about enough of the signatures to leave him about 45 short of the 1,000 needed to make the ballot.
On Wednesday, Silverstein’s lawyer presented about 130 affidavits attesting to the validity of individual signatures that had been called into question. A hearing officer was convinced by only 26 of them.
Silverstein’s lawyer, longtime election attorney James Nally, called the hearing officer’s high rate of dismissal unusual, and he asked to bring in a handwriting expert. They’re due back for a second hearing Wednesday afternoon.
* One of Silverstein’s opponents just received yet another big endorsement…
The Equality Illinois PAC endorses Ram Villivalam for state senator of Illinois’ 8th Senate district and urges voters to support him in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, March 20.
The Equality Illinois PAC is the statewide political action committee dedicated to advancing justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Illinoisans through engagement in the electoral process.
“Ram Villivalam will be a champion for all residents of the 8th district, including LGBTQ residents,” said John Litchfield, chair of the Equality Illinois PAC. “Villivalam’s record of pro-equality leadership speaks for itself. As Outreach Coordinator for U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, he worked with legislative staff to introduce legislation that would protect and expand the rights of LGBTQ people. As Legislative Coordinator at SEIU Healthcare, Villivalam supported LGBTQ-affirming legislation on behalf of the union. We know he will be a champion for the LGBTQ residents of the 8th district.”
“We also recognize the unusual nature of this primary, in which Villivalam is challenging incumbent State Sen. Ira Silverstein. However, as major pro-equality legislation has advanced through the legislative process since 2010, Sen. Silverstein has not been a leader for LGBTQ people,” said Litchfield. “Sen. Silverstein was the only state senator to vote present on civil unions legislation in 2010. He did not vote at all when the marriage equality bill came for Senate votes twice in 2013. Silverstein did not vote to protect LGBTQ youth from harmful, discredited conversion therapy in 2015. And he did not vote to modernize the state’s birth certificate law consistent with modern standards of medical care and to ban the anti-LGBTQ panic defense in 2017.
Former Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has launched a website and scheduled a campaign fundraiser for next month as he continues to take steps toward challenging Mayor Rahm Emanuel next year.
The native New Yorker, who ran the Chicago Police Department for more than four years before Emanuel fired him, said he’s “very close” to making a decision while acknowledging a campaign would need to be a “yearlong event” ahead of the February 2019 election.
In September, an exploratory committee bearing McCarthy’s name was formed, and the former top cop has said the group has worked to convince him to take on Emanuel. The committee is circulating invitations for a Feb. 11 fundraiser that feature a photo of a smiling McCarthy wearing a dark suit, red tie and American flag lapel pin.
Asked what she and Rauner disagree on, Sanguinetti listed two areas — one serious, one not so much.
“So, he doesn’t know how to dress. And I’ve tried to help, but brother won’t listen,” Sanguinetti said, referring to Rauner’s typical uniform of casual ranch-hand slacks with a plaid button-down shirt and ultra-long sport coat. Sometimes, the governor swaps the coat for a vest.
“He’s his own person. He beats to his own fashion drum, but that’s one disagreement,” Sanguinetti said.
Ives’ campaign reports that the fourth-quarter disclosure she’ll file later this month will detail contributions of around $500,000. Some of that already has been reported, such as $50,000 from tech maven William Merchantz, $30,000 from Otto Engineering and $20,000 from consultant and conservative activist Brian Timpone.
Ives hopes to get more at a Lombard luncheon later this week starring radio talk show host Mike Gallagher. Sponsorships are going for up to $25,000 each, and sponsors include industrialist Peter Huizenga and Tom Roeser, son of the late Jack Roeser, who once ran for governor himself.
Notably absent from the list is megadonor Dick Uihlein, a staunch Rauner backer who some think may be convinced to jump ship. “We don’t have anything from him,” says Ives spokeswoman Kathleen Murphy. “It hasn’t happened yet, so we’re not counting on it.”
State Rep. Jeanne Ives, the Republican challenging incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner from the right in the March 20 gubernatorial primary, is headed to Washington D.C. this week to meet with potential donors, her campaign tells POLITICO. “She’s meeting with some of her contacts out there,” Ives spokeswoman Kathleen Murphy said Sunday. “She is reaching out to people outside of Illinois.” Rauner, a multi-millionaire himself, has some $65 million in his campaign account. Murphy says Ives has landed some $800,000 in earned media and expects to expand more conservative radio talk, including a weekly spot at a Decatur station.
$800,000 in earned media? From a GOP official…
The “$800,000 in earned media” is a bit of an eye-roller. You wouldn’t say “earned media” if you had actually raised $800,000 in real cash. Sounds like her campaign isn’t as gaining as much steam as she claims.
Just days before the 2010 general election, then-Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, introduced then-Gov. Pat Quinn at a Chicago rally by calling Quinn’s Republican opponent a “racist,” among other things.
The resulting uproar was quite something to behold, but Hendon refused to apologize to Sen. Bill Brady and so did Quinn. Everyone, including me, thought that Hendon may have hurt Quinn in a close campaign.
Hendon told me later he believed he had actually won that race for Quinn. Hendon said he was able to pierce the clutter of a noisy campaign and speak directly to black voters. His comments fired them up and put Quinn over the top. Hendon says a lot of things, and it’s always difficult to nail down a single deciding factor in a super-close campaign. But there is no doubt that Hendon’s comment electrified a community that a Tribune poll had found wasn’t enthusiastic about voting for Quinn.
And that brings us to last week’s comments by Chris Kennedy. The Democratic gubernatorial candidate shocked just about everyone by claiming that a deliberate “strategic gentrification plan” exists to push black people out of Chicago and make the city “whiter.” Kennedy pointed fingers of blame at Mayor Rahm Emanuel and, to a lesser extent, Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Kennedy’s remarks prompted howls of protest, with the mayor’s office comparing Kennedy’s hot rhetoric to President Trump’s. The city’s police superintendent ripped into the candidate for attempting to use the city’s violence to “score political points.” Pundits and others were quick to take Kennedy to task for having the gall to utter such remarks.
Tellingly, however, none of Kennedy’s Democratic primary opponents have so far uttered a peep. One campaign quietly pointed out that Kennedy had contributed $5,000 to Mayor Emanuel’s campaign fund and another shared some statistics on background that showed that African-American enrollment at the University of Illinois fell from 2,572 when Kennedy was appointed chairman of the board of trustees in 2009, to 2,241 when he left that post in 2015.
Their aim was to make Kennedy look like a hypocrite because attacking what he said would likely backfire with African-American voters — one of the most important constituencies in the primary. Why would it backfire? The conspiracy theory Kennedy wove has been circulating for years in the black community, and it has more than a little basis in fact.
Mayor Richard M. Daley tore down much of the city’s public housing projects and sent many of those residents packing to the suburbs, partly by making it difficult to obtain subsidized housing vouchers in the city. A couple of hundred thousand black people left Chicago from 2000-2010, and the exodus has continued since then. The population loss led to school closures, which many believe have caused even more people to leave. And, of course, the South and West Sides are enduring one of the worst violent crime waves since the crack epidemic, which is prompting even more people to flee.
But Kennedy took it much further by pulling it all together into a grand conspiracy. He claimed Chicago is “using a strategy of selective containment, where we’re allowing violence to continue as long as it only continues in certain neighborhoods.” He even said the plot had a name, the “80-8 Rule,” which he clai-med meant that “80 percent of the violence occurs in just 8 percent of our city.” That’s all by design, according to Kennedy.
Kennedy then closed the circle by claiming this is all being done to clear the way for “economic development.” Kennedy pointed to the closing of 18 public schools in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. “That neighborhood,” Kennedy said, “just south of the Loop, there along the beaches of Lake Michigan, is the next great development play in Chicago.”
The new development, Kennedy said, wouldn’t be for the benefit of Bronzeville’s mostly African-American residents who have lived there for years and are being “pushed out.” Instead, he said, the development would make way for a “new wave of gentrification.”
Again, this is nothing new. Lots of folks firmly believe this sort of thing, including black people in power.
The tale Kennedy told was undoubtedly divisive, and perhaps even hatefully so. But without much campaign cash on hand, and with his prospects dimming rapidly, Kennedy had to do something to get back in the game. This hard slap to the face of the city’s white establishment will definitely resonate with a large group of people who Kennedy desperately needs to win.
* Meanwhile, if you think Kennedy is at all chastened, check this out…
In news reports, Emanuel called Kennedy’s comments “sad,” and Chicago Police Department (CPD) Superintendent Eddie Johnson said he felt “the hard work our men and women are doing to beat back this violence” was “used to score political points.” He also said he had never met Kennedy.
Kennedy didn’t back down from his comments at his office, saying Emanuel didn’t “argue with the premise” but just tried to play political games.
“To use the chief of police for political motives—we don’t believe in that in the United States,” Kennedy said. “That’s what they do in places like Russia. That’s what they do it totalitarian regimes. That’s what they do in fascist countries. We’re in a democracy.” […]
“Instead of using your chief of police to come after me for political purposes, use your chief of police to fix the problems in the police force itself,” Kennedy said. “Rahm Emanuel needs to know that I have more friends who are police officers than he’ll ever have. Those are my friends.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner has vetoed school funding legislation, saying it wouldn’t let about three dozen private schools participate in a new scholarship program.
Rauner issued the amendatory veto Monday for legislation that the Illinois State Board of Education requested to move forward with a new school funding formula that would prioritize poor and needy schools. The scholarship program would allow individuals and corporations to give private schools money for scholarships in exchange for a tax credit.
Rauner said “we simply must ensure that we follow through with the appropriate language to get the job done.”
Rauner used his amendatory veto powers to rewrite the measure, which sponsors said was requested by the Illinois State Board of Education so officials could move forward on a new school funding formula that would prioritize poor and needy schools.
While Rauner has listed the new funding formula as one of his top achievements as he seeks re-election, the Republican governor said Monday that lawmakers failed to address a technicality that would prevent at least 36 Catholic and independent schools from benefiting from a new scholarship program he’s pushed.
Under that program, individuals and corporations can give money for scholarships to private schools in exchange for a tax credit worth 75 percent of their donation.
“Inclusivity was the spirit of this legislation to begin with, and we simply must ensure that we follow through with the appropriate language to get the job done,” Rauner said in a statement.
* From the governor’s press release…
Lawmakers also should fix a defect that would prevent at least 36 Catholic and other independent schools — many of which serve African-American communities — from participating in the Invest in Kids program for up to two years, Rauner said.
Senate Bill 444, as written, does not address the exclusion from program participation of those schools not yet recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education. Invest in Kids creates a scholarship program affording low- to middle-income students opportunities to attend non-public schools through a system of tax credits for approved contributions.
SB 444 should include language that grants program eligibility to ISBE-registered schools, as well as those already recognized, to increase the number of schools affected and broaden the scope of potential applicants, according to the governor.
“Making this adjustment to this bill will maximize the number of schools eligible to participate, and therefore the number of students who may benefit,” Rauner said. “Inclusivity was the spirit of this legislation to begin with, and we simply must ensure that we follow through with the appropriate language to get the job done.”
Meanwhile, the governor’s office said the state Board of Education is still working on the new funding formula and tier funding is still “several months” from being sent out.
“It is unfair for critics to say that this amendatory veto will delay implementation of SB 1947,” Rauner spokeswoman Rachel Bold said in a statement.
State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, called the amendatory veto Rauner’s version of tossing “his own request in the trash.”
“Here’s what Gov. Rauner accomplished today: absolute chaos while undoing all of the equity components in the school funding reform legislation that he takes credit for passing,” Manar said in a statement. “I am perplexed and puzzled by the motivations of this governor who claims to care deeply about public education in Illinois. “Why would he veto a bill that he sought in the first place?”
Senate Democrats said the bill was intended as a form of “technical cleanup,” which had been requested by the governor’s administration.
* Pritzker campaign…
“Bruce Rauner is forcing students to wait for fair funding so he can expand his back-door school voucher program, once again using Illinois children as pawns in his political games,” said JB Pritzker. “With his amendatory veto of SB 444, this failed governor is manufacturing another crisis by putting equitable school funding on hold, even after he claimed credit for the reform. SB 444 should have been signed the day it landed on Rauner’s desk to ensure Illinois schools were properly funded under the new, more equitable formula. Once again, this failed governor is attacking public education in Illinois and students will pay the price.”
* Daiber campaign…
“School districts waited until Aug. 31 (2017) with uncertainty of funding. The governor’s action delays progress on implementing the new funding formula, for which all districts in Illinois are waiting.”
At issue is language that would prevent private schools not recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education from benefitting from a scholarship program contained in the legislation, under which taxpayers can give money for scholarships to private schools in exchange for a tax credit worth 75 percent of their donation.
“To award public funds to private schools not meeting ISBE recognition status is a move in the wrong direction for school funding reform,” Daiber said. “It lowers the standards by which we operate when you do that.”
Daiber, in his official capacity as regional superintendent of schools for Madison County, conducts the compliance visits for non-public school recognition status.
Daiber opposes the tax credit-for-scholarships program, and has promised to end it if he’s elected governor. “This provision was snuck into school funding legislation when lawmakers were in a must-pass bind. School funding was jeopardized. There were concerns about school districts being able to make payroll. If the scholarship tax credit program is examined on its own merits, it’s an economic and educational disaster,” he said.
…Adding… Ruiz campaign…
As the former president of the Illinois State Board of Education, former vice president of the Chicago Board of Education, and former Interim CEO of Chicago Public Schools, I urge the General Assembly to move immediately to override Governor Rauner’s veto of the historic education funding bill.
It is outrageous that, once again, Gov. Rauner is playing politics with our children’s education. His decision to veto this important bill, which would bring some long-awaited equity to the state’s funding of public education, has pulled the rug out from under school districts in low-income communities across Illinois.
Rauner’s action in vetoing this crucial bill is bad enough – but his hypocrisy is mind-boggling. Just a few short weeks ago, Rauner named “Historic Education Funding Reform” as his top accomplishment during his disastrous term as Governor. Yet now he has brought this overdue school funding reform to a screeching halt.
Again and again, Rauner has shown us he feels absolutely no responsibility or concern for the people of Illinois. We cannot allow Rauner’s radical political agenda to derail this reform and jeopardize the futures of our most vulnerable students.
It is time to end these delays and take action to provide our public schools with the funding they deserve – now.
After raising $1.095 million in fourth quarter and kicking off the first quarter of 2018 with $3.1 million cash on hand, Biss for Illinois is launching its first television ads. The ads, “Personal” and “Homework” introduce voters to Daniel and explain why a middle-class community organizer and public school parent is the only candidate Illinoisans can trust to fix our broken system.
“Personal” features Daniel and his wife getting their children ready for school in the morning, while “Homework” shows Daniel sitting with one of his kids to help with a homework assignment.
“I think if more politicians had kids in public schools, or struggled to balance their own budgets, we’d have an Illinois that worked for the middle class,” says Daniel in “Personal.” “That’s why I left teaching, to be an organizer then a state senator, to fight for fair taxes and healthcare we can all afford, and that’s why I’m running for governor. Because fixing our broken system isn’t some campaign promise: for me, it’s personal.”
“As the only candidate for governor with kids in public schools, I’m also the only one who will make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes to fully fund them,” says Daniel in “Homework.”
