When is a conservative leader too conservative for Illinois? Meet Jeanne Ives. She’s been rated as one of the most conservative in the state. Ives wants to ban abortions, she has an ‘A’ rating from the NRA, pushing to arm teachers and stop new gun laws.
And on immigration, Ives marches in lockstep with President Trump, trying to eliminate protections for undocumented immigrants.
Tell Jeanne Ives, her conservative policies are just too conservative for Illinois.
That’s pretty darned good. Devious, but good.
Gets her conservative message out there in the waning days. She should be happy with that.
Worst. It’s not a word we like to hear in Illinois. But worst is where Gov. Rauner has taken Illinois since he took office.
Today, our state has the worst unemployment rate in the Midwest and the worst credit rating of any state in the country.
What’s worse? Rauner racked up billions in unpaid bills, leaving Illinois taxpayers on the hook. Tell Gov. Rauner, his record is a lack of leadership in the worst way.
Classic Claire McCaskill play. Probably shoulda started earlier, though.
…Adding… From Wordslinger in comments…
Those are both great spots for Ives.
Notice how in the first one there is no standard, b&w scowling shots? Ives is in full color and smiling. That’s some serious concern-trolling.
Surprisingly good strategy and execution from a DC committee.
…Adding… I just realized one of the news references in the “anti” Jeanne Ives ad is Prairie State Wire - a Dan Proft paper.
That spot is pure trolling gold.
And, as a commenter pointed out, the anti-Rauner ad quotes the Illinois Policy Institute. Just ginning up that circular firing squad a wee bit more.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Check out this new Rauner ad bashing Ives. Harshest one yet…
*** UPDATE 2 *** Heh…
Tomorrow, the Democratic Governors Association will launch two new television ads holding Governor Bruce Rauner and state Representative Jeanne Ives accountable for their failed policy agendas.
The ad titled ‘Worst’ focuses on how Bruce Rauner’s failed leadership has made Illinois worse economically and fiscally. Rauner’s two-year budget crisis led to more debt, a lower credit rating, and the worst unemployment rate in the Midwest.
The ad titled ‘Most’ lays out how Jeanne Ives’s policies are too conservative for Illinois. Ives supports banning abortion, overturning needed protections for immigrants, and would bring the failed policies of President Donald Trump to Illinois.
“Jeanne Ives and Bruce Rauner’s failed policies are a disaster for middle-class Illinois families,” said DGA Spokesman Sam Salustro. “Jeanne Ives’ positions are just too conservative for Illinois. And Rauner’s refusal to show leadership has made Illinois worse off fiscally and economically. It’s time for both leaders to start working for Illinois families, and not themselves.”
It would’ve been better if they’d tied Rauner to Madigan. /s
According to Advertising Analytics, as of Thursday evening the DGA is set to spend at least $451,000 to air the ads from Friday through Tuesday, the date of the GOP primary.
Each ad is going to be running in “significant rotation,” said a DGA official who declined to specify whether one ad would run more often than the other.
It’s unclear how much impact the DGA’s ad will have at at time when it’s competing on incredibly congested airwaves. The governor’s race alone has seen more than $55 million in TV ad spending. For his part, Rauner himself has poured millions of dollars into meddling in the Democratic primary, financing attack ads hitting Democratic front-runner J.B. Pritzker.
Illinois Democratic governor hopeful J.B. Pritzker donated $2 million in June to the Democratic Governors Association, the organization that’s officially neutral in the contested primary.
I reported on June 25 that the wealthy Pritzker, who has already poured millions of his own dollars into his bid, attended a major Democratic Governors Association fundraising event in Nantucket — and that all the Democratic contenders from Illinois were not invited.
*** UPDATE 5 *** Ives campaign…
Of course Socialists are attacking Jeanne Ives for being conservative. Democrat congressman Dan Lipinski is too conservative for the Democrat Party. Jeanne Ives wears attacks from the radical Left as badges of honor whether they come from Leftists at the DGA or the Leftist, fake Republican Bruce Rauner. The DGA is correct that Illinois is worse off than we were when Rauner was elected but that’s because Rauner pursued the big government, tax-borrow-and-spend policies combined with extreme Leftist social policies that the DGA otherwise supports. On policy, Rauner and the DGA are two sides of the same counterfeit bill.
Abstract: This research brief proposes a method for estimating residential property tax shifting due to regressive assessments. Estimates for Chicago suggest that $2.2 billion was shifted from under- taxed properties onto over-tax properties from 2011 to 2015. Due to regressive assessments, the most expensive homes are the most likely to be under-taxed.
I estimate that roughly $800 million in property taxes was shifted from the top 10 percent of properties onto the bottom 90 percent during this period.
“The property tax racket run by Joe Berrios, Mike Madigan and their silent partner JB Pritzker is crushing Illinois families. Serial tax cheat JB Pritzker won’t speak out against this racket. This study confirms what I have been saying throughout this campaign because tax cheaters like JB Pritzker pay less everyone else pays more.
This is exactly the kind of abusive, insider leadership that we need to remove from the highest levels of our government.
And, we need a governor who will help lead the way. I am committed to doing just that. It’s a shame that JB Pritzker is so completely beholden to Joe Berrios that he forgives these outcomes and favors leaving Berrios in power. Together they will continue to tear apart our state and enrich only the wealthy and well-connected.
We need radical change and it starts with ending our state’s reliance on property taxes and funding our public schools fairly with state support.”
…Adding… Fritz Kaegi…
“This study vividly provides new detail on exactly how unfair and regressive Joe Berrios’ assessment system has become. Berrios has shifted billions in property taxes from the wealthiest property owners onto everyone else, taking money out of the pockets of working families and devastating communities. Neighborhoods lose people because of this theft, and it is neighborhoods on the South and West Sides of Cook County that are hit the hardest.
“This study only looks at residential assessments. We must also remember that Joe Berrios’ assessment system has created an enormous cost shift from downtown office skyscraper owners onto all residential owners.
“Joe Berrios’ assessment system caters to the wealthiest property owners, because they are the principal clients of the tax appeals industry that funds his campaign. This is pay-to-play at its very worst, and Prof. Berry provides vivid detail on the toll it has taken.”
* Related…
* Flawed Assessments Caused $2 Billion Shift in Property Taxes, Study Finds - Under Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios, assessment system shaved $1 billion from Chicago’s most expensive homes, while owners of lower-valued homes picked up the tab.
Pritzker is the sole owner of Moreau Capital Holdings […]
To complete the $191,000 land purchase, Seadog and Entertainment Cruises [owned by JB and his brother Anthony Pritzker] filed required paperwork with the city disclosing economic interests behind the deal for public land.
* Pritzker campaign…
Reporters – please see below response from the Pritzker Campaign to several of your questions regarding Moreau Capital Holdings.
Despite the Tribune erroneously reporting that JB is the “sole” owner, JB is not the owner of Moreau Capital Holdings. He is a beneficiary of the trust that owns Moreau Capital Holdings. If you look at the document the Tribune posted in the article, they purposely failed to disclose the part of the document directly above the listing of JB’s name. It does not say that JB owns the entity.
Instead, it says that if the entity is a legal entity, please provide information for each person having a “direct or indirect beneficial interest (including ownership) in excess of 7.5%.” It goes on to give examples including the “interest of a beneficiary of a trust, estate or other similar entity.” Furthermore, their selective clips of the full document fails to mention that JB did not sign the affidavit saying he owned anything. The affidavit was submitted and signed by the foreign trust company in response to who had a beneficial interest in the property.
Additionally, as JB said last night, underlying assets in which he benefits are listed on his statement of economic interest, including Entertainment Cruises, which is on page 6 of the statement of economic interest.
* The full version, which shows that Pritzker has a direct or indirect interest or ownership (the Pritzker campaign explains it as an indirect ownership) in excess of 7.5 percent, but doesn’t show that he is the “sole” owner as the Tribune claimed…
He did not sign that particular affidavit. If you click here you’ll see he did sign later affidavits that don’t mention the trust funds. I’m not yet sure why.
* Also, Entertainment Cruises is on page 6 of Pritzker’s economic interest statement. Click here for that.
* Silly season is officially upon us, campers. Watch ‘em eat it up…
.@KennedyforIL to @JBPritzker - DROP OUT! "If he believed in public service & sacrifice, he would sacrifice his own political career in service to the Democratic Party of IL & frankly to the people of Illinois by dropping out of the race." #ILGov@wlsam890pic.twitter.com/LiSZRz224Z
Today, the Biss campaign issued the following statement in response to Chris Kennedy’s hypocritical call for JB Pritzker to drop out of the Democratic governor primary.
“Chris Kennedy doesn’t have a leg to stand on,” said Biss campaign spokesman Tom Elliott. “If the concern about JB Pritzker is that he’s hiding his offshore accounts, his income and his taxes from voters, then shouldn’t Chris Kennedy also drop out of the race?
“Chris Kennedy and JB Pritzker are two sides of the same gold coin: they refuse to release their full tax returns, while standing on a record of tax scams and tax avoidance. And now they have the audacity to ask voters to trust them with the future of Illinois. These guys think they get to play by a different set of rules, but I believe the voters will give them a rude awakening on Tuesday.”
Maybe Kass was right? /s
* Pritzker campaign…
After doubling down on his position on taxing retirement income, Chris Kennedy is flailing through the final days of his campaign, attacking JB’s family, lying about his own positions, and throwing anything at the wall in a desperate attempt to get something to stick. It’s no surprise that Kennedy is trying to get the only candidate who can beat Bruce Rauner to drop out. Kennedy did praise him after all.
This article was originally going to be about sentiment analysis on tweets about candidates in the Illinois governor election. However, when I was pulling data from Twitter, I noticed that Governor Bruce Rauner’s primary opponent, Jeanne Ives, had almost five thousand tweets and retweets mentioning her name, placing her with four times the amount of mentions of the leading Democratic candidate.
When I looked into this further, half of Jeanne Ives’ mentions come from retweets of posts by the Twitter handle NinaMorton. Additional mentions come from accounts like redhead4645 and PatriotPete101. These accounts are filled with right wing propaganda tweeted out multiple times a day. […]
Within less than a month’s time, [NinaMorton] posts went from having around twenty retweets to nearly one thousand retweets. The news articles she posts on her Twitter feed are from fake news websites such as worldtoday365.info or extremely biased right wing news websites.
Nina Morton’s account growth is staggering. Over the course of twenty eight days, she went from having a few retweets to a thousand. She began to gain hundreds of followers a day. All of this growth has continued over the past few months as her account began to shift to more propaganda and image-based content from text-based content. She went from tweeting once every other day to tweeting every other hour. The evidence above led me to believe that NinaMorton’s account is most likely a bot account, or at the very least an account used to spew fake propaganda that benefits far right-wing candidates. […]
Retweets from accounts such as the NinaMorton and redhead4645 propaganda accounts composed of the majority of Jeanne Ives mentions on Twitter. In fact, Jeanne Ives has more mentions on Twitter than she does followers and more Twitter mentions than the other Democratic candidates combined. These anomalies despite her poor polling performance is because of massive tweeting and retweeting by bot and propaganda accounts on Twitter.
Jain is a Statistics and Computer Science and Political Science student at UIUC. I tried replicating his results, but I couldn’t get his program to work (I was probably too busy and definitely too ignorant).
Jain did, however, run those accounts through BotCheck.me and discovered that “both NinaMorton and redhead4645 were either bot accounts or political propaganda accounts.”
* The Outline then published a rather breathless story without going into much detail about how these alleged bots were targeting Illinois…
Bots are flooding Twitter with political propaganda and conspiracy theories in an apparent attempt to sway a number of upcoming local and state elections in the U.S., including Pennsylvania’s special election, Illinois’ gubernatorial election, and California’s congressional election. The Outline has identified at least 14 Twitter accounts — some of which have well over 200,000 followers, and have been retweeted by the President himself — which appear to be part of a coordinated effort to amplify fake news, inflame partisan tensions, and spread popular Russian-based conspiracy theories through the use of bots. All of the accounts were found to either solely or primarily share political propaganda with an ultra-right-wing bent, most of which centered around topics like Pennsylvania’s March 13 special election, Illinois’ March 20 gubernatorial election, gun control, immigration, and the QAnon conspiracy.
Kathleen Murphy, Ives’s spokesperson, denied knowledge of the bots in an e-mailed statement:
“This is the first we have heard of Twitter bots,” Murphy wrote. “We block [accounts that] are abusive on social media, but beyond that our campaign staff is small. And all are juggling huge workloads at this point. No one on our staff has time for this sort of activity.” […]
A day after the Outline piece was published, all three accounts called out in Jain’s report have had their Twitter handles changed. @NinaMorton has been changed to @MAGANinaJo, @redhead4645 is now @my2006bmw, and @patriotpete101 is @TruckinPete101.
@MAGANinaJo has retweeted almost 600 tweets since Tuesday, according to the Twitter analysis tool AccountAnalysis. Earlier today, for example, the account retweeted a picture of Ives and her running mate, Richard Morthland, with the statement: “Enough with sanctuary cities. Let’s work together to put these people in place to work for legal IL residents. #ArmyOfTrump #RedWaveRising2018.” That tweet has received 82 retweets and 94 likes as of Wednesday afternoon.
Governor Bruce Rauner today detailed the latest CDC-backed remediation efforts at the Illinois Veterans Home in Quincy (IVHQ) and announced that the Capital Development Board is issuing an RFP for a Master Planning contract to explore building a new state-of-the-art facility on the Quincy campus.
He also revealed that the state intends to purchase a vacant nursing home a few blocks from the Quincy campus, renovate it, and prepare it for occupancy in the event residents need to be moved to protect them from potential Legionella infections. There have been no positive water tests for Legionella since completion of the latest remediation.
* During a press conference this afternoon in Quincy Mike Hoffman, the former CMS director who has been put in charge of fixing the problems at the veterans’ home, clarified that statement about buying the vacant nursing home.
“We have not signed a contract, we have not entered into an agreement,” Hoffman said. It could happen in the next month or two, he said.
“That’s not the plan yet,” Gov. Rauner also said today in Quincy about buying the nursing home down the street and moving the residents. “That’s an option that we want to have available.”
But, he said, that option could not accommodate all 352 veterans’ home residents because there’s not enough room.
So, Rauner said they’ll have a modular housing option on the veterans’ home campus itself, “With all new piping, all new facilities not connected at all to the existing water system.”
The governor claimed today that the modular housing option (with all new plumbing from a different water source) could be accomplished “in just a few months.”
OK.
Rauner also said he wants to work with the General Assembly to “try to streamline the procurement process” to get the all new facility built, which he expects to take two years. Yeah, well, I hope he puts Hoffman in charge of that and doesn’t try to deal with the GA on his own is all I’m saying.
* Gov. Rauner also got defensive when asked why these changes have taken so long…
There is this false narrative I think for political purposes that somehow it’s too slow or why did it take so long. Nothing has taken long. We’ve implemented immediately, immediately everything that’s been recommended. So, there was nothing that somehow taken too long, or we didn’t do or we waited on. Nothing whatsoever.
As a reminder, twelve residents died in 2015 (partly because the administration took way too long to notify them of the outbreak), another one has passed away since then and 4 cases popped up last month alone.
A Republican candidate for Illinois Attorney General says there should be an independent investigation into the state’s handling of Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks at a veterans’ home.
Erika Harold is supported by Governor Bruce Rauner, who has defended his administration’s response to the outbreaks even though residents there keep getting sick.
At a forum for attorney general candidates [last week] streamed on facebook - Harold was asked if there’s potentially a case for criminal negligence by state officials. Harold says it’s too soon to know.
HAROLD: I wouldn’t prejudge the evidence but I think there should be an independent investigation and see where the evidence leads.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Press release…
Senator Cristina Castro (D-Elgin) issued the following statement in response to the governor’s press conference at the Illinois Veterans Home at Quincy today:
“What is this guy talking about? Everything he said today was a contradiction of what we were told last week by his administration.”
“Last week we were told the nearby nursing home might not be option for housing veterans because the building is old and might have its own problems. Today we’re told it’s back on the table.
“Last week we were told a draft plan for fixing the Quincy campus would be done by the end of the month and a final plan ready by May 1. Today we hear about entirely new avenues that should be finalized by the fall.
“When is someone going to actually take charge and do something?
“This outbreak began in 2015. The governor already spent $60,000 worth of taxpayers’ money on two engineering reports only to now announce he’s throwing them out and spending even more on new experts to do new studies and offer up another new plan.
“I’ve got family members of deceased veterans contacting me because they’re frustrated and fed up with the Rauner administration.
“I don’t want to hear about plans and options and task forces and choices to be made at some future date. I want the governor to make a decision and do something right now.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** Press release…
tate Senator Bill Haine (D-Alton) released the following statement this afternoon following the governor’s press conference at the Illinois Veterans Home at Quincy:
“Classic bureaucrats. Three years after the crisis began they’re still talking about options and plans. There have been enough studies and reports and meetings. And that’s all the governor announced today. More studies and reports and meetings. The governor appears stuck on a political treadmill. Just do something already.”
* I asked the Democratic Governors Association about this and they confirmed. They wouldn’t discuss content, but the rumor mill is on fire that it’s an anti-Rauner ad, which would be interesting timing if the GOP primary is actually tightening up. I’ll post it when I get it…
IL-Gov: Democratic Governors Association is placing a TV buy. Five-day flight starts tomorrow, 3/16
Our ad watcher says the DGA ad is only $30k spread amongst Chicago, Champaign and Rockford.
Those can be upped, but we’ll see.
*** UPDATE 2 *** A reliable person says the RGA tracking is substantially off.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Another very good source who tracks this stuff closely said the DGA ad is “a real buy.”
*** UPDATE 4 *** Will Allison at the Rauner campaign…
“Washington Democrats have teamed up with Mike Madigan’s favorite Republican Jeanne Ives because they know they can’t beat Governor Rauner in November. Governor Rauner’s message of growing jobs, cutting taxes, and rooting out corruption in Illinois has Democrats running scared.”
You knew that had to be coming.
*** UPDATE 5 *** RGA…
“It’s panic time at J.B. Pritzker’s campaign. After the Chicago Tribune’s bombshell article revealing his offshore tax havens and then his disaster of a debate performance, Pritzker is calling in his well-connected friends to bail him out. Desperate times call for desperate measures.” – Republican Governors Association Spokesman Steven Yaffe
*** UPDATE *** Fight Back for a Better Tomorrow PAC, that dark money outfit run by Local 150, just reloaded with another $300,000 for more TV ads against Drury. That puts them close to a million, right where Drury is.
On the heels of an internal poll showing Pat Quinn’s numbers plummeting and Scott Drury’s rising, Scott Drury’s campaign for Attorney General has begun airing a new statewide campaign ad
* Drury was cagey about his poll, but he did say this…
Since the baseline survey, Quinn’s support has dropped by almost 20 percentage points. Raoul has gained 9 points. Drury has gained 5 points.
Drury conceded he is still only at 8 percent or 9 percent overall, but said he’s reached double digits in the suburbs and Downstate.
In an interview, [million-dollar campaign contributor Steven Miller] said it was that momentum, coupled with a high percentage of undecided voters in the race (anywhere from 30 percent to 45 percent), that convinced him to make the investment.
A gain of five points means he started at 3 or 4, which is about where I had him last week.
The three candidates agreed on their insistence that the state should not tax retirement income to help balance the budget, although Pritzker has run ads accusing both Biss and Kennedy of supporting efforts to do so.
“Look me in the eye and tell me that you’ll stop running those ads,” Kennedy said.
“You have a different position today than you did yesterday,” Pritzker responded.
Kennedy also said Pritzker was lying about his stance on legalizing marijuana.
* I was planning to do yet another fact check on Kennedy today, but then this landed in my in-box…
Today, the JB Pritzker campaign released a new video highlighting Chris Kennedy’s hypocrisy at the final Democratic debate last night.
The new video features Kennedy’s line, “you should never hire someone who lies to you during a job interview” followed by Kennedy’s lies about where he stands on critical issues such as legalizing marijuana and taxing retirement income.
Last night at the final Democratic primary debate, JB Pritzker demonstrated why he is the best candidate to beat Bruce Rauner, holding the failed governor accountable for his damage to the state and highlighting his own plans to take charge as governor.
JB blasted Bruce Rauner for decimating Illinois’ finances and skyrocketing state debt:
He then highlighted his plans to pass a progressive income tax while holding Dan Biss and Chris Kennedy accountable for their plans to tax retirement income:
The three took on a more personal question to round out the hour-long debate. Asked for an example of a formative life experience, Pritzker spoke of losing his mother at 17 and her struggles with alcoholism: “I watched her struggle with addiction. And I don’t want others to have to go through that. And I want to live up to her values, the things that she set for us about fighting for social and economic justice, equality and inclusion.”
Kennedy spoke of the pain of losing his father, former U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.
“I think about my father’s death at an early age, and I know that the bullet that kills the father wounds the child,” Kennedy said, adding his siblings have struggled with substance abuse and mental illness. “Somewhere in all of that there’s empathy that comes from people who are not going to be able to make it on their own and we have a role as a big family and as a government to reach out to folks who are suffering.”
Biss spoke of a more lighthearted moment — meeting his wife Karen in 2005 at a Texas airport: “It changed my life completely.”
At this point I’ve had so many reporters just shrug when I point out Rauner lies that it’s becoming not worth my time.
“Rauner lied!” isn’t really a story anymore.
No one cares unless its about chocolate milk.
* The one thing that some reporters and columnists are picking up on, though, is the Rauner TV attack ads against Rep. Jeanne Ives for being in league with Speaker Madigan. The spots recently earned a “Pants on Fire” rating from Politifact. Here’s the DGA…
With just a few days to go in his surprisingly competitive primary election, Governor Bruce Rauner’s been under increasing scrutiny for his “blatantly false” ads attacking his primary opponent. Rauner recently earned a “Pants on Fire” rating for his ads.
Asked about it [yesterday], Rauner seemed unfamiliar with the term associated with serial liars:
Reporter: “You’ve talked about values, and you’ve been running ads against Jeanne Ives that are called ‘Pants on Fire’ by PolitiFact…”
Rauner: “Haha, whatever that means.”
Reporter: “It means that it’s not only false, it’s ludicrous….”
This actually explains a lot. Rauner’s been burning up the PolitiFact charts with his consistently untruthful statements:
PolitiFact – Pants on Fire (2018 Edition): “I have introduced balanced budgets every year that I’ve been governor.”
PolitiFact – False: “No private business was conducted on public property. That issue is a contract dispute.”
PolitiFact – Pants on Fire: “My grandparents were proud immigrants to the United States of America, here to Illinois in the late 1800s.”
Despite earning a “Pants on Fire” rating for falsely claiming his grandparents were immigrants to America, Rauner repeated the claim so often the State Journal-Register felt the need to rerun the fact check in their newspaper. By the way, Rauner’s grandparents were born in Wisconsin.
“Bruce Rauner’s not just telling white lies – he’s trying to cover up for three years of failed leadership,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “The truth is that under Bruce Rauner state debt skyrocketed, job growth slowed, and the state suffered through a two-year budget crisis. Illinois is worse under Bruce Rauner’s failed leadership, and that’s no lie.”
Today, the JB Pritzker campaign released a new statewide TV ad: “Together.” The ad highlights Bruce Rauner’s failures as governor and JB’s plans to take charge, unite the state, and bring real change to Illinois.
“From manufacturing a 736-day budget crisis, to conducting corrupt business deals out of the governor’s mansion and fatally mismanaging the Quincy Veterans’ home, it’s clear that Bruce Rauner has failed Illinois,” said JB Pritzker. “From day one of this campaign, I’ve focused on holding Rauner accountable for his damage done and fighting for the issues that matter to working families. Illinoisans deserve a leader in Springfield who will take charge to create jobs, expand quality healthcare, and invest in education across the board. I am the only candidate in this race with the vision and leadership to defeat Bruce Rauner and move this state forward.”
Anchor: Tumultuous first term for Governor Rauner.
Anchor: 700 days without a budget.
Anchor: Meetings about private investments at the executive mansion.
Anchor: Lowest credit rating of any state in American history.
Anchor: Fatal outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.
Rauner: I am not in charge.
Pritzker: Bruce Rauner is a failure and the communities he’s hurt most are the ones who can least afford it. I’ll work hard every day to earn you trust, and when we beat Bruce Ruaner, together, we’ll bring real change to Illinois.
Rival Daniel Biss called Pritzker’s explanation an “unbelievable mess of word salad” in contending the Hyatt Hotel fortune heir was trying to “avoid taxes” through the offshore companies “and spent the last year lying about it.”
“This is just exposing the fraud that is the J.B. campaign for governor,” said Biss, a state senator from Evanston.
And another contender, Kenilworth developer Chris Kennedy, said voters should consider Pritzker’s words as if they were conducting a job interview for governor.
“I’ve hired a lot of people and I can tell you just one piece of advice to the voters of this state: You should never hire someone who lies to you during a job interview. If they’ll lie to you to get the job, they’ll lie to you to keep the job. And you do not want a liar as the governor of the state of Illinois,” said Kennedy, a member of the iconic Massachusetts political family.
“There’s nothing new in that story in the Tribune,” [Pritzker] said, commenting on a story that claims Pritzker has an interest in 11 offshore companies that were set up within the last decade.
“J.B. Pritzker set up these companies offshore probably to avoid taxes and spent the entire last year lying about it,” said Daniel Biss, candidate for governor.
Candidate Chris Kennedy also chimed in, saying, “What he’s done is he’s avoid paying taxes in the U.S. Every taxpayer in the U.S. now pays more in income tax because he paid less.”
“You’re not who you say you are,” Pritzker told Biss.
“I’m not going to sit here and be lectured about who’s a progressive by the guy who’s storing money offshore to avoid taxes and profiting off the Dakota Access Pipeline,” Biss responded. […]
Biss sought to link Pritzker and Kennedy, who he called “two guys that are experts in helping the wealthy evade taxes” to President Donald Trump and Gov. Bruce Rauner – elected executives who parlayed their wealthy backgrounds into elected office promising to reform a broken system.
“Throughout all of 2016, all Democrats were saying, ‘Dude, Donald Trump should release his tax returns.’ And now here we are in 2018, and two of the three leading candidates for governor won’t do it. It’s just not OK.”
Pritzker also attacked Kennedy for raising tuition five times when he was chairman of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Pritzker said that led to a drop in minority enrollment at the state’s flagship university.
Kennedy responded that the decrease was due to the 2008-2009 financial crisis, and questioned whether Pritzker — whose net worth Forbes puts at $3.5 billion — was aware that the economic crisis had happened.
“When you can’t win by telling the truth about yourself, sometimes you have to tell lies about competitors in order to win. That’s what he’s doing,” Kennedy countered.
Biss blasted both Kennedy and Pritzker for tax breaks the two received. His campaign has been running a digital campaign called “The Billionaire Playbook” that targets Pritzker, Rauner, Kennedy and President Trump for allegedly “putting profits over people.”
“We should let these two guys keep arguing until 8 o’clock about who is scamming the tax system worse,” Biss said about halfway through the hour-long debate.
“What we don’t know is what Mr. Pritzker is hiding,” [Kennedy] said. […]
Clearly it was not Pritzker’s best night, especially when peppered with questions by reporters after the debate on his off shore investments. He walked away without answering.
At a press conference after the forum, Pritzker left reporters scratching their heads even more when he insisted that offshore trusts were founded generations ago by family members, even though the Tribune reports the trusts helped finance companies that were set up by Pritzker in the last 10 years.
Pritzker interjected, “These two went on the attack.”
The prompted Kennedy to respond: “Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.”
Kennedy also lashed out at Biss, who is seeking support from backers of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ unsuccessful presidential campaign. Biss sponsored 2013 legislation to cut benefits for public pensioners — a law later ruled unconstitutional. Biss has acknowledged the move was a mistake.
But Kennedy said Biss “fell” under Springfield’s spell as a state lawmaker in pushing the legislation.
“There’s nothing that a Democrat can do that’s worse than what you did,” said Kennedy, calling Biss’ move “disqualifying” for governor.
Kennedy likened the primary process to interviewing candidates for a job.
“You should never hire someone who lies to you during a job interview,” Kennedy said. “If they’ll lie to you to get the job, they’ll lie to you to keep the job.” […]
Biss said that he supports a tax on financial transactions, like the ones that occur on the trading floors of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Mercantile Exchange. But Kennedy said the idea was pie in the sky.
“This is the worst form of political pandering,” Kennedy said. “To say that nobody has to worry about a thing because we’re going to tax financial transactions, it gives everyone false hope. We ought to bring people into the complexities and subtleties of government policy and not offer a solution that can’t be had.”
Ponce later asked whether the candidates supported Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios, whose office has been found to operate a regressive tax system favoring wealthier and well-connected property owners at the expensive of poorer homeowners.
Pritzker took issue with the question before the other candidates had a chance to answer.
“I’m not revealing who I voted for or who I’m supporting in that race because I don’t think we should be getting involved in Democratic primaries – we’re running one ourselves,” he said.
“Oh my Gosh, if you can’t take a position on whether Joe Berrios should be reelected…if you can’t take the courage to take a position on that race you shouldn’t be the governor of the state of Illinois,” said Kennedy, who has focused on the property tax appeals system in the campaign. He called Pritzker a “property tax cheat.”
The debate winner was Chris Kennedy, but with only five days to go, the question is: will it make a difference?
That’s the question, alright.
* I took this pic of my TV last night. It’s the moment after Sen. Biss said he was proud of his legislative record…
Heh.
* And the Pritzker campaign put together some highlights of Kennedy whacking Biss. It didn’t include the Kennedy attacks on Pritzker, of course. But it’s still worth a watch…
* Writing a subscriber-only story about Pritzker’s money and got so far into the weeds that I’m now way behind. Keep the discussion state-centric, please. And try your very best to be nice to each other. I’ll be back soon.