With President Trump primed to go after vulnerable Democratic senators in red states, it’s clear the country’s future hinges on the credibility of what political scientists call the Rich Miller Theorem.
Actually, I may be the only person who calls it that. But I’m hoping the name catches on, if only because I could use the royalties.
Exciting day! Just cut the ribbon on the new Northwest Macomb Bypass. It brings much needed traffic relief, connects western Illinois to our national transportation system, opens a path to fresh economic opportunities. pic.twitter.com/dq7snOXP9E
* I didn’t know about the national corridor connection. It seemed pretty cool at first glance. From last October…
Construction on the six-mile, $36.1 million bypass began in June 2015… The bypass will open as a two-lane highway linking Ill. 336 west of Macomb to U.S. 67 on the north… Funds for the first two lanes of the bypass were approved in the Jobs Now capital bill that the Legislature approved in 2009. IDOT officials have pledged to complete the other two lanes on the bypass when construction dollars become available. […]
The bypass will be part of the 537-mile Chicago-Kansas City Expressway that has been marketed as a national corridor. The CKC, first proposed 60 years ago, has a common route designation number. Signs bearing the Route 110 and CKC logo are in place from downtown Chicago to downtown Kansas City, Mo. Route 110 avoids three of the most congested and overcrowded highway segments in the Midwest: Interstate 55 from Chicago to Joliet, I-80 from Joliet to the Kansas border, and I-70 from St. Louis to Kansas City.
* I couldn’t get Google Maps to use the national corridor’s route, so I went to the expressway’s Wikipedia page and entered in all the highway changes up to Quincy, which is on our western border. The search result (click here) shows it would take 5 hours and 54 minutes to drive it at 2:29 pm today.
However, allow Google Maps to choose a Chicago to Quincy route and its fastest choice (click here) would take 5 hours and 2 minutes if you started at 2:29 pm.
That’s a 52-minute difference. The new Macomb bypass will save drivers between 4 and 9 minutes. But it’ll still be much faster to use Google Map’s preferred route.
Man, I killed way too much time on this post. I coulda just driven to Kansas City instead.
Gosh, do you suppose the RNC & ILGOP are excited about the prospect of an ex-con Democrat former governor running around the state on a “rewrite history & professional victim” tour? I think so. The GOP will certainly need the waters muddied to have a chance for election success this next go-around.
If Rod praises Pritzker… ouch. If Rod tells some negative stories about Pritzker because Pritzker has said he ought to serve out the rest of his term… ouch.
I can see this going either way if RRB gets out, or both ways at once at times. Dude is just so unpredictable and both campaigns are pretty wily. But, I’m not gonna let you cop out like I just did.
* The Question: Option one or option two? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
A bill that would give Illinois taxpayers a way to work around the new $10,000-a-year federal cap on state and local tax deductions has been put on hold, caught in a dispute between Senate and House sponsors about how to deal with Internal Revenue Service concerns about the measure. […]
In a phone interview, Carroll said he was not backing off his original plan but did “not want to set up taxpayers for a bad situation” if the IRS ruled against such plan. Carroll said he’d discussed his new plan with Morrison and she “totally understands what we’re trying to do.”
But Morrison said she is not fine and in fact is “disappointed that the House has chosen not to move forward” with a bill that was carefully negotiated with both Democratic and Republican senators. She said her preference would be to enact such a bill here, following the lead of states such as New Jersey and Connecticut, and see what happens with IRS and in court. […]
Meanwhile, the General Assembly adopted a bill pushed by Enterprise and other car rental firms that is somewhat like the battle between conventional hotel operators and Airbnb. Specifically, it requires companies that are paid to connect private car owners and renters via a phone app to follow the same regulations as traditional car rental companies. The measure drew furious last-minute lobbying on both sides, and ended up clearing the Senate by a less-than-veto-proof 34-7-7 margin.
Meanwhile, that revised carjacking bill that I told you about the other day passed the House yesterday with 78 votes and will be sent to the governor.
Legislation that would mandate a 72-hour “cooling” period following the purchase of any gun heads to Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desk after clearing the Illinois Senate Thursday evening.
The vote was 40-10. Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, voted for it, while Sens. Sam McCann, R-Plainview, and Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, voted “no.”
This will be the second attempt to enact this type of legislation in the past few months. The first, which called for a 72-hour waiting period following the purchase of an assault weapon, was bottled up by Rauner a few weeks ago.
Using his amendatory veto powers, Rauner essentially rewrote that bill, using it as a vehicle to propose a comprehensive package of public safety proposals.
For much of the spring, critics have called for a major overhaul of how ethics complaints are handled in the Capitol, saying lawmakers can’t be trusted to conduct honest and transparent investigations of themselves.
Legislators took some first steps toward that goal Thursday, overwhelmingly approving a bill that would give the inspector general the freedom to investigate complaints of sexual harassment without first having to get approval from the Legislative Ethics Commission, whose members are appointed by the four House and Senate leaders.
The bill, which cleared the Senate 54-0 and the House 110-0, was a last-minute victory for women lawmakers who had said earlier this week that they were resisting an attempt by the men who run the legislative caucuses to water down the measure.
The proposed new rules would create a four-person committee of former judges and prosecutors to search for a full-time inspector general to replace the temporary watchdog who was installed in the office last year. Under the current system, it’s up to legislative leaders to recommend an inspector general, who then must be approved by the ethics commission. Before Rotheimer’s complaint, the leaders couldn’t agree on an appointee, so the post was allowed to sit empty and complaints went unanswered as a result.
Such a prolonged vacancy would be prohibited under the new legislation, which would task the Illinois auditor general’s watchdog with taking up complaints if the legislative inspector general post is vacant for more than six months.
When students summoned the courage to disclose abuse, teachers and principals failed to alert child welfare investigators or police despite the state’s mandated reporter law.
Even in cases where school employees acted swiftly, they subjected young victims to repeated interrogations, inflicting more psychological pain and defying basic principles intended to preserve the integrity of an investigation.
Ineffective background checks exposed students to educators with criminal convictions and arrests for sex crimes against children. And CPS failed to disclose to other districts that past employees had resigned after investigators found credible evidence of abuse and harassment. […]
The exact number of cases in which school workers sexually assaulted students remains elusive, in part because CPS does so little to understand and tackle the problem. The district acknowledges that it does not track child abuse by its employees in a consistent or formal manner. […]
In other districts across the state and country, school employees have been imprisoned for failing to report abuse. But the Tribune found no evidence that Chicago school employees who kept quiet about allegations were charged criminally.
Go read the whole thing. The data is horrible, but the individual stories are at once disgusting and heartbreaking.
Illinois also does not require the state board to collect data about sexual abuse of students, even though school districts must by law report the rare instances in which a student sexually assaults a school employee.
That is appalling.
…Adding… From CPS…
CPS CEO Dr. Janice K. Jackson Statement:
“As CEO and a CPS parent, I will not be satisfied until I am confident that the district is doing everything possible to ensure that our hiring practices, background checks, training, and handling of sexual assault and misconduct allegations are the best policies and practices to protect our students. Period.
“As a first step, we have identified a series of significant actions – including bringing in an independent evaluator to conduct a top-to-bottom review of district processes and policies – that will be implemented going forward to help ensure the best possible supports are in place to protect students.
“Nothing is more important to Chicago Public Schools than student safety – particularly with the adults who are supposed to serve them, and we are taking significant actions to ensure our students have safest possible learning environments.”
BACKGROUND:
For a comprehensive list of actions the district is taking to further protect our students, please read Protecting Chicago’s Children: CPS Plan of Action in its entirety at bit.ly/cpsplanofaction.
There were chants and songs from the legislative galleries. A group of women supporters held a hunger fast for weeks, leading to some being hospitalized. The group that staged the sit-in previously chained itself to the gold railing outside the Senate chamber. The same group later splattered animal blood on the marble floor outside the 2nd floor governor’s office when the amendment failed.
“What they want is publicity and that’s what you give them,” then-state Sen. James “Pate” Philip of Elmhurst chided reporters at the time.
The chamber’s Republican leader and future Senate president went on: “Starving themselves, chaining themselves then disrupting the Senate — if anything they’re turning the senators off.”
Opposing the amendment at the state and national level was Illinois’ own, the late Phyllis Schlafly of Alton. The head of the conservative Eagle Forum joined with her red-dressed backers who carried small hand-held stop sign-shaped cards saying, “STOP ERA.”
The Illinois General Assembly passed the FY19 budget this week and Governor Rauner has called the plan a step in the right direction and has promised swift action. The bipartisan budget includes no new tax increases, funding for the Quincy Veterans Home, savings for local governments, and funding for early childhood, K-12 and higher education, as well as the Discovery Partners Institute.
Associated Press: Rauner Promises Swift Action on Budget
“We worked together to provide a budget to the people of Illinois that can be balanced with hard work and continued bipartisan effort to deliver on the promises it makes,” Rauner said in a statement in which he promised quick action to enact the plan for the year that begins July 1… The Senate voted 56-2 Wednesday night on the plan that increases elementary and secondary education by $350 million and fully funds the state’s pension obligations and $4 billion for state employee group health insurance.
Chicago Sun-Times: ‘Realistic’ budget heads to Gov. Rauner’s desk after bipartisan ‘love fest’
With the words “trust” and “bipartisanship” uttered repeatedly on the Illinois House floor, lawmakers on Thursday quickly approved a $38.5 billion budget that Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner says he’ll sign. … To address students fleeing Illinois, the budget also includes a new $25 million tuition grant which will provide additional tuition assistance.
Chicago Tribune: Illinois House passes state budget; Rauner says he’ll approve it
Illinois House passes state budget; Rauner says he’ll approve it. … The House agreed to the $38.5 billion proposal by a 97-18 vote, following a landslide 54-2 tally in the Senate on Wednesday night. Rauner said in a statement he plans to approve it. … Lawmakers also approved $2.2 billion in spending on an infrastructure program Rauner announced earlier in the week. They granted him $53 million to cover the first-year costs of constructing a new veterans home in Quincy to address a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that dates to 2015 — the handling of which has been a matter of controversy for the governor. And they set aside $500 million for an innovation center in the South Loop that’s being led by the University of Illinois and has been heavily touted by Rauner.
Reuters: Illinois budget speeds through legislature, heads to governor
The Republican governor praised the bipartisan effort and compromise and said he will be taking action soon to enact the spending plan, which the Senate overwhelmingly passed on Wednesday. … The budget adds $350 million to a new K-12 school funding formula enacted last year, increases higher education spending by 2 percent, reduces cuts in state aid to local governments, and appropriates $1.3 billion to pay previously incurred expenses. It also includes a voluntary buyout of certain pension benefits expected to save the state about $423 million in fiscal 2019.
WGLT: Illinois House Sends $38 Billion Budget To Rauner
“The Fiscal Year 2019 budget is the result of bipartisan effort and compromise,” Rauner added. “We worked together to provide a budget to the people of Illinois that can be balanced, with hard work and continued bipartisan effort to deliver on the promises it makes. I’ll be taking action quickly to enact the Fiscal Year 2019 budget into law.” … The budget creates a $50 million scholarship fund to keep Illinois students from leaving the state for college. It also provides includes $400 million of K-12 funding for early childhood education, and it maintains the new funding formula passed last year.
Isn’t it amazing what can be done after a tax hike is passed and the governor isn’t demanding a bunch of his non-budget demands be satisfied before he’ll agree to a budget?
Also, he’s spending every dime of the tax increase he vetoed - plus maybe a billion dollars more, when you include the gimmicks like booking pension savings in advance and sweeping funds. It would be nice if he finally admitted that we did indeed need that tax hike, but it would also be nice if I could take the rest of June off. Neither is gonna happen.
What absolutely needs to happen, however, is Pritzker and/or the media must get him on record with a vow to never hold a budget hostage again for his non-budget demands.
It’s not often that Rod Blagojevich, sexual harassment allegations, and an extraordinary political detente converge on Illinois politics in a single day.
But Thursday was that day.
Lawmakers approved a state budget for the next year on the final day of their legislative session, President Donald Trump said he’s considering commuting the sentence of Illinois’ most recently imprisoned ex-governor, and a longtime Illinois House member resigned his position in the Democratic leadership after a medical marijuana advocate accused him of harassment.
And then the House stayed in session until nightfall passing tons of bills.
Today, the Pritzker campaign released a new digital ad “You’re Out!” highlighting how bush league Bruce Rauner compares his failed leadership to the World Series champion Chicago Cubs.
While Rauner claimed to find “similarities” between himself and the Cubs, the new video shows how he’s struck out as governor. Year after year, Rauner made a swing and a miss at introducing balanced budgets. He ran up the score on Illinois’ credit rating, setting records for the worst in the nation. And, on primary day, Rauner lost 48% of the Republican vote.
“While baseball season ends in October, it’s clear that after three years of constant crisis and failed leadership, Bruce Rauner will lose his governorship this November,” said Pritzker campaign communications director Galia Slayen.
