To the Honorable Members of
The Illinois House of Representatives,
100th General Assembly:
Today I veto House Bill 4572 from the 100th General Assembly, which expands the definition of “employer” for certain types of employment discrimination to impose further liability on Illinois small businesses.
The Illinois Human Rights Act prohibits unlawful discrimination in employment in Illinois, and, in most instances, applies to employers with 15 or more employees. This 15-employee threshold mirrors the federal definition of employer in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and other anti-discrimination statutes enforced by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This longstanding and well-reasoned threshold balances the need to foster fair, equitable and harassment-free workplaces across the State with the lopsided burden that discrimination claims impose upon small businesses and startups, in comparison to large organizations with in-house compliance, human resources, risk management, and litigation defense functions.
Additionally, for claims of disability, pregnancy, or sexual harassment, the Illinois Human Rights Act already covers employers who employ only one or more individuals. This administration has worked diligently to enhance awareness of sexual harassment and gender bias and to reform the investigation and adjudication of violations in this area. I signed Senate Bill 402, which declares that sexual harassment is unethical in Illinois for State officials and employees. It also required that registered lobbyists undertake sexual harassment prevention training. Executive Order 2018-02 mandated expedited sexual harassment investigations within State agencies and recognized the uniquely cultural and diverse issues that underscore our understanding of sexual harassment. And Executive Order 2018-08 requires a comprehensive reform of the adjudication of all anti-discrimination cases before the Illinois Department of Human Rights and Illinois Human Rights Commission to generate better and faster decisions for parties.
Moving away from federal best practices and Illinois’ own current practices will discourage business creation, while maintaining greater consistency with this standard provides small businesses with predictability in their compliance efforts, and recognizes the distinct challenges that liability may pose for them.
Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return House Bill 4572, entitled “AN ACT concerning human rights,” with the foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.
Sincerely,
Bruce Rauner
GOVERNOR
* LIUNA…
Today, @GovRauner vetoed #HB4572 giving the green light to tens of thousands of IL employers to discriminate against their employees because penalizing discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation etc. will "discourage business creation" #twill
“At a time when anti-equality forces are working overtime to establish licenses to discriminate and the next U.S. Supreme Court could begin to turn back the clock on civil rights laws, Gov. Rauner failed Illinoisans today. He could have sent a powerful and unmistakable message that Illinois is best and strongest when state law protects all workers from discrimination,” said Michael Ziri, Director of Public Policy at Equality Illinois. “Instead, Gov. Rauner effectively said it is okay to discriminate in the workforce at thousands of Illinois businesses on the basis of someone’s race, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity. Shame on him.”
Rauner: All that behavior is il… is unethical. I hope they work hard to determine if it’s illegal or not. We should find out if it’s illegal and it should be prosecuted if it’s illegal.
Bernie: Was it ethical for you to entice Ken Dunkin to stay out of town for a vote, then appoint him after he loses a primary, then appoint him to a board where he’s paid, whatever, $70 thousand a year?
Rauner: Ken Dunkin is a very passionate person who’s made tough votes on behalf of taxpayers. Um, he’s a hard worker. He’s from the South Side. And very appropriate for that board.
Bernie: Yeah? But then why did you ask him to leave that board?
Rauner: [Pause] Well… after I appointed him it all became out that he did some things that were very inappropriate in his behavior with, um, sexual harassment. That’s wrong. And I said, ‘If that’s true, get out.’
* Republican attorney general Erika Harold has a new TV ad. I’m told this is a significant buy…
I think one of the goals here is to make it as tough as possible to portray her as a crazy right-wing extremist. Also, look closely and you’ll catch a glimpse of the building that houses Madigan & Getzendanner. Nice touch.
In Illinois, politicians have turned corruption into an art form. I’m Erika Harold, and this scheme is one of the worst.
Mike Madigan and Kwame Raoul team up to raise property taxes. In Chicago, Madigan’s business does property tax appeals for the powerful - higher taxes, higher profits. And Kwame Raoul, his top donor gets massive tax breaks from the county while you get higher taxes.
I’m Erika Harold. As Attorney General, I’ll make the politicians pay for their corruption, not you.
I know a lot of you are tired of the MJM stuff, but get used to it because the Republicans are convinced it works, particularly against people who aren’t very well known (as in Sen. Raoul). And because the Madigan issue is being used - and will continue to be - up and down the ticket throughout the campaign, the message will be amplified. So, try to look at this as an average voter.
* The accompanying press release lays out the strategy…
For fourteen years, Kwame Raoul has done Mike Madigan’s bidding in Springfield, serving as his partner in the Illinois Senate. Whether it’s gerrymandering legislative districts, blocking term limits, pushing unbalanced budgets, skipping pension payments, or hiking income, sales, and property taxes, Raoul has been with Madigan and his agenda every step of the way.
One of Kwame Raoul’s biggest offenses is our state’s broken property tax system. Rather than reforming the system to protect homeowners, Raoul literally teamed up with Madigan and attempted to push property tax hikes on homeowners in Chicago.
Meanwhile, Madigan’s law firm continued to rake in millions by appealing property taxes for the wealthy, and one of Raoul’s top donors received million-dollar reductions in property taxes, leaving Illinois families with the bill. It’s a broken system the Chicago Tribune said “pits rich against poor” and rewards politically-connected lawyers like Madigan, but Kwame Raoul has done nothing but make the problem worse.
Erika Harold will fight to reform our state’s broken property tax system and unlike Kwame Raoul, Erika won’t cozy up to politicians like Mike Madigan who profit off the system - she will hold them accountable.
Now, with all that in mind…
* The Question: Your rating of this ad?
*** UPDATE *** Raoul campaign…
“Erika Harold doesn’t want voters to know what she believes in, so she’s lashing out to distract from her extreme record in her first, negative television ad,” said Raoul communications director Aviva Bowen. “She doesn’t want voters to know that she would make abortion illegal, even in cases of rape and incest. Or that she would take health care away from thousands of Illinois families and children born with preexisting conditions. Erika Harold even said she would put a foster child with known child abusers instead of loving gay parents. At a time when the Trump administration is attacking our most fundamental rights with unrelenting force, the role of attorney general has never been more important. Voters won’t believe what Erika Harold believes, but they deserve to know it.”
Lt. Gov. to offer naloxone training, free Asian Carp tasting in her tent at the State Fair Tuesday
Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti, who chairs the Governor’s Opioid Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force, will join Sangamon County Health Department officials at a naloxone training demonstration. The health department will be training the public on the life-saving overdose reversal drug on Tuesday and Thursday in her tent.
Also on Tuesday, Lt. Governor Sanguinetti will showcase an Asian carp tasting, also known as silverfin, in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the University Housing, Dining Services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Chefs will be highlighting the nutritional value of the fish and the variety of ways to prepare it. Portion dishes will include silverfin slider with kohlrabi slaw, smoked silverfin crostini, and sesame silverfin salad. These items focus on the sustainability of our food supply, affordable and high-quality foods, protection of Illinois Lakes and Rivers including the Great Lakes, supporting Illinois products and workers.
What: Naloxone training demonstration
Where: Lt. Governor Sanguinetti’s tent on the northeast corner of Main Street and Brian Raney Avenue, directly across from the expo building and next to the Emmerson Building
Date: Tuesday and Thursday
Time: 10:30 am
New numbers released by the Illinois State Board of Education Monday suggest that a mere 24 percent of kindergartners in Illinois are actually ready for school, a startlingly low number, advocates say.
The numbers give the first-ever statewide picture of how prepared Illinois five-year-olds are for the routines and rigors of school. State officials and early childhood education advocates, including many who pushed for the readiness measure to be developed and made public, say the low numbers underscore the importance of early childhood education.
“The data shows that we have a lot of work to do,” said Illinois State Board of Education spokeswoman Jackie Matthews. “The state is really talking about how we can increase investments in early learning because this is such a critical time for children.” […]
The data also show that a well-documented achievement gap between rich and poor kids exists before kindergarten. On average, kids who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches were 14 percentage points behind their higher-income peers on school readiness.
This is the most important human capital and social justice issue for our nation. We are increasingly a society that requires everyone to have both social-emotional self-regulation skills and the flexibility to continue to learn throughout your life. We know that, as Warren Buffett says, all men are created equal and that lasts for the first 15 seconds. Something we know now that we didn’t know a generation ago, or even 10 years ago, is the importance of the prenatal period to long-term health and health outcomes. And so, actually it’s not even true that all people are born equal.
We really have to ensure that we’re giving all families the kinds of supports they need in order to help their children develop to their highest potential. It’s a moral issue, but it’s also an economic and civic issue as well. […]
The Early Childhood Block Grant (which is the Illinois State Board of Education’s early childhood education program) was cut several years in a row starting in 2010. We lost $80 million over a number of years. The block grant didn’t begin to grow again until 2016, so because of that, enrollment did drop during that time. It has rebounded. We are not sure that the numbers are not back up and over, but the (latest publicly available counts) aren’t current. We just aren’t sure.
* So, this Pritzker campaign press release blaming everything on Gov. Rauner may not hold up to scrutiny…
A new survey released by the Illinois State Board of Education details Bruce Rauner’s staggering failure to ensure Illinois’ children are ready for kindergarten.
The report finds only 24% of students enter kindergarten demonstrating readiness, with 42% not reaching readiness in any of the three core developmental areas and low-income students being disproportionately left behind. The report comes after Rauner’s two-year budget crisis that saw pre-k education and childcare funding slashed throughout the state.
“There is nothing more critical to ensuring children succeed than early childhood education, but Bruce Rauner is entirely failing to give Illinois children the opportunities they deserve,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “The fact that just a quarter of children in this state are prepared for kindergarten is entirely unacceptable and a testament to the magnitude of this governor’s failures.”
Twelve people were killed and 71 shot in Chicago over the weekend. More than 1,700 people have been shot so far this year. And almost every time, Chicago paramedics are on the scene trying to save lives.
When a man used a knife to nearly decapitate the head of his 2-year-old son, Chicago paramedics responded.
At every horrific traffic accident, each time a teenager overdoses on heroin, when a baby is physically abused, or someone’s flesh is burned in a fire, the paramedics are there trying to save a life.
Yet, to my amazement, nobody has ever done a study of the toll taken by the stress on their lives.
There is no medically trained mental health expert (psychiatrist or psychologist) employed full-time by the Chicago Fire Department to monitor their well-being.
As one field supervisor told me, there is no mandatory class, no significant training, to help paramedics identify the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or help supervisors deal with people suffering from such symptoms.
“I tell them to take the day off and go home,” said Patrick Fitzmaurice, a Chicago paramedic field chief who supervises nine ambulances and 18 people.
“I need some training in not only how to identify people who may be suffering from PTSD, but what to say to them,” he said. “We need to have a plan to deal with this and there is absolutely no plan.”
As Frank Crossin, coordinator of the fire department union assistance program, told me, “We were all required to take a four-hour class on how to put out a pallet fire when I was in the department, but there were no mandatory classes like that on PTSD.”
* Check out this new cable ad from freshman Rep. Katie Stuart (D-Edwardsville) attacking former GOP Rep. Dwight Kay, whom she defeated two years ago. Lotta stuff packed into this ad, but yikes…
Voiceover: Republicans don’t want Dwight Kay and neither does anyone else. Dwight Kay shames women who use birth control as immoral.
Dwight Kay speaking on House floor: “How much promiscuity should an insurance company pay?
Voiceover: Kay opposed funding to process rape kits, and that allows predators to avoid jail. Kay opposes choice, even for victims of rape and incest. Kay, caught on tape as he bullies and intimidates a woman in Springfield. Dwight Kay, bad votes, bad video, shameful to women.
The bill guarantees coverage for all FDA approved contraception. It would also require insurance companies to cover prescriptions for up to 12 months.
The “opposed funding for rape kits” claim is based on SB2048, which was an appropriations bill. Kay voted against it, as did all Republicans. It’s been a standard Democratic line for years whenever somebody votes against a budget bill.
That incident on the House floor with Speaker Madigan’s former chief legal counsel Heather Weir Vaught was quite something and hurt Kay badly in the 2016 campaign when Stuart’s campaign used it in targeted and tough online ads.
* Related fundraising letter from Personal PAC (which is how I learned of the new ad) …
Just when you think Governor Rauner, Diana Rauner and Republican leader Jim Durkin can go no lower in funding the most right-wing misogynist candidates, they double down yet again by fully supporting a candidate for State Representative who not only wants to outlaw abortion with no exceptions for rape and incest, but voted against testing rape kits, calls women who use birth control “promiscuous,” and in a new video is seen bullying and threatening a woman in Springfield.
Bruce, Diana and Jim—Have you no decency?
Please sign our petition today so we can let Governor Rauner, Diana Rauner and Jim Durkin know that you agree with us that there is no room in Illinois politics for such vile candidates as Dwight Kay.
Personal PAC will make sure our collective voices will be heard loud and clear!
The pronunciation guide is here. Rio, by the way, is pronounced “REYE-oh.” They also got Chicago right. It’s pronounced “shi-KAW-go,” not “shi-KAH-go.”
Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, the state’s biggest pension fund, is relying heavily on risky, expensive investments as it tries to claw its way out of a quicksand of unfunded pension liabilities.
The pension fund, which has only enough money to cover 40 percent of its future obligations, has steadily increased allocations to private-equity funds and only recently reversed course on investing with hedge funds despite lackluster results for both.
That TRS investment strategy poses a threat to pensioners’ retirement income and stands to exacerbate the burden for taxpayers already on the hook for $138 billion in unfunded liabilities across all Illinois pensions. The state’s pension crisis is the second-worst in the country, behind New Jersey, due mainly to a lack of state government contributions in past decades. The TRS reliance on private-equity and hedge funds doesn’t appear to have helped matters—and might worsen them if the investments backfire.
“The allocations are huge, the returns are terrible, and the costs are enormous,” says former TRS board member Marc Levine regarding hedge fund investments. […]
As of June, TRS had nearly a quarter of its money invested in private-equity and hedge funds, which generally charge fees of between 1 and 2 percent of assets, in addition to a portion of gains. That compares with less than 1 percent in more standard stock and bond strategies.
This year’s Coal & Mining Expo opened Wednesday at the Marion Cultural and Civic Center.
A meeting of the minds was highlighted by the presence of four CEOs from the nation’s top coal companies — Alliance Coal, Knight Hawk Coal, Peabody Energy and Prairie State Energy — and was bookended by political stumping from the state’s top coal supporters and political hopefuls this fall.
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, was the first to take the stage and said unlike others in Washington, “we love coal,” he said of the other Republicans on stage with him. […]
Speaking next was Erika Harold, the Republican nominee for Illinois attorney general. She told those in attendance that the last thing Illinois needed was another attorney general who capitulates to environmentalist groups.
With all of the challenges that Illinois faces, the last thing that Illinois needs is another attorney general who will do the bidding of the environmentalist activist groups.
For the first time in 16 years, the Attorney General’s seat will be an open seat, and that’s because Lisa Madigan, who severed as Attorney General for the past four terms, dropped out of the race a month after I announced my candidacy. This provides the state with a much-needed opportunity to move the Attorney General’s office in a new direction.
Lisa Madigan often used this office in activist political ways, targeting industries such as the coal industry, on the basis of her own personal views as opposed to simply following the law. Whether it was joining with other states attorneys general in lawsuits that targeted the coal industry, or working to enact rules that unduly burdened the coal industry, Attorney General Madigan has used her office to pick winners and losers in the energy industry as opposed to advocating for a balanced and fair playing field for everyone.
My opponent, state Sen. Kwame Raoul, would be more of the same. He’s from Chicago, was appointed to President Obama’s former state senate seat, and is strongly backed by Mike Madigan and the Cook County Democratic machine. And as a state Senator, he’s championed legislation that would hurt the coal industry.
A specific example is Senate Bill 3005, which he sponsored this past legislative session. SB3005 would have given legal standing to any person, regardless of whether or not they lived in Illinois, to use Illinois courts to challenge the decisions of Illinois state agencies. So if a mining company followed the procedures to obtain a permit, and state agencies found that the permit should be granted, SB3005 would have allowed a political activist from California or New York to have legal standing to come into an Illinois court to challenge the state agency’s decision and to try to block the permit from being granted.
This unfettered expansion of standing would exacerbate Illinois’ already overly litigious environment. It would hurt job creation by driving up the cost of business in Illinois. And it would harm industries like the coal industry that simply want a predictable and consistent and fair playing field.
Unsurprisingly, environmental activist groups strongly backed Sen. Raoul’s bill. In fact, the Illinois Environmental Council took credit for it as being their initiative in the first place.
With all of the challenges that Illinois faces, the last thing that Illinois needs is another attorney general who will do the bidding of the environmentalist activist groups. As attorney general I will follow the law, I will enforce the law, I will refrain from picking winners and losers. And I will advocate for a fair playing field. I will also listen more and be willing to constructively engage with groups to be able to understand their industry and to see how Illinois’ regulatory environment may be inhibiting economic growth. […]
The coal industry is an extremely important one in Illinois, and you deserve an Attorney General who understands that. And you deserve an attorney general who will not use the office’s vast powers to try to destroy coal as an industry. And I will be that attorney general.
Thank you for what you do to support jobs in Illinois, to create energy options for consumers and to sustain a way of life for generations of mining families now and the years to come. Thanks so much for having me.
…Adding… A clever comment…
This is a rich vein that I expect Raoul to mine to great effect. I’d start with a map of Chicago overlaid with rates of childhood asthma and simply take it from there.
*** UPDATE *** From Jen Walling, the executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council…
Erika Harold’s misreading of SB3005 is concerning.
Far from allowing out of state plaintiffs to challenge permits, SB3005 would allow only those adversely affected by a project to challenge a permit. As I hope any candidate for attorney general would understand after researching the issue, “adversely affected” is a term well-established by case law to refer only to those who can demonstrate injury in fact caused by a project. Constrained by this precedence, standing could not possibly be extended to a resident living in California or New York, as Harold mistakenly claims.
The standing provisions contemplated by SB3005 are already available under federal and Illinois law on permits related to coal mining or coal power plants, meaning SB3005 would have literally no impact on the coal industry, despite what industry talking points may say.
He’s called him corrupt for years, but Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday said he “hopes” Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan has been “doing something illegal” and he “hopes he gets prosecuted.” […]
“I do know that Speaker Madigan has a pattern of putting up sham candidates in many elections, not just this one,” Rauner said. “So I hope they get to the truth of it. And frankly, I hope if the speaker, clearly he’s been doing unethical things. I hope he’s been doing something illegal and I hope he gets prosecuted.” […]
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown called the comments “another day of rambling” by Rauner.
“It’s the exit interview Bruce Rauner is conducting as he prepares to leave office after four years of failure,” Brown added. “There’s no unethical conduct. There’s nothing there.”
John Galloway and Jake Czipo were friends and drug users — that much is clear. Each had been through treatment, but when they met at Czipo’s Crystal Lake house on a spring night in 2017, neither appeared to be devoted to sobriety.
But that’s where the clarity ends. Czipo used heroin and died that night. Galloway is being held criminally responsible.
That’s because, according to McHenry County prosecutors, Galloway provided the drugs that claimed Czipo’s life. It doesn’t matter that Galloway allegedly got some for himself, too. It doesn’t even matter that he called 911 when he saw that Czipo had stopped breathing.
Such is the paradox of Illinois’ drug-induced homicide law. It’s a measure that was created during the 1980s crack epidemic to go after major dealers, but critics say it’s increasingly being wielded against those at the bottom of the distribution chain: addicts who simply share drugs with friends or intimate partners. […]
“Even if you’re an addict, once you cross that line and give it or sell it to someone, you become a dealer,” said DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin, whose office investigates every overdose for possible criminal charges. “In my opinion, the law treats you differently.”
This won’t create any unintended consequences at all. Nope.
Along with over-the-top spending, the Illinois gubernatorial race may be setting another record, too. Women are leading the campaigns of the two front-runners. […]
Betsy Ankney is campaign manager for Gov. Bruce Rauner and Anne Caprara is campaign manager for J.B. Pritzker. The two women come to the top statewide race after honing their skills on some of the most notable political campaigns in the country. […]
Caprara, whose name has popped up as a player in the next presidential cycle, is a 38-year-old Philadelphia native with a degree from American University. She previously worked at Emily’s List, “so I had the best entry because women were being uplifted,” she told me. Having women behind the scenes of a campaign is just as important as being a candidate, Caprara said. “Female senior staffers can make critical decisions, they can talk to the candidate and affect policy. You want to be in the room when decisions are being made.” Before Emily’s List, Caprara worked for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, helping oversee U.S. Senate races in 33 states. In 2008, she was campaign manager for first-time candidate Betsy Markey, a D challenging a three-term R for Congress in Colorado. After Markey’s victory, Caprara became chief of staff.
Ankney, a 31-year-old Toledo native and Vanderbilt University grad, ran Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s campaign in 2016 when he pulled off an upset against Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold. She also ran field offices for Scott Brown’s winning 2010 U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts and Chris Christie’s first run as New Jersey governor. Ankney also worked at the Republican National Committee in 2012 and at the NRSC as a regional political director overseeing U.S. Senate races in the Midwest. She also got her start working for women in key positions behind the scenes, including Maria Cino and Mel Raines at the Republican National Convention in 2008 and Jessica Ennis at the Republican National Committee in 2010.
Politics isn’t the man’s world it was when Ankney and Caprara started. “You’re seeing more women are getting involved, taking on leadership roles and getting out of their wheelhouse (usually fundraising),” said Ankney, who for the past two years has taught at the Women’s Campaign School at Yale — a bipartisan education effort for women who want to run for office and run campaigns.
What do Gov. Bruce Rauner, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and Cicero Town President Larry Dominick all have in common?
They all have been tentatively scheduled for depositions in a federal lawsuit that accuses Mike Madigan of winning elections by recruiting “sham” candidates.
Jason Gonzales claims in the suit that Madigan put up two “sham” candidates with Hispanic names to try to split the Hispanic vote in the March 2016 Democratic primary. Madigan beat Gonzales 65.2 percent to 27.1 percent. The other two primary candidates received a combined 7.8 percent. […]
Madigan’s deposition was scheduled for July 18, but Madigan spokesman Steve Brown on Thursday said the deposition was canceled by Gonzales’ attorney. Brown said it hasn’t yet been re-scheduled.
During a July 5 status hearing, [US District Judge Matthew Kennelly] told lawyers, “I don’t care whether it ends up being 10 depositions or 10,000. The first named defendant in the case [Madigan] is getting his deposition taken.”
The governor, speaking with The State Journal-Register after an event honoring veterans, said the November election “is for all the marbles,” saying his opponent, Pritzker, is “totally aligned under Madigan,” while he and statewide Republican candidates stand for lower taxes, jobs and term limits. […]
When asked to be more specific about the alleged corruption Madigan and Pritzker have partaken in, Rauner pointed to Pritzker’s potential offshore holdings and the much-lampooned $230,000 property tax break he received after the removal of toilets from a mansion he owns in Chicago.
“What sort of a person — who inherited billions of dollars and wants to raise the income tax on working families in Illinois — would say, ‘Let’s raise the income tax, but I’m going to keep hiding my billions of inheritance in the Bahamas so I don’t pay my income taxes?’” Rauner said. “What kind of person does that? That’s despicable.”
Rauner continued, “What kind of person inherits billions, buys a mansion in the city of Chicago that’s worth millions of dollars, disconnects the water lines to the toilet so he can claim it as uninhabitable to cut his property tax bill by $230,000? That’s despicable. That’s tax fraud. That puts more tax burden on the working families in Chicago and takes money away from the Chicago schools.”
Not to defend the weird toilet decision, but the house was obviously uninhabited. Pritzker made it legally uninhabitable for tax purposes. I don’t see the “fraud” there. If he was living in the house while paying taxes as if he wasn’t, that, to me, would be fraud. As it stands, it’s just a rich man’s ploy to lower his taxes. Also, lowering one person’s property taxes takes no money away from schools because others have to pick up the slack.
*** UPDATE *** I’m told that Blair Hull, a longtime Democratic Madigan foe and a Rauner contributor, is also being deposed. And…
Asked about being deposed, Rauner says he doesn’t know Jason Gonzales, the plaintiff. Says Madigan “has a pattern of putting up sham candidates in many elections.” https://t.co/TiSDNMEWMq via @suntimes”
* Clarence Page avoids the easy route of angrily venting hyperbolic vitriol about crime and gun violence in his latest column…
But I did find some good news from Gary Slutkin, the University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiologist who founded Cure Violence, formerly known as CeaseFire, an anti-violence program that has been adopted by more than 20 other cities, including New York and Los Angeles.
Last year I wrote about how Slutkin had predicted a rise in violence when the program lost its state funding amid prolonged political gridlock. Unfortunately Slutkin turned out to be right. The only districts that didn’t experience a surge were two that found funding elsewhere.
More than 750 people were killed in Chicago in 2016, the highest total since 1997, and more than 4,300 were wounded by firearms.
Dr. Gary Slutkin, the University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiologist who founded the CeaseFire Illinois violence-reduction program also known as Cure Violence, warned Gov. Bruce Rauner in a March 2015 letter of a probable surge in Chicago shootings if the program’s funding was not restored. […]
After a 2007 interruption in funding by Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, for example, the program shut down 15 sites and shootings spiked. Funding was restored a year later — and violence returned to its previous level.
So, the governor was warned in 2015 and for good reason. Shootings spiked the last time the program’s funding was slashed. And then, just as predicted, they spiked again. This stuff can be measured. (Rahm Emanuel also cut its funding, by the way.)
But after funding was restored this year, Slutkin told me in a telephone interview, gun-related violence in the affected districts “dropped by 30 percent in the first six months of this year.”
Unlike more traditional programs, Cure Violence doesn’t focus on root causes of violence or saving one child at a time. Its “violence interrupters,” some of whom are ex-offenders themselves, focus on individuals who have a beef that can lead to the sort of retaliatory attacks that boil up behind most of the city’s homicide statistics.
Slutkin came up with the idea while working with the World Health Organization to fight AIDS, cholera and tuberculosis epidemics in Africa. Treat violence as if it were a virus? That’s the idea and it works, according to a 2008 Justice Department evaluation and various university studies.
All emphasis added.
* Policing, racism, morality, economic development, lead in water and guns are all issues that we can (and probably should) debate ad infinitum. But there is something in front of our very eyes which is proven to work right now and desperately needs more support. Is it the be-all, end-all? Nope. Don’t be silly. There is no such thing.
But violence interruption programs measurably and consistently work, and yet they are constantly short-changed or even cut altogether. That makes zero sense to me.
Look, if giving the police a cool new weapon was shown to lower violence then I’d bet every cop on the planet would have that weapon ASAP. So, if we absolutely must, then let’s start thinking of violence interruption as a weapon against violence. For the umpteenth time, it’s something we know that actually works to reduce violence. Get on with it, already.
…Adding… The JB Pritzker campaign reached out to point me to a Tribune story that we discussed last week…
He encouraged an injection of funding for on-the-street violence interruption groups in the short term.
“I’m just reminding you that it is that massive defunding that occurred and the unwillingness and, you know, lack of responsibility that this governor has taken for the defunding of our human services that has led to this problem,” Pritzker said.
“This is not a one-day. It’s not like it happened only one time. It’s been happening consistently over the last few years and look at the timeline,” he said. “It’s true that our (increased) violence around the state of Illinois, not just the city of Chicago, has been almost concurrent with the defunding of those services that people rely upon. Those are their connection to civilized society and when they’re gone and they close down, you can’t snap your fingers and put ’em back.”
* Related…
* The Doctor Who Tries to Cure Gun Violence By Treating It Like a Contagious Disease: People act because of the way they were treated by others — i.e., they pick up these behaviors in subconscious ways — and the brain is hardwired to copy other behaviors. Contagion means that something is contagious if it produces more of itself. Flu begets more flu, for example. The same principle is also true for violence, though it’s not true for everything: High blood pressure, for example, doesn’t cause other people to have high blood pressure. With violence, it’s just what we empirically see in nature — the greatest predictor of violence is exposure to a preceding event of violence. We also know there’s an underlying process that causes this to happen: There are neurons on the brain that cause copying, which is the principle way people pick up all kinds of behavior. Violence is a very powerful type of behavior for copying because it’s so electric and emotional that it actually causes even more copying. These are predicable biological processes.
Lake County politics has been rocked to the core this month by the abrupt resignation of state Rep. Nick Sauer (R-Lake Barrington) and the announcement by Lake County Board Chairman Aaron Lawlor that he is dropping out of his re-election campaign after earlier disclosing that he was suffering from drug addiction.
It’s really a mess up there.
The local state’s attorney has taken over the investigation of the allegations against Sauer that he used nude photos of an ex-girlfriend to “catfish” men on the Internet.
And Lawlor, once a rising political star, faced removal from the ballot by the State Board of Elections for unpaid fines leveled against his campaign committee. The county is also investigating whether he improperly used his government credit card.
Both men are Republicans, which means GOP leaders are scrambling to find last-minute ballot replacements and trying to deal with the huge fallout during a year that doesn’t look like it’s going to be great for their party anyway.
Lake County Republican Party Chairman Mark Shaw is being forced to navigate pressures on all sides while trying to choose replacements who won’t anger too many factions.
You may recall that Shaw challenged Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider for his job after Rauner barely won the March primary. After a nasty selection process that resulted in threats of lawsuits, a last-minute deal was cut that made Shaw a state party “co-chairman.” Shaw was also given the helm of the Illinois Republican County Chairmen’s Association, which isn’t much of an organization (it raised almost no money in the second quarter and had just $62K in the bank).
Gov. Rauner is reportedly backing Barrington Village President Karen Darch to replace former Rep. Sauer. Darch was president of the Illinois Municipal League in 2017, so she has some state experience. She’s also done battle with her local unions, which is one reason I’m told why Rauner likes her so much.
But insurgent Republican Dan Proft tipped his hand in the House seat replacement sweepstakes by publishing a story in one of his 40 newspapers (the Lake County Gazette) about how Darch has “increased property taxes collected by the village by more than one-third since 2010.” Proft backed Rep. Jeanne Ives against Rauner in the primary and the two men are avowed enemies.
Sen. Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) last week endorsed Ela Township Republican Party Chairman Chris Bos to replace Sauer. Sauer’s former House district is half of McConchie’s Senate district. So, McConchie carries some weight and Chairman Shaw has a delicate decision on his hands.
Some top House Republicans would like to see a woman named to the Sauer seat. Darch would fit that bill, but so would Helene Walsh, the wife of former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh, who, like Proft, hosts a conservative radio talk show.
Another drama is also playing out in the county. As I write this, Rep. Sam Yingling’s SB2544 is sitting on Rauner’s desk.
Yingling (D-Grayslake) made the unusual move of running cable TV ads supporting his legislation in late June. The bill would allow Lake County voters to decide whether to elect the county assessor. The position is currently appointed by the county board chairman, the soon to be departing Aaron Lawlor.
Julie Simpson, a Democrat who was running against Chairman Lawlor until he dropped out, also ran an ad touting the legislation, which passed both chambers with strong veto-proof majorities. And Yingling gathered 1,000 petition signatures favoring the legislation. Yingling represents a district that was once represented by a Republican, so he is a perennial target. The issue has helped him stay visible throughout the summer.
Sauer spoke against the bill on the House floor last May and Chairman Lawlor has been the bill’s most high-profile opponent, engineering a recent county board resolution urging the governor to use his amendatory veto powers to make the bill cover all counties with appointed assessors instead of just Lake. Such a move would kill a November referendum, of course, because the General Assembly won’t convene again until after the election.
The governor has until late August to act on the bill, but Yingling’s folks point out that if Rauner follows through with the request for an amendatory veto, he’ll be siding with the two most controversial political figures in Lake County. Rauner does, however, have the political cover given to him by the county board’s resolution, which passed 14-5.
The beauty of politics is how fast things can change. And nobody could’ve predicted that Lake County would be at the center of so many controversies a month ago.
* Meanwhile…
That’s a stack of Dan Proft “newspapers” in the campaign office window of one of his Lake County candidates. You know, just in case anyone is still unclear on the purpose of the Lake County Gazette. #twillpic.twitter.com/a7vm5tzy8Q
Today, the Illinois REALTORS, one of Illinois’ largest trade associations representing 47,000 members, joined Representative Yingling in calling on Governor Rauner to sign SB2544. The bill received strong bi-partisan support in both the House and the Senate and puts a binding question on the ballot in November to let the people decide whether the position of Lake County Chief County Assessment Office, the Lake County Assessor, should be popularly elected by the people.
“The Illinois REALTORS believe that the voters in Lake County should have the opportunity to make their voices heard on the issue of converting the Office of the Chief Assessment Officer of Lake County to an elected rather than appointed office,” said Gary Clayton, CEO, in a letter to Governor Rauner. “This legislation simply affords the voters in Lake County the right to weigh in on whether they believe this office, like other county officials, should be an elected one.”
Longstanding political dialogue in Illinois is that downstate Illinois does not receive its fair share when it comes to a return on state funding and resources.
While there is not an equal funding distribution across the state, research by the Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute shows that despite heavy rhetoric, the downstate region receives more than it pays into the state coffers. The best deals are received in central Illinois and Southern Illinois. […]
The research breaks the state’s 102 counties into six specific regions, including Cook County, a five-county suburban section that surrounds Cook County, and the 96 remaining downstate regions, which are subdivided into north, central, southwest and southern regions.
The research shows the south region receives $2.81 in state funds for every $1 generated. The central Illinois region of 50 counties receives $1.87 back for every $1.00 sent to Springfield. All of the downstate regions receive more from the state budget than they pay in taxes. By comparison, Cook County receives 90 cents for every $1, and the suburban counties only 53 cents for every $1 generated.
While gun safety measures and rebuilding trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve is critical, taken alone they will not end the violence.
To end gun violence, just as with any public health epidemic, we must address its root causes by bringing real economic opportunity to the communities affected most. I’m not talking about lip service, but true investment that seeks to build wealth and prosperity. Fostering economic inclusion and expanding opportunities for minority entrepreneurs is critically important. It’s past time that we reverse the trend of disinvestment and restore hope and economic justice to communities that need it most. We can do that by providing capital for small businesses, investing in accelerators for entrepreneurs and workers, and improving education for our young people.
Strengthening communities also requires that we invest in community-based programs working to interrupt gun violence before it happens, and give children and families the tools they need to build better lives. After-school programs, mental health services, and violence prevention organizations were decimated by Bruce Rauner’s budget crisis. These are the tools of prevention and they must be restored to full strength.
And we have to invest more intentionally in public education from cradle to career, to increase the wage potential and economic opportunity of people in communities across Chicago and our state.
Today, Mike Babcock joined Governor Bruce Rauner and three other candidates in signing “The People’s Pledge,” a commitment to give citizens a chance to vote on term limits and a promise to vote for anyone other than Mike Madigan as Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. Babcock, who is running for State Representative in the 111th District, called on his opponent Monica Bristow to sign the pledge as well.
“It cannot be said often enough that Mike Madigan has presided over the historic decline of our state,” said Babcock. “His leadership has failed, and his caucus has completely refused to stand up for what’s right and vote him out. This isn’t a partisan issue. My opponent was asked recently if she would support Madigan as Speaker and gave no response. Voters deserve to get an answer to that question because the vote for speaker is the most important one that a representative can make. If my opponent doesn’t take the opportunity to join me in signing this pledge, she needs to explain to the people of the 111th district what she intends to do.”
Babcock’s opponent, Monica Bristow, would not speculate how she might vote on Madigan’s reelection to the Speakership, even after Madigan’s office came under heavy scrutiny following allegations of sexual harassment. Madigan’s Chief of Staff, Tim Mapes, resigned following reports that he oversaw a culture of harassment and actively sought to coverup misconduct. Calls for an independent investigation in light of the issue have been bipartisan, signaling that the Speaker may have found himself in an uncharacteristically defensive position.
Babcock also came down strongly in favor of giving voters a say on term limits. “We hear the term ‘career politicians’ a lot, but we should remember what it really means. It means that some of the people that go to Springfield will stop at nothing to hold onto their power. They will vote for any policy, or any leader, so long as it keeps them in the game because they are there for themselves, not their constituents. I’m proud to sign this pledge today and I look forward both to casting two important votes: one for term limits and one against Mike Madigan and his record of self-serving failure.”
Democratic incumbent Monica Bristow, D-Godfrey, responded to the statement when first reached on Thursday.
“The only pledge that I’m going to make is to the people of the 111th District, not to a governor who has turned his back on downstate Illinois,” she said. “What people are tired of are the same old political games being played by Mike Babcock and Bruce Rauner. I stand on my record of creating new jobs here in the Riverbend region, promoting local small businesses, protecting our rights and values, and standing up for the middle class. That’s my pledge to the people that I represent, and if the governor and Mike Babcock would stop playing these tired political games, we could get down to the real business in the state of Illinois.”
On Thursday, [former Sen. Rickey Hendon] also defended [Willie Wilson] by saying that he isn’t buying votes, then added that he’d be overpaying if he was. Vote-buying is illegal.
“They’ve accused this man of buying votes, and I just have to say it … buying votes on the West Side, South Side, votes about $5, $10,” Hendon said. “So if Willie Wilson is giving somebody $3,000, as an adviser, I’d be like, you’re overpaying by 1,500 percent. Because if we wanted to buy votes, it’s 5, 10 bucks on the West Side and South Side, so let’s just be real about that.”
Hendon, a flamboyant former West Side politician who goes by the nickname “Hollywood,” has been paid at least $22,000 by Wilson’s campaign as an adviser, state campaign finance records show.
Lincoln never said that, according to three top Lincoln scholars.
* As Hannah Meisel just pointed out on Twitter, the fake Lincoln quote has reappeared at an Illinois State Fair tent…
DoIT is all set-up at The Governor's Tent at Illinois State Fair! We're looking forward to meeting you and talking up the digital transformation revolutionizing the state.
Wanted to send this your way based on the post from earlier today. As you know, this quote has been widely attributed to President Lincoln for many years. We have checked with our partners at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and confirmed there is no evidence that he indeed said it. We will be replacing the sign with the verified quote below.
“If we never try, we shall never succeed.”
Abraham Lincoln - October 13, 1862 in a letter to Major General George B. McClellan
Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill Thursday afternoon requiring the default location for all new and vacant state positions to Springfield and Sangamon County.
Existing employees won’t be relocated.
A 2016 study estimated the action would bring roughly 400 jobs to the area. […]
This law takes effect immediately, meaning any new hires in state government will be calling the Springfield area home unless there’s a specific reason why they should be working in another location in Illinois.
House Bill 4295 makes Springfield and Sangamon County the default location for employees of most state agencies. The director of Central Management Services would have to establish a geographic location for each state job and specify why positions located outside the capital city need to be there.
The legislative and judicial branches are exempt, as are the offices of the state’s constitutional officers and those employed directly by the governor’s office.
The legislation addresses longstanding suspicions by some that state positions are being systematically poached from Springfield for other parts of the state, fears exacerbated by the general decline in the total number of state jobs in the past few decades. […]
State jobs are scattered across all counties of the state, but the lion’s share are in Sangamon County and Cook County. While the latter — home to Chicago — has a significantly higher population, workforce studies have shown other state capitals having far more state jobs than their state’s largest city.
* The Question: Do you agree or disagree with this new law? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* Organized labor in Missouri collected 310,000 signatures (more than three times the minimum requirement) to repeal that state’s so-called “right to work” law. The referendum was scheduled for an August vote because the GOP thought they’d have a better chance of beating it than they would in November. But labor spent millions and won the referendum 67-33. The Illinois Policy Institute’s Austin Berg tut-tuts the whole thing…
Is this a sea change for unions in the Midwest? A signal that worker freedom will forever be squashed in non-right-to-work Illinois?
No.
In fact, the union strategy in Illinois’ southwestern neighbor should leave some rank-and-file members scratching their heads. The victory was expensive, potentially short-lived and may even cut against some of the unions’ other political priorities. […]
The union-backed We Are Missouri Coalition raised more than $16 million from labor organizations and spent nearly $7 million on ads in July alone. They outspent two opposing groups combined by a nearly 5 to 1 margin, according to the Wall Street Journal’s analysis of state filings. […]
Unfortunately for union members who saw millions of dollars in dues money flow to this fight, that gamesmanship is still very much on the table. If Missouri Republicans hold on to their supermajorities in November, which is not unlikely, a right-to-work bill will certainly bubble up yet again in 2019. […]
Missouri U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill is perhaps the most vulnerable Democratic senator in the country. Millions of union dollars that flowed to the right-to-work battle will no longer go to support her. And millions of dollars that weren’t spent trying to outmaneuver unions in that fight will flow to her opponent, Republican Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley.
Despite the right-to-work proposition being the star of the primary election, Missouri Republicans cast about 60,000 more votes than Missouri Democrats statewide. That’s not a good sign for McCaskill.
So at the end of the day, what did union members get in exchange for millions of dollars?
An opportunity for union officials to pat themselves on the back, a weaker position in a key congressional race and a few more months, though possibly years, of compulsory dues.
Um, if Republicans cast 60,000 more votes than Democrats, that means a whole lot of rank and file Missouri Republicans sided with organized labor in the referendum. And when labor achieved the same sort of result in an Ohio “right to work” referendum, the GOP backed off their attacks on unions.
…Adding… From Austin Berg…
Hey Rich, I’m aware of the Ohio comparison and don’t take it lightly. The return of a right-to-work vote in Missouri was simply the mood among Republican operatives I spoke with for the column. This KCUR story also says as much. Re: turnout, agree to disagree on the implications for the Senate race.
This was obviously a win for Trumka and Co., but as the column says, it was expensive, potentially short-lived and could cut against other priorities. I wish all workers there had a choice on whether to fund fights like this.
In a year that is expected to draw far more Democratic voters to the polls than the typical midterm election, Republicans in blue states will depend on the Democrats who helped them win in the first place, and who might be tempted to split their tickets this time. To woo them, most have signed on to policies that appeal to those voters. […]
A possible exception is Illinois, where Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, has adopted a largely combative stance against the state’s Democrats. At the same time, he has annoyed his own party so much with his moderate social positions and budget woes that he barely survived a primary in the spring, inspiring a third-party bid from a conservative candidate.
“Bruce Rauner thought he could be Scott Walker when he got elected,” Thomas Bowen, a Democratic strategist and former political director for Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, said, referring to the Republican governor of Wisconsin. “He forgot that Walker had a supermajority in the state legislature and he did not.”
“There was a playbook for how to be a Republican in Illinois that’s been replayed over and over,’’ Mr. Bowen said. “Be fiscally astute, compromise and don’t pick fights unnecessarily.”
Thoughts?
…Adding… Former Gov. Jim Edgar appears to agree with Bowen…
JIM EDGAR: “You don’t go out and call a person a crook today and then tomorrow think you’re going to sit down and solve problems. That’s a huge mistake we’ve seen some politicians make in this state."
Holocaust denier Art Jones and 9/11 and Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Bill Fawell are Republican challengers to Democratic incumbents in Congress. The governor says you have Democrats to thank for that.
“If a district is rigged, it’s hard to get them to recruit,” Rauner told reporters at a news conference following a bill-signing in his Springfield office Thursday. “I believe in the last couple of election cycles, in a significant majority of the general election races, there was no opponent. When that happens, that creates a vacuum, and that allows nut cases or despicable people like Nazis to sneak in, because there is nobody looking at it, nobody working on it, nobody running for the position. That’s the biggest problem. We’ve got to stop the gerrymandering.”
“It’s hard to get people to run in races in districts that have been rigged for the incumbent under our gerrymandered system by Speaker Madigan,” Rauner said.
An avowed Nazi is running as a Republican in the Third Congressional District in Cook County. And Republican Party officials have disowned a GOP candidate running in the 17th Congressional District who holds conspiracy theories about 9/11 and the Sandy Hook school shooting.
The district is currently represented by Democrat Cheri Bustos, although President Donald Trump carried the district in 2016.
Gov. Rauner himself won that Bustos district by almost 10 points in 2014. And he only lost the Lipinski district by a single point that year.
* Republican attorney general candidate Erika Harold on WLS AM…
Rauner says he’s investing $4M to chip away at Speaker Madigan’s House majority and $1M to Harold because she’d prosecute Madigan for corruption.
That would be hard to do because she’d be barred by law from convening a grand jury to consider political corruption, but she told Bill Cameron on a recent “Connected to Chicago” program, how she’d get around that.
“There is statutory authority under the current law that enables the attorney general to conduct investigations if any of the inspector generals find evidence of misconduct. I would use that authority and that ability robustly.”
The full audio is here. I asked Harold’s campaign yesterday afternoon for the statutory citation and never heard back.
* But this is from the attorney general’s office…
1) For non-criminal ethics act actions, that’s correct. If an IG wants to bring an action before the EEC (or LEC) we handle those cases. And even if the IG does not want to pursue an action, there are a few very narrow routes where we can still push the case forward. We use that authority robustly and have worked very closely with all of the Executive IGs. But this work requires referrals from the IG or EEC/LEC. The idea of originating/initiating investigations using that authority - separately and independently from the IGs - is incorrect.
2) When an IG has a complaint/is conducting an investigation and believes he or she has identified possible criminal conduct, the ethics law requires a referral to an appropriate prosecutor. The IG can choose to refer to a US Attorney, a State’s Attorney (in the appropriate county) or our office. But if we get that referral, we have to ask the permission of the appropriate State’s Attorney to use his or her grand jury - which means we have to ask permission to handle the case and if the State’s Attorney wants to take it or do it jointly with us, we do not have an option. If the idea is that the ethics law/IG referral process somehow gives us access to a grand jury that we otherwise do not have or expands the criminal law and gives us original/primary criminal jurisdiction that we otherwise do not have, that is incorrect.
Discuss.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From the Harold campaign…
Erika never suggested in her interview with Cameron that the AG has prosecutorial authority under the Ethics Act. Rather, Erika said this to Bill Cameron: “There is statutory authority under the current law that enables the attorney general to conduct investigations if any of the inspector generals find evidence of misconduct…” That authority is found within the State Officials and Employees Ethics Act (linked/copied below), and those are the statutes Erika was referencing in her interview with Cameron. Accordingly, your assertion that AG Madigan “[shot] down” a “prosecution idea” from Erika based on those statutes is incorrect.
One final note, contrary to what anyone else says, Erika has been clear for quite some time that she will not use the office to punish political opponents: “…And by public corruption, I’m not talking about using the office as a way to punish political opponents…”
* And here’s Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti on WTAX today…
REPORTER: Yesterday we’ve been running a story this morning that the governor said he’s given money to Ericka Harold and if she wins, she should prosecute Mike Madigan. What are your thoughts on that? Does that put Ericka Harold, should she win, in kind of an awkward position that the governor says, look I donated to her campaign here and she should prosecute Mike Madigan?
SANGUINETTI: Well, Ericka Harold is a fine young woman in her own power, and I admire her a lot, she is a wonderful attorney and I am sure she is going to be an amazing attorney general. And I know she will have a focus on corruption because Illinois, unfortunately, is popular for that very reason and that’s the whole reason why Bruce Rauner and I signed on. We’re simply tired of being known worldwide as the state that has all the corruption, so I’m very happy that Ericka Harold will focus on that and I know she will be completely independent.
REPORTER: So you agree with the governor there?
SANGUINETTI: Well I agree that we have a corruption problem and the governor is spot on in that regard. You know Michael Madigan has been around since I was three months of age. That’s a lot of time in which to amass power, have people around you and have the sort of clout, the sort of power that he has, and it simply has to stop because we need to look out for all Illinoisans, not just his special interest powers.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Gov. Rauner made good on his pledge to contribute $1 million to Erika Harold’s campaign. Click here for the A-1.
As JB has said since he decided to run, Illinois’ tax system is unfair and needs to change. JB believes people like him and Bruce Rauner should pay more to help solve the state’s budget problems and fund education while lowering the tax burden on the middle class and those striving to get there. The large majority of states in America have fair tax systems in place and there are many ways to institute one here in Illinois without asking middle class families to pay more.
Bruce Rauner’s a failure. So, instead of talking about his own record, he distorts mine. When it comes to taxes, Illinois has the most unfair income. tax system in America and. It’s time for that to change.
A fair income tax will raise taxes on people like Bruce Rauner and me to support education and help solve the state’s budget problem while reducing the burden on the middle class. Don’t believe Bruce Rauner’s attacks. Let’s make our tax system fair and bring real change to Illinois.
…Adding… Rauner campaign…
What’s unfair is that JB Pritzker is a tax cheat pushing tax hikes. Pritzker hides his money in the Bahamas to avoid paying income taxes and has ripped toilets out of his mansion to dodge property taxes. It’s unfair to hardworking taxpayers that JB Pritzker plans to raise taxes while dodging his own.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Pritzker’s ad references a study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. He did the same sort of thing last year and we took a look at it…
* There’s a problem with Pritzker’s analysis.
If you look at ITEP’s Illinois analysis [click here], you’ll see that the share of family income going to the state’s personal income tax is actually quite a bit less for the lowest 20 percent of earners than it is for the highest earners. That’s likely because of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The real culprits are sales and property taxes. The bottom 20 percent pay 7.1 percent of their family income to the sales tax, compared to 0.8 percent for the top 1 percent. And the bottom 20 percent spend 4.9 percent of household income on property taxes, compared to 1.8 percent for the top 1 percent.
So, while he’s right that our tax system is unfair, his solution won’t do anything about the really regressive taxes.
The study, Who Pays?, provides insight into the drivers behind the unfairness encoded into Illinois’ existing tax system. Illinois relies heavily on taxes that are not based on ability to pay, but rather on a flat rate. Further, unlike most other states, Illinois does not have an income tax where taxpayers with higher incomes pay a higher rate and taxpayers with lower incomes pay a lower rate. As a result, the income tax doesn’t bring more balance to the overall tax system by offsetting the higher share of income that poorer taxpayers pay in sales and property taxes.
One positive aspect of Illinois’ tax system is the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, which lets low- and moderate-income working families keep more of their earnings to help pay for things that help them keep working, such as child care and transportation. To improve tax fairness in Illinois, lawmakers should increase the value of the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit.
*** UPDATE 2 *** From Rep. Martwick…
Recently, my progressive tax proposal has been the subject of discussion on the blog. In defense of JB Pritzker, I’d like to offer the following: First, my bill was developed in late 2016 and filed in early 2017, long before JB announced his run. My bill was conceived during the height of the budget impasse as I couldn’t believe that we were limping along accumulating $6 billion of debt per year while literally killing people who were denied critical social services. There was not a single proposal to fix any of problems, except for the much panned and silly IPI proposal. Everyone knows that we would have to amend the constitution in order to adopt progressive rates and as such, I had no delusions that my bill was going anywhere. What it was designed to do was begin a discussion about how we could possibly solve our problems by changing the structure of how we raise and spend money. I specifically chose the Wisconsin tax structure because it is the flattest and most predictable of the progressive rates structures, and it is from the state that we are often told to be more like. I used the revenue to fund education, pay down our pension debt, create the biggest property tax decrease in the history of the state, lower property tax rates, and re-invest in higher education and infrastructure. This addressed nearly every major problem we have in Illinois (even our business climate, as lowering property taxes is the single most effective way to improve the bottom line of every single business in our state). My proposal was based on math, the realities of our condition and it addressed problems. In other words, it worked. Does that mean it was the best solution? Not at all. We can debate about that. But it was A solution and it was offered when no one else, especially the Governor, could be bothered with such a task. The Governor and the Republicans demanded to see a rate structure and as soon as one was provided immediately criticized it, and of course they only ever talked about the income tax increase, without ever mentioning the record property tax and sales tax reductions. Now they want to tie my proposal to JB and that is nothing short of deceptive. Yes, the rates matter, but those can be and should be determined by the legislature. Clearly, JB wants to accomplish the same things I tried to accomplish and every single Illinoisan should want: restoring financial security by paying down our debts, and lower property taxes through more equitable school funding. That can be done by an infinite combination of rate structures, including ones that lowers the overall tax burden on the middle class while requiring those who have been so successful to pay a fair burden. I’m happy to have that discussion on what exactly the best rate structure is, but I can only do that with a Governor who is open to a progressive tax so that we can fix our problems and reform the 5th most regressive tax state in the country. JB is ready to have that discussion. Rauner is not.
