* I’ve been stumped on a question today, so I came up with this: How about you use the comments to send a Valentine’s Day greeting to your favorite prominent Illinoisan?
* On the same day this week, Bill Daley was endorsed by the Chicago Tribune editorial board and received a $1 million campaign check from former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s top contributor Ken Griffin, Illinois’ wealthiest resident.
Those folks ain’t exactly friendly to a progressive state income tax. Just the opposite. Daley supported a progressive income tax during his aborted 2013 campaign for governor, so I wondered whether his new pals had changed his mind and what that could mean if he wins the mayoral race. Public opposition by Chicago’s mayor could greatly complicate Gov. Pritzker’s push to get the question on the ballot and approved by voters, after all.
So, I reached out to Daley’s campaign and received this back…
I support a progressive state income tax, and I am committed to making sure Chicago gets its fair share. Given the size of our budget issues, and the need for reforms, Chicago and state need to consider every option for new revenue, and we need to do it without increasing the burden on those least able to pay.
* This story popped late Monday and then I forgot about it after the Lincoln holiday. So, I’m a couple days late…
Businesses that gave tens of thousands of dollars last year to Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s political fund allegedly are “front companies” in an ongoing, multimillion-dollar “sham” involving profits from a state program, according to a pending federal civil lawsuit.
Investors in a Chicago firm called Vendor Assistance Program LLC filed the suit last year in Philadelphia. They claim their partners in VAP hid money in shell companies in Florida and Puerto Rico to avoid giving them their fair share of profits from a highly lucrative arrangement with the state of Illinois.
VAP was started in 2010 by Brian Hynes, a politically connected lawyer who’s now a central figure in a widening City Hall corruption scandal. Hynes is a longtime supporter of embattled Ald. Danny Solis (25th Ward) and co-founded VAP with Solis’ sister Patti Solis Doyle. As Illinois’ fiscal woes have deepened, the company has profited from a state initiative to speed payments to government vendors who are owed money.
Last month, WBEZ reported that Mendoza — who is running for Chicago mayor in the Feb. 26 election — gave away nearly $74,000 in campaign contributions from Solis-controlled political funds and another $67,650 that she got last year from five companies set up by VAP investors, including Hynes. […]
[The lawsuit] claims three of the five VAP-linked firms that gave to Mendoza are accused of being part of the “sham” to divert profits from former partners in Pennsylvania. […]
But in an interview with WBEZ on Friday, Hynes said it was “absurd” to suggest that he and his partners in VAP had set up front companies.
“We didn’t make decisions to make one guy’s distribution be less than it should be,” Hynes said.
Just keep in mind that anyone can sue anyone for pretty much anything - and say pretty much anything in their suits. Lots of sizzle in this story, so we’ll eventually see if there’s any real meat.
Also, while there is a new law requiring some transparency for the vendor payment program, the companies themselves are often troublingly opaque.
Let me offer some ideas and solutions to dig out of our mess.
First, when the fair tax becomes law, we will create a new revenue source dedicated specifically to pensions. The state will commit to using $200 million a year directly to pensions, over and above our legally required payments. This will not only help pay down the unfunded liability but will likely also lower the cost of our debt.
Second, we must infuse cash and assets into the system now to improve the health of the funds. We will be evaluating some of the assets that are owned by the State – they could be worth tens of billions of dollars – for potential transfer into the pension funds. I am pleased that experts like Jackie Avitia-Guzman and Jamie Star have signed on to help with these evaluations. These assets could be used in a way that is far more financially responsible for the state, to increase assets in the pension systems to offset liabilities and reduce the unfunded liability overall.
Third, let’s listen to experts and exercise good financial management. We can lower the cost of our pension debt and inject cash immediately into the system by issuing a small-scale pension bond of about $2 billion. The bond proceeds would be used for no purpose other than to be deposited directly into the funds — and would be used only for paying down our more expensive pension liabilities. No skimming off the top to pay this year’s pension payment. No using bond proceeds to pay for operating costs.
This protects taxpayers from the way these bonds were misused in the past, and it brings our pension funds closer to a healthy level. We would look to move forward with this bond only if the calculation makes sense for taxpayers — and if the interest rates are lower for the bond than what we are currently paying for the pension debt. It’s simply good financial management.
Fourth, the optional pension buyout programs passed in last year’s budget were short term in nature — which limits their effectiveness at reducing our future pension liabilities. We intend to extend these programs to provide certainty to retiring employees who may choose the option to receive more retirement income upfront. By doing so, we can expand the savings to the state overall. This is a responsible way to reduce liabilities without going back on the state’s promised retirement benefits.
Finally, during last year’s campaign Governor Pritzker proposed smoothing and flattening payments into the pension system in the context of contributing more cash and assets to the system. We propose a modest extension of our pension amortization schedule by seven years. We will still reach the target goal of 90% funding, but we will do so without massively crowding out investments our state needs to grow its economy. After almost a quarter century of losing ground, a seven-year extension is reasonable in the context of currently contributing billions more to our pensions systems.
Collectively, these five actions will expand our tax revenue base, invest in priorities that will grow our economy, and we’ll be able to put our pensions on a sustainable path that keeps our promises to retirees.
Now, no discussion of pensions would be complete without recognition that we have a pension crisis brewing among our local and county governments. We must explore smart ways to consolidate those pension funds. The state is home to 671 separate public pension funds. This results in a fractured system that often duplicates functions across funds, limits the smaller funds to a narrow range of lower return investments, and impedes their ability to negotiate lower fees.
Deputy Gov. Dan Hynes suggested the key to the plan is to extend the period of time the state has to reach full funding of its pension plays by seven years, to 2052. “Full funding” currently is defined has having 90 percent of the assets needed to pay promised benefits. […]
Hynes told me the deferral will buy the state time to examine asset sales and other matters—and give Pritzker some a bit of leeway in dealing with a projected deficit of $3.2 billion in the new fiscal 2020 budget he’s set to unveil next week, on Feb. 20. Specifically, extending the full-payment ramp to 2020 will reduce the amount the state has to contribute next year by about $800 million. The state “still will have to contribute $8 billion,” Hynes noted. But by deferring the payment owed, the state will run up increased interest costs on debt it legally will have to pay, Hynes conceded, declining to give a cost figure. […]
Hynes specifically refused to take a possible sale of the Illinois Tollway off the table. “That’s the kind of issue” that a new commission Pritzker appointed last week is considering, and “I don’t want to prejudge anything,” Hynes said.
….Adding… Senate President Cullerton’s spokesperson on the pension bond…
It’s an interesting concept. The Senate President looks forward to learning more about the idea and its specific safeguards.
Thursday, Feb 14, 2019 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Illinois has nearly 7,000 units of local government, the highest total of any state in the nation. These often-duplicative layers of government are one of the driving forces behind Illinoisans’ punishing property taxes.
Thankfully, the Citizens Empowerment Act (House Bill 307) would allow local voters to eliminate governments they deem unnecessary – reducing their property tax burdens through more efficient services.
The Illinois Municipal League released a letter this week urging legislators to push back on a one-size-fits-all statewide approach. The organization is pushing for a wage increase that takes into account the “significant economic differences” communities face.
“We ask you, as a legislator representing our cities, towns and villages, to recognize that while $15 per hour may be acceptable for some communities, it has a different and varying impact among regions throughout the state,” the letter reads.
IML Executive Director Brad Cole said municipalities big and small will feel the effect of a $15 minimum wage hike. He said beyond the impact on city budgets and employment, collective bargaining negotiations between cities and employees also could lead to higher wages.
The IML also states the increase would have a negative impact of employers and employees because of the differing economic states of the state’s region.
“An increase to $15 per hour, even over a long period of time, could have a negative impact on many employers and employees in our communities because the dynamics in major metropolitan areas simply do not exist everywhere and cannot be relied on to blunt this added cost.”
Funny how nobody is harping that the amounts the state pays to municipalities isn’t adjusted for region.
When the money flows to them, the small towns want financial parity with the big cities. When it’s minimum wage it has to be adjusted because things are less expensive in rural areas.
Yep. And they get even more bank for the buck on the 55/45 Downstate vs. Chicagoland spending split on IDOT projects.
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.
The business groups have every right to make this regionalization argument. The IML, however, could eventually see its own logic thrown back in its face.
“We’ll call [the minimum wage bill] on the floor [Thursday] sometime after 1:30 in the afternoon, and my expectation is the bill will pass,” House Speaker Mike Madigan said. “My expectation is that there will be no Republicans in the House voting for the bill.”
Republicans, on the other hand, said the fast-tracked advancement of the measure puts an end to a short-lived era of good feeling between the parties at the Capitol.
“This is a change of attitude since last month,” Republican House Leader Jim Durkin said. “There was all these platitudes and statements that were made about how we were going to work together and solve these problems. That is not the case today. Republicans have been shut out in negotiating in the House, and we have had no voice with the administration.”
Democratic Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday — the day after his comfortable win over GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner — that he is laying groundwork for bipartisan action when he takes office.
Pritzker told The State Journal-Register that on Election Night, he spoke with Senate GOP Leader Bill Brady of Bloomington and House GOP Leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs “to say that I look forward to working with them to solve the big problems, the big challenges we’ve got in the state, and I hope they’d be open-minded in working with me, and they both agreed that they would be.”
Pritzker also named Republican former Gov. Jim Edgar as one of the co-chairs of his transition team.
Pritzker has dispatched invites to Senate President John Cullerton; House Speaker Michael Madigan; House Minority Leader Jim Durkin and Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady — and their wives Pam, Shirley, Celeste and Nancy — to wine and dine at Pritzker’s Astor Street mansion.
One Pritzker confidant said the incoming governor envisions a return to what was once known as the “agreed-bill” process, in which all of the various stakeholders on an issue, such as labor and management, agree to sit down together to work to resolve a problem and that no legislation would move forward without such an agreement.
Such a process, still used regarding the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund, allows lawmakers to implement an agreement that is approved by all sides.
“Illinois has really only worked well when everyone works together on bipartisan solutions to the problems. It’s never really worked well, Illinois has never really prospered, with a ‘my way or the highway’ approach,” [Rob Karr, the president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association] said. “We are confident in the early stages that he’s going to take that approach, and only time will tell.”
But the more politically active and Republican-allied Illinois Chamber of Commerce already is girding for the Democratic domination. A recent internet seminar promoted by the group warned that “the Pritzker administration is going to be aggressively pro-labor when it comes to creating new workplace laws and greater regulation that this state has (believe it or not) yet to experience.”
Another plan would let the incoming governor replace the Tollway board now chaired by former Republican DuPage County chairman and candidate for governor Bob Schillerstrom amid controversies over contracts and spending on expensive banquet tickets.
Republicans voted for both proposals, and a spokesman for House GOP leader Jim Durkin said he will support both “as a gesture of good faith moving forward,” helping clear the way for their likely approval in the coming days.
Illinois lawmakers unanimously approved of legislation that would gradually send more state income tax revenue to local cities and towns even though it would happen at the cost of the state’s woefully unbalanced budget.
Illinois collects personal and corporate income taxes and then sends just over six percent of that to local municipalities, totaling around $1.3 billion in personal and corporate income tax annually.
If signed into law, Rep. Anthony DeLuca’s bill would see the Local Government Distribution Fund increase from 6.06 percent to 8.5 percent in 2020, 9 percent in 2021, 9.5 percent in 2022, and remain at 10 percent after February 2023. The percentage of corporate income tax, which is a higher percent but accounts for less of the total distribution, would scale up to 10 percent as well. […]
Rep Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, is concerned about the strain that sending hundreds of millions of dollars out of an already-unbalanced budget would affect the state.
“I understand that there’s this kind of balancing act but how do you deal with, potentially over six years, being a billion dollar-pressure to the state budget,” he said.
Wow. Unanimous vote on a very controversial topic. That certainly sounds newsworthy as heck.
Strengthened by unprecedented political support, Illinois House legislators are uniting in a new Progressive Caucus to provide a better direction for the state.
Leaders and members of the new Progressive Caucus in the House today used a Statehouse news conference to discuss its platform of principles and legislative agenda for the 2019 session:
Minimum wage: Working families shouldn’t have to work hard and live in poverty. Increasing the minimum wage from $8.25 to $15 an hour around Illinois, phased in over several years with tax credits and with other protections for small businesses, will help lift up Illinois families and improve our economy. This legislation already has cleared the Senate and will get a vote in the Illinois House today.
Adult use of cannabis: Legalizing marijuana use by adults, with tight regulations and sensible taxation, will reverse a trend of senseless incarceration for minor drug users and create economic benefits for Illinois.
Small donor match: The influence of big-dollar donors and candidates in Illinois politics must be curbed. Creating a donor-matching system where tax dollars can help support political candidates who raise campaign funds in small amounts and level the playing field.
Progressive Caucus members also plan to lead and weigh in on a number of other initiatives, including the push for a constitutional amendment to create a progressive income tax where wealthier Illinoisans pay their fair share to fund critical state programs and services, such as education, health care and social services.
Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, a co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, outlined the caucus’ statement of principles and vision for going forward.
“It’s a new day in Illinois, and we’re excited to lead on this bold agenda,” Guzzardi said. “By enacting these policies, and by organizing around our shared vision, we’ll be able to move our state forward and pass legislation that will transform the lives of the people of this state. I’m excited to be a part of this Caucus, and to stand together with so many of my colleagues in this work.”
The Progressive Caucus members are: Co-Chairs Reps. Guzzardi, Theresa Mah, and Carol Ammons; Treasurer Rep. Celina Villanueva; Secretary Rep. Delia Ramirez; and member Reps. Kelly Cassidy, Sara Feigenholtz, Robyn Gabel, Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, Greg Harris, Rob Martwick, Joyce Mason, Aaron Ortiz, Lamont Robinson, Anne Stava-Murray, and Maurice West.
His movement attracted national attention, especially in 1986, when two LaRouche followers, Mark Fairchild and Janice Hart, unexpectedly won the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor and secretary of state, respectively, in Illinois.
Adlai E. Stevenson III, the Democratic candidate for governor of Illinois that year, was appalled. He denounced the LaRouche group as “neo-Nazis” and refused to run with Mr. Fairchild and Ms. Hart, organizing a third-party bid instead. He, as well as the LaRouche supporters, lost to James R. Thompson, the Republican incumbent.
Some voters said they had voted for Mr. Fairchild and Ms. Hart because they had been endorsed by Mr. LaRouche’s National Democratic Policy Committee, which they thought was affiliated with the mainstream Democratic Party..
That’s not how I remember it. Most people had no idea what the National Democratic Policy Committee was because it spent no money. The two LaRouche candidates had “safe” last names compared to the “etnik” names of the party’s slated candidates, who didn’t campaign all that much. The media barely covered the LaRouche candidates at all and there was some legit resentment about Democratic secretary of state candidate Aurelia Pucinski because of her father Ald. Roman Pucinski’s involvement with the city council’s fight against Mayor Harold Washington.
Hart upset Aurelia Pucinski in the Democratic primary for secretary of state, and Fairchild beat state Sen. George Sangmeister to become the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor.
Hart was the more vocal of the two, but Fairchild posed the bigger political problem, since he was instantly paired with the party’s gubernatorial nominee, Adlai Stevenson III. Back then, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor ran separately in the primary, but as a ticket in the general election.
The 1986 election was supposed to be a grudge match of sorts for Stevenson. Four years earlier, he lost to Republican Gov. Jim Thompson by a mere 5,074 votes — one of the closest statewide elections in Illinois history.
But in 1986, he suddenly found himself hobbled to Fairchild and Hart and facing certain defeat — and months of disavowing their beliefs. Instead, Stevenson bolted the ticket and created the new Solidarity Party for a one-time political run. That meant there would be no Democratic candidate for governor on the ballot, leaving the party doomed.
Thompson won the race for governor, pulling in 52.7 percent of the vote to Stevenson’s 40 percent. The Democratic slate with no candidate for governor garnered 6.6 percent.
LaRouche’s candidates spent much of that election traveling through Europe touting their guy’s conspiracy theories.
Another day, another discussion about changing the way Illinois draws its legislative districts. All nineteen Illinois Senate Republicans are on hand for this.
“The ultimate authority in Illinois is the party in power, and it’s time to change that system. We stand here united to join our Democratic colleague Sen. (Julie) Morrison (D-Deerfield),” Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady (R-Bloomington) told a statehouse news conference, “to support Senate Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 4, which takes the politicians out of drawing their own destinies and their own maps.” […]
In an e-mailed statement, the spokesman for House Speaker Mike Madigan reminds us that, in general, compliance with the Voting Rights Act has scuttled previous efforts, adding it’s unlikely Madigan has studied Morrison’s proposal yet.
As placeholders that wait in limbo until something substantive is amended onto them, shell bills exist to get around rules that establish a deliberative and transparent process for making new laws. They’re not just used for minor or parochial matters. Shell bills are the vehicles that have allowed quick passage of income tax hikes and state budgets, sometimes within a single day.
That flies in the face of good government and the Illinois Constitution, which requires “a bill shall be read by title on three different days in each house.”
The process is designed to invite airing of various viewpoints and to ensure interested parties see a proposal before it gets a final vote. It’s often said the wheels of government turn slowly, and in this case that’s how it should be. Passing a bill in a few days or even weeks, in a manner that allows for democratic debate, seems fast enough to us in all but dire emergencies.
Shell bills get around all that by going most of the way through the process with content that is sparse and laughably minute, like a series of bills introduced by Madigan Dec. 10 that appropriate $2 from the General Revenue Fund to each of several state agencies.
Later, lawmakers can amend the bill to make it something new and big and get it passed in a matter of hours, in some cases. It’s obviously unethical, and not made any more palatable by the fact Illinois is not alone in this particular charade.
* This hearing was canceled…
From: xxx xxxxx
Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2019 at 2:08 PM
Subject: House Bill 330 to be called on Thursday, February 24
IHSA Member School Administrators,
The IHSA has received word that the Illinois Elementary & Secondary Education Committee will call House Bill 330 tomorrow morning (Thursday, February 14, 2019).
This bill was filed by State Representative Thaddeus Jones and would prevent schools from being members of the IHSA, instead requiring them to participate in the newly created High School Interscholastic Association Commission, which would be governed by five appointees via the Governor, Speaker of the House, President of the Senate, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, and Minority Leader of the Senate.
Despite numerous attempts, we have been unable to get a meeting or discussion with Representative Jones on the bill in order to get a better understanding of his issue or issues with the IHSA.
We received a brief explanation from someone associated with Representative Jones that said the bill was filed in response to “an email that was sent to the IHSA office, but never replied to.” A search by our IT department has been unable to identify said email or its contents.
Thursday, Feb 14, 2019 - Posted by Advertising Department
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A college student running to oust the prominent alderman of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s home ward sued the Chicago Teachers Union for defamation this week, adding another layer of intrigue and a second lawsuit to the campaign.
DePaul University student David Krupa sued the union and one of its members in Cook County court — while also naming Madigan, 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn and the influential 13th Ward Democratic Organization as potential defendants in one of Chicago’s latest cases of hardball politics.
Krupa and Quinn’s bitter battle over a city Democratic stronghold has already landed in federal court over alleged campaign violations. This week’s fight is over a Feb. 1 letter printed on CTU letterhead and addressed to 13th Ward residents from teacher Jeanine Muir.
Muir’s letter accused Krupa of unspecified “cyberstalking and cyberbullying” and urged residents to not vote for the 19-year-old candidate in the Feb. 26 election. Krupa on Wednesday described those allegations as “a completely fabricated lie.”
CTU spokeswoman Chris Geovanis said Muir reported the situation with Krupa to the school district and was merely looking to protect her students.
“She was satisfied the conduct was terminated,” Geovanis said. […]
Krupa’s suit also names Quinn’s wife, Beth, as an employee at Hale, something the alderman scoffed at.
“Naming my wife, who has served the children of Chicago as a dedicated speech pathologist for decades and has no involvement in my campaign, in a baseless lawsuit is a new low for Tony Peraica, the Republican Party and its latest pawn, David Krupa,” Ald. Quinn said in a statement.
“Suing two public school teachers is a new low,” Madigan echoed in his own statement. “Certainly they don’t have the Republican backing to defend themselves like David Krupa does. These outrageous lawsuits are a disservice to the residents of the 13th Ward who are trying to focus on the issues that matter most to them.”
