If their success on Tuesday carries over to the April runoff elections, there could be as many as five card-carrying democratic socialists on the City Council this Spring — which would be the most on the Chicago governing body in more than a century.
Members’ victories in two aldermanic races and ballot success putting them in three runoff contests have already led to talk of an incoming socialist caucus. […]
[Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa] is one of the members of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who won outright on Tuesday: New member Daniel La Spata upset Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno in the Near Northwest Side’s 1st Ward. […]
Socialist Rosanna Rodríguez-Sánchez will head to April’s runoff against incumbent Ald. Deb Mell in the 33rd Ward. Rodríguez-Sánchez broke into tears of joy several times at her watch party at Chief O’Neils in Avondale after hearing she’d earned the most votes in the three-way race. […]
Byron Sigcho-Lopez, who heads the Pilsen Alliance, credited the party for helping him in the race for the seat vacated by retiring Ald. Danny Solis (25th). Sigcho-Lopez will face Alex Acevado in April.
* Sigcho-Lopez faced allegations of shenanigans in the closing days. From Friday…
Byron Sigcho Lopez, a candidate for 25th Ward alderman, denounced allegations that his supporters engaged in ballot theft at a Chinatown senior center.
Earlier this week, candidate Hilario Dominguez, a former teacher and activist, along with State Rep. Theresa Mah, whose 2nd District seat includes Chinatown and Pilsen, leveled the allegations at Sigcho Lopez’s supporters.
They alleged his supporters took incomplete vote-by-mail ballots from seniors at the Chinatown Elderly Apartments, 300 W. 23rd St. They were then told their ballots would be filled out for Sigcho Lopez because they had previously received a free meal at Phoenix Restaurant from Sigcho Lopez’s campaign, the state representative and the aldermanic challenger alleged.
The Illinois Attorney General’s office and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office are investigating a complaint that alleges supporters of candidate Byron Sigcho Lopez were buying votes in the 25th Ward Tuesday.
A complaint was filed with the agencies after voters were seen requesting gift cards after casting ballots at Barbara Jean Wright Court Apartments, 1354 S. Morgan St., in the 25th Ward’s 4th precinct.
Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which staffs a hotline where voters can report electoral abuse, initially sent poll watchers to the site after receiving complaints that the precinct was refusing to let people register to vote, said Ami Gandhi, an attorney with Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.
During the visit, poll watchers observed what they described as “strange” behavior — voters entering one room, casting their ballot and then entering a separate room across the hall where they allegedly received $20 gift cards in exchange for a vote for Sigcho Lopez, said Matt Owens, an attorney and field captain for election protection with Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.
* Hours after historic election, Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle each argue they’re more progressive than the other: Preckwinkle attempted to take what has been a political weakness — her ties to party establishment amid strong calls for change at City Hall — and turn it on its head by noting that Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former Mayor Richard M. Daley had appointed Lightfoot to positions. “While my opponent was taking multiple appointments in the Daley and Emanuel administrations, I fought the power elite who have been trying to hold this city back,” Preckwinkle said during her election night speech.
State Sen. Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat who is carrying the [progressive income tax] amendment in the Senate, said he expects the Legislature to begin its role in the process soon – and he expects a fight.
“I’m hoping to start talking about this in earnest when we’re back in Springfield next week,” Harmon said. “This is certainly going to require a full-fledged campaign to convince voters to ratify the amendment. I expect we’ll be joined on both sides of the debate with vigor and resources.”
Illinois House Republicans are signing on to a resolution opposing a graduated income tax in Illinois.
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker campaigned on implementing a graduated income tax in Illinois to replace the current flat income tax, and made getting the measure passed in 2020 a lynchpin of his wider fiscal plan for the state.
All 44 House Republicans are co-sponsoring House Resolution 153, which opposes any shift to a graduated income tax.
“If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are serious about helping the middle class, we need to take a serious look at our regressive property tax system. Property taxes are rising year after year, making it more difficult for working families to make ends meet and further driving jobs and opportunity across the border,” said state Rep. Tony McCombie (R-Savanna).
WHEREAS, A move by the General Assembly to amend the constitution to impose a graduated income tax would mean turning our backs on the residents of this State and the spirit of bipartisanship
Um, the General Assembly’s vote is only the first step. Illinoisans of all stripes and political persuasions will have the final word at the ballot box. So, you could say that giving people the opportunity to vote on this isn’t such a horrible idea.
But a retort could be: “OK, then why not let Illinoisans vote on changing the pension clause, or term limits, or redistricting reform?” Agreed, but you gotta pass that stuff through the General Assembly first. And the people who run that place aren’t willing to put those ideas up for floor votes.
So, in the end, I can understand opposing a binding referendum on the income tax until some of those other issues are also put before the voters, even knowing that the other side will never, ever agree to those terms.
* Just have at it. Everybody take their best shots. If the constitutional amendment fails to get out of the General Assembly, such is life. If a referendum is eventually held, engage in a robust debate. See what the voters decide. That’s America.
But try to stay at least a little truthful. This “turning our backs on the residents of this State” stuff is totally unsupported by the facts because Illinoisans will be the ultimate arbiters.
—The Ricketts, who tried to boot Ald. Tom Tunney from the 44th Ward only to see him run away with 64 percent of the vote. He teared up during his victory speech.
— U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, whose aldermanic candidates lost in the 14th Ward (against Burke) and 25th (against the strident Byron Sigcho-Lopez). Garcia also backed Jessica Gutierrez, the daughter of former Congressman Luis Gutierrez, in the 30th Ward. She made it to a runoff against Ariel Reboyras.
The Ricketts spent a bunch of money on that race, bad-mouthed the alderman every chance they could and got their clocks cleaned on election day. Welcome to Chicago.
Chuy’s organization got a very late start against Burke and while Tanya Patino raised about $150K she only received 30 percent of the vote to Burke’s 54. Beating the alderman turned out to be a whole lot more difficult than beating the alderman’s legislator brother.
In the 1st Ward, Daniel La Spata held a commanding early lead against Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno. La Spata had 61 percent of the vote with 98 percent of precincts reporting.
Meanwhile, in the 45th Ward, Jim Gardiner led Ald. John Arena. Gardiner had 51.8 percent of the vote with 98 percent of precincts reporting.
Chicago Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno said his car was stolen. He filed a police report last month declaring the alleged theft. Now, Moreno says it was all just a big misunderstanding.
WGN’s Meghan Dwyer spoke to the woman behind the wheel — a single mother who said she was shocked to be arrested after Moreno loaned her the car.
And Arena ginned up some furious backlash in his ward…
Arena is a member of the City Council’s progressive caucus and has faced fierce opposition in his Northwest Side ward for promoting affordable housing, including his support of a planned affordable housing development at 5150 N. Northwest Highway.
The 45th Ward includes Jefferson Park, Gladstone Park, Old Irving Park and parts of Portage Park and Forest Glen on the city’s Northwest Side.
In the Far North Side 49th Ward, Moore, the third-longest tenured council member, trailed Chicago Teachers Union-backed challenger Maria Hadden. With 85 percent of precincts in, Hadden had 64.5 percent of the vote to 35.5 percent for Moore.
Moore said he figured his long career as an alderman was coming to an end.
“I don’t think we can overcome it,” Moore said. “The handwriting is on the wall as the fat lady waits to take the stage.”
Moore, who often opposed former Mayor Richard M. Daley, became a close ally of Emanuel, which lost him a good deal of support in his historically independent-minded ward.
In the 33rd Ward, Ald. Deb Mell was headed to a run-off, as she trailed Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez by 66 votes. Rodriguez-Sanchez had 42 percent of the vote with all the precincts reporting Tuesday.
Ald. Marty Quinn appeared to be headed to an easy victory over David Krupa, election results indicated Tuesday night, poised to defeat the DePaul University freshman in a landslide in Chicago’s 13th Ward.
Quinn won 85 percent of the vote with 75 percent of precincts reporting by 8 p.m., compared to Krupa’s 15 percent of the vote, according to the Chicago Board of elections.
Krupa, a recent Fenwick High School grad and part-time FedEx forklift operator, cashed in savings bonds and used graduation gift money to open a campaign office. But he wasn’t taking on just any alderman - setting his sights set on powerful House Speaker Mike Madigan’s hand-picked alderman. Quinn is perhaps Madigan’s most senior political operative and has represented the 13th Ward on the city’s Southwest Side since 2011.
But, did they really “lose”? I’ve always just assumed this race wasn’t ever about winning, but about making life difficult for Team Madigan with the potential for lawsuits, etc.
As a legislative committee digs into the issue, Illinois House Democrats are pushing a package of bills this spring that aim to make prescription drugs more accessible, affordable and accountable.
Led by state Rep. Will Guzzardi, chairman of the new House Prescription Drug Affordability and Access Committee, several lawmakers discussed their proposals for prescription drug reform Wednesday at a Statehouse news conference.
Among the ideas being championed are:
* House Bill 1441, sponsored by Rep. Anna Moeller, to create a path for Illinois to be a licensed wholesaler of imported drugs from regulated Canadian suppliers
* HB 56 and HB 156, sponsored by Rep. Mary Flowers, to require drug manufacturers to notify health insurers, providers and lawmakers when they plan to increase prescription drug prices, and to require health insurers to disclose to the state where Illinois spends significant health care dollars on prescription drugs and which costs have increased over time
* Legislation from Rep. Guzzardi that would create a new tax on some prescription drugs on price increases beyond inflation that cannot be passed on to consumers (HB 2880); and create a Prescription Drug Affordability Board in state government to regulate prescription drugs similar to how the state now regulates electric utilities through the Illinois Commerce Commission (HB 3493)
* And…
State Representative Allen Skillicorn (R-East Dundee) has filed a workers’ compensation reform package consisting of legislation to address this major area impeding job growth in Illinois.
“Workers’ compensation costs in Illinois are among the highest in the country and it is driving job creators of all sizes out of the state,” said Skillicorn. “A couple of weeks ago, I heard from a small business owner in my district who has been forced to move his business out of Illinois because all the costs from the state are too much. This is another 50 good paying jobs we are losing.”
The workers’ compensation reform package consists of House Bills 2634 and 2635. It focuses on reducing workers’ compensation costs by reforming cost driving rates and fees. HB 2634 targets excessive attorney’s fees by reducing them from 20% to 15%, while HB 2635 targets accident rates and medical fees by lowering them to levels similar to other states and those authorized by Medicare.
“Last week, Gov. Pritzker added more cost to the price of doing business in Illinois by signing Senate Bill 1 into law, but if he is serious about making our state more business friendly, then he seriously needs to take up workers’ compensation reform,” said Skillicorn. “If we don’t reform workers’ compensation and other cost drivers, the small business owner I heard from will only be one of many more to leave Illinois.”
* If you’ve ever been to the 2nd Floor of the Stratton Building, you know that House members’ names are painted on the glass doors of the main hallway outside their respective offices.
For whatever reason, the House clerk’s office has been glacially slow to remove the names of former members and update them with new members. Elaine Nekritz resigned her House seat in October of 2017, but her name is still on her old door.
* These two names, however, are quite problematic. Former Rep. Jerry Long, you will recall, was abandoned by the House Republicans when he was accused of harassing a female staffer and lost his race last November. And former GOP Rep. Nick Sauer resigned in August of 2018 after being accused of using nude photos of a woman to catfish men on the Internet. He’s since been indicted on 12 counts for alleged “nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images.” I took this photo yesterday…
How difficult is it to tell somebody to scrape the names off the doors? It’s embarrassing.
A least one House committee hearing had to be relocated Wednesday morning after a leak in a first floor restroom in the Illinois Capitol spread water through parts of the west wing.
The House Executive Committee was moved from its normal hearing room in 118 because of water on the floor outside of the room. The hearing was moved to 114 in the Capitol’s south wing.
Wisconsin National Guard officials said Tuesday they’re looking into whether to punish an Illinois congressman who belongs to the Wisconsin detachment for criticizing Gov. Tony Evers’ decision to withdraw troops from the U.S. southern border.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger is a Wisconsin Air National Guard pilot with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He ripped Evers Monday on Twitter and on Fox News for ordering Wisconsin troops to pull out of Arizona.
Wisconsin statutes state that any commissioned officer who uses “contemptuous words against the president, the vice-president, members of congress, the secretary of defense, the secretary of a military department, the secretary of homeland security, or the governor or legislature of the state of Wisconsin shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”
Evers is a Democrat. His position as governor automatically makes him the commander-in-chief of the Wisconsin National Guard. Asked if Kinzinger might be disciplined for his remarks, Guard spokesman Capt. Joe Travato said the Guard and Evers’ office are looking into the matter.
A spokeswoman for Kinzinger said the Lieutenant Colonel was off duty when he made his remarks about Evers.
“The Congressman is off-duty and has the right to exercise his freedom of speech as he so chooses, just as he has done when critical of the current President and the President before him,” spokeswoman Maura Gillespie said.
My first reaction to this story yesterday was that the National Guard is for citizen soldiers. Citizens have a fundamental right and duty to speak their minds. If Kinzinger had made his remarks while on duty, that’s one thing. He did not do that. Gov. Evers, I believed, should grow some thicker skin.
University of Wisconsin-Madison law and political science professor Donald Downs, who studies free speech issues, said he knows of no exceptions in state law that would allow off-duty National Guard personnel to criticize the government.
However, it’s unclear whether the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee would trump state statutes in such cases, Downs said. The First Amendment protects an employee’s speech if he or she is speaking as a citizen, not as an employee, but the scales still likely would tilt toward the military if the soldier was criticizing a specific lawful order, he said.
“I doubt that the fact the guardsman was off duty would matter,” Downs said.
Kinzinger did, indeed, criticize a lawful order from his commander in chief.
I do not want this post to devolve into a debate on the wall or whatever, so do your utmost to stick to the topic at hand or I’ll delete you and maybe even ban you.
Daley is the only leading mayoral candidate who talks candidly about the city’s and state’s pension systems. The only way to keep high local and state taxes from skyrocketing and to save pensions for retirees is to amend the Illinois Constitution’s rigid pension clause. That requires action in Springfield. It’s a big lift, but Daley is the only candidate willing to try. “Our pension system is broke,” Daley says. “We cannot tax our way out without making Chicago unaffordable. We can’t cut our way out without compromising our quality of life.”
Daley supports a mix of new taxes to prop up pensions — but he also understands that loosening the language of the Illinois Constitution is the only route to long-term stability. No gimmicks. Real change. We’re hopeful Daley would persuade other leading Democrats, Gov. J.B. Pritzker included, to put pension reform on the ballot.
Daley was by far the best hope for Illinois proponents of an Arizona-style pension reform plan. He supported a similar constitutional amendment to Arizona’s that would ostensibly allow this state to reduce all benefits moving forward. But the plan was never remotely feasible here, and Arizona’s amendments have not yet been tested by the courts. Even so, Daley would’ve been the highest profile mouthpiece for the Tribune, the Illinois Policy Institute, the Civic Committee and others who have been banging the drum on this topic for years.
Now, with Daley’s loss, they’re gonna have to find somebody else.
And, by the way, the pundits can blame Jerry Joyce all they want for Daley’s loss. But Daley got smoked in the wards best known for being populated with city workers and retirees. That was no coincidence.
Daley got clobbered in sections of Northwest and Southwest Side that are home to many police, firefighters and other city workers by attorney Jerry Joyce. Daley should have done well in such areas in the same way that his brother and father did when they ran for mayor, but the pension issue hurt. Ironically, all of those cops will have to live with a new mayor in Lightfoot or Preckwinkle, both of whom strongly back tough police reforms and increased accountability. But in Springfield, where pension reform already is a very tough sell, Tuesday’s totals will make it even tougher. The message will be: don’t fight the unions. You can’t win.
