* As I told you yesterday, the governor’s office was not made aware of IDNR Director Colleen Callahan’s decision to join the Democratic State Central Committee. This resignation was therefore not unexpected…
June 17, 2019
Dear Speaker Madigan-
Effectively immediately I resign from membership of the Illinois Democratic State Central Committee, representing the 18th Congressional District as the Committeewoman.
Colleen Callahan
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Open thread
Tuesday, Jun 18, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* I have some errands to run, so you’re on your own. Keep it Illinois-centric and be kind to each other, please.
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Question of the day
Tuesday, Jun 18, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Senate Republican Leader Bill Brady said at the City Club today that he believes the Republicans will find a “really good” candidate to run against US Sen. Dick Durbin.
Scott Holland has his own guess…
Will anyone emerge to challenge Durbin? I floated Kinzinger’s name in December, a possibility that remains in play.
I’ve previously expressed doubt about finding a Tier One candidate to run against Durbin. It’s a presidential election year and while Durbin has never been super-popular, he always racks up solid margins.
* The Question: Who do you think the Republicans will recruit to run against Sen. Durbin? Make sure to explain why you think this will happen.
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* Illinois PIRG…
The Tri-State Tollway in the western Chicago suburbs is a testament to the fact that you can’t build your way out of congestion. But even after two previous widening projects failed to relieve congestion, the Illinois Tollway is still planning to spend $4 billion to widen the road from four lanes in each direction to five — and in some places six — lanes. According to a new report from Illinois PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group, these efforts will once again fail to alleviate traffic.
“In the Chicago area, new and expanded highways have failed again and again to relieve congestion,” said Abe Scarr, Illinois PIRG Education Fund director. “As Chicago builds a transportation system of the future, there is no reason to think that applying the same flawed logic to the same transportation problems will work this time.”
Since 1996, more than 1,000 miles of new highway lanes have been added in and around Chicago. These projects — and all the asphalt that comes with them — have contributed to worsening traffic and more sprawl, while displacing homes and businesses, and increasing air pollution. According to Highway Boondoggles 5, the new Tri-State Tollway widening will continue these trends, all while wasting valuable transportation resources that would be better spent on public transit, walk and bike infrastructure, and road repair.
“Sometimes it’s the infrastructure we don’t build that makes all the difference,” said Gideon Weissman of Frontier Group, report co-author. “Cities from Dallas to Tampa to Milwaukee have discovered that ditching boondoggle highway projects has opened up new opportunities to build stronger, cleaner and more fiscally sustainable communities.”
The report recommends that Illinois cancel the Tri-State Tollway and other proposed highway projects, and instead invest in more effective transportation solutions, such as road repair and transit expansion.
“Illinois, like the rest of America, still has a misplaced appetite for costly and disruptive highway expansion projects. But if we’re smarter about how we spend our transportation dollars, we can achieve a more sustainable, affordable and better-functioning transportation system,” said Matt Casale, U.S. PIRG Education Fund’s Transportation Campaign director. “That means avoiding spending billions of dollars on harmful, wasteful projects such as Tri-State Tollway Widening.”
The full report is here.
Thoughts?
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Today’s must-read
Tuesday, Jun 18, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Fran Spielman throws the kitchen sink at Mayor Lightfoot…
Four weeks after taking office, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has already stumbled in a way that might make it a bit more difficult for her to govern.
From going to war with a police union that didn’t trust her to begin with, to hobnobbing with Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Colbert during fundraising trips to both coasts, Lightfoot appears to be repeating some of her predecessor’s early mistakes.
Go read the whole thing. Brutal.
* Related…
* CPD second-in-command won’t be punished for taking pre-approved family vacation to Aruba
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* Center Square…
A state Supreme Court decision in Rhode Island could possibly remove a hurdle to reforming Illinois’ pension debt load, but an expert said lawmakers here would first have to change course.
Rhode Island’s highest court ruled earlier this month in Cranston Police Retirees Action Committee v the City of Cranston that the city could freeze a cost of living adjustment for its police and firefighter retirees and not break the U.S. Constitution’s Contract Clause protection.
Mike Stenhouse, CEO of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, said the city of Cranston’s budget was so upside down that the benefit freeze was deemed reasonable and necessary, a designed exception in interpretations of the clause.
“Cranston was in such financial distress that you couldn’t reasonably tax anymore,” he said. […]
Ralph Martire, with the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, said Illinois wouldn’t make it that far because the state’s constitution protects any pension from being diminished. […]
Democrats in control of the General Assembly have shown little appetite for changing that protection, even though the state has more than $137 billion in unfunded pension liability, billions more in unfunded healthcare costs. Municipalities in Illinois have billions more at the local level for police and fire pensions.
Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints, said the important aspect of the Rhode Island opinion is that it refutes a common talking point that changing Illinois’ constitution to allow for changing established pension contracts is a fool’s errand because the Contracts Clause would kill the effort.
“We’re applying the same law that would be applied in Illinois if we ever follow the same route and the same challenge was there,” he said.
* Cranston was an extreme case…
The high court observed that the city faced “dire” financial straits when [Mayor Allan W. Fung] assumed office in 2009. Unemployment soared and property values plummeted by $1 billion. Those factors were compounded by dramatic cuts to state aid and “devastating” flooding in 2010. As a result, the city cut jobs, eliminated city vehicles and increased health-care costs for its employees.
State lawmakers in 2011 passed the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act, aimed at helping cities and towns manage their pension liabilities and remain stable. That law enabled municipalities to submit improvement plans if an actuary determined that a pension plan was in “critical” status, meaning that it was less than 60-percent funded.
In June 2011, the unfunded liability in Cranston had risen to $256 million. A year later, it was funded at only 16.9 percent.
Emphasis added because we have only a handful of smallish first responder pension funds in Illinois that are in worse shape than that (for a total of about $100 million in unfunded liabilites in nine funds as of 2016).
The General Assembly Retirement Fund, however, was only 14.8 percent funded at last report.
Even so, the General Assembly would first have to vote to change the constitution (not gonna happen in the foreseeable if ever future) and then voters would have to approve it (risky proposition since the unions would be dead set against it) and then and only then could a federal case be made if any local governments actually started cutting benefits to retired cops and firefighters (very difficult to do).
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McAuliffe and Mulroe roundup
Tuesday, Jun 18, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
A major shake-up is coming to the Northwest Side’s political representation in Springfield.
Four days after the Illinois Supreme Court announced the appointment of Democratic state Sen. John Mulroe of Chicago to a vacant Cook County judgeship, Republican state Rep. Michael McAuliffe, who represents the western half of Mulroe’s district, announced Monday that he’s retiring, effective immediately.
Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Robert Martwick, who represents the other half of Mulroe’s district, is among those vying for the soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat.
McAuliffe, the city’s lone GOP state lawmaker, has served 23 years in the House after being appointed to the seat held for 23 years by his father, Roger McAuliffe. Michael McAuliffe took the seat following his father’s death in 1996.
* Sun-Times…
In 2016, the Chicago Republican’s race was one of the most closely watched legislative races in the state, with both candidates raking in more than $2 million. McAuliffe wound up taking 54% of the vote to 44% for his Democratic challenger Merry Marwig. McAuliffe typically won his seat by comfortable margins. His closet race came in 2002 against Robert Bugielski when he won by 8 percentage points.
Money poured in for both Michael McAuliffe and for Marwig in a big proxy war between former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Most of the money supporting McAuliffe came from Rauner in a bid to block House Democrats from hanging onto a veto-proof supermajority. Marwig got heavy financial backing from the Democratic Party and unions.
* Daily Line…
Marwig told The Daily Line Monday that she would not run for the 20th District seat in 2020.
Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41) — the only member of the Chicago City Council who is not a Democrat — did not respond to a request for comment from The Daily Line on Monday.
A group of Republican Party insiders from the city’s Far Northwest Side and nearby suburbs have 30 days to pick a replacement.
As the 41st Ward Republican committeeperson, McAuliffe will have a major say in his replacement, along with 38th Ward Republican Committeeperson Chuck Hernandez; Char Foss-Eggemann, the Republican committeeperson for Maine Township; Chris Hanusiak, the Republican committeeperson for Niles Township; and Brad Stephens, the Republican committeeperson for Leyden Township and the mayor of Rosemont.
* Journal & Topics…
McAuliffe said he had not spoken to any other committeemen about his resignation, nor discussed who might replace him with anyone.
* Crain’s…
In the short run, the remaining year and a half of McAuliffe’s term will be filled by a vote of the GOP ward and township committeemen with precincts in his legislative district. There’s no immediate word on who they might select.
In the longer run, McAuliffe’s seat is a prime pickup opportunity for House Speaker Mike Madigan, whose Democrats already own every House or Senate seat that includes any of the city—and for that matter, every city congressional district, too. […]
Whoever the GOP selects to fill the vacancy better keep his or her bags packed, ’cause they may not be in Springfield very long.
* Politico…
McAuliffe’s departure is an opportunity for Democrats to move another seat into their column and expand their already sizable majority. Some names being batted about: Frank Avino, a Norwood Park Fire Protection District Trustee; Martin Durkan, a former Water Reclamation District commissioner; 41st Ward Committeeman Tim Heneghan; Circuit Court Judge James McGing; and Dan Pogorzelski, former chief of staff to state Rep. Robert Martwick. Not in the mix: Merry Marwig, who lost to McAuliffe in 2016, told Playbook she’s not running this time around.
Meanwhile, there’s lots of elbowing for the 10th District seat being vacated by state Sen. John Mulroe, who is to be sworn in as a judge Friday. Mulroe’s Senate seat includes the House seats held by McAuliffe and Martwick.
So no surprise, Martwick is being seen as a frontrunner. Along with his experience as a House rep, he has nearly as many weighted votes as former Ald. John Arena and Committeeman Heneghan.
Interestingly, a few Martwick allies are also competing for the senate seat: Avino (mentioned above) and Tom Kelley, who’s helped draft legislation for Martwick.
Others in the mix, Ed Bannon, who worked for Arena in the 45th ward; public-policy expert Lindsey LaPointe, and Patti Vasquez, who up until Monday was a WGN radio host. She parted ways with the station, according to media reporter Robert Feder.
Subscribers know a bit more.
* Related…
* Ousted from WGN Radio, Patti Vasquez to run for state senate
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Unintended consequences
Tuesday, Jun 18, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Remember when I told you on June 3rd that heads were gonna explode over a provision in the BIMP which repealed a 2018 law that forced local school districts to pay the costs of any end-of-career raises above 3 percent? The new provision moved that cap back to 6 percent, where it had been for several years.
Heads did indeed explode…
* Sun-Times: Teacher pension ‘spiking’ is back — and we’ll all pay
* Crain’s: Who’s really in charge in Springfield? - This giveaway to teachers unions is the strongest sign yet that the Democrats who control both houses of the General Assembly as well as the Governor’s Mansion work for them and no one else.
* Tribune: Pritzker, teacher’s pet, allows more pricey pension spiking
* Illinois Policy Institute: Pritzker budget lifts cap on pension spiking
* Center Squared: Repeal of pension spiking ban a final blow to taxpayers
* Forbes: Hidden In the Legislate-A-Thon, Illinois Restores Pension Spiking
* News-Gazette: Teachers spike pension ball
* Journal-Courier: A backslide on curtailing cost of public pension
* But this is from a June 2nd Illinois Education Association press release…
Because educators can qualify for a pension after five years and can leave their school district at any time, school board attorneys had been arguing for a 3 percent limit on all salary increases across the entire length of an educator’s teaching contract, creating havoc in districts in the midst of negotiations.
Whoa. That’s crazy, but it makes a certain sense. The 3 percent cap applied to the final ten years of a career, but the final ten years of an educator’s career could very well be the only ten years of that career, particularly with all the K-12 teacher turnover out there.
* I followed up with the IEA’s Bridget Shanahan, who sent me this partial list…
In all these districts the 3% law was brought up and the school board or community college board in some way suggested limiting raises to 3% across the board. The end results vary from district to district.
Antioch
Wauconda
Hawthorn 73
Grayslake 127
Zion 6
Carrier Mills
Galatia
Harrisburg
Hardin Co.
JAMP special education
Massac Co.
Meridian
New Simpson Hill
Pope County
Williamson Co. Special Education Cooperative
Beardstown CUSD #15
LaHarpe CSD #347
West Prairie CUSD #103
Aptakisic-Tripp Geneva
West Aurora 129
Batavia 101
Lewis and Clark Community College
Genoa-Kingston 424
Riley School District 18
Scales-Mound School District
Vandalia
Edwardsville
Collinsville
Effingham Community Unit District 40
Teutopolis Community Unit District 50
Clay City Community Unit District 10
Lawrenceville Community Unit District 20
Oblong Community Unit District 4
Illinois Eastern Community College
Not all of these districts were successful at limiting the raises, but it’s at least worth pointing out. And keep in mind that this is just the IEA. The IFT likely has its own list.
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