Thank you for the opportunity to serve the State of Illinois while on the Prisoner Review Board. I took seriously the responsibility to apply the law as it is written in our constitution. These laws direct the board to be fair to all without bias or prejudice. This too, is all you have ever asked of me. It is my hope I have fulfilled this request completely.
It has been an honor to be a member of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, please accept this letter as my resignation as of today 3/28/22.
Respectfully,
Oreal James
The Republicans and some Democrats are still not comfortable with PRB member Eleanor Wilson, who is the godmother of Barack Obama’s daughters.
By the way, the governor has withdrawn the appointment.
Ahead of today’s Senate Executive Appointments Committee hearing to review JB Pritzker’s appointments to the Prisoner Review Board (PRB), the Irvin for Illinois campaign is calling for lawmakers to stand with police and reject Pritzker’s extreme appointees who have repeatedly voted to release cop-killers.
Last week, the Senate rejected another Pritzker appointee to the board - Jeffrey Mears - in a bipartisan vote. This week, the Senate will vote on two more Pritzker PRB appointees - Oreal James and Eleanor Wilson - who voted to grant parole to the following offenders:
• Joseph Hurst: Convicted of killing Chicago police officer Herman Stallworth and wounding Stallworth’s partner with a bullet to the face. On February 25, 2021, the PRB voted 8-4 to pardon Hurst, with Oreal James and Eleanor Wilson voting in favor of parole.
• Johnny Veal: Convicted of killing Chicago police officers James Severin and Anthony Rizzato. On February 25, 2021, the PRB voted 8-4 to grant parole to Veal with Oreal James and Eleanor Wilson voting in favor of parole.
• James Taylor: Convicted of killing State Trooper Layton Davis during a traffic stop, and attempting to kill a motorist who witnessed the murder. In August 2020, the PRB voted 8-5 to grant parole to Taylor, with Oreal James and Eleanor Wilson voting in favor of parole.
Even radical Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx strongly opposed parole for Johnny Veal, saying his killing of officers Severin and Rizzato had been a “cold-blooded execution”. But Pritzker’s extreme PRB still voted to put him back on the street.
“JB Pritzker continues his attack on police officers through these latest appointments,” said Irvin for Illinois spokesperson Eleni Demertzis. “On top of his anti-police bill, today Pritzker has again turned his back on the police by continuing to support the confirmation of these candidates. Pritzker should withdraw their appointments permanently, and if he refuses, the Illinois Senate should vote to reject them.”
Illinois faced revenue shortages during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As revenues plummeted by more than $1.1 billion, Illinois did not have reserves to help fund emergency supplies, such as Personal Protective Equipment for the state’s public health response.
Illinois had to borrow from the Federal Reserve so medical bills could be paid to Illinois health-care providers fighting on the front lines of the pandemic. Borrowing was a last resort, given that Illinois didn’t have other options like a Rainy Day Fund to draw from.
With only about $60,000 in the state’s Rainy Day Fund at the time — which would cover less than 30 seconds worth of state operations — Illinois’ reserves were grossly inadequate in terms of providing the resources needed to properly address the public health crisis caused by the pandemic.
State Senator Darren Bailey launched a nearly $400,000 TV ad campaign touting proven conservative of standing up and fighting with parents and students and against the failed establishment in Springfield. In addition, Bailey’s campaign released the following statement.
“Republicans deserve a nominee who is actually a Republican. Working families and taxpayers deserve a Governor who will stand up to the failed establishment in both parties and fight for them. Darren Bailey is the conservative choice and the only one in this race with a proven record of standing up and fighting against Pritzker’s mandates and failed and extreme national agenda. Darren has fought against every tax increase in Springfield. In addition, he has fought for law enforcement, safer communities, and bringing more opportunities to Illinois. We have led in every poll in this primary, and this ad buy will only build on the momentum our grassroots movement continues to build.”
Announcer: A 3rd Generation farmer, Darren Bailey learned the values of hard work, honesty and faith.
Darren took those values to Springfield. Stood up to the Madigan machine – fighting every single tax increase. Sued Governor Pritzker AND WON to keep Illinois open.
Now Darren is running for governor with a plan to cut taxes…
…Increase police funding.
…and prevent voter fraud.
Darren Bailey, the only true conservative Republican for Governor.
* In this case, it’s an approp bill. Press release…
Law enforcement in Illinois needs an estimated $759 million in state funding to pay for all the new mandated training, combat the surge in violence and address a growing shortage of officers at the state and local level, according to an analysis from the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police released March 28, 2022.
“As we have said many times in recent years, we welcome more training, we welcome new technologies such as body cameras and license plate readers, and we want to be held accountable in an increasingly transparent world,” said ILACP Executive Director Ed Wojcicki.
“But it costs money to do all of this, and legislators and others have been asking how much. Now we know: It is at least $759 million as an initial investment in public safety in Illinois.”
The Illinois Chiefs’ detailed analysis has five major categories and encourages the General Assembly to fund these items before adjourning next month:
Technology and Equipment $206.5 million
ILETSB and Training $96.5 million
Community Policing and Community Engagement $100.0 million
Recruitment and Retention $276.4 million
Officer Wellness Programs $80.0 million
“We also now know that about 60% of Illinois law enforcement agencies are not fully staffed; they have shortages and are having a more difficult time recruiting and retaining officers,” Wojcicki added.
“Some officers are retiring. Some are going into other lines of work, and some are going to other states that they consider to be more police friendly, such as Indiana and Missouri.”
Legislators are considering a bill aiming to bring more accountability and transparency to tax increment financing, a funding tool used by many municipalities to pay for economic development projects in areas considered blighted and run down.
Some suburban communities are among the groups opposing the legislation they argue will limit their ability to spur economic development. But many school districts, park districts and similar taxing bodies support it, because they believe it will limit the amount of tax money that TIFs draw away from them. […]
The proposal introduced by Gillespie and co-sponsored by state Sen. Melinda Bush, a Grayslake Democrat, limits the life span of a TIF to 10 years instead of 23 years. And the joint review board, which is made up of one representative from each taxing body and one member of the public, has the power to approve or disapprove the extension of a TIF to 15 years. Currently, the legislature must approve a TIF extension for up to 35 years.
* Press release…
State Senator Bill Cunningham advanced a measure in the Illinois Senate that makes it easier for callers to reach 9-1-1 from hotels and businesses during an emergency on Thursday.
“This initiative will help ensure a quick response during times of an emergency,” said Cunningham, a Democrat who represents portions of Chicago and the Southwest Suburbs. “We are removing barriers that hinder people from calling 9-1-1 and making it easier for first responders to locate the caller.”
Under current law, multi-line telephone systems require dialing “9″ or another number to reach an outside line. Places like businesses, hotels and government buildings use these systems to handle two or more calls coming in at the same time. Under the new law, MLTS vendors and manufacturers must configure new systems to support direct dialing 9-1-1.
The goal of this legislation is protect people and specifically children. In 2013, a women was killed in a hotel room by her estranged husband. Her daughter attempted to call 9-1-1 four times, but the calls never went through because the hotel’s multi-line telephone system required her to dial “9” before making an outbound call. Illinois will follow suit with other states who have already passed this legislation.
House Bill 5502 will also update regulation on multi-line systems to provide accurate information about the caller’s location within a building or complex. Far too often, large hotels or complexes use multi-line systems and it is difficult for emergency response to get an exact location on the caller. This ensures people who need help during an emergency are able to be located by first responders.
“This legislation will save lives and could save your child’s life,” Cunningham said. “I want to thank the Illinois State Police for bringing this issue to our attention.”
House Bill 5502 passed the Energy & Public Utility Committee on Thursday and awaits further consideration before the full Senate.
We’re in the midst of “petition challenge” season, when candidates and their allies try to knock their opponents out of races by challenging signatures they’ve gathered to get on the ballot.
The process of gathering petition signatures in Illinois is burdensome and outdated. And those expensive and time-consuming challenges can keep good people out of office, especially those who lack the wealth or party connections they need to play the game.
Luckily, there’s a solution. Reform for Illinois worked with state Rep. Kelly Cassidy to introduce HB 4966, which would allow election authorities to adopt digital signature programs. These programs dramatically reduce invalid signatures and help avoid challenges.
The legislature has a chance to make life easier for candidates and improve representation for Illinoisans. We urge lawmakers to bring our state into the 21st century and adopt this common sense reform.
If you think the ever-present attorney advertisements that you see in Illinois are an eyesore, get ready to see more of them if a bill passes the Illinois General Assembly and is signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
As someone who watches the cost of insurance and is concerned about the factors that drive costs up, I’m worried that a piece of legislation zooming through the House and Senate is not being vetted appropriately and has the potential to increase insurance costs for everyone.
Senate Bill 1099 is being pushed by influential trial lawyers who benefit from big-ticket lawsuit settlements. The bill would allow third-party investors to “loan” money to people who have been hurt while they wait for their court cases to move through the legal system. The “lenders” would be allowed to charge interest rates to the injured of 18% every six months for nearly four years.
That’s predatory. It should not be allowed to become law. The end result would be more abuse of personal injury litigation, which would drive up the costs of insurance for all of us.
- James Coston, CEO, Corridor Rail Development Corp.
* Press release…
Today, the Gun Violence Prevention PAC (G-PAC) and State Representative Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) announced the introduction of House Bill 5731, new legislation to protect communities from dangerous ghost guns.
“Ghost guns pose a great threat to our communities. Unregulated by the federal government, these homemade firearms are flooding our streets and taking too many innocent lives,” said State Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago). “To be blunt, these are weapons that are used so one can’t get caught. I am proud to introduce life-saving legislation that will stop ghost guns from harming our state.”
“These untraceable, homemade ghost guns are a clear and present danger to our communities,” said Kathleen Sances, President and CEO of G-PAC. “Their easy availability is a constant threat to children, families and first responders and provides deadly firepower for people, especially white supremacist and terrorist groups, who want to commit acts of violence without being detected.”
This piece of legislation cracks down on these unregulated firearms that anyone - including minors and prohibited purchasers - can buy and build without a background check. Parts and kits to build these unserialized and untraceable weapons can be bought online and assembled at home in just 15 minutes. They are also intentionally marketed as unregulated and untraceable to appeal to those who want to avoid background checks and gun traffickers.
House Bill 5731 will ensure that:
• The transfer, purchase, manufacture, importation, and possession of ghost guns is illegal
• Printing ghost guns with 3-D printers is prohibited
• Guns that are currently unserialized can become serialized and trackable
Nationwide, law enforcement discovered 10,000 ghost guns in 2019, but countless others are on the streets. However, there are no federal restrictions on who can buy gun kits or parts or on how many someone can buy. The absence of national leadership has led ten states to implement laws regulating ghost guns to keep their children, families and communities safe from gun violence.
Ghost guns make up a growing percentage of gun violence across the country, which has claimed more than nine thousand lives so far this year. Chicago police confiscated 455 ghost guns in 2021 (more than twice as many as in New York City), andmore than 40% of guns recovered by California ATF officers in 2020 were ghost guns.
Alongside Rep. Buckner and G-PAC’s Kathleen Sances, advocates from Brady United and Moms Demand Action Illinois joined the press conference and spoke in support of the new bill.
“We cannot continue to allow gun traffickers to control our communities with fear and bloodshed,” said Annliese Dickman, City Program Manager for Brady United. “Ghost guns pose a major threat to every single person in our state, and we need to pass an essential policy that limits the possession of these dangerous weapons.”
“Ghost guns are dangerous, impossible to trace, and too easy to obtain without a background check – and they don’t belong in our communities,” said Maria Pike, a survivor of gun violence and volunteer with Moms Demand Action Illinois. “Protecting our communities from ghost guns cannot wait, especially as gun violence continues to devastate our state and ghost guns are turning up with alarming frequency at crime scenes in Illinois. We’re grateful to stand here today and join the call for lawmakers to prioritize this critical bill.”
“As gun violence has skyrocketed in communities across Chicago, Illinois, and the country, more and more of the guns fueling it have been ghost guns,” said David Pucino, deputy chief counsel at Giffords Law Center. “These untraceable weapons are sold by cynical companies evading our gun laws to flood the streets with unregulated weapons. We need legislation to stop this, legislation that says if your company is selling the ability to make a gun you must be regulated as a gun seller. This bill will do that and we are proud to support it.”
* Press release…
As a result of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus four-pillar agenda, specifically the Education and Workforce Equity Act, State Senator Kimberly A. Lightford (D-Maywood) announced a $17 million grant to create the first-ever state-funded Freedom Schools network.
“Freedom Schools have a proud history and major significance for African Americans,” Lightford said. “These schools represent a long tradition of engaged citizenship, personal empowerment and academic excellence. I know this experience will have a positive impact on students, their families, and the whole community.”
Because of the monumental education package to rid Illinois of systemic racism, the Phillip Jackson Freedom School Grant was created to ensure Black students receive quality education across the state.
The Phillip Jackson Freedom Schools will offer students a wide range of academic and social learning opportunities, provide quality teaching experiences, a progressive school climate and an equitable curriculum. The first Freedom School was created in the 1960s to allow marginalized communities to get the same educational opportunities as their white counterparts.
Also, the Philip Jackson Freedom School will guarantee teachers feel empowered by the community to ensure students are getting the representation and leadership they need.
“Better representation is important for students of color as they statically do better and stay longer in school,” Lightford said. “The Philip Jackson Schools is warranted to liberate not only our Black students but also our Black teachers.”
Lightford is honored that the Freedom Schools network is named after the life of Philip Jackson, a longtime advocate of educating youth in Chicago public schools and metropolitan areas.
The Phillip Jackson Freedom School Grant application is now open to public schools and universities, community colleges, and not-for-profits, community-based organizations.
* The Tribune spent a decade writing stories about annual population estimates, and the paper’s editorial board published dozens of “exodus” screeds in response. Let’s be clear here. There’s zero doubt that people are leaving Illinois for other states (and the same thing is happening elsewhere, too), but the woman featured in this Tribune story says at the very end that she’s planning to come back to Chicago. And there’s nothing in the story about how the intense hype of the past decade concluded with only a tiny net population decline…
Dayna Lynn Nuckolls spent most of her life in Chicago and the south suburbs but was already planning to leave when COVID-19 struck.
She was fed up with the winters and conflicts in Chicago Public Schools, and when the pandemic boosted her business — she’s an astrologer and spiritualist — she made the leap, taking her young child with her to New Orleans.
“I think the energy of migration has been very high,” said Nuckolls, 38. “It’s been a much more supportive environment to make big moves like that. The timing just worked out for me.”
When Nuckolls left the Chicago area in July 2020, she was on the cusp of a trend: More than 100,000 people in Chicagoland followed suit over the next year, migrating to other domestic destinations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In all, accounting for other population changes due to birth, death and international migration, metro Chicago lost more than 91,000 people between July 2020 and July 2021, aligning with other large metro areas that saw people flee cities as the pandemic continued to upend life in 2021, according to new population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
…Adding… Oops. Forgot to include this. From the US Census Bureau…
Coverage estimates from the [Post-Enumeration Survey] varied by race and Hispanic origin. DA coverage estimates for these characteristics are not yet available. As further explained in the Using Demographic Benchmarks to Help Evaluate 2020 Census Results blog, DA will first need to reconcile differences in how vital records categorize race with census results not yet released.
The PES data show that:
• The Black or African American alone or in combination population had a statistically significant undercount of 3.30%. This is not statistically different from the 2.06% undercount in 2010.
• The Hispanic or Latino population had a statistically significant undercount rate of 4.99%. This is statistically different from a 1.54% undercount in 2010.
• American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination populations living on reservations show a statistically significant undercount rate of 5.64%. This was not statistically different from a 4.88% undercount in 2010. The American Indian or Alaska Native population alone or in combination living in American Indian areas, but not living on reservations, was not statistically different from zero in 2020 or 2010.
• The non-Hispanic White alone population had a statistically significant overcount rate of 1.64%. This is statistically different from an overcount of 0.83% in 2010.
• The Asian alone or in combination population had an overcount rate of 2.62%. This is statistically different from 0.00% in 2010.
• The Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander alone or in combination population had an estimated overcount rate of 1.28%. This rate is not different from an estimated 1.02% overcount rate in 2010. Both are not statistically different from zero.
Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Director Marc Smith has now been slapped with an eighth contempt of court order for failing to place a teen in the department’s care appropriately.
The order was issued by Juvenile Court Judge and former County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy.
In this case, a 14-year-old girl was taken into temporary DCFS custody last September. Since then, she has been moved 21 times. She was stuck in a psychiatric hospital and was then moved around to different shelters, hospital emergency rooms, DCFS offices, and emergency foster placements.
In February, the judge ordered DCFS to place the teen in a residential facility. That order was not carried out, and the teen ran away.
Building more emergency shelters and funding more foster homes seems on the surface to be a logical way to start improving a troubled child welfare system in Illinois.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has been beset by images of children sleeping in department offices because they have nowhere else to go, reports of children spending too much time in restrictive psychiatric facilities, and a lack of sufficient foster parents to accommodate children who have been removed from their families.
The department has issued three calls for proposals asking providers to submit plans for building emergency shelter capacity, emergency foster homes and programming for youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The proposals address the apparent shortage of housing and services for many of the state’s most vulnerable youth.
But a group that has been at odds with DCFS for decades about how the department cares for those caught up in the child welfare system has blasted the proposals as the wrong thing at the wrong time.
“This is precisely the sort of ill-considered, misdirected, counterproductive, fiscally irresponsible, and panic-driven activity that Plaintiffs have been working to prevent” during ongoing litigation, reads a recent post on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) website.
“It is troubling that the department is actively encouraging providers to develop more shelter beds and emergency foster homes to serve the ‘one percent of youth’ DCFS acknowledges it currently struggles to place – those who are stuck in psychiatric hospitals beyond medical necessity, those stranded in emergency rooms due to lack of psychiatric hospital capacity and those who have lost their placement due to extreme behaviors.”
“Every expert has told the department that these youth do not belong in shelters, and DCFS knows from its own failed experience that these youth are not accepted by emergency foster homes because they lack the supports to address these youths’ severe, immediate needs,” the post concludes.
So if more emergency services aren’t the answer, how do you fix the Illinois child welfare system?
After a judge last week issued a contempt of court order for the eighth time against Department of Children and Family Services Director Marc Smith, Aurora Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Richard Irvin is calling on JB Pritzker to remove him from his post noting children in the state’s care are continuously put in unsafe conditions.
Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert called the agency “a colossal waste of taxpayer money,” and noted that the current dysfunction happening at DCFS is something he has never witnessed prior to the Pritzker Administration:
“In the more than 30 years that I’ve been practicing in Juvenile Court, I cannot recall a single prior instance where a judge held the DCFS director in contempt. And now it’s happened eight times in eleven weeks. That’s how dysfunctional DCFS has become.”
This is just another chapter in the string of failures at Pritzker’s state agencies.
“It’s a disgrace that JB Pritzker has allowed this critical agency to falter to the point that multiple court interventions have been required to protect vulnerable children in the state’s care,” said Irvin. “Decisive action must be taken in order to improve DCFS and ensure that no other children are wrongfully put in dangerous situations and abandoned by the state. Pritzker needs to take ownership of this failure and find a new responsible director who will right the wrongs of this agency.”
* Response from the Pritzker campaign…
Instead of using vulnerable children as political pawns, Richard Irvin should finally own up to the fact that he explicitly advertised his legal services to abusive parents and promised to defend them against their rights being terminated for abuse or neglect.
The team running and bankrolling Irvin’s campaign are the very same people who orchestrated some of the most devastating cuts to DCFS the state has ever seen and the impact of Rauner’s budget slashes are still being felt today. Governor Pritzker remains committed to righting those wrongs by investing in help for children in our state’s care.
…Adding… From an NBC 5 story, here’s Sen. Darren Bailey’s response…
I’m sick and tired of hearing this blame on Rauner or on Trump, or whatever it is they want to blame it on. Take responsibility and make changes. Director Smith has been in charge of DCFS since day one.
* John Amdor and I were talking last week about the legislative efforts to pass a crime bill this session and during the course of the evening he mentioned a couple of bills that he thought were important. I asked him to submit something for possible publication. Amdor is a lobbyist with the firm Nekritz, Amdor and Andersson, which represents the John Howard Association, the Illinois Justice Project and the Juvenile Justice Initiative…
Over the past ten years, I’ve been fortunate to learn from law enforcement leaders about the challenges women and men in their field face and what they believe ought to change. When I discuss gun violence and prevention with my neighbors on the South Side of Chicago, it strikes me that their vision and desire for what policing and public safety should be isn’t so dissimilar from what law enforcement officers want.
The unifying thread between rank-and-file law enforcement and those they serve is the desire for mutual respect and trust founded on a common set of facts about community needs. They want a system where people know that their fundamental rights are honored. They also want a system where their person and property are secure.
Gun violence has risen across the country and it’s clear that communities in every part of Illinois don’t feel protected. Last year, the state continued a recent trend of increasing money for law enforcement and funded violence prevention programs at a level that finally began matching the scale of the problem. But that funding has not hit the streets and there isn’t a way for the public and policymakers to understand what is being done and how it’s working.
The system we have doesn’t allow information about public safety and security to flow between police, policymakers, and the public. Political choices determine how the government collects and distributes policing data. That means neither cops nor citizens have confidence that resources and manpower are distributed efficiently, effectively, or fairly.
The good news is that we have an opportunity to make new choices. There are proposals before the General Assembly right now that can help strip the politics from law enforcement and meaningfully contribute to stronger relationships between police and communities.
Leader Jaime Andrade has introduced HB5212. The bill would end the practice of recording shooting incidents as criminal damage to property. There aren’t many people who think that a bullet coming through a window is in the same realm as vandalism. But that’s what happens too often and it’s not fair to residents who feel scared in their own homes and can’t receive the resources they deserve when the data doesn’t support them.
Senator Elgie Sims’ SB3937 requires the Chicago Police Department to report their investigations’ “clearance rates.” The bill ensures the public can hold their leaders accountable and helps administrators more effectively allocate police resources throughout the city.
These are two examples of legislation that the General Assembly could pass to help continue expanding data-driven policing and evidence-based public safety. Alongside these, the state should better coordinate and measure the effectiveness of the billions spent each year on policing, probation, prison, and community-based violence prevention.
People understand gun violence, carjackings, and property crimes can’t be eliminated overnight. But they do expect they’re told the truth about the scope of the problems and the nature of the solutions. There’s an opportunity in the next two weeks to pass some bills that do just that. Let’s get it done.
Nearly four years ago, legislation that aimed to help low-income electricity customers was making its way to the floor of an Illinois House chamber tightly controlled by its longtime speaker, Michael Madigan.
The bill’s main advocate: Madigan’s daughter, then-Attorney General Lisa Madigan. One of its primary opponents: Commonwealth Edison, the state’s largest electric utility.
By the time the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session was over, ComEd won — because, according to federal prosecutors, Michael Madigan paved the way.
In what may be one of the most intriguing chapters of the federal indictment filed earlier this month against ex-Speaker Madigan, prosecutors alleged he greenlighted efforts to kill his own daughter’s legislation as he pressed ComEd to give jobs to two political allies, including a coveted position on the utility’s board of directors.
“His own daughter’s legislation” is a bit much. They were occasionally at odds, even when she was in the Senate. It was nothing personal with him, just business. And maybe crooked business, if the feds are proved right.
Even today, ComEd said it opposed the plan “because it would have hurt customers.” The utility estimated it would have cost customers $20 million upfront to cover expenses, such as customer system modifications and training, as well as an additional $146 million annually, ComEd’s Shannon Breymaier said.
“It would have put significant restrictions on ComEd’s ability to collect utility service charges from customers who could afford to pay their bills and required costly changes to ComEd’s billing and collection systems,” Breymaier said in an email. “Those costs ultimately would have been paid by our customers, not ComEd.”
Following a review by state bureaucracies, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office has lifted a freeze on funding for projects earmarked by Illinois’ now-indicted former House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The temporary freeze came after a group of nine Democratic state representatives requested it in the wake of Madigan’s 22-count indictment on corruption charges on March 2. […]
But two days after their initial letter to Pritzker the same group of lawmakers, led by State Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, backtracked and asked Pritzker to unfreeze the funding after getting pushback from other lawmakers in the state’s Latino caucus. […]
In an email to the BGA on Wednesday, the governor’s top spokeswoman said the review has been completed and the governor ordered the funds released in a March 11 letter. The governor’s office also provided the memos from state agencies detailing the results of the review.
There is no indication in the documents provided to suggest the Pritzker-ordered reviews touched on the lawmakers’ initial requests to examine whether the projects were “appropriate” or whether any conflicts of interest existed.
A few chapters are set pieces, capturing the vicissitudes of Illinois politics. There is the drama of June 30, 1988, as Republican Governor Jim Thompson joins Madigan to try to fund a new ballpark for the White Sox when the team is all but on a plane to Florida. The deed had to be done before midnight, when a change in the legislature’s makeup would doom the effort. But Madigan “made time stand still”—literally. He stopped the clock at midnight so that he and Thompson could twist arms while opponents sang that “Na na na na / Na na na na / Hey, hey-ey, goodbye” song that Sox fans use to jeer opposing pitchers off the field.
The episode is so much fun, with that near-biblical stopping of the sun, that it’s possible to overlook—puff away the obfuscating fog of fandom—that government officials were bending the law to put public money into the pockets of a private business.
There’s a chapter on “Operation Cobra,” Madigan’s stealth plan to temporarily raise the state’s income tax in 1989. It passed the House in less than a day with only Democratic votes.
Long said that the legislative attack “caught Thompson totally surprised,” writing that it was “the biggest raw power play I ever saw Speaker Madigan pull off.”
By contrast, when lawmakers voted in 2017 to approve a Madigan-backed plan to end the state’s two-year budget impasse, Long said that Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner “knew it was coming and he couldn’t do anything about it because Madigan outmaneuvered him politically.”
The old-timers’ Operation Cobra stories often kept me awake at night wondering if I’d talked to enough people that day to ensure I didn’t get surprised like Thompson was.
hTe specter of former House Speaker Michael Madigan is entering the campaign on how the City Council’s ward maps will be redrawn.
In a new poll commissioned by the Latino Caucus and its supporters, respondents were informed that the Chicago United map supported by the City Council’s Rules Committee and the Black Caucus “was drafted by Michael Madigan’s lawyer.”
According to a polling memo obtained by Playbook, more than two-thirds, 69 percent, of respondents indicated “that is a convincing reason to vote against the Chicago United map.”
The memo states: “Perceptions of Madigan aren’t just negative, they are intensely negative — nearly two-thirds (64 percent) give him a strongly unfavorable rating. Negative perceptions of Madigan extend across all regions of the city and important voter subgroups like Democrats (84 percent unfavorable), Independents (85 percent unfavorable), and white voters (91 percent unfavorable).”
And just in case we didn’t get it, the memo continues, “Madigan is nearly universally disliked in Chicago.”
OK, except the Latino Caucus has a Madigan person of their own working on the remap. So, if they go there, the other side may as well and any advantage goes up in smoke.
Chicago City Clerk Anna Valencia, who is running as a Democrat for Illinois Secretary of State, has amended her statements of financial interests after questions raised by NBC 5.
Valencia’s husband Reyahd Kazmi is a lobbyist, and as required, Valencia must list any companies that do business with the city that her spouse/or partner received compensation for of more than $5,000 a year.
Valencia initially amended her 2021 forms on March 15 after NBC 5 first revealed Valencia did not list Monterrey Security, a company with clout-heavy city contracts. Besides Monterrey Security, Valencia also amended her 2021 form to include two other businesses that were not listed initially: Chicago Commons and Black Dog Corporation.
On Friday, the Chicago Board of Ethics has posted on its website that Valencia has amended her 2020 ethics statements.
Valencia’s campaign spokesman, insisting the amendment was done the same day on March 15, forwarded to NBC 5 a form her campaign says was emailed to the Board of Ethics, but the form had no one’s name on it and was not dated or signed. The word “amendment” was misspelled. […]
If Valencia should become the Secretary of State she would be in charge of the registration of lobbyists.
After the Illinois House and Senate voted to pass legislation to partially pay down the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund debt, top Democratic leaders gathered for a Statehouse press conference to boast about their accomplishment.
Yes, they admitted, it was only a partial pay down. The debt is $4.5 billion, and they patched it with $2.7 billion in federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act. But the Democrats pointed out Illinois is using a higher percentage of its federal ARPA aid on its debt than surrounding states, including Indiana.
Most states had to borrow money from the federal government when the 2020 COVID shutdowns created an unprecedented flood of unemployment benefit applications, and states simply didn’t have enough money on hand to meet the enormous demand. But the Democratic spin avoided the fact that surrounding states didn’t have the same level of crushing debt as Illinois.
While Indiana and Illinois both underfunded their trust funds before the pandemic, Indiana’s resulting problem wasn’t as great as Illinois’ partly because that state was more aggressive than Illinois about reopening businesses earlier in the pandemic. But that Hoosier decision came with a different and much more devastating cost, because Indiana’s COVID death rate is significantly higher than in Illinois rate, and it’s even higher when you look at the figures after vaccines were widely available.
Perhaps more to the point, Indiana and other states, unlike Illinois, used a significant chunk of their Trump-era CARES Act allotment to pay down their trust fund debts, so their resulting need for ARPA money to shore up their funds just wasn’t as critical as ours. Illinois’ budget situation at the height of the pandemic was, of course, worse than surrounding states because of decades of fiscal mismanagement here, so the CARES Act money was desperately needed elsewhere.
Business groups were generally upbeat after the bill’s passage. A joint business statement called the legislation a “positive step” toward “addressing” the “massive” shortfall in the trust fund.
“We’re hopeful that negotiations will continue to resolve the remaining balance of this unprecedented deficit,” said the statement from the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Businesses of Illinois and the Associated General Contractors of Illinois.
The appreciation from business groups was definitely not matched by the Republicans’ tone. They fretted that since all the debt wasn’t eliminated, the rest would have to come from employer tax hikes and worker benefit cuts. Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie issued a statement predicting the bill will have a “devastating” impact on businesses — the same businesses whose industry representatives called the bill a “positive step.”
The Republican crocodile tears over potential benefit cuts for unemployed workers is super rich for a party that almost uniformly demanded those very same unemployment benefits be slashed last year so the resulting poverty would force people back to their lousy jobs. I mean, I was born at night, but not last night.
Democrats were also quick to point out that not a single congressional Republican voted for ARPA in the first place. So, Illinois Republicans are angry about not getting their way on how the ARPA money was spent when their party didn’t want the ARPA money to begin with.
The Democrats showed some political acumen by including other debt elimination in the bill, including paying off all the remaining debt in the College Illinois program and spending $300 million more on pension debt than required by law.
The package also included paying off close to a billion dollars in past-due debt for public employee and retiree group health insurance. The provision is a godsend for Springfield-area health providers, which have dealt forever with a state that has shown little to no interest in their fiscal well-being.
Yet every Republican in that region voted against the bill, including appointed Rep. Sandy Hamilton (R-Springfield). Hamilton is challenging Sen. Doris Turner (D-Springfield), and her “No” vote will likely be used against her this fall.
But, hey, the state’s wealthiest resident, Ken Griffin, is basically calling the shots for the GOP this election year because he has an abundance of what Republicans so desperately need right now: cash.
And you could bet your house (and the Senate) that Griffin would be very angry if the Republicans signed on to any sort of measure that could possibly involve future tax hikes on businesses.
Griffin was also no fan of the federal ARPA program, by the way.
