Question of the day
Tuesday, Apr 26, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Sen. Darren Bailey sat down with Crain’s Chicago Business the other day…
Greg Hinz: Are you glad to see those ads from the Democratic Governors Association?
Darren Bailey: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I dig ‘em And, that’s beautiful because, you know, the establishment on both sides don’t believe that some farmer from Southern Illinois would ever be a governor. But here’s what they don’t understand - and it’s actually one of the same things that got President Trump elected - a grassroots movement, people who have never been involved people who have been forgotten. We’ve seen this many times in history when people rise up because they’ve had enough. And that is certainly what we’re doing in Illinois.
* The Question: Do you think embracing the DGA ad campaign on his behalf is the best approach for Bailey? Explain.
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Campaign notebook
Tuesday, Apr 26, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Daily Herald has Catalina Lauf’s burn rate…
The Catalina for Congress committee started the quarter with about $255,976 saved. It reported collecting about $156,144 during the period.
Nearly all of Lauf’s cash came from individual donors. Only two reported donations came from political action committees: $2,200 from a former Republican candidate for a county office in Ohio; and $2,000 from Republican congressional candidate Joe Kent in Washington state.
Team Lauf spent about $263,879 on consultants’ fees, printing, travel and more during the quarter, roughly 169% of the total that came in.
She appears to be paying through the nose for fundraising expenses and consultants, but not a lot of actual voter contact.
* The opposite is happening with the so-called Ken Griffin slate, so the Democratic Party of Illinois has questions…
How Is It Possible To Run a Statewide Campaign on $37?
Griffin Slate Candidates Run on Transparency While Hiding Campaign Spending
According to the Chicago Tribune, Griffin slate candidates Steve Kim (Attorney General), Shannon Teresi (Comptroller), and John Milhiser (Secretary of State) all had one thing in common — they barely spent any money.
- Kim reported just $37.87 in expenditures
- Teresi reported just $164.02 in expenditures
- Milhiser reported just $467.23 in expenditures
How could it be possible for candidates to run for statewide office for months, especially as part of a $20 million coordinated slate, and spend so little money on their campaigns?
Kim, Teresi, and Milhiser have all put transparency and good government at the center of their campaigns. It’s time for them to be transparent with reporters and voters — and explain exactly what they’re hiding from the public.
When asked by the Tribune, an Irvin campaign employee claimed “to the extent that any cost is presented to the campaigns, it will be paid and disclosed properly.”
What about the costs around preparing, circulating, and filing petitions? Who is running these candidates’ communications programs? Was anyone paid for these campaign websites or social media videos? What about legal and compliance fees? Are these costs being hidden from the public?
Are we supposed to believe these campaigns, which have been active for more than two months, simply haven’t incurred any costs? It’s time for these candidates to come clean about what’s really going on inside their campaigns.
* Back to the Daily Herald in the same GOP primary race to take on Bill Foster…
[Cassandra] Tanner Miller’s campaign started fundraising last quarter and ended the period deep under water financially, her report showed. It collected $2,525 in donations, spent less than $600 and reported $48,302 in debts to vendors and consultants.
Oof.
* Politico…
Donald Trump is hosting a fundraiser for Republican Rep. Mary Miller on Wednesday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach — and the former president is expected to sit down with GOP governor candidate Darren Bailey, too.
Bailey bought a ticket to the fundraiser. And Bailey isn’t the only Republican gubernatorial candidate hoping for Trump’s nod. Gary Rabine seems to think he has a shot.
* Also Politico…
Five of the six top Republican candidates for governor appeared at a Washington, Ill., forum last night to address a range of issues, including the economy and Second Amendment. Darren Bailey, Gary Rabine, Paul Schimpf, Jesse Sullivan, and Max Solomon all attended.
The biggest applause came toward the end of the event when Bailey walked across the stage and pointed to an empty chair where Richard Irvin would have been seated. “I want to talk about this empty seat,” Bailey said, pausing for the audience to cheer for a while. Bailey then accused Irvin of “grossly” lying while on the campaign trail. Bailey said Irvin may talk about cutting taxes, “but he raised taxes in Aurora.” And Irvin’s running mate, Avery Bourne, once told Bailey to put on his mask while he was fighting the mask mandate in the General Assembly. “Friends, enough is enough,” Bailey said.
Bailey raised taxes when he was on the school board.
* Subscribers know more, but here’s Politico…
Becky Levin, a gun-violence prevention advocate, has dropped out of the race for the 13th state rep seat that’s now held by Democratic Majority Leader Greg Harris.. That leaves Eileen Dordek as the only woman in the race with four men. Dordek has $200,000 cash on hand, while her four opponents have a combined $90,000 or so. Yesterday, Dordek was endorsed by Sen. Dick Durbin, the AFLCIO, and Personnel PAC, the abortion rights group.
That story originally claimed that Levin was a gun rights advocate. We all make mistakes, I suppose. Also, it’s Personal PAC. Oops. And, while the group has not yet posted its endorsements, Dordek is likely a lock because she is the organization’s former board chair.
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When it rains, it pours
Tuesday, Apr 26, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Half a billion in essentially “found” GRF revenue…
April 22, 2022
ATTORNEY GENERAL RAOUL: ILLINOIS RECEIVES OVER $800 MILLION FROM TOBACCO MANUFACTURERS
Money Includes Annual Tobacco Master Settlement Payment and More than $540 Million from Recent Settlement with Manufacturers
Chicago — Attorney General Kwame Raoul today announced Illinois has received more than $804 million from tobacco manufacturers as part of the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). In addition to receiving its annual MSA payment, more than $258 million, Illinois has also received more than $546 million tobacco manufacturers were recently required to release. The funding had previously been withheld from annual MSA payments to the state.
“Although Illinois has prevailed in both arbitrations conducted so far, the process became so cumbersome and drawn out that Illinois has had to wait too long to receive the money it is owed. Without this settlement, that would be the case for years to come,” Raoul added. “This settlement, which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars now and resolves the dispute for the next six years, is a much better resolution for Illinois than waiting decades to receive the money owed.”
Ka-ching!
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Well, that’s one reason to vote for the guy
Tuesday, Apr 26, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Um…
Co-host of Chicago’s Morning Answer on AM-560, [Amy] Jacobson said she saw Irvin at a fundraiser hosted by Chicago’s “Common Sense Conservatives” Friday on the city’s Northwest Side.
Jacobson said she had questions for the first time Republican candidate, but he avoided her.
“Richard Irvin walked in, I waited for two minutes and walked up to him. No idea about the show. I don’t think he knows (AM 560) exists,” she said. “He kept avoiding me. I’d go from room to room trying to talk to him.”
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* Sun-Times…
Crime and violence cost Chicago billions each year: Lost lives and hospital costs for victims; lost tax revenue from falling property values and residents leaving the city; economic growth when businesses choose to locate someplace safer.
And the city spends a lot on crime fighting. The Chicago Police Department annual budget is just under $2 billion. Cook County budgets $1.4 billion for the Sheriff’s department, jail, and criminal court system. The state prison system, which gets nearly half its inmates from Cook County, costs another $1.5 billion.
The cost to address this ain’t a huge amount when looked at in the broader context…
A report by the privately funded anti-violence program Chicago CRED estimates the city would have to spend $405 million per year for five years — in addition to what it currently spends — to reduce crime to the levels of big city peers New York or Los Angeles.
In a speech to the City Club of Chicago last month, University of Chicago Crime Lab Director Jens Ludwig suggested an even higher number: $1 billion per year for violence prevention spending and increased policing, to reduce crime in Chicago by 50%. […]
CRED estimates that combined [2022] funding from foundations, the city, state and federal government for violence prevention programs will total $184 million — double the spending in 2021, and roughly what CRED estimates needs to go to anti-violence spending annually.
But not all of that money will be well-spent, just like much of the money that’s currently spent on the “traditional” system.
* Sun-Times editorial…
Three years ago, we were hopeful about the early success of READI Chicago, a relatively new anti-violence outreach program that targets high-risk men on the South and West sides. […]
The study of READI, which stands for Rapid Employment and Development Initiative, used what’s considered the “gold standard” for scientific research: a randomized controlled trial that compared men who enrolled in the program with a control group of men who were turned away.
The U of C study is the first of its kind to evaluate a large group with the same statistical rigor and method used to evaluate medical treatments.
Altogether, 2,500 men were tracked. The findings were striking.
The men enrolled in the 18-month READI course were two-thirds less likely to be arrested for a violent crime and nearly 20% less likely to be shot compared with the men who weren’t taking part in the program.
The men who were recruited by outreach workers — rather than community members or through other means — showed even more promise: Their arrests dropped by almost 80% and they were nearly 50% less likely to be shot.
Those statistics are especially noteworthy, given that a third of the men in READI had been shot at before they joined the program and racked up an average of 17 arrests.
* How it works…
The level of [Chicago] violence stunned Sylvester, a 36-year-old Chicago native, when he returned to to the city in 2020 after serving a 13-year prison sentence. He figured he’d soon be in the middle of combat in his West Side neighborhood. With few job prospects and a rap sheet that stretched back to his early teens, Sylvester — who asked to be identified only by his first name — expected he’d hit up old gang contacts to get back into selling drugs to make ends meet. Instead, a friend recruited him for READI.
For 18 months, Sylvester could get paid $15 an hour to participate in daily job training and counseling sessions, including cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. The five one-hour CBT sessions each week helped rewire his thought processes and examine “risky thoughts,” he said, unwinding the reflexes his years on the street had built up.
Sylvester was drawn in by the wages, but the CBT is what kept him coming back. […]
The key components of READI’s program — cognitive behavioral therapy, a type of counseling focused on re-ordering participants’ thought patterns, had proved effective with school-age children and teens — and, in Blattman’s case, former child soldiers in Liberia. Studies had also long correlated employment, a benefit of READI’s job and educational training, to declines in criminal behavior.
But there were few programs that featured both those interventions at the same time, and most target younger men and teens who were not as deeply embroiled in urban violence, Blattman said. READI was designed to target an older demographic — the average age of homicide victims in Chicago is 27 — and enroll them in a program that would pay them to attend the daily therapy and job training, supported by “relentless engagement” from staff.
“CBT and employment are different medicine for the same people … interrupting a feud is like first aid or the emergency room, where you’re patching things up in an emergency,” Blattman said. “READI is like the vaccine. Before you go shoot someone, we’re going to equip you with the skills to keep you from ever getting in that situation.”
Violence interruption is a stopgap, crisis-based measure. Much-needed, but not the answer in and of itself. This READI program looks like outpatient rehab, and it appears to be working. Maybe the concept could be expanded to the incarcerated as well.
…Adding… WBEZ…
Pritzker’s administration set aside more than $50 million from the COVID stimulus funds for violence prevention in the budget that passed last year. The funding, to be administered through the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, offered a unique opportunity to flood resources into neighborhoods impacted by violence. But with the fiscal year almost over, the state has spent only $56,764, one-tenth of 1% of the money, as Illinois experiences its worst gun violence in decades. […]
Leo Smith, policy director for the anti-violence organization Chicago CRED, said the Illinois residents should actually be excited about the amount of planning and coordination between government agencies happening around the ARPA money.
“We’re seeing a major shift from funding individual programs to investing in a comprehensive public health system for violence intervention,” Smith said. “Almost anyone who is helping out with that shift is frustrated with the speed of it, but I think people are also encouraged by how deliberate it is.”
Smith said this is a critical time for community-based violence prevention in Illinois. Support has been building in the state for spending taxpayer money on non-policing solutions to gun violence. He worries if they rushed out these ARPA dollars, without the right amount of planning and without making sure the small groups could meet the stringent reporting requirements, it could make it harder to get public funding once the ARPA money runs out.
That last comment by Smith is very true. You can throw tons more money at enforcement and no mainstream media outlet will bat an eye. But give a few dollars to a small anti-violence group which can’t justify its expenses and all heck breaks loose.
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This has gotta change
Tuesday, Apr 26, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Let’s start with the synopsis to HB3772…
Amends the Illinois Vehicle Code. In provisions concerning the administrative adjudication of violations of traffic regulations, automated traffic law violations, and automated speed enforcement system violations, provides that a person shall not be liable for violations, fees, fines, or penalties during the period in which the motor vehicle was reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency as stolen or hijacked. … In provisions concerning administrative fees and procedures for impounding vehicles for specified violations, provides that no administrative fees shall be imposed on the registered owner or the agents of that owner if the motor vehicle was stolen or hijacked at the time the vehicle was impounded.
The bill, which is awaiting the governor’s signature, also allows victims of violence to be reimbursed for towing and storage of up to $1,000 under the Crime Victims Compensation Act.
* Now, let’s move to Crain’s…
Chicago could soon end the practice of forcing the victims of car theft and carjacking to pay towing and storage fees to retrieve their vehicle if it ends up in one of the city’s sprawling impound lots.
On Friday, the Committee on Public Safety unanimously advanced a measure to waive those fees—if the victim is able to obtain a police report verifying their car was stolen. The full City Council will likely approve it next week.
Notice that the city council apparently didn’t include waiving red light and speed cam fines for carjacking victims. But, no matter, the new state law will soon require that as well.
* Speaking of red light cams, here’s the US Attorney’s office…
The former mayor of Crestwood, Ill., was sentenced today to a year in federal prison for improperly soliciting and receiving benefits from a representative of a red-light camera company that provided services to the Chicago suburb.
LOUIS PRESTA, 71, of Crestwood, pleaded guilty last year to one count of using a facility in interstate commerce in aid of bribery and official misconduct, and one count of filing a false income tax return. U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin imposed the year-and-a-day sentence after a hearing in federal court in Chicago. […]
According to Presta’s plea agreement with the government, the red-light camera company provided camera services to Crestwood that enabled the municipality to issue tickets to motorists for certain traffic violations. While the company was attempting to provide additional such services to Crestwood, then-Mayor Presta asked for and accepted benefits from a representative of the company. Presta told the company’s representative that the percentage of red-light traffic violations that Presta approved would remain high or increase – in exchange for a cash payment to Presta from the representative, the plea agreement states.
The plea agreement describes a Feb. 27, 2018, phone call between Presta and the company’s representative in which Presta updated the representative on the higher percentage of red-light traffic violations that Crestwood approved the previous week. During the call, Presta stated, “We’re starting to get the numbers again… you got a new sheriff in town.” Shortly after that call, Presta on March 7, 2018, received a $5,000 cash bribe from the representative of the company. When subsequently questioned by federal law enforcement about his receipt of the $5,000 bribe payment, Presta falsely stated that he neither asked for nor received the $5,000 bribe.
* Aside from the corruption angle, opposition to red light and speed cams often comes from people who can normally talk themselves out of a traffic ticket, so it’s no surprise that the Tribune editorial board hates them. But they do make a good point about the companies…
Red-light cameras are supposed to snag traffic scofflaws. For the last few years, they’ve done a much better job giving a green light to corruption.
The latest nominee for the Red-Light Camera Hall of Infamy is Tony Ragucci, an ex-cop and former mayor of west suburban Oakbrook Terrace, who recently was charged by federal authorities with honest services wire fraud and filing a false tax return. Ragucci was mayor when he allegedly accepted money to permit the installation of red-light cameras in the DuPage County town he ran. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
He’s preceded by a long line of politicians who twisted whatever safety benefit red-light cameras could offer into a conduit for corruption.
They include former Crestwood Mayor Louis Presta, former state Sen. Martin Sandoval and John O’Sullivan, a former Worth Township supervisor and state lawmaker. Sandoval, who died from COVID-19 in 2020, and Presta pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from an executive at SafeSpeed, a firm that installed red-light cameras in several suburbs. He was sentenced to a year in prison Monday. Prosecutors say O’Sullivan, who also has pleaded guilty, conspired with the SafeSpeed executive and political operative Patrick Doherty to pay bribes to secure backing for the placement of more cameras in south suburban Oak Lawn.
We need a different and improved process for installing these cams which either bypasses local electeds or replaces the current system with a new one.
Maybe we should start talking about cutting these for-profit companies out of the equation altogether. I mean, the government can install traffic lights, so why can’t it install its own enforcement cameras? Why should these heavily tainted private companies be making such big bucks off of government tickets?
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* Anti-Defamation League Midwest…
Antisemitic incidents reached a historically high level across the United States in 2021, with a total of 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism reported to ADL (the Anti-Defamation League). This is the highest number of recorded incidents against American Jews since ADL started tracking such data in 1979. ADL today released its Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents for 2021.
Locally, ADL Midwest reported a total of 175 antisemitic incidents in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, combined. This was a 62% increase from the 108 combined incidents reported in 2020 – and 202% higher than the total number of incidents reported just five years ago for 2016.
Broken down, across the region in 2021, there were:
• 134 acts of antisemitic harassment, up from 73 in 2020 (an 84% increase)
• 39 acts of antisemitic vandalism, up from 34 in 2020 (a 15% increase)
• 2 acts of antisemitic assault, up from 1 in 2020 (a 100 % increase)
“Antisemitic incidents in the Midwest are reaching a watershed level, and our team is responding to incidents on a near daily basis,” saidADL Midwest Regional Director David Goldenberg. “The common thread linking the perpetrators of these incidents is not political ideology, geography, race or ethnicity: it is hate against the Jewish community - whether their own hate or hate linked to generations old antisemitic stereotypes. A wholistic, systemic approach is needed across communities in response. This includes speaking out, naming antisemitism when we see it; sharing facts through education and research; and showing strength as neighbors united against hate.”
Minnesota and Illinois are among the 20 states in the country with the highest total number of antisemitic incidents reported in 2021. Specific state-by-state totals include:
• Illinois – 15% increase from 2020 to 2021 (46 to 53), a 430% increase from 2016 (10 to 53)
• Indiana – 6% decrease from 2020 to 2021 (17 to 16), a 266% increase from 2016 (6 to 16)
• Minnesota – 226% increase from 2020 to 2021 (23 to 75), a 375% increase from 2016 (20 to 75)
• North Dakota – 100% increase from 2020 to 2021 (0 to 1), equal to increase from incidents in 2016
• South Dakota – 600% increase from 2020 to 2021 (1 to 7), a 700% increase from 2016 (0 to 7)
• Wisconsin – 10% increase from 2020 to 2021 (21 to 23), a 5% increase from 2016 (22 to 23)
In 2021, ADL Midwest also tracked a sharp increase in reported bias and hate incidents in K-12 and university environments; these incidents targeted a cross-section of historically vulnerable communities and were often heightened by tensions around masking, COVID-19, and unfounded arguments about Critical Race Theory.
A sortable and downloadable list of antisemitic incidents in the region can be viewed on ADL’s H.E.A.T. Map here.
* Sun-Times…
Nationally, the incidents have spiked 114% since 2016 and 430% locally. The data includes incidents that specifically target Jews or Jewish institutions; a swastika drawn on a random building, for example, wouldn’t be included in the ADL’s numbers.
Jews “are more concerned and feel more unsafe than they have in decades,” he said.
Goldenberg said the violence that erupted last May between Israel and Palestine led to “a significant surge” in antisemitism nationwide, though he noted there were no other clear catalysts for the “dramatic increase” throughout the year. No one was killed in any of the 88 nationwide assaults, the audit found.
Meanwhile, Goldenberg said college campuses have increasingly become hotbeds for white supremacist and antisemitic flyering campaigns, including at the University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana. The audit also revealed a 21% increase in antisemitic harassment on campuses, and Goldenberg said there’s been a “steady uptick” at Urbana-Champaign, as well as at the University of Illinois-Chicago and the University of Chicago.
Those three Illinois campuses, along with DePaul University, have also seen “anti-Israel” demonstrations “quickly turn into antisemitic activities,” Goldenberg said.
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