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Afternoon briefing

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* This game went as expected…


* Here’s your roundup…

    * Crain’s | How dark money helped the only Republican Cook County official win re-election: The official is suburban Commissioner Sean Morrison, who also happens to be the Cook County GOP chair. I wrote in September about how $200,000 mysteriously appeared in Morrison’s campaign fund in September, money that originally was donated by hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin to a group that opposed Gov J.B. Pritzker’s graduated income tax amendment in 2020. … While the Coalition to Cut Taxes isn’t registered with the elections board, it is registered as a not-for-profit with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office. The group’s registered legal agent is Chicago attorney John Fogarty–the same John Fogarty who is general counsel for the Illinois Republican Party.

    * Daily Beast | Inside the Billionaire-Backed ‘Hub for Election Denial’: VoteRef has focused its efforts not just in Arizona, but the Midwest. (The Uihleins live in Illinois and have focused much of their giving in Wisconsin.) Over the past year, VoteRef has disclosed the personal information of millions of voters as part of a broader effort to empower members of the public to search for alleged “errors” in voter rolls. (Some states make it illegal to publish voter registration rolls.)

    * Tribune | Mayor Lori Lightfoot files for reelection: ‘Only rational choice is to return me to office’: “With the filing today, one chapter in the campaign ends and another opens,” she said after submitting a stack of nominating papers that, sitting on the Board of Elections table, almost reached her shoulders. Surrounded by supporters and Chicago first lady Amy Eshleman, Lightfoot quipped that her pile of more-than-40,000 signatures “looks like enough to me” before expressing that the next focus is on telling voters “why the only rational choice is to return me to office.”

    * Blair Kamin | How do we achieve equity-driven urban design in Chicago? The city’s future depends on it. : We should keep that joyous scene and its intimations of equality in mind as Mayor Lori Lightfoot and multiple challengers battle to determine who runs Chicago and the direction the city takes in the post-pandemic, post-George Floyd era. For while the need to stanch gun violence likely will dominate the campaign, another issue, no less urgent, deserves to be on the agenda: building a more equitable Chicago.

    * Salon | The postliberal crackup: The GOP’s post-midterm civil war starts with the New Right: Earlier this month, after the midterms failed to deliver a promised “red wave,” those fights spilled into the headlines, as Republicans’ disappointed hopes led to some of the first open shots in what’s been a cold civil war over the party’s future. Partly that fight revolves around whether Donald Trump or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will lead the GOP into the 2024 presidential election. But it goes much deeper than that, and the fight also has implications that go well beyond the right.

    * Telegraph | Illinois receives $14.4M to buy locally produced food: The two-year program will involve direct purchases from eligible farmers and multiple aggregation sites where goods will be consolidated and then distributed to schools, nonprofits and food banks.

    * ABC 7 | Joliet Amazon workers stage walkout on busy Cyber Monday: The protest took place around 3 a.m. on Monday morning. This is the second walkout in two months.

    * Illinois Public Media | The pseudoscience spreading to police precincts around Illinois: A phenomenon known as 911 phone call analysis is being used by more and more police departments across the country, including in Illinois. It’s a pseudoscience that claims that what someone says, how they sound and how they act during a 911 phone call, can determine if they are calling for help, or if they are trying to cover for a crime they have committed.

    * Patch | $200,000 Settlement In Black Joliet Officer’s Discrimination Lawsuit: The city of Joliet has agreed to a $200,000 settlement to resolve retired Joliet Police Officer Lionel Allen’s racial discrimination lawsuit against the city, Joliet Patch has learned.

    * WGLT | In post-Roe America, pilots take the abortion battle to the skies: The idea for a volunteer organization that would transport women seeking abortion care, and physicians who provide it, to states where it is safe and legal to do so, began with a volunteer stint Mike did at Midwest Access Coalition. “As a pilot, I was looking for some way that I could use my skills to help people,” Mike says. “And being someone who believes in someone’s ability to make their own choices, I thought helping people access abortion could be it.”

    * Grist | Herschel Walker, South Park, and the Prius: How loving gas-guzzlers became political: When states moved to ban rolling coal, some drivers pushed back, the New York Times reported in 2016. “Why don’t you go live in Sweden and get the heck out of our country,” one diesel truck owner wrote to an Illinois state representative who proposed a $5,000 fine for removing emissions equipment. “I will continue to roll coal anytime I feel like and fog your stupid eco-cars.”

    * Can a Millstadt Republican represent all of IL House District 114? Black leaders worry: Their concerns became a reality with Republican Kevin Schmidt of Millstadt unofficially taking the House District 114 race over incumbent Democrat LaToya Greenwood of East St. Louis. The Associated Press declared him the winner, though the ballots must still be canvassed and certified. … In 2016, she had 8,195 votes from East St. Louis as part of her 26,029-vote total. Those totals dropped this year to 4,990 in East St. Louis and 17,177 districtwide, according to unofficial election results. Meanwhile, the number of votes that Stuart received in St. Clair County for District 112 increased from 4,495 in 2016 to 6,891 in 2022. Hoffman’s totals in St. Clair County in District 113 decreased from 23,533 in 2016 to 20,621 in 2022.

    * KMOV | Border protection officers seize counterfeit Super Bowl rings headed for Jerseyville, Illinois, feds say: The shipment arriving from China contained 422 rings with the image of the Lombardi Trophy. An import specialist determined the rings to be counterfeit.

  13 Comments      


Sen. Hastings will not chair a committee in new GA, but caucus is divided

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Dan Mihalopoulos at WBEZ

Embattled Illinois State Sen. Michael Hastings, D-Frankfort, is set to lose his powerful legislative committee chairmanship in the new session of the General Assembly next year, Senate President Don Harmon told WBEZ.

Harmon’s move comes after Hastings was accused of physical abuse by his ex-wife, according to police and divorce-court records.

Hastings has denied the accusations, which became public last summer, and went on to win a narrow reelection race in his south suburban district earlier this month.

But Harmon said he would not re-appoint Hastings as chairman of the influential Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee or choose him to lead any other legislative committee when the new session starts in January. […]

“The voters are one thing – the Senate and the Senate Democratic Caucus is something else,” Harmon said. “I think that Sen. Hastings’s road to rehabilitation within the caucus is likely to be long and rocky. I think he’s lost the trust of a significant number of members of the caucus.”

One veteran Democratic state senator, Mattie Hunter of Chicago, expressed support for Hastings, saying the voters’ will must be respected.

Go read the rest for more.

  19 Comments      


Pot tax cut pushed, despite continuing growth and huge retail markups

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Daily Herald

Since recreational marijuana sales were legalized statewide in January 2020, taxes and fees have generated more than $850 million for Illinois.

Last month alone, the 110 recreational dispensaries throughout Illinois collected $131,547,031 in revenue, their fourth-highest monthly tally ever.

But those sales figures have remained relatively flat since March, leading some to worry the state’s cannabis cash cow has reached the highest hill in the state’s revenue pasture. […]

[Pam Althoff, executive director of the Cannabis Business Association of Illinois] cited inflation, more workers returning to the office after the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s high tax rate on marijuana as reasons sales have leveled off.

* I asked Isabel to compile some numbers from two state sources and produce this chart

As you can see, growth is definitely slowing, but a 6-7 percent increase the past several months year-over-year is still pretty darned good, considering the run they’ve had.

* Not to mention this tidbit from Crain’s

Profits in Illinois also remain higher than elsewhere, with retailers here selling marijuana for 48% more than they pay to buy it from growers in the state. That works out to a gross profit of about $7.62 per gram in Illinois, compared with $4.62 in Massachusetts and $1.84 in Michigan, Cantor Fitzgerald says.

If the retailers think prices are too high, maybe cut their own prices first? Hopefully, with more competition coming soonish, they’ll have no choice but to cut prices.

* Also, from ABC 7

Twenty five percent of Illinois’ pot tax goes to non-profit organizations with small budgets in communities designated as socioeconomically disadvantaged. Another 20% of the state’s marijuana tax revenue goes to substance abuse, prevention and mental health care programs.

Cutting the cannabis tax means reducing those programs unless the tax cut is completely offset by higher sales. But there’s no guarantee of that happening.

* Related…

    * Green Thumb sales jump as New Jersey, Illinois enjoy the high: U.S. cannabis producer Green Thumb Industries Inc (GTII.CD) posted higher third-quarter sales and core profit on Wednesday, as strong demand in newly legalized New Jersey and home market Illinois helped ward off some of the hit from inflation. … However, adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 4% to $84.5 million. “Inflation is real…However, with the measures we put in place, we were able to control costs and increase margins,” Kovler said.

  20 Comments      


*** UPDATED x1 *** Question of the day: 2022 Golden Horseshoe Awards

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The holiday season means two things on this ol’ blog: 1) Fundraising for Lutheran Social Services of Illinois; and 2) our Golden Horseshoe Awards.

From Mariah Heinz Wiggins at LSSI…

At LSSI we are turning our focus to Christmas! We are so grateful for your support over the years, and your online fundraisers in recent years have made a HUGE difference in our efforts to provide gifts and meet holiday needs for every child and family we serve. I was just looking at your page from last year which raised over $20k in maybe 2 weeks. So incredible. We cannot thank you enough.

The thanks should really go to y’all, not me. The kids we buy presents and winter coats and other needs for are served by LSSI’s Foster Care Services. They’re good people doing a great service for children who need it and we get to play a role in that.

I quietly opened up the donation page last week and without much fanfare we’ve already raised $1,200. As soon as we hit $2K, I’ll donate a matching amount. So, please, click here and help out the kids.

* On to the question. Because of the pandemic, it’s been a while since we’ve voted on these topics…

    * Best session restaurant

    * Best session tavern/hangout

As always, do your very best to vote in both categories and make sure to explain your votes or they will not count. Thanks and have fun!

Also, after you’ve cast your ballot, maybe click here and donate to LSSI. Let’s help those kids!

*** UPDATE *** Wow, that was quick! I just kicked in my pledged $2,000. Thanks!

  24 Comments      


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Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Tony McCombie news coverage roundup

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* The Tribune

Representing a largely rural district outside the Quad Cities in northwestern Illinois, she will be the first woman to lead a House caucus for either party, a distinction she downplayed a day after the vote. McCombie told a throng of reporters in her new statehouse office that “women get things done” but said she doesn’t want to be defined by her gender.

“You shouldn’t be chosen because you’re a woman,” she said. “You should be chosen because you’re the right person.”

Welch, the state’s first Black House speaker, congratulated her “as a fellow history maker” and said he hopes her selection signals a fresh start for Democrats and Republicans in the chamber to work together.

“Obviously, we have some sincere disagreements, but I also respect Leader McCombie’s commitment to those who have elected her to serve,” Welch said in a statement.

Welch’s words belie the reality that Democrats don’t need much help from McCombie’s side of the aisle to get anything done. She’s taking over a caucus badly battered in the recent election, when House Democrats increased an already sizable 73-45 supermajority to a 78-40 edge.

* WGEM

McCombie has served in the house since 2017 and led the House Republican campaign organization during the 2020 election cycle.

The Savanna Republican worked with Democrats in the past on plans to improve the state’s finances and address safety concerns within the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

McCombie still hopes to see a proposal pass to charge people over 21 with an aggravated battery if they attack DCFS employees. The legislation honors the legacy of DCFS caseworkers Deidre Silas and Pam Knight who were murdered while conducting home visits over recent years.

“As Leader, I might actually get that bill passed now. We’ve been fighting for Pam Knight for a long time,” McCombie said Wednesday. “We’ve done it in the House and then it dies in the Senate. With the tragic loss that we had here in Springfield, we thought we were going to get that through with the Senate and the House again and we did not.”

* Greg Hinz

Essentially, she faces the same question Republicans do nationally: How to make the GOP competitive again in increasingly blue suburbs, be they Wheaton; Mesa, Ariz.; Philadelphia’s Main Line towns; or Orange County, Calif. The problem is particularly acute here, as McCombie takes over leadership of a caucus that lost five of its 45 seats on Nov. 8 and now is a super-superminority whose very relevance is in question in a body with at least 78 Democrats.

So what does McCombie bring to the table?

The woman from Savanna in northwestern Illinois is, with no offense to outgoing state GOP leader Jim Durkin, something new for a party that clearly needs change. She’s the first woman ever to head a House caucus, and that can’t hurt. Equally important, she’s not from the Chicago suburbs like almost all GOP leaders for the past half-century have been. She’s from downstate, potentially enhancing her ability to explain to rural voters that now compromise the Illinois GOP’s backbone exactly why they need to give suburban Republicans the ability to follow the first rule of politics: Represent your district, not an ideology.

That’s task one: improving internal communication within the caucus. Or as McCombie put it in an interview, “What we need to do is explain the benefits of someone who will vote with you 90% of the time as opposed to a Democrat who will vote your way 0% of the time.” In that vein, there will be no caucus rule requiring members to vote a certain way, McCombie said.

Task two: developing a small-donor contributions base that’s not dependent on the whims of some deep-pocketed official, like Bruce Rauner, or wealthy business type, as in Ken Griffin or Dick Uihlein. McCombie doesn’t mention any of them, but putting together a small version of what Democrats have done nationally with ActBlue would be enormously helpful.

* Shaw Local

“It is extremely unhealthy for us to have this big of a spread between Republicans and Democrats. It’s not good for Democrats and it’s not good for Republicans,” McCombie said.[…]

“Obviously our issues polled very well this election cycle,” McCombie said. “The kitchen table issues everybody talks about inflation, cost, crime. Although, crime didn’t — if you hadn’t been affected by crime it didn’t poll, as well.”

McCombie criticized national media outlets for Illinois voters not trusting Republican Party candidates.

“The media has a big place in that across the nation more so outside. Not necessarily our local newspapers. But, when you are looking especially at the federal side, a large percent of media stories were left-leaning,” McCombie said. “There is a lot of divide between parties and we do have a Democratic president, so often you protect the president that is in place. I think with the extreme messages that have been pushed through media, through social media — I think that’s what scares especially single women. I think that’s what scares them.”

McCombie, who has opposed the implementation of the SAFE-T Act, which will eliminate cash bail from the state’s criminal justice system on Jan. 1, wants to repeal it.

* Peter Hancock

Known for being more conservative than Durkin, McCombie said she will seek to moderate policies in the state that she says have been driven by the left wing of the Democratic Party.

“In Illinois, it’s not about being pro-life or pro-gun,” she said. “In Illinois, we continue to push the extremes. And maybe that message wasn’t apparent.

“But there would be, in my opinion, no pro-choice Republicans that would vote to repeal parental notification, that would allow abortions up to nine months,” she said. “So I think that’s what we need to talk about in Illinois is the extremes.”

Among her first tasks as leader will be naming the rest of a leadership team. In addition to Durkin stepping down, much of the rest of the House GOP leadership team will be leaving public office at the end of this session.

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Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

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When literally all else fails, blame the people

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The collar counties “need to be fixed”…


* Creepy…


* Attacking a guy who took a seat from the Democrats and has held onto it ever since, which are accomplishments that Proft is not exactly known for…


* This sums it up best: The voters are to blame for right-wing losses…


Back in June, Proft called the governor’s contest a “tough but winnable race. A dogfight.” And then his guy got creamed, so he naturally blames voters.

  53 Comments      


After election results, a constitutional amendment on abortion appears in the cards

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

* My weekly syndicated newspaper column

The Illinois Senate Republicans’ new leader, John Curran, told Capitol News Illinois the other day that there was nothing left to do on the abortion topic in Illinois.

“The reality is, what else can we do here in Illinois?” Sen. Curran said. “The laws of Illinois are more weighted towards guarantees of the rights to have an abortion than any other state in the nation. There’s no further to go.”

However, House Speaker Chris Welch strongly indicated recently that a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing reproductive rights was a very likely prospect.

“Right now, we’re a single Legislature or a single Supreme Court away from losing [abortion] rights,” Welch told KSDK TV.

Welch will soon have more members of his party than any Speaker since the state constitution was revised to reduce the chamber’s membership by a third. He said there were a number of explanations for his caucus’ expansion, but the United State Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was “monumental.”

“It changed everything,” Welch told me. “And the Republican Party, not just here in Illinois, but across the country, is wrong on those issues. They’re just wrong. Until they get it right on those issues, I think they’re gonna create opportunity for us to continue to expand.”

Welch said he’s never seen Democratic numbers like this before, calling the one-time Republican bastion of DuPage County, “BluePage.” The county, he said, is “one of those areas where our message resonates more than the Republican Party,” and predicted the GOP would continue losing ground if they don’t change.

Most every pre-election poll claimed that voters ranked abortion low on their priority lists. Yet, the abortion issue seemed to drive voters to the polls this year. What happened?

Senate President Don Harmon told me it may have been a couple of things. “Across the country, Democrats did about three points better than they were polling. And I think it’s in part because of the way voters responded to [the repeal of Roe v. Wade]. This is the first time in a long time a long-held right has been taken away in such dramatic fashion. I think that did motivate voters, but not necessarily the voters we were calling because they weren’t part of the turnout model. So I think when we unpack this, I think you’re going to see some voters, younger voters, younger women in particular — but not just women — who said, ‘I’m not giving up my rights that easily and I’m going to go vote.’

“And I also suspect, and would love to prove it with the analysis of the numbers, something we saw anecdotally going door to door, that women who would traditionally be considered Republican women weren’t thinking about voting Republican because of that issue. And they might have been lying to their husbands, they might have been lying to the pollsters, but they weren’t lying once they got inside the voting booth.”

To sum up, Harmon said, “I think voters we didn’t think were going to turn out, turned out. And I think that voters who would traditionally vote for Republican candidates turned out and said ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I’m going to vote for a Democrat, or I’m certainly not going to vote for the crazy Republicans’ and skipped a race.”

The newly chosen leader of the powerful and successful pro-choice group Personal PAC told me she would “absolutely” work with legislative Republicans to recruit pro-choice candidates.

However, Sarah Garza Resnick told me it was “too early to tell,” when asked if she expected the Republicans to work with her. “But I think that any smart political strategist would need to read the tea leaves of what is going on and what the voters are sending a very clear message on. And if you want to stay relevant and get the other important issues that you care about discussed, then I think it would make sense to recruit and run pro-choice Republicans.”

Garza Resnick stressed that she hasn’t yet had a chance to talk with all other stakeholders about a possible constitutional amendment.

Even so, she said, “If you look at what happened in Kansas, and if you look at what happened where [abortion] was on the ballot in five states … on Nov. 8, the people of this country overwhelmingly want choice to be protected and codified and they don’t want it to be dismantled.”

So, considering all that, “codifying on the constitutional level would make sense,” Garza Resnick said.

Thoughts?

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today’s edition of Capitol Fax (use all CAPS in password)

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Morning briefing

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* Do you go all out on Christmas decorations?…


* Here’s your morning roundup…

More to come!

  6 Comments      


Open thread

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got your rest, because we’re going back to session! What’s on your Illinois-centric mind?

  5 Comments      


Live coverage

Monday, Nov 28, 2022 - Posted by Isabel Miller

* Follow along with ScribbleLive


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