* Illinois Issues magazine has a decent profile on blogs this month, including some flattering things about me. But what appears to be the central thesis is not necessarily accurate…
It’s unclear, however, how often blogs actually influence policy… They generate lots of buzz but offer little evidence of actually turning online discussion into legislative action.
* There are all sorts of blogs out there. Partisan, ideological and issues-based blogs do often try to influence policy. Others, like mine, are information and opinion sources that don’t have an end in themselves except for that aforementioned core mission. I’m not sure, for instance, whether Illinois Issues’ influence on public policy could actually be measured bill by bill, and the same goes for this site. So, holding this blog to a different standard is not logical because passing or killing bills is not my stated goal.
That being said, I know for a fact that several legislators participate in comments here on a regular basis and that many, many more read the posts and the comments. Pretty much everyone at the Statehouse is checking the blog on a regular basis throughout the day. All you have to do is watch how comments decline on afternoons when the GA adjourns for the week to get a good illustration of that phenomenon. But it’s very tough to take a story/discussion here or anywhere else in the media and point to it as the one deciding factor in how a particular piece of legislation fared in the House or Senate, even though there is an example in the II piece about a blog post at this site doing just that.
* And this is goofy…
Journalism professor Eric Meyer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one who warns that citizen journalism can have an insidious, even viral effect on public knowledge.
“It’d be like you hired somebody to go around and paint graffiti in restrooms that have messages on it that had some commercial undertone to it.”
This is an outdated, hackneyed opinion. Good bloggers attract readers. For the most part, bad bloggers, like graffiti “artists,” attract scorn. Frankly, some journalism school-trained columnists I’ve read have far more shallow opinions than quite a few blogs that I frequent. And I’ll put many of my commenters up against a lot of them. Professor Meyer ought to expand his horizons before opening his mouth.
Overall, though, I thought the article was extremely well written and provided some very good insights into how political blogs operate in Illinois. Go read the whole thing.
* There has been a lot of drama the past few days over the Senate democrats’ plan to sweep $530 million from special state funds. Part of this plan includes an expansion of health care programs.
In the Senate Executive Committee on Wednesday, where these amendments were introduced, I witnessed President Jones and Minority Leader Watson square off on a Crain’s article regarding the closing of St. Francis Hospital.
Watson contended that the main problem with St. Francis was the large number of Medicaid patients it had to accept, and that bringing the threshold of eligibility in the state up to $80,000 for a family of four would further exacerbate the problem.
Jones, whose district includes the hospital, countered that the main problem was really the losses the hospital sustains from having to treat patients with no health insurance at all.
Personally, I think the problem stems from a combination of the two. The democrats argued yesterday on the Senate floor that the state needs to step up to the plate and do something about health care since there is no leadership from the federal government.
True, but then there is this caveat to think about:
The company said a quarter of patients admitted to St. Francis either don’t have health insurance or are covered by Medicaid, and that it gets about 10 cents in Medicaid reimbursement from Illinois for each dollar it spends supplying medical care. Dixie Platt, a senior vice president with SSM, said Illinois’ reimbursement rates are the lowest of the four states that SSM operates in, and that the state’s reimbursement level hasn’t gone up since 1993.
Platt also said that the company hadn’t received a “significant” Medicaid payment from the state since October.
So if absurdly late Medicaid payments from the state to hospitals is further adding to the burden, then what difference would expanding Medicaid benefits really have if hospitals that accept them continue to close?
Additionally, this state is flat-out broke. Can we afford an expansion?
* The sad reality tough is that the entire debate doesn’t even matter. The whole trilogy of sweeps amendments passed by the Senate aren’t going anywhere. They’re D.O.A to the House as Rich has already lamented.
I wonder how much longer the constituents of this state are going to put up with the smoke and mirrors. What we currently have in our government is a three-ring-circus that is unresponsive to the dire and urgent needs of this state.
Whether it’s health care, a capital plan, education, or a myriad of other issues the theory holds that nothing is getting accomplished, and won’t.
It’s absolutely irresponsible to continue this charade. This bill is being passed to aggravate Speaker Madigan, and the recall bill in the House is being passed to scare Governor Blagojevich, knowing full well that it is in turn D.O.A. in the Senate. Enough.
Here is an idea? Stop passing legislation that won’t ever effect public policy, and start talking to each other. It would be refreshing for the citizens of Illinois, and might even get us all out of here before November.
* Today, the Tribune continues its crusade to convince the General Assembly to include a recall provision in the state Constitution in order to oust Gov. Blagojevich…
A constitutional amendment to let voters fire inept state officeholders is almost halfway to the Nov. 4 general election ballot. There appears to be strong support in the Illinois House. Whether such an amendment is approved for a ballot slot by the May 4 deadline rests primarily with Senate President Emil Jones and his fellow Senate Democrats.
For too long those Democratic senators have been inexplicably willing to let Jones, their leader, enable the frantic antics of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Will Jones’ timid followers in the Senate keep letting him further the governor’s bizarre behavior without challenge? Or will Senate Democrats inform Jones that citizens
[Rep. Jay Hoffman] claims elections are our state’s recall mechanism. Well, generally, but if we had a governor caught with an expensive online hooker habit and without the grace to resign, we’d want a recall mechanism. If we had yet another indictable governor who was selling state jobs or favors for donations, we’d want a recall mechanism.
Elliot Spitzer didn’t have the “grace” to resign, he left mostly because he was under threat of almost immediate impeachment and removal from office.
* Questions: 1) Should the House reject the recall measure on its merits? Explain.
2) Should the House abandon the recall measure (which won’t even be brought up in the Senate) and move to impeach Blagojevich instead? Illinois has no specific requirement for impeachment other than 60 votes. The Senate then must put the governor on trial and vote on whether to remove him from office.
3) Should the House proceed with the relatively meaningless “feel-good” recall measure regardless of the merits because the governor’s proven behavior has not yet warranted such a serious action as impeachment?
Try to stay calm. No screaming. No exclamation points. Debate, don’t yell. Thanks.
* Stu Levine may be wanting something for his nerves after what happened to him on the stand yesterday…
The man whose word must be trusted to bring down Gov. Blagojevich fund-raiser Tony Rezko was reduced to admitting Thursday he’d been a thief, a con man, a liar and a junkie who stole from the children of a dead relative.
* The Tribune didn’t go into much detail on the first point, but these two items are what you need to watch from here on out…
[Rezko defense attorney Joseph Duffy’s] assault on Levine’s credibility played out on two tracks. One suggested that a scheming Levine puffed up his own clout by dropping Rezko’s name; the other stressed that Levine’s decades of drug abuse had fried his brain and clouded his memories.
The object here is to prove that Levine lied about Rezko’s influence to benefit himself, both with his business associates and then the feds.
Duffy got Levine to admit that he initially lied to federal prosecutors about a crooked real estate deal, even after he agreed to cooperate with the government to avoid a possible life sentence.
Prosecutors and agents caught him in the lie, Levine testified.
That’s more incentive to tell the feds what they want to hear.
Duffy focused on the theory that Levine’s survival instincts kicked in the moment federal agents swooped down on him May 20, 2004, at his Highland Park mansion.
After they left, Levine was on the phone with Robert Weinstein, a longtime partner in business, in a conversation that was captured on an FBI wiretap.
“The government’s looking for a big fish, and it’s Tony Rezko,” Duffy quoted Levine as saying on the call.
You shouldn’t assume from anything I’ve written that I believe Tony Rezko to be innocent. I just don’t believe anything that comes out of Stu Levine’s mouth. What a horrible witness.
* A school with a convicted felon at the helm that has never applied for not-for-profit status and hasn’t paid all its taxes gets a million dollars from the governor “by mistake.” Other schools aren’t so lucky…
During his 2006 re-election bid, Blagojevich made headlines when he told Carterville school officials he would give them $1.9 million to repair and improve their crumbling high school.
But, as of Thursday, records show the Williamson County district has received less than half of that amount from the state.
‘’It has created a tremendous hardship on us,'’ said Carterville Superintendent Tim Bleyer.
A large group of lawmakers want Gov. Rod Blagojevich to send money to soil and water conservation districts across the state, saying they could close by the end of the year without cash. […]
But a Blagojevich budget spokeswoman says the governor won’t be doing that anytime soon. Spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said lawmakers last year approved a budget that calls for spending $750 million more than the state will take in this year. So Blagojevich won’t be giving the conservation agencies any more money until that budget hole is filled.
‘’These are the same lawmakers that put the state in this situation by overestimating their revenue projections,'’ Quinn said.
* Yesterday, the Senate approved a plan to sweep a record $530 million from special state funds in order to provide some pork for legislators, expand health care programs and patch budget holes. The governor is now turning up the heat on the House by threatening big budget cuts…
To avoid cuts, the governor’s budget office has instructed university presidents to lobby members of the House to approve the controversial transfer of money. […]
Blagojevich spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said funding for other state programs, including the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Agriculture and early childhood and secondary education programs, also could face cuts if the fund transfer concept isn’t approved.
A state lawmaker wants voters to decide if people making more than $250,000 a year should have their Illinois income tax doubled, with the billions of new dollars paying for education, roads and tax breaks for everyone else…. State tax data shows 107,000 people in the state made more than $250,000. That’s roughly 5 percent of all tax filers.
* Moderate Republicans whine about conservatives who refuse to support the ticket, conservatives whine about “RINOs” controlling the show. The nasty back and forth between the two sides attracts all the attention. But here is a big problem with the Republicans in this state that nobody ever seems to talk about..
According to Federal Election Commission stats released March 3… Illinois ranked third in the nation in contributions to Democrats and 44th in contributions to Republicans.
Instead of complaining, maybe they should be contributing.
“I was just informed on my way to this meeting that Mayor Daley again chose to play the Race Card in this debate,” Reilly said. “We hosted nine public meetings on the museum plan. If the mayor had been at one of those meetings—just one—he would have seen the diversity. And the one thing people were unanimous about was their rejection of this proposal.”
Mayor Bradley Stephens, the late mayor’s son, on Wednesday said he has asked that the nameplate featuring his father’s name be taken off the signs marking entrance to the village. He has no plans to add his own name.
* From boy alderman to ahead-of-his-time Blagojevich foe, Eisendrath reflects on public life
“People basically have a mini news outlet tailored to their interests,” he says. “I think it’s going to be increasingly difficult at this day and age to not have some type of Web presence. And I think it will be as commonplace as having town hall meetings.”
“Last year, all of our funding throughout the entire state was cut with the rest of those projects that the governor said were non-essential pork,” Yarbrough said. “We don’t feel like that’s pork at all. We think these are essential services to everyone in these communities.”
The Republican nominee for Congress in the 18th District is many things to many people. He may be the new face of a new kind of politics, or he could be another young “change” candidate without the résumé or worldliness for a spot in Washington, D.C.
Smith’s name has come up twice in the corruption trial of Tony Rezko, one of Obama’s earliest political patrons. In a secretly recorded May 18, 2004, conversation, Rezko says he sought Smith’s help regarding one member of a state board.
Later, Levine would admit that it was “possible” years of drug use may have affected his memory.
When Duffy asked if Levine had yet told the jury he was a felon, Levine said the jury had been told that, but didn’t remember whether he had testified to it or if it had been read from his plea agreement.
Had Levine been shown his plea agreement on the stand, Duffy asked.
Yes, said Levine. It had been marked as an exhibit and shown to him.
Duffy asked the government to produce it.
“Your honor, we’ll stipulate that there is no such exhibit,” said assistant U.S. attorney Chris Niewoehner, rising to his feet.
Those phrases became the exchange of the day Thursday between attorney Joseph Duffy and the government’s star witness in the Antoin Rezko trial, Stuart Levine.
* The memory and honesty points are extremely important because of stuff like this…
Levine had testified earlier that [he and Rezko] were introduced at a dinner party on Nov. 2, 2002, just days before the election that brought Gov. Rod Blagojevich to power. It was at that dinner that Levine testified he learned that Rezko had been blocking a real estate deal on which Levine had been seeking a sizeable kickback.
But Duffy produced a Levine credit card receipt showing a $761.87 transaction dated that day at a Lincolnwood hotel where Levine often went for all-day drug binges.
“I do not have a memory of being there on that date,” Levine insisted.
Duffy then asked Levine, “Can you honestly tell this jury you didn’t do drugs on Nov. 2, 2002?”
LEVINE: “Yes, sir.”
DUFFY: “Your memory is so clear you remember not using drugs on that day?”
LEVINE: “I do not remember using drugs on that day.”
The feds do have some tapes, of course, but most of those tapes include Levine talking about what Rezko said. Terrible memory, lack of truthfulness goes right to the heart of Levine’s crediblity as the feds’ star witness.
*** UPDATE *** More trouble for Levine’s credibility…
Levine confessed he had used bogus fees to swindle the estate of millionaire businessman Ted Tannenbaum, his mother’s first cousin who had been close to Levine and taken him under his wing. […]
“And yet the man who had been so good to you for 20 years - you stole from his children, didn’t you?” Duffy said.
“Yes, sir,” Levine said meekly. […]
“If I describe you as a liar, is that a correct statement?” [Duffy] asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Levine said.
“So I would be correct if I called you a thief?” Duffy asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Levine said.
“Can you argue with me - you are a con man, are you not?” Duffy asked.
* Ozinga Bros. launched its first radio advertisements on WLS-AM to air through June. The ads promote a more environmentally friendly, porous concrete and mention the Ozinga name 8 times. Coincidentally, Marty Ozinga is also gearing up to run for the 11th District congressional seat.
The DCC questioned whether Ozinga was blurring federal election rules about electioneering. Candidates can be fined by the Federal Election Commission for overlapping and coordinating their business and campaign operations, like this blast from the past:
For example, Jim Oberweis, of Oberweis Dairy, ran television advertisements about the dairy - bankrolled by the dairy - that featured him prominently at a time he was seeking the GOP U.S. Senate nomination. The FEC fined his campaign $21,000.
The Democrats’ regional director, Ryan Rudominer said “Here you have Mr. Ozinga taking a page from the Oberweis playbook. The perception is that it’s like a campaign ad.”
* Although the timing of the Ozinga radio ad is “ironic,” the Ozinga campaign said that this is the first time the company has purchased radio advertising. Interesting.
“Go green with Ozinga,” the ad says, along with, “The next time you see the red-and-white striped trucks, remember Ozinga, your resource for a better tomorrow.” However, the ad never explicitly mentions Marty Ozinga, just the company.
Then there was this overly zealous defense by WLS for the ad:
It was the phone call from WLS general manager John Gallagher, who defended the ads, requested I send along the DCCC statement and generally went to bat for Ozinga, one of his advertisers.
“If the DCCC is raising an issue on it, and we’ve had run-ins over the years, I’d like to know the grounds they are making that claim and get attorneys involved,” he told me. “If the DCCC is going to come after them for that, they’d have to go after half the people running for office in the United States, no matter when the contract was signed.”
Question: Does this tightrope walking constitute a violation of FEC regulations, or is this fair game?
Any holdovers still blaming Steve Bartman should let the infamous Cubs fan off the hook, Moises Alou says.
The former Cubs left fielder, now with the Mets, said he wouldn’t have caught the now-infamous foul ball in the 2003 National League Championship Series that hit the heel of Bartman’s hand in the eighth inning of Game 6, prolonging an inning in which the Marlins later rallied for the lead.
“Everywhere I play, even now, people still yell, ‘Bartman! Bartman!’ I feel really bad,” Alou told the Associated Press. “You know what the funny thing is?” he added. “I wouldn’t have caught it anyway.”
I’ve always maintained that Alou’s angry reaction to Bartman’s wretchedly ill-timed reach for the ball triggered the tragicomedy. If he simply had trotted back to his position in left field, the familiar air of dread wouldn’t have seeped into Wrigley Field with the Cubs a mere five outs from their first World Series since 1945. Maybe Gonzalez would have started an inning-ending double play instead of botching a groundball. Maybe Prior would have settled down and completed the mission instead of becoming unnerved, as he has suggested.
* And adds…
Monday at Wrigley, as his new statue was unveiled in a revamped plaza by the Clark Street entrance, Ernie Banks made a wonderful comment. He said it’s time to bring Bartman back to the ballpark and let him throw out a first pitch.
* The question: Are Cub fans big enough to follow Ernie Banks’ lead? Or are they so emotionally tied to being perennial losers that they’ll never forgive Bartman?
* Roll Call demanded an ethics investigation of Jerry Hurckes, the Chicago-based chief of staff for Congressman Dan Lipinski yesterday…
The case of Hurckes seems to involve no question marks at all — and deserves an investigation by the ethics committee. Ethics rules do not bar aides from holding elective office but warn that “staff should take care … to avoid any undertaking that is inconsistent with congressional responsibilities”
And, “in dealing with the public, staff who serve as local officials should always make clear in which capacity they are acting. They should discourage any suggestion that their local constituents will receive any special treatment from the congressional office, beyond that received by any other residents of the congressional district.”
Yet, in a 2007 mailer sent to local voters, Hurckes took credit for securing $4 million in federal funding for the village, including money for the Oak Lawn Children’s Museum and emergency traffic lighting. […]
Hurckes denied securing earmarks and Lipinski refused any comment after stories on the aide’s activities appeared in Roll Call and local papers. They ought to answer to the ethics committee.
* The Southern Illinoisan editorializes that some newly proposed fees at Department of Natural Resources facilities aren’t a bad idea…
Even with the proposed increases, according to the department’s own documents, state facilities would remain a good bargain compared to facilities in neighboring Midwest states.
The state’s fiscal picture continues to be bleak, and it would be unfair to allow basic increases in power and maintenance costs to be shouldered by all taxpayers, including non-users of our scenic sites.
* The Southern adds…
We’ve seen special funds that are levied for specific purposes raided by this administration in the past to cover general state funding needs. That practice should not occur with this new money that will help keep our splendid sites in the best shape possible.
Senate committees controlled by Democrats approved bills that expand health-care programs by $43 million for the budget year that ends June 30 and add back $53 million in House Democrat pet projects that Gov. Rod Blagojevich cut from the budget last fall.
To pay for it all, Blagojevich would be given authority to take $530 million out of hundreds of state accounts that are set aside to pay for certain programs and are not funded with general tax dollars — for example, regulatory funds set up to collect licensing fees from certain professions. […]
Although the health-care expansions would cost $53 million through June 30, Republican lawmakers said it will add $300 million to next year’s budget.
* Yesterday’s Tony Rezko trial wasn’t great for Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Rezko and Stu Levine were allegedly trying to shake down Tom Rosenberg for a big contribution to the governor’s campaign or a large finder’s fee. Rosenberg then flipped out and threatened to go to the authorities when he became convinced that his investment allocation deal at the Teachers Retirement System was being held up for nefarious purposes…
Chicago businessman Tom Rosenberg became furious after a $220 million allocation from the state teachers pension fund for his investment firm had stalled, millionaire attorney Stuart P. Levine told the court.
Rosenberg threatened to complain to federal investigators that he suspected Rezko and another Blagojevich fundraiser, Christopher Kelly, were engaged in corruption at the state teachers pension board. […]
“[Rezko] indicated to me that he had made the governor aware of the situation” and what Rosenberg had said, Levine said. He said Rezko indicated that Blagojevich agreed Rosenberg should be calmed and that while he should get the $220 million allocation for his investment firm it would be “the last thing that Mr. Rosenberg should get from the state.”
He quoted Rezko as saying Blagojevich indicated “he doesn’t care what happens to Mr. Rosenberg - that he feels he owes Mr. Rosenberg nothing.”
Political insider William Cellini also spoke to Rezko about the Rosenberg solution and, in a phone conversation with Levine that was secretly recorded by federal agents, reported hearing the same thing from Rezko about Blagojevich’s knowledge and approval.
“Did he tell you, too, that the big guy said Rosenberg means nothing to him?” Cellini asked on the call played in court Wednesday. Levine explained to jurors that “the big guy” was Blagojevich and that Cellini’s comments meant that the governor did not feel that he owed the uncooperative Rosenberg anything.
* If you read carefully, there is no explicit statement that the governor knew about the alleged shakedown, which Rezko’s lawyers have claimed that Levine concocted himself. Reading only what was actually said, Blagojevich only allegedly knew that Rosenberg was freaking out and making threats. But it’s definitely implied that he knew more, which is why the Sun-Times put the story on the front page with this lede…
Despite Gov. Blagojevich’s repeated denials that he knew anything about alleged pay-to-play schemes, “the big guy” was told about one plan to squeeze campaign contributions from a firm seeking state business, according to bombshell testimony Wednesday at Tony Rezko’s corruption trial.
A measure allowing voters to dump the governor and other statewide officeholders through California-style recall petitions advanced Wednesday in a key test vote in the House, though its approval is far from certain.
Proponents said the bill was prompted by their dissatisfaction with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who has been criticized by Republicans and his fellow Democrats for what they say is his autocratic and aloof style of governance. But they argued the measure also is good public policy already embraced by 18 other states, including California, which replaced an unpopular governor with action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003.
“I would not have filed it but for the dismal performance of this governor,” said Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock), the bill’s sponsor. “Our state is dysfunctional. . . . We are stuck at an absolute impasse because the governor refuses to lead and refuses, frankly, to show up for work. He won’t govern, and he can’t govern.”
The House adopted an amendment to the bill on an 80-25 vote, which Franks said indicates it likely will be approved by a wide margin when he tries to send it to the Senate next week. The favorable reception in the House also underscores Blagojevich’s running feud with Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), who voted for the amendment.
* Deputy Gov. Louanner Peters “testified” yesterday to a House committee about a million dollar grant to fire-ravaged Pilgrim Baptist Church which instead wound up at a school that doesn’t seem to exist. I put quotes around “testified” because Peters wasn’t exactly forthcoming…
[A]t least 59 times in the roughly 90-minute hearing, Peters professed ignorance toward what Blagojevich has called a “bureaucratic mistake.”
“I would not have any idea who in the governor’s office would have the most answers,” Peters told members of the House State Government Administration Committee.
* The governor blamed a couple of former staffers for the grant, but wouldn’t name them. Neither did Deputy Gov. Peters…
Peters refused to name the two state officials the governor blamed for giving the church’s grant to the school.
“I don’t understand why you can’t answer,” Franks said.
Peters said it would be “inappropriate for me to comment on the circumstances surrounding the grant” because of an ongoing review of the matter by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which administered the grant.
* Beer spill shuts I-55 ramp for more than 7 hours
About 4 a.m., a truck carrying 1,440 cases of Beck’s beer toppled, spilling much of its load and shutting the northbound ramp near Burr Ridge for more than seven hours, Illinois State Police said. Beer, glass and cardboard littered the ramp after the driver, Clinton E. Maxey, 27, of Mt. Vernon, Ill., took the turn too fast, state police said.
“Put me in jail,” said Decker, 45, of Chicago. “I’m not paying for talking on a phone. . . . It’s a God-given freedom that I have. What law is there that says I can’t talk on the street? It’s no different than if I’m walking with a friend and talking.”
Illinois’ public lands “are worthy and deserving of public investment with public tax dollars, as they have been for decades,” said Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Peoria. “To simply take those away and suggest they become self-sufficient through user fees is really selling those natural resources short.”
