Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Remember when I told you about this?

The Northwestern University and Evanston communities are invited to attend the LEGISLATIVE LEADERS FORUM: January 23, 2008, 7:00 pm, in Ryan Auditorium, in Northwestern University’s Technological Institute, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston.

Participating will be:

EMIL JONES, President of the Illinois Senate;
FRANK WATSON, Senate Republican Leader;
MICHAEL J. MADIGAN, Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives;
TOM CROSS, House Republican Leader.

HENRY S. BIENEN, Northwestern University President, will moderate.

The four legislative leaders of the State of Illinois will meet to discuss top issues of today and the importance of civic participation, followed by written questions from the audience.

* The day is upon us, and Kiyoshi Martinez will be live-blogging the event over at Illinoize.

Be there or be square.

* Also, I was on some little radio show today.

…Adding… Apparently, the snow kept Kiyoshi from the event. Bummer.

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Caption Contest!

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

Winner gets a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich.

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY (Part 2) - Schock; Tribune; Froehlich; Jacobs; Boland; Link; Silverstein (use all caps in password)

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Question of the day

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

Are you still undecided about any primary races? Explain.

If you’ve made up your mind about all of them, let’s see your choices.

75 Comments

Governor covers up legal fees, changes story from 2006

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* More trouble for the guv, but there’s something important about this story that the Tribune misses…

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose administration has been beset by myriad investigations, disclosed almost $1 million in new legal bills Tuesday, on top of the $1.1 million he’s already paid to a prominent Chicago firm.

The governor’s campaign spokesman reported $965,352 in legal fees for 2007, bringing Blagojevich’s total tab to more than $2 million in billings for Winston & Strawn. The legal spending comes after federal investigators began ramping up their probes into alleged wrongdoing involving state hiring, contracting and board appointments in 2006.

The Trib’s number for 2007 is inaccurate. Blagojevich paid another $163,770 to Winston & Strawn in January of last year, plus a couple of other smaller legal tabs to Hinshaw & Culbertson and Robbins Schwartz Nicholas Lifton & Tay.

* But here’s the rub: Blagojevich didn’t report a half million dollars in legal bills until six months after he was supposed to…

Blagojevich’s campaign did not state $555,255 of the legal tab on campaign records until about six months after the information was legally required to be made public.

Campaign spokesman Doug Scofield said the delay was due to negotiations over the bill and he doesn’t expect to receive penalties for the late filing. The amount is listed in campaign records as an unpaid debt, but Scofield said there is money to cover the bill.

* The trouble with Scofield’s explanation is that it’s the exact same excuse they used when they reported a Winston & Strawn debt back in the summer of 2006…

A campaign spokeswoman said the debt represented charges the campaign is questioning

So, in 2006, they went ahead and reported a legal debt and said the reason they hadn’t paid it was because they disputed the bill.

In 2007, they didn’t report a debt because they say they disputed the legal bill, but then they reported it in 2008 once the bill was straightened out.

One explanation for two completely opposite actions, and it’s all bull.

* I’ve explained what I think happened to subscribers today. But I’ll speculate further here that the governor was also embroiled in a knock-down, drag-out fight with Speaker Madigan last July 31st, when the D-2 was filed. Disclosing his gigantic Winston & Strawn legal tab would’ve been highly disadvantageous to the governor’s position.

* Either way, the guv ought to be severely fined for not reporting a very large bill that was submitted to his campaign fund. The bills come in every month, and whether you agree with them or not, they’re supposed to be reported.

I know he likes to ignore the Constitution and the law and all that, but he needs to be called to account on this one.

But, let’s move along…

$2 million in legal fees? Over a million dollars in the past year alone? What the heck?

I couldn’t agree more with the BGA…

“Despite the governor’s rhetoric of ‘There’s nothing here,’ these [campaign] filings show there is at least $1 million worth of something for somebody to look at,” said Jay Stewart, executive director of the Better Government Association.

* By the way, after subtracting the money he owes Jim Thompson, the governor’s campaign fund is left with about $1 million in cash.

That’s half what Lisa Madigan now has in her account, and $700,000 less than Dan Hynes has in his.

26 Comments

Chicago Mag takes a bite out of Blagojevich

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Chicago Magazine’s article “Mr. Unpopularity” is now online. I’m quoted throughout the piece, but here’s my favorite…

The governor’s strange behavior has been fertile ground for local armchair psychologists. Last summer, the downstate newspaper the Peoria Journal Star declared that the governor was “going bonkers.” Privately, a few people who know the governor describe him as a “sociopath,” and they insist they’re not using hyperbole. State representative Joe Lyons, a fellow Democrat from Chicago, told reporters that Blagojevich was a “madman” and “insane.” “He shows absolutely no remorse,” says Jack Franks, the Democratic state representative. “I don’t think he gives a damn about anybody else’s feelings. He tries to demonize people who disagree with him; he’s got delusions of grandeur.”

Miller points out that people shouldn’t blame Blagojevich’s lousy governing skills on his personality alone: “You can be insane—totally whacked out psychologically—and be a good governor or a good president.”

* The reporter did a good job of capturing what’s going on…

The bitterness between Blagojevich and his chief nemesis, Michael Madigan, hit an all-time low in October, after the Blagojevich administration abruptly fired Bronwyn Rains—the wife of Madigan’s chief of staff, Timothy Mapes—from her job as a child psychologist at the Department of Human Services. Rains had held the contractual position for 24 years and had a clean record. Blagojevich’s office justified the firing by claiming that Rains didn’t meet federally mandated educational requirements. But no one was buying that, at least in Springfield. “Once you start firing people’s spouses, you’ve declared nuclear war,” says one leading Democratic operative from Chicago. “And once you’ve gone nuclear, you can’t get rid of the fallout.”

* And…

But Rich Miller says Blagojevich “believes so fervently he’s in the right that I don’t think he’s capable of understanding when people tell him he’s wrong.” If you don’t support his plan on, say, state-subsidized mammograms for women, then you’re for breast cancer. Or if you reject his education-funding initiatives, then you’re for dumb kids. “Rod has difficulty separating personal differences from the need to govern,” adds Fritchey, a former friend of Blagojevich’s who is now one of his loudest critics. “The role of governor is not that of the kid with the bat and ball who says, ‘If you don’t play by my rules, I’m taking my stuff and going home.’ That’s not how you govern. One does not govern by edict.”

A few people who work closely with Blagojevich’s office say they know that members of his staff have tried to get him to tone down the inflammatory rhetoric. But the governor shows no evidence of having a personality Plan B. “He can’t control himself,” says Miller.

* And…

“Something happened to him after he won the [gubernatorial] primary,” says a prominent Democratic fundraiser, one of Blagojevich’s former friends. “I wish I could tell you what it was—I don’t think anyone has figured out what happened. It was like a personality change.”

The problem may come in part because Blagojevich grew up on Chicago politics. “He wants to govern like Daley,” says Miller, explaining that Blagojevich wants a legislature that is a rubber stamp, as the city council has been for much of the Daley era. “But you can’t automatically govern like Daley.” Miller says it took Daley years to build relationships with council members and establish his iron-tight grip on the chamber.

Go read the whole thing. David Bernstein did a very good job. And he didn’t screw up any of my quotes, for which I’m thankful.

* I’m told I made this piece, too, but I haven’t seen it yet and it’s not online.

39 Comments

In defense of the locals

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* We’ve been hearing for weeks from the national punditry that Barack Obama hasn’t been fully vetted by the media. I think that’s mostly wrong, and I angrily told that to a national reporter who called me last week.

Will something else come out about Obama? Could be. One never knows what might get mentioned at Tony Rezko’s trial, for instance.

But the Tribune explains today what they dug through to get at any connections between the law firm Obama worked for and Rezko…

At the Tribune’s request, Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans produced a list of all 260 civil and criminal cases in which the firm filed appearances, and the Tribune separately examined 1990s lawsuits that Rezmar Corp. listed in applications for government grants. The paper also examined files from the Illinois Housing Development Authority and the city housing department, as well as the hundreds of clients Obama listed in the unusually frank ethics disclosure reports he filed as a state senator from December 1995 through April 2004.

The scouring turned out mostly to be a dud. Still, it was a heckuva lot of work.

* That doesn’t include all the other stuff the Tribune has done, like this…

The Tribune analyzed 119 grants in which Obama steered more than $6 million for Chicago projects between late 1999 and late 2002, the heart of his Statehouse career and the center of a state government frenzy in which Obama said the pork-barrel process was “wide open.”

* The Trib has also filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests on Obama, sources say, and they combed through Obama’s list of nearly 100 interns to find one connected to Rezko. And, of course, it was the Tribune which figured out that Rezko had bought the lot next door to Obama’s house.

* The Sun-Times has been doing a lot of work, too, like this piece which tracked down a bunch of people who attended a long-ago Obama fundraiser hosted by Rezko.

* The CS-T also dug into something I wouldn’t even dream of doing…

A Sun-Times review of student evaluations from Obama’s 10 years of teaching part-time at the University of Chicago Law School shows that students almost always rated Obama as one of their top instructors — except for one quarter in 1997.

That’s pretty deep, if you ask me.

They also found a photo of Obama and Rezko today that I don’t ever remember seeing.

* And then there’s all the leftover Blair Hull opposition research that’s found its way into the Clinton campaign via her assistant campaign manager Mike Henry, who ran Hull’s disastrous 2004 primary against Obama. One of Hull’s sharpest criticisms of Obama was his “Present” votes in the state Senate, so it’s no surprise that Clinton is now using it, too. Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet made the connection…

Henry, back in 2004, when he was working for Hull, orchestrated a series of mailings to Illinois voters which referenced the Obama present votes on abortion with a picture of a duck and “He ducked” in the headline. The mailings came out just before the March, 2004 Illinois primary so they would be hard to rebut.

Sweet has been following Obama around for months, tracking his every move. Nobody has more intense coverage of Obama’s campaign than Sweet.

* Again, something more may be found. The Tribune and the Sun-Times might possibly still be working on stories. There may be a “silver bullet” in Hull’s old OR that hasn’t been used yet (I doubt it, however).

But for the national types to claim that Obama’s past is mostly unknown is just a total crock. All they have to do is comb through the Tribune and CS-T’s archives, or try the Google. A lot of very hard work has already been done, and is still being done today. Too many reporters based in DC, or NY, or LA think that all there is to know is in their own publications. Not so.

I often criticize the media, but in this instance I’d like to take my hat off to the locals who have really done a bang-up job on this Obama thing.

31 Comments

Morning shorts

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Kevin Fanning

* Lawyer’s deep pockets in Ill. judicial race raise hackles

* State renews $500,000 PR contract for health care

* Arlington Hts. trustees favor slot machines at racetrack

* Cook County warns of 1,500 layoffs

* Our Opinion: Governor’s legal tactics a disgrace

* State’s delay in paying bills has impact on everyone

* Tribune Co. probably will still own Cubs this season

* Funding cuts may curtail nuclear waste recycling program

* Citywide WiFi fails to emerge in Naperville, Aurora

* Foster, Oberweis for U.S. Congress

* Oberweis campaign “whacked” for website changes

* Foster, Laesch Pick up Endorsements in IL-14 Congressional

* Already endorsed by Sun-Times

* IL-03 Roundup #4

* Candidate Jimmy Lee focuses on Economic Development During his “Eleven in the Eleventh” Series

* Campaign cash rolls into state’s attorney’s race

* Romney’s son to speak at Lincoln Day Dinner

* Consultant, ex-White House staffer vie to take on Mark Kirk in 10th District

* Kendall coroner faces primary challenge

* Daily Herald presidential primary endorsements

*Durbin helps fight bug battle

* Giannoulias: Some banks agree to waive fees for Holocaust reparations

8 Comments

Finally, a candidate I can support

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Jacob Schulz, better known on this blog as “JakeCP,” has been a commenter here for quite a while now. The high school student appears wise beyond his years, has his own website and a YouTube page and was even interviewed on Chicago Public Radio for his campaign efforts in 2006 after he was featured here.

Jake is running for reelection for student representative on the Local School Council at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. Here’s his campaign ad…

Go Jake!

You can donate to Jake’s burgeoning empire by clicking here.

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Poll results from today’s issue, plus previous results

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today’s edition of Capitol Fax

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

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This time the gloves really come off, and it shows

Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008 - Posted by Kevin Fanning

[Note from Rich Miller: This is my new intern Kevin Fanning’s first blog post here, so try to be gentle. Thanks.]

If you hedged your bets that last night’s CNN democratic debate in South Carolina would be the equivalent of last debate’s love fest, today’s political headlines must be leaving you extremely disappointed. Headlines today include “Debate gets fiercely personal” in the Trib, “Debate turns heated as Obama, Clinton allege distortion” in the Daily Herald, and my personal favorite “Sparks fly in most contentious debate to date” on CNN.com.

On a night that was supposed to be reserved by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute to debate how best to realize Dr. King’s vision for a better society, we witnessed an example of how best to tear it apart. The claws came out, and only John Edwards was able to crawl out of the ring without a battered face.

Minutes into the debate accusations flew back and forth between Clinton and Obama. Hillary looked too aggressive, Barack was too defensive, and Goldilocks was left in the middle asking how “is this going to get us universal health care?” After a bitter exchange about the Clintons’ portrayal of Obama’s “fondness” for Ronald Reagan the junior Senator from Illinois snipped back:

“…what I said was is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their agenda, an agenda that I objected to. Because while I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.”

This obviously hit a nerve with Hillary who moments later asserted:

“I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago.”

And on it went , ranging from how Obama’s health care plan isn’t universal to how Hillary voted for a banking bill that favored big business to how Obama voted present too many times in the statehouse to how Hillary and Bill have been tag teaming Obama, and finally concluded with Obama having to answer if Bill Clinton really was the first black President. Which to his credit I thought he gave a hilarious response, and in Governor Blagojevich’s words regarding the transit bill “took a lemon and turned it into lemonade.”

After last night’s royal rumble one thing is certain, the general election will be no cake walk for either candidate. If Hillary comes out alive after February 5th she will have to mend fences with an angry African American community who came out in numbers to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan.

If Obama wins the nomination he will have to answer to the attacks made by the Clinton campaign. Is his universal health care plan really universal? Why did he vote “present” 130 times in the state Senate? And most of all, the Achilles Heel, what was your relationship with Antonin “Tony” Rezko? All of these questions threaten the central theme of Obama’s candidacy, honesty and openness in government.

I guess we’ll just have to hold our breath to see which candidate limps their way to Denver.

66 Comments

Question of the day

Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Dana Millbank has a marvelous column in the Atlantic this month, wherein he “translates” DC Political Speak for us. Here are a few examples…

I don’t pay attention to the polls.
My job-approval rating is 32 percent.

Frankly …
The following statement is false.

You are either with us or against us.
You are against us.

I hope we can work together in a bipartisan way.
I need to pick off one senator from the other party to pass this bill.

This should not be a political issue.
My party has a winning political issue.

It’s time to stop playing politics.
The other party has a winning political issue.

* Question: How about some Springfield Political Speak translations?

Have fun.

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No way to run a railroad *** UPDATED X1 ***

Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* This is not good news for Republicans hoping to hold onto retiring Congressman Jerry Weller’s seat…

“I have done very little fundraising,” [GOP candidate Tim Baldermann] said. “It makes me sick to my stomach. My campaign people gave me a list of people who gave money to (Weller). I told them, ‘If you think I’m going to call somebody who’s never heard of me and ask for $2,300, that’s insane.’ I fight with them every single day over it.

“They wanted my Christmas card list. I’m not doing that stuff. I refuse to do it. The Republican Party wanted me to run; the Republican Party should help fund my campaign.”

So, he’s only gonna raise money from people he knows, except he won’t even do that? Yeah, that’ll work out well.

Campaigning is not a pretty business, but there are things that just have to be done unless you’re wealthy. Cold calls, putting the arm on friends and family are all necessary if you want to compete in a game where contributions are capped and the competition is stiff.

Debbie Halvorson and the Democrats must’ve smiled broadly when they read that passage. [See update below.]

* And then there’s this…

[Baldermann] stands by a 2006 vote while he was school board president that set in motion a salary adjustment affecting his wife. Megan Baldermann is principal at Nelson Ridge School.

I guess he has no choice but to stand by the vote now, but, that ain’t good either.

* Meanwhile, at the risk of losing my Sun-Times column, what the heck is this?

The Sun-Times Editorial Board asked candidates some less-serious questions on its endorsement forms. In response to a question about the best pair of shoes they ever owned, Seals listed Merrell clogs so old his wife wants to throw them out, and Footlik said, “You’re really asking a guy with the last name ‘Footlik’ what his favorite shoes are? Come on . . .”

Um… Oh, never mind.

* More congressional stuff from Paul…

* Politics: Hastert to campaign for Aaron Schock

* Bean: ‘Economy again’ - Iraq war was ‘misread’ as lightning rod of 2006 election

* Congressional hopeful offers new name for King Day

* Catholic Schools To Be Honored by Lipinksi. This Reporter Is Not Happy

* Netroots hunt Lipinski

*** UPDATE *** A representative from Tim Baldermann’s campaign just called. I was assured that while Baldermann doesn’t love fundraising he is diligently making calls and doing what it takes.

Just thought I’d let you know.

39 Comments

Zorn on the Con-Con

Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Eric Zorn thinks the state Constitutional Convention referendum will fail this November. Sure, we’re all mad as heck now, Zorn writes, but…

Soon enough, you’ll see opinion polls showing strong public support for the “it’s broken, throw it away and start again” position.

But next, mark my words, the Baby-Bathwater coalition will go to work.

A well-funded campaign backed by an astonishingly diverse set of business leaders, activists from across the political spectrum and other civic and political leaders will pour millions into a campaign aimed at replacing hope about what changes we’d see from a Constitutional Convention with fear.

Special interests or the entrenched powers might hijack the process. They might take away hard-won rights, throw out the good with the bad, then give us a document far worse than the one we have. We already have a process by which we can fix the constitution via amendment rather than trashing it.

Proponents will counter that the current system is designed to protect fiefdoms and thwart the amendment process. They’ll say the ratification requirements will provide safeguards against a runaway Constitutional Convention. But voters will decide not to risk it and send the referendum measure down to a whomping defeat.

* I wouldn’t be so sure. Both political parties opposed a Con-Con twenty years ago, and their affiliated interest groups funded the “No” campaign. Labor and business walked hand in hand and the entire media establishment went along for the ride. I don’t hear any of those people and groups gearing up this time around.

The Republican Party would be insane to oppose a Con-Con this fall. It’s their best bet to motivate voters to the polls. And a whole lot of Democrats are jumping on board. It ain’t just Pat Quinn and his merry band of goo-goos any more.

Plus, what better way to show your anger at Gov. Blagojevich’s goofiness than to vote for a Constitutional Convention in the hopes that his bizarre wings will be clipped? He personalizes this issue for voters in a way that just wasn’t the case the last time this came up.

Twenty years ago, there was no uproar about an out of control governor, or a dysfunctional General Assembly. And, there was still hope among the punditry and the political elite that school funding reform and a whole host of other issues could be resolved. There has been nothing done on any of that since then. They haven’t even been touched. There is no longer any hope of progress with our current system and our current actors.

Three things will kill this off…

1) The powers that be learn to behave themselves this year and voters calm down;

2) A deep recession scares the daylights out of people and their fear gets the better of them;

3) Gov. Blagojevich embraces the idea as his own and voters naturally recoil.

* John Bambenek has more.

Thoughts?

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Governor: “I vetoed the tax hike” *** UPDATED X1 ***

Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008 - Posted by Rich Miller

* I wondered how long it would take before he used this line…

“I didn’t (give in). I vetoed it. I rewrote the bill,” [Gov. Blagojevich] said when asked if since he gave in on this tax increase he might do the same to get a capital construction bill passed.

* Yep. He vetoed the tax increase for mass transit. That’s the line we’re gonna here for the next three years. “I didn’t sign it, I vetoed it.”

And reporters will eventually give up because Rod Blagojevich was born on message. He’ll say it over and over until even he believes it [if he doesn’t already] and then will spend millions on TV ads with the same message. “I vetoed the tax hike.”

Never mind that he officially certified the tax increase bill and with that certification he made the tax increase the law of the land. He won’t admit that, you see, because tax hikes are wrong…

“My guess is (House) Speaker (Mike) Madigan is going to push another tax increase, and the worst thing you can do during a slowing economy or an economy that’s going into recession is add more burdens to people and raise more taxes on people,’’ Blagojevich said. “I would oppose that.”

Raising taxes is “the worst thing you can do” except when it isn’t. Or something. Whatever.

* And what about adding “more burdens” on people? Here’s more of what the governor said yesterday…

“I felt we should ease burdens on our seniors … and make it easier for you … for people who are seniors who are trying in the autumn years of their lives to get by.”

* Um, maybe the next time the governor goes on one of his statewide jaunts, he can visit Jacksonville…

Modern Care Nursing and Rehab Center in Jacksonville is closing its doors in 90 days because of financial difficulties related to delayed state aid payments.

No burdens added to any seniors there. Just a bunch of old people who will no longer have a place to live because your administration can’t manage a budget. Thanks, Rod, for saving so many seniors from “unnecessary burdens.” You’re the best. Smooches.

* PS: That’s a nifty new website you got there, bub.

* PSS: Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. Nice rhymes…

The first stop, a short statement at the annual PUSH Excel Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Breakfast, saw the governor break into a quick little poem.

“There were some dark clouds hovering over the CTA.

But those dark clouds have rolled away.

Now the sun is gonna shine

So you can get on the blue line, the brown line, the red line.

And everything will be just fine.”

* More stuff, compiled by Paul…

* Blago: Seniors should sign up

* Luck of the Irish and its proactive transit programs

* Illinois Democrats are bruised from months of infighting

*** UPDATE *** From the governor’s remarks in Peoria yesterday…

“Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement in a lot of respects began over a seat on a bus. And, uh, I’m here to talk about a different kind of way to get a seat on a bus. Not exactly Freedom Riders, but we would like to make those of you who are seniors have a chance to be able to ride for free.”

Oy.

Listen to the full statement here.

37 Comments

Morning shorts

Tuesday, Jan 22, 2008 - Posted by Kevin Fanning

* Flash from the past: Rezko indictment: The ABCs

* Toymaker fights state recall

In what could trigger the first test of Illinois’ strict law against lead in toys, a major toymaker is refusing to pull a popular, but tainted, doll from store shelves across the state.

Illinois authorities thought they had reached an amicable agreement late last year with Ty Inc. to have the company voluntarily remove its Jammin’ Jenna dolls from retailers because the toys contained high amounts of lead.

* Honeymoon Is Over At Tribune

* Illinois Supreme Court justice returning most of her campaign donations, more here

* She Brakes for Ideology