I just put out this extra 15 minutes ago to subscribers:
Rumors have swirled all day that Sen. Steve Rauschenberger is dropping down to lieutenant governor and will run as Ron Gidwitz’s running mate.
Both campaigns today issued unusually stern “no comment” responses when asked about the rumor.
Several sources say the rumor is true, however, despite the tight lips at campaign headquarters.
More in tomorrow’s Capitol Fax.
UPDATE: The Tribune now has a story up:
In a major realignment in the Republican race for governor, conservative state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger has decided to quit the contest and instead run for lieutenant governor as the running mate to moderate Chicago businessman Ronald Gidwitz, sources close to both campaigns said today.
The move, to be formally announced on Wednesday, now casts the GOP primary race as a four-person field, with two moderates and two conservatives. Gidwitz hopes to gain some momentum for his candidacy, which has failed to generate any traction with potential primary voters despite significant spending on TV ads and direct mailings. […]
The impetus for the move, the sources said, was a meeting held Friday by state Republican Chairman Andrew McKenna Jr., who urged the contenders to reassess the viability of their campaigns. Sources said McKenna shared results of a GOP-financed poll that showed Gidwitz and Rauschenberger with support in the single digits. […]
One major question is whether the conservatives who supported Rauschenberger will move to support Gidwitz for governor. Gidwitz is a social moderate and supports abortion rights.
More tomorrow.
68 Comments  
|
A $270,000 “gift”
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Chuck Goudie’s latest column has some surprising numbers.
The governor’s expensive tastes must explain why Illinois’ tollway bosses are giving him such an expensive gift this year. It cost $271,000.
It’s actually 20 versions of the same gift totaling $271,000.
They let him unwrap the first present before Thanksgiving. Maybe you’ve seen it. It is hanging like a giant ornament at the new Irving Park Toll Plaza on I-294 near O’Hare International Airport.
“Open Road Tolling — Rod R. Blagojevich, Governor.â€
That’s what the big sign says over the first automated express lanes to open on the Illinois tollway. […]
In return for the governor’s most generous “urging,†the tollway bosses (whom he appointed) gave him 20 signs with his name on them.
“The average price of the signs made so far is about $13,550,†Damico said.
That means if you use I-Pass twice a day, seven days a week, it would take you about 46 years to pay for just one of Rod’s signs.
Read the whole thing. Pretty hilarious. My favorite line: “Even a new set of tortoise shell hairbrushes couldn’t compete with that kind of loot.”
Ouch.
19 Comments
|
Gearing up for Con-Con vote
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
UPDATE: I mentioned this at the bottom, but it’s worth noting at the top as well. If you haven’t been to Illinoize yet, you really should go check it out. There are a lot of interesting things happening over there.
Promoted from the Illinoize blog. This was written by Dan Johnson-Weinberger:
Illinois voters will decide November, 2008, whether to convene a constitutional convention to consider improving the Illinois Constitution. This question appears on the state ballot every 20 years.
The first organization to endorse a constitutional convention is the Illinois Association of School Boards, according to this article in the Daily Southtown, reprinted on the Students First Illinois site here. […]
There’s actually a yahoogroup for advocates of a constitutional convention here that anyone can join. […]
Issues that I’d like addressed would include the constitutional mandate for a flate rate income tax, the odd, mandated 5/8 ratio of individual income tax to corporate income tax and perhaps a strengthened protection of speech rights.
And for the tax-cutters, I think we should revisit the issue of whether all public pensions should be constitutionally enshrined where it is unconstitutional to lower any pension payments at all — even those clear mistakes where some people are getting ridiculously generous pensions that the state, county or city can not afford.
Pensions are our biggest fiscal problem, and the constitutional prohibition against fixing any of the worst mistakes in pension increases that the General Assembly has made over the years is a problem. (Yes, I know that pensions are underfunded, but I think it’s fair to say that at least sometime over the last ten years the General Assembly has increased some pension payments unreasonably, and it would be best if some of those unreasonable increases could be reversed).
I’d be interested to see what your thoughts are on a constitutional convention.
UPDATE: I forgot to issue the standard demand to get yourselves on over to the Illinoize blog. Interesting things are happening
24 Comments
|
Question of the day
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
The governor announced yesterday that merit compensation employees would receive a 4 percent pay increase. MC workers haven’t had a raise since Blagojevich took office and in effect took a pay cut when Blagojevich forced them to pick up their share of their pension contributions.
Here’s the letter the governor sent yesterday:
Dear Colleague:
When we came into office in January 2003, we inherited a budget deficit of more than $5 billion. That budget deficit was thirteen times worse than anything our state had ever seen. To help solve the fiscal crisis, we asked for shared sacrifice from interests all across the state. You went above and beyond the call of duty: you worked harder, you began paying the employee share of the pension contribution, and you went without pay raises for several years.
The people of Illinois owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. Your dedication and sacrifice meant we could eliminate the Ryan deficits and balance the budget without raising taxes. It also meant we could put more money in our schools and provide health care to hundreds of thousands more people. Thanks to you, we now have our fiscal house in order, and we are now in a position where we can reward your hard work and dedication.
Effective December 2, 2005, merit compensation employees will receive a 4% increase in pay. The raise applies to all merit compensation employees in every agency and every department under my jurisdiction who have been employed by the State for at least one year. This pay raise will also apply to current merit compensation employees who are new to state government once they have been employed by the state for one year.
I hope this pay raise will help you and your family. I want you to know how grateful I am for your hard work and sacrifice. Your service to the people of Illinois is something all of us can be very proud of.
Have a safe and happy holiday season.
I’ve written in the past that a big problem for the governor is all those unhappy state employees who are tossing incriminating evidence over the transom to eager reporters.
Do you think this will tone down the anger out there or not? And will it make any difference in the upcoming campaign?
70 Comments
|
Umholtz announces for AG
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
The announcement didn’t go as smoothly as most of the stories indicate.
Tazewell County State’s Attorney Stewart Umholtz announced his bid for attorney general Monday morning, and a Chicago banker has signaled his intent to join the race for treasurer.
Umholtz, a Republican, is running on an anti-corruption platform.
“I demand that public officials to uphold their oaths of office and not just use the criminal code as a guide for conduct,” he said. “I believe the citizens of this state demand their public officials use a much higher standard.”
I had to do a radio interview yesterday, so I missed the announcement, but reporters who were there said Umholtz repeated the “perception” line over and over again, particularly as it related to corruption.
Reporters then had a little fun with him, asking Umholtz how he felt about the “perception” of his alma mater’s former nickname, the “Pekin Chinks,” and where he stood on Chief Illiniwek.
“I can tell you that we worked very hard in our community to overcome that perception,” he said about the old Chinks nickname.
He said about the Chief, “In our country, we’ve been an embarassment about how we’ve treated Native Americans in our history.”
Nobody, however, asked Umholtz why he hasn’t filed a campaign disclosure support since June 15, 2000.
7 Comments
|
No Hall of Fame in his future?
Tuesday, Dec 6, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
He’s definitely not batting with a major league average.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich often jokes he was a C-average student in law school.
Judging by his administration’s track record in court, he may have been lucky to get those grades.
Last week, a federal judge ruled a Blagojevich-backed ban on violent video game sales to minors was unconstitutional. It marked at least the seventh time the governor has lost a high-profile case in court.
In addition to the decision on video games, Blagojevich has lost arguments with state and federal judges over plans to downsize an Air National Guard wing in Springfield, mortgage a state-owned office building in Chicago and allow telephone giant SBC to double certain rates it charges competitors.
He even tangled — and lost — a fight with state judges over legislation that would give the judges a pay raise.
That last sentence is a big reason why he’s done so poorly in state court.
But the guv’s judicial batting average doesn’t just impact him. Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office has to defend the governor, which is dropping her overall batting average as well.
Meanwhile, in a not-so related story,
Moving to bolster his standing with women and progressives, Gov. Blagojevich expressed ‘’increasing concerns'’ Monday over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito because of the judge’s anti-abortion stance.
Blagojevich, an abortion-rights supporter, outlined his anxiety about President Bush’s pick to replace swing-vote Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in a letter to Illinois’ two Democratic U.S. senators, who have shown little enthusiasm for Alito.
‘’If Judge Alito is elevated to the Supreme Court, the chances of Roe vs. Wade being overturned increase considerably,'’ Blagojevich wrote, citing memos Alito authored as a Justice Department lawyer on how to overturn Roe.
14 Comments
|
Tactic didn’t work… yet
Monday, Dec 5, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Lynn Sweet reported yesterday on a “pressure tactic” to force Ed Eisendrath out of the governor’s race.
Backfire. Two Blagojevich allies cooked up a plot designed to pressure Edwin Eisendrath not to challenge the governor in the March Democratic primary — a letter signed by 25 A-list Illinois progressives urging him to stay out of the race.
But the folks solicited to sign — almost all dwell in the world of state public policy and it would have been hard to decline — include friends of Eisendrath. Some tipped him off before he got the letter on Friday.
Once the letter started to circulate, “some people called in advance,” Eisendrath said. “Some apologized.”
Eisendrath said he considers the whole exercise, orchestrated by state Sen. Carol Ronen (D-Chicago) and Democratic donor Leo Smith, a child welfare advocate, “irrelevant.”
“It was something I thought was a good idea,” Ronen said.
38 Comments
|
Reopened that Question
Monday, Dec 5, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Since we’ve moved to a new site, I can now reopen Friday’s quite popular Question of the day.
Let’s say you owned a tavern, and instead of naming sandwiches after prominent politicians, you decided to rename various drinks for them.
Go there and comment if you want.
UPDATE: I’ve been tweaking the spam controls a bit today. Some people have had their comments inadvertently sent to moderation and some may have been inadvertently nuked altogether. That shouldn’t happen as much now. I hope.
UPDATE 2: This was a bad day for it to happen, but you may have noticed that the feeds weren’t updating this morning. Most of them are live again. Sorry about that, but it was completely beyond my control.
UPDATE 3: All of the news feeds have been switched over from java to php. This should greatly speed up the page loading.
UPDATE 4: Adjusted the font. I think it’s now easier to read.
Comments Off
|
“The Hidden Cost of Tenure”
Monday, Dec 5, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Here is the link to that series of Small Newspaper stories I wrote about this morning entitled “The Hidden Cost of Tenure.”
Reporter Scott Reeder spent six months working on this series, and it kicks off today with three stories.
Tenure frustrates drive for teacher accountability is the top story.
If you talk to Cicero Elementary School Superintendent Clyde Senters, it won’t be long before the word “accountability” comes to his lips. Recently a tenured staff member was fired, who had been routinely skipping work during the past seven years. “Her last year as an employee, she skipped more days than she worked. Can you believe there was still a question of whether she should be fired?” he said,
Then there’s, School boards lose power to fire poor teachers :
Procedure trumps everything when a school attempts to dismiss an incompetent teacher. The slightest error on any of the many forms to be followed can result in a problem teacher remaining in the classroom.
And, finally, Firing Mr. Roth: $400,000 and counting
Firing Cecil Roth has cost Geneseo schools more than $400,000, and counting. The case illustrates why administrators fear dismissing tenured teachers.
They also have this chart:
28 Comments
|
Welcome to my new blog
Monday, Dec 5, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
I’ve been playing around with this site for the past few months, not quite sure if I should move from the arms of the safe, easy Blogger system to something a little more risky but much more pliable.
Last week made my mind up for me. I had to close several comment threads because of a handful of jerks. I am past tired of babysitting this place just because two or three people can’t seem to behave and appear determined to ruin the experience for everyone else. Next month session starts again and I won’t have the time to monitor it like I do now. Something had to be done.
In theory, I can now weed out the bad apples who come here simply to cause trouble. I can track them down much more easily and block them from commenting, or even accessing the site itself, and then confront them one-on-one. I will, of course, continue to steadfastly maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the vast majority of commenters who know how to act like adults.
I’m aware that the new three-column format will take a bit of getting used to. The columns are slightly narrower than before, but the main column is dynamically sized, so just increase the size of your window if it bothers you.
I’ll be tweaking this site over the coming weeks to make it look better and perform faster. For some reason, the silver background stopped working on my Firefox browser, but it’s still working on my IE browser. Weird. There are a lot of things I can do with this site, like conduct live interviews that readers can also participate in. I’m excited about the vast number of opportunities.
Many thanks to Illini Pundit for his help with dynamic sizing and backup.
And a huge thank you goes to Bill Dennis, aka the Peoria Pundit, for moving my archives over from Blogger and holding my hand throughout the weekend. The archives aren’t completely up yet (bug in the system), but that’ll happen soon.
UPDATE: Fixed a problem with centered text on some browsers. Sorry about that.
Comments Off
|
Question of the day
Monday, Dec 5, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
First, read this.
Republicans have long been expecting a primary for governor, and recent efforts to pare what is currently a five-way race for the nomination in an effort to prevent a bruised and penniless nominee have so far been unsuccessful.
“My best guess is the field will look exactly this way after filing,” said one contender, state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger (R-Elgin).
Still, he said, he anticipated more discussions among the candidates–particularly between himself and the other two social conservatives–about whether it would be best for them all to proceed in the contest.
“I don’t think anybody’s ready to blink. But what I sensed was there was a genuine concern about us being prepared to go forward next year,” he said of the GOP field, which also includes state Sen. Bill Brady and businessmen Ronald Gidwitz and Jim Oberweis.
Do you think any of the conservatives will drop out soon? Why or why not? Who? Why?
32 Comments
|
President Nixon reminds us of Steve Rauschenberger’s role in the Alan Keyes fiasco.
Syverson said Rauschenberger suggested they pursue Keyes, and that the move was backed by Fitzgerald. Syverson said he and U.S. Rep. Manzullo, R-Egan, were the first to reach out to Keyes, an account confirmed by Manzullo spokesman Rich Carter.
Jim Muir also remembers back to last year.
Pat Hickey has an on-the-scene report from Alexi Giannoulis’ state treasurer kickoff.
Charlie Johnston whacks Joe Birkett.
Joe Birkett needed to accomplish two things last week: to indict the right man and to demonstrate that his office knows the difference between right and wrong. He got the former right. He didn’t even try for the latter. And justice remains an orphan in DuPage County.
And much, much more. Get on over there.
Comments Off
|
Guv to appeal
Monday, Dec 5, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Not sure he’ll be too successful.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich vowed to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that shot down a new Illinois law banning the sale of violent or sexual video games to minors.
U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled Friday that Illinois’ restrictions are unconstitutional and barred the state from enforcing the law. […]
“This battle is not over,” Blagojevich said in a statement. “Parents should be able to expect that their kids will not have access to excessively violent and sexually explicit video games without their permission.”
Actually, what the judge said was this:
“If controlling access to allegedly ‘dangerous’ speech is important in promoting the positive psychological development of children, in our society that role is properly accorded to parents and families, not the state.”
And this:
“At most, researchers have been able to show a correlation between playing violent video games and a slightly increased level of aggressive thoughts and behavior,†he wrote. “With these limited findings, it is impossible to know which way the causal relationship runs: it may be that aggressive children may also be attracted to violent video games.â€
12 Comments
|
Quinn wants protest ban
Monday, Dec 5, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Pat Quinn has an interesting idea.
Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn says he’s introducing legislation that will prevent protests at funeral services.
Quinn says the “Let Them Rest in Peace Act” is a response to a series of demonstrations at funeral services for military personnel.
The act applies to all funerals and memorial services. It creates a 300-foot buffer zone between protesters and the site of funeral services.
The zone would be in effect from 30 minutes before to 30 minutes after the funeral.
I doubt this would be constitutional. And I’m not one for banning speech of any kind. But Quinn has attended almost every funeral of fallen Illinois soldiers, so he’s most likely had a bellyful of those Westboro Baptist “church” morons.
Quinn disagrees that the law would be unconstitutional.
But Quinn said the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the type of restrictions he is proposing.
10 Comments
|
Claypool gets two big endorsements
Monday, Dec 5, 2005 - Posted by Rich Miller
Phelan and Simon support Forest:
Former Cook County Board presidents Richard Phelan and Seymour Simon are endorsing Forrest Claypool’s bid to be elected to their old job.
Mr. Claypool, who is to formally announce his candidacy Monday against incumbent board President John Stroger, also has signed up former League of Chicago Theaters President and CEO Marj Halperin as his campaign manager.
Not bad, but it’s like that old saying, “How many soldiers does the Pope have?” Claypool has $1.5 million on hand. Not bad, but not nearly enough yet to mout an effective TV ad campaign.
2 Comments
|
|
Support CapitolFax.com
Visit our advertisers...
...............
...............
...............
|
   
|
Hosted by MCS |
SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax |
Advertise Here |
Mobile Version |
Contact Rich Miller
|
