Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson

* New Press Release: Speaker Madigan responds to Gov. Blagojevich lawsuit

In essence, the governor has sued because the House started two of the special sessions a few hours earlier than the governor would have preferred – in other words, because the House acted on his supposedly urgent business too urgently

I believe that the House made every reasonable attempt to comply with the governor’s 16 special session proclamations, even though: none of them could have resulted in the passage of a comprehensive budget bill because they were written to only allow the General Assembly to consider a portion of the state budget; many of them were duplicative; many were received with only a few hours’ notice (in two instances less than an hour); and for none of them did the governor furnish any legislation for the body to consider, permit any witnesses from his administration to testify or himself appear in support of a bill.

* Chuck Sweeney: Syverson and Blago, the new odd couple

* Lawmakers look for citizen opposition to governor

Michael McRaith, director of the Illinois Division of Insurance, was in town in the afternoon to get out the governor’s message ahead of an evening budget hearing run by state Rep. Jack McGuire, D-Joliet.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the Illinois House have been holding dueling events around the state as they take the Springfield budget battles on the road.

McRaith said the governor vetoed about $463 million worth of spending in the House budget to free up money that will fund breast and cervical cancer screenings for women without insurance.

Many of McRaith’s comments — and those from local officials, including Joliet Junior College President Gena Proulx and Plainfield Economic Partnership Executive Director Alex Harris — focused on local projects that would be funded in a $25 billion Senate capital bill supported by the governor.

* State worker defends gov’s veto in Joliet

* Illinoize: The veto override tour rolls on

* Sen. Brady praises construction project despite ‘no’ vote

Millions of dollars in projects could come to Central Illinois as part of a statewide construction program, state Sen. Bill Brady said in a two-page press release Monday.

Nowhere in the release, however, does the former gubernatorial candidate explain that he voted against a way to pay for many of the projects.

The Bloomington Republican was among 15 senators who voted “no” last week on a plan to expand gambling in Illinois in order to generate the billions of dollars that will fund the statewide construction program.

Brady did vote in favor of two components of the proposal, which is now awaiting action in the House. He supported provisions that outline how the money will be spent and on which projects, but he voted “no” when it came to the gambling expansion idea.

* Springfield poker buddies on Obama’s gambling style

Obama studied the odds carefully, friends say. If he had strong cards, he’d play. If he didn’t, he would fold rather than bet good money on the chance the right card would show up when he needed it.

That reputation meant that he often succeeded when he decided to bluff.

“When Barack stayed in, you pretty much figured he’s got a good hand,” said Larry Walsh, a former senator.

More than one lawmaker teased Obama about his careful style of play.

“I always used to kid him that the only fiscally conservative bone in his body I ever saw was at the poker table with his own money,” said state Sen. Bill Brady, a Republican from the central Illinois city of Bloomington. “I said if he would be half as conservative with taxpayer dollars, the state would be a lot better off.”

* Federal lawsuit aims to void state law

The federal government sued the state, contending that Public Act 095-0138, which Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed in August, is illegal because it prevents Illinois employers from participating in a federal program to check the legal status of job applicants.

“Today’s lawsuit seeks to invalidate an Illinois state law that frustrates our ability to assist employers in making sure their workforce is legal, and in doing so conflicts with federal law,” Carl Nichols, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a news release.

* U.S. sues Illinois for blocking immigration crackdown

* Open road tolling could spell end to toll booths

* Ted Pincus: Gidwitz sees Illinois business as lame giant

Ron Gidwitz is alive and well, and fighting mad. The former gubernatorial candidate and influential CEO of Helene Curtis Industries says that the Blagojevich administration is crippling Illinois’ ability to compete in today’s tough global marketplace. While the state successfully shook off the rust belt image years ago and became a key hub of finance and services, vast overspending plus inattention to upgrading needs of transportation, education, workforce quality and tax incentives have greatly handicapped us, he contends.

“We’re at a significant economic disadvantage vs. Iowa and Wisconsin, for example,” he says. “Take a look at workmen’s comp, medical and health care costs. Iowa is at least 25 percent less expensive as a place to live and do business, and Wisconsin is at least 10 percent less.

* Grover Norquist discusses ‘liberty agenda’ in Springfield

* AG Madigan expecting 2nd child

* Political ‘neophyte’ to run against Durbin

* Sun-Times Editorial: On Weller announcement

Weller also doesn’t like answering questions about his ethics problem. When TV newsman Mike Flannery pursued him after his retirement speech in Joliet, he got shoved twice by a Weller aide near a stairway, knocking him into a woman. Maybe that’s the way they did things in Guatemala when Mrs. Weller’s old man was in power. It’s not the way we do things even in as tough a political state as this one.

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School strain builds

Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson

* State budget still worries schools

“We just don’t know. Our budget needs to be passed by September 30th. We have to put a 30-day window out there, put a tentative budget out, advertise it, pass it,” said Dr. Kelly Funke, Superintendent of Limestone Community H.S. District.

Many school districts expect to get more state money for 2008, and that could be about $400 more per student.

* School budget conservative in light of state budget impasse

While Illinois politicians continue to fight over the state budget, school financial planners try to do their jobs without hard numbers. For Harlem — and probably many other school districts across Illinois — it means that budgets will probably be amended after state funding for schools is known.

A public hearing on the tentative budget is set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday, with the School Board expected to vote on it immediately afterward. This process, with revisions likely, would have to be repeated if the budget is altered at a later date.

“My guess is that most districts will have to amend their budgets,” said Rob Holmes, Harlem’s business manager.

At Monday’s School Board meeting, he told board members that with no word from Springfield, the 2007-08 budget will not change from the tentative version that was released in late August. That spending plan showed balanced spending for this school year.

* School district on the capital budget

* Editorial: Assignment, boost scores in high schools

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Cook Co. news

Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson

* Cook Co. urged to boost sales tax

Stroger’s office would not say Monday whether he supports the increase, but at least one commissioner said he got a call from the president late last week asking him to support the proposal. Administration officials have been talking to commissioners in recent weeks about whether they could support some form of higher taxes to fill a 2008 budget deficit estimated by some officials to be as large as $400 million.

“The president supports ways to increase revenue wherever possible,” spokeswoman Ibis Antongiorgi said. “This would be a possible revenue source.”

The Stroger administration could not say how much revenue the increase would generate. At the current rate, the county sales tax brings in about $300 million a year. Critics said such a large increase in the rate would send shoppers outside Cook County and would particularly hurt businesses that sell big-ticket items such as cars and appliances.

* Phil Kadner: State’s Attorney says Cook Co. should issue tax bills now

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is in a bitter feud with Madigan, last week used his veto power to amend the House measure and expand and increase the tax breaks for homeowners. Houlihan appeared at a news conference to endorse the governor’s plan.

But the measure now must go back to the Legislature, where sources tell me Madigan plans to kill it.

In the meantime, school districts, library districts, fire districts, municipalities and the county itself are not receiving the property tax money they have anticipated in their budgets.

If the property tax bills are not mailed before Nov. 1, school districts will not have the money they need to make their bond payments, which are due Dec. 1. Property owners have 30 days to pay after receiving the bills.

“There is a panic setting in in a lot of school districts,” said Rob Grossi, Bloom Township’s school treasurer. “People have to start making plans on how they’re going to deal with this situation, and nobody’s sure what’s going to happen.”

Houlihan is hopeful that the governor and Madigan “can put their differences aside” and agree on at least a one-year tax cap expansion to resolve the current dilemma.

* Chicago Public Radio: Despite legal advice, Assessor insists on waiting

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Museum march rolls on

Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson

* Mayor on museum: No reason to fear 5 year olds

“I’m open to compromise, but what is wrong next to Millennium Park?” Daley said. “You see families. They’re not destroying the park. They’re in the Crown Fountain. Look at them there — all types of kids. Their parents are down there. They’re not destroying anything. … Now, those are a little older kids. But these are 5-year-olds. Now, do you really believe that a 5-year-old can destroy your property values?”

* Dennis Byrne: Free, clear endangered by our mayor

After all is said, the rationale for relocating the Chicago Children’s Museum into Grant Park comes down to this: Nothing’s there, something has to go there and it might as well be the museum.

Obviously, that reasoning flunks all tests of logic, but, at base, it’s the best that the move’s backers can do. Put aside all the red herrings (racism, classism, adultism) raised by Mayor Richard Daley. A Tribune headline succinctly got to the heart of the argument: “Fixing ‘nowhere.’” The northeast corner of Grant Park is “underused;” enter it from the serpentine bridge from Millennium Park and you’ll find yourself “nowhere.” Because large-scale work must be done on the parking garage below, we’ll have an opportunity to fix the supposedly desolate park by relocating the privately operated, fee-to-enter Children’s Museum from its cramped Navy Pier quarters.

* Tribune Editorial: Follow the money on Children’s museum move

As you weigh the proposed relocation of the Chicago Children’s Museum, consider this sentence from Sunday’s Tribune: “If located in Grant Park, the museum would also receive a subsidy from the Chicago Park District, part of a program that has netted millions for other museums on park land.”

What a nice bonus: In addition to getting a lease on a Grant Park parcel — perhaps 99 years at $1 a year — the privately owned, nonprofit museum would get a phased-in subsidy from Chicago property taxpayers.

This year, 10 cultural institutions are divvying up $33.8 million in Park District subsidies; the Lincoln Park Zoo gets a separate $5.6 million, according to the district. The money is allotted according to a formula that factors in their respective attendance figures and budgets.

* Mary Mitchell: Downtowners don’t fret about black children

Daley has been harshly criticized for playing the so-called race card in this dispute, which pits him against aldermanic newcomer Brendan Reilly (42nd). Reilly is backing residents who live in high-rises near the park site where the Chicago Children’s Museum would be located.

Last Thursday, Jean Pritzker, president of the board of the museum — and oh yes, a billionaire — told the Chicago Sun-Times that the uproar was “killing” her.

“I don’t think anybody has a right to be fearful of a bunch of little kids and their parents who simply want to go to a place that cares about them, nurtures them and helps them,” she said.

Now that’s two white people of means who hang out with other white people of means, and both of them think some of the naysayers are playing a race card of their own.

* No Navy Pier casino, says Daley

“When we decided to do Navy Pier, people had rumors: ‘Oh, there’s going to be a big gaming hall.’ I don’t know who’s getting these rumors out. This will never be a gaming facility. … Navy Pier is for families,” Daley told a news conference at Navy Pier, where he is hosting a “Hemispheric Forum” for mayors from North, Central and South America.

“When I closed … Meigs Field, they said it was going to be gaming. It’s not going to be gaming. And also, gaming is not going to be around McCormick Place because you have conventions. They want to do convention business. If we have an opportunity to do a casino, you place it … away from these venues.”

* Mayor Daley nixes site for Chicago casino

* Daley open to compromise on Children’s museum fight

* Daley on nephew’s deals

* Mark Brown: It’s deja vu over again for Daley’s kin

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Statehouse

Monday, Sep 24, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson

Note: The links today are by no means comprehensive. But, I wanted to be sure to provide some assistance in getting everyone’s morning off on the right foot. Even if it means dropping a few points on my LSAT score, I’m here to serve my faithful Cap Fax Blog reading friends. - Paul

* Miller: Judge dimisses Blago lawsuit, derides atmosphere

Even when a judge asks Gov. Rod Blagojevich to sit down and negotiate in good faith, he can’t bring himself to do it.

As you by now may know, Sangamon County Circuit Judge Patrick Kelley dismissed Blagojevich’s lawsuit against the House Clerk last Thursday….

Also, the Senate met last week and didn’t enter any of the governor’s veto messages into its own journal. The governor’s claim that he is simply attempting to uphold his Constitutional right to a speedy hearing on his vetoes would have been strengthened if he had added the Senate to his lawsuit after Monday’s Senate session.

Instead, by failing to include the Senate, the governor’s case was exposed for what it really was: a bogus judicial extension of his intense political fight with the House Speaker.

* Statehouse Insider: On Blago lawsuit mess

There’s still one more of Blagojevich’s lawsuits pending. This is the one in which Blagojevich wants the courts to say he gets to set both the date and time of special sessions. Madigan thinks otherwise, which is what got him sued by the governor.

Last week, House Minority Leader TOM CROSS, R-Oswego, quietly filed papers to get involved in the lawsuit as an ally of Madigan. Cross argued that any decision made affecting Madigan also affects the Republicans…

Cross is being represented by former Republican Rep. JOHN COUNTRYMAN. Cross spokesman DAVID DRING said Countryman is doing the work for free. Dring added that Cross wants to see Madigan win so that when Republicans win control of the House and Cross is elected speaker, he will not have to face similar questions about special sessions.

* Bernie Schoenburg: Becky Carroll, Poshard, Topinka

* Jones may back tax hike to fund CTA

* Gambling’s future brighter in IL

Supporters hope careful negotiations produce an expansion plan that can pick up enough votes to pass after years of false starts.

“There is a gaming bill that can be crafted that can be passed,” said Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie). “There’s a lot of questions to be asked.”

Talk of expanding gambling has become as inevitable as death and taxes at the Illinois statehouse. But in the past, gambling measures usually died because they got so loaded up with goodies that legislators backed away.

This year could be different, though, because circumstances behind the gambling push are different.

It’s being offered as the answer to two specific problems - repairing roads and bridges and bailing out Chicago’s aging mass transit system- instead of as a source of money for state programs in general.

The deadly collapse of a Minneapolis bridge has driven home the need for Illinois to repair its transportation infrastructure, and the financial problems with Chicago’s mass transit are scaring the area’s lawmakers.

* Editorial: Time to consider a capital plan, casinos and all

We are lukewarm on the expansion of gambling in Illinois and suspicious of rosy revenue projections for three proposed casinos, but the need for local capital projects that are part of this deal make it tempting to support.

Mostly we just want to scream: Do something! If not this, what?

The state hasn’t had a capital plan since Gov. Rod Blagojevich took office. How long can the state’s roads, bridges and school buildings be ignored?

The Senate unanimously passed a six-year, $25.4 billion capital plan last week that includes such local public works projects including road improvements and money for the MetroCentre and the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford’s rural health initiative.

* Casino poised to expand if state allows it

* A look at the state’s gambling for construction package

* Editorial: Compromise and OK the capital proposal

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Elections

Monday, Sep 24, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson

* Peoria Dems hoping to regain ground w/ Schock’s departure

* Editorial: Weller’s departure will benefit 11th district

* Flannery files complaint after Weller scuffle

“I began to throw out a number of questions regarding his controversial Latin American land deals,” and asked if there should be a House Ethics committee investigation, Flannery said.

Weller did not speak, but instead went back down the stairs, still surrounded by a phalanx of aides, Flannery said. At that point, the scene began to turn ugly.

“There’s a large man, who begins shoving reporters around, including yours truly. He shoves me one way, then he goes after another reporter with CLTV.… There’s an opening in the doorway, and I begin moving through that doorway, and he shoves me down the stairs; he shoves me into a railing on the staircase and also into a woman in on the staircase who was traveling with Weller,” Flannery said.

* Roeper: Weller shove looks like old-school roughhousing

* Slain Marine’s father to mount challenge against Rep. Melissa Bean

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State and Regional stuff

Monday, Sep 24, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson

* Seatbelt use hasn’t quite clicked survey shows

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed that state’s primary seat belt law in 2003. Since then, seat belt use has jumped by 14 percent. The most recent statewide survey of safety belt use, released in July, showed 90 percent of Illinois drivers and front-seat passengers now wear seat belts.

* Blago cuts in half grants to QC Arts program

* Police cruisers in Northern Illinois going high tech; more here

* State can help fight global warming, says expert panel

* U.S. Courts back state ban on horse-slaughtering for human food

* SIU plagiarism charge could bolster Poshard defense

* SIU report on plagiarism says it can be unintended, insignificant

The panel’s chairman on Friday called the 17-page report’s release coincidental and unrelated to the unfolding flap over whether Glenn Poshard plagiarized parts of his 1974 master’s thesis and 1984 doctoral dissertation at the university’s flagship Carbondale campus.

“The guts of the report were really done much earlier” than when Poshard’s troubles first surfaced late last month, said Lain Adkins, director of the University Press at the Carbondale school.

The panel of employees at the university’s Carbondale and Edwardsville campuses was created in the wake of claims that Walter Wendler, then chancellor at the Carbondale school, lifted sections from a strategic plan for a Texas school where he worked, then used them in SIU’s long-range plan.

* Editorial: Seek a balance of nurturing, testing

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Museum fiasco and other city news

Monday, Sep 24, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson

* How the museum fight got ugly

* Neighbors bristle at Daley’s comments

* Laura Washington: Daley’s museum gambit aimed at Olympics

As the summer legislative debacle dragged on in Springfield, Daley laid low. In September, while the clock was ticking down to midnight of the CTA’s doomsday scenario, he was tooling around Paris on a bicycle.

Mr. Gets Things Done is dawdling over a decision on a new police superintendent while schoolchildren are being shot down on the streets, and his administration remains recalcitrant about slamming down hard on police brutality and corruption.

Why? Because right now, Daley has only one agenda. Anyone who has been around him for more than 10 seconds lately knows he has caught a bad case of Olympic fever. Real bad. Snaring Chicago as the site for the 2016 Olympics will forever seal his legacy as the Mayor Who Made Chicago a World Class City. Forever.

* Freshman alderman Reilly tries to hold his own

Aside from the mayor’s blow up at him, the toll on Reilly is not unexpected given that he is the local elected representative of the city’s marquee ward.

It’s a ward brimming with high-stakes development, from Trump Tower on the Chicago River to the 2,000-foot Chicago Spire planned for the lakefront.

Reilly has already put the brakes on Northwestern University’s plans to sell the historic Lake Shore Athletic Club to a developer who intended to tear it down.

He’s also dealing with Streeterville residents’ concerns about traffic congestion, inadequate parking and a proposed helipad with Children’s Memorial Hospital’s $850 million plan to relocate to Streeterville.

Reilly sought to dispel any notion that he’s against development, stressing that he has already given the green light to a number of projects.

* Zorn: If alderman is in ‘prerogatory,’ where is Daley?

“There’s aldermanic prerogative,” conceded Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley last week, during feisty remarks in support of the effort to move the Chicago Children’s Museum to a new home in Grant Park. “But when it comes to a statement that kids are not welcome to Grant Park, that’s not an aldermanic prerogatory.”

It sounded to me as though Daley inadvertently came up with a very useful new word.

Prerogatory — a state of suffering and repentance in which an alderman must abide until he gets right with the mayor and has his building and zoning motions approved.

* Tom McNamee: Daley likes easy fights

* Mayor’s nephew to make millions from city-connected pension funds

* Taxpayers on hook for city employee pension

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