I’m outta here for a few days. I want to take some time to fully recharge before the October veto session nightmare begins. I’ll post again Wednesday. Paul is studying for his LSAT, so I doubt he’ll fill in. If he doesn’t have time, Illinoize is in charge…
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery plans to press criminal charges after he was shoved and sent down a flight of stairs while questioning a congressman Friday, knocking him into a woman who also fell.
The incident happened at a news conference in Joliet, where Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) was announcing his intention not to run for reelection. […]
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. […]
“I realized that I need to ask the police to look into this, and I indicated to them that we get roughed up like this from time to time, but I don’t recall ever being treated his violently; shoved around this violently, to the point where a woman gets knocked down,” Flannery said.
Flannery said he later learned an arrest had been made by police officers from Joliet Junior College.
He said the man who shoved him was identified by others as a Weller staffer, but, “He never said a word to me before during or after his violent actions, nor did he say a word to my colleagues who were similarly mistreated.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** There’s apparently much better video of this thug pushing both CLTV reporter Carlos Hernandez Gomez and Flannery. It should be posted soon.
*** UPDATE 3 *** This isn’t the first time that somebody has been dealt with harshly by the Weller people. Remember this one?
*** UPDATE 4 *** The CLTV video is now posted. It gives you a different angle and shows how the CLTV reporter was pushed by the Weller guy, who is now reported to be in custody.
*** UPDATE 5 *** From the CLTV video it looks as if the Weller guy leaned hard against Carlos Hernandez Gomez’s throat or upper chest. You can hear Carlos grunt in the video. Here’s a screen cap, which shows Carlos putting his hand on the other guy’s hand, but go watch the video…
* Residents of Cook County have been getting a major taste lately of what us Statehouse types have been dealing with all year. First, it was the CTA/RTA fight that featured hot-dogging by the governor, intransigence by Mayor Daley, intense battles between the two legislative chamber leaders and partisan gridlock. Now it’s the property tax assessment cap…
Now, Cook County homeowners may be the ones caught in the middle of the intensifying political feud between Gov. Blagojevich and House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The Democratic governor used his veto pen Thursday to rewrite Cook County property-tax relief legislation, radically reworking plans by Madigan (D-Chicago) to phase out property tax assessment caps in three years. […]
But the move and likely House rejection of it leave in question whether any property tax relief will come from Springfield this year and whether the flow of taxes to school districts and local governments could be disrupted.
Less than an hour after the governor took action, the House appeared poised to block Blagojevich’s move amid questions the governor may have overstepped his legal authority in changing the intent of legislation that passed the General Assembly overwhelmingly.
Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, however, supports the changes, a signal that his chamber will likely approve them.
If the two chambers split, the bill will die altogether, leaving no tax relief whatsoever for Cook County residents.
Oy.
* As usual, the TV news led with the happy stuff, which only serves to get everybody’s hopes up…
Homeowners in Cook County could be in line for some property tax relief. Governor Rod Blagojevich’s plan would give individual homeowners a break, and cost big business big bucks.
There’s good news for homeowners in Cook County who could be getting some property tax relief. Governor Rod Blagojevich announced he’s making a current property tax cap permanent.
* The Tribune did a good job of looking at the impact of what is really at stake…
In taking action, the governor stood in front of a bungalow in Lincoln Square that saw its property value increase 75 percent between 2002 and 2006. But as a result of the 7 percent cap, the house’s tax bills between 2002 and 2005 have increased less than 1 percent, or $27.
Blagojevich pointed out that under the Madigan version the 2006 tax bill due this fall would have increased 4.8 percent, and an additional 22 percent over the following two years.
Under the governor’s version, that house’s taxes will drop 1.8 percent this fall and increase 9 percent over the next two years.
Business groups, say the 7 percent legislation has gone far beyond its original intent of acting as a shock absorber against rapid assessment increases and instead has unfairly shifted burden away from homeowners who are benefiting from rising values.
* By the way, yesterday’s veto also imperils a wind farm assessment proposal.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich rode up on his white horse last week with a $91 million loan to postpone mass transit cuts and a promise to work hard to solve the funding crisis before that loan was spent. Since he also repeated his promise to veto a very good bill already on the table, you might be tempted to assume he had a germ of a reasonable alternative up his sleeve.
Dream on. […]
Blagojevich says the $200 million will “buy some time,” but what it would really do is buy more trouble. […]
If Blagojevich or Jones has an actual idea to fix the transit system, let’s hear it. If not, they should get out of the way.
* The Sun-Times looks at the field if Jerry Weller does, indeed, announce today that he is retiring…
State Senate Majority Leader Debbie DeFrancesco Halvorson (D-Crete) is one of the more well-known Democrats considering a bid. She has already been contacted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) about getting in the race.
Jerry Weber, president of Kankakee Community College, has indicated he will run for the Democratic nomination.
On the GOP side, state Sen. Christine Radogno — the GOP nominee for state treasurer last year — said she was considering entering the 11th District race. Radogno now lives outside the district in Lemont but said she would move into it if she decides to run and wins.
“It’s an opportunity that doesn’t come along very often,” Radogno said.
Weber has proved a more adept campaigner than just about anyone expected. Radogno is up for reelection next year, so she’d have to give up her Senate seat.
New Lenox Mayor Tim Baldermann confirmed Wednesday he had been approached by Republicans seeking a replacement for Weller. Baldermann said he was considering entering the race. […]
Former Will County Executive Joe Mikan said he would think about entering the race, but he’d have to move into the district to do so. Mikan lives about three miles north of the district’s boundary.
The Green Party will also be competing in this district.
Analysts say at least one-third of the state’s 18 [sic] House seats could be hotly contested next year, several of them due to Republican retirements. It’s possible no other state will see as many competitive races.
“To say that Illinois will be a big battleground in the 2008 race for Congress would be a gross understatement,” said David Wasserman, House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington. “This is going to be ground zero in the battle for the House, no question about it.”
Democrats and Republicans disagree on how likely it is that any Illinois seats will change parties in the election. But the map clearly puts the GOP on the defensive.
Six seats appear competitive already, five of them Republican-held. Three will be open due to the looming retirements of Republican Reps. Dennis Hastert, Ray LaHood and Jerry Weller. Three others feature incumbents in varying degrees of electoral consternation: Republicans Mark Kirk and Peter Roskam and Democrat Melissa Bean.
I agree with ArchPundit that Roskam won’t get a major challenge. That’s a stretch, added for dramatic effect. LaHood’s seat may be in play, but there’s only so much the Democrats can do. Still…
Former NBA and Bradley basketball coach Dick Versace hopes to add another win to his record with a bid for Congress.
“I’m all in,” Versace, a Democrat, said Thursday.
His confirmation ends several weeks of speculation about whether he would seek election for the 18th Congressional District seat held by Ray LaHood, who is not seeking re-election.
He said he’ll hold a news conference to officially announce his bid in the next couple weeks. After that, Versace will take off in a 38-foot motor home he will call “The Common Sense Express.”
* More congressional stories, compiled by Paul, who is studying hard for the LSAT this weekend…
* Billy Dennis: Schock playing fast and loose with election rules?
* Normal man joins fray for Weller’s Congressional seat
*** UPDATE 1 *** The Kankakee Daily Journal got an advance peek at Weller’s speech…
“For the benefit of my family, I can no longer seek another term in the United States House of Representatives. At this time, my wife, my child, my family, must come first,” Weller said.
He said the couple found it impossible to balance the demands of family life with both serving in their respective national legislatures. She was recently re-elected to a fourth four-year term, while at the same time caring for their daughter, Marizu Catherine Weller Rios. The couple, he said, decided this summer that he would leave the House when his term ends next year.
“When it was just the two of us, it was a lot easier, but, now we have a little one and we must balance family life even more. Frankly, it has been a difficult balance,” Weller said, adding that he plans to be a “full-time father and husband” and that they may have a second child.
The voices we’re especially eager to hear from the many aldermen who complain Daley is forever steering into downtown Chicago the city resources and people-magnets that should be spread to their neighborhoods too.
For them, nowhere is a place to walk their dogs under an archway of honey locust trees — not on sidewalks, but on dirt paths worn by footsteps. “Nowhere” is an antidote for downtown office workers seeking a breath of air and a quiet stroll. “Nowhere” is where people push baby strollers, where art students sit and sketch, where elders congregate on benches in the shade. To people who use this corner, Millennium Park’s country cousin is truly “somewhere.”
Has the mayor even been to the Children’s Museum at Navy Pier? I used to go with the boys all the time, back when they were little. Fun, with lots of attractions — a water sluice to splash in and a ship’s rigging to climb and a room that lets kids invent their own machines.
It doesn’t have a lot of windows, however. Which is just as well because a 2-year-old playing in a ball pit doesn’t need windows. That’s why it is a travesty to suggest the museum must be moved to Grant Park. There is no reason to put it there, and suggestions to the contrary — such as Jean Pritzker’s daft notion that the museum should be in Grant Park so kiddies can toddle over to the Art Institute and admire Goya after they’re done finger painting — are ludicrous.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan called Thursday for a united lobbying front to strengthen access to open government, which she says is improving in Illinois but still has a long way to go…
Madigan said she had no timetable for making the legislative push.
She rebuffed a question about whether she intended to run for governor in 2010, saying she’s happy being attorney general. She also declined to answer when asked whether she had an opinion on the public access track record of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration.
The nephew of a former Northwest Side congressman on Thursday emphatically denied making racist and sexist comments to co-workers at the city’s Department of Transportation and said he was falsely accused — and fired — for cracking the whip against unproductive city inspectors.
Joseph Annunzio, a nephew of the late Rep. Frank Annunzio (D-Ill.), said the woman who filed the bogus complaint is the girlfriend of Cook County Commissioner William Beavers, a former alderman.
* One third of pharmacies overcharged customers in city investigation
A former Carpentersville woman filed a $30 million federal lawsuit Thursday, alleging that anti-immigrant sentiment in the village contributed to paramedics’ failure to take her son to the hospital, causing him permanent brain damage.
Ted Karavidas, a lawyer for Gloria Lopez, said “virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic rhetoric” in the northwestern suburb led to an atmosphere where paramedics denied care for the boy, violating his civil rights.
* 2:55 pm - Judge Kelley just dismissed Gov. Blagojevich’s lawsuit against the House Clerk. Blagojevich had hoped to force the Clerk to retroactively enter the guv’s budget veto messages into the House Journal.
Nobody noticed, but the House did enter the budget veto message into its journal on Monday. They entered several others on Tuesday in preparation for the upcoming veto session.
Yesterday, the guv’s people were saying privately that they expected the judge to order Speaker Madigan’s Clerk to enter the veto message retroactively on the day the lawsuit was filed. Didn’t happen. The judge had been presiding over negotiations, but the governor’s lawyers had demanded a hearing. So, the hearing went forward today and the case was dismissed.
“Veto session continues as scheduled,” Madigan’s spokesman said a few minutes ago.
Kelley ruled that the issue is moot because the House entered the vetoes into the House Journal on Monday. That gives the House until Oct. 2 to act on the vetoes.
Oct. 2 is scheduled to be the first day of the fall veto session.
William Quinlan, chief lawyer for the governor, said after the hearing he’s glad the House has moved the process along. He also said it was not the governor’s intent to deny the House a chance to act on the vetoes.
Had Kelley approved backdating the House journal entry to Sept. 4, the House would have missed its chance to override the governor’s budget vetoes.
Kelley said in court that allowing events to proceed might lead to an improvement in the “ridiculous and embarrassing Hatfield and McCoy atmosphere” that has marked some legislative negotiations this year.
* 3:48 pm - Mysteriously enough, I can’t ever seem to get a press release out of the governor’s office in a timely manner these days. Here’s a segment of his release on his amendatory veto of the Cook County property tax assessment cap extension bill, sent by a pal…
Governor Blagojevich made two primary changes to House Bill 664: increasing the Expanded Homeowner Exemption (often called the 7% solution) for Cook County homeowners to $40,000 per year from its current $20,000 maximum; and making the increased exemption permanent. The Expanded Homeowner Exemption is the mechanism that currently helps slow the growth of rising property tax bills to 7% per year; it expires this year.
[Update: Almost right when I hit the “publish” button an e-mail showed up from the guv’s office with the release.]
* 4:31 pm - When will the back and forth end? Sun-Times…
Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.) is expected to announce he will retire from Congress during a Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Friday, a source familiar with the situation told the Chicago Sun-Times.
The seven-term congressman from Morris intended to make his announcement in mid-October, but word spread through Republican circles this week
Rep. Jerry Weller (R-Ill.), who has had to fend off allegations in recent weeks about questionable Central American land deals, will announce Friday that he will not seek an eighth term in 2008, inside sources confirmed late Thursday.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller will announce whether he’ll seek an eighth term in office in the next couple of weeks, a spokesman said Thursday. Combating rumors that the Morris Republican would be calling it quits Thursday, spokesman Andy Fuller said no such announcement was planned.
“Nothing is going on today,” Fuller said.
Fuller, however, would not confirm whether Weller is running again.
“That will be covered in that announcement,” Fuller said.
* 11:25 am - A lot of outlets jumped on the rumor that the announcement could be as early as today, but here is what the Tribune reported…
One of the sources said the announcement could come as soon as Thursday. Others said it would be early next month.
* 12:09 pm - Planned Parenthood of Aurora is live-blogging its hearing today on whether it can open its controversial clinic. You can find some of the filings in question here.
* 12:15 pm - From the governor’s public schedule…
On Thursday, September 20, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich will take action in providing significant property tax relief for the vast majority of Cook County homeowners.
WHO: Governor Rod R. Blagojevich, Alderman Eugene Schulter, James Houlihan, Cook County Assessor, Mike and Linda Vacala, homeowners
WHAT: Gov. Blagojevich will provide property tax relief to Cook County homeowners.
WHEN: 2:00 p.m.
WHERE: 2221 W. Winona
Chicago, IL 60625
If Schulter and Houlihan are there, you can bet there’s gonna be a flashy amendatory veto involved.
* 12:22 pm - A hearing is set for today at 1:30 regarding the governor’s lawsuit against the House Clerk. Stay tuned.
* 12:32 pm - According to Planned Parenthood of Aurora’s blog, a judge has denied the group’s motion to force Aurora to allow it to open its new clinic.
12:18PM: The judge is saying that there is a dearth of evidence showing discrimination and that there was not enough time for a reasonable investigation.
12:20PM: In its present form, the judge is denying the motion. He is leaving the option open to refile.
12:22PM: The judge said that by no means is the case over. He said that the delay itself is not of constitutional magnitude, but that could change.
12:24PM: Court is adjourned. The judge has denied the motion on the ground that we haven’t provided enough evidence. We can reapply later when we have more evidence. But for now, the clinic has to remain closed.
McLean County GOP Chairman John Parrott tells WJBC, he talked with Weller last night and the lawmaker claimed reports he’s stepping down were strictly rumors and that he planned to announce his re-election campaign.
* A recently released poll by the Survey Research Office, located in the Center for State Policy and Leadership, of the University of Illinois at Springfield had predictable results for the Democratic presidential primary here in Illinois. The telephone survey was conducted over a six-week period, from July 24 through September 4, 2007. According to the SRO, the entire survey consisted of interviews with 1,028 randomly-selected Illinois households.
* Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 51-27 among those who say they’ll take a Democratic primary ballot.
Obama’s lead decreases only slightly when the voting pool is narrowed to those who indicated they are “very likely” to vote in the primary (49%-27%). Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards is a distant third in all of these groups, at 6%. About 13-14% in all these groups have no opinion.
* Democratic crosstabs are here. Republican crosstabs are here.
* The Republican results are more interesting, of course…
Giuliani has a lead of 34% to 19% over Arizona Senator John McCain among respondents who said they would take a Republican ballot in the primary. Following in a close race for third are former Tennessee Senator and actor Fred Thompson (12%) and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (11%). Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee garners nearly 6%. About 14% have no opinion. (It should be noted that the survey was completed prior to Fred Thompson’s formal entry into the race and prior to former Illinois Governor James Thompson’s endorsement of Giuliani.)
Giuliani’s margin over McCain drops a bit when the voting pool is expanded to include all those who were asked the Republican preference questions (30%-19%). [This includes Republicans and independents leaning Republican who did not say what party ballot they would choose.]
The same decrease in his margin occurs when the pool is narrowed to those who indicated they are “very likely” to vote in the primary (31%-18%). These drops are a result of a small decline in Giuliani’s support rather than an increase in McCain’s. Among “very likely” voters, Fred Thompson’s support increases to 15% while Romney is at 12% and Huckabee at 4%. About 17% have no opinion.
The Republican race differs when the strength of Republican identification is taken into account.
For “strong” Republicans, Giuliani holds a lead of 35% to 18% over Fred Thompson. Romney is at 11%, McCain at 10% and Huckabee at 9%. About 12% have no opinion.
For possible Republican voters who are not “strong” Republicans, Giuliani holds a narrow 27% to 24% lead over McCain. Following are Romney (11%) and Fred Thompson (nearly 10%). Texas Congressman Ron Paul (nearly 4%) and Huckabee (3%) are next. One in five (20%) have no opinion.
* By region…
For “all possible” Republican primary voters, Giuliani’s lead narrows as we move further from the Chicago area. For instance, he has a lead over McCain of 34%-18% in the Chicago suburbs, with Fred Thompson and Romney both at 10% and Huckabee at 7%. In north/central Illinois, Giuliani’s lead decreases to 28% vs. 17% for both McClain and Fred Thompson (with Romney at 6%). And, his lead decreases even further to a virtual tie at 21%-20% with McCain in southern Illinois (with Fred Thompson at 13%, Romney at 7% and Huckabee at 4%). (Not enough possible Republican primary voters were interviewed in the City of Chicago to reach meaningful conclusions.)
* By gender…
Giuliani has a substantial lead over McCain among possible female Republican voters (37%-14%), followed by Romney (9%) and then Fred Thompson (6%). But, among males, he has only a slight lead over McCain (24%-21%) followed closely by Fred Thompson (17%). Romney garners 10% of the male support, and Huckabee is at 8%.
*** UPDATE *** I forgot to post the trend lines. You’ll recall that I commissioned a poll back in April on presidential preference. Here are the new results with my old results in parentheses…
“I don’t know why this is an issue now,” [former Ald. Burt Natarus] grumped, arguing that he’d reached an agreement with the Daley administration while he was still in office to prevent the museum from being relocated from Navy Pier to Daley Bicentennial Plaza, the section of Grant Park that is the subject of the current debate.
“It was already decided not to build it there,” Natarus said. “I put it in my campaign literature.”
* Meanwhile, the race issue is still causing sparks to fly…
Carole Brown, the Chicago Transit Authority chairman and a member of the museum board, said she heard a woman at a meeting earlier this month ask why the museum didn’t move to the South Side and another opponent ask if the children visiting a new museum were going to play on a Grant Park playground.
* Let’s take those issues one at a time. Is suggesting that the museum locate on the South Side racist? Perhaps that was the intent of the person who said it, but I would assume that aldermen from all over the city would like to use the museum to help revitalize their neighborhoods. As Cate Plys points out in an excellent piece this week…
However, to buy into that scenario, one must believe some manifestly untrue points: That the Children’s Museum is and will be largely patronized by needy children, rather than the mainly middle-class and wealthy people one generally sees there;
* And what about that crack about the kids playing in Grant Park? More from Plys…
This park area is not a “little-used sanctum.” Neighbors report waiting up to an hour on weekends to get a child on a swing there. (My sister-in-law says only two swings have been functional for most of the summer.) The skating rink is nearly as crowded as Millennium Park’s - so much so, I’d rather have my niece come skate at my neighborhood rink. The Bicentennial rink is free - except skate rental - and wide open to all comers. Particularly in the summer, the area is used by many people who don’t live anywhere near downtown.
Pritzker, the billionaire president of the board of the Chicago Children’s Museum, which is planning a controversial move to just east of Millennium Park, said the uproar is “just killing me.'’
But in an interview Wednesday, Pritzker, 45, vowed to continue to press for the Daley Bicentennial Plaza site despite opposition by some neighbors and Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd). While not all who object to the project are racist, the theme is there, she said.
“The thing that’s sad is the loudest voices — it doesn’t mean the whole community — seem to have that component to them,'’ Pritzker said.
I’m sure there must be some Bicentennial Plaza neighbors who don’t want to mix with anyone of a different background or income level. How could it be otherwise? There isn’t a block in this city where you won’t find people like that. The rest of the park’s neighbors, however, have legitimate concerns about welcoming a museum already drawing about a half million people per year to an area buzzing with traffic - and in the process of adding 15,000 new residents.
I guess it’s easy to demonize the residents of East Randolph and Lakeshore East if you don’t know any. I know several families there besides my brother’s, and they’re all decent people who are not attempting to blockade Grant Park against anyone with less money or darker skin. Let’s give them the consideration due any citizen: consider the merits of their actual arguments, rather than inventing nefarious and non-existent motives to debate instead. […]
Instead, they’ve chosen to throw their lot in with Chicago. They understand that cities are important, that you can’t just leave them behind like an old sweater when one piece starts unraveling. They think cities are worth putting up with smaller living spaces, bad traffic and crime. They are the people who have fueled the recovery and reinvention of downtown Chicago, which is nothing short of a miracle to anyone who remembers when the Loop, South Loop and North Loop were ghost towns after normal business hours.
* Meanwhile, a brief mention in the Sun-Times story yesterday was enough to prompt a resignation…
Patrick Thompson, a nephew of the mayor’s who has represented the museum at community meetings, withdrew from the job to avoid having the proposed move “be delayed or eroded by a tangential issue.'’
…appealing the decision was up to the Civil Service Commission, which decided against it, Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said without elaboration in an e-mailed statement.
Commission members all are chosen by Blagojevich. And the two Blagojevich-controlled agencies that employed DeFraties and Casey at the time they were fired, the Department of Healthcare and Family Services and the Historic Preservation Agency, could have appealed, too.
Ottenhoff did not respond to follow-up questions.
Madigan spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler also refused to explain why there is no appeal. Madigan’s staff represented the commission. A lawyer from the private law firm that represented the agencies that employed the two did not return a call seeking comment.
Rep. Jerry Weller, dogged by ethics questions surrounding his Nicaraguan investments and his wife’s finances, is set to announce his retirement in the near future, Republican sources said Wednesday.
Cook County is slicing millions off the top of state grants meant to help catch deadbeat dads or argue death penalty cases and using that money to run the government.
* Illinois public high school reading scores take a dive
Illinois high school reading scores took their biggest tumble in at least five years, while elementary reading scores moved solidly upward, 2007 statewide test results showed Wednesday.
Math scores showed a similar — but not as extreme –split, with math up in third through eighth grade but down a bit in 11th grade.
Cicero has for years been a lucrative cash cow for legal work, attracting the likes of powerbroker Ed Vrdolyak, who reaped millions off the embattled town.
Now records show a new law firm — brought in by a professed reformer promising to reduce legal costs — has made nearly $3 million in two years and double in one year what Vrdolyak earned.
Giglio & Del Galdo, which also represents Melrose Park, Morton College and two school districts, earned $2 million in fiscal year 2006 and $907,000 in 2005 — prompting criticism of Cicero President Larry Dominick. A town spokesman contends the law firm inherited a heavy workload.
