Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Thursday, Jan 10, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* As you already know, 17 Democrats and five Republicans filed to run for the 2nd Congressional District. In such a huge field, any extra votes Robin Kelly could get from getting the top of the ballot spot would be helpful…

Former state Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson will get the first spot on the ballot in special Democratic primary for the seat once held by former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.

The Illinois State Board of Elections conducted lotteries for the first and last spots on the Feb. 26 primary ballot.

Kelly won out among five candidates who submitted their petitions at the 8 a.m. opening of candidate filing at the elections board last week. In a separate lottery, management consultant Joyce Washington won the bottom spot on the Democratic ballot among five contenders who submitted candidacy petitions in the final hour before the filing deadline concluded at 5 p.m. on Monday.

* In other news, this is a very small buy, but still quite interesting…

U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock’s vote for last week’s fiscal cliff deal already is drawing heat.

A group called the Jobs and Progress Fund plans to spend more than $16,000 on television attack ads in Mr. Schock’s downstate district starting today, Crain’s has learned.

“Washington has a strange effect on politicians. Just four years in Congress, and Aaron Schock has voted for massive tax increases and mountains of debt,” according to a transcript of the ad. “It’s . . . well . . . shocking.”

According to the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, a group called Ohio First for a Better Government registered as a nonprofit corporation in Dayton on March 8, 2011, and changed its name to Jobs and Progress Fund Inc. last month.

Ohio First is registered with the IRS but its annual tax return is not yet available, according to Guidestar.org, a website that tracks nonprofit data.

The group was incorporated by David R. Langdon, a prominent attorney in Cincinnati for several conservative nonprofit groups. He did not respond to a request for comment.

* Meanwhile, in LalaLand…

Tea Party favorite Joe Walsh says conservatives are losing the “war” for U.S. voters and encouraged his backers at a South Loop rally to engage in civil disobedience to defy the Affordable Care Act or new gun regulations.

At his most aggressive, he told dozens of supporters to “defy and or break the law and engage in civil disobedience” if faced with federal health care law restrictions or new gun laws.

He paraphrased Thomas Jefferson in saying, “We may have to shed blood every couple hundred years to preserve our freedoms.”

The one-term McHenry County congressman, who lost his re-election bid to Democrat Tammy Duckworth in November, openly contemplated breaking away from the Republican Party during a Wednesday rally at Blackie’s, 755 S. Clark St.

And in the end of the rally he began organizing a statewide movement he said would “scare Republicans and Democrats.”

A pic from the event…

Caption?

* And one has to wonder whether the father lobster would allow this…

As President Barack Obama tries to avoid fallout from his Cabinet and national security nominations, one potentially controversial post remains vacant.

Amid tension with America’s Roman Catholic leaders about a health care mandate that requires religious employers to provide insurance coverage of contraceptives for employees, Obama must find an ambassador to the Holy See who would please the pope as well as his own political supporters.

“Filling the slot tends to be a special headache for Democratic presidents,” Vatican expert and papal biographer John Allen wrote in a column this week for the National Catholic Reporter.

Allen said Vatican diplomats have their sights set on a number of Catholic scholars and politicians, including an Illinoisan: U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, a socially conservative Democrat who opposes abortion rights and the health care mandate.

In an interview, Lipinski told the Tribune he has not been offered the job but would welcome consideration.

* Other stuff…

* Poll: The Tea Party May be Over; Voters Sour on Movement: The new poll reveals only eight percent (8%) now say they are members of the Tea Party, down from a high of 24% in April 2010 just after passage of the national health care law.

* Freshman Rep. Duckworth hopes to be ‘calm voice’ on gun issues

* Bustos gets seat on House Agriculture Committee

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#IllinoisFail: 12-18 month delay to process medical licenses

Thursday, Jan 10, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* More massive fail from the Illinois General Assembly…

The Illinois government agency that looks into complaints against doctors announced it will lay off investigators starting Tuesday and warned of yearlong delays in physician licensing because the Legislature didn’t act to bail out the medical watchdog unit.

In a letter being sent to doctors Thursday, officials from Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation pin the blame on the Illinois State Medical Society for lobbying against legislation to transfer $9.6 million to keep the program going. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter on Wednesday.

The letter details “calamitous consequences,” including “delays between 12 and 18 months to process a medical license and severe constraints to the Department’s ability to prosecute physicians who pose a risk to the health and safety of Illinois citizens.”

The letter is signed by department Director Jay Stewart and Acting Secretary Manuel Flores. “As a direct result of (the medical society’s) actions, the layoffs will occur,” the letter says.

Medical society president Dr. William Werner said the legislation that stalled in the just-finished lame duck session required borrowing against future money collected by the fund that supports the medical watchdog unit. He said it’s time to restore money that was raided from the fund by previous legislatures.

OK, so the docs worked against it. No other solution could be found?

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY: A few items of interest and a roundup

Thursday, Jan 10, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Investors yawn at Illinois’ failure

Thursday, Jan 10, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The failed lame duck session has so far been greeted with a yawn by investors. From Bloomberg…

Illinois debt is close to the strongest in two years even after state lawmakers failed for the second time since August to fix the nation’s worst-funded pension system.

The $97 billion of unfunded retirement obligations that Democratic Governor Pat Quinn has likened to a python strangling Illinois are rising by $17 million a day. Moody’s Investors Service rates Illinois A2, five steps below the top rank and the lowest among U.S. states. Last month, it threatened another downgrade without pension changes.

Yet investors such as Eric Friedland at Schroder Investment Management North America said they expect the state will repay its general-obligation securities even though it faces a backlog of $8 billion in bills from vendors. The extra yield buyers demand on debt from Illinois and its localities shrank to as little as 1.32 percentage points over AAA munis last month, the least since February 2011.

“I anticipate credit quality will diminish, but at the end of the day, Illinois G.O. bonds aren’t going to ever default,” said Friedland, head of muni-credit research in New York at Schroder, which oversees about $2 billion of the bonds. Rating companies will probably cut the state’s credit another level, he said.

* This is why there has been no run-up in Illinois interest rates as of yet…

Illinois by law must appropriate funds for debt service, according to a 2011 Fidelity Investments report that ranked it among the seven states with the strongest legal provisions.

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Question of the day

Thursday, Jan 10, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* All four legislative leaders were reelected yesterday. No surprise there. Yesterday, I asked you to give Gov. Pat Quinn some advice, so…

* The Question: What advice would you give each of the four legislative leaders?

Try to avoid snark. Thanks.

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Oops

Thursday, Jan 10, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* In case you saw the earlier post, it has been retracted as an e-mail glitch. So, nevermind.

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Looking back and looking ahead

Thursday, Jan 10, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The Decatur Herald & Review editorial board made a good point in today’s issue…

It was amazing the past few days to watch General Assembly members scramble for reasons to not support a pension solution. They were almost like Goldilocks; some proposals were too hard; some were too soft. None, however, was just right because legislators are afraid to vote on an issue that might anger the state’s public employees.

State Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington, said he couldn’t support any proposal because judges weren’t included. We agree judges should be included, but taxpayers would be better off with a partial solution to this problem than no solution.

Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, didn’t like that the problem was being handled in the lame-duck session. We agree, but at $17 million a day, isn’t there a need for some urgency?

* The Tribune made a similar point earlier this week…

Timid lawmakers reached hither and yon to find reasons for not supporting reform legislation: This proposal is too strong, that proposal is too weak, and so on — whatever it took to avoid decisive action.

Among the most maladroit: state Rep. Tom Morrison, a conservative Republican from Palatine, who ran for office on a platform of … pension reform.

We endorsed Morrison wholeheartedly — and then he voted Monday in committee against the only serious, cost-cutting pension reform measure that had any momentum. He evidently thought it didn’t go far enough. In other words, pension reform champion Morrison had found his reason to oppose pension reform!

* But Gov. Quinn was still optimistic, as always…

Gov. Pat Quinn says he believes a new crop of lawmakers will help the Legislature fix Illinois’ $96 billion pension crisis.

Members of the new General Assembly took the oath of office Wednesday. Among them were dozens of lawmakers who were elected to the House or Senate for the first time.

Quinn says many of those legislators ran for office on a platform of pension reform. He says that should help “get the job done.”

* Unlike in the past, however, there is some reason for Quinn’s optimism, as the Tribune editorial board points out today…

As for the ambitious crop of new lawmakers, you’ve got to play catch-up, and fast. We’re counting on incoming Democrats such as Sam Yingling and Scott Drury and Republicans such as Jeanne Ives to make some noise. Remember what you said during the campaign?

“It’s going to take the courage of the freshmen class to make changes. I’m not going to need political cover. I’m going down there to get something done,” Ives told us during an endorsement interview last fall. “I’m willing to vote on anything that advances the situation in a positive way. I will do any baby steps to get there.”

Wanted: Baby steps. Big steps. Galloping strides. Fix the pensions now.

With that last line, the Tribune also appears to be coming around. Legislators may need to rethink this entire process. Maybe “baby steps” are in order for now, just to get something done.

* But not everyone is optimistic…

Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, a 20-year legislative veteran and the GOP candidate for governor three years ago, also expressed pessimism.

Based on the failure of pension negotiations earlier this week, he said, “I don’t see any progress on the governor’s ability to do anything. I do think that the rank-and-file members who are dependent on those pension systems, they know that this system can’t be sustained without reforms. They’re willing to discuss reforms.”

But he faulted Gov. Pat Quinn for the failed bargaining.

“When you are sticking a needle in the eye of the state’s biggest union on a contract negotiation, and trying to negotiate this, you see the kind of results this governor gets,” he said.

* Related…

* Pension debate to continue in new General Assembly: That plan also will revive a provision that had been removed this week, in hopes of attracting more votes for the package: shifting pension costs for downstate teachers to local school districts.

* Hinz: What now for Illinois pension reform?

* Lame Duck Session Ends Without Vote On Pensions, Lawmakers Plot Next Moves

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Squeezy the Python flees!

Thursday, Jan 10, 2013 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Good riddance to the snake…

Qantas had its own dramatic ‘’snakes on a plane'’ episode when a three-metre python joined passengers on an early morning flight to Papua New Guinea.

But unlike Samuel L. Jackson’s 2006 fictional Hollywood blockbuster in which a nest of vipers causes death and destruction on a jet, this reptile was concerned only with self-preservation.

QF191 was about 20 minutes into its 6.15am flight from Cairns to Port Moresby on Thursday when a woman pointed outside the plane and told cabin crew: ‘’There’s a snake on the wing … There’s its head and if you look closely you can see a fraction of its body.'’

While some passengers scoffed in disbelief, she was correct.

* Photos…

Discuss.

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