Nearly two dozen profitable public U.S. utility companies paid no federal income taxes last year, and the utility industry overall has the lowest effective federal tax rate of any business sector, new research shows.
The “Utilities Pay Up” report from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) concludes that domestic utility companies “have become expert tax dodgers at the federal and state levels.” […]
Ameren Illinois and ComEd are among the local utility companies mentioned in the report. Last year, their pre-tax profits in Illinois were $217 million and $706 million, respectively.
Illinois has a corporate income tax of 7.75 percent. Had Ameren Illinois and ComEd paid the full rate, the state government would have had an additional $65 million in revenue last year, according to IPS.
“This revenue could’ve covered the cost of weatherizing 13,800 low-income residences in single and multi-family buildings, reaching 17 percent of all low-income families in Illinois,” the report reads. “Sliced another way, the money could’ve created 1,000 jobs, 400 directly through clean energy projects and another 600 indirectly at suppliers and through economic ripple effects.”
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, Fellow GOP Lawmakers and Candidates Call for Term Limits and Other Political Reforms
Political Reforms Needed to Return State Government to Illinois Citizens
Mike Madigan has rigged the system. He picks the voters for the politicians he controls and backs them with special interest cash. Now that a Cook County judge has ruled against the Independent Maps Initiative, many Republican statehouse candidates are pushing for political reforms, including term limits and fair maps, to restore citizen control over state government. Illinois is broken and we can no longer afford the rigged system built by the supermajority in Springfield.
Jim Durkin, House GOP Leader and 82nd District State Representative:
“The General Assembly is in desperate need of balance, but unfortunately that cannot come until we reform our political system. Term Limits and Fair Maps are the surest way to overcome the lopsided power structure in each statehouse chamber and return control of State government back to the people of Illinois. Powerful special interests will fight these reforms, but an overwhelming majority of Illinoisans - Democrat, Republican, Independent, you name it - support the Term Limits and Fair Maps initiatives. I call on Speaker Madigan and President Cullerton to pass these constitutional measures during the fall veto session and let the people of Illinois have the final say on these hugely important issues.”
As we’ve already discussed, Leader Durkin has served 18 years in the House.
Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan called Gov. Bruce Rauner’s push for reforms extreme when speaking with a reporter July 27 at the Democratic National Convention. Madigan said, “Democrats are like most Illinoisans, they are not happy with the extremism of Bruce Rauner.”
But there’s nothing extreme about Rauner’s reform proposals in light of the economic and fiscal mess Madigan has created during his three-plus decades of leadership in the General Assembly. Illinoisans are suffering under the nation’s third-worst business climate, a shrinking population, the nation’s third-highest unemployment rate, a collapsing manufacturing sector, the nation’s worst pension crisis, the worst credit rating of any state and the nation’s highest property taxes.
What is extreme is the stopgap budget Madigan took pride in passing in June. The speaker said the nearly $40 billion stopgap budget was only possible because it didn’t include any of the governor’s economic and spending reforms: “We can pass a budget when the governor’s demands …. are dropped.”
Madigan got what he wanted: “compromise.” In one fell swoop, Illinois politicians hiked spending by $4 billion to $39.6 billion – a 12 percent increase – despite the fact that tax revenues will total just $31.8 billion in the new fiscal year. […]
Rauner, on the other hand, sees the fiscal crisis that necessitated the stopgap as “the bottom” and “the low point in the evolution of Illinois,” and explained, “This is not a balanced budget. This is not a solution to our long-term challenges. This is a bridge to reform.”
Yep. The governor is most definitely the victim here. He didn’t push a stopgap budget for a solid month at all. Nope. Didn’t happen. Move along.
The University of Illinois Flash Index fell to 104.7 in July from its 105.0 level in June. This indicates that the state’s rate of economic growth is slowing. The slow-down aligns with concern about the national economy.
National gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the first two quarters of this year was weak (0.8 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively). “Recent data on the national GDP confirms that the recovery from the 2007-2009 recession has been the most anemic since World War II,” said J. Fred Giertz, who compiles the index for the Institute of Government and Public Affairs.
The last few years have marked a reversal of a trend established in the early years of the recovery. GDP growth had little impact on the rate of unemployment, which remained stubbornly high. More recently, the national unemployment rate has fallen and remained low even with slow overall growth.
The Illinois unemployment rate fell from 6.4 percent to 6.2 percent in July, while the national rate rose slightly to 4.9 percent. This narrows a long-standing gap between the state and national rates.
Individual income tax and corporate tax receipts were down for the month while sales tax revenue was up from the same month last year after adjusting for inflation.
The Flash Index is a weighted average of Illinois growth rates in corporate earnings, consumer spending and personal income. Tax receipts from corporate income, personal income and retail sales are adjusted for inflation before growth rates are calculated. The growth rate for each component is then calculated for the 12-month period using data through July 31, 2016.
“We’ve been in a recovery now for almost seven years”, said [Fred Giertz, the Index’ compiler]. “And recoveries don’t last forever. So it may be slowing down, it’s kind of a natural maturation of the growth cycle. So a lot of things are happening and again, there’s no easy fix on these. We’d all like to have strong growth, but obviously, if that could be done easily, we would have done it already.”
The index is down from its most recent high of 107.2 in January of 2014 and 107.1 in April of 2015.
The reported index is based on 12 months of data with a new month added and one dropped each month. The index is constructed with the reading of 100 the dividing line between expansion and contraction. Consequently, the key focus of the index is not whether it is increasing or decreasing, but whether and how much it is above or below the 100 level.
Jerry Long, a Republican state representative candidate, is denouncing his party’s latest mailer that attacks his Democratic opponent, Rep. Andy Skoog.
“I am expressing my vehement disapproval to the party about this because the people of our district don’t enjoy negative mailers,” Long, of Streator, said in a statement Monday. “If it doesn’t say it came from me or my committee, then it didn’t come from me or my committee. I will continue to work hard locally and run a strong, clean campaign based on the truth.”
The Illinois Republican Party’s latest mailer depicts a grim-looking House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, moving a pawn featuring Skoog’s smiling face. […]
In an interview earlier this year, Long said he agreed to run for state representative under the condition that he would have total control over his campaign and its narrative and message and that the Republican Party not send out mailers promoting his campaign without his consent “like they did last time.”
He said he was unhappy with some of the pieces the state party sent out in 2014 when he nearly unseated Skoog’s predecessor, Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley.
* There is a concrete way for Long to address this situation. He could pledge to match every negative dollar spent on his behalf with a donation to charity out of his own campaign fund. As we’ve already discussed, this was done by both candidates in a 2012 US Senate race…
In the Massachusetts 2012 Senate race, Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown proved that when candidates are serious about curbing the influence of super PACs on their race, they can work together to make it happen.
In an agreement known as the People’s Pledge, Warren and Brown made a mutual promise to reject the support of super PACs. They pledged that if a super PAC spent money to support either of their campaigns, whoever benefited from the expenditure would offset it by forfeiting money from their own campaign coffers. The idea was new, bold, and bilateral, and it changed the calculus of spending in the race.
Because super PACs saw that making expenditures to support Warren or Brown would ultimately hurt them, it no longer made sense for super PACs to spend money in the race. As a result, the People’s Pledge successfully eliminated virtually all super PAC spending, and it helped to cut the volume of negative advertising – which super PAC money almost exclusively buys – in half. In short, with the mere stroke of a pen, Warren and Brown gave the people of Massachusetts a substantially more accountable race.
So, maybe he could try and work out a deal with Rep. Skoog. Otherwise, he’s merely complaining about something from which he’s most likely deriving a significant benefit….
Congressional candidate David Gill claims “severe and overly burdensome” signature requirements for his independent candidacy are unconstitutional and wants a federal court to allow his name on the Nov. 8 ballot.
If Gill gets the result sought by the lawsuit filed Monday, he would face U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, and Democrat Mark Wicklund of Decatur in the 13th Congressional District election.
Sam Cahnman, the Springfield lawyer representing Bloomington resident Gill, said the signature requirement for independent U.S. House candidates in Illinois “clearly violates” constitutionally mandated equal protection of the law, and is also “clearly out of whack” with requirements for U.S. Senate candidates.
Democrats and Republicans in the race had to file just under 740 valid signatures to enter their primaries. Independents, who filed later and don’t face primary opposition, are required, in the 13th, to have 10,754 – or more than 14 times the amount needed by major-party candidates.
* From Gill’s attorney…
Rich,
You reported on the ballot challenge to Gill, so I thought you’d be interested in the attached Complaint For Declaratory Judgment And Preliminary & Permanent Injunction I filed Monday in federal court on behalf of Dr. David Gill, challenging the constitutionality of the excessive signature requirement for independent candidates for Congress.
It is a rather lengthy complaint, so let me draw your attention to Court III (pars. 60-82) where some of the more salient facts are alleged, particularly:
1. No candidate for the U.S.. House in Illinois has ever overcome the 10,754 signature requirement Gill was subjected to, and it has only been overcome 3 times since 1890 on the entire country! (par. 75)
2. In 2016 the 8,593 valid signatures the SBOE Hearing Examiner found Gill had would have gotten Gill on the ballot as an independent general election candidate in 88.5% of the 435 U.S. House Districts. (par. 70.c)
3. Looking at all 435 U.S.. House Districts in 2016 the median number of signatures required for a candidate petitioning to get on the general election ballot is 1,000, and the average is 3,179. (par. 70.b)
4. Only 3 states have signature requirements of 10,000 or more for U.S. House candidates to get on the general election ballot (N.C., S.C. & GA). (par. 70.a)
5. Only one U.S. House candidate in IL has ever overcome a signature requirement of 8,593 (no. of valid signatures Gill was found to have), and that was 42 years ago when David Lassiter did it in the 15th CD in 1974. (par. 77)
6. An independent candidate for the U.S. House in the 13th Dist. must get almost 15 times the number of signatures the Dems and Repubs have to get to be on the primary ballot; whereas for the U.S. Senate, the independent candidate only needs 5 times more than the Dems & Repubs. (pars. 62, 65 & 66).
7. An independent candidate for U.S. Senate must obtain signatures of 0.694% of the last vote for U.S. Senate, while an independent for the U.S. House must file 5% of the last vote for U.S. House in the District, i.e. a more than 7 times greater signature requirement; yet a Senator has more power (1 of 100 vs.. 1 of 435); has a longer term (6 years vs. 2) and represents the whole state as opposed to 1/18th of the State (par. 69).
In sum, the signature requirement for independent U.S. House candidates in Illinois clearly violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment; and it is clearly out whack with Illinois’ signature requirement for independent U.S. Senate candidates and with signature requirements for independent U.S. House candidates in other states.
Sen. Mark Kirk and challenger Tammy Duckworth both called out presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday over his war of words with the parents of a fallen Army captain.
Kirk said Trump should “lay off the Gold Star family. They have given as much as can be given.” […]
“If the family gets involved in politics then, of course, people are going to argue back — that’s your First Amendment right,” Kirk said, but attacking a Gold Star family is inappropriate. […]
Later Monday, Democrat Tammy Duckworth called Trump’s statements “despicable” and expressed her condolences for the Khan family’s loss.
“Their service and sacrifice are more than most Americans will know,” the Iraq War veteran said. “They should receive nothing but our gratitude.”
On Monday Senator Kirk, who has said he is not voting for Trump, told reporters, “I didn’t like that. In my world a veteran that gave up their life is someone who is almost sacred. ”
Kirk was a Naval Reservist before suffering a stroke in 2012. He also said, “We serve in the military so that you have first amendment rights to make sure that you can say and vote for whoever you want. That young man who gave his life for the country gave his last full measure, as Abraham Lincoln would say. We need to respect that family and make sure that family is honored and not criticized. I would say to Trump ‘Lay off the Gold Star families. They have given as much as can be given.’”
* Kirk wasn’t the only Illinois Republican to take a stand…
Adam Kinzinger of Channahon, who served in the Air Force and is a pilot in the Air National Guard. Kinzinger has not expressed support for Trump’s candidacy and issued a statement that didn’t even use the presidential candidate’s name.
“No one can truly understand the sacrifice a family makes when their loved one serves their country or the heartbreak of losing a loved one. There’s no greater love than a man who lays down his life for his friends,” Kinzinger said.
“As a military man myself, I have deep respect for the sacrifices made by anyone who is willing to defend the Constitution. Comments disparaging our service men and women, and their families, are deeply disturbing and wholly unpatriotic,” he said.
Do your very best to remain calm and civil in comments. I deleted a whole bunch of them yesterday on this very topic. Banishments will commence today.
Tuesday, Aug 2, 2016 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
The Illinois Supreme Court has accepted an amicus brief filed by the following organizations urging the state’s highest court to let voters have a say on transparent, impartial and fair redistricting in November:
• League of Women Voters of Illinois
• Small Business Advocacy Council
• CHANGE Illinois
• Illinois Campaign for Political Reform
• Rockford Chamber of Commerce
• McCormick Foundation
• Champaign County Chamber of Commerce
• Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI)
• Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
• Latino Policy Forum
• Illinois Public Interest Research Group
• West Rogers Park Community Organization
• Metropolitan Planning Council
• Better Government Association
• Chicago Southside Branch NAACP
• Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization
• Union League Club of Chicago
• Illinois Farm Bureau
• Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce
• Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce
• Common Cause
• Illinois Chamber of Commerce
• Citizen Advocacy Center
• The Civic Federation
• The Commercial Club of Chicago
• Chicago Embassy Church
• Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Law enforcement officials praised the law today via press release…
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has signed into law SB2407, which ensures that the Teen REACH after-school program will have a statutory home in state law. The bipartisan bill protects and provides clarity of intent and purpose for a program that is proven to boost graduation rates and significantly reduce crime.
“I am delighted that the Governor has embraced this vital investment in Illinois’ kids,” said Peoria County Sheriff Michael McCoy. “We have five Teen REACH sites here in my county, and I’ve seen first-hand the effect it has had on public safety. Instead of being out on the street during the after-school hours, exposed to drugs and criminal activity, teens are learning life skills in a safe place.”
McCoy was one of 119 Illinois law enforcement leaders who signed a letter to Governor Rauner in support of the bill.
“Teen REACH is an asset to communities around the state,” said the letter, “and there is no doubt our law enforcement jobs would be even more difficult if not for after-school programs. If we don’t preserve and invest in these strategies, we’re pulling the rug out from under vulnerable kids. And taxpayers will pick up the tab later through the far more expensive criminal justice system.”
The new measure will help create a specific line item for Teen REACH in the state’s annual budget. In addition, it establishes the outcomes the program must address, such as educational performance; life skills; parental education; recreation, sports, cultural, and artistic activities; service learning opportunities; and development of positive adult mentors.
The past year’s budget impasse and the lack of a full-year FY2017 state budget, however, continues to negatively impact the ability to provide consistent, high quality after-school programs. Even with the new law, Teen REACH is subject to the appropriations process.
“We are glad the stopgap budget has given us some relief,” said Quincy Chief of Police Robert Copley, who also signed the letter to the governor. “The Quincy Teen REACH hadn’t received any state money for more than a year, and we had to patch together funding from other sources. We’ve got to give these proven programs the kind of consistent support that they – and our communities – deserve.”
The stopgap measure, agreed to by the Illinois General Assembly and the Governor on June 30, provides $13.1 million for Teen REACH for FY2016 and the first six months of FY2017. Law enforcement leaders in Illinois agree, however, that consistent, full-year funding is necessary to repair the damage done by the state’s budget impasse: during the crisis, Teen REACH providers were forced to curtail their programming or close entirely. At least one out of every eight youths recently helped by Teen REACH lost access to the program.
SB 2407 was championed by Sen. Toi Hutchinson and Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth and gathered an impressive list of bi-partisan sponsors before unanimous passage in both the House and Senate. By now becoming law with Governor Rauner’s signature, SB2407 is an important step in the right direction to preserve this key public safety program.
How Teen REACH invests in Illinois’ kids:
· 99.8% of Teen REACH youth were safe from violence during program hours in 2013 –including during the after-school hours known as the “prime time for juvenile crime.”
· 77% of Teen REACH youth improved anger-management and conflict-resolution skills through the program in 2013.
· 99.3% of Teen REACH high school seniors graduated in 2013.
· 93% of participants in 2014 improved their grades.
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Illinois is an anti-crime membership organization of more than 300 police chiefs, sheriffs, state’s attorneys, and other law enforcement leaders.
* From a July 6-10, 2016 Anzalone Liszt Grove Research poll of 606 likely Illinois voters when asked about their cell phone usage…
* Every responsible pollster has already taken note of this trend and adjusted accordingly. So, this move is no surprise…
As more Americans have made a mobile phone their main phone, polls that contact only landline phones look increasingly behind the times. HuffPost Pollster has decided we need to evolve.
By the end of last year, 48 percent of American adults didn’t have a landline phone. Another 16 percent had a landline but relied mostly on their mobile phone to make and receive calls.
That’s 64 percent of Americans who are only or primarily reachable via mobile phone. The numbers go even higher for those under age 45 and for minorities. Sixty percent of Hispanic adults don’t have a landline at all, and more than two-thirds of Americans between ages 25 and 34 rely solely on a mobile phone.
HuffPost Pollster has always sought to base our charts on as many sound polls as possible. As long as a pollster makes a good-faith professional effort to obtain a representative sample of the population, we include the survey’s results. In our opinion, polls that call only landlines with no attempt to sample the other half of the population no longer fit that description. So from now on, we will no longer include the results from landline-only telephone polls in our charts.
* So, consumer beware. If you see a published poll and it doesn’t include the percentage of mobile phone respondents, you can safely assume that there are no mobile phone respondents, particularly if it’s a robopoll. And media outlets that publish telephone poll results from surveys which don’t include mobile phone users are either clueless or living in the past.
Demand better.
*** UPDATE *** And right on cue…
A recent poll commissioned by The Illinois Observer shows Governor Bruce Rauner losing in a hypothetical re-election matchup by nine points.
Illinois Working Together Campaign Director Jake Lewis released the following statement regarding Governor Bruce Rauner’s sagging poll numbers:
“It’s no surprise that the vast majority of Illinoisans would not re-elect Governor Rauner. After all, it was Bruce Rauner’s reckless pursuit of his radical, anti-worker agenda that created a crippling and unnecessary budget impasse, devastating the state’s social safety net. Governor Rauner’s term in office has been a total failure since Day One, and the harm that he has inflicted on the people of Illinois may take years to heal. Illinoisans are sick of the governor’s divisive brand of politics that has achieved nothing except causing widespread damage to Illinois’ seniors, families, and economy.
“Though the 2018 election is still some time away, it is clear that Illinoisans have already rejected the extreme Rauner agenda. It is now up to the governor to listen to the people and drop his demands once and for all.”
The “poll” is problematic for numerous reasons. First and foremost, the pollster’s identity isn’t disclosed, which is highly unusual. Second, there is no disclosure of the type of polling that was done, live calls or robocalls. And third, no stats were disclosed on mobile phone users, if any.
Within the last week, a top member of Illinois House Republican leadership abruptly resigned from the legislature and Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law a birth control bill many of his fellow GOP members opposed.
But suburban House and Senate Republicans presented a unified front Monday at Schaumburg Township Republican offices as they called for the passage of a term limits proposal that, while politically popular, is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.
Republicans state Sen. Michael Connelly of Wheaton and Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods joined state representatives Jeannie Ives of Wheaton, Mark Batinick of Plainfield and Christine Winger of Wood Dale, along with a number of Republicans challenging sitting Democratic lawmakers, for the midday news conference where party staffers far outnumbered members of the media.
Flanked by large poster showing former President Richard Nixon and House Speaker Michael Madigan side by side, Gurnee Republican Mike Amrozowicz, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Melinda Bush of Grayslake Nov. 8, pointed out that Nixon had yet to be impeached, the Sears Tower was still under construction and gas was 36 cents a gallon when Madigan, a Chicago Democrat, was first elected to the state House in 1971.
* But check out the long, pregnant pause when Lester asked the Republicans if the governor was “not listening to the Republican caucus in the House and Senate” after signing that controversial “Right of Conscience” bill on Friday. “Well, he certainly didn’t listen to us on that vote,” said Rep. Jeannie Ives after several seconds of awkward silence…
Kim Coble is among scores of professors fleeing Illinois because of the state’s precarious fiscal condition and erratic funding of higher education. After years of climbing the academic ladder, she’s decided to take a chance in California, even if it means giving up tenure and descending a rung.
“I felt that an untenured position in another state was more secure than a tenured position in Illinois,” says Coble, 45, a Chicago State University astrophysicist headed to San Francisco State University and trading a full professorship for an associate one. That’s not the only blow: She’ll pay $3,400 for a two-bedroom apartment (before a one-time $6,000 stipend), two and a half times the $1,350 a month for her three-bedroom co-op in Hyde Park.
Higher ed is in turmoil across the country as states cut support and pressure builds to slow tuition increases. But debt-ravaged Illinois is a special case. Gov. Bruce Rauner wants to chop funding by 20 percent and shift some pension obligations to schools; the stopgap budget approved in June means higher ed will get less—$1.6 billion—over 18 months than the $1.9 billion it got in the 12 months through mid-2015. Hundreds of university employees have been laid off.
More students are heading out of state, too, compounding the professorial brain drain. The exodus could take years to reverse, further threatening the long-term health of the Illinois economy.
“Nobody wants to touch Illinois with a 10-foot pole right now,” says Tanya Cofer, 42, a Northeastern Illinois University math teacher who, with her husband and colleague, Isidor Ruderfer, is leaving to join the faculty of the College of Coastal Georgia in Brunswick (population 15,383).
House Speaker Michael Madigan recently offered an insight into his longevity, citing the old proverb that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
Madigan gave the advice after being asked about his lunchtime routine, which has long been rumored to consist of a single, sliced apple.
“Remember that, an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” Madigan told Illinois Public Radio Statehouse Bureau Chief Amanda Vinicky and WBBM radio’s Craig Dellimore during an interview last week at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, which aired on Monday.
“It worked, and it still works,” said Madigan, 74, who has been speaker for all but two years since 1983.
“Generally, it’s Golden Delicious, sometimes I think it’s Honeycrisp,” he added.
* A state legislator running super-expensive Chicago broadcast TV ads in early August? Completely unheard of until Rep. Michael McAuliffe (R-Chicago) started airing a new spot yesterday. If it happens at all (and it’s pretty rare), Chicago broadcast ads usually don’t start until October.
This was videoed by a friend during last night’s Cubs game, so I apologize for the quality…
Rep. McAuliffe is facing Democrat Merry Marwig in what had been expected to be a barnburner. This early ad may change the odds.
Governor Bruce Rauner is making another high-profile pitch for term limits. The longtime House Speaker Michael Madigan has an opposite view on the idea … as he told Amanda Vinicky at the Democratic National Convention.
Madigan’s been House speaker for a long time (nearly uninterrupted since 1983), and during that time, he’s amassed a lot of power.
That’s a big asset for Democrats trying to fend off the governor’s agenda, Madigan says.
“Why, I think it’s pretty clear that my longevity has put me into a position where I can successfully resist the extremism of Rauner, provide a check against the extreme ideas that he wants to bring into government.”
Suburban Republican officials have chosen a replacement to fill the term of former state Rep. Ronald L. Sandack, the outspoken ally of Gov. Bruce Rauner who resigned abruptly on July 24.
David Olsen, 27, a member of the Downers Grove village council, was picked by the Republican Party chairmen of DuPage and Will counties to represent the 81st House district through January.
* I wish I could’ve found a pic of Olsen actually wearing the hat, but this one will have to suffice for now…
* Rep. Jeanne Ives makes some valid points about useless and do-little committees, but I don’t think rants like this one will ever translate into legislative success…
Over the past two years, Illinois’ problems have compounded at the hand of Speaker Madigan. Between the state’s growing insolvency, a budget impasse that has shut down social services and Democrats’ inexplicable determination to continue expanding their failed government, Illinoisans are suffering as they have never before suffered. Although we reached a compromise on a stop-gap budget, it seems as if the IL state government is more divided than ever. Why is that? How can that be? It all comes down to two things: a man and money.
The money is ours. And the man is Speaker of the House Mike Madigan. During his years in power, Madigan has padded the House, keeping himself surround by hand chosen, seat-warmer representatives to do his bidding. These individuals have reaped the rewards of this system, and are the first to fall for the mistakes of their beloved leader.
Willing foot soldiers being “taken care of” for surrounding their leader and advancing his will sounds more like the plot of a mob movie than the modus operandi of a legislative caucus. Yet, the similarities persist. Paid off for their loyalty and punished for their insubordination, the 98th and 99th General Assemblies of House of Representatives have played out like plot of a bad gangster movie. Of course, this isn’t ‘The Godfather’, it’s nevertheless important to see the role of money in Don Madigan’s Illinois. (Never ask him about his business, by the way).
Loyalty pay— a bonus in which a legislator is rewarded for their loyalty toward to party leaders and their agenda. The Illinois House of Representatives spent nearly $1 million giving stipends to legislators for their roles as chairperson or minority spokesperson for one of 50 house committees. Three out of the 49 committees never met, and 36 of these very committees decreased their number of meetings. Yet still, each legislator acting as the committee chair received an additional stipend of $10,326. Legislators’ base pay is $67,836 annually – the 5th highest in the nation – for part-time work. Keep in mind, these same legislators have not passed a balanced budgets for the state in 13 years.
The average committee met only 4 times, meaning that the committee chairman’s time was for $2,581.75 per hour-long meeting. Of course this being Mike Madigan’s Illinois, results don’t matter. Chairs receive their stipend regardless of the work that comes out of these committees.
There can be no doubt that these bonus are handed out by caucus leaders to reward loyalty. It doesn’t matter if the chair has any expertise in the subject matter. It doesn’t matter how long or often committees meet or what real work is accomplished. It is simply a 15% bump in pay.
Minority party spokespersons also receive committee stipends, so this goes both ways.
One of the reforms I’ve long pined for is giving committee chairs and spokespersons more autonomy from leadership, with staff members who report directly to them, not the leaders. And perhaps even allowing their respective caucuses to elect chairmen and spokespersons. The power is way too focused upward and needs to be spread out more.
* The governor signed a ton of bills on Friday. Here are stories about some of them…
Gov. Bruce Rauner has signed a measure designed to prevent people with mental disabilities from owning guns.
The proposal Rauner signed Friday strengthens existing law by requiring circuit court clerks to report the names of people a judge deems mentally disabled to the Illinois State Police at least twice a year. The new law takes effect immediately.
Under the old law, a person deemed by a judge to have a mental illness could lose his or her gun owner identification card. One of the plan’s sponsors, Democratic state Sen. Julie Morrison, had said that not all counties in the state were complying.
External Audits (Senate Bill 2155) – Amends existing laws to require the auditor general to audit one-third of all community colleges every year.
Community College Trustee Training (Senate Bill 2157) – Requires new college board trustees to complete four hours of professional development training that range from labor laws, open meetings act, freedom of information regulations, ethics and financial and accountability oversight.
Preventing Lame-Duck Decisions (Senate Bill 2158) – Prohibits community college boards from entering into new employee contracts or changing existing employee contracts 45 days prior to Election Day for trustees and extends through the lame-duck period until the first meeting of the new board.
In 2009, Former DuPage Community College President Breuder’s contract extension was approved by a lame-duck board.
Transparency at Community Colleges and State Universities (Senate Bill 2159) – Promotes transparency by requiring contract terms, annual performance reviews of administrators and forbids contract buyouts in cases of pending criminal charges.
University Board Training (Senate Bill 2174)- Requires every voting member of a public university governing board to complete a minimum of four hours of professional development leadership training that range from labor laws, open meetings act, freedom of information regulations, ethics and financial and accountability oversight.
Sponsored by Rep. Sam Yingling and Sen. Daniel Biss, House Bill 6021 allows retired public employees in the Illinois Teachers Retirement System, State Universities Retirement System or Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund and who are in a same-sex civil union or marriage to designate survivor benefits for their spouse. Equality Illinois advocated for the bill, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support… HB 6021 passed the Senate by a vote of 49-3, and the Illinois House of Representatives approved it on April 13 on a vote of 102-4.
Illinois lawmakers have passed a bill that aims to protect high school journalists from interference in school publications.
The Speech Rights of Student Journalists Act was passed unanimously by both the House and Senate and signed Friday by Gov. Bruce Rauner.
The law places responsibility for content in school-sponsored media in the hands of student journalists, under the guidance of student advisers and subject to limitations on material that is libelous or obscene, constitutes an unwarranted invasion of privacy, violates federal or state law or school district policies or disrupts the orderly operation of the school.
School officials would have the burden of proving that a publication is subject to restriction.
Two years after her stepson’s murder, St. Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, (D)-92nd Dist., got legislation signed protecting people who may have information about violent crimes.
Gordon-Booth and her husband, Manual basketball coach Derrick Booth, Sr., and Mecca Beasley lost their 22-year-old son DJ in May of 2014.
DJ, who was named after his father, was gunned down while at a house party in Peoria.
The parents had a difficult time getting witnesses to come forward, due to fear of retribution.
This spring, the state legislature unanimously approved the bill, and Gov. Bruce Rauner, (R), signed it into law on Friday.
The bill guarantees assistance and protection for people who may have information linking someone to a crime.
Running the flashing red lights at railroad crossings will cost you more in the state of Illinois.
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner signed a law that will double the current fines if you are busted running a crossing.
The first offense will now cost you $500 and after that, it will cost $1,000.
…Adding… From a press release…
Advance Illinois applauds Governor Bruce Rauner for signing HB5729, the Postsecondary and Workforce Readiness (PWR) Act, into law on July 29, 2106. HB5729 is the culmination of years of work with an array of cross-sector partners and is a transformative step toward achieving Illinois’ goal of 60% of Illinoisans having a postsecondary certificate or degree by the year 2025.
This comprehensive legislation establishes four new initiatives to smooth the transition for students from high school to college or career. It helps students avoid remedial education in community college with a jointly-designed fourth year of high school math instruction. It establishes new career and college endorsements on high school diplomas to demonstrate that students have fulfilled specific requirements for that career path. To help students plan for life after high school, the bill establishes benchmarks from 8th through 12th grade for what students should know about college and career. Finally, it allows districts to pilot updated high school graduation requirements based on what students know and can do rather than what courses they have taken.
Yoga instructors in Illinois will be able to practice freely without state regulation under legislation sponsored by Senator Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) that was signed into law Friday. […]
The measure exempts yoga teacher training from state oversight as a trade, occupation, vocation or professional school. The legislation was prompted by news earlier this year that several yoga teacher training programs in Illinois were notified by the Illinois Board of Higher Education that they would be subject to state regulation as vocational schools and that they must obtain IBHE approval to operate in the state.
Three of every four property owners in Chicago have been hit with higher property taxes this year, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows — often thousands of dollars more and in some cases in the Loop and surrounding hot neighborhoods twice what they were last year.
That’s the result of a perfect storm of higher property assessments from Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s $318 million tax hike, passed to shore up the city’s shaky finances and boost police and fire pension funds that for years have been shortchanged.
Eighteen of the city’s 50 aldermen — including Ald. Patrick O’Connor, the mayor’s City Council floor leader who rounded up the votes to pass the tax increase last fall — staved off the hefty tax hikes, shifting a total of $19,484 in taxes to other property owners. Those aldermen, including several whose wards have seen real estate prices skyrocket, did that by convincing Berrios or the Cook County Board of Review to lower the estimated value of their homes or apartments.
Five of those aldermen — including four who voted against the tax hike — owe less than they did last year, even as most of their constituents pay more, the Sun-Times found in an analysis of the 882,965 tax bills sent to Chicago landowners. Monday is the deadline to pay.
The city really needs to change its assessment system. I mean, c’mon, man. Even if every change was accurate and fair, this just stinks.
The city has locked into increases of at least $225 million over the next three years, while CPS is planning to increase taxes by an additional $250 million for teacher pension funding next year. That’s $475 million total over the next three years.
* Press release…
Governor Rauner issued the following statement as many homeowners throughout Illinois face a deadline today to pay property taxes:
“Illinois residents are being hit with record property tax increases in communities all around the state even though they already pay the highest property taxes in the nation.
“People are literally being driven from their homes by the failure of the General Assembly to enact the reforms that would stop this unnecessary destruction of the American Dream.
“I think every day about the moms and dads who are cutting important things from their family budgets, from summer vacations to school activities to youth sports to tutoring and more. Parents are forced into tough choices because the leaders in Springfield have failed once again.
“Since 1990 property taxes have risen 3.3 times faster than Illinois median household incomes. Today, in many communities, particularly the south Cook County suburbs, property taxes now exceed mortgage payments.
“My proposals will stop the harm out-of-control property tax increases cause families and businesses. When I talk to people throughout Illinois, they tell me that they feel they have lost control of their own property and are simply renting it from the government. That is not fair. We must pass the reforms I have outlined to rein in and then lower property taxes.”
What: GOP lawmakers and State Senate/House candidates hold press conference to discuss the need for term limits and other political reforms. Lawmakers and candidates will be available for questions following the press conference.
Who: House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (HD 82)
Sen. Sue Rezin (SD 38)
Rep. David Welter (HD 75)
Jerry Long (HD 76)
Lindsay Parkhurst (HD 79)
When: Tuesday, August 02, 11:30 AM
Where: Peak Fitness
1010 S Ridge Rd
Minooka, IL 60447
When Tamar Manasseh formed Mothers Against Senseless Killings to patrol the neighborhood after a murder in the 7500 block of South Stewart last month, she hoped to stop any retaliatory violence.
So far, in the five weeks since a man opened fire on three women on June 23, killing 34-year-old Lucille Barnes, there have been no shootings on the block or on the 7500 block of South Harvard where the patrols have also been set up, according to a DNAinfo Chicago map of shootings in the city. […]
But Manasseh, who makes the trek daily from her home in Bronzeville to the neighborhood, said her group really needs more people in the area to join the effort, and that recruitment has been difficult.
“Recruiting and getting more volunteers has been quite the challenge,” Manasseh said as she sat on her folding chair on 75th Street and Stewart Avenue, watching over the block, not far from where she used to live at 55th Street and Bishop Avenue.
Right now there are about 15 adult volunteers who have pledged to be out there every day until Labor Day. That’s about the same number the group had when it started a few days after the June shooting.
…Adding… I saw this linked on Twitter yesterday and saw the late July publishing date, but didn’t notice it was from 2015. Oops. Still, it’s a good story.
Secretary of State Jesse White announced today that his office has reinstated the mailing of vehicle registration reminder notices to Illinois drivers. To offset the cost of the mailings, White is drafting legislation allowing his office to offer advertising space on the mailings. In addition, White is urging the public to sign-up for email notices to further reduce mailing costs.
The Secretary of State’s office discontinued mailing reminders in October 2015 due to the lack of funding as a direct result of the state budget impasse. The stop-gap budget recently passed by the legislature and signed into law by the Governor allows White’s office to reinstate the notices.
“The notices are an essential tool for the public to be sure their vehicles are in good standing and avoid paying late fees and fines resulting from tickets issued by law enforcement,” White said. “The driving public paid the price for the budget impasse and it proved to be an unfair burden. With the funds from the stop-gap budget the notices will resume. In addition, we are reducing the number of mailings and seeking alternative funding sources for the postage costs.”
“Although we are now able to reinstate mailing the vehicle registration reminder notices, I continue to strongly urge motorists to sign up for email reminders,” said White. “Saving taxpayer dollars is always a priority of our administration.”
White noted that more than 2.3 million people have registered for the email notification, 800,000 of which signed up since October 2015.
The SoS was spending $450,000 a month on the reminders before they were discontinued.
Congresswoman and Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate Tammy Duckworth’s campaign today released a new TV ad, entitled “Uniform.” The largely biographical spot highlights how Tammy committed herself to serving her fellow Veterans after being injured in Iraq in 2004, with tangible accomplishments helping Veterans find jobs in a tough economy, as well as combating suicide and homelessness among Veterans. In response to continued distortions from Mark Kirk and is super PAC allies, the ad concludes with combat Veteran Wally Kubicki Jr, who says any Veteran who lies about another Veteran’s record will never get his vote.
“Tammy served this country for 23 years in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve and has made advocating on behalf of her fellow Veterans her life’s work, with real accomplishments,” campaign spokesman Matt McGrath said. “Republican Mark Kirk, on the other hand, has lied repeatedly about his military record and now he and his allies are in the process of trying to swift-boat Tammy’s record, even using the same tactics and right-wing contributors. Illinois families know Tammy Duckworth has dedicated her life to serving her country, and won’t be fooled by Kirk’s desperate attacks.”
An enemy rocket took Tammy Duckworth’s legs, but nothing could take her resolve
She served in uniform for another decade, dedicated herself to helping veterans, led important fights to help Veterans get jobs in a tough economy and fight homelessness
Now Mark Kirk is attacking Tammy with false ads about her service
Wally Kubicki, Jr: Any politician who would say that about another Veteran would never get my vote. I’ll stick with Tammy.
* Chris Kaergard’s latest column makes a good point about how legislative turnover is dealt with in Illinois. It’s a particularly important issue in the Peoria area…
In the last five years, [the Peoria region has] seen replacements for both House and Senate. Incumbent senator Dan Rutherford was sworn in as treasurer in 2011, with a committee tapping then-Rep. Shane Cultra to take his seat. Cultra’s seat was filled by another committee with a young up-and-comer named Jason Barickman.
Barickman, as an appointee, later ran against and beat Cultra in a primary for the Senate seat. He was succeeded by Josh Harms in the House after a competitive primary. (Harms withdrew from the ballot after being nominated for a second term, and his replacement in the election was, again, chosen by party leaders.)
In Peoria, shortly after being re-elected in 2010, Sen. Dale Risinger stepped down abruptly. A collection of GOP party chiefs in the sprawling district selected Darin LaHood to succeed him in 2011. When LaHood won the special election for Congress last year, it fell again to party leaders to pick a successor in closed session, and Chuck Weaver got the nod.
My brother Doug, who occasionally comments here, lives in Texas and he’s appalled by all the appointments to fill vacancies in Illinois. Down ‘yonder, they hold special elections to fill their vacancies.
Rauner — whose political wishes have, shall we say, often been taken into account in some of the GOP vacancy appointments in the last 18 months — may have been a bit surprised at our question, but didn’t dismiss it.
“That’s a great question, and I think that’s a topic we can take up and discuss,” he said before inviting input on ideas and pivoting back to his term limit and remap stump speech.
* The Question: Should Illinois fill state legislative vacancies with special elections? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* I don’t usually do this sort of thing, but I read two amazingly insightful stories online this past weekend about the Donald Trump phenomenon. So, I decided to post some excerpts here.
First up, David Frum describes his new piece for The Atlantic as “a synthesis of the conversations I’ve had, and the insights I’ve gleaned, presented in the voice of an imagined Trump supporter.” It’s pretty good…
“You Acela people live in a beautiful country where everything works. You believe in institutions because they work for you. So it bothers you that Donald doesn’t seem to know what the OECD does or who’s in charge of the FDIC. But our people don’t believe in institutions any more. The institutions they do still care about—the military and the cops—you use for props when you need them, and as dumping grounds when you don’t. I noticed that when Tim Kaine took a bow for his son’s military service, he pointed out that he was a Marine—because we all know that what you’ve done to the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Yeah, they’re just as lethal as Obama and Hillary said. When you spend as much as the rest of the planet combined, you can make a lot of things go boom—even if the soldiers can’t do chin ups any more and the sailors get pregnant when they decide their tours of duty have gone on too long. And the cops! One minute you’re calling them murderers, the next you’re slobbering all over them. Our voters are cops. They know who’s on their side. Not you.
“You loved the Democratic convention didn’t you? Soaring rhetoric, we’re all together in just one big beautiful rainbow quilt: illegal aliens and billionaires, all together. And the flags? So many flags. You wave the flag one day every four years, and you think it means you’ve taken America from us. You haven’t, not yet—and that’s another thing our voters will be wanting to say on Election Day. Lots of ideas too: free this, free that, more investment in this, higher taxes on that, and ‘common sense gun laws.’ I bet you don’t own a gun. I bet you’ve never had a DUI either. So it wouldn’t worry you that you could lose the first if you get the second. But it worries our voters. Their lives are kind of messed up. They get into trouble. That’s why they want guns for themselves, and not just for Mayor Bloomberg’s bodyguards.
“Here’s the bottom line. You live in an America that’s still a lot like your parents’ America. It’s mostly white. Nobody’s displacing and replacing you. It’s pretty safe too. You can read about rising crime—you don’t live it. In your America, you worry about how there aren’t enough women making Hollywood films or sitting on corporate boards. In our America, the gender gap closed a long time ago—and then went into reverse. Obama in the Oval Office was humiliating enough. But Hillary will be worse: We’re going to lose any idea at all that leadership is a man’s job. […]
“You tell us we’re a minority now? OK. We’re going to start acting like a minority. We’re going to vote like a bloc, and we’re going to vote for our bloc’s champion. So long as he keeps faith with us against you, we’ll keep faith with him against you. Donald’s a scam artist, you tell me. You’re from The Atlantic? Read that great book by one of your former colleagues, Jack Beatty, about Boston’s Mayor Curley, The Rascal King. Curley was a scam artist. The Boston Irish loved him for it—even when he scammed them, too—because Curley p*ssed off the people the Boston Irish hated and who hated them. (I can still say ‘p*ssed off,’ right?) It’s going to be just that way with Donald. I mean, Mr. Trump. I mean, President Trump.”
* And Nancy Isenberg, the author of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, writes about Trump and her favorite topic…
Class confusion is everywhere in the news today. Fox News can’t seem to mention class without jumping immediately to the dire prospect of “class warfare.” Journalists on the poverty beat since the ’60s have tended to equate it with one race only. Yet almost half—42.1 percent, or 19.7 million Americans—of those below the poverty line are white. In the South, more than half of the poor are white. Anxious academics, even when they’re trying to describe class more broadly, are more comfortable highlighting “white privilege” than looking down at the bottom of the ladder to see who’s been left out.
The derisive language of class pervades explanations of the Trump phenomenon. The less circumspect journalists have reduced the Republican frontrunner’s constituency to “white trash” and “trailer trash,” and cast their protests as the “revenge of the lower classes.” Kevin Williamson of the National Review dismissed Trump’s followers as refuse drawn from dying communities; to him they are an inferior breed of American whose discontent resembles, in his words, the “whelping of children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog.”
When class is mentioned in stories about the 2016 campaign, Trump’s constituency is the only slice of the population cast in negative terms. For Hillary Clinton, the focus is on “working families.” In going after the Wall Street 1 percent, and announcing a free college tuition plan, Bernie Sanders mostly appealed to the children of the middle- and upper middle-class. In his imprecise pandering, even Ted Cruz bemoaned the demise of the middle class. But as they cling to the mighty balm of the middle class, our politicians ignore the one thing Trump has uniquely capitalized on: an outright celebration of those who don’t fit the ideal of middle-class attainment. […]
Oddly, Bernie Sanders voiced the greatest blindness to class when he said in one debate, “When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in the ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor.” He’s dead wrong, denying the long history of white poverty. Sanders is not the Left’s version of Trump, because Trump’s supporters want class security, not revolution. They want more blue collar male jobs, not equality, not social justice. They want to turn the clock backward in order to regain the male pride that comes being the family breadwinner. Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” is a nostalgic appeal to the golden age of the ’50s and ’60s, when America was an industrial power and working-class jobs were plentiful. Until we understand our class system, warts and all, we will be saddled with an anemic democratic system that only makes our class resentments worse.
* The Sun-Times published a very good story about several former Rod Blagojevich staffers and insiders. Here are a few excerpts…
Sheila Nix, a deputy governor to Blagojevich who steered clear of his administration’s scandals, for several years after her departure in 2008 worked as U.S. executive director for U2 frontman Bono’s ONE Campaign, a group raising awareness of hunger and poverty. In 2013, she landed a role as chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden.
But on her White House biography Nix left off her Blagojevich job. That’s not uncommon among his former staffers. On their resumes, many say they worked for the “Governor of Illinois” but don’t say which governor. […]
William Quinlan — who was Blagojevich’s general counsel — said his Chicago- and Phoenix-based law practice is doing well, but the Blagojevich experience scarred him.
“My desire to work in public service or run for public office — that desire is gone,” Quinlan said. “There are a lot of people like me who would have stayed in public service, but now there is no desire.” […]
“The governor too often preferred a fight over hard work and coming to a resolution,” [former Blagojevich spokesperson Abby Ottenhoff] said. “His approach was so controversial that eventually nothing got done.”
Rauner’s been going around the state saying the General Assembly should vote during the veto session to put the proposed amendment before voters. The next opportunity for that is 2018, when Rauner presumably will be running for re-election.
In the meantime, the term-limits idea is fertile ground for Republican lawmakers to issue press releases showing their support. Well, at least those who haven’t already blown through whatever limits would be in place.
But that’s the whole point. Because of the courts, Rauner said, it will be up to the legislature to put the term-limits proposal before voters. However, the Democrats who control the General Assembly have shown no inclination to do that. (And don’t think there aren’t some Republican lawmakers perfectly happy that the Democrats will do the dirty work and keep the issue bottled up).
So Republican candidates have an issue they can try to exploit during the fall elections, one that polls well with voters of both parties. But it also looks like one of those issues any candidate in a competitive race can endorse while knowing full well they’ll likely never have to vote on it. […]
Rauner’s call to pass a term-limits amendment this fall was questioned by some because it will be another two years before voters can do anything with it. So what’s the rush?
There is no rush, but the issue polls well and the governor doesn’t. So, by attaching himself to a popular proposal he likely hopes that its overwhelming popularity will rub off on him.
Gov. Rauner also firmly believes in term limits, so this is a no-brainer.
[Former Gov. Jim Edgar] says he agrees with Rauner on the need for reform in the way legislative districts are drawn. But he’s not a fan of another Rauner-pushed issue: term limits.
Edgar said that “maybe you can make an argument” to term-limit governors, but there is “pretty good turnover” of state lawmakers.
Edgar opined that Rauner’s push for term limits is “all geared toward” Madigan.
“And even if they get to term limits, he (Madigan) still has 10 more years,” Edgar said, noting that would put Madigan in his mid-80s.
And even then, he and some of his House members could conceivably trade places with John Cullerton and some Democratic Senators and then Madigan could serve as the Senate President well into his 90s.
The bottom line here is that if you think you can be rid of Madigan with term limits, you’re flat-out wrong.
What: Suburban GOP lawmakers and State Senate/House candidates hold press conference to discuss the need for term limits and other political reforms. Lawmakers and candidates will be available for questions following the press conference.
Who:
Sen. Michael Connelly (SD 21)
Seth Lewis (SD 23)
Sen. Dan McConchie (SD 26)
Mike Amrozowicz (SD 31)
Rep. Jeanne Ives (HD 42)
Rep. Christine Winger (HD 45)
Heidi Holan (HD 46)
Michelle Smith (HD 49)
Nick Sauer (HD 51)
Rep. David Harris (HD 53)
Dawn Abernathy (HD 59)
Rod Drobinski (HD 62)
Allen Skillicorn (HD 66)
Rep. Mark Batinick (HD 97)
When: Monday August 01, 11:30 am
Where: 808 E. Nerge Road Roselle, IL (Schaumburg Township Republican Organization)
* Related…
* Governor calls for redistricting and term limits: “This isn’t a democracy, this is a rigged system. And we’ve got people in office for 20 years, 30, years, 40 years and a lot of corruption and cronyism.”
* Mapping a way to term limits in Illinois: Term limits have been an uphill battle for years. But despite being muzzled again and again, Illinoisans should take heart in knowing they’ve shone a spotlight squarely on those who have rigged Illinois’ political system in favor of the powerful.
* The number of bills the governor has signed on this particular topic is really quite amazing. Democratic governors would normally shy away from these bills to avoid being tagged as soft on crime. Rauner has no problem with them…
State Senator Jacqueline Y. Collins (D-Chicago 16th) is pleased to announce the governor has signed her legislation ending Illinois’ practice of discouraging parolees from worshipping, doing community service and participating in mentorship programs together.
“Freedom of association in positive settings can facilitate a smooth reentry into society and help those on parole obtain the help and resources they need to succeed outside the prison walls,” Collins said. “When parolees mentor and encourage each other, engage in job training together, worship or volunteer together, they can build up their peers and their communities.”
Current law prohibits individuals who are on parole, aftercare release or mandatory supervised release from knowingly associating with others who are also under one of these restrictions without the written permission of their parole agents or aftercare specialists. This limitation is designed to prevent ex-offenders from returning to former criminal associates or gangs, but Collins recognizes that the ban is over-broad and can prevent parolees from engaging in many positive activities, such as worship services, volunteerism and community activism.
“When offenders have completed their time behind bars, they must be reintegrated into our neighborhoods in ways that allow them to give back and pursue alternatives to crime,” Collins said. “Participation — alongside others with similar life stories — in a religious congregation, community service organization or mentoring program can serve as a powerful catalyst for purpose and change, and as we continue to struggle as a society with cycles of recidivism and violent crime, we must embrace creative solutions.”
* There was a ton of downright bizarre speculation online and in the mainstream media about why Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle was sitting next to former President Bill Clinton at the convention during primetime last Monday night. Laura Washington helps clear things up…
The conspiracy crazed Chicago media and Rahm haters everywhere were salivating. Finally, the wicked wizard of Chicago was dead, dead, dead, at least politically.
Even better, Bill Clinton had delivered the final blow to his old friend and former operative, and invited Preckwinkle to dance on his bones.
True? I asked.
“It was serendipity,” Preckwinkle replied.
Her press people, she laughed, “will kill me for doing this … .”
Yes, the Clinton campaign had invited her to Bill Clinton’s box Monday night. The honor came in appreciation for Preckwinkle’s help in the Illinois presidential primary.
Bill Clinton arrived late, and Preckwinkle ventured over and sat down to offer a quick thanks. Then, “Michelle started speaking and, well… .” She had to stay put.
No political murder had occurred. Just “serendipity.” […]
“I am not going to run for mayor. I am not going to run for governor.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner has often been compared to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“So when anyone says Trump will be like Rauner, who has had the courage to stand up against the corrupt Illinois establishment and (House Speaker Michael) Madigan, I say, ‘I certainly hope so,’ “ says a recent letter to the editor published by the Daily Herald. It is just one of many such letters I’ve seen.
Madigan, for his part, has also made the comparison, albeit in a far less kindly manner. The Democrats “are coming together against the extremism of Trump and Gov. Rauner,” he told WGN-TV/Channel 9 during the Democratic National Convention.
On the surface, there are most definitely some striking similarities. Both politicians are wealthy outsider businessmen, opposed first by their own Republican Party establishments during long and bitter primaries, and eventually pounced upon for business deals gone bad.
They both frequently paint the fiscal and economic environment in stark, dystopian terms. Rauner has often said that Illinois is in a “death spiral.” In his Republican National Convention acceptance speech, Trump said Americans were enduring a “domestic disaster” and have “lived through one international humiliation after another.”
They share some policy similarities, particularly when it comes to public employee and teachers unions. Hint: Both men despise them.
“Do you think he knows what he’s doing?” asked a top Republican last week about House Speaker Michael Madigan’s high-profile role at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Madigan heaped public praise last week on at least two potential Democratic gubernatorial candidates, US Sen. Dick Durbin and Chris Kennedy. And he mentioned US Rep. Tammy Duckworth by name as his state’s next US Senator during Tuesday’s presidential nomination roll call, which was broadcast throughout the country.
That may all seem like the usual national convention duties for a state Democratic Party chairman like Madigan, and it is. But Speaker Madigan’s poll numbers are so darned awful that the Republicans believe anyone he publicly “touches” is hugely tainted. A recent Republican-sponsored poll found that Madigan’s favorability rating was just 13 percent.
“He should keep doing what he’s doing,” cracked one Republican campaign type, who said he was carefully making notes of Madigan’s public utterances.
As is often the case, the two political parties exist in parallel universes. Yes, the Democrats say, Madigan polls poorly. But they don’t believe that voters will make up their minds about individual races based on that one “issue” alone. And some are even saying they’re pleased that the Republicans are “wasting” their money on a strategy that the Democrats believe won’t work.
Indeed, the Republicans spent tons of money during several election cycles attempting to tie the fabulously unpopular and currently incarcerated Rod Blagojevich to Democrats, and it only worked once, against Rep. Jay Hoffman in a newly drawn district with lots of unfamiliar voters. And they’ve been blasting away at Madigan for years, without any discernible impact at the polls.
Even so, if there was another high-profile Illinois Democrat out there whose favorability rating was hovering around 13 percent, you can be certain that Madigan and his people would mandate that their candidates and incumbents stay as far away from that person as humanly possible. Heck, the person’s rating wouldn’t even need to be that low. How many Downstate Illinois Democrats openly campaigned with Pat Quinn two years ago when he lost every county but one to Rauner?
The simple fact is that the GOP is placing a multi-million-dollar bet this year on a single person’s smashing unpopularity. Yes, the Republicans have tried and failed to do this same thing for literally decades. But never has so much money and effort been expended on the task—and Madigan has never been as well-known as he is today. Local news media outlets have so far been mostly cooperative, and the Republicans essentially have their own “newspapers” that are being mailed to voters just to make sure their message gets through.
The House Democrats are expected to counter all this with various retorts, including one that labels the Republican Bruce Rauner as a “failed governor.”
The Democrats will try to tie Republicans to a governor with a dismal 33 percent job approval rating who, they’ll say, wants to slash vital services and inflict harm on everyday working people.
In a preview of this, Rep. John Bradley’s latest TV ad claims the Democrat “stood up to Bruce Rauner’s massive cuts to our schools,” and points out that Rauner is “bankrolling” his opponent’s campaign and claims his GOP opponent “is worse than Rauner.” Bradley (D-Marion) sits at the very top of the Republicans’ target list and he has been hammered for weeks in the mail and on TV for being a Madigan “pawn.”
The House Democrats have often launched their campaigns in early to mid-August, well before the Republicans could afford to fight back. This time, though, the Republicans are flush with Rauner’s money and have dominated the playing field for weeks. Speaker Madigan reportedly told attendees at an Illinois Federation of Teachers political conference in early July that the governor’s campaign operation had spent more than a million dollars on House races in just two weeks.
And they’re not just spending money on negative attacks. A recent mailer for Rep. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) touts her vote for the stopgap budget “without a tax increase.” The mailer also claims Rep. Bryant is fighting “against the Chicago political machine.” The Republicans have already sent innumerable mailers like that to voters everywhere before the Democrats have even gotten out of the gate.
Not mentioned, of course, is that the stopgap budget Bryant voted for had an $8 billion deficit and will create a $10 billion state payment backlog by December. Details, details.
* Related…
* House races key to Illinois’ political power struggles: Rauner blames House Speaker Michael Madigan and the Democrats for the state’s long-running financial predicament, and Republicans are asking voters to punish them for it in the November election. But the Democrats warn that Rauner’s agenda would be destructive to the middle class, and are banking on voters ultimately strengthening their hand in the legislature, which they control… “This will be a vote for what the governor is trying to do or what the Democrats are trying to do,” said Christopher Mooney, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois. “Even if voters aren’t voting that way, it’s going to be seen that way.”
* Cavaletto Says Governor and House Speaker Out to Destroy Each Other: “They’re two stubborn, unpopular men who believe they are right and are intent on destroying each other. It’s as simple as that,” said Cavaletto. “And now we’re in the the middle of the fight in a state that could be booming, could be growing, people could be working, and we could flourish because we have the people here to do that. But we’ve got this going on.”
On term limits: “In the last primary election, friends of Bruce Rauner spent over $1 million in an Illinois House district on the Southwest side of Chicago, attempting to remove me from office. The voters of that district recognized who the enemy was and voted to keep me in office. That’s how term limits should be administrated.”
On the Monetary Award, or MAP, grant for low-income college students: “So if you’re a poor student today planning to attend college in IL starting in Sept, you don’t know the status of the MAP program, you don’t know whether there will be state support for your college tuition, or whether it won’t be there. That’s the product of the Rauner extremism in Illinois. It’s wrong. It ought not to happen, if Bruce Rauner wants to pick on some people, he ought to find some big people to pick on, not little people who are trying to put themselves through college.”
On his relationship with Senate President John Cullerton: “What the governor should understand is that that’s an old divide and conquer theory which was practiced by the British against the Irish. And he’s working with two Irishmen – Madigan and Cullerton – who are very aware of the British history, and we’re not going to allow that to happen.”
On if Democrats can pick up General Assembly seats in the November election: “You know I don’t think along those lines because it’s going to be a very interesting election. Clearly it’s going to be an ordinary election. You’ve got different personalities, very different types of personalities, different approaches. And so given all of that, why, there could be surprises in the election. We could suffer loses or we could have gains.”
Friday, Governor Rauner signed into law Senate Bill 1564, which requires medical personnel and pregnancy resources centers to refer for abortions and discuss abortion benefits with their clients.
Illinois Right to Life’s Emily Zender wrote in response that the Governor’s actions were disappointing.
“It’s unfortunate that Governor Rauner didn’t keep his campaign promise to steer clear of social issues,” Zender said.
The governor chose to ignore the pro-life community’s efforts to stop the bill’s progress.
“We hosted press conferences, wrote op-eds in the most prominent newspapers, educated state and federal legislators, and delivered nearly 6,000 petition signatures to the governor asking him to veto this bill,” Zender wrote.
Gov. Rauner had promised during his campaign for office that he would steer clear of social issues. We knew he was not with us on abortion, but trusted that he would not undermine efforts to protect conscience rights and to enact measures that ensured the safety of women. Not one Republican voted for this anti-conscience bill. Rauner has chosen to side with the pro-abortion Democrats in Springfield, rather than his own party.
I cannot say it any better than my colleague Rep. Tom Morrison. Here is his response to Gov. Rauner signing the mis-titled “Rights of Conscience” bill today. In the final votes, no Republican supported this bill.
Rep. Morrison: New Medical Mandates Make Illinois “Less Free for People of Faith”
”By adopting these new mandates, Governor Rauner and Democrat legislators are forcing medical professionals, including non-profit, privately funded crisis pregnancy centers, to participate in procedures for which they have strong ethical and moral objections. I spoke vociferously against this bill during the House debate and with the Governor and his staff directly. I am greatly disappointed in his decision today. The message delivered to Illinois citizens is that their religious beliefs and free speech rights do not matter. Illinois is less free and more hostile to people of faith as a result of this likely unconstitutional law,” said State Representative Tom Morrison (R-Palatine).
Under this law, medical personnel and facilities will have to follow an objection protocol that includes providing a patient with information about the “risks and benefits” of all legal procedures, regardless of religious or moral objection, as well as information about where the patient can access objected-to procedures.
“Pro-life physicians, nurses, and other medical personnel do not, nor should they ever, have to check their faith at the door when they care for their patients. The benevolent, life-affirming employees and volunteers at Illinois’ crisis pregnancy centers deserve our admiration and respect, not attacks by an over-reaching state government that violates their religious liberty and free speech rights.”
“As plaintiffs line up to fight back in court, I proudly and wholeheartedly support their efforts to overturn this despicable law. Thankfully, their chances of success are high, as Illinois pharmacists successfully challenged the state’s attempt to limit their rights of conscience back in 2005. We should do everything we can to help uphold our citizens’ civil liberties once again,” Representative Morrison concluded.
* And the notoriously over the top Illinois Family Institute went over the top yet again and called the governor a “traitor”…
Despite the fact that not one Republican voted for the final version of SB 1564, Rauner decided to side with the Democrats in approving its final passage.
Thankfully, we have a system of checks and balances. IFI has been informed that a lawsuit is being planned to challenge this onerous and tyrannical new law. So now we must now shift our focus to praying for the Thomas More Society in their effort to overturn this unconscionable law in court. […]
Instead of throwing in the towel in response to the traitorous outrage perpetrated by Rauner–who has demonstrated his willingness to thwart the will of Democrats with regard to the budget bill–IFI wants to challenge conservatives to double down instead. We desperately need more–many more–pro-life/pro-family/pro-children’s rights men and women in Springfield.
* From the other side…
* Mindy Swank: SB 1564 is reasonable compromise between patients’ rights, providers’ faith: Over the course of five weeks, I made four trips to our local hospital, bleeding and in discomfort. On the last trip, I brought all the pads and clothes that I’d bled through and asked if it was enough to prove I was sick. The doctors induced labor and our son was born. He never gained consciousness and died within a few hours. We still think of him, and remember him — my husband and our three boys, whom we love very much.
The recorded debates from the state’s 1970 Constitutional Convention and previous Illinois Supreme Court rulings could not be clearer – the Illinois Supreme Court should reverse a recent Cook County Circuit Court ruling and order the Independent Map Amendment be put before voters in the upcoming November election, according to the coalition’s opening brief filed Friday with the Court.
“The language of the Illinois Constitution and legislative history of the convention debates are indisputable,” said Dennis FitzSimons, Chair of Independent Maps. “Redistricting reform is clearly a topic that can be addressed by a citizen initiated amendment, and the Independent Map Amendment is exactly what the men and women who wrote the constitution had in mind when they granted Illinoisans this power.”
The brief argues that the Cook County Circuit Court ruling is an erroneous interpretation of the Illinois Constitution and is contrary to both the plain language of the constitution and the legislative debates of the constitutional convention. “Indeed, if allowed to stand, the circuit court’s ruling would effectively nullify the constitutional right of Illinois citizens to amend the legislative article through the initiative process, making it virtually impossible to craft a redistricting proposal that offers any meaningful change,” the brief states.
Quoting extensively from the debates by the members of the convention, the brief demonstrates that the framers of the constitution identified redistricting as one of the “critical” areas that voters could address in a citizen-initiated amendment. While citizen-initiated amendments are limited to structural and procedural subjects contained in the legislative article, the constitution’s “limited to” language was designed to prevent initiatives on substantive issues like taxes, abortion or the death penalty, but the language was not intended to stifle creativity of initiatives related to the legislature.
“The circuit court reached the wrong conclusion because it refused to interpret the Redistricting Initiative in a common sense manner, recognizing that each and every aspect of it is directly related to (and only to) redistricting,” the brief states.
“Under these circumstances, denying Illinois voters the right to vote on the Redistricting Initiative would deprive all of the citizens of Illinois of an important constitutional right reserved to the people by the 1970 constitution,” according to the brief, which points out that the circuit court ruling incorrectly rejected a “straight-forward, common sense interpretation” of the constitution, isolated various aspects of the amendment and re-characterized them as pertaining to something other than redistricting. “All of the provisions of the Redistricting Initiative are limited to the subject of redistricting: each and every one of them seeks to improve the redistricting process, by establishing better and more objective standards and by adopting new procedures to minimize self-interest and partisanship.”
A majority of the delegates agreed, however, that a more limited initiative process should be adopted “as a way to suggest constitutional change that a legislature . . . by its very nature might be unable to accomplish,” such as “reapportionment.” As one delegate noted, “we could hardly expect the legislature ever to propose a Constitutional amendment to reduce the size of its membership, to establish a reapportionment commission comprised entirely of nonlegislative members, or perhaps even to establish single - member districts.”
* From the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s website…
Illinois offers unparalleled opportunity at the epicenter of North America. Companies can thrive in a world class business environment with the most diverse economy in the nation, a central location with easy access to your operations, a well-educated and experienced workforce of millions, and an opportunity to be an integral part of the second most economically powerful region in America.
We have one of the world’s most culturally vibrant states that has become a magnet for the country’s brightest minds. And Illinois businesses enjoy low corporate taxes and tax-free personal property that help make us one of the most business-friendly place in the nation. [Emphasis added.]
The typo is in the original.
* The Question: Where’s Bruce “Illinois is in a death spiral” Rauner and what have they done to him?
Since February, Sunlight has pored over hundreds of names and affiliations of DNC superdelegates from all over the country. Our methodology included going state by state to the respective lobbying registration database, as well as using data from OpenSecrets.org, to see if an individual was ever registered as a federal or state lobbyist.
At least 64 superdelegates have registered as a lobbyist at the federal level or state level at some point.
Today I veto House Bill 4351 from the 99th General Assembly, which would amend the Illinois Act on Aging to restrict the State’s flexibility in how we assess and serve Illinois’s elderly and physically disabled residents.
This bill is very similar to House Bill 2482, passed by the General Assembly last year, and which I returned with an amendatory veto for many of the same concerns I raise today. Although well intentioned, this bill would lead to serious unintended consequences.
First, this bill would lock into statute that an individual with a particular threshold score on the Determination of Need (DON) assessment tool would be eligible for both institutional and home and community-based long term care services. Instead, an individual with the threshold score should be entitled to institutional or home and community-based care. Many members of the General Assembly have long worked to transition the state from a reliance on institutional-based care to a focus on community care options that improve patient quality and cost efficiency. However, House Bill 4351 inhibits this transformation in the way the State delivers services for the elderly and disabled.
Second, to the extent that a motivating factor behind this legislation is to preclude a raise in the minimum DON score used to determine eligibility—as originally contemplated under the SMART Act (Public Act 97-0689)—I have no intention of raising the DON score. In light of this commitment, there can be no good reason to unnecessarily restrict the State’s ability to move from institutional-based care to community-based care through this legislation.
Finally, this bill would inhibit the Illinois Department on Aging from creating a new program, the Community Reinvestment Program (CRP). This program is designed to provide a multitude of flexible services for non-Medicaid individuals currently being served under the Community Care Program (CCP), and it furthers the State’s commitment to serving individuals in their own home and community rather than in nursing homes. CRP is also projected to produce savings of nearly $200 million during the next fiscal year. By precluding the launch of CRP, this bill would prevent the State from managing ever-rising costs and jeopardize our ability to ensure that essential community services remain available for the approximately 44,000 non-Medicaid persons now served by CCP.
…Adding… SEIU press release…
House Bill 4351, sponsored by Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) and Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) would have prevented Rauner from manipulating the Determination of Need (DON) Score and limiting eligibility to seniors, which Rauner attempted last year. This is in addition to a proposed $200 million cut to CCP, which, in early talks, Rauner is proposing to replace with for-profit ride sharing vouchers, food vouchers and dry-cleaning services as an untried, unproven way to eliminate the in-home caregivers represented by SEIU Healthcare Illinois.
As a result of Rauner’s risky proposals, some 44,000 seniors are at risk of forced institutionalization.
Following is the response of Rep. Greg Harris:
“Sadly this veto by Gov. Rauner is another in his ongoing campaign targeting childcare, people with disabilities and senior citizens. We should be encouraging seniors to remain in their own homes and low-cost community settings instead of driving them into more costly institutions and nursing homes.”
* Other bills were also vetoed today…
Today I return Senate Bill 1059. This bill would allow retired state university employees who return to work after receiving a lump-sum retirement distribution to receive additional health benefits without making additional contributions to the retirement system.
Under current law, state university employees have the option to receive a one-time, lump-sum payout from the State University Retirement System upon retirement. A retired employee who elects to accept the lump-sum payout is not eligible to participate in the State’s health care program. If a retired employee later returns to work for the State after accepting a lump-sum payout, he or she no longer contributes to the State Retirement Systems and, therefore, is ineligible to receive additional future retirement benefits.
Senate Bill 1059 would allow a retired employee who accepts a lump-sum payout and then returns to work to participate in the State’s employee health care program, even though he or she would not be required to contribute to the State’s retirement systems going forward. The bill would establish an unequal benefit distribution and expose the State to unforeseen, unfunded costs to the historically underfunded State Employee Group Insurance Program. Rather than increasing retirement-related costs to the State, I urge the General Assembly to work with me on comprehensive pension reform.
* And…
Today I veto Senate Bill 2439, which amends the Illinois Pension Code to impose additional pension liability for police and firefighters on local governments, despite a local referendum rejecting such an expansion. It is identical to Senate Bill 763, which I vetoed last year.
Public safety workers deserve the right to earn good pension benefits. However, current law already provides a mechanism by which a municipality can provide pension benefits to police officers and firefighters. Benefits are mandatory in municipalities with the population of at least 5,000 people and can be created by referendum in those with fewer than 5,000 residents. Thus, in smaller municipalities, the decision rests directly with the people who will have to pay for additional benefits through higher property and other taxes.
This veto is necessary because Senate Bill 2439 would allow municipalities an end-run around local referendum results. If this legislation becomes law, a municipality could impose new pension obligations by a resolution of its governing body even if residents overwhelmingly reject the same by referendum. At a time when local governments in Illinois are struggling to make ends meet, we should not stifle direct democracy by permitting local governing bodies to ignore taxpayer’s wishes.
* And…
Today I veto Senate Bill 2531 from the 99th General Assembly to prevent yet another hindrance to economic development in Illinois.
The bill requires an economic development council that receives public money to include members of a labor council and persons from minority groups on its corporate board. Diverse representation, particularly minority representation, on corporate boards is an admirable goal and one every corporation should seek to attain. However, corporate boards should also be representative of the constituencies they serve and need flexibility to ensure that representation. Mandating certain representation on every economic development corporation that receives public monies is a one size fits all approach that ignores that many of these local and regional councils may be best served with different representation that reflects their specific mission.
Further, the vague drafting of this legislation is likely to have unintended consequences. For example, “economic development corporation” is defined as “an organization that receives public money that promotes the development, establishment or expansion of industries.” This broad definition will likely lead to the inclusion of corporations whose works bears no relationship to traditional economic development. In addition, many corporations that would fall within this definition are dedicated to representing the interests of the management side of business. Forcing the inclusion of the labor representatives on such a board is in direct conflict with such a corporation’s interest.
This bill is one of three pieces of legislation passed by the General Assembly this year that impose arbitrary mandates on groups trying to further economic development in Illinois. Last year Illinois lost thousands of jobs, and I continue to hear that businesses are leaving our State. Rather than imposing inflexible requirements on entities trying to bring jobs to the Illinois, I encourage the General Assembly to focus on passing legislation designed to further economic development.
Friday, Jul 29, 2016 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Independent Maps, a non-partisan statewide coalition of Democrats, Republicans and Independents, has appealed a circuit court judge’s ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court. If left intact, the lower court judge’s ruling would rob Illinois voters of the right make a meaningful change in the way legislative districts are drawn.
The framers of the Illinois Constitution knew that legislators would not advance amendments that impacted their offices — no matter how popular the ideas might be with Illinoisans. That’s why the Illinois Constitution gave voters the right to propose legislative reform amendments.
This important right is now endangered.
The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled on a citizen initiative since 1994, but they will now have the opportunity to preserve this important constitutional right of Illinois voters.
More than 563,000 Illinois voters signed a petition to for a transparent, fair and impartial way to draw legislative maps. Reversing this lower court ruling will restore the democratic rights of voters in our state.
* Gov. Rauner just announced that he has signed three bills which have stirred some controversy. The first is the marijuana decriminalization bill. Rauner used an amendatory veto on a similar bill last year and proponents drafted another one to comply with his instructions. From a press release…
On Friday, July 29th Governor Rauner signed both SB 2228 and HB 4360. The passage of these bills represents an outstanding example of cooperation on reforming our criminal justice system.
“In the midst of a session where cooperation and compromise has been lacking, I am proud to have worked out our differences on this legislation and move our state in a very positive direction” said Representative Cassidy. “The governor and I both recognize the urgent need for criminal justice reform, reduction in prison population and the removal of barriers to reentry”
SB 2228 provides a statewide standard for cannabis possession, with a maximum $200 fine for possession of 10 grams or less and automatic expungement upon fine payment. The bill also implements scientifically proven standards for driving under the influence of cannabis and strengthens penalties for the dangerous production process of butane extracts. Representative Cassidy worked with a widespread coalition, gaining support from the Cook County State’s Attorney, Sheriff’s Office and Public Defender, in addition to numerous organizations across the state.
HB 4360 would eliminate the lifetime bar on employment and reduce time frames of prohibited hiring for various non-violent offenses for those seeking work in schools. It allows qualified individuals a schance to make their case and be considered for open positions. A thorough negotiation process secured the support of the Illinois State Board of Education.
* Two other bills signed today have been opposed by pro-life groups. Here’s part of the ACLU’s analysis on HB 5576…
The Illinois Contraceptive Coverage Act will [prevent] insurance companies from imposing utilization controls that make it difficult for women to access the birth control they need, and by allowing coverage for 12 months of contraception at a time. As 99% of sexually active women use (or have used) at least one type of birth control in their lifetime, the potential impact of this legislation is widespread.
* And here’s the Illinois Family Institute’s action alert on the other bill, SB 1564…
SB 1564 will radically alter the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act — an Act that allows medical personnel and health care facilities to avoid participating in morally dubious medical procedures such as abortion, sterilization, and certain end-of-life care. Doctors, pharmacists, and other medical personnel have been protected from having to violate their beliefs and values for almost twenty years under this Act. […]
Under SB 1564, a doctor’s conscience and religious beliefs are irrelevant and it’s possible that a doctor refusing to assist in a procedure he/she morally objects to could result in a lawsuit.
Senate Bill 1564, now on its way to the Governor, carefully balances the needs of patients to get complete information about their medical condition with the ability of health care providers to refuse health care services to which they have a religious or conscience objection. In the course of the debate around this legislation, we have seen a campaign of false claims hurled by a handful of opponents. The debate in the House helped pierce these claims, making clear that the bill does not force anyone to participate in or refer for abortion or any other care.
Rather, Senate Bill 1564 ensures that each patient in Illinois now can be assured that they will have complete information, so that they can make the best medical decision for themselves and their families. These medical decisions, we expect, will be guided by a patient¹s individual condition and his or her personal beliefs. Senate Bill 1564 means that when Illinois patients go into an exam room, they do not need to worry that they are being denied medical information based on their health care provider¹s religious beliefs. In short, this bill protects patients when health care providers exercise religious refusals.
* When thinking about these two bills, keep this New York Times Magazine quote in mind…
And as the Crain’s Chicago Business columnist Rich Miller recently wrote, in Illinois “independent suburban women have been the deciding factor in just about every statewide race since 1990.”
State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) has an established reputation among conservatives as being gutsy and speaking her mind on the Illinois House floor. Thursday, she signed a petition promising her first vote in her third House term will not be for Michael Madigan as speaker.
“I almost never sign pledges, but this one is a no-brainer,” Ives wrote alongside a photo of her pledge.
Gutsy, indeed.
* The “pledge” is being sent around by a House Republican candidate named Mike Strick…
I, _______________ a candidate for the office of State Representative for the District of _____ Illinois, pledge to the citizens of the ____ District of the state of Illinois that I will, upon my election and being sworn into office to the Illinois House of Representatives, refuse to vote for the incumbent Speaker of the Illinois House, Michael J. Madigan. I am free to vote for any other elected member, Democrat or Republican as I see fit.
Name____________________________
Candidate for State Representative for the _______ District.
Strick is up against Rep. Stephanie Kifowit (D-Oswego). He raised $1175 in the second quarter, spent $100 and filed his report on paper.
* The gaming stuff is old news, and we talked a little about the Lottery stuff yesterday, but let’s flesh it out…
A new private company or perhaps a new governmental agency could run the Illinois Lottery, and Gov. Bruce Rauner said Thursday he would be open to talk about expanding casino gambling.
Rauner, who long has complained about the revenue the state lottery has generated under a deal his Democratic predecessor, Pat Quinn, brokered in 2010, announced Thursday that the state was formally requesting bidders to take over the lottery program. […]
Rauner said the state would move within a few months to hire a new firm to run the lottery, and that the state was looking for a contractor that can boost revenue by expanding the lottery’s online presence and better market games.
Rauner noted there are few companies that specialize in running state lotteries, and said his administration was willing to look at companies that don’t specialize in running games. If private companies don’t come up with proposals that win over the governor, he said he would go to the Legislature to create a quasi-government agency to oversee
Northstar got the 10-year deal because it made the biggest promises of profits for the state. The firm then never met those original profit targets. It blamed the state for supposedly doing things that hurt its ability to make its profit numbers, while the state fought to penalize Northstar for failing to meet the targets.
In an effort to oust Northstar, the Quinn administration cut a deal with Northstar for it to leave, and Rauner’s administration renegotiated the deal. […]
In the meantime, the Rauner administration said it was studying what metrics mattered for state lotteries to better structure the deal the second time. It unveiled those basics Thursday, which include allowing smaller firms to compete for the management job while prohibiting vendors who do the grunt work from also bidding on the management job.
Rauner said he also wants the new manager to better push internet sales. Illinois was a U.S. pioneer in introducing online lottery ticket sales, but it has struggled to capitalize on it. He said he hopes a deal can be reached with a firm in the next six months.
Rauner said it would take around six months to hire a new manager following the process set in state law. But he said if a suitable replacement can’t be found through bids, he’d consider trying to change the management model. The Republican floated the potential of a “public benefit corporation” similar to how some states, including Georgia and Tennessee, run lotteries.
Any changes would require approval from the Democrat-controlled Legislature.
Rauner’s general counsel Jason Barclay described the potential for a corporation set up within state government that wouldn’t be subject to all state requirements, like procurement rules. He said the ideas “intrigued” the governor, though no details had been decided. In 2003, Tennessee created a quasi-government entity to run games and generate money for schools.
Private manager, quasi-government entity, I don’t really care as long as it’s managed well.
Political contributions and transfers in Illinois for 2016 have now surpassed $100 million, nearing total amounts contributed in previous Presidential Election years.
In 2012 and 2008, there were $171 million and $151 million in contributions and transfers respectively. Years with Gubernatorial Elections tend to see more state level contributions, with over $340 million in 2014 and over $277 million in 2010.
The Illinois Republican Party spent over $130,000 on independent expenditures during the last two weeks. The money went towards advertisements for 11 challengers of Democratic incumbents in the House and Senate. No independent expenditures have been made on behalf of the Democrats in those races.
The Citizens to Protect Transportation Funding, a ballot initiative committee,
continued an upward fundraising trend this week. On Monday, the committee received $300,000 donation from Excavators, Inc and a $50,000 donation from Southern Illinois Construction Advancement Program. Those donations alone doubled the committee’s total funds from two weeks ago when there was a pick up in their fundraising. The group, which was founded in late June, already has $827,000 in available funds. They support an amendment that would create a lockbox for transportation funds.
The key word here is “transfers.” Transfers are just what they sound like: One campaign committee transfers money to another campaign committee. So, most transfers aren’t really “new” money. It’s money already in the system being moved around.
* So, I asked for the breakdown and here’s their response…
Since January 1st of 2016, there has been just over $54 million in contributions, $38 million in transfers, $6 million in loans to committees, and $4 million in in-kind contributions. That’s how we arrive at the total of roughly $102 million as of today - an updated number from yesterday’s $1.7 million.
So, the “new” money total is more like $64 million, including contributions, loans, and in-kinds.
* But look at how this year - so far - compares to previous presidential election years…
2012
- $38 million in individual contributions
- $17 million in transfers
- $4.7 million in loans
- $3.5 million in in-kinds
Total of $63.2 million
2008
- $36 million in contributions
- $16.8 million in transfers
- $5 million in loans
- $3 milion in in-kinds
The House Republican Organization got another $500,000 from the Illinois GOP — money from a $5 million contribution from Gov. Bruce Rauner back in May.
The HRO has now received $3.5 million from the state Republican Party since May 10 as it continues a concerted cable TV advertising campaign targeting potential Democratic incumbents. House Republican leader Jim Durkin, of Western Springs, is trying to cut into Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan’s supermajority.
In addition to the HRO campaign operations, the state Republican Party last week also reported spending an additional $132,526 on legislative campaign mailings supporting 11 candidates against many of the same targeted Democrats.
The Democrats being challenged by Republicans in the mailings are Reps. Michelle Mussman, of Schaumburg; Sam Yingling, of Grayslake; Kate Cloonen, of Kankakee; Andy Skoog, of LaSalle; Mike Smiddy, of Hillsdale; Daniel Beiser, of Alton; John Bradley, of Marion; Brandon Phelps, of Harrisburg; and Sens. Tom Cullerton, of Villa Park; Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, of Shorewood; and Gary Forby, of Benton.
Faculty groups that oppose the appointment of a Champaign cybersecurity expert as the sole faculty member on the Illinois Board of Higher Education have suggested a compromise.
Let John Bambenek be one of the IBHE’s nine public members rather than the faculty representative.
The suggestion was raised last month at meetings among Bambenek, a University of Illinois lecturer, and faculty from the UI and the IBHE’s Faculty Advisory Council.
“I met with them and listened to their concerns and forwarded them to the governor,” Bambenek told The News-Gazette on Thursday. “At this point, no decision has been made.”
The IBHE has one vacancy for a public member, a term that would expire in January 2019, according to agency spokeswoman Candace Mueller.
DePaul University Professor Marie Donovan, who chairs the Faculty Advisory Council, said she heard Bambenek phone Rauner to relay the group’s recommendation after its meeting with him.
That arrangement assumes they’d be much happier with whomever Rauner chooses as the alternative faculty representative.
Somehow, I kinda doubt they’ll be overjoyed with the governor’s choice.
* She spoke at 4:45 yesterday afternoon, so most people will have only read or heard about it, if at all…
Rep. Tammy Duckworth addressed the delegation at the Democratic National Convention Thursday, slamming Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“In Donald Trump’s America, if you get knocked down, you stay down,” Duckworth said to applause. “By the way, Donald Trump, I didn’t put my life on the line to defend our democracy so you could invite Russia to interfere in it. You are not fit to be Commander-in-Chief.”
And she never once mentioned her opponent by name.
A super political action committee allied with Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk’s re-election campaign is going on the air with TV and radio ads critical of Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth’s stance on national security.
The Independent Voice for Illinois Super PAC is headed by former Kirk chief of staff Eric Elk, and it reported more than $1.3 million on hand to start the month after raising $845,000 in the first half of this year, federal election records showed.
The ads backing Kirk and criticizing Duckworth, a two-term congresswoman from Hoffman Estates, are airing in the Peoria, Champaign and Rockford markets. A spot check showed the super PAC spending about $27,000 alone to air 115 half-minute TV ads on WCIA Ch. 3 in Champaign.
The ads are critical of a statement Duckworth made last year about Syrian refugees that are in dispute by the two campaigns. The Kirk camp argues Duckworth indicated she wants 200,000 Syrian refugees to enter the United States — 20 times the number authorized by President Barack Obama. Duckworth’s campaign has said the candidate supports resettling 200,000 refugees overall in the United States, not just from Syria.
There’s a simple reason why legalization may not be having much of an effect on teen marijuana use — adolescents already report that marijuana is widely available. Nationally, roughly 80 percent of 12th-graders say that pot is easy to get. The kids who want to smoke weed are probably already doing so — and legalization would do little to change that.
Drying up the black market would certainly limit pot’s availability to children. Kids can’t easily find a street-corner booze dealer like they can with pot dealers. And pot dealers don’t check ID cards. Yeah, the most determined ones will always find a way, but Walgreen’s managers don’t engage in bullet-riddled turf wars with CVS managers.
Let’s legalize it so we can stamp out the rampant criminal involvement the way we did with alcohol and video poker machines.
Women continue to be underrepresented in elected offices across the U.S., but the situation in Illinois is among the bright spots, and area voters have helped shine the light.
The state ranks sixth in the country for the percentage of female lawmakers serving in the state Legislature. Women make up about 32 percent of the Illinois General Assembly, holding 57 of the 177 seats.
There’s obviously still a long way to go, but as the editorial goes on to note, Kankakee has a female state Representative (Kate Cloonen), a female mayor (Nina Epstein) and a female US Rep. (Robin Kelly). Sen. Toi Hutchinson also represents the city. Rep. Cloonen’s Republican opponent is a female, so the GA’s gender balance won’t change if the incumbent loses.
* This is by no means the first time Senate President John Cullerton has said this about a potential tax hike, but it’s still worth noting…
In June, Illinois legislators approved a stopgap budget that will get the state through the November election and into the lame duck fall session.
Cullerton said he’s willing to work with the governor on a budget “as long as he doesn’t have radical ideas.”
“We look forward to finishing up our budget negotiations, getting a grand bargain and any kind of an agreement has to be with Gov. Rauner’s blessings. We’re not going to have any tax increase unless Gov. Rauner wants it,” Cullerton said.
“And if he wants a tax increase, he’ll determine how much that tax increase will be. But we’ll work with him. But it’s not going to happen unilaterally. It has to be two parties sitting down and willing to compromise and that’s certainly where I am.”
Many delegates at both the Republican and Democratic conventions expressed dissatisfaction with their parties’ presidential nominees, and that discord could have an effect on Illinois’ 2018 election.
Voters upset with the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton could turn to Libertarian Gary Johnson or the Green Party’s Jill Stein for president on their Illinois ballots. And if either — or both — gets more than 5 percent of the vote, it’ll be much easier for those parties to get a candidate for governor on the 2018 ballot.
That’s because crossing the 5 percent threshold in Illinois means a party’s statewide contenders would only need 5,000 petition signatures to get on the ballot instead of 25,000.
Ten years ago, Green Party candidate for governor Rich Whitney got nearly 10 percent of the vote, making it easier for his party to get ballot access, at least temporarily.
We’ll have to see how all this plays out. This portends to be a hugely negative election, between two candidates who, so far, aren’t widely liked (we’ll have to see what this week did for Clinton, but Trump’s convention bounce was not that big). That could very well force voters to flee to the sidelines or to third party candidates.
* But the Donald should probably avoid saying stuff like this…
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Thursday afternoon he wanted to “hit” some of the Democratic National Convention speakers “so hard” while watching them last night, including a “little guy…so hard his head would spin.”
“You know what I wanted to. I wanted to hit a couple of those speakers so hard,” Trump said. “I would have hit them. No, no. I was going to hit them, I was all set and then I got a call from a highly respected governor.”
Trump didn’t immediately clarify what he meant, but he said he was made particularly upset by an unspecified person he called a “little guy.”
“I was gonna hit one guy in particular, a very little guy,” he said. “I was gonna hit this guy so hard his head would spin and he wouldn’t know what the hell happened.”
If you watch the video, it’s pretty clear he was talking about former NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who I thought gave one of the best “disqualifying” speeches of the week.
* We talked about this yesterday, but here’s the AP…
A settlement in the workplace retaliation lawsuit against Democratic U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth is final and the plaintiffs can’t back out even if no paperwork was signed, the Illinois attorney general’s office said Thursday.
One of two women who sued Duckworth said Wednesday they wanted out of the agreement because they felt the congresswoman was tarnishing their reputations by still calling their allegations false. They said they also were upset that Duckworth’s campaign referred to their lawsuit as frivolous shortly after the agreement was announced last month. […]
Butler did not immediately return calls for comment Thursday. The attorney for her and Goins, Matthew Ferrell, did not respond to a message relayed to him by his office.
Randall Schmidt, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said the general rule is settlement agreements are enforceable even if they’re not put in writing.
“The fact that it’s not reduced to writing isn’t in and of itself enough to back out,” he said.
Goins and Butler, speaking with the Daily Herald again on Thursday, said that throughout settlement conferences this spring, they had been assured by their attorney that until the paperwork was signed, they had not committed to anything.
The women met again with their attorney Tuesday night. “We told him we wanted to continue to trial. He never said that wasn’t possible. He said we would still be proceeding to trial unless an agreement was signed.”
The attorney general’s office said Thursday that while it views the agreement as final, that no settlement agreement had yet been submitted to the courts.
A spokeswoman at the Union County courthouse confirmed an Aug. 15 trial date for the case remains on Judge Mark Boie’s docket.
Still, Kirk’s campaign on Thursday called the settlement news a “Duckworth implosion.” Campaign manager Kevin Artl said information given by the attorney general’s office about the settlement last month was “clearly misleading.”
The plaintiffs told the Daily Herald the settlement was about $40,000, with $21,000 of that amount paying for attorney fees and another $9,000 for each plaintiff.
The attorney general’s office, however, disputes that claim, saying the $26,000 settlement covered all costs, including damages paid to each client.
Bottom line: The judge in this case is going to have to decide what the heck to do.
“We’ve obviously seen the stories, but that doesn’t change that we have a settlement agreement,” Attorney General’s office communications Director Maura Possley told Ward Room. […]
Possley told Ward Room that there is no scheduled trial.
But, according to the Union County Clerk’s office, the case is still on the docket because a settlement order to remove it hasn’t been received. Possley claimed the case is simply still on the docket from May.
