Gov. Bruce Rauner today announced that the federal government has approved the state’s plan to protect safety net and rural hospitals while ensuring continued federal support for quality healthcare to more than three million Illinoisans.
“This is a critical step in the making sure our safety net and rural hospitals can keep their doors open in underserved communities,” Rauner said. “Our teams worked hard to build a more equitable model while making sure hospitals can offer more urgent and outpatient care in their communities.”
The plan was created with Senate Bill 1773, bipartisan legislation that Rauner signed in March. It ensures the state will continue to receive federal matching funds to offer services for Medicaid beneficiaries through the Hospital Assessment Program, which brings in $3.5 billion annually. The new program takes effect July 1.
A bipartisan group of legislators worked with the Illinois Health and Hospital Association and the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) to redesign the program, create a more equitable reimbursement process, and ensure more efficient use of taxpayer dollars.
“The Department is pleased that the federal government has approved this plan, which will mean that dollars follow services for Medicaid patients more closely,” said Teresa Hursey, Interim Director of HFS. “The new program reflects the reality that healthcare delivery has changed dramatically over the last ten years, and it draws down as much federal revenue as we believe is permissible.”
Prior to the new program, the state used old data sets, which were sometimes based on care that was provided as far back as 2005, to reimburse hospitals for Medicaid services. The new model applies updated data and also ensures that more of the reimbursements are based on actual services hospitals provide.
It also dedicates more than $260 million to help hospitals transform their operations to better serve their communities, such as offering more urgent and outpatient care.
* SIU President Randy Dunn survived today’s vote to place him on administrative leave while an investigation of his conduct is performed, but the Board did vote to publicly disclose the content of these mysterious documents that supposedly reveal what would have prompted such a probe in the first place.
“I challenge this board to envision not what we once were, but what we are becoming: a premier institution in the Midwest. I challenge this board to augment our innovation and success with an appropriate funding structure that distinguishes our environment and needs from that of Carbondale,” Price-Williams said.
Kathleen Chwalisz, the SIUC faculty member who discovered the internal emails that led to the controversy, said Dunn has been “purposefully undermining” the Carbondale campus.
“At this time, it is difficult, if not impossible, for the Carbondale campus community to trust Dr. Dunn and his leadership,” Chwalisz said.
Anne Hunter, incoming president of the SIUE Staff Senate, said she has frequently seen SIUE painted as less important than Carbondale. She said Dunn simply stated the obvious by pointing out that SIUC receives a disproportionate share of appropriations.
The Trustees pushing Dunn’s leave knew going into today’s meeting they did not have the votes but called for it anyway. Weird.
We’re talkin’ with all the school leaders around the state. I am in strong favor of our teachers makin’ more money, and I support that very much. But havin’ a mandate where every school district has to do a minimum like that is very tough because there are a lot of school districts that don’t have the money and can’t afford it. We’ve gotta come up with some creative solutions. We’re workin’ on that right now. You know, the real answer is to get the mandates off from Springfield so teachers can teach and principals can lead without costly regulations and restrictions on what they do.
He went on to say money could be saved for teacher salary increases if local governments and school districts were allowed to contract services and consolidate.
The bill cleared the veto-proof majority in the Senate, and had 65 yays in the House. It has not been sent to the Governor as of yet, according to records.
Coupled with the recently enacted law requiring schools boards to contribute the normal pension costs for any salary increase above 3% (PA 100-0587), enactment of this proposal would require local school districts to increase pay above 3%, then require the local school district to pay the normal pension cost because of the increase!
Illinois has a collective bargaining law that empowers local school boards, together with their teachers and support staff, to set salaries in consideration of the revenues available to run their schools. School leaders and staff must take into consideration all aspects of its budget and make very difficult decisions to provide an effective education program that meets the needs of all students, while considering the will and ability of their local taxpayers to pay these mandated increases. often bargaining sessions include items other than salary, such as health insurance costs and pension contributions.
Chris Roegge said the legislative fixes are a good solution for the short-term, but they don’t address long-term needs. Roegge serves as the director of the University of Illinois’s Council on Teacher Education, and he’s seen a decline in the number of students enrolling in teacher preparation programs. A report from the non-profit Learning Policy Institute cites a 35 percent decrease nation-wide in teacher education enrollments between 2009 and 2014. Roegge attributes that in part to the narrative around the field.
“There’s been this swirl of negative press going back for more than five years around teaching, the conditions of teaching, the status of the job, the difficulty of the job – all of these things,” he said. “I think we’re starting to reap what’s been sown by that.”
Roegge points to the report from the Learning Policy Institute that identifies what attracts people to the field and what improves retention once they’re there. He said the four key ingredients are: compensation, preparation, induction and mentoring, and teaching conditions.
In many cases, improving these four areas requires more resources – whether that’s more money for teacher salaries and classroom materials or grants and scholarships for college students interested in the field.
The measures that have passed both chambers in the state’s General Assembly to specifically address the teacher shortage have revolved largely around decreasing bureaucratic hurdles instead of sending more money to local districts.
Illinois lawmakers are considering a proposed amendment to the state’s school code that would establish a minimum salary of $40,000 for full-time teachers. Is that salary threshold enough to attract more people to the profession despite the many other challenges teaches face, such as underresourced schools and standardized testing mandates?
I think the salary increase helps, in terms of perception as well as practice, especially given that the current minimum is $9,000.
I read a quote recently that sums up the situation pretty well, which said that it was generally acknowledged in the past that teachers and prospective teachers were willing to trade off low pay for job security, status – because it was a fairly high-status job – and pensions. Now, we’ve reached a situation where the salaries are still comparatively low, the status has decreased substantially and the benefits are under assault, too, so the two positives that outweighed the one negative are not so positive anymore.
But there are other factors also. I was at a statewide meeting of college of education leaders a few weeks ago and a colleague from another public institution in the state had just come from fact-finding sessions with school personnel in their area. They’d had several conversations about the teacher shortage and why more people aren’t entering the profession.
The audience came up with five p’s – pay, pressure, pensions, parents and policies – that discourage people from choosing teaching. Those issues speak to the educators’ interpretations of the context right now surrounding teaching as a profession.
What educational barriers discourage prospective students from entering teacher preparation programs?
The one that garners the most attention currently is the basic skills test requirement. Students can satisfy that requirement by either taking the actual test or by having a composite score of at least 22 on the ACT and the English/writing portion of the ACT, or by achieving a certain score on the SAT. Statewide, this is a significant hurdle for many prospective teacher education students.
This is a fraught issue because it speaks to perceptions of academic rigor, or lack thereof. But, there is little to no correlation between “basic skills proficiency” and success in teaching. So the question is how teacher education programs should ensure the academic quality of their students without unduly constricting the applicant pool.
Right now there is considerable discussion around this issue, and I believe that a reasonable alternative to the current requirement will be adopted sooner rather than later.
Student debt is a big issue in general, but especially so for graduates entering comparatively low-paying jobs. Institutions and state government need to work together on strategies to address the costs of entering teaching, including general college costs and those specifically associated with teacher preparation.
The new evidence-based funding model draws upon research findings that show, for example, a 15-1 teacher-student ratio in third grade is optimal for best outcomes. If a district lacks money for such a ratio, that is figured into how much state support the school will receive.
If a district spends more for administrators than is considered best practice, the district is not rewarded for that spending with additional state money. And so on, across scores of indicators.
Since best practices generally cost more money, the formula will still, as before, attempt to provide increased money for property poor districts. Yet the funding will be based on what a model school district would look like.
In the past, state money has been allocated by Byzantine education politics into transportation, special education and other narrow buckets, unrelated to best practices.
To fund the formula fully will require about $7 billion annually in new money (above the present $70 billion in annual state “all funds” revenue). I estimate about two-thirds of that money will benefit Downstate school districts, where property wealth is low overall.
* In a highly unusual move, Rep. Sam Yingling (D-Grayslake) is launching a 10-day ad buy on CNN, MSNBC and FOX, urging viewers to call Gov. Rauner to pressure him to sign SB2544, Yingling’s bill that puts a referendum question on the Lake County ballot asking whether the Lake County Assessor should be elected.
The ad plays on last year’s revelations from a Tribune investigation that Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios had been unfairly assessing properties — either too high for low-income, minority neighborhoods or too low for whiter, higher-income areas. Berrios, of course, lost his primary in March.
* Transcript…
A corrupt Assessor. Pay to play politics.
Voters in Cook County took action to restore fairness.
But in Lake County where property taxes are the highest, we don’t have that power.
The Lake County Assessor is not popularly elected. Nor is the County Chairman who appoints them.
A bipartisan coalition of legislators voted to empower you, the voter, to elect our assessor.
But political insiders are pressuring the governor to veto your right to vote.
Call the governor and tell him to sign Senate Bill 2544.
* The $25,000 ad buy is paired with a $25,000 “patch-through” call campaign that I’m told is on pace to send over 3,000 calls to the Governor’s office before June 29, the same day the Senate is supposed to send the bill to Rauner.
Additionally, Yingling and interns will deliver a petition to Rauner on the same day the bill is released, which is expected to garner 1,000 signatures. He got 200 just yesterday, and I’m told that those who answered doors or encountered Yingling or petitioners said they had already gotten his letter or called the Governor’s office.
For those unfamiliar with the issue, Yingling has been pushing this for a while, as Lake County’s assessor is appointed by Lake County’s board chair, who is elected internally by the board and not by popular vote.
In November, local township assessors sued the Lake County assessor, but it was ultimately thrown out for lack of standing.
According to a recent Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll, Democrat J.B. Pritzker leads Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner by nine points, 36-27, with 26 percent choosing an unnamed third-party candidate and 11 percent undecided. In other words, slightly more people said they preferred third party and/or were undecided than supported the frontrunner, Pritzker.
The partisan breakdown of respondents was 41 percent Democratic, 34 percent Republican and 25 percent saying they were independent. So, the two candidates have a ways to go to even convince members of their own parties to stand with them.
A full 36 percent of Republicans were still either undecided (9 percent) or chose a third-party candidate (27 percent), while 27 percent of Democrats were either undecided (6) or say they are backing a third-party candidate (21).
It’s seems unlikely that a quarter of voters will wind up going third party on Election Day, but, hey, one never knows. Respondents who say they’re with an unnamed third-party candidate might be just temporarily parking themselves there before “coming home” in November. But these results also show deep dissatisfaction with both candidates, and that can’t be great news for the frontrunner Pritzker. Then again, I’d take his results over Rauner’s any day.
If you take a look at the attorney general candidates, you’ll see the exact same nine-point spread between the two. Sen. Kwame Raoul leads Republican Erika Harold 44-35. Pollster Gregg Durham said he considers these to be a generic ballot test. We didn’t poll a third-party candidate in that race.
According to the poll of 600 likely voters, 56 percent have an unfavorable opinion of President Donald Trump while 39 percent have a favorable view. That’s the exact same 56-39 split from the 2016 presidential results here.
So, why do these top of the ballot races have single-digit margins in a “wave” year like this? Do Rauner and Harold have a shot?
Pritzker has spent an absolute fortune, but it’s only June and he’s been hit with a lot of negatives since January. And keep in mind that a hobbled, unpopular Gov. Rod Blagojevich won by about 10 points during the last off-year “blue wave” in 2006 – which is right about where these races are.
One important Illinois-centric variable could be House Speaker Michael Madigan, who, it turns out, is just as or even more unpopular in Illinois as Trump. A very high 60 percent of likely Illinois voters have an unfavorable view of Madigan, while 39 percent have a favorable view.
A whopping 63 percent of independents or third-party voters have an unfavorable view of Madigan, which is higher than the 59 percent who had the same view of Trump. 56 percent of women and 62 percent of men have an unfavorable view of the House Speaker (Trump’s split was 60/51).
Back to the governor’s race, where 37 percent of respondents had a favorable view of Gov. Rauner, while a solid majority of 55 percent had an unfavorable view.
The poll taken June 9-11 with a margin of error of +/-3.99 percent found that 43 percent had a favorable opinion of J.B. Pritzker while 39 percent had an unfavorable view.
64 percent of Republicans had a favorable view of Rauner, but 29 percent still have an unfavorable opinion of him and 8 percent were undecided, so the governor still has a ways to go after barely winning the March GOP primary.
The poll found that 67 percent of Democrats have a favorable opinion of Pritzker, while 17 percent had an unfavorable view. Pritzker has a bit of catching up to do on his side.
Rauner is underwater with just about every demographic. 57 percent of collar county voters and 59 percent of suburban Cook County voters have an unfavorable opinion of the governor. It’s closer Downstate, where he’s underwater by two points, 44 to 46.
Pritzker leads Rauner everywhere except Downstate. Pritzker’s ahead 53-13 in Chicago (that’s actually not a horrible number for Rauner), he has about a 10-point lead in suburban Cook, and he’s up 33-28 in the collars. Rauner has just a three-point 33-30 lead Downstate, which is not great for him.
Rauner leads Pritzker by 2 points among the 65+ crowd, but Pritzker leads in all other age groups. Whites are with Pritzker 33-31 and men lean Pritzker 34-28, which is surprisingly good news for the Democrat.
Again, I’d much rather have Pritzker’s numbers than Rauner’s, but the governor is not totally out of it yet. Democrats have been spiking the ball ever since the primary. They need to get to work.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner said the Department of Corrections was following the law when it kept prisoners with disabilities in prison even after their release dates. But the governor has also indicated an openness to changing the law.
A WBEZ investigation found the Department of Corrections often struggles to house inmates leaving prison with disabilities. Instead of being released to halfway houses where they can serve out parole, or mandatory supervised release as it’s officially called, inmates with disabilities can end up spending extra time in prison.
“If these laws need to be changed, we’re open to having that conversation with the General Assembly as we continue to build on our efforts to reform the criminal justice system in Illinois,” Rauner said in a written statement.
The Illinois Department of Corrections admits it keeps inmates with disabilities locked up beyond their release dates, but the agency doesn’t know how often it happens and has refused months of requests to sit down for an interview with WBEZ that could shed light on the otherwise invisible problem — one that advocates say could be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The governor would not comment on IDOC’s admission that it does not track how often someone’s disability keeps them behind bars or IDOC’s refusal to grant an interview.
Ellis, who was convicted of theft, served almost two years in prison and was eligible to serve the rest of his sentence in the community on mandatory supervised release. But that didn’t happen.
Ellis said prison staff told him halfway houses would not take him because he had been diagnosed with major depressive order. So he served all his time, including the supposed supervised release, in prison. When he finally got out, he was immediately thrust into homelessness.
WBEZ obtained IDOC’s housing directory through the state’s open records laws. Most facilities on the list said they would not accept a person coming from prison who was deaf, blind, or had a psychiatric disability. After calling all 75 places, WBEZ was able to identify only 13 that would accommodate someone who used a wheelchair coming from prison — one of those facilities said they had only one wheelchair accessible room and another told us that their waiting list for an accessible bed was months long.
When I spoke with Rep. Ford earlier today he told me he hopes to bring leaders from some groups that provide re-entry services into the discussion with IDOC to find a solution with IDOC that does not involve legislation. If they can’t find a solution, he intends to sponsor a legislative fix during veto.
I guess those citizens who have paid their debt to society will have to pay a little more because they happen to have special characteristics beyond their control.
An experimental court on Chicago’s West Side resolves cases with peace circles instead of judges and juries — and officials say it could expand into other communities.
…
The participant, victim, community members, and court staff come together for a confidential conversation in a peace circle to talk about the crime. The community members — not the judge — then work out a legal agreement called a “repair of harm agreement.” For example, the victim may ask the participant to paint over graffiti or volunteer at a neighborhood food drive to make amends for a crime.
The participant is connected with social service agencies to help them take GED classes or find a job, and stay crime free. The repair of harm agreement usually takes six months to a year to complete, at which point the participant’s charges are formally dropped with the potential to have their record expunged.
* Still no decision in Janus v. AFSCME today (though the justices will be back with more opinions tomorrow), but the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair opens the door for Illinois to collect sales taxes from more out-of-state online retailers.
Luckily, the General Assembly doesn’t have to wait for Veto Session to implement a law to capture the revenue; the language was already in the Budget Implementation bill that passed with overwhelming majorities and was already signed by Gov. Rauner earlier this month.
COGFA estimates the tax could bring in $150 million in FY19 — not an enormous windfall, but nothing to sniff at either.
The language in the BIMP expands the state’s 6.25 sales tax to out-of-state retailers who do $100,000 or more worth of business annually in Illinois (or 200 or more annual transactions here). If businesses reach that threshold, they are considered to be “maintaining a place of business in this State” and required to collect and remit the taxes.
A standalone bill aimed at capturing the revenue, SB 2577, passed the Senate 39-10 on April 17 — 2018’s Tax Day — but never got past First Reading in the House.
It’s important to note that about 80 percent of out-of-state retailers are already paying sales taxes here. But proponents say the BIMP bill language and the Wayfair decision will help Illinois capture the remaining 20 percent.
In 2011, lawmakers approved what became known as the “Amazon tax,” which taxed online retailers if they had marketing affiliates in Illinois that generated more than $10,000 in business annually in “click-through agreements.” But the law also forced retailers like Amazon to collect Illinois sales taxes even if the customer wasn’t an Illinois resident or if the affiliates site was not hosted on a server based in Illinois.
The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the law in 2013, finding it unfairly discriminated against electronic businesses under the federal Internet Tax Freedom Law because entities like newspapers or radio broadcasts were not likewise taxed.
* From today’s opinion, striking down a 1992 Supreme Court ruling in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota…
The Internet revolution has made Quill’s original error all the more egregious and harmful. The Quill Court did not have before it the present realities of the interstate marketplace, where the Internet’s prevalence and power have changed the dynamics of the national economy. The expansion of e-commerce has also increased the revenue shortfall faced by States seeking to collect their sales and use taxes, leading the South Dakota Legislature to declare an emergency. The argument, moreover, that the physical presence rule is clear and easy to apply is unsound, as attempts to apply the physical presence rule to online retail sales have proved unworkable.
* Reaction from the Illinois Retail Merchants Association CEO Rob Karr…
“We are very pleased with the Supreme Court’s ruling to allow states to collect internet sales tax. This ruling replaces the pre-Internet ruling that was determined by lower courts to prohibit states from requiring internet retailers to collect sales tax. As IRMA has long argued, regardless of where a sale occurs, a sale is a sale and sales tax should be applied. This ruling will ensure that main street retailers – who employ your neighbors, pay property tax and support local programs – are able to compete on a level playing field with out-of-state retailers that use our roadways and other services, but up until now, did not contribute anything to Illinois’ economy. This decision also protects Illinois consumers who have been liable for the sales taxes remote sellers refused to collect.”
* In the days after signing the budget, Gov. Rauner repeatedly touted the fact that the FY19 budget had “no new taxes.” I asked the Governor’s office whether the Wayfair ruling’s activation of the BIMP language throws a kink in that narrative.
*** UPDATE 1 ***
* Statement from Rep. Dave McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills), one of a handful of lawmakers from both Chambers who didn’t vote for the budget.
“It’s bad enough that the Madigan-Rauner budget includes the revenues from the 32% tax increase in the income tax rate. We now find out that the budget includes a tax increase on Illinois citizens made possible by the Supreme Court online sales tax ruling. I’m glad that I voted against this unbalanced ‘budget’ that contains the status quo of high tax policies in Illinois.”
*** UPDATE 2 ***
* Heard back from the Governor’s office. They do not consider the BIMP bill language activated by the Wayfair ruling a “new tax,” as the sales tax has been on the books for years.
*** UPDATE 3 (by Barton) ***
From the Dept. of Revenue…
Director Beard is very pleased that the United States Supreme Court overturned the 1992 decision in Quill and recognized that the physical presence requirement of Quill does not reflect the 21st century marketplace. To be clear, this is not a new tax. Illinois residents are already obligated to pay a Use Tax on out-of-state purchases and this prudent decision will allow states the ability to enforce Use Tax laws that are already in existence, bringing in an estimated $200 million in new State revenue for Illinois annually. With this decision, we level the playing field for Illinois brick and mortar retailers.
Public Act 100-0587 Background:
Illinois Public Act 100-0587 adopts the same standards as South Dakota for out-of-state-retailers to collect Use Tax on sales to state purchasers. The Act provides that, beginning October 1, 2018, an out-of-state retailer making sales of tangible personal property to purchasers in Illinois will be required to collect Use Tax if its cumulative gross receipts to purchasers in Illinois are $100,000 or more; or the retailer enters into 200 or more separate transactions to purchasers in Illinois. This law is not retroactive.
The State of Illinois estimates this Public Act will bring in an additional $200 million annually ($140 million for FY19) from the 6.25% Use Tax that will be collected. Locals will receive their share of Use Tax collected.
The Illinois Department of Revenue is available to assist any out-of-state retailers in registering their business to ensure compliance with the new Public Act.
Current Law Background:
Currently, Illinois law requires an out-of-state retailer to have a physical presence in this State to establish nexus. The following activities establish nexus:
• Physical presence. This type of nexus is established when an out-of-state retailer has more than the slightest physical presence in Illinois. This could be an employee, an agent, an office, or other physical location.
• Click-thru nexus. This type of nexus is established when an out-of-state retailer contracts with a person in this State to refer potential customers to that retailer. The retailer tracks those referrals using a promotional code or other mechanism, pays a commission or other consideration based on sales to purchasers through such referrals, and meets a $10,000 threshold.
• Affiliate nexus. This type of nexus occurs when an out-of-state retailer sells the same or similar product as a person located in this State and does so using a similar name or trademark. In these arrangements, the out-of-state retailer provides a commission or other consideration based on sales of tangible personal property to purchasers in this State. A $10,000 threshold must be met.
…Adding…
* Fun *nougat* of information (hat tip Andy Maloney for that joke) from my former colleague at Law360. She says it’s from Chief Justice Roberts’ dissent today.
*** UPDATE 4 (by Barton) ***
Jack Lavin and the Chicagoland Chamber…
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is welcomed news for brick-and-mortar retailers along with state and local government. As one of the anchors of the Chicagoland economy, retail drives economic development, which supports infrastructure, job creating efforts and creates much needed sales tax revenue. Although some online retailers already collect and pay sales taxes, this ruling now places all retailers on equal footing,” Jack Lavin, president & CEO, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.
Things you learn following tax policy: Illinois considers Twix food because it contains flour and Snickers, which doesn't, is considered candy. #Quill#Wayfair#SCOTUS
* Following a statewide, seven-figure ad buy that hits Pritzker for removing toilets from a property in the Gold Coast to take advantage of a property tax loophole, the Rauner cammpaign has announced it’s placing billboards for a dummy plumbing company bearing the Democratic candidate’s name and likeness…
A phone call placed to the “number” of “Pritzker Plumbing Inc.” answers with a recorded jingle that includes: “Pritzker Plumbing. Disconnect your toilets. Dodge your taxes,” followed by a toilet flush.
A narrator then says, “Thank you for calling Pritzker Plumbing. Our record of success dodging taxes in 2012” and goes on to recount the 2012 property tax break.
“This isn’t the first time that Pritzker has used his corrupt political connections for personal gain. Please leave a message or visit pritzkerplumbing.com to learn more,” the narrator says.
Pritzker has not directly denied engaging in the practice, and has responded in the past to the issue by bringing up property tax appeals the Governor has filed on his properties.
*** UPDATE 1 ***From Galia Slayen of the Pritzker campaign…
“The Rauner team sticking a poster on a van and calling it campaigning is the equivilant of this governor sticking his name on a budget he had nothing to do with and calling it governing. It’s lazy, desperate, and a last resort play from a failed leader who has nothing better to run on.”
That still does not address the substance of the hit. End of update.
* The mansion that served as the backdrop for Rauner’s ad was also the subject of a “sizable reduction” in its Lake County property tax assessment, per Pearson…
Lake County records show that for the 2017 property tax year, the mansion used in the ad was appraised at more than $1.7 million for property tax purposes. But on appeal, the Lake County Board of Review lowered the assessment by nearly $188,000 to $1.5 million.
Another nearby mansion owned by the Brincats but not featured in the ad also received a lowered assessment on appeal, from $1.27 million to nearly $1.21 million, records showed.
Brincat did not respond to a request for comment at his Waukegan business.
Alex Browning, a spokesman for the Rauner campaign, contended the Brincats’ action was different than Pritzker’s.
“Mr. Brincat’s property tax reassessment is a standard appeal that many homeowners in Illinois file annually. Pritzker altered the structure and function of a home, made the argument that it was ‘uninhabitable,’ and used insider connections with (Cook County Assessor Joe) Berrios’ office to save $230,000 in taxes.”
Average tax bills for single-family homes in the south suburbs were $247.39 higher in 2016 than in 2017 — an increase of about 5 percent — while those in the north suburbs went up around $213, or 3 percent, during that period, according to the Cook County clerk.
…
Cook County Clerk David Orr said the amount that municipalities asked for in property taxes increased by 16 percent over the last three years, and it’s a “trend that I’m concerned about.”
“If you want to look to the future, this is something we as a society — at the federal, state and county levels — could do something about,” Orr said.
The varying rates may be explained by inequity and “historic racial issues,” Orr said.
The wealthier areas, which have more industry and more commercial properties to levy taxes on, don’t have to ask for more in property taxes. But lower income areas, which may have fewer commercial spaces or other industries, ask for more in property taxes because they still need to govern, Orr said.
That isn’t confined to Cook County, of course. There are TIFs here in Springfield that have more EAV to work with than whole counties in the southernmost part of the state. it boggles my mind how those officials can govern and offer comparable services, like quality education, given those circumstances. Imagine in Cook, the kids in the poorer neighborhoods and subs are relying on those lesser funded systems to prepare them for the same opportunities those from the wealthier areas are also vying.
Money doesn’t guarantee success, but it sure doesn’t hurt your chances.
* It feels like just yesterday we were talking about what will happen when migrant children separated from their families at the Mexico-U.S. border arrive in Illinois. And whaddya know…
Some of the children separated at the boarder have been sent to shelters run by non- profits in Chicago. However, the government refuses to say how many.
In a statement, Heartland Alliance confirmed that it has “recently” provided “safe shelter and care for” children who have been separated from their families at the border in recent months. The statement goes on to read that Heartland Alliance’s “first priority is the safety and welfare of the children” in their care. Part of that mission involves “keeping their identities and details of their circumstances confidential.”
Heartland Alliance has not provided the total number of children separated from their families at the border currently held in its facilities.
Unaccompanied child migrants must stay in shelter care until they are released to an approved sponsor, such as a relative or family friend. According to Heartland Alliance, children remain in their custody for an average of 34 days and are almost always placed with a close family member.
I’m hoping to get a call back from Heartland’s media spokesperson to have more information. For that matter, I’m still waiting to hear back from the Governor and state agencies on what services they foresee being able to offer these children.
From the DGA…
“It’s been two days – has Bruce Rauner given any thought to deploying the Illinois’ National Guard on the border?” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Rauner has done everything he can to avoid criticizing President Trump instead of fighting for Illinois families. Will Rauner finally take action or will his failed leadership continue?”
* Ounce of Prevention, of which the First Lady is President, took to the Twitter waves yesterday to express its concern over the child separation policy…
The Ounce is deeply concerned about the "Zero-Tolerance" immigration policy. This traumatic separation of child from parent has a devastating & lasting impact on our youngest & most vulnerable - Diana Mendley Rauner @theounce President. Letter to @DHSGov: https://t.co/H6H1jcRn1g
The letter, dated June 7, is addressed to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and is signed by hundreds of national and state organizations. Ounce is one of them. Responses are directed to the policy director at the National Defense Fund. It called on the administration to abandon its child separation policy. As far as we know, that’s as far as the Governor has gone as well, for all we know.
…adding…This. is not. going. away.
The Department of Health and Human Services said the children who have already been separated will not be reunited with their parents.
"For the minors currently in the unaccompanied alien children program, the sponsorship process will proceed as usual."
* Chicago activists decry Trump move that will keep families together but still in detention: “Make no mistake: the President is doubling down on his ‘zero tolerance’ policy,” Durbin said in a statement Wednesday. “His new Executive Order criminalizes asylum-seekers and seeks to indefinitely detain their children. Locking up whole families is no solution at all — the Trump Administration must reverse its policy of prosecuting vulnerable people fleeing three of the most dangerous countries on earth, who are attempting to seek safe haven in America.”
* Kadner: Stand up to people who would make us jailers of children
* The Senate Education committee just wrapped up a marathon hearing on the sexual abuse students suffered from faculty and staff at dozens of schools for years. The hearing was called in response to a bombshell Tribune investigation published earlier this month that found hundreds of incidents, either kept under wraps or quietly dealt with.
Six+ hours of testimony yielded both gut-wrenching accounts from former students and angry exchanges between lawmakers and school officials.
Speaking to an audience of at least 20 legislators and dozens of observers, former Walter Payton College Prep student Morgan Aranda said she lost her “sense of wonder and excitement” about school after she reported being groped and kissed at age 14 by one of her teachers. School and district officials repeatedly questioned her about the alleged abuse.
“I’m here to shed light on the re-traumatizing, intimidating interrogations, the questions of my dignity, of my intent, of my character” after reporting abuse, Aranda said, pausing at times to wipe tears away. Payton administrators and Chicago Public Schools investigators, she said, subjected her to a humiliating investigation that undermined her story.
“I was pulled from class to sit alone in a room with an old man who asked not how I felt or what they could do to make me feel safe in my school again — but what I was wearing when I had been assaulted,” said Aranda, now 22. “Do you know what it’s like to be made to feel like a criminal, when you are in fact the victim?”
Tamara Reed, who was an eighth-grader at Black Magnet Elementary when a substitute teacher sent her sexually explicit texts and solicited sex from her, spoke about the way school administrators suggested she was at fault for the abuse and the lasting pain the experience has caused.
“I will never be the same again because of what has been done to me. I struggle to connect with people and to trust them. I constantly wonder if the people around me mean well or mean me harm,” said Reed, also faltering at times as she became emotional.
* Moments from Twitter…
New CPS changes in light of sex abuse investigation: If there's an allegation against an adult, whether it be a staff member, volunteer, or coach, they will be removed from the classroom and restricted from having any access to students.
.@ISBEnews testified it has been waiting for "months" to get information from CPS so it can determine whether 163 situations it learned about from @ChicagoTribune, where educators on CPS "do not hire" list went on to work at charters, warrant state “educator misconduct” cases
4: Radical change needs to occur at CPS, and it needs to happen now. Those employees who sexually abused these students must face the laws of justice and leadership at CPS must be held accountable.
So, an interesting line of questioning, where legislators are realizing that there IS annual training on mandated reporter laws. But CTU is saying, sure, it's amid an "information dump" and gets lost. Training needs to be more frequent, CTU says.
— Jen Smith Richards (@jsmithrichards) June 20, 2018
There's a chair marked for Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson at this morning's legislative hearing on the district's response to sexual abuse — but a spokeswoman says she will not be attending. pic.twitter.com/0G5bPApJhI
* It took a while (large file) to get the video from today’s Black Caucus presser responding to Gov. Rauner’s claims yesterday on WVON that he has done more for the African American community in Illinois than any other governor. Here are a couple comments. The presser videos are linked here and here.
Sen. Toi Hutchinson (D-Olympia Fields) pointed out the ripple effects that cuts to the Childcare Assistance Program had on economic opportunities for parents, and the community as a whole.
“So whenever we see working class people across the city and across the state, many of them working class folks that are inclusive of who we represent, losing their access to services, losing their access to contracting opportunities, losing their access to higher education, and then hear with a straight face and a little laugh that, ‘I’ve been better than anybody else in the history of the state’ — I said at first that I didn’t have words for that. Unfortunately, we do have words for that because the Black Caucus has been working diligently.”
Rep. Camille Lilly (D-Chicago) disputed Rauner’s claims, citing the closures of health facilities, including mental and behavioral health centers that treat addiction.
“It is not correct that he has done things, particularly in the district that I represent, to help the African American community. He has hurt it. When you remove resources that address the healthcare needs, you have hurt their opportunity to be viable citizens here in the state.”
* Gov. Rauner’s state account this afternoon did an eight-part tweet thread this afternoon under the hashtag #checktherecord, listing progress his administration made for African Americans.
On jobs and opportunity for African Americans. We veto business-banishing tax hikes. We propose reforms to end job-killer property taxes. We cut red tape so government doesn’t get in the way of job creators. #checktherecord
At the Tollway, total payments to African American owned professional services firms has increased by 142% since 2015. At CMS, African American businesses have seen $32.7 million in growth under the Business Enterprise Program. #checktherecord
And isn’t this interesting? Where Cook Co Machine controls government is where black families experience the highest crime, highest taxes, highest outmigration, and lowest employment rates. #checktherecord
* In response, Rep. Christian Mitchell (D-Chicago) and Rep. Chris Welch (D-Chicago) had their own Twitter threads.
Wow, .@GovRauner: I don't even know where to start. I understand that lying about your record of destroying the quality of life of working people generally and black folks specifically is like breathing; but that took effort! So lets #checktherecord *THREAD*
3)@GovRauner From 2015-2016, Illinois universities faced significant decreases in freshman class enrollment. Eastern, Western, Northern, SIU, UIC and CSU. Who was Governor? Oops! You!#checktherecord#failedgovernor
— Emanuel Chris Welch (@RepChrisWelch) June 20, 2018
In addition to the executive order, Gov. Rauner has appointed Philip Dalmage as the new Executive Director of the Illinois Human Rights Commission to oversee the commission’s coordination efforts.
…
The newly appointed executive director is a former Chief Administrative Law Judge at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (IDCFS), and served as the Director of the Business Enterprise Program at the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS). Most recently, Dalmage worked as a practicing attorney dealing with civil and family cases, specifically working with IDCFS abuse and neglect cases. He holds a B.A. from Marquette University and a J.D. from the John Marshall Law School.
“It is an incredible honor to be appointed Executive Director of the Illinois Human Rights Commission,” Dalmage said. “I am aware of the long and storied history of the Illinois Human Rights Act in Illinois and look forward to using this role to adjudicate civil rights violations in as fair, just, and expeditious a manner as possible. I thank Governor Rauner for giving me this great opportunity.”
The appointment was announced in conjunction with an executive order issued today that “mandates coordination between the Bureau of Administrative Hearings, IHRC, and IDHR to eliminate backlog and improve due process.” The full text is here.
“I’m not giving that any thought whatsoever,” Rauner said.
Because you made your decision and you are satisfied with what you said in April? Because there are more significant issues to think about than what has become an international black mark for our country?
“We’ve been in communication with the White House. We’ve been in communication with members of Congress,” Rauner said at an event announcing a university partnership and a $500 million corporate sponsor for the proposed Discovery Partners Institute in the South Loop.
Rauner, too, reiterated that he believes the zero-tolerance immigration policy is “bad policy,” “wrong,” “heartbreaking” and “not the moral thing to do.”
He did not specify who is to blame for the policy, or name President Donald Trump or any congressional leaders in his answers to questions.
Asked about the communications with the federal government — whom Rauner spoke with and what he requested — the governor’s office released a statement saying there is “constant communication with our congressional delegation and the White House.”
“By maintaining these relationships we are able to discuss important issues, like ending this bad policy,” Rauner spokeswoman Rachel Bold said in a statement.
If it’s “bad policy” and “not the moral thing to do,” why has he not given any thought to rescinding his National Guard offer?
Look at the language in Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s announcement that he will recall his state’s National Guard…
Until this policy of separating children from their families has been rescinded, Maryland will not deploy any National Guard resources to the border. Earlier this morning, I ordered our 4 crewmembers & helicopter to immediately return from where they were stationed in New Mexico. https://t.co/TEfkUXF7ZN
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) June 19, 2018
He does not name Trump other than to say he should be a part of the solution, he does not assign blame to Democrats, and yet, although he does not specify what the solution is, he backs up his condemnation with action instead of letting us imagine what phrases like “in constant communication with the White House” means.
* What is happening at the border is not going away, and it is not confined to whatever ends up happening with the National Guard. The kids we see being mocked as they cry for Mommy and Daddy lying on floor mats under foil blankets are not staying behind the fences in a warehouse in the middle of the desert. How will the Governor react when these kids make it to Illinois? Very soon, this will be about how we as a society provide for these kids that we put in a situation where they are reliant on us for the most basic human necessities like food, shelter, health care, and education.
“While the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, along with people all over the nation, decry the forced separation of children from their parents taking place on our southern border, the policy is a federal issue and beyond the scope of this department’s responsibilities under law. But for those children who have been separated from their parents and brought to Michigan, the Department of Civil Rights has a duty to make sure their civil rights are protected.”
“This week, I have been in touch with various agencies and organizations working with these vulnerable children. We have received reports and are very concerned that the children arriving here are much younger than those who have been transported here in the past. Some of the children are infants as young as three months of age and are completely unable to advocate for themselves. While we commend the work of resettlement agencies in Michigan attempting to serve these children with dignity and compassion, nothing can replace the love, sense of security and care of a parent.”
“I take very seriously our responsibility under state law to see to it that the civil rights of every person in this state, especially these vulnerable children in crisis, are protected. We will continue to monitor this situation closely to ensure the rights of these children are protected to the fullest extent.”
I asked the Governor’s Office and a few of the executive agencies if they know if any of the children directly affected by this zero-tolerance policy are already in Illinois, what programs and services they might be able to partake in and if they are confident they can provide those services. No response as of yet.
Today, Congressman Krishnamoorthi released the following statement urging Governor Rauner to refuse to deploy the Illinois National Guard to the US Border:
“The policies and procedures that the Trump Administration have taken with regards to separating children from their families when entering this country are immoral and inhumane. This is a moment for every public official to decide if they will be complicit in their detention of children for the sole purposes of extracting pain on their parents. So far, the Governors of Maryland, Massachusetts, and other states have taken the moral stance that they will not allow their National Guard troops to participate in any activities on the border until the situation changes. Today I am formally calling on Governor Rauner not to deploy any Illinois National Guard troops to the southern border until the Administration changes its policy of child detention and family separation.”
U.S. President Donald Trump said he would sign an executive order on immigration on Wednesday to end the immediate separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, which has sparked outrage in the United States and abroad.
An administration official said Trump would sign an order that would require immigrant families to be detained together if they are caught crossing the border illegally. Trump previously had insisted his hands were tied on the separation policy.
The order also would move parents with children to the front of the line for immigration proceedings but would not end a “zero tolerance” policy that urges criminal prosecution of immigrants crossing the border illegally, the official said.
* For Migrant Families in Mexico, Threat of Separation Puts Plans in Doubt: And an increasing number, migrants’ advocates say, will heed the siren call of human smugglers, who will try to use the separation policy to sell their services, arguing that they are the migrants’ best hope for getting across the border and holding onto their children. The smugglers will even be able to increase their prices for the work as a result of the Trump administration’s policy, advocates predict. “Any restrictive measure in terms of migration and refuge is going to favor the business of the transnational criminal networks,” said Ramón Márquez, director of La 72, a migrant shelter in Tenosique, Mexico.
Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti appeared on WOC AM Quad Cities this morning, as she’s in the area promoting work done by the Illinois Opioid Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force. Late in the interview, the host asked Sanguinetti whether she’d be at the top of the ticket in 2022.
Host: Once Rauner’s done being governor, when are you going to put your hat in the ring, how does that work?
Sanguinetti: Well, we’ve term limited ourselves. So I won’t be running for Lt. Gov. again.
Host: I think you know what question I’m asking, Lt. Gov. Are you going to be the governor after Bruce Rauner’s done?
Sanguinetti: Well I don’t know, but the fact is if I want to —
Host: Can I just say this? If not you then who? ¿Si no tú, entonces quién? [note: this is a hearkening back from an earlier part of the interview in which Sanguinetti says her mother used to tell her in Spanish, “if not you, then who?”]
Sanguinetti: But I’m not ruling it out. And you know what, I’ve been working with Bruce Rauner for the last four years and when we win this election, we’ll be together for another four years. So I should decide that I want to be governor, nothing should preclude me from that.
* Lost yesterday in a flurry of other news (about whether Gov. Rauner would rescind his offer to send Illinois National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and his claim that he’d done more for African Americans than any other governor) was a pretty major announcement involving ~1.3 percent of the state’s overall FY19 budget (yes, did the math).
The Discovery Partners Institute is getting off the ground with $500 million in state support and a $6 million pledge from the University of Illinois over four years. DPI is imagined to be an innovation hub for research and tech, which would help Illinois compete with other hot tech areas like Silicon Valley.
Yesterday’s event was the announcement of the site, “in a large swath of undeveloped land just south of Roosevelt Road near downtown Chicago,” according to the News-Gazette, and an announcement that a DPI office has opened and has planned its first classes for the fall.
More info from the governor’s office…
The anchor project in the plan is the Discovery Partners Institute (DPI), an innovation center led by the U of I System intended to be located within The 78, Related Midwest’s 62-acre planned development in downtown Chicago. Bordered by the South Loop, Chinatown, Bronzeville and Pilsen, DPI will be the centerpiece of the Illinois Innovation Network (IIN), a system of research centers across the state tailored to meet the needs of individual regions and lift their economies.
* The governor’s official account was also tweeting artist renderings of the project yesterday…
The 78 will be home to the Institute, projected eventually to cover 1 million sq. ft. on Related Midwest’s 62-acre planned development in downtown Chicago bordered by the South Loop, Chinatown, Bronzeville and Pilsen. pic.twitter.com/zMJI1OZyYy
* Rauner and Mayor Rahm Emanuel were on hand at the event, even complimentingeach other on making the DPI a reality. Rauner has long pushed for the project, even before running for office. Also present: Senate President John Cullerton and Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady.
[UI President Timothy] Killeen said the university wants to recruit 90 new faculty members and up to 1,800 students to the center, whose total cost has not been finalized but potentially would attract hundreds of millions in investment. No opening date has been set, but a location has emerged in the South Loop on highly coveted land to be donated by the development company Related Midwest.
“It’s an attempt to really take advantage of the assets that the state and the city have to accelerate economic development and to provide opportunities for our students to stay in the state and for innovations to flow into our economy,” Killeen said.
* I’m personally running behind schedule after my browser closed all of my new post tabs a few hours after I started working on them. Fortunately, the kids were not present when that went down. Keep checking back with us throughout the day, and follow along…
The story focuses on Clark’s campaign ad, which I cannot find (his other two campaign ads on his website are “unlisted,” an interesting YouTube feature, by the way) *update*click here for the video hosted on Facebook — but footage of the ad in Maxwell’s story shows repeated shots of the Litchfield Fire Department interposed with shots of Clark standing both next to a fire truck and in the driver’s seat.
“As a volunteer fireman, I watched as the budget crisis tore apart our small towns,” Clark says in a narrated video, which shows him climbing into a Litchfield Fire Department Truck, wearing the Chief’s hat, and sitting in the driver’s seat of the fire engine.
However, Clark never served as a volunteer firefighter for Litchfield, or any other fire department in Illinois.
When asked about his campaign costume, Clark confessed that while he wore the chief’s helmet, “I am not a fire chief. The chief let me wear his helmet on that day. But I was a volunteer fire man back in the day and I really enjoyed that. It taught me a lot.”
Clark stated that his stint as a volunteer fireman in Bolivar, Missouri, lasted “one point two years.” Asked to clarify what exactly that meant, he repeated, “One point two years,” which apparently was intended to mean something between 14 and 15 months.
However, the fire chief at the Bolivar Department disputed Clark’s claim, writing in an email that their records show Clark was only on the volunteer roster for seven weeks in the fall of 2010, “during which time he attended one training event and responded to one emergency incident.”
* Clark did not like the WCIA story, and alleged on Twitter overnight that it wasn’t factual.
Just watched an unfounded video saying I embellished my record of being a volunteer fireman. Which is wrong and DEFINITELY a misrepresentation of what actually happened. FULL STATEMENT AND STORY HERE: https://t.co/qSDQVQxFwY…#BoughtBourne#RaunerRobot#Clarkforthe95th
* Another tidbit from Maxwell’s story that didn’t make it to air…
Reporter: Would you vote for Speaker Madigan to retain his title as House Speaker?
Clark: I will say this: I do not care who is the head of Chicago, who is in Chicago, who is the head of Springfield or anything like that.
Reporter: But you’re running to be a House Democrat.
Clark: Yes.
Reporter: As a House Democrat, you get a vote. Would you vote for or against Speaker Madigan to remain Speaker?
Clark: Again, I just want to represent my district. I am solely going to represent my district. I don’t care who’s in charge.
Reporter: But why dodge that question?
Clark: Again, I just want to represent my district.
*** UPDATE 1 ***
* Statement from Avery Bourne…
“Our volunteer firefighters sacrifice so much to serve our communities. It is shameful for my opponent to lie about his experience as a volunteer firefighter for political gain. He should take down the false campaign ad, give us the whole truth, and apologize to our first responders and their families.”
*** UPDATE 2 ***
* Statement from ILGOP Executive Director Andrew Collins…
“Dillon Clark will need to attend more than one training to put this big fire out. Clark shamefully exaggerated his time served as a volunteer firefighter for political gain, doubled down on his false claims, and then blocked a reporter on Twitter who called him out for it. To make matters worse, Clark disagreed with a Missouri fire chief’s assessment of his time served in college. What else is Dillon Clark not telling us?”
*** UPDATE 3 ***
* Earlier this morning I called Clark to ask where he got the “150+ present votes” number he claims about Bourne in his statement. Here’s what he told me late morning:
Our team gathered this information from Ilga.gov by looking through Bourne’s Rauner inspired tenure.
* Also, looks like Clark unblocked Maxwell on Twitter, but also unearthed the fact that Clark was on the Rauner campaign payroll in 2014.
Mark was kind enough to point me toward the Board of Elections website, which indicates Dillon was paid a total of $5,833.33 for “grassroots consulting” and “field consulting” for Citizens for Rauner Inc. between July and November of 2014.
A 2014 campaign source told me that both Clark and Bourne were paid walkers for Rauner.
*** UPDATE 4 ***
* Sen. Andy Manar, who is supporting Clark and even has a campaign event scheduled with him (and Betsy Londrigan) for Monday, told me today that Clark is “one of the hardest working candidates I’ve ever seen.”
“He won incredibly challenging county board race in 2016 in Montgomery County because of hard work and connecting with voters,” Manar said. “[The ad] maybe perhaps insinuated something that wasn’t the case but the fact is he was a volunteer firefighter, and because he lives in a small community he has seen the devastation of Rauner’s cuts. He’s doing one heck of a job knocking on doors. If he were to ask me for advice, I would encourage him to continue to do that.”
*** UPDATE 5 ***
* Clark provided this statement mid-afternoon, and also called me to confirm that yes, he had worked for the Rauner campaign, but had quit in September of 2014 due to Rauner’s position on public employee unions…
As I was just getting into politics, a local state representative I was interning for encouraged me to join the Rauner campaign. He said it would provide me with solid work experience and be a great way to figure out whether I wanted to keep working in politics. I worked on his campaign through September, when I finally decided he wasn’t someone I could continue to support. We disagreed on a lot, but it was his attacks on union workers that drove me to leave his campaign and his new brand of Illinois Republican Party. Families like my granddad’s depended on hard work and a union wage to get by, and here, in one of the most union-member-filled districts in Illinois, Bruce Rauner and Avery Bourne’s anti-union agenda has been awful on our district.
In response I joined the Democratic party and worked hard every day, knocking door after door to defeat the Republican Vice Chairman of the Montgomery County Board.
Today, I’m running just as hard to be State Representative in the 95th, because representing people here needs to be about making sure hard workers have jobs and the money to provide for their families, not about which Chicago millionaire is backing you.
(Note from Hannah: I changed the title of this post because upon further reflection, Rauner did not commit to not sending any troops if asked, just that he was “not giving that any thought whatsoever.”)
* After a long day of taking arrows from critics calling on Gov. Rauner to rescind his April offer to send Illinois National Guard troops to the Southern U.S. border in light of the child separation policy, the governor this afternoon told reporters he is not thinking about it.
Reporter: “What kind of thought are you giving right now to the idea of sending Illinois National Guard troops to the Texas border?”
Rauner: “I’m not giving that any thought whatsoever. What I am calling on is for us to end the policy of separating families. It is bad policy, it’s wrong, it’s heartbreaking, it’s not the moral thing to do. We need to secure our borders and stop illegal immigration but separating families is not the right answer. I’m strongly against that and I’ve made my views clear to Federal Government.”
Reporter: “What are you doing to that effect? Have you spoken at all to the Trump administration?”
Rauner: “We’ve been in communication with the White House, we’ve been in communication with members of Congress.”
* Earlier in the day and yesterday, the governor’s office had been less direct answering the question, saying only that the governor did not support the policy, but not going as far as committing to not send National Guard troops.
Two Republican governors in Blue states, Gov. Charlie Barker of Massachuetts and Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, announced within the last day that they would pull resources out and not send more National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
We demand that J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic candidate for governor of Illinois, pay his organizing fellows. Organizing fellows are student workers who spend at least 15 hours a week doing critical organizing work, from recruiting volunteers, to hosting organizing meetings, to knocking on doors. But despite their critical work, J.B. pays them nothing.
J.B. would have no difficulty paying his fellows. He’s now donated over $100,000,000 to his campaign. His net worth, according to Forbes, is $3.5 billion. The race is predicted to be the most expensive governor’s race in history. Top members of management are feeling it: as of March 30th, his campaign manager alone had earned over $207,000 according to campaign disclosures. But the college students who work for J.B.’s campaign as fellows for at least 15 hours a week, who balance performing essential campaign functions with class work and enormous amounts of student debt, make nothing.
“The Pritzker campaign compensates both our interns and fellows, and they are also provided travel compensation and the opportunity for school credit,” Pritzker campaign communications director Galia Slayen said in response.
When I accessed the “Internships” link (https://www.jbpritzker.com/internships/) in the footer of the Pritzker website at around 3 p.m., the text said the positions are paid and that applicants could “receive school credit depending on degree requirements.”
From LaBounty in an email…
1. The campaign’s fellowship posting, as of yesterday, still listed the fellowship as an “unpaid fellowship opportunity.” Screenshot of that attached. The campaign has clearly changed its line here. Today, they’re saying it’s paid; yesterday, they (through their website) said it’s unpaid.
2. Campaigns will sometimes try to make it possible for more students to work as interns or fellows by offering transportation and meals, either on a weekly, monthly, or per diem basis. Even when this is provided as a stipend, it’s not compensation for hours worked: it is material support to allow the fellow or intern to avoid incurring costs while fulfilling the demands of the position. While not having to pay to work is a step in the right direction, it’s simply not being paid to work. Fair compensation would be $15/hour.
My understanding is that, to the extent to the Pritzker campaign has given such material support, it’s been structured as a stipend for transportation and/or mean;s, not as payment for hours worked. I’ve also heard that it is only being made available to a subset of fellows.
LaBounty said the CWG did not attempt to contact the Pritzker campaign directly before posting its petition. The Pritzker campaign has not spoken directly with CWG since the petition was posted.
Perhaps the two sides should, I don’t know, talk to one another before this escalates any further.
* CBS’ morning show aired a full story this a.m. about the possible sale of Lincoln artifacts to cover the $9.7 million the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation still owes on a $23 million loan the museum used to buy Lincoln artifacts in the first place. By full story, I mean CBS even dispatched a reporter to Springfield.
Finke reported last month that the Foundation was considering auctioning off some of the items, including a stovepipe hat that purportedly belonged to Lincoln, gloves that were in his jacket the night he was assassinated, quill pen and a fan that belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln. The Foundation has paid down more than $13 million on the loan so far, but the rest comes due in October 2019.
The CBS reporter asked Foundation CEO Carla Knorowski whether the museum’s public plea for donations is a kind of “bailout.”
“We would encourage them to not to view it as a bailout but rather as an opportunity to give back to the man who’s done so much for us,” Knorowski said.
However, former Foundation board member Tony Leone is quoted as saying, “Somebody’s got some ‘spaining to do.”
“We really don’t have any serious accounting of how much they raise every year and how much they spend,” he added, saying he thinks it’s reached the level of a scandal.
* Last month the Foundation said it was in talks with Gov. Rauner’s office to secure some state funds to cover the museum’s debt. However, I’m told nothing came of it, and a Ctrl+F search of the enacted budget shows only basic maintenance spending for “ordinary and contingent expenses.”
A GoFundMe page the Foundation started last month has raised $8,814 as of this afternoon, up from the $7,000 mentioned on-air this morning.
* Gov. Rauner was on Maze Jackson and Charles Thomas’ WVON morning show this a.m. Today is June 19, otherwise known as Juneteenth, the day slavery formally ended. Jackson posted video of the morning show on his YouTube channel, labeling it “Juneteenth, but are we free though?” Rauner is officially recognizing today as Juneteenth Day.
The group started out asking Rauner about the new Pritzker campaign ad, “Porcelain Prince,” and Thomas mentioned that Pritzker in turn repeatedly hammers Rauner as a “failed governor.”
Charles Thomas: Tell us why you’re not a failure.
Rauner: …We’ve done historic things for the Black community, I would argue more than any other governor. Creating economic opportunity, making more equality in contracting. We’ve done historic things and we’re going to keep on fighting —
Maze Jackson: Hold on, Governor. You said you did more than any other governor for Black folks?
Rauner: Exactly.
Jackson: I don’t know, man. I’m going to tell you — Rod Blagojevich. Man, right now we did a poll and we said if Rod Blagojevich got out of jail right now, he could beat Rahm Emanuel in an election.
Jackson then asked if Rauner wouldn’t be the least bit happy if Blagojevich got out of jail, if only for an election boost for himself.
Thomas got the conversation back on track, asking Rauner about a recent executive order targeted at making state contractors within a certain community reflect the actual business ownership. It’s specific to Black-owned business owners and will hold state employees responsible for contracting accountable for awarding contracts to Black-owned businesses when possible.
Rauner: That’s one of the reasons I say I’m fighting — you know, it’s one thing to promote social spending, human services programs. That’s fine. Blagojevich did a lot of that. Okay, great. I respect that and I support a lot of that too.
I support a lot of that too. But I’ve done more for Black business, for Black economic opportunity and Black education opportunity than anybody.
Thomas: As opposed to minorities?
Rauner: I’ve helped all minorities. But especially, I’ve been great for Black businesses and African American schools. No governor’s done more than me.
…Adding…
* Last week’s employment numbers revealed that while statewide unemployment is down, unemployment among African Americans in Illinois is the highest in the nation.
…Also adding…
* More context for the EO the Governor is referring to. A WCIA story from last month reported the Black Caucus was blaming Rauner for shrinking state contracts among Black-owned businesses.
The Illinois Black Legislative Caucus accuses him of showboating for political gain. They say, in reality, his administration only made this problem worse by failing to enforce laws they’ve already passed.
At a press conference Thursday morning, the caucus shared data from the Business Enterprise Program (BEP), a state program designed to help women, minorities and disabled business owners partner with the state. While participation has grown, it shows over the last two years, the amount of money spent on black vendors has dropped 22%.
“All we’re trying to do is ask him to be fair and honest instead of playing lip service with these very important issues and pay attention to a lot of things we put into that bill,“ says Rep. Al Riley (D- Chicago).
Rauner’s office pushed back on the notion he’s hurt black business since taking office. They say compared to Gov. Quinn’s administration, the state is spending $32.7 million more on African-American vendors.
“I want equal opportunity and government that plays fair,” says Gov. Rauner.
*** UPDATE 1***
* Responses from Twitter…
Every single unbalanced budget @BruceRauner proposed had targeted cuts to programs that disproportionately affect our community.
What @GovRauner has done for black ppl: blow up hundreds of black owned child care businesses; have a cabinet w/ less diversity than a country club; refuse to comment on a racist cartoon; called our schools crumbling prisons; cut Ceasefire causing more shootings. You’ve lost it. https://t.co/p3DyEDBvhP
2016: Trump asks Black people what we have to lose. 2018: IL Black unemployment highest in the nation, investment in Black business & contracting down & social services decimated. At every turn, our Prez and Gov use Black people as props for political gain. It's exhausting.
— Senator Toi Hutchinson (@ToiHutchinson) June 19, 2018
6th Ward Ald. and chair of the City Council’s Black Caucus:
— Roderick T. Sawyer (@RoderickTSawyer) June 19, 2018
*** UPDATE 2***
* Was forwarded a newsletter from the National Black Chamber of Commerce, which praised Rauner in its May 21st edition of the newsletter…
There is no elected official in our nation who is showing the commitment of Governor Bruce Rauner, Governor, State of Illinois. His recent Executive Order should be used as an example for all mayors, county executives and governors throughout our nation. We, the federation of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, should show our appreciation and recognize his wisdom. We are preparing a thank you letter and, hereby, ask for all NBCC chapters and other business associations to join in.
*** UPDATE 3***
* Statements from both JB Pritzker and Lt. Gov. candidate Rep. Juliana Stratton…
“Bruce Rauner fabricated a track record of standing up for the black community when he’s been nothing short of a failure,” said JB Pritzker. “While Rauner pays lip service, Illinois’ black unemployment rate is the highest in the nation. That’s after Rauner’s budget crisis crushed small businesses, decimated social services, reduced access to child care assistance for working families, and forced anti-violence programs to freeze operations. Rauner tried to exploit divisions between Chicago and downstate with racially charged language and even refused to call KKK leader David Duke a racist. There’s nothing more shameful than a failed governor using a day that commemorates freedom and the fight for justice to grandstand and spread lies.”
“Juneteenth is about freedom and our fight for economic justice,” said State Representative Juliana Stratton. “For Bruce Rauner to take this day and pretend to be a champion for the black community, when he has done nothing but turn the clock back for our communities, is appalling and deeply insulting. This is the same Bruce Rauner who vetoed a $15 minimum wage, disinvested in our small businesses, and drove our state to the highest black unemployment rate in the nation. Illinois deserves a leader who ensures no community is left behind and that is not and never will be Bruce Rauner.”
*** UPDATE 3***
Got a response from the Sen. Kim Lightford (D-Maywood), Black Caucus Chair…
“And here I thought Bruce Rauner, as a white man, wasn’t going to have anything else to say about race. Well, since he brought it up, a true friend of the black community wouldn’t have slashed funding for Chicago State University, wiped out childcare assistance, grossly underfunded Teen REACH, waged a war against the students and teachers in Chicago Public Schools and vetoed an increase in the minimum wage.
Perhaps the self-proclaimed protector of the black community forgot that black-owned businesses didn’t get paid during his impasse.
Maybe he needs to be reminded that African American women get breast cancer, too, and benefit from the screenings he tried to eliminate.
And in the midst of all this exaggeration let’s not forget that under Bruce Rauner’s watch the African American unemployment rate in Illinois is the highest in the nation.
Some friend he is.
Next, he’s probably going to tell us he really liked Black Panther, too.
That movie contains less fiction than Rauner’s claims.”
“We have a very deep pipeline of interested tenants but someone had to be the first,” said Brian Whiting, founder and president of the Telos Group, which is representing 601W in leasing the building.
“It gives us momentum and it gives us credibility, and we are confident that we will be announcing additional commitments in the very near future,” Whiting said in an email.
Walgreens and Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday discussed details of the deal and unveiled renderings of the planned space in a news conference in the historic building’s lobby. The Tribune last week reported Walgreens’ plans to move into the building, and the company later confirmed plans to move 1,800 corporate employees there — 500 from a Loop office in the Sullivan Center and 1,300 from the company’s north suburban campus.
“We’re comfortable that we’re not going to be the only tenant here (in the Old Post Office),” said Joe Brady, vice president of real estate at Walgreens. “Frankly, we’re proud to be a catalyst to help this project go even faster.”
“We’ve been plowing forward with different tenants, so I think at this point—we’re going a different direction,” Whiting said. “We’re not waiting for them, and we’re on to the next and best thing.”
The mayor is trying to play things close to his vest so as not to anger Amazon as he and mayors across the U.S. wait for the company to conclude its lengthy, secretive process to decide where to locate its second headquarters and as many as 50,000 employees.
But asked Monday whether Walgreens’ decision to locate 1,800 employees at the old post office in the South Loop takes that building off the table for Amazon, Emanuel offered some insights.
“I don’t want to violate anything with Amazon, so I think when you — know this, let me do it this way so I’m not (violating), I want to be careful,” Emanuel said. “On our original proposal to Amazon we had 10 sites. When they came, they saw five sites. It is our understanding they like, really like, two sites. So let me say that.”
Gurnee Mayor Kristina Kovarik said she is concerned that they haven’t seen any sort of stormwater management plan for the project, which is set to break ground later this month.
Kovarik said the project will turn hundreds or thousands of acres of farmland into impermeable surface that if not properly managed could increase the amount of rain that runs down the Des Plaines River.
“When that water comes out of Wisconsin, we’re the first community it really hits,” Kovarik said. “We’re built right on the river. We have major arteries that get shut down from flooding.”
* The President is scheduled to meet with Congressional Republicans later today as public pressure mounts to end the Dept. of Homeland Security’s policy of separating migrant children from their families.
The Governor’s Office is responding to requests for comment on whether Rauner supports the policy or not with this statement…
“Governor Rauner does not support this policy. He believes we need to secure our border and end illegal immigration,” spokeswoman Rachel Bold said. “But separating children from their parents is bad policy and heartbreaking. We can and should do better as a nation.”
In April, Rauner had said he would send Illinois National Guard troops to the border, if asked. The governor’s office did not respond to a question if Rauner would follow Baker in reversing that decision.
*** UPDATE 1 *** - The Pritzker campaign has launched a $1 million Facebook ad buy providing people the means to call Gov. Rauner’s office and encouraging him to rescind his position of sending National Guard troops if they are called upon. Per Natasha Korecki…
*** UPDATE 1:32 p.m. ***
* Need to do a correction here. I should have also made sure of this figure. -HM.
Flagging a correction to today's IL Playbook on Pritzker Facebook ads hitting Rauner on immigration: Pritzker campaign is spending enough to reach 1M people (not spending $1M) –> https://t.co/lNuJKpJg0Q
The social media campaign allows readers to call Rauner’s office to complain with one click.
“Months ago, this governor offered the Illinois National Guard to this racist, bigoted president and now refuses to call on Trump to end this horrific policy,” Pritzker said in a statement. “By not rescinding his offer, Rauner is helping Trump enforce a policy that goes against the same values our nation was founded on. He’s carrying on in complicit silence while Trump forces families to live in fear.”
It is the responsibility of every single one of us now — descendants of immigrants and keepers of American values — to speak out. That includes the governor of our state. I’m calling on Bruce Rauner to stand with bipartisan leaders in Illinois to fight against this horrific policy. This is a time for leadership and a moment for all of us who seek to serve the public to truly serve.
The world is watching and history is being written. It isn’t often that we are faced with absolute rights and wrongs, and this is an absolute wrong that goes to the heart of who we are as Americans.
His office on Monday would only say that Rauner wants to end illegal immigration but doesn’t support the controversial policy.
…
Asked by the Sun-Times whether Rauner believes the policy is in place because of the Trump administration, or Democrats, as Trump has suggested, the governor’s office did not respond.
As President Donald Trump defended new procedures at the southern border, Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam of Wheaton said the administration needs “to reverse course immediately.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren of Plano said he is “troubled by the situation at the border” and that he would support legislation to remedy it.
…
Roskam hopes Republican legislation that includes increased border security and a compromise on students brought into the U.S. illegally when they were children will also keep migrant families together.
“There’s an urgency to make sure this happens, either by the administration, and if doesn’t happen by the administration, then it happens by a change in the law,” Roskam said.
A Hultgren aide said the congressman would look closely at whatever legislation comes to the House floor but wants to see it first before deciding.
U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, during a stop in Decatur Monday, said the Department of Homeland Security should “absolutely not” be separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“That is going to be part of one of the bills that we are going to debate and hopefully vote on this week. The president is going to speak with the House tomorrow, and I look forward to hearing from him which solution (is) going to get the votes to pass.”
*** UPDATE 11:55 a.m. ***
* Got a response from Rauner campaign spokesman Alex Browning:
“Pritzker is lying. Governor Rauner has already stated that he does not support separating children from their parents.”
* Also got a statement from the Kwame Raoul AG campaign:
“If reading about Donald Trump’s policy to rip innocent children out of the outstretched arms of their parents isn’t convincing enough, I challenge anyone to listen to recently released audio from inside a border facility. Listen to the children’s cries as agents crack jokes and tell me this is what America should sound like. Listen to their fear and their sobbing pleas, and tell me how this is making us safer. This is almost too painful for me as a father to bear, but we can’t look away. We have a responsibility to stand up and declare firmly: This is wrong. This is not who we are, and it must stop.
As the son of Haitian immigrants, I keenly understand how our identity as a nation has been shaped by how we treat those who come to our borders. And as attorney general, I’ll do everything I can to fight Trump’s harmful policies. These children’s cries only sharpen my resolve.”
The Rauner campaign has a new ad hitting the airwaves today, dubbed “Porcelain Prince,” hitting JB Pritzker on the disconnection of toilets in a Gold Coast mansion Prizker owns, which were the basis of a claim to Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios that the home was uninhabitable. The move led to an estimated $230,000 in property tax savings, as the Sun-Times found last spring.
We’re told it’s a seven-figure ad buy on broadcast, cable and digital. The 30-second ad opens with a shot of a toilet with a crown on its seat under a portrait of Pritzker. A narrator tells the abbreviated version of the story over shots of men taking out toilets from a mansion. The ad ends with a man in a suit sitting on a toilet, reading a newspaper on the lawn, surrounded by toilets.
Full script:
Chicago’s Porcelain Prince of tax avoidance: JB Pritzker.
Pritkzer spent millions on his second Gold Coast mansion, then took out the toilets.
To dodge hundreds of thousands of property taxes, Pritzker removed every single toilet from his multi-million dollar second home and claimed it as uninhabitable.
A royal flush of tax avoidance.
Porcelain Prince JB Pritkzer: Lower taxes for him, higher taxes for you.
Notable that it’s a totally separate issue from months’ worth of recent ads tying Pritzker to Blagojevich. Another place the Rauner campaign uses the toilet issue? On its 404 error page, which I discovered while trying to access a 2014 document last month.
*** 10:27 a.m. (by Barton) ***It’s almost like the Pritzker camp expected this line of attack.
Pritzker is up with an ad that hits Rauner for having nine homes, filing his own property tax appeals, and then claims the Governor wants to raise property taxes. It does not address the uninhabitable declaration in the Rauner spot. Have a look…
* The State Journal-Register is reporting that Sen. Don Harmon (D-Oak Park) will soon release SB 336, a medical marijuana expansion bill, to Gov. Rauner. The bill is aimed at reducing reliance on opioids and instead prescribing certain patients with chronic pain medical marijuana instead.
The legislation, which passed with bipartisan support and supermajorities in the Illinois House and Senate, soon will be sent to the Republican governor’s desk, said Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, sponsor of Senate Bill 336.
Medical marijuana may not help every pain patient avoid an opioid addiction that can lead to misuse of legal prescription drugs or illegal drugs such as heroin, Harmon said.
But he said allowing people who have been or could be prescribed an opioid to instead use marijuana is worth a try, based on anecdotal reports and studies that show a reduction in opioid-related fatalities and opioid prescriptions in states that allow the use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes.
“I’m not saying there’s no need for opioids,” Harmon said last week. “But we’d like to give people an off ramp. People die from opioid overdoses. They don’t die from cannabis overdoses. I’ll take that tradeoff any day.”
If approved, the legislation could increase enrollment in the program — currently serving about 38,000 patients — by eightfold or more, based on estimates.
It’s unclear what Rauner thinks of the bill. A Rauner spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment, and Harmon said Rauner is “not a fan” of the medical marijuana pilot program, which was set in motion under Rauner’s predecessor, Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat.
Rauner’s administration is opposing a legal effort to add “intractable pain” to the state’s list of about 40 qualifying conditions for people wanting to enroll in the medical cannabis program.
And Illinois, unlike many states with programs, doesn’t allow patients to legally buy marijuana if they have “chronic pain” but not one of the other qualifying conditions such as cancer, AIDS, fibromyalgia, seizures or spinal cord injuries, Harmon said.
* Just hit inboxes. This appears to be concurrent to Legislative IG Julie Porter’s ongoing investigation…
Former Federal Prosecutor and Executive Inspector General Maggie Hickey to Lead Independent Investigation of the Illinois House of Representatives
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – House Speaker Michael J. Madigan announced today that Maggie Hickey, a former federal prosecutor and former inspector general for the agencies under Gov. Bruce Rauner, will conduct a thorough and independent investigation and review of the operations of the Illinois House of Representatives, including all departments within the Office of the Speaker and the Office of the House Clerk.
“Ms. Hickey’s reputation for integrity is widely recognized, and her experience in conducting investigations, including instances of workplace harassment, will enable her to identify past failures and mistakes, and recommend reforms and new policies that will help create a better culture throughout the operations of the House of Representatives and the General Assembly,” said Madigan.
The Speaker and a group of female legislators in the House selected Hickey to lead the independent investigation after interviewing several candidates. Members representing various communities and constituencies were involved in the selection, including state Reps. Kelly Burke, Deb Conroy, Melissa Conyears-Ervin, Jehan Gordon-Booth, Lisa Hernandez, Camille Lilly, Theresa Mah and Ann Williams.
Hickey, a partner at Schiff Hardin, has extensive and unique experience in conducting criminal and civil investigations of units of government. Most recently she served as the executive inspector general for the Office of the Governor under Gov. Rauner. Prior to that she was the executive assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. She also served as chief of staff and chief legal counsel to Republican U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald, and served as investigate counsel for the Senate’s Committee on Government Affairs.
“The challenges we face in the Capitol are bigger than any one office, individual or policy,” Burke said. “That’s why a review of all House practices and offices – from the clerk’s office, to member’s offices and staff offices - is a necessary start to changing our culture. Maggie Hickey’s understanding of state government, her record of tenaciously fighting against workplace harassment, and her independence are the exact qualities we need. I thank the Speaker for moving so quickly to bring her on board and thank her for joining the effort to change the culture in our Capitol.”
“Changing the culture in Springfield is only achievable when we work together and take the appropriate action to study what has gone wrong in the past and what we must change to be better in the future,” Conyears-Ervin said. “Ms. Hickey brings a wealth of expertise, and her independent review of all House operations is a critical step toward a better tomorrow.”
“Women throughout our country, throughout our state and throughout our Capitol have stood up to demand a culture free of harassment and discrimination, and Ms. Hickey’s independent investigation is an acknowledgement of their call,” Conroy said. “Changing any culture requires serious, measured reflection. That’s exactly why Ms. Hickey’s work is so important, and why I am grateful for her efforts. I appreciate that the Speaker has agreed to an independent investigation and that he recognizes this step is necessary to move forward.”
“I am extremely impressed with Ms. Hickey’s background and experience,” Lilly said. “I hope all members will cooperate with Ms. Hickey as we undergo a full review and seek to eliminate all forms of harassment and discrimination in the House. I look forward to working with Ms. Hickey over the coming months.”
# # #
* Hickey stepped down as Illinois’ Executive Inspector General in April. Hickey was also tapped to investigate the Chicago Public Schools’ alleged failure to protect students from sexual assault from school employees.
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said Hickey will be paid $500 an hour to conduct the investigation. Brown said the funds will come from the Illinois House operations budget. Brown initially told the Sun-Times there was a cap of $50,000 but later said “the final version of the contract does not have a cap.”
Madigan is still reeling from the abrupt departure of Tim Mapes, clerk of the Illinois House, his chief of staff and the executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois, amid a whistleblower’s accusations that Mapes made light of harassment allegations, amid other claims.
Mapes’ departure came just a week after Deputy Majority Leader Lou Lang stepped down from his leadership positions and his role in the Legislative Ethics Commission after a woman came forward with bullying and harassment allegations.
Madigan last month requested Special Legislative Inspector General Julie Porter investigate his office after State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, alleged retaliation.
* The Chicago Tribune’s architecture critic Blair Kamin weighs in on the restoration of the Executive Mansion, along with great photos by photog Zbigniew Bzdak (don’t miss the 54-slide gallery, which also includes photos of the mansion pre-restoration)…
Illinois, your house has been put back in order. Not your political house, already in the midst of an ugly gubernatorial campaign. We’re talking about the Executive Mansion, the “People’s House,” which will reopen to the public July 14 after a $15 million renovation that has simultaneously modernized and beautified what used to be the state’s most embarrassing fixer-upper.
An exclusive tour of the mansion and its grounds Thursday, led by Illinois first lady Diana Rauner, revealed much beyond the practical pluses of energy-efficient windows that don’t leak and an elevator that finally provides full access to the home for people who are disabled.
For the first time in years, passers-by actually can see the mansion, no longer hidden by a thicket of trees and shrubs. The home’s stout brick exterior has been skillfully edited, losing ungainly features while gaining richly articulated details. The elegantly revamped interior transcends mere redecoration to tell significant stories about the state, including its role in the Civil War and the World’s Columbian Exposition. And there’s no more peeling plaster in the Lincoln Bedroom.
The irony is that Rauner and her husband, Bruce, the Republican governor, could be forced to leave the home if he loses the November election to Democrat J.B. Pritzker. The Rauners donated $1 million to the privately funded renovation drive, which has raised a little more than $14 million so far, according to Diana Rauner, who chairs the nonprofit that supports the mansion.
The last time I was in the mansion was the summer of 2014, when the state spent $40,000 for a roof patch after leaks threatened the historical bedrooms and upper floors. I remember loving the wallpaper that had been peeling (the fourth slide in my story), and am glad to see it repaired in the Trib’s photo gallery. It was before Gov. Rauner moved in, of course, and put a renewed focus on the disrepair of the mansion as a metaphor for Illinois writ large.
* The Tribune’s really cool Instagram account, @vintagetribune, also posted a quartet of old photos of the mansion last night…
* I met my old man for breakfast yesterday in Bloomington. While we were waiting for a table to become available, a man in a wheelchair reached up and tugged on Dad’s sleeve and called him out by name.
Seeing the Senator was a thrill for both of us. Mom and Dad were on his senior campaign leadership team and considered the Maitlands friends. Moreover, it was the first time we had heard him speak since a stroke in the fall of 2000 forced the “Dean of the Senate” to retire. Mom and Dad thought so highly of the Maitlands that they used his statesmanship as a model for my brother Mattheis and I to emulate.
I mentioned I was co-hosting Capitol Fax this week. “Tell everyone I said, ‘Hello.’”
*** THE QUESTION: What are your earliest personal political memories?
* The U.S. Supreme court this morning declined to rule on the merits of Gill v. Whitford, better known as the Wisconsin gerrymandering case and Benisek v. Lamone, a Maryland case involving a Democratically gerrymandered district. Instead, the court remanded the Wisconsin case back to the District Court level, ruling the 12 plaintiffs lacked proper standing to sue, as they failed to show injury from the entire Assembly map. On remand, the plaintiffs will have a chance to evaluate their claims of gerrymandering specific to their district.
From the opinion, authored by Justice Elena Kagan…
To be sure, remedying each plaintiff ’s vote dilution injury “requires revising only such districts as are necessary to reshape [that plaintiff ’s] district—so that the [plaintiff] may be unpacked or uncracked, as the case may be.” But with enough plaintiffs joined together—attacking all the packed and cracked districts in a statewide gerrymander—those obligatory revisions could amount to a wholesale restructuring of the State’s districting plan.
The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a decision on when partisan gerrymandering goes too far, ruling against the challengers of a Republican-drawn map in Wisconsin and a Democratic redistricting in Maryland.
The rulings in the separate cases once again put off a decision on when courts can find that partisan efforts to keep parties in power goes so far as to be unconstitutional. But the court again left open a path for such challenges.
It was a technical resolution of what has seemed to hold the promise of being a landmark decision about extreme efforts to give one party advantage over another.
While the court routinely polices the drawing of electoral maps to combat racial gerrymandering, it has never found that partisan efforts went too far. It has never settled on a test that judges could use to determine how much politics was too much.
The practical impact of the case is that legislation elections in Wisconsin this year will be conducted using the map challengers said overwhelmingly favors Republicans. The Maryland congressional districts will also remain the same, including the district that challengers said was drawn to elect a Democrat. The incumbent is not running for election.
However, as the WaPo article points out…
A pending challenge of North Carolina’s redistricting efforts could provide another case for the justices to consider the issue. In that battleground state, Republicans control 10 of 13 congressional districts. That case has plaintiffs challenging each district.
* Had the court ruled on the merits of the cases, it would have had major consequences for Illinois. Maybe the Wisconsin case will get back up to SCOTUS before the 2021 redistricting, or even that North Carolina case.
From Wisconsin Public Radio’s Shawn Johnson (PAR class of 2001)…
"This is definitely not the end of the road," says @skchheda, director of the Fair Elections Project. "There is no vindication for the state’s rigging of the maps and disenfranchising of our voters here." Says plaintiffs will examine their options.
In a statement to the Sun-Times, (Sean) Morrison staunchly defended his handling of the case of Anthony Martin, who was a senior vice president of Morrison Security when he was arrested by Orland Park Police in August 2013 and charged with solicitation to meet a child.
The charge stemmed from suggestive text messages that Martin, then 46, sent to a 14-year-old girl he met at an office barbecue/pool party hosted by Morrison at his Palos Park home.
…
Morrison said there was “no history or hint of inappropriate behavior” involving Martin before the incident.
He said that when he learned about Martin’s texting, “I immediately encouraged his arrest and prosecution.”
But he said he did not fire Martin immediately “because my attorneys believed Martin could have the basis for a wrongful termination lawsuit and I did not want him to profit from his criminal activity by hiding behind labor laws.”
Instead, Morrison kept Martin in his senior vice president role, managing more than 450 employees, while the case dragged through the court system.
By October 2014, Martin was expecting to receive probation through a court-supervised alcohol abuse treatment program that would have allowed him to avoid a criminal conviction on his record — and keep his job.
As part of that effort, Martin’s lawyer submitted a letter signed by Morrison to Circuit Judge John J. Hynes seeking permission for Martin to continue to travel on business.
In the letter, Morrison noted that the 10-year veteran employee is “instrumental in running my business.”
“Due to his position with my firm, the trust I have in him and his long tenure with me, one of his core functions is to be the Traveling Executive for the company, to monitor my business. To continue to be able to function in this company, he must be able to travel,” Morrison wrote.
In his statement to the Sun-Times, Morrison said it was Martin’s lawyer who drafted the letter, but Morrison didn’t deny authorizing or signing it.
Just 19 days after the date of Morrison’s letter, Martin was arrested again, this time in Colorado, on charges of trying to sexually exploit a child using the Internet.
That is more than I normally like to copy from a story. The rest is here.
The site, ww4c.org, currently features 17 stories, dating back to December, some of which are female-focused but others are general-interest recycled campaign content. A podcast from the vertical also forthcoming, but the Rauner campaign couldn’t tell me yet when the podcast is launching or who will be hosting the show.
The WW4C story goes on to explain the pilot program, which is up and running in Peoria County and Stephenson County, supported by a $650,000 grant. A story about the project from last summer says the pilot program is “a product of the Illinois Home Visiting Task Force, which Diana Rauner has co-chaired since 2009 and is a public-private partnership funded through federal and state grants.”
* From Rauner campaign manager Betsy Ankney this morning…
Friend,
As Bruce Rauner’s campaign manager, I am keenly aware of the power Illinois’ women have to define the future of our state.
To harness this power and to ensure all women have a voice in this election cycle, we’ve launched Women Working for Change (WW4C). The mission of this group is to help women across the state stay informed and engaged so when each of us cast a vote in November we are confident we are making a choice that is truly aligned with our beliefs and goals.
WW4C will share feature stories that dig deep into the issues that keep us up at night, profiles on women from across our state sharing their perspectives and ideas, and original content for women, by women.
* Launching an entirely female-focused platform, especially in the #MeToo era, is a shrewd move for the Rauner campaign. The campaign tells me that both First Lady Diana Rauner and Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti will be involved. They couldn’t tell me if the stories will make their way into traditional ad buys, but with the Pritzker campaign hitting Rauner hard on women’s health issues (eg breast cancer screenings during the impasse), I wouldn’t count it out.
The “Back Bruce” web page currently only features three videos of GOP elected officials/candidates (only one of the three identifies himself as such), but the campaign tells me that testimonials of everyday Illinoisans are coming soon.
…Adding…
* Had someone point out that the Women Working for Change initiative isn’t quite “new,” as there’s a whole email archive for it dating back to December. I guess we could call it a re-launch.
A conference next week in Bloomington featuring local election officials and representatives of the Illinois State Police, Department of Homeland Security and the Election Assistance Commission will educate officials on election security, from recognizing and reporting a threat to how hackers can try to access their networks.
Helping to organize the event is six-term Logan County Clerk Sally Turner.
“Most county clerks have no idea that, when they ran for office, that they would have to be an IT director,” she said. “And so, this is helping us get a basic knowledge of what is all this information that is out there, and how do we decipher it all.”
Families were sent an email Friday evening from CPS’s Office of Access and Enrollment inviting them to submit supplemental applications to selective enrollment schools. Attached at the bottom of the email was a link to a spreadsheet with the private data of over 3,700 students and families.
The link to the private data was active for several hours after CPS noticed and apologized for the breach. The link was eliminated by Saturday morning.
* Hoping to find a way to keep Illinois youth from flocking to other states, a bi-partisan group of legislators interested in the performance and condition of the state’s public higher education institutions will continue working through the summer.
“We have a lot of students whose family income is above the threshold for Pell and MAP (grants), so they don’t qualify for any of the need-based financial aid,” Burke said. “But the families also don’t have $20,000 sitting around for them to go to school, so people end up borrowing.”
Though the bulk of the financial aid given by the University is need-based, beginning in 2019, the University will match the amount of state money it receives from AIM HIGH with its own institutional dollars to be distributed, on the basis of merit, to students who are Illinois residents.
“The two main reasons why people don’t end up accepting our admissions officer is because of our cost and lack of financial aid,” said Dan Mann, interim associate provost for enrollment management at the University. “We’re hopeful that this program will help us provide more financial aid that will attract more Illinois students here.”
Next on the group’s agenda, according to state Rep. Dan Brady, is a discussion on “what those universities are capable of doing and what they’re not capable of doing and shouldn’t be doing” and possibly a more formalized funding formula…
The working group plan on later this summer reconvening into what will be the fall veto session and really focusing in now on what is going to be some type of funding formula. I don’t think there’s anyone in Springfield who can explain what is the funding formula for higher education in the state of Illinois. And so, that is going to be something, and I think we’ll probably have some of the ideas that mirror K-12 and the new funding formula there. I think that will be very, very helpful.
Universities have been cut numerous times over the past decade, and neighboring states have diverted some Illinois high school seniors by lowering their tuition rates to what they would charge their own residents. And then the impasse happened…
By (John) Jackson’s analysis, the two-year impasse left SIUC with about 41.5 percent of its normal budget.
“In other words, we lost 58.5 percent in higher ed over that two-year period. No big organization can reduce 58.5 percent of their base budget and not be hurt by it,” Jackson said.
…
SIU had been allowed $178.8 million in state appropriations for Fiscal Year 2018, a 10 percent decrease from FY15, the last normal year before the budget crisis.
The university system’s state appropriations peaked at just shy of $250 million in 2002 under Republican Gov. George Ryan. After gradual state disinvestment in the 2000s, the FY18 payout was the lowest since 1994.
This Thursday, the board will begin in open session for public comments and questions followed by some routine orders of business. In addition, the board is slated to give authorization to pursue a campus funding allocation study and engage a consultant to evaluate the system’s funding formula.
Next, the meeting will close to the public for an executive session so that the board can discuss “pending, possible or imminent court proceedings against or on behalf of the Board; and appointment, employment, compensation, discipline, performance, or dismissal of specific employees,” according to the meeting notice.
Related…
* State rep. launches petition drive calling for IBHE study of SIU funding: Stuart said she was launching the petition because the SIU Board of Trustees failed to reallocate $5.1 million to SIUE this spring. The board was also split on whether to support her resolution.
At a Halloween party at his friend’s house at least 10 years ago, state Senate candidate Hal Patton was photographed dressed in an orange football jersey, wearing a black bandana on his head, and his face painted black.
Patton, the Edwardsville mayor who also has been in public office for nearly 20 years holding positions such as City Council member and Madison County Board member, is seeking the seat currently held by state Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton. Haine is not running for re-election.
In the photo, obtained by the Belleville News Democrat from Democratic operatives, Patton is smiling while holding a drink at the Halloween party.
Patton confirmed the photo is of him, and said it was taken at least 10 years ago. He said he was dressed as a rapper.
“There was never any intention for it to be an act of racism or racial commentary. It was a rapper,” Patton said in an interview. “At the time, Run DMC and others were rappers. That was the look. I hate to say I regret a Halloween costume, in the sense it wasn’t meant to make a statement about anything in politics or anything in race relations or anything in that nature.”
He added, “I’ve certainly live my life above board and with the best principles that you can. I have lots of friends from every race and every country — that is how I’ve always lived my life.”
Having served the public for almost twenty years as an Edwardsville Alderman, Madison County Board Member, and now as Mayor, I have been on the ballot ten different times and involved in many challenging races. So nothing really surprises me in terms of the nasty tricks opponents will try. Typically, the more desperate the opponent, the lower they will go.
This particular picture has been threatened to be used in my last three races. It was taken at an annual couples Halloween costume party where husband and wife try to pair their outfits. My wife was set on wearing a pink dress and wrapping it cellophane, those a piece of bubble gum. My choices to pair up we’re going as a school desk or as a “wrapper”. A rapper outfit with a microphone and face paint was chosen, not as a racial statement, but due to the fact that most rappers are African-American.
Looking back, it was a bad choice for an outfit. I regret it and apologize to those it offends. I never imagined it would be viewed as a racial image, much less saved by someone for nearly nine years before using it to impugn my character.
Any one the knows me, knows that I do not judge people by their race or nationality. I grew up in household that taught how to love others, not to hate them. My friends, former classmates, employees, dental patients, and current co-workers at the city would all confirm this. In my dental practice I care for people of many different races and backgrounds yet all my employees will tell you that we consider them family. At the City of Edwardsville, we have always hired the best candidate, and I am pleased to report that we have more minorities and females working for us than ever before. In fact, my last three appointments that I have recommended for the city council have been females.
I am saddened that I need to write about these things, but feel it is important for those who do not know me, to not judge my character from a Halloween costume. Moreover, I am sickened by and worried for the individual or individuals who would keep such a ridiculous picture for nine plus years and use it such a cheap manor. If these persons or anyone would like to discuss any issue with me, I have always made myself available.
This is the second desperate act taken against me in this election cycle. Clearly, my opponent and her allies will use any methods, no matter how pathetic, to maintain power and control of our political system in Illinois. The more I get into trying to change the dysfunction in Springfield, the more disgusted I get.
Sincerely, Hal
*** UPDATE(s) 1:17 p.m. ***
* The BND updated Patton’s statement to reflect a missing “not” in the fourth paragraph. We also now have a statement from Sen. Kwame Raoul in his capacity as an Attorney General candidate…
“This photo is blatantly racist and deeply offensive. I’ve spent a lot of time with local leaders in the Metro East area, and I know they have worked hard to promote diversity and inclusion in the region notwithstanding the prejudice of some. I look forward to continuing that work together.”
*** UPDATE 1:52 p.m. ***
* Statement from Rachelle Aud Crowe, Democratic candidate for Illinois State Senate in the 56th District.
“I was shocked to see this photo of Mayor Hal Patton in blackface. I’m not sure why he would ever think that wearing blackface is appropriate - it’s offensive and completely unacceptable. Blackface is racist, ignorant, and threatens the advancements we’ve made in the long fight for civil rights and equality.
“Elected officials should be held to the highest standard. They should be dedicated to serving the people they represent, not using stereotypes that divide us. Patton’s actions don’t represent our community, and are a painful reminder that we have much more work to do in achieving full equality and overcoming harmful stereotypes.
“In response to this photo, Hal Patton has made excuses and deflected by attacking me. There is no excuse for blackface. Patton is circulating petitions to get on the ballot under the “Downstate United” party, but his actions don’t represent Downstate values and only divide our community.”
I wouldn’t say the Governor held up the budget process in the past for the Turnaround Agenda. He held it up in the past because it was unbalanced. The Democrats couldn’t put together a balanced budget in the past three years, and the Governor said it had to be balanced. I think because it’s an election year we were able to leverage some points. The Democrats are nervous. They didn’t want to go back and ask for re-election having another unbalanced or state-ordered spending plan. We were able to leverage that to get a balanced budget for the Governor.
For the first time since Gov. Bruce Rauner took office three and a half years ago, Illinoisans will begin the next fiscal year with a budget intact.
Social service providers across the state will be able to plan a full year of programming to connect children, families, and seniors with the tools they need to build better lives.
Work crews will be able to arrive on the job site without worrying about whether they will be sent home because there’s no state budget.
Students at our colleges and universities can start the academic year knowing that their MAP scholarships will be funded.
That’s how it is supposed to work. But for years, Bruce Rauner stood in the way of a state budget, holding it hostage for his special interest agenda. Time and again, he didn’t just derail the process, he refused to negotiate and even vetoed a bipartisan budget last summer. This year, lawmakers had to sideline the failed governor in order to get the job done.
* Brady was also asked during the interview about the validity of claims the budget is balanced…
“It’s not unlike business. Businesses put budgets together that are based on assumptions. The assumptions in this budget are solid. They, I believe, are very solid. The economic performance of our state in this economy, would this budget be even better if we had the business reforms that Governor Rauner had pushed in the last several years? Yes, because we’d know that we had a better chance of economic growth enhancement. As the economy grows, revenues increase. But this is based on what realistic projections are for Illinois’s economy based on the current set of laws, policies, and procedures. If the economy under-performs, it’ll be challenging. If it over-performs, it’ll be even easier. There are a few things in here that we’re hoping to happen. One is the sale of the Thompson Center…So it’s pretty real. Anyone can throw stones at it, but the results will prove it out. Like any projections, there are challenges. The Governor’s gonna have to work. It won’t be an easy budget to manage, but it is certainly one that with the right discipline and the right effort can, I believe, come to a balanced nature at the end of the fiscal year.
* A claim made by Gov. Rauner last week about the origins of Legionella bacteria in the plumbing at the Quincy Veterans Home has been rated ‘False’ by Politifact and the Better Government Association.
Rauner said during an event in Marion Mississippi River flood waters and strong storms in 2015 helped Legionella bacteria reach the Home. From the BGA in explaining the rating…
Former President George W. Bush clearly was powerless to stop Hurricane Katrina from slamming into New Orleans in 2005. The problem for Bush was how slowly his administration reacted to a tragedy with broad and fatal consequences once winds subsided and the devastation became clear.
Similarly, not even Rauner’s harshest critics have suggested he could have prevented the initial Legionnaires’ outbreak in 2015. But lawmakers from both parties and political opponents have blasted his administration for delays in responding to the crisis and possibly making it worse.
Rauner vehemently disagrees, and it’s not our purpose here to weigh in on who is right or wrong on that score. What is significant, however, is whether the trigger for the outbreak in any way affected the response, and the governor has provided no evidence for that being the case.
* This is the third time the Politifact-BGA partnership has stepped in to assess the validity of claims made about QVH. The first instance was a January ‘Half True’ rating of the Governor’s claim that Legionella bacteria can be found in most Illinois water systems. In March, the Pritzker campaign’s attempt to blame the Governor for a stomach virus outbreak at the Home mustered a ‘Mostly False’ rating.
