Former GOP Chairman Pat Brady delivered yet another sucker punch to his own party by donating to far-left Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, former State Rep. Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) told Prairie State Wire.
Ives, who nearly defeated Bruce Rauner in last Spring’s gubernatorial primary, called Brady a “traitor” for the $500 donation that federal records show he made to Durbin in March for his 2020 primary campaign.
“I am absolutely stunned that anyone would call himself a Republican and give money to Dick Durbin who represents everything our party is opposed to,” Ives said.
* As we’ve already discussed, CSL Behring has been trying to get a traffic light added to a three-light intersection for almost a year and a half so it could build a new turn lane for its employees. The company wants to expand its already huge facility in Kankakee County and it’s doing so without any state or local tax breaks or incentives. All it wants is that fourth light, which it will pay for.
IDOT claims it has been cooperating, telling me that an engineering consultant hired by the developer presented IDOT with a feasibility study last June and that IDOT agreed a month later that the new signal was warranted and then asked the consultant for a more detailed plan, which it submitted in late March.
But the company says otherwise, and expressed supreme frustration to the local newspaper.
The Kankakee County government is moving to reduce the shift-change traffic jams at the CSL Behring plant. And the state is vowing to speed up a request to make that happen.
The plan is to convert a three-way light at the Illinois Route 50 intersection at the Lowe’s hardware store to a four-way. CSL, the county’s second largest employer, promised to pay for the change.
On Tuesday, a county board oversight committee approved an agreement with CSL that the county would be the permit holder. The state Department of Transportation has signed a letter of understanding on the permit, which the county board is expected to vote on next month. […]
During the governor’s visit, Transportation Secretary Omer Osman said there “has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes” with the traffic light.
“We are expediting the reviews. I have a team specifically put in charge of that review,” he said.
While it’s great they’re prioritizing this project, I still do not see why it takes so long to get a turn-lane and a fourth traffic light approved. Why does this even require a special team doing “a lot of work”?
I brought up this CSL issue to the governor when I talked to him ahead of his 100-day anniversary. He agreed with me that IDOT needs an online portal to allow people to easily track their permit requests. A Pritzker aide took the idea to IDOT that same day and was told the agency was already working on it.
Illinois is Illinois, so it’ll probably never be a CEO’s favorite place to do business. But at the very least, we can do some things that will help businesses interact with the government, like tracking their stoplight requests. And maybe streamline the bureaucratic process while they’re at it?
* Every time somebody floats the idea of skipping or skimping on pension payments, they use the same argument that is ably outlined by Andrew Bodewes in this article. Every. Single. Time…
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s pension proposal is not sitting well with state lawmakers, an adviser to the Illinois Teachers Retirement System told its board of trustees last week.
The governor’s plan is to reduce payments to the various pension systems by $850 million next year, while extending by seven years the time it will take to pay off $134 billion in unfunded liabilities.
While the plan appears unpopular now, Andrew Bodewes, the board’s legislative liaison, said that could change as the end of the session draws near and lawmakers have to consider the other options.
“I don’t want to suggest that the majority of the General Assembly could ever get to a place where they’re OK with reducing pension payments by $850 million,” Bodewes told the board during its annual retreat Thursday in Springfield. “But when they start looking at, ‘We’re going to cut schools by this, we’re going to close these parks; We’re going to reduce these services to children with learning disabilities,’ it starts to get real. Those conversations get very real. So I’m always sympathetic to the members.”
“We gotta skip pension payments so we can fund (fill in the blank).” It has always been thus. Always.
And, of course, that $850 million is what the governor claims the skimp would be. It could actually be as high as $1.1 billion per year for seven years. Amanda Kass, who calculated the higher figure, was on Illinois Public Radio the other day. Listen to the interview by clicking here.
Reports of “brain drain” in Illinois are greatly exaggerated, according to a new congressional study.
The study, “Losing Our Minds: Brain Drain Across the United States,” from the Joint Economic Committee in Congress, finds that Illinois is outpacing other “Rust Belt” states in attracting top student talent, especially in the 2000s and over the last decade. […]
The study arrives at a “gross brain drain” by comparing the percentage of thirtysomethings who had been in the top third of students and left the state to those who remained in state. For 2017, all states saw more who left than stayed — reflecting a certain restlessness in the population — but the 8.3 difference in percentages in Illinois compared favorably to New York (7.9) and Texas (8.8), while lagging behind California (2.3), which ranked second in lowest “brain drain” behind only Wyoming (a 0.1 percent difference). Neighboring and similar states Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylania all registered differences of more than 15 percent by comparison.
As the study put it: “Americans are a highly mobile people. Roughly a quarter to a third of adults in the United States have moved within the previous five years. While moving rates have declined in the U.S. over the last few decades, they are still higher than in nearly every other country in the world.”
The study also determined a “net’“ figure comparing the percentage of top students who left the state by their 30s against those in their 30s who moved into the state, and in 2017 Illinois proved to be one of the top states, with a 10.4 percentage point difference favoring “entrants.” That trailed only California, Massachusetts, and New York. Meanwhile, every Midwestern state but Minneapolis saw declines, with many of those states suffering double-digit losses by percentage points.
* From the study, here are the five states with the worst “Relative Net Brain Drain” and the best (defined as “the difference between the share of leavers who are highly educated and the share of entrants who are highly educated”)…
West Virginia 19.8
Mississippi 17.5
Oklahoma 16.9
Delaware 16.1
North Dakota 15.1
—-
Maryland -9.8
Illinois -12.5
California -16.8
New York -21.8
Massachusetts -21.9
Our research finds that states that are doing the best—low gross brain drain and net brain gain—generally cluster along the Boston-Washington corridor and on the West Coast: Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, California, Oregon, and Washington. Other brain gain states are regional hubs—Hawaii, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, and Illinois. … For the most part, these states are home to what Richard Florida would describe as “winner-take-all cities.” […]
Most Rust Belt states—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Missouri—have done poorly on these measures in both 1970 and 2017. Perhaps unsurprisingly, states that defy these regional trends (for example, Illinois in the Rust Belt, and Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia in the Southeast) seem to be attracting highly-educated out-of-staters to their dynamic metropolitan hubs.
Chicago is key.
* Illinois is the most popular destination for “Highly-Educated Leavers” in Iowa, Missouri, Michigan and Indiana. We’re the second most popular destination for brainiacs in Wisconsin and fourth most popular for smart Ohio residents. Illinois is what’s known as a popular “regional hub”…
Overall, dynamic states along the Boston-Washington corridor (Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland), on the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington), and in other parts of the country (Illinois, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and Hawaii) are the best at retaining and attracting highly-educated adults.
Second, the article uses a chart from an ad clickbait website which supposedly shows the measles mortality rate dating back to 1900 and how it dropped years before the vaccine was introduced in 1963. But measles wasn’t even a reportable disease until 1919 and the numbers weren’t accurate when they were reported. From the CDC…
Before measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, an average of 400,000 measles cases were reported each year in the United States. However, because virtually all children acquired measles, the number of cases probably approached 3.5 million per year (i.e., an entire birth cohort).
* Rep. Bailey also posted this comment in his thread…
Earlier this year, with the help of others, I introduced HB 342. It did not make it out of committee because of the misinformation and the money funneled from pharmaceutical companies to many politicians. The bill simply requires whoever is administering a vaccine to inform the patient if the vaccine contained aborted baby tissue.
Yeah, right. Big Pharma killed his bill. Okeedokee. More like common sense killed that turkey.
Cell lines such as WI-38, MRC-5, HEK-293, PER C6, WI-26 VA4, and Walvax-2 are derived from tissue from aborted fetuses. Any product grown in these or other cell lines derived from abortions, therefore, has a distant association with abortion. The cells in these lines have gone through multiple divisions before they are used in vaccine manufacture. After manufacture, the vaccines are removed from the cell lines and purified. One cannot accurately say that the vaccines contain any of the cells from the original abortion.
And the Vatican says preventing the spread of deadly disease, particularly to children and pregnant women, must take precedence, so get your kids vaccinated.
Also, the US Supreme Court upheld a state’s right to enforce compulsory vaccination laws way back in 1905.
Rep. Bailey’s bill has two co-sponsors: Fellow Eastern Bloc member Chris Miller and Metro East Democrat Monica Bristow.
I cannot believe I had to waste two hours of my day doing research to debunk this nonsense.
* When Gov. JB Pritzker announced that Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, which is a combination of a think tank and a policy implementation consultant, would take a look at DCFS’ problems, the organization sent out a press release containing this passage…
With the lowest foster care entry rate in the nation, Illinois has a high threshold for child removal. Safe implementation of this threshold depends upon the use of accurate and sensitive tools for detecting safety threats and risk, as well as the availability of preventive services to stabilize and support families as they work toward meeting the needs of their children.
* This is again coming to light in the wake of the death of yet another child, AJ Freund, who had been under DCFS oversight…
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which on Friday revealed new details about the case, has limited legal authority to remove a child from a parent’s custody and does so only if it finds an “imminent and immediate” risk of harm. Even its harshest critics concede that not all deaths are preventable, as the overburdened state agency is tasked with the difficult job of trying to predict future human behavior.
• [AJ’s mother JoAnn Cunningham] was investigated for child neglect even before AJ was born, when she herself was a foster parent.
• AJ spent the first 18 months of his life in the care of his cousin after being born with opiates in his system.
• Back in his parents’ home on Dole Avenue in Crystal Lake in June 2015, AJ’s family had 17 unannounced visits from DCFS workers and nine scheduled visits, according to DCFS records.
He remained in the home, even after a doctor expressed concern to a DCFS investigator about a large bruise AJ had on his hip that his mom said was caused by the family dog. AJ agreed to that account but commented to the doctor, “Maybe someone hit me with a belt. Maybe Mommy didn’t mean to hurt me.”
Rep. Tom Weber, a Lake Villa Republican whose district includes the area where AJ lived, focused on the last contact DCFS had with the child before he was reported missing. After initially blaming bruises on the family dog, AJ told emergency room staff, “Maybe someone hit me with a belt. Maybe mommy didn’t mean to hurt me,” according to agency records. A DCFS investigator allowed AJ to leave the hospital with his father.
“That sounds like a red flag to me,” Weber said.
“And you are correct,” said Anne Gold, DCFS associate deputy for child protection, acknowledging the agency’s “missed opportunity.”
“We should be getting a second opinion from one of our child abuse experts,” Gold said. “So that piece was missed.”
The “piece was missed” and a child was murdered. Inexcusable.
* Family fights are often the worst fights. DCFS often has to sift through claims and counter-claims made by parents and their relatives during heated custody battles…
Court records show a lengthy and often volatile legal fight between mother and daughter for custody of the boy. The boy’s grandmother outlines her daughter’s history of drug addiction and mental illness as well as her grandson’s own pleas to stay in the grandmother’s home.
Cunningham claims she ran away from her mother’s home at age 15 because of her mother’s “erratic and demeaning treatment” of her. The legal fight lingered for years, but ultimately the grandmother prevailed and retained custody of Cunningham’s oldest son.
You’d think the grandmother’s legal victory would make it easier for DCFS to remove the other two children from the home, but that didn’t happen. AJ was allegedly murdered by his parents and the third child wasn’t removed until after he was reported missing.
Was that due to incompetence (bureaucratic or individual), or restrictive state laws or a combination of both? Probably both.
Representatives on the Illinois house appropriations human services committee blasted that finding on Friday, questioning DCFS leaders as to why the case wasn’t referred to the judicial system, especially given the family’s long history of contact with the agency.
“Wouldn’t this raise red flags immediately?” said Rep. Anna Moeller. “There was no court involved here, DCFS never went to the court to ask he be taken out of that environment. It was allowed to persist.”
* We tend to swing back and forth on the law. For instance, do you remember this case from less than three years ago?…
In a case that challenges racial disparities in the child welfare system, the Family Defense Center on Thursday filed a petition asking the Illinois Supreme Court to review a lower court decision to terminate all parental rights of a 23-year-old Peoria mother. The mother, who is biracial and identifies as lesbian, was found to be “unfit” and her rights to raise her 6-year-old son were terminated primarily because she used marijuana during a nine-month period in 2013 and 2014.
Torie I. and her lawyers at the Family Defense Center are asking the Illinois Supreme Court to determine that the strict legal requirements for the final and permanent severance of the parent-child relationship have not been satisfied. The Center argues that the State presented no evidence as to how Torie’s marijuana use affected her ability to care for her son or had harmed her son. Torie has admitted to smoking cannabis to calm herself, but never in front of her child.
Racial and sexual orientation bias may have played a significant role in the state’s decision to pursue a termination of parental rights, the petition suggests. The Center cites the child removal rate in Peoria County, which is nearly 8 times greater for African American than for families of other races. Torie’s child was placed in foster care with an unrelated, white pre-adoptive family, even though she had a strong bond with the child.
Chapin Hall’s initial report on DCFS is due soon. A legislative rush to judgment would not be advisable.
* Our old pal Brian Brueggemann has been freelancing since the Belleville News-Democrat’s mass layoffs. Here is his latest…
A Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that has a $500,000-per-year, no-bid contract with Lewis & Clark Community College employs a son of the college’s president, Dale Chapman.
But Chapman says the firm does important work for the two-year college, and that his son’s employment there is not a factor in the college’s awarding of the contract.
The son’s LinkedIn page shows he started working for the company in 2008, the same year the college awarded the no-bid contract.
* It would be much easier to believe President Chapman’s claims if he didn’t have a history of these sorts of issues…
Until now, the younger Chapman’s work connection to the college has not been publicly reported. But Dale Chapman and his wife, Linda Chapman, who serves as a vice president at the college, have previously drawn criticism for their pay. The Chapmans earn salaries that, combined, top $550,000 annually. Dale Chapman noted, however that his wife holds a doctorate degree from Harvard and that she was hired by a previous president. […]
In 2010, Dale Chapman retired from Lewis & Clark so that he could get access to his pension, then was rehired after two months. He had financial trouble at the time, due in part to a real estate deal that went bad. Chapman said he took a lump-sum payment of “about a million” for his pension. According to the State Universities Retirement System, the lump-sum payout was about $1.8 million.
Chapman in 2010 said he had to start over with his pension after he was rehired, but that he was “probably close” to being eligible for another pension.
* Congressman Kinzinger has done a remarkably good job of getting himself on cable TV news programs over the years. So, I’m not quite sure what to make of this yet…
U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger all but threw his hat in the ring for Air Force secretary on Saturday, saying he would “strongly consider” it if President Donald Trump made the offer.
“If the president would determine I would be the candidate, the person that he wanted to lead the Air Force, I would certainly strongly consider it,” Kinzinger, R-Ill., said in a Fox News interview on Saturday. Kinzinger was asked about a rumor that he was a candidate.
Yet the five-term congressman’s prospects are unclear, at least in part because Trump has yet to nominate a defense secretary to lead the department and because Air Force Undersecretary Matthew Donovan is also seen as a contender for the job, at least in an acting capacity. […]
Aerospace analyst Rebecca Grant, of IRIS Independent Research, said it’s probable that the White House boosts Donovan, the service’s No. 2 civilian, to the acting Air Force Secretary role. […]
“To me, Matt Donovan looks like an easy choice given the number of acting officials that are there [at the Pentagon], and I get the sense that we have a holdup on nominations from the Senate side, and the White House is even less efficient than usual in getting people through. So I’d say, 60-40, they’ll keep Donovan,” Grant said. “He’s a shrewd leader and would be a very sound choice.”
Kinzinger is serving Illinois’ 16th District, which he won by 14 percentage points in last year’s election. Before selecting Kinzinger, the White House would have to weigh the political cost, with Republicans already in the minority in the House, of leaving his seat unfilled or of a special election to fill it.
* Fred Giertz, who’s with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois, penned a recent op-ed on the all-too-predictable downfall of College Illinois, the state’s prepaid college tuition program…
Unfortunately, the program was seriously flawed from the very beginning. The program was predicated on a number of highly questionable assumptions that should have been addressed at the onset.
The following is excerpted from an Institute of Government and Public Affairs report that I co-authored March 7, 1997. It was released and presented in testimony to the Illinois General Assembly when the prepaid tuition plan was being drafted:
“Prepaid tuition plans are very similar to defined benefit pension plans. If they are well planned and well administered, there is no particular reason why they should fail. There is one additional complication, however, in comparison to pension plans. Pension plans are based on various actuarial assumptions about future life expectancy, inflation rates, rates of return, etc. With prepaid tuition plans, there is an additional factor in that it is necessary to project future tuition costs. At public institutions, these costs are based on political, as well as economic, factors since the increase in tuition costs results not only from inflation, but also from changing levels of state support. As with public pension plans, there are obviously political incentives that may result in underfunding. It may be attractive politically to offer unreasonably low prices for prepaid tuition knowing that these costs will come due far in the future.
“… Many of the objections to early proposals were based on their wildly optimistic estimates of investment returns and tuition inflation rates that left the state bearing an unreasonable degree of risk which, in turn, might be passed on to the universities.”
These cautions raised in the report became a virtual roadmap leading to the current problems. Tuition growth rates were consistently underestimated because of diminishing levels of state support that led to increases that far outpaced inflation. These past underfunding problems cannot be addressed now by raising the costs for new entrants in the program. Since participation is voluntary, new buyers cannot be expected to pay to reduce the unfunded liability associated with earlier enrollees.
Provides for an irrevocable and continuing appropriation from the General Revenue Fund to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission if moneys in the Illinois Prepaid Tuition Trust Fund are insufficient to cover contractual obligations
The amendment passed the Higher Education Committee on a unanimous roll call. The committee later adopted a second amendment to stop any new prepaid contracts as soon as the bill becomes law. The bill’s 3rd Reading deadline was also extended to May 2nd.
* Some recent history…
* College Illinois bailout now tops $500 million - Permanently halting the college-savings program and honoring existing contracts will end up costing taxpayers more than $6,800 for every student who has gone or will go to college using it.
MARK SHAW, president of the Republican County Chairmen’s Association of Illinois, was removed last week by Democratic Gov. J.B. PRITZKER as a trustee of the Teachers’ Retirement System.
Shaw, who is also Lake County Republican chairman, was named to the expenses-only post by then-Gov. BRUCE RAUNER in August 2018. Shaw had been serving in a term that was supposed to last until July 2022, but he never got Senate confirmation. Pritzker has also removed or replaced four others named by Rauner. One Rauner appointee, LAURA PEARL of Glenview, was confirmed by the Senate and remains on the board. […]
“It was disappointing to be removed precipitously like this,” Shaw said. He said in his 8 ½ months there, “I’ve served with a bunch of fine people” on the board and staff. “I think we accomplished quite a bit.” He noted that the board had all 13 members in recent months, until recent changes reduced membership to 10. […]
Shaw made some news last spring when, after the March primary, he challenged TIM SCHNEIDER for the chairmanship of the state GOP. Shaw had the support of then-state Rep. JEANNE IVES, who nearly defeated Rauner in the primary.
Ultimately, with agreement from Rauner and Schneider, a deal was reached to keep Schneider as chairman, but to also to have Shaw become a co-chair of the GOP and the president of the county chairs’ group.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday named a former longtime Democratic leader in the Illinois House to a $117,000-per-year job on the state’s Pollution Control Board.
Former House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, a South Side Democrat who served 40 years in the General Assembly, announced in September 2017 that she wouldn’t seek another term. Currie was the first woman to be named majority leader in the House and served as Speaker Michael Madigan’s top deputy for more than 20 years.
In a news release announcing a batch of nearly two dozen appointments, the Democratic governor’s office praised Currie as “a champion for clean air and water.” […]
Currie, whose Pollution Control Board term ends June 30, 2021, replaces board member U-Jung Choe, whom then-Gov. Bruce Rauner appointed in April 2018.
Beyond a once-a-decade mega-transportation bill, lawmakers are looking for ongoing road and transit related funding sources. One possibility is an increase in the state’s 19-cent-per-gallon motor fuel tax, a levy that has not been increased since 1990, when it was 16 cents per gallon. Lawmakers also are looking at tying the gas tax rate to inflation, allowing it to grow over time.
The Illinois Chamber of Commerce has backed a motor fuel tax hike in exchange for eliminating the state’s sales tax on gasoline, a move that could provide cover for some Republicans. But others say that instead of eliminating the sales tax on gas, which goes to overall state spending, the state should slowly transfer its revenues to transportation-related spending. […]
There have been talks about funding building projects, known as “vertical infrastructure,” through taxes on legalized marijuana and sports betting. That, however, would take away money that Pritzker has dedicated to other parts of his budget. […]
Already there appears to be a general reluctance among some Senate Democrats to vote on a capital bill until the General Assembly addresses the income tax change.
1) Indexing the MFT to inflation is a no-brainer and should’ve been done decades ago;
2) Redirecting the state sales tax on gas and diesel to capital projects isn’t a bad idea, but only if the budget can sustain the hit;
3) Pritzker has only tapped into cannabis/sports betting licensing fees in his proposed budget, leaving open the possibility that usage revenue could be spent on something else down the road;
There’s probably never a good time for a news story about how a source claims you, your wife and your brother-in-law are under federal investigation. But when that report is aired just days before what is likely the most consequential five weeks of your entire governorship, that’s definitely not an opportune moment.
Chicago’s public radio station WBEZ reported on April 24 that a single law enforcement source claimed Gov. J.B. Pritzker, his wife MK and his brother-in-law Thomas Muenster “are under federal criminal investigation.”
According to the story, the federal probe started last October and appears to be focused on the now-infamous toilet scandal. The Cook County Independent Inspector General claimed after an investigation that the removal of toilets from an unoccupied mansion next door to the governor’s principal Chicago residence, in an apparent attempt to lower its property tax bill, was a “scheme to defraud” taxpayers of over $300,000. Pritzker himself did not appear to be personally implicated.
Interestingly enough, WBEZ also pointedly mentioned that Mrs. Pritzker’s personal assistant Christine Lovely has retained former federal prosecutor Reid Schar as her attorney, but the article does not claim that she is under investigation. Lovely and Muenster each signed affidavits claiming the property in question had been uninhabitable and vacant since 2012. The governor’s office confirmed to me that Lovely is still Mrs. Pritzker’s assistant.
“There are no signs that criminal charges are imminent,” the WBEZ article claimed.
Indeed, the former Cook County assessor, who reduced the Pritzkers’ property tax bill, and the reformer who defeated him last year both told the Chicago Tribune that they were unaware of any federal investigation, which seems a bit odd.
And I sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the county inspector general last week, asking for copies of any federal subpoenas relating to the issue and was told, six months after the federal investigation supposedly started, they had no such documents.
As we all have seen over the years, federal investigations can take lots of time and sometimes only result in the reputational damage of being investigated. The feds have high conviction rates, but that’s partly because they carefully choose whom to indict.
For instance, the Sun-Times reported last week that testimony in the criminal trial of a former employee of Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown revealed the feds started investigating Brown in 2014. Five years later, she’s still under a cloud with no end in sight.
A federal investigation of Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino was first reported in 2016, when grand jury subpoenas of his former legislative campaign workers were revealed. Three years hence, no public statements have been issued about where the investigation stands.
Setting aside the potential (if any) legal consequences, this story could obviously damage the governor’s ambitious spring legislative agenda. Republicans will have a new rallying cry to oppose his plans. Pritzker is counting on bipartisan agreements on a capital bill and on legalization of both recreational cannabis and sports betting.
The governor also needs every single Democrat he can get on his graduated income tax proposal, but some Democrats could become even more skittish than they already are about standing with him on votes that could hurt their reelection chances.
The piling-on began almost immediately. Ideas Illinois, the dark money group formed to oppose Pritzker’s graduated income tax plan, released a statement the morning the story was broadcast that read in part: “Governor Pritzker should immediately abandon his push for this massive Jobs Tax on middle class families because he can’t expect people to pay more when he is reportedly under criminal investigation for gaming the system to pay less.”
But, really, it’s just too early to tell what will happen to his overall agenda. Legislative leaders are usually not quick to make up their minds about how to deal with these sorts of things. It could all depend on how Pritzker reacts in the coming days. So far, they’re issuing the standard statement about how they haven’t been contacted about any investigation, but potential targets are only rarely whistled in by the G. Pritzker repeated his line from the campaign that all rules were followed.
Even so, all this has to be making the governor’s people sick to the very pits of their stomachs right now. Everything, and I do mean everything, is riding on what happens in the General Assembly during May. Significant failure would devastate not only Pritzker’s budget, but the other big things Pritzker wants to accomplish as governor.
Nothing like a little drama to spice things up, I suppose.
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s removal of toilets from an Astor Street mansion to gain a property tax break, a move that gained notoriety during his recent election campaign, is under review by federal prosecutors, WBEZ-FM 91.5 reported Wednesday.
The report, attributed to an unnamed “law enforcement source,” said Pritzker, his wife, M.K., and his brother-in-law, Thomas Muenster, were part of the federal review. The station reported that the review began last October and said there were no signs that any charges were imminent. […]
The scope of any federal review was unclear. Pritzker’s campaign had paid the Perkins Coie law firm a total of $1.5 million since he launched his bid for governor, including $465,456 since Jan. 1, state campaign finance records show.
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi and his predecessor, Joe Berrios, both said on Tuesday they had no knowledge of any federal review.
The assessor says he has no knowledge of an investigation into the property tax break?
What about the Office of the Independent Inspector General of Cook County? That office conducted the investigation which concluded that the property tax reduction was the result of a “scheme to defraud” the county’s taxpayers. The IIG has a lot of documents and information that the feds might need.
* So, I sent a Freedom of Information Act request this afternoon to the county’s inspector general for copies of any federal subpoenas received related to “JB Pritzker, MK Pritzker, Thomas J. Muenster, Christine Lovely and any other person/topic related to the IIG’s 2018 investigation of property tax issues at 1421 N. Astor in Chicago.” I received a swift reply…
Hi Rich,
Our office does not have any documents responsive to your FOIA request below.
Steven E. Cyranoski
FOIA Officer
Federal investigators could just be going off the final and pretty comprehensive IIG document itself. I followed up to ask if any correspondence had been received by the office from the feds and was told that if such documents exist, the IIG could not disclose them because they would be part of the investigatory file, which is supposed to be confidential. (The IIG’s report was leaked last year, you will recall.)
At an unrelated news conference Wednesday morning, Pritzker said, “what I know is what you all know from the reporting that was done this week.” […]
Pritzker says he has “no concerns at all” about criminal charges. Pritzker attorney Marc Elias, a partner with the Perkins Coie law firm, in a statement issued earlier Wednesday had said “neither the Governor nor the First Lady have been contacted by law enforcement regarding the property tax appeal.”
Pritzker’s latest quarterly filing with the Illinois State Board of Elections shows he has paid Perkins Coie more than $465,000 this year, but a campaign spokesman said the payments to the law firm were not related to the investigation. The spokesman said the firm was paid for a variety of reasons, including shutting down campaign office and setting up Pritzker’s “blind trust.”
The campaign is also being sued and that costs real money.
The feds could be talking to contractors or others involved. We just don’t know at this point if the case is active or if they’re just kicking over some rocks. The G often works in mysterious ways. The danger is, once they encamp, they tend to stick around.
Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, his wife and his brother-in-law are under federal criminal investigation for a dubious residential property tax appeal that dogged him during his gubernatorial campaign last year, WBEZ has learned.
A law-enforcement source familiar with the investigation confirmed to WBEZ that the probe, which has not been revealed publicly until now, began last October and remains active. There are no signs that criminal charges are imminent.
WBEZ has also confirmed that Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker’s personal assistant who was involved in the property tax appeal, Christine Lovely, is being represented by one of Chicago’s most high-powered lawyers. Her attorney, Reid Schar, is a former federal prosecutor who helped convict ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges. […]
“Neither the Governor nor the First Lady have been contacted by law enforcement regarding the property tax appeal,” said [Marc Elias], a partner with the Perkins Coie law firm, which has done extensive legal work on behalf of Pritzker’s gubernatorial campaign. “We are confident that any further review of the matter will show that the appropriate rules were followed.”
Schar, the attorney for the first’ lady’s assistant, declined to comment.
The Honorable John R. Lausch, Jr.
United States Attorney’s Office
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division
219 S. Dearborn St., 5th Floor
Chicago, IL 60604
Mr. Lausch:
We write to call your attention to a recent Cook County Inspector General investigation which concluded that Jay Robert (J.B.) Pritzker engaged in a “scheme to defraud” Cook County of over $300,000 in improper property tax reductions and refunds.
As reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, the Cook County Assessor’s Office in 2015 reduced the assessed valuation of a mansion owned by Mr. Pritzker from $6.25 million to just under $1.1 million. These reductions allowed Mr. Pritzker to claim $132,747.18 in refunds for property taxes paid in 2012, 2013 and 2014, and reduced his property taxes for 2015 and 2016 by $198,684.85.
The Inspector General’s report concluded that the assessment reductions were reduced due to fraudulent affidavits submitted by Tom Muenster, Mr. Pritzker’s brother-in-law, and Christine Lovely, Mary Kathryn (M.K.) Pritzker’s assistant. These affidavits falsely claimed that the mansion had been “vacant and uninhabitable,” with no working toilets, since January 1, 2012. The Inspector General report found that, contrary to the affidavits, the toilets had been removed on October 6, 2015, just ten days before a scheduled appraisal of the property, at the direction of M.K. Pritzker. According to an email obtained by the Inspector General, Ms. Pritzker directed that the toilets be removed for the express purpose of allowing the house to be declared uninhabitable.
The facts described in the Inspector General’s report appear to constitute fraud and perjury. Since the improperly-obtained refund checks were sent to Mr. Pritzker through the U.S. Mail, a violation of 18 USC 1341 (the Federal Mail Fraud Statute) may have occurred.
Illinois, perhaps more than any other state, has suffered greatly due to public corruption. Four of Illinois’ last nine governors have gone to prison. It is important to send a strong signal to the people of Illinois that no one is above the law, not even billionaires running for Governor. For that reason, we urge you to fully investigate this matter with all due speed.
Sincerely,
U.S. Representative Peter Roskam (IL-6)
U.S. Representative Mike Bost (IL-12)
U.S. Representative Rodney Davis (IL-13)
U.S. Representative Randy Hultgren (IL-14)
U.S. Representative John Shimkus (IL-15)
U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger (IL-16)
U.S. Representative Darin LaHood (IL-18)
Whatever the case (the story broke about the IG probe shortly before the press release was sent), that’s a fairly decent summary of the claims.
…Adding… From the dark money group Ideas Illinois…
Governor Pritzker should immediately abandon his push for this massive Jobs Tax on middle class families because he can’t expect people to pay more when he is reportedly under criminal investigation for gaming the system to pay less.
The governor likes to call his push for more taxes “fair” but it’s clear he knows nothing about fairness or equity - he needs to drop his push for this Jobs Tax that will only hurt middle class families even further.
…Adding… ILGOP…
.@JBPritzker is under federal investigation, and he's only been in office for 101 days. That must be a new record - even for #IL. Serial tax-dodger Pritzker must cease his efforts to raise taxes. Read ILGOP Chairman Tim Schneider's statement below. #twillhttps://t.co/VrXKZoHPEz
…Adding… Unless he backs out, the governor will be taking questions today…
Daily Public Schedule: Wednesday, April 24, 2019
What: Gov. Pritzker and Acting Director Brendan Kelly to hold media availability to discuss efforts to address the state’s DNA backlog.
Where: ISP Forensic Science Center, 1941 Roosevelt Road, Chicago
When: 10:30 a.m.
B-Roll Opportunity: Members of the media will be able to tour the crime lab after the media availability to see how evidence is processed by ISP technicians.
“After just a few short months in office, J.B. Pritzker has already proven to the people of Illinois that he is completely unworthy of their trust,” said RGA Deputy Communications Director John Burke. “This investigation raises serious questions regarding Pritzker’s conduct and shows that he is nothing more than another corrupt politician who thinks he’s above the law, just like his friend Rod Blagojevich.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** Standard response in these matters…
Pritzker (cont): “My opponents raised this issue and it became a political subject last October. But today we’re very focused on the important work that needs to get done in Springfield.” Asked if he believes the investigation is political, he repeated all the rules were followed
The former Illinois legislative inspector general says the ethics commission that oversaw her work buried a report of alleged misconduct by one of their fellow legislators, just one sign of a system she describes as “broken.”
In an op-ed published online Tuesday by the Tribune, ex-watchdog Julie Porter said lawmakers have done little to address these longstanding problems despite warnings from her predecessor and a series of high-profile sexual harassment allegations at the Capitol. Porter was appointed interim IG in November 2017 after alleged victims said their complaints went unheard. […]
State Rep. Avery Bourne, a Republican from downstate Raymond, who chairs the ethics commission, said the bipartisan panel voted unanimously in February not to release the report on alleged misconduct by a lawmaker. Like Porter, she said the law prohibits her from discussing the case.
Bourne said the commission provides a “check and balance” on the work of the inspector general and never got in Porter’s way. […]
Pope, the new inspector general, said a different interpretation of state law led her to close the case Porter wanted to publish. However, Pope said she agrees with her predecessors’ broader criticisms of limits imposed by lawmakers on the inspector general’s independence.
As I’ve told you a couple of times now, I’m on break starting today. I will post again if something major happens, but comments are closed until I return.
Wednesday, Apr 24, 2019 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s progressive income tax plan relies on a political promise that Illinois lawmakers won’t hike taxes on the middle class – and that the rich will pay what’s “fair.”
A federal investigation into property tax breaks on Pritzker’s Gold Coast mansion, uncovered by WBEZ, calls further into question why Illinoisans should trust that promise.
The governor’s unwillingness to slow Illinois’ new spending and debt, bad math from his administration, and the experience of the last state to switch to a progressive income tax dictate that Pritzker’s progressive tax constitutional amendment would be a bridge to higher taxes for the middle class. Notably, Illinois property taxes will continue to rise under his plan.
Pritzker and his “fair tax” plan are already underwater in key districts held by Illinois House Democrats, according to polling conducted by Fabrizio, Lee and Associates.
A criminal investigation into the governor over a tax matter is unlikely to help.
Illinois communities may not be able to compete for millions of dollars in federal money to prevent disaster-related problems because of an error.
The exact nature of the goof is under debate, and becoming subject to finger-pointing between politicians. At issue is eligibility for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Pre-Disaster Mitigation program, which has $400 million of grant funding available this year.
Illinois has received more than $18 million in grants from the program since 2003.
Those funds have been used to help communities lay plans for what needs to be done locally to prevent potential disasters from being worse — from shoring up backup power for the water supply to enhancing flood walls, updating tornado sirens and crafting regional emergency communication plans.
When the state electronically submitted its application for pre-disaster mitigation grants available through the federal government’s 2018 fiscal year funding cycle, IEMA said it experienced a technical glitch in late January in an online portal days before a deadline, which led to Illinois missing out on a piece of the $400 million of federal money that was available.
However, the Federal Emergency Management Agency denies a technical error played a role in Illinois’ application.
IEMA says it was one of more than 20 states and tribes around the country that had trouble when applying for the grant dollars.
“Illinois was one of nearly two dozen states and tribes that experienced technical glitches or system errors with the FEMA online portal, which is why we are working diligently with our congressional delegation to ensure that the federal government considers these grant applications,” said Rebecca Clark, spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. “A technical error with FEMA’s system shouldn’t prevent Illinois communities from having a fair shot at receiving these grant funds.”
Five downstate Republican congressmen are asking Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration to explain how and why the application did not get submitted, and how the state will avoid future issues.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, meanwhile, says the focus should be on appealing to FEMA to look past the red tape and not let the snafu prevent worthy projects from being considered.
We’d argue that the state does need to figure out what went wrong and how future messes could be avoided. But let’s hope the five GOP congressmen can put politics aside and join with Bustos in a bipartisan way to lobby FEMA for Illinois’ interests.
* The Pritzker administration claims FEMA told the Illinois Emergency Management Agency that 22 states experienced “technical glitches,” or “system error.” IEMA claims to have “independently learned” that the following states, tribes, etc. experienced problems…
I sent inquiries to all of those emergency management agencies except for DC’s. So far, I’ve received two replies.
* From the Utah Division of Emergency Management’s Joe Dougherty…
Utah did not experience anything in the system that kept us from making the PDM grant application deadline. We are expecting to hear back from FEMA around the beginning of May.
* From Gary Laing at the Delaware Emergency Management Agency…
After checking with our Natural Hazards section, I found that while we experienced a bit of a glitch, it did not prevent Delaware from being able to submit its paperwork completely and on time. While the system may have been backlogged for a period, our application went through.
*** UPDATE *** From IEMA…
As you reported, Illinois independently verified other states experienced similar technical glitches. This does not mean they were denied, but that they experienced similar problem with the submission process. To our knowledge, Illinois and DC are the only applicants that have been denied by FEMA; however, the attached spreadsheet outlines what we have learned from other states regarding the various technical glitches experienced with the FEMA eGrants program.
“I’m focused on sports betting. I said that in my budget speech, as you know,” the governor said. “It’s very important for us to be a leader in sports betting to make sure we get ahead of the other states that are trying to do it. That’s why I suggested in my speech that we, at a minimum, get sports betting passed. I know there are a lot of other ideas out there, a lot of people who want to get their idea included in a bill. But I’m laser-focused on making sure we get sports betting.” […]
One of [Rep. Mike Zalewski’s, D-Chicago] amendments would allow professional sports leagues to get a cut of sales from sports betting in Illinois. Zalewski acknowledged that this idea isn’t universally popular because not everyone thinks that leagues should share in the revenue. But, Zalewski pointed out that Illinois is the home to many pro teams. […]
All of Chicago’s major league sports teams, minus the Bears, have signed onto a proposal being pushed by the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball and Professional Golfers’ Association of America that would distribute 25 cents of every $100 bet to pro sports leagues. But Pritzker has not yet committing to this revenue-sharing model.
“Well that hasn’t been done in any other state,” Pritzker said. “But I’m certainly willing to listen to anybody and I know that the legislature has heard from a number of those folks, so they’ll be considering it as well.”
* The Question: Should professional sports leagues get a cut of the Illinois sports betting handle? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
* Jim Oberweis, Allen Skillicorn and now… Ted Gradel? You may be hearing more about him because Republican political consultant Chip Englander is working with his campaign to unseat freshman Democrat Lauren Underwood.
Here’s Gradel’s fundraising pitch…
I want you to be one of the first to know I am running for U.S. Congress in Illinois’s 14th District.
I’m a political outsider who wants to go to D.C. in order to get things done, not become a career politician.
After playing football for Coach Lou Holtz and graduating from Notre Dame, I moved to the Chicago area with my high school sweetheart, Sarah. We’ve now been married for nearly 30 years and have raised three daughters in Naperville.
I have spent my career in the private sector. The more I take a deeper look at the state of our country the more I see that the free market system that rewards ingenuity and work ethic is under assault. I’m running for Congress to defend our freedom and speak out against the false promise of socialism and a “Big Government” agenda.
I’ll use over 30 years of experience in the private sector to make our community a better place and fight for the future of our great country.
Together with my family I made the decision to run for Congress to restore and protect our freedoms so that everyone has the opportunity that I had to achieve their own American Dream.
I don’t have any ties to Washington or special interests. That is a positive in my book. But that means I am going to have to work harder and smarter than anyone else.
Will you join my campaign on day one?
Let’s send a signal to Washington to get ready for a political outsider ready to get things done and defend our free market. Join me today with a contribution to my campaign.
I am already working 24/7 on building a campaign from the ground up. I can’t do it without your help. I look forward to hearing from you soon!
Gratefully,
Ted Gradel
* Tweet…
I’ve never run for office before, but when I see Democrats like @LaurenUnderwood trying to push the country toward policies that harm our individual freedom and threaten our strong economy, I know I can’t stay on the sidelines. Donate today-> #IL14#twillhttps://t.co/5SGjiMWDIw
* Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Martin Sandoval has been holding hearings across the state about a new capital bill. Sandoval has demanded input at every hearing about how local officials would like the state to pay for these projects. Somebody finally came prepared for yesterday’s Elgin hearing…
Sean Michels, board president of the Metro West Council of Governments, said there should be a variety of funding sources, such as increases to gas, alcohol and cigarette taxes; a portion of the recreational marijuana tax, if approved; and a tax on large warehouse distribution centers whose vehicles can damage roads the most, he said.
Those warehouse distribution centers generate tons of traffic, and many have cut tax-avoidance and incentive deals with local governments.
McHenry County is the sole subject of legislation giving its voters an option to dissolve township government. It is an effort by a state lawmaker to cut residents’ property taxes by eliminating what he calls “unnecessary” levels of government.
If the experiment goes well there, in the sixth most populous county in the state, Rep. David McSweeney said the next step would be to give the rest of Illinois the ability to get rid of township governments. […]
But the measure is contentious even in McHenry County, where some officials expressed frustration McSweeney did not ask if such a provision was needed. Others said they worry what the impacts would be if McSweeney’s bill becomes law — there has not been a recent study providing a clear analysis. […]
“There are hypocrites on the Republican side who support lower property taxes but not consolidation of unnecessary units of government. It’s a real eye-opener,” McSweeney said. “I’m glad to have bipartisan support, though.”
His Republican colleague, Rep. Steven Reick, disagreed with that assessment. From Woodstock, Reick is the only representative whose district falls completely within the boundaries of McHenry County. He voted against the legislation.
“If I’m a hypocrite, I don’t know where that’s coming from,” Reick said. “I believe in cutting property taxes, but the fact is, this bill does not do that.”
Facing criticism for selling tobacco to minors, Walgreens announced Tuesday that it will now sell tobacco products only to customers age 21 and older.
The new policy will go into effect Sept. 1 across the Deerfield-based chain’s more than 9,500 stores.
The announcement comes about two months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Walgreens had the worst track record among all pharmacies when it comes to selling tobacco products to minors. About 22 percent of the more than 6,300 Walgreens stores the FDA inspected since 2010 had illegally sold the products to young people, the agency said at the time.
Is that smart device listening to your children? A measure advancing through the Illinois legislature would require companies to let consumers know.
Public Interest Research Group Director Abe Scarr said the Keep Internet Devices Safe Act that passed the Senate is simple: Parents and consumers need to know when their smart devices are listening.
“We know some level of this activity is happening and we think that families and parents deserve to know if they’re being listened to and that’s all that the bill does,” Scarr said.
Senate sponsor state Sen. Cristina Castro, D-Elgin, said there are a few things to hammer out with the tech companies opposed to the measure.
“We’re trying to kind of meet and trying to accomplish in making sure that consumers are aware in how their information is going to be used, but also make sure that the business community and the internet providers understand and it’s very clear,” Castro said.
Both Scarr and Castro shared a story about a professional basketball team using a smartphone application that turned individual cell phone microphones on to let the app know where at the stadium the user was.
“They may not even be listening to your conversation per se, they’re listening for signals in the department store or in the arena to know where you are so they can send you push notifications,” Scarr said. “There’s been some documented apps that are listening to what you are watching on your television so they can have a sense of where you are, your consumer demographic so they can better sell advertisements to you.”
I finally figured out how to turn off the notification from Walgreens that set off an alarm on my phone when I drove by one of their stores.
* I’m hearing there will be some legislation to tighten up vaccination mandates as well. Stay tuned for that. From a press release…
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) is taking steps to increase vaccination rates across the state, in response to Illinois’ seven measles cases and CDC reports of more than 600 cases across the country in 2019, 71 reported last week alone. These steps include increasing accessibility to vaccines, expanding outreach in communities with low vaccination rates, and educating the public on the importance of vaccines.
“We are taking the threat posed by a rise in measles cases very seriously and are committed to taking action to keep Illinoisans safe,” said Governor Pritzker. “Working across agencies and at all levels of government, we will be taking steps to increase vaccination rates and ensure all of our families are educated about the resources available to them. There is no more important responsibility of our state government than keeping Illinoisans healthy and safe, and addressing this threat is a top priority for my administration as we move forward.”
“IDPH is committed to taking action to keep our communities safe from measles and other preventable diseases,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “Vaccination is our best tool to protect our families and while overall vaccination rates for the state are strong, some specific communities have lower rates and remain vulnerable to disease outbreaks. Through a multifaceted approach that will include breaking down barriers to vaccination, targeted outreach, and education, IDPH is committed to increasing vaccination rates in every corner of Illinois and minimizing the threat of measles in our state.”
Public health officials are working with schools, community organizations, religious groups, parent organizations, and other stakeholders to identify opportunities to provide vaccinations. Steps will include, but are not limited to:
• Mobile Units: IDPH will assist in providing mobile health units to neighborhoods with low vaccination rates to hold clinics and provide vaccinations.
• Targeted Events: IDPH will identify events with high parent and children attendance and support vaccination clinics at these events. These can include county fairs and neighborhood celebrations.
• Faith Outreach: IDPH will work with religious organizations to sponsor vaccination clinics after services, during vacation bible school, and near other religious gatherings.
• Community Coordination: IDPH will work with community health workers and parent educators to help set up appointment times for vaccinations, provide or arrange transportation, and assist parents in filling out the paperwork.
• Public Education: IDPH will work to combat misinformation about vaccines and increase education efforts through health events, marketing, and social media.
IDPH is also working with the Illinois State Board of Education to conduct a more in-depth data analysis that will inform additional actions. This qualitative and quantitative study will focus on schools at risk for outbreaks due to student vaccination rates of less than 95%. The study aims to understand why the school is experiencing a lower vaccination rate and identify who, specifically, is not being vaccinated. IDPH is currently working with local health departments across the state to meet and talk with school officials and health care providers in the community to learn about barriers that limit vaccination and identify additional opportunities to increase rates. Barriers already identified include:
• Transportation: Some parents do not have a way to get their children to clinics for vaccinations.
• Time: Health clinic hours may not fit with working parents’ schedule.
• Paperwork: Vaccination requires the consent forms to be filled by the parent. Some parents may be overwhelmed by the paperwork and not fully understand how to fill it out.
• Wait Times: While local health departments and providers may offer special vaccination clinics before the beginning of the school year, the wait times can sometimes be more than an hour.
IDPH continues to recruit and retain Vaccine for Children (VFC) health care providers. The federally funded VFC program provides vaccines at no cost to children who might otherwise not be vaccinated. IDPH is currently working across agencies and with the governor’s office to identify ways to help reduce the burden of the program on providers, and to help them be compliant.
Communities with low vaccination rates are at risk for disease outbreaks. If one person in a community is infected, the disease can spread to others who are not vaccinated. In communities where the overwhelming majority of people are vaccinated, there are fewer opportunities for the disease to spread, often called “herd immunity.”
Education and awareness are critical to increasing vaccination rates. There is extensive misinformation circulating about the safety of vaccines. It is important for the public to understand that we have the safest vaccine supply in U.S. history and that vaccines offer the best protection against illness from vaccine-preventable diseases. IDPH is working to increase knowledge about vaccines through social media, its website, informational brochures, health events around the state, and more.
Vaccination protects you from illness, and also protects the community around you, especially those who are unable to be vaccinated, such as babies and people with weakened immune systems. Vaccination is a shared responsibility that we must uphold or risk turning back the clock to a time when measles was widespread, and thousands died each year.
* Gov. JB Pritzker talked with several different reporters yesterday because today marks his 100th day in office. Some of the questions were just rehashed from previous interviews…
Biggest surprise: How often he’d have to console families. Pritzker has attended the funerals of state police troopers, National Guardsmen and women and families of victims of gun violence. “It’s one of the greatest honors, but it’s heartbreaking, too,” he said.
Juggling act: Pritzker’s wife and two teen children have remained in Chicago, which means Pritzker splits his time, usually spending three or four days each week in Springfield.
Opening up the mansion: Pritzker and his wife, M.K., entertain regularly. They’ve hosted dinner parties and cocktail hours for Democrats and Republicans alike. On Wednesdays, Pritzker is known to invite groups of lawmakers for an evening away from the statehouse.
* The governor has said in prior interviews that he doesn’t prefer to increase the Motor Fuel Tax to pay for a new capital bill, but he’s never completely shut the door and he didn’t yesterday, either…
Pritzker said he rules out a tax on vehicle miles driven. When asked about the possibility of an increased tax on gasoline, he noted that the Illinois Chamber of Commerce backs a plan including such an increase.
“So I think that’s worth noting,” Pritzker said.
While not being specific, Pritzker said, “What we are focusing on (are) near-term opportunities to find revenues so that we can have the bonds paid for that will be necessary for a major capital plan. … Those are ideas that are being brought forth by Republicans and Democrats. … Suffice it to say that there are many options on the table.”
Pritzker, who is a political newcomer, said he misses the time he’s losing with his family and close friends. But he understands the heavy duty of his responsibilities. The governor’s wake up time? Between 4 and 5 a.m. Pritzker works until his wife or kids wake up, then spends time with them until he has to head out to events or meetings.
“I guess the biggest thing that I miss is, there are time when you just want to go spend some time with your close friends, but you know, the duties of office take you away from that,” Pritzker said. “And certainly the time away from my family — my children and my wife — that’s lost time. But on the other hand, I’ve had the great, good fortune to be able to actually wake up every day and make a difference in people’s lives.”
“Certainly I continue to believe that maps should be drawn fairly,” Pritzker said, adding, “I would veto a map that I thought was an unfair one.” But he said there are “a lot of priorities that I’ve moved forward with. … Suffice to say drawing the map fairly in congressional and legislative races is important.”
He touts his major achievements thus far as signing the minimum wage increase, gun dealer licensing and Tobacco 21 bills, a well as introducing his “fair tax” amendment and his budget proposal. He dubbed the minimum wage law as having “the most widespread and most positive impact.”
As he seeks to turn that ship, Pritzker says he has regular meetings with the four legislative leaders, speaking with each – including House Speaker Michael Madigan – “on average … at least once a week.”
“I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve reached across the aisle,” he said.
Introducing something isn’t really an accomplishment, although introducing a precariously balanced budget that doesn’t include unrealistic cuts or just ignores gaping short-term holes is an improvement over the past four years. Same goes for hosting leaders meetings. Bruce Rauner set such a low bar that any improvement looks like significant progress.
“First of all, we are one Illinois and I have fought hard during the campaign and continuing as governor to bring together all parts of the state,” said Pritzker, who has a home in Chicago in addition to the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield. “There will be disagreements among some people in some counties with other people in other counties, but suffice to say that we always have brought Illinois together historically … the land of Lincoln, the land of Barack Obama. I think there’s a common understanding of who we are and our values, even if there are disagreements on some issues.”
The number of state troopers in Illinois has fallen by nearly 20 percent over the past two decades, leaving fewer officers to patrol the roadways, investigate shootings on highways and oversee the concealed carry program.
The decline has been long and steady, with spending cuts, a wave of retirements, new policing responsibilities and the recent state budget impasse all contributing. But the death of three troopers this year when other motorists crashed into them has raised the question: Are there enough officers out there to discourage reckless driving and keep the roads safe?
“This is a gradual deterioration that has occurred in both Democratic and Republican administrations,” said Brendan Kelly, acting director of Illinois State Police. “While that has happened, the responsibilities and duties set forth by the legislature have only grown.”
Now efforts to rebuild the department are underway in the hope of significantly boosting staffing. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has proposed allocating more than $7 million to train two new cadet classes at the state police academy. Agency leaders also are trying to think up creative ideas to entice more applicants, such as producing flashy recruitment videos and reconsidering educational requirements for the job.
Kelly said he is open to a proposal that would do away with a four-year degree requirement for recruits, instead requiring them to obtain an associate degree.
Former Marion, Illinois mayor, Bob Butler, passed away at 9:30 a.m. Monday, April 22, according to the City of Marion.
Emeritus Robert L. Butler, 92, was one of the longest-serving mayors in the United States. He retired from office on Wednesday, January 31, 2018 and Anthony Rinella succeeded him.
We talked to him in 2018 about his retirement. He said longevity brings consistency.
“I want to be remembered by one who did his best. I’ve tried to do the best I could at the greater interest of the people in Marion,” he said.
Former Mayor Anthony Rinella said the irony is that if he had served his whole term, Monday would have been his last day and Mike Absher would be sworn in.
In 2015, he was presented with the Lifetime of Service award from the Illinois Municipal League.
“He was a good friend of mine. I confided in him a lot, especially when I was mayor of Harrisburg,” said Sen. Dale Fowler, (R-Harrisburg). “I’m saddened but so respectful of his service.
Several southern Illinois legislators and community leaders reacted Monday to news of Butler’s death.
West Frankfort Mayor Tom Jordan told News 3, “He was the consummate mayor. If you looked up mayor in the dictionary, his picture would probably be there.”
Butler first took office in May of 1963. When he retired, he was the second-longest serving mayor in the United States. He was the longest serving mayor in the state of Illinois.
Butler’s death comes on the same day Mike Absher is to take the oath of office and be sworn in as the new Marion mayor. Absher won the April 2nd election, beating Anthony Rinella, who had served as Acting Mayor since Butler’s retirement.
Butler was the driving force behind the city’s west end development and Marion’s rebirth following the devastation of the 1982 tornado.
Butler said that once the city was back on firm ground financially, it was just a matter of enhancing an already good product. “I never dreamed of having a cultural and civic center like we have today or a top-notch recreational facility like the Hub or a gathering place like the Pavilion,” he said.
“In the back of my mind, I knew something good could happen here … as long as we didn’t stand in our own way.”
He was also a delegate to the state’s constitutional convention.
The Illinois Fair Maps Amendment has a supermajority of 36 of 59 senators signed on as sponsors, including 19 Republicans and 17 Democrats. It’s supported by minority groups, farmers, business and good government advocates around Illinois.
Is it right that there’s all that support, but Illinois Senate President John Cullerton hasn’t assigned it to a favorable committee to be debated and voted on? […]
Illinois politicians shouldn’t meddle in our elections any more than Russians should. We deserve elections we can trust. We deserve to know our votes mean something. Let’s try a citizen redistricting commission.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker predicts growth in wind-energy development after signing a law streamlining zoning rules.
The Democrat signed legislation Friday that allows only counties and municipalities to establish standards for developing wind farms. Townships will no longer have authority in the process.
Pritzker says the law will spur investment in rural areas, create jobs and pour tens of millions of dollars into the pockets of landowners and farmers and into government accounts in the form of property taxes.
In recent years, many Illinois consumers were socked with steep price increases when buying health insurance on the Obamacare exchange.
A bill that’s gaining traction in Springfield, however, could prevent that. The bill would give the Illinois Department of Insurance the power to say no to certain sky-high price increases proposed by insurance companies for plans sold to individuals and small businesses. The bill wouldn’t apply to plans offered by large employers.
It’s a change proponents say could help protect consumers, while opponents of the bill say it does nothing to address the rising prices of health care that can lead to higher insurance prices, and it could limit the types of plans insurers are able to offer.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Highwood, would allow the Department of Insurance to reject rate increase proposals, for individual and small group plans, that are “unreasonable,” meaning they’re excessive, unjustified or unfairly discriminatory, as defined by the federal government. Now, Illinois reviews rates and may try to negotiate with insurers to bring them down, but the state generally can’t reject or change rates that are actuarially sound.
Professional sports teams historically have taken an arm’s-length approach to gambling, but after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a prohibition on state-sanctioned sports betting, the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks are ready to embrace it — if their respective leagues get a piece of the action.
Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker is counting on $200 million in licensing revenue from sports betting to help fill an estimated $3.2 billion hole for the budget year that begins July 1. With a lengthy agenda awaiting them when they return to Springfield on April 30 from a two-week break, lawmakers are still wrangling over what legal sports betting would look like in Illinois.
All of Chicago’s major franchises — with the exception, so far, of the Bears — are backing a plan pushed by Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the PGA that would give professional leagues 25 cents of every $100 bet on their sports in the state. Among other arguments, the leagues say the fee would be fair compensation for the millions of dollars generated by wagering on their games.
But opponents, including the casinos and horse tracks that in early legislative proposals would be shelling out upward of $10 million for each sportsbook license, say the leagues should be left to negotiate with sportsbook operators if they want a cut.
Former Lt. Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti announced this morning in her hometown of Wheaton that she is running for Congress in Illinois’ 6th District to fight government overreach and the tax and spend policies that threaten our economy and continued prosperity.
“I am running for Congress to keep the American dream alive,” said Evelyn Sanguinetti. “Only in America can the child of teenage immigrants who grew up on food stamps ascend to college, law school, and become our country’s first Latina Lieutenant Governor. I want my children to have the chance to live their own American dream, which is only possible through liberty, access, and opportunity.”
“I really wanted to see Sean Casten be the voice this district needed when he won election last November,” said Evelyn Sanguinetti. “Unfortunately, all we have is another politician cozying up to progressives and socialists in support of increased taxes and expanded government - when he should be fighting for the district he was sent to represent.”
Following Sanguinetti’s announcement today, she will head to the northern part of the district to tour a manufacturing facility in Cary – where she will discuss policies to promote jobs and continued economic prosperity with local business owners. Later Monday, she will host a rally in Barrington with supporters to discuss why she is running for Congress and why she can unseat Sean Casten.
Over the last two weeks more than 90 elected officials and community leaders have endorsed Evelyn Sanguinetti for Congress - including Congressman John Shimkus (IL-15) and Congressman Rodney Davis (IL-13)
“Evelyn Sanguinetti is the best candidate who can win in this district and make sure Nancy Pelosi is removed as Speaker,’ said Congressman Rodney Davis (IL-13). “Evelyn understands Illinois and the issues that are important to our constituents. She’s a suburban mom who will fight for lower taxes and smaller government so all future generations have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.”
Despite her opposition to abortion, she said in a January 2018 interview with the Tribune that throughout the re-election campaign, she and Rauner “were on the same plane” and “were in sync as far as messaging and the things that we believed in and what we wanted to deliver for the people of the state of Illinois.” […]
While now seeking a role in shaping federal policy, Sanguinetti displayed some questionable command when it came to foreign trade policy in a July 2018 interview with a Bloomington radio station.
Asked if she was supporting Trump trade policies and tariffs that were affecting Illinois farmers, Sanguinetti told WJBC-AM 1230: “Well, yeah, yeah. I do believe that at the end of the day, if people are paying less to be part of an organized agreement between nations, they should pay their fair share.”
Sanguinetti’s comments echoed those that Trump made in an appearance before NATO, the defense alliance with European nations, which has nothing to do with foreign trade. Trump had urged NATO member countries to increase payments to the group.
*** UPDATE *** DCCC…
Right out of the gate, newly announced candidate for Congress Evelyn Sanguinetti is lining up to back President Trump and his re-election – even if she doesn’t exactly want voters to know, as the Daily Herald reports:
In her Friday interview, Sanguinetti initially was evasive about whether she will back President Trump in 2020, but a campaign spokesman later said she supports his re-election.
Given President Trump’s disastrous record of hiking taxes and health care costs, it’s no surprise that Sanguinetti doesn’t want voters to know that she’s squarely behind President Trump. But, when push comes to shove, Sanguinetti would be another rubber stamp vote in Congress for Trump’s agenda of higher taxes for Illinois homeowners and higher health care costs for middle-class families.
“It took Evelyn Sanguinetti less than a day on the campaign trail, but she’s already admitted that she’s backing President Trump and his agenda of higher health care costs and tax hikes for middle-class families in Illinois,” said DCCC spokesperson Mike Gwin. “It may be tough for a Springfield politician like Evelyn Sanguinetti to give a straight answer, but at least voters now know that – when push comes to shove – Sanguinetti will be on President Trump’s side, not theirs.”
* The state of Washington has its own Eastern Bloc…
A Washington state lawmaker says it’s time for eastern Washington to break away and become a 51st state called Liberty in order to protect gun rights and avoid the “socialist values of downtown Seattle.”
In a fiery speech Friday, Republican Matt Shea of Spokane Valley promoted his “state of Liberty” proposal at a sparsely attended 51st state rally in the Capitol rotunda.
“I’m not going to sit in a state that is going to try to take away our firearms,” Shea told the crowd, some of whom were openly carrying firearms. “So if they try to do that, then the only solution left is a 51st state.”
As Shea spoke, an unidentified bodyguard watched his back and two men held a 51st state flag that featured an osprey and the words “Liberty, Founded in Truth.” Shea said splitting Washington into two states would protect people in eastern Washington from what he described as Seattle’s experiment with socialism. […]
A six-term member of the Washington House, Shea is a self-described “Constitutional conservative” and “pro-liberty” legislator. He’s also no stranger to controversy. Last August, in a speech at a pro-gun rally, he referred to the media as “dirty, godless, hateful people.” In 2016, Shea participated in what he called a “fact-finding mission” to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge where he and other Northwest lawmakers met with the armed militants who had occupied the facility, as well as local officials and the FBI. In 2014, Shea traveled to Nevada to lend support to rancher Cliven Bundy, whose son led the Malheur occupation, during his fight with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing fees. […]
Shea has been trying to launch Liberty since at least 2015. This year, Shea and fellow Republican Bob McCaslin, also of Spokane Valley, introduced a bill to get Liberty up and running. The lawmakers have also introduced a House Joint Memorial petitioning Congress to create a new state in eastern Washington. So far neither have gotten a public hearing.
Our own Eastern Bloc uses similar rhetoric, but as you’ll see below it has so far been pretty tame by comparison, although ours appears larger.
* Things have clearly gotten out of hand in Washington…
A Washington state Republican politician took part in private discussions with rightwing figures about carrying out surveillance, “psyops” and even violent attacks on perceived political enemies, according to chat records obtained by the Guardian.
State representative Matt Shea, who represents Spokane Valley in the Washington state house, participated in the chats with three other men. All of the men used screen aliases – Shea’s was “Verum Bellator”, Latin for true warrior. The Guardian confirmed the identity of those in the chat by cross-checking phone numbers attached to the Signal accounts. […]
The chats on the messaging app Signal took place in the days leading up to a supposed “Antifa revolt” on 4 November 2017. Throughout late October, far-right media outlets had been stoking fears of political conflict on the basis of planned peaceful protests by a small leftist group.
The men proposed to confront leftists – whom they repeatedly refer to as “communists” and “Antifa” – with a suite of tactics, including violence.
* Related…
* Wilhour Endorses County Board Votes on State Separation, FOID Card Registration: “They continue to burden our industries with impossible regulations that have crippled our private sector and limited our ability to create high wage jobs. They have no respect for the traditional values that have made our area great, and they are constantly working to erode our Constitutional rights. This is a position that I have long resisted, but so long as Chicago continues to marginalize our rights, our values and our pathway to prosperity; I contend that we are in fact better off without them.”
* Sen. Brian Stewart: Do we have challenges? Absolutely we do! We’ve had challenges since our state became a state. We’ll have more. I don’t think our challenges are because downstate Illinois is a tugboat riding the global tsunami of “powerful economic forces.” And I don’t think decline is inevitable. We’re different. We have always been different. And there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what folks like Krugman and Matthews are missing. They don’t get what makes us different. Maybe our differences mean we have a different economy that requires different solutions than big cities do. Maybe that’s the reason “one size fits all” doesn’t work for us, whether it’s a mandate or an economic development incentive. There’s a lot we can do. We can follow Professor James Ziliak’s advice, in his chapter for the Aspen Institute titled “Restoring Economic Opportunity for ‘The People Left Behind’: Employment Strategies for Rural America,” and invest in “rural broadband infrastructure; an ongoing program of expanded access to financial capital for entrepreneurs and other small-business development initiatives in rural areas; and … to rejuvenate rural infrastructure.”We can pass the common sense solutions I filed this session, like SB1925 and SB1926 that seek to expand tax credits to downstate cities and towns, while removing dangerously restrictive language for businesses applying for the economic development incentives under the Growing Economy Tax Credit Act. We can look to the Illinois Farm Bureau’s recommendations that include regulatory reform; a reasonable tax policy especially when it comes to capital gains taxes and “lower effective tax rates for small and family-owned farms and ranches”; and infrastructure investment, that I personally think also has to end the practice of taking tax dollars from downstate Illinois and spending it in Chicago.
Provides procedures for a riverboat to relocate to new a location. Removes provisions that describe the geographical locations certain riverboats shall be docked.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Terry Link (D-Vernon Hills), passed the Senate last week 44-5. Link has been pushing for a Waukegan casino pretty much ever since he was first elected.
The bill’s House sponsor is Rep. Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines), who has the state’s most successful casino in his home town, where he used to be mayor.
The impetus for the bill was to allow Penn Gaming, the owner of the Hollywood Casino Aurora, to move its facility to another part of the city, said State Rep. Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines). But Moylan, the bill’s House sponsor, told The Daily Line that he felt the same opportunity should be afforded to all casinos in the state, and not just for a potential move across town.
“It’s an opportunity for some town or developer to move an existing license to another town and make it prosper,” Moylan said. […]
If a town and the casino’s existing owner agreed to revenue sharing terms, the Illinois Gaming Board would ultimately approve or disapprove the move based on the criteria laid out in the bill. […]
While Moylan is a Democrat, he opposes legalizing marijuana, and last month found 60 fellow House members to sign onto a resolution that calls for “slow[ing] the process of legalizing recreational marijuana in Illinois.” […]
“The governor says if we don’t like his revenue sources, we should find places to cut,” Moylan said. “Why not take casinos that are not doing good or are on the verge of bankruptcy and move them to Rockford or Waukegan? It would create jobs and the state would realize millions in revenue.”
Even by the most conservative definition, there are 19 states with income taxes that do not apply higher rates to the earnings of the wealthy — nine flat tax states and 10 with graduated taxes with rates that top out at income below $25,000. Add in another eight states where top rates for married couples kick in somewhere between $31,000 and $104,000, and the Think Big claim becomes even more dubious.
That means far from “almost every” income-taxing state levies a higher rate on top earners, earning this claim a rating of Mostly False.
The ad also claims Kentucky has a graduated income tax. Its rate is a flat 5 percent with some income-reducing itemized deductions.
After losing six House seats in the 2018 general election, the House Republican Organization is reorganizing its leadership team and ramping up fundraising. […]
[Political Director Joe Woodward] is moving to the private sector, and HRO has hired Jayme Odom with the new title: executive director.
“We’re bringing in additional fundraisers and plan to be more aggressive with members on their own fundraising with the organization,” Durkin told POLITICO. The changes come after re-evaluating the 2018 losses. “When you have a multi-billionaire writing checks, it’s difficult,” Durkin said, referring, of course, to Gov. J.B. Pritzker‘s backing of so many Dem candidates. “We have to be more self-sufficient.” […]
Last week, the House GOP leader pulled [Rep. Dave McSweeney’s] communications aide after McSweeney spoke out against Rep. Steve Reick for a racially tinged comment about a bill requiring company boards to diversify. Reick later apologized. McSweeney paid to promote a tweet condemning Reick’s comment. In a statement to POLITICO, Durkin said: “This is an internal caucus matter. I will continue working to move the Republican Party and House Republican caucus forward in Illinois but will not tolerate public attacks on fellow members.”
Subscribers know more, including McSweeney’s response, which was quite something. Also, they didn’t remove his comms staffer for just the one instance.
From the looks of things, the fine print of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s most important legislative priorities should start becoming public not long after state legislators return from spring break on Tuesday April 30.
Legislators, the governor’s office and stakeholders have been negotiating the nuts and bolts of numerous items for weeks and they’re just about finished.
So, we’ll apparently start to see specific language pop out in public for things like the legalization of cannabis and sports betting.
The statutory language for the governor’s graduated income tax, which will set the various tax rates, will also likely be unveiled around that time.
We could maybe even see parts of the infrastructure bill by early May, and possibly some language for a new graduated tax on video gaming.
Those unveilings will all be followed by a couple of weeks of hearings in both chambers and then floor votes will commence.
There are actually five scheduled post-break session weeks ending on the final deadline of Friday, May 31, which is fortuitous for the Pritzker administration because they’re going to need every possible day they can get.
Everything has a long way to go before any of this is a done deal. Successful negotiations don’t automatically guarantee majorities in both chambers. And some negotiations are still not finished. Nobody yet knows for sure how the infrastructure bill will be funded, for example, which is pretty darned important. Infrastructure costs real money and that money has to come from somewhere.
Some legislators are pushing for more property tax relief from the governor’s income tax plan, which, if they’re successful, would mean less money for state programs or higher rates than the governor originally proposed, or both.
And, as I write this, big decisions still need to be made about cannabis and sports betting legalization, although proponents hope to circulate a draft of the cannabis bill to stakeholders sometime around April 22.
As you can clearly see, this is not a light load, particularly since the governor’s office, and not legislative staff, appears to be drafting the final versions of their bills and the governor’s staff is not exactly brimming with extra people just waiting around for assignments. I think Pritzker’s staff is probably the smallest one I’ve ever seen.
There’s also this thing called the budget that still must be worked out. Gov. Pritzker’s budget proposal seeks to plug some big fiscal holes by using revenues from cannabis, sports betting, the new tax on video gaming and a bunch of other things that aren’t easy to pass. And that’s just the revenue side. There will be disagreements over spending as well.
Amanda Kass, the associate director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs, crunched the governor’s pension proposal numbers this month and didn’t have good news.
The governor has claimed he wants to put about $900 million a year less into the pension systems than state law requires, but Kass’ research turned up a significantly higher $1.1 billion projection for next fiscal year (and for six years after that), which is giving folks heartburn.
Not that Pritzker’s fellow Democrats (or the Republicans) have anything serious to counter the governor’s proposals with, except on the edges. There are no real competing ideas out there, so the task at hand is convincing members of his own party to just grit hard and vote for these bills.
The governor’s budget also proposes stuff like phasing out the private school tuition tax credit program, which has strong support among some Catholic, Jewish and other legislators.
He would also impose a tax on disposable plastic shopping bags, which has the potential to anger millions of Illinoisans every week for the grand revenue total of a mere $20 million a year. And he wants to pick yet another fight with the powerful Illinois Retail Merchants Association over how much sales tax money that retailers can keep as payment for collecting the sales tax.
Not to mention that the Senate may be combining some energy-related bills into an omnibus package. And the House is working on a massive ethics/sexual harassment proposal.
And don’t forget the hundreds and hundreds of bills that were passed during the first few months of the spring session and are now awaiting committee hearings and floor votes in the opposite chambers.
This could turn out to be the busiest and most consequential final month of session I’ve ever seen.
