* Some of you are heading to the Chicago “Fedstivus” party tonight to commemorate the Blagojevich arrest. I thought about hosting my own party, but, frankly, this is one depressing anniversary. I think I’ll just stay home and listen to some tunes, starting with this fine, but melancholic jam from Traffic and Jerry Garcia…
* Democratic US Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is now running a second TV ad which builds on his first one. The new ad is called “Details.” Let’s rate the new one….
Spending will be capped at Fiscal 2010 levels for the foreseeable future. […] The Dillard Administration will utilize zero-based budgeting and embark on a process to rebuild state government from the ground up.
He takes a look at lots of different things, including health care…
While we wait for the outcome on the national debate on health care reform, Illinois will create a pilot program designed to encourage a small businesses and sole proprietors to pool their employees into larger groups, remove certain coverage mandates, and allow health maintenance organizations to place reasonable deductible costs on their policies.
Manufacturing modernization…
The Illinois Modernization & Retooling Program will be reinstated to assist Manufacturers in making necessary reinvestments in their facilities to enable for them to remain competitive and keep there existing workforce in Illinois.
Tax incentives…
Examples include a tax credit for new jobs created, a sales tax holiday to spur retail sales and a letter of credit program to allow projects to proceed and create jobs.
Dillard also talks the talk on education to the point where people like Mayor Daley might be OK with him…
The Dillard Administration will continue to invest in Early Childhood education and commit resources to training our workers to compete in the 21st Century global economy. Illinois needs to set high standards for all children regardless of where they live and then provide the necessary tools to teachers, administrators, school boards and parents so that they can succeed at the local level without unnecessary government interference. The state will renew its commitment to make sure that every child can attend school safe from violence and prepared to learn. And we will focus on stemming performance erosion in the vital middle grades.
Some of it is insidery, but important. For instance, organized labor will work much harder to defeat a Republican who refuses to abide by the legislative “agreed bill process” for workers’ comp and unemployment insurance. Dillard tries to set their minds at ease…
Kirk Dillard strongly believes in maintaining the sanctity of the agreed-bill process. Recognizing that the process often only promotes communication when stakes are high and stances are far apart, Dillard will form on ad-hoc basis the Illinois Jobs Creation Council. The Council’s goal will be to seek areas of common-ground interest to promote creative ideas on the creation of jobs—something that benefits both sides. It is Dillard’s belief that finding those common areas of interest will spur better and more innovative ideas on attracting and keeping good-paying jobs in Illinois.
* I get a lot of strange press releases every day, but this one from the National Taxpayers United of Illinois’ Jim Tobin was so far over the top that I thought I’d let you see some of what you’re missing…
RACIST GOV. QUINN AND CORRUPT DANIEL HYNES USING VICIOUS ANTI-PETITION MANEUVERS
CHICAGO–So-called “reformers,” Gov. Patrick Quinn (D) and Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes (D), are masterminding drives to invalidate petition signatures of other independent Democrats who have turned in the required number of signatures to appear on the Feb. 2, 2010, Democratic gubernatorial primary, charged Jim Tobin, President of National Taxpayers United of Illinois (NTUI).
“By attempting to knock William “Dock” Walls, III off the ballot, Gov. Quinn displays racial prejudice by targeting Walls over all the other gubernatorial candidates. Quinn believes he is superior to the only African American candidate for Governor. This should infuriate the African-American community of Illinois.”
“Walls submitted over 9,400 signatures, far more than the 5,000 signatures needed to run for Governor. Quinn’s Cronies challenged a large number of signatures with no legal justification. An army of petition checkers flooded the Board of Elections, often refusing to talk to reporters on the scene because they were government employees working for ‘reformer’ Quinn.”
“According to the Board of Elections hearing examiner, Walls is supposedly short the required number of valid signatures by less than a dozen.”
“In addition to Quinn’s Cronies, we also have Hynes’ Hacks, who are working hard to keep independent Democratic candidate Ed Scanlan off the Feb. 2, 2010, ballot. Hynes’ Hacks are exploiting every trick to invalidate Scanlan’s 10,000 signatures, including using government employees to challenge the signatures.”
“The Illinois challenge process is inherently corrupt and a disgrace, favoring establishment candidates and placing independent candidates, regardless of party, at a disadvantage,” said Tobin. “Quinn and Hynes are the problem. They are corrupt and rotten to the core.”
“Two-thirds of the states require only a filing fee to run for office,” said Tobin. “Illinois should follow suit and eliminate the requirement for petition signatures. That would reform Illinois politics more than anything else.”
* The Question: Leaving aside Tobin’s breathless rant, do you think Illinois should “eliminate the requirement for petition signatures”? And would doing so “reform Illinois politics more than anything else”? Explain thoroughly, please.
As he marked the anniversary of his arrest, ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich today reasserted his innocence by autographing a copy of the U.S. Constitution with his now-infamous catchphrase, “fn golden.”
The indicted politician scrawled the near-profanity on the nation’s most sacred of documents at a book signing on the University of Chicago campus. A student asked Blagojevich to sign near the 17th Amendment — the one dealing with the appointment of U.S. senators. In other words, the very type of seat that federal prosecutors say Blagojevich tried to sell and was allegedly heard describing as “(bleeping) golden” on a wiretap.
“Always remember the rule of law is sacrosanct, nay it is more — it is fn golden,” Blagojevich wrote on the page today. […]
“I’m OK with writing it,” he told reporters. “I did not write the bad word. I abbreviated it.”
When other states get hit with massive, nationally embarrassing corruption scandals, political leaders upend the status quo, throw the bums out and do their level best to ensure it can’t happen again.
In Illinois, state lawmakers have tweaked and twiddled on reform measures, in hopes voters forget what they’re mad about.
Um, they did throw the bum out. Remember that impeachment thingy? Also, as Charlie Wheeler wrote several weeks ago in Illinois Issues, most of the reforms that were approved by the General Assembly focused like a laser on Blagojevich’s many, many transgressions…
Overall, the legislative reaction to the reform suggestions followed the pattern predicted here a couple of months ago. Changes affecting executive branch operations were embraced; those that would upset the legislative status quo were not.
In so choosing, did Democratic leaders and their majorities sustain a culture of corruption? Or was that the rational approach, focusing on eradicating the opportunities for clearly documented illicit activities while ignoring certain aspects of the legislative process that some might not like but are hardly corrupt?
Instead of bemoaning what didn’t happen, naysayers might want to look again and see a glass that’s got more in it than anyone would have believed possible this time last year.
Weakening the legislative leaders is a noble cause, and should be done. But, in this context, would a weak House Speaker have been able to stand in Blagojevich’s way for two years, as Michael Madigan did?
The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR) on Wednesday said the campaign contribution limits legislation signed by Gov. Quinn is a significant victory for Illinois voters and should help reduce the influence wielded by big campaign contributors.
Gov. Quinn, by the way, has a new video where he talks about the past year. Take a look…
Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady responds…
“Today Governor Quinn will sign into law legislation claiming to be a significant victory for ethics reform in the State of Illinois. However, the reality is quite different. Notwithstanding the laudable efforts by numerous citizen reform groups, the legislation does nothing more than enhance the power of those who supported Rod Blagojevich. Notably absent from today’s bill signing is any legislation recommended by Governor Quinn’s Reform Committee Task Force.”
[US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald] not only went after Blagojevich, satisfying the growing political Machine in Illinois that wanted him to leave, but also check-mated Obama. How could Obama replace Fitzgerald in the wake of his taking action against Blagojevich over Obama’s old senate seat without looking like he was protecting “corruption” in Illinois?
Never mind that what Fitzgerald did was wrong. People are innocent until proven guilty in America, but not in Fitzgerald’s eyes. And, there is a process of prosecution that Fitzgerald side-stepped and avoided in going after Blagojevich to protect his own political career in Illinois. Instead of filing charges, Fitzgerald used the Chicago FBI to arrest Blagojevich one year ago at his home not on charges but on trumped up claims thatw ere not backed by evidence at all.
Imagine if the US Attorney can do that anytime he doesn’t like someone? Accuse them of a crime, disgrace them publicly? Say things to disparage someone you don’t like and set up a political movement to have him removed from office and never, ever have to provide one real bit of fair evidence in a court room where the target, Blagojevich, can defend himself?
* Lee Newspapers has more on the story about the planned state budget cuts which we discussed a bit yesterday…
In addition to calling for an increase in the income tax rate, Gov. Pat Quinn is asking some of his state agencies to cut back their spending by as much as 14 percent for next year’s budget.
Quinn won’t present plans for his next budget until the spring. But he wants agencies to begin planning to spend far less than they are this year in order to try to cope with the state’s massive deficit. […]
The planned 14 percent in cuts for next fiscal year would target only agencies of “small and medium” sizes, Kraft said. On the small and medium list sent by Quinn’s office are agencies such as the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency.
The full statement from the governor’s office…
The State of Illinois is faced with unprecedented budget challenges that will take a vigorous combination of revenue increases, budget cuts, borrowing and help from the federal government in order to come up with a solution. To that end, The Governor’s Office of Management and Budget has reached out to agencies requesting they work to balance their budget with fiscal restraint.
We have asked small and medium agencies to prepare FY11 budget requests at 14% less than their FY10 budget level. The 14% is not a firm directive but rather an analysis, exercise, and request for information as we engage in a deliberative process with our agencies to address the budget crisis while maintaining vital services to our residents. Everything will be examined on a case by case basis.
We realize that some of the larger agencies have overarching issues that will prevent them from examining the 14% reduction. Therefore, we are meeting with the large agency directors over the next few weeks where we will discuss major spending pressures and opportunities for reductions.
I’ve asked for more detail and the governor’s office sent me a list of what they consider to be small, medium and large agencies. Click here to see the xls file.
* The state isn’t the only government hurting in Illinois, of course. Local governments are really feeling the pinch. The Daily Herald editorial board notices the problem today…
A dramatic trend is evident in even a cursory review of Daily Herald pages these days. Everywhere, it seems, communities face the prospect of steep program or service cuts in order to stave off budget deficits.
A teen center in Arlington Heights. Police and firefighters in Hoffman Estates. Maintenance services in a Pingree Grove subdivision. Furloughs in Aurora. Unspecified layoffs in Palatine.
Local communities and schools, clearly, are heir to the same financial ills afflicting public bodies at the county, state and national levels. Ills also suffered, not irrelevantly, by the citizens and taxpayers from whom governments get their sustenance and whom they are bound to serve.
Indeed, we’d argue that you don’t need hindsight to recognize that it may not be the best time to slice the ranks of your police department by 40 positions, including 33 police officers. A full, overlapping patrol shift - noon to 8 p.m. - will be eliminated and investigation of gang crimes will be significantly compromised. Both come when the city’s record for murders may be safe - 19 in 1993 - but not much else is, with 14 homicides so far this year, in a decade that has witnessed as much or more bloodshed, most of it gang- and drug-related, as any in the city’s history. Pulling some funds from rainy-day reserves could have softened this blow. […]
You don’t need hindsight to sense that the city getting out of the animal control business will likely lead to more animals in the streets. We may not see 8,000 more, which is the number scooped up by PAWS in 2008. We may not see an evolutionary new hybrid between dog and cat in the River City, either. But who would be surprised if the county does the minimum required of it by state law next year?
And here’s a round-up of a few of the local budget woe stories in today’s Illinois papers…
* Peoria City Council approves $165.8 million budget: By a 10-1 vote, the council endorsed a spending plan that was once $14.5 million in the red, a deficit that council people called “unprecedented” and one that was closed with the elimination of 69 positions.
Again, that’s just a few of them. Every day we see more and more of these and it’s just impossible to post them all.
And that’s why GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan’s proposal to cut way back on revenue sharing for local governments, which we discussed yesterday, needs to be looked at very carefully.
Pushing the pain down the food chain is a common government practice. It happened quite often in the 1980s. Federal officials could point to their few tax hikes with pride, but everybody else down the line had to raise their taxes to make up for lost revenues. It’s no mere coincidence that local property tax rates skyrocketed and the state income tax was raised twice during that decade.
[McKenna’s proposal] could mean big cuts to state government while only addressing about half of the budget deficit. He didn’t offer specifics about the impact on services and programs. […]
Spending levels likely would need to remain frozen there for three or four years so the state can dig out of “a real deep hole,” said McKenna, former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.
That means human services agencies that depend on state money also would have to live with less until the state could generate more funds. Extra money can be found through savings realized from proposed efficiencies like expanding Medicaid managed care and changing the state’s pension system, McKenna said. […]
“It would literally mean throwing people out of supportive services they are currently receiving,” said [Daniel Schwick, assistant to the president of Lutheran Social Services of Illinois], whose agency offers services to families, children, seniors and people with disabilities throughout the state.
The threat of large cuts to social service agencies this year sparked outrage among providers and sent the governor and lawmakers scrambling to avoid them.
McKenna, by the way, claims in his TV ads that the state budget deficit is $11 billion and growing by $30 million a day. If that’s true, then the budget deficit for next fiscal year would be about $22 billion. I asked yesterday for clarification and I’ll update you when I hear more.
* Not good timing, considering the Blagojevich “arrestoversary” and Gov. Quinn’s planned signing of the campaign reform bill today. But this does appear to be an innocent mistake…
The campaign of Gov. Pat Quinn has temporarily halted making automated campaign calls after it came to light that some were going to state office telephones.
The calls to those telephones were inadvertent, said Quinn campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Austin.
“Apparently some of those calls went to offices because people had used their office numbers instead of their home numbers when they registered to vote,” Austin said, and the automated calls were going to numbers listed on voter registration records.
The calls were stopped as soon as the problem was identified, according to the campaign.
* The video isn’t posted as I write this, but I’m told Gov. Quinn and Comptroller Hynes got more than a little testy with each other during their “debate” before the Tribune editorial board. I’ll post the video when the Trib does.
Quinn said the state’s current pension benefits are “far beyond reasonable” and slammed Hynes for failing to support a so-called “two-tier” pension system as both court unions for endorsements.
“I have the courage to tell the unions I am for a two-tier system. That cost me politically and I know that,” Quinn said. Hynes said he doesn’t believe the current basic pension benefits are extravagant, and he called them important for attracting a qualified work force.
As good as those lines were, Quinn will need those unions in the general election, so he shouldn’t go too far with this.
“We’re in a political contest, there should be robust contest there, robust contest of ideas,” Quinn said. “But to take this [short-term borrowing] issue and politicize it, and he has politicized it, is wrong.”
But Hynes said the state can no longer afford to borrow its way out of the fiscal mess, noting Moody’s Investors Service cited a lack of political willpower to fix the deficit when it downgraded the state’s bond rating Tuesday.
The person who really politicized this issue is Quinn. This was a carefully planned political assault and Quinn goofed by pulling the trigger too soon. If he had waited until Treasurer Giannoulias was on board, the attack on Hynes would’ve been devastating. Instead, the governor looks like a mope.
And you knew this was coming…
“They received 21 letters complaining about that [Burr Oak] cemetery and [the comptroller] failed to properly act,” Quinn said, adding he pushed pending legislation to take cemetery regulation away from Hynes’ office because “it did a lousy job.”
As I’ve written before, if Hynes really closes the gap on Quinn I fully expect a nuclear Burr Oak attack.
* Charles Thomas writes about an interesting little development in the campaign…
A sign that Quinn has lost his campaign balance happened [Monday], when the Governor missed the grand opening of a shelter for homeless veterans on the city’s southside. He stood up former Illinois and now-Federal Veterans Affairs honcho Tammy Duckworth who flew in from Washington for the ceremony.
Quinn, perhaps the hardest-working advocate for veterans you’ll find anywhere in politics, was a no-show because he was held over by west side African-American elected officials who had just endorsed him.
Sources say the black pols had the Governor cornered demanding specifics on minority participation in the $31 billion capital bill Quinn signed last summer. The conventional wisdom is that Quinn cannot win the February 2, 2010 primary without the overwhelming support of African American voters.
* Today’s campaign video is, once again, from Gov. Quinn. It’s about the governor’s endorsement by several West Side politicians. Have a look…
Employers in the Chicago metropolitan area expect to be hiring at a slow pace in the first three months of 2010, with just 8 percent saying they plan to add staff during the quarter, according to a survey unveiled Tuesday by Manpower Inc.
Calling small business the “backbone” of Chicago’s economy, Mayor Daley today unveiled plans to give Ma and Pa companies the capital and regulatory relief they need to survive the prolonged recession.[…]
City Hall has set aside $3.2 million from the Chicago Skyway windfall to provide loans of $10,000 to $150,000 to small businesses through a fund administered by the city treasurer’s office. And $350,000 in parking meter proceeds will be used to leverage another $23 million in small business loans.
The chief judge of Cook County Circuit Court is creating a domestic violence division to try to improve communication among judges and ensure that abuse victims don’t fall through the cracks.
Students at Chicago Public Schools showed little improvement over two years on fourth- and eighth-grade national math tests, despite a push to improve mathematics achievement, federal data released Tuesday indicates.
Overall Chicago public school’s 4th and 8th graders are making small but steady gains. But NAEP’s Andrew Kolstad says in the last two years it’s Chicago’s Hispanic fourth graders making the most progress.
The Tribune reported last month that 10,000 seniors in public high schools magically got there without ever being juniors. That is, they were sophomores, and then they sort of disappeared for a year, and then they popped up as seniors.
They were going to school the whole time. But by fudging their class status when they should have been juniors, their schools shielded them from taking the Prairie State Achievement Exam. The two-day test is given to all juniors and it is used, among other things, to gauge how schools are performing.
Just how much of a direct link does there need to be between a proposal before a government body, an elected official and financial interest before the official needs to step away and recuse himself? These are some questions that have been roiling for Woodford County Board member Terry Pille over the issue of wind farm development.
* I spent way too much time putting this little video together. It’s definitely not the slickest thing you’ll ever see, but I wanted to do something different for the one-year anniversary of Rod Blagojevich’s arrest. Plus, I need the editing practice. Be gentle, please. Have a look…
Governor Pat Quinn will sign a bill Wednesday to cap some political donations for the first time in Illinois.
When the legislature passed the campaign finance bill in October, Quinn called it “excellent,” but said he needed time to review it fully. Quinn’s office confirms he plans to sign the legislation Wednesday. That’s the anniversary of the arrest of his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich.
The bill signing will likely take a back seat to the anniversary coverage, or at least maybe force reporters/pundits to put the reforms into the context of what Blagojevich did, rather than the various vendettas against the Democratic legislative leaders, particularly if Blagojevich ventures out into public again like he did today…
In the midst of federal attempts to re-indict Rod Blagojevich, the former governor suggested today that he wanted to be in court as soon as possible.
“I wish my trial could’ve been held right away,” Blagojevich said to a modest-sized crowd inside a University of Chicago bookstore. “And then I’d still be governor now.” […]
Instead of considering a trial delay, prosecutors will just charge the former governor with something new.
“It’s interesting,” Blagojevich said. “My accusers like to change their story and are now giving another story and another set of circumstances. My story has never changed.”
Yeah, he’d still be governor if his trial was right away. Sure.
Sheesh.
He had a trial in the Senate and he didn’t even bother to show up.
“It’s substantial progress and I think it’ll make a great difference in making elections more competitive in Illinois and more open,” Quinn said this afternoon following an appearance before the Tribune’s editorial board. […]
Quinn said he decided to sign the bill on the anniversary of Blagojevich’s arrest to encourage citizens to look back on the past year and the changes that have been implemented since Blagojevich’s ouster. […]
Quinn said it is “progress” that leaders will face limits in primary elections, but added that the state “should also take a look at them” for the general election.
The governor also claimed “there was not a lot of enthusiasm” for keeping a proposal from the original bill that would’ve prevented the Democratic Party of Illinois from endorsing in primaries, “so I didn’t insist on it.” Speaker Madigan more than implied during the veto session that the governor dropped the subject after Lisa Madigan decided to run for reelection.
