Thursday, Jan 25, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson
Much ballyhoo is being made over Jesse White’s effort to tighten up teen driving laws. Illinois already has one of the more expansive restrictions on teen driving in the nation; the proposed legislation would ratchet it up even further.
Advocates for tightening teen-driving laws lauded the proposal, saying it will close gaps in Illinois law and make roads safer for everyone.
It sends a very strong message from top state officials that they’re very serious about trying to reduce the number of teen deaths,” said Judie Stone, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
The legislation was drafted by a task force convened by White in response to the Tribune’s yearlong examination of the root causes of accidents involving teen drivers.
* Extending the learner’s permit phase from 3 months to 9 months.
* Doubling the time a teen driver is limited to having only one unrelated teen passenger in the car from 6 months to 12 months.
* Ticketing teenage passengers who violate the passenger restriction law.
* Bumping up nighttime driving restrictions one hour to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 11 p.m. on weekends.
* Requiring drivers under 18 who are ticketed for traffic violations to appear before a judge with their parents when seeking court supervision.
Protecting teen drivers is an easy position to support, but when do the regulations become unnecessary barriers?
“In highway safety, for the most part, there’s not really any organized lobbying efforts against the bill,” said state Sen. John Cullerton (D-Chicago), a longtime supporter of highway safety bills in Illinois and the lead sponsor of the teen driving bill. “The problem is some legislators have a perception that some of their constituents do not want to have highway safety laws passed.”
Also, some lawmakers will not welcome new driving restrictions in rural or suburban areas where mass transit isn’t an option.
Also,
Rep. Bill Black (R-Danville) said he has heard from parents in his district who are concerned about how nighttime restrictions would affect the ability of their children to get home from work or team practices. But Black said as long as the bill includes an exemption for teens driving to school activities or work—which the current version does include—those fears should be allayed.
Black also said the cost of a provision that would require schools to provide six hours of supervised driving time on the street could be a problem for some school districts.
Sara Worel, 18, said that more restrictions on teen driving might not be such a bad idea since younger drivers don’t always make the best decisions. But the West Chicago Community High School student said some rules should come from parents - not legislators.
“More practice for driving wouldn’t hurt,” Worel added. “From my experience, I didn’t learn that much from drivers ed. I learned more from my parents.”
She and other teens may have an ally in state Sen. Chris Lauzen, an Aurora Republican with two teenage sons. He questions if the state isn’t overstepping its boundaries. He’s already had calls from constituents critical of the new proposals.
“At a certain point … we need to trust our children when they’re driving the family car, or we shouldn’t allow them to drive at all,” said Lauzen.
We don’t have both sides here yet, and I would expect that the defendants, as defendants do, are putting their best argument forward. The idea here is to make the other side look as nefarious as possible.
Still, this story is very troubling and underscores what some of us have been saying for months.
Two former state officials accused by Gov. Blagojevich’s administration of misconduct unleashed a barrage of documents Wednesday that they say show the governor’s office repeatedly steered state jobs to favored applicants.
In one instance, an aide to Blagojevich’s intergovernmental affairs chief demanded that personnel employees “find out what it will take” to help a Blagojevich donor pass an exam for a job for which he lacked qualifications.
And in some cases, Blagojevich appeared to take an interest in helping place people in middle- and upper-management posts, including one applicant who had received suspensions when he previously had worked for the state.
The documents were filed with the Civil Service Commission by Dawn DeFraties and Michael Casey, who are trying to get their jobs back after Blagojevich fired them in April, claiming they manipulated hiring procedures to favor politically connected applicants.
Dawn DeFraties was personnel director at the Department of Central Management Services, the state’s hiring agency. Casey was her assistant. A hearing on the charges before an administrative law judge begins next week.
The pair claim they were blocked in their attempt to create an electronic hiring system to take subjectivity out of the process, and that the so-called “special applications'’ they’re accused of favoring emanated from Blagojevich’s office.
“They conveniently left out the governor’s office involvement in all of these charges and we’ll be getting into this,'’ said the pair’s attorney, Carl Draper.
Draper has said DeFraties and Casey are being made scapegoats by the administration, which is under federal investigation because of its hiring practices. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has said his office is investigating “very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud” in state government.
Draper said members of Blagojevich’s inner circle were the ones who wanted favored treatment for politically connected job applicants.
A review of more than five dozen of the e-mails disclosed Wednesday identify 37 individuals who were seeking jobs in the early years of the Blagojevich administration. A review of state hiring records shows that 15 got state jobs. All of those who got jobs were named on a previous list of those who had political sponsors or were given special treatment in the state hiring process.
The other 22, including some whose political sponsors were identified in the e-mails, were never hired, records show. […]
Also in August of 2003, Casey wrote an e-mail to Blagojevich’s patronage office, questioning a push for an applicant named Ralph Caro, who was recommended for a state job by the director of what was then the state Department of Professional Regulation. […]
But Casey responded that Caro had “no credible experience or related degree” for the positions for which he was being considered. State records showed Caro contributed $1,000 to the governor’s campaign fund, including $500 within days of the e-mail exchange. .
Connecting a campaign contribution, however small, to state hiring is bad news indeed for the governor. But, again, as the governor’s office said yesterday, we’re only seeing one side so far.
* When told by colleagues on Oct. 12, 2004 of a job applicant who claimed he had been promised a job by the governor, DeFraties responded, “Politics are not my bag here. I have no knowledge of this individual nor do I care what he may or may not have been promised. Please proceed as you would with any individual.” […]
* When DeFraties informed Cini aide Laura Casper on May 15, 2003 that two applicants were rejected as too inexperienced, Casper responded that officials would then ask the hiring agency to declare the positions “exempt” from the rules. […]
* One allegation against the pair is that they put favored application into an online database for consideration ahead of others. But Casey wrote to a colleague on Oct. 22, 2004, asking why some applications had been marked “rush.” He was told that the employee in question had forgotten about the rule against doing that and was sorry.
* Jackson, Stroger try to shift budget blame to Guv: “The two said Gov. Blagojevich bears some of the blame for the county crisis, for not releasing enough Medicaid funding fast enough to help the county health system.â€
One-upping Mayor Daley in the quest to solve Chicago’s housing crisis, mayoral challenger Dorothy Brown on Wednesday proposed a 10 percent affordable housing set-aside on all projects — public and private.
* Sheriff and State’s Attorney explain impact of Cook County budget cuts
* Tribune Editorial: A retreat on predatory loans: “The important question is not how many people are able to buy homes in these areas, but how many are able to buy them and keep them.â€
* McQueary: The latest loophole for teenage abortions:
Finally, what irks me most about the parental notification debate is the “slippery slope” crapola dished by the pro-choice community. The fact is, we are not talking about restricting access to abortion for adult women. We are talking about restricting access for girls. There’s a big, big difference.
I posted this over at Illinoize the other day, but I thought you’d like to see it here as well.
My intern, Paul Richardson, will be handling blog duties the rest of the day and all day tomorrow because of a prior engagement on my part. Please, be nice.
Mayor Daley’s two main challengers in the upcoming election, Dock Walls and Dorothy Brown, were more than a little peeved at Obama’s endorsement of hizzoner.
Bill “Dock” Walls called Obama’s endorsement of the mayor’s campaign a mistake and said it showed the senator’s political immaturity.
Walls called Daley the “godfather of corruption in Chicago” and said the endorsement will leave Obama on the “wrong side of history.” […]
Brown said she found it hard to believe Obama looked at Daley’s “whole record” and missed the level of corruption that has surrounded the mayor. She said she spoke to Obama just before his announcement Monday.
“I cautioned him about making such an endorsement because of how it will appear; especially given the extent of the corruption and scandals plaguing the Daley administration the past 17 years,” Brown said in a statement Monday.
Archpundit, responding to an opinion writer over at Election Central who said he was “surprised” that Obama didn’t endorse Brown, had this to say:
It took me a bit to stop laughing. I pointed out in comments Meeks called her a loser (and since apologized), but the larger thing is that no one of any import in Illinois is going to endorse someone against Daley unless someone like Jackson Jr. ran. […]
…endorsing a member of your party is hardly earth shattering behavior. […]
We have people who are pure in who they back and we call them Greens, Constitution Law Party Members and Libertarians. Good for them.
The Election Central writer in question, Eric Kleefeld, had this response to another sharp critique of his post, which claimed his commentary was the “the silliest statement I’ve ever seen on this site.”
It might not be surprising for Obama himself, but with all respect it is surprising to see a major black politician in this country endorsing a white candidate over a black one, whether we like it or not. If Jesse Jackson were running for President, do you think he’d go out of his way to endorse Daley?
To which ArchPundit sets him straight, pointing out that Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., the reverend’s son, supported Forrest Claypool (white) against John Stroger (black) and Obama was neutral in the contest.
There are two schools of thought, here. One is that by endorsing Daley, Obama will fall victim to the ol’ “smear a geographic region” game, like the “Taxachussets liberal” phrase that was so popular in two presidential campaigns. This time it will be “Obama’s that guy from the corrupt Chicago machine.” Some also argue that the Daley endorsement can’t help much, because he already has Illinois and Chicago locked up, so it will only hurt.
The other, which I haven’t seen mentioned in print or online yet, is that Daley is hugely popular among his fellow mayors throughout the country. That gives him a large national network he can tap for Obama. A call from Daley to any mayor in the nation could do wonders for Obama, regardless of Daley’s problems at home. The mayors gush all over Daley.
Then, of course, there’s Bill Daley, who ran Gore’s campaign and SBC, and therefore has plenty of national and bigtime corporate connections.
As I’ve been telling my subscribers, the behind the scenes battling between House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President Emil Jones and Gov. Rod Blagojevich is heating up in a big way, particularly between Madigan and Blagojevich.
Question: If the session devolves into a free-for-all, which of the three will you be rooting for? Or would it be none of the above? Explain.
The Chicago Reader’s new blog “Clout City” is becoming the place to go for news about aldermanic campaigns.
The major media constantly complains about the quality of aldermen and county board members, yet rarely do any of those news outlets bother to cover the campaigns beyond a few generic roundup stories near the end. The Reader is doing the city a great service. More like this, please.
Later this week the Illinois State Council of the Service Employees International Union is likely to announce its endorsements for the February municipal elections. The list won’t be radically different from the one already announced by the Chicago Federation of Labor, an umbrella organization that includes several SEIU locals, but union leaders say it won’t be exactly the same, either. For example, in the hotly contested 43rd and 50th Ward races the federation backed Michele Smith and Greg Brewer, respectively. SEIU won’t be endorsing anyone.
Winning the endorsement of particular unions or locals is probably more important than winning the federation’s. For starters, it’s the individual unions who can provide the people needed to knock on doors, hand out literature, and get people to the polls, and not all of the 300-plus CFL member organizations are going to be equally motivated to, say, push Sandi Jackson over Darcel Beavers in the Seventh Ward—a race SEIU says is a priority. In addition, some union sources are quietly saying that the federation isn’t half as interested in committing the cash to back upstart aldermanic candidates as it’s been claiming the past few months.
Maybe, maybe not. Greg Brewer’s 50th Ward campaign told me this week that the CFL has assigned a full-time staffer and cut a sizable check “for starters.” We’ll have to wait and see how much Federation chief Dennis Gannon follows through.
The post continues…
Frankly, no one’s sure what the impact of the unions will be. The amount SEIU is going to spend on the municipal elections is “still up in the air,†according to Marianne McMullen, communications director for the SEIU state council. But she said 1,000 of the 78,000 SEIU members in Chicago have enlisted to work as “lock captains in key aldermanic races, including those in the 7th, 15th, 16th, and 42nd Wards.
Burt Natarus’ 42nd is almost impossible to walk because it’s almost all high-rises. Still, if SEIU has any members in those high-rises, or if they can somehow get members access to them, it will be invaluable to challenger Brendan Reilly’s campaign. For years, Natarus counted on a handful of solidly Democratic African-American precincts in the western edge of his district to carry the day. Those precincts are gone, which is why he barely beat an unknown four years ago.
SEIU has long hoped to create a precinct organization, but until a few years ago it didn’t really have the staff or the capability to pull it off. The union gets better at this with each passing election, but this is gonna be a long, hard slog.
Word is that SEIU has hired a prominent media consultant to handle mail in several races, and I’m hearing that the union will pay for some negative mail against broken-down incumbent Bernie Stone, even though they aren’t endorsing a candidate in the 50th.
By the way, 50th Ward candidate Greg Brewer has a YouTube page that I don’t think I’ve linked to yet. You can find it here. Fellow challenger Naisy Dolar’s YouTube site is here.
On a lighter note, the third challenger in the 50th Ward race, Salman Aftab, is featured in the video below responding to Ald. Arenda Troutman’s alleged statement that “Most aldermen, most politicians are hos.”
This is a local politics open thread, and it’s definitely not limited to Chicago. Discuss your local races and the media coverage they’re getting below.
*** UPDATE *** 42nd Ward challenger Brendan Reilly has a new TV ad and it’s posted on YouTube.
*** UPDATE 2 *** 2nd Ward challenger Bob Fioretti, who is airing ads on local cable TV, has posted his mailers online.
A Post-Dispatch story today takes a look at the challenges facing the Green Party now that it has achieved major party status.
Wanted: One candidate for the U.S. Senate, 19 for the U.S. House, 118 potential state representatives, dozens more wannabe state senators, hundreds of potential county officials. And as many as 11,692 precinct committeemen, among other vacancies.
The state ballot access barriers are significantly lowered with the Greens’ new major party status, thanks to Rich Whitney’s success at doubling the minimum 5 percent vote requirement in the last election…
Whitney — as an unofficial party candidate — had to get 25,000 signatures. In 2010, Green candidates in the primary will need only 5,000. A Green candidate needs roughly 500 to run as a state representative and 1,000 for the state Senate.
But they still have a long, long way to go…
…the rolls of dues-paying [Green Party] members roughly doubled to more than 900. But that’s still far from the thousands of elected Democrats and Republicans around the state backed by thousands more volunteers.
900? That’s it?
“The Greens will need a network of bodies throughout the state,” Jackson said. “That’s a logistical accomplishment that no one since Republicans during the Civil War has really done.”
Agreed, but it’s possible they could pick off some local seats here and there and cause some Democrats trouble in maybe a couple of legislative districts.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad the Green Party not only made it onto the ballot last year but also broke through the major party barrier. If nothing else, the whiners who constantly complained that Illinois law was just too restrictive to field a third party candidate were proved wrong.
It should be interesting to see what the party does next. They have to continue to score that 5 percent statewide to keep their major party status. Any bets on whether they can make it?
The House Republicans want to make it easier to bust sexual predators online and to crack down on kids who post online threats.
House Minority Leader Tom Cross is proposing, among other things, to let school districts discipline students who post threats on social networking sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com – even if they do it from home and on their own time.
But that has some worried that overzealous school boards will expel children for criticism of teachers and administrators that’s protected by the First Amendment.
While poking fun at principals has happened during lunch periods for generations, the technology to make those harsh jabs internationally available is fairly new.
‘’It is not a threat to simply mock or make fun of the principal,'’ said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. ‘’I suspect we all said some things. We just didn’t have a MySpace account.'’
Cross claims he is “sensitive” to the issue of going too far with his legislation. HB 38 is summarized as follows:
Amends the School Code. Provides that a school board may, in accordance with certain administrative procedures, authorize the suspension of a student or expel a student if (i) that student has been determined to have made an explicit threat on an Internet web site against a school employee, a student, or any school-related personnel, (ii) the Internet web site through which the threat was made is a site that was accessible within the school at the time the threat was made or was available to third parties who worked or studied within the school grounds at the time the threat was made, and (iii) the threat could be reasonably interpreted as bearing a reasonable relationship to the safety and security of the threatened individual because of his or her duties or educational status inside the school.
But instead of urging her to continue an unwinnable court fight, opponents should direct their efforts at lawmakers. It is their job, not Madigan’s, to change the law if necessary.
