Tuesday, Jan 4, 2011 - Posted by Capitol Fax Blog Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Recently, Tenaska has been waging a scare campaign about available energy in Illinois and how desperately we need the power from the Taylorville Energy Center.
What they don’t tell you is this: The available Illinois power pool is 304,000 MW. Tenaska would contribute 544 MW to that pool. That’s two-tenths of one percent - like pouring a coffee cup into a bathtub.
Which would be perfectly fine – should even be encouraged – if it didn’t come with a special deal, above market price tag on consumers.
These are the facts:
• The power produced at the Tenaska plant would be five times more expensive than current market price for power. (21.3¢ per kilowatt hour for Tenaska power versus 4¢ per kilowatt hour current market)
• The hit to Illinois consumers: $286 Million per year, every year, for 30 years.
Tenaska describes this increase as small, says it won’t kill a single job statewide. You be the judge:
* The Chicago Public Schools will pay $1 million more every year in higher electricity costs because of this plant.
* The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District will pay $1.3 million more per year.
* An industrial supply business in central Illinois will pay $265,025 more.
* A state university will pay $208,959 more per year.
* A retail discount store in southern Illinois will pay $66,204 more per year.
Former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel meets the residency requirement to run for mayor of Chicago and will remain on the Feb. 22 primary ballot, a Cook County judge ruled Tuesday.
In a ruling issued early Tuesday afternoon, Cook County Circuit Judge Mark Ballard upheld an earlier 3-0 ruling by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners that Emanuel, despite having lived in Washington, D.C., for the past two years to serve as President Obama’s chief of staff, is eligible to run.
“On the question of whether candidate Emanuel has satisfied the 1-year residency requirements… the court finds no error with the Board’s decision,” Ballard wrote. “We find the analysis presented by respondent candidate Emanuel to this court persuasive on the issue of whether an individual must have a ‘place to sleep’ to satisfy the litmus test of continued residence.”
Ballard heard arguments from lawyers from both sides during a 45-minute hearing on the 19th floor of the Daley Center. Burt Odelson, attorney for the objectors, argued Emanuel is trying to “re-write history” by claiming he was a Chicago resident, saying it was akin to the George Orwell’s book “1984.”
“But they can’t re-write the law,” Odelson said.
This thing is gonna go on for a while yet. Nothing is finalized, but the score is now 3-0 Emanuel (hearing officer, city elections board and circuit court).
…Adding… Emanuel statement…
The Board of Elections and the court have both now concluded what I have said all along – that the only reason I left town was to serve President Obama and that I always intended to return. Now that these decisions have been reached, Chicago voters should have the right to decide the election and to vote for me or against me. And they deserve to have the campaign focus on the challenges facing the city and the need for safe streets, strong schools, and stable city finances.
* In other news, former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, who set off a firestorm with his report on Chicago’s parking meter deal, now doubts the city can get out of it…
The idea sounds simple and very appealing: Cancel and renegotiate the much-despised deal that privatized Chicago’s parking meter system.
But the idea may well be too good to be true, with outside experts warning that cancellation, even if legal, could stick the city with a tab for more than $1 billion that it doesn’t have. […]
If a court were to overturn the parking meter contract, Morgan Stanley et al. “would have a good argument” to reclaim their $1.16 billion, says former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, who for two years has criticized the deal as providing an inadequate return.
The courts more than likely would order both sides “to return to the starting point,” Mr. Hoffman says. Meaning that Chicago would get the meters back, but the Morgan Stanley group would get its $1.16 billion back — money the city has already pretty well burned through to fill budget holes.
Even getting that far is questionable, Mr. Hoffman adds. “The idea that you can overturn this contract in court is just highly unlikely,” he says. And, given credit market conditions, the city “maybe” would do better if it rebid the pact today, and “maybe” would do worse.
* Related…
* Emanuel: Ads could help pay for after-school programs
* Four major Chicago mayoral candidates debate Jan. 27
* Senate President John Cullerton talked to reporters after a meeting today between himself, Gov. Pat Quinn and House Speaker Michael Madigan. He didn’t say much, but did say they’re looking at various versions of an income tax hike…
Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, emerged from the meeting with Quinn and House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and said discussions are centering on a variation of a tax hike bill previously approved by the Senate, but stalled in the House. That bill raised the income tax by 66 percent.
“They are talking about trying to get the votes to pass an income tax, a variation of that out of the House,” Cullerton said. “Whatever it takes to pass an income tax (increase) is what they are talking about now.” […]
“It would be helpful to get some support from the other party,” Cullerton said. “We have a huge deficit we are trying to overcome. We are going to try to work on this today. If we have to come back and meet later, we will have to do that as well.” […]
Cullerton said he thinks the public understands the need for a tax hike.
“We have to pay our bills. We have to make sure out bond rating is improved and people see that going forward we can pay our bills,” Cullerton said. “If people look at it from that perspective, I think it is something they would accept.”
Cullerton said the governor has been meeting with Republicans about the tax hike ideas. He also said that the Senate would address school reform sometime in the new spring session if it can’t be done this week.
* Cullerton also confirmed a report in this morning’s Capitol Fax that he believes he now has enough votes to pass the $3.7 billion pension bond plan. The Senate fell one vote short during the spring session after the bill passed the House, and Cullerton said he has lined up enough Republican support to approve the legislation. The state doesn’t have the cash to make the pension payments, so the pension funds have been paying benefits out of assets for months.
* Meanwhile, House Speaker Madigan talked to reporters today after he testified in favor of yet another constitutional amendment which would require a three-fifths vote to increase state and local pension benefits. Check back in a few for video of that discussion.
…Adding… From an AARP press release urging rejection of Madigan’s TABOR legislation…
As a matter of policy, AARP opposes fixed, arbitrary, rigid caps on revenues and spending. Such constraints lead to vital services being shut down or severely diminished, and prevent states from responding to changing economic conditions – from recession and plant closings, to emergencies in public health, natural disasters, or terrorism.
HJRCA61 would impose such rigid and arbitrary caps on spending, making it impossible to meet new social and economic goals mandated by the courts or the federal government; it would tie the hands of elected officials – who have been chosen to make decisions about taxes and spending; and it would cut out citizens from fiscal policymaking – putting vital matters on auto pilot.
AARP has strongly and successfully opposed similar measures in states across the nation, from Oregon, to Maine, Washington, and most recently Florida where our members were instrumental in defeating a constitutional amendment. Even after a measure similar to HJRCA61 was passed in Colorado, the citizens of that state repealed it once they saw the devastating effect it had on the critical services they rely on, and on their very own livelihoods.
Recent studies have shown that HJRCA61 would lock Illinois’ current human services underfunding into the constitution, worsening an already critical situation for thousands of providers and millions of Illinoisans who need those services.
* Related…
* Rep. Hays enjoying brief stint in Black’s old office
Hang on to your pocketbooks, the Illinois Legislature is coming back to town.
With the collection of retiring and defeated, has-been lawmakers, scheming is afoot to increase your state income taxes by 66 percent.
If it happens this year, it will most likely happen during the next week, when the Legislature is in the final days of its lame-duck session.
It’s the most cowardly way of governing — voting on things when lawmakers are least accountable to the voters.
* The Question: If you had your druthers, would you prevent legislators from voting on anything except vetoes during the time period after the general election and before a new General Assembly is sworn in? Explain.
* The Taxpayers Bill of Rights proposal that I’ve been telling you about for the past couple of weeks got its first legislative hearing yesterday in the House. Speaker Madigan showed up to testify in favor of the legislation…
The Illinois House State Government Administration Committee on Monday approved the so-called Taxpayers Bill of Rights, a constitutional amendment that would limit increases in general revenue fund spending to the average increase in per capita personal income over the previous five years. […]
“I think (the amendment) is reflective of how a majority of citizens in the state feel today,” Madigan said. “I think the majority of the citizens in the state feel, ‘You know, the government ought to be like us – it ought to live within its means and not overspend.’”
The Illinois Policy Institute opposed the plan, even though it admitted the measure would save taxpayers big bucks…
Kristina Rasmussen of the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, said in written testimony that Illinois would have spent $29 billion less if the limit had been in place from fiscal years 1997 to 2009.
“Fiscal year 2009 spending would have totaled $27.335 billion, or $1.8 billion less than available revenues,” she wrote.
The Illinois House will be asked to consider changes to a gaming expansion bill that the sponsor said are designed to help existing riverboat casinos whose revenues have been battered by the combined effects of the recession, competition from other states and Illinois’ indoor smoking ban.
Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, the House sponsor of the gaming bill, declined to explain specifics of the proposed changes Monday.
However, he said the basic outline of the bill — adding four new riverboats, a land-based Chicago casino, placing slot machines at horse racing tracks and allowing existing riverboats to expand — will remain intact.
“There are going to be provisions in the [new legislation] that will recognize that current gaming operators will have some problems as a result of the smoking ban, as a result of the down economy, and as a result of the increased competition they are going to get under this [plan.],” Lang said. “We’re going to provide some credits to them that they are not getting today. We’re going to provide some opportunity for expansion. We’re going to try and make their way a little better.”
Lang is not yet saying what lawmakers will do to make it “better” for existing casinos, though he is quick to point out that the basics of the Senate plan, SB737, will not change.
“New riverboat licenses, slot machines at race tracks, a land-based casino in the city of Chicago… none of those are being changed. But it’s a 400-page [piece of legislation], there’s a lot of room in there for change,” Lang said.
However, the proposed legislation will most likely ruffle feathers among providers of long-term care for the elderly, developmentally disabled and mentally ill, Mautino said.
“There’s a provision in here for long-term care, where we’re going to take the pieces of the budget out of all of these other different agencies it’s located in – make one global budget, which would be for the long-term care side,” he said. “And then up to 4 percent of that total budget would then have to be spent on community services where the money follows the patient.”
The philosophy of “money following the person” is popular at both the state and federal levels since it generally is less expensive than institutional care. And the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1999 Olmstead decision calls for the disabled to live in the least restrictive environment possible.
“It’s something we haven’t done, but the courts have told us we need to do,” Mautino said. “So at this time, though it’s controversial, I would expect to see that in this bill.”
* Roundup…
* Report: State would gain $377M by raising cigarette tax: In light of the report by economist Frank Chaloupka at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Senate President John Cullerton said in a statement that “a cigarette tax is one of the most important agenda items for the coming year” because it would generate new revenue. The Chicago Democrat also noted the higher tax would reduce Medicaid costs attributed to smoking-related health concerns and reduce people’s desire to smoke.
* The Senate’s special committee on education reform met in Springfield yesterday, but Mayor Daley also weighed in on the topic. Hizzoner doesn’t think public school teachers should be allowed to strike…
[Daley] said he hopes state lawmakers pass a bill making it more difficult for them to walk off the job.
Daley made his comments at the ribbon cutting for the new Azuela Elementary School on West Marquette. The mayor acknowledged that the bill is controversial and that many people disagree with him. But he called a strike “unfair” to students. He went on to say that no one was going to treat teachers unfairly.
“You can’t give taxpayers money away all the time,” Daley said. “It’s not my money. It’s your money, it’s the taxpayers. It’s the taxpayers of the city of Chicago. And so we negotiate fairly and honestly what we can afford and what we can do.”
But most controversial, the measure would severely curb teachers’ power to strike. Now, teachers can strike after negotiations fail. But the proposal would mandate that the two sides go before a mediation panel and give the local school board the final say on whether to accept the mediators’ proposal or to impose its own settlement. Unions could strike only if the school board failed to make a final decision.
“The threat of a strike is so significant, it casts a very long shadow over the negotiating process,” said Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois, an education-advocacy group that helped craft the proposal. “If you want the other reforms to stick, you have to deal with the strike issue in state law.”
The unions want school administrators and local school boards to be more responsible for what happens in a school district. Additionally, they are seeking professional training for school board members, a second certification for principals based on performance evaluations, and a list of programs that districts must maintain, said Ken Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association. […]
Several union representatives said not all parts of the state’s first draft of reform are ill conceived. Like the proposal in the House, the unions would have performance ratings established in the Performance Evaluation and Review Act of 2010 count heavily when districts fill new and vacant positions.
“What we are proposing is all predicated on a successful implementation of the P.E.R.A. evaluation system so that we have a credible, solid base of reliable evaluations to work from. That is in our view absolutely critical,” Swanson said.
All schools in the state are slated to have the new evaluation system in place by 2016.
Additionally, like the House version of the plan, the unions want to see tenure based on good evaluation scores. The unions, however, want the length of time for earning tenure shortened from four years to three years, barring no poor evaluations.
After brusquely rejecting on Monday that she should release her income tax returns, Chicago mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun did an about face Monday night.
She now says she will release her tax records Tuesday, matching the disclosures made by her three major opponents.
“She changed her mind. It is no big deal,” Braun spokeswoman Renee Ferguson said. “She had intended to release them after Feb. 22 (Election Day), but everybody made such a big deal of it.”
Braun, who heads a coffee and tea company called Ambassador Organics, has suggested she has endured some recent financial challenges, including holding off on paying property taxes on her home because she was trying to keep the company functioning.
“I think it’s a nonstory. … Yes, I delayed paying them,” Braun told the Tribune in the fall. “I’m running a small business and I had to make a choice between paying my property taxes on Day 1 or day whatever it was and I chose the latter date. But they were paid.”
Opponents Rahm Emanuel, Miguel del Valle and Gery Chico each released their returns last month. Emanuel’s showed he and his wife made nearly $2 million during the last five years , and that they paid more than $300,000 in federal taxes.
Chico’s returns showed he made millions of dollars the last few years from his law firm, which lobbies City Hall on behalf of clients. Chico is a longtime City Hall insider, serving as Mayor Richard Daley’s chief of staff and Chicago Board of Education president.
Seven of the state’s 32 workers’ comp arbitrators have filed claims themselves. Having more than 20 percent of workers with the same job file claims should be a cause for alarm. But in state government, workers’ comp gets treated as an entitlement.
“They are entitled to file claims. They are entitled to go through the process,” said Mitch Weisz, chairman of the Workers’ Compensation Commission.
“We’re not second-class citizens. We can file,” said Ruth White, an arbitrator who got $19,084 after she fell and fractured her leg.
Who knew that being an arbitrator was such a dangerous job?
Thanks to the eight-month span between Gov. Pat Quinn’s approval of a pension reform bill last spring and its implementation, any public worker hired in Illinois as late as Friday has been enrolled in a far more lucrative pension plan than those hired on or after Saturday.
A Rockford Register Star analysis of pension data has identified nearly 19,000 public workers at all levels of Illinois government hired in that span, from bus drivers to university presidents. More than 300 now work for Rock River Valley public bodies.
The phrase “all levels of Illinois government” is somewhat misleading, since the vast majority of those new hires are at the local level. Still, if that number is accurate, that’s a whole lot of hiring. I do wonder how many of those hirees might be in temporary jobs, but still.
A spokesman for the Illinois State’s Attorney’s Association says many state’s attorneys are upset at how the [death penalty abolition] bill has been introduced in a lame-duck session. The ISAA is planning a press conference Tuesday in Springfield and will let family members of murder victims express their opinions about keeping the death penalty.
The session is in the state Consitution. And, the last time I checked, members are elected for full two- or four-year terms. Having a time period when members aren’t completely obsessed about the next election is not necessarily a bad thing. But, hey, they’re darned if they do what they really think is right, and darned if they don’t.
Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico announced today that he’s raised more than $2.5 million for his campaign.
Chico’s campaign released his fundraising total weeks before he’s required to do so in a move to portray himself as a top challenger to former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who leads in early polling.
A campaign aide said that on top of the money he’s already raised, Chico has lined up 47 more fundraising events for this month. But the campaign isn’t saying how much Chico has left to start the year.
Using census estimates through 2009, ProximityOne, a Washington-based analysis firm, has put together some figures that suggest the city of Chicago will be particularly short of people come reapportionment time — even more so than Downstate.
For instance, each of the state’s 18 new congressional districts will have to have a bit more than 710,000 residents. But according to the firm’s analysis, seven current districts miss that total by at least 50,000.
The population laggards are concentrated in Chicago, with Congressman Luis Gutierrez, D-4th, now representing just 607,000 residents; Bobby Rush, D-1st, 616,000 residents, and Jesse Jackson Jr., D-2nd, 618,000. Narrowly following them are Downstater Bobby Schilling, R-17th, at 621,000, and Chicago’s Danny Davis D-7th, 631,000.
Districts with an overabundance of residents are concentrated in the Chicago suburbs, with Randy Hultgren, R-14th, representing an estimated 831,000; Adam Kinzinger, R-10th, 776,000; Judy Biggert, R-13th, 769,000, and Joe Walsh, R-8th, 734,000.
If accurate, those numbers suggest that projected growth in Hispanic residents over the past 10 years has been more scattered than in the past — potentially making it difficult to draw a second majority Hispanic district, as some Latino leaders want.
They’ll move those Chicago Democratic districts further out into the suburbs.
Consensus black mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun said Monday she will not release her income tax returns until after the election, passing on the chance to exploit a potential weakness of two of her major rivals.
“I don’t want to,” she said.
Rahm Emanuel, Gery Chico and Miguel del Valle have already released their tax returns to give Chicago voters a greater understanding of how they made their money. […]
With that, Braun ended the news conference called to repeat her promise to take Chicago parking meters back from private investors.
As she was walking out the door of her campaign headquarters, Braun was asked why she would refuse if she has nothing to hide.
“Oh, get out of here,” she said.
Oof.
My first reaction to this story was, “Oh, Carol…” which got me to thinking about Chuck Berry falling ill in Chicago on New Year’s Eve, which eventually led me to this video…
You can’t dance, I know you wish you could
* Other stuff…
* Joe Berrios Cool On Ald. Schulter’s Bid For Board Of Review Seat
Monday, Jan 3, 2011 - Posted by Capitol Fax Blog Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Why does front group STOP tell Illinois legislators one thing while Exelon CEO John Rowe tells investors a completely different story?
In Illinois, STOP lobbyist (and one-time Exelon consultant) Dr. Phil O’Connor says legislators should vote no on Tenaska’s Taylorville Energy Center (SB 2485).
“We don’t need any new baseload. The speculation on the closure of baseload plants is just that, it’s speculation.”
Testimony to House Electric Generation Committee, 11/29/10
Funny, but that’s not what Exelon CEO John Rowe told investors on a July 22, 2010 investor call.
“The upside to Exelon is unmistakable.”
Exelon CEO John Rowe The EPA’s Utility Men, Wall Street Journal Editorial
December 23, 2010
“EPA regulations will affect both capacity and energy markets, and will do so sooner than many think.”
Mr. Rowe made Exelon’s motivation for killing projects like Taylorville clear:“a $5 per megawatt-hour increase in energy prices would be $700 million to $800 million of incremental revenue to Exelon.”
Taylorville Energy Center opponents like Exelon have billions of good reasons for spreading so much disinformation about SB 2485 and hiding the truth from Illinois legislators – they don’t want competition in baseload generation.
Remember Economics 101. Decreasing electricity supply and rising demand means higher prices for everyone in Illinois.
* The Sun-Times editorialized against lifting or modifying the state’s smoking ban for Illinois casinos…
The poor national economy gets most of the blame, but the commission also concluded that Illinois’ revenue losses were greater than those of neighboring states — in part because of the smoking ban.
All the same, we can’t see granting an exception to the smoking ban for casinos when all other establishments that also could make a hardship case, such as bars and restaurants, must abide by it.
And having a designated smoking area inside a casino still would endanger employees exposed to secondhand smoke. Even a high-quality ventilation system can’t filter out all of the harmful chemicals from cigarette smoke.
State lawmakers who have resisted efforts to ease the ban in the past may be swayed this time by the state’s increasingly dire fiscal situation.
No one wants to stem the flow of badly needed revenue.
But a smoking ban in public places that begins granting exceptions is, soon enough, no smoking ban at all.
* The Question: Should the smoking ban be lifted or altered for the state’s casinos? Explain.
* The Chicago Tribune’s story last week about the upcoming budget debate was badly cribbed from my own piece several days earlier. Trouble is, the Trib story set offalotofmisleadingreports, including this one…
Bill Gross, who invested $5.5 million of his own money in five municipal bond funds run by his Pacific Investment Management Co earlier this month, told CNBC on Tuesday he would avoid Illinois debt.
No, this is not just a one-year borrowing plan. The general idea being pushed by many Democrats is to get rid of the state’s structural deficit with a tax hike and then borrow to catch the state up on its overdue bills and extend the capital plan another year. The new debt would have a specific revenue source, and the bond houses would like that - snap analyses based on incomplete information notwithstanding.
* The state pays a point a month on its overdue debt. Bonding would be cheaper. Yes, the bonds won’t be paid off in a year, but nobody in their right mind could say that Illinois can solve this gigantic, horrific problem in a single year….
Governments take out loans routinely on one-time construction projects that have longevity, but borrowing to pay ongoing, operating expenses is typically ill-advised.
Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, said such a loan would have to have a much shorter term than a bond for a highway or bridge so that carrying costs are less.
Mautino said it would have to be accompanied by a dedicated pot of money to pay it back, such as an income tax increase. Quinn’s proposed 1 percent hike wouldn’t be enough, he said.
The Marion Democrat and chair of the House Finance Committee knows the state cannot generate enough revenue in the short-term to keep state services the same. Quinn’s plan to borrow $15 billion would cover $8 billion of unpaid bills. Bradley says that money will keep the state’s existing debt from growing exponentially.
“A problem that may have been able to be solved four or five years ago for a billion or two billion dollars then becomes a $12- or $13-billion problem,” Bradley said. “If it’s not addressed in a couple years, it will be a $20 or $25 billion dollar issue.”
* It’s also very possible that we could see some significant spending reforms, and not just in Medicaid…
Republicans might get behind efforts in the Senate to reform the state’s budget-busting Medicaid program, which provides health care for the poor.
State Sen. Pam Althoff, a McHenry Republican who was on a Senate committee that has been trying to tackle the issue, said she expects to see legislation moving soon. Changes could include changing who’s eligible for the program and how doctors are paid.
Althoff said Republicans continue to want to see spending cuts from state government.
“Medicaid reform, obviously, is one of those initiatives,” she said.
That Taxpayer Bill of Rights I wrote about before the break is just one aspect of the budget reforms floating around. There are more.
* Now, it’s possible the whole thing could fall apart. It’s also possible that some stuff may be enacted and other stuff may not be. There’s a lot to do in just a few short days. Still, it’s crunch time…
This is the end of 26 year veteran Ron Wait’s career. And he says the Legislature will have to act.
“Usually when the Legislature gets in crisis crescendo, it will get things done and I think we’re at that point right now.”
“Insiders” believe that there are at least eight incumbent House Republicans that are leaning towards voting in favor of tax increases during the lame duck.
* Related…
* Illinois Politicians Study Derivatives On State Debt: Illinois politicians are reviewing whether to follow in California’s footsteps by forcing the state’s bond underwriters to disclose what credit derivatives they have entered into on Illinois’s debt. Staff members working for Illinois House of Representatives Speaker Michael Madigan reached out to California officials on Wednesday for information about how the Golden State has gone about improving disclosures relating to credit default swaps on its own state debt.
* The biggest news over the holiday break was Danny Davis dropping out of the mayor’s race, which left Carol Moseley Braun as the only major black candidate…
Braun and Davis had met repeatedly behind closed doors in recent days amid pressure to emerge with a single, consensus black candidate. The decisive meeting came earlier Friday, after Meeks returned to town.
Davis’ departure clears the way for Braun to run as the only major African American candidate in a crowded field that also includes former presidential chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, former School Board President Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle. […]
Davis called Braun “an outstanding woman” and introduced her as “the next mayor.”
A smiling Braun hugged both Davis and Meeks before saying their combined goal is to “reinvigorate our city.”
“We will create a city that works for all people in every neighborhood,” Braun said.
* Perhaps the second biggest story was Carol Mosely Braun’s mouth. Ms. Braun was the high-road candidate for US Senate back in 1992. Not any longer…
In response to a critical column, Chicago mayoral candidate Carol Mosley Braun lashed out [last week] against Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg.
“I’m just going to tell the truth about these things. He is a drunk and a wife beater, and he insulted the entire African-American community in Chicago. And the Sun-Times, particularly based on its demographic … ought to do better by Chicagoans than to give this man a continual platform for his divisive rantings in the newspaper,” said Braun at a news conference.
Alas, after February we won’t have Carol Moseley Braun to kick around anymore, and I for one will feel the loss. She represents the egomaniacal muddle that Chicago black leadership has slid into, where calls for imaginary and self-destructive racial solidarity trump minor concerns like reason or history. […]
I hope some ambitious University of Chicago sociology graduate student does her masters thesis on the search for a so-called “consensus” candidate among the marginalized black power structure in Chicago; it would make for a fascinating study in magical thinking.
That I’m a drunk is no denying — reformed, with years of sobriety under my belt. I never made a secret of it, indeed wrote a book about it and am proud of my progress. That she feels recovery is some kind of low indictment just shows how clueless she is. The second accusation is a bald lie, and if Braun ever runs into my wife, she can expect to receive an even worse earful than I’ve ever dished out. Then I guess Braun will picket our house.
Braun also used the press conference as an opportunity to further question frontrunner Rahm Emanuel’s candidacy. After saying that “everybody in this room knows [Rahm] doesn’t live here,” she criticized former President Clinton’s endorsement of Emanuel.
“We know that Mr. Clinton and Emanuel have a relationship,” Braun said in a statement. “But if Rahm is going to invite his buddies to Chicago to campaign for him then he ought to invite his friend Bart Stupak, who along with Rahm took a woman’s right to choose out of the health care bill. He ought to invite his buddy Tom Tancredo who blocked the Dream Act. Or he can have his friend Leland Brendsel stop by. Brendsel was in charge of Freddie Mac and played a huge role in the mortgage meltdown, and was a major Rahm contributor.”
Braun said Emanuel is an outsider because “for one thing, he doesn’t live here.” She was referring to questions about whether Emanuel meets residency eligibility requirements to run for mayor. The Chicago Board of Elections last week ruled Emanuel is a resident and ballot-eligible. That ruling has been appealed in court and could ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
“Everybody in this room knows he doesn’t live here,” Braun told reporters. “He had to go search for wedding dresses hidden in the basement to even make the case he had a residence. I mean, come on.”
“The superintendent, again, is not from here, doesn’t understand the city. [He had] to learn it [and] get a guide book out. You need to get somebody who knows Chicago to run the Chicago Police Department,” Carol Moseley Braun said at a press event to outline her own plans to reduce crime.
Braun has allotted $5 million for the campaign, including a run-off if needed.
That ain’t much, particularly if there’s a runoff. And campaign contributions are now capped, so the cash won’t flood in if she wins the runoff like it would’ve in the past.
* Related…
* Long road to ‘consensus’ black candidate: Braun ramped up the pressure on Davis on Friday, sending out a news release that Meeks’ heaviest-hitting business backers, Com Ed executives Frank Clark and John Hooker, were joining her campaign. About 5 p.m., Meeks called Braun and told her to come to Davis’ office — he’d be pulling out to endorse her.
* Moseley Braun says she’s most qualified for mayor’s job: Chico instantly tried to portray both Braun and Emanuel as ” Washington, D.C., politicians” while saying he has worked for years in Chicago, serving on boards and as Daley’s chief of staff. “I succeeded in every public service position I held because I built coalitions across ethnic and racial lines,” Chico said in a statement.
* Teacher coalition calls for elected school board
* Top Mayoral candidates opposed to elected Chicago school board idea: Three candidates — former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, ex-U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and Gery Chico, who once served as Chicago Board of Education president — each said they are opposed to the idea and argued it could further politicize public education in Chicago.
* Candidate Del Valle wouldn’t defend parking meter contract
* Del Valle: Chicago’s parking meter contract is ‘crazy‘
* Rahm Emanuel’s White House experience cuts both ways in Chicago mayor’s race: Based on that philosophy, some of Emanuel’s mayoral foes say he obstructed comprehensive immigration reform because it would hurt Democrats at the polls. Some also hold him responsible for Congress’ failure to pass the DREAM Act, the residency bill for children of undocumented immigrants. Emanuel was noticeably silent on the issue. When asked where he stands, Emanuel reverted to his personal story as the “son and grandson of immigrants.” He also said that while he was in Congress, he sponsored or co-sponsored comprehensive immigration reform every year.
* Alderman of Madigan ward stepping down: The decisions by both [Alderman] Olivo and [Marty] Quinn to file nominating petitions raised eyebrows because both are so close to the speaker. But the 13th Ward Democrats last month told Sun-Times columnist Rich Miller, who also runs the Capitol Fax newsletter and blog, that Olivo was “awaiting final clearance from physicians” to seek another term. “Quinn filed as a precaution,” Miller reported.
* VIDEO: 53rd Ward Alderman Ed Bus makes a surprise appearance
After six years, countless briefs and motions as well as accusations of impropriety, 16 former state government workers will get to tell a jury why they think they were fired because of their political beliefs.
Year-end projections for 2010 show banks and other lending institutions filed 51,900 new foreclosure suits in Cook County Circuit Court. The clerk’s office won’t have a final tally until mid-January, but a spokeswoman said the number is among the highest on the books.
The projections suggest foreclosures continue a steady climb that began in 2006, when filings in Cook County Circuit Court sat at 18,916 and jumped 70 percent in 2007 to 32,269. In the first half of the decade, foreclosures ranged from 12,000 to 15,000 annually.
It also suggests too, experts say, that the housing crisis hasn’t abated, but rather just spread to new demographics.
“What we’ve seen is a lot of shifts in where the growth is occurring and that’s mostly in the suburbs and among middle income and higher income” groups, said Geoff Smith, senior vice president of the Woodstock Institute, a Chicago-based non-profit research organization.
Think three years plus. That’s how long it’s expected to take for Illinois to regain jobs lost during the Great Recession under some of the brightest forecasts. But it could be years longer.
The timelines are unwelcome news for the unemployed.
While this year is expected to bring continued gradual improvements in job growth, the biggest gains aren’t forecast until 2013 and 2014 by economic research firms IHS Global Insight and Moody’s Analytics.
* Jobs 2011 Slight upgrade, but competition still stiff…
If you’re planning to keep your job or find a new one in 2011, the new year’s outlook is positive, labor experts say.
In terms of layoffs, planned job cuts are already down about 60 percent from 2009, according to Chicago employment counseling firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
Although hiring will improve slightly in 2011, that doesn’t necessarily mean job seekers will have an easier time finding work, the firm reports.
* Another Victim of the Great Recession: Child Support Payments
* Tourism numbers at Lincoln sites show a drop: But tourism and historic-site managers said the fall-off from the 200th anniversary celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in 2009 was anticipated. They remain encouraged that numbers in most cases were ahead of 2008.
* Hospitals giving more, but demand also is rising
The bill adds some punishment. For towns that don’t make minimum payments, starting in 2015, the state can divert some of a town’s income or sales tax receipts to cover the pension payments. Municipal lobbyists suggested that will lead to dramatic tax hikes or service cuts.
But the measure also pushes pension debt further out, requiring suburbs to reach just 90 percent funding by 2040 instead of the current law: 100 percent by 2033.
And the bill would eventually save Chicago and suburbs by cutting benefits of new hires starting next year. The traditional retirement age would rise from 50 to 55 and it would become more difficult to spike pensions with end-of-career salary bumps.
* Wage-theft law takes effect without many teeth: More than five months since Quinn signed the law, however, his administration hasn’t finished writing enforcement rules.
* Campaign cash, state pensions addressed under laws for 2011
* New Ill. law pushes ‘fair’ taxes on mobile homes: The measure, scheduled to take effect Saturday along with nearly 200 other new Illinois laws, requires a factory-assembled home on private property and not part of a mobile home park to be assessed and taxed as real property. Gone would be the days of such affected properties being taxed by counties at 15 cents per square foot — a rate that drops over time as the home ages… [The law] exempts existing homes until they’re sold, transferred or relocated.
* Brynden’s Law among new 2011 laws: The new year will ring in more than 200 new laws, of which several originated in southern Illinois. One, named in memory Herrin child Brynden Gibson, will expand the state’s violent offender registry to include persons convicted of shaking babies to death.
* New Speeding Law On the Books: The law, crafted by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, eliminates the possibility of court supervision for any driver convicted of speeding 40 miles per hour or more over the speed limit, allowing only for up to a year in jail, probation, or both.
* Opponents fight to protest outside Church of Scientology: A Chicago judge will decide this month whether a city code prevents protesters who oppose Scientology’s teachings from expressing their discontent any time the church’s doors are open or only during its conventional Sunday worship service.
* Lost German Chicago: Lost German Chicago traces German-American life through the tumultuous events of the Beer Riots, Haymarket Affair, Prohibition, and America’s entry into two world wars.
* Chuck Berry Collapses On Keyboard At Congress Theater
