* 4:30 pm - Charlie Cook has just moved Democratic Congressman Phil Hare’s race from “Lean Democratic” to “Tossup.”
Not unexpected. But things sure are going south in a hurry for the Democrats. Cook rates this as a +3 Democratic district. It’s not one they should be in danger of losing.
* And just so we have something else to talk about in comments, our old friend Simon Edelman has produced another video for the Quinn campaign. Check it out…
Sources close to Jim Edgar are confirming that the former governor is endorsing Bill Brady for the state’s top government job.
After a few days off, I found out about it from Capitol Fax. But Mr. Edgar blabbed about his intentions in a little-noticed Downstate radio interview a few days ago. Beyond that, Mr. Edgar sponsored a fundraiser for Mr. Brady featuring horse-racing industry types around the state fair last month, though he wasn’t able to attend himself. Wife Brenda Edgar hosted.
You can hear Edgar briefly mention that he’ll endorse Bill Brady on WDWS Radio by clicking here. Edgar, of course, has been highly critical of Brady in the past. A little background…
* Edgar whacks Brady again: Edgar has previously called Brady’s plan for a 10 percent across-the-board cut “naive,” which he conceded Thursday led to angry calls from Brady backers.
* Edgar says he’ll vote for Brady: Edgar, however, said he likely wouldn’t hit the campaign trail to help shore up support for Brady. He said he would rather sit this election out and spend more time in his role as an academic at the University of Illinois.
* Pat Quinn Gives Former Governor Jim Edgar Some Love
* Hold Quinn’s Horses: Jim Edgar Takes Bill Brady to the Racetrack
* In other campaign news, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be in Illinois next month for a fundraiser and rally. The event will be hosted by Bill Brady. Ticket info is here. Many thanks to a commenter for the tip.
* Emptying out the queue…
* Brady Responds to Lotto Pick: “I’m concerned of the secrecy that has clouded this selection,” Brady said. “The [Better Government Association] was right on target when they demanded that Gov. Quinn be more transparent.”
* In speaking today with the Chicago Board of Elections, it seems like everybody’s trying to get their hands on the racial makeup of the city’s voters. The Board doesn’t have it, but Sen. Dick Durbin tried to lay out the ethnic situation…
“In the population, there are more Hispanics than blacks [and] more blacks than whites. In the voting population, there’s more whites than blacks, [and] more blacks than Hispanics. So Mayor Daley has put together a coalition of mainly white voters and Hispanics, and enough blacks to get a majority. And the liberals would come his way, usually. Not his father, but for him. Now, you put in a black or a Hispanic or a white [candidate], and you say, ‘OK, what’s your coalition?’ You can’t do it alone. No single group can do it.”
He’s right about the coalition aspect, but wrong about the numbers. There are more whites living in Chicago than blacks and more blacks than Latinos, according to the 2000 Census.
The Chicago Elections Board estimates about 15 percent Latino registered voters, but they admit it’s just a rough guess.
* However, the folks at the Illinois Manufacturers Association ran the city’s Census block groups through the voter file and have come up with this breakdown of the city’s registered voters by race and ethnicity…
Including “other” into the mix means whites and Latinos increase by about three points each. Also, keep in mind that “registered voters” doesn’t equal turnout. Latino turnout is notoriously low. Black turnout has been very strong.
*** UPDATE *** From the IMA we get 2008 turnout…
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
And while we’re at it, the website Radical Cartography has a map of the city’s racial breakdown…
Rush says he is focused on trying to unify African-Americans around a single “consensus candidate.”
“I’m trying to be a diplomat, a local George Mitchell, to try to help my community out of this maze that exists,” he told the Chicago News Cooperative, referring to the former Senator and Middle East peace envoy for the Obama administration. “And I’m having some success in it.”
If he’s having success, there’s no evidence of it yet. African-American folks like Larry Rogers, James Meeks, Terry Peterson, Jesse and Sandi Jackson, Jim Reynolds, Rickey Hendon, Carol Moseley-Braun and a cast of dozens still to be named are all out there floating their names. Congressman Danny Davis thinks he’s the one who could unify the city…
Davis thinks he could be the one to lead Chicago’s disparate factions to the promised land, saying that he could unify “all the different groupings of people” jockeying for power since Daley said last week he would not seek a seventh term next year. He said hundreds of people, “everywhere I go,” have asked him if he would run in the Feb. 22 election.
Now, a lot of the people mentioned above and many, many others are floating their names so they can be in on the game later. They’ll announce that they’ve decided not to run and are throwing their vast support to such-and-such candidate. Try to remember that as we move forward.
* On to the Latinos, where yet another Hispanic politician is claiming he’s in. Newly appointed Illinois Commerce Commission Chairman Manny Flores is confirming a report by Windy Citizen that he is circulating petitions and will make a “special announcement” this Saturday.
A possible successor to City Clerk Miguel del Valle has emerged, one week after del Valle joined the stampede of mayoral hopefuls.
State Rep. Susana Mendoza, a Southwest Side Democrat, told the Chicago News Cooperative on Wednesday that she is gathering the voter signatures that would qualify her to appear on the ballot for city clerk in the Feb. 22 election.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel met privately with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Wednesday night to discuss the race for mayor of Chicago, a post for which both men are potential candidates. […]
“Rahm and I agreed that the city’s financial crisis puts Chicago at a tipping point. The ramifications of this tipping point could tear at the social, political and economic fiber that holds our city together and makes it great,” Jackson said. “Both of us are very concerned about the upcoming November 2nd election and the subsequent municipal elections, and agreed that every possible contender should conduct their effort on the moral high ground because our city deserves a very serious debate about its economic future.”
Jackson has had some harsh words for Emanuel, so if he and Emanuel stick to their pledge it could lower the temperature gauge a bit. But that’s just them. And Jackson talked a bit of trash today to RollCall…
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) may not be ready to announce whether he will run for Chicago mayor, but he is already talking tough about taking on another potential candidate — Rahm Emanuel.
“I know what it takes to compete against Rahm,” Jackson said Thursday of President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.
* But is Jackson actually backing state Sen. James Meeks? The Senator seemed to indicate that to Kristen McQueary…
[Meeks’] candidacy is telling on several fronts. It indicates that U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-2nd), of Chicago, isn’t running, nor is his wife, Ald. Sandi Jackson, of the 7th Ward. Meeks and Jackson remain tight. They wouldn’t run against one another.
Governor Pat Quinn today joined the cast and crew of the new television drama “Ride-Along” to highlight its impact on Illinois’ economy. The show is expected to generate approximately $25 million economic activity and create more than 400 Illinois jobs.
“‘Ride-Along’ is great example of how the film industry creates good Illinois jobs and improves our economy,” said Governor Quinn. “The state’s strengthened film tax credit demonstrates our commitment to growing this industry and creating more opportunities for people to work.”
Based in Chicago, “Ride-Along” is a police drama that follows Chicago police detectives in their day-to-day lives on the streets. The show was created by Rockford native Shawn Ryan and stars Chicago native Jennifer Beals. “Ride-Along,” which filmed a one-hour pilot episode in Chicago in April, was picked up as a series by 20th Century Fox Television in May. The show began filming in July and will premiere midseason on FOX.
* The Question: If a TV show was made about this year’s Illinois campaign, what would it be called? Bonus points for suggesting actors, plot lines etc.
* I told subscribers about the slightly changed New York Times FiveThirtyEight projection for Illinois governor. But I thought we’d open it up for discussion. Here you go…
That’s up from an 86.7 percent chance earlier in the month. Not a big difference, but the trend ain’t Quinn’s friend.
In case you’re interested, here’s FiveThirtyEight’s national forecast…
* Meanwhile, as noted below, Bill Brady campaigned with former Arkansas governor, Fox News host and presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee yesterday…
Brady told reporters he admired Huckabee’s record of fiscal conservatism, and promised to emulate it if he’s elected.
“[Huckabee] knows how to rebuild an economy, how to lower the burden of taxes on families and businesses, [how] to grow private sector jobs and spend state resources [responsibly],” Brady said.
The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration found that 90 tax cuts were enacted in legislative sessions from 1997 through 2005, while Huckabee was governor, and those cuts reduced tax revenues by $378 million. But Huckabee fails to mention the 21 tax increases that occurred under his watch and that raised revenues by substantially more. The total net tax increase under Huckabee’s tenure was an estimated $505.1 million, says the Department of Finance and Administration’s Whitney McLaughlin, adding that the figure has been adjusted for inflation.
It’s way too late, but the Quinn campaign should’ve hired that guy. Quinn claimed this week that Brady would follow the lead of other Republican governors and raise taxes. If he’d been paying attention, he could’ve used that Huckabee factoid yesterday.
* Green Party gubernatorial nominee Rich Whitney is getting desperate. From an e-mail sent to supporters…
Circumstances force me to be blunt: My campaign is REALLY hurting for money right now. Just when we need to be peaking, so that we can get some radio and cable TV ads and buy yard and window signs, and numerous other essentials, we are instead scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Whitney goes on to say that some of his supporters “have not followed through on such basic fundraising efforts as expected.” Big surprise. More…
It absolutely kills me to go through Chicago and listen to a wealthy vanity candidate like Scott Lee Cohen inundate the airwaves with his radio ads, and coat the streets with his yard signs, whe he has absolutely nothing of substance to say — while I have plenty of substance to say, and yet am struggling to get my message OUT to where people can HEAR it, or see it.
Cohen may indeed be a “vanity” candidate, but the Chicago pawn broker knows enough to realize the value of cold, hard cash to campaigns. The Green Party is basically a joke. Yes, Whitney scored 10 percent during the last governor’s race, but he did it despite himself. He was, essentially, the “None of the Above” candidate. For some reason, he thought he eared those 10 points. So, who’s really the vain candidate here?
Discussions must continue on pension reform, cuts to the state budget and building additional revenues, even if those come in the form of a tax increase, said Sheila Simon, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor.
“None of that is going to make the next governor, the next House and Senate popular in the short run, but I think doing the right thing in the long run is going to put all of us in a better position,” Simon said Wednesday. […]
State Rep. Jehan Gordon, D-Peoria, said constituents are concerned with education, crime, the economy and jobs. She still does not support an income tax increase.
“There is not an income tax that would fix the problem that we have. How does the business community respond to raising taxes? For every action there’s a reaction. So is the business community going to cut jobs to keep a strong bottom line?” Gordon said.
“People often say we’re out of the recession, but tell that to the 10 percent of the people in this area who are still unemployed and unable to find gainful employment even though they’ve been looking.”
If Kilbride was thinking politically shrewdly, he’d have declined the offer for at least
two months.
All these national groups deciding whether to pour money into a race to dump him, now Murnane can offer them a bigger scalp, not just a justice but a chief justice. He did not do himself any favors.
Very good point.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From Chief Justice Kilbride’s campaign…
The Illinois Supreme Court announced today that the Court’s Justices unanimously elected Tom Kilbride as the Court’s next Chief Justice.
Tom will replace Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald, who is retiring due to health reasons. Chief Justice Fitzgerald is widely respected for his superlative legal ability, grace and dignity. His long and distinguished career is an inspiration for judges and lawyers everywhere. His retirement is a loss for the citizens of Illinois.
Tom is honored to have the unanimous, bipartisan support of his colleagues on the Illinois Supreme Court to serve as the state’s next Chief Justice.
Across the 3rd Judicial District, Tom enjoys broad-based bipartisan support in his race for retention. Prosecutors, police and other law enforcement officers support his retention, as do retired judges of both parties and many former presidents of the Illinois State Bar Association. Tom also enjoys support from business and community leaders.
Tom has a strong reputation as a fair and evenhanded judge with common sense. Tom believes the courts should work for everybody – not just the powerful and politically connected. As a judge on the Illinois Supreme Court, Tom has devoted himself to ensuring average people get a fair shake.
Supreme Court Justice Tom Kilbride has been selected by his colleagues to be chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, Illinois Statehouse News has learned.
The order will come down today naming the 10-year veteran of the high court to be its leader for a three-year term beginning Oct. 26, a source familiar with the situation said late Wednesday.
Expect the elevation to be a done deal by later this morning.
Kilbride is up for retention this year, and has been targeted for defeat by the Illinois Civil Justice League, among others. He’ll need 60 percent to retain his office, and in this environment anything could happen.
The Supremes have shown many times before that they are not above politics. Giving Kilbride a late boost is pretty darned blatant.
Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, Illinois justices rotate who serves as chief, serving three-year terms at a time. Justice Thomas Kilbride of Rock Island has the most seniority on the panel among those who haven’t yet served in the top spot.
That doesn’t mean Kilbride will be the next chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. The justices have no official guidelines directing who becomes chief justice. They vote privately among themselves.
Kilbride’s seniority could put him as a frontrunner. Or, justices could choose someone who’s already served as chief justice to finish Fitzgerald’s term, among other options.
Kilbride is also in the midst of what could be a tough campaign to stay on the court. Every 10 years, Illinois judges face a retention election. To keep their jobs on the court, 60 percent of voters in their districts have to vote “yes.”
So, not as blatant as I initially thought, but still quite advantageous.
Wednesday’s announcement by Kane County State’s Attorney John Barsanti marks the first time his office has used the 1993 Illinois Streetgang Terrorism Omnibus Prevention Act, although similar operations have been conducted in DuPage and Boone counties.
“We have gang crime in the county. It’s no secret,” Barsanti said. “This just gives us another method of attack.”
So far, 50 of the people listed in the Sept. 8 lawsuit have been served with a summons to appear in civil court in Geneva from Oct. 4 to 7.
A report released Thursday by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac shows Illinois with 16,808 foreclosure filings last month. Filings include default notices, auction-sale notices and bank
repossessions.
The filings represent one in every 314 housing units in the state. That rate is 29 percent higher than in August last year and ninth-highest nationally.
Farmers have already harvested about a quarter of the corn crop in central and eastern Illinois. That’s well above the five year average and certainly topping the late harvest in 2009.
Above normal temperatures are advancing the harvest season. It’s true in Illinois and North Carolina.
* Higher fines for speeding in Illinois start today
Internet bloggers who anonymously ridicule public officials are like terrorists who hijack American planes and fly them into buildings, according to Mokena Mayor Joe Werner.
Werner made that comment at a Sept. 13 village board meeting. A videotape of that session is available on Mokena’s official Web site (mokena.org).
During a telephone call Wednesday, Werner told me he wasn’t backing off from his statement.
“They’re cowards,” Werner said. “That was the point I was making.
It was supposed to happen this week. We already had the details: 130 officers to be reassigned.
But once the department’s partners in its Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy, or CAPS, started to protest at 7 p.m. Wednesday, the moves were put on hold — until at least next month.
* Tribune: What about … Chicago?: One more prediction: A police union that’s unhappy now isn’t likely to get a lot happier. The next superintendent likely won’t be able to manufacture hundreds of new officers any more than Weis could. Chicago … is … broke.
Commissioners — and even the head of the county’s ethics board, MaryNic Foster — agree that one of the most significant pieces of legislation bans firms from making political contributions to elected leaders if they’ve audited the county’s finances, aided in issuing bonds or done legal work for the county.
But Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool, a North Side Democrat who is running for Cook County Assessor as an independent, hailed the passage of other reform legislation that he authored, aimed squarely at his opponent, Joe Berrios.
Schlickman, at his last meeting after five years as RTA chief, said transportation officials were skeptical about the state’s ability to come up with the $2.7 billion the legislature approved last year for five years’ worth of highway, transportation and infrastructure projects.
The state already owes the RTA $300 million this year just to pay its bills.
A former trustee and director of parks and recreation for the village of Hawthorn Woods has filed a federal lawsuit claiming she was fired because of her loyalties to the previous administration.
However, defendants said the lawsuit is typical political fodder from former mayor Keith Hunt, who is the attorney for Kimberly Lynch, the plaintiff of the lawsuit.
The litigation, filed Sept. 8, also claims Lynch was penalized because she told people in the community Chief Operating Officer Pamela Newton kept toys that had been collected for the Toys for Tots program in 2009, and that the village hired Newton and finance Director Kristen Kazenas to full-time jobs despite not having money in the village budget to do so.
I’m Mark Kirk, candidate for the United States Senate and I approve this message.
I coordinated the Project “Abuelita” that reunited grandparents with their grandchildren in Illinois.
Working as your Senator, I will help Latino families who want to start their own businesses and combat gangs.
These are difficult times. Latino families in Illinois deserve a senator who works for them.
Thoughts?
…Adding… More on Project “Abuelita” from the campaign…
“Working with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Highland Park, and his Latino Advisory Board secured tourist visas for the 13 grandparents in a program called Project ‘Abuelita’ - Spanish for grandmother.” (The News Sun, 8/4/06)
“The first wave of seniors came in December from Tonatico - another Mexican town with a large population living in Waukegan. Kirk is planning to help another wave of grandparents from Tonatico and La Luz visit over the summer. He is also trying to start the program in San Jose, Guanajuato, which also has a large number of emigrants living in Waukegan.” (The News Sun, 5/1/06)
…Adding More… The Giannoulias campaign is suggesting that Kirk is releasing a Web video ahead of the expected Dream Act vote next week to cover himself if he votes against it.
…Adding Still More… Giannoulias campaign response…
“Washington insider Mark Kirk is at it again - this time lying to Latino families about his record on issues that matter to them. With this new ad, it seems Congressman Kirk misremembers that he has been opposing common-sense immigration reform and has failed to support the DREAM Act. That’s not a champion Illinois’ Latino families can trust,” said Kathleen Strand.
“Alexi believes the United States needs comprehensive immigration reform that secures our borders, protects the rights of all workers and modernizes our legal immigration programs. Unlike Congressman Kirk, he supports the bipartisan DREAM Act.”
…Adding Even Still More…From the Kirk campaign…
Ads have shipped Telemundo and Univision….will start tomorrow or Friday
Last month the jury deadlocked on 23 of the 24 counts faced by Blagojevich, convicting him only of making false statements during a 2005 interview in which the then-governor told an FBI agent that he was not involved in the details of fundraising.
“He noted that when he attends his events he becomes aware of some of those who are supporting him, but he does not track, or want to know, who is contributing or how much they are contributing to him,” the defense quoted the agent as recounting in his report of the interview.
The defense contended that Blagojevich’s comments to the FBI were taken out of context and that it was “common knowledge” that the governor would be included in fundraising discussions with his re-election bid the following year.
“And moreover, the Governor actually told the FBI agents that he was involved in fundraising during the very interview in question,” the defense motion said.
Keep in mind that the defense is quoting the agent. There could be plenty more there. I checked with the US Attorney’s office to see if the FBI report was online somewhere because I couldn’t find it. Here is the response…
No. It was not admitted into evidence at trial (which is not unusual)
So, I suppose the testimony by the agent was what did RRB in.
* Blagojevich attorney Sam Adam, Jr. said time and again during the trial that his client was “broke.” He could be…
Meanwhile, the filing revealed that the former governor is so cash-strapped that he can’t even pay for the transcripts from his own trial. Lawyers asked for permission to review the transcripts that they could not purchase.
“Prior to the end of trial, defendant’s fund from which his legal fees were paid was depleted, and as a result, Blagojevich has not been able to procure copies of the official transcripts from trial,” lawyers wrote.
All of the charges against Doug Belkin, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested while covering the Rod Blagojevich trial in July, were dismissed yesterday by a magistrate judge in U.S. Federal District Court.
Mr. Belkin faced two citations for “disturbance” and for “disobeying signs and directions,” according to a spokesman for the U.S District Attorney’s office.
Mr. Belkin was taken into custody at the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago after he disobeyed orders from a security guard while attempting to interview one of the lawyers in the trial. “I told him three times to back up and he didn’t,'’ the security officer said at the time. “He put his hands on me.”
Security run amok. Yes, they need to keep some calm in the federal building, but it’s not a 1st Amendment Exclusion Zone.
[Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart has] been offered up to voters as a young progressive independent, even though he’s also beholden to the Southwest Side political oligarchs.
The other day, Kass said Dart would run once he received the expected endorsement of Mike Madigan. Dart and Madigan are not allies. Far from it. So now, Kass appears to be recycling this charge without including a name so he can’t be called out as a serial fantasist.
By far, Kass has attempted to destroy more people with unsubstantiated nonsense than anyone else in the Chicago media. Dart’s late father was, indeed, a powerful behind the scenes player in city politics. But Dart himself has done a very good job of proving his independence. His connections have and will definitely help him, no doubt about it, but as I’ve said many times before the South Side Irish are not some monolithic beast, no matter how hard Kass tries to make them so.
Kass learned politics at the feet of Eddie Vrdolyak. Fast Eddie hated the Irish, except for Ed Burke. Kass often quotes Burke in a favorable manner. See? Two can play this game.
* I like and respect state Sen. James Meeks. I think he’s a decent guy. But his alliances and his beliefs will most certainly become an issue if he runs for mayor. Here’s a 2007 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center…
The Rev. James Meeks is a key member of Chicago’s “Gatekeepers” network, an interracial group of evangelical ministers who strive to erase the division between church and state. A stalwart anti-gay activist, Meeks has used his House of Hope mega-church to launch petition drives for the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), a major state-level “family values” pressure group that lauded him last year for leading African Americans in “clearly understanding the threat of gay marriage.”
With over 22,000 members, Meeks’ congregation was large enough to buoy his successful 2002 campaign for state senator. Last year, he ran for governor as a virtual single-issue candidate, drawing national support from Christian fundamentalists by boldly vowing to fight marriage equality at every turn. Meeks eventually dropped out of the race.
Meeks and the IFI are partnered with Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defense Fund, major anti-gay organizations of the Christian Right. They also are tightly allied with Americans for Truth, an Illinois group that said in a press release last year that “fighting AIDS without talking against homosexuality is like fighting lung cancer without talking against smoking.”
And there’s plenty of video out there which could be embarrassing. Like this one…
He’s done lots of good things in his career, but his mouth always gets him in trouble, and there are large numbers of videos online that will give opposition researches lots of work.
* A couple of months ago, Sen. Rickey Hendon told me that he would run for mayor if Sen. Meeks did not. That pledge may now be inoperative…
State Sen. Rickey Hendon also told us on Tuesday that he plans to run for Mayor. Hendon is a former Chicago Alderman who has represented the fifth district in Springfield since 1993.
“I’m in all the way,” said Hendon. “Somebody’s gotta fix this mess and I think I am qualified to do it.”
Hendon says reopening Meigs would be part of his plan to bring more business to Chicago. He also says he’d support bringing a riverboat casino to the city.
“I’m like the black Sarah Palin,” Hendon said, meaning he intends to use a grassroots effort to get elected. He said it’s about the people of the city, not who has the most money.
Chicago City Clerk Miguel Del Valle scoffs at potential candidates who in the past week have said they’re thinking about running. Del Valle was quick to jump in the race.
DEL VALLE: I decided that I was not going to play the game of forming an exploratory committee or consulting with a long list of people or pretending to consult with a long list of people. I think that would be disingenuous.
The first thing that Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin wants to tell voters about the suddenly wide-open Chicago mayoral race on the last Tuesday in February is this: Don’t get overly focused on it yet.
“Two years ago when I was running for [Cook County] state’s attorney and [Barack] Obama, was running for president, Obama sucked all the oxygen out of the political arena,” Suffredin says. “I think that [the mayoral election] right now is causing people to skip the Nov. 2 election. We all have to be encouraging everyone to vote [on Nov. 2], not just to move on to the next election.”
“I’d challenge anyone who says that we are trailing badly downstate. I’ve been campaigning all over the state and I’ve been getting a good response wherever I’ve been…Not everyone is happy, but I’m running into a good number of folks that makes me encouraged about our support across the state.”
OK, since she issued the challenge, here are the Tribune’s regional crosstabs…
I know that Ms. Simon is not a math professor at SIU, but that’s a 25-point Brady lead Downstate. And I don’t know about her, but I would consider a 25-point deficit to be “trailing badly.”
It’s too bad the linked story didn’t point that out as well.
Simon was asked about an actual poll, but a reporter quoted the wrong poll in his question. It was the Tribune, not Rasmussen, which had those regional crosstabs. Rasmussen doesn’t post regional xtabs for Illinois.
Gov. Pat Quinn [yesterday] suggested voters should be wary of promises not to raise taxes from opponent Bill Brady, saying Republican governors have a history of doing just that once they’re safely elected.
“That’s the Republican way,” Quinn said. “That’s what (Gov. Jim) Thompson did, twice. That’s what George Ryan did. That’s what they do.”
It’s also what Jim Edgar did, but Quinn didn’t mention him. Still, for a guy whose own tax hike will be used (now, after a major poll-driven revision) mainly to provide property tax relief, Quinn has a lot of nerve suggesting that somebody else has a secret plan to balance the budget. No way will Quinn stop with a one percent tax hike if he’s elected because that one percent will do nothing to stop the flood of red ink.
* From an Alexi Giannoulias press release…
As with Congressman Mike Castle’s stunning loss last night and the losses of Senator Lisa Murkowski and Senator Bob Bennett before him, the anti-incumbent, conservative wave will claim Congressman Mark Kirk as its next victim in November, with Mike Labno as the only pro-life, pro-gun candidate running for Senate in Illinois.
Congressman Mark Kirk, a 10-year incumbent Washington insider, has tried and failed repeatedly to curry favor with the conservative base in Illinois, and now conservatives have a clear choice with a legitimate challenge from the right with Libertarian candidate Mike Labno officially on the Illinois ballot.
Labno doesn’t have any money for TV ads, and he has received mostly passing reference in news stories this month. Unless Giannoulias intends to inform voters of this Libertarian candidacy via expensive TV ads (and Giannoulias barely has enough for his own ads), then the vast majority of voters simply won’t know the guy exists.
“One commentator said the blogosphere is like an Irish bar at midnight,” Kirk said. “Everybody is throwing chairs at each other, and then the next morning, no one remembers what the argument was about.
I’ve been in quite a few Irish bars and have never seen a fight before 2 o’clock, but whatever. The entire blogosphere isn’t rowdy and drunk. Newspaper comment sections are where the real problem drunks hang out.
State election officials have been alerted about possible irregularities in Alexander County’s voter registration lists, but the county clerk says safeguards are in place to help prevent problems in November.
A newspaper report suggested the number of registered voters may exceed the number of residents eligible to vote in the southern Illinois county. County Clerk Francis Lee says she hasn’t had time to purge the rolls since taking office last year, but it’s her “intention to get it cleaned up.”
She says the process could take two years.
Two years? Are you kidding me? There are 7,100 people over the age of 18 in that county and 7.500 registered voters. Her office could hand address that many “Return to Sender” postcards in a few days.
The suicide rankings show there were 8.6 suicides per 100,000 people in Illinois in 2007, or 1,108 people total.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness notes the state-by-state data are from 2007. That’s before the economic crisis began and before cuts in services for mental illness.
Among those proposals are two that would hit motorists directly in the pocketbook and give legislators fits: doubling the state gasoline tax and earmarking a portion of the new revenue for transit; and expanding the use of tolling and variable pricing to better manage traffic and pay for needed improvements.
These recommendations echo key parts of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning’s strategic plan, scheduled for final approval in October.
The transit system suffers from inefficient organization, meager financial support and feeble state policies, stifling the first-class transportation network the region needs to compete in the global economy, the report says.
A night investigator for the city’s Department of Water Management is in hot water after his truck was stolen early Saturday morning from the parking lot of a Burrito King on the Far Northwest Side.
The investigator and several members of his crew had apparently stopped for tacos, even though they are paid to work eight hours straight.
Thanks to GPS, the truck was recovered a few hours later at the Renaissance Apartments on River Road.
WEIS: Morale is one of those things sometime people just say. Every townhall I’ve gone to and that question has been asked and I’ve said can anyone give me one idea what I could do to improve morale, I’ve never gotten an answer.
Union leaders say they now have an answer. They want him to resign. Weis posted a blog yesterday to quote “clarify a lot of misinformation” coming from union leaders but he says he will no longer answer questions on the topic because he doesn’t want to get side-tracked by people’s personal agendas. Weis says he has no problem with officers who are planning a march [today] to protest his leadership.
Leaders for the Fraternal Order of Police called on officers and their families to march at 10 a.m. to police headquarters at 35th Street and Michigan Avenue to protest what they called Weis’ lack of leadership. Chief among their complaints is how manpower in Chicago’s 25 police districts has suffered from officers being detailed to other assignments.
Salomon Abonce, 43, of the 8000 block of South Nottingham Avenue in Burbank, was pronounced dead at 10:32 p.m at Stroger Hospital, according to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office. […]
Shawntell Harris, of the 0-99 block of East Garfield Boulevard, was pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m. at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, according to a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Police say 21-year-old Colin Dalebroux, of Madison, Wisc., was killed by what appeared to be a pipe bomb. A second live bomb was located beside his body, police said at a news conference.
We don’t want to rush to judgment. And we can understand McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi’s reflexive response to stay in his job while defending himself against a 21-count felony indictment.
But, one way or another, Bianchi needs to step aside as his case plays out. One way is for him to resign outright. Another is for him to take an unpaid leave of absence. Either way, it would show that he is putting the business of the people ahead of his own personal travails.
* Sun-Times: Stay alert on CTA — or lose your gadgets: Between 2006 and 2009, the number of robberies on the CTA jumped 77 percent while thefts went up 17 percent, according to Chicago Police Department data obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times and the Better Government Association and first reported in Tuesday’s paper.
Chicago State University’s accreditation has been reaffirmed after being in limbo for more than a year due to concerns about poor retention and graduation rates.
Still, the news came too late to help the university persuade students to choose the South Side campus. First-time, full-time freshmen enrollment is down 12.9 percent from last year, to 513 students.
Chancellor Rita Cheng said SIUC would continue to support the free education veterans receive, even though a loss of state money for it will cost the university millions.[…]
The Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which controls grants and scholarship programs for college students, was required by the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget to remove $9 million given to its programs — without a reduction in the Monetary Award Program, according to the Commission’s website. It chose to remove funds from the Illinois Veterans Grant, the Illinois National Guard and Minority Teachers of Illinois programs.
But Cheng said the university would honor the veteran grant, even without state money.
Arthur Schultz spent most of his 20 years as mayor of Joliet without vocal cords after having them removed due to throat cancer. Though his voice didn’t carry, his influence certainly did. […]
Schultz, 77, announced Tuesday that he will not seek re-election in 2011, after five terms in office. He will serve the rest of his term, which expires May 3.
“It’s time for me and it’s time for Joliet to move on,” he said.
The balanced budget proposal is $5.4 million below last year’s spending plan and calls for no property tax increase or program funding cuts. Most of that reduction comes from eliminating 38 vacant full-time positions. Those savings will be utilized to help fund the new capital improvement debt.
The suit alleges that the gang members, through their actions, have harmed the city. Although the suit seeks unspecified monetary damages, the suit’s real value is for local police, Barsanti said.
