* From CLTV, here’s Gov. Pat Quinn’s press conference from earlier todayWTTW’s videos include press questions, so I’m posting them instead.
Budget questions…
Burr Oak Cemetery…
…Adding… I just checked the blog’s statistics and realized that traffic was as high this past Tuesday and Wednesday as it was during the days leading up to Rod Blagojevich’s removal by the Illinois Senate. Wow.
The best part is, the new server system showed no hints of strain. The fix worked.
Anyway, I thought you’d like to know. Thanks much.
* Swing State Project takes a look at 2nd Quarter congressional fundraising and discovers lackluster numbers for Democratic state Sen. Michael Bond. All the figures, of course, are in thousands…
From the narrative…
Overall, I’m struck by the lackluster sums from many highly-touted candidates on both sides of the aisle. For the Dems, Michael Bond (IL-10), Charlie Justice (FL-10), Paula Flowers (TN-03), and Bill Hedrick (CA-44) in particular will need to step up their game.
Bond only had a month or so to raise that money, but he can’t scare anybody else out of the race with those numbers. Compare his totals to Republican Adam Kinzinger for context and it’s even worse. Kinzinger is an amateur, while Bond is a respected go-getter, so expectations were very high. He was probably hurt by Kirk’s indecision on the Senate race (particularly from the hardcore pro-Israel types and the business lobby who are with the incumbent Kirk). Still, those totals simply should’ve been better. That report puts blood in the water.
Bond told me today he hopes to push hard and fast after Kirk finally announces and quickly report new fundraising numbers. That’s an absolute must.
* On a much brighter fundraising note, a top source says Comptroller Dan Hynes will report raising about $900,000 during the first six months of this year and will have around $3.5 million cash on hand. No word yet on Gov. Quinn’s fundraising, but expectations are low, particularly after that flap over his June fundraisers which had to be canceled.
* Republican state treasurer candidate Sen. Dan Rutherford filed his six-month disclosure report with the State Board of Elections this morning. Rutherford raised $267,000 and had a bit over $400,000 cash on hand.
* GOP state Sen. Dan Cronin, a recently all but declared candidate for DuPage County Board Chairman, filed this morning with $150,000 raised in the past six months and $80,000 cash on hand.
* Moving along to other issues, The Hill reported this week that they couldn’t find any GOP Senatorial candidates who would take a position on President Obama’s Supreme Court nomineee…
Republicans running for the Senate next year, including those scrounging for votes to win difficult primaries, aren’t saying how they’d vote on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Interviews with a dozen Republicans running for Senate seats across the country failed to find one candidate who was willing to offer a clear position, despite the two months of public debate since President Obama picked Sotomayor for the high court.
So, with GOP Congressman Mark Kirk’s Senate campaign kickoff announcement expected this coming Monday, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias is trying to make Sotomayor an issue. From a press release…
“I urge all individuals, Democrat and Republican, who have expressed an interest in running for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by President Obama to let Illinois voters know how they would carry out their responsibility on a confirmation vote for Judge Sotomayor.”
* Speaking of Kirk, far right national blogger Michelle Malkin took yet another whack at the Republican this week, and Illinois Review blogger Sam PIerce offered up some tongue in cheek Kirk campaign slogans…
* Mark Kirk Supports Manufacturing… in China and India
* Mark Kirk: Less Liberal
* Mark Kirk: Because Aborted Babies Don’t Vote
* Vote For Mark Kirk: Show Congress Cap and Trade Doesn’t Bother You
* Mark Kirk: A NARAL Republican
* Vote For Mark Kirk, Ignore His Fear of Lisa Madigan
* Vote Kirk: He Is Not Technically a Democrat
* Support Mark Kirk: Follow the McCain Model
* Politics First, Support Mark Kirk
* Conservative, Conshmervative, Vote For Kirk
* Mess With A RINO, Get The Horn
* Donate to Mark Kirk’s Campaign… Before The Cost of Everything Goes Up Thanks to Cap and Trade
* Vote For Kirk: Come On This Is Illinois, What Do You Expect?
* Mark Kirk: At Least He Wasn’t Appointed By Blagojevich
Frankly, “Mess With A RINO, Get The Horn,” is pretty darned good.
* GOP gubernatorial candidate Sen. Kirk Dillard got some good press in the Chicago Tribune today…
A newly proposed law would fire the entire University of Illinois Board of Trustees following an admissions scandal at the state’s most prestigious campus.
State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) proposed the legislation this week, saying the majority of U. of I. trustees failed to protect the university from the nepotism and patronage practices that plague Illinois politics. Eight of the nine current members were either appointed or reappointed by ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
But one of his primary opponents, Dan Proft, disagrees…
Now that all of this has come to light, Springfield politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, are attempting to foist responsibility onto admissions officers and university trustees whose only error was to go-along-to-get-along under political pressure from those very same politicians.
* 12:22 pm - The news gets even worse. From a press release. All emphasis added…
JUNE JOBLESS RATE INCHES HIGHER TO 10.3 PERCENT
0.2 PERCENT INCREASE TEMPERED BY SLOWING JOB LOSS
CHICAGO – The Illinois seasonally adjusted statewide unemployment rate for June is 10.3 percent, an increase of +0.2 percent over May, according to figures released today by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
“Although the June unemployment figure has again increased, this number represents a slower pace of job loss for the third consecutive month,” IDES Director Maureen O’Donnell said. “The first part of an economic recovery is actually a slower pace of job
loss. Positive news is on the horizon, but it’s too soon to tell when we will begin to see job growth.”
Total non-farm payroll in Illinois declined by -13,900 jobs in June. While Illinois has lost jobs for nine consecutive months, the rate of that decline has slowed for three consecutive months. The number of unemployed people reached 683,300, the highest since November 1983.
The Construction sector lost -5,400 jobs in June, its largest monthly job loss this year. Employment in the Manufacturing sector declined -2,800. Although that represents the 17th consecutive month the sector has shed jobs, it is the smallest decline in the last
eight months. The Professional and Business Services sector reported its strongest gain in the last 24 months, adding +2,400 workers in June.
As noted below, the state’s unemployment trust fund was down to just $81.8 million in cash earlier this month. That’s a $1.45 billion drop since January.
* Rep. David Winters flies a plane to Springfield most session weeks.
But this week’s flight was out of the ordinary. The plane’s alternator literally fell apart during Winters’ flight, knocking out all electrical power. He was left with no radio, no altimeter, no navigation system, no flaps and no way to pump fuel from the alternative gas tank when the main tank almost ran out of gas.
Moody’s Investors Service put the state of Illinois’s general-obligation bond ratings on review for possible downgrade, saying the state has long-term budgetary challenges.
The firm said the state has a long history of general-fund operating deficits, and liquidity in the fund has been increasingly strained, which it said was evidenced by growing use of short-term debt and delaying payments to Medicaid providers and vendors… Moody’s said some of the proposed measures would help in the short term but be at the expense of future budget years. […]
Moody’s said increasing evidence of strained liquidity, growing structural imbalance, further deterioration of fund balances and other factors could cause a downgrade on the ratings.
The review will focus on consideration of the state’s prospects for restoring structurally balanced financial operations while addressing sizable funding requirements for pensions and retiree health benefits, as well as the state’s liquidity position and growing debt burden.
A focus of the review will be the budget legislation for the current fiscal year.
Our “growing debt burden” is beyond obvious, as is our pension nightmare. If the “focus” of the review is the goofy budget which just passed, then the state could be cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
This action also applies to ratings that are linked to the state’s general obligation rating, including Build Illinois Bonds (rated A1), Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority’s Expansion Project (A2) and Dedicated Tax bonds (A2). In addition, it affects the state’s Aa2 general obligation rating on the global scale.
With unemployment still rising, Illinois has had to borrow federal money to meet its obligations for jobless benefits.
The state has drawn about $9 million from a federal credit line to help replenish its unemployment insurance fund and pay out close to $100 million in unemployment claims. The fund had dwindled to about $81.8 million as of July 5 from $1.45 billion at the start of 2009.
“We are concerned about how the state will move from here to return to balanced financial operations,” said Ted Hampton, the Moody’s analyst who wrote the report on Illinois. “The state has essentially kicked the can down the road in terms of making decisions.”
Moody’s action drew an immediate reaction from one of the Republicans running for governor, state Sen. Kirk Dillard, who voted against the new state budget.
The action “is not a surprise. Wouldn’t you do this?” Mr. Dillard said in a phone conversation. “It’s time for the state of Illinois to tear up its credit card. We are pushing our obligations out further and are exacerbating our operaqting deficits.”
Gov. Pat Quinn’s office had no immediate response.
* After promising legislative action this week to deal with cemetery regulations, nothing happened, and it’s the usual Statehouse disaster…
State lawmakers left the State Capitol until the fall without addressing promised reforms of the cemetery industry spurred by the discoveries of disinterred remains at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip and political jockeying in the 2010 governor’s race may be a factor. […]
Sen. Emil Jones III, a Chicago Democrat whose district includes Burr Oak, said he agreed to delay potential legislation after a variety of interests raised issues about how to best deal with reforms in the cemetery industry. But Jones also said he felt slighted that he was not asked to help develop Hynes’ reform package.
Jones, however, was quoted in a Hynes’ news release touting the package and a Hynes’ aide said the lawmaker met with the comptroller about the legislation.
But Hynes said that after talks involving the Senate’s Black Caucus, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, state’s attorneys, county recorders and Rev. Jesse Jackson, “everything was lined up” until Quinn “decided to move an amendment that basically threw a wrench in everything and killed the bill.”
* Hynes is a likely Quinn opponent in the Democratic primary, so it’s no wonder that politics might be involved. But there were other reasons…
Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago), who Tuesday offered up the possibility of a Senate vote this week on the cemetery legislation, backed away Wednesday. Without elaborating, he cited concerns toward the legislation from the cemetery industry and from the Archdiocese of Chicago.
“There are questions raised by the cemetery community, by the Catholic cemeteries who didn’t have a lobbyist here who called in. So, as a result, we’re going to take that up when we come back,” Cullerton said.
* Still, it’s hard to shake the cynical notion that Quinn is trying to milk this issue for all it’s worth. Remember this leak to Sneed yesterday?
Watch for Gov. Quinn to weigh in on the Burr Oak Cemetery nightmare by calling for public hearings similar to the ones he convened to deal with the University of Illinois admissions scandal.
From the governor’s Thursday public schedule…
Governor Pat Quinn will hold a press conference to announce the formation of the Cemetery Oversight Task Force
“We don’t need a committee. We need a regulation,” said Jackson, who called on Quinn to order lawmakers back to Springfield immediately to take up the cemetery legislation. “We don’t need to study this. It’s obvious what the deal is.
But the governor made it clear that he knows what’s best…
“I know all about cemeteries. I go to a lot of funerals.”
- requiring all cemetery staff who sell plots to be licensed, just like doctors, barbers and cosmetologists.
- requiring cemeteries to provide “reasonable maintenance.”
- requiring cemeteries to keep detailed maps and records and to file them with the county recorder of deeds.
- creating a consumer bill of rights.
Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes calls for a plan to give the state new and needed oversight concerning cemeteries. Plenty of legislators are clamoring for the same.
Translation: “This is appalling. This is bad. The public is calling for heads on a pike. We should … DO SOMETHING!
Let’s create new offices! New officials! New documents and processing systems! Let’s pay for it all with new taxes and proudly proclaim we’re leading the charge against this moral assault on our dearly departed, dead citizenry.
Except of course, grave robbing is already illegal.
It’s time to step back here.
Such a stupid, likely isolated criminal scheme simply must not be allowed to create an entire squadron of cemetery functionaries - wandering with global positioning units to track the mostly peaceful, mostly quiet, grave sites of hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans.
Indeed, it’s this kind of misguided thinking that has led Illinois state government into the bloated, fetid bureaucracy it has become.
The budget [which passed yesterday] relies on $3.5 billion in borrowing to help pay state worker pensions. At the same time, the budget acknowledges that more than $3 billion in payments owed to various providers of state services will be carried over into the new budget year.
“It does avoid meltdown … (and) it avoids a tax increase,” Radogno said.
I suppose that depends on your definition of “meltdown.” There are steep cuts in spending included in this thing…
Quinn’s office said that under the new budget, the General Revenue Fund - that is, the money controlled by Illinois officials and not simply a transfer of federal funds - would total $26 billion. That’s down from $30 billion in the previous budget.
What the budget deal will not do is address the state’s multibillion-dollar backlog of unpaid bills. In fact, the spending plan might even create longer payment delays for providers that don’t receive extra federal stimulus funds for Medicaid reimbursements.
The state will maintain payment cycles for providers such as hospitals that capture extra federal stimulus funds. That does not include pharmacists or some grant-funded human services, however.
Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, an Evanston Democrat, said the longer-term structural deficit will continue to plague state-funded services. “One thing that we’ll know with absolute certainty is that all of the hospitals, nursing homes and community-based health and human service providers will continue to experience severe cash flow problems,” particularly as the economic downturn makes it harder for them to access lines of credit, said Schoenberg, who said he’s working on two backup proposals if the borrowing schemes don’t pan out as hoped.
That means unless lawmakers revisit the budget in the coming months or there’s an economic turnaround of gigantic proportions, there’ll be yet another massive hole in next year’s spending plan.
Civic Federation President Laurence Msall warned me Wednesday that Illinois is already in worse financial shape than California, which so far has been the poster child for a state government run off the tracks.
At least Calfornia has started to make some of the tough decisions, Msall said.
In Illinois, we’re making matters worse by postponing them.
Moody’s Investors Service downgraded California’s general-obligation bond rating to Baa1 from A2, citing the state’s ongoing political impasse and its reliance on IOUs to pay bills. It was the second two-notch downgrade this month after Fitch Ratings issued an identical drop last week. […]
Moody’s said in a statement that its downgrade “reflects the increased risk to the legally or constitutionally required payments (’priority payments’) as the state deadlock continues and the controller has begun to make certain payments that are not legally or constitutionally required to be paid on time (’non-priority payments’) with IOUs.”
Even supporters held their noses as the revamped spending plan was introduced in the House, where Democrats failed to get a budget during the regular session.
“That’s seven years of running this state. Those of you on that side of the aisle ought really to be proud of what you’ve done in past seven years,” State Representative Bill Black (R-Danville) said.
After his fiery speech, though, even Black and many other Republicans voted for the budget.
Instead of dictating spending line by line, lawmakers largely decided to let Quinn decide which programs should be funded.
“We have essentially made him king of Illinois,” [Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago] said.
* The governor, however, was mostly unresponsive last night…
After saying he’d have to lay off as many as 2,600 workers if an income tax hike had passed, Quinn refused to be pinned down on how many government employees would be pink-slipped as a result of the budget the House and Senate presented him. He also was cagey when asked about possible state facility closures.
Despite a last-minute bargaining session early Wednesday, two hold-out unions refused to agree to Mayor Richard Daley’s demand for cost-cutting concessions, paving the way for 431 members of Teamsters 726 and AFSCME Council 31 to lose their jobs today.
“I feel terrible for workers losing their jobs and their families,” Daley said at a city hall news conference. “I did not want to lay anyone off. It could have been all avoided. … We held out hope that an agreement could be reached. That did not happen. So we’re forced to take this very sad and unwelcome step.”
Later Wednesday morning, top mayoral aides talked with AFSCME representatives and made it clear the city remained open to an agreement that matched the terms accepted by 25 of the city’s 27 unions.
The two-year deal calls for union workers to take 24 unpaid days through June 30, 2011, substitute comp time for cash overtime and convert all city holidays - nine a year for hourly employees and 12 for salaried workers - to unpaid days.
Daley is no stranger to layoffs. The 431 pink-slipped Wednesday were just the most recent Daley job cuts which, since the year 2000, have reduced the city’s workforce by 15 percent to 33,621 employees.
Mayor Daley on Wednesday denounced as a “phony story” reports that his newly-appointed Streets and Sanitation commissioner has agreed to implement a disciplinary amnesty for Streets and San employees.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported today that longtime Daley favorite Tom Byrne had agreed to wipe the disciplinary slate clean to help convince Laborers Union Local 1001 to agree to cost-cutting concessions.
The two-year agreement averted the need for 323 layoffs that could have impacted garbage collection. The firings would have forced the city to reduced 100 more garbage collection crews from two laborers-on-a-truck-to-one…
“Essentially, we’re going to give a pass to slackers, people who don’t show up. That’s a complete lie. This is a phony story… And I’m not mad because she’ll say I’m mad and you’ll get a picture.”
Mayor Daley said Wednesday he’ll roll the dice and ask an independent arbitrator to dictate new contracts with police officers and firefighters who must do their part to help solve the city’s financial crisis.
During his annual State of the City address, Daley noted that public safety employees who account for 70 percent of city spending were excused from a cost-cutting plan that required other city unions to choose between layoffs and furlough days and other givebacks.
“They’re not in the boat. We’re in the boat. … They have to come back to the boat. … We’re asking them to get back in the boat. Talk to your taxpayers. Talk to your neighbor. They have to be part of the solution and not part of the problem,” he said.
“So we’re gonna go to arbitration with them. And I’ve asked every employee to understand: This is one city and all of us have to come together. It can’t be them and us.”
* Mayor Daley uses State of the City address to ask CPS, CTA, others to hold the line on taxes, fees, fares hikes
The mayor used his annual State of the City address to tackle the issues that have touched a nerve with Chicagoans. They range from higher taxes, youth violence and government corruption to video poker, the Olympics and Chicago parking meters.
“People are upset about a lot of things. They’re worried that they might lose their jobs — or they’ve lost their job or their home or their health insurance. They won’t be able to pay off the student loans or even take a vacation,” Daley said.
“The want to know we can get all we can from every tax dollar and manage government prudently, transparently. They want to know their streets are safe.”
To keep his hand out of taxpayer pockets, Daley urged the Chicago Public Schools, City Colleges, the CTA, CHA and Park District to hold the line on taxes, fees and fare hikes this year and to order their top level executives to join the furlough frenzy.
CTA officials said Wednesday that they would be able to plug a $35 million budget gap without service reductions, which they previously had said may be necessary.
The CTA plans to plug the gap through a hiring freeze overtime reductions, reductions in nonessential travel and seminars and fuel savings through the use of newer buses.
The raging safety-versus-money debate over red-light cameras took another twist Wednesday when a suburban traffic camera company said it wouldn’t agree to a break on fines for violators caught making illegal rolling right turns on red.
Lombard-based RedSpeed Illinois rejected a plan by River Forest to set a lower fine for such violations, as opposed to the more dangerous maneuver of blowing through an intersection.
On Monday, the River Forest Village Board voted conditionally to hire RedSpeed to install two traffic cameras on Harlem Avenue. But board members also said they wanted to limit right-turn-related fines to $50, half the usual $100 for tickets from red-light cameras.
Our four-part series Seeing Red revealed that the majority of tickets issued through the use of the cameras are for improper right turns on red. Also, numerous cameras are installed or planned at intersections where few crashes related to running red lights occur. Those two findings make it clear that, so far, these cameras are about making money rather than improving safety.
Adding to the concern is the troubling fact that the state is not informed of violators (cars are ticketed, rather than the driver) and therefore repeat offenders are not tracked.
“I hate them. I absolutely hate them,” said state Rep. Jim Durkin, a Western Springs Republican who voted for the original red-light camera legislation back in 2006. “It is strictly a moneymaking mechanism. I don’t believe it goes to public safety.”
State Rep. Paul Froehlich, a Schaumburg Democrat who voted for red-light cameras, says he will support tighter regulation to eliminate public concern that the cameras are misused to make money.
“This tends to reinforce the public perception that these guys are trying to haul in as much cash as they can,” Froehlich said. “That undercuts public support, and if you lose that, then these things could be gone entirely.”
Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat who pushed for red-light cameras, said he is open to tinkering with the law to allay public concerns. But he also said that “would be tricky.”
Public service announcements playing on several area radio stations these days urges listeners to call Lipinski’s office to voice their opinion against a bill moving through Congress.
The announcement urges the congressman to vote against something called the Performance Rights Act. The bill would require radio stations, for the first time ever, to pay royalties to the bands and singers that fill their airwaves.
The spot involving Lipinski is one of six targeting legislators in the Chicago area who support the legislation or remain undecided about it.
Six years after a catastrophic porch collapse in Lincoln Park killed 13 people and forced a Chicago-wide crackdown on dangerous porches, the city has returned to a more passive vigilance of the hazards. While city officials say their hard work has reduced the potential threats, a shortage of inspection manpower and a continuing stream of newly reported cases mean that bad porches often are discovered only haphazardly — and sometimes too late.
The number of homes hit with foreclosure filings in Cook County in June spiked 23 percent from a year earlier, but dropped 17 percent from May, RealtyTrac said in its monthly report released Wednesday.
In the Chicago metropolitan area, foreclosures soared 38 percent in June to 10,346 from a year earlier, or one in every 363 homes, the report showed. Filings dipped 2 percent from May. One in every 373 homes in Cook County received a foreclosure filing.
Nationally, filings rose 33 percent over the year and 5 percent from May.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes soared by nearly 15 percent in the first half of the year as more people lost their jobs and were unable to pay their monthly mortgage bills.
The mushrooming foreclosure crisis affected more than 1.5 million homes in the first six months of the year, according to a report released Thursday by foreclosure listing service RealtyTrac Inc.
Once the site of fund-raisers for politicians including soon-to-be president Barack Obama and then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the Wilmette mansion of convicted businessman Tony Rezko is on the auction block.
Bank of America, the mortgage holder that won a foreclosure judgment on Rezko’s defaulted $5.9 million note in May, will auction the opulent, two-story, 8,400-square-foot home next month.
Sears Tower undergoes its identity change today. The nation’s tallest building becomes Willis Tower, and the guy who negotiated the switch understands the irritation he has created.
Joseph Plumeri, chairman of Willis Group Holdings Ltd., said that instead of bemoaning a name change for the iconic tower, Chicagoans should celebrate his company’s visibility and local commitment. In a time of corporate cutbacks, he’s bringing 500 jobs to Sears Tower by consolidating five Chicago-area offices.
Chicago’s Sears Tower is getting a new name, later today the skyscraper will be re-christened the Willis Tower. But another, perhaps more significant, change is also on the way for the building. Its owners want to give it a $350-million green makeover…
HUSTON: The windows that are currently installed in the building are single glazed windows; that means they are not insulated glass. Our plan is to change all 16,000 windows to a triple glazed unit…
There are 10 boilers. All of them will be replaced. They’ll also test wind turbines and add solar panels. All told they’re hoping to reduce electricity use by 80 percent.
Huston and his partners won’t say exactly how much of their own money they plan to kick in to accomplish that but they are hoping to get some public and private money for the project. One selling point: they say the rehab could create 3,600 green jobs. Scott Horst is with the US Green Building Council.
Kelci Stringer is suing football helmets and shoulder pads maker Riddell Inc. over her husband’s 2001 heatstroke death at training camp. U.S. District Judge John Holschuh set the trial date Monday in Columbus.
The trial will determine whether Chicago-based Riddell bears any responsibility for Korey Stringer’s death.
Dam Safety Rule 3703 would have created 350-foot exclusion zones around all of the state’s public waterway dams. As originally written, it would have required paddlers to remove their boats 300 feet north of a dam, and not put back in until 50 feet south.
The rule, drafted by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, is intended to keep boaters safe from dangerous rolling dams. It was written in response to three drowning deaths near the Yorkville dam in 2007.
But opponents say it goes too far, and doesn’t take into account different types of dams in different locations.
The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules agreed and on Tuesday voted to hold the item indefinitely while the IDNR works out the kinks.
As of March 19, the plant began pumping up to 750,000 gallons a day of untreated wastewater into the Rock River on and off for March and April. The wastewater was pumped into the river because sewage began backing up into some customers’ basements. Cracked pipes, failing pumps and excess groundwater are pushing the plant beyond its capacity of 3 million gallons a day.
South Beloit has until Aug. 4, or 21 days from July 14, to craft a solution to get the treatment plant in compliance, said Charles Corley, water pollution regional manager with IEPA.
Once the solution is created, the problem is typically corrected within six to 12 months. If the city doesn’t correct the problem, the issue will be sent to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office.
Construction that the Army Corps of Engineers began last week on an island in Peoria Lake is far from the only step needed to restore a waterway that’s long been choking on silt. Despite some disagreements over its likely effectiveness, it does fit into one of the two broad ways in which the Illinois River’s problems can be addressed.
* 9:17 pm- I have shot a ton of video that will be coming your way shortly. Most of it has to do with the temp budget, but subjects vary and include the Burr Oaks fallout and ethics reform…
* 9:23 pm - Governor Quinn got a little heated when asked about Burr Oaks, Comptroller Hynes, and criticisms that the Governor has not pushed hard enough for strong regulatory legislation over cemeteries. Watch…
* 9:26 pm - Sen President Cullerton did not want to discuss the temp budget at first, but he gets sucked into a short conversation about the temp budget and the FY 2011 budget hole…
* 9:30 pm - Leader Radogno does not think it is possible to really predict the size of next years budget hole right now, but it won’t be pretty…
* 9:30 pm - Leader Radogno is happy that the a tax hike was not included in the temp budget and continues to push ethics and fiscal reforms…
* 9:33 pm - Sen Harmon discusses the progress on ethics reforms…
* 9:35 pm - I will be posting the rest of the Quinn Presser in its raw form. However, it is 3 videos and each video is about 8 minutes long. The internet is running a little slow at the capitol so it might take a while, but they will be up soon and that will conclude the videos. Thanks for your patience…
* 10:05 pm - Here are parts 1 and 2 of Quinn’s presser…
* 7:43 pm - The Senate has just approved the $3.5 billion borrowing plan to fund the pension systems. The House has already passed the bill as well as the rest of the budget bills.
The Senate is now moving very fast and will wrap up soon.
* 7:55 pm- Senate President Cullerton said he wants to convene in January to address the issue of raising more revenue.
* 5:20 pm - After the Senate Democratic Caucus this afternoon, Sen. Meeks said he will not support the borrowing needed for a temporary budget…
* President Cullerton was not available for comment, but his Press Secretary Rikeesha Phelon said that President Cullerton feels confident he has the votes needed to pass the budget bill. She added that the Senate views the new budget as a “temporary fix, and we are not trying to veil that at all”.
* UPDATE FROM RICH: There are reportedly 29-30 Senate Democratic votes for the pension note and most likely enough SGOP votes to get the roll call to 36. Nothing is guaranteed in politics until the final vote is locked in, but the train may be leaving the station.
* Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney got about 10 percent of the vote in 2006. He wants another shot…
Whitney says now - more than ever - his party is a “viable third choice” for Illinois voters.
WHITNEY: I believe that, if anything, the frustration factor with the Democratic and Republican Party leadership, generally today, is even greater than it was in 2006.
He says the Greens’ platform could attract voters who are fed up with the state’s political establishment.
* 1:03 pm - House GOP Leader Tom Cross just emerged from a leaders meeting with the governor to say that a budget agreement has been reached pending caucus meetings. Those meetings are set to begin soon. We’ll have video in a bit.
* 1:10 pm - The other leaders apparently left out the side door, so Cross’ statement is all we’ll have. GateHouse had a piece from before the meeting started, however…
Cullerton said leaders expect to talk about budget details with their caucuses this afternoon. He predicted his Senate Democrats would be disappointed by a budget that doesn’t include an income tax increase, which the Senate approved but has stalled in the House.
Cullerton also deflected criticism that some lawmakers - including himself - traveled to St. Louis last night for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game. He said leaders met with the governor last night and then his staff started drafting budget legislation to be considered today.
“People could have been here at a restaurant watching it on television or actually there if they had a ticket, so it doesn’t bother me,” Cullerton said.
* 1:16 pm - Here’s the Cross video. He thought that the session could be adjourned “by tonight.”
Where: To Be Announced (Northern Suburbs of Chicago)
What: Congressman Mark Kirk will announce his candidacy for statewide office at a press conference in the 10th Congressional District on Monday, July 20. Details, including location and time, will be announced later in the week.
…Also… Has anyone else noticed how the law firm of GOP gubernatorial candidate Sen. Matt Murphy markets itself?
The firm always confines it’s practice to representing plaintiffs and injured persons. We have never represented insurance companies, employers or other defendants.
And doesn’t have a spell-checker, either. But nevermind that. What will the bidniss folks think?
* Charlie Wheeler is no political hack. He’s not a clout-loving insider. He’s one of the most respected former journalists at the Statehouse and he’s now the director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield - a program that trains young reporters to cover government.
Charlie just penned a brilliant smackdown in Illinois Issues of those who have derided the General Assembly’s reform efforts this year…
Some reformers and editorial boards — joined by partisan Republicans — were quick to give the Democratic-controlled legislature failing marks for not adopting all the recommendations from Gov. Pat Quinn’s blue-ribbon reform panel and other change advocates.
In particular, the reform crowd complained that the state’s first-ever proposal to limit some campaign contributions was more loophole than law. GOP leaders grumbled that nothing was done to rein in the power of the majority Democrats and their leadership. Hyper-ventilating editorial writers deplored that lawmakers shelved a plan to allow voters to fire the governor and other elected officials.
Wheeler then goes through the reform legislation point by point to show how the GA addressed the Rod Blagojevich nightmare. It’s freaking brilliant. Go read it.
His big finish…
Overall, the legislative reaction to the reform suggestions followed the pattern predicted here a couple of months ago. Changes affecting executive branch operations were embraced; those that would upset the legislative status quo were not.
In so choosing, did Democratic leaders and their majorities sustain a culture of corruption? Or was that the rational approach, focusing on eradicating the opportunities for clearly documented illicit activities while ignoring certain aspects of the legislative process that some might not like but are hardly corrupt?
Instead of bemoaning what didn’t happen, naysayers might want to look again and see a glass that’s got more in it than anyone would have believed possible this time last year.
I’ve criticized some of the reform legislation, and I stand by that criticism. But I also find it hard to disagree with Wheeler’s overall point.
* Carol Marin writes an incredibly favorable column about Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s future….
Dart — like Barack Obama, with whom he also served in Springfield — has managed to skillfully juggle it all. A member in good standing of the powerful 19th Ward populated by the Hynes, Joyce and Sheehan clans, Dart has been a Daley loyalist and Democratic Party regular. And yet he’s managed to position himself as a New Age politician. He’s run his office efficiently. And he has found issues that resonate beyond the boundary lines of Illinois. And sometimes, as in the Alsip cemetery story, when issues have landed like lightning in his back yard, he’s seized the moment and handled it artfully.
There has been talk that Dart might want to jump into the 2010 Democratic primary for governor. Or rise in the ranks of Cook County by taking on Todd Stroger for president of the County Board.
Neither one looks likely at the moment.
Comptroller Dan Hynes, another child of the 19th Ward, is positioning himself for the gubernatorial race.
And Dart, who had earned high marks in the African-American community even before his takeover of Burr Oak Cemetery, doesn’t gain a thing by antagonizing that same constituency by challenging Stroger. Especially when the job provides neither a national profile nor anything other than a monumental headache.
Tom Dart Superstar, I’m guessing, stays where he is right now. On a platform that someday soon will rocket him higher.
It’s received little notice amid all the recent maneuvering for the U.S. Senate and the governor’s mansion. But the Illinois Republican Party is showing signs of fielding a competitive team for two jobs it actually has a decent shot at winning in the 2010 elections: state treasurer and comptroller.
State Sen. Dan Rutherford of Chenoa, who picked up some name recognition in an earlier bid for secretary of state, officially announced his candidacy for treasurer on Monday. He already has more than a quarter of a million dollars in his campaign war chest, a good starting point.
Even better, former treasurer and GOP gubernatorial nominee Judy Baar Topinka is continuing with her plans for a comeback.
* Meanwhile, Republican state Rep. Jim Durkin tells the Daily Herald that he’s kinda, sorta interested in a maybe/possible US Senate run…
Durkin is upset with [GOP Congressman Mark Kirk’s] vote for cap-and-trade legislation, a key element of President Barack Obama’s agenda and favorite target of conservatives.
“I think he is going to regret that vote,” Durkin said [yesterday].
Kirk has faced heat from the party for weeks on that vote, but several GOP representatives and party brass still see him as the best chance for the Republicans to win the seat and cut back the Democrat’s 60-vote super majority.
Durkin says he is “not interested nor disinterested” in a run, but adds “If I decided I wanted to run for statewide office I feel comfortable I could put together a team.”
T-minus ten minutes before Kirk threatens to drop out again?
A federal appeals court in Chicago on Tuesday breathed new life into a long-dormant Illinois law that requires physicians to notify the parents of teenage girls before performing abortions.
Attorneys on both sides of the issue said the law — which was passed in 1984 and updated in 1995 — would take effect within weeks unless its critics ask for a stay and the three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agrees to put its order on hold pending a rehearing. […]
The law does not require parental consent, only that parents be notified 48 hours before an abortion for a girl 17 or younger. A provision of the law allows girls to bypass parental notification by notifying a judge instead, a procedure the ACLU argued would not be practical.
The General Assembly passed the 1995 law, but left it to the state Supreme Court to issue key rules governing how minors could seek waivers in court. The Supreme Court never issued rules — opening the door for the lengthy delay and legal challenges.
Robyn Ziegler, a spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, said she couldn’t immediately comment. Madigan previously said she supported the measure, which the appeals court called “a permissible attempt to help a young woman make an informed choice about whether to have an abortion.” […]
The appeals panel said it recognized that there may be “practical problems” with the expedited procedures created by the Illinois Supreme Court for bypassing the notice requirement. “It may be intimidating for a minor to navigate the process of presenting her case to a judge, for instance,” Cudahy wrote.
Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit dissolved the federal injunction against the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act. As a direct result of the court’s decision (Zbaraz v. Hartigan), Illinois parents will be entitled, for the first time since Roe v. Wade was decided, to notification before their minor daughters are taken for abortions. The decision is the culmination of four years work by the Thomas More Society, particularly TMS Special Counsel Paul Linton, who devised the legal strategy which ultimately led to the lifting of the injunction.
“This is an incredible victory for Illinois parents and their children,” said Peter Breen, Executive Director and Legal Counsel of the Thomas More Society. “Parental involvement laws enjoy overwhelming public support. These laws promote the integrity of the family and ensure that parents are consulted so that their children are not forced into an abortion decision. A wealth of social science data indicates that parental involvement laws lead to lower pregnancy rates, out-of-wedlock births and abortions.”
The Parental Notice Act has been in legal limbo for more than ten years because of the Illinois Supreme Court’s refusal to issue the rules necessary to make the Act effective. Since the passage of the Act in 1995, over 50,000 Illinois minors have obtained abortions, more than 4,000 of whom were 14 years old or younger, without any requirement to notify their parents beforehand.
Following Linton’s legal strategy, representatives of pro-life organizations met with DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett in the spring of 2005 to ask him to petition the Illinois Supreme Court to adopt the rules required by the 1995 Act. Birkett agreed and filed his petition in June 2006. On September 7, 2006, the Thomas More Society, representing a range of interested organizations, filed a supplemental petition with the state supreme court. Less than two weeks later, the Illinois Supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice Bob Thomas, unanimously adopted Supreme Court Rule 303A.
After various delays, Attorney General Lisa Madigan returned to federal court in March 2007 and petitioned Judge David Coar to lift the permanent injunction which had been issued eleven years earlier. After Judge Coar denied the petition, the Thomas More Society intervened in the case on behalf of State’s Attorneys Stu Umholtz (Republican, Tazewell County) and Ed Deters (Democrat, Effingham County) to press an appeal against the injunction.
Today’s decision reviving the dormant Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act creates unnecessary, dangerous hurdles to accessing essential health care for young women facing an unintended pregnancy in the State of Illinois. In the decades while this law (and its predecessors) were not enforced, we know that most young women in Illinois consulted with a parent or guardian when making the difficult decision about whether to continue a pregnancy. In those instances where young women did not tell a parent, often because of fear of abuse or neglect, most consulted with a trusted adult family member.
We now turn our attention to counseling teens and medical providers to minimize the harms of the notice and by-pass requirements upheld by the court today.
[Gov. Pat Quinn] proposes passing a budget to keep government operating and allow time to study ways to cut Medicaid spending and other costs. Then officials could decide in November whether to cut spending, raise taxes or neither.
Legislative leaders seemed inclined to support some variation on that plan.
This version would include billions of dollars of financial gimmicks and one-time sources of revenue: borrowing about $3.5 billion to help pay annual pension costs, using about $1.1 billion worth of vaguely defined “inter-fund borrowing'’ and leaving about $3.2 billion in bills unpaid.
[Rep. Jack Franks, D-Morengo], who is considering running for governor, blasted Quinn for wanting to borrow money rather than make meaningful cuts to balance the budget. The $1 billion in cuts unveiled by Quinn last week do not go far enough and are being made far too late, Franks said.
“I’m red hot about this,” Franks said. “What he’s doing is abdicating his position as governor. This way, he doesn’t have to make the tough decisions.”
“[Borrowing is] not a good policy move but it may be be our only option. So, if that’s put before us then we’ll have to weigh it out,” said Rep. Mike Bost, (R)-Murphysboro.
Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, acknowledged the budget would not be balanced. But she defended it as the only way to offer some stability to the people and groups who depend on state government.
“We are at a drop-dead date where we have to adopt a budget. There are no good alternatives,” Radogno said. “This is, I think, the best of a number of bad alternatives.”
* Franks was also sharply critical of his colleagues after a caucus meeting yesterday…
House Democrat Jack Franks of Morengo says a closed door caucus yesterday shows lawmakers don’t want to make the necessary cuts to balance the budget.
FRANKS: Everyone is so worried about who they might offend and what interest group that might get offended. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I was hearing in that caucus. People were worried about their furlough days and how its going to affect their pensions. And I was like, come on. Don’t you guys get it? We are in an absolute crisis here and we need to start cutting.
Amazing what some legislators are worried about at a time like this, isn’t it?
While numbers vary, one estimate by a House Democrat is that the new budget deal could result in service providers receiving about a 13 percent cut, as opposed to a 50 percent cut, as previously approved. The governor vetoed that measure (SB 1197).
So instead of the so-called 50 percent budget for human services, providers would get about 87 percent of what they received in state support last fiscal year.
Or it could be less. Nobody really knows for sure.
[House GOP Leader Tom Cross] said predictions of doom for those [social service] agencies are exaggerated. The leaders also advised Quinn to “tone down the rhetoric” about the effect the new budget will have on social service agencies, Cross said.
“I think the approach a month ago was an attempt to scare legislators into a tax increase,” Cross said. “I didn’t think that was a good approach. I think, at the end of the day, things will not be nearly as severe as the governor portrayed six weeks ago.”
Thousands of state workers are in danger of missing paychecks today unless the governor and legislators reach quick agreement on a budget.
A first round of 5,000 to 6,000 direct deposits and checks are slated to be delayed today and thousands more by the end of the month, said a spokeswoman for Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes. Hynes maintains his office lost its authority to fund payrolls when the state’s new fiscal year began without a budget on July 1.
“Unless there is an appropriation passed and signed, or there’s a court order, payroll can’t move forward,” Carol Knowles said Tuesday.
The union representing 40,000 state workers filed just such a lawsuit on Tuesday in St. Clair County Circuit Court.
From the Illinois Credit Union League…
Credit Union 1 and about 5 other credit unions will be offering zero interest loans to state employees that miss paychecks. The specifics will vary for each credit union. People should contact their local credit union or go to www.iculleague.org or illinois.gov for a listing of participating credit unions.
Now he meets daily with a social worker and attends classes on drug addiction and behavior modification, all mandated by Cook County Veterans Court, a newly formed court geared to military veterans charged with non-violent crimes, mostly drug offenses.
The court links them with representatives from state and federal veterans affairs departments and social and legal aid agencies who offer many services and help cut through red tape that stymies many veterans.
“There’s no extra cost because what this really does is place people into services that are already out there,” said Circuit Judge John Kirby, who started the court this spring.
Following the Stroger administration’s refusal to comply with repeated requests to release cell phone records pertaining to the Tony Cole fiasco, the Better Government Association has filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court to obtain the records under the state’s Freedom of Information law.
BGA Executive Director Andy Shaw will be available to discuss the lawsuit at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, July 15, in the west lobby of the Daley Center at Clark and Randolph.
“The cornerstone of good government is transparency,” Shaw says, “because it allows us to see clearly if public officials are adhering to the other key principles - accountability and fairness - or whether they’re being wasteful, inefficient and crooked, in which case we end up paying a ‘corruption tax.’”
A Cook County judge dropped domestic-violence charges against an ex-steakhouse busboy in a patronage scandal with County Board President Todd Stroger but allowed a contempt-of-court case to proceed against him. Assistant state’s attorneys said they planned to prosecute Tony Cole for failing to comply with his court-ordered home confinement after his release on bail from Cook County Jail last month.
What mattered to the gang members who had gathered on Birchwood Avenue was that Rem was wearing a black hoodie and walking down the street — their street. That was plenty justification to kill a 17-year-old who had no apparent gang ties.
The former head of an Aurora gang testified Monday that Rem was shot by Juan “Ugly Face” Verdugo, 27, of Aurora because Rem wandered into the wrong neighborhood.
“They thought the guy was creeping on us to do something,” Roman Lucio said during the first day of Verdugo’s murder trial in Kane County Court.
A half-block north on Ashland there’s a tidy carwash owned by a businessman eager to open a hot dog stand. To him, it’s a no-brainer: The walk-up food shop would boost business at the carwash and allow him to keep the place open, and it would bring revenue and a few jobs to a neighborhood in dire need of both.
A group of residents, aided by the Target Area Development Corp., have campaigned — thus far successfully — to keep Bernstein from opening the stand.
Their concern is that it will attract gang members and neighborhood thugs, joining an array of nearby fast-food restaurants that have devolved into hot spots for violence.
“We, as regular citizens, would not be able to go to that hot dog stand,” said Jeannie Wainwright, who lives nearby and has stood with dozens of others in opposition to the business. “It would just be another hangout, another place for narcotics exchanges. Any place where they can loiter, they just seem to take over.”
Newly analyzed results from a 2007 national test show Illinois is one of only four states in which the black-white math performance gap is larger than the nation’s at both fourth- and eighth-grade levels.
“In this land of Lincoln, we are really creating a stratified system,'’ said Max McGee, president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy and former Illinois superintendent of schools. “These results are outrageous and ought to be an immediate call to action.”…
In fourth-grade math in 2007, white Illinois students scored 32 points higher than their African-American counterparts on the 500-point national test. The national gap was only 26 points.
By eighth grade, white Illinois kids scored 38 points higher than black peers. Nationally, white eighth-graders outpaced blacks by 31 points.
Neighbors on Chicago’s Southwest Side are dialoguing again today with Bank of America. The interracial, interfaith coalition wants to prevent more foreclosures in their community. It says all banks need to speed up their loan modification efforts. So far, at least one bank is listening.
Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase are among lenders switching fixed-rate credit-card holders to variable rates ahead of recently passed legislation designed to protect consumers from unfair rate hikes. More credit card issuers may follow suit.
The new law, which takes effect in February, requires credit-card companies to give cardholders 45 days’ notice of a rate increase, but only if the card has a fixed rate. It also requires that rates stay the same for one year after a new fixed-rate account is open.
Mayor Daley’s $169,020 chief procurement officer abruptly resigned Tuesday, spinning the revolving door in a department that has struggled to boost black contracting and weed out minority fronts…
Gayles banned Duff from doing business with the city for just three years, even though Duff pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining $100 million in janitorial contracts earmarked for minorities and women.
When Daley and African-American aldermen raised the roof, Gayles switched the punishment to a lifetime ban. Shortly before his about-face, Gayles had defended the three-year penalty, telling the Chicago Sun-Times, “I don’t know the Duffs from the Diffs.”
Daley made no effort to conceal his anger and kept Gayles in the doghouse for months. Nevertheless, Gayles remained on the job for 16 months before resigning. City Hall insisted that he was not forced out.
The deadline has passed for two unions to come to an agreement with the city of Chicago. Mayor Richard Daley wanted unions to take unpaid days off among other cost-cutting measures to help close a budget gap.
LINDALL: There are alternative approaches to saving the same money as the layoffs, but without throwing anybody out of work and without reducing city services as layoffs would do.
Lindall says the union is still open to talks.
Almost 300 of AFSCME’s members could face layoffs Wednesday.
Laborers Union Local 1001 agreed to cost-cutting concessions that avert the need for 323 layoffs after persuading newly appointed Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Tom Byrne to make a giant concession of his own — by implementing a disciplinary amnesty for Streets and San employees.
For decades, City Hall has employed a policy of progressive discipline. The more offenses you have, the more severe the punishment.
Byrne’s decision to wipe the slate clean in a department at the center of the Hired Truck and city hiring scandals would turn that time-honored policy on its ear…
“You’re talking about a department with a lot of bad actors — guys who have been around for 30 years and probably should have been fired a long time ago,” said a source familiar with the change.
Scrounging for cash to erase a threatened $300 million year-end shortfall, Chicago is going after motorists with two unpaid tickets older than one year with a vengeance — by mailing 183,293 seizure notices and booting 3,493 vehicles.
The City Council’s controversial decision to drop the threshold for applying the Denver boot for the first time in seven years — from three-unpaid tickets to two — has touched off a booting blitz.
On April 22, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that 65,318 seizure notices had been mailed and 415 vehicles had been booted.
In the three months since that first progress report, the two-ticket booting has increased nearly eight-fold — to 3,493 vehicles. And the number of seizure notices has nearly tripled — to 183,293.
Because there’s less money coming in and more going out, officials expect a $15 million deficit in 2010. So the county board’s executive committee is asking County Executive Larry Walsh and Finance Director Paul Rafac to propose a series of cuts, and they’ll make the formal request during the county board meeting at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
Some county departments will be asked to reduce budget expenses between 10 percent and 12 percent next year because a voluntary employee separation package likely will not be enough to fill the multi-million dollar gap in revenue shortfalls.
The weak economy has Peoria County facing a revenue shortfall of $3.3 million to $3.7 million and a corresponding budget deficit between $3.9 and $4 million. The second half of 2009 will show slight improvements, but Chief Financial Officer Erik Bush said, “I would charitably call it anemic.”
The number of college students at 25 higher education institutions in the Loop/South Loop grew from 52,230 to 65,524 during the last five years, the study found.
“This is encouraging news for Chicago,” said Ty Tabing, executive director of the Chicago Loop Alliance, the downtown advocacy group that sponsored the study. “At a time when most economic sectors are shrinking, the education sector continues to grow.”
Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 - Posted by Capitol Fax Blog Advertising Department
[This advertisement is paid for by the Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities]
Until there is a final budget community agencies will be forced to continue to deny services to clients, terminate or reduce hours to staff, and make other cuts to agency budgets.
Community services for people with disabilities, mental illness and autism spectrum disorders cannot exist at 50% funding levels; they cannot exist at 70% funding levels. The state has entrusted the support of persons with disabilities to community organizations.
These agencies have embraced that trust because they are mission-driven with the expertise and commitment to be good stewards of that trust.
Now, it’s the Governor’s and the General Assembly’s turn to do the right thing and fix this mess before it gets worse - pass an FY10 budget that fully funds community services for people with disabilities and mental illness.
