* 3:28 pm - Gov. Pat Quinn just announced that he has used his amendatory veto pen to change longstanding state law. Quinn has unilaterally altered statutes that require voters to declare their party affiliation during primary elections.
Today Governor Quinn issued an amendatory veto of House Bill 4842 to create a fairer primary election system in Illinois. The Governor’s amendatory veto eliminates the requirement that a voter publicly declare political party affiliation when voting at a primary election. Under current Illinois law, a voter must declare a party affiliation before voting in the primary election, which is then recorded as public record.
The bill, HB 4842, “Requires (now, permits) the State Board of Elections to publish an Internet voters’ guide before each general primary in the same manner as before each general election.”
That’s all it did. The bill struck language stating “has the discretion to” and replaced it with “shall”
Quinn’s amendatory veto, however, adds several new sections to the bill, then changes those sections to his liking.
“(e) The Governor may return a bill together with specific recommendations for change to the house in which it
originated. The bill shall be considered in the same manner as a vetoed bill but the specific recommendations may be accepted by a record vote of a majority of the members elected to each house. Such bill shall be presented again to the Governor and if he certifies that such acceptance conforms to his specific recommendations, the bill shall become law. If he does not so certify, he shall return it as a vetoed bill to the house in which it originated.” [Changed cite after commenter suggestion]
Here’s the problem. Quinn had no objection to the actual bill. His objection is to sections he added to the bill from standing law. I just cannot see how this is constitutional. If I’m wrong, please correct me in comments.
…Adding… After reading my always bright commenters, I’m becoming more convinced that this may actually be consitutional after all. Whether the GA thinks so is another matter. Still waiting on responses from House and Senate leaders.
*** UPDATE *** The House Democratic response was, as usual, “It’s under review.” The Senate Democratic response essentially says the same thing…
The Senate President is generally supportive of measures designed to increase voter participation. However, the General Assembly will conduct a compliance analysis to determine if the Governor’s actions today alter the fundamental purpose of the original bill. This analysis and any formal legislative action will begin in the House.
The federal judge presiding over former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s corruption case says he will delay the trial for one week if prosecutors rest on Tuesday.
Judge James Zagel made the statement in court Tuesday.
Hmm. I may use this as an opportunity to take some time off.
The defense has been arguing that they can’t get a fair trial without a delay…
With just a day or two until showtime — and with vacation schedules and Secret Service logistics to contend with for big-name witnesses such as Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett — the defense said Monday they could be “out of luck.”
“A fair trial is destroyed,” Blagojevich attorney Sam Adam Sr. told reporters in the courthouse lobby Monday afternoon. “We told our witnesses we’d be in touch late August. All of a sudden, the government cuts their case short . . . They misled us. They misled the court.”
Two defense witnesses subpoenaed from the White House — Chief of Staff Emanuel and presidential adviser Jarrett — also require Secret Service arrangements that are difficult to set up last-minute, Adam said.
DC is gonna go absolutely nuts over that.
* The old rule about federal prosecutions is: “First one on the train doesn’t get thrown under the bus,” or something like that. Lon Monk refused a train ticket in 2005 when the feds came calling. He’s now going to prison. John Wyma eagerly jumped aboard the tren federales in 2008, and today he is testifying against his old friend Rod Blagojevich with a grant of immunity…
Blagojevich, sitting at the defense table, stared at Wyma as he passed him on his way to the witness stand. The ex-governor visibly sighed when hit the stand.
Wyma — a tanned, blond-haired man wearing a gray suit and pink and blue striped tie — says he was one of Blagojevich’s “central raisers.” Fund-raising meetings were attended by the governor, Lon Monk and Chris Kelly, among others. […]
Regarding TRS, Wyma testifies that Chris Kelly told him in 2004 that if Wyma’s clients wanted to do business with TRS, they had to make a $50,000 campaign contribution to Blagojevich.
Wyma said he didn’t pass that on to his client, though — “because I thought it was wrong, obviously wrong.”
* Roundup…
* Brown: Blagojevich got wrong answers from his yes men: It could certainly be argued that Rod Blagojevich was ill-served by the top people working for him in the governor’s office, none of whom apparently had the nerve to tell him he was making a big mistake — and another and another and another. In fact, I was going to argue precisely that, until I realized it partially misses the point, which is that like any chief executive who surrounds himself with yes-men, toadies and butt-kissing ‘’team players,'’ Blagojevich got exactly what he deserved.
U.S. states and municipalities struggling with mounting budget deficits “are not in the same precarious financial condition as Greece,” Samson Capital Advisors said.
The cost of protecting U.S. municipal bonds surged this year as investors bought insurance on U.S. state obligations after global stocks tumbled and Europe’s debt crisis worsened. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told members of the Manhattan Institute on May 25 that the state is “careening our way toward becoming Greece.” Even so, states aren’t on the verge of default and such comparisons distract from more serious issues, Samson Capital said in a July 8 report.
“The statement that any U.S. state is the next Greece, meaning a near default on their bonds, is not based on fact,” said Judy Wesalo Temel, a principal and director of credit research at Samson, which manages $7 billion. “Comparing the Greek debt crisis to state and local governments is not valid and is distracting from the real concerns about budgets.”
The median debt to gross domestic product of U.S. states is 2 percent, compared with Greece’s 113 percent, according to last week’s report by Samson Capital, a New York-based fixed income investment manager.
One of the most important investment themes in today’s marketplace will be selecting the stable states,
sectors and credits, since the fiscal challenges vary greatly across US state and local governments. For example, Illinois is now in the spotlight as it has done little to solve a significant budget gap and has the worst underfunded pension problem. Illinois joins California as one of two A-rated credits among Moody’s state GO ratings. While California remains challenged, it does not appear at this point to require the same kind of short-term funding that raised concerns last year.
Our pension contributions as a percentage of our state budget are far higher than the average. But this hyperbole about Greece is goofy, and I’m glad at least somebody is sane enough to back me up. Mark Kirk is a different story…
In a speech to members of suburban Chambers of Commerce [yesterday], Congressman Mark Kirk warned that Illinois is rapidly falling into the same financial situation as Greece.
Did you know that a commission named by Gov. Pat Quinn wants to raise the retirement age for state workers to a minimum of 72?
Yes, right there on page 96 of its recent report, Mr. Quinn’s Economic Recovery Commission says that — along with “aggressively” reviewing Medicaid spending, raising the income tax and widening the sales tax base — retirement ought to come at age 72.
I got kind of a chuckle out of the proposal, which somehow failed to make it into Mr. Quinn’s press release on the commission’s final report. But that’s what happens when you ask a bunch of non-Springfield types to tell you what they think.
Nice catch by Greg, especially the part about how Quinn didn’t even mention the idea in his press release. No way does he want to talk about stuff like that. I’m curious what you think of the idea, however. Should the state employee retirement age be raised to 72?
* Unions representing striking workers say employers walked out yet again yesterday on negotiations aimed at ending work-stoppages on dozens of road and construction projects in the Chicago area. No new talks are scheduled until next Monday.
From an Operating Engineers Local 150 press release quoting President-Business Manager James Sweeney…
“The Unions and employers did not reach an agreement tonight, and we are tremendously disappointed at the employers’ lack of urgency, refusing to meet with us until Monday, July 19th. Once again, we made ourselves available around the clock, and the employers are stalling. They do not seem to understand that there are workers and contractors whose survival hinges upon these negotiations.
“It is becoming more apparent that MARBA’s intent is likely not only to starve out our members, but also to starve out the smaller contractors within their own ranks. Many of the contractors who have assigned their bargaining rights to MARBA are very small businesses, and delaying negotiations for another week puts those contractors’ survival in jeopardy.
“We are not negotiating for wages, but to protect our healthcare and benefits. Despite the fact that benefit actuaries gave employer representatives the very same cost figures that we have for our funds last Friday, the employers’ latest proposal still would not cover costs, and would require significant reductions in wages or benefits. MARBA says that they are not looking to make cuts, but that is exactly what their proposal would do.
“Local 150 has committed $150 million of our own money to make up the gap in our funds caused by a nearly 40 percent reduction in hours worked. We are asking the employers to share the burden with us. All of these funds are jointly administered by labor and management, so the employers have a responsibility to maintain the health of these funds as well.
A press released issued Monday night by MARBA said the unions “… have been unwilling to come to the table with a proposal that is in line with the state of the industry and the economy.”
MARBA is offering a total 4.25 percent increase in compensation over three years. The unions were asking for 5 percent each year of a three-year contract, but that has dropped to 4.55 percent, according to the MARBA release. […]
MARBA pointed out that workers receive full insurance coverage without having to contribute to their premiums.
The construction season is slipping away. No scheduled talks for another week means the governor really needs to get involved here.
* Bill Brady has a new radio ad, which his campaign claims will air statewide beginning today. The ad is likely an attempt to dilute the focus on and “balance” the news coverage of Pat Quinn’s new TV ad, which hits Brady hard on social issues. TV trumps radio, but radio is quite effective in Chicago because so many people have such long commutes.
Script…
Legend has it that the Roman emperor Nero fiddled and partied with his friends while the City of Rome burned to the ground.
Today in Illinois, Pat Quinn is playing his own tune. The Illinois Comptrollers report said the state ended 2010 in the worst fiscal position in its history. Over 200 thousand of us have lost jobs since Quinn’s been governor.
Pat Quinn’s answer?
He increased the salaries of his own staffers, some by more than 20 percent. Sticking us with the bill, while calling for “shared sacrifice”. Some sacrifice.
The Chicago Tribune’s editorial said that Quinn is oblivious to the plight of recession-battered constituents, and is too undisciplined to do the job.
The Tribune called Pat Quinn, “downright clueless.”
We’ve all had enough of Pat Quinn’s fiddling while were suffering. It’s time for a clean break and real leadership. It’s time for Bill Brady for Governor.
* When you have a bad reputation for serial exaggeration, then fairly normal political attacks on your opponent become tougher to pull off.
For instance, a Mark Kirk TV ad has been assailed by both Politifact and FactCheck.org for stretching the truth when it claims “Alexi Giannoulias’ top aide was a longtime BP lobbyist.”
That’s pretty much bunk, of course. The guy isn’t a top aide and did zoning work for BP gas stations in Chicago. Kirk was pushed on this yesterday by reporters and responded thusly…
“A BP lobbyist is a BP lobbyist,” Kirk said. “When you register as a BP lobbyist, you’re a BP lobbyist.”
But Kirk took $150,000 in campaign contributions from lawyers at Chicago law firm Kirkland & Ellis, which is representing BP in the oil spill case. His response?…
Kirk said it’s difficult to find individuals or companies that don’t have ties to BP, which has a long history in Chicago through its predecessors, Amoco and Standard Oil.
“You could get into the second and third orders of both campaigns,” said Kirk after speaking to several north suburban chambers of commerce. “BP hires lawyers, BP has accountants, BP has property managers. BP has had, because of its heritage from Standard Oil and Amoco, a tremendous economic impact on Chicagoland. So you can get into second and third order connections to BP with just about every family in Chicagoland.”
You wonder whether he even hears himself when he talks out of both sides of his mouth like that.
Republican leaders in the U.S. House have endorsed two different plans to get rid of what they call “ObamaCare.” One, sponsored by Iowa Congressman Steve King, would repeal much of it. Another, from California’s Wally Herger, would repeal the law, and replace it with a different plan. That’s the route Kirk favors.
KIRK: Because I think that as Republicans and Americans we should be for healthcare reform, but the kind of reforms that I want to back don’t weaken the finances of the federal government long-term with new spending.
The Cook County Highway Department was poised to hire six new truck drivers in recent months — without giving applicants a behind-the-wheel driving test.
When county hiring monitors raised a red flag and began to investigate, one official said, they found three of the six finalists for the snow plow jobs hadn’t provided a driving record as required.
If the university truly wishes to be inclusive, it should reverse its decision and allow Howell to keep teaching the class, as he has since 2001 and for which he was rated by students as an excellent teacher in 2008 and 2009.
Proponents say the strategy creates incentives to travel during less-crowded times, encourages carpooling and transit use, and cuts wasted time and money from motorists stuck in traffic. Congestion-priced lanes also have been shown to improve traffic flow in adjacent lanes, backers say.
The tollway and the planning council applied for a federal grant in 2007 to fund the study of congestion pricing. The council supports the concept, while the tollway hasn’t taken a position.
The study did not provide a timeline for how long it would take to implement such a plan in the Chicago area if it were approved.
Salgado’s family has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Bilotto, the city of Blue Island and others. Mayor Donald Peloquin has said the city will ask a judge to be removed from the matter because the park district is a separate jurisdiction.
According to the report, off-duty cops drank beer in the beer garden but did not enter the pool area, the report said. Hoglund said their attendance at the party was not a concern because, ‘’They were off-duty.'’
A zoning change would allow the group to conduct services on Fridays and during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting and prayer. The group currently conducts those more heavily attended services in the nearby Good Shepherd United Methodist Church. Gallaher estimates 40 to 45 people attend those services.
The center also is seeking a variance to build as many as 30 parking spaces on the Army Trail Road site.
Keeping a tighter fist on its spending helped the city save about $3.9 million in its past fiscal year, and that may help the city’s general fund reserves grow between $3 million and $5 million.
On Monday, the Bloomington City Council received a preliminary report on the city’s $75 million budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year, which ended April 30.
The city may also receive $955,000 more in income than what it was projecting.
Blue-green algae are common in Central Illinois lakes and other bodies of water, but some produce chemicals that can have a toxic effect on humans, pets and livestock, said the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
According to City Engineer Dennis Sullivan, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency was pushing the city for about $400,000 borrowed from Illinois to meet state requirements for upgrades to the city’s water system.[…]
The City Council on Tuesday suspended its rules, which typically require two readings to pass an ordinance, to allow the payment to be approved in one meeting.
* The Democratic Governors Association is up on TV with a significant buy in Chicago. More details for subscribers tomorrow. From Politico…
The Democratic Governors Association is taking a blowtorch to Illinois state Sen. Bill Brady, the Republican nominee for governor, launching a strongly negative ad in the Chicago media market at what one strategist called “saturation levels.”
The commercial, called “Daughters,” starts Tuesday and targets female voters with the message that Brady has “made a career voting against working women,” warning: “Brady opposed the creation of family medical and maternity leave. He was one of only three legislators to vote against expanding mammogram coverage.”
“Bill Brady opposes a woman’s right to choose even in cases of rape and incest,” the narrator continues. “Our daughters and our state deserve better.” […]
“The truth is voters – especially women – don’t know where he stands or who he is,” the strategist said. “In particular, they don’t know how radical and outside the mainstream his views are and the effect they would have on the future of Illinois.”
In a private meeting with White House officials this weekend, Democratic governors voiced deep anxiety about the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona’s new immigration law, worrying that it could cost a vulnerable Democratic Party in the fall elections.
While the weak economy dominated the official agenda at the summer meeting here of the National Governors Association, concern over immigration policy pervaded the closed-door session between Democratic governors and White House officials and simmered throughout the three-day event.
At the Democrats’ meeting on Saturday, some governors bemoaned the timing of the Justice Department lawsuit, according to two governors who spoke anonymously because the discussion was private.
“Universally the governors are saying, ‘We’ve got to talk about jobs,’ ” Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, said in an interview. “And all of a sudden we have immigration going on.”
* So, I decided to ask the campaigns of Pat Quinn and Bill Brady where the candidates stood on the federal lawsuit against Arizona.
First up, Pat Quinn’s campaign…
Gov Quinn’s top priority is jobs and economic growth in Illinois. He will continue to work tirelessly to put Illinois back to work and keep us on the road to recovery. Similarly, he believes Washington DC should be focused on economic recovery for Illinois and all of the states in the nation. That said, he believes the immigration system is broken and we need to act now with a federal solution. Gov Quinn believes there needs to be comprehensive immigration reform. What we really can’t let happen is 50 separate immigration policies — or having the issue turned into an excuse for racial profiling.
This also is an economic issue for states. The federal government should be reimbursing states for costs associated with immigration enforcement.
That didn’t answer my question, so I asked whether Quinn supports the administration’s lawsuit. The reply…
Y.
I’ll take that as a “yes.”
* Brady’s campaign finally answered my question a few minutes ago, even though I sent it to them last night and followed up a few times today…
“Cracking down on illegal immigration must be addressed by the federal government. It is troubling that the Administration is spending taxpayer money and resources on a lawsuit instead of addressing the problem. The people of Arizona should not be punished for the federal government’s failure to meet its responsibilities.”
– Patty Schuh
I’ll take that as a “No.”
* Keep in mind that we have a whole lot of European illegal immigrants in this state, so the issue plays differently in Illinois than elsewhere. That could explain some of the difficulty in extracting straight answers today. Also keep in mind that over the top remarks about immigrants are always dealt with harshly here. Keep it civil or go away.
State Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, and Adam Brown, Republican candidate for the 101st House District seat, announced Thursday that they plan to ease this burden by introducing an Arizona-style bill in the state legislature.
“Part of the reason Illinois is going broke is because of illegal immigration,” Mitchell said at a news conference at Brown’s campaign headquarters.
Mitchell said the bill will include these components: illegal immigrants who are identified by authorities will be reported to federal law enforcement for detention; the state will not pay welfare benefits to illegal immigrants; and sanctuary cities will not receive state funds. […]
“They’re criminals,” Brown said. “This is based on a fundamental issue that has been ignored by the federal and state governments.”
If Mitchell and Brown don’t believe us, maybe they will listen to former Gov. Jim Edgar. Just this spring, he told reporters that it would be “disastrous political issue for the Republican Party if we are viewed as anti-immigration.” This bill would cement that image into the minds of voters everywhere.
* Republican state Senate candidate Cedra Crenshaw of Bolingbrook has a new radio ad blasting the “Chicago Machine” for conspiring to kick her off the ballot. She’s become quite a celebrity in tea party circles. Background here. The ad is quite something to behold. Have a listen…
* Pat Quinn’s campaign has two new Internet videos. Here’s one on labor support…
Illinois is changing the way political parties select their candidates for lieutenant governor.
Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation on Saturday that requires candidates of the same party to be nominated jointly instead of letting voters pick each nominee separately.
Under the new law, a gubernatorial candidate would select a running mate for the primary election. Voters would either support the pair or reject them over a different team.
* The Question: If both major party gubernatorial candidates could start all over and choose their own running mates from the get-go, whom should they have picked? Explain.
* As I told subscribers this morning, the tables are now turned on Alexi Giannoulias, who spent the past few weeks mocking Mark Kirk for not facing reporters. From the IL GOP…
Where is Alexi? Day 21
Since media availability at joint candidate forum on June 21st, Giannoulias has ducked weekday public appearances to avoid some tough questions;
Last Giannoulias full-blown weekday press conference in Chicago was May 6th
Kirk has had media availabilities almost every day for the past week or so. Giannoulias is nowhere to be found.
* Giannoulias continues to crank out press releases, however…
As two separate independent watchdog groups conclude that Congressman Mark Kirk’s attack ads are dishonest, the Alexi for Illinois campaign is calling on Kirk to take down the offensive spots. The award-winning groups, Politifact.com and Factcheck.org, both reached the same conclusion that Kirk’s ads are “highly misleading” and “go beyond what the facts support.”
“This is par for the course for Congressman Kirk, whose aversion to the truth is already well-known,” Alexi for Illinois spokesman Matt McGrath said. “We already know that you can’t believe anything Congressman Kirk says about himself, and now two independent groups confirm that you can’t believe what he says about Alexi. The voters of Illinois deserve better than such obvious dishonesty from another typical Washington politician who clearly will say and do anything to win.”
* Natasha Korecki at the Sun-Times has a very good article about the government’s case against Rod Blagojevich. Specifically, the lack of actual completion of so many of his grand conspiracies. Are those still crimes? Likely…
So as the prosecution’s case against Blagojevich winds down to its final days this week, the question remains: Did Blagojevich commit crimes, or was it all just talk?
“The government has charged offenses that do not require completion for them to win,” former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins said.
Collins put it this way: “In an attempted murder case, you don’t have to have a dead body; hiring the hit man is enough.”
And don’t forget, he did, in fact, put the kibosh on state grant money while he tried to extract a huge contribution from Children’s Hospital CEO.
Jurors are looking at a transcript of a Nov. 12, 2008, conversation between Rod Blagojevich and Bob Greenlee while defense attorney Aaron Goldstein dissects the ex-governor’s statements, word for word.
On the tape, Blago is asking his deputy governor about a proposed reimbursement rate increase for Children’s Memorial Hospital. Blago asks Greenlee a question about the rate change: “Has that gone out yet, or is that still on hold?”
Goldstein: “There’s something after the word ‘hold.’ What is that squiggly thing?”
Greenlee: “That is a question mark.”
Goldstein: “Do you know what a question mark is?”
Prosecutor Reid Schar has been objecting consistently. He does it again, stands up and stays standing. “I’m just going to keep standing,” he says to another lawyer.
Later, Goldstein asks Greenlee to define the word “could.”
“‘Could,’” you understood to mean ‘possibility,’ correct?” Goldstein asks. “‘We could pull it back’ means there’s a possibility this could be pulled back?”
Goldstein asks Greenlee, a Yale grad, if he knows diff between “know” and word “no”. Judge Zagel has whole hand over his eyes
* Before the trial started, reporters revealed that the feds probably wouldn’t call Tony Rezko to the stand unless their case appeared to be falling apart. Rezko won’t be called, which gives you a good indication of how prosecutors feel about their case…
Even Blagojevich’s trial judge, James Zagel, said late last month that he considered Rezko a toxic witness who would damage whichever side chose to call him, and that he therefore didn’t expect him to be called.
“Rezko scares the prosecutors,” said Andrew Stoltmann, a Barrington Hills attorney who’s been following the case. “He is a wild card, and prosecutors tend to be scared away from wild cards.” […]
“Rezko and Levine are both wild cards,” said Richard Kling of the Chicago-Kent College of Law. “You really have no idea what they’re going to say.”
What prosecutors seem to be saying most clearly with their omission in the Blagojevich trial is that they don’t need them to make the case.
Dan Curry wondered aloud recently whether US Attorney General Eric Holder was making any decisions about whether to call Rezko to the stand. Curry, a longtime Illinois PR guy, has obtained a grant from the money bags behind the “Swift Boat” attacks on John Kerry to amplify his claims that Rezko is being ignored by the media.
I was talking to my mom on the phone last week, and just as I was about to hang up she stopped me short and insisted that we talk about Gov. Pat Quinn’s bigtime raises to his top staff.
If you’ve missed the story, Quinn gave out raises of as much as 20 percent to his senior staff, while those same people were busily cutting everybody else’s budgets and devising tax-increase strategies.
Unlike the state’s mind-boggling $13 billion budget deficit, this is a very easy issue to understand for people who don’t pay close attention to politics.
My mother does follow Illinois politics quite a bit, however, and she appears to be just as incensed about the immorality of handing out selective pay raises during one of the worst fiscal crises in history as she is about the abject political stupidity of Quinn’s decision.
He’s brought it all on himself. “The bottom line is shared sacrifice in tough times,” Quinn told the Daily Herald last spring. “That’s what Americans do.”
Quinn has uttered that “shared sacrifice” line countless times this year as he’s pushed an austere budget and proposed a tax increase. But the complete, utter hypocrisy of calling for “shared sacrifice” from taxpayers, state employees and government vendors on the one hand while dishing out huge pay hikes for his top aides on the other makes me ill.
This is just an incredibly stupid thing to do on almost all possible levels.
I happen to respect Quinn’s budget director, David Vaught. He has an impossible, maddening job right now. But he should’ve known better than to accept a 20 percent pay raise while he was slashing state budgets. And Quinn, who has billed himself as “Mr. Populist” for as long as he’s been involved in politics, should’ve known better than to offer Vaught that raise.
The problem here is that this governor has great difficulty applying to his office the same lessons he’s preached to others. For instance, Quinn is in the process of drastically scaling back mobile phone usage by state employees, but his top aides still use the state’s fleet of turboprop planes.
The governor has bragged about reducing the state’s payroll, but almost all of the high-level officials he’s let go have been provided with golden parachutes.
As for himself, the governor has turned down a salary increase, often pays his own way when he travels, lives frugally, and is definitely no strutting peacock. You won’t see Quinn spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new suits and ties like Rod Blagojevich did, or jetting off for Jamaica vacations with millionaire pals like George Ryan did.
Quinn mostly lives what he preaches. And it’s admirable that, as an employer, he wants to take care of “his people.” Plus, the amount of money we’re talking about is just a drop in the ocean of red ink flooding the state.
But the governor needs to somehow come to the realization that the pain he is inflicting via his budget and his other actions is all too real for hundreds of thousands of people who aren’t privileged enough to reside within his inner circle. Services for the mentally ill, seniors and countless others are being wiped out right now. Vendors are going out of business because the state is paying them so late. Nonunion state employees are forced to take furloughs and haven’t had a pay hike in years. Even unionized state workers agreed to delay half of their pay raises this year.
You cannot morally demand austerity from the masses while protecting your friends from harsh realities. It is thoroughly repugnant. And it must end.
* Related…
* ADDED: Could The Treasury Save Our State? - University of California-Berkeley law professor Christopher Edley has proposed a novel solution to the budget crises in Illinois and elsewhere: let cash-strapped states borrow from the U.S. Treasury.
The new gun measure allows Chicago residents to register no more than one handgun per month and generally forbids people to have handguns anywhere other than their homes. This would mean owners could not bring a gun into a garage, yard or porch.
The electricity price increase is unrelated to ComEd’s recent filing with the ICC to increase delivery service rates. The review of that case will not be completed until the spring of 2011.
Designed to ensure reliability, strengthen the electric system and reduce the impact of equipment failures or loss of generation to the Loop, the plan would add another 20 cents to the average monthly residential bill, spokesman Bennie Currie said.
If Mary Ellen Caron is tapped as chief education officer, she would be the first white and non-CPS educator to assume that post since Daley won control of the city’s public schools in 1995.
Tidwell and several current Metra managers benefitted from Pagano’s authorizing vacation and sick-day buyouts, according to records obtained by the Sun-Times and the BGA. Pagano authorized a total of $224,157 in payouts to Metra employees in 2009, $428,182 in 2008, and $25,422 in 2007.
About half of the $677,761 in buyout money during that three-year period went to Pagano himself and to Tidwell, with Pagano getting $232,761 and Tidwell $114,945.
Thirty-four other Metra employees got vacation and/or sick-day buyouts last year, the biggest of those totaling $22,220.
Since the storms that began June 18, the city has had to deal with 12,329 “tree emergency” situations, said Jose Santiago, executive director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communication. Many power poles also were down, and more than 70,000 people were left without electricity at one time or another.
The project was announced in April 2009, with the standards released June 2. To date, 23 states, including Illinois, have adopted the math and language arts standards developed by Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association, with expectations that 41 states will have adopted those standards by the end of the year.
* I was down in Texas last weekend spending time with my brother Doug and his family. At some point, Doug played a song in his car that just blew me away. The singer was a guy named Chris Knight, who I at first thought was kinda like a Kentucky version of Steve Earle, with some early John Pryne thrown in. He’s from a coal mining family and writes songs about what he knows best…
The songs were of strugglers, stragglers, strangers and survivors, sung in a voice worn as the hills and lurching down highways we’ve driven before but that beckon still.
Knight’s record company thought he should be a country star, but that didn’t work out. He’s not really a “country” guy. I’m not quite sure he’s an “alt country” person, either. I doubt he’d want to be categorized anyway. He’s simply an honest, dark, flawed soul without a trace of the tiresome overt pandering of mainstream country. He may never make it big, but we know he’ll always be straight with his audience and true to his art.
I just can’t recommend Chris Knight highly enough. Have a listen to “Down the River,” which sent chills down the spine of my nephew Nicholas the first time he heard it. The same thing happened to me. Lyrics are here…
I’ve been thinking Wilson’s cousin
Better find a place to hide
‘Cause I’m going down the river
Yeah I’m going down the river
I couldn’t find a suitable live version of that song because all of his fans sing along the entire time on every video I watched. They are a dedicated bunch, my brother and his wife Shannon included. See for yourself. And that’s one of the more subdued reactions.
* This is one of his most “mainstream country” tunes, but his wordsmith abilities shine right through the production on “It Ain’t Easy Being Me”…
There oughtta be a bridge somewhere they could dedicate to me
I’d probably come to the ceremony with a can of gasoline
Walk on over to the other side, and there I’d light a match
Sit and stare through the smoke and flames and wonder how I’m gonna get back
The sales tax holiday on school supplies and clothing — signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Pat Quinn and set for 10 days starting Aug. 6 — should be a welcome boon for Skip Kanosky, owner of one of the area’s two education supplies stores.
But it’s not.
Despite the governor’s hope that waiving the state’s 5 percent portion of sales tax will boost consumer shopping, Kanosky — who owns The Learning Tree in Bradley — reacted to the news Thursday with a little more than a yawn.
“In Illinois?” he asked. “We can afford that?”
Yikes, man.
* If you’d like to place a small wager on your general election predictions, then by all means click here. You don’t have to plunk anything down to participate, but you can’t win any cash that way, either.
* Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. has been dodging reporters all week about revelations about how he may have participated in a discussion about funneling a million dollars to Rod Blagojevich’s campaign fund in exchange for a US Senate seat appointment. He has finally put out a press release…
“My office has received many requests for comment in response to bits of evidence offered and proffered during the ongoing Blagojevich trial. As much as I would like to clear up the misstatements made by some, and clarify my role (really my non-role) in this affair, obviously it would be inappropriate for me to do so until the trial is over. It is appropriate, however, to emphasize what has long been in the public record: I have cooperated and will continue to cooperate with all government entities investigating this matter, and I have never been advised that I am a target of this investigation. Most important, I was never part of any improper scheme with Blagojevich or anyone else related to securing the vacant Illinois senate seat.”
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Senate candidate Mark Kirk says he is done answering questions about exaggerating his military accomplishments.
Several times this week, Kirk has refused to answer questions about specific incidents during his 21 years in the Navy Reserve. He said Friday that he’ll let his official fitness reports speak for him from now on.
Those reports include glowing evaluations but offer no details on specific incidents — such as whether he came under fire while serving in Afghanistan, as he once claimed.
*** UPDATE *** I forgot to mention Sen. Dan Rutherford’s quite solid fundraising during the first six months of the year. Check it out. The GOP treasurer nominee raised almost half a million dollars, loaned himself another $200K and had more than a million dollars cash on hand. Very strong numbers for a down-ballot statewide candidate. If you forced me to make a “Pick to Click” for November, it’d probably be Rutherford.
* Other stuff…
* Carl Officer: Racism behind challenges to his campaign, other black Senate candidates
* Kirk stands by vote against unemployment benefits
* I went to college with state Sen. Mike Jacobs (D-East Moline), so I know him well and we’ve been buddies a very long time. But, as I’ve told Mike more times than I can count, he really needs to learn to zip his lip every now and then. Here he is talking about the public reaction to news that Gov. Pat Quinn handed out huge raises to his top staff during the worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression…
“Taxpayers get distracted by things that don’t matter worth a hill of beans” Jacobs said .
To his credit, Jacobs went on to say that he wouldn’t have given out those raises if he was governor. But he’s flat-out wrong about how the public is being “distracted” by triviality.
These raises go right to the heart of what’s wrong with Pat Quinn’s governance. Cuts for you, but not for me. “Shared sacrifice” for everyone except the people demanding that sacrifice. If the Pat Quinn of 20 years ago could somehow be brought back to existence, I’m certain he’d be disgusted at what he’d see.
[Illinoisans] have been savaged in this recession. Many have not only endured pay freezes but witnessed their wages cut, their salaries whittled even further by furloughs, their retirement accounts bruised if they’re lucky enough to have them at all, their health care premiums multiplied. Unemployment in Illinois remains in the double digits.
It is against this backdrop that the governor has the gall to propose and promote digging even deeper into their pockets with an income tax increase, while continuing to borrow Illinois’ way into oblivion and making vendors wait in record numbers for payment for services long ago delivered. If Quinn doesn’t understand how badly he’s undermined his own case, no matter how real the state’s budget problems are, well, perhaps there’s just no hope for him.
No doubt this particular revelation will be featured prominently in Brady’s political ads from now until November, and should be. It is impossible to be shocked by any behavior coming out of Illinois government anymore, but this is so obviously inappropriate, such low-hanging fruit for Brady to take a whack at that, well, we just don’t know what planet Quinn currently occupies.
If he knows what’s good for him, Quinn will admit his egregious error and ask his senior staff to give back those salary increases.
* Cairo Residents Protest, Call On Quinn To Help: Not everyone in Cairo greeted Governor Pat Quinn with open arms Thursday. A few residents showed up to protest their high utility rates and call on the governor to do something about it.
* The much-vaunted website Politifact took a look at the US Senate mudslinging this week. One of the claims made by Republican Mark Kirk’s advertising is: “At his father’s bank, Alexi made tens of millions in risky loans to convicted mobsters. Then, the bank collapsed.” Politifact’s take…
In July 2009, Broadway Bank filed foreclosure lawsuits seeking to recoup $12.9 million in defaulted loans made to the pair. So there’s no question that these were “risky” loans, as the ad put it.
But what was Giannoulias’ role in these loans? He was a senior loan officer at the bank at the time, but there’s no evidence he approved them. […]
The ad, however, suggests that risky loans to mobsters caused the bank collapse, and that’s a big stretch. More accurately, the bank invested heavily in construction and development and could not weather the collapse of the real estate market. The losses sustained in loans made to Giorango while Giannoulias was a senior loan officer, while substantial, were a relative drop in the bucket in the overall scheme of the bank’s woes. […]
In summary, D’Arco’s involvement involved a loan that predated Giannoulias’ time at Broadway Bank. Stratievsky had not been charged with anything when Broadway made loans to him. As for Giorango, his relationship with Broadway Bank began long before Giannoulias came on board.
But as the Chicago Tribune detailed, the bank made Giorango an additional $20 million in new loans while Giannoulias was a senior loan officer. There’s no evidence Giannouias approved the loans, but he did some work on them. Still, we think it’s awfully misleading to suggest losses on risky loans to convicted felons led to the bank’s demise (though they certainly didn’t help). In all, we think that all shakes out to a Half True.
* Giannoulias: “He (Kirk) did violate Pentagon rules, twice actually, for improperly mingling politics with his military service”…
The Pentagon released a statement to AP saying that Kirk was twice “counseled” for mixing politics with military service. And we have a memo from the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense referring to “concerns arising from his partisan political activities during his last two tours of active duty.”
The fact that Kirk was merely “counseled” suggests these were not deemed terribly egregious violations of military policy. But the Pentagon did tell AP that Kirk signed a statement acknowledging that he knew the rules and wouldn’t break them again. You don’t sign such a statement if you aren’t deemed to have skirted the rules. We rule this claim True.
* Kirk: “Alexi Giannoulias’ top aide was a longtime BP lobbyist”…
[The ad] begins, “America’s biggest environmental disaster … Where do the candidates stand?”
By the City of Chicago’s definition, Zemenides was a lobbyist for a BP subsidiary. We think it’s highly misleading to suggest that he lobbied in any way for a federal policy that allowed the oil spill to occur. We’re not saying a lobbyist isn’t a lobbyist. But some cities define lobbyist differently.
It’s one thing to be an attorney handling landscaping and zoning issues for a company developing retail gas stations; quite another to lobby for lax federal legislation on deepwater oil drilling. The Kirk ad makes too much of very little. We rate the claim Barely True.
Politifact’s headline on that last one is: “Illinois GOP Senate candidate Mark Kirk smears opponent with BP link.” Pretty obvious how they stand.
A few months ago, Gov. Quinn locked himself into position when he criticized state Sen. Bill Brady, his opponent in the race for governor, for paying no income taxes for two years. Brady’s businesses had tanked with the economy, and he used various tax laws, including President Obama’s stimulus program, to get a complete refund of his state and federal income taxes one year and of his federal taxes the next. Those refunds included all taxes withheld from Brady’s legislative paycheck. Quinn hit him hard.
I was down in Texas with my brother Doug last Friday when U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias revealed that, just like Brady, he had received a complete refund on his state and federal income taxes, including on his state treasurer’s salary. Financial troubles at his now-defunct family bank allowed him to take huge deductions that wiped out his entire tax liability.
My brother hasn’t lived in Illinois for quite a while, but is politically active in Texas. He predicted that Quinn would now have to drop his “he didn’t pay taxes” attack against Brady or risk hurting his fellow Democrat Giannoulias.
Nah, I replied. You don’t understand Illinois. Giannoulias is running for the U.S. Senate. Nobody who’s anybody really cares about U.S. senators in Illinois. Plus, this tax issue is, to quote Rod Blagojevich, bleeping golden. It will work incredibly well in TV ads. Quinn is behind in all the polls and desperately needs that issue to undercut Brady on economic issues by painting him as a completely out-of-touch, uncaring, rich white guy. The governor will toss Alexi under the bus any day now, fellow Democrat or no fellow Democrat, I told Doug.
Sure enough, Quinn told reporters a few days later that Giannoulias should have paid his taxes. The governor wasn’t about to give up a prime campaign issue just to guard another Democrat’s back.
Quinn was actually beaten to the bipartisan punch by Republican Rep. Mark Kirk, who is running against Giannoulias. Kirk took a shot at fellow GOPer Brady while blasting Giannoulias for not paying income taxes. Kirk then launched a statewide radio advertising campaign blasting Giannoulias.
Like I said, the issue is golden. Bleeping golden.
Whenever I post a story about this tax issue on my blog, a nasty fight develops in the comment section between people who say that Brady and Giannoulias were just following the law and those who believe it’s an outrage that some rich guys didn’t pay taxes on their taxpayer-funded salaries.
I fall on the side that says both men should’ve paid taxes on their government salaries, no matter what. I can understand the other side, and I can even see the long-term danger in effectively creating two tax codes, one for politicians and one for everybody else.
But there’s just something not right when an elected official like Brady can afford to loan his own campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars and then accept a complete refund of his income tax withholding. Giannoulias says he’ll donate all of his refunded cash to charity, so he obviously doesn’t need it. Why couldn’t they help fund their own salaries like the rest of us are doing?
Plus, in an era when everybody seems to be stark, raving angry about, well, everything, I reserve the right to be mad about this. If nothing else, it irks me to no end that these guys could think they could get away with this during a campaign.
And now, in yet another weird twist to what was already a supremely weird election year, you can’t tell the attackers without a scorecard. Only in Illinois.
* McConnell stumps for Kirk: Thursday night, a committee including State Representative Jil Tracy (R-Mt. Sterling), former State Sen. Laura Kent Donahue and other Republicans hosted a fundraiser for Congressman Mark Kirk. The headliner of the event was the Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
* Prosecutors are moving pretty fast in the Blagojevich trial, and the judge knocked down yet another defense request…
After just five weeks of testimony, prosecutors in Rod Blagojevich’s case say they’ll rest their case on Tuesday.
The government’s case was expected to last until August.
The defense asked if they could start their case the following week. Judge James Zagel said that was unlikely, but he might give them until Wednesday or Thursday to begin.
I was talking to an attorney last night who said most lawyers love Zagel for his dry sense of humor, fair rulings and his judicial temperament. Some lawyers will even camp out in a courtroom to watch Zagel on the bench, she claimed, adding she believed that jurors will probably identify with Zagel through the course of the trial and that his constant rulings against Blagojevich’s lawyers would be a very bad thing for the defense.
* So, I was reading through the latest Rod Blagojevich surveillance recording transcripts last night and one kinda jumped out at me. The recording was made November 7, 2008 at 1:12 in the afternoon and featured Blagojevich talking to his deputy governor Bob Greenlee…
GREENLEE: (Reading to Blagojevich) Um, uh, “I’ve been predicting Emil for awhile”, somebody says. Um… (dial tone) (PAUSE)
GREENLEE: “Just observing, Deb Mell is coming off as brazen, ungrateful and arrogant.” This is a pro-Claypool post.
BLAGOJEVICH: Yeah.
GREENLEE: Um, (clears throat) somebody else suggested Sandy Jackson for the Senate.
BLAGOJEVICH: Oh yeah?
GREENLEE: Um… (PAUSE)
BLAGOJEVICH: Doesn’t sound like a lot to me.
GREENLEE: I’m still going. There’s just so many of these posts, and they keep getting pulled down. Um, the anti-Claypool post and pro Jan Schakowsky post.
BLAGOJEVICH: I don’t care about that.
GREENLEE: Uh…
BLAGOJEVICH: (To wife) It’s Faith Hill, Patti, look at ‘er.
GREENLEE: That’s it.
BLAGOJEVICH: Not so good.
GREENLEE: We need more, I’m want to see how many have been pulled down.
BLAGOJEVICH: (Exhales loudly). (PAUSE)
It looked to me like they were talking about comments on this blog. Sure enough, they were. A post that day discussed possible US Senate appointments and ran a list of names of people considering Rahm Emanuel’s US House seat. Apparently, I was deleting a whole bunch of them, but I don’t recall why. Maybe some of you do.
Blagojevich used to tell me that he didn’t ever read the blog, but his staff told me that they often read it to him or printed it out for him.
The exceptionally long recording of Dec. 4, 2008 continues with Rod Blagojevich explaining to Deputy Gov. Robert Greenlee and his pollster Fred Yang that Jesse Jackson Jr. and Lisa Madigan were “equally repugnant” to him personally.
“If they were both drowning and I could only save one, I really think I’d save Jesse,” Blagojevich is heard saying on tape. “From a personal standpoint, he’s less repugnant to me than she is.”
In a fiery, emotional plea, former Police Chief Vito Scavo asked the Melrose Park Police Pension Board to recognize his more than three decades of service to the village and let him keep his pension despite his multiple felony convictions.
The police officers under his command “would have followed me anywhere,” Scavo, 62, told the board, many of who have known Scavo for decades. “I was honorable, honest and hard-working. That’s what this is about.”
He was convicted of strong-arming local businesses to use the private security firms he illegally ran out of the police department.
Bryant Brewer, 24, of 5800 Block of South Wolcott, faces one count of first degree murder, four counts of attempted murder and one count of armed robbery, according to police.
Brewer allegedly gunned down officer Thor Soderberg with Soderberg’s own weapon outside a police station near 61st and Racine Avenue Wednesday afternoon.
The Cook County Sheriff’s office received information at around 6:30 p.m. Thursday that a visitor or an inmate brought a weapon into the facility, prompting an immediate lockdown of all 10 divisions at Cook County Jail located at 3015 S. California Ave.
Ald. Joe Moore (49th) called the stash “embarrassing” and a “colossal waste of money.”
“The fact that they have all these blue carts in storage is just an indictment of the city’s failure to live up to its commitment to bring recycling to two-thirds of the city,” Moore said.[…]
Ald. Tom Allen (38th) said he has no problem with the stockpile, adding, “Nobody saw this perfect storm of economic meltdown coming. I assume they bought ‘em in bulk, which gives you a better price.”
* Des Plaines medical firm pays $7.3M to settle federal charges of kickback scheme
* Carthage alderman arrested, charged with embezzling $13,000 from fire department
Bobby Smith, 44, now an inactive volunteer firefighter and former secretary and treasurer of the Carthage Clipper Fire Department’s Benevolent Association, posted 10 percent of a $3,000 bond after his arrest. His first court appearance is July 15 in Carthage.
Smith is no longer on active duty as a volunteer firefighter, though he is still an alderman on the Carthage City Council.
* The latest Rasmussen Reports poll has some major movement in the governor’s race. Numbers in brackets are results from the pollster on June 7, April 28, April 5 and March 8…
Brady: 43% [47% 45%, 45%, 47%] Quinn: 40% [36% 38%, 38%, 37%] Some Other Candidate 9% [8% 5%, 7%, 6%] Not sure 8% [10% 11%, 10%, 9%]
The survey, taken Wednesday night, follows Quinn’s announcement late last week that he was cutting state spending by $1 billion as he wrestles with one of the worst state budget deficits in the country. State legislators wrapped up their session earlier this year, leaving Quinn with a $13 billion deficit to resolve. […]
Given Illinois’ economic problems and the national political environment, Quinn is in a surprisingly tough race despite the powers of incumbency and the state’s strong Democratic tendencies.
Eleven percent (11%) of Illinois voters now have a Very favorable opinion of Quinn, while 27% view him Very Unfavorably.
Brady is seen Very Favorably by 15% and Very Unfavorably by 16%.
These numbers are consistent with the earlier surveys. At this point in a campaign, Rasmussen Reports considers the number of people with strong opinions more significant than the total favorable/unfavorable numbers.
* How would you rate the job Pat Quinn has been doing as Governor… do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the job he’s been doing?
The survey of 500 Likely Voters in Illinois was conducted on July 7, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/-4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC
