* Today’s Question is not getting much action. I think it was the way I worded it. Anyway, let’s try this…
Mayor Richard Daley today said he’s retained an agency to book him for speeches nationally and internationally after he leaves office in May.
Daley said he has signed up with the Harry Walker Agency, a company that sets speaking engagements for a roster of public figures that includes President Clinton, Lance Armstrong, Bono, former political leaders and other public figures.
“Both U.S. and abroad,” Daley said of where he will likely give speeches, though he does not have any specific engagements in place. “I’ll talk about leadership, talk about government, talk about decision-making.” […]
The mayor said he does not know how much he will get paid, but his spokeswoman, Jacquelyn Heard, noted that other speakers at the agency can receive in the neighborhood of $50,000 per appearance.
* The 2nd Question: Speech topics for retired Mayor Daley?
* As you already know, Rod Blagojevich and his lawyers claim there is a missing tape of a conversation that Rahm Emanuel allegedly had with a top Blagojevich staffer the day before Blagojevich’s arrest which would, if exposed, exonerate him…
The lawyers say there is a “missing” recording from a Dec. 8, 2008, phone call between a Blagojevich aide and Rahm Emanuel, then the White House chief of staff.
Blagojevich says Emanuel, now running for mayor of Chicago, offered a deal to give [Attorney General Lisa Madigan] the seat and help the governor pass a legislative package. Last week, Emanuel said an internal administration probe found “nothing inappropriate or any deal-making.”
Even if the tape existed, this would signify nothing. As I’ve said many times before, Blagojevich knew the FBI was taping his conversations, so in my opinion he was most likely attempting to create an alibi for accusations that he tried to sell the Obama US Senate seat by announcing a Madigan appointment. He was busted before he could pull it off.
In a statement filed Monday, prosecutor Reid Schar said such a recording does not exist, and that if the conversation took place, it happened on a phone line which was not tapped.
“As the defendant well knows, from reviewing the discovery” said Schar, “there is no missing recording.”
* Mayor Daley unveiled his annual gun control proposals yesterday, but the emphasis was on punishment…
The four newly proposed measures would automatically transfer to adult court cases of 15- to 17-year olds arrested with a gun; require at least five years [without parole] behind bars for felons caught with weapons; require 10 years in prison for people who point guns at police and firefighters responding to emergencies; and make it a felony to commit a crime with a child in tow if that child is injured by gunfire.
* The Question: Do you have problems with any of these ideas? Explain fully.
State and local officials in northwest Indiana are investing $250,000 in an advertising campaign to lure Illinois businesses across the state line.
The cash has been and will be spent on billboards, newspapers, websites and cable TV. When you consider that Indiana’s campaign started in late January and will continue a while longer and how large and expensive the Chicago media market is, this buy will barely make a blip.
* They also have a little - and I do mean little - website…
Indiana Commerce Secretary Mitch Roob (ROHB) says the campaign’s website already has generated 2,000 unique visits.
2,000 unique visits! Wow! That’s worth about $50 to AdSense. Hooray! They’re rich! That Indiana budget deficit will be balanced in no time flat, baby.
Seriously, 2K uniques since January 24th? That’s less than 100 per day. And, keep in mind that some unique visitor tracking software restarts every few hours, so 2K uniques since 1/24 doesn’t necessarily mean 2K different people.
“In Indiana, Republicans and Democrats alike don’t believe you tax your way out of a deficit,” Roob said. “We do not believe you can tax your way into prosperity.”
Yeah, except for that last Indiana tax hike that nobody seems to remember.
The two-pronged push, by the Northwest Indiana Forum and the Indiana Economic Development Corp., was the focus of a press conference Monday afternoon at the Hammond Marina.
So, they announce an Illinois ad blitz in Indiana. What does that tell you? This is as much, if not more, about local consumption by the rubes than it is about Illinois.
*** UPDATE *** As subscribers already know in more detail, the Senate Republicans are turning thumbs down on Gov. Pat Quinn’s borrowing plan…
The Republican caucus declared Tuesday that they are unanimous in opposing the idea. […]
But Republican leader Christine Radogno says Illinois should instead pay the backlog gradually by cutting spending. She said everything should be on the table for cuts, including education.
Radogno says many government programs don’t do much to improve life for state residents. She offered child-care services as an example of what could be reduced.
She might ask single moms working fulltime jobs if childcare services improve their lives.
A review of the document suggests a gap of more than $3 billion between income and expenses in the coming year. On top of that, the state owes about $8.7 billion to groups that provide services on government’s behalf, to corporations waiting for tax refunds and to the program that provides medical care for government employees.
In other words, expect cuts.
* That being said, one would expect the Chicago Tribune editorial board to be deliberately clueless on why the state should borrow to pay off past-due bills. They’re just that way…
What’s truly infuriating is that much of the money Quinn wants to borrow would go not to paying old bills, but to propping up other state spending. The synopsis of the borrowing bill, introduced by Senate President John Cullerton, says the proceeds of the bond sales “shall be used to pay vouchers that are at least 60 days past due, medical expenses incurred by the State under its health plans, corporate income tax refunds, and other operating expenses of the State.”
Bills are often drafted broadly, but the main purpose of this borrowing legislation is to retire past-due bills. Medical expenses and the refunds are part of that unfortunate milieu. The whole idea is to use a portion of the income tax hike to make the bond payments. That’s actually written into the tax hike bill.
Elaine P. Maimon, president of Governors State University, asked Radogno how she believes the state can catch up on its overdue payments like appropriations to public universities without borrowing.
“We wait and wait and they don’t come,” Maimon said of state payments. “So I just wonder what alternative plan there might be, for universities in particular, to get their appropriated funds without borrowing?”
Radogno said those payments should begin to be made with new revenues from the 67 percent income tax increase approved last month.
“Even if we can’t pay you every penny because it’s not all coming in at once, we can certainly start,” she said.
Every dollar from the income tax hike which is used to pay off old bills is another dollar of new deficit creation. The tax hike was designed with the borrowing bill in tandem. The tax hike pays down the structural deficit and to make the payments on the borrowing, which is then used to pay off the old bills. If you use the tax hike money for old bills, you’re creating new past-due debt unless you come up with corresponding budget cuts. The Republicans are promising to do that, but they haven’t done so yet.
* What really bothered me today, however, was reading the Southtown-Star’s editorial page. Just about every word in today’s editorial is wrong. For instance…
If you thought, perhaps, the estimated $7 billion in new revenue generated each year by the income tax hike for the four years it is to be in effect would stave off any additional borrowing, you’re sorely mistaken.
Who the heck thought that? The borrowing idea is not a brand new plan just floated today. The media has been writing about it since December. The tax hike and the borrowing plan have been inextricably connected since at least then. As mentioned above, the bond payment schedule is actually written into the tax hike law. If this caught the Southtown-Star by surprise, then they’re simply not paying attention.
More…
This $7 billion in new revenue should go to the estimated 36,000 vendors awaiting payment for services already doled out in past years, including school districts, child care providers and a host of others. Borrowing to make those payments is simply irresponsible.
Once again, you use that new tax revenue to pay off $7 billion in old bills you will then create $7 billion in new, unpaid bills unless you make corresponding cuts. There’s about $10 billion or so in state spending that can be cut. If the Southtown Star wants to get rid of 70 percent of that, then I’d be more than happy to publish their complete list. Their examples today barely reach the millions (except Medicaid reform, which the paper doesn’t seem to realize has been and continues to be tackled).
More…
Although Quinn likes to say he’s cut $3 billion from the budget, we’re hard pressed to find concrete examples.
As I explained to subscribers yesterday, a huge chunk of Quinn’s list he released last week was phony. But well over a billion dollars in real cuts were listed. It ain’t enough, but it’s there.
For crying out loud, start paying attention, people.
* Related…
* Illinois Union Ally Turns Critic: Mr. Madigan’s challenge to current workers’ pensions has drawn fire from the state-employee unions that supported him for much of his career.
* Editorial: Time for clear state budget proposals from both parties
As always with that channel, the debate was focused and crisp. The candidates seemed to shy away from too many overt attacks on each other, but they all came across quite well, I thought. Nothing even approaching a knockout punch on Emanuel was thrown. I’m told to expect something far more brutal during ABC7’s Thursday debate. Let’s get to the coverage…
Mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel said Monday he would re-organize the Chicago City Council — and strip Ald. Ed Burke of his police bodyguards and possibly his Finance Committee chairmanship — if he is elected mayor.
“There will be reform of the committees. There will be some committees closed, chairmanships will change,” Emanuel said. “There will be a shared sacrifice, including for Ed Burke and all the City Council. If Ed Burke has six police officers, that just can’t continue.”
During an hour-long debate at WTTW-Channel 11, Emanuel was not the only mayoral candidate who talked about reducing the starring role that Burke has played in the City Council.
City Clerk Miguel del Valle said the Council has developed “an unhealthy dependence upon Ald. Burke,” and it has to stop.
“It shouldn’t be one-person rule — you can’t have everything going through one alderman,” del Valle said. “It does not mean that Ald. Burke will not be Finance Committee chairman. It does mean that Ald. Burke will have to give up a lot of that power that he has exercised to make the City Council a more democratic place.”
Burke has put himself out there as Chico’s main backer. “Mess with the bull, get the horn” goes both ways.
Asked what Daley’s biggest mistake was, del Valle listed the mayor’s overnight tearing up of Meigs Field, while Braun said Daley hadn’t done enough to build the city’s neighborhoods. Chico said Daley had too narrow of a relationship with the council. Emanuel said the mayor was overly aggressive about pursuing the 2016 Olympics at the expense of economic development.
Chico said he will spend the final days focusing on Emanuel’s tax proposal, which would decrease the sales tax by a quarter-point in return for allowing unspecified services to be taxed. Chico stopped just short of calling Emanuel a liar.
“He is a pathological evader of the truth. We have no answers and the citizens are about to go to the polls in a couple of days,” Chico said in reference to the role Emanuel played on the Freddie Mac board and failing to say what services would be included in his sales-tax swap plan.
“Families are going to be sucker punched with this tax,” Chico said, adding that he has repeatedly asked for a list of services and received “nothing.” […]
On [Emanuel’s] criticism of Daley focusing too much on the Olympics: “Too much of our economic future was pinned on one endeavor and that was the Olympics. And when we didn’t get it, we were left without an economic strategy and I think we need one.”
If Emanuel cuts the city sales tax rate to 1 percent from the current 1.25 percent, how much would his hypothetical “working family” need to spend to save $200 in sales tax? Answer: $80,000. […]
Emanuel’s campaign said it was basing its savings estimate on a median family income of $46,000 and an assumption the family spent about one-fourth of its income on items subject to sales tax. Under that scenario, I told them, that family would realize a savings of just $28.75 in sales taxes. (One-fourth of $46.000 is $11,500, multiplied by .0025) […]
In one sentence he’ll talk about the 9.75 percent overall sales tax rate charged in Chicago and in the next mention his one-fifth proposed reduction, when he’s really only lowering the city’s 1.25 percent portion. Then he throws in the planned half-cent reduction in the county’s portion of the sales tax as if he has something to do with it, when Toni Preckwinkle will be doing all the heavy lifting.
That’s before you even get into the legitimate questions that Gery Chico has raised about what services would actually be subject to Emanuel’s luxury tax.
When you do the math, Emanuel’s tax plan doesn’t add up.
Speaking at a Northwest Side luncheon for seniors hosted by outgoing Ald. Patrick Levar (45th), Emanuel also criticized rival Gery Chico for “accepting … with enthusiasm” the endorsement of the Chicago Tea Party Patriots, a conservative activist group.
“The entire purpose of the Tea Party is to stop the president, his agenda, and stop his presidency, and the notion that one would accept it with enthusiasm means that they see the Tea Party as legitimate in what they’re pushing in trying to stop President Obama,” Emanuel said.
Chico issued a news release blasting Emanuel for claiming that Chico had accepted the endorsement. While Chico has not renounced the endorsement, he said, “I am a lifelong Democrat and a fighter for the working families of Chicago. Unlike Mr. Emanuel falsely suggests, I did not seek the endorsement of this group and in reality, have nothing in common with them.”
“Gery has a record of building coalitions across racial, ethnic and party lines to achieve common goals,” Chico’s Press Secretary Brooke Anderson told HuffPost Chicago. “We welcome their support in addition to the broad range of support we have received from a diverse range of organizations, elected officials and residents as we fight to take Chicago in a new direction.”
Last night, Chico briefly said he repudiated the endorsement, but it was quickly glossed over.
* Related…
* New poll projects victory for Emanuel: The fourth and final We Ask America poll conducted by the Chicago Retail Merchants Association (CRMA) found Emanuel building onto an already commanding lead among every demographic and geographic category tested. Emanuel was favored by 58.2 percent of respondents, an increase of 6 points since the January 24 poll. His closest rival, former school board president Gery Chico, garnered 23.7 percent. Emanuel’s lead of 35 points is well outside the poll’s margin of error of 2.06 points. [Full results here.]
* Workers Question Emanuel’s Visit to Secured Airport Warehouse: The Rahm Emanuel campaign describes it as a goodwill visit, but there are questions about whether the mayoral candidate broke rules when he stopped by O’Hare International Airport on the night the blizzard ended. Some aviation department employees told us they were stunned when Emanuel came into their secured building with donuts and coffee. The warehouse, which is on airport property, is surrounded by a tall chain link fence topped with barbed wire and security cameras. You have to show an aviation department credential just to get past the gate.
* Gery Chico’s Success Based on Hardworking Grandparents, Diverse Family
* I told subscribers on Friday that this would happen, then told them about the official resignation and governor’s office confirmation earlier this morning. From Sneed…
Illinois State Police director Jon Monken submitted his resignation Monday and will start a new job Tuesday as director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency.
Monken stepped aside from the state police after the Illinois Senate refused to confirm his appointment by Gov. Quinn over Monken’s lack of law enforcement experience.
It’s been a long, strange trip, but it’s finally ending.
…Adding… So far, his path to IEMA looks pretty clear…
State Sen. John Millner (R-Carol Stream), a former Elmhurst police chief who was one of Monken‚s critics in 2009, said he expects Monken will do well in his new post withn the emergency management agency, where he can draw on his vast experience in Iraq, when he commanded a tank company in combat operations.
[Monken] would have gotten the permanent job by default after Wednesday because the deadline for Senate action would expire. However, the Senate raised the possibility of a last-minute hearing to block Monken.
The Senate didn’t just raise the possibility of a hearing. The Senate scheduled a hearing.
…Adding Still More… From the governor’s office…
Governor Pat Quinn today named Jonathon E. Monken as director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency (IEMA). Monken is a decorated military Veteran who since 2009 has been charged with protecting the public’s safety as director of the Illinois State Police (ISP).
“I salute and thank Jon Monken for his service to the Illinois State Police, which he has led with honor and distinction – most recently during a major winter storm,” said Governor Quinn. “His strong leadership on the battlefield and in keeping Illinoisans safe makes him perfectly suited for preparing our state for disasters, and helping us recover from their aftermath.” […]
Patrick Keen will serve as the interim director of the ISP. Keen is a more than 25-year ISP veteran and currently serves as Deputy Director for the Division of Administration.
Current Interim IEMA Director Joseph Klinger will resume his role as the agency’s assistant director. Klinger has served as the agency’s interim director since May 2010, when Andrew Velasquez III was appointed by President Barack Obama as regional administrator for FEMA Region V. Klinger has served as the agency’s assistant director since 2007 after working for the state’s nuclear safety program for more than 20 years.
Director Monken was under the impression that he wouldn’t be named to IEMA today. Things change.
Sources close to Mr. Quinn say the governor, who had resisted such a move last year, finally concluded that the measure will, indeed, save cash-strapped transit operators $37 million to $90 million a year.
It also will send a signal of fiscal restraint just two days before Mr. Quinn is to unveil a proposed fiscal 2012 budget that he has said will call for painful spending cuts in many areas.
* Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka came out hard today against the bankruptcy for states option. This is from a letter she sent to the US House’s Judiciary Committee, which is holding hearings on the issue…
There is no question Illinois faces serious financial challenges – but declaring bankruptcy is not the answer.
While supporters of bankruptcy are no doubt well-intentioned, their proposal to allow states like Illinois to break their financial commitments is misguided at best. State bankruptcy would immediately result in increased borrowing costs, reduced access to financial markets and suspended or downgraded credit ratings. It is irresponsible. In fact, I fear that the mere discussion of this option runs the risk of destabilizing the bond market.
Beyond those consequences, state bankruptcy threatens to create more financial uncertainty and stunt economic recovery. Residents in our state already face high unemployment, residential foreclosures and other economic difficulties – bankruptcy will only exacerbate their plight. In addition to disrupting the bond market in the short-term, it would stop infrastructure and construction projects that are needed to jump start the economy. In Illinois specifically, it would also further paralyze business recruitment already made more-difficult by the recently-approved corporate tax increase.
She’s right on pretty much all points. Our DC representatives should take heed.
* One thing Tunisia taught reporters is they might wanna check into social media sites before a protest. I received an e-mail the other day touting a “Statewide March on Springfield - ‘THE ILLINOIS STATE WIDE TAX REVOLT,’ so I checked out the group’s Facebook site. Just 77 FBians are planning to attend. No Tunisia yet.
State Senator John O. Jones says Republicans will release their own budget proposal following the Governor’s budget address on Wednesday.
Jones says the state is already devastated with taxes that are the highest in the country and it’s time to pull the reigns back and stop spending money the state doesn’t have. “We’re going to come out with a proposal after he gives his budget address. It will not include borrowing more money, but will have some drastic cuts in the budget.
* And in a somewhat state-related story, state Rep. Susana Mendoza said this morning she’s putting 1,000 points behind this new campaign TV ad. Not a bad buy at all. Rate it…
Script…
VO: Recognized as one of Illinois’s hardest working, independent legislators,
the Sun Times endorses Susana Mendoza for City Clerk for her detailed plans to
add new police, cut the cost of city stickers and help grow jobs.
Secretary of State Jesse White and the Chicago Tribune enthusiastically back Mendoza for City Clerk.
Susana Mendoza: “I want to be an outspoken, independent consumer advocate for you. [Applause.]”
* Other stuff…
* “For the Good of Illinois” former governor candidate says state needs cross party lines
* Since it’s Valentine’s Day, how about composing a Valentine for an Illinois politician? Choose anyone you want, but, as always, keep it clean and state-centric.
And, of course, snark is not required but is “heartily” encouraged.
Indiana plans to up the ante, [Blair West, a spokeswoman for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation] said – officials have scheduled a news conference Monday to unveil details of a wider effort. The state is targeting small- to mid-size businesses, and much of the effort to date has been in the Chicago metropolitan area.
“We’ve hired a person to recruit businesses,” West said. “He’s in northwest Indiana.”
According to the story, the Illinois Chamber’s Doug Whitley recently sent an e-mail to his members saying Illinois is finally starting to turn the corner on fiscal responsibility. And, like many of us, Whitley’s tired of the bashing from outsiders…
“It’s time for Illinois to start sticking up for itself,” Whitley wrote.
“I won’t be an apologist for all of the irresponsible budgets and outrageous actions of the past decade, but after authoring many critical pieces, I think it appropriate to acknowledge that Governor Quinn and the Democrats who control the General Assembly have at long last finally begun to accept responsibility and take positive steps to confront our fiscal and policy ills in a more favorable manner.”
* As much as I agree with Whitley, neither he nor I would say that all our problems have somehow magically been solved. Far from it.
Illinois workers’ compensation arbitrator Jennifer Teague offered to accommodate an assistant attorney general by setting a special hearing date in a difficult case during the same conversation in which she asked for help in speeding up resolution of her own personal injury case, according to a three-page report from the Office of the Executive Inspector General for Attorney General Lisa Madigan. […]
The report stated that Teague asked assistant attorney general A for help in getting a check for her claim by contacting Susan LeMasters, an employee of Central Management Services, whose job it is to facilitate workers’ compensation claims for state and private claimants. In exchange, she would agree to set a “special hearing date” in a case the attorney general’s office wanted to settle. […]
Teague canceled a scheduled hearing Aug. 5 in the Anderson case, stating she was taking a furlough day. When the assistant attorney general tried to reschedule the hearing, Teague said “she was being forced to take 24 furlough days that she was never going to get the Jo Anderson case done because she was going to have to keep taking furlough days until the last day of the Mount Vernon docket,” according to the report.
“Arbitrator Teague then told AAGA (assistant attorney general A) that she wanted to settle her personal workers’ compensation case, involving a cubital tunnel claim, with Susan LeMasters and asked AAGA if there was a way to avoid the 180-day wait for the payment on her claim. …”
“Arbitrator Teague then said to AAGA that if she (Teague) could get her case settled with Susan LeMasters, then she would give AAGA a special hearing date in the Jo Anderson case.”
Teague, you will recall, was the same arbitrator who allegedly attempted to hold a secret hearing for the former state cop who was injured in a crash which killed two people and for which he pled guilty to reckless homicide.
In an e-mail to a Belleville lawyer representing a client in a pending injury case assigned to another workers’ compensation hearing officer, Jennifer Teague provided legal guidance and confided that her bosses considered her fellow arbitrator a “fool.” […]
Teague, 37, gave advice and conducted legal research for private attorneys who specialized in workers’ comp cases, the e-mails showed. It could not be determined whether any of these cases were before Teague.
[Arbitrator John Dibble] has ruled in favor of more than 125 Menard Correctional Center guards and employees who hired [attorney Thomas Rich] to obtain injury settlements for repetitive trauma ranging from about $15,000 to more than $150,000. In October, Dibble received $48,790 in his own settlement he said stemmed from when he fell on steps at the commission hearing site in Herrin on Nov. 12, 2009, causing him to develop an unusual condition called, “post traumatic carpal tunnel syndrome.”
“Your bride called this a.m. and asked to purchase tickets to South Pacific at the Fox for the matinee show. … I tried to leave message on her cell phone … think I succeeded … but if not, please tell her no problem,” Rich wrote to Dibble via e-mail.
Former Illinois Assistant Attorney General Bill Schneider said he passed along all necessary information regarding the workers’ compensation case involving former Illinois State Trooper Matt Mitchell, who pleaded guilty to reckless homicide in connection with a high-speed crash that killed two Collinsville sisters.
Schneider, who represented the state, wrote Saturday in an e-mail to the News-Democrat that he informed his supervisor of “all unusual aspects of the Matt Mitchell work comp case.”
“I believed that I fulfilled my obligations and passed along all necessary information to my direct supervisor,” Schneider wrote.
But Ann Spillane, chief of staff for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, maintained that after searching their e-mails, they have found no evidence that Schneider ever told his supervisors about workers’ compensation arbitrator Jennifer Teague’s attempts to have the Mitchell hearing so reporters would not attend.
Sheesh.
* Meanwhile, the workers’ comp reform negotiations took a twist last week when Gov. Pat Quinn’s office hosted a negotiating session. The Illinois Manufacturers pick up the story from there…
While Workers’ Compensation negotiations are typically conducted between business and labor only, this discussion [last] week included a host of other sectors including trial lawyers, hospitals, doctors, insurers, physical therapists, and firefighters who are all generally opposed to Workers’ Compensation reform.
The IMA noted vigorously that each of these groups is interested in protecting their access to some of the $3 billion that flows through the system every year while it’s the employers that actually pay the bills. [IMA President Greg Baise] noted that in previous testimony on SB 1066, a large number of physicians testified repeatedly that they charge more for Workers’ Compensation cases than regular cases covered by insurance.
Despite considerable work on the issue to date, Quinn’s assumption of leadership from the legislature will mean starting the process over again. Hence, Thursday’s meeting was largely introductory in nature.
However, the Chamber and the other Joint Employers effectively delivered a simple message to the Governor and the legislative leadership: you must clearly define what the outcome of this process will accomplish. Employers deserve to know on the front end if the Governor is committed to real reforms that will dramatically improve our rank of 3rd most expensive system or if he is only interested in window dressing.
* Related…
* AG Madigan opposes ComEd automatic rate hikes: “We have some serious concerns about the proposal in its current form and are strenuously opposed to it. It will seriously harm consumers. We expect this to be a hard fought issue,” Madigan’s office said in a statement.
* Chicago commercial real estate market dodges collapse, begins recovery: Loan delinquencies are falling, property values are rising and leasing is picking up at the area’s office buildings, shopping malls and warehouses, signs that the market is in the early stages of a broad-based recovery. Though it is far from reclaiming the ground lost in the deepest downturn since the early 1990s, Chicago clearly will avoid the devastating crash many predicted two years ago.
* US House bill threatens O’Hare expansion funding
* Dark times, bright future: Inside the Mitsubishi deal:Jerry Berwanger admits now there were times he thought Mitsubishi’s Normal manufacturing plant could close. “Yeah, I did,” said the plant’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “I couldn’t show that. I didn’t want to show that”
“Is it weird that I’m kind of glad to have Judy Baar Topinka back?” a Democratic friend of mine asked me the other day.
No, I replied. It’s not weird. I’m glad she’s back as well. She’s crazy, I said, but in a very sane way.
Topinka was elected state comptroller in November by a huge margin, while spending just $270,000. That’s less than half of what it costs to run a decent state House campaign. Some cost many times that.
Down-ballot statewide races like Topinka’s revolve a lot around name recognition. Topinka was state treasurer for three terms, so Illinoisans knew who she was.
After Topinka lost the 2006 governor’s race to Rod Blagojevich, voters this time around may have tried to make it up to her by casting more votes for Topinka than she’d ever received before. She lost just two counties and performed way better in Cook County than any statewide Republican candidate, including U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk.
Topinka has kidded me recently for being responsible for that failed 2006 gubernatorial bid, which put her out of government for four years. I’ve covered her for more than 20 years and she was a great source of information while she was in the state Senate, so while she was attempting to make up her mind about challenging Blagojevich she asked for my thoughts. I don’t give advice, but I did pose two questions to her:
Are you comfortable serving another four years as treasurer with Rod Blagojevich as governor?
If Blagojevich or one of his top cronies is indicted before the election and a Republican goes on to win, are you comfortable with all of the candidates who have announced a primary bid?
Apparently, the answer was “No” to both, because she took the plunge, but then lost by 10 points.
Topinka has a well-known reputation for being tight with a dollar. She’s a thrift shop, garage sale kind of person who lives in a modest neighborhood in suburban Riverside. With the state’s backlog of unpaid bills in the billions, a penny-pincher is good to have around.
She’s also a beloved figure on both sides of Springfield’s political aisle. She’s not overly partisan, and her years in the General Assembly helped her understand how the process works. But she’s no get-along, go-along type. Topinka speaks her mind and has a very sharp tongue. Few in politics can get away with that, but she’s always managed to say what was on her mind while still getting things done.
A few weeks ago, Topinka did something that most Illinois politicians have refused to do. She got specific about actual budget cuts.
As state government slid into budgetary hell, most Republicans chastised the Democrats for not cutting the budget, but then refused to offer up any real cuts of their own. The majority Democrats were even worse. They’re in control, but they punted to Gov. Pat Quinn, sending him “lump sum” budgets that didn’t make any specific cuts but just reduced spending for each of his agencies.
So when Topinka mentioned on a radio program that it would be easy to find a billion dollars in cuts, I challenged her staffers to come up with a list. They did.
Not everybody agrees that her list would actually save a billion dollars, myself included. But at least she was willing to stick her neck out and put her name on some real budget reductions, including a $100 million cut to universal preschool, moving seniors out of nursing homes and into home care to save $120 million more, and eliminating the state’s $26 million Amtrak operating subsidy.
You may not agree with Topinka’s cuts, but we need far more budget ideas on the table. The state budget has been left to the two Democratic legislative leaders and the governor for far too long. Republicans and rank-and-file Democrats have abdicated their responsibility as legislators.
The object of a General Assembly is to collect ideas from all over the state and then percolate them in Springfield. And even though the state just raised taxes, budget cuts still will be required because the hole wasn’t completely filled, and pension, labor, health care and material and energy costs will continue to rise every year.
Topinka has put herself out there. It’s time for everybody else to follow suit.
While not providing details, she said the proposal her office will forward will “provide for some customization” of pensions.
House GOP Leader Tom Cross of Oswego has advanced a plan for employees to have choices of pension levels.
“I could support Tom Cross’s position, but I’m taking it a step further,” Topinka said. “I think the answer is choice rather than meat ax.”
“As I read the constitution, I think it’s pretty much of a lock that says you have a contractual relationship with your employees and it cannot be diminished,” Topinka said. But she said her bill would provide “something that’s tolerable” if changes are made.
Thoughts?
* The governor will present his annual Budget Address on Wednesday. We’ve already covered most of this ground, so here are several roundup stories…
* ‘No idea what I’d do’: Child care programs, parents here brace for major state budget cuts
* Quinn warns of ‘lean’ year following major income-tax increase: The governor said he will provide details during his Wednesday budget address, but cautioned that sacrifices must be made in order to get the state’s budget books in order. “It’s going to be a lean year, we have to be very, very frugal,” Quinn said.
* Quinn wants to borrow $8.75 billion to pay down bills
* Quinn prepares for budget address, Republicans ramp up criticism
* Erickson: Quinn’s budget talk’s probably an un-reality show
* Despite more taxes, budget still won’t be easy for Quinn: Nekritz said that without the new money taxes will bring, Illinois would have had to cut services much more deeply than is probably realistic. The state might still have to cut $1 billion or so in expenses, she said. But it could have been worse. “A billion is a lot different than seven billion,” Nekritz said.
* Durbin wants unemployment aid for states: U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin announced today he will introduce legislation this week that could save the state of Illinois more than $200 million over the next two years.
* Equality Illinois’ annual gala was widely attended by most of the big players in Chicago and Illinois politics. But one person was missing…
Mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun was conspicuously absent; according to a member of her team, she had refused to pay for a table, saying that candidates should not have to pay to interact with voters. Asked about the issue, Equality Illinois CEO Bernard Cherkasov said that as a 501 ( c ) ( 3 ) organization, free seats would have counted as illegal gifts to a candidate.
Wow.
* The next day, Ms. Braun tried to make a joke about the Mel Brooks movie “The Producers” and tie it to Rahm Emanuel’s public persona vs. his alleged private reality. The movie is about some Broadway producers in desperate need of money who come up with a scheme to con people out of cash by producing a play called “Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden.’’ There’s a character in the film who loves Hitler, believing him to be a kinder, gentler sort. Anyway, the joke didn’t go down well…
Braun asked the 200 people at the rally held at the Parkway Ballroom on South King Drive how many had seen the film. Few, if any, hands went up. She pressed ahead.
She said Emanuel’s “so kind, so nice’’ image in his campaign commercials belied his record as a congressman of voting against 128 bills sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus and reminded her of the character in “The Producers,” who was “still in love with the Furher, which was Adolf Hitler,’’ she said.
She paused, waiting for the laughter.
It did not come.
“You don’t get the joke,’’ she said. “OK. We get the kind man, the gentle man on television and not the person who voted against $5 million for food aid to Africa.’’
And when asked by reporters whether she was comparing the Jewish Emanuel to Hitler, Braun snapped…
“OK, you see that’s the problem with making a joke with you all around,” she said to reporters. “I was not comparing him to Adolf Hitler.
“I was trying to say that people can get confused on the concept, and that the kind, gentle concern for the public that’s being portrayed in all these ads does not square with the record. That’s all,” she said. “I was just making a point about the record versus the portrayal.”
Oy.
And I say “alleged” private reality because I’ve come to the conclusion that Emanuel doesn’t really “lose” his temper. He uses it. Nobody who sat through those hours of questions by the goofballs at his residency hearing has a serious problem with losing his temper.
The poll also shows a little more than half — 55 percent — have made up their minds in the race, while 45 percent feel they could still change their minds.
Also of interest, the poll asked whether people “believe the media has provided fair coverage of all the candidates, or … think that they have been biased toward their endorsed candidate?”
A whopping 61 percent of respondents say they belive coverage has been biased. And those numbers are even higher among those who said they would vote for either Miguel Del Valle, Moseley Braun or Chico.
Tribune, 12-1-2010: Rod McCulloch, a Republican strategist convicted of falsifying signatures in 2008, who acknowledges he recruited workers to circulate petitions for (Rahm Emanuel’s tenant Robert) Halpin.
Tribune 11-30-2010 In 2008, McCulloch was convicted of perjury in connection with the falsification of signatures for a DuPage County political candidate. He was sentenced to probation.
That was quite a weekend she had.
* Roundup…
* Separate, Unequal, and Ignored - Racial segregation remains Chicago’s most fundamental problem. Why isn’t it an issue in the mayor’s race?: When [poverty] is combined with segregation, it means blacks are far more likely than any other group to live in concentrated poverty. It’s hard to be poor; it’s much harder to be poor and surrounded by poverty and all the harmful cultural norms and behavior, such as crime, that accompany it. It’s a kind of poverty whites rarely experience, and one tough to escape. When Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson studied Chicago residents in the most disadvantaged quartile of the city’s census tracts a few years ago, he found that no white families, and only a few Hispanic families, were represented. “Residents in not one white community experience what is most typical for those residing in segregated black areas,” Sampson wrote in 2009, in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. “Trying to estimate the effect of concentrated disadvantage on whites is thus tantamount to estimating a phantom reality.”
* Civic Federation: Next mayor should consider privatizing everything: Chicago’s new mayor should consider privatizing everything from the city’s water system, garbage collection and curbside recycling to building management and the 311 non-emergency center to resolve a structural deficit that literally has the city on the brink of bankruptcy, according to the Civic Federation.
* The Big Question no one seems to be asking Rahm, but should: Mr. Emanuel, do you see yourself as the indispensable man that Chicago will require indefinitely, perhaps even to the end of your life, or will your administration move quickly to master our current challenges, and will you pledge to serve no more than two terms?
* Marin: Black pols aren’t backing Braun: Do a search of Braun’s campaign disclosure reports, and you’ll find only Congressman Bobby Rush rushed to her side. His political campaign gave a $25,000 contribution on Nov. 29.
* Sun-Times: Our choice in 38th Ward is Caravette, not the other guy
* Metra’s tests give agency little room to breathe: Metra’s own testing of toxic diesel exhaust inside its passenger coaches shows the transit agency’s pollution problems are more extensive and worrisome than it has publicly disclosed… Soot levels generally were highest inside the first car behind the locomotive, dropped in the second car and declined substantially in the last car. Moreover, levels were dramatically lower on return trips downtown using the same locomotives… In January, the transit agency announced it is installing more efficient air filters on its train cars and switching to cleaner fuel for its locomotives.
* New county finance chief joined firm’s board after awarding it city pension deals
