“On Saturday, Senator Kirk checked himself into Lake Forest Hospital, where doctors discovered a carotid artery dissection in the right side of his neck,” his office said in a statement.
“He was transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where further tests revealed that he had suffered an ischemic stroke,” it said. “Early this morning, the senator underwent surgery to relieve swelling around his brain stemming from the stroke. The surgery was successful.
“Due to his young age, good health and the nature of the stroke, doctors are very confident in the Senator’s recovery over the weeks ahead.”
Ischemic stroke is by far the most common kind of stroke, accounting for about 88 percent of all strokes. Stroke can affect people of all ages, including children. Many people with ischemic strokes are older (60 or more years old), and the risk of stroke increases with age. Each year, about 55,000 more women than men have a stroke, and it is more common among African-Americans than members of other ethnic groups.
* I received this e-mail message from a college professor the other day…
Dear Mr. Miller:
I’m teaching the state politics course at [redacted] this spring, and had two questions for you:
(1) The students will be required to keep up with the (non-subscriber) version of your blog this semester (and will be quizzed on important content). […]
(2) If you have any interest in talking to a class (it meets TTh from noon-1:40), either in person or via Skype, speakerphone, or online chat, we’d love to have you.
Thanks so much for your time and consideration.
I will likely go to the class, but I’m wondering what you think blog readers could do to help these students? Could we have some sort of online chat, using the ScribbleLive program, which allows instant communication back and forth? The students could ask questions, and we could answer them. Or perhaps they could occasionally suggest some Questions of the Day? Something else?
* You’d think that with all the heat on the legislative scholarship program that legislators would want to avoid doing stuff like this…
In state Rep. Robert Rita’s legislative district — which covers a swath of Chicago’s south suburbs and part of the city’s far South Side — just one out of 10 people has a college degree. The daughter of Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) — a friend and political ally of Rita — is being given the chance to buck those odds and earn a degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign tuition-free courtesy of a coveted “legislative scholarship” handed to her by Rita.
That four-year freebie to the state’s flagship state university is valued at nearly $37,000.
It’s the latest in a string of cases in which the children of political insiders have been given one of the two four-year scholarships to a state university that each Illinois legislator gets to award every year to students who live in their district. Legislators also can split the scholarships, giving a partial tuition break to as many as eight students a year.
Beale and Rita (D-Blue Island) have close ties. Beale has endorsed Rita for re-election in the past, calling him a “strong” ally. Beale’s wife works for Rita. Dana Beale is a part-time, $400-a-month legislative aide at Rita’s district office who, until recently, was also making $76,684 a year working for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. And Rita has contributed more than $20,000 to the alderman’s election campaigns over the years.
Beale, who makes $110,556 a year as a Chicago alderman, says none of that put his daughter, Taylor Beale, at the head of the line when Rita was deciding which students would get four years of free college tuition.
“She filled out the application, submitted it to the state rep and received the scholarship,” says Beale.
Oy.
* Ms. Beale does have impressive credentials…
[Rep. Rita’s] statement reads in part: “A National Honor Society scholar, a ‘Who’s Who Among High School Students’ member, a city champion on the girls’ varsity tennis team, a community Little League volunteer and a sterling recommendation from her principal at Whitney Young Magnet High School were the reasons that earned Taylor Beale a tuition waiver. Denying such an academically talented and civic-minded student a tuition waiver because of her father’s job would amount to blatant discrimination against a promising African-American student.”
OK, she’s talented and sharp. But the heat this will generate could wind up driving a big nail into this program’s coffin. Ironically enough, maybe Rita just did his colleagues a big favor.
The closure plan hinges on placing residents in community-based settings. Those are the same organizations that many times wait months and months to get paid for delivering services.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if the plan got derailed because those organizations refused to take any more clients for which they won’t get paid on time?
The administration says the Jacksonville and Tinley Park facilities were the first picked for closure because they scored worst in rankings based on objective criteria like physical condition, difficulties in recruiting staff and economic impact on the surrounding communities.
You’ll have to take Quinn’s word for that, however. He won’t release those rankings, so there’s no way to tell how Jacksonville compared to similar facilities in Anna or Chester, or how Tinley Park matched up against other mental hospitals.
The governor is releasing the final scores for the two facilities, but knowing that Jacksonville was rated a 3 on staff recruitment doesn’t allow for comparisons to other institutions. Quinn isn’t releasing any of the data his staff used to calculate the scores, making it impossible to review the work and check for potential errors.
You gotta wonder why they won’t release those rankings. It doesn’t make much sense to me.
* The Jacksonville Journal-Courier has local react…
“The problem with this administration, and I’m getting very blunt, but you can’t trust them,” [State Rep. Jim Watson] said. “The reason we can’t get anything done in Springfield, the reason the budget is in such a mess, is because you can’t trust them. … No one knows where this is coming from.” […]
Jacksonville Mayor Andy Ezard said he was still feeling numb from hearing about the potential closure form the governor’s office on Thursday. He said with this decision by the state, it appears the writing is on the wall.
“We’ll keep trying to work hard to stop this, but I don’t know if we can,” Ezard said. “I’m heartbroken for the families and the citizens out at JDC and I think our community has done well in cooperating and proving to them this institution is needed. I believe at the end of the day it’s politics as usual, and that’s disappointing.”
While less than optimistic of the outcome, Ezard said he’d already heard from many people throughout the state ready to support keeping JDC open and hoped to mobilize those efforts.
“I would love to start the rhetoric of at least talking to the governor’s office or his team that wants to close this.” Ezard said. “We need to have conversations as soon as possible about what’s going to happen to the building, about possibly not losing the whole thing, keeping some of the buildings open and some of the residents there. Our community is gearing up and ready to help those wanting to go out into Jacksonville, but there are certain residents that we can keep here.”
* Related…
* Erickson: Quinn not around to announce lost jobs
Back when the reformers demanded that state campaign contributions be capped, they said it would limit the dollars flowing into Illinois political funds.
But contributions have only barely decreased from four years ago, according to a search of the Illinois Board of Elections’ database. That may have as much to do with the economy these days compared with what it was in 2007, when Illinois’ unemployment rate was half what it is now.
The search shows that about $55.6 million was contributed to campaigns during the last six months of 2011, while the amount was about $57.3 million during the same period in 2007.
House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) raised $2.6 million for the three campaign funds he controls during the past three months. Madigan now has a total of $4 million in cash, which puts him far ahead of anybody else. Four years ago (at the same point in our national and state election cycles), Madigan had $1.3 million in cash. There were no contribution caps four years ago.
And a whole bunch of money is avoiding those caps by being spread around to newly formed political action committees and to some local committees that have never before seen much, if any, activity.
For a somewhat extreme example of what appears to be happening in our capped environment, let’s take a look at contributions made during the latest quarter by Ken and Anne Griffin, a wealthy Chicago couple who gave heavily to House Republicans in 2010.
Before I go further, though, I want to make it very clear that nothing the Griffins did was illegal or even unethical. It all appears to be well within the law. I only point this out to show how silly it is to think that we can cap all the money coming into the system. Money always finds a way around caps.
Individuals now are capped at $5,000 when donating directly to a candidate, but they can give up to $10,000 to PACs and political parties and PACs can contribute $50,000 to candidates. You probably can see where this is going.
The Griffins made $305,000 in contributions between Dec. 29 and Jan. 6, with the vast majority confined to the last three days of 2011. A bunch of that cash went to small, downstate Republican Party county committees.
For instance, the Griffins each contributed the maximum $10,000 to the Stark County Republican Central Committee on Dec. 29. The tiny county party reported raising just $5,700 in cash over the past three years until the Griffins came along.
Republican parties in Christian, Jefferson, Douglas, Logan and Richland counties all were showered with similar Griffin beneficence. Such political party committees can contribute unlimited amounts to candidates in a primary election.
But it wasn’t just a bunch of out-of-the-way county parties that benefited from the Griffins. A group called Empowering Children PAC was formed Dec. 6 and got $20,000 from the couple this month. The two officers of the committee are Andy McKenna (former state GOP chairman and gubernatorial candidate) and John Tillman (who runs the Illinois Policy Institute).
Mary Beth Weiss, of Hinsdale, also contributed $10,000 to Empowering Children PAC and gave another $10,000 to Illinois Liberty PAC, which previously was chaired by Tillman but now is chaired by former GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft. The Griffins gave Illinois Liberty PAC their standard $10,000 each on Jan. 3.
The House Republican Leadership Committee was started Nov. 1 and raised $20,000 from, you guessed it, the Griffins. The fund is controlled by House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego). Another Cross-controlled group, Citizens to Change Illinois, took in $27,000 in the last quarter, with $20,000 coming from the Griffins.
Got all that? And there’s lots more, but my space is limited.
This stuff was a whole lot easier to track before Illinois was reformed. Nowadays, you need a rapidly updatable scorecard to keep track of all the moves.
* Today’s announcement by the Sun-Times editorial board came as a complete surprise to a whole lot of people…
Seventy-one years ago, Marshall Field III founded this newspaper to create a bully pulpit, on the editorial page, for America’s entry into the war in Europe and for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s domestic agenda, the New Deal.
Somebody in the Midwest, Field believed, had to stand up and counter the isolationist and anti-Roosevelt fulminations of Col. Robert McCormick and his Chicago Tribune. […]
Those days are gone. Most good newspapers today attempt to appeal to the widest possible readership, including people of every political persuasion, by serving up the best and most unbiased news coverage possible. They want to inform you, not spin you.
With this in mind, the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board will approach election coverage in a new way. We will provide clear and accurate information about who the candidates are and where they stand on the issues most important to our city, our state and our country. We will post candidate questionnaires online. We will interview candidates in person and post the videos online. We will present side-by-side comparisons of the candidates’ views on the key issues. We will post assessments made by respected civic and professional groups, such as the Chicago Bar Association’s guide to judicial candidates.
What we will not do is endorse candidates. We have come to doubt the value of candidate endorsements by this newspaper or any newspaper, especially in a day when a multitude of information sources allow even a casual voter to be better informed than ever before.
Research on the matter suggests that editorial endorsements don’t change many votes, especially in higher-profile races. Another school of thought, however — often expressed by readers — is that candidate endorsements, more so than all other views on an editorial page, promote the perception of a hidden bias by a newspaper, from Page One to the sports pages.
In keeping with this effort to go the extra mile to reassure you of our commitment to nonpartisanship, we also have decided to extend to our senior management the journalist code of ethics ban on making contributions to political campaigns.
* As an outside (very low-paid) CS-T columnist, I’m not a member of the editorial board, so I wasn’t consulted. If I had been, I’m not quite sure what I would’ve said. I guess I can see both sides here. You endorse somebody (Rod Blagojevich, for instance) and then you carry the weight of that decision for years to come. On the other hand, might this not strengthen the Tribune’s influence over elections? Then again, newspaper endorsements haven’t meant much for several years now.
I don’t think any other daily newspaper in Illinois has ever made a decision like this. I doubt many will give up the perceived power and influence of their endorsements, but they’re fading anyway.
To call Tom Irwin a fixture on the Springfield music scene would be something of an understatement. Beginning in the mid-1970s as a bass player and eventual frontman for various local rock bands, straight through to his present status as an accomplished songwriter and bandleader, Irwin has been a popular draw in local clubs since before he could legally drink in them. He has performed virtually every Sunday night in Springfield since the 1980s at a series of different venues, with his current weekly residency at Brewhaus stretching back to 1993. Now, after years of personal and career highs and lows, including occasional layoffs and wholesale musical reinventions, Irwin, the longtime music columnist for Illinois Times, has just released the most ambitious and accessible music of his career.
Sunday came and went with a rocking show at the Brewhaus until well past midnight. The crowd was good, with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday on Monday becoming a buffer for regular working folks to beat the aforementioned schedule switch. A highlight of the night was seeing fellow IT columnist Rich Miller dancing to Bongo, Bongo, Bongo with all the gusto he could muster, which can be a bunch.
I’ve been dancing to that song for twenty years, especially for the last minute or so when it kicks into high gear…
* But we’re not going to close out our week with Tom’s song because Etta James has died.
Ms. James embraced songs so lovingly that you’d swear she must’ve written them herself. And if songs like this don’t make you want to snuggle up and/or slow dance with your best girl or guy, then something is seriously wrong with your heart, or your ears. Oh, what a gorgeous voice…
You’ll never know
How slow the moments go
‘Til I’m near to you
* Kristen McQueary reports that a gaming bill breakthrough might be on the horizon…
Representatives of the state’s casinos, the horse racing industry and the offices of Governor Pat Quinn and Mayor Rahm Emanuel met Wednesday in Springfield to seek common ground on a gambling bill. Their negotiations, which began last month, may result in a deal that does not include slot machines at racetracks, the final hurdle to getting a bill signed into law.
Talks are continuing, and racetrack executives say they still want slots, but they are discussing options that would instead give the racing industry a more stable and accessible revenue stream enforceable by the courts, participants in the negotiations said. […]
On Wednesday, about 35 lobbyists and lawyers met in a private conference room in the Capitol with another meeting scheduled for next month. One idea being discussed is a contractual “impact fee” from the casinos to the racing industry that avoids the Legislature altogether.
Tim Carey, president of Hawthorne Racecourse, a thoroughbred track in Cicero, said he would prefer to come to an agreement directly with the casinos because it would be more enforceable. “Let’s do it by contract,” he said. “What do we need the Legislature for?”
* The Question: Do you support slots at tracks? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. Thanks much.
* Earlier this week, we talked about how a candidate who felt he’d been libeled on the campaign trail was blocked by a Cook County judge from suing because of the Illinois’ Citizen Participation Act, which is designed to prevent “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” or SLAPPs.
The Illinois Supreme Court narrowed the scope of the law today, ruling that legitimate defamation lawsuits are not covered by the statute. The case is Sandholm v. Kuekcker…
We believe that, had the legislature intended to radically alter the common law by imposing a qualified privilege on defamation within the process of petitioning the government, it would have explicitly stated its intent to do so.
It is entirely possible that defendants could spread malicious lies about an individual while in the course of genuinely petitioning the government for a favorable result. For instance, in the case at bar, plaintiff alleges that defendants defamed him by making statements that plaintiff abused children, did not get along with colleagues, and performed poorly at his job. Assuming these statements constitute actionable defamation, it does not follow that defendants were not genuinely attempting to achieve a favorable governmental result by pressuring the school board into firing the plaintiff. If a plaintiff’s complaint genuinely seeks redress for damages from defamation or other intentional torts and, thus, does not constitute a SLAPP, it is irrelevant whether the defendants’ actions were “genuinely aimed at procuring favorable government action, result, or outcome.” Thus, plaintiff’s suit would not be subject to dismissal under the Act. […]
It is apparent that the true goal of plaintiff’s claims is not to interfere with and burden defendants’ free speech and petition rights, but to seek damages for the personal harm to his reputation from defendants’ alleged defamatory and tortious acts. Defendants have not met their burden of showing that plaintiff’s suit was based solely on their petitioning activities.
* The Court also upheld the law’s constitutionality….
All of plaintiff’s arguments alleging that the Act is unconstitutional are based on the assumption that the Act establishes a privilege for defendants who engage in defamatory acts in the process of petitioning the government. Because we hold that the legislature did not intend to establish such a privilege, we do not find the statute unconstitutional under any of the grounds raised by plaintiff.
Acts in furtherance of the constitutional rights to petition, speech, association, and participation in government are immune from liability, regardless of intent or purpose, except when not genuinely aimed at procuring favorable government action, result, or outcome.
And—no surprise—in part because the tax increases have caused companies to leave Illinois, the state budget office confesses that as of this month the state still has $6.8 billion in unpaid bills and unaddressed obligations.
That bill backlog, which may be even higher than $6.8 billion, has absolutely zero to do with the small number of companies which have left Illinois. The tax increase legislation set aside funds to make annual bond payments that would’ve eliminated the mountain of past-due bills right away. But that bond plan failed, and doesn’t look like it will ever be resurrected. The state cut spending this fiscal year, but not enough to significantly pare down the pile of old bills. Without some new revenues and/or lots more budget cuts, Illinois will be dragging those old bills behind it for years to come.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, approvingly links to the WSJ editorial and uses it to make these points…
Whenever any politician argues in favor of a higher tax burden, just keep these two points in mind.
1. Higher taxes encourage more government spending.
2. Higher taxes don’t raise as much money as politicians claim.
The combination of these two factors explains why higher taxes make things worse rather than better.
Ummm….
1. Operational spending is down since the Illinois tax hike.
2. The Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability has repeatedly said this year that revenues from the tax increase are coming in as the “politicians” expected.
If Illinois hadn’t increased its taxes, it would’ve had to cut $7 billion more from spending to balance its budget, and it would still have all those unpaid bills.
Always beware ideologues. They’re usually deliberately ignorant of actual facts.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Thanks to a commenter for the link…
Illinois lost 269 businesses employing 8,894 workers in Illinois [in 2011, after the tax hike passed] but attracted 244 companies employing 6,883 workers in the state, the data show. The report called the job loss “negligible” in a state with an employment base of nearly 6 million jobs.
The job losses also were offset by more than 13,000 startups in the Chicago area that produced nearly 23,000 new jobs, led by companies at opposite ends of the spectrum: professional, scientific and technical services firms and administrative and support services.
Illinois had a net loss of 2,256 jobs to Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, while it gained 1,806 jobs from California, Oregon and Washington.
Illinois lost 16 companies and 158 jobs to Michigan but gained 15 companies employing 83 workers. Illinois gained 20 companies and 506 jobs from Wisconsin, while losing 22 companies and 129 jobs to its northern neighbor. […]
Illinois had a net loss of 128 jobs to Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. The data show that Illinois lost 27 companies and 719 jobs to Indiana but gained 22 companies and 337 employees from its neighbor.
Yeah, things completely suck here. Turn out the lights, we’re doomed. Sheesh.
* The unemployment rate also went down last month, but there was mixed news…
The state lost 4,100 jobs in December from November, but the unemployment rate fell to 9.8 percent from 10 percent, the Illinois Department of Employment Security said Friday.
Year-over-year, the state added 52,600 jobs, but the jobless rate rose from 9.2 percent.
* It’s amazing to me that this building is still standing…
Bulldozers soon may finish what Jake and Elwood started more than 30 years ago: the destruction of the Dixie Square Mall.
The mall has been vacant since John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd raced through it with police cars in hot pursuit, scattering extras and laying waste to much of the 600,000 square feet of retail space in an iconic chase scene from the 1980 film”The Blues Brothers.”
In the decades since, vandals and the elements nearly finished the job, while officials in south suburban Harvey have tried — at least a dozen times — to find someone to redevelop a site that has become both the city’s bleakest eyesore and most famous landmark.
The zombified property slouches in the middle of nearly 60 acres of craggy asphalt near the intersection of 153rd Street and Dixie Highway, with trees two stories high poking through holes in the roof.
This month, funded by federal money promised more than a year ago during a campaign stop by Gov. Pat Quinn, a demolition contractor has permits in hand and Dixie Square Mall is at long last coming down, city spokeswoman Sandra Alvarado said.
* And speaking of tearing down buildings, what the heck?…
Last week, scrap metal thieves in southwest suburban Shorewood weren’t content with mere scraps.
They first apparently called the owner of a business next to 18400 Frontage Road along I-55 and told him the structure was being dismantled that day because the property had been sold, the Will County Sheriff’s office says.
They then pulled up two semi-trucks to the building — and tore it down. They removed the steel from the structure and then carted it away in the trucks, officials said. At some point, a friend called the property manager to tell her what had happened. Police were called last Thursday, a day after the trucks left.
Sheriff’s deputies then tracked down the building owner who said, no, the building hadn’t been sold — and he hadn’t given anyone permission to tear it down.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s office unveiled a plan Thursday to lay off more than 550 state workers by closing a center for developmentally disabled residents in Jacksonville and a mental health facility in Chicago’s south suburbs.
Officials said the process of moving 185 residents at the Jacksonville facility to mostly private facilities would begin immediately with a goal of closing the doors in October after more than 150 years of service. Operations in Tinley Park could cease as soon as early July.
Although the closures and layoffs are estimated to save the state $19.8 million annually, Quinn aides said moving developmentally disabled residents into community-based settings will improve their quality of life.
“This is not about closing facilities,” said Quinn spokeswoman Brie Callahan said Thursday. “This is a policy decision that has fiscal benefits.”
Under Quinn’s plan, the center would close in October, with about 20 residents being moved out each month to meet that deadline. The state will consult with residents and their parents or guardians to find appropriate living arrangements, which could allow some residents to receive care at home.
That’s because money will now “follow the person,” meaning each resident will get a budget based on their individual needs. It’s estimated that the cost to provide community care for a person with developmental disabilities will average $45,000 to $84,000 a year, compared with $150,000 to $210,000 a year it now costs to house them at a state-run facility.
Quinn ruffled feathers this past fall by announcing the closure of seven state-run facilities, including Tinley Park and Jacksonville. At that time, Quinn said the Legislature didn’t appropriate enough money to keep the facilities going. Quinn and the Legislature eventually agreed on a short-term deal late last year to keep the facilities running for the rest of the fiscal year.
State Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine, said Quinn’s announcement is a step in the right direction, but whether it will pan out in the long term has yet to be determined.
“One of the concerns when he rolled out his plan … this year was that it wasn’t really a well thought-out plan, and it was rushed,” Murphy said. “This appears to address those concerns.”
This is the first step of Quinn’s effort to move patients with mental health issues and developmentally disabilities from state facilities to community care. The governor said more announcements would be coming later in the year.
The age and physical condition of the JDC site and buildings were among criteria that led to its selection for transition to closure:
• JDC uses an inefficient coal power plant to generate heat and electricity
o The state of Illinois spends $1.2 million each year in coal for JDC
o Heating costs are $7,000 per resident, per year
o Boiler #2 lacks a precipitator for filtration, which is of concern to the federal EPA
• Roads and parking lots require extensive repair
• Roof leaks and mold in three Veterans buildings have put them on a list for demolition (expensive due to underground utilities); buildings are currently used for storage
• The Dietary Building, which stores food for the facility, has no source of back-up power
• Two buildings (Dix and Gillespie) are under construction
• Some buildings contain asbestos flooring
Capital improvements of $3.3 million would be required for necessary renovations and upgrades to the power plant, roofs, and electrical systems.
The site occupies 134 acres, but 54 acres are used by others (mostly for the city park). Some alternative uses for the facility include continued use by current tenants: Chamber of Commerce, a private daycare center, and a women’s crisis center, as well as the expansion of tenants through occupancy by other businesses.
Tinley Park Mental Health Center (MHC) is a 75-bed psychiatric hospital comprised of two patient care units. Both units are for acute (short-term) care patients. Due to staffing shortages, a cap of fifty patients has been set for the MHC.
Tinley Park MHC was constructed in 1958. It occupies 213 acres and is adjacent to the 62 acres of property vacated by Howe Development Center.
Of the 8 buildings at Tinley Park MHC, only 5 are operational. Only one building is used for patient care.
The facility was decertified by the federal government in 2009, with recertification unlikely. The Tinley Park facility also shares a campus with the previously closed Howe Developmental Center, preventing the sale of prime land for development in Chicago’s south suburbs.
In the budget passed in May 2011, only 50 percent of the necessary funds were appropriated by the General Assembly to run Tinley Park MHC in the current fiscal year. Funding through the end of the year was restored through reallocation in November. However, this is the second time that Tinley has been earmarked for closure by the General Assembly.
State Rep. Al Riley (D-Olympia Fields) serves on the bipartisan Commission of Government Forecasts and Accountability that agreed with public sentiment and voted last year to keep all the centers open. He noted that hospitals and health care providers repeatedly testified at hearings that they had no room for more patients. Families and law enforcement officials pleaded to keep Tinley Park open.
“Did the governor’s office forget that? I really think they jumped the gun on this one,” Riley said. “This does not make any sense. We have to bring this to a halt.”
“I would ask that we go back through the COGFA process again,” [Rep. Jim Watson, R-Jacksonville] said. “We still have no details of this plan. They can’t say where these people are going and how much it is going to cost. I would think the governor would want to include the General Assembly in the process.”
Rita Burke, president of the Illinois League of Advocates for the Developmentally Disabled, said she doesn’t believe the state will be able to find appropriate community-based programs for all of JDC’s residents by the administration’s timetable.
“We would like to impress on the public that these are not cattle to be moved out 20 a month. These are human beings.”
Burke said she wants to have a face-to-face meeting with Quinn about the planned closure.
“If I were the governor, I would not look at balancing the budget of the state on the backs of the most severely disabled,” she said.
* On to the dueling press releases. First up, Don Moss…
United Cerebral Palsy of Illinois (UCPI) joins numerous other groups representing people with disabilities in support of Governor Quinn’s announcement today of the closure of the Jacksonville Developmental Center and the Tinley Park Mental Health Center.
“This is long overdue,” said Don Moss, director of UCPI and spokesperson for 65 community agencies throughout the state. “All such institutions should go the way of orphanages and no longer be part of the social service system in Illinois. All but three other states are ahead of our state in ridding itself of these relics of the past.”
The Governor released plans today to phase out the Tinley Park facility by this summer and the Jacksonville institution by the end of September. Non profit community agencies will be serving most of the residents of the closed state services and will be provided adequate funding to do so under the plan. Residents will be give the choice of where they want to live and what services they wish to receive.
“If this is accomplished, it will be a 50 year dream coming true,” said Moss who has been advocating for the elimination of the institutional system since the 1960’s.
* Citizen Action/Illinois…
The closure of Tinley Park is yet another attack on the healthcare safety net in an area of Illinois that has no trauma center, limited public transportation, and a growing population of individuals who live either, below, or at the poverty level. To cease services to the mentally ill in the Southland area can only contribute to increased violence and other community perils that come with a lack of public health infrastructure which will most certainly be compounded if Tinley Park is shuttered. Citizen Action/Illinois call on Governor Quinn to not close the Tinley Park Mental Health Center.
* AFSCME…
“It’s wrong to cut mental health and disability services for men and women in dire need. That’s why families and advocates opposed closing Jacksonville and Tinley Park last fall and why lawmakers rejected the closures. By recycling the same harmful cuts, Pat Quinn puts politics and budget considerations ahead of people who need disability services and mental health care. Our union supports the voices and the choices of these individuals, their families and the caregivers who serve them, and we will work again to keep Tinley Park and Jacksonville open and providing needed services.”
“I have decided to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act and will continue to oppose anti-piracy legislation until a compromise can be struck that protects the free and open nature of the internet. I voted in the Judiciary Committee to strip some of most troublesome provisions from the current bill, such as governmental authority to block websites, but my constituents and I still have many concerns with the existing bill. All sides must have a voice in crafting a compromise measure that protects the rights of the entire internet community, including artists and consumers.”
“Online piracy is a legitimate threat to American jobs as well American consumers who knowingly or unknowing participate in it. However, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its companion bill, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), while well intentioned, are not the solution to the issue of piracy,” Rep. Johnson said. “The precedent that would be set by these bills creates undue regulation, the potential for abuse of our legal system, and treads on the slippery slope of censorship.
“It is the right of every American to be compensated and receive payment for their efforts, whether they are artists, manufacturers, or any other type of business. While the protection of intellectual property in any form is a necessary function of government, these bills do not solve the problem of privacy, do not fully address the issue, and are not supported by the American public or the majority of stake holders in this issue. Simply put, these measures add unnecessary regulators to the federal bureaucracy and in the long-run, don’t solve the problem.”
That’s probably the most cogent statement I’ve yet seen out of Johnson’s office.
* And a great cartoon from Scott Stantis…
*** UPDATE *** Victory? Key legislators in both chambers have put the bills on ice…
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid postponed a showdown vote in his chamber on the Protect Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA for short, that had been scheduled for January 24.
Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, followed suit, saying his panel would delay action on similar legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, until there is wider agreement on the legislation.
“It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products,” Smith said in a statement.
Congress should learn its lesson here, but probably won’t. They should never allow one set of corporate lobbyists to write legislation that regulates a competing industry.
