The Chicago construction company behind the 95th Red Line terminal expansion, FH Paschen, is involved in the CRED (Create Real Economic Destiny) program, which gives ex-offenders stability (like housing and a job) after being incarcerated. FH Paschen works with CRED to provide meaningful career pathways to ex-offenders.
Michael Reed (I can get you his info) is a participant in the program and, after being in jail, now works full-time for Paschen and is putting his new skills to use on the 95th station project. He will not only get real construction experience, but also earn any related construction certificates/credentials that he needs to keep his career momentum going. The program is meant to give people an alternative to what they were used to, facing violence in the streets, by teaching them industry skills they need to take control of their own destiny in a positive way. Check out the attached sheet for more info and interview opportunities. This would make an awesome feature or profile.
* Why is this so important? Well, a few minutes after I received Linze’s e-mail, I got this one from the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council…
The attached report updates the Sentencing Policy Advisory Council’s (SPAC’s) 2015 High Cost of Recidivism report. Similar to regular updating of financial reports on economic activity or investments, this criminal justice update incorporates new trends and improved methodology to provide a more accurate and current picture of the high costs of recidivism in Illinois. The updated report describes the costs, how those costs accumulate over time, and how evidence-based policies and practices can help reduce recidivism such that the benefits outweigh the costs.
Key Findings:
* In 2016, more than 38,477 people were convicted of felonies and 33,074 were convicted of misdemeanors in Illinois.
* Only 11% of the 71,551 total convictions were of individuals with no prior arrests. Roughly 96% of the people admitted to prison eventually return to the community.
* Forty-three percent of those released from prison each year recidivate within three years of release and 17% will recidivate within one year of release.
* Thirty-five percent of those sentenced to probation for felony offenses each year recidivate within three years of sentencing, and 17% will recidivate within one year.
* Thirty-seven percent of those sentenced to probation for misdemeanor offenses each year recidivate within three years of sentencing, and 19% will recidivate within one year.
* The average cost associated with one recidivism event is $151,662. Given current recidivism trends, over the next 5 years recidivism will cost Illinois over $13 billion.
Last Friday, Illinois Senator and Conservative Party gubernatorial candidate Sam McCann filed legislation to undo a $180 million grant from Illinois’ Road Fund supporting the Obama Presidential Library, committing the money instead to road and bridge repairs in downstate Illinois. The grant was part of the budget reached in June.
McCann issued the following statement:
Today, I am calling on my fellow legislators to join me in making the fiscally responsible decision to put this $180 million back in our Road Fund.
Illinois hasn’t had a comprehensive capital bill since 2010 and the American Society of Civil Engineers gave our roads a “D” grade last year. If we cannot provide Central and Southern Illinois with safe and efficient roads, we cannot afford to pump money into high-profile luxury projects.
Citizens in Central and Southern Illinois are counting on us to make sure that their tax dollars make a positive difference in their lives, and that is what this bill will do. It also sends an important message that we will support economic development efforts throughout the entire State of Illinois.
Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic nominee J.B. Pritzker aren’t commenting on the move. But Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office had plenty to say, asserting that the state is doing for Chicago only what it did for Springfield when it helped the Lincoln Library with more than $220 million in subsidies—so far.
“The Illinois Legislature recognizes the significant benefits created by presidential centers,” said a city spokeswoman. “This expenditure is critical to the development of the Obama Presidential Center, and we consider it to be a settled matter.”
Did I mention that McCann’s district happens to include Springfield?
Anyhow, McCann has been far downstate and unavailable for comment today on questions like whether a Lincoln Library is better than an Obama Center.
This isn’t a bad move for McCann, politically speaking. The governor signed the budget and agreed to the Obama expenditure. The House and Senate Republican leaders also agreed to spending that state money.
So, McCann gets a free shot at Obama-hating Republicans. But, it’s just a press release. Not many will really read or hear about it unless he can raise enough money to tout his position on the airwaves.
The Executive Director at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Alan Lowe, joins us in the studio to talk about the ALPLM’s backpack drive.
The District 186 Backpack Drive started July 1st and will end July 31st and is from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Free museum admission is included with every donation.
There are a few ways you can donate.
First, by dropping them off at the museum, off of Sixth Street, or at the Real Estate Group on Wabash, or right here at our WICS/FOX station.
On July 27, we’ll be hosting a live grab-n-go backpack drop-off right in front of the museum.
— Democrats are now a little better than 50-50 to win the House. This is the first time this cycle we’ve gone beyond 50-50 odds on a House turnover.
— We’re making 17 House ratings changes this week, all in favor of the Democrats.
US Rep. Peter Roskam’s district was moved from “Leans Republican” to “Toss-up.”
* From the Chicago Republican Party…
Counter-protest for Peter Roskam, this Thursday
Peter Roskam is in the fight of his life and he needs our help this Thursday. His race was just changed from “Likely Republican” to “Toss-up”. If we hope to keep this district from turning Blue in November, we need to match the other side’s intensity right now.
We just got wind that the Democrats are planning to protest at the sold-out debate between Peter and his opponent this Thursday evening in Chicago. They’re planning on having over 100 people there. This is a perfect opportunity for us to show we are ready to fight. Can you come show your support for Peter outside the event this Thursday?
We are gathering with our signs at the north east corner of Jackson and Clark (courtyard of the Federal Building) across from the Union League Club (65 Jackson Blvd, Chicago) where the debate is taking place starting at 4:30 PM and going until the debate starts at 6 PM.
We’re also having a bus take supporters from the suburbs to downtown and back! We’re meeting in Wheaton at 3:15 PM and plan on having everyone back by 7:15. If you’d like to take the bus, let us know and we’ll send you more details!
We can’t let the Democrats’ protest go unanswered, especially on such an important debate night!
Thursday’s Lincoln Forum debate between Republican Rep. Peter Roskam and Democratic challenger Sean Casten is sold out. The event was only supposed to have 100 audience guests, ideally supporters evenly split between the two candidates. But when tickets went on sale, Casten’s supporters gobbled them up. Lincoln Forum co-founders Pat Brady, the former state GOP chairman, and Eric Adelstein, a Dem strategist, decided out of fairness to sell an additional 70 tickets to Roskam supporters. “The Lincoln Forum is nonpartisan and we have a duty to have a balanced room,” Brady said.
I’m told that Casten’s campaign manager bought a big block of tickets, so this reaction seems reasonable to me.
* But check out Casten’s response via press release…
Organizers of Thursday’s debate originally proposed 100 tickets sales, the parties agreed, and both candidates were informed simultaneously of the procedures for online sale. Those 100 seats sold quickly. Thereafter, Peter Roskam expressed concern that more tickets had been purchased by Casten supporters, and insisted upon an additional ticket allotment exclusively for his campaign as a condition to participate. The debate organizers complied, providing Roskam’s campaign with access to a secret stash of 70 additional tickets to the sold-out debate.
“Sixth District residents are clamoring to hear Peter Roskam defend his actions in Washington D.C. When given an opportunity — at $33 per ticket versus free of charge — they jumped. Our campaigns agreed to rules for this debate, but now Peter Roskam wants to change them after the fact in his favor.”
“We still eagerly look forward to the debate on Thursday, but Peter Roskam should agree right now to more debates at home in larger, free venues so all Sixth District residents have a fair and open opportunity to hear about our campaigns. If Peter Roskam is afraid of his own constituents, how can we expect him to stand up to Donald Trump?”
Anyone watching their TV recently may have been startled to see—months earlier than most political spots usually arrive—a TV ad promoting the accomplishments of U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Wheaton.
The ad now has disappeared from the airwaves. But consider it an omen of what’s to come. […]
The [$209K American Chemistry Council] ad hails Roskam’s work on behalf of the tax bill that Congress approved under strong pleadings by President Donald Trump. The congressman “fought to reform our nation’s tax code to lower taxes for middle class families so they can keep more of their hard earned money,” said ACC President and CEO Cal Dooley in a statement. “His leadership on tax reform has also benefited businesses by allowing them to reinvest in their employees in Illinois and across America.”
Casten’s campaign sees it a lot differently.
It emphasizes that the chemistry council’s members include units of major petroleum companies including BP, Chevron, Occidental and Total, all of which received big benefits from the tax bill. Roskam further voted to open oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and restrict federal limits on methane emissions in oil drilling on federal land, it says. More generally, says Casten, “As a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, Peter Roskam has done a lot of favors for big corporations—not the least of which was giving them billions of dollars in tax cuts in the tax bill he authored. Now these corporate PACs are repaying him for those favors—and hoping for more.”
Illinois taxpayers could save more than $3 billion a year from government consolidation and mandate relief, according to Gov. Bruce Rauner. […]
“The estimate was we’d save Illinois taxpayers $3.5 billion per year,” Rauner said. “$3.5 billion per year if we actually implemented the 27 recommendations our task force laid out.” […]
For consolidation, recommendations [by the Local Government Consolidation and Unfunded Mandates Task Force] included, among others, a moratorium on creating new local governments, expand DuPage County’s pilot program to all 102 counties, allow township consolidations with coterminous municipalities, incentivize school district consolidation, and encourage sharing of public equipment, facilities and other resources regionally.
Mandates to be repealed, the report suggested, included prevailing wage laws, providing third-party contract mandate relief for school districts, making collective bargaining permissive rather than mandatory, eliminating minimum manning from collective bargaining, merging downstate and suburban public safety pension funds into a single fund, and others.
* Meanwhile, here’s a memo from AFSCME Council 31…
TO: All State Local Union Presidents
FR: Roberta Lynch, Executive Director
Mike Newman, Deputy Director
RE: Rauner Administration Tries to Strip Bargaining Rights from Hundreds of State Employees
In the wake of the US Supreme Court’s ruling in the Janus case, Bruce Rauner has launched an aggressive campaign to strip hundreds of state employees of their contractual rights by attempting to remove their positions from union bargaining units.
Within the past few weeks, the Department of Central Management Services (CMS) has filed over one hundred unit clarification petitions with the Illinois State Labor Relations Board to remove a broad array of positions from AFSCME bargaining units (as well as from the bargaining units of other unions representing state employees). We will shortly send you a list of all affected employees in your local union.
While these employees have been included in the bargaining unit, with full contractual rights, for many years, the Rauner Administration is suddenly alleging that their positions meet one or more of the statutory exclusion definitions under the Illinois Public Labor Relations Act (IPLRA).
This is a very deliberate attempt by the Administration to force these members out of the union and leave them without any guarantees regarding wages, health insurance costs, promotional opportunities, job security, or other essential rights.
Council 31 has sent a letter to all employees in the affected positions informing them of this attempt to strip them of their union rights (see attached sample letter).
The IPLRA is the law that provides collective bargaining rights to public employees in Illinois. It narrowly defines the supervisory, managerial and confidential standards that are the basis for exclusion from union representation. For example, under the Act working supervisors are eligible to be in the union and confidential employees are limited to those who have access to confidential labor relations information. AFSCME does not believe that any of the positions now targeted by CMS meet these standards for exclusion from the act.
When there is a dispute as to whether specific positions should be excluded from a bargaining unit, the Labor Board holds a fact finding hearing to make a determination as to eligibility. You can be assured that Council 31 will vigorously oppose this assault on members’ rights at the Labor Board. Our ability to successfully do so will depend on the affected employees providing the union with comprehensive information on their job duties. We may be contacting you for assistance in gathering such information.
Harassment, beatings and sexual assault are just a few of the abuses transgender inmate Deon Hampton, who goes by Strawberry, claims she suffered at the hands of corrections officers in two southern Illinois prisons.
Federal court filings outline those claims against staff at Pinckneyville and Menard Correctional. […]
Among the allegations, Hampton, who has identified as a woman for more than two decade, says corrections officers at Pinckneyville physically and sexually assaulted her, and regularly forced her to have sex with her cellmate for their entertainment, while shouting racist and homophobic slurs.
And after she reported the incidents under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, Hampton claims the abuse only got worse, with officers demanding she rescind the complaints or face beatings.
The complaint, which seeks damages from IDOC and named employees, describes an incident In May, where Hampton says prison staff beat and sexually assaulted her, before telling her it was retaliation for reporting officers.
Hampton recalled an incident where she and her cellmate were taken from their cell by officers — there are several pages of defendants named in the lawsuit’s complaint document which include the warden of Menard Correctional Center as well as a list of correctional officers — and told to dance for the men. She said she was also told to have phone sex with one officer and forced to put her mouth on the penis of another.
Alan Mills, executive director of the Uptown People’s Law Center, said he and his team came prepared for the second day of a preliminary injunction hearing in one of Hampton’s civil federal cases when representatives from IDOC came to them with an offer.
“With the judge’s help, we spent the day negotiating and seeing if we could resolve this case without a decision by the judge,” Mills said. […]
He said she has been housed in a health care facility, and will be until her transfer Wednesday to the Lawrence Correctional Center in Sumner.
Mills said he hopes the facilities at Lawrence will better suit Hampton’s needs.
“I know that there are other transgender women at Lawrence, so I’m hoping that they will have the sort of materials she and other transgender women need,” he said.
* But the transfer to Lawrence didn’t work out and she was then transferred to Dixon. But that isn’t working out either…
A transgender woman, who’s incarcerated at a men’s correctional facility in northern Illinois, is again suing the state Department of Corrections to be housed in a women’s prison after alleging she’s suffered abuse in several male facilities.
Deon “Strawberry” Hampton has sued the agency multiple times and has been transferred to four different facilities in the last year. Hampton currently resides at the Dixon Correctional Facility, after spending time at the Lawrence Correctional Center where other transgender inmates live.
Hampton’s attorney says abuse has continued regardless of where her client has been sent.
I asked IDOC today whether any guards had been disciplined for their alleged behavior. I’ll let you know if the department responds.
The fleece zip-up vest, the capstone of a new corporate uniform, lurks in air-conditioned corporate cubicles across America. It covers the sweating backs of nervous interns ordering supersize coffees at Starbucks . It’s worn by silver-haired executives in the elevator, heading up to their corner suites. It appears in myriad shades of grey and blue, on men of all shapes and sizes who earn all kinds of salaries. It has become as ubiquitous as the take-out salad in humdrum workplaces, and is slowly supplanting the suit and tie as essential office wear.
Typically, the vest is worn over a button-up shirt and paired with chinos and brown dress shoes of any flavor. “The uniform” is how this ensemble has been branded around the office of one 36-year-old working in capital markets in Pittsburgh, a past practitioner of the much-mocked look who asked that his name be withheld. During a recent trip to New York City this month, he observed scores of men wearing grey fleece vests even as temperatures touched the mid-90s.
The trend is so pervasive that an Instagram account with nearly 40,000 followers, The Midtown Uniform (@midtownuniform), has sprung up to savagely document these corporate clones in cities like New York, Toronto and Washington D.C. The anonymous account adds pithy captions to crowdsourced photos, riffing on the omnipresence of this particular outfit. “Money isn’t really ours unless you’re fully vested,” read a caption on a recent post showing two men in matching pink shirts and blue vests.
I did not know any of that.
* As you are most certainly aware by now, both major party candidates for governor sport a fleece vest on occasion…
* The Question: Who wears it better? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* From the Anti-Harassment, Equality and Access Panel’s website…
The panel will put forth a set of recommendations intended to:
— Promote and support a culture of equality, safety and respect in Illinois politics free of sexual harassment.
— Improve the process for combating and reporting sexual harassment in Illinois political campaigns.
— Increase the number of women in leadership positions and those on track to leadership positions at all levels of Illinois politics by expanding access and tools for professional and leadership development.
— Facilitate more women running for office in Illinois by identifying and reducing structural obstacles that prevent them from doing so.
In response to the national and state harassment allegations, two lawmakers and the state comptroller are traveling Illinois, gathering stories from women in politics — or who want to be in politics — about barriers that keep them out of leadership roles. The Anti-Harassment, Equality and Access Panel has held meetings in Champaign, Chicago and the Metro East, and will next hear stories from women in Springfield and Carbondale.
And, as it turns out, those stories are about a whole lot more than sexual harassment.
Comptroller Susana Mendoza told me on Monday that the panel’s work has become about elevating women into leadership positions around the state — with the eventual goal of Illinois becoming the first state to boast a majority of women in the Legislature. […]
[Mendoza] says one goal of the panel is to find ways parties can actively encourage women to get involved.
“(Sexual harassment) is an issue that is pervasive across … parties, industries, public and private — it just exists everywhere,” Mendoza says. “What we can do to address sexual harassment is look at the (political) party structure.”
“We’re going to do something really amazing that no one has ever done,” she says. “And get behind this effort of putting more women in office, and doing it intentionally.”
The panel came to Springfield Monday to get input from Springfield-area women about their experiences being involved in politics and public service and steps that can be taken to improve the experience. Springfield is the fifth location for the listening sessions and two more are planned.
“We’re trying to develop policies and guidelines for political parties that are more inclusive for women and that will remove barriers so that more women will feel comfortable working in politics and running for office,” Bush said.
“We started out really focused on the whole issue of sexual harassment,” Mendoza said. “In terms of the panel’s work itself and the people who come to talk to us, it’s amazing how more of the conversation has shifted to the barriers to entry to politics. The fact that there are not enough women in politics seems to be an issue that keeps coming up over and over again.”
In the Illinois General Assembly, 35 percent of lawmakers are women. That puts Illinois sixth among states with the largest percentage of female lawmakers. Bush said it isn’t enough.
“Our representation should look like us,” she said. “We’re 51 percent of the population.”
Reached by phone, F. Scott Winslow, Wilson for Mayor campaign spokesman, told WGN News Sunday’s event was “absolutely not” a campaign event. Winslow says since Wilson launched his second bid for Chicago mayor, he’s probably given away $500,000.
Winslow insists the campaign is not violating any campaign finance laws since the campaign was not involved. He said he didn’t think any of the governor’s money was distributed in cash Sunday, but there was no way to know how much of the governor’s money was part of the hand out.
Once people contribute to Wilson’s foundation “all the money gets mixed together,” he said.
He also said there is a Chinese wall between the foundation and Wilson’s campaign. He said they bent over backwards Sunday to avoid any appearance of vote influencing, even removing political signs from nearby yards.
The governor, who is facing a tough re-election campaign, knew that Wilson would be at that church on Sunday talking about tax relief. It’s unclear whether he knew the checks would be handed out, too.
At a news conference Monday, Rauner said he donated money for people who were vetted through the foundation. He said he had no idea that Wilson would be handing out cash.
“Just handing out cash randomly to people, I’ve never done that and I think it’s not a good thing to do,” Rauner told reporters. “It’s one thing if you’re just a person and you just want to walk around and throw money. I mean, it’s a free country. If you’re a candidate for office, it’s not a proper thing to do.”
Anyone who knows Wilson, though, knows that’s what he does. He gives on the spot and doesn’t spend a lot of time and energy interviewing the recipients. He takes people at their word that their financial horror stories are true.
That last paragraph is totally true. And it shoulda been crystal clear to Rauner that money would be handed out if anyone had bothered to read Wilson’s press release…
On Sunday, July 22nd at 10:00am, Wilson will give away $300,000 to assist struggling homeowners who are being threatened with losing their homes because of staggering property tax bills.
* Rauner didn’t know that cold, hard cash would be handed out? Seems a tiny bit difficult to believe after reading this Sun-Times story…
Wilson’s spokesman Scott Winslow said this isn’t the first time Rauner has attended an event in which Wilson has handed out cash and checks. Winslow said Wilson has been doing it for more than 20 years.
And a Wilson campaign ad called “Helping Others” is posted on Wilson’s campaign Facebook page featuring a video of Rauner crediting Wilson for being “generous.” The video was posted on June 19 and features a church banner which reads “God Reigns in 2018.” The campaign ad shows Wilson passing out money in a church.
Wilson’s campaign said it’s a “composite spot.”
“The portion where he is handing cash to a member of the church was a January 15 MLK event, before he had declared himself a candidate for mayor,” Winslow said.
“He’s a wonderful entrepreneur. He’s built his own business from scratch. He’s been very successful. And he’s very generous,” Rauner says in the ad while the camera shows Wilson handing out cash to a man in a church. “He’s taken his success and given back to the community, to help many families who need help.”
* The spot is 49 seconds, which is too long and too short to be a standard :30 or :60 TV ad. And it hasn’t yet shown up on Facebook. There are plenty of other platforms, however, so let’s take a look at it since our late friend Paul Green makes an appearance and the Tribune covered the ad…
Rauner’s out with a new ad that tries to tie Pritzker and powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan together as pushing for a tax increase.
The ad shows both men with the words: “Pritzker-Madigan. Higher taxes. More corruption. Want to raise your taxes.” It then plays various TV news coverage of Madigan as well as Pritzker, who is pushing for a graduated income tax that would levy higher tax rates as income rises.
Pritkzer, however, has refused to say what those tax rates should be—something that has given Rauner an opening to attack a change in the income tax as higher taxes on everyone. Even to impose a graduated income tax rate would require years, including a voter-endorsed change in the state constitution.
The end of the Rauner ad plays a clip of Pritzker at a campaign event saying, “You can hear what a theme for this campaign is going to be, right?”
* The RGA was pleased as punch with the Trib’s coverage…
Chicago Tribune: J.B. Pritzker Still Won’t Say What His Tax Hike Rate Would Be
Despite criticism from editorial boards across Illinois over his refusal to detail the specifics of his “immediate increase” tax hike plan, J.B. Pritzker still won’t say how high he would raise taxes if elected.
The Chicago Tribune is again calling out the Illinois Democrat gubernatorial candidate, writing that “Pritkzer, however, has refused to say what those tax rates should be—something that has given Rauner an opening to attack a change in the income tax as higher taxes on everyone.”
As the heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune and an expert at using insider schemes to avoid paying his fair share in taxes, Pritzker simply does not appreciate what his tax hike would do to struggling families.
Hardworking Illinois families already having a difficult time paying their tax bills should be deeply concerned about Pritzker’s lack of honesty and candor about his tax increase proposals.
* And so was Team Rauner…
ICYMI: Morning Spin Covers Latest Rauner Campaign Ad
This morning, the Chicago Tribune’s Morning Spin covered the Rauner campaign’s latest ad, “Raise Taxes For Everybody.” The ad features a clip of Mike Madigan saying that taxes can go in “whatever direction you want to go” followed by news coverage of Pritzker’s plan to hike taxes on Illinois families.
They started as a University of Illinois garage band and reached the heights of arena rock. Now the members of REO Speedwagon have been voted the top musicians in Illinois history by participants in the Illinois Top 200 project, a part of the state’s bicentennial celebration.
REO Speedwagon was followed by Alison Krauss, the fiddler with an angelic voice and more Grammy wins than any other woman in history, and Nat King Cole, the beloved crooner and trailblazing African-American entertainer.
Cheap Trick, the Rockford band that’s now in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and jazz legend Miles Davis rounded out the top five.
“Perhaps nothing better represents the state’s cultural and geographic diversity than its many contributions to American music. The most remarkable thing about this list is how many people on it were major contributors to different styles of music: blues, jazz, rock, soul, country, you name it,” said Christian McWhirter, a Lincoln Presidential Library historian and music expert. “And it’s not just Chicago, either. These great acts come from all over the state.”
“Keep On Loving You,” “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” “Take It on the Run.”
Bleh. Not a big fan of hair-band arena rock.
* However, there is one track that redeems all of REO for me. “Golden Country”…
Golden country your face is so red
With all of your money your poor can be fed
You strut around and you flirt with disaster
Never really carin’ just what comes after
Well your blacks are dyin’ but your back is still turned
And your freaks are cryin’ but your back is still turned
You better stop your hidin’ or your country will burn
The time has come for you my friend
To all this ugliness we must put an end
Before we leave we must make a stand
Hindsight is always 20/20. Little did we know how truly corrupt the Obama-era Justice Department and FBI really were. With predawn raids, overzealous prosecutors with a flair for big, flashy press conferences and the need to secure convictions at all costs, even when the evidence suggests otherwise, we have learned the hard way how some prosecutors have weaponized their unchecked power to criminalize the routine practices of politics and government.
A few hours after the predawn raid where my husband was taken away, federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald held a press conference where he announced to the world that Rod was trying to “sell” President-elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat.
That sensational charge is what people remember, but it was a lie. In July 2015, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed those charges, ruling that the so-called “sale of the Senate seat” was not a crime. It was nothing more than routine “political logrolling.”
My husband fought the charges. He resisted the relentless efforts by the prosecutors bullying him to plead guilty. They even threatened him with a life sentence. But he refused to give in.
Why? Because we trusted the system, unaware that the case against him was rigged from the beginning.
Special counsel Robert Mueller, former FBI chief James Comey, and Fitzgerald have done more than enough damage to our family. Their politically biased agendas and insatiable desire to convict, even where no crimes exist, should frighten every single citizen in our country.
Mueller and Comey are two of President Trump’s “favorite” people.
But notice she doesn’t mention how her husband shook down a children’s hospital exec for bigtime campaign bucks before he’d release their state funding. Wonder why?
Blagojevich, though, was arrested at his home on Dec. 9, 2008, more than a month before home-state U.S. Sen. Barack Obama was inaugurated president. […]
In reality, her husband was still convicted of wire fraud involving discussions to personally profit from selling the Senate appointment. The charges that were dropped were due to a technicality involving jury instructions. […]
On upholding the other 13 charges against the impeached former governor, Easterbrook wrote on behalf of the three-judge appellate panel that “the evidence, much of it from Blagojevich’s own mouth, is overwhelming.”
Not mentioned in Patti Blagojevich’s column were her husband’s convictions of attempting to shakedown an executive of a children’s hospital and a racetrack owner for campaign cash in exchange for official actions.
This development has been expected for weeks. Two of Chuy Garcia's allies won Democratic primaries for House seats in March. This makes the third Chuy-backed House Dems this year. The Chuy-MJM alliance of convenience is perhaps the least reported political story in Chicago https://t.co/eFesaKNb5l
Celina Villanueva will take the oath of office on Tuesday to formalize her appointment to the 21st District state representative seat vacated when former State Rep. Silvana Tabares became alderman of the 23rd Ward in May.
“I am humbled to accept this appointment to represent my community in the Illinois General Assembly,” said Villanueva. “I am committed to advocating for the best interests of working people in the 21st District every day, and will always be a voice for social justice and democracy in Springfield.”
Villanueva was previously the Youth Engagement Manager at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), where she led the largest immigrant civic engagement program in Illinois, which registered more than 200,000 new American voters and mobilized hundreds of thousands more to get out to vote.
Villanueva led ICIRR’s efforts through the Just Democracy Illinois coalition to expand voting rights through online voter registration, election day registration, and most recently automatic voter registration, all of which are now law.
Prior to joining ICIRR, Villanueva served as the Director of Organizing at Chicago Votes, and worked as an organizer on various issue-based campaigns, including the fight for marriage equality in Illinois. She also previously served as Outreach Coordinator for Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
Villanueva graduated with a B.A in Latina/Latino Studies with minors in African-American Studies and Spanish from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a resident of Little Village.
…Adding… Press release…
Following is a statement from Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) Executive Director Lawrence Benito, in response to the news that ICIRR New Americans Democracy Project and Youth Engagement Manager Celina Villanueva has been appointed to become the 21st District State Representative:
“We are beyond thrilled for Celina, who has been a tireless leader in our work to protect immigrants and refugees in Illinois for the last four years. We know she will bring the same clarity and fierce commitment to the needs of working people and immigrant communities to her role in the General Assembly. We look forward to working with Rep. Villanueva to make Illinois an even more welcoming state for immigrants and refugees.”
…Adding… From the swearing-in…
It was an honor to stand and watch Celina Villanueva take the oath of office as the next State Representative of the 21st District before her family and friends today. It was a proud and emotional moment as we welcomed a new progressive champion to the ILGA. Congrats Celina! pic.twitter.com/rg0dkYgZI9
— Emanuel Chris Welch (@RepChrisWelch) July 24, 2018
* If you search the Illinois attorney general’s charitable trust database (click here) for the Dr. Willie Wilson Foundation, you won’t find anything.
That sometimes doesn’t mean anything because there can occasionally be a data entry backlog or some other glitch. So I reached out to the AG’s office yesterday and asked what was up.
They got back to me just before 4:30 yesterday afternoon with this message: “They are not up to date with us.”
The AG’s office, I’m told, reached out to Wilson’s foundation yesterday, but nobody has called them back.
The last report the AG’s office has, I was told, is for 2016.
It’s unclear what happens next. There could be financial penalties if the foundation doesn’t comply, for example. And the AG’s office could conceivably shut down the foundation.
* From Wilson’s campaign spokesman last night…
The 2017 990 report is on extension and will be filed this week (not due till Nov 15th) to make the foundation up to date
Mayoral candidate Willie Wilson apparently did not violate election law by handing out more than $200,000 in cash and checks Sunday to people at an event he attended with Gov. Bruce Rauner at a South Side church, according to the state elections board. […]
Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich said the fact that the money came from Wilson’s foundation seems to allow him to avoid running afoul of campaign finance laws.
“As far as we can see, it looks like he didn’t use campaign funds for this,” Dietrich said. “And there doesn’t appear to have been any quid pro quo, like, ‘Here’s some money, vote for me.’ So from our perspective, it doesn’t look like there was anything illegal about this.”
“It looks kind of skeevy,” said Ken Menzel, general counsel at the Illinois State Board of Elections, who noted he did not have enough information to make a call one way or another on the matter. “If that were the threshold for Illinois politics, the chambers would be empty.”
…Adding… From Dietrich…
Rich: I think Ken Menzel and I are answering different questions in the quotes you have. The answer I gave to John Byrne yesterday morning came after I talked to Ken about it. Ken’s comment to Natasha came out of a larger conversation and concerned the general optics of the event.
When the calls started flooding in, I sent out this statement:
All we know about this is what has been in media reports. If the money came from his foundation and not his campaign committee, and the other details as have been reported are correct, then it likely would not violate the Campaign Finance Act. However, the State Board of Elections does not want to engage in extensive speculation about a situation which could generate a formal complaint for which the State Board of Elections would be the hearing body.
Willie Wilson’s campaign spokesman Scott Winslow on Monday said “we did nothing wrong.”
“It’s very normal and what’s being picked up is the mudslinging of the mayoral race of Chicago,” Winslow said, adding Rauner attended the same event with Wilson last year, when cash was also handed out.
Uh-oh.
*** UPDATE *** Video clip from the last such event, on January 15, 2018: “I’m honored, I’m honored to be here with Dr. Wilson to support those of you who need help paying your property taxes. I’m happy to chip in and I’ll chip in in the future”…
Today, Jim Dodge, the Republican nominee for State Treasurer, and Darlene Senger, the Republican nominee for State Comptroller, issued a joint statement calling on the legislature to pass legislation consolidating the two offices:
“Illinois is facing a budget shortfall and a politician surplus. We urge the legislature to save taxpayer dollars by consolidating the offices of Treasurer and Comptroller.”
Dodge and Senger pointed out that most states have one Chief Financial Officer and that by dividing the duties between two constitutional officers the state is wasting money. It is estimated that consolidating the two offices could save taxpayers between $12 and $14 million.
Both candidates urged their Democratic opponents to join them in pledging to fight for consolidation.
“Mike Frerichs and Susana Mendoza should be a part of the Illinois budget solution, not part of the problem,” said Dodge.
“We shouldn’t feel comfortable asking Illinois taxpayers to tighten their belts and handover more of their hard-earned money, when political leaders in Springfield aren’t willing to do the same thing,” added Senger.
In 2012, the Illinois state Senate voted to place the question of consolidation on the ballot in the 2014 election. Democratic Speaker of the House Mike Madigan, however, blocked the provision from passing the House.
“The only consolidation Mike Madigan is interested in is the kind that consolidates his power, he is wholly uninterested in saving taxpayer dollars,” said Senger.
“Mike Frerichs and Susana Mendoza should have the political courage to stand up to Mike Madigan and to stand up for Illinois taxpayers,” concluded Dodge.
“I voted to put (the merger) on the ballot,” Frerichs told me in a phone call. “Unlike Republicans, I’ve supported this idea whether Republicans or Democrats have held these jobs. When Leslie Munger was comptroller (she was unseated by Mendoza in the 2014 election), silence. . . .Why didn’t Republicans say something then?”
Frerichs also challenged whether the $12 million to $14 million in potential savings are real or “something in a press release.” In fact, his entire annual operating budget is only $7.6 million, Frerichs said. […]
“The framers of the state constitution were familiar with the potential for corruption in having one officer in charge of receiving money, investing it and paying it out. That’s because Orville Hodge embezzled $6 million in state funds in the ’50s. That’s $57 million in today’s money—far more than the phony projected savings number,” said a [Mendoza] spokesman, referring to the infamous former auditor of public accounts, which later became the comptroller’s office. “Not only could this still happen—it did happen as recently as 2012. Rita Crundwell was the combined comptroller and treasurer of Dixon, Ill. She was convicted of embezzling $53.7 million from the town’s taxpayers.”
The spokesman also pointed to Mendoza’s fight with Gov. Bruce Rauner over refinancing state debts, exchanging bonds that cost interest of 3.5 percent compared to IOUs that carried a 12 percent rate.
[Rep. Jeanne Ives] has said that she ran to hold Governor Rauner responsible for the policy decisions he’s made since 2015. Mission accomplished. But she’s also said that she won’t endorse the Governor for re-election. Her unwillingness to do so now will only make inevitable the very things she ran against in the primary. That’s not the type of legacy anyone should want to leave.
Every day that we move closer to the election, it’s becoming ever more obvious that this race is far from over, but in order to avoid the total meltdown of Illinois, we need to grow or at least maintain our numbers in the House and we need to retain the Governorship.
Jeanne, don’t leave your colleagues in the House facing that which you have within your power to help to avoid. Don’t leave the people of Illinois with a state government that will be hell-bent on leading us faster in our race to the bottom. If it’s your intention to carry on the fight beyond this election, do so by leaving something standing that’s worth fighting for.
You need to join the battle, and you can only do that by stepping onto the battlefield as it now exists. If you don’t, you run the risk of being remembered by the label that was pinned upon you during the campaign:
Madigan’s Favorite Republican.
Ouch.
* The Question: Should Rep. Jeanne Ives endorse Gov. Rauner for a second term? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* The governor held a press conference today to sign legislation that received unanimous support in both chambers. So, the press conference afterward was mainly about yesterday’s Willie Wilson event. Click here for background if you need it…
“None of my money should be used for that and I hope it wasn’t.” @GovRauner He says he gave money to help with people’s property taxes but didn’t know it would be handed out yesterday. Doesn’t think handing out cash randomly is a good idea. @tahmanbradley@WGNNews
@GovRauner says he wasn’t aware Chicago mayoral candidate Willie Wilson would hand out cash Sunday at a church and doesn’t approve of it. pic.twitter.com/pv4FPDndvb
@GovRauner looking into whether election law was violated with cash hand out and if it was he will demand his money back from Wilson. @tahmanbradley@WGNNews
* The event was not on the governor’s public (state) schedule, but he did have someone from his campaign staff with him, so that’s a little bit problematic…
.@GovRauner says that yes, there was 1 campaign staffer at church event yesterday. Called Willie Wilson a friend, said he did not know that cash would be handed out yesterday and does not support that. “it’s outrageous.” Says if he finds out it was his $100k, he’ll demand it back pic.twitter.com/Cf86nVbQe6
Today, Illinois Senator and Conservative Party gubernatorial candidate Sam McCann issued the following statement in response to reporting and photographs of Willie Wilson and Bruce Rauner handing out $300,000 at an event in a South Side church:
Governor Rauner has reached a new low. For a gubernatorial candidate and a mayoral candidate to be photographed distributing cash to thousands of attendees in the heat of an election season is beyond bad judgment – it disqualifies Rauner from being Governor.
As $300,000 in so-called ‘property tax relief’ was distributed in cash, Bruce Rauner touted himself as the candidate who would fight for lower property taxes. This was a political event, and Bruce Rauner and Willie Wilson handed out stacks of cash.
This is not the kind of change Illinois needs. This is the kind of old-school Democratic Machine politics that got us where we are today. Republican and Conservative voters should reject Bruce Rauner and his attempt to buy another election.
Um, there are no photographs that I know of showing Gov. Rauner handing out cash.
RAUNER: “No, I certainly did not and I don’t know that anybody else did.
REPORTER: “Was anybody from campaigns there?”
RAUNER: “Uh, anybody from my campaign staff? I think well one person, yeah. I think we did.”
REPORTER: “Is it true that 100,000 of that money came from you?”
RAUNER: “Well so, we should understand what happens. So, two things first. I worship at different church around the State of Illinois almost every Sunday, I try to every Sunday. And I have attended Reverend Thurston’s church, New Covenant, in the past where I attended yesterday. I was there primarily to worship, as I have done, and the Reverend asked me to speak which I occasionally do. So that’s why I was there. In terms of my money and my donations, Dr. Willie Wilson is a friend of mine and I’ve known him for five or six years. He’s a successful businessman, a successful entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He and I worked together on the issue of property taxes. Property taxes are out of control in the State of Illinois, they are much too high and some of the worst property taxes in America are in the African-American community south of Chicago and west of Chicago. There are property taxes for black families in the south suburbs – 12% of home value. Dr. Wilson came to me last year and he said, ‘Bruce could you help me? I’m putting in several hundred thousand would you join me in putting $100,000 of a donation so we can help families that are struggling and can’t pay their property taxes, to pay their property taxes.’ I said I would, I gave him $100,000 last year, and I believe he helped families with parts of my money, mostly his money. And in the last month or two I gave him another $100,000 at his request to help people pay their property taxes.”
REPORTER: “Did you know cash would be handed out yesterday?”
RAUNER: “I did not know that. I learned it after the fact and I do not support that.”
REPORTER: “Are you worried that it might be a violation of the criminal statute of the election code [INAUDIBLE]?
RAUNER: “I think the idea of handing out cash if you’re a candidate for office is outrageous. It should not happen.”
REPORTER: “Were you offended yesterday?”
REPORTER: “Well I learned after the fact, and I was pretty upset when I heard it was going on.”
REPORTER: “What are your concerns about the fact that some of this money is from you?”
RAUNER: “Well as far as I know no money of mine got handed out to anybody, we’re checking right now. If it did I’m going to demand my money back.”
REPORTER: “You said that $100,000 of the money gave out came from you.”
RAUNER: “You got to separate, what I’ve been told, you’ve got to separate out. It’s proper, and we checked the channels, doing a assistance for property tax payments for people who got checked and went through a process and got their name vetted and they got checks, that was a proper process. That’s what I was told my money went for, and I’m fine with that. I did it last year, I did it this year, and I’ll do it again next year. It has nothing to do with electioneering, it raises the profile of the issue of how unfair – African-American families in the south side paying 12% of home value in property taxes, it’s outrageous. Separate issue, I learned after the fact that Dr. Wilson was handing out cash. If that’s true, that’s wrong, it shouldn’t happen. None of my money should be used for that and I hope it wasn’t.”
REPORTER: “Where’d the money come from Governor? Was it from your foundation or – what was the source of the $100,000?”
RAUNER: “$100,000? I’ll have to check, I think it was just personal. I’ll find out, I don’t have the answer.”
REPORTER: “Did you see him handing out the cash and did it raise any concerns in your mind?”
RAUNER: “I did not anybody hand out any cash yesterday.”
REPORTER: “Did you have a conversation with Dr. Wilson about this?”
RAUNER: “I have not yet. Our team is doing their homework to find out exactly what happened and then when I know the facts I’m going to talk to the Doctor about it.”
REPORTER: “And the difference between the cash and the checks is what?”
RAUNER: “Vetting of the people who receive the money and the use of the money. I believe in helping people with their property taxes. I did it last year, and it should be vetted, the people checked, understand their property tax situation and their financial positions, and assisting those who might run the risk of losing their home. I’ve met people who were on the verge of having to be evicted because they couldn’t pay their property taxes. I met some at church yesterday. That’s fine for me as a philanthropist, I donate to many causes, that’s a worthy cause. Just handing out cash randomly to people, I’ve never done that and I think it’s not a good thing to do.”
REPORTER: “Why is it a bad thing to do?”
RAUNER: “It’s just not – if you’re a candidate for office, it’s one thing if you’re just a person and you just want to walk around and throw money I mean it’s a free country. If you’re a candidate for office, it’s not a proper thing to do.”
REPORTER: “Do you judge it violates election laws?”
RAUNER: “If it doesn’t I think it probably should.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** Press release…
Yesterday, Gov. Bruce Rauner joined Willie Wilson to hand out a reported $300,000 in cash to potential voters at New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church. With a campaign staffer on hand and after reportedly chipping in $100,000 of his own money, Rauner conducted one of the most highly unethical campaign stunts yet. In response, Democratic Party of Illinois Executive Director Christian Mitchell released the following statement:
“This is one of the most highly unethical campaign stunts Rauner has ever conducted, and it’s stunning that he would even dare show up in the black community after failing to pass a budget for four years and creating the highest unemployment rate for black people in the country,” said DPI Executive Director Christian Mitchell. “But to show up with a campaign staffer and hand out $100,000 in cash? It’s not only possible that it’s illegal, but the height of hypocrisy from someone who claims they want to ‘clean up the system.’”
Townships are not the only public bodies in the crosshairs of Republican leaders scrutinizing their tax bills and looking for taxes to slash.
“They never go after the libraries,” Algonquin Township Republican Party Chairman Glen Swanson said.
“Illinois has the highest-paid librarians in the country,” McHenry County Republican Party Chairwoman Diane Evertsen said.
Both Swanson and Evertsen shared their concerns about libraries last week with state Sen. Dan McConchie, a Hawthorn Woods Republican who stopped at the Crystal Lake Colonial Cafe to drink coffee with his constituents.
The 26th District leader said he had heard an out-of-town visitor once describe an area library as something like the “Taj Mahal.” McConchie pointed to the “very property-rich southern part” of Lake County, where “every year they take the max they can under the tax caps” and build “massive” facilities.
“Sure,” McConchie said, “they provide nice services to their folks, but I walk in there, and there’s people that are just sitting there on the clock doing absolutely nothing.”
Illinois school districts continued to pad pensions for retiring educators amid a two-year budget impasse and despite concerns about the state’s growing pension debts, highlighting the persistence of a problem that lawmakers have struggled to contain.
As the state’s budget stalemate entered a second year in the summer of 2017, some school administrators raised concerns about being able to to keep the doors open for the upcoming school year. Some talked about laying off teachers, cutting after-school activities or draining swimming pools. Others worried about depleting reserve funds. But through it all, the state’s locally controlled public schools paid millions of dollars in penalties each year directly to the state’s largest pension fund as a consequence of giving out raises and sick time in excess of the threshold set by a 2005 state law designed to discourage what is commonly known as pension spiking, an Illinois News Network investigation found.
“It’s inexcusable that school districts were spiking pensions at the end of their careers to the point where they’ve got to pay penalties,” said state Rep. Peter Breen, a Lombard Republican. “This data is Exhibit A for what’s wrong with Illinois’ pension systems.”
The whole point behind the state law wasn’t necessarily to stop end of career pay spikes, it was to make the local school districts pay for the costs of those spikes. If they decide at the local level that they want to entice some older workers to retire to make way for newer workers, shouldn’t that be up to them? If the GA wanted to fully stop these spikes, they could’ve outlawed the entire practice.
Look, this is undoubtedly beneficial information for local taxpayers to have, which they can use the next time their own school board members come up for election. But it’s not like they’re paying a criminal fine. They’re just being told to pay their own way.
* The Illinois News Network has published several stories about this topic like it’s some sort of gigantic scandal. Here’s another one…
Some McHenry County school districts continue to give employees big raises just before retirement more than a decade after a state law aimed to limit the practice was passed.
The county’s school districts have had to pay $619,833.92 directly to the Teachers’ Retirement System of the state of Illinois since 2014 for giving out raises and sick time allowances, according to TRS data obtained through the state’s open records laws.
Again, the law wasn’t necessarily aimed at limiting the practice, it was about making the locals shoulder the costs instead of making every taxpayer in Illinois do it.
Over the past five years, schools in the Metro East have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties for giving teachers in the twilight of their careers pension-boosting raises.
According to documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, the Teachers Retirement Fund, Illinois’ public teacher retirement pool, has received $527,845.00 from school districts in East St. Louis, Alton, East Alton, Belleville, and Edwardsville for excessive pay increases and sick leave days.
In just four years, the Illinois State Board of Education itself cost taxpayers an additional $592,619.69 in penalties because of end-of-career pension spiking for retiring staff. […]
Dora Welker, a division administrator with ISBE, made $95,000 in 2013. She made $132,500 in 2017. That’s a 39 percent salary increase. But her 2013 salary wasn’t what was used in the final calculation. Documents show Welker’s salary of $103,744 in 2014, nearly $9,000 more (a nine percent increase) than the year before, her 2015 and 2016 salary (which was virtually unchanged) and her 2017 salary of $132,490 (a 27 percent increase from the 2014 salary) was used in the calculation.
ISBE averaged out the salary from the final four years of Welker’s salary to be $108,175, or $3,124 more than what the average salary would have been if at the 6 percent annual cap. The difference, $3,124, is then multiplied with an actuarial factor of 16.6. The employer, ISBE, owed $52,147.91 for Welker’s 27 percent spike in four years.
Documents show Susan Morrison, a deputy superintendent and chief education officer at ISBE, had a salary of $158,881 in 2011. It increased to $216,940 by 2015. That’s an increase over the four years of 36.5 percent. That’s also $4,769 more than the 20 percent over four years, 6 percent a year, allowed without a penalty to the pension fund. Multiplying the difference by an actuarial factor of 14.7, and ISBE had to pay nearly $71,000 extra into the pension fund.
A spokesperson for ISBE said the reason for the larger than 6 percent salary increase at the end of an employee’s career is “generally the result of the distribution of compensable days, but can also include salary increases.”
ISBE should definitely be more careful about this.
[Rep. Christian Mitchell] represents Hyde Park and nearby portions of the South Side. Considered by some to be at least a mild political reformer, he’s African-American, less than half Madigan’s age (76), got the job [as DPI’s acting executive director] with behind-the-scenes help from Pritzker and actually showed up on a picket line to protest a local appearance by Vice President Mike Pence the other day. I doubt Madigan has orated before a picket line in the past half-century. On the other hand, Madigan was forced to dump predecessor Executive Director Tim Mapes amid a sexual harassment scandal and designated another lieutenant, Mike Kasper, to stay around as the party’s treasurer in case Mitchell gets any wild ideas. So control is, at best, split.
Ergo, the question: Will the speaker-for-life finally let loose? And, if he doesn’t, will Pritzker give him a shove if he gets himself elected?
One theory out there is that Madigan would have no choice but to go, and fairly soon, because his caucus has decided he’s a liability. “They don’t want to live with another four years under him,” says one top Democratic insider—particularly since Pritzker personally is filling the war chests of darn near every Democratic candidate in the state, presumably buying their loyalty in the process. Pritzker needs Madigan long enough to learn the ropes and get through his first budget, and then let nature run its course, says that source.
Pritzker would emerge as his own man, in his own incremental way, argues another ranking Dem. “He won’t try to gouge out Madigan’s eyes like Blagojevich did. But he’ll be more effectively assertive than (Pat) Quinn,” another ex-Democratic governor whose idea of working with Madigan was “pounding on the table.” So look for some patronage jobs and other ducats to change hands, particularly if Pritzker starts pushing his promised graduated income tax plan. But little by little, Pritzker would assert power. […]
One of those who ran against Pritzker in the primary, state Sen. Daniel Biss, predicts a bumpy ride ahead, amending his prediction during the primary campaign that Madigan would call the shots if Pritzker won. “I expect there will be tension between the speaker and the governor, just like there has been with every governor,” he says. “Madigan will be resistant to enact progressive priorities.” Like the progressive income tax or, say, a statewide $15 minimum wage.
Thoughts?
* Related…
* Rep. Gordon-Booth talks Madigan, criminal justice reform: Rep. Gordon-Booth, a member of Democratic leadership in the House, says because of her role she may have been insulated from some of the harassment her colleagues and others have been exposed to. However, she believes Speaker Michael Madigan has acted quickly to address issues that have come before him.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) signed legislation empowering police to confiscate firearms from citizens and extending the wait period for gun purchases to 72 hours.
The new waiting period means a single woman being pursued by a stalker now has to hide and/or live behind locked doors for three days while she waits to get a gun for self-defense.
NBC 26 reports that the confiscatory law is called the Firearms Restraining Order Act. By signing it, Rauner made Illinois the 13th state to empower police to confiscate guns and he joined a growing list of Republican governors who signed such laws into place following the February 14, 2018, Parkland high school shooting.
Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner signed two new gun control bills into law at the end of last week.
Everyone wants to do something to stop mass public shootings. Unfortunately, these laws will not make Americans safer and surely won’t prevent mass public shootings such as the one in Parkland.
State Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, said the bill to takes guns away from those with mental health issues unfairly limits due process and could make criminals out of law-abiding citizens.
“Quite simply, the bill goes too far and allows for actual confiscation of legally-owned weapons,” she said.
She said the 72-hour waiting period law is another example of Chicago Democrats playing to a radical anti-gun base.
“This bill creates yet another layer of bureaucracy to place at the altar of Chicago Democratic-base politics,” Bryant said. “This legislation really strikes at some beloved traditions in Southern Illinois and will harm gun dealers and gun and knife trade shows. Unfortunately, every day that the Legislature is in session in Illinois, pro-Second Amendment legislators like myself must be vigilant and work to protect our constitutionally guaranteed rights.”
* And then there’s the other side: The gun dealer licensing bill he’s pledged to veto…
Kathleen Sances, president and CEO of the Gun Violence Prevention PAC of Illinois, disagrees. She says Chicago police recover 7,000 illegal guns a year — and 4,000 from in-state dealers.
“He should want to be saving our children,” says Sances. “And he looks like he’s choosing to secure the profits of the gun industry rather than keep our communities safe. “
Just before announcing his veto plans for the licensing bill, Rauner signed two other gun-related measures. One allows confiscation of guns from people if a court deems them dangerous to themselves or others; another imposes a 72-hour waiting period for all gun purchases in Illinois.
Sances says while she is pleased that Rauner approved the other two gun-safety bills, she is perplexed over his decision not to want to track illegal gun sales.
“I mean, I think these are easy bills for him to sign,” says Sances. “I don’t understand, though, why he wouldn’t sign a bill that would have helped stopped the shootings in our city. I mean, our children are dying. There are shootings every two hours here — and that’s because there’s too many illegal guns.”
“We know that illegal guns are flooding our neighborhoods and contributing to the daily violence so many in our state face, particularly minority communities,” argued the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park. “I hope he will reconsider his threat to veto this legislation and prove that he cares about everyone in Illinois.”
“Illinois needs stronger, smarter state gun laws to keep guns off our streets and out of the wrong hands,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement Monday afternoon. “It is the height of hypocrisy when the same governor who signed a bill to regulate catfish sales will not stand up and take common sense steps to regulate gun sales.”
* Normally, when candidates look for a middle ground on hot-button issues, they wind up getting blasted by both sides for their apostasy. Judy Baar Topinka is a notable historical example. She considered herself pro-choice, so she was constantly attacked on her right flank. But Personal PAC decreed that she wasn’t pro-choice enough, so she was whacked for being a right-winger on the topic.
Under the new law, however, family members or law enforcement can go before a judge to seek a restraining order that directly addresses the respondent’s firearm ownership.
Illinois State Rifle Association Executive Director Richard A. Pearson released a statement celebrating the bill’s success.
“We applaud the governor for taking action to save lives,” Pearson wrote. “Studies in both Indiana and Connecticut indicate that similar laws to [House Bill] 2354 reduce gun-related suicide deaths by 7 percent to 13 percent.”
* Kinda puts Gov. Rauner in a bind. From the Belleville News-Democrat…
President Donald Trump announced Sunday he plans to visit Granite City on Thursday, where a U.S. Steel Corp. mill reopened in March.
While Trump has not specified the reason for his visit, about 800 employees have been called back to work for the U.S. Steel Corp since Trump announced he would be placing tariffs on foreign steel in March.
The tariffs were aimed mainly at China, which had been accused of dumping steel into the U.S. market at lower costs.
In a press release in March, U.S. Steel Corp said the change was due to an anticipated demand for steel in the United States due to Trump’s announcement in March that the federal government would impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports.
Trump mentioned U.S. Steel at the White House’s Roosevelt Room during a ceremony surrounding the tariffs, according to St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper reported that Trump said the reopening of the Granite City plant is a “big one” and thought it was the start of many closed plants reopening across the country.
As we’ve already discussed, the plant supplies the Texas oil industry with pipe, and that state’s oil industry is rebounding because of high prices.
Simmons, president of the Steelworkers Local, said they have been advocating for the reopening of the plant for years. While Simmons said Trump’s announcement poised them in a position to reopen, market trends indicated the mill could have reopened long before Trump’s announcement.
“Conditions and market trends have been inching up enough for us to start up without the trade case,” he said.
“We should have started up a few times. They had some missed opportunities on making some good profits. They were wanting such securities (the tariffs),” he said.
Six weeks before the facility’s closure was announced, Simmons said they completed a trial for high-strength steel and were the only facility in North America capable of creating it due to their advanced equipment. This high-quality grade of steel was of interest to automakers like Nissan, which wanted the steel for its 2018 Nissan Altima model.
…Adding… Just in from the Pritzker campaign…
his Thursday, Donald Trump will be in Granite City, Illinois, but will Bruce Rauner join him?
Rauner has spent the last month cozying up to Trump — praising his policies and calling his Vice President one of the “greatest leaders in American history.” But as the Chicago Tribune reports, “embracing the president can create political hurdles, especially after the governor has tried to avoid addressing the president’s almost daily controversies throughout much of his first term.” So, will Rauner appear with Trump in Illinois on Thursday?
“From his silent partner to a vocal supporter, Bruce Rauner has been Donald Trump’s staunch ally while his hatred and devastating policies wreck Illinois,” said Pritzker campaign spokesman Jason Rubin. “Will Rauner fully embrace or run scared of Trump when he comes to Illinois?”
*** UPDATE 1 *** Not unexpected, but decent snark from McCann…
#ILGov Rauner says he doesn’t plan to go to Granite City to welcome POTUS Thursday.
This one is a doozy, even by Chicago standards: Millionaire Chicago mayoral candidate Willie Wilson handed out $300,000 in cash to attendees at a South Side church Sunday. And it gets better: According to Wilson, $100,000 of it came from Gov. Bruce Rauner.
In a video aired on WGN on Sunday, Wilson is seen holding a wad of bills and handing out a few to each person in line after a church event attended by the governor. Wilson said he put in $200,000 of the money, while Rauner pitched in for the other $100,000.
A source familiar with the foundation said Rauner did pay $100,000, but it was to Wilson’s nonprofit and he was “not aware” that cash would be distributed at Sunday’s event. […]
In an interview with POLITICO, Wilson insisted philanthropy — not politics — was behind the gesture and that Rauner has donated before to give money to those in need through the foundation.
“We help people that need property taxes paid and food to eat and electric bills paid and senior citizens help. We’ve probably done this six times over the past two or three years,” said Wilson, referring to his foundation. The Chicago businessman has a rags to riches story. He’s the son of a Louisiana sharecropper who worked as a janitor before becoming an early owner of McDonald’s franchises. He’s since expanded his business interests and runs a multimillion-dollar plastic glove distribution business.
Republican state Rep. David McSweeney asked on Twitter, “How can Willie Wilson, a candidate for Mayor of Chicago, literally hand out CASH at a public event? This is so wrong!”
But when asked about allegations of vote buying, Wilson said, “There’s no truth to that at all.”
Meanwhile, Rauner is locked in his own difficult battle for re-election.
“Gov. Rauner attended a Sunday service at the New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church as a guest of Rev. Stephen Thurston,” Will Allison, a spokesman for Rauner’s campaign, said. “The governor has attended Sunday services at different churches across Illinois since he first ran for office, and other elected officials and community leaders are often present.”
For more than 20 years, Humanitarian Dr. Willie Wilson has given away his heart…and his money, to those less fortunate and those who simply need a helping hand. This year, the man who puts his all into everything he does is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, Wilson is stepping things up – bigger and better!
On Sunday, July 22nd at 10:00am, Wilson will give away $300,000 to assist struggling homeowners who are being threatened with losing their homes because of staggering property tax bills. Wilson will present the relief to homeowners at New Covenant Baptist Church, 754 East 77th Street, Chicago IL 60619 where Rev. Stephen J. Thurston is the pastor.
After nearly five years, Wilson increased his giving this year by a whopping $100,000! This increase was necessary due to the ridiculous property tax hikes that are strangling these hardworking homeowners. Wilson has vowed not to stand by idle and allow folks to get choked out under the weight of the outrageous tax hikes. He has also committed to working on getting the state tax bill rolled back from an 8-month term to a 12-month term to further help the residents. […]
More than 2,000 people are expected to attend this annual charitable giveaway. Wilson will also be assisting hundreds of senior citizens to purchase much-needed food and medication. Individuals who are a part of the Second Chance programs will also receive a “hand up” from the popular businessman. Individuals from Pacific Gardens and Sister House mission and recovery shelters will participate as well, and will receive crucial aid to help them on their way.
Wilson’s campaign spokesman insists today’s appearance was not campaign related. But Chicago politicos on both sides of the aisle raised concerns about the event. […]
Winslow insists the campaign is not violating any campaign finance laws since it was not involved with today’s handout. But the event certainly had a political feel.
During the event, Rauner also addressed the church in brief remarks. The governor shared with worshippers that he received an award from the National Black Chamber of Commerce at in event in Washington, D.C. this past Friday, and talked about his work reforming Illinois’ criminal justice system and boosting education funding for schools. […]
“You pay the highest property taxes in America here in Chicago and the South Side and the south suburbs, “ said Rauner. “This is wrong. The system is broken and I’m trying to fix it.”
So let me get this straight. @BruceRauner, the sitting governor of the state of Illinois went to church yesterday and watched as $100,000 of his own money was handed out in front of him. #twill#ilgov
Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich said the fact that the money came from Wilson’s foundation seems to allow him to avoid running afoul of campaign finance laws.
“As far as we can see, it looks like he didn’t use campaign funds for this,” Dietrich said. “And there doesn’t appear to have been any quid pro quo, like, ‘Here’s some money, vote for me.’ So from our perspective, it doesn’t look like there was anything illegal about this.”
A couple of years ago, a little more than 1,400 voters took Democratic primary ballots in sparsely populated Warren County, which is about an hour west of Peoria. Almost twice that many took Republican ballots.
The Warren County Democratic Central Committee is not exactly a campaign powerhouse. The organization officially opened its PAC with $923.72 in June of 2016. By June 30 of this year, the county party reported having $917.72 in the bank. I couldn’t find any records showing how that $6 was spent.
But last week, the county organization received a $5,000 check from the Rock Island County Democratic Party. Warren is one of 14 counties that received a total of more than $200,000 from the Rock Island Dems last week.
Warren’s check tied with Effingham County’s for being the smallest. The Kankakee County Democrats received about $28,000. Kane County’s Dems received about $20,000. Williamson County got about $14,000. The Metro East’s Madison County Democrats have so far received the largest check in this initial round: $45,495. The Carroll County Democrats have raised an average of about $3,000 a year for the past 18 years, but they received $7,523.50 last week.
As I’ve told you before, the Rock Island Democratic Party Chairman is Doug House, who also runs the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association. Because state campaign finance laws allow unlimited contributions between county-level party organizations, the J.B. Pritzker campaign gave House’s Rock Island Democrats $1 million earlier this year as the first installment on its “Blue Wave Illinois 2018” program.
The idea is to finally try to build the party up at the local level after years of neglect by the top. The Democratic Party of Illinois, run by House Speaker Michael Madigan, has reported raising more than $80 million since 1999, but it has spent precious few dollars to help local parties. Basically, the only time DPI has bothered to work with local party organizations in the past is when they could be helpful with the handful of competitive state legislative races scattered here and there — particularly Speaker Madigan’s House races. And even then, the object wasn’t really to make local parties viable, but to extract whatever human and other resources they had in order to assist Madigan’s campaigns.
Chairman House has, along with the Pritzker campaign, established a grant program. County party organizations can qualify for money by, for instance, opening an office. The local committees are also being strongly encouraged to hire a part-time or full-time administrator, depending on their size.
Some counties will reportedly receive money to send direct mail and run ads on local radio stations and on cable TV. They’re supposed to establish a social media presence, recruit specific numbers of volunteers for phone-banking and door-to-door canvasses, among other things. They’re also supposed to put together a get-out-the-vote program for the final month. This is all new stuff for many local parties.
Several county parties, particularly Downstate, have few actual precinct committeepersons. In Chicago and suburban Cook, precinct captains are appointed by local township and ward committeemen. They don’t have to live in the precincts assigned to them. Everywhere else, committeepersons are elected in their precincts — and it’s not easy convincing people to run for that office, particularly in overwhelmingly Republican areas. However, those county chairs can fill vacancies, and the appointed committeepersons don’t have to live in the precincts they represent, so a big push is on to get counties to a minimum level of 75 percent coverage.
Some local party officials have also been told that the million-dollar contribution from Pritzker is just the first round. More party-building money is coming.
By contrast, as of last week Gov. Bruce Rauner’s campaign had given a total of about $33,000 divided between nine county and township Republican organizations since the March primary. The Illinois Republican Party chipped in another $25,000 during the same time period for a handful of county organizations.
J.B. Pritzker’s campaign has contributed $5.7 million to various Democratic groups and candidates since the primary, including big bucks to several suburban and Chicago political organizations. Pritzker’s campaign gave the St. Clair County Democrats $200,000 during the primary and it paid off big. Pritzker won St. Clair with 76 percent of the vote.
It’s not like the Democrats are expecting to win all that many Downstate counties this year. In the short-term anyway, I think the plan is simply to try to lose those counties by fewer votes than they have in the past, which will still help the overall effort.
My name is Mark Janus, and I am the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case Janus v. AFSCME. I am a child support specialist for state government in Illinois. Quite simply, my job is to help people. When parents aren’t together anymore, I work to ensure that children receive all the financial support available to them.
I love my job. Serving others is part of who I am. But in order to do this type of work, I am forced to check my First Amendment rights at the door. That’s why I’ve asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.
Emphasis added.
* Press release…
Mark Janus joins Illinois Policy Institute as senior fellow
Janus to serve as spokesman, workers’ rights advocate after the historic Supreme Court victory in Janus v. AFSCME, helping workers across the country understand their restored First Amendment rights
CHICAGO (July 20, 2018) — Mark Janus will be joining the Illinois Policy Institute and the Liberty Justice Center as a senior fellow effective Aug. 1.
STATEMENT FROM MARK JANUS
“I’ve respected the work of the Illinois Policy Institute and the Liberty Justice Center since first connecting with them in 2015. As I’ve worked with them more closely over the years, I’ve come to admire both the staff and the mission of the organizations. With their professionalism and ability to speak out on issues that affect not only Illinois but also the entire country, I’m looking forward to adding my voice to this fine team.
“Every day, their staff is working to turn around the state of Illinois and I am grateful for the opportunity to spend the remainder of my career doing something I believe in. I look forward to helping make a difference for workers in the state and across the U.S.”
STATEMENT FROM ILLINOIS POLICY INSTITUTE CEO JOHN TILLMAN
“We are thrilled that Mark has decided to bring his invaluable insight to our team after a long, hard fight at the Supreme Court. During the years that this case took to reach its conclusion, I have had the privilege of watching Mark express his core values on free speech and worker freedom over and over again. He is articulate, courageous and committed to the cause of empowering workers. He will be touring the country to make sure workers understand their rights and to share with workers and other people interested in his Supreme Court case what the Janus win means.”
“Once again it’s clear that this court case was never about Mark Janus, but about billionaires like Bruce Rauner and big-money corporate funders launching a political attack on the freedom of working people to speak up together through a strong union,” AFSCME Council 31 spokesman Anders Lindall said. “While IPI tries to dupe workers into quitting their union, AFSCME members will continue doing what they’ve always done: providing important public services and building their union to speak up for themselves, their families and communities.”
*** UPDATE *** Asked Monday by a reporter if he helped Janus get his new position, Gov. Rauner replied “I did not.” Asked if he had anything to do with Janus getting his new job, Rauner said “I did not.”
* I often think JB Pritzker plays things way too safe, but I gotta give the candidate credit for even doing this event. Emotions can get so raw that one wrong move could’ve knocked this thing horribly off the rails. I was a bit skeptical when I first saw the video, and it appears he had some help keeping things on track, but I also thought he handled himself well, particularly when he pointed to his history of involvement with the Center on Wrongful Convictions and other programs and causes. NBC 5 was there…
MARY ANN AHERN: Emotions raw today as these mothers met with Democratic candidate for governor J.B. Pritzker. They’ve lost children to gun violence or in a police shooting, moving on for their other children, far from easy.
MOTHER 2: What the effect is afterwards? Nah, nah. Nightmares, he can’t even go in his Daddy’s room ’cause he hears stuff.
MARY ANN AHERN: They explain there are few resources for them to turn to.
MOTHER 3: We have to come up with the monies to pay for these funerals. The state doesn’t help us. You know? Cause if we go to the Attorney General or they are involved with a crime they don’t help. The city doesn’t help. So we are left all alone.
MARY ANN AHERN: Pritzker notes these mothers might have found help but the state’s budget crisis depleted social service agencies.
J.B. PRITZKER: Agencies closed. Things that people really need on the ground closed. Violence prevention programs closed. And so now we got to rebuild all of that.
MOTHER 2: I wasn’t expecting to do this.
MARY ANN AHERN: Frustrations are high. As they say they have heard campaign promises from politicians before.
* Black Lives Matter posted the video on Facebook. It’s worth a look…
JB Pritzker meeting with families of police murder victims
Speaking on behalf of the Illinois Education Association — the state’s largest teachers’ union — Bridget Shanahan says more than 1,000 teachers have received emails from MyPayMySay, and they aren’t buying it.
“How could you honestly think a legal team that was out to destroy workers’ rights is actually going to stand up for you in the face of adversity in the workplace?” she asks.
MyPayMySay is funded by a conservative think-tank called The Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Based in Michigan, the non-profit filed one of the three amicus briefs cited by the high court in its Janus decision. Mackinac is a member of the State Policy Network, a national consortium of conservative think-tanks (Illinois Policy Institute is among them) whose funders include the Koch brothers and the Walton family.
School districts across the state have received Freedom of Information requests seeking teacher records, Shanahan says. Some requests come from a post office box in Austin, Texas, and another comes from Prairie State Wire, the umbrella group comprising more than two dozen publications funded by conservative radio talk show host Dan Proft. Proft’s Liberty Principles political action committee has received major donations from Gov. Bruce Rauner.
“They are looking for our members’ personal information,” Shanahan says. “Some of them are asking for the amount that our members pay in dues. They are asking for personal contact information for our members — home address, home email address, phone numbers. They’re looking for ways to contact our members.”
Personal information about some public employees, like cops and prison workers, are already shielded from public disclosure in Illinois.
* The Question: Should the state’s Freedom of Information Act be amended to specifically shield all public employees’ personal contact information from disclosure? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
The Thelma Keller Convention Center ballrooms were jampacked Thursday night to hear retired Marine and FOX News contributor Oliver North.
North, the new president of the National Rifle Association, was in town in part on behalf of the local Republican state representative candidates, but also to promote traditional values in the face of a changing world. […]
About a half-dozen protesters were on hand ahead of Thursday’s event. Local police present in case of any problems said there was a “civil discourse” between protesters and attendees…the attendees saying they appreciated the protesters’ differing point of view, the protesters shaking hands with the attendees.
* The official caption under the accompanying photograph is “Oliver North w/officials From Effingham, Iroquois, Christian And Mercer Counties Who Have Passed Firearms Sanctuary Legislation. 33 Counties Have Now Passed Such Legislation”…
Illinois Democrats Celebrate the 170th Anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Michael J. Madigan, chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois, released the following statement celebrating the anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, the influential first women’s rights convention:
“170 years ago, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton brought together more than 200 women and 40 men to awaken the long fight for women’s right to vote. Today we celebrate these trailblazers and their tireless work to advance the rights of women. Now more than ever it is crucial that we protect everyone’s right to the voting booth and continue the fight for equality. Determined persistence over generations from countless women is what has produced progress.
“Just this year in a historic vote Illinois became the 37th state in the country to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to formally declare that equality of rights will not be denied by the U.S. or any state on account of sex.
“Illinois Democrats recognize that the fight for true equality is far from over and we are committed to honoring this legacy and progress.”
Moody’s Investors Service has revised the outlook on the State of Illinois to stable from negative, while affirming the Baa3 ratings assigned to both the state’s general obligation and Build Illinois sales tax revenue bonds. Bonds issued by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority and by the state under its Civic Center program, which together account for $3 billion of debt, have been affirmed at Ba1.
RATINGS RATIONALE
The state’s GO rating incorporates substantial credit strengths - sovereign capacity to raise revenue and reduce expenditures, and a broad, diversified tax base - as well as increasing challenges from fixed costs attributable to employee pension and retirement health benefits. Build Illinois bonds’ allocation of sales tax revenue, despite providing substantial coverage of debt service, is not sufficiently separated from the state’s general operating needs to carry a higher rating than the GO, under the Special Tax methodology.
The Met Pier and Civic Center program bonds carry ratings below the state’s GO because, in both cases, annual legislative appropriation is required for payment of debt service. A legal structure with additional strengths - enhanced incentives to appropriate — in both cases offsets the arguably less essential nature of the financed facilities.
RATING OUTLOOK
The state’s stable outlook is in line with expectations that, despite continued under-funding of pension liabilities, any credit deterioration in the next two years will not affect the state’s finances, economy, or overall liabilities to an extent sufficient to warrant a lower rating.
This view is supported by the continuing budgetary benefits of the state’s recent income tax increase, and near-term fiscal risks that remain manageable.
FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE
-Adoption of a comprehensive plan to address pension liabilities
- Progress in lowering the bill backlog that does not depend on long-term borrowing
- Measures to achieve sustainable budget balance
FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE
- Renewed growth in payment backlog that reverses progress achieved through financing
- Reduction in pension contributions to provide fiscal relief
- Substantial assumption of debt or pension liabilities accrued by local governments
* Frankly, the lack of an actual upgrade with a mere change in “outlook” from negative to stable is about the least Moody’s could do. In fact, it is the least Moody’s could do. I suppose that’s better than nothing, particularly considering the last three years, but check out all the “Huzzah, we’re not gonna die today” headlines…
There’s almost no way that Moody’s could’ve put us in junk territory after last year’s tax hike. And now that we have an agreed budget, a “stable” outlook is justified.
So, let’s not start dancing in the streets. A lot of tough choices and pain remain in our future.
* What Proft is seeking to do here is allow his independent expenditure PAC to operate like a regular political action committee after the contribution caps are lifted. Press release…
Today Liberty Principles PAC filed a lawsuit asking a federal district court to immediately suspend Illinois’ campaign contribution limits for ”independent expenditure” groups in state races in which contribution limits have been eliminated for individuals and other groups.
Liberty Principles PAC is an independent expenditure committee run by radio host, political consultant and political activist Dan Proft. Liberty Principles PAC promotes free-market principles and supports candidates for office who share those principles. It works to oppose candidates who do not share free-market principles.
Illinois campaign finance laws limit how much money individuals and organizations may contribute to political candidates. But once certain fundraising thresholds are met in a given race, the campaign contribution limits are eliminated for all types of donors in that race – except “independent expenditure committees,” such as Liberty Principles PAC. Groups such as Liberty Principles PAC remain forbidden from giving to candidates or even talking with candidates about their plans. This means that individuals, corporations, unions and political parties can give unlimited amounts of money to candidates and coordinate with those candidates’ campaigns, but groups such as Liberty Principles PAC cannot.
The lawsuit filed today, Dan Proft, et al. v. Lisa Madigan, et al., asks the court to suspend the campaign contribution limits that restrict independent expenditure committees in races where limits have been eliminated for individuals and all other groups.
“This lawsuit seeks to level the playing field in Illinois elections,” said Patrick Hughes, president of the Liberty Justice Center, which is representing Liberty Principles PAC. “If individuals and every other kind of group are allowed to make unlimited contributions and speak freely with the candidates they support, then independent groups like Liberty Principles PAC should be allowed to do so as well.”
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Plaintiff Dan Proft is a political activist who associates with others for the purpose of communicating with the public about political ideas and candidates for state elective office in Illinois.
Mr. Proft would like to raise unlimited funds from like-minded individuals and organizations and, in turn, spend unlimited amounts on communications (such as television and radio advertisements and literature) supporting and opposing candidates for state elective offices.
Mr. Proft also would like to be able to communicate and coordinate freely with the candidates he supports because he believes that doing so would make his communications (and the candidates’ communications) to the public more effective.
The Code, however, does not allow Mr. Proft to do all these things he wishes to do.
The United States Supreme Court has recognized only one government interest that can justify campaign-finance restrictions: the prevention of actual or apparent quid pro quo corruption. See Wis. Right to Life State PAC v. Barland, 664 F.3d 139, 155 (7th Cir. 2011).
Therefore, in any challenge to campaign-finance restrictions, the government must show, at a minimum, that its restrictions are narrowly tailored to prevent actual or apparent quid pro quo corruption. See McCutcheon v. FEC, 134 S.Ct. 1434, 1441, 1456-57 (2014).
No corruption-related difference between independent expenditure committees and other donors justifies banning coordinated expenditures by independent expenditure committees while allowing unlimited coordinated expenditures (and contributions) by the others.
…Adding… From a close pal…
So he wants the right to break caps through independent expenditures, and then say “oh, someone broke the caps so now I can coordinate”
When it comes to rating races, it has long been our practice not to move extremely vulnerable incumbents into the other party’s territory until well into the election cycle – generally around Labor Day. Even then, they rarely move further than Lean. There are lots of good reasons for this policy, most of which grew out of lessons learned the hard way.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has held the dubious distinction of being the most vulnerable incumbent of the cycle, and despite much heckling, has been sitting in the Toss Up column. But, the race recently hit a tipping point that moves it into the Lean Democrat column.
There are lots of reasons not to jump the gun on what amounts to waving the white flag on an incumbent’s chances for re-election. Some of them include the power of incumbency, the competence of an opponent’s campaign, and the increasing unreliability of public polls. All three factors collided in 2016 when Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was seeking re-election and former Democratic U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, whom Johnson had defeated six years earlier, was running to avenge his loss. There were 56 general election polls in that race, and Johnson was only ahead in four of them. Given those statistics, Johnson was moved into the Lean Democratic column pretty early in 2016. But, 15 of the 56 surveys went into the field between October 15 and Election Day, and Johnson was (barely) ahead in three of them. Johnson won the contest, 50 percent to 47 percent for Feingold and 3 percent for a Libertarian candidate. Of course, it wasn’t until after the election when Democratic operatives shredded Feingold’s campaign, holding it up as an example of malpractice. We put Johnson back into the Toss Up column 10 days before the election and no amount of second-guessing will resolve the question of whether Johnson should ever have left the Toss Up column.
One factor guaranteed to hurt an incumbent locked in a close race is the presence of one or more third-party candidates on the ballot. Again in 2016, GOP incumbent U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire lost her re-election bid to Democrat Maggie Hassan by just 1,017 votes. But, there were two other candidates on the ballot running to Ayotte’s right; they combined for 30,339 votes, costing Ayotte the election. There are similar stories from statewide races in Montana in 2006 where Libertarians cost Republicans elections, and multiple elections in New Mexico in which Green Party candidates undercut Democratic nominees. It is rare when third party and independent candidates are truly competitive. More often than not they simply serve as spoilers for one party or the other.
It is the presence of a Conservative Party candidate and a Libertarian on the ballot that has created the latest obstacle to re-election for Rauner, and is the tipping point that moves the race into the Lean Democrat column. Rauner has had a very difficult tenure. First, he is a Republican in a very blue state, and while he is relatively moderate, he hasn’t enjoyed the same levels of popularity and success that fellow GOP Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts or Larry Hogan of Maryland have experienced. His job ratings have sunk under the weight of a long-running battle (and its aftermath) over the budget, and adversarial relationships with state House Speaker Mike Madigan and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who have proven adept at robbing Rauner of victories.
There’s more, including reliance on what I would consider some dubious polling, but whatevs. A pundit consensus is most definitely building.
Jeff Berkowitz: What percentage of those 340,000 Republicans who voted for Jeanne Ives in the Republican Primary in March will vote for Bruce Rauner in November [instead of staying home, skipping the Governor’s slot on their ballot or voting for someone else].
Rep. Allen Skillicorn: …55%
BerKowitz: So, he loses because similarly there is a bunch of Republicans who didn’t vote in the Republican Primary who have similar preferences to the Jeanne Ives’ primary voters—they also wouldn’t vote for him, so if the Governor can’t get his base up to the 85%, 90%, 95% supporting him, he can’t win in IL. [losing about 175,000 Republican votes that are usually a gimme]
Rep. Allen Skillicorn: So,there is an opportunity to grow that—
Berkowitz: Tell him, tell the Governor how to grow his vote among the base Republican voters!
Rep. Skillicorn: He has to reach out to the conservative base. He has to give them something they want in terms of policies- here’s a great step-
Berkowitz: We only have a minute left in the show, so tell him!
Rep. Skillicorn: In one minute, he would advocate to take Medicaid pieces that are not federally reimbursed, so the Medicaid bills that we [IL State Government] has to pay 100% for- like taxpayer funding of abortion, things like that, the Federal Government does not match those abortion funds, those are 100% paid for by Illinois Taxpayers, if he would rescind that, help rescind that or promise to rescind that, it would get a lot of those people back to vote for him, and he has to acknowledge that the State is not all North Shore [Winnetka, Kenilworth, Wilmette, etc], that would bring a lot of those people back.
The governor’s problem is that he has to unify his party base without alienating independent voters. So, I just don’t think moving right on social issues is the way to go. The “Because… Madigan!” schtick may be tiring for some here, but it’s the single best issue Rauner has, considering his record these past few years.
With the general election, Rauner needs votes outside his base to win — especially since he still has not unified his right flank. The Thursday day trip [to Washington, DC] was pegged to accepting an award from the National Black Chamber of Commerce for his work helping African American companies win state contracts.
There are about 23 Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce chapters in Illinois and Rauner is well-known to the group. The event took place in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
It looks like the Rauner campaign will peg an appeal to African-American voters in part on his procurement policies, which have been criticized by Illinois state Senate Democrats.
Republican African-American outreach has had two general purposes in Illinois: 1) Drive down black turnout a bit; and 2) Signal to suburban moderates that you’re not hostile to black people.
What if they built a railroad depot and no trains came?
That’s the situation the Quad Cities find themselves in after proposed Amtrak service between Chicago and Moline — originally expected to begin in 2016 — has been held up by the state budget impasse and other snags.
“They haven’t given us any kind of date” for completion of the project, said Ray Forsythe, Moline’s economic development director.
A $177 million federal grant that got the project rolling in 2011 has been extended to this time next year, but service is no closer to getting underway. Gov. Bruce Rauner halted funding for the project shortly into his term in 2015, blaming the state budget impasse. While funding has since been reinstated, the project is still mired in logistical problems, with track improvements required on the western end of the line between Moline and Wyanet, owned by the Iowa Interstate Railroad.
According to Forsythe, the Illinois Department of Transportation was leading the project at this point. IDOT spokesman J. Scott Speegle said the agency is working on it with the Federal Railroad Administration. […]
There’s no timeline for service to begin.
A year ago, Rich Harnish of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association blamed Rauner for the failure to get service going, telling WQAD-TV, “The reason why this project isn’t done yet is because he put it on hold when he came into office.”
* I told you earlier this week that the CEO of the Illinois Primary Health Care Association had resigned under a cloud after being accused of making racist remarks to the leader of a health care and social service agency.
The IPHCA’s chairman and legal counsel pushed back hard against Aunt Martha’s CEO Raul Garza for making the accusations against the CEO. Those two men have now resigned, along with the entire executive committee. From the new acting CEO of the Illinois Primary Health Care Association Jordan Powell…
Dear IPHCA Members,
Thank you for the frank dialogue on the challenging issues currently facing IPHCA. I have had numerous conversations over the past few days which have only solidified my commitment to leading our organization through and beyond where we are today. It is clear that to most effectively serve our members, changes must be made.
I have spoken with the Executive Committee and its members have acknowledged the need for new leadership. They have decided to resign their positions as Executive Committee members effective immediately. We will call an Assembly of Delegates meeting as soon as possible and follow the protocols outlined in our by-laws to elect a new Executive Committee which will then be seated immediately. The by-laws are attached for your review.
I assure you that we will prioritize this process. And I ask that you remain patient as we transition to a new Executive Committee in an expeditious and orderly manner.
We expect to select a meeting date, time and location by Monday, July 23 with the objective of meeting no later than Friday, August 3. We hope that this advance notice will allow all interested members plenty of time to plan their attendance.
Additionally, I have asked IPHCA counsel Bob Birndorf to step aside and will conduct a search to identify his successor. In the interim, I have reached out to Hinshaw & Culbertson’s Springfield office to serve as interim legal counsel for the Association. I have worked with Hinshaw’s lawyers in my prior employment and have valued their counsel. Hinshaw will assist our association through this transition.
As indicated in my July 17 email, I plan to meet personally with each of our member organizations over the coming weeks. I want to hear from you. That feedback will be incorporated into my planning and vision for the future.
I remain confident in our staff and anticipate no changes at this time. We will require additional workplace training for all staff members and will also solicit human resources expertise to review all relevant policies and procedures.
Let me reiterate my unequivocal commitment to guiding our organization forward and to working with each of you so you may thrive and continue to passionately serve the 1.4 million Illinois residents who rely on your care.
Jordan
By all accounts, Jordan is a really good guy. He also happens to be African-American, which will give that organization a much-need perspective change right now.
The board of trustees of both the University of Illinois and The John Marshall Law School have voted to create UIC John Marshall Law School — Chicago’s first and only public law school.
“The decision to create a public law school marks a historic day for higher education in Chicago,” said Michael Amiridis, UIC Chancellor. “It is also a historic day for UIC, which will fill a 50-year gap in its academic offerings as a comprehensive research university. Through our research and scholarship, we have celebrated and contributed to the rule of law for decades and now we open the doors of our academic community to those who teach the law and those who study the law. We look forward to welcoming the John Marshall family into UIC.”
UIC initiated informal discussions with The John Marshall Law School leadership in 2016. Subsequently, the parties determined that the transaction would be financially feasible without requiring any new state funds. At the closing, significant John Marshall assets will transfer to UIC and the University of Illinois Foundation. The law school’s real estate in the Loop will initially be leased and then transferred within five years. UIC will bear no financial obligation for the acquisition and will fully integrate the law school into UIC after the closing.
In addition to providing current and prospective students with a more affordable legal education, UIC’s acquisition of John Marshall will create opportunities for interdisciplinary courses and new joint and dual-degree programs aligned with UIC strengths in disciplines such as the health sciences, engineering and technology, urban planning and public administration, the social sciences and business. John Marshall joining UIC will also open up new possibilities for research collaborations between UIC and John Marshall faculty.
Skeptics could find reason to be wary of adding a law school at this particular moment in time. The number of law students nationally has dropped in recent years, schools have slimmed down and the American Bar Association has been more active publicly as an accreditor. The John Marshall Law School — which is a distinct institution from several other similarly named law schools in the country — is no different.
The private Chicago law school enrolled more than 1,466 students in 2012-13, according to American Bar Association reports. Enrollment fell to 938 in 2016-17. Applications dropped from 2,518 to 1,681 over the same period.
Leaders at Illinois Chicago, which has more than 30,000 students, were concerned about the state of law schools generally, said Susan Poser, a former law dean at the University of Nebraska who is UIC’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs. UIC administrators completed extensive due diligence, taking two years before proceedings reached the point of board approval Thursday.
“What we discovered was the John Marshall Law School was hit by this downturn, as just about everybody was,” she said. But, she added, the law school leaders were “very smart in how they downsized.”
Considering that current downward trend, a good question to ask is whether the new Chicago school will pull students away from UIUC’s law school. At a time when Champaign-Urbana is already worried about how the new Discovery Partners Institute in Chicago will impact the Downstate campus, and when college students in general are expressing a preference for urban campus life, this could just add to the fretting.
Despite not paying his own fair share in taxes, Illinois Democrat gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker has promised an “immediate increase” in the state’s flat income tax if elected. Now, the Wall Street Journal editorial board is slamming Pritzker’s tax hike plan, saying it will do nothing to solve Illinois’ massive pension crisis.
The Wall Street Journal explains, “The solution, according to unions, is always to raise taxes. But no tax hike is ever enough because [pension] benefits keep growing faster than revenues… Yet the Democratic candidate for Governor, J.B. Pritzker, and unions are now campaigning to kill the state’s flat tax rate and raise taxes again.”
The contrast in the Illinois governor’s race could not be more clear. GOP Governor Bruce Rauner favors lowering taxes to grow the economy and reforms to fix the pension system, while J.B. Pritzker is already pledging a massive tax hike if elected. Illinoisans need tax relief, not a massive tax increase on every family.
The real problem plaguing public pension funds nationwide has gone largely ignored. Most reporting usually focuses on the underfunding of state plans and blames the crises on a lack of taxpayer dollars.
But a Wirepoints analysis of 2003-2016 Pew Charitable Trust and other pension data found that it’s the uncontrolled growth in pension promises that’s actually wreaking havoc on state budgets and taxpayers alike.1 Overpromising is the true cause of many state crises. Underfunding is often just a symptom of this underlying problem.
Wirepoints found that the growth in accrued liabilities has been extreme in many states, often growing two to three times faster than the pace of their economies.2 It’s no wonder taxpayer contributions haven’t been able to keep up.
The reasons for that growth vary state to state – from bigger benefits to reductions in discount rates – but the reasons don’t matter to ordinary residents. Regardless of how or when those increases were created, it’s taxpayers that are increasingly on the hook for them.
Total promised benefits in Illinois are nearly 1,100 percent higher now than they were in 1987. In contrast, Illinois personal income – a proxy for GDP – was up just 236 percent during that 30-year period.
Illinois is the poster child for why the common narrative surrounding pensions – that crises are due to taxpayer underfunding – is false. The real problem has been the enormous growth in accrued liabilities across the nation.
* Meanwhile, the Champaign News-Gazette recently published this editorial…
Financial problems swirling around state and local pension systems across the country will be coming to a head in the next few years, and financial experts contend that Congress and the states must be prepared to address the problem.
That’s why James Spiotto, managing director at Chapman Strategic Advisors, is urging Congress to create a special federal bankruptcy court to deal with these impending bankruptcies.
In an address delivered to the Brookings Institution’s seventh annual Municipal Finance Conference, Spiotto said it’s imperative for Congress to act because states and localities won’t be able to continue to ignore the problem.
* However, Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) sent me his pension funding idea, entitled “How to Solve the Illinois Pension Crisis And Dramatically Lower Property Taxes”…
Arguably the two biggest issues facing the State of Illinois are its unfunded pensions and high property taxes. Past misdeeds and underfunding has led to a massive unfunded pension liability. Annual required pension payments are increasing quickly. Just a few years ago our annual payment was less than $6B. This year it is almost $9B and it is scheduled to reach $20B by 2045. Every annual increase requires either a cut elsewhere in the budget, or a tax increase.
Illinoisans pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation. This has been a driver of job and population loss. It is a regressive tax that disproportionally affects the poor, unemployed, and elderly. It also hurts small business growth as they are required to pay the tax whether they are profitable or not. Manufacturers are hit extra hard as they have a large real estate footprint. That footprint comes with a large property tax bill.
This article will outline a long-term solution to address both issues.
The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability (CTBA) recently offered a solution on pensions. Their idea was to use the power of compound interest to help drive down massive pension costs in the future. Relatively small skips in pension payments, sometimes called “pension holidays”, in the past led to large-long term debt because of compound interest. Their idea was to reverse that mistake by increasing upfront payments in order to avoid more dramatic increases in the future.
The CTBA’s plan would level pension payments out over the next 25 years until we reach the required funded status. However, this plan would require the state to contribute additional funds over the next 8 years. The initial additional investment by the state would be $2.4 billion which would then slides downward to $320 million in the eighth year. Over the course of eight years additional, and significant funds, would be invested into the pension plans. In total roughly $11 billion extra would be invested quickly. The net effect of this would be that our annual pension payment would never rise above $12 billion. In fact, around the tenth year, our pension payments would actually start to decrease. One important note is that if our system was fully funding pensions in the past, our ongoing costs would only be $2 billion per year.
The CTBA recommends borrowing the additional $11 billion investment. That is where the plan can be tweaked. Borrowing another $11 billion adds additional pressure to the budget. It also does not allow us to phase in property tax relief which is part two of the plan. We need to, and can, find the additional $2.4 billion per year elsewhere.
As the additional pension payments decrease from the initial $2.4 billion, the remainder should be used to lower property taxes on a per pupil basis. So year one, $2.4 billion is going to shore up the pensions. By year nine, all $2.4 billion is going to property tax relief. For every additional dollar in state funding a school district receives, its levy will be required to drop by exactly $1. $2.4 billion is roughly $1200 per pupil. That amount would lower the property taxes where I live by 20 percent. The exact amount of relief per district would vary based on local per pupil spending but it would be significant throughout the state.
Actually having a long term solution to both problems would dramatically improve our credit rating, business climate, and borrowing costs. This would lead to the best way to improve our debt situation – growth.
So where would we get the $2.4 billion? There are several options. First, we need to be much better stewards of the taxpayer’s dollars. Things like workers’ comp reform, expanding the pension buyout plans, reforming Medicaid are some immediate areas that can be addressed. We also need to prioritize our spending. Remember the $3 billion we committed to “medium speed rail”? Wish we had that back.
$2.4 billion separates Illinois from solving the pension crisis and significantly addressing high property taxes. All of us in the legislative and executive branch should be working to find that $2.4 billion. If we don’t, we will be looking for much, much more in the near future.
That $20 billion payment by 2045 is a bit of a misnomer. As we’ve already discussed, the ramp shoots way up in the final few years before 2045 even though the pension systems will be close to fully funded by then. I seriously doubt that the General Assembly will keep that ramp in place.
Anyway, your thoughts on Rep. Batinick’s proposal?
A west suburban man sued the state on Thursday for negligence over its inability to contain Legionnaires’ disease at the Quincy veterans’ home, deepening a legal and political morass dogging Gov. Bruce Rauner’s re-election.
The lawsuit, filed with the Illinois Court of Claims, comes from the son of former Illinois Veterans’ Home resident Valdemar L. “Roy” Dehn, an 88-year-old Korean War veteran and ex-Chicago Tribune employee who died from Legionnaires’ last October.
Dehn’s case is the 12th lawsuit to arise from a series of Legionnaires’ outbreaks that have been linked to 14 deaths at the home since 2015. Dozens more residents and staff have been sickened from the waterborne bacteria that can cause a sometimes fatal form of pneumonia.
Dehn, who moved into the home in April 2016, had not been informed by facility staff about the earlier fatal Legionnaires’ outbreak in August 2015 when he was admitted, said his son, Matthew Dehn.
He said his father experienced kidney difficulties before succumbing to Legionnaires’ but noted he remained mentally sharp until his death.
“For a year and a half, he loved that place. And it killed him,” Dehn told WBEZ in an interview. “So, you know, I’m still very, very mad about that.
* Earlier this week, McKinney tried to get some answers on this general topic from both JB Pritzker and Gov. Rauner…
(1/1) I asked Democrat JB Pritzker whether, if elected governor, he'd drop the legal argument the state was not negligent for Legionnaires' deaths at the Quincy veterans home. In 11 lawsuits filed by victims' families, the Rauner administration is asserting it was not negligent.
(2/2) Pritzker did not directly respond to the liability question but made clear the families are due damages: "We've got to look at the facts here, but it is clear the families deserve compensation."
SB2481 is on Gov. Rauner's desk. It would raise the cap for most Court of Claims awards from $100,000 to $2 million and is retroactive to include the cases of the 11 Quincy Legionnaires' families with pending cases. The governor has not signaled what he intends to do w/the bill.
* This morning, the Pritzker campaign had this react to the latest WBEZ report…
“Bruce Rauner’s mismanagement of Legionnaires’ in Quincy has had serious and sometimes fatal consequences — 14 Veterans died, over 60 people got sick, and the state is now facing a dozen lawsuits in the wake of this epidemic,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Meanwhile, Bruce Rauner still refuses to accept any responsibility for his failure to protect Veterans, and families continue to suffer from the consequences of his negligence.”
Erika Harold would be dangerous for Illinois. If elected Attorney General, she will be an extension of Bruce Rauner’s failed leadership and Donald Trump’s bigotry.
Harold once said that she would place foster children in the home of child abusers rather than with a loving gay couple. This rhetoric is despicable. This kind of blatant hatred is not who we are as a state, and no one who believes it should represent Illinoisans in office.
Candidates like Erika Harold are why Blue Wave Illinois 2018 is so important. This November, voters are going to be faced with a choice. Will we elect people like Erika Harold and Donald Trump, who spew bigotry and seek to divide us, or will we elect those who honor the American values of inclusion, diversity, and justice?
The choice is clear. Chip in today to make sure we elect me and other leaders who represent our values.
Up and down the ballot, Democrats are running who will fight to make sure Illinois becomes a state that is on the side of hardworking Illinoisans. Candidates like Kwame Raoul, the Democratic candidate for Attorney General, will stand with our families and stand up to Donald Trump.
Candidates like Erika Harold do not represent our values. But this November, we have to elect candidates who do. Together, we can make Illinois a Democratic stronghold, and a place where all people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or background feel welcome.
Support Blue Wave Illinois 2018 today and be on the right side of history this November.
In the race for governor, two very wealthy men are proposing two very different ideas for how to solve the single most elusive, expensive financial problem plaguing the state.
J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic challenger, is focused on how to pay the burden down; incumbent Republican Governor Bruce Rauner wants to change the way it piles up.
“What I have agreed with the Senate Democrats, Senate President Cullerton,” is to do what is called a consideration model,” Rauner said on Tuesday. “Basically, go to our hard working state employees and say ‘Let’s tie your salary increases to the type of pension that you choose to be in, either Tier One or Tier Two or Tier Three, and customize compensation to fit depending on what the employee would prefer for a pension and a pay structure.’ […]
While he has not yet said how high he would go in raising the annual pension payments, Pritzker says he would prefer a dramatic increase all at once instead of the continually upward sliding scale that puts increasing year-over-year pressure on the legislature to make spending cuts elsewhere.
“There is really only one good way to do it and that is to step up payments, Pritzker told Crain’s. “Think about the principal payments on your home. Step up principal payments earlier than they are due and try to flatten out the amortization schedule on an annual basis. Flatten it. The result of that will be that we can manage the budget of the state. Because that is really what is at stake here.”
By the way, Pritzker said he’d pay for it with a progressive income tax. He says that about a lot of things. But it’s all magic fairy dust until we see the actual plan, and maybe even then it’ll still be magic dust.
* In related news, here’s a small excerpt from Democratic congressional candidate Brendan Kelly’s “Save Southern Illinois” plan…
Put failing pension plans back on solid ground to ensure they can meet their commitments to retirees today and workers for decades to come, in part by setting up a Pension Rehabilitation Administration (PRA)
“If we as a country bailed out Wall Street, bailed out Detroit, we can take care of the American worker who did what they were supposed to do,” Kelly said, adding that, “They earned it. They deserve it.”
But I didn’t see anything in the article about whether this idea is for both public and private pension systems.
So, I checked with the campaign and was told that this is only about private pension plans. The Illinois pension system is Illinois’ responsibility, the spokesperson said.
On or before October 31, 2015 and on or before October 31 of each subsequent year, the State Board of Education, through the State Superintendent of Education, shall prepare a report on student discipline in all school districts in this State, including State-authorized charter schools. This report shall include data from all public schools within school districts, including district-authorized charter schools. This report must be posted on the Internet website of the State Board of Education. The report shall include data on the issuance of out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and removals to alternative settings in lieu of another disciplinary action, disaggregated by race and ethnicity, gender, age, grade level, limited English proficiency, incident type, and discipline duration. [Emphasis added.]
Last summer, several women gathered at Delia Barajas’ home. As part of the community group Ixchel, they tackle education issues like school discipline in the mostly Hispanic communities of Cicero and Berwyn.
But as the women searched the Illinois State Board of Education’s website for data about how students in their area had been disciplined, they hit a wall. They found the race and ethnicity of students who’d been disciplined in their local districts had been redacted. […]
State officials say they have to redact race and ethnicity data to comply with federal and state requirements about protecting student privacy. They’ve decided that to do that, they won’t reveal any student groups that are smaller than 10 — a common practice in government reports. But Illinois officials say they also have to remove data on student groups much larger than 10 to protect the identity of students in smaller groups. As a result, few school districts have any race or ethnicity data.
Here’s how that looks in practice: Say a school district gave out 309 suspensions and 100 went to black children, 100 went to Hispanic children, 100 went to white children and nine went to multiracial children. State officials have redacted all of the race and ethnicity data in their reports to protect the nine multiracial students. They say a “reasonable person” could look at the total, do the math and identify individual students.
The state refused to supply the data to the Chicago Reporter, but Loyola University Chicago clinical law professor Miranda Johnson “managed to pry loose some of the state’s discipline data for black, white and Hispanic students,” according to the article.
Four years ago, Illinois passed the first in a series of discipline reforms meant to reduce student suspensions and expulsions from public schools.
The law tasks state officials with two responsibilities: Make school discipline data available to the public, and require districts with the consistently highest suspension and expulsion rates to improve.
At the time, there was national momentum to address discipline disparities, especially for black students, who are suspended and expelled from school far more often than their white classmates. In 2014, the Obama administration issued guidance to reduce discipline that removes students from class and interrupts their learning. Advocates and lawmakers knew Illinois needed to make drastic changes after a 2012 report by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA found the state’s suspension rate for black students was the highest in the nation.
But the 2014 law hasn’t had the outcomes legislators intended. The Illinois State Board of Education redacts the race and ethnicity of nearly all students who’ve been suspended or expelled, so parents and school communities can’t see what’s happening in their local districts. On top of that, the state board hasn’t required districts with the consistently highest suspension and expulsion rates to make any changes. [Emphasis added.]
With respect to school discipline improvement plans, makes changes to how the State Board of Education determines the top 20% of school districts, when notification is given that a plan must be submitted, which school districts are required to submit a plan, the timeframe for school board approval of a plan and submission of that plan to the State Board, and when additional annual progress reports are required
Gov. Bruce Rauner has a new strategy for getting reelected this fall: Ask sitting lawmakers to sign a pledge agreeing to term-limits pledge and to getting rid of Mike Madigan.
The Republican governor appeared Wednesday in Ottawa for a campaign stop in which he and two House Republicans, Jerry Long of Streator and Tom Demmer of Rochelle, together signed “The People’s Pledge.”
The pledge is a two-pronged, non-binding resolution. First, to push a referendum for voters to impose term limits (suggested cap: eight years in office. Secondly, lawmakers must “vote for someone — anyone — other than Speaker Michael Madigan for Speaker of the House.”
“Don’t talk about it, don’t give it lip service, don’t pretend — sign it,” Rauner said, adding later, “Anyone who won’t sign this pledge isn’t working for their constituents.” […]
“The governor and I have not always seen eye-to-eye on everything,” Long said as Rauner nodded agreeably. “This particular issue we stand solid on.”
Once again, with feeling: “Madigan, taxes, corruption, toilets. Lather, rinse, repeat.”
Mike Barkau, of Ottawa, asked Long prior to the signing how he planned to “stop” Madigan and Rauner said the signing of the petition was the best way to do so.
Barkau explained to The Times after the meeting that he’s dealing with a “monster” property tax issue and voted for Long in 2016 because he wanted to tip the scales and see Madigan’s term in office end.
Barkau said he remains confident it can be done.
“I’m hoping we can keep chipping away at it,” Barkau said. “I’d like to see it move a little faster but as long as we keep chipping away.”
Republican candidate Patrick Windhorst recently joined Gov. Bruce Rauner and other state representatives in seeking the removal of House Speaker Mike Madigan by putting term limits on the ballot.
Windhorst, running against state Rep. Natalie Phelps-Finnie (D-Elizabethtown) in the 118th House District, recently joined Rauner and fellow GOP Reps. Dave Severin (R-Benton) and Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) in inking “The People’s Pledge” that vows to oust Madigan from power and to put the issue of term limits on the ballot.
“For far too long, Illinoisans have been forced to suffer the consequences of Speaker Madigan’s endless pursuit of consolidated power,” Windhorst wrote on Facebook. “By signing The People’s Pledge I am standing with the vast majority of Illinoisans, Democrats and Republicans, who know Illinois’ future has no room for entrenched special interests.”
“Politicians like Mike Madigan run for office year after year, accumulating more power and personally enriching themselves off public service,” David Friess of Red Bud said. “Madigan himself has been in power since 1971. That’s 47 years in office and that’s wrong.”
Rauner also expressed support for the pledge. […]
Rep. Jerry Costello II (D-Smithton) said he does not plan to sign the pledge.
“I do not sign pledges of any sort,” he said. “I believe this whole pledge gimmick is designed to distract from the record.”
The most “equal” town in Illinois is Johnson, in the deep south. Its average income for the top 1 percent is $279,021, while the average for everyone else is $36,881, giving it a top-to-bottom ratio of 7.6.
Hat tip to Jake, who notes the obvious: In Illinois, the top 1% take home more than 21% of all the income in the state…but pay the same state income tax rate.
To the east, the Illinois gubernatorial contest appears increasingly uncompetitive. Gov. Bruce Rauner (R-IL) began the 2018 cycle as the most endangered incumbent Republican in the country and his position has really only worsened since then. Rauner only narrowly won renomination in the March primary against state Rep. Jeanne Ives (R), indicating the GOP base’s frustration with the incumbent.
Following the primary, the Crystal Ball shifted its rating in Illinois from Toss-up to Leans Democratic. Since the primary, every general election poll has found billionaire businessman J.B. Pritzker (D) comfortably ahead of Rauner.
While Rauner has a great deal of personal wealth, Pritzker’s bank account has an extra zero in it, and the Democratic nominee outspent Rauner $20.1 million to $7.8 million in the second quarter of 2018. What’s more, because many Republicans are displeased with Rauner, political space has opened for the third-party bid by state Sen. Sam McCann (R). As the Conservative Party nominee, the state senator is running to the right of Rauner on fiscal and social issues, though McCann has a pro-union record. McCann seems likely to peel at least a few Republican votes away from the incumbent, making Rauner’s reelection path even more difficult.
The Crystal Ball typically gives incumbents the benefit of the doubt, but there has been no good news for Rauner in 2018. The Land of Lincoln contest is now rated as Likely Democratic.
With the three ratings changes in Arizona, Illinois, and Iowa, the Crystal Ball now rates nine gubernatorial races as Toss-ups, with 18 others favoring Republicans to some degree and nine more favoring Democrats to some extent. We now view Illinois as the likeliest party flip among the 36 gubernatorial contests in 2018.
* DGA…
“Bruce Rauner needed a turnaround this summer, but the most vulnerable incumbent is finding he cannot escape his three years of failed leadership,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “With no positive record to run on, Rauner has been reduced to running desperate negative ads and cozying up to Donald Trump.”
The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) announced today that the unemployment rate held steady at 4.3 percent in June and nonfarm payrolls increased by +18,100 jobs over-the-month, based on preliminary data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and released by IDES. The May job gain was revised down slightly from its initial report to show a smaller gain. (+7,700 jobs versus +8,600 jobs).
Job growth accelerated in the April to June period posting average monthly gains of +9,500 jobs over this three-month period, more than the 6-month average monthly gain of +7,500 jobs between January and June 2018.
“June’s payroll gain is the largest in 12 months and the third largest in 24 months,” said IDES Director Jeff Mays. “Illinois’ unemployment rate held steady in June and stands at its lowest point in 12 years.”
“This positive trend of 12-year lows and new job growth is encouraging,” said Illinois Department of Commerce Director Sean McCarthy. “Our commitment to the people of Illinois remains building a competitive economy that attracts opportunity and allows our hard-working citizens to thrive.”
In June, the three industry sectors with the largest over-the-month gains in employment were: Government (+7,400); Leisure and Hospitality (+6,300); and Professional and Business Services (+5,300). The industry sector with the largest payroll decline was: Trade, Transportation and Utilities (-5,000).
Over-the-year, nonfarm payroll employment increased by +58,300 jobs with the largest gains in these industry sectors in June: Government (+12,900); Leisure and Hospitality (+11,800); and Education and Health Services (+9,400). The industry sectors with the largest over-the-year declines were: Information Services (-3,800) and Mining (-200). Illinois nonfarm payrolls were up +1.0 percent over-the-year in sharp contrast to the nation’s +1.6 percent over-the-year gain in June. This was the second consecutive month for an increase of this magnitude in Illinois.
The “education and healthcare” category was up 3,000 over the month and 9,400 over the past year.
It will be interesting when JB wins to watch how legislators who rely on leadership for money respond when JB and Speaker Madigan have a split on opinions. #Twillhttps://t.co/3u9ii2LAxy
As an example, Speaker Madigan pays a lot of lip service to raising the minimum wage, but more often than not defers to the business community (particularly IRMA) when it comes time to pass a real bill. Several of his more liberal members are not pleased with this and similar Madigan moves.
* The Question: Assuming for argument’s sake that the billionaire Pritzker is elected, what do you think rank and file House Democrats will do when he and MJM eventually have a significant difference of opinion on legislation?
* From the May 21st edition of the National Black Chamber of Commerce’s newsletter…
There is no elected official in our nation who is showing the commitment of Governor Bruce Rauner, Governor, State of Illinois. His recent Executive Order [to establish parity for African-American contractors] should be used as an example for all mayors, county executives and governors throughout our nation. We, the federation of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, should show our appreciation and recognize his wisdom. We are preparing a thank you letter and, hereby, ask for all NBCC chapters and other business associations to join in.
That item was forwarded to this publication the day that Gov. Rauner took heat for replying “Exactly” when asked “Hold on, Governor. You said you did more than any other governor for black folks?”
* So, today’s event could dredge that up all over again. From the governor’s public schedule…
What: Gov. Rauner receives Arthur A. Fletcher Lifetime Achievement Award, addresses the National Black Chamber of Commerce 26th Annual Conference
Where: U.S. Senate Hart Office Building, Room SD-106, 120 Constitution Ave. NE, Washington, D.C.
Date: Thursday, July 19, 2018
Time: 10:45 a.m. CDT/11:45 a.m. EDT
Note: No additional media availability. Media should enter building on Constitution Avenue.
…Adding… Press release excerpt…
The National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) today gave its prestigious Arthur A. Fletcher Lifetime Achievement Award to Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner. The award is conferred on leaders who, in NBCC’s estimation, have demonstrated an undeniable commitment to diversity in the procurement sector.
The award was presented by Larry Ivory, a previous Fletcher Award winner and the CEO of the Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce.
“In this decade, there has been no elected official who has done more for the development of Black-owned businesses than Gov. Bruce Rauner,” said Harry Alford, NBCC co-founder and CEO.
“His example is one for all elected officials to emulate,” added NBCC co-founder Kay DeBow. “His sheltered markets program and his recent executive order addressing procurement fairness for Black-owned businesses in Illinois demonstrate his dedication to diversity and the role that business plays in achieving enterprise and, ultimately, social objectives.”
* Meanwhile, you have probably seen the story this morning about how Chance the Rapper bought the assets of the defunct Chicagoist…
On Wednesday night, fans of Chance the Rapper were treated to a surprise release of four new singles.
The songs, available on all streaming platforms, include “Work Out,” “Wala Cam,” “65th and Ingleside” and “I Might Need Security.”
But within the NSFW lyrics of “I Might Need Security,” there was an even bigger surprise waiting to be discovered.
“I bought the Chicagoist/just to run you racist b—-es [rhymes with witches] out of business.”
I don’t get no paper I gotta sign at the bottom
Still in my bag like the fries at the bottom
And I can’t do nothing right, they gon’ always be at me
I missed a Crain’s interview, they tried leaking my addy
I donate to the schools next, they call me a deadbeat daddy
But Sun-Times get in that Rauner business
I got a hit-list so long I don’t know how to finish
I bought the Chicagoist just to run you racist [rhymes with witches] out of business
Speaking of racist, [rhymes with buck] your micro aggressions
I’ll make you fix your words like a typo suggestion
Pat me on the back too hard and Pat’ll ask for your job
And in unrelated news, someone’ll beat your [rhymes with sass] at your job
I’m the real deal
I think that he’s saying that the Chicago newspapers are going after him so he bought the Chicagoist. He’s telling the Sun-Times to focus on Rauner instead of him I think.
…Adding… Word is that Chance may believe that Rauner or his people planted an unfavorable Sun-Times story about his child support payments after the two men had their public spat.
* More lyrics…
And Rahm you done I’m expectin’ resignation
An open investigation on all of these paid vacations for murderers
Gov. Bruce Rauner, who initiated the lawsuit, hopes the Janus decision will reduce the enormous influence that public-employee labor unions have on government at all levels in this state.
That’s one of the reasons his administration immediately posted information online instructing employees how they could drop union membership.
So far, however, his administration is being quiet as to what steps employees are taking. AFSCME is similarly circumspect on that question.
Union spokesman Anders Lindall stated that “just a handful” of members have decided to drop out. But he did say “hundreds of former fee-payers” — non-union members required to pay agency fees to the union — “have joined the union as new members.” He said the ratio of those joining to those leaving is “more than 10 to 1.”
Just over two weeks since the decision, about a third of the affected states – most led by Democrats — have already taken actions meant to make it harder for people to leave unions and harder for anti-union advocates to persuade them to leave. […]
For example, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo signed two bills in early July to let police unions stop representing non-members in grievance cases. New York tucked a similar rule — for all state employees — into its 2019 budget, which was signed in March.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also signed an executive order — on the day the justices announced their Janus decision — to prevent state agencies from releasing employees’ personal data that could be used by anti-union groups to persuade members to pull out. He said he plans to advance follow-up legislation to expand these new rules to local entities as well. […]
Some states have passed legislation to help unions make their case for membership to new employees. California, Maryland and Washington state now guarantee unions full access to hiring orientation sessions so they can explain the advantages of membership. California and Washington, as well as New Jersey, also prohibit public employers from discouraging membership. In New Jersey, violating this law comes with a financial penalty: Employers have to reimburse unions for any lost dues that result from their actions.
Today, the Rauner campaign is launching a new statewide ad titled “Works For Madigan.”
The ad documents Madigan’s record of getting rich from a corrupt property tax system and shines a light on Pritzker as Madigan’s handpicked candidate for governor. Their relationship spans years, including a company owned by Pritzker utilizing Madigan’s firm to receive massive tax breaks.
If Madigan and Pritzker get their way, hardworking Illinois families will see more of the same high taxes and corruption they’ve faced for decades.
Mike Madigan: the most corrupt politician in all America. JB Pritzker: Madigan’s handpicked machine candidate for governor. Mike Madigan: he spent decades keeping Illinois property taxes high, and became a millionaire helping corrupt insiders dodge them. JB Prtizker: he hired Madigan, dodged thousands in property taxes, helped make Madigan rich, and stuck us with the bill.
* As you know, Gov. Rauner vetoed a bill that would’ve removed Illinois from the controversial Crosscheck program. Tribune…
Democrats have contended the database is being used to deny people the ability to vote, noting that some states have been sued for wiping out voter registrations based solely on the system’s findings without following procedures spelled out in federal voting rights laws. They also say the system has faulty security, including out-of-date encryption technology and instances in which usernames and passwords were routinely emailed to states across the country. […]
The governor Tuesday rejected security concerns about CrossCheck, saying they are being put forth for “political purposes.”
“I think that’s not true and I think that’s more politically motivated. I don’t think that’s based upon security issues,” Rauner said. “As I have indicated in the past, I think it’s good and worthwhile for Illinois to be a part of the CrossCheck system.”
Questions about the state’s enrollment in CrossCheck were brought to the fore by Indivisible Chicago, a progressive group formed following President Donald Trump’s election that found various security lapses.
The Illinois State Board of Elections said Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of the plan to remove Illinois from the Interstate Voter Crosscheck Program won’t change much because Illinois isn’t using Crosscheck right now.
Matt Dietrich, a spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections, said the state of Illinois hasn’t sent any voter data to the Crosscheck program in over a year, and hasn’t used any information from Crosscheck in two years.
Dietrich said Crosscheck has been, essentially, dormant.
“Back in January, Crosscheck told us they were waiting on an assessment from the Department of Homeland Security on their security and data handling,” Dietrich said. “They said they would get back to us, and would not ask for any data or accept any data until they had a clean bill of health from DHS.” […]
Dietrich said the state board looked at dropping Crosscheck earlier this year, but the board couldn’t agree on whether it was a good idea or not.
“The real question now, for us, is what is the status of Crosscheck itself,” Dietrich said. “The ball is in their court now. They told us that when DHS says they’re good to go that we will hear from them. We never heard anything from them.”
The state board split 4-4 on partisan lines on whether to get out of Crosscheck.
Some Republicans say Rauner’s support helped revive the party and make it more competitive. Though Democrats have accused him of using this money to intimidate lawmakers to follow his agenda, which Rauner has denied. […]
For one thing, there’s not a power vacuum atop the Democratic Party — Speaker Madigan retains a firm grip. And Democrats have majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. This leaves less room for a wealthy donor to come in and assert influence.
Brendan O’Sullivan, a Democratic strategist and fundraiser in Illinois, remembers one particular donation, a $9 million check from Rauner to support a few House and Senate races in October of 2016.
“It was a deflating to say the least for me to see that,” he said. “It was on a Friday night. And I thought, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe I have to figure out how to bring in a new $9 million over the last weeks of this election.” […]
“I think there’s a sense of relief on the Democratic side that we have someone who can help us match what Gov. Rauner decides to spend,” he said.
I believe a lot of elected Illinois Democrats feel relieved that they won’t be outspent this time around.
[Reporter’s name was changed because of an error at the other end of the original lin, which was also changed.]
* Related…
* New Pritzker investment fund takes in $1.8 billion: Conscious of the conflicts that might seem to exist given J.B. Pritzker’s political run, Tony Pritzker said that the only Illinois investors in the second fund are family members. “J.B.’s not involved in PPC Partners and we didn’t solicit nor do we have any Illinois investors,” Tony Pritzker said. “J.B.’s very careful about this stuff.”
