Arthur Jones, a 70-year-old perennial candidate who openly admits his racist and anti-Semitic views, collected the required amount of petition signatures to clinch the primary GOP nomination for the Third Congressional District back in March, although he was uncontested.
In February, Governor Rauner said about Jones, “There is no room for Neo Nazis in American politics. I condemn this man in the strongest possible terms.”
This weekend, Jones cleared another technical hurdle on his way toward almost certain defeat in November when no one, including the Illinois Republican Party, challenged the validity of his petitions to the State Board of Elections. That gave J.B. Pritzker’s campaign an opening to demand Rauner take action.
“Days of silence from Bruce Rauner tells Illinoisans all they need to know: this failed governor can’t find the courage to call on an avowed Nazi to drop his bid for Congress,” Pritzker spokesman Jason Rubin wrote in a statement. “This is no time to cower. Rauner must call on Arthur Jones to drop out immediately.” […]
“What a crock,” Rauner guffawed when he heard the Pritzker campaign demanded to know if he thought Jones should drop out of the race.
“Yes, and I said so immediately,” he insisted. “This is another lie from the Pritzker camp. The guy can’t run on the truth because the truth is so bad for him. That guy [Jones] has no place on the ballot. We tried to kick him off. I called him to get out and he should be out. We should have somebody run against him. There is no room, as I said right immediately when he snuck on there, there is no room in our politics for a person like that.” […]
Some Republicans have suggested voters in the Third Congressional District should punch the ballot for Democrat incumbent Dan Lipinski. The governor, however, would not endorse the pro-life Democrat.
“No,” he said. “The one thing I will say is the person, that guy, Johnson or whatever his name is, should not be on the ballot.”
But he didn’t actually fully “break” with US Sen. Ted Cruz because Cruz tweeted that voters should write someone in and Rauner told Maxwell he wants another candidate in the race. I’ve already told you that the ILGOP says it’s looking for a write-in candidate.
* Rauner responded to the imbroglio on Twitter…
To the voters of the 3rd Congressional District: vote for anybody but Arthur Jones. Nazis have no place in our country and no one should vote for him. For the media or anyone else to suggest I think otherwise is offensive and irresponsible.
* Notice how he blames the media even though the governor specifically said he wouldn’t support the Democrat. Maxwell asked: “Would you endorse Dan Lipinski in that race?” Rauner replied: “No.” And since Lipinski is the only other candidate in the race, the governor put himself on the record saying exactly the opposite of what he tweeted today. Here’s the full video…
OK, so maybe Rauner was referring to some of the more egregious clickbait headlines in his tweet today. But he said what he said and now he’s reversing himself.
Last week, you will recall, the governor said his disparaging remarks about Champaign-Urbana were taken out of context. That simply wasn’t the case.
* I don’t know if I’ll be back Thursday. Maybe Friday, though. But before I go…
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’ sister has died — nearly three decades after her life-saving kidney transplant helped turn White into a champion of organ donation.
White’s office says Doris Ivy died of natural causes on Friday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. She was 85.
White’s interest in organ and tissue donation is a family story that begins in the early 1980s when doctors asked his family to harvest the organs of his brother, who was on life support after suffering a brain aneurism. White’s family knew little about organ donation and declined the request.
Ivy’s 1991 kidney transplant helped spark White and Ivy’s devotion to organ donation and White has dramatically expanded the state’s organ and tissue donation program as secretary of state.
I’d like to express my sincere condolences to Secretary White and his family.
* Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Los Lobos will play us out…
* Scott Fornek began working for the Chicago Sun-Times forty years ago this week, on July 5, 1978. In an era of newspaper downsizing and job-hopping, Fornek has been an every-day, one-paper workhorse. Here he is during earlier times…
I have… no words.
* Anyway, his co-workers threw a surprise party this afternoon for their paper’s invaluable political editor…
It was inevitable — at some point, the shameless gluttony of public employee unions couldn’t last forever.
That reality manifested Wednesday as a devastating — if unsurprising — U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could finally force Big Labor to ditch the fantasy within which it has existed for too long. It was a reckoning that had been building for decades, as private sector wages stagnated and pensions went the way of the dodo. […]
Unions exist for their own promulgation. And public unions, without any semblance of shame, demand private-sector workers — trapped in incessant wage stagnation — to foot the bill for annual wage hikes and gold-plated benefits packages that haven’t been available to most Americans for decades.
Welcome to the 21st century, union bosses. No, things aren’t great. And they haven’t been for most American workers for a long time.
Public-sector unions in Illinois have been right to argue that their members have kept their end of the bargain, paying into their pension funds on a sustained basis even as the state shirked its responsibility to do the same. But as the deficit ballooned to the point where the state’s unfunded pension liability now is north of $130 billion, unions have done little to convince Illinois taxpayers and voters that they’re serious about helping to tackle the problem.
Yes, there’s a clause in the Illinois Constitution that declares pensions to be a contractual obligation that must be paid no matter what. But unions here have relied on that clause to push back against nearly every pension reform proposal that might fix a fiscal problem that threatens to swamp the state. Not so in Arizona, which has similar legal language and yet saw labor come to the table to amend the state constitution and allow a negotiated package of benefit cuts and tax sweeteners, a consensus-building approach that helped Arizona avert financial disaster and safeguarded pensions for those who worked a lifetime to earn them.
Janus may cause severe pain for public-sector unions for decades to come, but it didn’t have to come to this. If unions here had been more willing to discuss trimming the cost-of-living increases that inflate pension costs every year—just to give one example—then perhaps labor could have gotten out front of this issue and deprived pols like Rauner of the political oxygen that has turned anti-union sentiment from a spark to a bonfire.
In a country where workers’ wages have remained largely flat for more than three decades, even as company shareholder dividends and executive paychecks have soared, collective bargaining by organized labor remains one of the few checks on dangerously growing income inequality.
Unionized workers earn more. The typical union worker in 2014 was paid $970 a week, compared with $763 for non-union workers, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Unionized workers typically enjoy better benefits, including health insurance and retirement accounts. They are treated with more dignity and respect by employers, and they’ve got an advocate in their corner when they are not being treated justly.
The Supreme Court’s decision poses a huge challenge to AFSCME and other public employee unions, but it also presents them with an opportunity. The challenge for union leaders is to dig down deep, engaging in one-on-one conversations with every union member and making clear the advantages of unionization — and why union dues are a relative bargain. The opportunity is to build a better informed, more socially aware and committed union membership.
In anticipation of the July 7th, 2018 planned protest organized by Father Michael Pfleger through various social media outlets, Illinois State Police (ISP) officials are warning pedestrians not to enter any expressways in Illinois, or they will face arrest and prosecution.
“Our first priority is to protect public safety and that is what we will do,” said ISP Director Leo Schmitz. “This call to protest on the Dan Ryan, however well-intentioned, is reckless. It puts the lives of protestors and people in the community in grave danger. We will work with our partners at the Chicago Police Department to keep our communities safe and we strongly discourage this protest from going forward at this location.”
Both State Police and the Chicago Police personnel have met with Father Pfleger on several occasions to discuss the dangers of holding a march on the Dan Ryan Expressway.
“Shutting down and marching on the expressway recklessly places lives in danger by cutting off emergency services to those around the city who need it most,” said ISP (Chicago) Region I Commander Major David Byrd. “I have family and friends that live in this community, and while I appreciate and support this worthwhile cause, we cannot risk endangering the lives of those who march, of the many motorists traveling on the interstate, or the lives of our officers who are working to keep everyone safe. This planned protest endangers all communities by backing up traffic onto other arterial routes, creating extremely hazardous conditions for motorists, which are likely to cause crashes resulting in serious injury and fatalities. Additionally, the lives of the people marching on the expressway in the lanes of traffic, would also be placed at risk.”
In the interest of protecting lives while accomplishing the goal of peace, the ISP and CPD requests Father Pfleger reconsider the options to peacefully protest at alternate locations where the lives of the public and protestors will not be in jeopardy.
The ISP supports the First Amendment right to peacefully assemble, so long as it does not put the safety of the public in peril. Pedestrians are prohibited by law from entering the expressway including all on and off-ramps. Pedestrians who choose to violate the law and attempt to enter the expressway could be placed under arrest and charged with Criminal Trespassing to State Supported Property, as well as other potential violations.
Protests have shut down parts of the Ryan in the past, but I haven’t yet found any that caused the absolute mayhem the ISP is warning about.
“If the president of the united states was to come to Chicago today, law enforcement would immediately be pulled, and the entire expressway would absolutely be shut down, without negotiation, without conversation, and without fail, to protect one man, who ironically has not done anything currently to save the lives of the thousands of people who have been murdered, shot or wounded in this great city of Chicago,” said Bright Star Community Outreach CEO Pastor Chris Harris at the press conference.
Chicago police warn they have to pull 200 officers out of the high crime neighborhoods on the South and West sides to protect the protesters, leaving those areas unprotected.
“I don’t work for the police department, but let me offer them some advice,” Pfleger said. “If they say doing this will be pulling officers from the most needed neighborhoods in the city of Chicago, then pull them from the north side.”
Illinois’ flat income tax, currently set at a rate of 4.95 percent for all individual taxpayers, is an outlier. The federal government, as well as most states that have an income tax, feature what is commonly referred to as a progressive tax system in which higher earners pay higher rates.
Democrat J.B. Pritzker, the challenger to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in the November election, says he wants to switch Illinois to a progressive tax, though he has been vague about details.
Rauner’s running mate, Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti, recently ripped into Pritzker’s tax plan during an interview on a Fox News-affiliated talk radio station that serves the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis.
Pritzker will “stick you with that progressive income tax which is surely to be an increase — not to mention the fact that it is wholly regressive,” Sanguinetti told Marc Cox of KFTK.
That is quite the oxymoron. Can a progressive income tax actually be regressive? We decided to check.
* Usually when DC reporters go on one of their patented Trump voter safari hunts, ridiculousness ensues. But Katie Glueck with McClatchy DC has authored a well-written story about the two major party candidates in the 12th Congressional District…
He is a top Democratic recruit, a man party officials have eyed for years and who is now running in one of the most competitive districts in the country. And on a Thursday night in late May, he stood before a room of irate Democrats, defending Donald Trump.
“Let me say this in response a little bit: I think there’s a lot of anger in the country,” Brendan Kelly told the gaggle of grizzled attendees here in southern Illinois’ 12th congressional district, as anti-Trump barbs began to fly.
The town hall gathering, held in a fluorescent-lit, wood-paneled meeting room where a Bud Light-emblazoned clock kept the time, was supposed to be about Social Security, pensions and Medicare. And for awhile, it was. But then the Trump-bashing began from the audience: “No one is a bigger liar in the country than the President or Sarah Sanders.” Trump is “an immoral, draft-dodging punk.”
At first, Kelly, a burly Navy veteran and current state’s attorney, tried to engage, aware that the insults represented a minority viewpoint in this district that backed Trump by 15 percentage points: “I’m running in a district that voted for President Trump, and also for [Democratic Sen.] Tammy Duckworth overwhelmingly. The same people. Why do you think that is?”
The piece doesn’t delve into the split between the urban/suburban Metro East portion of the district and the far more rural areas, but it’s still pretty darned good.
When school districts outside of Chicago negotiate contracts, they do so with the assurance that the state will pick up the tab on pensions. To control growing pension costs, lawmakers capped salary bumps at 6 percent in 2005. This year, the cap tightened to 3 percent.
Illinois’ teachers unions have collected more than 15,000 signatures on petitions urging state lawmakers to reverse that measure.
State Rep. Will Davis (D-Homewood) chairs the House K-12 appropriations committee, and was involved in budget negotiations.
“I mean, things like this are tough conversations. But you know there’s also a manner in which we also have to look at the long-term viability of our state,” he says. “Not everybody’s in favor of raising taxes for the things we want to pay for. Sometimes we do have to make relatively tough decisions, and this fits into that category.”
Senator Elgie Sims (D-Chicago) says districts are free to offer bigger raises, but will have to kick in pension costs for any amount that exceeds the cap.
Nearly 80% of Illinois districts report problems with teacher shortages. In Moline, the applicant pool for Special Education positions is sliced in half. Knoxville can’t get any applicants for its openings.
“You may have classrooms that are manned by a substitute teacher because you have no applicants,” [Regional Superintendent Angie Zarvell] continued.
With fewer applicants, experience and quality also decline. Some districts won’t fill openings. That could mean larger class sizes or not offering the class.
This is all part of a downward spiral that hurts teacher morale and security.
Gov. Bruce Rauner last week signed one new law, HB5627, that is supposed to ease Illinois’ teacher shortage by making it easier for out-of-state and retired teachers to get into Illinois classrooms.
Jontry said Illinois schools are still facing a teacher shortage. He said he expects fewer school districts across the state to have a school bus driver in the fall.
As we’ve seen over the past few years as the economy has strengthened it’s become much more difficult to find part-time bus drivers for the low pay most districts and private providers offer.
Restrictive certification requirements and a lack of candidates has made it difficult to fill some positions, said Todd DeTaeye, Moline-Coal Valley School District Assistant Superintendent of Administration and Human Resources.
“It is becoming more of a challenge to find qualified bilingual teachers, special education teachers, foreign language teachers, and school psychologists,” Mr. DeTaeye said. “When we do find qualified teachers in these areas, the pool of candidates is not nearly as deep as it has been in the past.”
Senate Bill 863 will make it easier for out-of-state teachers to work in Illinois. The legislation allows teachers to become licensed in Illinois if they have completed a comparable state-approved educator program, or hold a comparable and valid license with similar grade and subject credentials from another state.
Last year, we raised the alarm (again) about the unfair TRS Federal Funds Rate. It proved a tough issue for school districts to plan around. Should they hire certified teachers to improve student outcomes, but pay a nearly 40% pension surcharge on those federally funded dollars? Or, should they purchase educational materials that might not have the biggest impact on students but would avoid the pension surcharge, giving them more bang for their buck? Creative accounting is not supposed to be in the job description for school leaders, but the federal funds rate put them in that position.
Last summer, after years of difficult decisions and budgetary jiu-jitsu for school district leaders, education advocates’ hard work paid off when Springfield passed and enacted a law that returned an additional $80 million annually to the classrooms of underserved students. By removing the pension surcharge, districts are now empowered to make decisions in the best interests of their students, not their bottom line.
“You know people spin this [Janus] ruling or me as being anti-union, I am not anti-union. I want more union jobs, I want more all jobs in the state of Illinois, union, non-union I want more pay for everybody,” Rauner said. “What I’m against is conflicts of interest.”
“Crystal clear, I am not anti-union,” Gov. Bruce Rauner told WBEZ in 2015 when asked about his stance on public employee unions.
The governor repeated the “I am not anti-union” phrase June 27 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled public employees don’t have to pay unions a dime to receive the benefits from their union-negotiated contracts.
But Rauner’s word is no good on this claim. He has said over and over for years that public employee unions are inherently “corrupt” because they negotiate contracts with politicians and then support or oppose those same politicians during campaigns with contributions he calls “bribes.”
How can he say that and not want to eliminate them?
Rauner decided to run for governor after watching his friend and onetime ally Mayor Rahm Emanuel cave to the Chicago Teachers Union during a 2013 strike. He has repeatedly called AFSCME, the union that represents most state employees, “Afscammy.” One of his first acts as governor was to try to kill off “fair share” fee payments to AFSCME, which were at the heart of the Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME case.
Fair share fees, which are lower than full union membership dues, can only be used to implement a union contract and cannot be used for political campaign purposes. But, Rauner said in February when the Supreme Court was hearing arguments on Janus: “One hundred percent of what a government union does is political by nature.”
“I’m very pro trade union and I want to grow more trade union jobs,” Rauner said.
Trade union leaders were the first to jump aboard JB Pritzker’s campaign last year, so I’m certain they would strongly disagree. Rauner wants to undo prevailing wage laws, is opposed to project labor agreements and backs the creation of local “right to work” zones.
…Adding… Good analysis, but we’ll see if it works or not in November…
To be clear, Rauner's attempt to claim he is "pro-union" should put to bed any question over whether Janus is good for him politically.
Unions are popular in IL, Rauner attacked them via Janus, and he is trying to avoid paying the political price.
Republican candidates running for the state assembly are fretting about campaign coffers that seem bare. They wonder if/when Gov. Bruce Rauner will give another infusion. He donated $50,000 to the state Republican Party last month. […]
Another lawmaker says Republicans are bracing for a possible Blue Wave and know the only thing that can save them is cash.
A source above the fray, however, tells me Rauner has every intention of donating to the legislators’ campaign fund.
“It’s only the beginning of July (for crying out loud). The governor is 100 percent committed.” Rauner apparently is working to get others to donate, too. […]
Lawmakers hope to see a cash infusion in the next 30 days or so. That’s a few weeks before campaign season really kicks in.
As far as cash to others is concerned, Gov. Rauner is known for two things: 1) He doesn’t relish writing big checks; and 2) He often waits to pump money into others’ campaigns (note the late cash to Comptroller Munger two years ago).
The House Republicans are, I’m told, running on fumes right now. I’m also hearing a half million is expected soonish.
Conservative Party candidate Sam McCann and running mate Aaron Merreighn formally joined the race for Illinois Governor today after the deadline for objections to his nominating petitions passed with no objections filed. McCann submitted more than 60,000 signatures, far surpassing the requirement of 25,000. He immediately called for debates to be scheduled.
McCann issued the following statement:
Conservative and Republican voters clearly showed their dissatisfaction with Bruce Rauner during the primary and those same voters put their hope in our campaign during the petition process. After a brief internal review of my petitions, Bruce Rauner’s paid staffers surely saw that attempting to put these petitions’ validity into question would be fruitless.
I am proud to be on the ballot in the General Election. Voters will now have an option to protect them from the Rauner-Madigan liberal agenda that brought us publicly-funded abortions and a sanctuary state. I am ready to lead the charge to rebuild Illinois together.
With Illinois’ future at stake, I call on Bruce Rauner, J.B. Pritzker and Kash Jackson to join me to schedule debates on these and other issues of critical importance to voters across the state.
*** UPDATE *** I’ve asked the Pritzker and Rauner campaigns for a response.
Galia Slayen from the Pritzker campaign…
After Bruce Rauner’s failed leadership, JB will highlight his plans to get Illinois back on track and our campaign welcomes other voices to the stage that know we need change in Illinois.
* Part of Gov. Rauner’s official schedule for today…
What: Gov. Rauner joined by local legislators, educational and business leaders visits three Champaign-Urbana businesses
Where: Wolfram Research, 100 Trade Center Drive, Champaign
Time: 1:30 p.m.
Granular, 1904 S. First St., Suite 301, Champaign
Time: 2:00 p.m.
A&R Mechanical Contractors, 711 E. Kettering Park Drive, Urbana
Time: 2:30 p.m
Date: Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Note: Media availability follows final tour stop at A&R Mechanical Contractors
* Pritzker campaign…
Rauner Kicks Off Champaign-Urbana Clean Up Tour
After disparaging the entire Champaign-Urbana area, Bruce Rauner is attempting to clean up his trash talk with a tour through the two cities.
The C-U community was not pleased when Rauner said, “it’s very hard to keep a company of more than six people there. There’s no convenient transportation, not much of a workforce. It’s very hard.” It spurred Republicans, Democrats, and nonpartisan community members to clap back in unison against Rauner’s disrespectful badmouthing of the region.
“Bruce Rauner’s clean up tour through Champaign-Urbana only comes after widespread, bipartisan backlash taught this failed governor a lesson,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “While trashing a community may come natural to Illinois’ bad-mouther-in-chief, our families are tired of a failed leader who would rather tear communities down than move this state forward.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** His tour has begun. “It’s very hard to keep a company of more than six people there… not much of a workforce”…
A representative from Wolfram Research tells @GovRauner in a presentation “we do have a global workforce” and “we never have a problem recruiting or hiring people to move here.” pic.twitter.com/azwUzZa285
On transportation, @GovRauner vows to start serious talks about privately funded high speed rail projects to and from Champaign-Urbana. pic.twitter.com/8rs7ONy0ST
Governor Bruce Rauner’s campaign for re-election is expected to get a boost this week from a Super PAC formerly headed by wealthy Chicago businessman and Illinois campaign finance chair of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential run, Ron Gidwitz.
On Tuesday, Economic Freedom Alliance is set to begin running television ads attacking Rauner’s opponent, Democratic nominee J.B. Pritzker. Sources tell WGN the advertising campaign will total more than half a million dollars.
* And this 15-second spot appears to also be running on social media because it has 1,639 YouTube views as of 9 o’clock this morning…
Good spots.
*** UPDATE *** The Illinois Manufacturers Association just moved $900,000 into the Economic Freedom Alliance’s PAC and the PAC just filed a B-1 showing it was spending $895,000 on TV and digital ads.
McCann’s operation screened petition circulators to make sure they were eligible, then subjected the end product to fairly rigorous scrutiny and filed 65,000, which was 40,000 more than the minimum. And they filed on the last possible day. Finding enough evidence to suggest almost two-thirds of his signatures were invalid in a week was always gonna be tough, if not impossible.
You can track petition objections by clicking here. The deadline to file an objection is 5 o’clock today.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From the ILGOP…
Hey Rich,
Of the 65,000 signatures McCann submitted, his people struck nearly 30,000 invalid signatures. After our own review, McCann had reached the 25,000 valid signature threshold. Our review also shows that McCann received assistance from individuals close to Madigan’s political organization.
Here’s an interesting tidbit:
Robert Handzik and Terrence Goggin both circulated for McCann. Both have run as “Republicans” against Madigan in his House district, but past news reports have highlighted their ties to Madigan’s organization.
The Handzik and Goggin petitions are attached, and linked below are a few news articles about them:
Dozens of school districts around the state are scrambling to keep preschool programs intact — or to lay off staff — after learning their preschool funding was reduced or zeroed out.
Illinois lawmakers approved $50 million in additional money for preschool this year, so it was a shock to many of the programs to learn their funding was slashed.
“The cuts seem extremely devastating,” said Marcus Alexander, director of teaching and learning at Waukegan public schools, which saw its $3.5 million annual state grant cut to zero. For the past 26 years, Waukegan had received early childhood block grant funds to fund a half-day preschool. Last year, the district served 750 preschoolers who are 3 and 4 years old.
Based on the state’s new K-12 school funding formula, Waukegan is one of the neediest districts in the state. But preschool funding is not channeled through that formula. Instead, preschool block grant funds are given out through a competitive grant application open this year for the first time since 2012. Waukegan scored 42 points out of 100, far below the 60 needed to be funded. […]
In western Illinois, near Monmouth, Regional Superintendent of Education Jodi Scott said she’s preparing to lay off 35 staff members. Her office, which serves a four-county area, received an extra half million dollars in March to expand an infant and toddler program there — now it’s cut completely. […]
Theresa Hawley, senior vice-president of policy and innovation at Illinois Action for Children, a policy and advocacy group, said part of the reason districts were shut out is because public investment in preschool is about $1.3 billion, but need in the state is around $4 billion.
It obviously wouldn’t kill Rauner to restate his beliefs, but he did speak out about this months ago.
* From the piece that re-ignited a story which originally broke in February…
Illinois Republicans botched four opportunities to stop an avowed Nazi from representing their party in a Chicago-area congressional district. Now they’re paying the price.
Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier who will appear on the November ballot as the GOP candidate against Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski, has become campaign fodder for Democrats as they seek to defeat Gov. Bruce Rauner. And some Republicans even fear the taint from Jones‘ extremist views poses a threat to the party up and down the ticket.
“First, it’s morally wrong and I think it’s really harmful to the party. The guy’s a complete nutcase. He’s a Nazi,” said conservative GOP state Rep. David McSweeney. “This is an absolute political disaster.”
McSweeney’s comments come just days after the filing deadline passed for qualifying a third-party candidate for the general election — which could have provided a safe harbor for Illinois Republican votes. Prior to that, the party had also failed to recruit a candidate to challenge Jones in the primary election, failed to knock him off the primary ballot and wasn’t able to field a write-in candidate against him in the primary. […]
In the meantime, Republicans have one last chance to save face. They can mount a write-in challenge if that candidate notifies three counties in the district of their intent by Sept. 6.
“They didn’t run anyone against him in the primary. They didn’t file an objection to him, they didn’t find a write-in candidate and they didn’t run an independent candidate,” McSweeney said. “We’ve missed four opportunities. We better not miss the fifth.”
Republican legislator (who I love, btw) who always criticizes Rauner criticizing Rauner again? Check. Chiding the ILGOP for not spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of person-hours to find a candidate who is willing to help gather a minimum of 14,559 valid signatures and then run a full-on and completely doomed independent campaign to make sure a Nazi who is going to lose big loses even bigger? Check.
The biggest mistake the party made was not finding a warm body anywhere in Illinois last year to put up against the Nazi in the primary. But they did spend money on robocalls and mailers warning people who the candidate was and GOP primary ballots dropped by about a third compared to four years ago. Do they deserve grief for letting this clown go unopposed? Heck yes they do. But after that mistake, they weren’t left with a whole lot of doable options.
The Democrats are absolutely loving this bind the Republicans have put themselves in…
I'm sorry Mark, but what's repulsive is a governor who doesn't have the spine to call on a NAZI candidate to drop out of a race and hasn’t lifted a finger to stop someone this vile from ending up on his party’s ticket. This never should have happened.
* And now the ILGOP says they’re looking to run a write-in candidate in the general. That’s probably the easiest way out of this by far (they only have to notify a few county clerks), so I figure they’ll do it and this story will mostly go away (unless there’s something bad in their new candidate’s history - and you’d better believe the Dems will be looking). But if they don’t find anyone, they could just fall in line with this dude…
Ted Cruz Would Rather Illinois Vote for a Democrat Than a Nazi
In other words, recommend to Republicans in the 3rd that they vote for Lipinski. I mean, if you listen to the progressives, he’s practically a Republican anyway. /s
Bill Cameron: Trump, do you want him to come to Illinois to come and campaign with you?
Rauner: I want every possible support I can. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Conservatives, Liberals. This election is about the people of Illinois standing up to a corrupt political machine.
Bill Cameron: Maybe Trump at a downstate rally with you before it’s over?
Rauner: Um, you know I was just in Washington, at the White House, this week. I was meeting with Vice President Mike Pence, he’s a good friend of mine. I was there meeting with him to talk about many issues, particularly tariffs and trade. I’m deeply concerned. We do need to change some of the unfair trade deals. America has been taken advantage of by other countries, especially China, and we’ve lost American jobs as a result. So, we do need to change some of those trade deals. That said, trade wars, nobody’s a winner, and tariff wars are devastating. We can’t let a tariff war destroy manufacturing or farmers in Illinois. And I was there to talk about that.
Bill Cameron: What do you think of Trump so far?
Rauner: Well, I’ll say this. What’s, what the White House and the Congress have done to cut and reform our taxes has helped the American economy boom and I applaud them for that. What they’ve done to reduce regulatory burden on businesses around America has mostly, not entirely, but mostly been great and helped the American economy boom. And we’re creating good paying jobs and rising family incomes and I applaud them for that.
* A couple of takeaways from Mark Maxwell’s recent interview of Republican attorney general candidate Erika Harold. First, here’s Harold talking about Sen. Kwame Raoul’s online ad which dings her for allegedly saying years ago she’d rather place a foster child with an abusive heterosexual couple than a loving gay couple…
Harold sought to neutralize the attack ad by highlighting a speech Raoul gave in February of 2013.
“I thought it was hypocritical because Senator Raoul, during the course of debating various issues on the floor of the Senate, talked about how his own views had evolved,” she said. “He specifically said that he himself used to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation, but that he had evolved and he was glad to see that. I am glad to see that people evolve. I think it’s disappointing that he would use a different standard to judge me than he would want others to judge himself.
The Raoul campaign responded through a spokesperson, writing in an email, “It’s unconscionable that someone would ever choose to put a child in an abusive home.” […]
“I can confess that, as a boy, I didn’t even believe this was a question of sexual orientation,” [Raoul] said at the time. “I believed it was a question of choice and I was — I discriminated against people based on their sexual orientation.”
The difference here is that Raoul confessed to having these beliefs when he was a boy. Harold was an adult (a young adult, but an adult) when she allegedly made those comments.
* And from the Raoul campaign…
In an interview with WCIA’s Mark Maxwell yesterday, Republican candidate for attorney general Erika Harold reconfirmed her position that abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape and incest.
Partial transcript:
Mark Maxwell, WCIA: “Justice Anthony Kennedy is stepping down, the only conservative justice who has voted to uphold Roe v. Wade. We saw Governor Rauner sign HB40 last year which removed the trigger provision, protecting access to abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned. Is this another area of disagreement with the Governor, this area of abortion?”
Erika Harold: “My focus is enforcing the law, whatever it is, as I’m attorney general. And I think it’s important in a position like this that you’re not bringing your own personal views into it.”
MM: “A lot of Republicans in this state have been disheartened by Governor Rauner’s position on this issue of abortion. What are you giving them to vote for, if anything? Is there a pro-life pledge? What do voters need to know about you on the issue of abortion when you’re running for this position?”
EH: “… I’m not going to be running on a host of issues that have nothing to do with the job that I’m seeking … People know that I’m pro-life. That’s not something that’s a secret to anyone.”
MM: “In a previous run for Congress, you mention that even in cases of rape and incest - which most Republicans carve those out - you are still opposed to abortion. Have your views at all evolved or changed on that particular issue?”
EH: “My views are clear. I will uphold Illinois law, and that’s what’s important for voters to know about this.”
“With Roe v. Wade in serious jeopardy, now more than ever we need an attorney general who will be a strong advocate for women and victims of sexual assault, not just a bystander to the attacks,” said Raoul campaign spokeswoman Aviva Bowen. “Erika Harold’s views are shocking and extreme.”
While a candidate for Congress in 2014, Harold detailed her position to the State Journal-Register, saying, “I would not discriminate (against the fetus) based on the circumstance of conception.”
Last year, the General Assembly passed House Bill 40, a measure that allows the state to provide employees and Medicaid recipients insurance coverage for abortions, as well as protect access to abortion in Illinois should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade.
“HB40 was passed to avoid the very nightmarish scenario we are experiencing with the Trump agenda and the changing composition of the Supreme Court,” said State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, chief sponsor of the bill. “Illinois voters won’t be fooled by Erika Harold’s obtuse answers. Her anti-choice positions are clear and extreme. Prohibiting a woman from making a personal decision about her health after she’s been violently assaulted is heartless and cruel.”
* One thing you can always count on is that lots of political reporters will too often try to make isolated election results into some sort of a national trend.
After conservative Congressman Dan Lipinski won his Democratic primary in March against a Bernie Sanders supporter, many seemed convinced that the Sanders wing of the party was washed up. For instance…
In reality, Lipinski had far superior name ID (mainly from his father) and an experienced, capable, machine-based field organization that managed to drag him across the finish line. Local politics won out over national politics.
* These days, the national media has flip-flopped and is using another congressional primary to warn centrist Dems they’re in trouble. Like Lipinski’s March victory, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s surprising primary win in New York over a machine Democrat is somehow evidence of a new national trend. And Sen. Tammy Duckworth has taken some heat on social media over her recent interview with the Guardian, in which she said that Ocasio-Cortez’s brand of Democratic socialism couldn’t win a national race. But I think the critics are missing her main point…
Duckworth said Ocasio-Cortez’s appeal was likely limited to her district, which bridges the Bronx and Queens.
“I think it’s the future of the party in the Bronx, where she is,” Duckworth said. “I think that we, as legislators, need to listen to our constituency and get out there. I think what she did was, she did the hard work. She pounded the pavement, and she was out there talking to every one of her constituents. And I think that was the difference.
“She turned out her voters and reflected the needs of her district.”
Duckworth said the same of Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Democratic senators in states that voted for Trump who are thought likely to support his forthcoming supreme court pick.
The three red-state Democrats “vote in whatever they need to do to take care of the people of their state”, Duckworth said. “They put their constituents first.”
Not to mention that the most liberal Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Illinois (Daniel Biss) had to dump his DSA running-mate because of the guy’s views on Israel.
* The governor has done a couple of tweet storms about his record in June. Here’s one…
June in Review: It has been a great month for the people of Illinois. Passed a bipartisan FY19 budget with #NoNewTaxes! #twill
June in Review: Historic education initiatives. K-12 funding up by $1.4B since we took office. Early childhood up $200M. Invest in Kids vastly expands school choice with $100M in scholarships. #NoNewTaxes #twill
June in Review: $2B Medicaid waiver puts unprecedented focus on behavioral health. #BetterCareIL will pilot delivery of better service for #mentalhealth, substance abuse. Our 5-year program will transform health spending to improve health outcomes. #NoNewTaxes #twill
June in Review: We made it easier to #adopt children in Illinois with the nation’s biggest adoption tax credit – $5,000. The credit will help thousands of children find caring homes and loving parents. #NoNewTaxes #twill
June in Review: A remarkable $474M @USDOT program will fix the worst rail bottleneck in the country. The investment in Chicago’s 75th Street Corridor will be a boon to shippers – 2M freight cars a year – and commuters – 40 trains a day. #NoNewTaxes #twill
June in Review: Look at what the economy is doing for railroads. Now think what could happen when we unblock the congestion and create $3.8 billion in economic benefit! #twill Link: https://trib.in/2NhUuXu
June in Review: $500M for U of I advances economic development initiative to leapfrog Silicon Valley. Discovery Partners Institute links the creative genius that springs from #Champaign and other campuses – one great asset – to the capital genius of Chicago – another great asset.
June in Review: Signed legislation to secure funding for safety net and rural hospitals. Critical bipartisan hospital assessment program ensures health services for the poor and other vulnerable populations. #NoNewTaxes
June in Review: Got bipartisan support for a new veterans’ home in Quincy to ensure the best care for the people whose service keeps us free. $53M of state money gets the project underway. Read more: https://bit.ly/2tWGqtC #NoNewTaxes #twill
…and the list goes on. Stay tuned for more June in Review! #twill
June In Review: It hasn’t been a great month for @BruceRauner. Let’s take a look back at a dozen disasters: #ilgov #twill
June In Review: @BruceRauner was sidelined on negotiations and used a pen to sign a veto-proof budget after three years of failure. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: A @ProPublicaIL investigation exposed @BruceRauner’s DCFS for keeping nearly 30% of hospitalized children in its care held beyond medical necessity. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: @BruceRauner was confronted by a voter about how he’ll “rectify” the damage he’s done to disability services as governor. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: @BruceRauner blamed the weather (and a whole lot more) for his fatal mismanagement in Quincy. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: @BruceRauner’s administration lied and said “there has never been any attempt to lay blame” for the Legionnaires’ crisis that took 13 lives. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: @BruceRauner failed to retract his commitment to @realDonaldTrump to send troops to the southern border. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: @BruceRauner blaming the weather for Legionnaires’ in Quincy was rated FALSE by @PolitifactIL/@BGA and his claims were called “unverified and off-point.” #ilgov #twill
June In Review: @JulianaforLG, @KwameRaoul & Reps. Welch and Davis held @BruceRauner accountable for saying that he’s “not surprised they’re sensitive because the black legislators really have not been serving their community very well.” #ilgov #twill
June In Review: @BruceRauner faced fierce backlash from the Champaign-Urbana community after he badmouthed and insulted the entire region. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: Higher education officials say students are fleeing because of the budget crisis and badmouthing by Illinois leaders. @BruceRauner, of course, manufactured the budget crisis and has been Illinois’ bad-mouther-in-chief. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: Western Illinois University announced layoffs for two dozen teachers because of declining state funding. @BruceRauner starved colleges & universities throughout his budget crisis, making matters worse. #ilgov #twill
June In Review: After @JBPritzker held a three-day Rauner Failed Veterans tour, @BruceRauner’s campaign rewrote history, claiming “when the Quincy Veterans Home needed him, he took action.” Here’s the truth: #ilgov #twill
Links to supporting documentation are in the tweets.
Gov. Rauner announced today that Patricia R. “Patti” Bellock has been named director of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (DHFS). Bellock has served in the General Assembly since 1999 and is recognized as one of the body’s leading advocates for Medicaid, health care and social services, areas she will oversee in her new role.
“Illinois is so fortunate to have an advocate for health and human services as dedicated and talented as Patti Bellock,” said Rauner in announcing the appointment. “She has been instrumental in virtually every health advancement our state has made in the last two decades and I am looking forward to her leadership of the state’s ongoing effort to reform our delivery systems and improve our outcomes.”
Bellock is retiring from the House of Representatives where she became the first woman to serve as Deputy Minority Leader in 2013. She replaces interim DHFS Director Teresa Hursey who stepped in last month when Felicia Norwood left for the private sector. Hursey will remain as Medicaid Director.
Bellock helped to shepherd the recent approval of Better Care Illinois, the state’s landmark 1115 Medicaid waiver approved earlier this year for 10 pilot programs in mental health and substance abuse.
She is known for her bipartisan, collaborative style as a member of two other Medicaid-related groups moving legislation forward to approve the Hospital Assessment and the Omnibus Medicaid bill. She has effectively co-led efforts in the General Assembly in recent years to move Illinois toward managed care. Her extensive work on Medicaid reform in Illinois has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal.
“It is an honor to join the talented and dedicated staff of the Department of Healthcare and Family Services,” Bellock said. “I look forward to working with the Governor and my colleagues in the General Assembly to ensure access to quality health care for Illinois’ most vulnerable population and making our health care delivery systems more efficient and effective.”
Bellock’s distinguished 20-year legislative career had a decided emphasis on health and human services. She was the Minority spokesperson on both the House Human Services Committee and the Human Services – Appropriations Committee. She has also served on committees with three different national organizations working on health care legislation and public policy issues throughout the United States.
Bellock’s signature achievement in the General Assembly was the landmark Save Medicaid Access and Resources Together (SMART) Act reforms of 2012. She served as Chairperson of the Medicaid Reform, Family & Children Committee from 2009-2011 under Speaker Madigan; the group which started the work on improving Illinois’ Medicaid program that culminated with passage of comprehensive reforms in 2012.
Bellock was Chief Co-Sponsor of a 2007 law to protect the health of people in hospitals, nursing homes and mental health facilities against infection by requiring the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) to create rules to reduce rates of multi-drug resistant organisms (MDROs), and other “super bugs.”
The law requires healthcare facilities regulated or licensed by the state, as well as mental health and developmentally disabled facilities overseen by the state to perform annual facility-wide infection control risk assessments; develop infection control policies for Multi-drug resistant organisms (MDRO’s); enforce hand hygiene and contact precaution requirements and incorporate any updated MDRO prevention and control recommendations issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A native of River Forest, Bellock graduated from Saint Norbert College in Wisconsin, where she received a bachelor’s degree in History and American Government. She has received dozens of awards over the years from numerous organizations for her work on various health care policy issues, particularly in the areas of mental health, developmental disabilities, and children’s health.
The appointment is effective July 11, 2018.
* From last week…
Gov. Bruce Rauner today named retiring Illinois State Representative Robert W. Pritchard to the Northern Illinois University Board of Trustees. Pritchard is a long-time education advocate and a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose work in the General Assembly was focused on elementary, secondary and higher education.
“Bob is a very strong addition to the NIU Board,” Rauner said. “He has a working knowledge of the challenges that face higher education and he is well equipped to advocate for the university, its students and the public-at-large on issues ranging from affordability to access.”
Pritchard’s appointment takes effect on July 1, 2018, the same day he retires from the Illinois House of Representatives where he served the 70th Legislative District for more than 15 years.
A recognized leader in education policy, Pritchard was a key contributor to the passage of the state’s new K-12 school funding formula, which increased state levels of school funding and made distributions to school districts more equitable.
His work with the bicameral Higher Education Working Group focused on issues of outmigration and affordability in Illinois higher education and resulted in significant legislation this spring. Pritchard was instrumental in forming the bipartisan Legislative Education Caucus in 2005.
A self-employed farm owner, operator and manager, Pritchard is responsible for a DeKalb county farming operation that is in its sixth generation of family ownership. The corn and soybean operation has doubled in size under his leadership.
“I feel strongly that education beyond high school is an essential component in developing Illinois’ workforce and making the state attractive to employers,” Pritchard said. “NIU – in partnership with local community colleges – prepares students to achieve their dreams and be contributing members of our economy.”
“It has been a pleasure to represent NIU and advocate for the interests of students, faculty, and all higher education institutions throughout my tenure in the House of Representatives. I look forward to continued service to the region and Illinois in my new role as a NIU trustee.”
Pritchard’s wife Mary is a lifelong educator who spent most of her career at Northern Illinois University as a teacher, administrator, and Interim Dean.
* I was a bit shocked at the number of bounce-back e-mails from subscribers who were out of the office this morning. Comments have been lagging all morning and, while I no longer track my site’s traffic, my ScribbleLive program indicates visitors are down by well more than a third.
I was wondering the other day what would happen this week because the 4th is on a Wednesday. I suppose lots of folks took Monday and Tuesday off. I was thinking about maybe taking off Wednesday, Thursday and maybe Friday. I still haven’t decided yet. But I do believe I’m gonna take it a bit easy today (unless something big breaks, of course).
Women now make up a quarter of all state legislature seats in the United States. There are now nine state legislatures that could potentially be composed of 50% or more women after the general elections in November. That’s never happened. https://t.co/QJecze5CDJ
A record number of women won Nevada’s primaries in June. And there is now a possibility for the Legislature to have more women than men, which would be a first in United States history. Of the states that have had primaries so far, at least eight more have a shot at reaching or surpassing the 50 percent mark in November.
To reach this milestone, however, a woman must win the general election in every district where at least one is running, a difficult feat. Some female candidates are running in districts favoring the other party, and many are challenging incumbents, who historically almost always win. […]
Women now make up a quarter of all state legislature seats in the United States.
In Illinois, women hold 36 percent of seats in the state legislature. This percentage is the sixth highest in the country. Voters would need to elect 26 more female lawmakers for at least half of their state legislature to be women.
And yet, on the surface at least, I don’t ever think I’ve seen women legislators more divided than they are now in Illinois. As subscribers know, the bipartisan, bicameral Conference of Women Legislators has been disbanded. The Senate now has a bipartisan group, but Democratic women in the House have formed their own, separate organization which has had a hiccup or two so far.
Maybe these are just growing pains, or a sign of a much more divisive era (both at the state and national levels). And it’s their shops, so they get to call the shots. I’m not trying to be critical here, I’m just kinda lamenting the apparent loss of legislative comity.
* Dean Olsen at the SJ-R has an excellent and comprehensive look at how social service agencies are still trying to recover a year after the impasse ended…
In the 12 months since then, providers of human services and health care that endured historic payment delays said they have recovered to varying degrees and tried to restore services. But many said damage to local and statewide social-service “safety nets” has only begun to be repaired.
Even though Rauner and the General Assembly recently approved a fiscal 2019 budget on a bipartisan basis, human-service providers said still-unfilled gaps in payment and payment delays connected with the impasse only added to what they say is the state’s chronic underfunding of human services, a situation lasting a decade or more. […]
The impasse has had a lingering impact on staff morale and hampered long-term planning efforts for Sojourn Shelter and Services, chief executive officer Angela Bertoni said.
Sojourn, which provides a shelter in Springfield for domestic violence victims, went 14 months without state funding, “so that was difficult,” she said.
The agency had to work hard for a time to dispel rumors among potential clients that Sojourn had closed, she said.
During the height of the state’s budget impasse, Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s office regularly had to “triage” bills.
It was a process where businesses or organizations facing severe financial problems had their payments moved to the head of the line to stave off disaster.
Now Illinois has its second full-year budget in a row in place, but the triaging of bills goes on.
“We still get that. We get it all of the time,” Mendoza said last week. “We still continue to get people who, they’ve been so decimated. They’ve tapped out every line of credit. They have a very difficult time building their credit back up. Not a tone has changed for us. It’s just perhaps these cases are invisible because we now have budgets.”
With about a year having passed since then, many say the Springfield area weathered the storm as well as it could have and is now in recovery. Yet many are taking a wait-and-see approach to determine if this newfound certainty is long-lasting.
“I think it’s going to take really a couple of cycles where the legislature and the governor get their work done on time, the budget is balanced, the time to pay bills continues to go down and get in a more stable place,” Jimenez said.
“Certainty” and “stability” were the buzzwords most often used by business owners and city leaders to describe what has changed in the last year.
“The small businesses where you might stop in and buy a gift or you might buy some clothing or something, that was impacted because there was so much uncertainty with state workers,” said Lisa Stott Clemmons, executive director of Downtown Springfield Inc. “And there’s still a little bit of uncertainty about the AFSCME contract and things like that. But at that time, it was literally at what point is the government going to shut down.” […]
The state still owes the City Water, Light and Power about $1.5 million, according to the comptroller’s office. However, this pales in comparison to 2016 — a year into the budget impasse — when the state racked up as much as $12 million in unpaid utility bills, leading CWLP to threaten to cut off services.
The Chicago Tribune recently published an editorial titled “Bruce Rauner has his Scott Walker moment,” and compared what happened with the Janus case to the Wisconsin governor’s “tussles with public employee unions.” But I don’t think Rauner will realize his dream of killing off public employee unions in this state. At least, not in the foreseeable future.
Public employee union membership in Wisconsin has plummeted since Walker passed what was known as Act 10, which, among other things, allowed state and local government workers to opt out of paying anything to their unions before Janus was decided.
But those “other things” were hugely important to the membership decline.
Unions were forbidden to negotiate on anything except wages, but wage increases were capped. Health insurance, pensions and other fringe benefits were taken off the negotiating table. University employees and government-funded child care and home health care workers were barred from joining unions. Most important, Wisconsin public employers couldn’t deduct union dues from worker paychecks, so workers had to pay themselves for representation that wasn’t worth much.
When Rauner talks about wanting “reforms” to allow the state, schools, universities and local governments to save money, he’s mainly talking about Wisconsin’s Act 10, which has driven down wages and benefits.
This is no secret, by the way. When the governor isn’t trying to be cagey in front of the TV cameras, he’s admitted this is his goal.
Unless Rauner is re-elected and then wins the drawing to decide who creates the new legislative maps in 2021, then picks up solid Republican majorities and enacts those Wisconsin-style “reforms,” I don’t think we’re going to see all that many government workers dumping their unions in Illinois in the near term. Their dues, deducted from their paychecks, will still produce results, unlike in Wisconsin, where dues are hand-collected and unions are toothless.
And Rauner’s anti-union rhetoric and actions have sent nonmembers flocking to unions in droves. AFSCME saw a dramatic increase in workers signing up to pay full dues since Rauner took office, and the same thing has happened with teachers unions.
Ironically, a pro-union governor like J.B. Pritzker might drive down membership over the long term as union members lose their fear and become complacent. We’ll see.
Union membership has cratered in Wisconsin since Gov. Scott Walker moved to reduce collective bargaining rights and won legislative approval for right-to-work rules. Michigan enacted right-to-work legislation in 2012, and also saw a drop, though not as dramatic. Michigan’s law went through years of court challenges before it was fully applied to public sector unions.
A recent report estimating the fallout of the Janus ruling noted a 5 to 10 percent decline in union membership following the passage of right-to-work laws. Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations from the University of Illinois, and one of the authors of that report, said the steep decline from union ranks in Wisconsin was a reflection of that state’s sweeping anti-union changes, rather than a just a change in right-to-work status.
One reason why the Wisconsin decline was so significant, Bruno said, was there were additional changes to collective bargaining and pension benefits. A better example of what could happen in Illinois could be Michigan, Bruno said, as changes there in 2012 were less far-reaching than revisions in Wisconsin.
* As Supreme Court ruling threatens labor, teacher union leader says it’s been adding members: Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery says the union has been growing statewide and nationally despite last week’s expected Supreme Court ruling that stopped the collection of “fair share” bargaining fees from public workers who don’t want to be union members. “Our union is adding members. The AFT (American Federation of Teachers), our national union, is bigger than it’s ever been. We’re adding members here in Illinois all the time. … The graduate employees at the University of Chicago have just voted to join us,” Montgomery said Sunday on WGN AM-720.
A political action committee run by top officials of Operating Engineers Local 150 reported a $255,000 contribution last week from a “dark money” organization controlled by the same Local 150 honchos.
Fight Back for a Better Tomorrow PAC and its money-raising Fight Back Fund spent $900,000 during the Democratic primary to oppose Rep. Scott Drury’s bid for attorney general. The groups also spent $685,000 to oppose former Gov. Pat Quinn’s AG run. Both expenditures were ultimately designed to help Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, win the attorney general primary, which he did.
The PAC then filed paperwork to show it had purchased TV ads designed to help Sen. Raoul fend off Republican nominee Erika Harold during the general election. As before, these will be independent expenditures that aren’t coordinated with the Raoul campaign.
The ads won’t begin right away. Instead, the group is reportedly reserving advertising time for later this year. The quarter-million is essentially a down payment on that reservation.
So, how does this race look right now? As I’ve already told you, a recent Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll had Sen. Kwame Raoul leading Erika Harold by nine points, 44-35 with 21 percent undecided. My pollster viewed those results as a sort of generic party matchup. But, let’s take a look at some of the crosstabs today.
Besides her fellow Republican Party members, Ms. Harold led in just a few demographics.
For instance, senior citizens 65 and up preferred Harold over Sen. Raoul 42-38, with 21 percent undecided. Downstaters backed her over Raoul 43-33. And suburban collar county voters narrowly supporter her 42-40. The poll found that Gov. Bruce Rauner led in those demographics with 2 points among seniors and 3 points with Downstaters, but he trailed Democrat JB Pritzker in the collars by 5 points.
The African-American Raoul led the African-American Harold among whites by 1 point, 40-39 (Pritzker led Rauner by 2 among whites). Raoul led Harold with black voters by 53 points, 69-16 (Pritzker’s margin was 50 points).
81 percent of Republicans supported Harold, while 13 percent were undecided and 6 percent said they backed Raoul. 79 percent of Democrats backed Raoul, while 16 percent were undecided and 5 percent backed the Republican Harold. So, the hidden “slack” in the partisan results would seem to show that Raoul will benefit a bit more.
Among independent and third-party voters, Raoul led by 13 points, 38-25, with 37 percent undecided (Pritzker led Rauner by 6 with this group).
Mr. Raoul led Ms. Harold by 2 among male voters, 42-40 (Pritzker led by 6). And he led her by 15 points among women, 46-31 (Pritzker led Rauner by 13).
Chicago resident Raoul led by 57 points in the city, 69-12 (Pritzker led by 40). And Raoul led Harold in suburban Cook County by 15, 45-30 (Pritzker led by 9).
Raoul had a 30-point lead among union households, 56-26 (Pritzker led by 33), and held a 3-point, 42-39 lead among non-union households (Pritzker also led by 3).
Raoul also led among voters aged 18-34 by 21 points, 50-29 (Pritzker led by 19). Raoul’s lead among voters aged 35-49 was 19 points, 48-29 (Pritzker also led by 19). And Raoul led by 5 points with those aged 50-64, 43-38 (Pritzker led by 6).
Also, keep in mind that this poll was taken June 9-11. That’s before President Trump’s numbers precipitously declined during the immigrant family separation crisis at the southern border. The worse he does, the worse his party’s candidates will likely do come November. But then, politics being politics, the president could also do something to help himself before November. The poll of 600 likely voters had a margin of error of +/-3.99 percent.
If Raoul avoids any major controversies, runs a decent campaign and raises enough money to compete, it sure looks like this race is his to lose. But, as always, this is politics. Stuff can change in a hurry.
It should also be interesting to see if the Republicans open up a significant “dark money” spigot to help Ms. Harold. The Republican Attorneys General Association created the Illinois Freedom Fund independent expenditure committee in late March specifically to help Harold, but that group has not yet reported any contributions as of this writing.
Raoul ended March with just under $100,000 in his own campaign bank account and has reported raising about $357K since then. Harold reported having $92K in the bank at the end of March and has reported $208K in contributions since then.
Of the hundreds of songs Charlie Richardson has recorded in his decades as a local audio technician, one still stands out for him as the best representation of Maryland.
“The (Naval Academy) Glee Club was singing it and they were singing around the state and I heard the thing at one of the concerts and it caught my attention and ear.”
The approximately two-minute “My Home, My Maryland” was composed and performed in 1976 for the glee club’s bicentennial concerts.
“There’s no finer place on Earth than my home sweet home, my Maryland,” the choir sang, the recording made in the Naval Academy Chapel resounding in Richardson’s living room Wednesday. The Annapolis resident, the founder of Richardson Records, has been recording local songs for about 50 years.
“It doesn’t have all that political stuff in it,” Richardson said.
The actual state song, “Maryland, My Maryland,” has come under fire for its strong pro-Confederate slant — it uses phrases like “Northern scum” and “sic semper.” There have been attempts to change it over the last five decades; all have failed.
* Before Rod Blagojevich was elected governor in 2002, Illinois had an unwritten rule that higher education received $1 for every $2 received by K-12. Blagojevich believed universities were too top-heavy, so he cut their budgets year after year. That trend continued through two successive governors. From the Illinois Board of Higher Education…
2002 was the peak year for state appropriation support for Illinois public universities ($1.5 billion). When accounting for inflation and new, unfunded mandates public university operations funding for Fiscal Year 2018 is less than half of what it was in Fiscal Year 2002 ($736 million in 2018 relative to $1.5 billion in 2002). [Emphasis added.]
Yikes. Let that sink in for a moment. Less than half.
In Fiscal Year 2017 general funds covered just 37.8% of public university revenue, with UIF covering the remaining 62.2%. In comparing 2010 and 2017, total revenue is nearly identical in both years (difference of +0.1%) after making an inflationary adjustment using the consumer price index (CPI). The decline in state appropriations to public universities from 2010 to 2017 (-22.8%) roughly parallels the increase in university income funds (+22.2%)
* So, adjusted for CPI, overall higher education spending has leveled off, but state funding has plummeted. They gotta pick up the slack somewhere else.
And, according to IBHE, if you adjust for the Higher Education Price Index, total higher education spending has lagged by 4.5 percent, meaning the universities are doing their part to control costs while the state slashes its own funding.
* Robert Bruno writes in the Sun-Times about what public employee unions can do in the wake of Janus. Here’s one of his ideas…
New York recently amended its state public employee’s law. It allows public employee unions to deny representation to non-members in any disciplinary cases as well as any legal, economic or job-related services beyond those provided in the collective bargaining agreement, without violating the duty to fair representation.
The Court majority opinion endorsed this approach by stating that individual “nonmembers could be required to pay for the [grievance] service or could be denied union representation altogether.” In a footnote, Alito cited a California labor relations law as an example. Other states including Oregon, Hawaii, New Jersey and Florida have passed or are considering post-Janus measures. Illinois could do the same.
*** UPDATE *** Hannah Meisel had a similar story at the Daily Line today. They’ve taken it out from behind the paywall…
Ed Maher, a spokesman for Local 150, said Alito’s suggestion “seems to leave crack to charge nonmembers for grievance cost, arbitration costs.”
Pierson said that charging nonmembers for such services — which are as high as $5,000 for an arbitrator and $1,000 for one day of work for a court reporter — may cause a nonmember to “think twice about not paying dues,” and to see the dues as an “insurance policy” instead of money taken from a paycheck.
* JB Pritzker has been on statewide publicity tour ostensibly designed to showcase his meetings with veterans. Here’s the end of a Peoria Journal Star article…
Alex Browning, a Rauner spokesman, said the governor is committed to helping veterans of Illinois.
“When the Quincy Veterans Home needed him, he took action. He worked hand-in-hand with the CDC from day one and secured $53 million for new construction at the home. Gov. Rauner has also led efforts to help veterans who have fallen on hard times, increased veteran access to education, and created a pilot program for temporary childcare services for veterans who have medical appointments or job interviews,” he said.
The Rauner campaign is claiming that “when the Quincy Veterans Home needed him, he took action.” Let’s take a look at the real record:
* In 2015, Rauner’s administration waited six days to publicize the first Legionnaires’ outbreak — even though they recognized it looked like the “beginning of an epidemic.” In a span of weeks, 12 Veterans and spouses died and 54 were sickened.
* In 2016, Rauner shows up in Quincy to announce “we’re really on top of the situation” as his Veterans Affairs department confirms two new Legionnaires’ cases. Sixteen days later, a third case is confirmed.
* In 2017, a Korean War Veteran dies, bringing the death toll to 13. Weeks later, three cases are confirmed. In December, a media investigation exposes Rauner’s fatal mismanagement, and Rauner launches into cover-up mode.
* In 2018, Rauner holds a week-long press stunt at the Quincy Veterans’ Home and proposes a task force instead of concrete, long-term solutions to end the crisis. While Rauner has no regrets and blames Quincy staff for his fatal mismanagement, Rauner’s administration skips a legislative hearing into the Legionnaires’ crisis hours before the fourth case in 2018 was confirmed. Rauner claims “nothing has taken long” days after his administration says it will take “three to five years” before the problem will be solved.
“When Quincy Veterans needed him, Bruce Rauner was busy covering up his fatal mismanagement instead of ending the Legionnaires’ crisis he let spin out of control,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “It is deeply troubling and frankly a disgrace to the memories of our fallen heroes for Rauner or his campaign to rewrite history on a crisis caused by his failed leadership.”
* The Chicago mayor’s election is next February. Fiscal Year 2020 begins the following January 1st. The city’s pension contributions will rise $400 million (a 31 percent increase from the previous year) because of state statutes requiring minimum funding levels for various pension funds.
The city’s budget this year is $10 billion. So, $400 million is about a four percent budget increase.
Natural revenue growth ain’t gonna cover it and, remember, other spending pressures will increase as well.
* Amanda Kass, one of the most talented numbers people in the business, wondered what the mayoral candidates had to say about tax hikes and here’s some of what she found…
* Lori Lightfoot: In an interview with Sun-Times reporter Fran Spielman, Lightfoot stated, “Our taxes are way too high.” Spielman followed-up by asking Lightfoot what choice Mayor Emanuel had since without the tax increases the “pension funds were going belly up.” Lightfoot didn’t directly answer, but said she wanted to “reduce the tax burden on middle-and lower-income people.”
* Gary McCarthy: His campaign website states that, “After years of borrowing against our city’s future, Mayor Emanuel can no longer kick the can down the road. Chicago needs real reform. Shady accounting tricks and constant tax hikes will not help fund our municipal and teacher pensions.” It also states, “Our police, fire and teacher pensions have to not only be protected, but funded in full.”
* Paul Vallas: I haven’t seen anything that’s specific to the City’s four pension systems, but Vallas has explicitly critiqued the Chicago Public Schools’ pension holidays and cited past “failures to think and plan proactively” as a reason he’s running. (CPS is an especially hot topic for Vallas because he was its CEO from 1995-2001. CPS’s pension fund is a whole different topic though, so I’m largely tabling that issue for now.) He also pointed out how the pension holidays ended up costing the City more in the long-term.
As of June 2018, I didn’t see any campaign statements specifically about the City’s pensions and the upcoming pension payments from the other four declared candidates (Rahm Emanuel, Ja’Mal Green, Troy LaRaviere, and Neal Sales-Griffin).
So, the fiery progressive Lightfoot says taxes are way too high. Gary McCarthy is talking out of both sides of his mouth. The alleged fiscal geek Vallas has no plan. And nobody else has even addressed it yet.
The lowest composite [property] tax rates in Cook County are in Hinsdale (6.5 percent), Burr Ridge (6.8 percent) and Barrington (7.2 percent), according to the Cook County clerk.
The tax rate in Chicago on residential homes is 7.2 percent, according to Orr’s office. The average tax rate in the north suburbs is 9.3 percent. The average in the south suburbs: 11.9 percent, actually a decrease from previous years.
The average tax bill on a single-family home increased 4.78 percent in the south suburbs (an increase of $247), 3 percent in the north suburbs ($213) and 2.75 percent in Chicago ($109), where there has been a lot of squawking about property tax increases.
So, even after the recent increases, Chicago is tied with Barrington for third lowest composite property tax rates in Cook County.
Homeowners in Lakeview Township, upset by the big increases in assessments they received from Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios in May, have called a public meeting tonight with government officials.
“I’m alarmed by the size of the increases,” said Andrea Raila, who said the assessor’s estimate of her home’s taxable value went up by 57 percent since the last assessment, in 2015.
Raila, who ran for assessor this year, should know better…
I’m confused. Didn’t everyone argue during the election that places like Lakeview were underassessed? https://t.co/noe0JYhG3D
The increase in assessments also may not be due to an overall correction to the flawed assessment system. In other words, assessed values may increase even more when a new, improved assessment system is put in place
An unprecedented analysis reveals that Cook County’s unique property tax system created an unequal burden on residents, handing huge financial breaks to more affluent homeowners while punishing those who have the least, particularly people living in minority communities.
Translated: Lakeview homeowners had better brace themselves.
* Related…
* The Fiscal Firebomb Looming for Small Cities in Illinois: I would suggest that Illinois also create, as Virginia has, an independent state fiscal oversight commission to assess specific fiscal/budget issues and recommend, if warranted, further assistance to help stabilize areas of concern. It should implement, as Rhode Island did in the wake of Central Falls’ municipal bankruptcy, a quasi-SWAT team of city managers and legislators to provide technical assistance and potential state assistance to assess municipal operations and develop long-range financial forecasts for revenue. And finally, the state should adopt a revenue-sharing program, modeled after the one signed into law by former President Ronald Reagan, which assessed relative fiscal need, local tax effort and population.
Mark Janus was told that he had to pay union dues to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 if he wanted to work for Illinois.
Um, no, he wasn’t. He was told he had to pay fair share fees for the benefits he received from the union contract.
Janus objected to AFSCME spending one-quarter of his roughly $600 a year in union fees on politics, especially when it spent only about 20 percent on representing workers.
I could not find confirmation of that “20 percent” figure anywhere. Perhaps someone else can help.
In not paying the equivalent of dues, these non-joiners will no longer have to subsidize the political causes and candidates the union spends dues money to advance.
Fair share fees couldn’t be used for campaigns.
However, because people can now get full union service for free, that could very well cause the union to spend more member dues on servicing the freeloaders. And that, in turn, could cause them to spend less on everything else.
We’re intrigued — and hopeful — about the implications of Janus v. AFSCME Council 31. If government workers don’t have to contribute, maybe this begins a reckoning for the political class of Illinois. We’re not great fans of that symbiosis between one party and the public’s workforce. Unions
AFSCME and the IEA in particular had a long history of backing Republicans. For crying out loud, the IEA endorsed conservative Rep. Dwight Kay (R-Glen Carbon) in 2014. But when Rauner was elected, Kay and others went with Rauner.
Unions, like everyone else, don’t endorse their enemies. To expect otherwise is ridiculous. It’s like wringing your hands over the fact that the NFIB didn’t endorse Jan Schakowsky.
The court ruled broadly for the plaintiffs, requiring the unions to adopt an “opt in” system to join up and pay dues rather than merely allowing workers to opt out of doing so. “Nobody out there is going to be paying money to a public sector union unless they affirmatively want to,” said Charlotte Garden, a law professor at Seattle University.
AFSCME already has an opt-in system here. From Anders Lindall…
The court case changes nothing in this regard. In Illinois a represented employee has always had to sign a card to join the union; we provide the signed cards to the employer who then deducts dues.
Despite Rauner trying to sow confusion and drive people to his anti-union web site, it’s critically important that every union-represented employee understand they need take no action: Union members have already opted in by signing a card. Fair share payers aren’t opted in and their fees will no longer be deducted.
The only action necessary is if you were fair share and now want to join the union: You should contact your local union leader or steward, or reach out to Council 31, and we’d be more than happy to provide a membership card for you to sign.
*** UPDATE *** Pat Hughes from the Liberty Justice Center vehemently disagrees with AFSCME…
We interpret the Janus ruling as a sweeping win for government workers. The opt in portion of Justice Alito’s opinion means exactly what it says - post Janus, governments should stop collecting union dues of any kind for any member or non-member. It doesn’t matter whether or not someone previously opted in, the conditions upon which that happened - forced agency fees regardless of whether you opted in- made the decision making process for each state employee very different in a pre-Janus world.
* Remember yesterday when I told you about the backlog at Illinois’ Medicaid long-term care (LTC) program? LTC covers 55,000 eligible residents in 738 nursing homes. The Illinois Department of Health and Family Services has to approve coverage, and they currently have a backlog of 14,572 pending admissions this month. So, the nursing homes are forced to pay for care out of their own pockets, and that amount has reportedly reached $300 million.
Why is this happening? A few reasons, according to the comptroller’s office (click here). Nursing home residence applications are rising as the population ages. The state has a shortage of case workers. And the snazzy data system launched late last year apparently isn’t performing as well as hoped.
Pleasant Hill Healthcare [in Girard] said they will have to almost immediately shut down due to the lack of state funding.
It’s part of the Pleasant Hill Village, which includes the Healthcare and Assisted Living department. The Healthcare department, which includes a Dementia unit and Skilled Care unit, will shut down.
The facility opened in 1905, about 113 years ago. Some residents describe the place as a serene and peaceful home. […]
[Executive director Paulette Buch Miller] said the state owes them over $2 million in pending and approved Medicaid payments.
Aside from the human factor, the worst part of all this is that it’s Medicaid, so there’s a federal match that the state isn’t tapping.
* From the comptroller’s office…
We haven’t had any hardship letters from this nursing home. But we don’t have any vouchers here in our system for them. So even if they did reach out for help through our hardship process, as it stands now, there’s really nothing we can do.
By wearing your t-shirt, you’ll help make sure everyone knows about Pritzker’s plumbing schemes. NO TOILETS…NO TAXES!
Thanks for your support.
Ally Check
Social Media Manager
* Tuesday…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2018
Contact: xxxx
Where in Illinois are Pritzker’s Toilets?
JB Pritzker disconnected the toilets in his Gold Coast mansion in order to receive a massive tax break after having the home reclassified as “uninhabitable.”
The question remains: where in Illinois are Pritzker’s toilets?
One of them made an appearance last night at the Northfield Township Democrats general election kick off party, where JB Pritzker was making an appearance.
Stay tuned as the toilets continue to pop up across Illinois.
Nothing Wednesday (Janus day).
* Yesterday…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 28, 2018
Contact: xxxx
#TBT JB Pritzker: “I Certainly Have Discovered the Flaws in the System”
In January, JB Pritzker said “I certainly have discovered the flaws in the system” when he was questioned about removing toilets from his mansion to receive a $230,000 tax break.
In response, the Rauner campaign released a video titled “Flaws in the System.” The video includes quotes from stories covering Pritzker’s scheme to benefit himself at the expense of taxpayers.
Chicago Sun-Times: “J.B. Pritzker … argued [the house next door] was ‘uninhabitable’ to win what so far have been nearly $230,000 in property tax breaks.”
Chicago Tribune: “Pritzker has benefitted from the reassessment of a neighboring Gold Coast mansion he purchased.”
Daily Herald: “Pritzker is also implicated by buying a mansion next to his posh house in Chicago and letting it fall into disrepair to get a $230,000 property tax reduction.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 29, 2018
Contact: xxxxxx
Where in the world are Pritzker’s toilets? One was spotted outside of the McCallister’s house, made famous by the film Home Alone.
We wonder if the McCallisters called 1-833-TAX-SCAM.
…Adding… Pritzker’s campaign manager…
It’s always toilet week at the Rauner Campaign. When you’ve spent 3+ years flushing the state down the drain, crap is all you have left to talk about. https://t.co/b1mBjLQDOu
The state webpage, titled “Change Union Membership Status,” begins as a notification that Wednesday’s Janus decision no longer obliges Illinois public workers to pay what’s known as “fair share” fees for the services such as collective bargaining that they receive from unions — the basic substance of the high court’s Janus decision.
But it soon goes on to explore the ramifications if an employee chooses to “opt-out of the union.” That crosses a line, according to unions and labor academics.
Calling the entire website “strikingly partisan,” Prof. Robert Bruno of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said Thursday that it goes far beyond the high court’s ruling in the Janus decision.
“The most that the state should do, if it’s complying with the letter and the spirit of the court’s decision, is to simply notify employees that fair-share designation no longer exists,” Bruno said.
The Janus decision pertains to “fair share” fees for those who don’t belong to unions, Bruno pointed out. The state-funded website uses that as an entryway to address union members directly.
“Who are they talking to?” Bruno said. “Who is the audience? Well, the audience is not fair-share members. The audience for this is union members. Clearly, clearly the state should not be involved in a campaign to solicit union defections.”
But the Illinois Central Management Services Department acknowledged state employees were confused on Thursday. The department said hundreds of employees went onto the website, believing they would have to take action to ensure the fees were no longer deducted. But under the new Supreme Court ruling, the state said they would automatically stop deducting the fees from non-unionized workers.
That apparently caused issues that could impact workers paychecks. But the department said it hoped the confusion would be settled by Monday.
About 75,000 state workers are represented by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 31, with fewer than 10 percent of that number being non-union members still covered by collective bargaining, according to AFSCME Council 31 spokesman Anders Lindall.
Afscme, which in 2015 privately estimated that half the workers it represents could be “on the fence” about whether to pay dues, said it’s trained 25,000 members who’ve helped conduct 800,000 face-to-face conversations with co-workers on the topic.
The American Federation of Teachers said that more than 500,000 of its members in the 10 states most affected by the ruling have recommitted to their union over the past six months, and that educators won’t be swayed by anti-union ads or canvassers funded by right-wing groups. […]
But while such groups as Nevada’s casino union have flourished in the absence of mandatory fees, the big picture for organized labor is bleak following the high court’s ruling. In states with “right-to-work” laws, where it’s illegal to require workers to fund unions that are required to represent them, employees are already half as likely to have union representation—or less.
Such laws, and the Supreme Court opinion, have significant electoral consequences. “Right-to-work” laws already reduce the Democratic Party’s share of a state’s presidential vote by 3.5 percent and cut turnout by 2 percent to 3 percent, according to a working paper published this year by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Those policies, often put in place by Republican-controlled state legislatures, help dampen union political participation—the ultimate goal of anti-union initiatives at all levels of government, labor supporters said.
The Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 7, would like to advise its members that the recent Supreme Court ruling Janus vs. AFSCME, will likely not have a significant impact upon the membership or finances of our Lodge.
The ruling, which stated that certain union-imposed fees are unconstitutional because they violate the First Amendment rights of union members, will likely not affect Lodge members because our members can only receive legal defense if the officer is a member of F.O.P.
The Supreme Court ruling means that government unions may no longer extract fees from members who do not want to pay them. The members will now choose whether they will financially support their union.
But because the Lodge provides so many crucial benefits to members, particularly legal representation, FOP President Kevin Graham stated that he does not believe many members will opt out of paying their union dues. Lodge members now pay $5 a check for the Legal Defense budget.
* Greg Hinz asks around about how the Janus decision helps Gov. Rauner’s reelection campaign…
The decision in the Janus case “gave him a good press pop. It helps him with the conservative base,” which is still outraged that Rauner signed a bill beginning Medicaid funding of abortion, says one top GOP official, who asked not to be named. “But in the end in this year, it won’t make a difference.”
“Maybe it’ll help him get up every morning and realize he’s made a difference,” quipped a top party activist. “It’s still very much up hill.” […]
“I’m surprised he’s as well-positioned as he is,” said [consultant Thom Serafin], noting a recent poll that shows Pritzker leading by less than 10 points. After the big win over organized labor, “He’s got more to talk about” with the GOP’s conservative base, added Serafin. “He’s still got quite a bridge to cross.” […]
Asked if Rauner’s Supreme Court victory is enough to bring her aboard and get her endorsement, [Rep. Jeanne Ives] had a clear answer: “No. I’m not going to endorse the governor. I’m going to let him buy back his voters.”
Chris Mooney, professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said unions have been strongly against Rauner since he made it clear at his inaugural address in 2015 that he was taking on the power of public-sector unions.
“Even if they won this Janus case,” Mooney said, “they would have still been there to fight Rauner tooth and nail. It’s a death match between them.”
But to some conservatives who may not be enchanted with Rauner, Mooney said, “With this, maybe it looks like Rauner [is] not completely ineffectual. Maybe he can get something done.”
Rauner still is looking to unify a socially conservative Republican Party base that split in the March primary over his signature on laws expanding abortion, immigration and transgender rights. His campaign already is touting media coverage of the ruling to help try to heal the rift.
But the court decision on its own may not help unify the party. Third-party governor candidate Sam McCann, a Republican state senator from central Illinois, is a supporter of organized labor who espouses socially conservative views. McCann attacked Rauner over the court ruling, and he symbolizes Downstate areas that are largely Republican but peppered with state institutions and the union members who work there. […]
Yepsen said that while Rauner and “a lot of people who do not like unions … are going to be gloating” about the court decision, “they need to be careful what they wish for.” He and others see the ruling as benefiting Pritzker and Democrats at the ballot box.
“I think it will have an energizing and radicalizing effect on the (union) members. This has been the history of the labor movement all along. You start messing around trying to threaten unions and break unions and what’s the effect of it? It’s a mobilizing effect,” he said. “I think it’s an organizing tool, it’s a mobilizing tool, not just with public-sector unions but with all of labor, which is threatened.”
Today, the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police endorsed JB Pritzker for governor. The Illinois FOP is the second largest in the nation, representing over 34,000 active and retired police officers.
“I’m proud to have the support of the Illinois FOP and the working families they represent,” said JB Pritzker. “With workers’ rights under assault, Illinois needs a governor who will stand up for working families. Instead, Bruce Rauner has fought against them at every turn, attacking the right to collectively bargain, working to lower wages, and attempting to slash pensions. As governor, I will fight tirelessly to defend the rights of our working families and work with law enforcement to increase accountability between law enforcement and the communities they serve so we can strengthen relationships and ensure safer communities across our state.”
“Law enforcement officers, like all other working men and women in Illinois, want a leader who won’t bankrupt the state by trying to dictate his own personal agenda at all costs. Moreover, it is often law enforcement officers who must pick up the pieces in the aftermath of Bruce Rauner’s manufactured budget crisis that caused deep cuts to key state programs,” said Illinois FOP State Lodge President Chris Southwood. “The 34,000 members of the Illinois FOP have confidence that J.B. Pritzker is the best candidate to shake up Springfield and return civility, decency and a true sense of public service to Illinois. JB is truly different. Illinois needs a fresh start and JB is the man to do it.”
The ILFOP endorsed Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in 2014, but backed his Republican opponent Bill Brady in 2010. They endorsed Rod Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006.
Rauner’s anti-union stances and the Janus decision no doubt played a role in this, but it is interesting they went with the guy who openly and firmly supports legalizing marijuana.
