“This announcement strikes a very familiar tone, one that should bring great caution to the public especially as we enter the final weeks of the legislative session. Two years ago, these same Democrats ‘engaged’ in working group discussions on these very issues only to walk away from the table to pass a budget that was more than $4 billion out of balance. Last year they once again ‘engaged’ with Republicans on these issues only to walk away and pass a budget that was $7 billion out of balance. The fact is, Democrats have a history of creating these working groups in an attempt to waste time and obfuscate from their record of more than 20 years of reckless spending and failed policies. As I’ve said repeatedly, we are willing to negotiate with Democrats to bring an end to this impasse, but that only works when both sides respect the priorities of the other side. We remain willing and ready to negotiate and compromise, but time is running out.”
From what I’ve been told, I don’t think the governor’s office will directly respond to Madigan’s offer, but one never knows for sure about such things.
*** UPDATE *** From Senate GOP Leader Christine Radogno…
“I see Speaker Madigan’s comments today as a ploy, typical of his pattern of behavior. It is clearly a political reaction to the progress being made in the Senate and our good faith efforts to reach a comprehensive solution. We continue to work on significant reforms coupled with a balanced budget. I’m still hopeful we can be successful with legislation in the Senate that can be sent to the House for consideration. The problem is solvable if there is the political will to do it.”
Democratic candidates running for governor turned out for the first forum in Hillside this weekend and none other than former Senate President Emil Jones Jr. surfaced. Jones acted as a surrogate to Chris Kennedy, who had a scheduling conflict.
Jones talked about how a governor (and others in power) can help bring jobs to African Americans. He talks about getting more minority firms in the asset management business.
“They have a great opportunity if they take those dollars, hire asset managers … I found out that the City of Chicago in particular with all that money they have, have very few minority money managers. That minority firm is going to hire a lot of minority people.”
“If you are not given the opportunity, then you are not going to be able to sustain your business. Many minority firms suffer because they don’t have access to capital. That’s one of the things that the governor can do, state treasurer can do, city of Chicago treasurer. Open the doors of opportunity.
There were ripples of laughter over this comparison: “You go to an Italian restaurant, there’s a lot of Italians working. There’s a lot of Chinese working in a Chinese restaurant. There’s a lot of Hispanics working in a Hispanic restaurants. I know Chris’ record. I know what he stands for.”
Um, OK.
* Jones was also asked where Kennedy stood on marijuana. He said he wouldn’t answer the question because he didn’t know what Kennedy’s position was. This tracker video doesn’t show Jones, but you can hear him…
* The former Senate President also talked about guns. Well, actually, he kinda rambled for several minutes. About two minutes in, you’ll hear him say he doesn’t know where Kennedy is on the topic because “We never talked about this”…
Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn unveiled his official portrait at a ceremony Monday in the Illinois State Capitol, revealing images that will bring unprecedented diversity, cutting-edge technology, and a new focus on civics education to the historic Hall of Governors.
“As we look at all these portraits of men who were elected to lead the State of Illinois, it’s important to remember all the women and men whose votes brought them into office,” Quinn said during the unveiling ceremony. “With this latest portrait, we hope to remind visitors that, in a democracy, the highest office is the office of citizen, and that all of us have a responsibility to participate in our government.”
The portrait, painted by renowned Illinois artist William T. Chambers, depicts Quinn standing before a background that features 44 interactive “found items” representing people, issues, and events from Governor Quinn’s long career in public service.
Most notably, the background includes a photograph of Quinn signing a bill that put an advisory referendum on the November 2014 ballot, asking voters whether the state’s minimum wage should be increased. In the photograph, Quinn is surrounded by a diverse group of supporters. This ‘portrait in a portrait’ depicts the first images of people of color ever included in the Hall of Governors.
“When people look at this portrait, we want to remind them that every person in the Land of Lincoln has the right to stand up, speak out, and start taking action to improve our government and change the world,” Quinn said.
A few of the “found items” in the portrait are deeply personal, such as the wedding day photograph of his parents, Eileen and Patrick J. Quinn, and photographs of his brothers, Tom and John, and his sons, Patrick and David.
But the majority of items relate to Quinn’s achievements in public life, including his passage of the $31 billion Illinois Jobs Now! Program, his advocacy for Illinois military families, his expansion of the Illinois Earned Income Tax Credit, his leadership in expanding healthcare coverage, and his signing of the Marriage Equality bill.
“We hope this interactive portrait will educate and activate visitors to learn about civics, pursue careers in public service, and support the causes they believe in,” Quinn said. “When you understand your rights as a citizen and learn about the history of your state and your nation, you have all the tools you need to make the will of the people the law of the land.”
The portrait also includes a link to a Bible verse, Isaiah 6:8: “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’”
“For me, that brief verse sums up the whole spirit of public service and democracy,” Quinn said. “Democracy isn’t about standing around and waiting for someone else to take action. It’s about hearing that call to service and responding swiftly and eagerly, with everything you have in your heart.”
In addition to unveiling the formal portrait, Quinn also announced the creation of the GovernorQuinnPortrait.org website. By clicking on the found items in a high-resolution digital image of the portrait, website visitors can follow links to historical documents, videos, and other information about the issues the items represent.
Another way to experience the interactive nature of the portrait is to download the Thyng app on a smartphone or tablet. Using the app to view and scan the found items brings the portrait to life, displaying video associated with the item.
* If they’d just adopt the California statute I don’t think there would be much opposition. And despite what it says in the article, the burden on small companies won’t be light…
The state Senate on Thursday approved the groundbreaking Right to Know Act, a measure that would require online companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon to disclose to consumers what data about them has been collected and shared with third parties. […]
Major internet companies have been pushing back against the Illinois initiative, ramping up lobbying efforts as the privacy legislation advanced through the Senate, Hastings said. Online trade associations, including CompTIA, the Internet Association and NetChoice, also met with Hastings to voice opposition to the measure. […]
Sen. Chris Nybo, R-Elmhurst, questioned the value to consumers, and the potential burden it might place on e-commerce businesses in Illinois, if it passes into law.
“Every technology company that I’ve spoken to, from Microsoft down to Uber, Lyft … is opposed to this bill,” Nybo said. “People are watching across the country what happens on this bill. I think it sends the wrong message.”
The question of how to fund Illinois schools has become one of the most urgent — yet complicated —issues facing lawmakers.
Last night, as a panel discussed the two proposals pending in the Senate, those two facts were reiterated again and again. The meeting adjourned around 9 pm, after almost three hours of discussion of the bills sponsored by Senators Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) and Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington). They agree on the same basic plan, but disagree on how to ensure that no district loses money.
Manar’s plan aims to hold all districts “harmless,” ensuring they get at least as much state funding next year as they received in fiscal year 2017. Barickman’s plan mirrors that concept, with the exception of Chicago Public Schools.
But testimony at the hearing revealed a mistake in the spreadsheet Barickman distributed last week showing outcomes for each district. Jennifer Garrison, superintendent of Sandoval schools, shared a letter from North Berwyn schools superintendent Carmen Ayala, stating that Barickman’s plan (Senate Bill 1124) would cost North Berwyn more than $500,000. That result appears to run counter to the overall goal of both plans — to replace the state’s infamously inequitable school funding structure with a formula that helps poorer districts. The student body at North Berwyn is 87 percent low-income, and more than a quarter of the students are English language learners.
Protesters chained themselves together on the Illinois Capitol steps. Some on hunger strikes, having gone a month without food, sat inside under the dome. Others staged a House-floor sit-in, forming their hands into illuminati pyramids signifying the few at the top commanding the many at the bottom.
And when the civil disobedience dissolved on June 30, 1982, without legislative action, the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was presumed dead.
But 45 years after Congress approved the ERA and sent it to the states for ratification, Illinois is back at the center of a national movement to revive the issue. An Illinois Senate committee approved the ERA this month, setting up a floor vote not yet scheduled.
Despite threats from the Trump Administration to cut federal law enforcement funding to jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials, Illinois is moving towards becoming the nation’s fifth sanctuary state after California, Connecticut, New Mexico and Colorado.
With one vote to spare, the Illinois Senate passed a SB 031 Thursday, which would set Illinois state-funded schools, health care centers and secretary of state facilities as “safe zones” for undocumented immigrants to find protection from federal law enforcement.
In those locations throughout the state, state and local police would be prohibited from arresting persons based on their immigration status - the same practice now in place in the city of Chicago and Cook County.
Two state lawmakers said Friday that Illinois’ budget crisis and Gov. Bruce Rauner share in the blame for the death of 1-year-old Semaj Crosby.
State Reps. LaShawn Ford and Mary Flowers, both Democrats representing Chicago, said that investigating DCFS for its role is not enough and predicted that without a budget compromise, more children will fall through the cracks.
The state’s budget crisis has forced cuts at social service agencies that once were available to families in crisis. As the two lawmakers see it, Rauner needs to find a budget solution, while a spokesman for the governor said the lawmakers are politicizing a horrible tragedy.
“It’s the governor’s responsibility,” said Ford. “It’s his department and if the governor really cared as much about the children as he cares about selling the Thompson Center—DCFS would get the help that it needs.” […]
The governor’s office refuted the accusations.
“This has nothing to do with the budget, and it’s sad that anyone would try to politicize this horrible tragedy. Like everyone across the state, the governor wants answers on how such a horrific tragedy could happen,” a spokesperson for Rauner said Friday. “The Will County Sheriff, DCFS and other agencies are actively investigating and we are anxiously awaiting their findings. Something like this should never happen – and we need to find out exactly why it did. As an administration, we will remain committed to do anything and everything possible to protect the children of Illinois and improve the Department of Children and Family Services.”
It most certainly does have something to do with the lack of a state budget, but I, myself, wouldn’t directly blame the governor for the death of that little girl.
…Adding… It should be noted that DCFS basically runs without a budget because it’s under a federal consent decree. However, a budget could increase funding for various tasks. Or, the administration could go back to the judge and ask for more money.
Republican governor candidate Bruce Rauner today said he blames Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn for the deaths of child-abuse victims whose families previously had contact with the state’s child-welfare agency.
“Yes,” Rauner said when asked by reporters if the deaths of 95 children with past contact with the Department of Children and Family Services from 2011-2013 were attributable to Quinn.
“Pat Quinn is, in the end, responsible for the failings at the Department of Children and Family Services. If it was a one-year problem or a temporary problem you could say, ‘OK, maybe, there was, it’s not really his responsibility.’ But he’s been governor for six years. He’s had a revolving door of failure at Department of Children and Family Services for years and years,” Rauner said.
Rauner’s remarks came as he stepped up his attacks over Quinn’s DCFS oversight with a new TV ad today with a similar message to a radio ad that began airing a day earlier.
Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson has called the ad campaign a “false and malicious attempt to smear the governor.” She contended Rauner was cynically using for political purposes an agency that “intervenes in emergency life and death situations” involving at-risk children.
“To imply the governor is somehow responsible for the deaths of children in the horrific circumstances that this agency enters into while trying to save lives is despicable and a new low,” she said.
Since 1980, Chicago has lost about a third of its black population. […]
“The white population is not falling, and the Latino and Asian populations are slightly growing,” says [Rob Paral, a public policy analyst]. “The big factor that is altering Chicago’s population is the change among blacks.”
Since the early ’80s, blacks in South and West Side neighborhoods have been steadily leaving the city, resettling at first largely in the Cook County suburbs. But over the past 15 years, more and more have been leaving the area entirely for northwest Indiana, Iowa’s Quad Cities, and Sun Belt states, says Alden Loury, the director of research and evaluation at the Metropolitan Planning Council. Today there are roughly 850,000 blacks in Chicago, down from 1.2 million in 1980.
The reasons for this are varied: The foreclosure crisis saw blacks evicted disproportionately from their rental apartments and houses; the Chicago Housing Authority leveled high-rises like the Robert Taylor Homes, scattering public housing residents; the lack of stable employment in South and West Side neighborhoods continues to force residents to look elsewhere for jobs; and school closures further disenfranchise communities. “There are not a lot of messages that Chicago cares about its black residents,” says Mary Pattillo, a sociology and African American studies professor at Northwestern University and author of the book Black Picket Fences. “When you lose the institutions that cultivate attachment, it makes it a lot easier to pick up and leave.”
More than two years after leaving office, former Gov. Pat Quinn plans to return to the Illinois Capitol on Monday to unveil his official portrait — a painting that is designed to not only capture his likeness but also offer a detailed history lesson about his life and time as the state’s 41st chief executive.
The festivities are set to begin at 1:30 p.m. in the Hall of Governors on the second floor of the statehouse. The hall features portraits of previous Illinois governors, and after Quinn’s painting goes up, only one will be missing: impeached and imprisoned ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
* One can’t help but wonder, however, whether the festivities could be dampened by columns like this one…
A top-ranking official a the University of Illinois’ Springfield campus was identified as among the wrongdoers in a court-ordered investigation of the illegal state patronage hiring scandal that occurred from 2009-14 under former Gov. Pat Quinn.
The voluminous report, prepared by independent monitor Noelle Brennan, identified Ryan Croke, a former Quinn chief and assistant chief of staff, as being among a handful of top people in the governor’s office who pressured officials at the Illinois Department of Transportation to hire clouted job applicants “with little to no regard for actual hiring need or whether the candidate was qualified to fill the stated duties of the job.”
When interviewed by lawyers Aug. 11, 2016, Croke, a 2005 University of Illinois graduate, denied any wrongdoing.
The report states that he acknowledged making recommendations for favored job-seekers but said he never “applied pressure or forced a specific candidate upon an agency.”
You are a government worker making $11,000 as a clerk in Washington Park. You want to make more.
You could go to school and improve your job skills, or you could call your political patron, state Sen. James Clayborne, and demand a state job.
When the $55,000 state offer comes, even though you have none of the qualifications, you double down on your weak hand and ask for $75,000. The Illinois Department of Transportation guy doing the hiring writes: “I don’t trust this guy at all.”
Unqualified. Demanding. Untrustworthy. The political juice is so strong with this one you’d think he was one of Clayborne’s female friends getting a state job. Plus Mr. Untrustworthy is hired to buy land for the state — no possibility of corruption there, right?
Former state Rep. Frank Mautino used his influence in state government to get people white-collar jobs at the state Department of Transportation, a federal court monitor revealed this week.
In two cases, employees Mautino sponsored didn’t meet the qualifications for their positions, according to the monitor’s report.
More than 40 deaths in Cook County so far in 2017 have been linked to an overdose of a powerful new opioid.
Between January and early April, at least 44 deaths were attributed to acrylfentanyl, a new fentanyl analog, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. In 2016, only seven deaths were attributed to acrylfentanyl.
There may be more deaths linked to the new opioid, because toxicology tests can take several weeks, according to the medical examiner’s office. […]
Of 1,091 people in Cook County who died at least in part because of an opiate-related overdose in 2016, 562 died after using fentanyl or fentanyl analogs, according to the medical examiner’s office.
* This is what’s known as a “bootleg” drug. A bit of background…
According to the DEA, Acryl fentanyl is being manufactured overseas, smuggled into the U.S., and sold mainly on the dark web.
“We suspect China as one of the manufacturers, Canada, Mexico and the like,” said Battiste.
It’s also resistant to Narcan, which is used to revive heroin overdose patients.
Gov. Rick Scott signed an executive order Wednesday declaring a public health emergency in Florida due to the opioid epidemic, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated the epidemic was nationwide.
The emergency order will allow the state to immediately receive more than $27 million in federal funding awarded Florida April 21 under the 21st Century Cures Act to fight the epidemic.
The announcement comes a day after state officials met with local leaders in Palmetto as part of a series of state-directed workshops to discuss the needs of Manatee, Palm Beach, Orange and Duval counties.
[State Sen. Andy Manar] blasted Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner for his budget proposal not to restore funding in the upcoming fiscal year to addiction-prevention programs.
“In Springfield, the approach lately from Governor Rauner has been to fight the heroin and prescription drug epidemic by slashing programs that deal with this problem directly. That is the opposite approach that we should be taking,” Manar said.
A Rauner spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
The 22-month state budget impasse is about to claim another victim - and it’s one that could have a devastating domino effect on the ability to treat people battling drug addictions.
The Jacksonville-based Wells Center, which provides drug abuse treatment, announced Friday it anticipates closing for good the first week of May. It serves about 500 people a year though its 32 inpatient beds and outpatient programs. It also employs 69 people.
“Having explored alternatives that may have allowed Wells Center to remain open, the Center administration and board have made the difficult decision that the Center will have to close and cease operations,” the Wells Center said in a statement.
It was an abrupt change from last month, when the center signaled its intent to stay open for another three to six months, even though it was receiving chronically late payments from the state. That decision came after Comptroller Susana Mendoza pledged to do what she could to expedite payments; her office said Friday it had provided the available state payments, about $400,000, during the last few weeks.
The Wells Center funding provided fodder for the ongoing battle between Mendoza, a Democrat, and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who have repeatedly traded barbs over who is responsible for the state’s budget woes. This is a situation where who is at fault seems almost secondary, as the impending closure of the Wells Center is a heartbreaking illustration of how lawmakers have created a state where assisting those most in need of help is not as important as chalking up a partisan win under the Capitol dome.
Former Gov. Jim Edgar put the Illinois political world on alert the other night by using the words “somewhat incompetent governor” in what most of his listeners took as a dig at fellow Republican Bruce Rauner.
Edgar told me Friday he wasn’t referring to Rauner at all, but rather to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“Bruce Rauner might be a lot of things. He’s not incompetent,” the former governor said after I called him to clarify remarks he made the previous evening at an event Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. We’ll get to the actual remarks later.
I believe Edgar, just as I believe he really was referring to Rauner when he also noted in the same talk that House Speaker Mike Madigan is “not the big problem here.”
I was glad Edgar saved me the trouble of defending Rauner’s competency, although a little disappointed he wouldn’t help me elucidate the “lot of things” that might better describe our current governor’s shortcomings.
Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs will urge Governor Bruce Rauner [today] to focus on budget negotiations to avoid junk bond status. During Rauner’s tenure, Illinois has incurred six credit downgrades due to two years without a state budget.
Frerichs will outline the financial consequences and address the negative impact Illinois faces if credit agencies move forward with public warnings to downgrade Illinois to junk bond status.
* Treasurer Frerichs has been mostly quiet about Gov. Rauner and the impasse. “I prefer to play my part and do my job rather than to complain about others,” he told reporters today, then explained why he was speaking out: “The future of our state is too important.”
Gov. Rauner “paid big money” to win his election, “but he refuses to do his job,” Frerichs said. “The buck always stops somewhere else.”
“It is embarrassing and downright shameful that Illinois is in this deep of a hole,” he said, pointing to the six state credit downgrades and the recent warning from Moody’s that Illinois “is on a path to junk bond status.”
“Gov. Rauner needs to stop campaigning and start governing,” he said. “You can’t negotiate a budget when you’re out on the campaign trail. You can’t negotiate a budget through press conferences and television commercials,” the treasurer said at his press conference. “You have to be present here, present in Springfield calling the leaders together to work out his deal.”
“I don’t listen when someone says something is a priority, I look at their budget, I look at their actions. And then you can see clearly what is not a priority with this administration,” Frerichs said of the lack of funding for higher education and social services. He later said he was in favor of the House’s “lifeline” budget for those two areas as budget negotiations proceeded in the Senate.
Frerichs also said the lack of a budget would impact upcoming bond sales. “The added interest we’re paying will be ripped out of the wallets of Illinois citizens,” he said, claiming that another credit downgrade could “terminate interest rate swap contracts,” which would trigger some big payouts.
“This is not the Illinois we want it to be,” Frerichs said. “We need a budget and I call upon the governor to do his job now.”
* Frerichs also criticized Rauner for focusing solely on K-12 funding, noting that Rauner constantly crows about increasing education funding while slashing higher education dollars. “Education in this state does not end in the 12th grade,” he said.
I’ll post the Rauner administration’s response if I get one. Frerichs’ press release is here.
*** UPDATE *** From Deputy Governor Leslie Munger…
The fact is that the Treasurer spent years in Springfield voting for the very tax hikes and borrowing that landed us in this place. Instead of playing politics, the Treasurer should encourage members of his party to work with the Governor on real change to get our state back on track to long-term economic growth and balanced budgets.
Speaker Michael J. Madigan issued the following statement Monday:
“For nearly two years, families in our communities have lost critical services as a result of the budget impasse. Educators, social service agencies and countless others have warned that Illinois will be dealing with the consequences of this impasse for many years to come. In the years preceding this impasse, we were paying down the backlog of unpaid old bills and had the bill backlog down to $4.5 billion. The bill backlog today stands at over $13 billion due to the lack of a state budget. The state’s backlog has tripled, and bond rating agencies have made it clear that the lack of a state budget weighs foremost in their minds when evaluating Illinois’ financial standing. For these reasons and due to the impact this impasse is having on every Illinoisan, House Democrats have been resolute in our belief that all legislators and the governor must recognize the budget as the most important issue facing our state.
“While we stand firm that the budget – and the budget alone – must be our top priority, it is also our desire to work cooperatively with the governor. To this end, I am appointing Representatives Barbara Flynn Currie, Lou Lang, Arthur Turner and Jay Hoffman to work with the governor to identify areas of his agenda where compromise can be reached. The House has taken action on several of the governor’s requests, and this group will be able to discuss his further proposals and consider how they would affect the state.
“It is our strong desire that Governor Rauner join us in putting the budget first. By showing the governor that House Democrats stand ready to work with him in good faith, it is my hope that he will return to the negotiating table and work with us to end the budget crisis.”
Looks to me like he’s trying to get out in front of something. Maybe it’s the Senate’s progress. Maybe it’s internal caucus pressure. Maybe both.
“Daniel Biss’ actions don’t match his hollow words. Public records reveal that Biss is loyal to Madigan’s Chicago Machine, taking Madigan money, voting for his unbalanced budgets, backing him for Speaker, and even running his super PAC. Daniel Biss is just another unprincipled career politician who would sell out to Madigan as Governor.” - Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Aaron DeGroot
In an interview with WCIA, longtime Madigan confidant and Democratic candidate for governor Daniel Biss revealed himself as just another unprincipled career politician. Watch the interview HERE.
Biss claims to be running against “money and the machine,” yet his campaign cash and votes show he is a loyal soldier of Mike Madigan’s Chicago Machine.
In 2011, one of Biss’ very first votes as a new State Representative was to make Madigan Speaker of the Illinois House.
Public records reveal Madigan is Biss’ largest campaign contributor. Since first running for office in 2008, Biss has personally taken over $300,000 in campaign cash from Madigan.
Biss even supported Madigan’s rigged legislative district maps, disenfranchising voters across Illinois.
In 2013, Biss moved from the House to the Senate, but that didn’t stop him from doing Madigan’s bidding.
In a nod to Madigan, Biss dropped his bid for Illinois Comptroller as Madigan endorsed his primary opponent, Susana Mendoza, clearing the primary field for the Chicago Machine.
Last May, Biss voted for Madigan’s out-of-balance budget that overspent by $7 billion, even as the budget vote failed and other Senate Democrats voted no. The Madigan-Biss budget was so unbalanced, it would’ve forced a $1,000 tax hike on every Illinois family.
And during last year’s election, Biss embraced both money and the machine as he ran a super PAC for Mike Madigan designed to block Governor Rauner’s reform efforts in Springfield. Biss’ super PAC received $650,000 from the Madigan Family. One Illinois Democrat operative called Biss’ super PAC a “Madigan joint.”
Is there anything Daniel Biss won’t do for money and the machine?
During his 2008 campaign, Biss warned against the “pernicious influence of money in politics.” Biss told the Chicago Jewish Star “I will not be beholden” to party politicians, highlighting that his campaign took no money from the Democratic Party. In that campaign, he took just $5,000 from three local Democratic organizations, and he lost.
Two years later, Biss altered course. He tapped into far greater sums of money which propelled him to his first election win, gaining himself a berth in Madigan’s House. Biss’ 2010 campaign took over $280,000 from Madigan’s Democratic Party and accepted more than $19,000 from Madigan’s personal campaign committee.
Biss claims Madigan opposed his 2010 primary campaign, but later backed his general election against the Republican opponent.
“[Madigan] worked very, very hard to stop me from being a legislator,” Biss said on Capitol Connection. He insisted, “Madigan tried very hard to bankroll a candidate against me in the primary.” That candidate never entered the race. Biss won the 2010 primary election unopposed.
Biss was also hit by the interviewer for taking money from “big pharma” and banks, but pointed to his voting record as proof that he wasn’t in the tank for them, either.
* Still, Biss is running as an independent and is pursuing the Bernie Sanders vote. He may not be pure enough for some of them. But, as far as the ILGOP is concerned, nobody is pure enough, including Ald. Ameya Pawar.
* Related…
* Bernard Schoenburg: Biss tells Sangamon Dems he’s inspired to run: Asked if he supports Madigan, Biss got applause when he said one thing the speaker has done “really well” is “said no” to Rauner. But he also said the Democratic Party led by Madigan “has not done what it needs to do” for decades — lay out “our own progressive agenda of how we solve the state’s problems in a way that lifts people up.” “I believe he’s been there too long,” Biss said of Madigan. “I believe he has too much power.” He said he has long backed 10-year term limits on legislative leaders… Madigan spokesman STEVE BROWN said later that while “everyone’s entitled to their own opinion … the Democrats in the legislature have supported, time and time again, progressive ideas,” from a tax on millionaires, to marriage equality and voter reforms. “The record’s there,” Brown said. “It speaks for itself.”
* This is a perfect metaphor for the last two-plus years. Decades of neglect led to the election of someone who promised major change and a can-do attitude, followed by a self-induced fiscal crisis that made fixing those problems impossible and then disaster ensued…
Restoring the Illinois State Fair Coliseum after years of neglect will take at least two years and millions of dollars — if the state had the money.
The assessment of the state Capital Development Board, the agency in charge of state buildings, is contained in an emergency, $600,000 contract for enclosure of a temporary facility to host horse shows and other indoor events disrupted by the Coliseum shutdown in October. Inspectors said the more-than-century-old Coliseum was no longer safe after years of neglect that resulted in significant structural deterioration. […]
While a formal engineering study has yet to be completed, CDB said extensive repairs ranging from a new roof to replacement of corroded steel support beams would cost between $3 million and $4 million.
The bigger immediate challenge is lack of money. Illinois has been without a permanent spending plan for nearly two years. Lawmakers and the governor also have been unable to agree on a capital spending bill for infrastructure updates and maintenance of state facilities.
“This is significant structural work that needs to be done,” said state Rep. Tim Butler, a Springfield Republican. “It’s not just fixing a piece that is out of place or fallen. The real answer is what do we do if we ever get to a capital bill. We’re talking about rebuilding the Coliseum.
Remember all those promises in the 2014 campaign and ever since about a big capital bill? You can’t do that without a budget.
* I’ve been updating subscribers about these Senate talks for several days now, including this morning. Here’s Mary Ann Ahern…
[State Sen. Bill Brady] has been meeting with Senate President John Cullerton, and while he said “we’re not there yet; we are closer to a comprehensive plan that lays it all out,” more lawmakers now believe a vote will be taken on the Senate’s so-called “Grand Bargain” before the May 31 deadline. After May 31, lawmakers would need a three-fifths majority to pass the bill, rather than a simple majority.
Brady is working closely with Governor Bruce Rauner’s staff, and while the GOP may have enough votes to accept the income tax hike, issues like a property tax freeze and workers compensation reforms – that have been Rauner’s “must-haves” – are not yet settled.
Why might there be a break in the impasse? The governor’s re-election is taking center stage, and his inability to reach a budget deal, according to several Springfield sources, has made Rauner “desperate for a deal.”
At the same time, sources also used the same “desperate” description when noting that Cullerton and House Speaker Mike Madigan are hearing from progressive Democrats who are frustrated by the nearly two-yearlong impasse.
Stay positive, but don’t hold your breath just yet.
Is it a Grand Bargain 2.0? Republican state Sen. Bill Brady didn’t want to call it that in an interview with POLITICO last night, but here’s a summary of where he says the GOP is right now: a five-year income tax increase and expansion of the services tax as long as they’re coupled in time with a five-year property tax freeze. “The hope here would be if Republicans would participate in a revenue increase, that the revenue increase would be associated in time with a property tax freeze,” Brady said Sunday. He said the proposal would call for a cap on spending and reforms with workers’ compensation. “In five years when the increase in the revenues falls off, spending will be in line with new revenues and things will not have the cliff that we were left with under Pat Quinn.”
Are casinos part of the package? “We talked about that. We believe it could be.”
Where is (Senate GOP Leader Christine) Radogno in all of this? Is Brady’s involvement pushing her to the side? “No. Sen. Radogno is the one who asked me to engage in the conversation with Sen. [President John] Cullerton. She has been very involved in everything we’ve done.”
What do Dems say? Cullerton spokesman John Patterson: “When Sen. Brady filed his proposals, we welcomed him to the discussions. The idea here is if people have ideas, let’s see if the numbers add up and if we can make them work,” Patterson said Sunday. “This isn’t a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, we’re all trying to work together to find a solution. The original (grand bargain) bills that were filed had Republican bills that were in there.”
None of this is particularly new. The Senate has been talking about a five-year tax hike coupled with a five-year property tax freeze for well over two months. And the Senate has already passed a gaming bill.
The first commercial from Illinois gubernatorial hopeful J.B. Pritzker smartly attempts to minimize what could be large issue for him.
Pritzker, a billionaire entrepreneur and one of a raft of Democrats hoping to face incumbent Bruce Rauner, the presumptive Republican nominee, in 2018, is a man of conspicuous size; girth of the sort that opponents might slyly try to use against him.
But unlike other hefty pols who wear concealing suit jackets and extra-long ties, Pritzker appears in the opening shot of the 60-second spot in button-straining shirtsleeves and an unflattering open collar.
“I’ve been thinking big since the very beginning,” Pritzker says, smiling to the camera next to superimposed photos of him as a chubby baby and husky boy.
The rest of the ad is well-executed boilerplate, but in that first 10 seconds Pritzker humorously deflates the potential overinflation issue by saying, in effect: Yes, I know I’m overweight, let’s get past that, shall we?
It is about as subtle as a playground taunt: a television ad for Gov. Jon S. Corzine shows his challenger, Christopher J. Christie, stepping out of an S.U.V. in extreme slow motion, his extra girth moving, just as slowly, in several different directions at once.
In case viewers missed the point, a narrator snidely intones that Mr. Christie “threw his weight around” to avoid getting traffic tickets.
In the ugly New Jersey contest for governor, Mr. Corzine and Mr. Christie have traded all sorts of shots, over mothers and mammograms, loans and lying. But now, Mr. Corzine’s campaign is calling attention to his rival’s corpulence in increasingly overt ways.
Mr. Corzine’s television commercials and Web videos feature unattractive images of Mr. Christie, sometimes shot from the side or backside, highlighting his heft, jowls and double chin.
Christie didn’t make an issue of his own girth like Pritzker has done. Instead, he waited for Corzine to make the first move and then ginned up a backlash. Here’s one of Christie’s responses…
“There’s a lot of people out in New Jersey who have the same kind of struggles, and I think that kind of stuff is just beneath the office that the governor holds,” Christie said.
Christie also confronted Corzine: “If you’re going to do it, at least man up and say I’m fat.”
* And now that Pritzker has opened the door, the online insults have begun. Here’s just one of them…
JB Pritzker Sumo match vs. Chris Christie. Loser's state gets kicked out of the Union. #fairfight#agoodstart
Ever since former Illinois Republican Gov. Jim Edgar started publicly criticizing current Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, Edgar has been subjected to a steady drumbeat of criticism from the far right.
The focus of most of that criticism is what’s come to be known as the “Edgar ramp.” The phrase describes the ramping up of state pension payments to the current point, where pension expenses are consuming about a quarter of the state’s budget.
There is no doubt the Edgar ramp was flawed, as all compromises are. The annual pension payment increases were too gradual at the beginning, which made them steeper than they should have been years later.
But we don’t live in an ideal world, nor do we live in a dictatorship. You pass the legislation you can pass. And passing a bill that immediately required huge pension payments just wasn’t possible. After decades of not making adequate pension payments, the General Assembly wasn’t going to start doing the right thing right away.
But subsequent governors and General Assemblies could have fixed that problem. Instead, they did nothing. Worse yet, they didn’t prepare for the ramp’s higher payments by narrowing the state’s spending base and expanding its tax base. And even worse, they deliberately exacerbated the problem.
Illinois has elected just two wealthy people to major statewide office in the last 20 years: Former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald and Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Both candidates won because they ran as firm, anti-establishment outsiders.
Fitzgerald was best known as a state Senator in the 1990s for railing against the elders who ran his Republican Party, including many who had been supplying the GOP with loads of money over the years and who’d used their positions to handsomely profit off of state business.
Rauner also ran against his party’s insiders when he launched his campaign, dismissing them as bought and paid for by Springfield’s special interests.
What establishment party support both men did receive mostly came at the end of their general election campaigns. Their personal finances, which allowed them to self-fund, kept them free of establishment taint, and that independence gave both of them credibility as outsiders.
As Election Day neared, some establishment GOP figures decided they’d better swallow their pride and get on board. The establishment needed the insurgents more than the insurgents needed the establishment.
Billionaire Democrat J.B. Pritzker isn’t following this pattern as he campaigns for governor. Insiders, elected officials and politically connected union leaders have been jumping on his bandwagon from the get-go, usually after being impressed with Pritzker during one-on-one meetings.
The game plan seems pretty obvious. Pritzker doesn’t want those folks and groups endorsing Chris Kennedy, whose last name is still immensely popular and whose own connections over the decades would’ve guaranteed him support from his party’s elders if Pritzker and his infinite bank account hadn’t stepped in.
Kennedy doesn’t have Pritzker’s kind of money, so Kennedy is perceived as needing support from the people and groups who fund and staff the party’s apparatus. At the moment, those folks are streaming toward Pritzker amid a cacophony of whispers (all denied) that House Speaker Michael Madigan is directing the traffic. Starve Kennedy of money and foot soldiers and maybe he’ll drop out.
Kennedy, whose personal wealth is substantial, but nothing like Pritzker’s, has made some half-hearted attempts to claim that endorsements don’t matter whenever he loses them. But he hasn’t yet embraced (or maybe doesn’t even recognize) the role that’s literally being thrust upon him. Kennedy’s originally preferred path of being the widely endorsed “inevitable” candidate is now owned by Pritzker.
By default, Kennedy’s now the most prominent “outsider” in the race.
After almost two and a half years of Rauner’s rule, the government is in shambles. Rauner’s first campaign video back in 2013 complained that the state had “the highest unemployment in the Midwest,” and that’s still true today. He pointed to the state’s “lowest credit rating in America,” and that’s only gotten worse.
“Springfield is broken; $8,000 in pension debt for every man, woman and child,” Rauner bemoaned in the video. That figure is now $10,000.
So, maybe Illinois voters will yearn for someone who can work with Springfield to solve our massive problems and get us back to a semblance of normalcy after three populist governors in a row couldn’t get anything done. That appears to be where both Pritzker and Kennedy are going.
If Rauner doesn’t obtain a budget deal, he will simply run against the establishment again, claiming the evil powers that be (Speaker Madigan) have blocked him at every turn, but that he is “very close” to breaking their self-serving logjam.
And, indeed, if he is re-elected after what could be four years of gridlock, the Democrats will have to start working with him. Democrats claim that Rauner hid his “real” agenda from voters in 2014. But that agenda is now crystal clear to everyone.
Almost half of Illinois Democrats voted for insurgent presidential candidate Bernie Sanders a year ago. A recent poll by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute showed that Gov. Rauner is slightly more popular than Speaker Madigan in Chicago, of all places.
So, an authentic, independent, populist message from the late Robert Kennedy’s sincere, accomplished and mild-mannered son could very well resonate.
One of the things you can’t help but notice in the press coverage of Kennedy’s downstate appearances is the reports on crowd size. His family name is packing halls all over the place as locals come out to witness a part of history.
The obvious question is whether Kennedy can sustain this. His name and the hints of his family’s famous accent in his speaking voice are working like a charm for him right now. But will it last?
If he embraces a different direction, I think the answer could be yes.
* The guy in the middle holding an American flag is US Ambassador Paul W. Jones. He represents us in Poland and attended Chicago’s Polish Constitution Parade over the weekend. He must be one heck of a diplomat…
Illinois’ financial mess is hurting almost every entity in the state, and school districts have felt the pain in their budgets as much as any.
Transportation or special education reimbursements have not been paid this year, for example, and when the Illinois State Board of Education’s annual financial rankings came out in mid-April, some districts pointed right back at the state.
Meridian’s ranking dropped to “early warning,” with a score of 2.8 out of 4. Rankings are based on revenue to fund balance, expenditure to revenue ratio, and days cash on hand.
“The way I look at it, of course we’d like to have (a score) somewhere in the 3s, but we’ve been using some of our reserves because the state has underfunded us,” Meridian Superintendent Dan Brue said. “It’s ironic they come out with these rankings when our rankings go down because we’re not getting the money from the state like they promised us.” […]
State revenue accounts for about 35.5 percent of Meridian’s budget, Brue said, and the state owes the district more than $412,000.
* Mayor Emanuel reacted today to the governor’s latest plan to sell the Thompson Center. Click here for background. Click here for raw audio…
This is a political stunt. He could have signed the pension parity bill. He could’ve, 22 months ago he could’ve introduced a balanced budget that fully funded education. And he’s spending more time on the Thompson Center in the last three days than he has spent in the last 22 months on the entire budget and funding education.
There’s that pension bill again.
* Mayor Emanuel had earlier released a statement about how Gov. Rauner should focus on passing a budget, and here’s the governor’s response…
The mayor’s correct. We should have a balanced budget. We should’ve had a balanced budget 18 months ago. He should ask the speaker why he’s held that up.
* Rauner also asked reporters why Emanuel was throwing up “artificial roadblocks” on the project and then said…
It seems to be a tag-team effort between the mayor and the speaker to come up with delaying tactics… It’s being held up by the mayor and the speaker for political reasons. This should not be tolerated.
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said Friday that he was “not sure what today’s outburst was about.” The speaker’s staff has been meeting with staff from the mayor’s and governor’s offices “multiple times a week on trying to move this project along,” Brown said.
That the idea to sell the notoriously dilapidated office building, and the prime city block on which it sits, has become a sparring ground for the Republican governor and his Democratic adversaries is the latest sign of the deep political stalemate that’s overtaken Illinois.
Democrats agree with Rauner that the Thompson Center, which is used as office space for about 2,200 state employees, is a troubled building. Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton moved their offices and staffs to a nicer building across the street years ago.
“I don’t think there’s any disagreement by the speaker’s office or the staff that the state could do better than (the Thompson Center),” Brown said.
IL-06: Rep. Peter Roskam (R) - Chicago west suburbs: Wheaton, Palatine
Lean Republican. Roskam was first elected in the Democratic wave year of 2006 over current Sen. Tammy Duckworth, but hasn’t had a tough race since. Now, after Hillary Clinton carried this suburban Chicago seat by 7 points, there’s a deluge of Democratic interest. Local college trustee Amanda Howland, who took 41 percent last year, is running again, but most early buzz is about Iraq veteran and former Veterans Affairs official Maura Sullivan.
IL-13: Rep. Rodney Davis (R) - South central: Champaign, Decatur, Springfield
Likely Republican. Downstate Illinois has trended away from Democrats, and Davis appeared to have locked down this seat after taking 60 percent last year. But in a wave environment, this Democratic-drawn seat could still come into play. Democratic state Rep. Carol Ammons of Urbana is in, but she comes from the liberal corner of the district. Democrats’ preferred candidate would be state Sen. Andy Manar, who comes from the rural southern end of the seat.
IL-14: Rep. Randy Hultgren (R) - Chicago north and west exurbs: Batavia, McHenry
Likely Republican. In 2012, Democrats drew this district to pack GOP voters, but these outer Chicago suburbs only voted for President Trump 48 percent to 45 percent. Hultgren’s voting record has been reliably conservative. It’s still a long-shot for Democrats, but there’s some local interest in Navy veteran and high school teacher Victor Swanson, who just announced. This seat would only come into play if there’s a big anti-GOP wave. [Emphasis added.]
* The Question: Should Andy Manar run against Rodney Davis, even though the district is ranked “Likely Republican”? Click here to take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
Illinois senators have overwhelmingly endorsed an automatic-voter registration plan two years in the making.
The measure would automatically register qualified voters when they visit Secretary of State’s offices and a handful of other state agencies unless they decide to opt out. It moves to the House after a 48-0 vote in the Senate on Friday. Democratic state Sen. Andy Manar of Bunker Hill is sponsoring the measure. He says it would streamline voter registration and bolster participation.
A previous version passed both chambers last fall but Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed it over concerns it didn’t do enough to prevent voter fraud. Manar says this version addresses nearly all of the governor’s concerns.
When 14-year-old Susan Tatelli goes out to eat with her family, they usually stick to a handful of tried-and-true places – not for lack of wanting to explore but because Tatelli, who has a peanut allergy, knows she’ll be safe at the usual spots.
“You really have to grill the restaurant staff, and a lot of times you have to ask to talk to the chef to make sure there wasn’t going to be any cross-contamination issues,” she said. “There weren’t a lot of places I ever went out to eat. We had a short list of restaurants we knew were good with my allergies.”
On one occasion Tatelli said her family was told not to eat in a restaurant because they couldn’t “accommodate” her allergies. “We just left,” she said.
Proposed legislation requiring restaurants to provide food allergen training could make the dining experience more palatable to people who have food allergies, like Tatelli.
The bill would require restaurants to have managers undergo accredited food allergen awareness and safety training within 30 days of being hired (recertification would be required every three years). Restaurants would also be required to have at least one manager who’s received that training on site at all times while the restaurant is open.
Illinois customers stubbornly hanging on to your old landline telephone service, AT&T has a new plan for you: Switch to a modern alternative or face disconnection.
With traditional landline service dwindling to less than 10 percent of Illinois households in its territory, AT&T is pushing legislation in Springfield that, pending Federal Communications Commission approval, would allow it to unplug the aging voice-only network and focus on the wireless and internet-based phone offerings that have supplanted it.
“We’re investing in a technology that consumers have said they don’t want anymore and wasting precious hundreds of millions of dollars that could be going to the new technologies that would do a better job of serving customers,” said Paul La Schiazza, AT&T Illinois president.
AT&T has 1.2 million traditional landline customers in the state — 474,000 residential and 725,000 business — and is losing about 5,000 each week, La Schiazza said.
Senate Democrats pushed through a measure Thursday that would prevent state and local police from making arrests due to a person’s citizenship status, an effort supporters say is designed to build trust between law enforcement and communities living in fear following the immigration crackdown under President Donald Trump.
The bill would prohibit police from searching, arresting or detaining a person because of their immigration status absent a federal criminal warrant. It also would create so-called safe zones in state-funded schools, health care centers and secretary of state facilities, and block state and local law enforcement agencies from creating registries based on race, religion and national origin.
* Democrat Kelly Mazeski picked a good day to launch her congressional bid: The same day GOP Congressman Peter Roskam voted for the Trumpcare bill. She got a bunch of coverage…
* ABC 7: Dem. Kelly Mazeski challenging Roskam with healthcare focus: One of the challengers is a cancer survivor. “If you told me I would be standing here running for Congress, I wouldn’t believe it,” said Democrat Kelly Mazeski. But Mazeski is believing it now. The 57-year-old mother of two is determined to win the Democratic primary in the 6th Congressional District and take on incumbent Roskam. “This is personal for me in this race,” said Mazeski. “He is out of touch, been in this too long, he doesn’t know what it’s like for American’s to walk this walk.”
* NBC 5: Roskam’s Health Care Vote Has Democrats Lining Up To Oppose Him: The healthcare vote has Democrat Kelly Mazeski announcing she’s running for Congress in the west suburban district. To her it’s a personal mission “as a mother who has lost her medical insurance twice, survived breast cancer, and have a daughter with a very serious medical condition, I think it’s time the voters in the Illinois 6th hold Peter Roskam accountable for making Americans pay more to get less in health care.”
* Fox 32: Trump touts House health care bill, questions linger: Kelly Mazeski is a former chemist who plans to use roskam’s vote against obamacare against him. “I think it’s time we hold Peter Roskam accountable for voting to make Americans pay more for less coverage in health care,” Mazeski said.
* CBS 2: Potential Roskam Challenger Vows To Make Health Care The Issue: On the very day U.S. House Republicans voted to throw out Obamacare, a suburban Democrat is launching her campaign against one of Illinois’ most prominent members of Congress. Her own health care journey is at the very heart of her campaign, says CBS 2 Political Reporter Derrick Blakley. “I didn’t choose to get cancer. My daughter didn’t ask for a medical condition that was a huge burden on her life for several years. I can’t begin to tell you how personal this is for me,” Kelly Mazeski says. The 57-year-old survived breast cancer and had to find insurance for a daughter with pre-existing conditions. These are two keys to why she’s making health care the centerpiece of her campaign against Republican Congressman Peter Roskam.
I do not support any increases in income, sales or property taxes. I also do not support a graduated income tax as it would place an unfair burden on my district. Generally speaking, I do not support new taxes or tax increases of any kind. I do support a property tax freeze.
* Michael Hoffman, acting director of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, writing in the Tribune…
Many have focused on the potential short-term financial windfall to the state, but the long-term benefits to the city of Chicago are even more striking. The state currently pays nothing in the way of property taxes for our space in the Thompson Center. That’s an entire city block currently devoid of value to the city’s coffers. If negotiated reasonably, the city would realize up to $45 million annually in property taxes. That’s $45 million a year — in perpetuity.
* Chicago’s budget director Alex Holt responds…
The Rauner administration’s argument that the city will collect $45M in property taxes from this land - “in perpetuity” - is inaccurate.
1) Only 20% of property tax revenues come to the city. So for the city to net $45M, the property’s total tax bill would have to be over $200M a year. That’s almost 10 times the annual property tax payments from the Willis Tower.
2) The city would see no additional property tax revenue, because the city’s property tax levy is a set figure. $45M in property taxes on this building wouldn’t mean $45M more for the city, it would mean that all other owners in Chicago would pay less. The city won’t see that money unless we increase our property levy.
* Today…
Gov to announce new bill that would give property taxes from sale of Thompson Center to CPS.
Suddenly he’s interested in funding CPS? That’s rich. This a fraction of the amount of funding the governor vetoed for our school children a few months ago. Don’t be fooled. The governor is using this as a shiny object to distract from his own failure to fund education fairly and his failure to propose a balanced budget the entire time he’s been in office.
Not to mention that the money wouldn’t even arrive for years because that new building isn’t gonna suddenly appear out of nowhere.
And not to mention that this bill is being handled by the two minority party leaders, meaning it may never see the light of day.
But, anyway, as I’ve said before this week, this Thompson Center fight likely has more to do with CPS than the CTA.
* OK, now on to another subtopic. From yesterday morning’s Tribune editorial about the Thompson Center sale…
So it was strange that Mayor Rahm Emanuel played obstructionist this week, raising the issue of the Chicago Transit Authority station in the building and implying the city had no intention of partnering up to redevelop it.
“We have one of the busiest ‘L’ stations in the entire network of 140-plus ‘L’ stations,” Emanuel said. “If you sell it and it has to come down, who builds it? Who takes the cost? I’m not going to stick that on Chicago taxpayers. The developer or the state has to do it.”
Rauner’s office responded with a question mark. While the CTA station in the building has been discussed as part of a broader redevelopment package, the issue has not loomed as a deal-breaker. Emanuel’s comments, a Rauner spokesman said, came “out of the blue.” [Emphasis added.]
Koch said the city would allow a new project there only if the state and developer agree to keep the station open and any new station would come at no expense to the city. Emanuel went public with that concern Tuesday, suggesting the state expected the city to cover the entire cost of a new station, which he said would “stick Chicago taxpayers with $100 million.”
Rauner spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said the administration has advocated for the state, city and developer sharing the costs of any new station, adding that it was too early to specify what percentage would be covered by each. [Emphasis added.]
So, I guess that issue of the city not paying didn’t really come out of the blue?
* Today…
Rauner says state could pay for a "shell" over CTA construction should Thompson Center be redeveloped.
Candace Wanzo, a high-ranking official in the Illinois Secretary of State’s office, is under investigation by the office’s inspector general and has been placed on paid leave.
The nature of the investigation isn’t clear. Wanzo, an administrator in the office’s vehicles division, earned $87,238 last year.
Wanzo was hired in 1999 even though she pleaded guilty in 1991 to embezzling more than $230,000 from Southern Illinois University while she was employed by the university. Her sentence for the theft isn’t clear from online court records, but sentencing was delayed after her mother collapsed in court when a federal judge said that prosecutors’ recommendation for 15-month sentence sounded fair, according to a 1992 story published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper reported that Wanzo had testified that she spent the stolen money on cars, clothes, lingerie and vacations.
Henry Haupt, spokesman for Secretary of State Jesse White, confirmed that Wanzo has been placed on administrative leave, but he provided no details on why she is on paid leave. […]
“Secretary White is troubled by these recent developments,” Haupt wrote. “She was put on administrative leave, and he applauds inspector general Jim Burns and the secretary of state’s inspector general’s office for their efforts in this matter and cannot comment further until the investigation is complete.”
According to the story, she was hired as a secretary in 1999.
Former Gov. Jim Edgar, speaking on the Southern Illinois Carbondale campus Thursday evening, said that House Speaker Michael Madigan is not the villain he’s often made out to be in the media and by his political opponents.
He should be “maligned a little bit” but the long serving speaker from Chicago has been “overly maligned,” Edgar said.
“He is not the problem,” said the former Republican governor who held Illinois’ highest office from 1991 to 1999, all but two years of which Madigan served as speaker. “He might be a little bit of the problem, but he is not the big problem.”
Edgar needs to spend more time in Springfield before he says that again. Speaker Madigan is no longer a very tough but fair negotiator like he was back in Edgar’s day. He never used to be such a staunch public employee union ally (the man fought Jim Thompson repeatedly to get some oversight of the governor’s AFSCME contract negotiations, and he passed Tier 2 and Tier 1 pension reform, for crying out loud). He was always a bigtime trial lawyer ally, but he also passed medical malpractice reform. Madigan is, in other words, a different person that he was back then.
Edgar went on to say that it’s a myth that Madigan is the most powerful person in Illinois government. “Even a weak governor has far more power than the speaker does,” Edgar said, altering his words mid-sentence. “Not weak — there is no weak governor. Illinois is a strong governor state. Even a somewhat incompetent governor has more power than Mike Madigan.”
As Edgar paused momentarily — and then settled on the word “incompetent” -— there was a brief yet boisterous eruption of applause and laughter among the crowd. Edgar provided this critique of the ongoing budget stalemate in response to a question from Jak Tichenor, the policy institute’s interim director, following Edgar’s prepared remarks.
The strongest governor can’t force the House Speaker to allow a bill to pass without the Speaker’s permission. But a good governor can, which is more to Edgar’s competency point.
The island, an American territory, is weighed down by $123 billion in bond and pension debt it cannot afford. Illinois, meanwhile, has about $130 billion in unfunded pension obligations alone, plus billions more in retiree health care and other liabilities. The circumstances are different, but no government can function properly — indefinitely — under ever-rising debt. Eventually something gives.
One of the different “circumstances” is that Puerto Rico’s population is just 29 percent of the Illinois Census number. So our debt would have to be much, much higher to match PR’s problem.
Another difference is that the vast majority of Illinois’ debt is tied up in long-term pension obligations, while, according to the Tribune editorial, 61 percent of PR’s outstanding debt is in bonds, which are likely much shorter term obligations.
And yet another difference is that Puerto Rico’s top income tax rate is vastly higher than ours: $8,430 on the first $61,500 (13.7 percent) plus 33 percent on any income over $61,500. They simply have much less room to raise their rates than we do at our current 3.75 percent.
…Adding… It has been duly noted in comments that PR residents don’t pay federal income taxes.
…Adding… As noted by a commenter, Illinois’ gross state product is about 7 times higher than Puerto Rico’s.
The right response for Illinois is to look at the ruin of Puerto Rico and take its fate as a dire warning: This state has an unsustainable debt load. Eventually it will overwhelm government and taxpayers. No plan to reform the economy to spur growth and create more taxpayers. A $12 billion backlog of unpaid bills. Only gridlock and infighting as the debt load grows. But it is not too late for Illinois to change its ways.
You won’t get any argument from me that we need some economic reforms in this state. But that’s more of a long-term issue. Our debt load is currently “unsustainable” because the politicians in charge won’t find the money to pay for it via revenues and budget cuts. What’s happening right now is a completely man-made crisis.
* Scream all you want about it, but Illinois can’t just walk away from that debt. It has to be paid unless Congress steps in. And that’s something that even the Tribune doesn’t like…
It’s a theoretical solution no one should wish for because of the pain and chaos it would create. If bankruptcy protection became an option, bondholders would charge punishing interest rates, or quit buying Illinois bonds, because of the increased risk that the state couldn’t make its interest payments.
Norb Andy’s Tabarin is closed indefinitely and the building is for lease a little less than a year after the landmark downtown restaurant reopened following a major renovation.
Owner David Ridenour said Thursday that dining traffic had not met expectations, though he said the bar and live music shows did well. Ridenour said he also has had trouble staffing the restaurant in recent weeks, including loss of the chef.
The restaurant and bar at 518 E. Capitol Ave. closed and then reopened briefly before the latest shutdown.
“It’s closed indefinitely. I don’t see it reopening temporarily,” said Ridenhour.
* The Question: Your favorite Norb Andy’s memory from back in the day?
By definition, fake news ignores the facts. It disregards and/or distorts the truth to deliver a message that is far removed from reality.
I would argue that much of the news coming out of the Illinois Statehouse is fake.
I say “news” but I mean more than that. Much of the conversation surrounding the budget impasse is fake.
News media, lawmakers, public employee unions, gossip peddlers … all are culpable to some extent.
Illinois is on the brink of fiscal insolvency yet the conversation still focuses on the need for Democrats and Republicans to compromise so a budget – any budget – can be passed.
But passing a budget and saving Illinois aren’t the same thing. In fact, passing a bad budget will only worsen the state’s outlook.
Illinois needs massive structural reforms: to pensions, to workers’ compensation, to overly burdensome regulations that have stifled economic growth, to lopsided rules and regulations that overwhelmingly favor state-worker unions to the detriment of taxpayers.
Short of these absolutely necessary reforms, bankruptcy might be the only option.
But no one is talking about that.
Nobody is talking about the bankruptcy option because it’s not allowed under federal law. So, pardon me if we don’t constantly talk about something that can’t currently happen and isn’t under Statehouse control.
* But, yeah, passing a budget will only make things worse. Yep…
Center for Tax & Budget Accountability finding: Illinois spent significantly less on higher ed in 2016 than in 2000 under Gov Ryan. #SenRfrm
Today, House Republicans will vote to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act with the American Health Care Act. This dangerous plan would be a disaster for millions of Americans across the country and here in Illinois.
JB Pritzker released the following statement in response:
“It’s unbelievable that Republicans, who are supposed to represent our families, will vote to take away health care from nearly 24 million Americans today,” said JB Pritzker. “This is exactly what we don’t need, tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires on the backs of Illinois’ working families and those with preexisting conditions. It’s time for Bruce Rauner to break his silence and stand up for the more than one million Illinoisans who will lose their health care. As governor, I will stand up against the Trump-Rauner agenda and fight for all Illinoisans to have access to health care.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office has said nothing for months about the Washington debate, but insiders say the governor remains concerned about big cuts in Medicaid spending included in the Ryan bill.
* And I’m kinda surprised that nobody has picked up on this Illinois Working Together press release yet…
President Donald Trump’s proposed replacement of the Affordable Care Act would save Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner millions of dollars each year by eliminating a tax provision that funds health insurance for working people under Obamacare.
In 2015, Gov. Rauner paid $6.6 million in the Net Investment Income Tax, a provision created by the Affordable Care Act that applies only to the wealthiest individuals and is a critically important source of funding for the ACA’s health insurance premium subsidies. See here for Gov. Rauner’s 2015 tax return; Net Investment Income Tax is listed on line 62.
The American Health Care Act — TrumpCare — would eliminate the Net Investment Income Tax, simultaneously gutting ACA funding and funneling money to rich individuals like Rauner.
Gov. Rauner also paid $1.8 million in the Net Investment Income Tax in 2014 and $1.9 million in 2013, running his three-year savings to $10.3 million. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, repealing the Net Investment Income Tax would cost the U.S. Treasury $158 billion over 10 years.
If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, 1.2 million Illinoisans would lose health coverage according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. To date, Rauner has refused to take a position on the Trump-GOP effort to repeal the ACA.
“After supporting Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential campaign, Gov. Bruce Rauner now stands to save millions if Trump guts health coverage while slashing taxes for the rich,” said Jake Lewis, Campaign Director for Illinois Working Together. “The people of Illinois deserve to know where Gov. Rauner stands: Will he defend the 1.2 million Illinoisans who will lose care if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, or would he rather pocket millions of dollars while hard-working people lose their health care?”
*** UPDATE *** The governor says he’s “concerned”…
Governor Bruce Rauner has released the following statement regarding the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of the American Healthcare Act:
“The bill that passed in the U.S. House today continues to be of deep concern to our administration. Recent changes did not address fundamental concerns about the bill’s impact on the 650,000 individuals that are part of our Medicaid expansion population, nor have those changes eased the concerns of the 350,000 people in the individual market who are dealing with skyrocketing premiums and fewer choices. We will continue to voice our concerns as the law moves to the Senate.
“The Affordable Care Act is a seriously flawed law that should be changed. Difficult as the task has proven, we are hopeful that our federal lawmakers will continue to work hard to get this right for the people of Illinois and our nation.”
Just six months ago, workers at PECO Pallet in Hegewisch brought out the giant inflatable rat to draw attention to their frustrations in negotiating their first union contract with an ownership group led by billionaire venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker.
On Wednesday, a group of 14 other unions made an exceptionally early leap into the 2018 governor’s race by endorsing the very same Pritzker for the Democratic nomination, lauding him for his commitment to working people.
These are not necessarily conflicting facts, but they do highlight the complications of an ultra-wealthy businessman trying to launch a political career on the Democratic side of the ledger.
For Pritzker, who is trying to build early momentum in the multi-candidate Democratic field with a likely goal of convincing opponent Chris Kennedy to back out, the union support is key to knocking down criticism that he’s just another rich guy.
But it’s just as plain that it’s Pritzker’s vast wealth — and his stated willingness to invest it toward vanquishing Gov. Bruce Rauner and in support of other Democrats — that makes his candidacy so attractive to party leaders working behind the scenes to help launch his campaign.
You really should read the whole thing. The union pickets came down after Pritzker personally intervened, but it’s chock full of other interesting stuff.
Illinois Senate Democrats say Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration inappropriately spent money to move records from a closed prison to new warehouse space.
Sen. Andy Manar is a Bunker Hill Democrat. He questioned Corrections Department Director John Baldwin during an appropriations committee hearing Wednesday.
Manar says Department of Human Services records had been stored in at least one building on the campus of the former Dwight Correctional Center in Livingston County. But he says those records were moved to a Springfield warehouse the state recently leased for $2.4 million amid a two-year budget stalemate. […]
Manar says he was told the Dwight building needed extensive roof repairs. But there is other vacant state space.
“What was occurring at the Dwight facility that would cause these documents to have to be moved out of a state-owned facility to another facility that is leased to a private vendor?” Manar asked.
“I have no idea at all,” Baldwin replied. “I have not heard of that.”
Manar then asked Baldwin if he was aware the documents had been stored at Dwight.
“No,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin acknowledged the department has a number of vacant buildings on its hands, but told Manar he could not vouch for them being suitable for storing paper documents.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From the Department of Corrections…
Hey Rich,
I just wanted to clarify that CMS assumed full financial obligation for the facility in Dwight in 2014 and entered into an agreement with DHS on the DOCs behalf. The agreements between the agencies gave DHS access to several buildings on the grounds so they could store their files. Neither CMS nor DHS were required to notify the Department or the Director about when or why they moved the documents.
Nicole
* And this is from the Department of Human Services…
Hi Rich –
I saw your post about the DHS records being moved. The attached memo details some of the issues at the Dwight facility and illustrates the need for a new location. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Once again, our committee is left with more questions than when we started. The governor is more than halfway through his term and it’s as if no one knows who’s running what within the Rauner administration.
We’ve asked very simple, straightforward questions now to three different agency directors and the governor’s chief of staff. We have yet to receive a simple, straightforward answer back about why millions of taxpayer dollars are being spent to move and house old state paperwork in a former furniture store when Illinois has several empty buildings available at no cost.
These records were kept at the now vacant state women’s prison in Dwight. If there were maintenance concerns at that site, we would like to know the cost of remedying them because it’s hard to believe it would cost more than the $2.4 million that taxpayers will pay to lease the former furniture store.
Keep in mind, we are in a budget crisis and we are talking about the Rauner administration spending millions to find new homes for old paperwork. We have simple questions we would like answered: Who in the administration is directing this and why is it such a priority?
Bruce Rauner promised management expertise from a proven businessman. Given the mismanagement and confusion we’re witnessing, clearly the taxpayers are not getting what was promised.
“Madigan’s spokesman confirmed yesterday what we already knew - Democrat candidates for governor are doing Madigan’s bidding by supporting his tax hike, no reform agenda. Illinois can’t afford to return to the days where governors worked for the Chicago Machine, not Illinois families and taxpayers.” - Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Aaron DeGroot
In a rare moment of honesty, Madigan Spokesman Steve Brown admitted that the the Democrat candidates running for governor - J.B. Pritzker, Chris Kennedy, Daniel Biss, and Ameya Pawar - support Speaker Madigan’s tax hike, no reform agenda to balance Illinois’ budget.
In his interview with the Chicago Tribune, Brown said, “It appears, as near as I can tell, that every one of the candidates pretty much supports (Madigan’s) idea that you need a balanced approach to the state budget… We’ll let the candidates go out and prove themselves.”
And what is Madigan’s “balanced” approach to the state budget?
At the end of 2015, Madigan said income taxes should be hiked by at least 33%.
Additionally, Madigan refuses to consider any reforms to state government as part of a bipartisan budget deal.
Just last month, Madigan’s spokesman telegraphed Madigan’s true sentiments of the Senate’s efforts to pass a balanced budget with job-creating reforms by saying the grand bargain is “a group of bad ideas.”
As expected, the Democrat candidates for governor have been working overtime to “prove” themselves to Speaker Madigan. Watch Madigan’s tax hike puppets betray taxpayers HERE.
Madigan spokesman Steve Brown and Local 150 spokesman Ed Maher said there was no involvement by the speaker.
“The speaker’s not taking a position in the Democratic primary,” Brown said. “It appears, as near as I can tell, that every one of the candidates pretty much supports (Madigan’s) idea that you need a balanced approach to the state budget, which is really the No. 1 issue in the state of Illinois. We’ll let the candidates go out and prove themselves.”
Um, a “balanced approach to the state budget” actually means cuts and new revenues. Gov. Rauner says the same thing all the time. So is he in Madigan’s pocket, too?
For the small business owners, the entrepreneurs, the risk-takers and change-agents. There’s no 9-5. Work doesn’t stop and they don’t stop, because they know there’s always more to be done, more to achieve.
Bruce Rauner knows that drive. He made his name leading one of Illinois’ most respected businesses.
But his first job was cooking burgers. His second? Parking cars. In college, he worked in the dining hall to earn extra money.
When he moved back to Chicago to work at a data company, he spent nine months sleeping on a camping mattress, because he didn’t have any furniture.
But this self-made businessman would go on to earn an MBA from Harvard, joining an investment start-up and building a reputation as a business pioneer.
That same spirit now drives his push for real reform in our state, because across Illinois more than one million small businesses are led by creative, driven innovative people from every walk of life. And they need a governor who’s fighting for them.
Working for you and our future. Bruce Rauner.
Thoughts?
*** UPDATE 1 *** The ILGOP press release puts the video into context…
More than one million small businesses in Illinois are hurting from decades of tax-hikes, burdensome regulations, and corrupt politics in Springfield.
As Governor Rauner cuts the red tape and fights for change to help small businesses, Democratic candidates for Governor shockingly had nothing to say this small business week.
That’s right, J.B. Pritzker, Chris Kennedy, Daniel Biss and Ameya Pawar refused to even acknowledge small business week and the challenges that half of Illinois’ workforce faces.
But Governor Rauner is speaking out.
This week, Rauner toured small businesses across Illinois – pushing for real reform to help small businesses grow. See coverage of the Governor’s tour below.
And this morning, Rauner released a new digital ad highlighting the role small businesses play in Illinois, and how his business background and reform plan is paving the way to deliver change for struggling small businesses.
So, the governor officially declared “Small Business Week,” embarked on an official tour of the state to celebrate it, and then his state party whacks Democratic candidates for not following suit.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Ameya Pawar campaign…
Like Donald Trump, Bruce Rauner ran as a populist but governs as a plutocrat. Bruce Rauner claims he’s fighting for working families but under his leadership,130,000 low-income college students aren’t receiving tuition grants, 47,000 children aren’t receiving affordable child care that allows their parents to go to work, and 80,000 people have lost access to mental health services in Illinois.
Like Donald Trump, Bruce Rauner was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and this video is just another attempt to draw a veil over a life of privilege. Governor Rauner, you might have been “successful” in business, but spare us the theatre, the costume, and the phony accent. Do your job and pass a budget.
* Illinois Working Together Campaign Director Jake Lewis…
Today, Gov. Bruce Rauner visited the Small Business Development Center at Lincoln Land Community College. According to Crain’s Chicago, nearly a quarter of small business centers at Illinois colleges have closed because of the Rauner budget crisis. Colleges with shuttered small business centers include Governors State University, Joliet Junior College, Illinois State University, and Waubonsee Community College in Aurora.
When Governors State University was forced to close its Illinois Small Business Development Center and Illinois SBDC International Trade Center, school officials noted that “the centers have helped more than 6,000 clients create 4,650 new jobs with 190 new business starts and 150 business expansions.”
Other universities have made extensive cuts to their small business centers. Southern Illinois University’s Small Business Center, which was on the brink of closing due to the budget crisis, has cut its staff from 11 to two.
“It is the height of hypocrisy for Gov. Rauner to tout his failed political agenda at a college small business center while the Rauner budget crisis has shuttered similar centers across Illinois. By holding the budget hostage, Gov. Rauner has forced nearly a quarter of college small business centers to close and others to severely cut programming. To actually help small businesses in Illinois grow, Rauner should put people before politics, drop his failed political agenda, and pass a budget.”
Nursing home workers have reached a tentative agreement with nursing home owners for a three-year contract, averting the largest nursing home strike in history.
Through this contract, the owners and management teams at the 103 nursing homes of the Illinois Association of Health Care Facilities recognize 10,000 SEIU Healthcare Illinois members as skilled, dedicated, and irreplaceable employees who provide quality care.
Nursing home workers won important improvements, including:
Significant wage increases. This means nursing home workers will be able to provide for their families while taking care of others.
Staffing provisions to help reduce turnover and increase the quality of care for residents.
The union had planned another rally early this morning and most of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates were expected to attend.
We’re left to presume that Emanuel’s remarks had more to do with his sour relationship with Rauner and “Don’t give the governor a win,” the unofficial motto of Illinois Democrats.
Rauner vetoed an Emanuel-backed, much-needed pension package in March that would have eased the city’s financial crunch, and he hasn’t stormed to rescue Chicago Public Schools from its need for pension relief.
Tit for tat. Rauner needs Emanuel to get the Thompson Center deal done; Emanuel throws up a roadblock. Politics and revenge play into what could be a partnership benefiting all taxpayers.
Here’s an idea: Get city and state lawyers in a room — or better yet, Emanuel and Rauner — and you could have a deal in an afternoon. That would be the mature solution. Instead, petulance all around.
Getting them into a room together for an afternoon would be a good idea. No doubt. People should act like grownups.
But there are far too many other issues out there to be resolved first, and neither man has direct control over all of them.
“From storefront shops that anchor Main Street to the high tech startups that keep American on the cutting edge, small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the cornerstone or our nation’s promise”
Governor Bruce Rauner served as the keynote speaker at the sixth annual DuPage County Regional Business Outlook event held Tuesday at the Drury Lane Conference Center, providing his framework for driving growth and economic development in DuPage County and statewide.
Governor Rauner shared his insight with a gathering of nearly 1,000 of the region’s business and civic leaders, welcoming them as “the backbone of the Illinois economy,” before sharing his vision for the future of the state.
* From the Sun-Times interview of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bob Daiber…
As for Illinois House Speaker and Democratic Party of Illinois Chairman Michael Madigan — the state Republican Party’s primo target — Daiber said the speaker was his second call when he decided to run. Daiber said the speaker “heard the rumor” and asked if he was serious. Daiber said Madigan told him to “move forward.”
“He’s not a bad guy. I’m probably the only guy who says that,” Daiber said of Madigan. “I have respect for him.”
* The Question: Suggested Daiber campaign slogans?
* From Biss for Illinois campaign manager, Abby Witt, regarding today’s labor union endorsements of JB Pritzker today…
“The fact that these endorsements were given out to a candidate who is only weeks into his public life, who has no voting record on union issues, but does have a family business with a history of anti-union behavior — and without so much as an endorsement questionnaire or interview — tells you all you need to know about these announcements. While this is the way business is done in Springfield, the working men and women of Illinois deserve better.
“Daniel Biss is never going to be the choice of the billionaires or Mike Madigan because our campaign is building a movement of ordinary people ready to take their state back from money and the machine.”
Like I said earlier today, the gloves are coming off.
*** UPDATE *** From Sam Hobert of the Pawar campaign…
Ameya Pawar will always be a steadfast supporter of organized labor and collective bargaining rights and his partnership with labor to pass paid sick leave, raise the minimum wage, and combat wage theft are a reflection of his commitment to labor and working people–endorsements or non-endorsements won’t change that.
Wednesday, May 3, 2017 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
SB 1502 is a highly complex privacy and transparency regulation that punishes small businesses, companies and organizations alike that have websites or online newsletters to hire lawyers to set up new IT and compliance systems—even in cases where these businesses already offer significant protections and privacy controls.
It encourages frivolous lawsuits that hurt Illinois businesses by incentivizing cases that recover fees through class action lawsuits over minor technical violations, putting small businesses and start-ups in the crosshairs of unfair litigation.
The Illinois State Fair filled the last open spot in its Grandstand concert on Wednesday by announcing the addition of Sublime with Rome and Blues Traveler.
The show will be Tuesday, Aug. 15.
Sublime with Rome consists of members of the band Sublime, perhaps best known for its 1990s hit “What I Got,” and singer/guitarist Rome Ramirez. The rock band, which has heavy influences from both hip and reggae, is promoting their latest album “Sirens,” which includes “Wherever You Go” and the title track.
Blues Traveler has been performing since 1987 and covers a variety of genres, including blues, psychedelic, folk and Southern rock. Their hits include “Run-Around” and “Hook.”
The concert joins the rest of the Grandstand lineup headlined by Brad Paisely, John Mellencamp, Pentatonix and more.
So, we get those guys, Foghat, Peter Noone from Herman’s Hermits and Alabama.
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza wants Gov. Bruce Rauner to hit the pause button on revamping the Medicaid managed care program.
In a state without a budget for two years, rebidding a program that could potentially award up to $9 billion a year over four years in contracts should have more scrutiny, Mendoza, a Democrat, said in a letter today to the Republican governor. She said the procurement could be the largest in the state’s history.
“We are effectively seeking to restructure the state’s largest budget item without a budget,” Mendoza wrote. “Why are we making this monumental change during this period of unprecedented upheaval?”
Rauner in February announced that he would overhaul the managed care program, a key Medicaid initiative that intends to rein in costs, but one that the governor says hasn’t saved enough money. It’s an unpopular program with doctors and hospitals alike. They complain about its heavy administrative burden.
In a letter sent to Gov. Bruce Rauner Tuesday – and also released publicly – Mendoza said the proposal calls for a 25 percent increase in Medicaid recipients using managed care while also greatly reducing the number of managed care providers.
“Similar initiatives in other states, advanced without appropriate questions being raised, have been met with unforeseen challenges, including reduced access to service and increased administrative costs,” Mendoza said.
The Democratic comptroller asked Rauner, a Republican with whom she has often been at odds, to delay implementation of the contract to give lawmakers and others more time to review the proposal. She is also asking legislative leaders to set up a forum for further discussion of the plan. […]
“The managed care reboot will improve healthcare delivery through a transparent process that was designed with significant stakeholder input to ensure integrity, competition and sustainable program costs for Illinois,” DHFS spokesman John Hoffman said in a statement.
The board chairman of one of the largest private Medicaid health plans in Illinois fears the Rauner administration is locking the nonprofit out of a lucrative state contract.
If so, the health plan, Chicago-based Family Health Network, likely will dissolve, forcing its more than 200,000 members to find health insurance and doctors alike elsewhere, said Jose Sanchez. He’s board chairman of the plan, known as FHN, and CEO of Norwegian American Hospital, one of five hospitals that founded the plan 22 years ago.
A group of state lawmakers is taking it one step further, suggesting in a letter to Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner that the hospitals would close without revenue generated from the health plan. Many of the facilities are anchors of impoverished neighborhoods.
“The healthcare delivery infrastructure for Latino and African-American communities are in grave danger of collapse,” the lawmakers wrote in the March 28 letter to Rauner.
The reason those hospitals could close is that they depend on the revenues from their stake in FHN to remain viable.
In anticipation of today’s event with working families at the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 399 in Chicago, the Pritzker campaign released the following video to share why members of the labor movement are standing with JB.
Illinois ranks eighth in the nation in the number of cases of human trafficking, which includes many child victims. Yet, an overwhelming majority of Illinois citizens are uninformed about this important human rights issue, according to the results of the latest poll from Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.
The poll provided voters the definition of human trafficking from the Trafficking Victims Protection Act as the act of recruiting, harboring, moving or obtaining a person, by force, fraud or coercion, for the purposes of involuntary servitude, debt bondage or sexual exploitation. This definition was provided to inform voters on the issue and remove potential bias.
The poll was taken March 4 to March 11. The sample included 1,000 randomly selected registered voters and the margin for error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Sixty percent of the interviews were with respondents on cell phones.
More than half, 51 percent, of voters surveyed disagree or strongly disagree that sex trafficking affects their area, with 28 percent reporting that it does. One in five voters, 21 percent, did not know or refused to answer.
The full poll, along with some crosstabs can be read by clicking here.
An organization representing homebuilding contractors said Tuesday that a proposal in the Illinois Senate’s “grand bargain” that would apply the sales tax to home repairs, among other services, would cost the state hundreds of jobs.
The sponsor of the legislation, however, said extension of the tax to certain services is necessary to get the state out of its financial hole.
The bill would apply a 6.25 percent sales tax to home repairs, landscaping, dry cleaning and the use of storage units.
According to the Home Builders Association of Illinois, imposition of the tax would discourage home owners from having work done, causing a $47 million decline in home repair and maintenance work, 521 fewer Illinois jobs and nearly $8 million less in local and state tax revenue.
We need every, single job we can get in this state and I don’t want to seem harsh or dismissive, but the lack of a fully funded state budget has cost Illinois a whole lot more than 521 jobs - if, indeed, those home repair jobs will actually disappear. That’s a pretty darned precise estimate.
Again, when you lose your own job the unemployment rate is 100 percent. I’ve been there. I don’t wish that desperation on anybody. But something has got to give here and it would be helpful if the Home Builders Association could come up with their own ideas.
* The Tribune reports that DCFS Director George Sheldon may be leaving for a job in Florida…
The change of leadership would be another blow to DCFS, which had seven directors or acting directors in the three years before Gov. Bruce Rauner appointed Sheldon in February 2015.
The Tribune has also learned that in recent months that Sheldon fell under a cloud of ethics probes by DCFS Inspector General Denise Kane and Illinois Executive Inspector General Margaret Hickey. Kane’s office has investigated allegations of favoritism in contracts and hiring, as well as abuse of authority by a top aide, according to government documents and interviews.
Separately, Sheldon faced pushback from veteran agency investigators who say they are pressured to quickly close abuse and neglect cases even when children face serious harm.
The agency last week was roiled by the death of 16-month-old Semaj Crosby in Joliet. DCFS opened and closed four investigations into alleged abuse in her home and had visited just hours before she was reported missing. She was later found dead under a couch in the home.
The revelation that veteran investigators are complaining about pressure to quickly close abuse cases couldn’t come at a worse time, as the Tribune notes.
Semaj’s family told police she’d been playing with other children in the front yard Tuesday afternoon when she disappeared and they spent an hour looking for her before calling police. Semaj’s mother, Sheri Gordon, was questioned twice by investigators and consulted with a lawyer before allowing police to search the house late Wednesday. […]
A representative of the Department of Children and Family Services was at the house about an hour before Semaj went missing. The agency opened two investigations of Gordon for allegations of neglect last month. DCFS spokeswoman Veronica Resa stated in an email that DCFS personnel had been at the home about 3:20 p.m. Tuesday “and had seen all three of the mother’s children, including Semaj. There were no obvious hazards or safety concerns at that time.”
But sheriff’s police described the house’s condition as “deplorable,” with garbage strewn throughout. The residence was tagged Thursday as unfit for occupancy.
Including Gordon, her two sons and Semaj, five to 15 people were regularly living in the house as “squatters,” according to sheriff’s police.
An Illinois judge is demanding to know what did state child care workers do to help the family of a 1-year-old girl who was found dead in their home.
Will County Circuit Judge Paula Gomora made the request Tuesday during a hearing to determine where to place the deceased girl’s three older brothers. […]
During the hearing, Gomora said Department of Children and Family Services caseworkers missed obvious signs of trouble in previous visits to the home.
DCFS contracted with the private child welfare agency Children’s Home and Aid to provide services to the family. Both DCFS and Children’s Home and Aid declined to comment Tuesday.
Officials released photos on Monday giving a glimpse inside the now-condemned home in far southwest suburban Joliet Township where 16-month-old Semaj Crosby was found dead last week. […]
As police conduct a “suspicious death” investigation, the newly released photos and reports provided by the Will County Land Use Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Chicago Sun-Times appear to back up the “deplorable” conditions inside the home that authorities described last week. […]
“The entire structure appeared unsanitary because of the heavily soiled carpets, walls, garbage and [it] contains a serious degree of filth,” an inspector noted in her report.
Will County Sheriff’s deputies encountered little Semaj Crosby on Easter Sunday when they did a well-being check.
The department said on its Facebook page that three deputies went to a Joliet Township residence April 16 after someone made an “abandoned” call to 9-1-1.
“When they arrived at the home they came across some kids outside playing with sticks,” the Facebook post said. “They went inside and spoke to the mom and grandmother and found that everything was fine.”
* But Director Sheldon told a Senate committee this morning that he has reviewed the case and didn’t find anything wrong…
"We do not bring children into care because of a dirty house,” DCFS director says. Reviewed records and did not warrant removal, he says. https://t.co/bHcWZzIICI
“There are two things that make this a particularly difficult job right now,” [ACLU of Illinois legal director Ben Wolf] added. “The agency’s problems are very profound … and the budget impasse and political paralysis that caused it are putting enormous pressure on the child welfare system and all of the other human services in Illinois.”
SCOOPLET — As we first reported Monday, J.B. Pritzker today will hold a news conference touting an endorsement from a series of trade unions. POLITICO has the first glimpse of a full list of the 14 groups backing him early in the game. Here they are: Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters, The Chicago District Council of Laborers’, Local 881 UFCW, Boilermakers Local 1, Bricklayers District Council, International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 2, Heat and Frost Insulators Local 17, Ironworkers Chicago District Council & Vicinity, Operating Engineers Local 150, Operating Engineers Local 399, Plasterers and Cement Masons Local 502, UA Plumbers Local 130, Roofers and Waterproofers Local 11, Sheet Metal Workers Local 73.
That’s no scooplet. As I told subscribers this morning, Local 150 of the Operating Engineers is a huge get for Pritzker. That local is the de facto leader of this state’s construction trade unions. It is heavily involved in Illinois politics and has plenty of money to play with.
And Kennedy’s helming of the Wolf Point construction project, done in conjunction with organized labor, should’ve given him a much better foothold with all those trade unions that are now backing Pritzker.
Big win for Pritzker, big loss for Kennedy.
* Meanwhile, Sen. Daniel Biss responded to JB Pritzker’s new TV ad last night at 7:41…
“His tag line should be ‘I can write big checks.’ Bragging about how you threw money at problems is not thinking big; it’s thinking like a billionaire. And it’s not a case for being a good governor. We already learned our lesson on this front with failed experiment Bruce Rauner.
“While JB Pritzker and Chris Kennedy are copying plays from the Bruce Rauner billionaire’s playbook, Daniel Biss is fighting for legislation today that would change the way campaigns are financed in this state — because, the fundamental problem in Springfield is that our government has been answering to the very rich, under both parties.
“The answer to Illinois’s problems isn’t going to come from billionaires or machine politicians. They’re the people at the root of our problems. It’s going to come from a movement of people ready to take their state back from money and the machine.”
Daiber says “people in Springfield” know he “knows the game.” He calls himself the “poor guy in the room.”
“I’m the guy that most people wish would go away, but it’s not going to happen,” Daiber said.
Daiber might lack the popularity and Camelot mystique of Kennedy, but he’s banking on his name recognition in Downstate Illinois to help him in the race — despite having a bit more than $37,000 on hand at the end of March. Daiber knows he’s up against millions in the race, but he says he’s making plans for the next few months and focusing on the issues. Among his plans is a June meeting with the AFL-CIO to try to gain its endorsement. He also plans to unveil detailed tax structure plans — in January.
“I stay focused on the issues. I look at the support that comes. The money will follow me,” Daiber said. “And that’s how I plan to stay in the race.”
I doubt if he’s known Downstate anywhere beyond Madison County. And considering the trade unions’ endorsement of Pritzker, he probably shouldn’t count on the Illinois AFL-CIO unless Pritzker stumbles really badly. And I do mean badly.
Q: Rauner has waged war on Democrats, saying they’re just interested in raising taxes and he’s guarding against it.
A: I think $1 billion of unpaid bills is pretty much evidence his plan isn’t working very well. His deficit has almost tripled since he’s been in office … The average person is saying: look, if you got to raise taxes, raise taxes. Let’s just get on with it and get a budget … Saying you’re a tax and spend Democrat? How about a tax and stabilize Democrat? Just to bring stability to the state. Let’s look at a progressive income tax system.”
I sure hope that $1 billion thing is a typo. It’s a whole lot more than that.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel acknowledged Tuesday he was blocking the sale of the Thompson Center in the heart of the Loop until he’s certain that Chicago taxpayers won’t get “stuck with the tab” for rebuilding the massive CTA station underneath the state building.
“I’m not going to stick that tab on Chicago taxpayers,” Emanuel said at an unrelated event to tout park and library improvements in Bronzeville. “Why would I do that to Chicago taxpayers?”
The sale of the center is contingent on the City Council changing the rules that will dictate the size of the building that will eventually replace the the three-decade-old state office building at 100 W. Randolph St.
Eleni Demertzis, a spokeswoman for Gov. Bruce Rauner, responded by saying said Emanuel was “trying to distract from the real issue — which is the city being greedy and trying to extort the state taxpayers for more money than what the property is worth.”
“I am not going to let the state have a short term, book a couple hundred million and then stick the Chicago taxpayers with [a bill for] $100 million. How about paying the teachers’ pensions?” Emanuel asked.
Call me crazy, but I kinda think that if Gov. Rauner wasn’t holding up progress on appropriating $215 million for Chicago teacher pensions and hadn’t vetoed another city pension bill that this sale might be going more smoothly.
And for the governor’s office to complain when somebody else holds something hostage that Rauner wants is a bit rich.
But, man, it’s like everybody is in the room throwing roundhouse punches at each other these days.
The mayor noted the Thompson Center station is “one of the busiest stations in the entire network of 140-plus L stations.” That begs the question: “If you sell it and it has to come down, who builds it and who takes the cost?”
“I’m not gonna stick that on Chicago taxpayers. The developer or the state has to do it,” the mayor said.
“I’m not gonna have a short-term gain [and a long-term loss] when you have one of the most important stations and the reason that property is so valuable [being demolished]. Yes, the state gets to book the money when they sell. But, who’s gonna build or rebuild that station? I’m responsible to make sure that tab is not on the Chicago taxpayers.”
A significant part of the value of the Thompson Center site is that incredibly busy station underneath. You gotta figure the new owners would want to keep that station intact.
* Not to mention that the city would get a bunch of money from the sale…
“If we maximize the development in the way that we’ve conceived of at 3 million square feet, it could be over $40 million a year in additional property tax revenue for the city,” Hoffman added.
Again, this is likely a lot more about CPS funding than it is about the CTA.
Chicago police were questioning three people and were searching for others after two plainclothes officers were wounded Tuesday night in the Back of the Yards when gunmen began firing “indiscriminately” at them, authorities said.
Both Deering District officers were shot by a “high-powered weapon,” police said. One officer was hit in the arm and hip, the other in the back.
They were taken to Stroger Hospital, where they were in serious condition but stable. Officials said their injuries were not life-threatening.
The officers were sitting in an unmarked car in the 4300 block of South Ashland Avenue around 9 p.m., following up an earlier investigation, when they saw someone in a silver van shooting at another vehicle, according to preliminary information from police.
“The occupants began firing shots indiscriminately in the direction of the officers,” the Police Department said in a statement. “The officers returned fire.” It is not believed they hit anyone.
Multiple security cameras are in place around the intersection where the shooting occurred, near 43rd Street and Ashland Avenue. […]
Multiple weapons were recovered in the area, as well as a vehicle possibly used in the shooting, Johnson said. […]
The vehicle the officers were in was “riddled with bullets” from what police believe was a high powered rifle, he added. […]
Hundreds of officers from across the city had swarmed the area in the hours after the shooting. Dozens more congregated at the hospital. Mayor Rahm Emanuel visited the officers and their families before leaving about 10:35 p.m.
*** UPDATE *** The CPD dispatch audio is horrifying…
