WOMEN’S ADVOCATES JOIN COMPTROLLER MENDOZA TO ADDRES RAPE CULTURE LANGUAGE
WHO: Illinois State Comptroller Susana A. Mendoza
Rev. Marvin Hunter of Grace Memorial Baptist Church
Dr. Phalese Binion, Executive Director of Westside Baptist Ministers
Kathy Ragnar, Executive Director of Sarah’s Circle
Vickie Smith, Executive Director of ICADV
Rev. Stanley Watkins of New Covenant Baptist Church
WHAT: Women’s advocates will hold a news conference on the last day of Women’s History Month about rape culture language.
Maybe you could take, I was gonna suggest maybe you can take some of that duct tape you’re working with and put it over her mouth. But that probably wouldn’t be appropriate.
Ugh. What sort of person says something like that during a supposedly professional radio broadcast?
So, Mendoza rightly demanded an apology from Cochran today for “casually” suggesting that Rauner duct tape her mouth closed.
But Mendoza also claimed that Rauner “laughed right along with” Cochran. From her press release…
I am calling on WGN, on radio host Steve Cochran, and on Governor Rauner to issue an apology. Not for me, but for the millions of women who’ve been victims of violence or sexual abuse, who could turn the radio on, and hear a radio personality suggest to the Governor that duct tape be used to silence a woman and rather than have the Governor denounce that type of language, instead laugh right along with him. Rape culture language is not a laughing matter and it’s never OK.
She repeated the claim that Rauner laughed later in the press conference.
* I knew this was coming, so I isolated the audio. The first time I listened, I thought I heard Rauner laughing. But then I listened again a few more times and heard Rauner coughing and letting out a quick groan. He didn’t seem to enjoy the humor…
Asked for comment, Rauner’s office referred questions to the Illinois Republican Party, which the governor largely funds. GOP spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski issued a statement in which she said the governor “doesn’t chuckle” at the radio host’s remark.
“Here we go again. Another absurd rant from Susana Mendoza. Instead of encouraging Speaker Madigan and fellow Democrats to come to the table and pass a budget with real reforms, Mendoza is spending her taxpayer funded time coming up with wild, defamatory accusations about the governor,” the statement read in part. “It’s a ploy to distract from the fact that she has no productive solutions to Illinois’ crisis.”
Todd Manley, vice president of content and programming for WGN-AM, said Cochran planned to apologize for the comments.
“It was an unfortunate choice of words, there is no way around it. He should have never said it, and it’s as simple as that,” Manley said. “I know Steve regrets it.”
Manley is right. But since when has the ILGOP been about “productive solutions” to anything here? Asking for a friend.
*** UPDATE 2 *** From Steve Cochran…
I made a comment earlier this week while Governor Bruce Rauner was a guest on my show that has been misrepresented by Comptroller Susana Mendoza today.
The comment the Comptroller is apparently referring to was meant to be about my opinion that there is far too much grandstanding and not enough action by those in power to fix our state budget disaster.
I chose the words poorly and Ms. Mendoza was offended by it. I apologize.
Furthermore the words were mine and mine alone.
I must add the following. I grew up in a house where I witnessed violence by my father against my mother. Nothing is more offensive to me.
I have worked with agencies to raise funds and awareness to this cause. I have contributed my time and money to this fight. I have used my platform as a public person to speak out on this scourge for more than 30 years.
As a husband, father, and grandfather to two amazing women and 1 incredible little girl, I’m proud of the work I’ve done and continue to do on this cause.
My hope is that the leaders in state Government will work just as hard to finally finish a budget that will in part help fund the cause of stopping violence against women and helping the victims who are still in jeopardy.
Neither the Comptroller nor her office made any attempt to contact me prior to her public statement today. She is welcome on the show to continue this discussion in person and I hope she will join me.
This has been a very challenging year for CJE SeniorLife and other health and human service providers due to the financial situation in the State of Illinois. Consequently, after extensive deliberation by the Executive Committee of CJE’s Board of Directors along with Senior Leadership, CJE has made the difficult decision to close its Personal Care Program as of April 28, 2017. As a result, CJE will terminate the Managed Community Care Program (MCCP) contract and its Title III B chore housekeeping contract. Earlier this year, CJE closed its Community Care Program (CCP) that provided in-home personal care services through the Illinois Department on Aging (IDOA) in order to contain its losses.
Since July 2016, however, CJE has been reimbursed less than 40% of what is owed for providing vital home and community-based services that are funded through state contracts… and the State budget situation is not anticipated to be resolved in the near future. All of CJE’s valiant efforts over the past nine months to reach out to the Illinois Department on Aging, State legislators and the Comptroller’s office to get reimbursed for services have been unsuccessful. As a non-profit organization, CJE simply does not have the resources to provide these services indefinitely without jeopardizing the viability of the entire organization which annually serves more than 23,000 seniors with a wide-range of health and human services.
By closing the access to these vital in-home services, CJE will no longer provide in-home services or care management to approximately 265 low-income and at-risk older adults living in the community. These vulnerable and frail older adults will need to be transferred to new providers in a service network that is shrinking daily as more providers cancel State contracts due to lack of payment. This action also impacts approximately 86 of CJE’s full-time and part-time in-home employees who will lose their jobs.
According to Mark D. Weiner, CJE’s President and CEO: “This was an extremely heart wrenching decision for our Board and senior leadership team. CJE was founded 45 years ago with the mission to provide services and programs that would facilitate the independence of older adults in our community. Home and community-based services have been the cornerstone of our agency’s work and we know for a fact that it is more cost-effective for people to age-in-place than move to a nursing home. But our State’s fiscal crisis is causing us to cut a vital program and while we are committed to protecting our mission, we also have to be financially prudent.”
Governor Rauner today toured the Illinois Science and Technology Park and discussed changes to increase job growth and the importance of innovation and technology in Illinois economy.
“The Illinois Science and Technology Park is on the forefront of innovation to help grow Illinois. This facility allows for smaller companies to grow and flourish,” said Governor Rauner. “In order to move Illinois forward, we have to continue to invest in small businesses that our transforming our economy. We need to make structural changes to get our state back on track.”
As part of the tour, Governor Rauner met with employees and discussed the administration’s plan to create good-paying jobs and strengthen our schools. The administration has delivered unprecedented funding for grade schools and put more emphasis on apprenticeships to create a well-trained workforce. Currently, the administration is working to cut the red tape in state agencies and making it easier for people to do their jobs in a safe and efficient way.
The Illinois Science and Technology Park is a corporate research campus with multi-user wet-lab research and office space for life science and technology companies. Approximately 1,400 jobs are based in the park with 25 different companies including LanzaTech, Northshore University Health System and start-ups from Northwestern University.
Today, State Senator Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) announced that he will continue serving Central Illinois families as State Senator for the 48th District. Manar, who publicly explored the possibility of running for Governor, has recently been focused on overhauling the state’s school funding system and reaching a resolution to the budget impasse.
Senator Manar issues the following statement:
“Our state and our nation today face generational challenges. Illinois continues to operate without a budget, our economy continues to lag behind our neighboring states and the nation as a whole, and our schools continue to shortchange children in nearly all but the most well-off suburban Chicago districts.
“Our governor, two years into his term, has failed to grow into the leadership role we so desperately need, instead choosing to use his ample wealth and the position in which the people entrusted him to put partisan politics in their most foolish, destructive forms ahead of substantive negotiation and competent reforms.
“The legislature, to be sure, is not blameless. But absent even a hint of leadership from the governor, there is little direction, and even less progress.
“For the last several months, many have asked if I planned to challenge Governor Rauner.
“I will not be a candidate for governor in 2018.
“As a husband, a father of three young children, and as the State Senator of the 48th District, a long, expensive campaign for governor would be unfair, both to my family, and to the people who have elected me to help create jobs, get our state’s finances under control, and create a fair school funding formula, an issue for which I have a great deal of passion.
“I will continue to be a strong voice for the citizens of Central Illinois. The families I represent, and working families throughout the state bear no responsibility in the dysfunction of Springfield. And yet they bear nearly all of the burdens of a government that refuses to get its act together. It’s unjust. And it’s not who we are as Illinoisans or as Americans.
“I won’t stop fighting for you. And despite the seemingly impossible situation we find ourselves in, I truly believe in our people and I believe we can strengthen all of our schools, create broad economic opportunities, and restore the lost pride in this great state.
* Can you imagine if seven people had been shot dead in an eight-block radius by foreign terrorists? There would be a massive response from every level of government with huge media headlines and frantic updates. Everybody from the president and the FBI Director on down to US Senators, to congressmen, to the US Attorney, to the governor, to the mayor, to legislators, to the aldermen would’ve taken their turns in front of the microphones.
When the shooting stopped, two young men lay dead inside the South Shore restaurant Thursday afternoon, another was dead outside and a fourth was found dead around the corner, slumped against a tree.
Paramedics draped a sheet over the man outside the Nadia Fish and Chicken restaurant at 75th Street and Coles Avenue as his mother grieved. […]
Officers ran toward a commotion farther south and found the fourth victim behind an apartment building on Coles, slumped against a tree. It was the woman’s other son. […]
The shooting may have been part of an internal gang conflict involving the Black P Stones gang, in retaliation for the killing of a 37-year-old man in the 7900 block of South Phillips Avenue about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, police sources said.
* But, wait, that’s not all. Three more people were murdered in that same neighborhood, including a pregnant woman…
Seven people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in three separate shootings that happened within 12 hours of each other on Thursday in South Shore.
The attacks took place in an eight-block radius in the neighborhood, but Chicago Police have not said if they were related. No arrests had been made as of Friday morning.
It was supposed to be an easy glide to yet another term for the longtime mayor of this suburb of Chicago. But then Mayor Roger Claar helped throw a fund-raiser for Donald J. Trump and things got complicated. Here is the story of one village election on Tuesday that has become as much about Mr. Trump as the candidates on the ballot.
• The Race: Mayor Claar, 71, an old-school pol, is running for his ninth term, but Jackie Traynere, 54, a labor organizer, is mounting an ambitious challenge.
• Ms. Traynere was so mad about the fund-raising event last fall that she decided to run against Mr. Claar. The Democratic apparatus in Illinois — senators, members of Congress, you name it — is lining up behind her.
• Mayor Claar hasn’t answered our requests for an interview, so we’re hoping to catch up with him today.
Click here or here to follow Julie on her Bolingbrook tour today.
* Traynere has sent over a dozen mailers during the campaign. She’s raised over $130K, I’m told, mostly in small contributions.
Several of her mailers are about Claar’s support for Trump in a town which went overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton (click here for one example). Those mailers are designed, I’m told, to catch the interest of voters so that they can move on to other issues, particularly the town’s huge debt (click here for one example).
* CBS 2 interviewed University of Illinois at Springfield political science professor emeritus Kent Redfield about the impasse…
Redfield said a lot of knowledgeable people in Springfield believe Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic lawmakers won’t settle on a state budget before the next election in 2018.
“It’s very, very difficult to be both in campaign mode; and then be trying to put together the kind of negotiation, compromise, sharing of the pain, and extending the kind of trust that makes these bargains,” he said.
The state’s current backlog of $14 billion in unpaid bills could balloon to $28 billion by the time the next governor and Illinois General Assembly are sworn in in January 2019.
“A new governor in 2019, whoever that is, could be in the middle of a fiscal year that has no budget, but would be looking at $28 billion of unpaid bills,” he said.
The Democratic candidates need to start talking more about this other than just yelling at Gov. Rauner. Surely, they don’t want to inherit such a fiscal disaster. The tax hikes and cuts needed to extricate ourselves would be beyond punitive. And it’ll be even tougher to accomplish if Illinois bonds are downgraded to junk status by then.
* Meanwhile, the Northwest Municipal Conference sent a bulletin to its members today about Sen. Bill Brady’s new budget proposals…
Two of these bills are of particular concern to local governments. Senate Bill 2181 (Sen. Bill Brady) includes a 10% reduction in the LGDF beginning on July 1, 2017. Senate Bill 2178 (Sen. Bill Brady), creates the Budget Management and Control Act and grants the Governor extraordinary emergency powers to transfer funds and dictate cuts. The legislation does not make any specific cuts to state collected local government revenues; however, provides that the Governor could transfer up to $1 billion from “any funds held by the Treasurer” to the General Revenue Fund. Consequently, the bill could subject critical local revenues such as the LGDF, Sales Tax, Use Tax, the Personal Property Replacement Tax (PPRT) and others to reallocation.
The NWMC strongly believes that state should not look to solve its budget problems with local revenues. Such an action would merely shift the burden to local governments. If these revenues are lost, local leaders will be left with difficult choices: defer infrastructure investments; further reduce services upon which our residents and businesses rely; or, raise revenues (although multiple legislative proposals seek to eliminate this option, leaving severe cuts and service reductions as only ways to respond). These are completely unacceptable choices to impose on fiscally responsible communities.
Look, if people are gonna get haircuts, then everybody should take one.
The problem here, of course, is that Gov. Rauner wants to take state money away from local governments while simultaneously imposing a permanent, or at least 5-year property tax freeze. That’ll be difficult, to say the least, without radical reductions to employee rights, pay and benefits.
Gov. Bruce Rauner plans to sign an executive order on Friday to consolidate the Human Rights Commission into the state’s Department of Human Rights — a move his administration says will help to expedite discrimination complaints.
Rauner’s administration says there are more than 1,000 cases pending at the Human Rights Commission, which adjudicates complaints of civil rights violations based on protected classes in employment, real estate transactions, financial credit, public accommodations and education.
The average time after filing a charge of discrimination is more than four years, the administration says. And the backlog is being blamed on “inefficient communication and sharing resources” between the two entities.
“I think this will be better for people who have been discriminated against, and also better for employers so their liabilities aren’t growing,” said Jay Shattuck, executive director of the Employment Law Council. The council represents Illinois businesses on employment law topics. […]
While the two are meant to act as checks and balances to one another, the administration says the consolidation will not compromise the commission’s independent review of the cases.
Jay is a very pro-business type.
* JB Pritzker weighed in…
As former Chairman of Human Rights, I'll fight this. We need checks & balances & a strong civil rights court so workers can pursue justice. https://t.co/dhiE4IA3Ks
* Anyway, the ILGOP quickly fired back with some oppo…
@JBPritzker .@JBPritzker Says the person who bought that appointment w $120k to Blago. Rauner's plan is modeled after other states, improves the process
A political party claiming that money buys appointments. OK.
* Either way, Pritzker was appointed to the commission in 2003. According to the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website, Pritzker gave RRB $10K in 2002. The rest of his contributions came in 2005 and 2006. He left the commission in July of 2006.
* The end of the quarter is today, so that means a big push is on to raise campaign money before the contribution reporting period deadline. Here’s the Tribune…
Going into Friday, Pawar has reported $160,542 in contributions of $1,000 or more this year.
Another Democratic candidate, Chicago businessman Chris Kennedy, emailed supporters Thursday with a nod to the deadline.
“My campaign staff wanted me to send out one of those end-of-quarter emails to convince you of the urgency of the moment,” Kennedy said. “I told them, we should send out an email that treats people like adults, with respect, and recognizes that every American today understands the urgency of this moment.” […]
Rauner has raised $16,000 in large donations so far this year. But his re-election campaign fund started the year with $50.8 million — with $50 million coming from Rauner’s pocket in December.
Rauner was the guest of honor at a Thursday night fundraiser where tickets topped out at $40,000.
* Ald. Pawar poked a little fun at the governor’s fundraiser yesterday while simultaneously showing why so many Democrats are leery of the unknown, under-financed candidate…
For perspective,I have a fundraiser tonight w/ tix for $20.18. @GovRauner has a fundraiser tonight w/ $40k tix. https://t.co/liSlt3bVkc
We have an important fundraising deadline coming up tomorrow, and I need your help. Our message of fighting for those who need it most and putting people over politics is already gaining traction! The end of the quarter deadline will help us show that our efforts are funded by people like you, not by millionaires and corporations.
If you pitch in $15, $50, or $100 today, it will send a message to Governor Rauner and Trump’s Republican pals in Illinois that we are standing up against unbalanced budgets, attacks on working people, and their failed leadership.
* Chris Kennedy…
Illinoisans have lost faith in our political system. Instead of seeing government as a force for leveling the playing field and creating opportunity, they see the growing dominance of a small group of wealthy individuals who use government as a tool to grow their own personal wealth. They see a small group of wealthy friends seeking to protect what they have, even if they have to impoverish the rest of our citizens to do so.
The result is an agenda that destroys the American Dream by cutting off support for education, defunding programs that help the poor, decimating unions, opposing the minimum wage, and sabotaging our job-creating economic engines like community colleges and universities.
Already, our campaign has more contributors in 6 weeks than Rauner received during the entire first year of his first campaign for governor.
That’s because this campaign isn’t about me or Governor Rauner – it’s about you and the future we need to build for Illinois. This state has given me enormous opportunities. The kind of opportunities all citizens deserve.
Please contribute before today’s midnight reporting deadline to restore faith in our politics and rebuild our future.
I haven’t received anything from the Biss campaign in the past 24 hours or so. But maybe I’m not on that list.
…Adding… I’m not on the Biss list, so this was forwarded to me by a helpful reader…
Today’s the quarterly fundraising deadline — which may not be such a big deal if you’re a millionaire or billionaire who can fund your campaign with your own personal wealth, or with now-legally-unlimited contributions from all your wealthy friends.
On the other hand… if you’re a former math professor trying to build a movement of people to take back their state from money and the machine, today’s deadline turns out to be pretty important.
Daniel may not have millions of dollars in personal wealth, but he has you — this rapidly growing movement of people ready to build a new politics in Illinois. And today is our first real test.
Democrats and Republicans briefly put aside their differences Thursday to honor a longtime Springfield insider known for working across the aisle, saying his pragmatic approach should serve as inspiration to break the unprecedented budget impasse.
Stephen Schnorf spent 22 years in state government and held a variety of positions during his tenure, including budget director under former Republican Govs. Jim Edgar and George Ryan. Schnorf died last month of pancreatic cancer.
His memorial was held in an ornate committee room, a rare honor that drew a crowd of family, friends and colleagues, including Edgar and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan. As speakers reflected on their fond memories of Schnorf, some pointed to his ability to rise above partisan politics to solve problems. […]
Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, echoed Edgar’s sentiments, calling Schnorf “the soldier for the state of Illinois.”
“He was a doer, a thinker and also a strategist of how to make this great state work for all of us,” he said. “Not red, not blue – make our state work for us.”
If you missed it yesterday, the event can be seen by clicking here.
* Gov. Edgar recounted a long list of his administration’s achievements, attributing many of them to Schnorf. He also referenced a poll taken at the end of his tenure by the Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University which showed, he said, that “the public overwhelmingly thought that Illinois government was doing their job. The best numbers we ever received before or since. And, again, Steve deserves a lot of credit for that.”
I found a reference to that poll in Jim Nowlan’s book “Fixing Illinois: Politics and Policy in the Prairie State.” According to the book, the poll found that 51 percent of Illinoisans were satisfied with the state’s direction, compared to 10 percent who weren’t satisfied.
Imagine that. Half the people liked the direction of the state. Now, compare that to a poll taken earlier this month…
(W)ould you say that things in Illinois are going in the right direction, or have they pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?
12% RIGHT DIRECTION
82% WRONG TRACK
4% NO OPINION (DO NOT READ)
2% REFUSED (DO NOT READ)
You win elections so you have power, so you can get things done, you can solve problems, you can help people.
Now, nobody was more partisan in an election up to election day than Steve. But the day after the election, he’d put the partisanship aside and was willing to reach out and was willing to work with the other side to find solutions to the problems.
You know, people today forget that state government used to work in Illinois. Back in the 1990s it worked pretty well. It wasn’t perfect, we had our partisan battles, we didn’t get everything right. But at the end of the day, we came together in a bipartisan manner, in a timely manner and solved the problems and the state moved on.
And a major reason for that was Steve. […]
Our unemployment rate in the last half of the 90s was below the national average. That’s something that has never happened before in Illinois history and it hasn’t happened since. […]
We left a billion and a half dollar surplus when we left in ‘99. As budget director, Steve had a lot to do with that.
…(I)n the early years we had to lay off thousands of people because the state was basically bankrupt. Steve had to administer that through CMS. But the whole time, through all those difficult situations, we had a very civil relationship with the state employees’ union. Again, I give Steve a lot of credit for that.
Success will only occur when hundreds of people, both elected and appointed, both Republicans and Democrats, both executive branch and legislative branch do their job - working together, setting aside personal agendas and solving problems.
Nobody in Illinois state government, nobody did his job better than my friend Steve Schnorf.
Southern Illinois University President Randy Dunn on Wednesday issued a difficult directive to the Carbondale campus to identify $30 million in potential cuts to address a structural deficit caused by a double whammy of declining enrollment and the “governmental abomination” playing out in Springfield.
The arduous undertaking has been underway for months, but Dunn, in a letter to the campus community, put a hard number to the immediate call for cuts: $30 million in cost reductions to be identified by July 1, on top of the $21 million in cuts the university previously identified.
Dunn also is planning to recommend that SIU Board of Trustees members declare a short-term financial emergency for the Carbondale campus. Dunn said that would signify that the Carbondale campus is operating in deficit mode — it will potentially dip into the red next month — and serve as a warning system to indicate that an even more serious situation could be on the horizon without corrective action. […]
“There’s no way you can cut $30 million dollars out of a human capital enterprise and not have it affect personnel,” Dunn said, in an interview. “There’s no way to do it otherwise.”
Colwell echoed that sentiment in his letter. The “challenging and painful” reductions “will almost certainly include layoffs,” according to Colwell.
That’s a 15.9 percent cut for Carbondale, by the way.
- the state budget impasse
- declining enrollment
- the fact that the Carbondale campus has already tapped out about $80 million in reserves the school must now pay back.
…Dunn went on to say that if the university is in this mess six months from now, then its the fault of the state.
Their enrollment problems are at the heart of this situation. The impasse ain’t helping, however. There is zero certainty in higher ed right now. If I was a parent with a college-bound student, I think I’d be reluctant to recommend an Illinois school.
In his email column, “The System Connection,” Dunn said he is proposing a short-term financial emergency for the university. Dunn said Carbondale will be asking for a loan of unrestricted funds from the Edwardsville campus.
“I fully understand there may be keen frustration — if not anger — at the fact that earlier cost-cutting efforts and strong enrollments at Edwardsville are being rewarded with that financial strength achieved now benefiting another campus … one which has shied away from making some difficult decisions over the past many years,” Dunn said in the column.
In Chancellor Randy Pembrook’s response to the announcement, he said he understands the potential frustration from the Edwardsville campus.
“At this point in time, we have an important role to play as part of the SIU System. Our campus’ financial strength will be critical to the system as we wait for a budget resolution from Springfield,” Pembrook said.
The $2.2 million in additional cuts that are being considered for Southern Illinois University School of Medicine related to the ongoing state budget crisis could lead to an undetermined number of layoffs, the medical school’s dean says.
“We’re really going to try to avoid anything massive,” dean and provost Dr. Jerry Kruse said Thursday. […]
Pay for SIU faculty doctors has been cut 5 percent, many positions vacated through attrition haven’t been filed, and several departments have been restructured to become more efficient, he said. […]
At least five to eight SIU surgeons have resigned over the past 20 months because of the budget uncertainty, he said.
The SJ-R also reports that a lot of new medical school graduates are choosing to leave Illinois for residencies in other states. Just 21 percent of graduating students signed up for Illinois residencies this year, compared to previous averages of between 38-45 percent.
Governor Bruce Rauner today announced that Department of Labor Director Hugo Chaviano will be transitioning out of state government.
Governor Rauner has designated Anna Hui as the Acting Director of the Department of Labor. Hui is the current Assistant Director of the Department of Labor. Hui’s experience at the state and U.S. Department of Labor make her an excellent choice to lead the department.
Gov. Eric Greitens has tapped Anna Hui, acting director of the Illinois Department of Labor, to head Missouri’s labor department.
Calling her a “fearless change agent” in an announcement Thursday, Greitens also said Hui’s appointment marks the first time in Missouri history that an Asian-American has served in a governor’s cabinet.
“We are honored to have her join us to shake up Jefferson City and bring some much needed reforms to the Missouri Department of Labor,” Greitens said in a statement. […]
Hui also served under two other Republican governors in Illinois – as special assistant to the governor for Asian-American affairs under Gov. Jim Edgar, and as a senior member of Gov. George Ryan’s Washington, D.C. policy team.
Organized labor was gearing up for a state Senate confirmation battle against Hui, which may have played into this.
Gov. Bruce Rauner is moving ahead with plans to make the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum a separate state agency.
Rauner will issue an executive order Friday making the ALPLM a standalone facility, an idea first floated three years ago by House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.
Rauner’s order will also place the remaining functions of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency under the Department of Natural Resources. […]
The administration says the new management structure should save $3.2 million annually, even though the ALPLM will need to add eight positions to cover support operations that it did not have to handle before.
The Rauner Administration released the following statement regarding the Auditor General’s release of the Statewide Single Audit report. The state’s lack of a centralized financial system has caused years of repeated audit findings, which can be resolved by fully implementing ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning. The following is attributable to Rauner spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis:
“The audit finding in the report perfectly illustrates why Illinois needs to modernize our antiquated technology systems. We continue to be baffled by Comptroller Mendoza’s decision to halt payments on technology upgrades that will bring more financial transparency and accountability to the State of Illinois. Making these upgrades will allow the Governor’s Office and every executive branch agency the ability to quickly prepare and complete accurate financial records that the people of the state deserve.”
* The Illinois Republican Party got itself involved in some Schaumburg Township trustee races and is using a familiar storyline…
I’ve heard of sins of the father, but not sins of the son.
* Dan Murray is the father of my former intern Mike Murray. Mike helped run former Sen. Dan Kotowski’s campaign in 2012 and was Rep. Fred Crespo’s campaign manager in 2016. Crespo won with 63 percent, so it’s not like this was some hugely targeted race. I barely remembered Mike was working there because I don’t think I ever actually reported on that no-contest race.
But, hey, “Madigan” is one of our state’s favorite pejoratives these days.
Also, Zuhair Nubani is an attorney. Never met the guy, don’t know him. But some background on that particular ILGOP claim is here and here.
…Adding… From Zuhair Nubani…
In my 25 years as a practicing attorney I have represented many clients across a wide spectrum of races, religions and creeds. Unlike my opponents I believe everyone in the United States has a fundamental right to legal counsel regardless of their race, religion or political belief. Bigotry and fear mongering has no place in our society
SPOTTED: Mendoza’s “LOADED” Taxpayer Funded SUV
Mendoza Used Taxpayer Dollars to Buy $32,000 SUV With Heated Leather Seats, Navigation, Power Trunk
Last month, Comptroller Susana Mendoza drew heat for using taxpayer dollars just weeks into office to buy herself a $32,000 luxury featured SUV, sending her staff with a check to pay for the car in full.
Listing records reveal that Madigan’s comptroller spent taxpayer dollars to get herself a “LOADED” SUV with heated leather seats, navigation, and a power liftgate - luxury features paid for by you, the taxpayer.
New footage shows just how fancy Mendoza’s taxpayer purchase is.
Way to creepily stalk me. On the taxpayer's $$?? Next time have the courtesy to say hi & not run away in your getaway car. #stalker#twillhttps://t.co/1YKjVxZGna
@susanamendoza10 No taxpayer $ was used to expose your luxury purchase. Time to apologize for spending $32k on an SUV and cutting politicians an $8M check.
The Illinois Senate is telling Gov. Bruce Rauner it doesn’t want prison nurse jobs filled by private contractors.
Plainview Republican Sen. Sam McCann’s measure won approval Wednesday 40-15. It would prohibit the Department of Corrections from eliminating jobs of any state employees who provide prison health care services.
Republican Rauner’s administration announced last week it intended to dismiss 124 union nurses and privatize their positions this summer.
The Senate voted 40-15 on Senate Bill 19, whose chief sponsor is Sen. Sam McCann, R-Plainview. […]
“We have to really think about what’s best for our districts, what’s best for the state, what’s best for these facilities, what’s best for the safety within the facilities,” he said, citing a 400-page study by the federal government that showed serious understaffing by Wexford. There have also been multiple lawsuits filed by inmates alleging inadequate care by Wexford.
“Wexford’s busy counting their money in Pennsylvania. I’m trying to keep Illinoisans working,” McCann said.
Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, said that Wexford has offered to hire at least some of the laid-off nurses. […]
A similar bill passed the General Assembly last year, but was vetoed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. The bill died when the House failed to override the veto.
Governor Bruce Rauner says his plan would save 8 million dollars per year. Private companies, in his view, can do the same work for cheaper. However, Democrats say that’s because private companies don’t pay their workers well. Four Republican senators, including Sam McCann from Plainview, agreed.
“Why can’t we be for working people?” he said. “Why would we let these nurses go, then hire them back the next day…for less.”
The Rauner administration says Illinois has been outsourcing other prison health services for 25 years.
* Related…
* Menard prison nurse hopes to keep job after layoff notice: For 11 years, Tara Chadderton has worked a graveyard shift at Menard Correctional Center. This past week, she received a layoff notice from the state. This prison nurse refuses to go quietly into the night. Employment in a maximum security prison is not for everyone, but Chadderton said she has found it to be a good fit for her. It takes a certain amount of mental toughness, as there are occasions when she and the other nurses are harassed by the inmates while they make the rounds delivering medication. They have been spit on, and had excrement thrown at them. She said some nights are worse than others.
* Layoffs looming as nurses worry about prison care: She said it is important nurses stand their ground sometimes to get their patients the care that is needed. “These people are somebody’s brother, somebody’s loved one. They’re people, too,” she said. “It’s not my job to judge. We’re hired to take care of them.”
An audit of Chicago State University by the state’s auditor general released on Wednesday found that the embattled university improperly reported more than $51 million in federal awards.
According to the report by the state’s Auditor General Frank Mautino, the university did not properly prepare expenditure reports, as federal law requires, for federal awards amounting to $51,731,277 for two loan programs from the Department of Education.
Two awards from the Department of Health and Human Services related to a program for providing education and training to eligible individuals for health-care related professions were also improperly classified, the report said.
The university is required to identify in its accounts all federal awards received and expended, and the federal programs under which they are received, the report said.
The university responded that it agreed with the recommendation but said that it had properly reported the loan amounts within the “footnotes” of their report.
* The Decatur Herald & Review interviewed some local legislators after the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute released a poll showing 66 percent of Illinoisans support legalizing marijuana…
State Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth, described himself as “old-fashioned” with his opposition to legalization, feeling it acts as a gateway drug to harder, illegal substances.
“I think it raises more problems than it could possibly answer,” he said. “With legalization, I don’t agree with it at all.”
However, Mitchell did say he would be open to some decriminalization in relation to marijuana.
State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, expressed similar sentiments about marijuana being a gateway drug, saying that legalization would increase the rate of homelessness and poverty as well as put a financial strain on social services who help people with addiction.
“You’re going to have ill effects with legalization, especially if Illinois is the only Midwestern state to do this,” Righter said.
State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said in an unrelated conference call Monday morning that he has not yet taken a stance on the matter, focusing most of his attention on school funding and a “grand bargain” budget bill. He did say he hopes the proposed plan starts a dialogue among lawmakers about legalization and that more information comes out in the coming months during hearings.
Hey, if we do become the only Midwestern state to legalize weed, the tourism potential would be pretty darned strong.
And why would legalized marijuana increase homelessness? There are plenty of homeless alcoholics, so should we ban their hugely addictive substance? Also, plenty of highly productive folks use marijuana. That argument is a total red herring. And a gateway drug? Dude, the 1980s called, it want its propaganda back. Also, you might as well ban beer, because it’s often a “gateway drug” to whiskey.
I mean, heck, even the curmudgeons at the Champaign News-Gazette grudgingly admitted this week that times have changed…
But it seems obvious that more and more people expect less bad to result from law enforcement’s expansive and hugely expensive efforts to reduce consumption of a product in wide demand.
…Adding… As mentioned in comments, there are some very real gateway drugs that lead to the abuse of some truly dangerous substances, so maybe focus on those?…
The so-called “Heroin Highway” from Chicago to Kane County is thriving, Kane County Sheriff’s Department officials said in Aurora.
“We are getting killed by heroin,” Kane County Sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Feiza said at a forum in Aurora, calling the current situation a crisis.
Dealers from primarily Chicago’s West Side are bringing heroin into the Aurora area with a higher potency than before, which is causing more overdose deaths throughout the county, he said. […]
Thefts, burglaries and other crimes are up in Kane County and 99 percent of the time the crimes are associated with addiction, [Kane County Sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Feiza] said.
He estimates 95 percent of heroin addicts he’s dealt with started using prescription drugs first. Prescription drugs often are more expensive - one pill can cost between $70 and $80, he said. Heroin becomes a cheaper alternative, Feiza said. A bag of heroin costs $10 or $15 for the same kind of high, he said.
Private insurance claims related to opioid abuse and dependence diagnoses increased 329 percent in Illinois between 2007 and 2014, according to data from Fair Health, a New York-based nonprofit that seeks to increase transparency in health care costs.
In Chicago alone, such claims increased 382 percent over the seven-year period.
Robin Gelburd, president of Fair Health—which analyzed more than 23 billion claims from more than 150 million privately insured Americans—says that while Chicago’s claims increased at a greater rate than the state’s, the city’s proportion of opioid claims remains smaller than that of the rest of Illinois, based on population.
Citing U.S. Census data from last year, she says Chicago represents 21 percent of Illinois’ overall population but only 14 percent of opioid-related diagnoses.
* Will there be problems with legalization? Of course there will be. But this failed national war on pot is hurting far more lives than the actual use of the product.
Also, Sen. Manar, way to stick your neck out, bud.
I support the legalization of marijuana if the goals of the legislation are to take power away from gangs and reduce drug-related violence. The impact of the legislation should be to divert resources from arresting and prosecuting low-level, non-violent offenders to focus on those who seek to harm others. Our communities have been under siege for too long for this to be passed without support from community leaders and law enforcement officials. This isn’t just a criminal justice issue, it’s a public health issue, and we must commit the proper resources to address these issues responsibly.
Chicago Treasurer Kurt Summers is continuing his flirtation with a run for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2018, sending an email to supporters explaining why he’s weighing a bid and alerting them to an upcoming fundraiser.
In the Wednesday night email, titled “New Leadership in Illinois,” Summers says he’s been meeting with community leaders, union workers, business owners and others about a possible run and concluded that “Illinois needs someone who will fix our budget deficit, create jobs, improve education and fight for working people day-in and day-out.”
The next time Gov. BRUCE RAUNER could face a Democrat on the ballot is 19 months away — in November 2018.
But it’s just nine weeks until the scheduled May 31 end of the spring legislative session, when, in a normal year, it might be about the time a budget gets approved.
Of course the state hasn’t had a real budget in place since June 2015, so there is no normal.
Into that mix there is now added at least $1 million in ads featuring Republican Rauner — some with him saying, “The politicians that got us into this mess” want as a solution “higher taxes, more spending, no real reforms.” […]
JON THOMPSON, communications director for the Republican Governors Association, said the Rauner ad is paid for by State Solutions, a 501(c)4 affiliate of the RGA. He said the ad buy is seven figures and nearly statewide, including the Chicago and Springfield markets. The ads are also on digital platforms across the state.
The State of Illinois’ (Baa2 negative) credit rating is vulnerable to further downgrades as “grand bargain” talks to resolve an almost two-year budget impasses have broken down, and intensifying liquidity pressures have tripled the state’s chronic backlog of unpaid bills to a record $13 billion, Moody’s Investors Service says in a new report.
“Illinois is at a critical juncture and its leaders must choose between further credit deterioration and drift without compromise, or the potential for stabilization. With a budget consensus, Illinois could quickly secure its financial position,” said Ted Hampton, a Moody’s Vice President – Senior Credit Officer.
The report, “Illinois (State of): Record Bill Backlog Signals Critical Juncture for State’s Leaders,” notes Illinois is the lowest-rated state and is seven notches lower than the median Aa1 state rating. Illinois’ credit weakness incorporates very large unfunded pension liabilities, the two-year political standoff, and its long-running reliance on payment deferral to manage operating budget imbalances.
The state’s bill backlog reached a record $13 billion on March 20, according to the state comptroller, and if no agreement is reached it could approach $28 billion by the end of FY 2019. The lack of an agreement to raise revenue, which is at the center of the state’s fiscal impasse, means that Illinois taxes and other revenues are insufficient to cover its operations.
Failure to reach a consensus before the current legislative session adjourns on May 31 would signal political paralysis, leaving Illinois on a path toward unsustainable fiscal challenges that will heighten the risk of creditor-adverse actions. These could include borrowing from debt service funds, depleting available non-operating cash, or prioritizing core operating needs over debt service.
While the state’s growing liquidity pressures have not yet impacted its ability to pay bondholder debt, the state’s chronic underfunding and payment deferral is running into political and legal limits, notably at the state’s public universities, where Illinois has appropriated $1.5 billion less than it normally would have.
While Illinois’ current fiscal year operating deficit is $5.7 billion, the state could quickly begin stabilizing its finances once budget balancing measures have been reached. Liquidity would be promptly restored because Illinois’ financial pressures have been driven by gridlock, rather than economic conditions beyond the government’s control.
And while the “Grand Bargain” appears to be stalled in the legislature, Moody’s believes the revenue measures in the deal, combined with spending restraints that keep payment deferrals from recurring, could improve Illinois’ financial prospects.
* I have a ton of personal errands to run this afternoon, so blogging could be light. Talk amongst yourselves, but try to keep it Illinois-centric and be nice to each other. Thanks!
Wednesday, Mar 29, 2017 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Last year, the City of Philadelphia passed a beverage tax similar to a tax plan introduced in the Illinois General Assembly this year. The negative effects of the tax have been devastating for employees and the economy. Layoffs, cuts in employee hours, depressed revenue and massive price increase have consumers and small businesses outraged.
Illinois lawmakers should reject new beverage taxes and protect hard-working men and women, small businesses and family budgets. Philadelphia sales are off by up to 50% as people have fled to the suburbs to do their shopping and escape the tax. That not only hurts restaurants and grocery stores, it dramatically increases prices for families.
If similar sales declines as those seen in Philadelphia occur here in Illinois, it could mean more than 19,000 lost Illinois jobs, $875 million in lost wages and nearly $1.6 billion in lost economic activity. Oppose the beverage tax – learn more at www.NoILBeverageTax.com.
* Earlier today, some Democratic legislators announced a new set of policies that they hope their party and voters will support. From their new website…
Priority Legislation: SJRCA 1 — Amends the Illinois Constitution to allow us to tax billionaires at a higher rate than janitors.
Principles
* Big corporations shouldn’t get huge tax breaks from the state that aren’t available to small businesses
* Stock market income shouldn’t be taxed at a vastly lower rate than income from working a job
* The highest earners should pay more than working people and the poor to stabilize our budget
* We should expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to support low-income working families
Emphasis added because I thought stock market income was taxed in Illinois like all income.
* So, I asked for clarification…
Yes, but it’s taxed at a vastly lower rate at the federal government, so we propose raising the rate in Illinois somewhat to bring it closer to parity.
* The Question: Do you support raising the state’s personal income tax rate on investment income? Click here to take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
Illinois requires less accountability be a gun dealer than a dog groomer, Senator Don Harmon said Tuesday while defending a commonsense proposal to license gun dealers at the state level in an effort to curb Chicago violence.
Harmon’s Senate Bill 1657 would allow Illinois to license gun dealers and encourage better business practices while holding corrupt dealers accountable as authorities try to get a handle on the violence epidemic that continues to plague Chicago neighborhoods. Gun dealers also must be licensed by federal authorities.
The proposal passed out of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee Tuesday in a 7-5 vote after a great deal of debate about whose responsibility it is to monitor gun dealers and find solutions to gun violence.
“Gun violence in Chicago is a huge problem. For people to sit around in the Capitol and say, ‘Let someone else take care of it and enforce the laws on the books,’ is incredibly frustrating,” said Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat. “Twenty-six other states license gun dealers. This is not breaking new ground. It’s a modest proposal. It’s harder to be a dog groomer or a hair stylist in Illinois.”
Senate Bill 1657 would establish two types of licenses: dealer and dealership. A dealer would be any person engaged in the business of selling, leasing or otherwise transferring firearms; a dealership would be a person, firm, corporation or other legal entity that does the same.
Applicants for each license would have to meet a series of requirements before receiving a state license. Violating the terms of the license can resulting in penalties.
The legislation also would establish a gun dealer licensing board to recommend policies, procedures and rules under the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which would license gun dealers.
“I want to be clear: There is no evidence that the gun violence problem is being caused by law-abiding gun owners. We need to focus on the real problem, which is illegal guns getting into the wrong hands,” Harmon said. “Somewhere between a gun manufacturer and a crime scene is a person who is pretending to be a law-abiding gun owner but is not. That is the problem this legislation seeks to address.
“Senate Bill 1657 does nothing more than impose industry standards for best practices that should be observed by every gun dealer already but unfortunately aren’t.”
A recent study showed that 40 percent of guns used in crimes between 2009 and 2014 came from Illinois and that nearly 17 percent – or roughly 3,000 – of all guns used in crimes in Chicago were sold by just three of the Illinois’ more than 2,400 gun dealers. All three are near Chicago.
Two state senators are co-sponsoring legislation they say would stop Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration from outsourcing additional medical and mental health service jobs from state prisons.
This past week, 124 nurses employed at 10 state prisons learned that they were being laid off and their jobs privatized. In Southern Illinois, that includes 13 nurses employed at Menard Correctional Center, and 13 at Vienna Correctional Center.
They were notified by Illinois Department of Corrections that their jobs will end on June 15.
* Press release…
The Lincoln Land Chapter of ABATE of Illinois has several concerns with HB2747, the Safe Autonomous Vehicles Act being considered in the Illinois House of Representatives today.
The bill as proposed does not have any requirements for independent testing of the systems used by autonomous vehicles to detect and avoid other vehicles. It also does not address different vehicle sizes, such as motorcycles, and testing of the systems to detect those as well.
Recently, there have been several incidents with Uber’s fleet of autonomous Volvos operating in the Bay area and in Arizona. Uber was caught operating without proper permits in San Francisco after footage of their autonomous vehicle running a red light was posted online. An eyewitness account states that the vehicle was in auto driving mode and took off across the intersection after initially stopping at the red. It is believed fog was a factor in the incident. Uber vehicles have also been spotted weaving across bicycle lanes, endangering those riders. In Arizona, an Uber autonomous vehicle was unable to avoid collision with a wayward driver. Even though the other vehicle was at fault, Uber grounded their fleet. This raises questions about the autonomous vehicle’s ability to account for abnormal traffic situations.
A 2013 NHTSA study shows that 51% of fatal motorcycle crashes involved collisions with motor vehicles, and 74% of collisions are front end collisions. Too often motor vehicles pull into the path or turn in front of motorcyclists often with fatal consequences. This is the cause of the “Look twice, save a life” campaign for motorcycle awareness throughout Illinois.
Uber’s current fleet meets the requirements of HB2747 as written. Given the documented incidents that have already occured with these vehicles, and the safety risk posed by faulty detection systems to motorcycles, ABATE insists that these vehicles be able to detect motorcycles from all directions, in traffic situations, and at various speeds before being allowed on Illinois roadways. We further insist on requiring independent testing to verify that these systems are able to meet these requirements. Additionally, ABATE would like to see the operator and owner of the vehicle liable for any traffic incidents that occur while the vehicle is in autonomous mode.
As pork producers exploit weak laws to build and expand large hog confinements across rural Illinois, neighboring farmers have complained their rights are being trampled while waste spills poison local streams and sickening gases ruin families’ lives and property values.
But after years of frustration and legislative inaction, lawmakers on Tuesday announced four new bills that would tighten Illinois’ lax environmental protections and give local citizens more input in the permitting process, as well as standing to challenge the massive facilities in court.
The bills, proposed in response to the Tribune’s August investigation, “The Price of Pork,” would represent the first significant reforms to Illinois’ 1996 Livestock Management Facilities Act, which has been criticized for failing to keep pace with the dramatic growth of swine confinements. Holding thousands of pigs and sometimes producing millions of gallons of manure annually, the operations now account for more than 90 percent of Illinois’ $1.5 billion in annual hog sales.
* According to this SJ-R story, coal industry employment in Illinois last year was 3,600. Natural gas is a big price competitor, of course, and the coal industry has greatly enhanced its productivity, so employment will never recover its losses since 1990, when the industry employed 10,000 people here…
Even if coal sales improve, mining techniques require ever fewer miners for increased production. The 3,600 miners required to produce 43.3 million tons of Illinois coal in 2016 was approximately the same number required to produce 33.4 million tons in 2010, according to coal association figures.
Meanwhile, according to the article, Illinois had 3,700 jobs in the solar industry alone last year, up 7 percent from the year before. And then there’s all those wind power jobs.
President Donald Trump campaigned on putting coal miners back to work, and on Tuesday, he gave the impression he was delivering. But he wasn’t.
Trump rolled back Obama administration regulations considered detrimental to the industry. But the president’s actions will bring minimal benefit to the coal-producing regions that helped him win the White House, according to the government’s own projections.
At best, according to government data, coal production will increase by about 5 million tons a year by 2040 out of 800 million tons overall under Trump’s order.
Not all coal-producing regions will see an increase. Western and Appalachian coal are still forecast to decline. Only Illinois Basin coal will increase over time.
That’s a mere 0.6 percent production gain over 23 years - at best - although Illinois will apparently do slightly better.
* As another article points out, it’ll now be easier to open mines, but the industry still faces serious market challenges.
According to the US Census Bureau, there are 9.02 million eligible voters in the state of Illinois. As of the November 2016 election, 8.14 million of those are active, registered voters with the state.
According to the Illinois State Board of Elections, a registered voter is reported as “active” by the voter’s local election jurisdiction if they have registered or voted within the past 2-4 Presidential Election cycles, or if they confirmed their registration address within a short time after that period. This means that 90% of eligible voters in Illinois are registered and active in the state. […]
The largest group of new registrations (30%) came from 18-24 year-olds. These new registrations make up 2.8% of all active, registered voters in Illinois. Additionally, 53% of new registrations were made by women, roughly matching the 52% of eligible voters in Illinois who are female.
Turnout of Newly Registered Voters
Of the 762,546 people who registered to vote between the Primary and General Election, 73% (559,019) actually turned out to vote in the election. Below is a breakdown of voter turnout:
75% of women who registered in this period voted in the election
71% of men who registered in this period voted in the election
The highest turnout among new registrants was among voters aged 55-64, with 79% voting
The lowest turnout among new registrants was among voters aged 18-24, with 66% voting
These numbers include the voters who registered at their polling places on Election Day. About 80,000 of the over 5.6 million voters in the General Election registered same-day. This equates to:
1.4% of all Illinois voters in the 2016 election
11% of all new registrations between the 2016 Primary and General Election
About 5.3 million total voters turned out for the 2012 election in Illinois, and 5.5 million voted in 2008.
Conclusion
Overall, new registrations account for 9% of the total active, registered voters in Illinois. This large increase in voter registration has led to the highest number of registered voters Illinois has ever seen.
Senate leaders this week are hoping to revive their sweeping budget proposal, which has stalled after the governor weighed in on the plan.
The latest talks center on a potential tax hike, with negotiators saying Rauner is pushing to make any income tax increase temporary. They say his office wants that hike to be limited to five years and paired with a five-year property tax freeze.
Some Democrats are worried about a temporary hike, saying it would create a funding “cliff” in the future (that’s what happened when the 2011 temporary income tax hike expired in 2015). They also are concerned about extending a property tax freeze for that long. They instead want a two-year freeze that would allow local voters to say if they want to extend it for three more years. […]
Senate lawmakers plan to meet behind closed doors Wednesday, when they are likely to decide whether to move ahead with another round of voting on the plan, which is being negotiated by Senate President John Cullerton and Republican leader Christine Radogno.
Senator Bill Brady, (R)-Bloomington, has introduced 7 budget bills he says will create the first balanced budget the state has seen in years.
The Bloomington Republican announced his package of bills Tuesday afternoon, which he says contain $5 billion in cuts. “Cuts are never easy, and I don’t anticipate the cuts outlined in this budget will be well received by everybody, but given the situation that our state is operating at a court ordered spending plan, with billions of dollars of deficit spending it’s time to fix Illinois fiscal crisis.” he said.
Senator Brady says his proposal provides for selling revenue bonds totaling $6 billion to reduce the state’s backlog of unpaid bills and save the state millions of dollars in interest costs.
“The state’s unpaid bills now total almost $13 billion, or $1,000 for every man, woman and child in the state. If we do nothing, our unpaid bills, what we owe to medical providers, social service agencies and other vendors, will grow to move than $20 billion over the next two years. That’s not the message Illinois out to be sending to the world, and it’s not the kind of system we should ask Illinoisans to accept.” he said.
Senator Brady says this budget package is not being proposed as a replacement for the Grand Bargain, rather a supplement to it. “I have always said that a balanced budget must be an integral part of the grand compromise that the Senate has worked on. While I appreciate the hard work and progress that has gone into some of these proposals, nobody has been talking about a budget. What I’m proposing is a balanced budget that takes into account the new revenues from that compromise but also includes more than $5 billion in general revenue fund spending cuts, adjustments and cost savings, including 5 percent across-the-board cuts for most of state government outside elementary and secondary education.”
“Now that I’ve read it, what I see is that there’s a significant departure from our agreement,” he says. “There’s a lengthy list of things that do not reflect our agreement. Some of those are things we discussed and I thought we had an agreement on, but the amendment doesn’t reflect that. Others are concepts that were never discussed that are being introduced now in this amendment.” […]
But after actually reading Manar’s plan, Barickman asked for lots of big changes. Manar points out that Senate Republicans have never filed a school funding reform bill, and suggests it’s time for them to do so. If they do, Manar says, “I guarantee I will have it heard in the Senate education committee.”
That bill is an integral part of the grand bargain. No SB1, no grand bargain.
…Adding… Barickman did sponsor an education funding reform bill and Manar was a co-sponsor. So it has been done before. Click here.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Yep. Subscribers know more…
About that effort to revive Senate grand bargain this week, told it ain't happening. GOP and Dem rank and file seem to be going own way.
A notice of intent to appeal was filed Tuesday in the Legislator Pay case. Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office filed the notice on behalf of Comptroller Susana A. Mendoza with the First District Appellate Court in Chicago.
Comptroller Mendoza believes there is a sound policy reason, given the absence of a balanced state budget, to prioritize payments to the state’s most vulnerable – hospice care; child care; meals on wheels for seniors – ahead of paychecks for elected officials.
They should appeal this case, if for no other reason than we ought to know once and for all if the executive branch has the constitutional authority to starve out legislators.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Press release…
Deputy Governor Leslie Munger released the following statement on Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s decision to appeal the judge’s ruling on lawmaker pay.
“We appreciate that Comptroller Mendoza will appeal the Court’s ruling, but frankly, it’s too little too late. Before the ink was dry on the judge’s order, she expedited payments for all eight months of lawmaker back pay costing taxpayers more than $8 million and causing more delays for human service organizations. She had the chance to ask the Court to keep politicians, including herself, from being prioritized for payment from the state but she declined. It’s clear that Comptroller Mendoza’s priorities are to help herself and her friends in the legislature at the expense of those most in need.”
Deputy Governor Munger will be available for interviews. Please contact Eleni Demertzis for availability.
And, yes, I put that response on the wrong post earlier. Weird day.
* Related…
* Mendoza, Munger and Rauner locked in endless campaign: It’s been nearly five months since Democrat Susana Mendoza defeated the governor’s hand-picked candidate Leslie Munger in the state comptroller’s race – but it’s almost as if the campaign never ended. Mendoza again lashed out Tuesday at Gov. Bruce Rauner, criticizing his “inability” to propose a budget, while dubbing him “the worst governor that’s ever served this state.” In response, Munger, whom Rauner appointed deputy governor with a $138,00 salary after her defeat, urged her former competitor to look in the “mirror,” instead of point fingers over who’s to blame for the “sorry condition of our state.”
A group of House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday are scheduled to unveil what they’re calling the “Illinois comeback agenda,” a five-point plan to try to counter Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s “turnaround agenda.”
Rauner has made parts of his economic plan prerequisites for a full budget deal, which hasn’t yet been struck during his first term. While the governor’s plan has continued to morph, key pillars include a property tax freeze, changes to the state’s workers’ compensation system and term limits on elected officials.
Details of the Democratic plan were still being worked out Tuesday. Details of the Democratic plan were still being worked out Tuesday but could include five legislative measures dealing with the budget, campaign finance, criminal justice, education funding and health, said Ryan Keith, an adviser helping to organize the announcement. The group also will unveil a new nonprofit called Reimagine Illinois to help push the proposals.
The effort comes as some rank-and-file Democrats grow increasingly frustrated by what they view as a lack of a strategy to fight back against Rauner. They want to present ideas to counter accusations that they are simply acting as obstructionists. [Emphasis added.]
Big presser today and yet they admit they hadn’t worked out the issues by the day before. Yep. They’re experts at that messaging stuff, those Dems.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From the ILGOP…
The Illinois Republican Party issued the following statement regarding the Chicago Tribune’s report this morning that Democrats will announce a new legislative agenda focused on campaign finance, criminal justice, education funding, health care and the budget.
“While it’s nice to see Democrats join the Governor on criminal justice reform and improving schools, it’s alarming that their agenda appears to include nothing to lower property taxes or increase jobs throughout the state. And any effort to fix the political system that doesn’t include term limits or redistricting reform isn’t a serious one. Illinoisans want a balanced budget with real spending caps, a true property tax freeze, and economic reforms to grow jobs. Democrats should add these key items to their agenda if they are serious about improving Illinois.” - Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
Quad-City Times: “Mendoza ditched campaign pledge”
She’s revealed herself to be “just another pawn of the Democratic machine”
From the Quad-City Times Editorial Board:
Like a good Illinois Democrat, state Comptroller Susana Mendoza rolled over.
Mendoza had two choices last week after a court ordered her to pay state lawmakers when no budget exists: Appeal or cave. She chose the latter.
Mendoza immediately started issuing lawmakers’ paychecks following a ruling in Cook County ordering the release of lawmakers’ paychecks. Mendoza didn’t come up with the idea to withhold paychecks for the very people responsible for Illinois’ two-year fiscal dumpster fire. Her GOP predecessor, Leslie Munger, died on that hill.
Mendoza’s lack of action so far suggests she’s just another slave to Madigan’s Chicago Democrats.
Appeal the decision, Ms. Mendoza. Anything less will verify our suspicions.
Whew.
…Adding… Newspaper editorial boards are committees of people who make their living writing. So, every word matters in editorials because those words are published with an explicit intent to persuade an audience. And I gotta say, the use of the word “slave” in this context is repellent.
This isn’t some random person calling into a radio station talk show, or a nasty person on Twitter. These words were written by professionals and presumably approved by the entire board.
Also, if she’s “just another slave,” who are the others? Does that include black legislators, too?
* We already know where Gov. Rauner stands on legalizing marijuana. He doesn’t like the idea. At all.
But I wanted to know where the Democratic candidates stood on the issue, so I reached out to the campaigns yesterday.
* Ameya Pawar has already made it clear (click here) that he supports full legalization. This is from Sen. Daniel Biss…
Thumbs up on the Cassidy-Steans bill. It’s the right criminal justice policy, it’s right from the point of view of fairness, and it’s right for the state’s bottom line.
By the way, this is a great issue to help candidates raise small-dollar grassroots contributions from legalization proponents, not only in Illinois, but across the country.
* From the Chris Kennedy campaign…
Chris supports decriminalizing marijuana in Illinois. He believes we should not be prosecuting and crowding our jails over simple possession of marijuana. He is reviewing studies done on the effects of legalization in other states before determining if legalization would be right for Illinois.
* Bob Daiber campaign…
Dr. Daiber is strongly in favor of medicinal marijuana in Illinois.
As this current time, he is still researching the legalization of marijuana recreationally and cannot weigh in on one side or the other.
He does say he is in favor of a ballot initiative to allow voters to legalize marijuana of their own free will, similar to what had occurred in Colorado and Washington.
When I pointed out that we don’t have binding initiatives in Illinois, I received this response…
Daiber feels that even though it would be non-binding, he would base his decision to pass legislation legalizing recreational marijuana based on the will of the people.
* I haven’t yet heard back from the Kurt Summers people, but I might’ve used the wrong e-mail address. I’ll let you know what he says.
Also, JB Pritzker hasn’t yet answered any policy questions ahead of his possible announcement and it was clear yesterday that the campaign didn’t want to establish a new precedent when I asked for his position.
Calling it “more of a nuisance than a disability,” Chris Kennedy on Tuesday acknowledged that he suffers from a hereditary disorder that causes tremors — a day after the Sun-Times reported that the gubernatorial candidate’s hands were shaking during a meet-and-greet with Cook County Democratic leaders.
“I wanted to set the record straight. The shaking is a condition I’ve lived with my whole life called familial [tremors.] It runs in the family. Doctors don’t know what causes it other than it is hereditary and does not cause impairment — more of a nuisance than a disability. In fact, many of my family members live with it. It doesn’t limit any of us in any way,” Kennedy wrote in a statement on Facebook.
“I don’t talk much about it, not because I’m ashamed of it, but because having dealt with it my whole life, it’s just not that big a deal to me. The fact is millions of people live their lives with far, far great challenges than an occasional handshake.
“The fact is improving the health of this state is a whole more important to me than talking about a minor condition. Once in a while, my hand will shake whether I like it or not. But regardless, most of the time, the kind of handshakes you’ll see from me will be on the campaign trail, earning the votes of the people of Illinois who believe in our quest to restore the promise of our state,” he wrote.
* As noted above, he has what’s known as “familial tremor,” which is a subset of “essential tremor.” Here’s the definition…
Essential tremor signs and symptoms:
Begin gradually, usually on one side of the body
Worsen with movement
Usually occur in the hands first, affecting one hand or both hands
Can include a “yes-yes” or “no-no” motion of the head
May be aggravated by emotional stress, fatigue, caffeine or temperature extremes […]
About half of essential tremor cases appear to result from a genetic mutation, although a specific gene hasn’t been identified. This form is referred to as familial tremor. It isn’t clear what causes essential tremor in people without a known genetic mutation. […]
Essential tremor isn’t life-threatening, but symptoms often worsen over time.
He has it in both hands.
It’s really not a big deal for an average person. The problem for Kennedy is that the shaking can sometimes become more prominent during times of stress, like, perhaps, during an important debate or TV appearance. Again, physically, it’s not a big thing, but people just don’t pay a lot of attention to state politics, so they can be very shallow when making their judgements about candidates.
This game, whether we care to admit it or not, is a lot about show business. It doesn’t affect his brain, but it could affect the perception of him.
…Adding… As a commenter notes below, one possible irony here is that Kennedy’s uncle, JFK, won a presidential debate and maybe even the whole campaign because Richard Nixon looked horrible on TV.
Great luncheon w\ Tara Barney and Quad Cities Chamber. Thanks Todd Maisch for great IL update. "Grand Bargain?" On life support… pic.twitter.com/pARrSoMLjw
Tuesday, Mar 28, 2017 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
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Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner promised voters after being elected in 2014 that he was in for the long haul in regards to government reform, and he reaffirmed it at the Piatt County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner on March 21 in Monticello.
“I’m very energized by the battle,” Rauner said of the disagreements over proposals that range from a real estate property tax freeze to pension reform; issues that have led to legislative gridlock when it comes to approving a state budget.
“It’s really hard, but you know, we’re making progress and we’re going to change our state dramatically, so that the government works for you, the people of Illinois, not for a corrupt political machine out of Chicago,” he added in a 10-minute speech at the annual dinner.
He pointed to progress made in cutting $800 million in state spending, upgrading computer systems to make state offices more efficient, ethics reform in state hiring and proposed union reform, which he discussed at the Monticello gathering.
* I called Steve and asked if he’d share his audio recording. Many thanks for sending it over.
As you can tell by the story above, much of what the governor said has been said many, many times before, but I did find this passage a bit interesting…
So, we’re making the changes we need. It’s too slow. It’s trench warfare, basically. Battle here, gain two feet, lose a foot, gain five feet, lose two feet. I mean, it’s a tough battle.
But, we’re winning and we’re going to transform the state.
* If you’ve never listened to a Rauner campaign speech, or haven’t in a while, here’s the raw audio…
Despite the release of a highly favorable poll [this week by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute], one of the sponsors of a plan to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Illinois says she won’t press for a vote on the measure until at least next year.
“Our members need some time to get more comfortable with this,” said state Sen. Heather Steans, who last week along with Rep. Kelly Cassidy introduced legislation to allow those of at least 21 years of age to grow or buy up to an ounce of marijuana without legal sanction.
“(But) this [poll] will help,” Steans said. “Public sentiment has been moving pretty fast.” […]
Steans said she expects subject matter-only hearings to be held later this spring in both chambers. And while sponsors will consider accelerating their timetable, social questions such as this generally need some time, Steans said, pointing to years of intense debate before the state legalized same-sex marriage.
A Chicago legislator wants to link charter-school expansion to a school district’s ability to pay for them, an effort aimed at slowing the spread of the privately run, publicly funded schools in the city.
The bill introduced Friday by state Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, would block the opening of any new charter campuses in any school districts with the Illinois State Board of Education’s two lowest financial ratings. The Chicago Public Schools system has been on that list for years.
“Our priority must be investing in the schools we have,“ Guzzardi said Monday outside Prosser Career Academy High School on the Northwest Side, where he was accompanied by other lawmakers, members of the Chicago Teachers Union and parents from the neighborhood.
“If your district is broke, take care of the schools you have before you open new schools,” Guzzardi said. “This isn’t about shutting down any charter schools that are already here.”
* Press release…
New legislation aimed at protecting the environment in rural Illinois was unveiled at the in the Illinois Senate today. State Senator Dave Koehler (D-Peoria) unveiled a package of legislation that would make changes to the regulations governing Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs.
CAFOs are farm facilities with a large concentration of animals such as hogs. Recently, a plan for a CAFO that would hold 20,000 head of hogs in rural Fulton County was withdrawn after a considerable pushback from the public.
Joined by farmers from all across the state, Koehler introduced the legislation to bring transparency to the process of planning and expanding hog farms.
“People in rural Illinois deserve to know what exactly is going to be built in their backyard,” Koehler said. “Registering these facilities and getting wastewater management on file are just of few of the steps we can take to make sure the public health of rural Illinoisans will be protected.”
Illinois legislators are considering a “right to know” bill that would let consumers find out what information about them is collected by companies like Google and Facebook, and what kinds of businesses they share it with. Such a right, which European consumers already have, has been a longtime goal of privacy advocates.
Two other proposals face a crucial Illinois House committee vote this week. One would regulate when consumers’ locations can be tracked by smartphone applications, and another would limit the use of microphones in internet-connected devices like mobile phones, smart TVs and personal assistants like Amazon’s Echo.
Should they be passed into law, these rules could end up guiding the rights of consumers far beyond Illinois — because they would provide a model for other states, and because it would be difficult for technology companies with hundreds of millions of users to create a patchwork of state- and country-specific features to localize their effects.
Congress is pushing to overturn regulations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration that limit the collection of data by broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast. The Senate approved the rollback last week, and the House is expected to follow this week.
Illinois also has another dimension: class-action lawyers… (L)awyers at Edelson PC, a Chicago-based class-action firm that has become notorious among tech companies for its prolific filing of privacy suits, have gone on offense with a lobbying campaign of their own. Firm lawyers have also helped found a new nonprofit group, the Digital Privacy Alliance, as an advocate for privacy legislation in Illinois and elsewhere.
Go check out the front group’s website and you’ll see they’re behind this “Right to know” bill, among other legislation in a package being pushed at the Statehouse.
* From another NY Times story on Edelson and his firm…
[Edelson’s] firm, which is based in Chicago, has become one of the most prolific filers of privacy class actions, a growing legal area that tech companies describe with a litany of unprintable terms. Asked to sum up the tech community’s feelings about Mr. Edelson, Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, a technology incubator that invests in very young companies, said the lawyer was regarded as “a leech tarted up as a freedom fighter.” […]
The firm started suing technology companies in the early 2000s, before data privacy was a national debate. Mr. Edelson claims to have won more than $1 billion in settlements in all, a number that is difficult to confirm because many of those agreements are private. Today he views these cases the same way Apple views its collection of iPhones and other iThings: as a line of products to be refined, repackaged and resold. Text messages are a product line. Online video is a product line.
Edelson PC contributed about $100,000 during the campaign last year, focusing on the two Democratic legislative leaders.
* Look, you won’t get an argument from me against prohibiting bad conduct and protecting consumers from real problems. And I intend no offense to Mr. Edelson and his firm - you gotta do what you gotta do (and he’s stopped some pretty egregious practices over the years). But Chicago now has a thriving tech community. Let’s not screw things up with a new state law that let’s them be sued into oblivion by trial lawyers.
* This NPR story on Cairo is a very good read, so go take a look at the whole thing…
There is a lot of talk right now about how best to try and bring back struggling small towns, especially in the rural Midwest which Donald Trump carried easily. Many of these places would also see steep cuts in aid if the president’s budget gains traction in Congress. Visit Cairo, and at times it feels like a town on life support.
“You know, you say to your government, we want to clean it up,” Matthews says. “But we need help.”
In Cairo, there is a lot of anger and many people feel slighted. A few years back, then-Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn visited with reportedly great fanfare at the time and designated Cairo as a port authority. The idea was that the town could once again take advantage of all the barge traffic on the rivers. The governor left town, and so did the promise of funds.
A frustrated Tyrone Coleman, Cairo’s mayor, says the town is well positioned to take advantage of the expected increased barge traffic due to the Panama Canal expansion. After all, it’s what put the city on the map in the 1800s.
“Strategically, geographically, this is one of the most untapped resource areas in the country,” Coleman says.
Lately some state lawmakers have made renewed commitments. In a statement, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office says he is working to make Cairo and other small Illinois towns competitive. But in Cairo, that’s a tough task.
* By the way, the area’s new state Senator, Dale Fowler, has been making Cairo a priority…
* Fowler makes sixth trip to Cairo since election, discusses river development: “All I saw was potential,” Fowler said of his first trip. He has been back five more times, including Friday with Cairo Mayor Tyrone Coleman, Illinois Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno, of Lemont, and a busload of other local leaders. The group hit the highlights of town — Fort Defiance, the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and Magnolia Manor.
* Editorial: Fowler’s presence in Cairo a sign of hope: Over the years, leaders have come to the city with promises. Driving through Cairo, it’s evident most of those promises were empty. But, Cairo Public Utility Manager Larry Klein, who said in Sunday’s story that he’s seen at least 50 similar trips by politicians, this feels different. He saw something that he called “a ball of fire” in Fowler.
* The Bond Buyer writes about the ever escalating feud between Gov. Rauner and Mayor Emanuel in the wake of the governor’s recent veto of the Chicago pension bill and its impact on the state’s bond rating…
“I just think the politics just over the last week have gotten so fractious it’s hard to imagine more bad things not happening to the city and state’s credit profile,” said Matt Fabian, partner at Municipal Market Analytics. “The level of chaos is rising and Chicago will be dragged into that and it undermines the city’s narrative” that it’s turned a fiscal corner.
A sweeping bipartisan Senate budget fix has stalled and Rauner’s feuding with Democrats has escalated of late with harsh words exchanged with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and state Comptroller Susanna Mendoza. […]
If the state’s budget impasse drags into a third fiscal year July 1 its investment grade rating is at risk and that would have a trickle down impact on the city, Fabian said.
* Meanwhile, this is from the publication’s Illinois reporter…
S&P Opines in brief report: Chicago Pension Measure Veto Is A Surmountable Hurdle, But Challenges Persist.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel hasn’t even said for sure that he’ll seek a third term in 2019, but Gov. Bruce Rauner predicted Monday the mayor won’t be around for a fourth.
The governor’s prognostication that “the current mayor is not going to be mayor in 2023” came at an event about the stalled effort to create a toll lane on the Stevenson Expressway, as Rauner talked about his veto last week of Emanuel’s proposed changes to the city’s pension funds for municipal workers and laborers. […]
“Who’s not going to be mayor in 2023?” Rauner said. “The current mayor is not going to be mayor in 2023. That’s why they did it. All this is, all this is a system to dump the problem into the next elected official, no change, no protection of taxpayers, no fundamental reform.” […]
“At the rate he’s going, Bruce Rauner should be more concerned with who’s governor in 2019 than he is with who’s mayor in 2023,” [Emanuel campaign] spokesman Pete Giangreco said.
* With many thanks to the fine folks at BlueRoomStream.com, we will have a free live stream this Thursday afternoon March 30th for Steve Schnorf’s “celebration of life.” The event will begin at 2 o’clock in Room 212. The room holds almost 200 people, but we figured we’d better have a video feed for those who either couldn’t make it to town or couldn’t get into the room. A reception of sorts will follow at about 3, and will be held directly across the hall in Secretary of State Jesse White’s office. Thanks to everyone who helped out on this.
From the family…
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Steve’s memory to:
The Marjorie Baker Schnorf Teaching Scholarship
EIU Office of University Development
600 Lincoln Ave.
Charleston, IL 61920
or
Rochester Public Library District
1 Community Dr.
Rochester, IL 62563
Speakers at the 2 o’clock event will include Steve’s widow Jane, Jim Kiley, former Gov. Jim Edgar, Speaker Michael Madigan, Sen. Donne Trotter, former Gov. George Ryan, myself, his three daughters (Quin, Rebecca and Elizabeth) and his granddaughter Jaelyn.
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announced on Tuesday that state revenues will allow her office to pay another $94 million in past-due bills to Home Service Care providers who care for the elderly.
Since taking office in December, Comptroller Mendoza has now paid a total of more than $235 million in past due bills owed to vendors for the state’s Department on Aging, she announced Tuesday at the West Point Plaza senior apartments on the Near West Side.
“Our actions prove our commitment to Illinois seniors, the Department on Aging, the Community Care Program (CCP), and our citizens who rely on the program to stay in their homes and avoid being placed in a nursing home,” Comptroller Mendoza said. “We’re doing what we can to help, but this isn’t a long-term solution. To ensure our state’s neediest people are cared for, we need Governor Rauner to meet his most basic constitutional duty to propose a balanced budget for the General Assembly to act on. While people in Illinois continue to suffer, he continues to shirk his responsibilities and refuses to take ownership of the crisis.”
While the comptroller is prioritizing human services and programs like CCP, her office can only pay the bills it receives. Because the Governor shirked his constitutional duty to propose a balanced budget for the General Assembly to act on — and has twice vetoed funding for these social services — there is no spending authority to pay bills owed to these providers for services not covered by Medicaid. Nearly $200 million in bills for such services are sitting at the Department on Aging due to the lack of a budget.
“It’s time for Gov. Bruce Rauner to stop using seniors as pawns in his vicious budget game, where he is exploiting their pain and suffering to get what he wants on his political wish list,” said Tanya Moses, home healthcare worker in the Community Care Program.
Ashley’s Quality Care, which provides home care services for seniors, is just one example of the consequences of this inaction. The Canaryville home care provider is owed about $800,000 in non-Medicaid payments from the state. The lack of funding has forced them to reduce the number of seniors they care for from 900 to 300 in the last two years.
To add insult to injury, Gov. Rauner’s administration has prohibited Community Care vendors from participating in third-party loan programs managed by the administration and widely used by vendors like the highly-paid consultants Governor Rauner wants to prioritize. At a time when many social service providers have exhausted their lines of credit from banks, these programs could give them access to operating funds they need to keep their doors open.
“It really shows where The Governor’s heart is when he has opened up the Vendor Assistance Program to some of America’s largest corporations but has denied offering the same kind of life preserver to our frail elderly,” said State Rep. Gregory Harris. “I think it’s small business in Illinois we should be helping. Big insurance companies and multinational corporations should have the capacity to take care of themselves.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** From the ILGOP…
“Susana Mendoza taking credit for releasing these funds is like an arsonist posing as a firefighter. She’s throwing water on a fire she started by starving providers in the first place.”
Pretty tough case to make against a liberal, female Democrat. Just sayin…
*** UPDATE 2 *** A buddy of mine who represents a company that loans money through the Vendor Assistance Program just called to say that Comptroller Mendoza could change some paperwork coding for social service providers on her own to get them into the bill-paying program. Mendoza’s Republican predecessor apparently refused to do so. So, it’s not Rauner’s fault, it’s actually hers.
Time to put away the press releases and get to work.
*** UPDATE 3 *** The comptroller’s office says they will hear out the company rep, but they’re pretty adamant that they can’t change the coding on these vendors and is likely a misinterpretation of the rules. It’s up to CMS, they say, and the agencies, which submit the coding to the comptroller.
The Illinois Department of Public Health has rejected intractable pain and autism spectrum disorder as medical conditions that could be treated with medical cannabis.
The petition to add intractable pain to the medical marijuana program was submitted in July 2015 to the Medical Cannabis Advisory Board.
Department of Public Health Director Nirav Shah on Monday noted in rejecting the petition that none of the information submitted demonstrated an individual diagnosed with intractable pain could benefit from medical cannabis.
So, instead, we condemn these people to a life of opioid use? Seriously, if the pain is truly intractable, then why deny suffering patients something that can help?
Shah’s rulings have been overturned numerous times in court. Let’s hope this one is as well.
The Chicago region’s deeply entrenched patterns of segregation extract a steep price in lost lives and unrealized economic growth, according to a study to be unveiled Tuesday.
The seven-county area’s murder rate could be cut by 30 percent, its economy could churn out an additional $8 billion in goods and services and its African-American residents could earn another $3,000 a year if it could reduce racial and economic segregation to the median level for the nation’s largest metro areas.
And 83,000 more residents could have earned bachelor’s degrees, spurring another $90 billion in collective lifetime earnings.
Those were the findings of a study by the Metropolitan Planning Council, a Chicago-based public policy research group, and the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.
The Metropolitan Planning Council, together with Urban Institute and a team of regional policy advisors, analyzed segregation patterns in the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country. We examined three types of segregation: economic segregation, African American-white segregation and Latino-white segregation. We then examined what impacts we would see if the Chicago region reduced its levels of segregation to the median levels of segregation of the nation’s 100 biggest metros.
* The full report is here. From the “Next Steps” section…
For now, we know that we can create a more robust regional economy by making our city and suburbs less racially and economically segregated. The second phase of this initiative will identify how we can accelerate our rate of desegregation and create a more inclusive, prosperous path forward for all. That work will include developing a projected baseline scenario for the Chicago region that assumes the continuation of our current patterns of racial and economic segregation and an alternative vision that incorporates policy changes in housing, transportation, public safety, health and education.
Chicago’s present-day segregation did not occur overnight and it was not a process that occurred “naturally.” Private and public policies and programs built our divides: Restrictive housing covenants. Urban renewal. Redlining. Predatory lending and the massive foreclosures that followed. Illegal discrimination against housing voucher holders. It is not merely by chance that public school quality closely follows the racial composition of the student body, or that after the housing bubble, property values have recovered or even risen in well-to-do, largely white communities while they remain well below for much the South and West sides of Chicago.
* The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability tallies up what Chicago stands to lose if US Attorney General Sessions makes good on his pledge to cut off Justice Department grants to so-called sanctuary cities…
A review of Chicago’s 2017 grants suggests that the city received about $24.5 million from the DOJ in this fiscal year, including:
$9.6 million in Justice Assistance Grants, which fund a variety of programs in the Chicago Police Department;
$7.3 million in grants from the COPS Hiring Program;
$1.4 million in grants for body-worn cameras; and
$154,000 in grants for programs that address violence against women.
Not all of this money may be immediately threatened, however. Some grant programs, like COPS, are subject to Congressional appropriation, and may therefore require Congressional action to change.
Examples include a joint Chicago/Cook County Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant of $2,333,428; the Cook County Justice and Mental Health Collaboration, $243,012; and the Cook County South Suburban Safe and Thriving Communities Project, $1 million.
Besides Chicago and Cook County declaring sanctuary status, Evanston and Oak Park have sanctuary ordinances; Melrose Park has one in the works.
Evanston Police and the Northwestern University Police Department won $139,277 for a Body Worn Camera Implementation Program.
* A letter sent today to Gov. Bruce Rauner from House Speaker Michael Madigan…
Governor Rauner:
Yesterday my staff and CMS had another productive discussion about the sale of the Thompson Center in Chicago. As you know, I have publicly acknowledged a desire to work with you on legislation authorizing the sale of the Thompson Center. Over the course of staff discussions, both your staff and mine determined the legislation proposed by Leader Durkin does not adequately plan for the sale and inadvertently interferes with the zoning authority of the City of Chicago. Your staff previously acknowledged that the legislation needed to be rewritten, and it was further conveyed, again yesterday, that legislation is not ready to move forward at this time.
Around the same time as this productive meeting, you stated publicly that I have held up the sale of the Thompson Center and that reporters should ask me why I’ve been blocking progress on this part of your agenda. With all due respect, I believe it is disingenuous of you and beneath your office to make such false statements to the media when you know or should have known that I have pledged my cooperation, that our staffs are working together on this initiative, and that we are working toward the same goal with your administration in good faith.
As you are aware, your administration included the sale of the Thompson Center in your proposed FY18 budget, with an anticipated sale price of $300 million. I have directed my staff to provide any assistance necessary so that we may pass legislation advantageous to the State of Illinois, while providing the least disruption to CTA commuters utilizing the lines that feed into the Thompson Center. I am advised CMS is in negotiations with the City on issues related to the CTA station and the easement, as well as zoning matters, and it is these discussions that have led to the stalling of the legislation, not my actions or the actions of the House.
Despite your inability to provide an accurate account of the facts or acknowledge my public and private comments, my staff will continue working cooperatively with your staff and CMS to develop a plan to maximize the ability of the State to sell the property, with a goal to passing legislation no later than May 31st.
With kindest personal regards, I remain
Sincerely yours,
Michael J. Madigan
Speaker of the House
Your thoughts on this?
*** UPDATE 1 *** From Eleni Demertzis at the governor’s office…
Speaker Madigan and his majority have had two years to do anything productive for the people of Illinois, but instead he’s held up every proposal to create jobs, provide property tax relief, balance the budget and improve education. Two years of holding up the people of Illinois — and now just more excuses and distractions to hold up something as simple as selling the Thompson Center. As usual, positive changes in government take place when the Governor can make things happen on his own — and change hits a brick wall whenever the Speaker has the ability to block it.
Yeah, things are sure looking brighter these days.
To be clear here, the governor’s CMS director said during a House committee hearing that the administration can sell the Thompson Center without the General Assembly’s involvement. It just can’t make the sale on the administration’s preferred timeline unless legislators approve. Rauner wants to use proceeds from the sale to help balance next fiscal year’s budget.
*** UPDATE 2 *** House Republican Leader Jim Durkin told reporters this morning (click here for raw audio) that objections to the Thompson Center sale legislation by CMS is “news to me.” He’s had the bill out there since 2015, he said, and hadn’t heard of any problems identified by the administration.
Leader Durkin claimed that Madigan was engaging in stalling tactics to prevent the governor from getting any wins.
Rauner has been counting on the proposed sale to generate $220 million for the state, plugging a hole in his budget, as well as tens of millions of dollars in future property-tax revenue for the city. But to get that kind of money, he wants to ramp up zoning on the site, clearing the way for a huge development, perhaps the 115-story tower that one developer envisions.
One Rauner official who asked not to be named conceded that talks with the city are continuing about tripling the size of what now legally can be built on the site, as well as access to the CTA station in any new development.
But the city agrees in principle with selling the property, and any remaining issues with language can be resolved after the General Assembly passes legislation authorizing the sale, that source said.
However, it appears the speaker wants those issues settled first—and doesn’t like Rauner attacking him in the process. He wrote, “I believe it is disingenuous of you and beneath your office to make such false statements.”
* Let’s circle back to yesterday’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate speeches and then look at the GOP react. Sun-Times…
Pritzker took digs at Rauner, saying he’s standing up for the Koch brothers, not the working people of the state: “He didn’t shake up Springfield. He instead tore it down.” And he also vowed to invest in the Democratic party’s infrastructure to try to combat the heavily funded Illinois Republican Party.
State Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, said he’d help to build up the party with a new surge of activism that is coming out of anti-President Trump efforts. […]
“Divide and rule is exactly what Bruce Rauner is doing. We’re entering our third year without a budget. And the way our governor makes it seem it’s like a game of chicken,” Pawar said. “Like he’s taking a principled stance against overspending and the only reason we somehow don’t have a budget is because the other side won’t flinch. But the truth is Bruce Rauner wants to lose this game of chicken. He has to lose this game of chicken in order to win re-election. He wants chaos. He does not want a budget.”
Pawar may be on the right track with that argument, but I think he needs to punch it up a bit.
“This is going to be a campaign that’s about building the party. It’s going to be a campaign that’s about building new networks of activists and bring them into the party. And I’m not going to be able to write a $50 million check. I mean I can write it but it won’t’ help. He’s what I can do. I can bring a lot of new people in,” Biss said. “Those are people to make small and medium donations that ought to be the lifeblood of our party,” said state Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston.
Chicago Ald. Ameya Pawar offered: “The only way forward is to require us to come together around a vision. Make sure that people who make more, pay more. That the rich pay their fair share, and be honest about our obligations to our retirees. While Bruce Rauner preaches austerity, our job is to be bold and push progressivism.”
While all of the other candidates were from the Chicago metropolitan area, Madison County Superintendent of Schools Bob Daiber said he is Democrats’ best bet because he can win downstate – the large swath of Illinois that backed Rauner over former Gov. Pat Quinn in 2014.
“Why can I win? I will tell you that Bruce Rauner is in office today because Pat Quinn only carried one other election authority other than Cook County, and that was East St. Louis, where I’m from. I can carry downstate Illinois. My challenge is to get a percentage of the vote out of Cook County, and I will carry the rest of the state,” Daiber said. “Honestly, I don’t intend to get Cook County’s endorsement. I don’t even know how you could endorse me. I’m here today to introduce myself to you so you know who I am.”
The honest admission prompted applause, and at least one official to say “I like him.”
Chicago City Treasurer Kurt Summers admitted all the potential candidates are similar on the issues, He said what is important is who’s discussing issues people care about and how authentic they are.
Ald. David Moore, who also serves as the committeeman of his 17th Ward, asked Pawar if he is running for governor to gain name recognition in anticipation of a campaign for Chicago mayor in 2019.
“This isn’t a game to me,” Pawar said. “If this isn’t it, I’m out.” […]
[Pritzker] also said that if Democrats want to be competitive against Rauner, they should be prepared to go up against Rauner’s powerful communications infrastructure, which Pritzker dismissed as “fake news.” […]
Biss last week launched his campaign in a Facebook Live video criticizing disconnected “billionaires and machine politicians,” but he didn’t pursue that line of criticism when he stood before the party leaders on Monday.
And former Merchandise Mart President Chris Kennedy said he thinks Rauner wants to run for president on a campaign of busting unions. In response, a GOP spokesman said that’s laughable and Rauner’s focused on Illinois.
“Today’s audition exemplifies everything wrong with Mike Madigan’s political machine,” said Steven Yaffe, spokesman for the Illinois Republican Party. “Democratic candidates had a chance to stand up to the status quo, but chose to talk about tax increases without reform. Instead of seeking to fix Illinois, the Democratic candidates made clear they will continue the broken system run by the Speaker.”
Asked about the governor’s race Monday at a separate event, Rauner labeled the Democratic candidates as “a continuation of the status quo.”
“They’re not proposing any new ideas to grow jobs. They’re not proposing any new ideas to protect taxpayers. But they’re proposing tax hikes, income tax hikes. And they’re proposing to continue to work for the political machine that’s dominated Illinois for decades,” he said. “That’s not going to make things better.”
With the Cook County Democratic organization scheduled to meet in August to consider an endorsement, Kennedy told reporters afterward that he didn’t think slate-making was as “meaningful as it was 50 or 60 years ago when people in the backroom could control the outcome of an election.”
Still, he stopped short of saying whether he would seek their endorsement.
* I told subscribers about these ads earlier today. From a press release…
State Solutions, an affiliate of the Republican Governors Association, launched a new television and digital advertisement effort today in Illinois, highlighting Governor Bruce Rauner’s push to balance the budget, reform government and improve the state by capping spending, freezing property taxes, creating term limits on politicians and adding jobs. […]
“Governor Rauner is working hard to enact a balanced budget that protects taxpayers and grows jobs,” said State Solutions spokesman Jon Thompson. “The same duct tape solutions - higher taxes, more spending and no real reforms - that Illinois politicians have used in the past won’t fix the state. It’s time for a true spending cap, a real property tax freeze, and reforms to repair the state’s broken political system and add jobs.”
Illinois Working Together Campaign Director Jake Lewis released the following statement in response to Gov. Bruce Rauner’s new television ads:
“Governor Rauner’s new television ad blitz is just another reminder of the governor’s wrong priorities, putting political games ahead of getting the job done for the people of Illinois. Not only has Rauner never passed a budget, the most basic responsibility for any governor, but he has never even proposed a balanced budget as required by the Illinois constitution. Rauner’s “balanced budget” claims have already been deemed “pants-on-fire” false by Politifact Illinois.
“What Rauner fails to mention in his ads are his accomplishments in more than two years as governor — because he has none. Rauner’s wrong priorities have resulted in disruptions to school funding, cuts to services for seniors, and an Illinois economy hobbled by uncertainty. Enough with the political games, governor. Do your job.”
I hope and believe that messaging to the people of Illinois about what’s going on and what’s at stake will help us get an agreement in the General Assembly, help us get a balanced budget with structural changes to grow jobs, protect our taxpayers, get term limits.
I think it’s very important that the people of Illinois understand what’s going on, they understand what’s at stake and I’ve personally worked hard in my role to communicate with the people of Illinois. I’ve done it directly by going to meet with people around the state in groups of from two to two thousand, to talk with them about what’s at stake. I’ve met with you, members of the media on a pretty regular basis to talk about what’s going on and what’s important and asking you to communicate back to the people of Illinois. I’ve used social media, tried to use social media to communicate the important issues that’s going on in the state of Illinois.
And now, and from time to time, we have used and we will use paid media to communicate to the people of Illinois what’s importantly at stake, the changes to fix the broken system that we’re advocating, term limits and property tax freeze and balanced budgets with more jobs. We can’t tax our way out of our problems, we gotta grow. We need regulatory changes to be competitive and grow jobs. It’s important that the people of Illinois understand what we’re working for and that’s what we’re trying to do is help them understand.
