Chalk it up to good intentions, bad policy. Democrats in Springfield are pushing legislation that would require public school districts to pay teachers a minimum salary of $40,000. Sounds righteous , right?
The idea is part of a broader agenda to address a teacher shortage mostly outside Chicago in rural districts that struggle to fill openings and retain staff. It’s a serious problem that impacts learning. Kids endure rotations of teachers and substitutes, or miss out altogether on hard-to-staff subject areas such as physics and foreign languages. We get it. […]
There are ways to attract quality teachers that don’t involve a state-mandated starting salary. How about lifting nonmonetary barriers that make the profession unattractive? Teachers certified in other states who move to Illinois often deal with more than a year of Illinois State Board of Education roadblocks and paperwork.
Professionals with bachelor’s degrees who decide to teach midcareer face more than a year of required classes, testing and job shadowing.
Have only an associate’s degree but want to teach? Sorry. Here’s your stack of prerequisites.
On one hand, policymakers, who don’t understand that the education of students is much more than a test score, tell teachers, “Because we want the best for our kids, we’re going to test our students to prove that they’re learning what they’re supposed to be learning and then we want to evaluate teachers based on those tests.”
Yet, at the same time, educators nationwide are told by non-educators: “We should lower the standards for the people to whom we entrust our children’s education and upon whom we rely to fill their heads with knowledge and stimulate a love of learning.”
See the contradiction? The goal is “better teaching” and “better results,” yet the proposal is to accomplish those goals by lowering the bar for classroom teachers. This is illogical.
It’s painful to state something so obvious: Not everyone can teach. Acquiring a bachelor’s degree and spending a few years in another profession doesn’t mean you have the skills it takes to manage a classroom of 25 students. You don’t walk in, untrained, and understand all of the different ways those students learn and how to assess whether they’ve actually learned what you’ve taught them.
Those skills are not typically acquired in the two years it takes to earn an associate degree.
Teaching is a profession. To address the teacher shortage, instead of “easing” teacher licensure requirements, let’s show our teachers their work is valued. Acknowledge that teaching is a profession.
* The Question: Should the state establish a minimum wage for public school teachers? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
The death of Pamela Knight, an Illinois Department of Child and Family Services caseworker who was attacked and beaten while attempting to take a child into protective custody, was a high-profile example of what many say is a reality: Caseworkers’ jobs can put them in dangerous situations.
The Illinois General Assembly was quick to unanimously pass a resolution praising Knight and expressing condolences to her family and friends.
But bills that would give DCFS case workers like Knight the same protected status as police officers and firefighters harmed while performing official duties have stalled in a House committee. And though a similar Senate bill has shown new signs of life, it, too, faces a difficult climb to passage. […]
The bill was introduced in January but lingered for months in a Senate subcommittee, often a place where legislation goes to die. But last week, the bill was revived and cleared committee with no opposition.
Even if it clears the Senate, there’s still a problem with the House. So, we’ll see.
* Legionnaires’ outbreaks prompt bills to mandate faster notifications: Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, D-Aurora, said that testimony prompted her to sponsor one of these notification bills, House Bill 4278, criticizing the method used by the facility which she described as was “simply word of mouth.”
* Illinois Senate views marijuana as opioid alternative: The Senate voted 44-6 Thursday to allow doctors to prescribe medical marijuana as an alternative to opioids . Those addicted to opioids would also be eligible to apply for a medical card to use marijuana.
* Letter: Illinois lawmakers can stop TrumpCare from harming Illinoisans with preexisting conditions
* Editorial: Illinois legislators snub voters on fair maps again: Like Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is seeking re-election, Pritzker has vowed to veto any gerrymandered maps if he wins. But will he? It is up to all of us to require not only that he keep that pledge, but even prior to the election, he show real leadership in the push for a fair map referendum. He did not provide that leadership this spring.
* Two legislative research staffs to merge: The Legislative Research Unit, which does research for the General Assembly and puts out a range of publications, is apparently going to merge into another group that serves lawmakers: the Commission on Government Forecasting & Accountability. LRU and COGFA are among legislative support services controlled by the General Assembly. “I think all the leaders are for it,” said STEVE BROWN, spokesman for House Speaker MICHAEL MADIGAN, D-Chicago, of combining the two services. “From time to time, you review operations, and there’s a decision you can consolidate these entities and maintain these services.”
* Illinois counties declare ’sanctuary’ status for gun owners: At least five counties recently passed resolutions declaring themselves sanctuary counties for gun owners — a reference to so-called sanctuary cities such as Chicago that don’t cooperate with aspects of federal immigration enforcement.
Bruce Rauner doesn’t want to “dwell on the past” after 13 Veterans and spouses died on his watch and 11 families are suing the state for negligence after Rauner failed to end the Legionnaires’ crisis and keep our Veterans safe.
When asked if he thought an administration email trying to blame his fatal mismanagement on combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth was “proper,” Rauner responded, “I don’t think we should dwell on the past.”
“Bruce Rauner let 13 Veterans and spouses die on his watch and then his administration tried to pin it on our combat Veteran U.S. Senator, but Rauner doesn’t want to ‘dwell on the past,’” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Years of fatal mismanagement and blatant cover ups deserve our full attention, and to suggest otherwise is an insult to the wellbeing of our nation’s heroes.”
* This is how the Senger campaign responded last week, with emphasis added by me…
The simple, bipartisan fact is that for years, including the past Blagojevich and Quinn administrations, our veterans homes suffered from chronic underfunding that impacted the care our veterans received along with the critical maintenance and modernization of the state’s veterans facilities.
There is no doubt that the lack of proper funding for veterans over the last decade has exacerbated the problems we currently face. If we choose to ignore the past, systemic failures to fund our veteran’s programs, then we are destined to continue to face these challenges in the future and that was the point of my comment–we need to understand how and when these problems started in order to find long-term solutions.
Not to mention that the governor almost constantly talks about the disastrous years before he was elected. That’s almost his entire schtick.
So, does “the past” actually start in December of 2014?
Speaker of the House Mike Madigan “I don’t go to Springfield for the people that live off of investment returns, I go for the people that work everyday to live.” pic.twitter.com/t4dIQQaWtl
* Amanda Kass looks at the bill backlog. You can skim this first part if you are already well-versed in the budget impasse…
I estimated that the state’s General Fund spending was $32.8 billion in FY2016*, which was only about 7% less than the last “normal” year, FY2015. In other words, during the two-year impasse, most of the state’s spending was still legally authorized for a variety of reasons.
Even though most state spending was legally authorized in FY2016 and FY2017, the state didn’t actually have enough revenue to pay all its bills, so a backlog built up—leaving a growing number of vendors with state contracts in the lurch. Imagine trying to keep your business afloat while waiting years to receive payment for services already rendered. Instead of just holding onto the bills, some of these vendors turned to third-parties to offload this debt. Vendors are able to do this because of the Vendor Payment Program (VPP), which then Governor Pat Quinn created in 2011.** Under the VPP, a vendor sells its debt to another entity (known as a “Qualified Purchaser”), and this provides the vendor the cash it needs to keep operating. The state incurs a penalty charge when it pays bills late, and the interest rate is 9% or 12% depending on the underlying service. The Qualified Purchaser gets the interest penalty fees when the underlying bill is eventually paid by the state.
Importantly though, the VPP is only for bills that are for legally authorized spending, and the program was suspended in 2015 during the budget impasse. In 2016, Governor Bruce Rauner created the Vendor Support Initiative (VSI), which is just like the VPP except it’s for bills for which “no appropriation or other legal authority currently exists to pay the invoice.” This brings me to my first head scratcher: how was the Governor able to unilaterally create this program? Moreover, how were bills allowed to stack up if there was no legal authority to spend money on those goods and services? Remember, during the impasse most state spending was legally authorized, and several court cases occurred specifically to hash out whether spending on specific aspects of the state government (for items like state employee payroll) could continue.
That first question is a very good one. How could the governor unilaterally create this new Vendor Support Initiative, which deleted the previous requirement for an actual appropriation? The state constitution is clear that no expenditures can be made without an appropriation. Also, why were some vendors allowed into VSI and others weren’t? I suspect that some were simply more “important” to the governor than others (Dept. of Corrections vendors vs. human service providers).
The answer to the second question about how the bills were allowed to stack up is fairly straight-forward: During the long impasse, the Rauner administration convinced some crucial vendors (particularly Department of Corrections and human service providers) that they’d eventually get paid. So, those vendors kept providing their goods and services - or new vendors were brought in if somebody dropped out. And some of those same vendors (Corrections) were enticed to stick around by unilaterally deeming them qualified for late payment interest benefits in Rauner’s new Vendor Support Initiative, which means they could also sell their debts to Qualified Purchasers without a formal appropriatioin.
This brings me to my final set of questions: Which vendors have sold off their bills, and how many bills have Qualified Purchasers bought? This should be relatively straightforward to figure out because Qualified Purchasers are required to submit monthly reports detailing this information. Nearly a year ago I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Central Management Services (CMS) asking for those reports from April 2011 through May 2017 for all Qualified Purchasers (QP). What I got back seemed like incomplete records and didn’t align with previous reporting done by Dave McKinney. For example, the records I received for Payplant (a QP) showed it hadn’t bought any bills, while McKinney reported that Payplant purchased $475,330 worth of bills between November 2015 and August 2016. I also didn’t receive any reports for Illinois Financing Partners (another QP), which Pierog reports has purchased $1 billion worth of receivables since 2015. I sent several follow-up emails to CMS and even asked the Public Access Counselor (which is part of the Attorney General’s office) to review CMS’s response, but never heard back from either entity.
Sounds like Comptroller Mendoza needs to look at this issue as part of her budgetary transparency initiatives.
…Adding… From Rep. Stephanie Kifowit (D-Oswego)…
Hi Rich, I just read your post on the VSI program. I have actually been critical Of the new program under the Rauner administration since it was changed from VPP and effectively removed the Comptroller from the equation. As Vice Chair of General Services I have been on the record, and directly asked questions to the qualified purchasers of the legitimacy of the new program. My concerns were routinely rebuffed by CMS. I’m glad this situation is finally being brought to light.
Republican Governor Bruce Rauner tells WGIL that a progressive tax plan is a job killer, and would do more harm to the state than good.
“Every state that has gone to a graduated income tax – or what they call a progressive income tax… I call it a destructive income tax – every state that’s done it, the middle class families that make $40,000, $45,000 $50,000 have seen their taxes raised.” Rauner said. “Nobody is getting rich on that. That’s a middle class family income they end up paying a lot higher income taxes too.” […]
Rauner says that Illinois should follow Iowa and Wisconsin’s example and cut their income taxes. […]
Rauner says that in Minnesota, which has a progressive tax plan, a single taxpayer making around $25,000 pays 7% income tax. He called that tax rate “outrageous”.
Yes, that’s the published tax rate (the tax rate actually applies to income above $25,891, but it’s kinda close enough, although the important thing to remember is that only income earned above that rate is taxed at a higher rate, which the governor really messes up here).
But if you use a tax payment calculator, you’ll see that a single Minnesotan making $25,000 a year will owe just $797.15 in state income taxes. That’s an effective tax rate of 3.2 percent. (At 26,000, the effective rate is 3.27 percent.)
How can they afford to do that? By making higher income earners pay more.
The CTBA should send the governor a dozen roses.
*** UPDATE *** Let’s go back to the governor’s interview with WGIL…
“Kentucky, which has been stealing jobs from Southern Illinois for a while now, they just got rid of their graduated income tax and went to a flat tax at a lower rate. So they can grow more jobs, higher family income.”
He didn’t mention an important point…
The Kentucky tax reform plan Bruce Rauner praised today? It also expands the sales tax to new services like dry cleaning, fitness centers, labor for auto repairs, pet grooming, and BOWLING
According to Tribune Editor Bruce Dold, supervisors and managers, along with non-newsroom employees, will be excluded from the new negotiating units.
“As we move ahead, we need to be united as one organization with an important purpose – to help the company transform and thrive as a business, and to serve our readers world-class journalism,” he said.
In late April, Tribune management opted not to recognize the union, which was approved by reporters by a massive margin. They did continue to review the situation however, and ultimately decided to recognize the union’s right to negotiate on behalf of its members.
“People need to realize that what we do is important,” reporter Mary Wisniewski said after the initial decision in April. “We’re doing good, important professional work, and we need real news and real investigations to support our Democracy.”
The union will not represent supervisors, managers and other non-newsroom employees, but there is some disagreement over whether certain editors and editorial board members should be included.
“We will engage in further conversations concerning whether certain job classifications will be included in the bargaining unit,” Dold said in his email.
* A text from a bemused Democrat…
Hahahaha. Bruce Dold and the Trib management always telling elected officials to stand up to unions. Did it take them one week or two to cave? Can’t wait for the edit board fairshare payments.
The staff made its demand on April 24th. The Tribune agreed to terms on May 6th.
* As we all learned in 2011, Chicago mayoral candidates must have established residency in the city for at least one year before the first round of voting. Next year’s first round in Chicago is February 26th. This year’s primary was March 20th. Now, on to the Tribune…
Ra Joy, the lieutenant governor candidate on Chris Kennedy’s unsuccessful Democratic ticket, said he will decide by the end of the week whether to join the large field running for mayor.
Joy said he wants to see a change from two-term Mayor Rahm Emanuel. […]
Joy also said he has been making the case that Kennedy, who voted from his home in suburban Kenilworth, “has been essentially keeping residence in the city of Chicago since January.”
Since Kennedy voted from his Kenilworth residence in March, convincing a judge that he’s really a Chicago resident is gonna be pretty darned tough.
Most residency decisions center on intent. And one way to prove intent is by voting from a particular address. For instance, this passage is from the dissenting appellate court decision that Rahm Emanuel lost in 2011…
At all relevant times, including the time he was in Washington, D.C., the candidate [Emanuel] continued to pay property taxes for the Hermitage house, continued to hold an Illinois driver’s license listing the Hermitage house as his address, continued to list the Hermitage house address on his personal checks, and continued to vote with the Hermitage house as his registered voting address. [Emphasis added.]
As you know, the Supreme Court eventually put Emanuel back on the ballot, precisely for stuff like that.
What: Gov. Rauner, DHFS Director Felicia Norwood, legislators and stakeholders announce a major new statewide behavioral health initiative
Where: A Safe Haven, 2750 W. Roosevelt Road, Chicago
Date: Monday, May 7, 2018
Time: 10:00 a.m.
This is Rauner’s first media availability since last Tuesday.
* Last week, Gov. Rauner and several other Republicans formally endorsed Tim Schneider’s reelection as state GOP chairman. Yesterday, Rauner primary opponent and his chief GOP critic endorsed Schneider’s opponent. Press release…
Today, State Representative and former Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) joined State Representative David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) in announcing their endorsement of Committeeman Mark Shaw for Chairman of the Illinois Republican Party over incumbent ILGOP Chairman Tim Schneider.
“Mark Shaw has a record as a commonsense conservative who is unafraid to stand up for our party platform and take on the political ruling class in Illinois,” said Ives. “He will work with all members of our party to win races so we can pull this state back from the brink of financial disaster. The current chair has demonstrated neither the willingness or ability to advance our party in such a direction.”
“Simply put, Chairman Schneider has failed as our state party chairman. Under his leadership dozens of Democrats went unchallenged in state legislative seats, he alienated the conservative ILGOP base in the gubernatorial race by choosing sides in a primary, and under Schneider’s leadership a man who proudly associates with the Nazi party is on the ballot as a Republican. His tenure has been an unmitigated disgrace,” Ives continued.
After the disastrous 2017 legislative year, during which 15 legislative Republicans joined Democrats to enact the largest permanent tax increase in the history of the state, McSweeney said, “if we cannot agree on no new taxes as Republicans, then we cannot agree on anything. Tim Schneider failed to unite our party against a massive tax increase.”
McSweeney went on to say, “Mark Shaw is a solid conservative who will work to expand the Republican Party. Tim Schneider, Chairman of the Illinois Rauner Party, is an inept insider who has badly damaged the party of Lincoln and Reagan.”
Both legislators have served in the Illinois General Assembly since 2013 and have led on issues of tax cuts, government accountability and spending reform.
Ives plans to attend the ILGOP State Central Committee meeting on May 19th in Springfield where the election for state party chairman is scheduled to take place.
…Adding… DGA…
Governor Bruce Rauner’s struggling reelection campaign got more bad news this weekend as state Representative Jeanne Ives announced she would back the effort to take down Rauner’s handpicked party chairman. The Illinois GOP Party Chairman election has turned into an ugly affair and threatens to enflame the party’s open wounds.
Rauner recently told a radio station he was “unifying all Republicans,” but the truth is he’s done next-to-nothing to bring disgruntled Republican voters back into the fold. He lied about his interactions with Ives, failed to hold any “unifying” event, and now is using the same attack that infuriated Ives’ supporters on his new Republican opponent, state Senator Sam McCann.
“The last thing Rauner needs right now is another reminder that nearly half the Republican Party wanted to dump him,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Voters of all parties sent Rauner a powerful message that they were sick and tired of his failed leadership — and it’s clear he still hasn’t learned his lesson.”
* The Belleville News-Democrat lauded the comptroller for her accomplishes in a recent editorial, but also called her a “political lapdog”…
Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza pushes hard to get Illinois leaders to face fiscal reality, but it’s too bad that so much of what she says starts with “blame Rauner.” […]
Here’s Mendoza’s problem: Everything gets couched in those “blame Rauner” terms. That debt period is the governor’s tenure in Springfield. The hidden governor’s employee bill and interest accounting comes as Mendoza pushes J.B. Pritzker to replace Rauner.
Illinois’ fiscal meltdown should be blamed on more than the last guy to arrive at the blast furnace. Analysts gave us a near junk bond rating because Illinois failed to change spending patterns or address the $130 billion pension deficit as others did after the recession hit.
So “hurrah” for Mendoza the fiscal watchdog. “Boo” for Mendoza the political lapdog.
Plenty of blame and finger pointing is deserved by everyone in that capitol rotunda. Single-mindedly placing blame on the slightly experienced billionaire we’ve got does little to convince anyone that the new inexperienced billionaire would do any better.
I really wish you would pay closer attention to what I say during my frequent visits to your Editorial Board. At no time did I ever “blame Rauner” for the entirety of “Illinois fiscal meltdown” as you misrepresented in your editorial.
I have told you on multiple occasions that Rauner walked into a mess and deserved no blame for the $5 billion backlog of bills he inherited. What he does own is more than tripling that backlog by deficit-spending more than any other governor in state history.
I did not “blame Rauner” alone for the bad practice of hiding staffers on other agency payrolls to mask the size of his staff and budget. My exact words to you were: “It’s something that every single Governor as far back as we can tell has done. So it’s not unique to Governor Rauner … In all fairness, Governor Quinn was a chronic offender. It’s not okay if Quinn does it. It’s not okay if Blagojevich did it. It’s not okay if Ryan did it. And it’s still not okay that Bruce Rauner does it. But it’s not just a Bruce Rauner thing.” […]
You are upset with me for reporting that Governor Rauner ran up more late payment interest penalties in 2½ years than all the Republican and Democratic governors and legislatures did in the previous 18 years combined. I say if the shoe fits, Gov. Rauner can wear it.
You say the governor is the “last guy to arrive at the blast furnace” of the state’s fiscal meltdown. That may be, but he then shoveled more than $1 billion dollars into that furnace in late payment interest penalties. And that number continues to grow. I showed on my report the actual numbers of late payment interest penalties that each of his Republican and Democratic predecessors ran up. I admit there are no clean hands here.
Eastern Illinois University’s legislative liaison Katie Anselment had some strong words for legislators during an Illinois Senate Higher Education Committee hearing last week.
Anselment testified against a bill that would create a pilot program to allow a Downstate community college offer nursing bachelor’s degrees. The four-year universities view this legislation as a dangerous slippery slope toward turning community colleges into full-on competitors.
I’m not going to take a stand on the merits of this particular bill. There are good arguments pro and con. It is, after all, just a pilot program. The sponsor wants to address a very real nursing shortage, but the nurses’ union is strongly opposed, believing it won’t create any net new nurses and will instead just shift current students around.
Anyway, setting all that aside, Anselment began her testimony with a searing indictment of the current state of higher education in Illinois after the more than two-year budget impasse that caused universities to lose most of their state funding. Legislative liaisons are lobbyists, so they don’t usually go off on legislators in public, but this time was different.
Anselment said the state’s relationship with its public universities “has been a bit of a ‘Catch-22′ situation lately.” In other words, darned if they do, darned if they don’t.
“Hold the line on tuition, while we reduce your state funding,” universities are told by the state, she said.
“Focus on teaching, but pay more attention to marketing and technology,” Anselment said.
“Whittle down your programmatic offerings and don’t try to be all things to all people, but make sure your majors reflect today’s modern economy and are responsive to regional workforce needs,” she said.
“Tell us in excruciating detail just how bad of a position we’ve left you in thanks to the budget impasse, but stop the outmigration and convince more Illinois families to choose Illinois public universities.”
And then, later in her testimony, Anselment had a mic-drop moment: “At a time when public universities are being admonished to up our enrollments despite declining numbers of high school graduates, to identify and implement more efficiencies in our operations, to focus on what we do best and to consider eliminating duplicative offerings, this bill sets the stage for opening up 48 new taxpayer-funded competitors in a State that has recently proven unable to reliably support the nine universities it already has.”
Whew.
That’s pretty much everything in a nutshell right there.
Illinois used to have an unwritten budget rule that higher education received one dollar for every two dollars received by K-12.
But Gov. Rod Blagojevich strongly believed that universities were too top heavy with administration. His solutions of reduced state funding and a tuition freeze kick-started the decline of higher education in this state. That decline continued under Gov. Pat Quinn and, as with just about everything else, became infinitely worse under Gov. Bruce Rauner during the long impasse.
One of Gov. Rauner’s current big ideas is to force universities to downsize by becoming more specialized. That may be fine, I suppose, for graduate and post-graduate levels.
But how many high school kids truly know what they want to major in when they apply for college? The first year or two of college are supposed to be an exploration of possibilities. Gov. Rauner graduated from Dartmouth, which doesn’t allow students to declare a major until their sophomore year.
By forcing universities to shed undergraduate degree programs, Rauner would likely narrow their ability to recruit students because their options could be too limited.
I don’t intend to say here that public universities are completely blameless. They’ve made way more than their share of mistakes over the years. They can and should do a whole lot better. And some under-utilized degree programs could be dumped without much disruption.
Instead of trying to create and sustain higher education jewels throughout Illinois, the state government has allowed too many universities to slowly deteriorate.
Solving most of their problems will take money, which the state currently does not have. And it will also take ingenuity, but not the kind that would actually threaten their very existence.
We’ve had so much drama and turbulence since Blagojevich. One day, hopefully soon, this state’s leaders will start building instead of childishly blowing stuff up. Last year’s K-12 funding reform was a decent start. Higher education ought to be next.
* The live coverage post attracts a huge number of Statehouse eyeballs on session days. I often put press releases and news items into that post which won’t fit anywhere else on the blog. But I get interesting press releases and read news items every day that aren’t a good fit for discussion here. So, I’m wondering what you think.
* The Question: Should we have a live coverage post every day? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
In an email dated December 13, 2017 to Governor Bruce Rauner’s top staffers, Republican candidate for comptroller Darlene Senger wrote, “We can maybe tie this back to Duckworth.” […]
Mendoza also called out the Rauner administration over the lack of any response to the email.
“There wasn’t a single member of the governor’s leadership team who responded back saying something along the lines of ‘that is so highly inappropriate, like stop right there,’ Mendoza said.
The Rauner administration said there was no need to respond because Senger’s statement was a single, random suggestion.
They may not have responded because this stuff is FOIA-able, so getting into an online back-and-forth isn’t ever advisable. Also, Senger had her detractors on staff. They may not have wanted to engage.
* Notice, though, that there are no quotation marks in the excerpt’s last sentence. I tried to get the Rauner administration to tell me exactly what was said, but couldn’t. They referred me back to yesterday’s statement, which didn’t mention the reason nobody responded to Senger.
The reporter told me that the line about “no need to respond” was from a background conversation.
* The Pritzker campaign sent me this earlier today, but I didn’t want to run it until after I’d tracked everyone down…
So the Rauner administration suggested blaming the tragic deaths of 13 Veterans and spouses on one of our state’s greatest heroes, but it’s ok because they only did it once?
Thumbs down: To former Deputy Governor Darlene Singer for putting politics first as the severity of repeated Legionnaires disease outbreak at the Illinois Veterans Home in Quincy became a public issue.
On Dec. 12, WBEZ 91.5 Chicago published the first story in an investigation that raised serious questions about how the administration of Gov. Bruce Rauner responded to the outbreak and notified those affected and the public about what became a public health epidemic. The next day, Senger suggested tying the outbreak to U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who ran the agency that oversees the Quincy home from 2006-2009. The first outbreak at the Quincy home was in 2015.
We know in politics there is always a desire to blame somebody when something has gone wrong. And if more could have been done to prevent the three consecutive years of outbreaks from happening, someone should be held accountable.
But to make placing blame the priority — instead of fixing the problem and helping the residents at Quincy — is unconscionable. Veterans who fought for our country don’t need to be politicized. The residents of that facility need a healthy, safe place to life.
* And one more from the Pritzker campaign…
Bruce Rauner lied again. The word ‘immediate’ can have many definitions — ‘occurring or accomplished without delay; instant’ or ‘following or preceding without a lapse of time’ — but none describe Rauner’s response to the Legionnaires’ crisis.
RAUNER’S LIE:
Yesterday, the Rauner campaign claimed “Governor Rauner took immediate action to address the problems at Quincy.”
THE TRUTH:
Rauner proposed his Quincy plan three years after the first deadly outbreak and almost six months after widespread media and legislative investigations began.
A disease expert told WBEZ: “I think it’s really inexcusable…It takes you six days from seeing an epidemic to tell people that you’re seeing an epidemic? That’s six days that you’ve allowed that disease to spread in a manner that probably wouldn’t have happened if you would have known earlier because people would have been taking action. People would have been asking questions. If you know there is an epidemic, you need to tell people immediately.”
“There’s nothing ‘immediate’ about waiting six days to notify the public about a Legionnaires’ outbreak that took 12 lives in 2015 and another in 2017,” said Pritzker campaign spokesman Jason Rubin. “This was and continues to be an unconscionable failure.”
A federal judge set a hearing for the case of @McCann_Sam vs @Bill_Brady for next Friday. Today, McCann files a sworn affidavit that says without "taxpayer funded resources," he can "no longer effectively perform my duties as the Senator serving the 50th district." pic.twitter.com/JfVyasV88e
The judge had earlier refused McCann’s request that the Senate Republicans be ordered to immediately restore his access to resources.
* Good point…
McCann's conundrum here is that if/when a judge denies his request to be restored access to bill analysis and communications staff, he will be on record saying he's not able to do his job effectively, opening the door for Senate GOP to demand his resignation. https://t.co/yeJ4BtiWms
* If he loses this case, he has indeed admitted on the record that he can’t do his job. That might open the possibility of caucusing with the Democrats…
Interesting twist: two ranking @ILSenDems say they would welcome McCann into their caucus with open arms. No indication from McCann if he would try to go that route, or if Sen President Cullerton would allow it. https://t.co/2goj7XROXv
Well, that wasn’t the first time he’s done that. WCIA’s former Statehouse guy Matt Porter interviewed him in March of 2016…
PORTER: The thing… that got a little bit of notoriety is that there were some campaign finance issues, there was a board [of elections] meeting on Monday, and there’s going to be a public hearing about the mileage reimbursements being unclear. There was a significant amount, $38,000, and also some expenditures that could’ve been more detailed, about $46,000 there. Do you have any regrets about how your campaign finance worked out the past year and that that became a weak point for you?
McCANN: You know, I think really what’s terrible is that you’ve brought me here to the Statehouse to interview me today and you’ve decided to go into this yellow journalism.
He then claimed he was owed “far more” than he’s taken in reimbursement, and then he threw out the “yellow journalism” epithet again.
Porter kept his cool throughout.
Sam may not be so lucky the next time he pulls that stunt.
* The [again] updated retirement, lost a primary, etc. list…
*CORRECTED x2*
Here's the updated list of IL General Assembly departures after the March primary
(Added Sen. Trotter, added Sen. Elgie Sims Jr. who resigned his State Rep. seat but was appointed to the State Senate)#twillpic.twitter.com/OjPuaZwya3
— Illinois Working Together (@IllinoisWorking) May 4, 2018
* So, that’s 13 House Democrats, or 19 percent of the total caucus; 14 House Republicans, or 27 percent of the total; 5 Senate Democrats, which is 13.5 percent of the total and 5 Senate Republicans, which is 23 percent of their total. Grand total so far: 37. Whew.
And we’ll likely be adding Rep. Silvana Tabares (D-Chicago) if and when she is appointed to the Chicago city council in the coming weeks. That’ll push the grand total percentage to 21.5.
*** UPDATE *** Retired Sen. Donne Trotter isn’t on that list, so I adjusted the numbers, including the headline.
Former Rep. Elgie Sims took Trotter’s place, but I don’t know what to do about him, so I left that count alone.
Also, there are some good points in these text messages, which I’ve cleaned up a bit…
The thing is - 13 house Ds are leaving/left, but 3 have already been replaced, 1 is running for Senate + 1 for lt guv, so only 8 are actually lame ducks. Only 1 House R is running for Senate, so the other 13 are lame ducks…going to take a lot more wrangling on R side.
Easy to imagine more than a few of those R’s dumping Rauner on a budget vote, etc…probably explains why Rauner has basically zero demands on the budget this time.
McAuliffe, Durkin, Sommer, [Dan] Brady and Hammond will be the only people left [in the House next January] who took office before 2011.
lol only 5 House Republicans will have served under more than Quinn and Rauner [by the end of this term, assuming no one else loses]. Kinda nuts!
Only 15 will have served under more than JUST RAUNER…compared to 22 who have ONLY served under Rauner. That’s nuts.
So basically a pretty large majority of the non-lame duck House Republican caucus has never dealt with a governor who isn’t Bruce Rauner.
* Crain’s Chicago Business posted my column early this week, so here you go…
We’ve been hearing a lot of debate lately about the merits and demerits of a graduated, or “progressive,” state income tax.
Illinois’ constitution mandates a “non-graduated rate.” Everybody from the poorest to the wealthiest currently sends 4.95 percent of their taxable personal income to the state.
The Center for Tax & Budget Accountability recently unveiled a graduated income tax proposal that it claims would reduce taxes for 98 percent of Illinoisans. Under its plan, income over $300,000 per year would be taxed at an 8 percent rate. The highest rate, 9.85 percent, would apply to annual income above $1 million.
The center’s plan would raise an estimated $2 billion in its first full year. By contrast, last year’s income tax hike—to 4.95 percent from 3.75 percent—was projected to raise about $5 billion. But that’s only if you include revenue from the increase in the corporate income tax rate, which jumped to 7 percent from 5.25 percent. The plan assumes the corporate rate will remain the same, but that’s not what happened the last two times personal rates were hiked.
Illinois’ constitution has a limit on how high corporate tax rates can go. Corporate rates “shall not exceed the rate imposed on individuals by more than a ratio of 8 to 5.”
The constitution doesn’t require an 8-5 ratio, the language simply serves as a cap on corporate taxation. But if the state changed to a graduated tax and then based corporate income taxes on the top personal rate, it would result in a whopping 15.76 percent corporate rate—more than double today’s.
So, clearly, some more debate is in order here, particularly what to do about our 8-5 ratio, since large companies often avoid state income taxes while small businesses pay full freight.
And addressing this issue is even more important when you consider what I’m about to tell you.
The Commission on Government Forecasting & Accountability, which crunches numbers for the General Assembly, did a study in March for Rep. Rob Martwick (D-Chicago). Martwick wanted to know how much additional revenue the state would need through 2045 to pay for expensive things like pensions and the new school funding law and asked that they calculate all other spending growth by using the consumer price index.
* I covered this part of the governor’s radio interview at length for subscribers today, so I’ll just let you comment on this RGA release…
Republican Governors are committed to lower taxes on hardworking families, and that dynamic is demonstrating itself in both the Iowa and Illinois gubernatorial races.
In Iowa, GOP Governor Kim Reynolds has announced the largest tax cut in state history. In Illinois, GOP Governor Bruce Rauner has fought against Democrat House Speaker Mike Madigan’s tax and spend agenda for over three years and is committed to stopping Democrat gubernatorial nominee J.B. Pritzker - who is pledging to hike taxes even further if elected.
During an interview yesterday with AM Quad Cities, Governor Rauner praised Governor Reynolds’ tax cut plan as “exactly the right thing to do” and discussed how every state bordering Illinois is cutting taxes, while J.B. Pritzker is making a devastating tax increase for Illinois the centerpiece of his campaign. Listen here.
Reynolds and Rauner know that hardworking families in Iowa and Illinois deserve more money in their pockets, and both Governors are working hard, with some friendly border competition, to get the job done.
Listen to Governor Rauner’s interview with AM Quad Cities here.
Transcript:
HOST: Governor, we talk a lot here on the show AM Quad Cities about the movement from Illinois to Iowa and how that’s getting better and better or worse and worse depending on what side of the river you’re on. And now your friend Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Republicans in Des Moines are passing some income tax cuts, that’s got you concerned?
RAUNER: Oh man we sure do. All of us in states need to compete — and we should compete with each other — we do compete. We compete for businesses, we compete for working families, we compete to grow. Competition is a great thing. Illinois has been losing the competition for years even though we’ve got wonderful people, great location, very very wonderful transportation and education. But we have brutally high taxes and brutal regulation and so our businesses and jobs have been leaving, and working families have been leaving our state. And what’s amazing is the states around us have cut their taxes. Wisconsin’s cut taxes, Indiana’s cut taxes. They’re running budget surpluses. And now Iowa is cutting taxes, which is exactly the right thing to do to grow jobs, grow family income. And to make it more reasonable for economic growth in the state.
And what’s Illinois doing? Right now, Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan and his democrats in Springfield are proposing a massive tax hike and candidate Pritzker, Madigan’s choice for governor, Pritzker is running around the state saying, “let’s raise the income taxes on the people of Illinois.” Horrible, devastating idea, terrible idea. Our tax burden is already higher in Illinois overall than it is in Iowa. We’re already higher taxes than Iowa overall, and to think that Iowa is cutting their taxes to be more competitive while we’re going the other way. We’ve got to fight against this tax hike.
Friday, May 4, 2018 - Posted by Advertising Department
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This Monday is the deadline for lawmakers to put term limits on the ballot in November, and end this abuse once and for all. So call your state representative, call your state senator, and demand their support for term limits for all elected officials be put on the ballot. Let them know that there will be consequences in this fall’s election for lawmakers who don’t support giving the people the choice they deserve to change Illinois government.
Illinois can thrive once again, but only if lawmakers in Springfield commit to putting people over politics.
People can call their legislators all they want, but the final deadline to start this process is already over. As I’ve explained before, if the governor wanted to actually do something, he needed to call a special session earlier this week to have time for both chambers to pass the resolution. Passage requires three calendar days in each chamber.
* There is something he could do, however. The Senate already has a resolution on 3rd Reading to limit the terms of legislative leaders. The proposal was advanced during the grand bargain and then abandoned when Rauner killed said bargain. So, that leader term limits proposal could be passed in one day and the House could start its clock that same day. If a special session was called today or tomorrow, it could theoretically get on the ballot. I highly doubt it will “because Madigan,” but it’s still possible I suppose.
The governor’s campaign has called leader term limits a “cop out,” perhaps because JB Pritzker supports the idea, too. But that leader term limits proposal is sponsored by Senate Republican Leader Bill Brady. It’s co-sponsored by several Republicans and even some Democrats, like Daniel Biss and Andy Manar. Sen. Sam McCann is also a co-sponsor.
This is the same problem Rauner has created for himself since the beginning. He won’t settle for a first step on his Turnaround Agenda. He wants all or nothin’. So, he’s gonna get nothin’ like usual.
The legislative leaders could call their own special session, but that won’t happen. If the governor wants something done, he needs to do it himself.
* Meanwhile, from yesterday…
Today, Senator Kyle McCarter (R-Lebanon) signed on as the 36th Senate cosponsor of the Fair Maps Amendment (SJRCA26).
This means that if the Fair Maps Amendment was called for a vote on the Senator floor, the amendment would reach the minimum number of votes needed to pass. The Illinois State Constitution requires legislative constitutional amendments like SJRCA26 to pass with a three-fifths majority. In the Illinois Senate, this three-fifths number required for passage is 36 Senators voting yes.
“Reaching 36 cosponsors is an important milestone for the Fair Maps Amendment. It is a clear demonstration that an overwhelming majority of the Illinois Senate wants to end gerrymandering.” said Jeff Raines, Communication Director at CHANGE Illinois. “It’s time to call the Fair Maps Amendment for a vote.”
The Fair Maps Amendment is modeled after a 2016 proposal drafted by then-Rep. Jack Franks, which passed out of the House with 105 “yes” votes.
That’s great for the future, but it’s too late now. The proposal hasn’t even had a first reading yet.
Democrat Sean Casten, who is trying to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., says his internal polling numbers show the two are in a statistical tie.
The survey (see the memo here) indicates 45 percent of those surveyed support Roskam, 44 percent for Casten, with 11 percent undecided. Democrats nationally believe the suburban 6th congressional district is among the most likely to flip to blue in November. […]
Still, Roskam is better funded than Casten, has warded off challenges in the past and voters chose Roskam in 2016 at the same time that Hillary Clinton prevailed in the same district. Roskam, one of the architects of the Republican tax law, meantime, is pounding away at Casten on taxes, trying to wrap him in Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s unpopularity as well as tying him to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in digital ads. “The taxpayers in the Sixth District deserve a representative who will reflect their priorities and values, not tax-and-spend policies that have driven our state deeper and deeper into debt over the last 30 years,” Roskam campaign spokeswoman Veronica Vera said in a statement.
* As mentioned in the piece, this a memo, not the full poll. It also has a smallish sample size (although not too horribly small, I suppose) and it’s a bit dated…
This memorandum outlines the key findings from a recent telephone survey among a cross-section of 401 likely general election voters in Illinois’s 6 th Congressional District conducted on behalf of Casten for Congress. The survey was conducted April 21-23, 2018, including both cell and landline interviews, and has an overall margin of error of ±4.9 percentage points.
▪ In our initial trial heat, Sean Casten is in a statistical tie with Peter Roskam, 44% for Casten to 45% for Roskam, with 11% of voters undecided. Among the all-important bloc of independent voters, Casten leads Roskam by 43% to 34%.
▪ Perhaps even more striking is Roskam’s strength of support…or lack thereof.
Incredibly, only 39% of Roskam voters say they strongly support him, which is actually
lower than Casten’s strength of support. For a five-term incumbent to have weaker support than a first-time candidate early in the cycle is a sure sign of Roskam’s deep
vulnerability.
▪ President Trump lost IL-06 by 7 points in 2016. And voters here certainly haven’t warmed to the president since the election. Trump’s feelings thermometer is currently negative by a 20-point margin (37% positive, 57% negative), and his job approval stands at 41% approve to 56% disapprove (46% strongly).
▪ The national Republican brand is certainly no help to Roskam either, as voters here are more negative (49%) than positive (25%) to Republicans in Congress by nearly 2 to 1.
▪ Perhaps the brightest flashing red light for Peter Roskam is that voters in the district want their member of Congress to be an independent check and balance on Donald Trump rather than to support Trump and help him pass his programs by a decisive 69% to 29% margin, including 76% to 20% among independents. The fact that Peter Roskam has been a virtual rubber stamp for Donald Trump, voting with Trump 94% of the time, puts Roskam FAR out of step with the voters of his district on this critical question, and Roskam’s voting record is a cold hard fact that will be impossible to run away from.
That last point is important because Democrats successfully used that very same message against the wildly unpopular President George W. Bush in 2006. And if 76 percent of independents like this message, then that’ll move some votes for sure. But, hey, things can change fast in politics.
* Here’s Roskam’s Madigan attack from late yesterday afternoon…
Now that House Speaker Mike Madigan has formally backed J.B. Prtizker’s plan to raise taxes for Illinois families, residents of the 6th District deserve to know if Sean Casten will join this latest tax hike scheme by Madigan and Pritzker.
Casten has been one of Madigan’s most consistent supporters for a progressive tax hike.
As recent NBC Chicago investigation revealed that Casten attacked his primary opponent Kelly Mazeski through a Super PAC secretly funded by Casten’s own father. The attacks called Mazeski a “fake” Democrat for her opposition to the Casten/Madigan tax hike.
“Sean Casten consistently stands with Mike Madigan in their shared commitment to raising taxes on Illinois families. The taxpayers in the Sixth District deserve a representative who will reflect their priorities and values, not tax-and-spend policies that have driven our state deeper and deeper into debt over the last 30 years,” said Roskam for Congress spokesman Veronica Vera.
* Sean Casten supported Mike Madigan and his party voted to override the Governor’s veto, burdening Illinois taxpayers with a 32 percent state income tax hike.
* Casten opposed the Governor’s recent budget because he said it didn’t do enough to raise taxes on Illinois residents.
* Earlier this year, Casten announced his intention to repeal the tax breaks Sixth District families and small businesses received through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and support a plan to instead, raise their taxes.
In an appearance on Quad Cities radio, Rauner downplayed any post-primary rifts among Republicans after his narrow victory over state Rep. Jeanne Ives of Wheaton last month.
Speaking on WOC AM-1420 in Davenport, Iowa, Rauner declared himself a unifier — not just among Republicans, but also with independents and Democrats.
“You know primaries are tough. They’re part of the process. I respect the process and now we’re all coming together in the state. We’re unifying all Republicans,” said Rauner, who faces a third-party challenge from Downstate Republican state Sen. Sam McCann and a potential battle over re-electing his hand-picked state GOP chairman. […]
“This is not an election that’s really about Republicans versus Democrats. This is about the people of Illinois against a corrupt political machine run by Madigan and Pritzker, and it’s the people against the political insiders,” he said.
While clashing on a call is as old as sports, O’Connor and others who work in youth sports say they’ve seen a recent deterioration of the treatment of officials, who are often teens or young adults themselves. Abuse by parents and coaches alike has led in part to a shortage of referees and umpires in youth and high school leagues across the country. The shortage spans all sports and competitive levels, local league representatives say, and has organizers scrambling to staff games.
“Everything a referee or umpire does is in judgment,” said O’Connor, 30, who owns Right Call Athletics, which staffs officials for various sports leagues throughout the Chicago area. “High school and college kids don’t want to stand there and take the abuse.” […]
Experts say the increasingly aggressive nature of parents represents a general shift in youth sports culture. Once centered around play and fun, sports leagues now are highly competitive and can cost parents thousands of dollars a season, monopolizing weekends spent traveling to games.
In his experience as a suburban youth sports commissioner and coach, John Lawson has seen some horrendous behavior.
Fans going after game officials. Police called to break up fights between players’ moms. “Just last year we had an instance where the high school players were threatening the umpire,” said Lawson.
In fact, Lawson says he often sees worse behavior at youth sporting events than in his other line of work, which is telling given that for 19 years he’s been a police officer in Roselle.
Hoping to thwart the growing nastiness at sporting events, Lawson, a sergeant with the Roselle police force, worked with local lawmakers last year to offer added legal protection for sports coaches and officials. The resulting law hit the books Jan. 1 and elevates any attack on an official or coach to an aggravated assault punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine, the same penalties as those prescribed for assaulting a teacher or police officer.
After 43 years as a baseball umpire, Bill Olsen has enough patience now to just let the nasty taunts from fans, coaches and parents sail by like a pop fly into the summer sky.
But Olsen, 60, worries that a deteriorating respect for officials on the field is driving away younger umpires from the job and even hardened veterans who are sick of the trash talking. […]
In an effort to stem the ever-dwindling number of umpires, the IHSA has even begun recruiting high school students to study, pass a test and become certified officials. Struckhoff said the number of IHSA-registered baseball umpires is down this year to 2,200 from 2,314 a decade ago. But the departure of even one umpire leaves 50 to 60 games uncovered for the season, she said.
* I came up with this post idea because this week’s Tribune story reminded me of a 1999 Pate Philip kerfuffle. From a May 12, 1999 Tribune letter…
Illinois Senate President James “Pate” Philip would have us all taking swings at the refs who donate their time and talents so our kids can play ball (News, May . “They make more mistakes and everybody gets so mad at them, it isn’t even funny,” says Philip.
Who’s getting mad at them, senator? It’s not the kids on the field. Rather it’s the coaches and the parents on the sidelines. The kids usually congregate in embarrassed clusters when the adults start screaming at the refs, umpires or each other.
“I just say maybe they deserve a pop once in a while,” continues Philip. Sure, why shouldn’t that student, father or mother who’s refereeing or umpiring be popped? Think of the lessons our kids can learn about life and how to settle disputes.
With all of the soul-searching and legislative initiatives in the wake of the Columbine High School tragedy, wouldn’t passage of the state bill stiffening penalties for assaulting a sports official be a step toward ensuring our children’s safety and well-being?
* Several Democrats held a press conference today about the now-infamous Darlene Senger e-mail, in which she wrote “We can maybe tie this back to Duckworth” in reference to the 13 deaths at the Quincy veterans’ home. Here’s Tina Sfondeles…
Democrat J.B. Pritzker and Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza on Thursday demanded that Gov. Bruce Rauner and his policy chief issue an apology to Sen. Tammy Duckworth for an email which sought to blame the decorated war hero and former veterans’ affairs manager for a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak in downstate Quincy. […]
Mendoza implored Senger to apologize to the families of those affected by the Legionnaires’ outbreak and to Duckworth. She also blamed the administration for trying to hide the outbreak.
And she denied politicizing the issue; that, she said, is Senger’s doing.
“Darlene Senger is the person who chose to try to pin the deaths of 13 war heroes on an actual wounded war hero. It’s not me,” Mendoza said. “…Darlene Senger disqualified herself as a person that could be trusted by this state the minute she decided to put the governor and his reputation ahead the personal safety of those veterans and the grieving families that were impacted by the deaths.”
Also, it should perhaps be noted that they held their event at the plumbers’ union hall. Get it? Plumbing?
* The Senger campaign is not budging an inch…
The simple, bipartisan fact is that for years, including the past Blagojevich and Quinn administrations, our veterans homes suffered from chronic underfunding that impacted the care our veterans received along with the critical maintenance and modernization of the state’s veterans facilities.
There is no doubt that the lack of proper funding for veterans over the last decade has exacerbated the problems we currently face. If we choose to ignore the past, systemic failures to fund our veteran’s programs, then we are destined to continue to face these challenges in the future and that was the point of my comment–we need to understand how and when these problems started in order to find long-term solutions.
* They also point to state Veterans Affairs Director Duckworth’s 2007 statement…
Our Quincy home is the oldest home we have. It was actually built to support our veterans of the Civil War. It needs work. We’re constantly spending money to update it.
Veterans are waiting a year or more, sometimes dying, for rooms in Illinois nursing homes created specifically for those who have served with honor in the country’s armed forces.
Yet for years, rooms in some of the state’s four veterans homes have remained vacant because Illinois simply failed to hire enough nurses to make them available.
“I’m funded (by the Legislature) at 89 percent of census,” said L. Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. […]
My interpretation: Either the governor or the Legislature didn’t want to come up with the money.
* Rauner campaign…
Governor Rauner took immediate action to address the problems at Quincy. He has worked every day to implement all recommendations and has presented a plan to build a new home. It’s shameful that JB Pritzker is playing politics instead of focusing on how to provide the very best care for our veterans.
* Pritzker campaign…
“While Bruce Rauner staged press stunts and paid lip-service to Veterans and their families, his administration was hiding emails that contained a secret plan to shift blame away from their failed governor,” said JB Pritzker. “After years of Rauner’s fatal mismanagement, his administration tried to pin the blame on U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a combat Veteran and advocate for Veterans’ rights who embodies the spirit and courage of this country. Governor Rauner, Senator Duckworth is owed an apology. She deserves to be honored for her service and sacrifice.”
“What kind of a person does that?” Comptroller Mendoza asked of Senger, who is now the Republican nominee for State Comptroller. “As we recover from the manufactured budget crisis that Governor Rauner created, my office continues to have to make tough choices when prioritizing state payments. That means Illinois needs a comptroller with a strong moral compass — not one just seeking to deflect blame away from the governor. Sen. Tammy Duckworth sacrificed her body on the battlefield fighting for our country. She deserves respect from Darlene Senger, not false blame. Senger owes her an apology. A BIG ONE.”
“I am personally upset by the situation at the Quincy Veterans’ Home. All veterans — especially those at the Quincy facility — deserve our gratitude and a commitment to helping them when they need it the most,” said Secretary of State Jesse White, a veteran of the U.S. Army, Army Reserves and Illinois National Guard. “It’s insulting that as the Governor’s deputy chief of staff, Darlene Senger would attempt to point blame and try to politicize a life-and-death issue facing our veterans. There is no room in state government for individuals who callously point fingers and attempt to skirt their own responsibilities.”
Illinois lawmakers have sent Gov. Bruce Rauner legislation requiring him and his successors to use governor’s office funds to pay people who work for them.
The Senate vote 46-7 Thursday to eliminate what’s called “off-shoring” of salaries . For decades, governors of both parties have made their payrolls look leaner by paying some employees who work for them out of other agencies’ budgets.
The legislation was produced by Democratic state Comptroller Susana Mendoza.
Bruce Rauner can make a lasting, positive mark on Illinois government by outlawing the practice of concealing governor’s office salaries within state agency budgets, a practice known as “offshoring,” State Senator Andy Manar said today.
The Illinois Senate today approved the Truth in Hiring Act with bipartisan support. The accountability and transparency measure, sponsored by Manar in the Senate, will be sent to the governor’s desk.
“Offshoring didn’t start under this governor’s watch, but certainly he can be the governor who puts a stop to it,” Manar said.
The Truth in Hiring Act simply says that every employee who works in the governor’s office will be paid from the governor’s payroll. Their salaries will be counted in the governor’s budget and will not be pulled from agencies that are supposed to protect children and the elderly or put state troopers out patrolling highways.
Nearly 60 percent of employees working for Rauner’s office currently are paid by state agencies with funds intended for priorities such as economic development, public safety and child protection.
Offshoring has been utilized by Illinois governors, Democratic and Republican, for years to make it appear their office budgets are smaller than they actually are. Examples include paying an education advisor to the governor $250,000 from the Department of Human Services budget or a deputy chief of staff to the governor $140,000 from the Illinois State Police budget.
The measure was an initiative of Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza. It was approved with no opposition in the House.
“Signing the Truth in Hiring Act shouldn’t require much soul-searching by Gov. Rauner when it lands on his desk,” Manar said. “I urge him to enact it and join lawmakers of both parties and the comptroller in claiming a victory for Illinois taxpayers.”
Everybody’s done it. Mendoza and Manar both voted for budgets that funded it. Signing this bill into law won’t change a whole lot, but the time has finally come to end it.
* I’ve been following this bill and bills like it with subscribers for weeks. I’ve discovered that the topic is one of the better ways of explaining this year’s session, with one more observation to come tomorrow…
Legislation designed to close a revolving door through which carjacking suspects often return to the street within 24 hours of their arrests passed the Illinois Senate on Wednesday.
The bill, approved by a vote of 56-0, must pass the House before the governor can decide whether to sign it. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is pushing for the bill.
In February, the Sun-Times reported that dozens of juveniles were charged in Chicago with pointing guns at motorists and stealing their cars, but few were detained longer than a day.
Some went on to commit other crimes — including carjackings — after they were released on electronic monitoring, records show. […]
The bill would put the burden on juvenile advocates to prove their clients should be freed until their cases are resolved. If the judge decides to detain a juvenile on allegations of carjacking, the suspect would have to undergo a psychological evaluation.
* Other bills…
* Editorial: A stand against public-paid golden parachutes: A report by the Better Government Association tallied 11 examples since 2009 of six-figure severance packages. Together, they cost taxpayers more than $5.2 million. Two bills before the Illinois General Assembly would curtail such practices. Senate Bill 3604, introduced by state Sen. Tom Cullerton of Villa Park, would cap severance payouts to equal 20 weeks of pay. It would eliminate severance pay for public employees fired for misconduct. It passed the Senate on Wednesday and moves to the House.
* Illinois Senate votes to teach LGBT history in school: The Senate voted 34-18 Wednesday on the plan by Chicago Democratic Sen. Heather Steans. It would require schools to teach a history unit on the role in society and contributions of gays, lesbians and other LGBT individuals.
* Op-Ed: Why Huck Finn could stop smart consolidation effort: The legislation, filed by state Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, would allow two or more local school boards to agree to share the costs of a single superintendent, or allow voters in multiple school districts to force superintendent consolidation, according to a recent story from Illinois News Network’s Benjamin Yount. To force a shared superintendent, 51 percent of voters in each school district would have to agree to do so at the ballot box.
* Illinois Senate approves plan that would allow police to monitor large crowds with drones: Another measure that cleared the Senate would prevent the state from suspending someone’s professional license for falling behind on student loan payments. Supporters including Attorney General Lisa Madigan say it doesn’t make sense to limit someone’s ability to earn a living while also asking them to pay off debt. Current law allows for someone’s professional license to be suspended or revoked for falling behind on loan payments for dozens of professions, including teachers, engineers, veterans and therapists.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning about a rise in insect-borne diseases — and Illinois is right up there, ranking sixth among states with the most mosquito-related illnesses.
Between 2004 and 2016 nationwide, diseases from mosquito, tick and flea bites tripled to more than 640,000 cases, according to the study released Tuesday.
Illinois saw the number of mosquito- and tick-borne diseases jump from 226 in 2004 to 772 in 2016, according to CDC data. Data for flea-borne illness couldn’t be located for those individual years. […]
The most common type of tick-borne illnesses was Lyme disease, the report said. In the time period examined by the CDC, 352 cases of Lyme disease were reported.
* Despite the headline (explained here) this is definitely not a joking matter. Here’s my old pal Kristen Strawbridge…
Hi friends. You probably haven’t heard from me in too long, and that is not intentional. Many apologies for being out of touch. I have been struggling for years with rapidly declining health, and I chose to suffer in silence, but I’m not doing that anymore. I desperately want to live again, and I need help and support to do that.
I’ve been sick for over six years and have seen so many doctors. It’s a very long story, so to put it simply, my body and my brain are broken. I’m fighting Late-Stage Lyme Disease, Endometriosis, and Severe Fibromyalgia. These three monsters cause pain storms that are indescribable. I’ve been totally disabled for three years, and I have had a constant fever for that time too. It’s an ongoing battle with debilitating fatigue, wipespread severe pain, brain fog, neurological issues, muscle twitching and spasming, extreme weakness, migraines, dizziness, vision problems, and disturbances in heart rhythm. I could go on, but you get the idea. I’m basically bedridden and forced to live a life on the sidelines. If you know me at all, you know that’s heartbreaking for me.
* Kristen sent me an e-mail asking for help sending people to her GoFundMe page. Here’s the end of it…
Thank you for considering this. I still read the blog several times a day, and I really miss being there sometimes. It’s a lonely disease. I hope you are well.
Doug Finke: So you filed a suit against the Senate Leadership.
Sen. Sam McCann: Senate Republican Leadership.
Finke: Correct. Uh, why? You were trying to talk to them, were you not?
McCann: This is a classic case of taxation without representation and tyranny. The tyrannical Rauner has instructed his cronies who are in charge of the Senate Republican Leadership to do this, and what they’re essentially doing and what we’re trying to see restored is the ability to represent my constituents adequately. So way the taxpayer dollars flows — this isn’t about campaign dollars, this is about taxpayer dollars — when the taxpayer dollars come through the doors for legislative purposes, it gets divided four ways. The money that had always traveled to my office traveled through the conduit of the Republican caucus. So all we want is to receive the services that every elected Senator receives. I’m not worried about going back into the caucus room with the caucus. I’m not worried about them accepting me. What I am concerned about are my constituents who are being denied due process and the ability to be served adequately.
Mark Maxwell: To follow up on that, isn’t that just a little bit exaggerated? You still have the right to vote. You still have the right to debate on the floor. You still have LRB (Legislative Reference Bureau), LRU (Legislative Research Unit). How is your power as a legislator in any way void from what it was two weeks ago?
McCann: I think the way you phrased that question shows me you are not an honest arbiter in this process. Obviously, you’re with, uh, you’re with other folks in this process.
Oh, come on. Is Sam really implying that Maxwell is a Raunerite?
McCann: If you don’t believe $30 million dollars comes into this building every year to be divided amongst 118 reps and 59 senators… That goes for constituent services out in the district. It goes for bill analysis. It goes for coordination of committees, coordination of the bills, where they are, where they’re dispositioned. None of that has happened. When my visitors come here, when constituents from my district come here, they send their kids here on an 8th grade field trip, they expect to get a picture back home. When Bill Brady says he’s not going to allow photographers to take a photo? You think that’s fair? You don’t think that’s not being… You think that’s not a diminishment? You don’t think that’s taxpayers… that’s taxation without representation?
He’s still focused on the photographer? Seriously?
McCann: The dollars flow through one of four conduits. They either need to or continue the flow of taxpayer dollars for taxpayer services through that conduit or develop a fifth conduit. One or the other.
Maxwell: Maybe I’m missing something. Can you describe… You keep referring to this pool of money. Can you describe where it comes from and what it’s allocated for…
McCann: It’s taxpayer dollars.
Maxwell: Well, I get that, but…
McCann: I don’t think you do. I don’t think you’re listening to me. I’ve told you multiple times it’s taxpayer dollars. You pay your taxes. It comes into the state Treasury…
Maxwell: What does it get you in return? If you’re still in the Senate caucus, what things would you have that you don’t have right now.
McCann: I’ve already went over that with you.
Maxwell: So you still have access to LRB, LRU, right? These are still things… You can go down and draft legislation. Right? What am I missing?
McCann: Mark, You wonder why I…
Maxwell: I’m not a lawmaker. I don’t know how it works. You’ve got to tell me.
McCann: You’re a joke.
Yeah, Sam’s really got that gubernatorial temperament thing down pat. Sheesh.
Finke: And are the Senate Republicans pressuring you into leaving early, do you think?
McCann: I have no idea.
Maxwell: Tim Butler called for you to resign last week.
McCann: And I would call for him to resign because he doesn’t listen to his district. He doesn’t care. He was appointed by Rauner as a Raunerite. He does nothing more than follow Rauner’s directives and orders and there are a lot of people in his district who feel that they’re not being represented well. And of course, he’s never really faced the electorate in a challenge so I guess we don’t know.
Maxwell: Just to make this point, I’m repeating what I heard from other people today who told me that you still have all of this access. So I’m just asking. I truly don’t know…
McCann: And again, I don’t know how many times do I need to repeat it for you. So we have in district services that we offer. At this point, we don’t even know…
Maxwell: You still have district staff, right?
McCann: I do, but we don’t know if she will be paid or not.
Maxwell: Really?
McCann: That should have to be determined.
Maxwell: Who would decide that?
McCann: Evidently, Bill Brady. That’s why we had to bring the lawsuit.
Maxwell: Has there been a threat that she would not be paid?
McCann: When other services are cut off, we don’t know. We don’t know where that line is at. That’s what we’re trying to determine.
He filed the lawsuit over his district office allotment? That’s not what the lawsuit says. (Also, his allotment is guaranteed by statute.)
* But, really, get a thicker skin, Sam. And if you think Maxwell can be tough, try sitting down with Mary Ann Ahern, or Carol Marin, or Mike Flannery, or Rick Pearson, or Amanda Vinicky, or a whole lot of others. This doesn’t get any easier, bub. Welcome to the jungle.
[Headline was changed after friendly advice from a grammar cop.]
(C)hanging our system from a flat tax to a graduated income tax requires a constitutional amendment. It’s too late to get the question before voters on the November ballot, which means the earliest that could happen is 2020.
This push for a new tax system comes from progressives, who harness much of the party energy and are pressuring Madigan to impose a structure they say shifts the tax burden onto the wealthiest and away from the poor and middle class. It’s a longtime favorite of organized labor, too.
Recall that nearly every Democrat who ran for governor supported the progressive income tax. How can Madigan, fresh from the primaries, close out the legislative session without addressing it? Republicans say the proposed change is riddled with flaws, including the risk of giving politicians too much leeway over tax hikes.
So by appearing to take action, Madigan is keeping GOP assaults at bay while throwing a bone to his party base, including labor. Whether that’s a sustainable way to fend off constant assaults to his dual roles of power remains to be seen.
The House held a committee hearing on Madigan’s proposal yesterday in Chicago.
Because Pritzker made clear his support for a graduated income tax during this year’s Democratic primary, and Rauner, who opposes the change, has shown he plans to make his opposition a central element of his re-election campaign. […]
One way or the other, it sure looks as if Democrats decided they’d be better off playing offense on this issue than defense.
Pritzker supports it, so why shy away now? Might as well embrace it. Will it work? Well, that’s why we have elections. Let’s get this settled one way or the other.
Illinois Republicans blast Democratic income tax resolution as election-year politics
Lawmakers on Wednesday sparred over a proposal to change the state’s tax structure, with Democrats expressing support for taxing higher earners more than low-income taxpayers while Republicans decried the idea as an attempt at “class warfare” to score political points ahead of the November election.
So, for all their bluster, the Republicans know they have at least some vulnerablity on this, too.
* If he does raise $5 million, he won’t be the lowest spender. But where will his money come from? It’s not like the cash-rich CTU is gonna be a big contributor. They were furious when Gov. Pat Quinn put Vallas on the 2014 ticket. And the downtown money is pretty much all with Mayor Emanuel. Out of state? Maybe. Could this be Chris Kennedy Part 2? I dunno. But after working with Kennedy, Bill Daley has popped his head up again to criticize the mayor. Wait and see, I suppose…
After declining to say earlier this week how much money he hopes to raise for his mayoral campaign, Paul Vallas gave reporters a goal during his campaign kickoff Wednesday.
“Our goal is to raise a minimum $3 million and we hope to raise $5 million,” he said. “When we release our financial reports in June, I think you’ll see a healthy balance.”
So far, Vallas doesn’t have much of a balance. In fact, he hasn’t reported any contributions of at least $1,000 since he filed the paperwork creating his campaign fund on April 2. […]
“I don’t think it’s essential. I’m not convinced I need it,” [Vallas told the Tribune earlier this week about campaign money]. “Suffice to say, I will be the candidate who spends the least on TV ads.”
Instead, Vallas said he will rely on “human infrastructure,” saying he has numerous campaign volunteers at the ready, will visit all of the city’s neighborhoods and hopes Chicagoans echo his efforts on social media.
Emanuel has already raised $5.7 million this cycle.
JB Pritzker’s Graduated Income Tax Hike Would Crush Small Businesses
During Small Business Week, we recognize how important they are to Illinois. There are 1.2 million small businesses in Illinois, and they make up 98.2% of all businesses in the state. They employ more than 2.4 million Illinoisans representing 46.4% of the workforce.
Most small businesses are subject to individual income taxes, and they would be hit hard by JB Pritzker’s graduated income tax hike. Pritzker talks about taxing the wealthy, but the reality is that his tax hike will devastate the vast majority of small businesses and their employees.
“JB Pritzker is so out-of-touch that he’s pushing a tax hike on small businesses while dodging his own taxes by hiding money offshore and ripping toilets out of his mansion. You can’t trust Pritzker when it comes to taxes; he’s a tax cheat pushing tax hikes.” - Alex Browning, Rauner campaign spokesman
* Pritzker campaign…
Lie of the Week: Rauner Administration Repeatedly Lied About Cost of Quincy Veterans’ Home Fixes
Chicago, IL – Today, the Pritzker campaign continues their weekly series holding Bruce Rauner accountable for his frequent lies. With over 70% of Rauner’s 18 fact checks rated “half true” or worse, the truth is clear: Bruce Rauner is a liar.
The Quincy Veterans’ Home crisis killed 13 and infected dozens, but despite the threat to our state’s heroes Bruce Rauner and his administration repeatedly lied about potential fixes. In 2016, a hidden Rauner administration report estimated the cost of fixing the plumbing at $8 million, only for the administration to later claim that the cost could be anywhere from $30 million to $500 million. Rauner’s administration repeatedly misled lawmakers and the public in a desperate attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the ongoing crisis in Quincy.
“Bruce Rauner released a plan for the Quincy Veterans’ Home after three years of lies and mismanagement,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Our heroes and their loved ones have no reason to believe this failed governor who refuses to take responsibility for his constant crises.”
. “They make more mistakes and everybody gets so mad at them, it isn’t even funny,” says Philip.
