* I’ve received several texts and e-mails about this WSIL TV story since Friday evening and the topic is starting to get picked up by social media accounts, but the story is not an accurate portrayal of what Gov. Bruce Rauner said yesterday…
“It’s very important that we all come together,” Rauner said. “We need to create a better future for the people of Illinois.”
But is Rauner practicing what he preaches?
The Democratic Governor’s Association says no.
The group claims Governor Rauner hasn’t met with Ives since the election.
Rauner denied the claim, saying he spoke to Ives “right after the election.”
Reporter: When, specifically did you reach out to Ives?
Rauner: Oh, that’s a tough question. We [stutters] Right after the election.
The governor never said he “spoke” to Ives, he said he (or his campaign) reached out. So this is not a repeat of November, 2014, when Rauner said he talked to the Democratic legislative leaders, but actually didn’t.
* Even so, the Ives campaign says the governor didn’t tell the truth after I sent them the above exchange and the audio and asked when the governor reached out…
Hi Rich,
As usual, Governor Rauner is not telling the truth. What he is saying happened did not happen. But that’s fine. Rauner’s surrogates have made and continue to make it clear that they want Ives and other conservatives out of the party so there’s no need for perfunctory and disingenuous outreach. He and his surrogates are who Republicans chose to lead them. He is the nominee. And Ives wishes him good luck in the general.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Rauner campaign spokesman Will Allison called to say that on the morning after the election “Our campaign manager reached out to [Ives spokesperson] Kathleen Murphy to set up a phone call and never heard back.” Allison said Betsy Ankney reached out via text.
*** UPDATE 2 *** DGA…
At a press conference this morning, Governor Bruce Rauner lamented the sad state of his relationship with primary challenger state Representative Jeanne Ives:
Reporter: Have you and Jeanne Ives spoken? Have you reached out to her, can you just walk us through your contact with her [inaudible]?
Rauner: We called her, her office, right after the primary. We were told at the time that she did not have an interest in speaking with me or meeting with me, at this point. That’s the current status. Hopefully we’ll be talking soon. I look forward to that.
The update on the frayed relationship comes as Rauner has flailed for weeks in a desperate attempt to unite his broken party. Nearly three weeks into the general election and Ives is still calling the failed governor a liar while promising to continue holding him accountable for the rest of his term.
“Nearly three weeks after 48% of Republican voters rejected Bruce Rauner’s failed leadership, Rauner has done nothing to repair his relationship with his base,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Jeanne Ives and Republican voters know Rauner has failed Illinois’ families, so it’s no surprise she won’t pick up the phone.”
* We’re back in session next week, so get some rest.
Press release…
The ultimate party band is headed to the 2018 Illinois State Fair! After nearly 40-years of hits and millions of albums sold, Boy George and Culture Club with Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey will perform on the grandstand stage on Friday, August 10th.
“There’s no better way to kick start the Illinois State Fair than with the ultimate 80’s party in the grandstand,” said State Fair Manager Luke Sailer. “Culture Club is one of the music industry’s most iconic bands. Their unique blend of music and stunning stage presence is sure to wow fairgoers.”
Culture Club has been called one of the most influential groups of the 1980s. The British band, led by iconic front-man Boy George, has sold more than 50-million records worldwide. The group is best known for songs such as, “Karma Chameleon,” “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me,” “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya,” and “Time (Clock of the Heart),” which is featured on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.
The Thompson Twins provided the soundtrack for so many lives in the 1980s. Now, with a new band, Tom Bailey is once again performing those hits live, including a scheduled stop at the 2018 Illinois State Fair. Fairgoers will be treated to great songs from the past, such as “Hold Me Now,” “Lies,” and new music, like “Come So Far.”
S&P affirms Illinois at BBB- w/stable outlook ahead of $500 million state bond sale: "Illinois' credit rating is uncommonly low among the states, reflecting a confluence of its daunting long-term liability profile and persistent crisis-like budget environment in recent years."
guessing that JB Pritzker staff is among those sifting through the rating reports today…and there is plenty of fodder for next campaign commercial…. https://t.co/1ervaByCHD
As state bonds go to market, S&P is slamming the “persistent crisis-like budget environment” under Bruce Rauner’s failed leadership.
Rauner has failed to propose a balanced budget as governor, and he forced the state through an unprecedented 736-day budget crisis where bipartisan lawmakers ultimately overrode his reckless vetoes.
“Bruce Rauner creates crises, destroys state finances and slashes services for over a million while trying to force his failed agenda on our state,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “This governor’s fiscal mismanagement has failed Illinois, and people across the state and country are taking notice.”
S&P gave Illinois’ bonds a stable outlook. [Gabe Petek, managing director of S&P Global Ratings] said that’s because the budget lawmakers passed last summer, which included a $5 billion income tax increase, helped alleviate some of the funding pressures.
“The good news is that they held us stable,” Gov. Bruce Rauner spokesperson Rachel Bold said in an email, “but we clearly have some work to do.”
Moody’s gave Illinois’ bonds a Baa3 rating with a negative outlook.
“The state’s credit outlook is negative, based on our expectation of continued growth in the state’s unfunded pension liabilities, the state’s difficulties in implementing a balanced budget that will allow further reduction of its bill backlog, and elevated vulnerability to national economic downturns or other external factors,” a Moody’s report said. […]
Moody’s noted the state’s bonds could get an upgrade if lawmakers take steps to reassure investors. Those steps would include adopting a plan to fund pension obligations, making progress in lowering the state’s bill backlog, and enactment of a sustainable, balanced budget.
Factors that could lead to a downgrade, Moody’s said, would be larger structural imbalance leading to a build-up of unpaid bills, pension holidays, or difficulties in managing a national recession, trade war or reductions in federal Medicaid funds.
Three of those last five factors are out of the state’s control.
Why do I say this is classic Biss? Well, here is a Biss question to Pritzker in late January…
You’ve contributed $42 million to your primary campaign for governor so far. Will you pledge to contribute at least $42 million to the general election campaign regardless of who the nominee is?
So, a few months ago Biss was all about pressuring Pritzker to commit to funding his own fall campaign with tens of millions of dollars. And now big money is a “cancer” on our politics.
This isn’t all that different from the days when he was an architect of pension reform, then wholly disavowed it during the campaign.
* I confess to being a bit cranky about Biss because of this Tribune story that broke during my week off…
Days before the Democratic primary, lieutenant governor candidate Litesa Wallace’s campaign denied she had fired a female legislative aide in 2014 for reporting sexual harassment by a community leader. Instead, a spokesman said, the woman was dismissed for unauthorized spending on a campaign credit card.
That same spokesman now acknowledges that Rep. Wallace, D-Rockford, knew — but did not mention — that a police investigation had later cleared the employee she fired, LaVern Sanders. The Illinois State Police determined the purchases were linked to a broader credit card fraud ring and ruled out Sanders as a suspect, according to documents obtained by the Tribune through a public records request.
So they dragged that poor woman through the mud for nothing.
Friday, Apr 6, 2018 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Did you know that health plans are changing Illinois families’ benefits while consumers are locked into their plans for the year? People in Illinois, especially those living with chronic conditions, carefully shop for a health plan which covers the treatments they need at prices they can afford. But health plans aren’t delivering the benefits they have marketed and sold to Illinois consumers.
House Bill 4146 Fixes the Health Plan Bait-and-Switch
House Bill 4146 would simply prevent insurers from making unfair – and potentially unsafe – benefit changes while Illinoisans are locked into the plan. The legislation, however, would still allow insurers to utilize generics, add treatments to their formularies and also remove them for safety reasons.
Insurers need to deliver on the policies they sell. The Illinois Legislature should support HB 4146 to make health coverage fair.
* It’s difficult to say when this weekly show was taped, but here’s the DGA…
Jeanne Ives: “Bruce Rauner Lied”
17 days after the Republican primary, and instead of a unity event, state Rep. Jeanne Ives is calling Gov. Bruce Rauner a liar to anyone who will listen.
In an interview with EWTN Pro-Life Weekly last night, Jeanne Ives said “Bruce Rauner lied” to the Republican base and touted her close finish in the Republican primary. She then promised to continue holding the failed governor “accountable” for the rest of his term, while failing to offer even a hint of an endorsement of his reelection.
“48% of Illinois Republicans voted for someone else and Bruce Rauner is doing nothing to repair his fractured party,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Rauner’s approval ratings are in the gutter, his own party is in open revolt, and his chances at reelection look bleaker by the day.”
Illinois’ new “Invest in Kids” scholarship program got off to a fast start last week, attracting more than $36 million of the $100 million limit on its first day.
The governor’s pet project did, indeed, get off to a fast start, but it has stalled out since then. The total contributed as of today is $41 million - just $5 million more than three months ago and $59 million short of the $100 million goal. Also, just $36 million has been received so far.
* Anyway, on to the Rauner campaign…
It’s already clear that JB Pritzker is a tax cheat pushing tax hikes. He hides his money in the Bahamas to avoid paying his fair share of taxes while at the same time proposing a massive income tax hike on hardworking Illinois families.
Now this week, his hypocricsy hit a new level. JB Pritzker wants to immediately end the “Invest in Kids” tax credit scholarship program that provides low-income students an opportunity to finally have a better education. Yet at the same time, he’s benefitted from other tax credits to enhance his personal wealth.
JB Pritzker is completely fine with tax credits when they benefit him…just not when they provide opportunity for Illinois’ least fortunate students.
While Pritzker opposes the use of tax credits for private school scholarships, he supports them when it helps him pursue profit. According to state records, Pritzker claimed a total of $1.9 million in tax credits for companies he owns under the Angel Investment Credit Program, an initiative proposed under Governor Pat Quinn to entice wealthy investors to provide working capital to upstart companies in the state. Governor Bruce Rauner revived the program after it stalled in 2017.
…Former Florida Governor and 2016 presidential hopeful Jeb Bush highlighted Pritzker’s personal wealth and his willingness to reject the bipartisan deal in a tweet he posted Thursday afternoon, which declared Rauner a “champion.”
The Rauner campaign, which is supremely confident public opinion polls support their side in this debate, also highlighted the economic aspect of Pritzker’s stance.
“It’s shameful for Pritzker to say he would immediately end the scholarship program when so many low-income students will soon be benefiting from a better education,” campaign spokesman Will Allison wrote. “It’s clear Pritzker is out-of-touch with struggling families who can finally choose a brighter future for their children.”
Kinda apples to oranges, but it’s politics, so whatevs. And it’s baffling to me that the Rauner campaign didn’t mention the fact that Pritzker used the state high tech investment tax credit program to avoid paying any state income taxes in 2014.
“It’s appalling that the state loses out on precious education funds in order to give to wealthy donors a tax break. J.B. believes in investing in our public schools so that every child, no matter their zip code, has a quality education in their own neighborhood.”
Except that’s not occurring under this new law. A critical linchpin of the new funding formula was a hold harmless provision that insured no school district would lose funding on a per-pupil basis, which protected against any loss of funding in the event of public school students leaving for private school.
“This is private citizens giving private donations to a private 501(c)(3) that funds private students to go to a private schools. Never does the money pass through a state treasury or agency. It’s not funded by the government. It’s not funded by taxpayers.”
Um, it’s a potentially $75 million net reduction in taxes paid.
…Adding… From Rabbi Soroka…
What I said about private donations to private nonprofits was regarding the misconception that there’s a constitutional issue with this program. It had nothing to do with whether or not it results in a loss of revenue to the state. In fact, I’m quoted again later in the article as saying, “A voucher system takes money directly out of the state’s education spending budget. This (tax credit) is from general revenue.” That’s where I was making the point that even the maximum loss of revenue would not significantly impact the state’s ability to fund public education.
We need a robust public educational system that has the financial resources necessary to provide quality education for all the children it serves.
* The Tribune published a long and meandering story today - which is really three or so stories in one that jump back and forth - about Dan Proft, Brian Timpone, John Tillman and others who were involved in one way or another with those ubiquitous Proft papers we’ve been discussing for months. Here’s part of the not-for-profit angle…
Recently obtained documents and interviews show that an organization called Think Freely Media helped fund the operation that produced the [2016 article about a Liberty Principles PAC-backed statehouse candidate’s pitch to voters] for the East Central Reporter’s website. As a nonprofit, Think Freely is forbidden by federal law from engaging in politics, and it has described the articles it funded as news.
But State Board of Elections records also show a political committee, Liberty Principles, paid the same private company to publish the story in a print newspaper and mail it. That group, which state law says must spend its money on politicking, has labeled such content political ads. […]
Since 2015, thousands of articles have been published in more than two dozen print and online publications tied to Proft, who in addition to heading Liberty Principles has served as a [reported $100,000 annual] consultant to Think Freely Media. […]
[The Illinois Policy Institute’s John Tillman] also created Think Freely Media with the aim of touting the “benefits of limited government,” according to its IRS filing. In August 2015, the nonprofit began funding [Brian] Timpone’s Newsinator. Tax filings show that first round of cash amounted to $346,660. […]
“None of the content that was funded by TFM was political or electioneering in nature. To imply otherwise would be wrong,” [Think Freely Media’s president, Eric Tubbs] wrote.
But one group did say otherwise: Proft’s political committee, Liberty Principles. […]
The content complies with legal requirements for nonprofits and “TFM is not responsible for how a PAC uses it, characterizes it or otherwise mischaracterizes it as Ms. Svenson did,” Tubbs wrote in an email.
Essentially, if I’m reading this right, Tillman’s Think Freely paid for non-campaign stories run by Timpone’s Newsinator company. Newsinator paid for campaign-related stories. Proft, who has been a Think Freely consultant, then had his Liberty Principles PAC mail newspapers containing those one-sided Newsinator campaign stories to voters’ homes in races targeted by his PAC.
The papers have since been turned over to a new private company, Local Government Information, which is apparently controlled by Proft. Tipone’s Locality Lab now creates the content. The Tribune did not say whether Think Freely is currently involved.
Before the change, the operation appeared to be a cleverly intertwined web of a nonprofit social activist group, a for-profit business and a super PAC. The question, I suppose, is whether all the actors stayed strictly within their lanes back then and everybody remained independent and on the up and up. The Trib story doesn’t specifically answer either way.
For example, in addition to his role as chief executive officer at the institute, Tillman is the board chairman and former president of Think Freely Media, another small-government nonprofit that once shared office space with the institute and received hundreds of thousands of dollars from it in grant money.
In 2015, Think Freely Media made a $49,400, no-interest loan to a for-profit data and marketing company called Crowdskout. That came a few months after the nonprofit loaned Crowdskout $60,000 plus interest. At the time, Tillman had “majority unit control” of the entity that owned Crowdskout, according to a financial audit of Think Freely Media.
Experts say such transactions raise ethical questions and could violate the federal tax code for nonprofits. A zero-interest loan would benefit the for-profit company at the expense of the nonprofit. […]
“Obviously, these are all fully disclosed transactions, all at fair market value as they should be,” Tillman wrote. “And yes, people and companies are paid for providing services. When I have had a role with an organization, that relationship must be properly disclosed to the board and I recused myself regarding any decisions made.”
* University of Illinois Executive Vice President Barbara Wilson…
“We know for a fact that Texas A&M and the University of Texas have a special fund set aside to go poach Illinois faculty,” Wilson said. “We’ve been told that by numerous individuals, including some of the faculty they’re going after. So, we do have a reputational challenge in front of us, and I think part of the challenge is that our peers think that we’re struggling and they are going to use that opportunity to try and attract talent away.”
Those efforts increased by nearly 40 percent during the budget impasse, Wilson said.
And though the university was able to keep most of their talent, “it’s a lot of energy, a lot of time, and a lot of money to counter these offers from other institutions,” Wilson said.
Enter the University of Alabama. It awarded 203 full-tuition scholarships, out of 305 total, to freshman Illinoisans in 2017, defraying more than $100,000 in costs per student. The university has nearly quintupled over the past decade the amount of institutional, non-need-based aid it awards. […]
In 2016, Alabama spent more than $136.3 million in merit scholarships, which are not based on a family’s financial need, according to university data. That is up from $28.5 million a decade ago.
For many of these students, the equation was simple. Admitted students with at least a 3.5 grade point average and a 32 ACT or 1400 SAT score received full tuition for four years. The requirements are more stringent for incoming freshmen in 2018. In 2017, the average high school GPA of incoming freshmen was 3.72; one-third of students had a 4.0; more than 40 percent of the class scored a 30 or higher on their ACTs.
Even with tuition covered, Alabama still wins, collecting around $18,000 a year from out-of-state students for room and board and other expenses, more than the sticker price for in-state students.
Meanwhile, the UI is about to announce what President Tim Killeen said are “top-echelon” faculty members being pursued from other universities.
Wilson said the Distinguished Faculty Recruitment Program, launched last year to recruit senior faculty from around the country, “is on the cusp of making an announcement about several high-level people that we’ve recruited as part of the program. The goal is to bring in 10 to 12 senior-level faculty across the three universities each year.”
The three-year, $60 million effort will provide one-time grants not for salary “but for start-up funds to build labs and to create opportunities for graduate students, because if you’re a tenured faculty member at a really good university, you’re not going to come in and start over,” Wilson said. “So we have to create the kind of context to woo great faculty.”
UI President Tim Killeen told senators that he wants to increase the university system’s enrollment, now just under 84,000, to 93,000 by 2021.
Most of the enrollment growth would be at the Chicago and Springfield campuses, he said.
“It’s a mix of things. At Urbana, we’d be strongly propelling the distance education, the online components,” he explained after the hearing. “We’d also be looking at professional master’s programs at Urbana since the undergraduate classes are close to capacity.” […]
UI Vice President Wilson said the freshman class at the Urbana campus “is about as big as it can be right now, because everybody has to live in the residence halls, and there are capacity issues there as well as concerns about whether you can get the classes you need to graduate. They’re about tapped out on the freshman level, but they can bring in more transfer students.”
Killeen also said that the UI will continue a tuition freeze for in-state undergraduates for the fourth consecutive year next fall and that he would like to extend it at least two years beyond that.
People in severe pain need care and sympathy, not red tape.
Unfortunately, medical marijuana patients in Illinois have been getting the red tape. When doctors certify that patients have a qualifying disease, the state is supposed to give the patients a card permitting them to buy medical marijuana from an authorized dispensary. But though the law says patients should get the cards in 30 days or less, it’s reportedly taking the Illinois Department of Public Health far longer to issue them.
Even patients who have emergencies or terminal illnesses and who are supposed to get cards within 14 days are finding themselves snarled in red tape, lawmakers say.
That’s appalling. No one should have to suffer day after day and week after week because of bureaucratic understaffing or because the state government is doing a slow walk on an important program. Special taxes on businesses supplying medical marijuana have piled up, unspent, to a total of $11.6 million instead of being used to hire enough staff to process applications, says state Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago.
Day 16: Jeanne “The Godfather” Ives to Rauner “Revenge Is A Dish That Tastes Best When It Is Cold”
Future resident of Italy, Governor Bruce Rauner, made news yesterday after donating Mario Puzo’s Godfather papers to the Dartmouth Library, but Rauner could learn a thing or two from Puzo’s words.
Like Puzo’s characters, Rauner is stuck in his own inter-organization power struggle with state Representative Jeanne Ives. After years of Rauner’s lies and betrayals, Ives declared a vendetta against the failed Governor, nearly toppling him from power.
While Rauner clings on for dear life, he has failed to bring his organization together, and Ives has left his weaknesses exposed. Don Corleone once told his son Michael that “revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold.” With Ives’ vendetta unfulfilled and an organization perhaps irrevocably fractured, will Rauner’s dysfunctional GOP family betray him? It’s the type of drama that belongs in the pages of a Puzo novel.
“Bruce Rauner’s vulnerabilities are exposed, his grasp on power slipping, and his own party is ready to watch him fall,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Rauner needs Jeanne Ives and the 48% of Republicans that wanted her to represent them on his side, but theirs is a family power struggle that shows no signs of subsiding.”
* Zorn writes about the press release and concludes…
Sure, primaries are bruising, the rhetoric is heated and pragmatism generally ends up superseding principle when it comes time to vote. Even Ives has said she’ll vote for Rauner (though she’s said her husband will not).
Unity breakfasts, like the gathering the Democratic gubernatorial rivals had the Saturday morning after the March 20 primary, are polite agreements to ignore the preceding ugliness and pretend the ideological differences are minor.
But that rhetorical salve is important. Parties with open, infected wounds have a hard time getting healthy by the time voters go to the polls. Every day that goes by with Rauner refusing to apologize and Ives refusing to offer a single nice word about him is a day for the Democrats to celebrate.
Seventeen days on Friday. And counting.
The best thing about a March primary is that there’s plenty of time to heal wounds by the November general. But these are obviously gonna fester a while longer.
Dan Proft, by the way, just had the Libertarian Party’s candidate on his radio show for a friendly interview. The candidate went out of his way to praise Jeanne Ives’ campaign.
“I probably just lost $50,000. That’s my first house.” So said Illinois farmer Aaron Wernz, speaking to a Wall Street Journal reporter after China announced it would put a hefty 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans, which Wernz grows. The tariffs will raise prices to Chinese buyers and cut their purchases, which could cost American soybean growers $1.7 billion. […]
Last month, the administration announced it would put new duties on all imported aluminum and steel, before deciding to exempt Canada, Mexico, the European Union and other countries. The chief target was China, which answered with tariffs on U.S. pork, fruit and nuts.
Then the Trump administration announced 25 percent duties on more than 1,300 Chinese products worth some $50 billion. Beijing countered with equal levies on $50 billion of 128 U.S. goods, notably soybeans, corn, cotton, chemicals and cars. There may be more tariffs to come.
If China slaps a heavy tariff on soybean imports, 43,000 Illinois soybean farmers will scream. But so, too, will Illinois taxpayers as our state’s miserable economy takes another big hit. If China slaps a tariff on pork, some 2,000 Illinois pork farmers will howl, and so will we all.
State tax revenues will drop, revenues and profits for related businesses will take a dive, and good luck, Illinois, in clawing back to economic and fiscal health. […]
Illinois is the United States’ leading producer of soybeans, and China is our best customer. The Chinese buy almost 25 percent of the state’s output, about $1.75 billion in soybeans.
Last year, Illinois produced nearly 612 million bushels of soybeans, according to the Illinois Soybean Association. And about 114,000 people in Illinois have jobs thanks to that huge demand for soybeans and byproducts, such as soybean meal and biodiesel, according to the association’s marketing committee chairman, Austin Rincker.
Overall, revenues for Illinois farmers are down considerably in the last five years, in part because grain supplies have outpaced demands, but soybeans have been the exception. They have been profitable, Rincker says, “because of the demand in China.”
President Donald Trump’s move to slap $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports threatens to complicate and sharply drive up the cost of a much-ballyhooed contract the Chicago Transit Authority has struck with a Chinese firm to produce as many as 836 train cars.
The up to $1.3 billion pact was awarded two years ago to CSR Sifang America, now known as CRRC Sifang America, which is scheduled to deliver two prototype cars next year before beginning full production. Mayor Rahm Emanuel lauded the deal because, under its terms, Sifang would open a plant at 135th and Torrence, the first rail plant of any kind in many decades in the Pullman neighborhood, which once was the center of the nation’s rail-vehicle industry.
The new problem is that Sifang will only assemble the cars at 135th and Torrence. Their components will be made elsewhere, including in China, and Trump’s proposed new tariffs would impose a 25 percent duty on rail cars, their parts and components imported from that country.
The CTA’s contract includes a “buy America” clause requiring that at least 69 percent of the components in the cars assembled by Sifang be produced in this country. But that still leaves hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth in other components that could come from China and therefore be subject to a 25 percent tariff.
Proft calls concerns about the publications’ funding and transparency hypocritical.
“[W]hen Gateway or you do a story about the AFL-CIO Sun-Times or the Amazon Post raising the same questions and self-reverential ‘concerns’ and getting anywhere near the transparency provided by the enterprises with which I’m associated, then I’ll take inquiries such as yours more seriously,” Proft wrote, referring to The Washington Post owner and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the union owners of the Sun-Times. “Until then, I will properly see them as the thinly-veiled political attacks they are by those who don’t care to see conservative perspectives and news stories they would never cover make their way into public discussion.” […]
Brian Timpone, who runs the LGIS hyperlocal publications, is critical of nostalgia for local journalism’s fatter days. “Everyone,” he tells CJR, “reminisces about the glory days of the statehouse.” Two decades ago, Timpone worked as a TV reporter and covered the capitol for WCIA-TV. He was also the co-founder of Journatic, which CJR previously called a “local news outsourcing company” and which was submerged in scandal following revelations of fake bylines and plagiarism. (Journatic changed its name to LocalLabs in 2014.)
Timpone blames traditional reporters for helping to push the state toward its fiscal crisis today. “It’s really criminal what happened to Illinois and it all happened at a time when there were a lot more reporters—and nobody said a damn thing,” Timpone says. “All they did was they reported the news of the day like stenographers, and they’re doing the same thing today as they did then.”
Republican State Sen. Jason Barickman of Bloomington told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin he expects more gamesmanship from the Democratic leaders to prevent anything that might help Gov. Bruce Rauner win reelection in November.
“(Illinois House Speaker Mike) Madigan is a seasoned pro at controlling that legislative process to ensure that,” Barickman snarked. “I don’t think Madigan will want to give a full-year budget because it will be perceived as a win for Rauner.”
* The Question: What do you think will happen with the budget this spring?
She’s here! Diana and I are excited to announce the arrival of our first grandchild. Hearts full and blessed beyond words to welcome this perfect gift into the family. pic.twitter.com/3j5faJ9jl3
* Every four years, Republican Party conventions of precinct committeemen are held in every Illinois county for the purpose of electing state central committee members in each of the state’s congressional districts. The filing deadline was March 26th. Dave Diersen posted a list of contested races. I’ve added incumbent (i) designations…
Congressional District 1
• Shawn Murphy, Evergreen Park (i)
• David Smith, Frankfort
Congressional District 2
• Judy Diekelman, Thornton (i)
• George Pearson, Monee
Congressional District 5
• Jack Dorgan, Rosemont (i)
• Chris Cleveland, Chicago
Congressional District 6
• Brian Colgan, Naperville (i)
• Seth Lewis, Bartlett
• Bob Grogan, Downers Grove
Congressional District 7
• Carol Smith Donovan, Chicago (i)
• Adrian Wright, Chicago
• Mark Hosty, River Forest
Congressional District 8
• Ryan Higgins, Schaumburg (i)
• Paul Hinds, Villa Park
Congressional District 9
• Char Foss-Eggman, Park Ridge
• Sallie Nyhan Davis, Glenview
Congressional District 13
• Fred Floreth, Springfield (i)
• Dustin Peterson, Clinton
Congressional District 15
• Bob Winchester, Rosiclare (i)
• Chapin Rose, Mahomet
Congressional District 16
• John McGlasson, Pontiac (i)
• Tom Demmer, Dixon
Congressional District 17
• Jan Weber, Geneseo (i)
• Patrick Harlan, Galesburg
That’s a lot of challenges.
I asked Dan Proft if he was behind any of these candidates in an attempt to take over the party. Chris Cleveland was a big Jeanne Ives supporter, for example, as was David Smith, Patrick Harlan and others on that list.
Proft’s texted response…
Think you’ve got it reversed. It reads to me as if Rauner and his big government apparatchiks are working to continue their purge of conservatives from the party per their backing candidates against McGlasson, Floreth and Winchester. Message to Ives and her supporters: leave the party.
I checked in with the ILGOP, former statewide candidate Bob Grogan and the Ives campaign, but haven’t yet heard back.
With his own re-election most definitely in jeopardy—national handicapper Larry Sabato dubs him “the most endangered” GOP incumbent governor in the country—who does Gov. Bruce Rauner have coming here next week to star at a big-bucks dinner to raise money for his campaign and the Illinois Republican Party?
Answer: Another GOP incumbent whose state Senate has turned on him, just saw another key ally go down in a special election, was labeled “a threat to democracy” by his capital’s leading newspaper, and who has taken to tweeting about a looming “blue wave” that’s going to wash away his accomlisments. That would be Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker, who’s the big draw at the April 12 Chicago Hilton event for which tickets are going for as much as $50,000, but whose own re-election bid in cheesehead-land is no sure bet.
Walker always has been one of the role models Rauner mentions when asked who’s got the right stuff in politics, and indeed Walker—who unlike Rauner has a Legislature controlled by his own party—has been pretty much able to de-fang organized labor and bring down the state’s unemployment rate, though Wisconsin’s record of attracting new residents isn’t much better than Illinois’.
Democratic candidate for Illinois Governor, J.B. Pritzker, is promoting his plan for a progressive or graduated income tax, but is declining to provide specifics.
When questioned Wednesday by WJBC’s Sam Wood, Pritzker was vague about taxes during the two years he says it will take to amend the state constitution, which is required to enact a progressive tax that forces the wealthy to pay more.
Pritzker pledges to reduce the tax burden on the middle class.
“Lowering the tax burden is the goal by lowering the tax rate that they might pay on income taxes, and also, very importantly, lowering local property taxes, which are so regressive,” Pritzker said.
* Aside from his refusal to lay out his tax rates or say which income levels will pay higher rates, the other problem with Pritzker’s argument about making the wealthy pay more state taxes is this…
The returns also showed that in 2014, [JB Pritzker and his spouse] paid no state income taxes after taking nearly $150,000 in tax credits for research and development, as well as for property taxes and educational expenses.
Even 10 percent of nothing is still nothing for someone with a smart CPA.
…Adding… From the interview…
If we create jobs, we’re gonna add revenue to the coffers of the state of Illinois because we’re gonna bring new jobs online so people will pay taxes. Businesses will grow, they’ll pay taxes. That’s a great way to do, to bring revenue into the state without raising taxes at all. And that would be my goal, of course. You know, nobody wants to raise taxes.
Um, OK. He’s said time and time again that he’ll pay for his proposals by raising taxes.
Southern Illinois University trustees will consider a plan to gradually shift state funding from the Carbondale campus to the Edwardsville campus to reflect enrollment shifts.
Historically the Carbondale campus has had about 64 percent of state funding and about 36 percent went to Edwardsville. That split mirrored enrollment, The (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan reported.
However enrollment at the Carbondale campus has been declining and more students are enrolling at Edwardsville. Enrollment distribution between the two schools is now about equal with Carbondale at about 14,500 students and Edwardsville with about 13,800 students.
Trustees are to vote at the April 12 meeting on whether to “begin a phased adjustment of the state appropriation allocation in a more equitable fashion.”
The first phase of the proposal, a “good-faith effort” to begin the process, would reallocate an additional $5.1 million of the state appropriation to the Edwardsville campus for FY ’19.
The proposal doesn’t lay out a definite end goal for reallocation, but it calls for System President Randy Dunn to hire an external consultant to develop a recommended formula for addressing the funding gap — and it anticipates that the recommendation might fall somewhere between $17.7 million and $23.3 million in funds transferred to SIUE.
During the state budget impasse last year, SIUC borrowed $35 million from SIUE after exhausting $83 million in reserves.
On March 1, the SIUE Faculty Senate adopted a resolution calling on the Board of Trustees to “create a new, fair and dynamic formula” to “reallocate the SIU system budget in a just and equitable manner.”
* I skimmed through the report yesterday (click here). What really jumped out at me was that SIUC’s fall 1999 enrollment was 22,596 and its fall 2017 enrollment was just 14,184. That’s a 37 percent decrease. Whoa.
Meanwhile, fall 1999 enrollment at SIUE was 11,877, compared to 13,796 last fall.
To say that SIUC’s future is bleak would be an understatement. Its legislators better get on this soon or they could wind up with a ghost town.
Two weeks after voters went to the polls, one of two Democrats vying to take on Republican Cook County Board Commissioner Timothy Schneider in November has declared victory in the primary, after counting of the last provisional ballots showed he was 12 votes ahead.
Barring any last-minute hitches before the county election results are certified Tuesday, Kevin Morrison, of Elk Grove Village, will advance to face Schneider, chairman of the state GOP and an ally of Gov. Bruce Rauner, in the fall.
Democrats figure Schneider, a third-term commissioner from Bartlett, could be vulnerable. Hillary Clinton won 57 percent of the vote in his northwest suburban district in 2016, compared with 37 percent for President Donald Trump.
“The status quo isn’t working for our families,” Morrison said in his statement declaring victory in the primary.
Morrison won endorsements from Elk Grove Township Democratic Committeeman Ted Mason, Wheeling Township Democratic Committeeman Mark Walker and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-9th).
State Central committeeman Mike Cudzik also backed him.
* Morrison was up against an opponent who produced kinda weird campaign videos like this one…
Don’t laugh, Ravi Raju almost won, even though the Trib says he “only raised $3,000 and ran something of a stealth candidacy.”
Raju had the backing of Palatine Township Democratic Committeeman Matt Flamm, who state campaign disclosures show was his campaign fundraising committee chairman.
If the Democrats want to beat Schneider, they’re gonna have to first figure out what went so horribly wrong with Morrison.
…Adding… It turns out that Raju has taken GOP primary ballots the last two cycles…
And yet he still almost won. Morrison was obviously over-confident. A mailer or two highlighting this voting record would’ve sufficed. Oops.
* Since this is a Morning Consult poll, you need to keep in mind that the firm’s methodology is unusual and opaque…
Morning Consult conducted surveys with 987,166 registered U.S. voters from Jan. 20, 2017 to March 31, 2018 to determine the approval ratings for President Donald Trump in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C., for each month. […]
The results use a statistical technique called multilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) to estimate state-level public opinion from the national survey data. MRP has been widely used in industry and in academia, and MRP estimates of state- and congressional district-level public opinion have generally been shown to outperform national polling, especially when there are few respondents in smaller geographic areas.
* Anyway, the poll found that the president’s Illinois approval rating is 36 percent. His disapproval rating is 60 percent. The claimed MoE is 1 percent.
Illinois disapproves of Trump more than most states. Only Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont and California give him worse ratings, according to this poll.
Shot-Chaser: Pritzker Says People Aren’t Leaving Illinois Because of Decades of Tax Hikes
The Chicago Tribune recently published an editorial featuring hardworking Illinois families that have left the state due to high taxes. But this is a reality that seems completely lost on JB Pritzker.
SHOT
“James Heard wrote a letter to Gov. Bruce Rauner when they moved, explaining why they had to go. Their property taxes had risen from about $1,600 when they bought their five-bedroom Homer Glen home in 1996 to nearly $10,000 by the time they left. They sold their house for $325,000 and made a little money. But the value of the home did not keep pace with the property taxes owed.
‘I was paying more than my fair share,’ he said. ‘I don’t see any way out (for Illinois). People making $100,000 or more are just going to leave. They’re all looking at northwest Indiana to get away from the taxes.’
Heard voted for Rauner in 2014 and thought the new governor might be able to change the tax-and-spend culture of Springfield. But the Democrats blocked Rauner’s agenda. Heard places the blame ’square on the shoulder of (House Speaker) Michael Madigan and the powerful interests of Chicago. The state just appears to be getting more and more liberal. They’re going to be running out of people to take things from.’”
CHASER
Pritzker shows just how out of touch he is with Illinois families, says “people aren’t leaving Illinois because they’re overtaxed.”
* I subscribe to the Rauner campaign’s YouTube page, so I was notified when that video popped up on Monday. I sent the link to the Pritzker campaign for comment, and they said there was more context.
Charles: How do you… I mean Governor Rauner says that he wants to incentivize businesses to stay in Illinois, keep their jobs here and keep Illinoisans from leaving the state. What are you going to do to specifically incentivize businesses statewide to get them to stay here?
JB: People are not leaving because they’re getting overtaxed. People are leaving this state because there’s complete uncertainty about the future of our state. So the biggest challenge is, Bruce Rauner can say everything he wants, but he’s created this complete uncertainty. Who wants to invest in a business or a factory…
Charles: But there was uncertainty before he came into office…
JB: No, I’m telling you right now he’s driven it off a cliff. What business wants to invest $40 million to build a factory in the state of Illinois when they don’t know if we’re gonna have a budget or be able to pay for education?
Maze: Speaking of that factory though. Illinois has the highest black unemployment in the country.
While Bruce Rauner redacts and refuses to release emails that shed light on why it took “so long” to “take action” on the 2015 Legionnaires’ outbreak, a new report uncovers some of what Rauner was hiding.
One missing email chain was about correspondence from a son who “condemned the state for withholding information about Legionnaires’ at the home as his father lay dying.” But those emails were not among the 442 printed emails delivered to lawmakers jumbled and out of order. “It looks like they literally just threw them up in the air,” Senator Tom Cullerton told WBEZ.
“This is a blatant cover up and our Veterans and their families deserve the truth,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “From redacting vital information to jumbling public records, Bruce Rauner is more concerned with his public image than the wellbeing of Illinois Veterans. While legislators investigate his fatal mismanagement, this failed governor is trying to throw them off instead of coming up with concrete solutions to end the Legionnaires’ crisis.”
A WBEZ analysis of nearly 450 pages of emails found that government lawyers blacked out portions of more than half the documents recently turned over to a legislative panel investigating the state’s inability to contain the waterborne illness. Repeated outbreaks at the home since 2015 have contributed to the deaths of 13 residents and sickened dozens more.
The way the government lawyers wielded their figurative black markers to redact hundreds of Legionnaires’-related emails has some lawmakers fuming and government transparency advocates crying foul.
WBEZ had previously obtained some Legionnaires’-related emails from the public health department in Adams County, where the Quincy home is located. The Rauner administration later handed over some of those same emails to the legislative committee investigating the outbreaks — with significantly more redactions.
By cross-checking the two groups of documents, it’s possible to see some of what Rauner’s office didn’t want lawmakers to see.
In some cases, lawmakers received documents so heavily redacted that they were virtually useless. Furthermore, lawmakers simply did not receive some emails written by administration officials that WBEZ knows to exist.
Taken individually (except for the Tom Cullerton thing), I’m not sure the article makes a good case that the administration’s black-outs were particularly egregious. The overall impression, however, is certainly not good.
