* Nothing like burying this on a Friday afternoon after declaring a contract impasse. Here’s our hero Bruce Rushton at the Illinois Times…
Faced with a lawsuit from Illinois Times and three opinions from the state attorney general, Gov. Bruce Rauner has released his appointment calendar.
The release today that came via Brown, Hay and Stephens, the Springfield law firm that is representing the governor in the lawsuit filed by the newspaper, details the governor’s meetings held last April, when he left a Holocaust remembrance ceremony early and did not respond when Illinois Times asked where he had gone. The governor later told the State Journal-Register that he had left the ceremony to meet with House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago. That meeting is memorialized as “leader meeting” in the calendar released today.
The attorney general’s office has issued three opinions, one to Illinois Times, another to the Chicago Reader and a third to the Associated Press, stating that the governor’s calendar is a public record under the state Freedom of Information Act.
Download Rauner’s calendar releases here and here.
Should be interesting weekend reading.
…Adding… The letter sent by the Rauner administration to Rushton’s attorney is here.
In the next few months, air travelers from Illinois likely will no longer be able to flash their driver’s licenses as proof of identity to get through security and board a plane. Those cards don’t meet stringent federal standards under the REAL ID Act.
Travelers with Illinois licenses will need a passport to pass through security, even on domestic flights. This won’t go into effect until spring or summer. But as of Jan. 10, Illinois residents won’t be able to use a driver’s license to gain entry to federal buildings and U.S. military bases that require identification.
Cue the grumbling from Illinois residents.
And cue the whining from Illinois officials, who say they just need a little more time and money and legislative cooperation to get this done.
Please. […]
“We’ll be meeting the legislature [this] year to get their sense of how doable this is,” Druker said.
It had better be doable. It was doable in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 … you get the idea. But state pols dragged their feet and hoped the feds would — what? Get distracted?
* No, they assumed the feds would do what they just did. Back down…
Feds Announce No Changes to Security Procedures at Airports Until January 22, 2018
Illinois DLs and IDs remain acceptable forms of identification to board commercial airplanes for minimum of two years
The Department of Homeland Security provided an update today on the REAL ID Act, announcing that there will be no security changes at airports for at least two years, with any changes beginning no sooner than January 22, 2018.
As a result, Illinois driver’s licenses and ID cards will continue to be accepted as primary forms of identification to board commercial airplanes for domestic travel.
The Illinois Secretary of State’s office will continue to work with DHS and the Illinois General Assembly on the Real ID Act.
Henry Haupt
Deputy Press Secretary
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White
By the way, federal building access is on a facility by facility basis. According to Henry, you can still use your driver’s license at places like the Rock Island Armory, Scott Air Force Base, etc.
* And there are some very real concerns about this federal law. From the Illinois Policy Institute’s news service…
Ed Yohnka with the ACLU of Illinois says Illinois and other large states like California and New York are being quote “bullied” into compliance by the federal government to get what the ACLU amounts to a national ID card. Despite the federal government being wary of calling the national mandate a national ID, Yohnka says REAL ID is a national ID because it links all states’ ID databases together, something Yohnka says is not secure.
“The idea that somehow we will be more secure and our data will be protected when this goes national doesn’t really pass the test of what we see each and every day in the media and each and every day in the public in terms of our own data.”
One example Yohnka provided is someone possibly leaving a laptop with access to the database at a coffee shop. And, he pointed out, a nationally linked system will only be as strong as the weakest state’s security.
Find yourself living paycheck-to-paycheck? If REAL ID is implemented it may mean trading in a week’s worth of lunch to get the ID that complies with federal standards. Yohnka says getting a REAL ID will be labor intensive and not something applicants could pick up almost instantly, as is done now with the state’s current ID.
“You would have to make several trips to validate who you were. You’d have to produce several source documents, including an original birth certificate.”
Yohnka says at the end of the process of providing all the documents the applicant would then go home and wait for the ID card to arrive in the mail. Meanwhile Yohnka says for people who are struggling financially REAL ID will be even more burdensome.
“Do you have to chose between renewing your driver’s license and eating lunch for a week? These are real questions for people who live at the margins and unfortunately from all the data we see there are far too many folks who are living paycheck-to-paycheck.”
Yohnka estimates if REAL ID is implemented in Illinois, as the federal government is pushing the state towards, it could put the price of a driver’s license to more than $100, whereas it now costs $30. The Illinois Secretary of State’s office couldn’t say how much it will cost individuals but estimates overall implementation of the ID will cost taxpayers $60 million dollars, and there’s little indication of what the yearly costs thereafter would be.
At the wrap-up of today’s negotiating session between AFSCME Council 31 and the Rauner Administration, the Governor’s representatives said they would refuse to participate in any further bargaining sessions and claimed that negotiations are at an impasse. AFSCME executive drector Roberta Lynch rejected that claim and said the union is prepared to continue to negotiate.
Lynch issued the following statement:
“We are shocked that the Rauner Administration would walk away and refuse to continue negotiations. The Governor’s rash action invites confrontation and chaos — it is not the path to a fair agreement. The people of Illinois deserve leadership that is focused on working together and getting things done, not someone who demands his own way or nothing at all. With no state budget to fund the public services that Illinois residents rely on and no union contract for the men and women who provide those services, the last thing the people of Illinois need is another manufactured crisis from a governor unwilling to do the hard work of compromise.
“In reality, there is no impasse between our union and the Rauner Administration. Until the final minutes of today’s meeting, both parties continued to exchange proposals on many issues. There has been no hint that the administration would simply refuse to continue to negotiate. If they will not return to the table, our union will take legal action. It is a violation of state labor law for a party to declare impasse where none exists.
“The parties do have areas of serious disagreement. For example, the administration wants to double employee’s costs for health care, making the state’s health plan the worst in the nation for any state workforce. It would also would freeze wages for four years, which coupled with its huge hikes in health costs would take money from the pockets of working families. Our union believes that public-service workers, like all working people, deserve wages that can sustain a family and health care they can afford. We also disagree with the administration’s insistence on eliminating safeguards that prevent unfettered privatization of public services.
“Despite our differences, AFSCME remains committed to finding common ground. We’ve been successful in reaching fair agreements with every Illinois governor of both parties for the past 40 years. But that can’t happen if the Rauner administration refuses to remain at the table and negotiate.
“As a candidate, Bruce Rauner repeatedly threatened to impose his extreme demands and force a strike in order to do so. That’s why unions representing state employees backed legislation to provide for arbitration as an alternative means of reaching a fair agreement. When the governor vetoed that bill, he pledged to work in good faith to reach a settlement—a pledge he has broken today.
“Public-service workers in state government keep us safe, respond to emergencies, protect kids, care for the most vulnerable and fulfill countless other essential functions in every Illinois community every day. They deserve a governor who respects the work they do and who will work in good faith to reach an agreement that’s fair to all.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** According to the tolling agreement, this matter now goes to the Illinois Labor Relations Board, which will decide whether or not an impasse exists. Click here.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Lance Trover…
“Today marked the 67th day of negotiations with AFSCME. Like every previous session, AFSCME rejected all of the Governor’s core proposals and insisted that they would never agree to those proposals despite our good faith efforts to address union concerns.
“In light of that position, our negotiators asked AFSCME if they believed we were at impasse. If so, both parties signed a tolling agreement establishing a Labor Board process by which that determination can be made. AFSCME insists that the parties are not at impasse while rejecting the offer for additional sessions next week.
“After a year of no meaningful progress, we must now evaluate the benefit of future sessions given AFSCME’s intransigence. In light of their answers today, we will now decide if the previously-agreed dispute resolution process should be considered.”
The administration also has a chart which “summarizes the status of the negotiations with AFSCME, while comparing it to its previous contract and the contracts the administration has already reached with 17 other unions representing state employees.” Click here.
…Adding… Re-reading the Trover statement you’ll see that the governor has not yet formally declared an impasse. That’s an important distinction here. The governor now has to decide whether to take this to the ILRB.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Press release…
Democratic State Representative candidate Tony DelGiorno, who is vying for the 99th Illinois House District, issued the following statement and called upon the Governor to return to the bargaining table and lift his unreasonable demands.
I am disappointed that it has come to this. It has been clear since the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2014 that the Governor has a hatred for public servants and the unions that represent them. One year after his inauguration, we are on the verge of a lockout or a strike – either of which fails to serve the taxpayers of Illinois. This all or nothing politics is not serving the people of Illinois well. Governing is best done when both sides work together to serve the people. No one side has all the answers. I urge the governor to continue working with AFSCME to reach a compromise. Had enough of our representatives had the gumption to override of the Governor’s veto of the union arbitration bill, we would not be in the situation we are today.
Nothing yet from the appointed incumbent, Rep. Sara Wojcicki Jimenez (R-Springfield).
*** UPDATE 4 *** The administration notes that AFSCME has canceled next week’s scheduled bargaining session, not the Rauner people, which is significant here.
*** UPDATE 5 *** From AFSCME’s Anders Lindall…
No bargaining dates were scheduled for next week. The administration asked very late if we could meet then but our committee was unavailable. Instead AFSCME offered to meet at any time in any of the following three weeks.
The Cook County Democratic Party Executive Committee has called a meeting for Thursday to reconsider an endorsement in the [state’s attorney] contest, party spokesman Jacob Kaplan said.
In August, Cook Democratic leaders voted to remain neutral in the contest.
That was largely because of a divide in the party, with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle backing Foxx, her former chief of staff, and House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and influential Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, in Alvarez’s corner. Also running is former prosecutor Donna More. […]
Since the video’s release in late November, Alvarez’s support among Latino and African-American politicians has waned. Ald. Roderick Sawyer, 6th, long a Foxx backer, said he believes Foxx now has the votes to win the endorsement.
If Foxx is slated, ward organizations controlled by Madigan, Burke, etc. will be forbidden to pass literature for or help any of her opponents - a rule change pushed by Madigan.
I think Politico had the story first this week, by the way.
*** UPDATE *** Press release…
DONNA MORE ACCUSES DEMOCRATIC PARTY BOSSES OF CAVING TO PRECKWINKLE
Democratic Party Re-Slating Session Set for Next Thursday
Chicago – Jan 8, 2016 Cook County State’s Attorney candidate, Donna More is blasting any attempt by Democratic Party bosses to re-open the slating process for the express purpose of selecting Kim Foxx.
More, who is the only former federal prosecutor and state prosecutor in the Democratic primary race is lashing out at what she sees as a blatant attempt to “force feed an unqualified candidate down voter’s throats.”
More asserts, “It’s obvious that my campaign represents a real threat to Democratic bosses who are more interested in maintaining the status quo than in restoring trust and public confidence in the State’s Attorney’s Office.”
As for the party’s re-slating plans next Thursday, More decried, “Just another example from the political power brokers that this race is more about politics than about independence, transparency, fairness or justice.” Adding More, “This is simply another sordid maneuver by Democratic Party bosses, led by Toni Preckwinkle to get her handpicked candidate Kim Foxx selected.”
More, who on last Wednesday officially kicked off her ’70 Days to Victory Campaign” ahead of the March 15th primary, made it clear that she will be a prosecutor who will be free of political influence in making sure that justice and fairness prevail.
Leon Fields, of Glenwood, along with hundreds of other motorists, are discovering they are personally involved in the ongoing state budget impasse between Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democrats who control the legislature.
“They hit me with a $20 late fee because they ran out of money down in Springfield to mail out license plate vehicle sticker renewal notices,” the 68-year-old Fields told me during a telephone call. “Every year, we get sticker renewal notices from the (secretary of state), and this year no notice. Nobody told me they had stopped sending out notices. I didn’t get any warning from the state. Didn’t see anything on TV.
“You came to expect those notices a few months before your sticker had to be renewed, and we live in a world where we all expect those kinds of notices, bills from utility companies and such, reminding us it’s time to pay. And this state just stopped it. And then they told me because I was more than 30 days past due in renewing my sticker, I had to pay a $20 late fee.”
Shortly after talking to Fields, I traveled to the secretary of state’s station in Orland Park and quickly ran into a bunch of vehicle owners who were first finding out that the renewal notices stopped going out in September, that their plate stickers had expired and they owed a $20 late fee.
An employee at the Orland Park office estimated that about every other customer coming in to renew their vehicle sticker was being dinged with the late fee, and almost all said they had no idea that the secretary of state had stopped sending out the notices. […]
Jennifer Valauskas, of Orland Park, had just paid a $20 late fee on her license plate sticker when she stopped to talk to me.
“I think it’s really unfair because I never got the renewal notice,” she said. “This is ridiculous. How many people is this happening to? Where is all the money going that they’re collecting from these late fees? It’s just ridiculous that our politicians screw things up, and we’re the ones who have to pay for it. They aren’t even paying the state’s bills.”
* The Question: Should the secretary of state’s office waive the late fee until the impasse is resolved? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
Republican Rep. Bob Dold of Kenilworth was in the middle, telling the Daily Herald editorial board Monday that additional background checks would be a “common sense step forward” but saying Obama moving forward without Congress could “poison the well” for the future.
“My concern is obviously on the process,” Dold said.
Dold is facing a re-election campaign against either Democrat Brad Schneider or Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, who have both also tried to make guns a key issue in the campaign.
The “process” is broken. Whether you’re with Obama or not, you have to admit there’s no way to get any sort of gun limits passed through Congress right now. And the well has been “poisoned” for years.
Rep. Bob Dold planned to bring a felon to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech next week as a guest, but he withdrew the invitation Thursday after learning that a Waukegan woman had accused the man of threatening to kill her in 2014 and obtained a restraining order against him.
Durrell McBride, 30, of Zion, served six years in state prison for armed robbery and was released in 2011, state records show. He was on parole until 2013.
Dold, a Republican from Kenilworth, announced this week that McBride would be his guest at Tuesday’s speech. An aide to Dold said McBride worked in sales and owns a “small business for his motivational speaking engagements.”
In a news release, Dold said he had he met McBride and was “inspired by his success story.” McBride “has worked tirelessly to lift himself up” since his release from prison, Dold said in the statement.
The prison stint wasn’t and isn’t a problem. It’s what happened afterward…
A Dold spokesman said neither the congressman nor the Lake County YouthBuild program that recommended McBride knew of the situation.
“Congressman Dold has a long history of efforts to prevent domestic abuse, including his Zero Tolerance for Domestic Abusers Act, and does not tolerate violence against women of any kind,” Dold spokesman Brad Stewart said in a statement. “Immediately after learning of this, Congressman Dold notified Mr. McBride that, in light of this information, he would no longer be attending the State of the Union as Congressman Dold’s guest. […]
“Mr. McBride was the 2013 YBLC Alumni of the Year and interned at YouthBuild Lake County for the past year,” said Laurel Tustison, executive director [of Lake County YouthBuild]. “He was an outstanding student and we were unaware of this personal situation with the restraining order when we recommended him for the trip.”
Three House Republicans on Wednesday voted against the reconciliation bill that would defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare while one Democrat voted for it. The bill passed the House of Representatives 240-181.
Republican Representatives Bob Dold (R-Ill.), Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), and John Katko (R-N.Y.) broke ranks with 239 of their Republican colleagues and opposed the bill while Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) was the only House Democrat to vote for the bill.
* Hospitals freaked out when towns like Urbana tried to make them pay their full share of property taxes, so they turned to the state. The attorney general helped negotiate a compromise. But an appellate court has ruled that law unconstitutional…
The state’s 2012 charity care law has been declared unconstitutional by the Fourth District Appellate Court in a ruling that also scored a major victory for the city of Urbana and local taxing districts in a long-standing legal battle with the Carle health system.
A jubilant Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing said Wednesday the decision vindicated the city’s position to fight Carle and the state law after Carle properties became tax-exempt, taking $60 million of assessed value with them.
It also vindicated the city’s decision to turn down Carle’s offer to pay Urbana for some city services to make up for some lost tax revenue, she said.
“People kept saying you should take the money and run,” Prussing said.
“The Legislature could wait (until the Supreme Court rules), but issues will continue to mount,” Msall said. “The Illinois Department of Revenue needs some direction from both the Legislature and the (Rauner) administration on how to handle pending applications.”
I fully expect the Illinois Hospital Association will start a major legislative push this spring.
A lower court sided with the hospital, but the appeals court reversed that decision, saying the Illinois Constitution allows lawmakers to exempt only property “used exclusively” for “charitable purposes.”
“An unconstitutional statute is unenforceable from the moment of its enactment,” the ruling states. […]
Since 2012, Prussing said, the city has lost 11 percent of its assessed tax value since Carle was relieved of paying $6.5 million a year in property taxes — the vast majority of which went to Urbana and its school district.
* From the Illinois Constitution…
SECTION 6. EXEMPTIONS FROM PROPERTY TAXATION
The General Assembly by law may exempt from taxation only the property of the State, units of local government and school districts and property used exclusively for agricultural and horticultural societies, and for school, religious, cemetery and charitable purposes.
I suppose a main argument will rest on whether the word “exclusively” in that sentence also applies to “charitable purposes,” even though there is quite a separation. The appellate court used the 1870 Constitution’s language to claim that it does…
The property of the state, counties, and other municipal corporations, both real and personal, and such other property as may be used exclusively for agricultural and horticultural societies, for school, religious, cemetery and charitable purposes, may be exempted from taxation; but such exemption shall be only by general law.
Maybe.
Also, “exclusively” doesn’t have to be 100 percent. It has to be “primarily,” according to previous court rulings.
An organization representing African-American firefighters and paramedics on Thursday asked the U.S. Department of Justice to expand its probe of the Chicago Police Department to include the Fire Department, saying hiring and disciplinary practices there are unfair.
The African-American Firefighters & Paramedics League of Chicago also demanded that Mayor Rahm Emanuel dismiss Fire Commissioner Jose Santiago, alleging that Santiago has failed to investigate claims that minority firefighters are disciplined and demoted unjustly.
In December 2005, the percentage of uniformed African-Americans on the Chicago Fire Department totaled 19.2 percent. At the end of 2015 it stood at 16.9 percent. […]
“The contract says that in all ranks we should have fourty-five percent of minorities. Thirty percent should be black, 15 percent should be Hispanic,” Boggs said. […]
The fault in not meeting the 45 percent threshold these firefighters say lies not just with the City but also the union that represents Chicago firefighters. […]
“They agreed to this contract,” said Boggs, “and they have never held the city accountable for the 45 percent.”
In a statement Union President Tom Ryan said, “Local 2 has no control over the City’s hiring process.”
According to city figures, 92.3 percent of Chicago firefighters are male and 7.7 percent female.
The police and firefighter unions are playing right into Gov. Rauner’s hands.
“Since 1980 the DOJ has been working with the fire department on their promotion policy and we’ve been cooperating and working with them and we will continue to do that,” he said.
* Several folks have been saying for weeks that the Chicago Police Department needs more Tasers. But as this article points out, Tasers may not be the real answer…
The logic sounds reasonable in theory. In practice, however, it’s hard to tell if Tasers reduce shootings. In fact, Chicago expanded its use of Tasers in 2010 by 300%, but there was no recorded decrease in police shootings. On the other hand, police shootings have dropped overall since 2010.
Meanwhile, data elsewhere has shown that Tasers can actually increase the rate of deadly violence. A 2009 study by Dr. Zian Tseng found that when Tasers were introduced to more than 50 California Police departments, sudden death incidents rose by 600%. A late 2015 Stanford University meta-study of the current state of research didn’t find such clear-cut evidence of harm, but also didn’t find evidence that the introduction of Tasers by police forces reduced injury or death.
“Current research does not support a decline in police shootings with a broader deployment of Tasers,” Louis Hayes, a working police officer who also trains fellow officers as part of the Chicago-based Virtus Group, tells Quartz via email. “Generally speaking, officers tend to use Tasers as an alternative to fistfights and wrestling matches, not as a substitute for deadly force.”
Much more helpful than Tasers, Hayes tells Quartz, would be training that emphasizes “strategic thinking—specifically a philosophy that values distance, protective cover, containment tactics, and a calm demeanor.”
In Chicago, Emanuel’s touting of Tasers seems especially tone-deaf and confused. In early 2014, Dominique Franklin Jr., died after Chicago police officers Tased him during a minor arrest for theft. He fell, hit his head, and never woke up.
Distance, protective cover, containment and calmness.
Exactly right.
That way, a kid wielding a baseball bat isn’t shot to death, along with an innocent bystander.
Twenty-two Chicago Police officers have been disciplined — and there has been a dramatic increase in video and audio usage — in the one-month period since the lack of audio in the Laquan McDonald and Ronald Johnson shooting videos prompted a warning from the acting superintendent.
Punishments ranged from a mere reprimand to a three-day suspension or loss of leave, according to Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
“The disciplines were not over a destruction of equipment, but officers failing to use the cameras properly, [i.e. syncing the audio; uploading videos at the end of their tour; inspecting the cameras to ensure they work correctly],” the spokesman wrote in an email to the Chicago Sun-Times. […]
“We’ve seen a 75 percent increase in user uploads of video at the conclusion of their tours,” Guglielmi said.
Or how about this - the Department, which always buys crap equipment from the lowest connected bidder, bought crappy equipment, then failed to maintain the crappy equipment. Then, since the political pressure became too much, actually paid MASSIVE amounts of overtime to the officers in the “technology section” to actually go out to the districts and perform the routine maintenance that had been lacking for the past two, three or four years, resulting in…..a sudden increase in compliance!
Not to be Mr. Obvious or anything, but Chicago has to put this police scandal behind it with some real and immediate reforms so it can tackle the even bigger issue of gun crimes.
Laquan McDonald, the teenager shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer in October 2014, was one of eight wards of the state killed in street homicides last year, according to a newly released report by the watchdog of Illinois’ child welfare system. That number is more than twice as many as in any other year of the past five.
Denise Kane, the inspector general of Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services, singled out the eight wards killed in street homicides in her latest annual report. She found that in the same time period the previous year, three wards were killed in street homicides.
Kane’s report says wards killed in the state’s 2015 fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2015, were teenagers, with the youngest being 14. In Illinois, wards can age out of the child welfare system at age 21. […]
In a statement, Andrew Flach, a spokesman for DCFS, wrote, “The Department is aware and concerned any time a child in the care of the state dies. However, the statistic should serve as a reminder that children in the care of the state are no more or less immune to the increased threat of street violence than any other child in the state.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday ordered an independent “third-party review” followed by retraining in the Law Department division that employed a senior attorney who resigned in disgrace after concealing evidence in a police-shooting case.
Two days ago, the mayor told reporters it was “not possible” that his Law Department was part of the “code of silence” he has openly acknowledged exists in the Chicago Police Department.
When asked whether the Law Department should be included in the sweeping federal civil rights investigation of the Police Department he once called “misguided,” Emanuel said. “No. They’re working where they are.”
On Thursday, the mayor who has shifted gears repeatedly in the ongoing furor over his handling of the Laquan McDonald shooting video appeared to change his tune — again.
“I don’t direct the Justice Department. But if they come [into the Law Department], we’re going to cooperate and work with it. But there’s work we can get done . . . I’m going to get going on what we need to do,” the mayor said.
His initial response to questions about expanding the civil rights probe to include the law office was eerily similar to his response to the probe of the police department. And the flip-flop took about the same time to manifest itself.
Apparently, he did little to no reflection during his Cuban vacation.
Drowsy after a heavy holiday meal, I settled in to finish Stefan Zweig’s classic 1934 biography of Marie Antoinette. As I drifted in and out of sleep, the Versailles in Zweig’s account of the final days of Louis XVI and his queen faded and was replaced in my imagination with the people’s Versailles at Second and Monroe, which shares with the palace outside Paris the same elaborate etiquette, the same sycophancy, the same ambitious courtiers – and the same resentful crowds outside the gates, yearning to pull it down.
One of them, of course, is Bruce Rauner, who famously, bought himself a governorship so he could bring down from the inside a regime that is complacent, corrupt and sclerotic. He did not come to Springfield to head a government, but to foment an insurrection. When Rauner looks at the unionized public sector workers and their politician-protectors, he sees the privileged clergy and the aristocracy of old France. The government that served them was tottering under the weight of debt left by decades of foolish extravagance, and the petit bourgeoisie was up in arms about paying the taxes needed to retire it. The only interesting question was, who would push it over, and in what direction?
As in 1770s France, Illinois is split between liberals who would reform a bad system by altering the basic contract between public workers and government, and those who distrusted reform because it might drain the energy from the fight they really want, which is to alter the basic contract between citizen and government. Rauner is usually characterized by the press as merely an unconventional politician, but I suspect he prefers to think of himself as a revolutionary of sorts, like the many French aristocrats who demanded liberty in the name of The People. He is devoted not to a career but a cause; if by winning the revolution he loses the office, he will be satisfied. […]
I began to wonder whether the revolutionary generation portrayed by Zweig has other counterparts at the Statehouse. If Rauner embodies the ambitions of the Commune, Mr. Madigan is a Girondist to his core. That faction stood for the politics of the legislative chamber; Rauner will take comfort in the fact that the Girondists were defeated by the politicians of the streets, who roused the ignorant against them with half-truths and executed them en masse during the Reign of Terror, which, if things work out Rauner’s way, will happen again on Election Day, 2016. […]
But temperament is not a program. The French Revolution was a profound reordering of society from top to bottom, but the new Illinois imagined by Rauner the governor utterly lacks that kind of boldness. Rauner seems more likely to end up as our Jacques Necker, France’s director general of finance in the late 1770s, who aimed to restore the finances of the state but ended up proposing only puny efficiencies of the sort contained among the recent recommendations of Rauner’s consolidation task force.
You have to go read the whole thing. You may or may not agree with him, but it’s very cleverly written. Love me some Krohe.
* And John McCarron invokes French history in his own column about the feud between Gov. Rauner and Mayor Rahm Emanuel…
After all, the mayor has home field advantage in this phase of the game. This is politics. And when a guy who you thought was your friend, a guy who you thought would help you out of a jam, turns out to be neither, well, it’s time to start counting votes, taking names, calling in chits.
The mayor is pretty good at that. Just ask former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich or former mayoral candidates Gery Chico and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
Three hundred years ago there was a brilliant but low-born French poet and playwright whose talents earned him the patronage and companionship of nobility. Until, that is, he offended the Chevalier de Rohan, who proceeded to have the young writer horsewhipped.
Rahm Emanuel may be no Voltaire, and Chicago no pre-Revolution Paris, but now that the Chevalier de Winnetka has reminded the mayor who he is, this contest may be headed to a whole new level.
Except there isn’t much Rahm can actually do to Rauner.
Gov. Bruce Rauner is looking into moving his Chicago office from the James R. Thompson Center to the Michael A. Bilandic Building across the street.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports the governor said he wanted to complete a sale of the Thompson Center by late next year, but appears ready to move out a lot sooner.
A spokesman for the governor concedes “the Bilandic building is among the options being explored, but no decisions have been made.”
Two sources tell us the governor himself recently toured the building checking out possible new digs.
Sneed is told Rauner’s minions have spent a lot of time scurrying around the Bilandic Building’s 10th floor since the governor’s massively expensive tented vacation en famille on Morroco’s Saharan sands.
At a time when displaced families in southern Illinois are complaining about how the state stopped the home buyout program in their flood plain, this move probably isn’t a great idea.
* The basic message here is that the people organizing the splashy, made for TV Chicago protests might want to start redirecting their energies into the real work of voter registration and GOTV. Greg Hinz…
[Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez] has been attacked so often and her office stumbled on so many big cases that her victory road, while real, is narrow. She likely needs her two foes to run fairly close to each other.
[Challenger Kim Foxx] is picking up some major political backing, with township committeemen in West and South Cook County gravitating toward her. But what she really needs is an outpouring of rage from the African-American community and, so far, that has not translated into a voter registration drive in black neighborhoods. Foxx dearly needs to move what’s been happening in the streets to the polling place.
There’s just a little over 2 months left until primary day. If Alvarez wins, the protesters’ cause is gonna be badly damaged, despite all the goofy bloviators in the national media.
SIU has borrowed against several reserve funds, heavily reduced administrative and discretionary spending, laid off about 25 employees and eliminated or left vacant another 50 positions. The university has stopped operating programs — such as research programs and training programs — that were funded by state grants but are no longer solvent because the state money has dried up and isn’t getting replaced. It’s covering the cost of MAP grants for about 7,700 students (the grants can reach $5,000 per student each year), but is warning recipients — all of whom are low income — that if the state doesn’t fund the grants, they may well be on the hook for the money. […]
Western Illinois University has spent much of its general reserves and is now borrowing from reserve funds that were never expected to be used for operating costs — like transportation funds that were earmarked for a new parking lot or health center funds set aside for a specific purpose. The result is that some areas of the university are having to delay projects, even though those areas do not depend on state funding. […]
WIU, in response to years of slowly reducing appropriations and enrollment declines (the university’s enrollment has dipped from roughly 13,000 students in 2006 to 11,100 students this fall), offered early retirement incentives to nearly 60 employees and plans to lay off around 50 faculty members in the near future. It has also begun exploring cutting academic programs with low enrollment. In the summer, EIU also announced layoffs. […]
The University of Illinois System has an administrative hiring freeze in place while it awaits state funding. This year the system expected to get $62 million in MAP grant funding from the state. Its appropriations last year were $660 million. Like other universities in the state, the system is spending down reserves, reducing spending and looking for operational efficiencies as it goes into a second semester without state funding, according to a spokesman. […]
For example, covering MAP grants for the year has cost DePaul University in Chicago about $17 million. At least one private college, the Illinois Institute of Technology, had to deny students MAP funding for the spring semester because it was uncertain it could cover the costs and remain financially solvent. Additionally, some community colleges aren’t funding the grants, either. The result, officials say, is devastating for socioeconomic and racial diversity. (The Illinois Senate did pass a bill that would have funded MAP grants, but the measure has not passed the House of Representatives.)
Not to mention enrollment declines of 4 percent at SIU Carbondale this year.
Jan 7 Illinois’ ongoing state budget battle is being downplayed by Governor Bruce Rauner’s administration ahead of a $480 million bond sale - the state’s first in 20 months.
An impasse between the Republican governor and Democratic lawmakers has left the fiscally shaky fifth-largest U.S. state without a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1. But an online investor presentation posted Dec. 30 for the Jan. 14 bond sale gave a generally rosy assessment of Rauner’s dealings with a Democratic-led legislature.
Illinois Budget Director Tim Nuding emphasized actions taken to patch a hole in the fiscal 2015 budget and provide some fiscal 2016 funding to local governments, lottery winners, federal grant recipients and others.
“Another example of the legislature working together to solve problems,” he said, without discussing the factors blocking a budget accord. Those involve Rauner’s push for collective bargaining curbs, legislative term limits and redistricting changes, and business-friendly moves like making it harder for injured workers to collect damages from their employers.
* But the Bond Buyer looks past the feel-good investor presentation and focuses on a different document…
Illinois’ first bond offering statement in 20 months prominently lays out a trove of warnings about the state’s stressed fiscal condition, from failed pension reforms and budget gridlock to its weakened credit and negative swap valuations. […]
“Particular attention should be given to the investment considerations described below which, among other things, could affect the financial condition of the state and therefore result in a repayment risk for investors, and could also affect the liquidity/market value of the bonds after they are issued,” the offering statement warns. […]
“The state’s financial condition has been materially adversely affected by the budget impasse,” says the offering statement which additionally warns that the bill backlog is expected to grow significantly. […]
“The state’s financial condition is now materially worse than the state’s anticipated financial condition” if the reforms had been upheld, the offering statement says. […]
Additionally, liquidity and bank risks are posed by the state’s $600 million of floating-rate paper from a 2003 issue, although the variable-rate debt represents just a small piece of the state’s $26 billion GO debt portfolio. […]
The offering statement reports that the state may seek to undertake a cash flow borrowing […]
The offering statement reports that as the state rating falls, fees of the credit providers and interest rates on any advances adjust.
Whew.
Also, cash flow borrowing makes sense when money is so tight, but they resisted doing it all last year.
The agency said that while “it might seem obvious” that the state’s credit rating should be downgraded from its current A- position — already the lowest in the nation — Illinois has provided data that shows it has “sufficient internal liquidity” to make debt payments through the end of the current spending year, which ends June 30.
“A budget crisis does not necessarily constitute a debt crisis,” S&P wrote. “From a global ratings scale perspective, we still view the state’s ability to meet its debt obligations as they come strong… In fact, to formulate an argument otherwise, in our view, requires overemphasizing the state’s budget politics relative to its fundamental ability to pay its debt service.”
Still, the agency warned that while the state’s credit is not worthy of a downgrade at this time, “we also do not currently see a pathway to upward rating migration anytime soon.” S&P noted that continued spending despite a drop in revenues following the 2015 income tax rollback means Illinois could face a bill backlog of nearly $10 billion, noting a large accumulation of bills by the end of the budget year “could tip the state’s rating lower.”
* Coming a day late to this. Sorry. Press release…
The Club for Growth PAC today announced its endorsement of State Senator Kyle McCarter for the U.S. House from Illinois’s 15th Congressional District. The seat is currently held by incumbent Congressman John Shimkus.
“Kyle McCarter has a proven track record as a principled fiscal conservative,” said Club for Growth President David McIntosh. “Kyle has been a successful businessman and he’s fought against big spending in the Illinois legislature. During a recent debate, Kyle told his colleagues in the Illinois Senate, ‘…the state is broke and doesn’t have $60 million for a new program.’ That’s exactly the kind of resolute conviction that’s needed on the House floor in Washington.
“While Kyle McCarter would bring a fresh breath of fiscal conservatism to Washington, his opponent, John Shimkus, is the epitome of what’s wrong with Congress. Shimkus was first elected nearly 20 years ago; that’s eight years longer than the term limits pledge he made in 1996. And Shimkus has an anemic lifetime rating of just 66% on the Club for Growth scorecard, with his annual rating plummeting to 34% in 2014. The Club for Growth PAC is delighted to endorse Kyle McCarter, a real economic conservative, to replace Shimkus.”
Congressman John Shimkus voted:
· To reauthorize the Export-Import Bank (#576, 2015)
· To increase the debt ceiling (#690, 2011)
· For the recent budget-busting spending deal negotiated by Obama and Paul Ryan (#705, 2015)
· To raise his own pay (#580, 2007)
· To restrict political free speech (#88, 2006)
McCarter is only the second incumbent primary challenger the Club has endorsed this cycle, after Jim Duncan, an opponent of GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers’ in North Carolina.
One of the most powerful groups on the right, the Club for Growth has been slow to engage in many of the primaries Republican incumbents are facing this year. Part of that, conservatives said, is that it has been successful in recent years in gaining ground.
But its incumbent challenges – even those attractive to conservatives, like taking on Sens. John McCain in Arizona or Richard C. Shelby in Alabama – are heavy lifts. The easiest way for the group to get someone that passes their litmus test into Congress is in primaries for open seats in safe Republican districts, known as “A-seats” within the organization.
Part of the group’s strength, said one Republican operative, is its willingness to be picky. “The fact that they don’t do a lot of these – it doesn’t really matter“ the operative said. “They never endorse just to say they endorsed.”
“The Club for Growth is the gold standard of conservative principles, and their endorsement today demonstrates that my message of fiscal restraint, core values, and free market economics is reaching true conservatives,” McCarter said.
“It’s disappointing that an outside group that targets conservative Republicans is attacking Congressman Shimkus, the true conservative in this race,” Shimkus spokesman Steve Tomaszewski said Wednesday.
He said Shimkus “has a proven conservative record of voting to repeal Obamacare, protect our Second Amendment rights, secure our borders, eliminate wasteful government spending and protect the life of the unborn.”
Mitsubishi Motors said Thursday it would close its sole production plant in the United States as the Japanese automaker cuts losses on dwindling sales in North America and a strong U.S. dollar, which has stymied returns.
Mitsubishi Motors confirmed a report in Japan’s Nikkei newspaper on Thursday, which said that the automaker was unable to find a buyer for its factory in Normal and take on its workers.
“We have given up looking for an automaker to buy the plant, but we are looking for possible buyers from other industries,” a Mitsubishi Motors spokesman said.
Look, it was a longshot from the beginning. We’re not a “right to work” state, which is so in vogue with manufacturers these days. And we have plenty of other problems that we all know about.
But we didn’t really see a huge push on this topic at the top. Maybe lots of stuff was going on behind the scenes. I don’t know. I’m just bummed that nothing has been done.
* The petition objection to Democratic state Sen. Napoleon Harris’ US Senate bid has been withdrawn.
There was plenty of speculation out there that the challenge was instigated at the behest of Andrea Zopp, the only other African-American in the Senate race.
A survey of Illinois colleges shows nearly half of those responding say they won’t front income-based state grants for students this spring.
The Illinois Student Assistance Commission heard from 84 of 133 colleges and universities approved for the Monetary Award Program. MAP provided $373 million last school year but nothing since summer because of the stalemate over a government budget.
Many schools credited students’ accounts for MAP grants last fall - the state typically reimburses the grants by December. But many schools say they can’t pay that money upfront again.
Among respondents, 41 schools say they won’t provide money this spring. Another dozen have yet to decide.
* OK, but that’s not the whole story. From the survey…
Nearly half (49%) of institutions that responded (41 of 84 schools) indicated they do not plan to credit MAP grants to student accounts for second term , and 14 percent of respondents indicated they are undecided with regard to whether they will credit MAP grants for second term. The remaining 37 percent of respondents plan to credit MAP grants to student accounts for the second term.
In comparison, 42 percent of respondents (34 of 81 schools) indicated they did not credit MAP grants to student accounts for first term, and 58 percent indicated they credited MAP grants first term.
So, the number has risen from 42 percent to 49 percent. Significant, to be sure, and 49 percent is a lot, but that story is a tiny bit misleading.
All six of the public university respondents reported they plan to credit MAP grants for second term, compared to 21 percent of community college respondents, and 35 percent of private institution respondents. Seventy - five percent of community college respondents and 41 percent of private institution respondents do not plan on crediting MAP grants for second term. Another 24 percent of private institution respondents reported they are undecided on what they will do about MAP grants for second term.
The 37 percent of respondents that indicated they plan on crediting MAP grants for second term include 6 community college respondents, all 6 public university respondents, and 13 private institution respondents. […]
The 14 percent of respondents that indicated they are undecided as to whether they will credit MAP grants to student accounts for second term include 1 community college respondent and 9 private institution respondents (of those that identified their sector). […]
The 49 percent of respondents that indicated they do not plan on crediting MAP grants for second term include 21 community college respondents, 15 private institution respondents, and no public university respondents.
During his October trip to Cuba, Congressman Rodney Davis stands in front of a 40-year-old Russian tractor in need of repair. Outdated equipment is a huge problem in Cuba but companies like Caterpillar and Deere could help them out if given the chance.
“The Rauner Administration’s latest scheme would allow the governor’s political appointees to reward chosen employees based on their own subjective criteria. This Rauner plan would open the door to cronyism and favoritism that AFSCME believes should be kept out of government entirely. It’s why so-called ‘merit pay’ plans are better termed ‘political pay’ and have been rejected by so many employers in public service. Just last week the Tennessee auditor criticized a similar scheme in that state and questioned its ‘objectiveness and fairness’.
“The Rauner Administration plan’s new twist is downright discriminatory toward working parents and anyone who gets sick or injured. Under the governor’s proposal, any employee missing seven or more work days in a year would get no pay increase. It is hard to imagine anything more tone-deaf and heartless than Rauner’s plan to punish a cancer patient, a heart attack or stroke victim, someone who suffered a debilitating accident or the parent of a child with a serious illness. The Rauner proposal offends common sense, and we seriously question whether it may also violate federal laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
“AFSCME represents tens of thousands of public-service workers on the front lines of state government doing difficult and demanding jobs every day. They protect kids, keep our communities safe, respond to disasters such as the recent devastating floods, and provide countless other essential public services in every community statewide. In return, like all working people, they deserve family-sustaining wages, not unfair and unworkable attempts to manipulate the rules and drive down their take-home pay.”
*** UPDATE *** From the governor’s office…
Hi, Rich –
I wanted to pass along this response from Mike Schrimpf in response to AFSCME’s statement:
Once again AFSCME doesn’t let the facts get in the way of trying to scare their members and AFSCME’s actions today are further proof why there has been so little movement at the bargaining table. The Governor makes a reasonable proposal that should generate discussion and AFSCME rejects it outright by using false and misleading information.
The Governor’s Merit Pay proposal rewards employees who miss fewer than a designated number of “assigned work days” in a year. An assigned work day does not include a day for which the employee has received advanced approval to be absent, such as approved vacation time or an approved leave of absence, including FMLA leave. Therefore, contrary to AFSCME’s claims, an employee would not be disqualified from earning the bonus for absences related to an approved FMLA leave.
State Representative Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) has filed a new bill to amend the Illinois Constitution to ensure public accountability by making all Illinois elected officials subject to recall. The proposal, House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 44, was filed this week and is co-sponsored by Representative David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) and Representative Ron Sandack (R-Downers Grove).
Specifically, HJRCA 44 provides for the recall of all State Executive Branch officers and members of the General Assembly; changes the signature requirements for affidavits and petitions for recall of the Governor and expands them to include all State Executive Branch officers and members of the General Assembly. The amendment also provides for the recall of all elected officials of any school district, community college, or unit of local government.
“Simply put, recall is good policy and would ensure a greater degree of accountability than we have now,” Rep. Batinick said. “Having a comprehensive recall law in place would give voters an important tool to keep their elected officials at levels accountable at all times, not just before an election.”
The Illinois House of Representatives returns to session on January 13 at which new bills can begin to receive consideration. Rep. Batinick will continue to add co-sponsors and build bipartisan support for his recall proposal in the coming days and weeks.
* The proposal (click here) would remove the existing and onerous gubernatorial recall requirement of signatures from 20 House members and 10 state Senators (half from each party).
For legislative recall, the minimum petition signature standard would be 15 percent of the total votes cast for Governor in the member’s district. But if the total is at least 10 percent, then a recall election would be held during the next statewide election - and that applies to statewide and local officials as well.
The governor would appoint the successor for any statewide official who is recalled until a special election could be held.
* The Question: Do you support this idea? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
* The governor’s budget office has released its annual three-year budget forecast. Click here.
GOMB is projecting a $4.6 billion deficit with $9 billion in backlogged bills by the end of this fiscal year, and then it only gets worse down the line. By Fiscal Year 2019, the numbers crunchers are projecting a $5 billion deficit and a whopping $25 billion in bill backlogs. That’ll be 65 percent of total state expenditures, and 72 percent of the state’s operating budget. And that’s assuming the governor’s relatively low spending projection increases (less than a billion a year) hold up.
By law, these projections can assume no tax increases.
And for you pension worriers, total state pension payments are expected to rise by a relatively modest $200 million per year over the next three years.
GOMB directed many state agencies, in areas under the Administration’s control, to implement budget management steps to reduce spending by more than $700 million. Without these cost saving measures, the projected deficit would have been much higher.
There’s no explanation for what those cost savings were, however. And $700 million of $36.55 billion in total spending is just 1.9 percent, which is hardly the magic that the “businessman” candidate promised. Even so, every little bit helps, I suppose.
* Illinois utilities produce far more electricity than Illinoisans consume, so this looks like a great idea if some of our electricity gets exported. Not so great for Ohio, but whatevs. It’s much better than an Illinois ratepayer subsidy…
Stymied so far in its bid to win power-plant subsidies in Illinois, Chicago-based Exelon is mounting an audacious campaign to upend a more successful subsidy effort by FirstEnergy in its home state of Ohio.
Last month, Exelon offered to undercut the eight-year power-purchase contract Ohio utility regulators appear poised to hand FirstEnergy to keep open two financially struggling power plants.
Exelon filed Dec. 30 with the Ohio Public Utilities Commission to provide the same 3,000 megawatts generated by FirstEnergy’s Davis-Besse nuclear station on the Lake Erie shore and its massive W.H. Sammis coal-fired plant along the Ohio River at a cost that Exelon said would save Ohio ratepayers $2 billion over eight years.
Akron-based FirstEnergy didn’t take kindly to the intervention by a peer company finding itself in the same straits thanks to rock-bottom wholesale power prices that are rendering some older, base-load plants unprofitable.
“Exelon lobbied for regulated rate recovery for its nuclear plants in Illinois,” FirstEnergy spokesman Douglas Colafella wrote in an email. “This effort was unsuccessful, so now Exelon is trying to make its Illinois plants profitable at the expense of Ohio jobs.”
Exelon pulls no punches in its filing. Calling FirstEnergy’s deal “grossly lopsided,” Exelon wrote that opening the eight-year contract to competitive bids would “wash away the stain of this affiliate backroom deal.”
Political newcomer Donna More on Wednesday kicked off her campaign to become Cook County’s top prosecutor by attacking State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, with the challenger saying she would have brought charges against a Chicago police officer far sooner in the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald.
More did not limit her criticism to Alvarez’s handling of what now is the murder case against Officer Jason Van Dyke. She also said Alvarez has done too little to battle public corruption in a county that runs on a “finely tuned system of winks and nods, contracts and kickbacks, jobs here for political favors there.”
“Anita Alvarez has run an appallingly lackluster office for years with delayed prosecutions, wrongful convictions and policies that favor influencers and the well-connected while justice takes a back seat to politics — and victims and their families pay the price,” More said before dozens of supporters in a rented ballroom at the Hotel Intercontinental on North Michigan Avenue.
* The LaQuan McDonald case took center stage. From her press release…
“Our community has been rocked to its social and moral core by chants of ‘400 days’ and ‘16 shots,’” she continued. “If we had a State’s Attorney with the courage to act promptly on the video evidence of Laquan McDonald’s death, we’d be at trial today, not in the streets. We could have avoided a $5.0 million cover-up decision, and we wouldn’t need any federal investigations.
“Candidates will say just about anything with no accountability. Donna More has never prosecuted a police officer in her life,” said Alvarez campaign spokesman Ken Snyder. “She has no idea what’s involved. Look no further than Baltimore to see what happens when an inexperienced prosecutor rushes to charge under pressure — it results in hung juries or worse. It’s scary that casino lawyer More would wrap up murder charges against police officers in a few days. There is no justice in calling someone a murderer and then watching them walk out of a court instead of into a jail.”
“She does not have the capacity to even look at a police shooting case,” Alvarez said. “She has no idea. It’s really disheartening and kind of scary to think that she’d be able to wrap up an investigation and a couple of weeks.”
“Miss More is currently a gaming lobbyist and has been in the gaming industry for the last 25 years,” Foxx said.
“She’s been representing casinos all these years and that’s how she’s raised her money,” Alvarez said.
More says, “When I went into private practice I represented clients to keep them on the straight and narrow in regard to complying with rules and regulations and I’m proud of the jobs I’ve done doing that.”
“We don’t need to look at this thing as black and white. That’s the problem that we have. We’ve got to understand that we’re in this together,” Adam said.
* The Rauner issue also made some of the news reports. Sun-Times…
A campaign contributor to Gov. Bruce Rauner, More boasts a healthy campaign war chest largely fueled by her mother and her husband, veteran public relations executive Hud Englehart. More recently lifted the cap on donations to candidates in the primary race by making a $250,000 contribution to her own campaign.
More and her husband have come under scrutiny for donating $2,500 to the Bruce Rauner for governor campaign. She stands firm on her belief at the time that change was needed, but admits that she was wary with that decision. She also has made it very clear that the couple also made contributions to President Barack Obama and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s campaigns. “As Democrats we always have to make sure we have good choices,” More said.
“I wanted to see things I wanted to hope that maybe with some different faces, we would get more cooperation. That didn’t happen. I’m certainly not defined by one thing. No more than we’re defined as women, or African-American women or White women. I view this as a label.”
* The SJ-R reports that the Springfield City Council is set to vote on a resolution to urge the state to pay $9 million in utility bills owed to City Water Light and Power, including $6 million that is past due…
The resolution notes that having millions of dollars in overdue bills “is causing a hardship to the operation of the city of Springfield.”
In a Monday memo to Mayor Jim Langfelder, CWLP chief utilities engineer Doug Brown wrote that the city-owned utility has sent out late notices to all of its state accounts, and that a disconnection would be possible in the future if the state continues to be in arrears.
But that doesn’t mean shutting off power to the Capitol and other state facilities is imminent. Langfelder has said that would be a last resort.
“We’re still at the point where we’re working with the state to find out what they can do,” Brown said this week, noting that the state’s nonpayment of its utility bills “is starting to be more of a struggle” for CWLP.
For purposes of subdivision (2) of this subsection, the term “gift” shall include sexual relations between a registered lobbyist and a member of the general assembly or his or her staff. Relations between married persons or between persons who entered into a relationship prior to the registration of the lobbyist, the election of the member to the general assembly, or the employment of the staff person shall not be reportable under this subdivision. The reporting of sexual relations for purposes of this subdivision shall not require a dollar valuation.
The proposal has no listed co-sponsors as of yet.
…Adding… From a reader…
Rich:
Regarding your gift ban post, see this North Carolina ethics opinion from last year in which it was opined that a consensual sexual relationship where the lobbyist is not paid by the lobbyist’s principal for engaging in a sexual relationship does not constitute goodwill lobbying and therefore did not trigger lobbyist registration.
* From a memo sent by the governor’s legal counsel, with all emphasis added…
To: Agency Directors
From: Jason Barclay
Re: UPDATE: Employee Pay Proposal Date: January 6, 2016
As we have discussed in the past, one of the Governor’s priorities is to modernize the employee compensation system. The Governor set several broad goals for how that modernization should occur: (1) despite our significant budget constraints, we will not reduce current employee salaries or wages; (2) for the first time in the State’s history, we will implement a meaningful bonus system that rewards and incentivizes exceptional performance that will be evaluated by fair and objective measures; (3) employees at all levels should be financially rewarded if they identify and help implement taxpayer savings ideas; (4) merit employees, who have not received an across-the-board wage increase since December 2, 2005, must not be treated as a second-class workforce and must be compensated in a way that encourages promotions and reflects management responsibilities; and (5) automatic “step” increases are appropriate but not until the state’s massive budget deficit and financial crisis are solved.
To that end, we have begun implementing this new program for merit employees and the 17 labor unions who signed collective bargaining agreements in 2015. We have put a comprehensive compensation package based on these principles on the table in our negotiations with AFSCME. We believe this is a fair and thoughtful way to better compensate all of our employees, especially those who have never previously been rewarded for going above and beyond the ordinary course of business.
* The memo goes on to discuss employee bonuses…
We have proposed a bonus program to reward and incentivize high-performing individual employees, or an entire work group’s or unit’s performance. Payment will be based on the satisfaction of performance standards to be developed by the State in consultation with AFSCME or other union representatives.
Under the State’s proposal to AFSCME, for instance, for Fiscal Years 2017, 2018, and 2019, the State would set aside an amount equal to two percent of the budgeted base payroll costs for AFSCME bargaining unit employees. Employee bonuses would then be distributed as follows:
1) Every employee would be eligible to share equally in the one-quarter of the Bonus Pool if they accomplish these two basic requirements:
a) Have missed no more than seven (7) of their assigned work days (or no more than 56 of their assigned work hours) in the fiscal year during which a bonus is distributed; and
b) Have committed no work policy violations during the same fiscal year.
2) The remaining three-quarters of the Bonus Pool would be distributed to no fewer than 25% of employees who satisfy performance standards developed by the Employer in consultation with the Union, as well as meeting the criterion set out in subsection (1)(a) above.
As noted above, we have proposed working with the Union to develop specific policies for the program. Once developed, the Union will be given the opportunity to review and comment on the policies prior to implementation. Consistent with our intent, we have proposed to reward employees or groups of employees based on specific objective achievements and to prevent payouts that are influenced by favoritism, politics, or other purely subjective criteria.
Several Teamsters bargaining units have agreed to a similar provision and the State and those unions have held numerous productive discussions on objective criteria, fair to all, which can be used to measure performance. The Teamsters accepted the State’s proposals last summer, and 50% of eligible IDOT Teamster employees will get bonuses next summer, ranging from $1,500-$4,000, with half of all bonuses near the high end of that range.
The five Teamsters bargaining units are not the only unions to agree to wage increases linked to merit and performance. The trades unions ratified their collective bargaining agreements in November of 2015. Employees represented by twelve different trades unions, such as carpenters, plumbers, stationary engineers, painters, electricians, maintenance workers, barbers, etc., will also receive merit incentives following the conclusion of additional discussions between the State’s employee relations team and the leaders of those unions. Those discussions will be scheduled for the first quarter of this calendar year.
* Merit pay…
Furthermore, we are also committed to using merit pay to improve the efficiency of state operations and better align the incentives for the Employer with the workforce. To that end, we have proposed a gainsharing program in which employees or agencies that achieve savings for the State will share in such savings. The savings will be calculated based on achieved savings for the State. Every state employee will be eligible for this program, regardless of their level or job description, and the program will be structured so that employees can receive significant portions of taxpayer gains.
* Signing and attendance bonuses…
As you are aware, we previously offered every AFSMCE represented employee a $1,000 non-pensionable signing bonus if a new collective bargaining agreement was ratified by January 1, 2016. The State offered this to AFSCME at the bargaining table on September 8, 2015 in the first negotiation session following the failed veto override vote on AFSCME’s Bill, Senate Bill 1229.
Our proposal clearly stated that: “In the event a successor agreement is ratified prior to January 1, 2016, all bargaining unit employees who are in active employment status on that date shall receive a one (1) time, non-pensionable bonus of $1,000.”
AFSCME’s leaders had more than 100 days to consider the proposals similar to those already adopted by the Teamsters and Trades unions before the signing bonus offer expired. Even though AFSCME missed the January 1, 2016 deadline, today our negotiators modified this proposal one more time because we are still committed to finding ways to increase employees’ wages in this fiscal year.
Accordingly, the State has offered the following to AFSCME:
All bargaining unit employees who are in active employment status on June 30, 2016 and who have missed fewer than five (5) percent of their assigned work days between the effective date of this Agreement and June 30, 2016 shall receive a one (1) time, non-pensionable bonus of $1,000.
This proposal is designed to help our employees with additional payments, but it is linked to attendance. We have chosen attendance because it is a simple marker that is universally applicable to all employees, regardless of the specific nature of their duties. Moreover, many of our crushing overtime costs are made only worse due to excessive absenteeism. This is made worse when employees “make up” their absences by volunteering for overtime, paid at time-and-a-half.
We consider this attendance bonus a simple hurdle to cross, but one that begins to demonstrate that people can earn more when it is tied to performance, when the performance criteria are objective, and they are clearly understood by the workforce.
To be sure, these attendance policies will be implemented in a manner consistent with federal employment law so as not to detract from employees’ rights to take FMLA leave or military leave. But the message should be clear: people who show up to work and people who do good work for the state will be rewarded for their efforts.
Under our proposals, after July 1, 2016, the merit pay and gainsharing programs discussed above will go into effect for AFSCME represented employees.
* Incentives for non-bargaining unit employees…
Our desire to incentivize and reward employees is not confined to those employees that are represented by a union; we also want to recognize the many outstanding State workers who are not represented by a union. Unfortunately, many of these individuals have not received a raise in many years. In fact, the last across-the-board pay increase to non-union personnel was over a decade ago. To address this injustice and to reward these employees, we will be expanding the performance bonus system to non-union employees and looking to correct base compensation inequities for managers and those who have been promoted into merit positions. It is my hope that the performance bonuses for non-union employees will be the first step in ensuring that the needs of these employees are no longer overlooked.
* Mark Brown write about how the construction of the new Illinois Veterans Home in Chicago was halted at the end of the fiscal year…
What’s really irritating in this instance is that the people who are getting hurt are the veterans who need this type of specialized housing, especially those who would benefit from the facility’s promised 44 beds for individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia.
The state already operates four homes for veterans, but the closest one is located in Manteno, a distance from where most of the state’s aging veteran population lives in Chicago. The facilities operate much as skilled nursing homes with specialized programming for veterans.
Sen. John Mulroe (D-Chicago), whose district includes the Veterans Home site, said continuing the project requires legislation to re-appropriate money earmarked for the project in prior years but left unspent.
Mulroe said Democrats haven’t offered such a bill because of the expectation Rauner would just veto it.
Rauner’s staff counters that the governor included the Veterans Home project in his original proposed 2016 budget while Democrats did not. If Democrats had included it in a limited capital appropriation bill that the governor signed in June, the project would have been funded and continued on schedule, they contend.
This is a similar fight to what’s taking place over the stalled flood plain home buyout program. The governor put the reappropriations in his budget, but the Democrats didn’t include it in their own reapprop bill, which the governor signed.
The money for the Olive Branch relocation project was included in the Governor’s proposed budget in two separate bills: SB 2024 and HB 2913. Neither of those bills were called in a committee hearing in the House or Senate. Why? Because they proposed cutting wasteful government spending so we could afford projects like Olive Branch. Mike Madigan and the Chicago machine didn’t like that very much — they wanted billions more in wasteful spending at the expense of Southern Illinois projects like Olive Branch. That’s why money for this project was not included in the Madigan-Phelps out-of-balance budget that was passed by the General Assembly — they intentionally left out Olive Branch from the capital appropriations bill, HB 4166. Rep. Phelps voted yes on the Madigan-Phelps budget and capital bill – both of which excluded the funding for Olive Branch.
Statement from Nick Klitzing, Executive Director of the Illinois Republican Party: “Today, as Rep. Brandon Phelps claims to be in favor of releasing funding for the Olive Branch relocation project, Southern Illinois voters should understand Phelps’ hypocrisy. Phelps had an opportunity to vote for the funding, but he chose to stand with Mike Madigan. Phelps claims to represent Southern Illinois, but time and time again, he has shown that he represents his Chicago boss Mike Madigan.”
The disputed section limits the aggregate amounts that a person can contribute in a two-year election cycle to candidates, political party committees and PACS. The Supreme Court has allowed government more latitude to enact such limits on contributions - as opposed to limits on independent spending on campaign activities - because contributions involve money that goes directly to a candidate or committee and could more likely lead to quid pro quo corruption or the appearance of corruption.
Base limits, such as the $2,600 for a candidate, are not at issue in McCutcheon. Rather it’s the aggregate cap of $48,600 on what an individual may give overall to federal candidates and the $74,000 that an individual may give to political party committees and PACs.
Erin Murphy, the attorney representing McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee before the justices, said the overall limits were unnecessary to fight any appearance of corruption and impinge on First Amendment rights.
As she has previously over the past two years, Kagan used her questions to lawyers to strategically telegraph arguments to her colleagues. When Kagan challenged Murphy with multi-million-dollar contribution scenarios, Kennedy immediately picked up the thread to question Murphy - and also question Kagan’s assertions.
Alito declared his suspicion of the line of hypotheticals Kagan raised. As Kagan, who sits to his left, faced him, Alito asked Solicitor General Verrilli, “How realistic is it that all of the state party committees, for example, are going to get money and they’re all going to transfer it to one candidate?”
“What troubles me about your argument, General Verrilli, and about the district court’s opinion is that what I see are wild hypotheticals that are not obviously plausible or — and lack, certainly lack any empirical support,” he said.
The Supremes eventually ruled 5-4 that limiting aggregate contributions would violate free speech rights.
* This past September, the Washington Post noted that “Just four years ago, the most a donor could give a national political party was $30,800″…
The national political parties are urging wealthy backers to give them 10 times more money than was allowed in the last presidential election, taking advantage of looser restrictions to pursue million-dollar donors with zeal.
Under the new plans, which have not been disclosed publicly, the top donation tier for the Republican National Committee has soared to $1.34 million per couple this election cycle. Democratic contributors, meanwhile, are being hit up for even more — about $1.6 million per couple — to support the party’s convention and a separate joint fundraising effort between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign.
In return, elite donors are being promised perks such as exclusive retreats with top party leaders, VIP treatment at the nominating conventions and special dinners organized by contribution rank at this month’s RNC finance committee gala.
Here’s how it works: Donors are limited by how much they can give to campaign committees, national party committees and state party committees. A single donor can give $5,400 to a candidate’s campaign to cover both a primary and general election, $33,400 annually to a national party committee’s general fund and $10,000 annually to each state party. These limits are known as “base” contribution limits. (Additionally, donors can give $100,200 annually to each of the national party committee’s convention, building and legal funds thanks to a provision slipped into the 2014 omnibus budget bill.)
Since the Hillary Victory Fund links the Clinton campaign, the DNC and 33 state parties, the total amount a donor could give is $669,400 per year. Technically, a maximum contribution to the fund would include $330,000 to be split among the 33 state parties. Since party committees are allowed to make unlimited transfers between each other, that money can easily be sent to the state parties most advantageous to the candidate raising the money — in a swing state, for example. Or, as is happening with the Hillary Victory Fund, that money can be sent to the DNC, which redistributes it as they see fit.
Wealthy donors like Fred Eychaner, M.K. and J.B. Pritzker and Donald Sussman have seen their six-figure contributions to the Hillary Victory Fund split into $33,400 contributions to the DNC and $10,000 to a variety of state parties. The state parties have then sent the exact amounts received from Hillary Victory Fund donors directly to the DNC.
1) Governor, we have entered an unprecedented seventh month without a budget. In a few weeks, you have to give a budget address for the next fiscal year, how do you expect to do that?
2) Since you’re talking transparency, why has your administration fought releasing basic information like your calendar? Don’t you think taxpayers should know who has the governor’s ear and with whom he meets? Will you fight the release now that the Illinois Attorney General’s office has ruled you must turn them over? Why did you fight it in the first place?
3) You sold yourself as a negotiator who could get things done. Instead of a war of words, why can’t you come up with at least a short-term compromise to help Chicago schools?
Proft: …A story this week about a city attorney who failed to disclose evidence that you’re required to disclose in discovery and now a judge has had to intervene yet again and say there’s going to be a new trial in the wrongful death case of someone else who was killed by a Chicago Police Officer back in 2011. It seems like we need an ARDC investigation, a state investigation—not that Lisa Madigan will do it—, a federal investigation; we need a lot of investigations into a lot of the moving parts in city government.
Rauner: Well that’s right, unfortunately what I’ve heard in the last two days is that Mayor Emanuel has come out and he’s opposed to a federal investigation of the legal department for the City of Chicago, right immediately after one of the attorneys for the city has been accused by a judge of withholding evidence. It’s so…
Proft: Mind-boggling
Rauner: It is. How tone-deaf can you be? I mean how—it’s incredibly disappointing. Why would the mayor fight the investigation of that department, given these facts? Just the way he fought the federal investigation—the civil rights investigation—of the shooting incident. It’s just out of touch and it’s a failure of leadership.
* The Question: Do you agree or disagree with Gov. Rauner’s decision to speak out on this topic? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
Gov. Rauner spoke in Watseka this morning, saying there doesn’t seem to be support for a budget agreement in January.
“Some of my fiends who are members of the Democratic Caucus in the general Assembly, and I’ve got friends on both sides of the aisle, are telling me that [House Speaker Madigan] is indicating that maybe he won’t be taking any tough votes until the primary is done on March 15. I think that will be very unfortunate,” Rauner said.
A spokesman for Speaker Madigan told 13 WREX that Madigan has been saying for several weeks that a budget deal would come sometime in April.
Actually, it could be January, of next year. Maybe.
*** UPDATE *** Brown in comments…
I told the reporter it was the governor who said April before the holidays. The Speaker believes the budget is the state’s #1 issue and should be resolved as quickly as possible.
* Click here to listen. The governor once again kicked the mayor when he’s down (I’m sure that’ll help) and blamed pretty much all the state’s problems on Speaker Madigan. Some Rauner quotes…
It’s so unfortunate the way the mayor is failing the people of Chicago and he’s looking to blame other people for it.
The mayor has done virtually nothing to reform and transform the government of Chicago and the schools of Chicago.
He’s afraid to take on Speaker Madigan… He’s afraid. He’s hiding behind the Speaker.
[Q: Why is the mayor afraid of Madigan?] The Speaker has been the most powerful politician in the state of Illinois for decades. It’s the main reason we’re in such big trouble as a state. And he’s head of the Democratic Party. He controls tens of millions of dollars in political funds, and he controls a massive army of patronage workers and lobbyists and the judges and politicians and you know what he’s an intimidating figure for the Democratic politicians who are under him.
The reason we don’t have a budget is that the existing majority in the Legislature, led by Speaker Madigan, likes the status quo and they don’t want to make any changes whatsoever.
We’re in this long-term, slow death spiral. The reality is, who’s doing well in Illinois is the political class led by Speaker Madigan. The political class is doing great, the lobbyists, the politicians, the insiders [in] the government, the folks who make money from the taxpayers are doing great. But the taxpayers themselves, homeowners, school children, small business owners, your average working family is hurting in Illinois. And unfortunately the Speaker is not sensitive to that. He likes the power. He’s got a great system, he controls it. And right now they’re unwilling to change. And without change, we’ll never get a true balanced budget.
Summary: “Because… Madigan!”
If only life was that simple.
* Certain pundits, columnists and editorial writers will eat this stuff up and shout huzzahs from their own little rooftops. It makes for great copy and reinforces the beliefs of his base, but that isn’t governing.
He’s not completely wrong, of course. Madigan must take his share of the blame - and there’s plenty of it. But can you behave like this and actually get something done? Why would anyone cut a deal with a guy who talks like this?
And does he want to get anything done or is this war gonna continue as long as he’s in office? Right now, it sure looks like it ain’t gonna end.
Madigan needs to give. No question. But the governor also needs to govern.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday it’s “not possible” that City Hall’s Law Department is part of the cover-up culture he’s acknowledged exists at the Chicago Police Department — a day after a federal judge ruled that a city lawyer intentionally concealed evidence in a trial over a fatal Chicago police shooting.
Emanuel also said it’s not necessary for the U.S. Department of Justice to add the Law Department to its investigation into the Police Department’s use of excessive force. And the mayor gave a vote of confidence to his top attorney, saying Stephen Patton would ensure the city’s legal team is operating “at the highest level that the public should expect.”
The mayor’s defense of Patton, a confidant, comes as a federal judge has cited and rebuked five city attorneys within the last year for withholding evidence in two separate police misconduct cases. In the most recent of those rulings Monday, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang faulted lax training and oversight at Patton’s department for hampering the production of Police Department records when officers are accused of misconduct. […]
“There is zero tolerance for not only violating the public trust, but your professional standards and there will be no place for that,” Emanuel said. “Once the decision was made, the lawyer and the city parted ways.”
“Zero tolerance”? Then how come Jordan Marsh was on the law department payroll until just the other day? He admitted to the cover-up in September, for crying out loud, and we’ve known about this story for almost a year.
Zero tolerance for what, exactly?
[Fixed some coding problems which deleted some of my words.]
“I don’t know that we’ve hit the bottom,” said Richard Ciccarone, Chicago-based CEO of Merritt Research Services. “There’s a lot of things yet to happen.”
Ain’t that the truth.
As we learned under Rod Blagojevich, things can always get worse.
Since it last sold general-obligation bonds in April 2014, the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the state’s effort to cut workers’ benefits to help close a $111 billion pension-fund deficit. Its credit rating has been cut. And temporary tax increases have expired, leaving Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic lawmakers locked in a record-long impasse that’s left the state without a budget for more than six months.
The $480 million of federally tax-exempt bonds scheduled for sale Jan. 14 will illustrate the cost of Illinois’ long-building strains, which have caused investors to demand higher premiums to buy its bonds. The state’s 30-year securities yield 4.67 percent, about 1.8 percentage points more than top-rated debt. That gap has risen by more than half a percentage point since April 2014 and is the highest among the 20 states tracked by Bloomberg.
“They’re definitely going to have to pay a higher yield,” said Dan Solender, head of municipals at Lord Abbett & Co. in Jersey City, N.J., which manages $17 billion of the debt, including Illinois bonds. “They’re going to be penalized compared to other bonds of similar ratings.”
We’ll have to wait and see whether the “bond vigilantes” will be as harsh on Illinois as predicted above. It hasn’t really happened in the past. Sales have been heavily over-subscribed.
* And while we’re on this topic, the Illinois Policy Institute’s news service has a story up about the governor’s borrowing plan…
Chris Edwards, an economist with the Cato Institute, says funding road construction and transit projects should be funded by current revenues or cuts in lower priority budget areas because going into debt by selling bonds pushes the costs onto future generations. Edwards says Illinois is the last state that should want to go further into debt because a variety of factors, including having the most unfunded state pension plans.
“That means that in the future Illinois taxpayers will not only have to pay back the money for the bonds they’ll have to probably chip in to pay for this overextended state retirement system.”
Edwards says Illinois’ worst-in-the-country credit rating will also mean selling the bonds will cost taxpayers more because of higher interest rates, however the governor’s office says there was no change in the state’s general obligation bond ratings from the three major ratings agencies. The governor signed a capital bill last summer that gives the state authority to spend bond funds with dedicated revenues to cover the payments.
My own opinion is the state shouldn’t sell a 30-year bond to pay for repairs that will only last 10 years.
Other than that, borrowing for infrastructure is totally legit in my mind.
Chicago Board of Education bonds tumbled to the lowest since September as Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner said he wouldn’t bail out the cash-strapped school system.
The public school system known as CPS has said it needs $480 million from the state to close a budget gap and will face cuts and “unsustainable” borrowing without the funds. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS Chief Executive Officer Forrest Claypool have called for the help, saying the system receives less state money than other Illinois districts. CPS is the only state district that pays for its teachers pensions. Rauner has said he’ll help out only if Emanuel supports structural changes that he has proposed such as limits on collective bargaining.
“Let’s be clear Chicago Public Schools are in dramatic trouble,” Rauner told reporters on Monday. “They’re looking at a disaster somewhere in the next nine months in the Chicago public schools.”
The Chicago Board of Education’s federally tax-exempt, general obligation bonds traded for an average of 82.45 cents on the dollar on Monday, the lowest since Sept. 28, to yield 6.4 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The securities, the most-actively traded over the last three months, have a 5 percent coupon and mature in December 2042.
* Insurance companies which charge higher premiums to their most loyal customers, and are being stopped in other states, but not in Illinois…
Last month, Connecticut became the 16th state to issue a bulletin barring insurers from using “price optimization” in ways that would charge customers with the same risk profile different rates based on their propensity to shop or their likelihood to switch providers. Indiana took similar action in July.
Anne Melissa Dowling, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s choice in May as insurance director, came from Connecticut, where she had been acting director of that state’s Insurance Department.
In a statement, the Illinois department says: “As there is no agreed-upon definition as to what is entailed in the term ‘price optimization,’ we don’t plan to address an undefined notion. We are, however, aware of many new and innovative pricing models, responding to the market demand for more individualized pricing.”
In 2013, though, Keller stepped off the path again, this time with Adam Gerchen, whom he had met at Alyeska Investment Group, a Chicago hedge fund. Together they founded Gerchen Keller Capital to finance litigation in exchange for a cut of the resulting judgment or settlement. Gerchen, 34, is CEO, and Keller, 36, managing director. Travis Lenkner, 36, joined soon after as a partner and managing director.
Gerchen was a former Goldman Sachs banker and Harvard Law School graduate who had never practiced law, while Lenkner, a senior counsel at Boeing, knew Keller from their time clerking together for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. The trio’s collective background was dubbed “resume porn” by David Lat, founder of legal news and gossip website Above the Law.
Today, Gerchen Keller Capital is the largest firm of its kind in the world. Starting out with $100 million from a dozen investors (two were anchors), the Chicago-based business has grown to $1.4 billion in assets under management. In addition to funding early stage lawsuits, it buys legal fee, judgment and settlement receivables from finished cases. It has invested an average of $6.7 million per case since inception and an average of $10 million per case in the past year. The pension fund for Michigan’s state employees has invested $3.5 million with it, and Texas’ pension fund has put in $28.7 million. The firm is profitable, Lenkner says.
The rise in litigation financing in the last decade has attracted attention from lawyers, investors, clients, business lobbyists and the U.S. Senate. There’s the potential to make serious money: Burford Capital and IMF Bentham, public companies based in the United Kingdom, boast respective returns of 71 and 158 percent. There’s also the potential for serious humble pie: Juridica Investments in Guernsey announced in November it would stop investing in new cases after it poured $3.5 million into a trade secrets case expected to yield $9.4 million—and got $2 million back instead. In August, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and John Cornyn of Texas sent a letter to Burford Capital execs demanding to know the scope of its investment in U.S. cases.
While lawmakers have clamped down on payments to workers, doctors and lawyers, little scrutiny has been given to these “cost containment” firms — even though today they arguably have more influence on how injury benefits are handled than insurers and employers.
Highlighting the bounty, there are now more than 150 workers’ comp conferences a year. There’s one for the American Society of Workers Comp Professionals, one for the Association of Workers’ Compensation Professionals and one for the Association of Workers’ Compensation Claims Professionals. At least 26 have golf tournaments. […]
Last year, workers’ comp insurers in California spent 36 percent of premiums on overhead — more than they spent on medical care. That’s over twice what group health plans can spend on administrative costs under the Affordable Care Act.
A glimpse of the Vegas expo shows why. There were companies that provide networks of doctors and companies that review medical bills, firms that provide expert medical opinions and firms that specialize in complex claims. There were defense lawyers, data processing firms, rehab facilities, surveillance companies, outside claims shops, occupational medicine clinics, pain management services, translators, schedulers, headhunters and associations promoting other conferences.
There were labs that test injured workers’ urine for illegal drugs. There were even labs that test urine to ensure workers are taking the prescribed drugs instead of selling them.
In California, the amount of money that insurers spend on medical cost containment programs has more than doubled from $197 million in 2005 to $471 million in 2014, according to the state workers’ comp ratings bureau.
It’s only the first week in January, but I’m pretty sure we can already declare the dumbest TV executive of the year.
Dan Salamone, an executive producer at Fox-owned WFLD-Channel 32, this week told the women who report on “Good Day Chicago” not to wear hats during their outdoor live shots this winter, sources said Tuesday.
Salamone’s directive, which he did not issue to male reporters, said the women would “look a lot better without hats” and should go without them from now on. He’d be willing to make an exception, he said, “if it’s 20 below.”
“Growing the ratings in this time period is a big challenge and very important to the company,” Salamone told friends on Facebook. “I’m ready to dig in and help the entire team produce newscasts that will have the Windy City talking!” […]
Reputed to be an innovative news manager, Salamone attracted national attention in 2012 when he used puppets on the air to re-enact testimony from the corruption trial of a county commissioner after cameras had been barred from the courtroom.
Rauner discussed four priorities: “I want to make Illinois the No. 1 state in America for economic growth and job creation. Right now we’re among the worst. I want to make us pro-business, pro-job creation.”
Second, “I want to make Illinois government the most efficient, transparent in America.”
Third, “I want to make the education system the best in America. … Today, the politicians in Springfield are cutting school funding, doing special deals with teacher unions, allowing bad teachers to stay in the system through tenure. We’ve got to change our schools so they’re responsive to our schoolchildren, our parents and our property-taxpayers.”
Rauner’s fourth priority is term limits. Public service shouldn’t be a lifetime, wealth-building career, he said. “Everybody (should) serve eight years and you’re out. No more Madigan power structure for 30 years.”
State Representative David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) hopes to help create manufacturing jobs in Illinois by exempting manufacturers from the state’s income tax.
“We need to have a strong manufacturing base to have a strong Illinois economy,” McSweeney said. “We continue to lag in job creation and manufacturing companies are generally not considering Illinois as a top tier choice for expanding. Eliminating the income tax on manufacturers will create a strong incentive for manufacturing companies to consider locating to Illinois and it will encourage existing Illinois manufacturers to stay in Illinois and even expand their operations here.”
House Bill 4381 would allow existing and new manufacturing operations (corporations as well as LLCs and LPs) to fully deduct their net income, which essentially would exempt them from the state’s income tax. For a manufacturer with $10 million of Illinois net income, HB 4381 would reduce that manufacturer’s tax liability by $525,000 ($10 million x 5.25% corporate tax rate).
While manufacturing jobs have increased in other states, Illinois continues to shed manufacturing jobs. From 2001-2015, Illinois manufacturing jobs have decreased by 38.9%.
“We have to get the Illinois economy moving again and reviving the manufacturing sector is an important step we need to take,” McSweeney said. “The current policies are not working. Raising taxes has only served to drive middle class jobs away from Illinois. Let’s lower taxes and create incentives for manufacturers to invest in Illinois.”
Representative McSweeney has asked the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) to review the full revenue impact of HB 4381. McSweeney said, “The best way to create new revenues for the state is to create new jobs and thus new taxpayers. I’m confident that my proposal will create new jobs.”
HB 4381 has been filed and is awaiting assignment to a legislative committee.
Southern Illinois Senator Gary Forby is making a public stand with local gun owners and calling on President Obama to dial down the anti-gun rhetoric and recognize 2nd Amendment rights.
“Look around. The only gun problem we have in Southern Illinois is people trying to take away our rights. If there’s a problem in Chicago or Washington, D.C., fix it. But don’t take it out on the responsible gun owners of this region,” Forby said.
Police in southern Illinois say a 3-year-old boy is expected to recover after he was shot when someone fired rounds into a Granite City home.
Madison County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Mike Dixon says the boy was playing on the living room floor when the shooting happened early Sunday. Dixon says three to four shots were fired into the front of the home from the roadway. One of the rounds struck the boy in the shoulder. Police believe the rounds were fired from a vehicle and that the home was targeted.
President Barack Obama’s plan to expand background checks for gun sales at shows, on the internet and elsewhere is igniting the usual firestorm of gun-related rhetoric.
But his plan may be much ado about nothing, at least in Illinois. […]
“I don’t think it’s going to affect us at all,” said Richard Thrasher, manager of the Central Illinois Gun Collectors’ shows held four times a year at the Sangamon County Fairgrounds in New Berlin. “We have followed state and federal regulations right to the letter. We watch it very carefully.”
Thrasher said that some skirting of the registration requirement may occur in Illinois, but that most reports of such avoidance of the law come from Southern states.
In fact, Obama has hardly contradicted the will of Congress, let alone made it difficult for law-abiding people to obtain firearms. His proposed changes are far from historic, and their direct effect on crime seems speculative at best. The most politically contentious aspect of Obama’s executive actions is broadening the definition of a gun dealer. He targets sellers who operate from home, a weekend gun show, or via the Internet. Those sellers aren’t currently required to hold a federal firearm license or submit buyers’ names for background screening by the FBI.
But obliging occasional gun sellers to perform background checks wouldn’t have blocked sale of the weapons used in most recent mass shootings—including the December Islamic terrorist attack in San Bernardino or the December 2012 massacre at an elementary school in Connecticut. The killers in those cases used guns obtained legally through conventional outlets that did do background checks.
Moreover, social science research indicates that relatively few guns currently purchased from unlicensed sellers are sold directly to criminals. The Justice Department found in one survey that just 0.7 percent of state prison inmates in 1997 purchased weapons at a gun show. Forty percent of inmates said they obtained the gun used in their crime from a relative or friend—and those transfers wouldn’t be covered by the Obama proposals. Another 39 precent said they obtained a weapon from the black market, another transfer unaffected by the White House action.
Got that nagging feeling you’ve forgotten something?
Better go outside and check the date of your license plate sticker. You could be among the thousands of drivers oblivious — thanks to the state budget crisis — that their vehicle registration has expired.
play video
Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White suspended mailing out reminders in September, noting it could save $450,000 a month.
Without that memory jog, renewals plummeted 19 percent in November, when 413,709 Illinoisans applied compared to 512,760 in November 2014.
And as of Dec. 28, only 301,965 people had renewed their stickers in December 2015, as opposed to 475,314 for the entire month of December 2014, the agency reported. That’s a 36 percent drop.
So, it’s costing the state lots more in lapsed plate stickers than it would’ve cost to mail out the reminders. But, eventually, almost all of those car owners will renew their plates, and some will mail their checks after receiving tickets. So, heck, Illinois might even come out ahead if you factor in the fines and late fees.
January is Cervical Health Awareness Month. In a press release issued today by the Illinois Department of Public Health, IDPH Director Nirav D. Shah says, “We know that with routine screening, cervical cancer is highly preventable, and yet more than 4000 women were estimated to have lost their lives to cervical cancer in 2015.” http://www.dph.illinois.gov/news/january-cervical-health-awareness-month-0
Unfortunately for women in Illinois, the Governor’s failure to make passing a budget his first priority means the state has not invested any money into the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program, the entity which provides routine breast and cervical cancer screenings to women across Illinois regardless of income.
While $6 million in federal pass through funds have been released, zero state dollars have been spent, meaning an estimated 15,000 fewer women will have access to these potentially life-saving services.
In addition, in his budget, the Governor proposed cutting Illinois investment in breast and cervical cancer screenings from $13.5 million in GRF, the final appropriated level for FY15, to $4 million, which is about a 70% decrease in state funding.
Cutting cervical cancer detection is an example of the “short term pain” the governor’s willing to endure as he continues to hold the budget hostage to his policy agenda.
Emily Miller
Policy and Advocacy Director, Voices for Illinois Children
Co-Coordinator, Responsible Budget Coalition
Gov. Bruce Rauner told a group of firefighters and first responders here Sunday that the state will be doing “all we can to help the cleanup process” following last week’s flood.
Rauner visited the Villa Grove fire station to thank and shake hands with emergency personnel and volunteers and to look at photographs and maps of areas damaged by last week’s floods.
“My primary reason for coming here was to say thank you to our first responders,” Rauner told a crowd of about 50. “One of the great things about our state is that everybody comes together to help each other out in times of need.”
But if the flooding wasn’t bad enough, it’s what happened months before that upsets many officials and home and business owners, [Alexander County Board chairman Chalen Tatum] said.
It was July when Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration directed county officials by email to halt its flood buyout program, Tatum said.
The reason? Because the state was without a budget, Tatum said, referring to the email notice.
But the funds, $4 million from the state and $8 million from the federal government, were already appropriated, were already in the bank and were already being used to buy flood prone property from their owners and allow them to relocate, Tatum said.
“That money has nothing to do with the state budget. People like that, we could have already bought their home out,” Tatum said, pointing to a home surrounded by floodwater off Illinois 3 in Olive Branch.
The program slated 169 homes and businesses. To date, 42 have been purchased, Tatum said. The buyouts started about a year ago but had picked up pace with eight or nine purchases a month by the summer.
Tatum estimated another 50 properties would have been purchased since July without the state cease order.
Ugh.
*** UPDATE *** The governor’s office called to point out that there was no appropriation authority after June 30th. The money was in the governor’s proposal, but not in the reapprop bill approved by the Democrats, which the governor signed.
* Yesterday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office had this to say in response to the threats from Gov. Rauner to withhold state financial help from CPS if the mayor doesn’t help pass his Turnaround Agenda…
An Emanuel spokesman argued the governor was using Chicago schoolchildren as “pawns” and contended the mayor has been working to bring about a larger budget agreement. The mayor’s office did not provide details, however.
“We’re a little surprised given that at the governor’s own request our team has been actively involved in trying to untangle the logjam in Springfield,” mayoral spokesman Adam Collins said. “It’s unfortunate that yet again (CPS students) are being used as pawns in a political chess match.”
* The mayor continued that theme during a press conference today…
Mayor Rahm Emanuel to IL Gov. Bruce Rauner: "Get the job done. Get the budget done."
I threw that last one in because Ron usually seems pretty tied in to the unsaid, but “real” Rauner mindset.
*** UPDATE *** Response…
Hi, Rich –
Passing along this statement on CPS.
Please attribute the following to Mike Schrimpf:
“As expected, the Mayor is playing the tired political game of blaming others for his unwillingness to fix Chicago’s finances after more than four years in office because he has not taken on any major structural reforms.
While Governor Rauner has increased state support for education to record amounts and has allowed Chicago Public Schools to keep its $600 million special deal, City Hall continues to borrow money for everyday expenses and passed a schools budget that is half a billion dollars short.
Governor Rauner has repeatedly tried to help the families of Chicago by offering the City massive assistance but the Mayor refuses to stand with the Governor to help save Chicago.”
“I strongly disagree” with Rauner’s vow not help CPS avert a financial calamity unless City Hall starts pushing some of the governor’s Turnaround Agenda priorities, Emanuel said. “The children of Chicago are not a political game in Springfield to get a deal done.”
It is wrong to hold education “hostage” to a wider fight, Emanuel continued. Hundreds of thousands of school children “are not a pawn in (Rauner’s) political maneuvers. . . .Get the (budget) job done.”
With a hint of his old cocky smile, Emanuel disclosed that he’d even drafted a New Year’s resolution for Rauner: “That he have his first budget passed before he has to present his second.”
Emanuel shrugged off a question about disputes between Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Mike Madigan over whether to give Rauner something of what he wants in a pending CPS aid bill.
“People can have different takes” on legislation, he said. What counts is that Illinois is “near dead last” nationally in funding schools, and that Chicago suffers “a disparity” within Illinois because it has to pay for its own teacher pension costs.
More than 200 measures passed by each chamber of the General Assembly were signed by Governor Bruce Rauner in 2015, which is about level with previous years under Democrat Pat Quinn, but the number of Rauner vetoes are sharply higher from the year before under Quinn, partly because of budget bills Rauner vetoed saying they were not balanced.
In a compliance audit of the Senate, Auditor General William Holland says 33 bills were vetoed, or amenditorially vetoed, in 2015.
That’s more than three times the number of bills former Democrat Governor Pat Quinn vetoed in 2014 and 2013 combined.
The House had a similar record — 32 bills were vetoed by Rauner in 2015, nearly triple the total in both 2014 and 2013 under Quinn.
Just how far up in City Hall does the code of silence reach?
In the hours after Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke emptied his 9 mm handgun into 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, five other officers at the scene gave statements saying Van Dyke fired in self-defense. The Police Department’s official finding was the same.
After a police dash-cam video soundly contradicted that story, Mayor Rahm Emanuel acknowledged that an unspoken compact shields rogue police officers from accountability.
That culture extends beyond the rank-and-file, however, to a disciplinary system that can take years to run its course and almost never sustains a complaint against an officer.
And it has extended all the way to the city’s Law Department, according to a federal judge’s scathing ruling Monday.
U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang said a top city attorney “intentionally concealed” critical evidence in a 2015 civil trial in which a jury found two officers were justified in killing Darius Pinex during a January 2011 traffic stop.
Jordan Marsh, senior corporation counsel for the city, resigned after a judge threw out a previous ruling and ordered a new case in the wrongful lawsuit death brought by the family of Darius Pinex, killed by officers after a 2011 traffic stop in Englewood, according to the Tribune.
Judge Edmond E. Chang on Monday granted Pinex’s family a new trial, saying in a scathing ruling that Marsh intentionally hid evidence from the family’s legal team prior to the start of the trial.
According to the Sun-Times, Marsh failed to turn over a police radio transmission that proved officers who shot Pinex did not actually hear what they said they did over the radio, which the officers pointed to as their reason for pulling Pinex over in the first place.
“Because of the recording’s untimely disclosure, the first trial was unfair and Plaintiffs’ trial presentation was hurt beyond repair by the surprise,” Chang wrote.
Mosqueda had initially claimed he stopped the Oldsmobile Aurora that Pinex was driving based on an Englewood District police radio broadcast that warned the car might have been involved in a shooting in a different police district about three hours earlier.
Mosqueda said he jumped out of his police SUV with his gun drawn because of the warning.
But the recorded broadcast didn’t actually say anything about an Oldsmobile Aurora being wanted in a shooting or having a gun inside.
It only said cops in the South Chicago District had chased a ’98 Olds Aurora with temporary plates and the pursuit was terminated, according to Chang.
Marsh “buried” the Englewood audio recording and gave misleading statements at the trial — even saying the recording would have been “recycled a long time ago” — before he admitted its possible existence, the judge wrote.
Steve Greenberg, an attorney who represents Pinex’s family, said the ruling raises questions about the Law Department’s role in perpetuating a police culture in which officers believe they can act with impunity.
“There’s just a total disregard for the truth, and it runs to the highest levels,” Greenberg said. “There is a culture to cover up and win at all costs.”
In acknowledging Marsh’s departure, city officials said the conduct outlined by Chang was “inexcusable.”
Question: Why was Marsh allowed to remain on the payroll so long? It’s ridiculous.
* Related…
* PDF: Judge orders retrial in fatal police shooting
* Despite scrutiny, Chicago cops shot fewer people in 2015: The Chicago Tribune reports officers shot 22 people last year, eight of them fatally. That’s a 40 percent dip in the total number compared with 2014 when 37 people were shot and 16 killed. The number of people shot by Chicago police officers has gradually dropped since 2011 when officers shot 56 people, 24 fatally. In 2012, Chicago cops shot 45 people, killing 12. In 2013, officers shot 35 people, killing 14.
* Chicago Tonight takes a look at Jason Gonzales’ Democratic primary race against Speaker Madigan and two others…
There are two other declared candidates in the primary: Joe Barboza and Grasiela Rodriguez. Neither have campaign websites or committee information. Gonzales says they were planted by Speaker Madigan’s operation to dilute the Hispanic vote, which makes up the overwhelming majority of the district. […]
“Madigan thinks Hispanics in my district, which now comprises 70 percent of the district, are stupid,” Gonzales said. “He thinks they’ll punch Rodriguez or Barboza over Gonzales because he thinks we’re not smart enough to figure out they are plants from him to take votes from me. We’ve come up with a strategy to neutralize these two candidates, and they’re not going to do much harm.”
A spokesperson for Speaker Madigan denied any knowledge of so called campaign “plants” or “stalking horses.”
Brown also speculated that Gonzales could be running at the behest of Gov. Bruce Rauner. Gonzales denies this and there is no record of campaign contributions from Rauner’s political committee.
Barboza refused to appear on camera for “Chicago Tonight” but vehemently denied over the phone that he was being put up to this by anyone connected to Speaker Madigan. When asked why he was running, he responded: “I’ve been in this community for 16 years. I’m doing my own work now and have some time on my hands.”
He says he currently works in custom flooring, and he seemed flustered when asked what he wanted to accomplish in Springfield, eventually telling “Chicago Tonight” that he supports unions.
“Chicago Tonight” was unsuccessful in reaching Rodriguez after knocking on her door.
Um, why am I running? Um… Hmm. Unions!
OK.
* Also, Gonzales doesn’t necessarily have to receive money directly from Rauner to be a Rauner-friendly candidate. Some of the governor’s pals have already contributed.
* The Tribune has a story about the high public cost of low wages…
According to the NPA study, 60 percent of the cost of public assistance in Illinois goes to families headed by someone who works. In addition, nearly 1 million people in Cook County live in poverty and either collect public assistance or qualify for it, the report shows. County taxpayers end up covering the cost of nearly $150 million in health care for the working poor. They pay millions more for child care and other expenses, Murray said. […]
For more than a decade, Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center at the University of California at Berkeley, has been examining the number of fast-food workers dependent on food stamps, free day care programs and other subsidies. His report, released earlier this year, estimated that state and federal governments spend more than $150 billion a year on four anti-poverty programs mainly used by working people.
When workers don’t earn enough to support themselves or their families, the effects spill over to other parts of their lives, Jacobs said. Low-wage workers tend to suffer from more short-term and long-term health problems and rely on subsidized health care. Their children perform poorly in school, which sometimes steers them to a life of low-wage work.
* From an Illinois State Board of Elections e-mail sent to Cook County Circuit Clerk candidate Shirley Coleman…
On January 4, 2016, the Illinois State Board of Elections received a Notification of Self-Funding from Jacob Meister, a candidate for Clerk of the Circuit Clerk, Cook County. This filing is available for viewing on the Board’s website, at www.elections.il.gov. As a result, as a candidate for the office of Clerk of the Circuit Clerk, Cook County, you are now permitted to accept contributions in excess of any contribution limits imposed by 10 ILCS 5/9-8.5(b)
The exemption from contribution limits only affects candidates for the office of Clerk of the Circuit Clerk, Cook County, and lasts through the end of the current election cycle for this office, March 15, 2016; except that if Jacob Meister is nominated at the primary election, the exemption from contribution limits will remain in effect through the subsequent election cycle for the office, ending on December 31, 2016.
Raja Krishnamoorthi announced today he raised more than $450,000 during the final fundraising quarter of 2015, with more than $1.25 million in cash-on-hand as the March 15 primary approaches. The fundraising announcement follows recent endorsements of Raja for Congress by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and a string of labor unions including the International Association of Ironworkers, Air Line Pilots Association, the Illinois State Council of Machinists, and others.
“I am thrilled and humbled that this fundraising support will enable me to deliver our progressive message to voters across the 8th Congressional District of Illinois,” Raja said. “When they go to the polls on March 15th, Democratic primary voters will know that they can count on me to protect their Social Security and Medicare benefits, fight for equal pay for equal work, press for an increase in the minimum wage and guaranteed access to paid maternity and sick leave, and push for access to affordable college education.”
Raja’s fundraising success is complemented by his support from more than 100 Democratic leaders and activists throughout Illinois and the Chicago suburbs as well as an active and growing volunteer organization.
In recent weeks, Raja has won the backing of many labor organizations, including the International Association of Ironworkers, Illinois State Council of Machinists, the International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 2, the Air Line Pilots Association, the Office and Professional Employees’ Union Local 45 and Illinois Letter Carriers’ President Ken Christy. Raja is also endorsed by Rep. Jan Schakowsky of the 9th District of Illinois and David Axelrod, former senior advisor to President Obama.
“Raja is the best choice to succeed Tammy Duckworth in Congress,” Schakowsky said. “I look forward to Raja joining me in the fight to make equal pay for equal work the law of the land.”
Rauner was more clearly aiming at the mayor’s jugular with his comments on the city’s problems and the prospects of getting help from the state.
“Let’s be clear, Chicago Public Schools are in dramatic trouble, as is the city, but the schools are worse,” he said.
“The mayor will attempt to blame Springfield and say Springfield owes it to us to send us lots of cash. That is fundamentally wrong, fundamentally not true,” Rauner said, arguing CPS already receives more than its fair share of state education dollars.
CPS has a different take on that, which we will explore on another day, but for now what’s important is to understand that the governor doesn’t plan to give unless he gets.
“We’ll work together cooperatively if the city is helping us reform the state,” Rauner said. “If the city is opposing reform for the state, which so far they are, or staying silent and letting the Speaker block reform, no, I’m sorry. We’re doing things to help the city of Chicago, as much as I would like to.”
He always throws in a line about how much he would like to help the city, just so we don’t get the idea he doesn’t like us.
Why can Rauner accomplish in 2016 all that he could not in 2015, starting with a state budget?
“Frankly, there is a lot of impetus, a lot of pressure,” Rauner said.
And he’s only too happy to add to the pressure.
The governor pretty much covered all the bases there.
But the question becomes what happens when the Chicago doo-doo really, truly hits the fan? Will Rauner stand firm? Or will he do what he’s done in the past (FY15 budget, autism cuts, local government money, federal funds, etc., etc., etc.) and work out a deal unrelated to the Turnaround Agenda?
* Progress Illinois has a good report this week on the pain caused by the governmental impasse…
For example, a Meals on Wheels program serving over 700 seniors in DuPage County will be reduced from five to two days a week beginning January 11 due to the lack of a state budget. The DuPage Senior Citizens Council, which delivers the meals to seniors, also plans to cut 55 percent of its staff and close its community dining program next Monday because of the state budget situation.
As many as 1,500 total seniors participate in the Meals on Wheels and community dining programs on a daily basis, said Marylin Krolak, executive director of the DuPage Senior Citizens Council.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do. It just breaks my heart,” she said of the seniors who will be impacted by the program cuts. “We will make sure that we will work with our volunteers to visit them Monday through Friday to make sure they’re OK, but they need food.”
Whacks to the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome program, MAP grants and immigrant services are also detailed. Go read the whole thing.
But, hey, they’re all gonna continue to suffer until we cut the standard of living of union members… or something.
…Adding… From comments…
It’s actually worse than that, this is the prerequisite he’s demanding prior to raising their taxes. It’s the worst middle and lower class double whammy you could imagine.
Yesterday, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner told reporters he was “disappointed” in how Emanuel has handled the aftermath of the Laquan McDonald shooting, and said he would sign a bill to legalize mayoral recall in Chicago if it reaches his desk.
Crain’s Chicago Business stated, “As conservative talk show host and ex-gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft put it on his show today, “Rahm has been nothing but antagonistic to Rauner and his agenda. They may be in the same wine club, but I suggest that if that bill lands on Rauner’s desk, he signs it.”
Rauner also suggested that the bill would not apply to Emanuel in this term, only to future mayors. But that little nuance didn’t get in the way of the bigger message.
Proft’s statements today included:
Where has leadership in the [Illinois General Assembly] been on this? This is an opportunity for Republicans to say to minority families “We stand with you. We want what you want. Where are your party kingpins on this?”
Because Rauner made the statement he made there are fewer dark corners for [House Minority Leader] Jim Durkin and [Senate Minority Leader] Christine Radogno to hide in.
[RE: the question of whether or not the bill would apply only to future mayors, not Rahm Emanuel]: That is not an interpretation of the bill, it’s a look at case history. Nothing in the bill specifies it. It could be a matter that would be litigated if passed and signed–like the pension law and so many other legislative measures.
We argue it should apply to Rahm this term upon signature into law. If Rahm wants to litigate it, let’s do so. The worst case scenario is an appropriate recall mechanism in place for Chicago mayor and aldermen a la the mechanism in place for the Governor and state legislators on a go-forward basis.
The worst possible outcome is a good outcome and the best possible outcome is a better one.
* Kathy Routliffe writes about perhaps the weirdest case of alleged political forgery I’ve ever seen…
Wilmette police are investigating an incident in which a candidate in the 9th District Congressional primary is alleging someone forged her signature on a petition objecting to one of her Republican primary opponents.
Joan Lasonde, of the 600 block of Central Avenue in Wilmette, will face Susanne Atanus and David Earl Williams III in the GOP primary for the U.S. House seat currently held by Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
Lasonde recently filed a report with police alleging the forgery shortly after getting a letter from the Illinois State Board of Elections, telling her that her objection to Atanus’ candidacy had been rejected because she failed to file it correctly.
“I opened it up and I started reading it and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t object to Susanne Atanus. What are they talking about?’” Lasonde said Dec. 21.
She said the signature on the returned objector’s petition was not hers, but “it looked like someone tried to make it look like mine.”
Why the heck would anyone do that? And in such an inconsequential race?
Daily fantasy sports sites like DraftKings and FanDuel will be able to operate in Illinois while the courts decide on DraftKings’ lawsuit challenging Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s finding that the companies’ games are illegal gambling operations.
The attorney general’s office and lawyers for DraftKings, one of the two largest websites in the burgeoning business of daily fantasy sports tournaments, have agreed to not take other legal action over the websites while the DraftKings lawsuit works its way through the courts. A trial is set for June.
“We are pleased that we have reached agreement with the Illinois attorney general’s office today on an expedited court schedule for determining the legality of the daily fantasy sports contests that DraftKings is offering in Illinois,” lawyer Randy Mastro said in a statement issued Tuesday. “We remain committed to providing DFS to the hundreds of thousands of loyal Illinois fans who love the game, and we look forward to our day in court, where we are confident we will prevail.”
* We changed some code on the site yesterday and it may have messed up something else because the subscriber password isn’t working today. I have my folks working on it. Sorry about that.
*** UPDATE *** It’s finally fixed. Sorry about that. Weird stuff, these websites.
* From the AP story about Gov. Rauner’s consolidation task force recommendations…
A task force appointed by Gov. Bruce Rauner recommended more than two dozen ways to shrink Illinois government and cut costs to taxpayers, though many ideas already have faced stiff opposition and the Republican acknowledged getting legislative approval won’t be “just a walk in the park.”
Several of the 27 recommendations announced Monday mirror anti-union measures that Rauner has unsuccessfully pushed since taking office last year, including allowing local governments to opt out of collective bargaining with public-worker unions. Others, such as consolidating school districts, have failed under previous governors. […]
-Allow Illinois voters to consolidate or dissolve local governments through referendum. […]
-Eliminate a 126-square-mile cap on the size of a township, to allow townships to merge.
Everybody says that consolidation will save money. And that could very well be true, although the same services will have to be provided. Reboot took a look at a recent aborted attempt at township consolidation in McHenry County…
At one public meeting in the fall, County Board members discussed the potential impact on taxpayers in the consolidating township with a lower tax levy.
Levies of two townships would assumedly be added together and then divided between their total assessed value, with the lower tax township possibly seeing a tax increase. On that one issue, County Board Chairman Joe Gottemoller of Crystal Lake argued, “We are standing here today looking at something that positively will raise taxes for half our residents.”
I saw the same sort of thing happen years ago when there was an attempt at merging my rural electric co-op into another, debt-ridden co-op.
Not to say there aren’t good ideas in the task force report. There are. I’m just saying we need to look past the feel-good nature of this topic.
Allow school districts to use third-party contractors, rather than union employees, for services such as transportation and building maintenance.
Privatization is pushed by those who say it’s cheaper. And it can be. But it has to be done well, and that just hasn’t been the case in Chicago, where school janitorial services were privatized…
On Saturday, a handful of parents of pre-kindergarten students packed yellow rubber gloves and spray bottles of vinegar and baking soda solution and headed to Suder Montessori Elementary Magnet School, 2022 W. Washington Blvd., on the Near West Side, where they spent the morning cleaning their children’s washrooms.
The parents felt they didn’t have a choice: Upon entering the bathrooms, they found pools of day-old urine on the floor, feces smeared on the walls and clogged, stinking toilet bowls. In the past few weeks, the school had an E. coli outbreak, and more than half of the kindergarten students missed school because of various illnesses, including a stomach bug, diarrhea or vomiting, said Michelle Burgess, head of the school’s parent-teacher association.
“These are preschoolers. They go to the bathroom and miss. The boys play in the urinals. And sometimes can’t get to the toilet fast enough. It’s understandable,” said Angela Morales, the parent of two children who attend the school. “But they need to clean. We can’t have our kids be in this filth.”
Parents claim the unsanitary bathroom conditions, overflowing garbage cans and soiled napping cots are the result of inadequate custodial care following the Chicago Board of Education’s decision last spring to award multimillion-dollar custodial management contracts to two firms, Aramark and SodexoMAGIC.
That outsourcing deal has been a disaster since Jump Street.
[I fixed some broken links. Sorry about that. It’s been one of those days. The password isn’t working either. Sheesh.]
