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Yell louder!

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* From a certain columnist

When the Democrats in 2003 irresponsibly borrowed $10 billion for pension and operational costs, the GOP should have protested — loudly. Taxpayers are on the hook for all that interest paid. And when Democrats skipped pension payments for two years after that, and borrowed repeatedly to paper over deficit spending, Republicans should have said, hell no. They didn’t. The unfunded liabilities have soared.

Greg Hinz looked beyond the urban legends about Blagojevich’s POB and came to a far different conclusion a few years ago

The state’s timing was exquisite. Over the next four years, according to figures supplied by Mr. Filan that others verified, the average return on investments by the state’s pension funds was 16.6 percent, 10.6 percent, 11.6 percent and 18.6 percent, in that order. Those returns were well above the average 5.07 percent interest rate Illinois paid to borrow the $10 billion. The pension funds built up such a cushion that the POB money was even at the depths of the 2008 recession, and it has come back strong since.

Compared with where it would have been had it simply put in the usual annual payments, the state is $8.55 billion ahead, says Mr. Filan, now a senior consultant at Chicago-based financial restructuring firm Development Specialists Inc. And the retirement systems, though still underfunded, have 41.1 percent of the assets needed to pay promised benefits, better than the 35.9 percent they would have had without the POB.

* And Republicans didn’t complain loudly about the pension holiday? Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka yelled to the high heavens and so did a whole lot of Republican lawmakers

“This is no more of a holiday than a cruise on the Titanic was,” said state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington.

* One more excerpt

In 2011 when the majority party passed an income tax hike in the middle of the night, on the day before new lawmakers were seated — with a structured roll call of lame duck legislators who got goodies in exchange for their votes — the GOP should have been outraged. Not just “outraged” during staged news conferences, but in their guts.

Oh, come on. They pitched an absolute fit and kept it up for a long time. From 2012

The top Republicans in the Illinois House and Senate are offering a one-year anniversary raspberry salute to the passage of a $7-billion state income tax hike, saying it hasn’t worked and ought to be immediately repealed. […]

Those themes were echoed by John Tillman, head of the Illinois Policy Institute, a libertarian research group. He released a poll saying 68% of state residents opposed the tax increase.

Her basic thesis appears to be that Republicans need to yell much louder and more convincingly and that’ll translate into… well, I’m not sure what. Jobs on the Tribune editorial board maybe?

  23 Comments      


Question of the day

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Your own caption?…


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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Campaign update

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

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The NRCC’s oh-so-subtle press releases (cont.)

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* NRCC at 1:51 this afternoon…

Say cheese!

Sean Casten proudly displayed his commitment to a socialist agenda yesterday, posing for a “Unity” photo-op with fellow socialists AOC and Ilhan Omar.

Unity indeed. Casten votes with AOC 94% of the time and enthusiastically supports Item #1 on the socialist agenda: impeachment.

Three cheers for open borders and banning red meat!

The photo was of all freshmen Democrats.

* NRCC at 1:50 this afternoon…

Say cheese!

Fake nurse Lauren Underwood proudly displayed her commitment to a socialist agenda yesterday, posing for a “Unity” photo-op with fellow socialists AOC and Ilhan Omar.

Unity indeed. Underwood votes with AOC 93% of the time and supports Item #1 on the socialist agenda: baseless impeachment of President Trump.

Three cheers for open borders and banning red meat!

I wonder if anyone actually writes stories based on these releases or if the rhetorical missiles just sit unopened in dozens of in-boxes.

  23 Comments      


When campaign promises crash into reality

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Mayor Lori Lightfoot had almost no staff during the campaign’s first round and the media did little to no vetting of her ideas, so these sorts of promises were quite common

[Lightfoot] campaigned on a promise to abolish the city sticker and replace the $128 million in annual revenue with dramatically higher fees on ride-hailing vehicles. She talked about imposing strict limits on the number of ride-hailing vehicles.

“There’s no rush hour anymore. It’s perpetual. … We have tens of thousands of new cars on the roads … because of ride-share. They’re … [driven by] people who don’t even live in Chicago,” Lightfoot told the Sun-Times in late February.

* But

During a typical morning rush, there are “only 1,400 Ubers on the road” in Chicago, he said; that’s “around three percent of miles driven,” [Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi] said.

* And she’s now coming to terms with reality

Mayor Lori Lightfoot today said she plans to roll out “modest recommendations” in the “short term” when it comes to Chicago’s traffic congestion, but alluded to a package of reforms that leans on a “comprehensive study of what is happening with congestion here in Chicago.”

“What are the drivers of it? I don’t think we have enough data yet to be able to make a comprehensive plan,” Lightfoot said at an event with Uber officials Monday, describing press accounts about the tax as “way ahead of where we are.”

* Meanwhile, these folks are free to suggest all sorts of things because they’re not actually in charge of much of anything, but it gets them media coverage

A coalition of progressive groups and a handful of aldermen are getting specific about increases to a bevy of taxes to fill Chicago’s budget hole, including restoring and increasing Chicago’s corporate head tax to $16 per month for large companies, instituting a 3.5 percent tax on office leases, a hike in the hotel tax from 4.5 percent to 7.5 percent, a vacancy tax on commercial properties vacant for more than 18 months and a local income tax on those earning above $100,000 a year. […]

Aside from progressive revenue proposals, the group is calling for a freeze in the Chicago Police Department’s budget, a moratorium on the city privatizing services, and a halt to TIF subsidies for developments aimed at wealthy neighborhoods. It wants $2 billion in additional city spending for affordable housing, reopening the city’s closed mental health clinics, an expansion of early childhood education, and a year-round youth jobs program. […]

The group conceded they had only 10 members signed on to push those proposals and were still in talks to get the entire 18-member Progressive Caucus on board.

Yeah, they can’t even convince the full Progressive Caucus to support them. That’ll go far.

  43 Comments      


Read this if you haven’t already

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* I’m coming a little late to this story

The Rev. Leon Finney Jr. spent the last half-century building a real estate empire on Chicago’s South Side while amassing political power and hobnobbing with politicians like Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Richard M. Daley and Toni Preckwinkle.

Now in his twilight years, Finney’s fiefdom teeters on the brink of collapse.

Once revered for his community work, Finney, 81, stands accused of fraud, self-dealing and mismanagement after his nonprofit, the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation, filed for bankruptcy in October and the curtains were pulled back on its finances.

Finney has been ousted at the organization he helped create. And, in a rare step, a federal judge appointed a trustee in April to take control of Woodlawn, a move the nonprofit fought. Piece by piece, its real estate holdings are being sold off.

After the bankruptcy came more financial blows. Woodlawn’s main source of revenue — lucrative contracts to manage more than 4,300 apartments for the Chicago Housing Authority, bringing in about $170,000 a month in management fees — was canceled in June after the CHA accused Woodlawn of mismanagement resulting in nearly $400,000 in damages.

Go read the rest. Classic Chicago.

* Related…

* Parishioners stand with Rev. Leon Finney amid fraud allegations: ‘His heart’s in the right place’ - Days after a judge’s stinging rebuke of the longtime Chicago powerbroker was reported by the Sun-Times, Finney forcibly removed a reporter from Sunday service at his church

* Lori Lightfoot orders review of Rev. Leon Finney Jr.’s ‘significant portfolio’ of CHA buildings: The mayor called the South Side minister ‘an iconic person’ who has ‘done good work over the course of his life’ and said his downfall is ‘clearly disappointing.’

  6 Comments      


Some valid questions for Secretary White

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* We’ve already talked about this

A Rockford woman is suing the Illinois secretary of state in an attempt to change a state rule requiring those who wear a religious head covering in their driver’s license photo to also certify that they do not normally remove that head covering in public.

Maryjane Bicksler, 68, filed the lawsuit this week in Chicago federal court with the help of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The suit states that Bicksler, who is Muslim and wears a hijab, went to her local driver’s services facility in Rockford to renew her driver’s license in July. She was asked to sign a form saying that if the secretary of state’s office, which is in charge of driver’s services, received evidence that she does not wear her hijab in public, her driver’s license would be canceled.

* Zorn asks some good questions. Too bad he didn’t get any answers

You can have a full beard for your license photo and shave it off the moment you get home, and your license is still valid.

You can wear a wig for your license photo. You can change to a dramatically different wig, dye your hair or shave yourself bald the moment you get home, and your license is still valid.

You can wear prescription glasses for your photo, then switch to contacts the moment you get home, and your license is still valid.

As long as the photo shows the applicant’s eyes, nose and mouth without shadow or obstruction, what’s the difference?

I put this question to White’s office Thursday, but a spokesman cited the pending litigation and declined to offer any comment on the topic.

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I kid you not: Illinois “easily” voted “sexiest state”

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* From some outfit called Big 7 Travel

Look, some states are sexier than others – at least, that’s what the results of our survey of the sexiest states in America is proving. We asked our 1.5 million social audience to get an insight into where you’ll find the America’s most beautiful people.

Survey respondents were given no further specifications of the term ‘sexy’, so interpretation of the word was up to them.

‘Sexy’, according to the fail-safe Merriam-Webster dictionary, is classified as “generally attractive or interesting”. While beauty may be only skin deep, it’s probably little consolation to the unlucky states that have been voted as the least sexy. Sorry, Nebraska.

* Illinois finished… first?

1st. Illinois

And the top spots of the sexiest states in America? Illinois takes first place and easily topped our poll for 2019. Who could disagree with this? It’s no wonder that so many of the celebrities, sportspeople and singers that come from here are outrageously attractive.

OK. I guess we’ll take it.

(Hat tip: Hannah Meisel)

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Yep, the Du Quoin State Fair boycott was a total failure

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Press release…

Nearly 124,000 people attended the Du Quoin State Fair this year, up 23% from last year’s attendance of just over 100,000 people. The attendance is the highest in at least four years.

“The 2019 Du Quoin State Fair was a record hit, with double digit increases in attendance, grandstand ticket sales and revenue – but more importantly, the people of Southern Illinois had a great time enjoying everything the fair had to offer,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “My administration has invested in improving the Du Quoin fairgrounds, and I’m committed to making this historic fair successful for decades to come, so that this economic engine can continue to benefit not only Du Quoin, but all of Southern Illinois.”

“This year’s success at the Du Quoin State Fair is humbling as we work to bring the fair back to what I remember as a kid,” said Josh Gross, Du Quoin State Fair Manager. “The fair was an event that you circled on your calendar and something you would never miss. Our goal is to bring it back to a can’t miss event, and the jump in attendance we’ve seen shows we’re moving in the right direction.”

The increased attendance follows a key decision by fair officials this year to cut the $2 admission cost, making it free for all to attend. Other indicators also demonstrate the fair’s improvements this year. The grandstand saw a 26% increase in tickets sales and 37% increase in revenue this fair season, generating more than $97,000. The 2020 Du Quoin State Fair will run August 28- September 7.

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IDOC to implement new prison book censorship policy

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* From May

When she found out that staff at the Danville Correctional Center had removed more than 200 books from a library inside the prison’s education wing, Rebecca Ginsburg said she felt a pit in her stomach.

“I felt sick,” she said. Ginsburg directs the Education Justice Project, a college in prison program that offers University of Illinois classes to men incarcerated at the Danville prison in east-central Illinois. In late January, prison staff removed dozens of titles from two rooms that serve as the program’s library.

Those titles include books like “Visiting Day,” a children’s book about visiting a parent in prison by author, Jacqueline Woodson. Also included among the removed books are two titles written by African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., a book by philosopher Cornel West, “Up From Slavery” by Booker T. Washington, and “Mapping Your Future: A Guide to Successful Reentry 2017-2018” written by the college in prison program’s reentry team.

A majority of the books removed from the program’s library are about race.

* Corrections has since revamped its policies

IDOC Director Rob Jeffreys said the intention of the new policy is to prevent any arbitrary acts of censorship from playing out at state prisons. He said the change will take effect Oct. 1. Details of the new policy will be made public at that time. […]

[Director Jeffreys] said the new policy will require that censorship decisions made at the prison level be reviewed by staff at the prison system’s central office.

“That way we will have another set of eyes looking at anything that’s been denied,” Jeffreys said. He said the new policy will also include an appeals process.

“In addition, I’ve also asked for the National Institute of Corrections to come in and review our new policy to make sure our publication review process is meeting the national standard — and also looking at all our library programs to make sure we are providing the best type of quality programming for our offenders as well,” Jeffreys said.

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Update to today’s edition

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The City Club hosted a pension discussion yesterday. The moderator and two of the three panelists are of the “Do something!” ilk who demand that legislators fix the pension mess, but don’t really have any ideas of their own beyond variations on the same failed strategies from the past. A new Tribune editorial today is a prime example of this. Lots of complaining about inaction, but no ideas.

Sen. Steans tried to inject a bit of reason and sanity, but nobody seemed to care much

State Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, who joked about being the only lawmaker brave enough to sit on the panel and take the criticism, didn’t agree with the others that Springfield hasn’t tried to fix the issue. She said trying to change the state’s constitution would be a waste of effort because there are other constitutional protections, including the federal contracts clause, that would keep lawmakers from altering existing and retired worker pension arrangements.

“I’d much rather have our limited ability to focus on what we’re going to do here to be pragmatic, reasonable and something we actually hope to be able to achieve,” she said.

She also mentioned the federal Constitution’s “Takings Clause” as an impediment to cutting legally earned benefits.

* One Illinois

Steans offered a series of actual proposals, beginning with raising additional money for pensions, including through Gov. Pritzker’s “fair tax,” a graduated income tax, scheduled to go before voters to amend the state constitution with next year’s general election.

But she warned that “there will be a well-funded campaign against it,” no doubt to be led by the IPI, and other potential solutions had pitfalls as well.

She mentioned a “consideration model,” meant to give public workers a choice between pensions based on raises on the job or on cost-of-living increases after retiring, but not both.

Other attempts to alter benefits for public pensions have been rejected by the Illinois Supreme Court, and it’s not clear it would allow those benefits to be negotiated in any case. Msall bemoaned how the Supreme Court had simply struck down previous attempts to change pension benefits, while offering “nothing” in the way of guidance on how to proceed without reductions.

Regardless, Steans said, “I do believe we should have labor at the table working with us on this.”

The Supreme Court’s role does not include advising the legislature how to specifically write bills to avoid violating the state’s Constitution. Its role is to say “this is unconstitutional,” or “this is not unconstitutional.” Even so, the justices have been pretty darned clear on multiple occasions about what the Consitution says: Pension benefits are a contractual promise that cannot be undone.

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New federal straw purchasing charges show limits of local gun regulations

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Illinois and Chicago can pass all the gun laws they want, but as long as our neighboring states have lax regulations and as long as Illinois criminals are looking to buy guns however they can, we’re gonna get some cross-border leakage

Two men are facing federal charges for allegedly conspiring to straw purchase over a dozen handguns in Wisconsin and resell them in Chicago.

Kirk Valentine, of Wisconsin, allegedly bought 19 handguns from retail stores, pawn shops and gun shows and illegally gave them to Chicago resident Francisco Rocha, who resold them in the city, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern Illinois District.

Both are charged with conspiracy to deal firearms without a license, prosecutors said. Rocha, who goes by “Mookie” and “Ese,” is also charged with unlawful dealing and importing firearms, according to the federal indictment.

Rocha, 28, allegedly recruited 23-year-old Valentine, who paid premium over-the-list prices for the handguns in the first six months of 2018 throughout Wisconsin, prosecutors said. Rocha allegedly told him which guns to buy.

I’m not saying that Illinois should loosen or strengthen its current gun laws. I’m just saying there are some limitations on what the state can do.

* Related…

* Lightfoot and Cruz Are Both Right: Chicago’s gun laws don’t stop mass shootings. In a country with 390 million firearms, no city’s could.

* After Twitter spat with Sen. Ted Cruz over gun violence, Mayor Lori Lightfoot invites the Texas Republican to visit Chicago’s South and West sides

* Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s clever offer to Sen. Ted Cruz: Come to Chicago to discuss gun control

* Ted Cruz and others should stop using Chicago as a punching bag

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Protected: *** UPDATED x1 *** SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Supplement to today’s edition and a campaign update

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

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Personal PAC endorses Pritzker’s “Fair Tax” proposal

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* A Sun-Times op-ed by Terry Cosgrove at Personal PAC

Under Illinois’ current flat tax rate system, funding has been inadequate to balance inequalities in our system. The proposed fair tax will improve equity in our taxation system and is projected to bring in $3.2 billion more in revenue.

Personal PAC will work to ensure that Illinois recommits to funding the social safety net for Illinois’ most vulnerable citizens. […]

Personal PAC calls on every pro-choice voter to join us in supporting the fair tax amendment. Under a fair tax system, the state of Illinois will have the resources to fund the broad range of programs and services needed to ensure that every child in Illinois is cared for, regardless of zip code.

The pro-choice, pro-mother, pro-child and pro-family vote is in favor of the fair tax amendment on the November 2020 general election ballot.

The governor has been a huge supporter of Cosgrove’s issues, so this may not be much of a surprise when you think about it.

* I asked Cosgrove if his cash-rich group would be spending money on behalf of the 2020 referendum. His reply…

We’ll review that after the March primary, but will certainly include our support in most of our communication—-social media, voters’ guide, etc. which reaches a large audience statewide. Standing up for access to reproductive health care for all women, without regard to zip code, source of health insurance, institution providing health care, age and health status, is the core of Personal PAC’s mission.

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Protected: SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today’s edition of Capitol Fax (use all CAPS in password)

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

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*** LIVE COVERAGE ***

Tuesday, Sep 10, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Follow along with ScribbleLive


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Lipinski says Dem primary opponent “parroted the talking points of radicals”

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Not sure really if this is news since we don’t even know if Sen. Warren will be in the race by next March

Sen. Elizabeth Warren endorsed two House Democratic primary challengers Monday, backing two women taking on sitting lawmakers.

The Massachusetts Democrat is endorsing Marie Newman, who is taking on Rep. Dan Lipinski in Illinois’ 3rd District and immigration lawyer Jessica Cisneros, who is challenging Rep. Henry Cuellar in Texas’ 28th District, Justice Democrats announced in a news release. […]

“At a time when women’s reproductive rights are under attack daily from Republican lawmakers across America, Illinoisans deserve a leader with an unwavering commitment to fighting for women’s access to reproductive health care,” Warren said. “Marie Newman is that leader.”

* I was more interested in Lipinski’s response

Lipinski, who fended off a Newman in a close primary race in 2018, opposes abortion rights and was the only Democrat in the Illinois congressional delegation to vote against President Obama’s signature health care law, because it required organizations to provide employees with contraception even if that clashed with a religious group’s beliefs.

“Warren has moved from independent fact-based thinking to ideological orthodoxy,” Lipinski said in response to the endorsement. “My opponent has always been an ideologue. She has never focused on how she might serve the people of IL3, but has only parroted the talking points of radicals who would take away everyone’s private health care, eliminate Medicare, and raise the taxes of hard working middle-class families by tens of thousands of dollars.”

Lipinski only won by 2.2 percentage points in 2018, and I kinda doubt that district has gotten more conservative. But we’ll see if Republicans cross over for him. That appears to be his goal here.

  24 Comments      


Question of the day

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Uber Freight

In three years since launch, Uber Freight has grown to a team of hundreds, with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, and Amsterdam. Now, Uber Freight will be solidifying its investment in Chicago with a new Freight headquarters at The Old Main Post Office, in Chicago’s historic downtown.

Globally, freight is a 3.8 trillion dollar industry ripe for change, and Uber Freight is leading the way towards a more efficient and collaborative freight future. We’ve built cutting-edge technology for both sides of the freight marketplace, unlocking opportunity for shippers, carriers, and their drivers so that they can focus on improving their bottom lines, growing their businesses, and keeping their eyes on the road ahead. We’ve pushed the entire industry towards transparency with features like facility ratings and real-time pricing. And this year, we brought these same values and logistics solutions abroad, expanding operations into Europe.

* Sun-Times

Promising a more than $200 million annual investment in Chicago, the CEO of Uber Technologies said Monday the city will be central to the company’s bold plans to expand in freight.

Dara Khosrowshahi also said despite Uber’s billion-dollar losses, its balance sheet remains strong and the company will have a high profile in Chicago for years.

“While we are investing aggressively in growth and this Chicago investment is part of that, we are very, very confident that the balance sheet that we have, that the cash we have on our books, and our business, are going to be around for a long time. So I have no doubts in our ability to be here for the next five, 10 or the next 20 years,” he said at a news conference in the lobby of the Old Main Post Office, Uber Freight’s future home. […]

[Several politicians] were there to cheer Uber’s vow to hire 2,000 new employees here over the next three years. By early next year, it expects to occupy 463,000 square feet, covering two floors in the vast Old Main Post Office at 433 W. Van Buren St. Its lease covers 10 years.

* Reuters

Uber’s full-year revenue for 2018 was $11.3 billion, up 43 percent from the prior year. Its losses before taxes, depreciation and other expenses were $1.8 billion, an improvement over the $2.2 billion loss posted in 2017.

* From the governor…


* The Question: Your thoughts on this?

  35 Comments      


Our sorry state

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Comptroller Susana Mendoza

After adjusting for inflation and population growth, state funding for human services fell by $4.4 billion between 2002 and 2010. Between fiscal years 2009 and 2014, Illinois cut funding for the largest human service categories by 23%.

And then came the Rauner years.

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Get it together, man

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* The Tribune has a story up on more complaints about how the cannabis law is being rolled out by the state

Companies are required to open their second store in the same designated area as their existing medical dispensary. They must show the state that they have at least applied for local zoning approval, and they can’t open within 1,500 feet of another licensed medical or recreational pot shop.

In guidance issued last month, the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation said that secondary site licenses will only be issued after a new store has passed a final state inspection, essentially setting up a first-come, first-served system.

Marijuana companies say this could create a system where businesses pour capital into a new retail store only to be beaten out by another business down the street or around the corner.

“Then you have to find a new site and you did all that work,” said Chris Stone, senior policy adviser and co-owner of Ascend Illinois, which operates medical dispensaries in Springfield and Collinsville. “One of the problems is you’re not going to know about who’s next to you until everybody files their secondary license.”

The state acknowledged the possibility of such conflicts in a memo last month and advised companies to keep an eye on the competition by methods that include filing open-records requests with local zoning boards.

The state can’t put that info online somewhere?

* From that aforementioned IDFPR memo

We are aware that potential conflicts may arise between applicants for Early Approval Adult Use Dispensing Organization Licenses if they seek locations for their second site dispensaries that are within 1,500 feet of each other. In the event of such a conflict, the applicant who receives a license first will be the one permitted to operate. IDFPR will not grant a license for a secondary site until the applicant’s facility has passed final inspection by the CCS, which will occur after receipt of the necessary zoning approval. IDFPR will also not grant a license if it has granted another dispensing organization a license at a location within 1,500 feet of the applicant’s proposed location. In this situation, IDFPR will require the applicant to amend its application with a different location, and if the applicant does not do so, it will deny the application.

One way to minimize the possibility of such conflicts is for potential applicants to make themselves aware of the proposed locations of other applicants. Such information is typically publicly available as part of a municipality’s zoning approval process. For example, any zoning approval or permit requests filed with the City of Chicago can be obtained from the Department of Planning and Development or Department of Buildings via a FOIA request through the following website: https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/narr/foia/foia contacts.html.

The CCS will strive to ensure a fair and transparent process for awarding Early Approval Adult Use Dispensing Organization Licenses. If you have questions for CCS related to applications for Early Approval Adult Use Dispensing Organization Licenses, please submit them via e‐mail to FPR.AdultUseCannabis@illinois.gov. The CCS will not be responding to individual questions at this time and, instead, will address questions by providing additional information about the application process to all eligible applicants at the same time.

By the way, there’s a lot more to this Tribune story, so click here to read the rest.

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Marca Bristo

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* NY Times

When she was 23, Marca Bristo, a nurse in Chicago, was sitting with a friend on the shore of Lake Michigan. Her friend’s dog accidentally knocked a prized pair of Ms. Bristo’s shoes into the water and, without a second thought, she dived in to retrieve them.

Striking her head, she broke her neck and was paralyzed from the chest down. In that instant, Ms. Bristo’s life changed forever in ways she could never have anticipated. She lost her job, her health insurance, could no longer use public transportation and had no access to many public places.

But rather than dwell on her misfortune, she became a powerful advocate for people with disabilities, spending her life working to change perceptions and the rules in a world that had traditionally ignored the needs of the disabled. She was a key player in the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, which outlawed discrimination against the nearly 50 million Americans with disabilities.

After a long battle with cancer, Ms. Bristo died on Sunday at 66 in her home in Chicago. Her death was confirmed by her husband, J. Robert Kettlewell.

* CBS 2

“I lost my home, because it had stairs. I lost my job. I lost my income. I lost my health insurance,” she said. “But I didn’t lose my friends or my family, and I didn’t lose that sort of fighting spirit.”

Bristo said she and her friends used to have to time their outings based on whether there was a bathroom available – since even when someone in a wheelchair could get into an establishment, the bathrooms often were not accessible.

“And it took me a while to really grasp that this was a matter of discrimination,” Bristo said. “It really took a while for me to let go of my belief that I just had to suck it up, basically, and accept my limitations.”

But as she put it, she came to realize that “my wheelchair wasn’t too wide for the doors; the doors were too narrow for my wheelchair.”

* Tribune

Over the years, her activism took on many forms: She co-founded the National Council on Independent Living in 1982. President Bill Clinton appointed her as chair of the National Council on Disability. She served as the first person with a disability to hold the role from 1994 to 2002. She participated in the negotiation for the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the U.S. adopted in 2006 and was recently appointed n the Ford Foundation board of trustees in June.

Among other things, Bristo was pivotal in forming the first fair housing program to addressed disability discrimination, fought for the inclusion of disability issues in domestic violence law and helped implement the requirement for all televisions to have close-captioned decoders.

Bristo gave her whole self to advocacy, openly telling friends she had several disabilities, some invisible, including a struggle with addiction and alcoholism, Heumann said. She spoke of her life in totality and recognized discrimination within the disability community, fighting for inclusivity within the movement.

“That’s part of the disability experience: taking risks and having a tenacious sense of can-do-it-ness,” Bristo told Chicago Magazine in 2008. “The things we’ve been advocating are not just for a marginal group of people; they’re for the society as a whole. Disability affects all of us. It’s time that we normalize and accept it rather than perceive it to be at the margins of our society.”

* Tom McNamee at the Sun-Times

Marca’s talent was in building bridges between the “abled” and the “disabled” by making us see there is no need for bridges at all. We’re all on the same side of the river. We all have strengths and limitations, capabilities and incapabilities. We’re all of equal value. We all deserve the same rights and opportunities, no more but no less.

There’s nothing controversial in that. It’s what almost everybody believes. But in our daily lives, we don’t always live it. I don’t, anyway, even when I think I do.

We have to be reminded. We have to be told. We have to be told off.

* From Access Living

Near the end of her life, Marca said she had no bucket list — that she had done what she set out to do and seen what she wanted to see. She also shared her firm belief that the disability activism work she started was in good and capable hands to be carried on by the staff at Access Living.

  14 Comments      


Caulkins rails against “radical agenda” partially pushed by members of his own party

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* WJBC

A freshman lawmaker from Central Illinois is seeking a second term after making his mark opposing Gov. JB Pritzker’s agenda.

101st District State Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) sent out a news release late Sunday night saying far-left extremists who control the Democratic Party pushed through the most radical agenda in the state’s history.

Caulkins cited passage of a capital bill that doubled the state’s gas tax, 21 other tax increases, and a radical abortion bill.

Um, a whole lot of Rep. Caulkins’ Republican colleagues voted for that “far-left extremist” and “radical agenda” of raising the state’s Motor Fuel Tax. Caulkins is, of course, a member of the Eastern Bloc.

* After the session ended in June, WCIA’s Mark Maxwell interviewed Rep. Caulkins about issues surrounding the capital bill

Maxwell: How would you describe, right now, in 2019, the condition of the roads and highways in your district?

Caulkins: They’re the same as they are throughout central Illinois. We’re no different.

Maxwell: OK, what is the condition in the state, of the roads, the bridges, the transit?

Caulkins: That depends where you live.

Maxwell: You just said two different things.

Caulkins: No, you asked about my district and then you asked about the state, other places in Illinois. And there are places in Illinois where the roads are in fairly decent shape. Take the bypass around Bloomington. Now you go north on Interstate 39 out of Bloomington and there’s some issues. I-55 once you get out of McLean County there’s some issues. But there are places, Champaign, the roads around Champaign, the highways and the interestates. In the townships, there are highways and bridges that need desperate attention.

Maxwell: One of your House Republican colleagues stood up on the floor in the final moments of debate, and said that Illinois is on the verge, if the roads and their conditions continue to deteriorate, Illinois is on the verge of getting the valve shut off of federal funding because we’re so far out of compliance with how safe the roads are supposed to be, that it was really that bad. Wasn’t there some discussion, weren’t you considering at some point staging some sort of protest about the safety of the roads in your district?

Let’s stop the tape for a second. First, notice how he plays down the problems with transportation infrastructure, likely to help justify his “No” vote. Secondly, Rep. Caulkins did at one point talk about holding a “sit-in” or some other demonstration on Interstate 72 to protest the conditions of that roadway. He would’ve been right to do so because parts of that road are in disgraceful condition.

* Now, back to the interview

Caulkins: We were. To your point, I heard that said on the House floor, I have not seen anything to that effect, I don’t know…

Maxwell: Why didn’t you go through with that demonstration?

Caulkins: Pardon?

Maxwell: You were considering this demonstration, you didn’t do it. Why not?

Caulkins: Because the state came along and, this is between the rest stop on the interstate and the Cisco exit, they’ve gone out and they’ve done a lot of patching work and they’ve filled it in temporarily I hope. But at least it’s passable. So IDOT they must’ve heard me.

Maxwell: You were pretty upset about that.

Caulkins: Two, three weeks they came out and they sought out some bad spots and they filled them in with asphalt patches. And I presume that today, actually is a huge day in IDOT, they’re letting bids out for road contracts.

So, a temporary asphalt patch was all it took? What happens when the temporary fix no longer works?

* More

Maxwell: You end up not voting for it. How did you get there?

Caulkins: There was no plan to spend that money, first of all.

Maxwell: You don’t trust the Department of Transportation to allocate those funds?

Caulkins: Do you? I don’t. I don’t trust this government, no.

Well, they went out and patched the interstate, so at least they have that going for them.

* More

Maxwell: How do you then go about putting safeguards in place to make sure those monies are spent the right way? There is a lock box, after all.

Caulkins: With the lock box, but then how do you allocate the money that’s within the lock box. This is the issue that was never addressed, Mark. They’ve asked for $40 billion with no specific plan. If they’d have come out and said ‘We’re going to do the five-year plan,” IDOT has a five-year plan. If the governor and the administration had said, ‘Look, here’s the five-year plan, this is what we need, this is how we’re going to pay for it, let’s talk about it,’ would’ve been a different discussion.

Maxwell: Are you saying that if you had more time to consider all of what was in that $45 billion capital plan you might have voted for it?

Caulkins: Not at 19 cents a gallon, not raising the license fees, not raising the fees that are on the middle class.

Maxwell: Where does the extra money come from?

Caulkins: The money is how do we spend what we have first. Show me what the projects are, show me where the income is. I asked. I asked for three weeks for a meeting with IDOT to come in and talk about what their priorities are, where they intended to spend the money. They didn’t see fit to come and talk with me.

Gee, I wonder why.

* Related…

* Report finds Illinois’ roads deadlier in rural areas

  32 Comments      


Actually, the governor opposes the bill

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* WBEZ

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer is refusing to say if he would support a bill that would require transparency around prison deaths after a WBEZ investigation found prison staff ignored warning signs and falsified documents connected to three men who died on three consecutive days at Menard prison. An internal investigation by the Department of Corrections largely absolved staff of wrongdoing, and a correctional officer who admitted to falsifying documents remains employed.

Family members say they were given very little information about the deaths of their loved ones at Menard. A bill that would have required jails and prisons to provide family members and the Illinois attorney general with information about prison deaths recently failed to pass the state legislature, but lawmakers and advocates say they plan to try and pass a similar bill soon. […]

At least 166 people died while in Illinois prisons from January 2017 to September 2018, according to records obtained by WBEZ. In around half of those cases, IDOC’s research department had no cause of death listed. When WBEZ requested records on specific deaths, the department claimed that in some cases, it didn’t have even basic information like death certificates or death reports.

The bill is here.

* Scroll down

The Illinois Department of Corrections and the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association both opposed the bill last session.

IDOC couldn’t oppose that bill without the consent of the governor’s office. That means the governor himself is opposed. It would be nice if his office could’ve outlined to WBEZ what it would like to see done about this.

  8 Comments      


Lightfoot statement rated “Mostly False”

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Setup from Politifact

“We’ve got 600-plus police and fire pensions Downstate that are on the cusp of insolvency because they don’t have the revenues that they need to be able to keep those pensions going,” [Mayor Lori Lightfoot told the Chicago Sun-Times]. “They’ve done all the things that we have done historically: raised property taxes, sold assets, had their ratings reduced by rating agencies, and they’re out of levers to pull, so they need help just as we do. So this isn’t a Chicago-specific thing.”

Um, no.

* The backtrack

“I think highlighting that there are lots of police and fire pension systems that are underfunded is accurate,” said Amanda Kass, associate director of the Government Finance Research Center at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “I don’t think it’s accurate to indicate that the majority are on the brink of insolvency.” […]

“The mayor’s point that municipalities throughout the state are struggling with their pension obligations is an important one,” spokeswoman Anel Ruiz wrote in an email. “Approximately 30% of the 632 public safety pension funds in the state are currently funded at ratios of under 50 percent, according to the Department of Insurance.”

That math tracks with the DOI data included in the commission’s report. For comparison, Chicago’s police and fire pensions are both funded at levels below 25%. Just 25 Downstate public safety funds have a ratio lower than that, records show.

It’s difficult to say your city’s pension funds are just like everyone else’s when only 4 percent of Downstate and suburban funds are worse off than your two biggest problems.

…Adding… From comments…

(W)hat has confused me about her “this is a solution for everyone” framing is that I don’t understand what she is proposing that will help downstate towns at the same time as Chicago. Is she suggesting that the real estate transfer tax be raised everywhere, not just Chicago?

* And then there’s this

Peoria, for example, faced down a $20 million pension gap by cutting its city workforce by about 16 percent — eliminating 22 firefighter positions and 16 police jobs to close its $6 million budget hole.

Downstate, Carterville raised property taxes by 30 percent last year to help cover a shortfall created by a state mandate.

Kankakee increased its municipal sales tax to help pay off its pension tab.

And even little Alton (population: less than 30,000) had to take action: it sold off its water treatment plant for about $54 million to help pay down its unfunded pension liabilities.

Of course, Chicago is much larger and a central pillar of the state’s economy, but lawmakers up for re-election may not see it in purely economic terms. Helping the Windy City gives rhetorical ammunition to political opponents looking to needle incumbents who might approve any kind of a tax hike when so many others were left to fend for themselves.

“Little Alton” is about the same size as Kankakee and both are much larger than Carterville, but you get the drift.

* Also, the property taxes in, say, Rockford (a city mentioned more than once by Lightfoot) are significantly higher than they are in Chicago. Rockford didn’t wait for the state.

  30 Comments      


Quick reactions to a perceived crisis can easily result in bad laws

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Charles Selle at the News-Sun

If more than 400 people came down with symptoms of E. coli bacteria from tainted vegetables, state health officials would be pulling products from store shelves. Surprisingly, they continue allowing e-cigarettes to damage the lungs of Illinoisans.

The latest person to be hospitalized with a respiratory illness after using electric cigarettes — aka, vaping — is an 18-year-old Gurnee resident, Adam Hergenreder. He might be released from the hospital by now, but his lungs are those of a 70-year-old, according to his doctors.

Granted, young Adam admitted in a front-page News-Sun story last week that he’s been vaping since he was 16, and partial to mint and mango flavors. Last year, he says he began smoking sold-on-the-street “dab sticks,” THC-filled devices made for e-cigs. […]

Which is why Gov. J.B. Pritzker needs to immediately ban the use of e-cigarettes in Illinois. There’s mounting scientific evidence these devices are, putting it mildly, unhealthful. […]

Michigan’s Democrat governor didn’t wait to convene a scientific panel to issue a ban on e-cigs in the Wolverine State. Last week, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer made her state the first to ban flavored electronic cigarettes, accusing companies of using candy flavors and deceptive advertising to “hook children on nicotine,” the AP reported.

* Pritzker administration statement

The Governor has convened a working group of medical and legal experts to study the scientific evidence so they can develop long-term solutions to keep Illinoisans safe and healthy. So far, this administration has worked with the General Assembly to raise the smoking age to 21 and made e-cigarettes and vaping much more difficult for young people to get their hands on.

1) When e-coli cases pop up, the government can usually trace the outbreak to its origin and then act accordingly. That simply isn’t the case here, and that’s what is unnerving some folks.

2) That “more than 400 people” number cited is nationwide, not Illinois alone. Yes, one person has apparently died in Illinois from likely vape usage, but nobody yet knows what was in the fluid or vaping device that caused this.

3) Cigarettes kill more than 1,300 people a day in this country and more than 480,000 per year. In 2017, 7.6 percent of Illinois high school kids smoked cigarettes. There is perhaps no greater health emergency tied to a specific product than that.

4) The process is moving forward

“The severity of illness people are experiencing is alarming and we must get the word out that using e-cigarettes and vaping can be dangerous,” said Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health. “We requested a team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help us investigate these cases and they arrived in Illinois on Tuesday.”

A total of 22 people in Illinois, ranging in age from 17-38 years, have experienced respiratory illness after using e-cigarettes or vaping, the department said. The department is working with local health departments to investigate another 12 individuals.

5) As noted, vaping is now illegal in Illinois for anyone under 21.

6) Michigan’s governor got a lot of national press for ordering the halt of all flavored vape sales, but it’s not as simple as some are making it seem

(T)he rule will likely face court challenges and review by the state legislature.

It’s also a temporary rule, so the state legislature will have to weigh in.

* Some suburban kids are getting sick and that’s sure to set off major political alarm bells and can easily lead to rash actions which enshrine bad policy into law.

Vaping additives are problematic because consumers simply don’t know what they are ingesting. Maybe start there first, although that still won’t solve the problem with the underground market.

  21 Comments      


Candidate releases poll showing himself at 4 percent

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Willie Wilson press release

Ogden & Fry, conducted a 3-question poll for Citizens for Willie Wilson on Wednesday, September 4, statewide regarding political preferences of candidates with 538 respondents. Respondents were selected by random sampling of likely 2020 General Election voters. The margin of error for this poll is +/- 4.31% at the 95% confidence interval.

* The first question was about voting likelihood. Here’s the second

If the election for United States Senator was held today, for which candidate would you vote?

    Democrat Dick Durbin 44.1%
    Republican Candidate 33.6%
    Independent Willie Wilson 4.0%
    Undecided 18.3%

I guess you gotta start somewhere, but I’m not sure how releasing these numbers helps him.

The third question was a head-to-head between Durbin and Wilson, but that isn’t going to happen and Wilson was still trailing 44-25 among all voters and 72-8 among Democrats.

I’ve asked how many mobile phone users were contacted and whether this was a robopoll or a mixture of robocalls with live callers. It’s been known in the past as an automated outfit.

The firm released a poll two weeks before the Chicago mayoral election which showed Wilson placing second behind Toni Preckwinkle and getting 13.3 percent. He finished fourth with 10.6 percent. The firm also polled for Jeanne Ives in the 2018 primary.

  16 Comments      


Plummer plots his course

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Illinois Review

State Senator Jason Plummer told Illinois Review Friday that he’s “taking a hard look” at running for the 15th CD seat that Congressman John Shimkus (IL-15) said last week he won’t be running for again in 2020.

“I’ve been out of town on business for the last several days, and Congressman Shimkus’ announcement was a surprise,” Plummer said via phone. “But I’ve been getting lots of encouragement from Republicans in the district to run for the seat. I’m taking a hard look at it.” […]

Being the member of a GOP Senate caucus that is in the super-minority and appears likely to remain so in the near future, the decision to try for the US Congress where Republicans currently hold the majority would be tempting for any Illinois Republican.

“I’m really thinking about what I could do that would help the state of Illinois the most,” Plummer said.

Um, Republicans currently aren’t in the majority in the US House, but it’s still probably a bit better than being in the super-minority in the Illinois Senate.

He’s not up for reelection next year, so he’d have a free shot at the seat. And these seats are only rarely this available. Yes, reapportionment could mean he’d wind up in a 2022 primary race with either Mike Bost or (if he wins reelection) Rodney Davis (assuming, that is, he defeats Erika Harold next year if she decides to run), but one election at a time. For all he knows, he could get mapped out of his current Senate district, although that job allows him to continue earning outside income from his family businesses and likely gives him the best shot at staying in elective office the longest.

Plummer has come a very long way from his stumbles on the 2010 statewide campaign trail (he simply wasn’t ready for prime time) and his 2012 loss to Bill Enyart (perhaps the last cycle for a long time that a Democrat could win what is now the Bost district). But it’s not a slam-dunk decision either way.

  11 Comments      


Noland and Clayborne ask judge to force release of back pay

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Last month

The state’s attorney general says two former lawmakers should not receive back pay for frozen cost-of-living increases and forced furlough days because they previously voted to approve the two laws and waited “for so long” to file a lawsuit challenging their constitutionality.

Those laws, a Cook County judge ruled last month, violated an article of the state’s governing document that dictates legislators’ wages cannot be changed during the terms for which they were elected.

Judge Franklin Valderrama’s ruling was a partial win for two former senators — Democrats Michael Noland, from Elgin, and James Clayborne Jr., from Belleville — who sued for lost wages.

* Last week

Two former Democratic state senators are asking a Cook County judge to order Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza to pay back wages they and other lawmakers gave up when legislators voted repeatedly over a decade to freeze their salaries. […]

Noland, now a Kane County judge, originally filed the lawsuit in 2017, seeking back pay for himself and “all others impacted” by bills lawmakers passed to give up the annual cost-of-living raises they are automatically granted under state law. The lawsuit, which Clayborne joined as a plaintiff last year, also takes issue with unpaid furlough days lawmakers approved for themselves each year from 2009 through 2013.

Mendoza “has a clear, non-discretionary duty to pay the members of the General Assembly, including Plaintiffs, the salary unconstitutionally withheld for the furlough days and the (cost-of-living adjustments) for the relevant years,” Noland and Clayborne argue in their motion. […]

Clayborne, now an attorney in private practice, voted in favor of the measures each time. From 2009 to 2016, Noland only once voted against the legislation canceling cost-of-living raises and approving unpaid furlough days.

* From Comptroller Mendoza…

The judge has issued no order to pay any legislators raises they voted not to accept. I think the arguments have just begun over whether legislators can make big election-year speeches about voting to turn down a raise, issue re-election news releases touting their selflessness in turning down a raise; then years later, shamelessly file a lawsuit to force taxpayers to retroactively pay them $10 million for raises they turned down to get re-elected. These hypocrites don’t deserve a penny. How can it be more constitutional to hike salaries mid-term than to keep salaries the same?

  18 Comments      


Careful what you wish for

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* My weekly syndicated newspaper column

Rep. David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) announced last week that he will not seek reelection. Instead, he said he’ll likely be making a 2022 statewide bid for either US Senate against Sen. Tammy Duckworth or secretary of state if Jesse White retires.

He may not be a household name, but Rep. McSweeney has been a huge thorn in Republican leadership’s side since he first ran for the Illinois House in the 2012 primary.

He took on Rep. Kent Gaffney, who had been the House Republicans’ appropriations director for a decade and was appointed to the seat after the untimely 2011 death of Republican Rep. Mark Beaubien. McSweeney at one point during the campaign claimed House Republican staff had violated the law by doing political work on state time and tried hard to get Gaffney kicked off the ballot. He won a three-way primary and then went on to defeat Beaubien’s widow, who ran as an independent in the general election.

In other words, he did not arrive in Springfield well-liked by the people who ran his own party. And he hasn’t tried to ingratiate himself with them at any point since then.

He refused to attend House Republican caucus meetings and eventually became one of the most outspoken Republican critics of Gov. Bruce Rauner. McSweeney became a go-to person for reporters needing anti-Rauner quotes. He basically served the same purpose as former Democratic state Rep. Jack Franks, who built up his name recognition by regularly slamming Democratic governors and was beloved by political reporters and now chairs the McHenry County Board. McSweeney’s district includes part of McHenry County, and Franks and McSweeney have worked together over the years to pass various local government-related bills.

After Rauner lost, McSweeney turned his fire on his own House Republican Leader, Jim Durkin. He has called Durkin corrupt, said he was an anti-Trump “RINO” (Republican in name only) and called on him to resign. Durkin retaliated by yanking staff support on two separate occasions. McSweeney kept his name in the papers.

McSweeney is an information sponge. He is super-smart and makes it his business to constantly find out what is going on in this state’s politics and governance.

He immediately sought out many of Springfield’s old hands after taking office and pumped them for every bit of advice and insight he could get. Those relationships, combined with his outspoken critiques of his own party helped him pass a lot of bills through the Democratic-controlled House, and also probably helped keep him safe from any serious general election challenges.

Rep. McSweeney’s far northwest suburban district is somewhat odd. It was once represented by conservative firebrand and trial lawyer Al Salvi, who left to run for US Senate. Rep. Beaubien was a pro-choice liberal Republican. Gaffney was somewhat more conservative than his mentor Beaubien, but was definitely to the left of McSweeney, who is hard-right on taxation and social issues.

The 52nd District was long considered a Republican bastion, except for the usual Jesse White wins (the popular pol routinely wins most legislative districts and won every single county in 2002). Republican Mitt Romney defeated President Barack Obama by 10 points in the district during the 2012 election.

But President Donald Trump, who had problems everywhere in suburbia, only won McSweeney’s district by a mere 1.6 percentage points in 2016. And then Democratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza won it last year by 2 points. Trump isn’t doing much to improve his popularity in the suburbs, so 2020 could be even worse for Republicans in that part of the world.

McSweeney has sharply criticized Gov. JB Pritzker, so it’s possible that the Democrats might have tried to take him out if he ran again, but it seems unlikely since his dissension in the Republican ranks can be quite useful to their Statehouse purposes (every time the Democrats advanced one of McSweeney’s bills they drove the other side crazy). Even so, a warm Democratic body with little party support could’ve forced McSweeney to spend big bucks on his reelection just to be safe, and that money would be better spent on setting himself up for the 2022 statewide contest.

The House Republican operation was completely blindsided (and overjoyed) by McSweeney’s announcement, so they don’t yet have a list of possible candidates.

But McSweeney’s exit means it’s now quite possible that the district goes into play next year if the Democrats can find the right candidate. That could turn out to be McSweeney’s ultimate revenge on his party. Careful what you wish for.

  9 Comments      


*** LIVE COVERAGE ***

Monday, Sep 9, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

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