* Cook County Record…
On the same day Illinois voters by wide margins selected Democrat JB Pritzker to be the state’s next governor, and his running mate, Democratic State Rep. Juliana Stratton, to serve as lieutenant governor, a group of Pritzker campaign workers added Pritzker and Stratton as individual defendants in a discrimination lawsuit the workers brought in the closing days of the gubernatorial campaign, particularly targeting Stratton for allegedly defaming the campaign workers behind the suit as “extortionists.”
On Nov. 6, the group of campaign workers, through their attorneys Shay T. Allen and Jeanette Samuels, both of Chicago, filed an amended complaint in Chicago federal court, which for the first time named both Pritzker and Stratton as defendants in the case.
The lawsuit also added a count of defamation against Stratton, alleging she “caused to be widely disseminated false statements about the Plaintiffs, including that they were extortionists.”
The lawsuit now further alleges that, after the lawsuit was filed, the Pritzker campaign retaliated against five of the plaintiffs, placing them on “’administrative leave with pay,’ pending the outcome of an investigation into knowingly false allegations against them,” actions they said were taken with the approval and knowledge of Pritzker, Stratton and Pritzker campaign manager Anna Capara.
“… No meaningful investigation has taken place and the moving force of the adverse employment action taken against Plaintiffs was to punish them for asserting their constitutional rights,” the complaint said.
* From the amended complaint…
After the filing of this lawsuit, Defendant Stratton caused to be widely disseminated false statements about the Plaintiffs, including that they were extortionists.
I looked and didn’t see an instance where Stratton said they were extortionists. Some news reports did describe the lawsuit and preceding demand for $7.5 million as a form of extortion or characterized her comments as such, but she never actually said it that I could find. Here’s an example…
Pritzker and his running mate Juliana Stratton denied the allegations, and Stratton referred to a letter sent by the plaintiff’s attorney in which the plaintiffs demanded a $7.5 million settlement in a 24-hour window, suggesting the whole thing is akin to an extortion attempt.
“When people feel like they have been harassed or discriminated against, they have the right to come forward and have their voices heard. In this case, we had a letter delivered to us asking for $7.5 million dollars in 24 hours or they threatened legal action and to go to press. That’s not a good faith effort,” Stratton said in a statement.
…Adding… The Pritzker campaign says it still has not yet been served with the lawsuit.
* Meanwhile…
I am that former Pritzker campaign staffer who posted an Instagram video in October of a colleague wearing a charcoal face mask and pink nail polish after a long day at the office.
I posted the video to my private Instagram account late on a Saturday night after a 14-hour workday. Five days later, at the precise moment when it would inflict the most harm on the Pritzker campaign, somebody leaked a screenshot of the post to the media. The leak came just days before Halloween and after NBC’s Megyn Kelly ignited a media firestorm on Oct. 23 by making racially insensitive remarks about blackface.
It never occurred to me for a moment that my colleague’s face mask resembled blackface, and I had no idea Kelly was planning to defend blackface on national television three days after I posted the video.
To anyone who was offended by the image, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. It was taken out of context and I simply did not see what now seems so obvious. What I found humorous about the video was my colleague’s impersonation of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs while tending to his pores.
Childish? Yes. Poorly timed? Absolutely. Intentionally racist? Not in the least.
Thoughts?
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A look ahead at what Pritzker wants to do
Friday, Nov 9, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Greg Hinz…
The Chicago Democrat said he’s also “looking seriously” at an idea from the Center for Tax & Budget Accountability to issue a large pension obligation bond issue and use it to pay down billions of dollars of pension debt more quickly than the state now is scheduled to do, hopefully saving money in the long run by paring interest costs.
Pritzker said many details will be resolved by his transition financial team, which includes former Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes, Civic Federation President Laurence Msall, former Senate GOP Leader Christine Radogno and CTBA chief Ralph Martire.
Other early priorities will include raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour after a transition period, “lowering the cost of health care”—Pritzker has proposed allowing anyone to buy into the [Medicaid] system—and expanded aid for college students. Pritzker said the minimum-wage hike would include a feature designed to “relieve the burden on small business.”
Also on the list for “early in our administration”: a big capital program for roads, bridges, transit and related work. The new governor is under some pressure to raise gasoline taxes to pay for such work, but did not indicate where he would end up.
Pritzker floated the CTBA’s idea during the campaign, then backed away from it and is now floating it again. The CTBA’s plan proposes borrowing $11.2 billion over eight years. I guesstimated the average annual cost of that plan at $1.7 billion, but that can be altered to ease the first-year cost.
Raising the minimum wage over time will also drive up state government costs to pay for caregivers, university student workers, etc. It’ll be interesting to see how he intends to shield small businesses.
And, of course, a capital plan pretty much requires a new revenue source. Pritzker has talked about using marijuana tax money to pay for that, but he told Greg that, with the “artificial progressive income tax” off the table, pot money would likely be used to help balance the overall state budget. I figure a gas tax hike is probably the better bet for funding a capital plan, but one never knows.
…Adding… Our resident pension expert RNUG explains the CTBA proposal in comments…
Think a number of you are misunderstanding the plan. Here’s a homeowner example to put it in perspective.
Right now, we have an adjustable mortgage with steadily increasing payments and some balloon payments at the end. Because it started as a teaser rate, we aren’t even paying the full principal and interest payment; heck, we aren’t even covering the full interest payment.
What is being proposed is switching to a standard flat mortgage payment schedule. That will stop the debt from growing, which means the needed payments will stop increasing every year. But, and it is a BIG but, we need to start paying a lot more right now. So, to minimize the impact of the higher immediate payments, what is being proposed is to borrow the difference between the current payments and the new payments. This makes it possible to shift to the flat mortgage payment without a huge tax increase. You will still need a bit of money to switch, but that will be repaying the bonds over 20 (or whatever) years.
In the long run, it will save the State money. In the short term, it frees up NO existing money; all it does is stop future pension payments from taking cash away from other programs.
It’s not a bad thing, but all it really is is the first step on a 20 year journey.
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Our two states
Friday, Nov 9, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Ben Yount…
Professor John Jackson with the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University said on Tuesday that change flipped the state’s political balance.
Jackson said that southern Illinois cemented itself as a Republican stronghold, while the Chicago suburbs became the new power base for Democrats.
“DuPage County was the real heart of the Republican Party,” Jackson said. “The suburbs now are where elections are won and lost statewide, and they’ve been increasing trending toward the blue. I would rate them as purple.” […]
“I think there was a red wave in southern Illinois,” Jackson said. “It swept away almost all standing Democrats. With the exemption of [state Rep.] Jerry Costello Jr., everything south of I-64 is going to be represented by Republicans.”
* Daily Herald…
Seven new members were elected Tuesday to the Kane County Board, putting new representatives in place for more than one-third of the county.
Democrats also gained a 12-12 split on the board, but recent history indicates the even number won’t foretell a blue wave for county policy in the near future.
The new Democrats on the board are Anita Lewis, Matt Hanson, Chris Kious and Mo Iqbal.
Lewis was courted to run for the seat by county board Chairman Chris Lauzen, who is a Republican. Iqbal ran an unsuccessful campaign for Elgin City Council in 2015, but he defeated incumbent Republican Kurt Kojzarek by nearly 700 votes. […]
“By my projections, all I needed was the amount of votes I had,” Kojzarek said. “I got my people out. It’s just there were 2,000 extra people that didn’t vote or didn’t register that changes from four years ago. The changing demographics swept me in.”
* Macon County also had a huge voter turnout on Tuesday, but things didn’t go well for the Democrats…
Tuesday’s election was the largest midterm turnout Steve Bean has seen since the 1998 election when Glenn Poshard ran for governor.
“We had 39,453″ this year, said Bean, outgoing Macon County Clerk, who will retire and hand over the reins to Josh Tanner, the winner of the race to fill the job. “We had 39,541 in 1998.”
Bean is a Democrat, so that office flipped to the Republicans. Tanner won 54-46.
* Herald & Review…
Macon County sheriff’s Lt. Tony Brown on Wednesday said he’s moving forward with asking for a recount of Tuesday’s election. Brown, a Democrat, finished 99 votes behind sheriff’s Lt. Jim Root, the GOP candidate.
Brown said he hopes that a recount, along with provisional and outstanding absentee ballots the county clerk’s office is still tallying, ultimately leads to him being declared the winner of the election.
Not looking great for him.
* The Democrats also lost control of the county board…
The Macon County Board saw Republicans take a slight edge in the contested races on Tuesday night.
In District 1, Democratic incumbent Laura Zimmerman held onto her seat with 40 percent of the vote, and Republican challenger Linda Little captured 33 percent of the vote to unseat Democratic incumbent Kevin Meachum.
Republican challenger Jim Gresham unseated Democrat Jerry Potts in District 3 with 53 percent of the vote.
* Related…
* ADDED: After years of Democratic control, is the 12th District firmly in Republican hands?
* ADDED: Rauner wins only 1 Galesburg precinct
* Patrick Windhorst Gets Ready to Join Illinois House: Republican Patrick Windhorst defeated democrat Natalie Phelps-Finnie in the mid-term election winning 58-percent of the vote.
* Lance Yednock won in Ottawa, La Salle, Peru; Jerry Long won in Streator in 76th District tally
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* Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has repeatedly denied that she knew about sexual harassment allegations against her chief of staff before she fired him in September on the eve of her announcement for mayor. Not true…
Scott Cisek, a key political adviser, said he told Preckwinkle days after the March 20 primary election that he’d “heard some very disturbing rumors” that Keller “had been behaving badly towards women.” And he warned Preckwinkle that someday “one of these women is going to come forward.”
Keller told the Tribune that Preckwinkle then met with him to let him know there was an allegation stemming from his brief work on a Democratic congressional campaign.
Keller actually offered to resign at that meeting, but Preckwinkle rejected the offer.
* And now we may know why that blatantly false item was planted with Sneed today about Emily Miller working for potential mayoral candidate Susana Mendoza…
Preckwinkle also noted that she has referred the Keller matter to the Cook County inspector general for a full investigation. Preckwinkle did so after Emily Miller, a Democratic political consultant who had brought the Keller allegations to Cisek back in March, followed up with Preckwinkle last month to tell her she was concerned about the way the matter was handled.
Miller, a friend of a Keller accuser, then documented parts of her talk with Preckwinkle in an email to Preckwinkle’s new chief of staff, a copy of which the Tribune obtained through an open records request. […]
Miller recounted for the Tribune her interactions with Preckwinkle and Cisek. She said she came away disappointed with how they handled the accusations and called it a “cop-out” that the Preckwinkle administration did not pursue the matter sooner and more aggressively.
“There was obviously another way to take care of the problem than just filing that formal written complaint,” said Miller, who indicated that she is not aligned with any mayoral candidate. “And that other way played out two days before (Preckwinkle) announced for mayor. And it could have just as easily played out … when she first became aware of the problem.”
Reporters are obviously going to have to be careful with any “leaks” coming out of Preckwinkle’s campaign from here on out if that’s how they’re gonna play.
There is a whole lot more to this Tribune story, so click here to read the rest.
…Adding… Lori Lightfoot…
“This is bigger than Toni Preckwinkle’s shielding of John Keller,” said Lightfoot. “It’s bigger than her campaign’s dishonest efforts to discredit Emily Miller or her failure to hold anyone accountable for the abandoned SUV until the media took notice. It’s about a toxic culture that starts at the top, and that puts women at risk. We need leaders who will reject this culture and instead build a transparent and accountable City Hall that serves the people, not the broken political machine.”
* Related…
* Preckwinkle’s head of security fired: The head of security for mayoral hopeful and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle was fired last week, two years after a county-owned SUV was found abandoned in a ditch in southwest suburban Lemont Township.
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Question of the day
Thursday, Nov 8, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Illinois Public Radio…
“Campaigning is easy. Governing is a lot harder. So, any person becoming Governor of Illinois has to really kind of come to that job with that understanding. Being the governor is a hard job. (You’ve) got to work at it every day.” […]
“We definitely have to raise the minimum wage in Illinois, it’s far too low,’’ [former Gov. Pat Quinn] says, “The current governor has failed to do that. That should be job one for the new governor.” […]
“Honor and respect the process, as well as honor and respect those people who make up the process,” [former GOP Sen. Pam Althoff] says. […]
“Many governors of both parties lost sight of the fact that Illinois is an extremely diverse state, and it’s very important for us to continue to carry on dialogues; to learn what we do have in common and what our concerns are,” she says. […]
“The governor’s job is to come in with his own agenda and collaborate, and say, ‘This is what I would like to see. How is it we work together to achieve this?’”
* The Question: Your own advice for the next governor?
…Adding… In case your advice is “live at the mansion”…
“I intend to live at the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield, but I will of course be commuting as often as possible.” [Pritzker] said the children would continue schooling in Chicago, but “there will be a lot of travel back and forth by all of us.”
“I am looking forward to spending time in Springfield, as I have during the course of the campaign,” Pritzker said. “I think it allows me not just to get to know people in Sangamon County better, but also to get around Central and Southern Illinois easier. That’s something that’s been really important to me during the course of the campaign — just listening to people who live in different areas of the state than where I live.”
…Adding… And if you want him to “listen” he says he’s already heard you…
He was asked about what tax rates he would propose, as he often had been during the campaign. Pritzker said his administration will have to work with lawmakers on specifics.
“We need to make sure that we’re listening,” Pritzker told reporters. “I know that you all don’t want to accept that, but in order to get something done, we need to listen to all parties. It is a difficult process to get a constitutional amendment passed.”
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* NW Herald…
More than 116,000 McHenry County residents voted in Tuesday’s midterm election – but unofficial election results showed about 21 percent of them did not pick candidates in statewide races. […]
Issues with the county’s election reporting software may be the culprit, according to McHenry County Clerk Mary McClellan.
“We are looking at election reporting software,” McClellan told the Northwest Herald. “It is not showing all the numbers for some reason.” […]
That’s 20 points lower than the 99 percent of Will County ballots that included a gubernatorial vote. In Kane County, it was 98.6 percent. In Lake County, 98.6 percent. Cook County? 98.3 percent.
In a phone interview Thursday morning, McClellan said the gap isn’t that unusual.
“People just didn’t want to vote for governor,” she said.
Oh, please, that is just not true. The county clerk needs to look at her own vote totals.
That undervote was in way more than just the governor’s race. It’s literally everywhere in McHenry County.
* For instance, go to the clerk’s elections page and you’ll see that only 92,559 out of a total of 116,703 voted in the secretary of state’s race, so that’s about the same undervote as the governor’s race. Same goes for the 92,287 who voted in the attorney general’s race and the 92,427 who voted in the county’s two congressional races.
You can’t tell me that as many as 24,000 voters cast totally blank ballots. Those votes are either missing or the total vote count is way off. I called the clerk and she hasn’t gotten back to me.
It’s even worse down-ballot, by the way. Only 81,533 voted in the sheriff’s race and just 80,503 voted in the county auditor’s race. I can see that drop-off happening between statewide and local, but I cannot possibly see 24,000 completely blank ballots. No way.
[Hat tip: Cal Skinner.]
*** UPDATE *** The county clerk has now fixed the problem. Turns out, the early votes were counted but not tabulated online. As a result, the Democrats have apparently picked up another seat on the county board and Democratic US Rep.-elect Lauren Underwood has narrowly won the county, boosting her final count in the race.
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*** UPDATE *** Sen. Nybo just told me that he has not conceded.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* This means the SDems have picked up two seats so far, with one still in the balance
Sen. Mike Connelly (R-Lisle) is leading Democrat Laura Ellman by just 12 votes, with more to be counted or determined (uncounted mail-in, provisionals, challenged mail-in).
* Rep. Peter Breen’s (R-Lombard) fate has been sealed since election night, and he conceded via Facebook yesterday. It’s quite something…
Dear Friend,
In life, there are some things that you can’t really understand unless you have experienced them first-hand. I’ve reached such an understanding.
I can’t fully convey to you the feeling of cradling our newly adopted baby son, whom Margie and I brought home a little over a week ago. And I can’t fully convey the feeling of viewing ads on television trying to connect you to rapists and child molesters, while cradling that same baby. Or the feeling of having over $2 million in Madigan money used to smear your character to your family and neighbors, in a small targeted area of three lovely suburban towns.
If you want to see why capable and qualified people don’t run for office, this is why. The opposing effort against us was a vile, filthy campaign of character assassination. It was a campaign straight from the Madigan Machine playbook, which has no ethical constraints. I had hoped and prayed that the people of the 48th District would reject this brand of politics, but it simply didn’t turn out that way.
Providentially for me, our family now has a beautiful new baby, a fragile little life. His cries in the middle of the night put partisan politics in their appropriate perspective. Margie and I are truly blessed, and that’s what we’re focusing on today.
Reflecting on my four years in the Illinois House, I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish: passing 32 bills into law, more than any other two-term legislator; leading debate on many hundreds of Madigan agenda bills as Minority Floor Leader; and helping many individuals, families, nonprofits, and businesses in our district with a variety of issues.
I am very proud of how I did it: I never lied, I never cheated, and I never stole. I endeavored in every circumstance to act as a gentleman, in accord with my faith, my training, and how my parents raised me. And I hope that’s how folks remember me in the Illinois House: as a fierce advocate, and as a leader, but always as a gentleman.
As tough as today is for Margie and me, we feel most for the many, many hundreds of people who volunteered for and contributed to my campaign, going back to that first run in 2011 for the Lombard Village Board. We’re grateful for the 22,724 people who voted for me yesterday. Those folks rejected the Madigan Machine, his out-of-control spending, and his tax hikes. They deserve better.
You should feel as proud of this campaign as we do. We went toe-to-toe with Madigan on a variety of fronts, both in the mailboxes of our persuadable voters and on cable television. I’m told we talked to more voters on their doorsteps than any other GOP State House campaign in the Chicago metro area. We won the lone debate, and we secured the top newspaper endorsements, from the Tribune and Sun-Times.
We did everything within the rules that could be done to win, against incredible political headwinds, on a night when Illinois Democrats took the overwhelming majority of DuPage seats in the General Assembly, along with two suburban congressional seats.
One thing certain about politics is that the winds change. You’re up one day and down another. We will get through this.
It has truly been my honor and privilege to serve so many fine people as their Representative in the Illinois House.
Please know of Margie’s and my prayers for you and your family, and we appreciate your prayers for our family.
Yours faithfully,
Peter
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Mendoza’s next move
Thursday, Nov 8, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Tribune on Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s mayoral ambitions…
Part of Mendoza’s mayoral consideration has included tapping the services of an Emanuel ally to help her navigate the decision — political strategist Becky Carroll, who served as chief Chicago Public Schools spokeswoman in the mayor’s administration and ran an Emanuel-aligned Super PAC as part of his successful bid for a second term in 2015.
In a brief statement, Carroll said she and Mendoza have been “lifelong friends.” If Mendoza were to run for mayor, Carroll said, she “would gladly serve as one of her advisers,” but she stopped short of confirming any role in helping the comptroller prepare for a mayoral bid.
Carroll’s involvement and some of Emanuel’s allies pointing to Mendoza’s Chicago numbers Tuesday night are the most noticeable tea leaves yet that some of the top policy and political aides in the mayor’s orbit are starting to gravitate toward a Mendoza candidacy.
Many in Emanuel’s reliable network of big-money donors, however, largely have kept their powder dry and made no financial commitments, sources said, while a few have started to break for onetime U.S. Commerce Secretary and former Obama White House chief of staff Bill Daley, the brother and son of two former mayors. Some of Emanuel’s contributors and top labor supporters, however, still could end up aligned with Mendoza, who has been a favorite among the city’s major trade unions that were instrumental in Emanuel’s re-election bid four years ago.
* Fran Spielman…
Former Hispanic Democratic Organization chieftain Victor Reyes is a political operative who has spoken to several of the top-tier mayoral candidates but is “leaning toward” joining the Preckwinkle campaign.
Reyes argued that Mendoza is Preckwinkle’s “strongest challenger” — but has weaknesses. Chief among them, Reyes said, is a voting record in Springfield that includes “a lot” of tax increases and hard-line votes on criminal justice issues that earned her the nickname, “Electric Suzy.”
“Preckwinkle is a criminal justice progressive. The voting record would show that Mendoza voted for harsher penalties and does not have a progressive criminal justice record,” Reyes said.
Mendoza’s political consultant, Eric Adelstein, countered that Mendoza was the “deciding vote in Illinois in getting rid of the death penalty.”
* Pearson…
So, as one of the top leaders in the Democratic Party hierarchy, will Pritzker get involved in the contest to pick a successor to outgoing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel?
“No,” Pritzker said, providing perhaps his most succinct answer to a question after a long governor campaign season.
Of course, there’s little reason for Pritzker to weigh in on a choice for mayor. His election represented a coalition of interests and activists within the Democratic Party. Choosing a mayoral candidate could be viewed as backing one group and alienating the others.
* Paris Schutz…
“My job is to work with whoever the new mayor of the city of Chicago is,” Gov.-elect Pritzker said. “That isn’t something that happened in the last administration, and I really think it’s important for the governor to work with the largest city in our state and one of the big economic engines of our state.”
* Sneed…
Watch for women — particularly consultants Emily Miller and Becky Carroll — to play big roles in Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s mayoral campaign.
• To wit: Because of the #MeToo movement and Mendoza’s strategy to wage generational war against Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and mayoral hopeful Bill Daley, there’s enormous pressure to put women under age 50 in top campaign positions.
Emily Miller called this morning to tell me Sneed’s story is not true and sent me this written statement…
That is false. I will not be joining any mayoral campaign, and will not be playing any role—big or otherwise—in any race. I have never had any conversations with anyone about playing a role in a Mendoza mayoral campaign.
I’m not sure why or by whom that was planted, but it was the first anyone had heard of it.
…Adding… The passage about Emily has now been removed.
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Random numbers
Wednesday, Nov 7, 2018 - Posted by Rich Miller
* This may or may not mean anything, but likely Chicago mayoral candidate Comptroller Susana Mendoza won the city with 696,596 votes. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, an already declared mayoral candidate, won the city with 674,357 votes.
So, Preckwinkle scored 22,239 fewer votes than Mendoza even though Preckwinkle was unopposed yesterday. There was obviously a sizable undervote.
Sheriff Tom Dart, by the way, is even lower on the ballot than Preckwinkle and was also unopposed and still got 711,564 votes, more than both Mendoza and Preckwinkle.
…Adding… A commenter mentioned something, so I checked it out. Mendoza received more votes than Preckwinkle in Preckwinkle’s own 4th Ward. And Sheriff Dart also outpolled Preckwinkle in that ward.
* By the way, the ward with the highest percentage turnout yesterday was the 47th, at 76.2 percent. The ward with the greatest numerical turnout was the 32nd, with 24,051. The Southwest Side’s 19th Ward was a close second.
* I asked the Chicago Board of Elections Commission for an age breakdown of yesterday’s vote…
Those are unofficial results as of 10:59 this morning.
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