Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

*** UPDATED x1 *** Reformer criticizes Pritzker for not using tax money to fly to public events

Wednesday, Jun 26, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has made four out-of-state trips for official business since taking office in January. Each time, he has traveled on private chartered jets but he has not charged taxpayers, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

On Feb. 21, Pritzker, a Democrat, headed to the National Governor’s conference and a black-tie dinner at the White House. At Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling, he and his wife M.K. boarded a private jet en route to Washington’s Dulles Airport. Four staffers plus a member of the governor’s security detail also boarded a G200 private jet along with a three person flight crew for the two-and-a-half hour flight, according to travel documents obtained in a public records request.

In all, Pritzker has made three official trips to Washington and one to New York.

The governor’s office in a written response noted “The Governor does not charge his travel expenses to the state of Illinois” and said personal and campaign funds were used to rent the jets. […]

When asked about the privately funded trips, Susan Garrett, a co-founder of the Center for Illinois Politics, said “it’s never been done before in Illinois.”

A former Democratic state senator, Garrett acknowledges the unusual move saves taxpayers money, but she said, “There’s something to be said for public servants who have to work within budgets and rules and guidelines.”

It’s never been done before? Really?…

Gov. Bruce Rauner used a helicopter, apparently owned by a campaign donor, to get him to a public event on Friday.

“He covered the cost personally, so it would not be at the taxpayers’ expense,” said Rauner spokeswoman Laurel Patrick.

The helicopter landed at Aurora University so Rauner could go to an assessment of flood damaged areas in nearby Lake County. Federal and state emergency management agencies and the Small Business Administration were involved.

That took all of three seconds to find on Google.

…Adding… As noted by commenters, using campaign money to pay governmental and public policy travel is perfectly legal in this state…

10 ILCS 5/9-8.10)
Sec. 9-8.10. Use of political committee and other reporting organization funds.
(a) A political committee shall not make expenditures:
(6) For the travel expenses of any person unless the travel is necessary for fulfillment of political, governmental, or public policy duties, activities, or purposes.

That was done to help cut down on governmental travel expenditures. It was, in other words, a reform.

*** UPDATE *** Back in 2003, then Sen. Susan Garrett was the chief sponsor of a bill that, in part, did this…

Nothing in this Section prohibits the expenditure of funds of (i) a political committee controlled by an officeholder or by a candidate or (ii) an organization subject to Section 9-7.5 to defray the ordinary and necessary expenses of an officeholder in connection with the performance of governmental duties.

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*** UPDATED x1 *** Fun with numbers

Wednesday, Jun 26, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* John Tillman on the Fox News website…

Many public-sector workers in Illinois have indicated they don’t want to continue paying dues. In fact, more than 8,000 public employees stopped sending money to AFSCME Council 31 – that’s at least 12 percent of employees represented by AFSCME, the largest and most powerful government union in the state.

Each of those 8,000 workers had their own reasons for choosing to stop paying the union. Maybe they wanted to keep more of their hard-earned money to spend on their family. Maybe they didn’t like the union’s demands on taxpayers. Or maybe they didn’t like the union’s politics.

Notice that clever use of the phrase “stopped sending money to AFSCME Council 31.” He didn’t claim that 8,000 union members had dropped out. What he’s mainly talking about here are former fair share fee payers who are no longer required to pay their, um, fair share.

The union suspects Tillman’s 8,000 figure was derived from a January federal filing about December union membership which was incomplete due to a paperwork snafu with one of its largest employers. That filing made its membership look about 3,000 smaller than it actually was at the time. AFSCME says it had about 5,000 fair share fee payers at the time of the Janus ruling.

“Despite IPI’s direct-mail and paid advertising campaigns, only a relative handful of former members has dropped out,” a union official said.

And, according to AFSCME, the union has added 1,100 members since the Janus ruling and another 800 new signups are in the pipeline.

Keep in mind that former Gov. Bruce Rauner believed union members would leave AFSCME in droves after Janus. That apparently hasn’t happened even though the Policy Institute has been mailing members urging them to drop out of the union.

I asked the Policy Institute for a response an hour ago and didn’t hear back.

*** UPDATE *** From the Institute…

The number is based on the 2018 and 2017 LM-2s (comparing membership numbers between the two years). The 2018 LM-2 covers the preceding fiscal year (which runs Jan 1 - Dec 31 for AFSCME Council 31) and was filed with the federal government on April 1, 2019. That was the second filing for 2018 (AFSCME also filed one on March 27, then re-filed this on on April 1 with the same membership numbers).

I can’t speak to the ’snafu’, but AFSCME didn’t correct it in its April 1 re-filing of its LM-2 (attached).

The 2017 LM-2 showed AFSCME had 57,995 members. The latest 2018 form showed 57,000 members.

* And here’s a bit of news I missed…

The U. S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a petition from Illinois home health workers seeking to recover “fair share fees” they once paid to cover the costs of collective bargaining. That leaves in place a Seventh Circuit decision not to certify the proposed class of more than 80,000 health workers who want the roughly $32 million they’ve paid in fair share fees to the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois & Indiana since 2008 to be repaid in full.

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What’s next for cannabis?

Wednesday, Jun 26, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Tom Schuba takes a look at the future of cannabis legalization here. As the sponsors noted yesterday, the General Assembly has passed new laws related to alcohol just about every year since Prohibition ended and cannabis will likely be the same…

Anyone over the age of 21 can already order up pot products for delivery in California, Nevada and Oregon, according to O’Keefe.

Deliveries of recreational marijuana will also kick off when sales start next year in Michigan, the first state in the midwest to legalize recreational pot, as well as the following year in Colorado, O’Keefe said. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission delayed voting last month on regulations related to the delivery and social consumption of weed, according to The Republican.

While home cannabis deliveries came up during Illinois’ last legislative session, Cassidy said she and fellow lawmakers wanted to wait until the initial legalization bill had passed to address those types of sales.

“That opens up a layer of issues that I don’t think we were prepared to address,” said Cassidy, who was deterred by reports of medical marijuana delivery drivers being robbed in Michigan. “That’s something that is likely another bill for another time.”

Dan Linn, executive director of the Illinois chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, echoed some of Cassidy’s safety concerns but also noted that the delivery business would likely be easier to crack into than other aspects of the legal pot industry that require hefty, non-refundable application fees and other barriers to entry.

They have smart phone apps for weed delivery service in California. You can be sitting at an outdoor cafe sipping on a pink lemonade and, poof, just like that, the delivery person arrives with your order.

…Adding… I somehow forgot to include this…

Jagger says Lightfoot and Pritzker are here. Then says Pritzker today “just legalized cannabis” starting in January.
“Some of you may have jumped the gun.” pic.twitter.com/4LJe3cJFBL

— John O'Neill (@jrichardoneill) June 26, 2019

* Related…

* Pot to be legal here in 2020: On Tuesday, Rep. David Welter, a Morris Republican, applauded legalization. “Today is an affirmation of individual liberty. Adult use of cannabis should be a personal choice,” he said. “Beyond that, I am proud of our commitment that 20 percent of the revenue generated by legalization will go toward funding for mental health and substance-abuse services in Illinois. An additional 10 percent will go to pay down the state’s backlog of unpaid bills, which directly benefits hospitals, health care, and social-service providers in every community across the state.”