* Background is here if you need it. NAACP of Illinois…
Illinois State Conference President Teresa Haley offers a statement in response to a video excerpt disseminated by former DuPage County President Patrick Watson on Tuesday, December 12, 2023. Watson received an unprecedented and embarrassing “Vote Of No Confidence” by his Branch members on November 14, 2023. Illinois Branch Presidents met on December 13, 2023 and unanimously supported Haley’s quintessential leadership skills. Haley’s heartfelt sentiments are appended below:
“First and foremost, I express my sincere apologies to anyone who may have been hurt or offended by my comments. I love and value all members of our communities—including immigrants. I have worked tirelessly to advocate for the underserved and the voiceless. I remain focused on denouncing injustices, racism, and discrimination. I am empathetic to the plight of all people, and I proudly serve as a beacon of hope to the hopeless. I embrace the mission of the NAACP, which is to “Achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination, and accelerate the well- being, education, and economic security of Black people and all persons of color.”
Quintessential, adj.
perfectly typical or representative of a particular kind of person or thing
I’m guessing the AI alibi has been abandoned.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Welp…
*** UPDATE 2 *** From a national NAACP spokesperson…
The NAACP stands firm in our commitment to advancing racial justice and cultivating a society where human dignity is respected. As of December 13, NAACP Illinois State Conference President Teresa Haley has been suspended. As an internal matter, there will be no additional comment at this time. The NAACP will continue to foster an environment that is reflective of our mission and respective of our membership.
So, she was suspended on the 13th, but the board voted unanimously to support her on the 14th? Checking on that.
*** UPDATE 3 *** I asked for clarification on the dates from the national NAACP…
The notice of suspension from NAACP National was dated on December 13th.
…Adding… I asked ICIRR earlier today for a statement. This is from them and the Springfield Immigrant Advocacy Network…
The Springfield Immigrant Advocacy Network (SIAN) and our statewide coalition partner the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights reject the statements made by Illinois NAACP president Teresa Haley at a meeting in October, in which she referred to migrants in Chicago as criminals and “savages.”
Divisive rhetoric damages communities. It reinforces harmful stereotypes, which in turn hurt entire groups of people. True apologies must include strategies to begin dialogue, deliberate actions to repair relationships, and commitment to share accurate information. We don’t heal alone but in community. Our leaders need to work in solidarity to advocate and create better policies, and to make our cities better for all of us.
SIAN has worked diligently to advocate for immigrants and refugees who have arrived in Springfield within the last year, many of whom were originally sent to Chicago by bus from Texas. At SIAN, we know that the NAACP has a history of supporting immigrants and refugees in our country that we ought to honor and remember. We have worked with our NAACP siblings to fight injustice and racial profiling and to protect our immigrant youth, as we know most of our Illinois DACA recipients and migrants applying for asylum and refugee status are people of color coming mostly from the Global South.
We should not be calling groups of people rapists, inciting fear at migrants’ arrival, and calling cities to refuse Venezuelans seeking shelter happens when we still must contend with the supremacist, structural values of scarcity, silo-planning and thinking, and the predicament that marginalized communities must fight each other for a tiny piece of a pie. We know that immigrants, refugees, and other historically excluded communities live together at the margins. We have shared spaces and built families together while fighting injustice, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and oppression. When we lift one group, when we support and elevate communities, we must also lift up our neighbors and other marginalized peoples.
SIAN serves immigrants and refugees, children and families, who have come to Illinois after surviving life-threatening living conditions as well as environmental, economic, and political turmoil. In a welcoming state like Illinois, we encourage our organizations, leaders, and institutions to serve immigrants and refugees with compassion, understanding, respect, and attention to the many intersections of being and experience of marginalization our communities encounter.
We need to understand and identify a manufactured crisis when we see it. This moment of Illinois being targeted for our welcoming values is a perfect example of how oppression works against immigrants and people of color. When the humanity, safety, and survival of children and families are at stake, we need to stop seeing ‘us’ versus ‘them.’ We instead need to see communities as whole, fully human, deserving of our respect and assistance–and our policies have to reflect this. We hope that our historical partners at NAACP chapters across the state join us in this analysis as we strive to move forward together.
*** UPDATE 4 *** OK, this is getting weird…
NAACP Illinois State Conference
President Teresa Haley will hold a Press Conference on Saturday, December 16, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. at the NAACP’s Office:
801 South 11th Street
Springfield, Illinois 62703
The media is invited to attend, arriving no earlier than 10:45 a.m. Thank you.
*** UPDATE 5 *** Press release from the state council…
Effective 8:10 p.m., President Teresa Haley’s Press Conference is cancelled, in accordance with the recent request from the National NAACP Office. Ms. Haley stands by her heartfelt apology and will not provide any further comments at this juncture.
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* CBS News…
The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block an Illinois law banning assault-style weapons, leaving the measure in place while proceedings before a federal appellate court continue.
The decision from the justices marks the second time they have declined to halt Illinois’ statewide ban, which a gun rights advocacy group and gun shop owner argued violates the Second Amendment. It has also left in place a similar ordinance in Naperville, a suburb of Chicago.
The unsigned order from the court rejecting the request from the pro-Second Amendment organization comes on the heels of the latest spate of shootings, on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus and in Austin and San Antonio, Texas. The shootings have reignited now-familiar calls from President Biden for Congress to pass a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
* Courthouse News…
For the second time, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday turned down an opportunity to pause an assault weapons ban in Illinois implemented in response to a deadly shooting. […]
The National Association for Gun Rights, a gun store, and the store’s owner sued Naperville — and later Illinois — claiming the new ordinance violated the Second Amendment. Two lower courts refused to block the regulations, leading to the group’s first trip to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.
The justices’ denial left the law in place while the challenge was under review. While this case was proceeding two other lower courts upheld the law in five different cases challenging the ban. The Seventh Circuit consolidated all six cases.
In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court declined to grant preliminary relief, finding that the gun advocacy group was not likely to prevail on its Second Amendment challenge.
The gun advocacy group then returned to the high court for relief. The group says the law would ban the most popular rifle in America, and therefore, in unlawful because it bans weapons in common use.
Click here to read the Court’s order.
* NPR…
The court’s action on Thursday, leaving the Illinois law in place, is not a decision on the merits of the case; as of now, there have been no conflicting decisions by lower appeals courts, and the justices may well have felt there was no need to intervene without such a conflict.
This post will likely be updated.
…Adding… GPAC…
Gun rights groups continue to try to block the new law, even after repeated failures. And they continue to get nowhere. They asked the Supreme Court for relief before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on the new law and the Supreme Court said no. Now after the Court of Appeals has upheld the law they’ve gone back and asked again. Not surprisingly the Supreme Court again said no. No amount of flailing around by losing lawyers alters the basic fact that sale in Illinois of these destructive weapons continues to be blocked completely.
…Adding… Protect Illinois Communities…
Once again, the US Supreme Court has refused to listen to requests from extremist organizations to block the Protect Illinois Communities Act, a commonsense gun safety measure to keep assault weapons off of our streets. This law helps save lives, and every day it remains in place is a step toward keeping weapons of war out of our neighborhoods.”
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* Illinois PIRG…
For the second time in a month, utility regulators at the Illinois Commerce Commission on Thursday handed down decisions that portend the beginning of a new era of consumer- and climate-focused utility oversight in Illinois.
“We applaud Chairman Doug Scott and other members of the Illinois Commerce Commission for making a decisive pivot away from the more utility-friendly approach of the past,” said Illinois PIRG Director Abe Scarr.
The five-person commission, recently overhauled by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, set new rates for the electric utilities ComEd and Ameren. Notably, the Commission rejected ComEd and Ameren’s grid plans, finding that the utilities failed to meet the standards set by law, and ordered them to re-submit compliant plans next year. The Commission rejected significant planned utility spending based on the lack of compliant grid plans.
The commission set Comed’s authorized profit rate, known as the return on equity (ROE), at 8.9% over the next four years. ComEd initially proposed a 10.5% ROE in 2024, which would escalate over four years to 10.65% in 2027. Illinois PIRG submitted expert testimony recommending a 6.5% ROE, arguing that state policies virtually guarantee ComEd’s profits, so it does not need a high ROE for financial health. Miniscule differences in profit rates can translate into hundreds of millions of dollars on customer bills.
“As it did with the gas rate cases, the Commission took important steps to rightsize ComEd and Ameren’s spending levels and limit their impact on customer bills. It also set a much lower profit rate than proposed by ComEd, saving customers hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Scarr. “We are pleased the Commission invited further consideration of profits rates under multi-year rate plans and will continue to make our case to the Commission that Illinois utilities can remain financially healthy with significantly lower profit rates.”
The Commission also denied Peoples Gas’ motion to “clarify” and reverse portions of the Commission’s November decision regarding the failing Peoples Gas pipe replacement program and authorize an additional $134 million in 2024 spending, which would raise its already record-breaking rate hike by an additional $8.1 million.
“We hope Peoples Gas now has the clarity it needs: while it maintains its fundamental service obligation to maintain public safety, it can no longer operate accountability-free and waste billions of dollars on a pipe replacement program that fails to achieve its public safety objective,” said Scarr. “We look forward to working with the commission and other parties to enact meaningful reforms to the program next year.”
Since the November decision, Peoples Gas and its allies had mounted a pressure campaign targeting the Commission. It included suggesting the legislature intervene, threatening the pending confirmation of three commissioners and sending more than 20 letters in support of the motion from unions, contractors, and others, each requiring an ethics report from the Commission in compliance with its “ex-parte” communications rules. Commissioner Scott directly addressed these ex-parte communications, asking members of the public to use more appropriate means of communicating with the Commission.
That last paragraph is quite something, but the two linked examples are an op-ed by two high-level labor leaders and a tweet by Local 150.
…Adding… CUB…
In an unprecedented ruling in favor of electric customers, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) today reined in reckless spending by ComEd and Ameren, said no to excessive profit rates and lowered the electric utilities’ rate-hike requests by hundreds of millions of dollars. After a decade in which electric utilities exploited lax oversight, scandal, and rampant rate hikes to reap excessive profits, the ICC made it clear that ComEd and Ameren must be held accountable to their customers and provide more affordable electric service. Today’s ICC ruling delivered an important message: Utilities need to prove that their grid plans will actually benefit consumers. Clean energy is about lowering costs for electric customers in the long run, not giving a blank check to Ameren and ComEd.
Also CUB…
Less than three weeks after receiving a record rate hike, Peoples Gas tried to bully the ICC into raising costs, yet again, for the utility’s beleaguered customers by manufacturing a fictitious emergency. We’re grateful that regulators saw through these blatant theatrics and protected Chicago consumers, who have been buffeted by spiraling heating bills, from another money grab by the utility.
Peoples Gas has reaped record profits for six straight years – and that was before it obtained its record rate hike last month. No company that has amassed such a staggering fortune should ever threaten to neglect public safety and lay off workers. If Peoples continues to put jobs in jeopardy as a form of political extortion, the unions that represent the utility’s employees should put the blame where it belongs – on Peoples Gas, not on the state regulators entrusted with holding the company accountable.
For the past decade, Chicago families have been suffering through a heating affordability crisis, as People Gas bills skyrocketed to pay for the company’s bloated pipe-replacement program. Peoples Gas customers pay an average of $50 in fixed monthly costs before they ever turn on the heat or the stove. Nearly 200,000 households have been assessed a late fee, and 160,000 families have fallen behind on payments by more than 30 days.
Given all this financial woe, the ICC did the right thing when it put a moratorium on discretionary, non-emergency pipe-replacement, pending further investigation. Nonetheless, Peoples Gas responded by trying to hold its workers and public safety hostage as a ploy to coerce another rate hike out of financially burdened customers. We urge regulators, lawmakers, and the public at large to continue to stand strong and resist cynical attempts to pit the utility’s workers against its customers when it is obvious that both are being made victims of the company’s greed.
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