Another week, and another Democrat lines up to run for Illinois Attorney General. The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) Executive Director Scott Will released the following statement on Renato Mariotti’s announcement to seek the Democratic nomination.
“Renato says he wants to rail against the special interests. Noble, but his words ring hollow when he fails to even mention Mike Madigan, who has run Springfield with a relentless focus on his constituents: the connected and the corrupt. You cannot change the Office of the Attorney General without acknowledging the root cause of the problem. In reality, Renato just enjoys the spotlight. The Prairie State does not need another attorney general who would rather protect his well-connected friends over hardworking Illinoisans.”
(L)ast night Mariotti locked in an MSNBC appearance where he made his announcement on national TV. He then took to Twitter to lay out his reasons for running. Those tweets drew more than 20,000 “likes”.
People started visiting his campaign website and it crashed. Twice. (He reports 20,000 visited the first time and 40,000 the second crash).
What gives? Since President Donald Trump’s election, Mariotti has cultivated himself as a legal commentator, a frequent TV presence explaining various legal events related to the president, from travel bans to the Russia probe to transgender in the military. […]
“The argument that I’m making is the best way to check Donald Trump is using state attorneys general,” Mariotti told POLITICO. “I’ve been talking about issues — all voting machines have been penetrated by the Russians in Illinois and no one really seems to be talking about it.”
All Illinois voting machines have been penetrated by the Russians? Um, no…
And in Illinois, Russian hackers inserted a malicious program into the Illinois State Board of Elections’ database. According to Ken Menzel, the board’s general counsel, the program tried unsuccessfully “to alter things other than voter data” — he declined to be more specific — and managed to illegally download registration files for 90,000 voters before being detected.
A new published report suggests a vendor for the Illinois elections board might have been compromised by Russian hackers seeking to attack voting systems here and in other states.
Russian hackers attacked the voting-software supplier days before last year’s presidential election, according to the classified National Security Agency report.
The report, published online by The Intercept, does not say whether the hacking had any effect on election results. But it says Russian military intelligence attacked a U.S. voting software company and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials at the end of October or beginning of November.
The company involved has contracts in eight states: Illinois, California, Florida, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, according to The Intercept. It was unclear whether any officials in Illinois might have received spear-phishing emails.
Either way, I kinda doubt the Russians are much interested in Putnam County’s machines.
…Adding… From John Bambenek…
As someone who has spent much of the last year and a half investigating election interference, I can say with confidence that these senseless and factless sensational claims are giving Russia exactly what they want. That is, an American public which does not have faith in our democratic institutions.”
REPORTER: Governor, there’s a bump stock bill that failed yesterday. There’s also a Republican measure that would ban just bump stocks, not modifications. You’re a hunter. Would you support that kind of a measure?
RAUNER: Well, uh, again there are number of regulations and regulatory bills being discussed in the General Assembly. I think, I’m, I encourage the conversation. I look forward to, our team is participating in the conversation. I don’t want to, um, comment prematurely or speculate about legislation, but there’s good conversations going on.
REPORTER: So do you support bump stocks, or do you not support bump stocks?
RAUNER: What I support is a good bipartisan conversation about these issues.
* JB Pritzker’s people sent that around along with this…
Rauner Dodges on Bump Stocks… Again
Chicago, IL – Bruce Rauner once again dodged questions and refused to take a position on bump stocks, the gun accessory used to take 58 lives earlier this month in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Just days after the Las Vegas massacre, Rauner was asked about a bump stock ban, and was silent then just as he is now. […]
“In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, Bruce Rauner doesn’t care enough to provide solutions to prevent gun violence and keep Illinoisans safe,” said Pritzker campaign spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh. “Rauner’s repeated silence is another symptom of his failed leadership and his inability to take any action on pressing issues facing our state.”
*** UPDATE *** Republican lawmaker uses liberal Democrat’s video to demand GOP governor veto gun-related bill. What a world…
* Before we begin, let’s look at the author’s bio…
Louis Jacobson is the senior correspondent at PolitiFact, the fact-checking website that is part of the Tampa Bay Times of Florida. He is also senior author of the Almanac of American Politics 2016 and was a contributing writer for the 2000 and 2004 editions. For Governing, Jacobson has written a column on state politics since the 2010 election cycle, including handicapping gubernatorial, state legislative and state attorney general races and the electoral college. Before that, he wrote a similar column for Stateline.org and Roll Call. He has also handicapped state and federal races for such publications as the Cook Political Report, the Rothenberg Political Report, PoliticsPA.com and the Tampa Bay Times.
In September of 2014, Jacobson rated the Quinn/Rauner race “Lean Republican.”
Three Republican-held governorships are so vulnerable that we’ve rated them lean Democratic. Those are the open seats being vacated by Paul LePage of Maine and Susana Martinez of New Mexico, as well as the seat held by incumbent Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who announced his run for re-election earlier this week. […]
Lean Democratic
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R)
Rauner’s first term continues to be tough. A Republican in a strongly Democratic state, he’s fought an ongoing battle with the Democratic-controlled legislature that kept the state without a full budget for more than two years. The state remains in fiscal trouble, though, with over $15 billion in unpaid bills and the biggest public pension unfunded liability of any state. A decision to sign a bill providing state funding for abortions for low-income women in September, precipitated a war between the governor and social conservatives, possibly enough to provoke a primary challenge. Rauner has a vast personal fortune, but discontent within the GOP, combined with approval ratings in the mid-30s, point to a difficult re-election bid.
The Democratic field includes three figures from the populous Cook County: J.B. Pritzker, a multibillionaire and the brother of the former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker; Chris Kennedy, a businessman and son of Robert F. Kennedy; and progressive state Sen. Daniel Biss. Pritzker appears to be in the best position, having secured endorsements from the AFL-CIO, key unions and Cook County Democratic officialdom. Perhaps most important, Pritzker is a self-funder, which is attractive to Democrats looking for a way to beat the deep-pocketed Rauner.
*** UPDATE *** Part of a DGA press release that also references the above projection…
This week, Bruce Rauner officially announced his reelection campaign with a web video, a paid TV ad profiling Rauner’s lack of job creation, and a distinct lack of campaign events with voters. On Sunday, he heads overseas for a week. […]
“Rauner, who kicked off his bid for a second term with the help of his Harley-Davidson, remains the most-vulnerable governor. With the two-year-long budget battle completed despite Rauner’s veto, attention has pivoted to the Republican’s expansion of taxpayer-funded abortions that has alienated the base.”
Maybe week two will go better.
“Bruce Rauner’s reelection campaign is off to a rough start and its only five days old,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Rauner’s failures have simply caught up to him. Voters will not forget the two-year budget crisis he imposed on the state, the debt he piled up, and his inability to stem the flow of jobs and people out of state. Illinois is doing worse under Bruce Rauner and riding around on a Harley will not fix it.”
* The General Assembly lost its acting inspector general in 2015, when Bill Roberts quit, and hasn’t had a “real” IG since 2013. State law requires that the Legislative Ethics Commission (composed of eight members of Illinois House and Senate leadership) appoint an interim IG if there’s a vacancy, but that hasn’t happened. So, what’s going on?…
(T)he office of the state’s legislative inspector general sits empty. The Legislative Ethics Commission’s executive director, Randy Erferd, attends only to the group’s administrative needs and did not return calls for comment by publication.
Despite this, $312,500 were appropriated for the Office of the Legislative Inspector General in this year’s budget. The same amount was appropriated in 2013, 2014, 2015, and for the 2016-2017 year. A total of $1,875,000 million has been appropriated for an office which has not been occupied and to pay for a staff which doesn’t exist. […]
“We haven’t found an appropriate person but I want to hasten to add that there have been no reports of ethics violations during that period of time so it’s not like there’s something that hasn’t been done,” [Rep. Lou Lang] said.
The commission’s governing statute holds that the number of claims received by the body is a matter of public record. However, no quarterly or annual reports appear to have been filed by the office since June 2014, making Lang’s claim difficult to verify. The responsibility to file those reports resides with the inspector general.
Lang was asked why quarterly reports, if they have been filed by the commission, have not been made public. “At this moment I don’t have an answer about that for you, but I can tell you if there had been complaints we would have had to figure out how to investigate them.”
…Adding… As a commenter rightly notes, the IG is a significant component of Speaker Madigan’s sexual harassment bill…
Each state Inspector General will have authority to review allegations of sexual harassment and submit any founded complaints to the applicable Ethics Commission for a hearing. Each Ethics Commission will have the authority to fine an individual up to $5,000 for a violation of the prohibition on sexual harassment.
…Adding More… I think the appropriations mentioned above were probably re-approps, so while the money was budgeted, it wasn’t spent every year.
That, that bill was really, um, primarily about, um, enabling some more political manipulation by Speaker Madigan and Comptroller Mendoza on how they can prioritize, um, bill payment. That’s really what was behind that bill.
To be clear, I am a strong advocate for transparency. Very strong advocate. The way to have transparency is to invest in our computer systems so we can be fast and everything can be online and everyone can look. Our computer system’s budget was gutted, um, reduced dramatically, uh, by the Speaker and the appropriations that passed over my veto. Um, we need to invest in our IT systems and our infrastructure. Actually, that will reduce the cost of government over time and make everything much more transparent. So, we’ve gotta keep working on transparency. I will continue to be a strong advocate for transparency. And trying to do what I can to eliminate the politicism, politicization of bill paying, which is really what’s driving a lot of this right now.
…Adding… From GOP Rep. Dave McSweeney…
Hey Governor - You lost 112-0 and hid $2.8 billion of unappropriated fiscal year 17 bills. What did the Governor know about the hidden bills and when did he know it?
*** UPDATE 1 *** From Abdon Pallasch at the comptroller’s office…
No, the Speaker did not hypnotize every House Republican to vote against the Governor. That 112-0 vote – every House Republican joining every House Democrat – ends any discussion about whether this was about good policy or, as the Governor futilely tried to misrepresent, about “politics.” Comptroller Mendoza outworked the Governor and educated all House members about the need for our office – and for legislators and taxpayers – to know how many unpaid bills the Governor is holding at his agencies.
State Rep. Allen Skillicorn, R-East Dundee, said he was happy to co-sponsor the debt transparency legislation and asked Republican colleagues to unanimously support the override.
“It was the right thing to do. #thatsleadership,” Skillicorn tweeted. […]
Asked about the overrides this week, Rauner said his priorities are to make sure the economy grows to help job creators, protect taxpayers and “make sure we have a government that’s efficient, effective, transparent.”
“We set some priorities in this session and we prioritized,” Rauner said. “My vetoes, our priorities have been protected.”
Asked whether that meant the Debt Transparency Act wasn’t on the same level of priority as other vetoes, the governor reiterated that his priorities “held.”
* The Tribune has the only story I could find on this event…
Cook County Clerk David Orr on Thursday endorsed first-time candidate Fritz Kaegi in his Democratic primary bid to oust Assessor Joe Berrios.
The veteran clerk, who’s not running again after seven terms, cited the “need to clean up” the assessor’s office, particularly the inequities in the property tax system.
The Chicago Tribune highlighted that issue in its “Tax Divide” series. The investigation concluded that the county’s property tax system created an unequal burden on residents, handing huge financial breaks to homeowners who are well-off while punishing those who have the least, particularly people living in minority communities.
Orr said he’s frustrated that there have been no changes since the Tribune’s stories ran in June. In the meantime, thousands of homes have been reassessed, he said.
Despite a July announcement by County Board President Toni Preckwinkle that a probe of the entire assessment system was underway, two meetings to move that process along have since been canceled, Orr said.
Following is a statement from Fritz Kaegi, the progressive Democrat running against incumbent Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios in the March 2018 primary election, in response to Berrios’ testimony before the Cook County Board of Commissioners on Friday.
“Today, Joe Berrios stood before the Cook County Board and claimed with a straight face that the assessment model Cook County uses is ‘a very good one.’ He should tell that to the hundreds of thousands of Cook County working families who are grossly and systematically overassessed every year. Meanwhile, he lets wealthy property owners off the hook–as long as they hire property tax attorneys who donate to his political fund. Let’s not forget that, for years, he has refused to reveal how Cook County calculates assessments. That is unique among county assessors in Illinois.”
“Joe Berrios wants us to ignore the well documented facts and simply pretend everything is fine. Cook County homeowners struggling to stay above water know differently.”
Over the last 15 years, the labor force participation rate fell more in counties where more opioids were prescribed. Here’s a county-by-county look at the relationship between the change in the labor force participation rate at the state level and the opioid prescription rate at the county level […]
Krueger notes that, “Regardless of the direction of causality, the opioid crisis and depressed labor force participation are now intertwined in many parts of the U.S.” He argues that finding a solution to the decades-long slide in labor force participation by prime-age men should be “a national priority.” Men who are outside the workforce, he writes, express very low levels of subjective well-being and report deriving relatively little meaning from their daily activities. […]
Because nearly half of this group [men who are out of the labor force] reported being in poor health, it may be possible for expanded health insurance coverage and preventative care under the Affordable Care Act to positively affect the health of prime age men going forward. The finding that nearly half of NLF [not in the labor force] prime age men take pain medication on a daily basis and that 40 percent report that pain prevents them from accepting a job suggests that pain management interventions could potentially be helpful.
The drug company founder now charged with leading a nationwide conspiracy to bribe doctors and pharmacists to overprescribe an opioid cancer pain drug once was listed among Arizona’s richest billionaires.
John N. Kapoor, the founder of Insys Therapeutics, several years ago was listed by Forbes as having a worth of $2.4 billion. That worth has fallen amid the indictments of numerous fellow Insys executives, but Forbes still listed Kapoor’s worth at $1.75 billion on Thursday as he went to U.S. federal court in the fraud and racketeering case.
Kapoor is also the longtime chairman of the board of Akorn Pharmaceuticals, headquartered in Lake Forest. Akorn is in the process of being acquired by German health care company Fresenius Kabi for $4.3 billion. That deal is expected to close by early next year, subject to regulatory approval. […]
The new indictment alleges Kapoor and the other defendants offered bribes to doctors to write large numbers of prescriptions for the fentanyl-based pain medication that is meant only for cancer patients with severe pain. Most people who received prescriptions did not have cancer.
