* This is absolutely ridiculous and if it was happening in the American South every Democrat in the country would be rightly freaking out…
A little more than one month before Election Day, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners said Wednesday that most Chicago voters who head to the polls on Nov. 8 will be casting their ballots at a different polling place from where they were assigned to vote in the primary and in previous years.
* Never heard of this clown, but he seems to have quite the opinion of himself…
.@alexstein99 has entered the Illinois politics stage! 😂
Bailey claimed he wouldn’t change existing abortion protections, but he has spent his entire political career saying he is going to “end” abortion in Illinois. Bailey’s anti-choice views are no secret, and despite his non-answers on stage, he won’t protect women’s rights as governor. Governor Pritzker has enshrined the right to choose into state law, and will continue to stand up to retrograde politicians who wish to take us backwards.
When asked about his comparison of abortion to the Holocaust, Bailey doubled down saying, “yes the facts are true when you compare the numbers,” and when pressed to name a Jewish leader who supported his offensive claim, he outright refused. Bailey’s lack of remorse for his harmful comparison is outright disqualifying.
When asked about his previous assertions that he would “repeal everything that J.B Pritzker has signed into law,” and whether that included increasing the minimum wage, he dodged his record of opposition, saying only “it was very obvious what [he] meant.” The truth is Bailey wants to repeal the state minimum wage entirely and voted against raising the state minimum wage to a living wage. It’s no surprise that a man who would tell hard working union members to “stay in [their] lane,” would oppose fair wages.
While Bailey once again failed to offer concrete solutions, he continued to make false assertions about his plan for “zero-based budgeting.” He claimed there is “$10 to $15 billion in that budget of waste,” but has yet to answer which human services he would cut first. His lack of plans to propose balanced budgets serve as a scary reminder of the Rauner years, who decimated Illinois’ finances and held the budget hostage for years. Under Governor Pritzker’s responsible fiscal management, Illinois has earned six credit rating upgrades, delivered $1.8 billion in tax relief to working families, and dedicated $1 billion to the depleted rainy day fund.
* ILGOP…
“Governor Pritzker’s defining legacy - the [un]SAFE-T Act has made our communities less safe, and unfortunately the worst is yet to come. On January 1st cash bail is set to be eliminated across Illinois, potentially releasing violent criminals back onto our streets.
100 of Illinois’ 102 State’s Attorneys oppose this law while numerous Democratic State’s Attorneys have sued the administration to stop it from taking effect. When pressed by moderators numerous times. Governor Pritzker failed tonight to provide specific changes that would support to reform his disastrous law to save lives before it’s too late.
Make no mistake, Darren Bailey won this debate. He outlined a positive vision for our state’s future - one that prioritizes public safety, law enforcement, and a strong & competitive business climate. Illinois voters are fed up with the culture of corruption and criminal coddling that has defined Pritzker’s tenure in office. It’s high time for a change.”
…Adding… Proft’s PAC…
Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson had Illinois gubernatorial Republican candidate Darren Bailey on Chicago’s Morning Answer after his debate the previous night with Gov. Pritzker, a debate in which the overwhelming consensus –even among establishment Chicago media types– was that Bailey won handedly.
Some quotes from Darren Bailey:
“This man [Pritzker] has no clue. I was shocked and taken aback last night at his lack of knowledge on the issues…I was shocked at his inability to articulate and defend…all he could do was stand there and blame everything on Rauner or Trump, and calling me a liar.”
“’No but yes, no but yes,’ seemed to be [Pritzker’s] answer to everything. We cannot trust this man, and we found that out last night.”
“I’ll come to the table, and I’ll bring everyone. Everyone will have a voice, even that noisy Democrat, you will have a voice, because that’s not happening at all in these last four years.”
The whole interview can be heard on Rumble linked below and on the Facebook page of PBR PAC.
…Adding… Rumors of problems with Budzinski’s numbers…
While Illinois’ governor candidates sparred Thursday night in Normal, 13th Congressional District candidates Regan Deering, a Republican, and Nikki Budzinski, a Democrat, met on the debate stage at the Illinois Public Media studios in Urbana.
While differences were seen in the candidates’ positions on the issues, such as abortion and how to address gun violence, some common ground was noted regarding student loan forgiveness.
Both candidates were not in favor of President Joe Biden’s executive action to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt — a plan the Congressional Budget Office estimates would cost approximately $400 billion.
For Budzinski, a former chief of staff in Biden’s Office of Management, her concern was how taxpayers would cover those costs. The action by the president is not the best way to address college affordability, she said. College tuition and fee rates have increased by 130% since 1990, according to the Education Data Initiative.
* More stories, mostly gathered by Isabel…
* Illinois Supreme Court candidates 2022 battle for 2 open seats in November election: Rochford and O’Brien are both making abortion a key issue in their campaign ads, attacking their opponents for being supported by anti-abortion groups while touting their own pro-abortion credentials as an important qualification for the next justices.
* Sara Paretsky: State Supreme Court races could lead to a rollback of abortion rights in Illinois: Illinois has a so-called trigger law on the books — which would have made abortion illegal with the overturning of Roe. In 2017, the state enacted House Bill 40, blocking the trigger provision. But the Thomas More Society, a national legal group that often represents abortion rights opponents, has filed a lawsuit to overturn H.B. 40. Burke, who at one time professed an affiliation with the DuPage County Thomas More Society, and Curran claim they could be objective in hearing the lawsuit. We heard such promises of objectivity from Trump’s Supreme Court nominees.
* Hard-right PAC forms ‘battle plan’ to take on ‘radical left’ judges in 3 Kentucky races: A new conservative PAC formed in Kentucky this week with a goal of reshaping “radical left” courts plans to spend up to $1.6 million on three key nonpartisan judicial races this fall. It plans to spend the rest of about $21 milliion in judicial races in six other states: Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, and appeals to donors to fund the effort, urging people to give “at least $1,000.”
* Young women are trending liberal. Young men are not: Young women are more likely to identify as liberal now than at any time in the past two decades, a trend that puts them squarely at odds with young men. Forty-four percent of young women counted themselves liberal in 2021, compared to 25 percent of young men, according to Gallup Poll data analyzed by the Survey Center on American Life. The gender gap is the largest recorded in 24 years of polling. The finding culminates years of rising liberalism among women ages 18 to 29, without any increase among their male peers.
* Citadel’s billionaire CEO Ken Griffin becomes GOP $100 million midterm megadonor: Only Soros Fund Management founder George Soros and shipping magnate Richard Uihlein have given more to candidates running for the U.S. House or Senate. Soros has donated over $128 million to Democrats while Uihlein has given $53 million to Republicans, according to OpenSecrets. Griffin, however, has spent another $50 million during this election cycle — which runs from Jan. 1, 2021 through the end of this year — on the failed Illinois gubernatorial campaign of Aurora, Ill., Mayor Richard Irvin, who lost in the Republican primary, according to state campaign finance records.
* Republican Kathy Salvi seeks unlikely upset over US Sen. Tammy Duckworth: Challenging a U.S. senator who has become a national icon to many Democrats, Republican Kathy Salvi balances her uphill bid against U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth with optimism. […] Salvi, an attorney from Mundelein, touts a conservative agenda that includes increasing domestic energy production, shrinking government spending, cutting taxes and increasing border security in taking on Duckworth, the first-term Democratic senator who is a combat veteran who lost both legs in the Iraq War.
* In their own words: Meet the candidates running to replace Cheri Bustos: For the first time in a decade, Rep. Cheri Bustos will not be on the ballot for Illinois’ 17th congressional district. Instead, either Esther Joy King (R) or Eric Sorensen (D) will be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. News 8 sat down with both candidates, to discuss their most important policy points and why they believe you should vote for them.
* Lake Villa trustee looks to unseat McHenry senator who says Illinois goes too far on abortion: A Lake Villa trustee looking to unseat a Republican in the state Senate said she was motivated to run after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. Attorney Allena Barbato is running in the 32nd District against state Sen. Craig Wilcox, a former Air Force colonel and McHenry County Board member who was appointed to the Senate seat in 2018 and won election two years later.
* Swanson, Demink on the ballot for Illinois House District 71: Swanson has been in office since 2017. Currently a retired electrician, Demink is looking to extend past his 30 years of experience in local politics. Demink ran unopposed in the June 28 primary election. Demink most recently served as a precinct committeeman in Mercer County. Both candidates enter the final month of campaigning with concerns of jobs and law enforcement. Specifically, the SAFE-T Act, or the end of cash bail in Illinois.
* Not sure what happened to my live coverage app, so this will be the replacement for now. I put this together in a bit of a hurry, so I’ll be adding more soon. Follow along with Twitter…
Tired of corrupt Madigan cronies getting rich while your costs go up? Madigan’s machine is trying to put Mary Kay O’Brien and Elizabeth Rochford on the Supreme Court. Mary Kay O’Brien was one of the deciding votes to keep Madigan speaker and Rochford’s loyalty got her a sweetheart appointment that made her rich off taxpayers. The Madigan machine’s last hope is electing O’Brien and Rochford to the Supreme Court. End Madigan’s corrupt gravy train. Say no to Mary Kay O’Brien and Elizabeth Rochford.
Tired of corrupt Madigan cronies getting rich while your costs go up? Meet Elizabeth Rochford, a key ally of Mike Mackin. Rochford got appointed to a sweetheart judgeship and got rich off our tax dollars. Now Madigan’s machine is funding her campaign for the Supreme Court. A vote for Rochford is a vote for Madigan.
But there’s a better choice. Mark Curran is an outsider who has fought partisan bosses in both parties. Curran doesn’t owe Madigan for anything. Vote Mark Curran for Supreme Court
* From Lara Cooper at the Rochford campaign…
This is nothing more than a desperate attack by Mark Curran’s right wing extremist allies to deflect attention away from their unqualified, dangerous, and anti-choice candidate. They know that when voters learn that Mark Curran has never been a judge, has been rated ‘not recommended’ by the Illinois State Bar Association, and holds extreme anti-abortion positions and fringe election fraud conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, they’ll vote for Judge Elizabeth Rochford who’s been a judge for a decade and is rated ‘highly recommended’ by the Illinois State Bar Association. Their blatant lies won’t be able to change the fact that Mark Curran is not qualified to serve on our state’s highest court
*** UPDATE 1 *** With a hat tip to a commenter, the Senate Republicans are running a Because… Madigan! ad in the Metro East against appointed Sen. Kris Tharp…
This is the real story on Kris Tharp. Kris Tharp wasn’t elected by the voters. He was hand-picked in a backroom deal and bankrolled by the Chicago political machine. You know, those good old boys, the corrupt might Madigans, who could care less about the Metro East. Tharp’s buddies wrote the book on political corruption. And now he owes everything to them. Who’s Kris Tharp gonna listen to, them or us?
*** UPDATE 2 *** ILGOP…
The ILGOP today unveiled CleanUpILCourts.com, highlighting the Madigan Machine’s historic influence on our judicial system and their latest attempts to stack the bench with two of their very own.
Judge Mary K. O’Brien is the ultimate Madigan insider and her deep ties to the Madigan Machine are well known. O’Brien was appointed as an Appellate Court Justice during her final year in the Illinois General Assembly after voting with Madigan 93.6% of the time. She also “Helped Madigan Regain The Speakership,” and received over $200,000 in political contributions from political groups led by Madigan. O’Brien’s record on the bench is even more concerning, having overturned the convictions of numerous violent criminals.
Judge Elizabeth Rochford is funded by many of the same trial lawyers that bankrolled indicted Speaker Mike Madigan and his judicial cronies for years - receiving nearly $600,000 from them. Further, Rochford donated $1,500 to indicted Chicago Alderman and political machine boss Ed Burke, after he was indicted on corruption charges. When asked, Rochford called Burke a “longtime friend of our family.” Rochford has donated a total of $15,350 to Burke since 1999. She’s also used her connections to lower her property taxes under the same property tax appeals system that made Madigan millions of dollars.
“Illinois voters deserve to know the truth. The Madigan Machine has had far too much influence on our judicial election process for far too long,” said Illinois Republican Party Executive Director Shaun McCabe. “Justice Mary K. O’Brien and Judge Elizabeth Rochford are no exception. Instead of electing two more Madigan Machine retreads to our state’s highest court, it’s well past time Illinois voters made a clean break with the Madigan Machine and its ‘politics-as-usual’ process for electing our judges.”
When voters learn the truth about O’Brien and Rochford’s Madigan Machine ties and troubling records, unsurprisingly they oppose them by wide margins.
Legislators approved the SAFE-T Act at the urging of the Black Caucus in January 2021 as part of Black legislators’ response to the murder of George Floyd.
“This is about trying to build a process that allows people to have faith in the system, and building a process where justice is more fair,” said state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, D-Peoria, a Black Caucus member.
Her own stepson was murdered in 2014.
“Crime is something that has been very prevalent in a lot of communities in Illinois. I myself am a crime victim. My family has seen the absolute worst of every side of this issue,” she said. “For one to think that anybody would be a proponent of crime is silly and it’s quite preposterous.”
More on the murder of Deputy Majority Leader Gordon-Booth’s stepson can be found here. Some of JGB’s work with crime victims is here.
* So, what about her statement that some people are claiming that those supporting the law are a “proponent of crime”? Well, here are just a few quick examples gathered by my associate Isabel Miller…
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin: Until they wake up and repeal their pro-criminal SAFE-T Act, there will be no safe communities in Illinois.
Rep. Andrew Chesney: “How did we get here? During the final hours of the 2021 lame duck session, Illinois Democrats rammed through anti-police, pro-criminal legislation, which Governor Pritzker then signed into law.”
Rep. Joe Sosnowski: “Together with thousands of like-minded citizens across Illinois, we can put pressure on Illinois Democrats to reverse course on their dangerous pro-criminal policies before it is too late.”
Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey: No mention of this officer by our anti-law enforcement Governor, no mention of this officer by the authors of HB 3653 Sen. Elgie Sims or Rep. Justin Slaughter both anti-law enforcement legislators who rammed through anti-police/pro-criminal legislation in the early morning hours when no one was watching.
JGB was and remains a SAFE-T Act proponent, but also says that changes will be made in the veto session.
* On to a media advisory…
Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, along with Representatives Keith Wheeler and Chris Bos, will host a news conference via zoom and broadcast on BlueRoomStream on Wednesday, October 5 at 12:00 pm (Noon) CT.
The SAFE-T Act, which takes effect on January 1st, will end cash bail and increase property taxes to pay for this new government program. House Republicans will discuss the increased costs on local governments which will be heaped upon overburdened property taxpayers in Illinois.
* One of their House Republican candidates laid out the property tax argument in a recent press release…
Illinois House 66th District Candidate Connie Cain will support repealing the SAFE-T Act to protect the community and prevent property tax increases from filling the budget holes that the legislation is creating for local governments.
Last week, the Kane County Board announced it was discussing the first property tax increase in a decade to fill a deficit - about $3 million of which was created by unfunded mandated reforms in the SAFE-T Act - which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2023, as reported by the Daily Herald.
As a United States Army Reserves veteran and a Licensed Certified Public Accountant with over 20 years of financial experience, Cain is concerned that the legislation is fiscally irresponsible and harmful to public safety.
“The SAFE-T Act defunds the police through unfunded mandates and cost shifts to local taxpayers for administering our criminal justice system after January 1st,” said Cain. “This defunding is forcing local governments like ours to increase property taxes, decrease public safety, or both. If elected, I will fight to repeal this legislation and its accompanying hikes to our local property taxes, which are already the second-highest in the nation thanks to tax-and-spend politicians in Springfield.”
While the SAFE-T Act has been receiving national attention for its sweeping overhaul of Illinois’ criminal justice and pre-trial detention system that could threaten public safety, taxpayers are only just becoming aware of the very real defunding and tax hikes the legislation punts to local government officials.
“This legislation undoes all the hard work local officials have put in over the last ten years to avoid local property tax hikes,” Cain said. “We are seeing the defunding play out in real-time and, as always, it will overburden Kane County taxpayers and families footing the bill.”
The Kane County Board has tried to prevent property tax increases by keeping government salaries lower than neighboring DuPage and Lake counties, but new costs are driving the conversation about tax hikes. The SAFE-T Act was opposed by nearly every law enforcement organization in the state, and it was criticized by local governments concerned it would be especially detrimental to smaller police departments and drive up taxes. The final legislation was passed in the middle of the night without a single Republican vote.
Illinois House Republicans proactively filed House Resolution 598 in January, which “Urges the Illinois General Assembly to value and protect crime victims and law enforcement and to repeal House Bill 3653, the SAFE-T Act, in its entirety.” The resolution was never called for a vote. Cain said she would be introducing new legislation to both repeal no cash bail and other dangerous provisions of the SAFE-T Act and to prevent property tax hikes to fund criminal justice reforms.
Leader Durkin is Lying, SAFE-T Act Does Not Require Property Tax Increase
The SAFE-T Act does not require counties to raise property taxes to fund the criminal legal system after eliminating cash bail. For the last two years, the Administrative Office of Illinois Courts has been working with stakeholders from every branch of government to ensure that counties across Illinois have the guidance and resources they need to effectively make this transition. Non-partisan and bi-partisan groups agree that forcibly extracting revenue through a system of cash bail from low-income people and families living in poverty is not a financially responsible, sustainable, or ethical way to fund government operations.
Money bond does not keep communities safe because it allows people who are a safety or flight risk to be released pretrial as long as they have money, and it jails people who are legally innocent solely because they are poor. People should not be jailed pretrial simply because they can’t afford to pay bond.
In today’s press conference, Leader Durkin claimed that eliminating cash bail removes an operational revenue stream for the criminal legal system. Funding government operations should not happen on the backs of and through the incarceration of low-income communities and people of color. Most people who are unable to pay a money bail, and who are consequently incarcerated pretrial, fall within the poorest third of society. Unnecessary pretrial incarceration of those who are innocent leads to the disruption of family, neighborhood, employment, and community ties. Such disruptions can actually increase the risk of recidivism and destabilize community safety.
Wealth-based incarceration has torn families apart. In Chicago, Lavette Mayes, a mother of two and small business owner was jailed for 571 days because she could not afford to pay her bond. During that time, Ms. Mayes lost her home and business and almost lost custody of her children. Several years after her case ended, Ms. Mayes is still recovering from the harms caused by her pretrial incarceration, and her children remain traumatized to this day. Stories like this one are present in communities across the state, which is why legislators worked to eradicate the use of money bond in Illinois.
Money bond extracts wealth from our state’s poorest communities who are forced to choose between paying rent and paying a ransom to free their loved ones. It is also costly for counties across the state. Pretrial incarceration costs an estimated $40,567 per person per year.
By eliminating cash bail, the Pretrial Fairness provisions of the SAFE-T Act makes sure that low-income people are not trapped in a cycle of poverty and jail time in a criminal justice system that violates the basic constitutional and human rights of our community’s most vulnerable people. The SAFE-T Act ensures that decisions about who is released pretrial and who is jailed are based on safety needs and not access to money. Our justice system should focus on public safety needs and not on generating revenue.
Since Governor Pritzker took office, over $1.1 billion annually has been allocated to local governments to assist with costs over and above what they were previously receiving from the state. This is on top of the 49% increase in revenue sharing to local governments over Governor Pritzker’s first term. In addition, the FY23 budget includes, but certainly is not limited to, an additional $30 million in grants to help local governments with the costs of body and vehicle cameras, which have been proven to be a critical element of a reformed criminal justice system. For pretrial services, to date the state has provided an additional $26 million in funding for the Illinois Supreme Court’s requested support for the first phase of a three-part effort to establish comprehensive pretrial services in the counties without such services.
The Governor has and will continue to work with the General Assembly and local governments to ensure the appropriate resources are allocated to support the reforms passed in the SAFE-T act. The Pre-trial Fairness Act creates a system where detention is based on risk, rather than poverty: that’s why domestic violence groups and other victims’ rights groups support it. Public safety is best addressed by focusing on risk to the community, not on who can afford to pay their way out of jail, and a system that supports that is essential to a fair and equal Illinois. It seems that Republicans are advocating for pretrial defendants to uniquely bear the cost of running our criminal justice system, which is not only unfair but also racist, as found by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
* COVID-19 hospitalizations have now fallen to under 900. Hospitalizations were above 7,300 in January, dropped precipitously to the 400s in March, then rose to about 1,500 in July, where they held fairly steady until falling below 1,000 in late September.
So, who are these folks in the hospital? The Illinois Department of Public Health looked at data from June 1 through September 26 and produced a quick report at my request. “UTD” means up to date on vaccinations, including boosters, except the most recent booster which wasn’t available until early September. The “Not UTD” category covers everyone from those who are not vaccinated at all to those who hadn’t yet received their third shot.
Hospitalized cases in Illinois by age group and vaccination status…
Based on the table above 42% of all hospitalized cases for this period (2022/06/01-2022/09/26) were 70+ and Not_Up to date and 66 percent are Not Up-to-date and over 50.
* With that in mind, let’s circle back to Mary Ann Ahern’s coverage of last Friday’s joint candidate interviews…
I did follow up with the Bailey campaign to ask ‘Has the candidate been vaccinated?’ They will not answer that question.
* Tuesday press release that I somehow missed in my in-box yesterday…
Today, the Nikki Budzinski for Congress campaign is launching its second broadcast television ad of the general election. The ad, called “Walk the Walk”, is delivered by former Macon County Sheriff Tony Brown, and focuses on law enforcement’s support of Budzinski. The Illinois Police Benevolent and Protective Association endorsed Nikki earlier this summer.
Budzinski was the first candidate to begin paid advertising in IL13. “Walk the Walk” will run on broadcast in the St. Louis, and Springfield, Decatur, Champaign media markets.
Thursday at 7 p.m.: An IL-13 debate between Republican Regan Deering and Democrat Nikki Budzinski. Sponsored by Illinois Public Media, WAND News and the League of Women Voters of Champaign County. The debate will be broadcast live on WILL-TV, WILL-AM 580, WILL-FM 90.9, WSIU-TV, WSUI-FM out of Carbondale, the 9 Network, KSDK (online only), STLPR NPR out of St. Louis, WAND out of Decatur and NPR Illinois out of Springfield. It will also stream on Illinois Public Media’s Facebook and YouTube pages.
