Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Thursday, Oct 15, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller

* I had never heard of 11th Congressional District Republican candidate Henry Meers until this morning. It turns out, he has a staff, including a pretty well-known “senior strategy advisor.”

What brought him to my attention was when a friend Tweeted about a Meers campaign video. You absolutely must watch the first few seconds of this video.

The dude really, truly needs to get an editor…

Classic.

He also apparently thinks he’s running against Barney Frank.

OK, I have sufficiently diverted myself from the important issues of the day.

Back to work I go.

24 Comments

Feed the beast

Thursday, Oct 15, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Jack Conaty of Fox Chicago scored an exclusive interview with Speaker Madigan yesterday. You can (and should) watch the whole thing by clicking here.

I’ve excerpted part of the interview where Madigan tries to blame almost everything that’s gone wrong on the Republican Party. On ethics reforms, free mass transit rides for seniors, budget battles, etc., he claims the GOP is a “do nothing” party that doesn’t want to help find solutions. Take a look…

“They don’t want to work on anything, they don’t want to support anything, they’re for nothing. They want to watch, comment and sit on the sidelines.”

* But he can’t blame everything on the Republicans. Some of his own members are not happy that Madigan won’t budge on caucus leader and party contribution caps…

The main problem is the proposal’s failure to limit how much money legislative leaders and political parties can funnel to candidates, said Peter Bensinger, co-chairman of the CHANGE Illinois Coalition. Members of the coalition participated in negotiations to craft a new campaign finance plan after Gov. Pat Quinn in August vetoed a different version, which critics had described as a sham.

Without such limits, “the balance of power becomes more entrenched in Springfield in the hands of the few,” he said, adding he hopes the bill can be improved by continued negotiations. “This is like a house without a roof.”

Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, said the bill’s lack of contribution limits on legislative leaders and political parties is a “dealbreaker,” so he won’t vote for it.

But Madigan defended the legislation. If political parties and legislative leaders had to abide by limits, he said, they’d simply spend money on campaigns in other ways that would be harder to track.

* The obvious compromise here is to cap leaders’ spending and then they can just do uncoordinated independent expenditures on all their campaigns - just like they do in DC.

But the Democratic leaders don’t want to do that for various reasons. They hold the gavels, for one, and don’t want to give up what they consider to be their rights. They also may be worried that a piddly little violation of the “uncoordinated” rule could bring the G into the game.

But, frankly, I’m just sick of this whole back and forth. On one side, we have reformers and editorial writers who are absolutely demanding a reform that won’t accomplish much of anything. On the other side we have leaders absolutely resisting a reform that will barely encroach on their powers.

So, cap the stupid contributions and make the screamers happy. Nothing will change in the least, but the beast will have been fed.

End this, please.

…Adding… Related…

* Free rides for seniors proving too costly for RTA: Free rides for seniors and people with disabilities could end up costing local transit agencies more than $1 billion by 2030, a report shows.

* Local communities seek pension relief from state

* Campaign finance “redo” in limbo

* State campaign finance limits advance over objections

* Committee OKs Unlimited Political Party Spending

* New Illinois campaign finance reform bill looks a lot like the old one

* Illinois campaign financing: Madigan makes stab at reform

* House eyes campaign finance plan again

32 Comments

It’s not always as it seems

Thursday, Oct 15, 2009 - Posted by Rich Miller

* From a Tribune editorial…

Challengers hoping to unseat incumbent Democrats in the Illinois House got a marvelous gift Wednesday from many of those very incumbents. By a vote of 65-51, the House fell six yes votes short of killing the full-percentage-point sales tax increase engineered last year by Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. That is, if six of those nays instead had been yeas, the measure would have moved to the Senate. And if the Senate went along, you soon would be paying less in taxes to support Stroger and his astonishingly wasteful government.

Look for your state representative’s name on the roll call, available at chicagotribune.com/tax. Those who voted “no” voted to enable Stroger.

Actually, if you look at the roll call, the only Cook County Democrat who appears to be at all vulnerable for this “No” vote is Rep. Elaine Nekritz of Northbrook. [A commenter points out that Rep. Ken Dunkin might also be vulnerable. We’ll see.]

Quite a few Downstate Republicans and Democrats voted “No.” From the Tribune’s own news coverage…

Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, said he worried that repealing the county’s tax increase would set a bad precedent for the General Assembly to butt into local tax issues.

Black voted “Yes” on the bill, but several of his Downstate GOP colleagues voted “No,” including staunch conservatives like Reps. Chapin Rose and Jim Sacia.

* Back to the Tribune editorial…

The good news: The House did approve, 95-18, a measure that could still lead to a repeal of the sales tax increase.

That measure would decrease from four-fifths to three-fifths the share of County Board members needed to override a board president’s veto. That bizarre four-fifths threshold has allowed Stroger to thwart his board’s oft-voted desire to reduce or eliminate his cherished sales tax increase.

Wednesday evening, a Senate committee approved the bill that sailed through the House.

Actually, no.

As I told subscribers this morning, the House bill to lower the override threshold is still in the House. Patterson noticed the same thing…

But sometime after the vote Wednesday, state Rep. Deborah Graham invoked a procedural maneuver that, at least for the moment, stalls the legislation in the House.

Graham, a Chicago Democrat, filed a “motion to reconsider” the vote by which the legislation passed. She’s entitled to do that because she voted for it. Procedurally this means her motion must be addressed before the legislation can advance in the system.

When that might happen is unclear. I wasn’t able to find her late Wednesday. Speaker Michael Madigan’s spokesman said he was unaware of Graham’s efforts when I talked to him Wednesday night.