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Wednesday, Jul 6, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* From the Take Charge Chicago website…

Pat Quinn observed the 240th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence by urging the people of Chicago to sign and circulate the Take Charge Chicago petition to term limit the mayor and establish an elected Consumer Advocate for Chicago’s beleaguered taxpayers and consumers.

In signing the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the Founding Fathers risked everything to establish democracy and throw out monarchy.

The Take Charge Chicago referendums are in keeping with the “Spirit of 1776” where Chicago voters by binding referendum will tell the Mayor what the rules are, not the other way around.

The Take Charge Chicago referendums would be the first binding referendums in memory once 100,000 signatures are collected.

Using an ironing board as a portable petition-signing station at the George Washington statue on the Chicago River, Quinn and Take Charge Chicago unveiled a new campaign video called “Revolution.”

The 60-second animated film features George Washington arguing for term limits as he crosses the Delaware and John Adams being perplexed that Chicago doesn’t have a mayoral term limit.

Produced by a Columbia College videographer, “Revolution” shows that Chicago is the only city among the nation’s ten largest without mayoral term limits and that 20 Illinois communities now have it for their chief executives. To watch the video, click here.

Most of our nation’s Founders were term limits advocates in the American drive to win independence from King George III who reigned on the English throne for 59 years.

* Rate it…

Hat tip: IR.

46 Comments

It’s already getting super ugly

Friday, Jul 1, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* A couple of readers have told me about a new robocall. One recorded it. It’s not pretty…

* Script…

Hi, my name is Karol, and I’m appalled that our state Representative Ron Sandack admitted in the Tribune that he accosted a female state worker on the House floor. Please call Ron Sandack at… and demand he apologize for his inexcusable behavior.

The referenced Tribune story is here.

* The incident in question came at a particularly emotional moment on the House floor. The Democrats had just jammed through a budget and adjourned for the evening. Tensions were high. The alleged act can be seen by clicking here and going to the 51-minute mark.

There’s no candidate disclosure on that robocall, but Sandack’s Democratic opponent used several of the same words from the call in a post on his website last month. From what I can gather, this was not a Madigan operation thing. Likely the candidate himself.

* From Rep. Sandack…

As the House Republican Floor Leader I confronted Speaker Madigan’s lawyer and the House of Representatives’ Parliamentarian about the outrageous breach of procedural rules and etiquette the evening the House Democrats jammed a $7B out balance budget through the House. Debate was unceremoniously cut off, no vote verification occurred, and the Democrats immediately thereafter gaveled out of session after the vote, all in clear violation of House Rules. My conversation with the Parliamentarian was pointed and assertive, and rightfully so. The next day the House Democrats on their own motion reconsidered their actions and held another vote on their unbalanced budget bill. I spoke to the House Parliamentarian subsequently to advise I meant nothing personally, had no intention to startle, and was only speaking up for and defending my caucus in the face of some brazen procedural shenanigans that should never have happened.

I do know, by talking to all involved, that what Sandack says at the end was true. He did talk to her, they worked it out and moved along.

But, man. It’s only July 1st. Gonna be a long, hot summer.

27 Comments

“We certainly are not undoing the damage that we’ve done to this state by not working together, by not doing our jobs”

Friday, Jul 1, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller

* Mark Brown…

Sen. Donne Trotter, a Chicago Democrat, offered an appropriately sober assessment of the six-month stopgap state budget deal the Legislature approved Thursday.

Trotter, who helped craft the long overdue spending plan, advised his fellow lawmakers not to get carried away patting themselves on the back.

“This is just us doing our job. We’re making like it’s a special thing,” Trotter said.

Indeed, after 18 months without any sort of a budget while social service agencies and state universities withered on the vine, it was easy to get overly-excited about the compromise struck by Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats to keep the schools open another year and the government barely operating until January.

To that, I plead guilty as charged. In the cold light of day, the road ahead remains daunting for a state stuck in reverse. […]

The governor and the Legislature did their job Thursday, not as well as we might have liked but better than we’ve come to expect. No need to be grateful.

Agreed.

I’m very relieved that this nightmare will end for a few months, but it’s gonna start all over again in November.

* I, too, was impressed with Sen. Trotter’s remarks. Here’s more…

“This isn’t really a stopgap. It’s more like a pressure release valve. We’re allowing people just to breathe a little bit more. But we certainly are not undoing the damage that we’ve done to this state by not working together, by not doing our jobs.

“This is a beginning. We have a long way to go. And we know we have to do it for human services, for K-12, we have to do it for higher education, we have to do it for ourselves. We have a lot of work to do.”

* I asked the SDems yesterday for the raw audio…

21 Comments

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