Today, Biss for Illinois announced Abby Witt, the former Managing Director of Organizing for America (OFA), as its campaign manager. An Evanston native, Witt was responsible for strategic planning and day-to-day operations of OFA, an organization dedicated to advancing a progressive agenda through grassroots action and training.
“If we want real change and to start solving problems in Illinois, we need to build a movement to take our state back from money and the machine,” said Biss. “Building a bold and progressive grassroots campaign requires an organizer leading us every day, and we got one of the best in Abby Witt.”
Witt has over a decade of experience working with campaigns and progressive causes. Prior to her work organizing at OFA, Witt played several roles in the Obama presidential campaigns and administration from regional field director in key states in 2008 to Director of Political Operations during Obama’s 2012 re-election bid. Most recently, Witt worked with the Chicago Public Schools where she focused on improving the connection between the community and the school district. Witt’s professional background also includes time at the Center for American Progress and the Common Purpose Project.
“Daniel Biss started in politics as a community organizer and understands that real change doesn’t come with the ability to cut a check, but with the ability to organize a community,” said Witt. “I’m honored to join a movement to take our state back from money and the machine, and set us on a new course.”
“There is no one or two structural changes that we need to have as a requirement. I’ve never said any one thing has to be there,” Rauner said Friday during the [WBEZ] radio interview. “But we need a package of changes, structural changes that materially move the needle.”
Yet to move the needle to satisfy Rauner, the governor said “term limits definitely helps big with that.”
“So far the Senate Democrats have proposed a term limit on Senate leaders through a rule change, just for the Senate leader would be term limited. Well what we need is term limits on everybody, on me, on everybody in the General Assembly. That’s not on the table as of now,” he said.
Such elusiveness has frustrated some lawmakers at the Capitol who are looking for clarity on what it will take to reach agreement. Democrats like [Rep. Lou Lang] suggested Rauner isn’t being up front when he’s preaching flexibility.
“As you’ve seen the last few days, he’s commented, ‘Well, I don’t really need this. I don’t really need that. I just need everyone to come together.’ But the truth is that’s not what he wants,” Lang said.
* The Question: Do you think Gov. Rauner really wants a deal to end the impasse? Click here to take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. Thanks.
As Illinois considers raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, up from the current $8.25, advocates say the changing face of the low-wage worker is a reason why the minimum wage must be a living wage.
But some businesses insist a hike could kill them, causing more harm to workers and communities than good.
Ed Schubert, whose family owns the Dairy Queen franchise where Simpson works, said he can’t imagine how he’d keep his shop afloat with a $15 minimum wage, a rate he thinks shouldn’t apply to his largely teenage staff. […]
One survey found Illinoisans to be skeptical. TSheets, a time-tracking software, polled 500 Illinois residents and found two-thirds said they believed the $15 proposal would fail and nearly half said they did not support it; another 20 percent were indifferent. But they didn’t support the status quo, either. Only 6.5 percent of those surveyed believed the minimum wage should stay at $8.25. A raise to $12 was the most popular choice.
That wasn’t really a poll. It was a Google Survey. Click here for the results. Note the partisan breakdown. It leans Democratic by just 2 points. That’s not your usual Illinois result.
There’s a state budget plan circulating Springfield circles that is 1. balanced, 2. hides no tax hikes, and 3. actually makes budget cuts.
We’re calling it the “McPlan” budget prescription. Too good to be true, you say?
Republican State Senators Kyle McCarter and Dan McConchie (the Mc’s - get it?) are staking their stellar political reputations on what they’re calling the “Taxpayer Bargain Budget Plan” in response to Senator Bill Brady’s “Grand Bargain Budget” that features an income tax hike to pay bills that are stacking up.
“The plan is very strong medicine for a very sick state,” McCarter and McConchie said last week in an op-ed about their proposal. “It forces the Legislature to make tough decisions between needs and wants. The ‘Taxpayer Bargain’ requires lower spending, with 10% across-the-board cuts at state agencies and departments. It simply asks for a dime of savings for every dollar spent.”
Contact your senator and representative and ask them to sign on as a sponsor to one of the 15 bills that are needed to deliver a no-tax-increase-balanced-budget to the governor.
Except, the package of bills hasn’t even been introduced yet. Right now, the “plan” is a press release.
* From the Illinois Policy Institute’s news service…
In the wake of a publicly funded Illinois university trying to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a graduation speaker in the midst of a fiscal crisis, a state lawmaker is reintroducing a bill that would ban the practice.
Local control! Except when we don’t like local control!
State Sen. Jacqueline Collins wants to bar insurance companies from using a person’s ZIP code when setting auto insurance premiums.
The Chicago Democrat said Monday she’ll add the ZIP code rule to her pending bill that would block insurers from considering a person’s credit rating. […]
A recent report published by ProPublica and Consumer Reports that focused in Illinois and three other states concluded 33 of 34 insurance companies analyzed in Illinois charged at least 10 percent more in ZIP codes where a majority of the residents are minorities. Additionally, six Illinois insurers charged rates as high as 30 percent higher in minority ZIP codes, the report showed.
The Insurance Information Institute trade group disputed the report’s findings after hiring an independent expert to review the data it’s based on.
A good friend of mine moved from her Chicago home east of Western Ave. in the Beverly neighborhood a few blocks west to the Mount Greenwood neighborhood and every one of her insurance bills went down.
* Wanna bet that a bill gets filed to address this issue?…
You may be sweating through the annual race to file your income tax returns on time, but the state of Illinois is still trying to get tax returns that were due two years ago from hundreds of the very state employees whose salaries you pay.
Two incumbent state lawmakers are among the 312 people who the Department of Revenue determined are getting state checks but still haven’t filed returns for calendar year 2014, which were due two springs ago.
Each has already been assessed a $250 penalty for delinquency and faces an additional penalty equivalent to 10 percent of any taxes owed.
[Christopher Mooney, director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois] questioned the continued effectiveness of Rauner’s blame-Madigan excuses as the campaign for governor fully begins to take shape.
“Generally speaking, the governor is held responsible, the chief executive of a unit is held responsible, by the public. That’s what we know about public opinion. It’s a pretty simplistic view of the world. And as time goes on, he’s got to take responsibility for that. Maybe he can effectively blame somebody else like Madigan or whoever, but that’s not normally what works,” Mooney said.
Asked about his ability to work with veteran Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, Pritzker said governors “don’t get to choose … who the speaker is.”
“I’m an independent thinker and independent leader. I have been my whole life,” he said.
Rauner, Pritzker said, is seeking a second term by asking people to forget about his first term.
“He’s now campaigning for re-election pretending the last 2 1/2 years didn’t happen, as if to say it’s his agenda going forward, but we should just forget that 2 1/2 years have gone by,” Pritzker said of Rauner.
Oswego Willy’s favorite line in comments is “Governors own.”
And that’s normally true, as Mooney says. But this isn’t a normal state. Speaker Madigan is phenomenally unpopular here. He is every Illinoisan’s favorite bogey man - across the political spectrum and in every demographic. For crying out loud, the most recent Paul Simon poll had Rauner out-polling Madigan in Chicago.
So, all you gotta do is point the finger at Madigan and millions of Illinoisans don’t have to even think before they nod in agreement. It’s easy peasy.
* But in the wake of his attempt to kill off the Senate’s grand bargain, Rauner became the bad guy, which is why he’s now attempting to pin the blame on Madigan for its failure and praising the Senate Democrats.
And he did it again today in the Quad Cities…
.@GovRauner heaps praise on Senate Democrats at QC Chamber event. Says they want a balanced budget.
This reset appears to be a tacit acknowledgement that he lost the spin war in the Senate, so the governor is now trying to bring the debate back to more favorable turf: Speaker Madigan.
* Will it work? It certainly did during legislative campaigns last year, but it’s arguably tougher now that there are Democratic candidates zapping the governor from all sides.
On the other hand, the administration has almost no legislative accomplishments they can point to. Rauner’s always talking about the stuff he has done on his own and uses that to show how he could even greater things if it wasn’t for that Madigan dude.
“Blame Madigan!” is really the only thing they have in their arsenal right now. So Madigan is being painted as the “real” incumbent with Rauner as the good guy outsider tryin’ his gosh-durned best to change Illinois for the better.
Those of you who have been around a few years will remember how things used to be at the Chicago Transit Authority. Every year or two, the agency would suffer one of its inevitable financial crises. Without enough cash to pay the bills, whoever was the boss at the time would throw a five-alarm news conference, vowing to shut half the el stops, limit bus service to daylight hours every other Tuesday, and otherwise force everyone to walk 10 miles to work.
Eventually, the CTA’s financial situation stabilized. But the lesson of “let’s hold our breath until we turn blue and scare the bejabbers out of everybody” apparently was not lost on Forrest Claypool, the ex-CTA boss who now runs Chicago Public Schools and is threatening to shut down CPS almost three weeks early in June because he can’t pay the bills. He and Mayor Rahm Emanuel loudly blame the shortfall on Gov. Bruce Rauner, who they say reneged on a deal to provide $215 million for CPS pensions.
There’s merit to Claypool’s claim, although the situation is more complicated than he suggests. But I have come to suspect that his threat to toss the kiddies out onto the mean streets isn’t real as much as a means to whip up parents to contact their lawmakers and demand that CPS get that $215 million tout de suite! […]
can’t see Emanuel raising property taxes further. Nor can I see him following Lewis’ advice to “go where the money is” and hit up the rich and/or bring back the hated employee head tax. And the tax-increment financing program just doesn’t have the $400 million-plus in excess cash that would legally be needed to give CPS $215 million right now.
That leaves borrowing, which would be extremely expensive, given CPS’ abysmal credit rating, but perhaps possible in small amounts. And/or a shorter early recess, more layoffs of those hated CPS bureaucrats or a delay of a few weeks in a huge $721 million pension payment CPS is scheduled to make by June 30. In other words, something ugly, short-term and unsustainable. Somehow, it fits at CPS.
Also, CPS’ budget is so opaque it’s difficult to tell if they’re being honest about their finances.
So do you want footage of Schakowsky, Quigley and a reluctant Biss doing the Chicken Dance from the Tax Day Rally?
But of course, I replied. A dancing gubernatorial candidate is always a fun post, especially so when it’s attempted by a very, um, non-loose guy like Daniel Biss.
* I allowed commenters to rate the state spending cut proposals from the Democratic gubernatorial candidates last week.
* Here’s Juice on Ald. Ameya Pawar’s proposal to get rid of the state subsidy for Sox Park…
If the hotel/motel tax revenue is not sufficient to meet the debt service, the City of Chicago then becomes on the hook for the payments (which many on here are probably fine with, but a Chicago Alderman probably shouldn’t be).
Nice talking point, but not likely doable.
* Evanstonian on Sen. Daniel Biss’s long soliloquy …
Definitely laughed at Biss’ bold plan to save the taxpayers $138,000/year. Nice work, progressive champ.
Also, I asked for “one state spending program that you/your candidate would cut or reduce if elected,” and Leslie Munger’s salary isn’t exactly a spending program, unless you lump it in with patronage hiring.
* Arthur Andersen on Superintendent Bob Daiber’s proposal to abolish CMS…
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, CMS manages a handful of the more difficult programs in State Government. So, when we abolish it, does every agency procure their own healthcare? Will we see “streamlined procurement” like DHS and the empty warehouse? Let every agency decide what kind of vehicles they like without the advantage of buying in bulk?
Good point, but as another commenter mentioned, CMS charges agencies huge fees to do their purchasing, which artificially inflates agency costs in order to subsidize CMS’ operations.
* Chris Kennedy wants to merge the comptroller and treasurer’s office, so that qualifies as a cut, albeit a tiny one.
* Nobody really weighed in on Pritzker’s actual proposal, which was basically an “ounce of prevention” type thing. He wants to spend more money on certain programs in order to save money. There is a growing body of evidence to support his claims (click here for an informative NYT article on this very topic), but I asked for a specific programmatic cut. So, he didn’t answer the question.
It was kind of a silly story because the final deadline for passing House bills out of the originating chamber isn’t until April 28th. The Senate has the same deadline for passing its own bills over to the House. Those deadlines weren’t even mentioned in the story, by the way.
And it’s more than a little ironic that the ILGOP would use this angle since the most important legislation of the year was derailed in the Senate by Gov. Rauner.
Gov. Bruce Rauner: The bad news is the House Democratic leadership has been sending over some of their lieutenants and some of the leaders of their special interest groups that fund them over to attack the Senate Democrats — and try to blow up the grand bargain. That’s what’s been happening over the last six weeks. And I feel bad for Senate President Cullerton and some of his Senate Democrats. […]
Tony Sarabia: Where did you hear that about House Democrats, because this is the first time that we’re hearing this — that they’re sending over, as you say, special interests to block …
Rauner: You should check with the Senate Democrats about the pressure they’re getting. President Cullerton has been under relentless pressure. Special interest groups are beating him up. Senate Democrats are feeling a lot of pressure. In fact, I’ve been told that several — I won’t name names right here on this program — but several of the Senate Democrats have decided, boy, it’s not worth the pressure they’re getting. They’re pulling back off the grand bargain and not wanting to negotiate anymore.
Cullerton spokesman John Patterson questioned Rauner’s assertion of House Democratic involvement.
“I don’t think they had anything to do with … Republican votes for the budget deal disappearing overnight,” he said.
According to Patterson, the full quote was “I don’t think they had anything to do with all but one of the Republican votes for the budget deal disappearing overnight,” a reference to Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno’s lone support in the face of the governor’s opposition.
Aside from Radogno, the only people in the Senate who are standing against the groups and people who fund their campaigns are Democrats. Not all of them, for sure, but most.
It’s not just that universities create opportunities by educating students; they create opportunities by their very existence, especially in places without other major industries. As long as the budget impasse scares students and parents away from its schools, the state loses out on both.
“We had a net loss of 16,000 students last fall who went to school out of state. An enhancement of the MAP program might have kept some of those folks in state,” said [Illinois State University President Larry Dietz]. “Imagine if we kept just half of those 16,000 students. Just think what 8,000 students would have done for all the institutions in the state. 16,000 who left means conservatively $10,00 in tuition and fees that is crossing the state line. That’s $160 million a year.” […]
“The biggest issue around the leaving is the human capital and the intellectual capacity that those individuals take with them. If you go out of state you reduce dramatically the probability that person returning in state to start their business, serve a not for profit, whatever that might be. You may never get that human capacity back. That to me is the worst part of all of this.” […]
Eastern Illinois University President Davis Glassman, without referring to the governor by name, said there “has been much talk of growth needing to be a major element” of the changes the state needs.
“EIU agrees wholeheartedly and we would point out that our greatest opportunity for growth as a state will be through supporting the personal growth of our more than 12 million residents,” as in improving Illinois by investing in Illinoisans, he said.
“We take students from all backgrounds and circumstances and help them identify where they can make the most significant contributions,” said Glassman. “We then train them and arm them with the analytical skills necessary to improve not only their own circumstances but those of their communities and beyond.”
* Biss was clearly a star of the show, but the march didn’t get a whole lot of coverage…
Large protests rarely begin with the Chicken Dance, but Saturday’s Tax March in Chicago’s Richard J. Daley plaza was an exception.
The march — attended by thousands of protesters — called for President Donald Trump to release his tax returns. It was one of about 200 such marches held across the country ahead of Tax Day on Tuesday. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and State Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) spoke, as did Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker on Sunday accused the media of trying to divide the primary field into categories of establishment and progressive contenders and said he’s firmly in the progressive camp despite his immense wealth.
“Let’s be clear that it’s the media that’s decided to break it down into an establishment versus progressive. I’m a progressive,” the billionaire investor and entrepreneur said on WGN AM-720 in describing his work on child care, education, social justice and job creation.
“There’s nobody running in this race and nobody on the other side — for sure, the governor — who’s created jobs like I have. So job creation is hugely important. It’s something I’m running on. I don’t know what you want to call that. I call that good for the state,” he said in reference to founding the private investment firm the Pritzker Group and the tech incubator 1871.
Pritzker is seeking the Democratic nomination for the chance to take on Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner along with another wealthy rival, Chris Kennedy of the iconic political family. Two others seeking the nomination — 47th Ward Ald. Ameya Pawar and state Sen. Daniel Biss of Evanston — have warned Democrats they should not try to combat Rauner’s wealth by nominating a wealthy candidate and have sought support among populist progressives in the party.
We’ve had four cycles in a row where the Democratic candidate attacked the Republican candidate for being a rich white guy (Quinn vs. Brady, Obama vs. Romney, Quinn vs. Rauner, Clinton vs. Trump). It’s what they do, and it’s worked more often than not in this state, so Pritzker is in for the same treatment.
Pritzker is in Springfield and Champaign today…
JB Pritzker to tour the Illinois Coalition for Community Services and learn about how the organization has adapted without a state budget. ICCR is a member of the Illinois Collaboration on Youth, an organization that serves as a collective voice for young people and community-based providers.
He’s also apparently doing a lot of social media advertising…
Iroquois County Democrats are already on board with former University of Illinois board chairman Chris Kennedy as their party’s nominee for governor in 2018.
The party’s central committee endorsed Kennedy last Tuesday — more than 11 months before the March 20 primary election.
“It was the initiative of the people on the committee,” said Dale Strough, party chairman. “Even though it is early in the campaign I think we have a pretty good idea of the field, who is running and the basic information and who we think is the best candidate.”
Strough said there was discussion about making the unusually early endorsement, “but in the end it was unanimously approved.”
Illinois House Democrats will launch a social media campaign to promote candidates who are lifting up the middle class, and push back against Republican politicians who continue pushing an agenda that protects corporations and corporate CEOs at the expense of Illinois’ families.
Democratic Majority’s Lifting Up Illinois campaign can be found at facebook.com/LiftingUpIL and twitter.com/LiftingUpIL. The pages will share news and information on House Democrats’ efforts to advance aggressive economic reforms that strengthen the middle class, grow the economy and help Illinois businesses compete.
“Governor Rauner and Illinois House Republicans are failing to do their jobs. They remain focused on promoting a corporate agenda that hurts middle-class families in order to boost the profits of big businesses. House Democrats want to rewrite the rules so we can protect working families, and we plan to share our own message about lifting up Illinois, not tearing it down,” said Steve Brown, spokesman for the Democratic Majority. “We agree Illinois must do more to create jobs, but cutting the wages of middle-class families and stripping away workplace protections to boost corporate profits isn’t real reform. House Democrats have a clear vision for revitalizing our economy and creating jobs, and we look forward to promoting our message and holding accountable those who stand with corporate interests over working families.”
While Gov. Rauner and House Republicans continue to stand by their corporate agenda, House Democrats are fighting for economic reforms to grow the economy and build a stronger middle class. To this end, House Democrats are working to put more money in the pockets of working families by expanding middle-class tax credits and raising the minimum wage. Efforts by House Democrats are also being made to level the playing field for Illinois’ small and medium-sized employers while closing loopholes that allow big corporations to avoid paying any taxes at all.
Not much of anything at either of those two links yet. We’ll see how this develops. Any suggestions?
* From a full-page newspaper ad that ran October 14th and signed by dozens of pro-choice Republicans and Democrats including Diana Rauner herself, who helped personally pay for the advertisement…
The only difference between Bruce Rauner and Pat Quinn on reproductive rights is the issue of parental notification. Pat Quinn opposes parental notification, and Bruce Rauner favors it.
In accordance with his beliefs that healthcare should not be predicated on income, Governor Quinn supports legislation restoring abortion coverage under the state Medicaid plan.
About 20 Republican lawmakers sat down with Rauner in recent weeks to deliver a message on the abortion legislation: if you want us to support you in your quest for reelection, veto HB40. The meeting came at the urging of social conservatives who wanted a discussion with the governor about his intentions. The bill has been best known as a way to abolish a “trigger law” on the books now in Illinois that would make abortion illegal in Illinois if Roe v. Wade is overturned. However, language in the bill would also allow public funded abortions under Medicaid and state health plans. Social conservatives adamantly oppose both aspects of HB40.
‘Social conservatives have not asked for much’ — “They asked to meet with him and communicated how important this was and how this would be an indication of whether he was going to support a lot of people who got him elected the first time. I think that’s a fair proposition,” state Sen. Kyle McCarter told POLITICO last week. “I mean, the message has been delivered very clearly. I hope he’s listening to that. The social conservatives have not asked for much. We tolerated a lot and this is one thing that we do expect in order to support the governor in the next election.”
Madigan’s Tax Hike Puppets
Pawar, Pritzker, Kennedy and Biss Want Tax Hikes Without Reform
Democratic candidates for Governor are working overtime to court Mike Madigan’s support, meeting with Madigan insiders and conversing with the Speaker himself.
They’re even going so far as to copy his tax hike agenda.
Pawar, Pritzker, Kennedy and Biss want to raise your taxes without reform, just like Madigan.
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposed 2018 budget would eliminate or significantly cut funding in at least 40 areas, a new analysis finds.
Those include after-school programs, immigrant services and mass-transit subsidies, according to the Associated Press analysis.
Still, those cuts collectively would result in only $242 million in savings — one-half of 1 percent of what the state government spends in a year.
That illustrates how much more cutting would need to be done to make a real difference for the state, whose financial crisis has worsened over the course of a two-year stalemate between the first-term governor and legislators led by Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.
* It also illustrates how the governor’s critique of the Senate’s grand bargain in this early March AP report is so hollow…
[Gov. Rauner] denied pressuring anyone and said Tuesday he opposes the package, negotiated by Democratic Senate President John Cullerton and Republican Leader Christine Radogno, because it spends too much.
“From what I’ve been told, based on what’s in the package so far, they don’t make any real spending cuts,” Rauner said. “So the budget’s not balanced. That’s one challenge. I’ve said please try to get that done - that’s pretty critical.”
“When you’re governor, you’ve got to step up to the plate, you’ve got to make a proposal for a balanced budget. That’s the requirement. And then you’ve got to sit down and negotiate if the folks that you need to work with disagree with you on points,” [Pritzker] said.
“Instead, what did he do? He went into the room. He said, ‘Great, lay all of your ideas on the table.’ They did. Then he walks out of the room and lambasts all the people in the room. And then he walks back into the room and says, ‘Great, let’s keep negotiating.’ And then he walks out of the room and lambasts every one of the proposals and then walks back into the room. And that’s his idea of negotiating,” Pritzker said.
Last week, Rauner spent two days touring the state on a campaign-funded tour. He blamed Democrats for stonewalling on his economic agenda.
As you know by now, Gov. Bruce Rauner toured the state for 2 days last week. He denied that the tour had anything to do with the 2018 election, but it was pretty darned clear that he and his team were tuning up the band for the big show down the road.
Campaign funds not only paid for the tour, but political money was used to promote in it advance. I’m told Rauner’s advertising on social and online media served more than a million impressions in the days leading up to the fly-around.
And like a musician touring to promote a new album, Rauner played up his latest hits. The “Chicago Machine Democrats” just want to “duct tape” the state’s problems instead of fixing them. Rauner’s latest TV ads, paid for by a “dark money” subsidiary of the Republican Governors Association, feature him in a pristine workshop using duct tape to explain how Springfield politicians don’t ever really fix problems.
Whatever he lacks in governing abilities, there’s no doubt that Gov. Rauner is a master at laying out a very simple, popular and easy-to-understand message and then staying on that message no matter what.
During his Peoria appearance, Rauner slammed the House Democrats’ stopgap budget as just “taping over our problems – duct taping cracks in our system.” The only thing missing was the bright, sharply pressed flannel shirt he wore in the TV ad.
As with all established bands on tour, the governor also played popular tunes from his recent albums. Since about the beginning of the year, when he was asked by a reporter to grade his first 2 years in office, Rauner has repeatedly pointed to his own successes at unilaterally cutting unspecified waste from the system (which plays right into the hugely popular notion that waste is the state’s biggest problem) and then contrasted that with the obstructionism of the “Madigan Democrats” in the General Assembly.
“They’ve created the worst crisis of any state in America,” Rauner said of the Democrats while speaking in Springfield. “On things that I can control, we’ve done wonderfully. Where the General Assembly has blocked progress, they’ve made the problem worse.”
Rauner even brought back a line from his February budget address, when he encouraged the Senate’s leaders to hammer out a grand bargain. He spoke about that effort as if he’d never actually knocked the grand bargain off the rails in March.
And, of course, he brought out the old standards that he’s been playing for years: property tax freeze, term limits and becoming “much more pro-growth, pro-business, pro-investment, pro-job creation,” as he said in Rockford.
The Democratic candidates, for their part, stuck to their #DoYourJob theme in response to Rauner’s tour, saying the governor should be getting a budget deal done rather than campaigning. None mentioned that the House and Senate are in the midst of a 2-week spring break, so doing a deal or even meeting with the other leaders probably wouldn’t be possible. Also, governors often use spring breaks as an opportunity to hit the hustings. This is nothing new.
Much of the Chicago-based print media focused on the fact that Rauner denied he was campaigning while obviously campaigning. But they never put that into the broader context of the governor’s habit of saying one thing (cheerleading the Senate’s grand bargain) while doing another (killing the Senate’s grand bargain).
Channel 7, the most-watched television station in Chicagoland, ran a purely positive piece.
“I want all of you to have a better future, I want your children to have great schools, and I want your salaries to go up,” Rauner said during the Chicago station’s report. There was no mention of the fact that none of that has happened since he became governor, and there is no foreseeable time when any of it will happen as long as we have this never-ending gridlock.
Rauner also appeared via phone on several talk radio programs during his tour and faced mostly softball questions from conservative hosts. Even conservative activist Dan Proft, who has sharply criticized the governor on his radio program since the start of the year, allowed Rauner to endlessly rattle on about his main talking points, duct tape and all, without much of a peep.
For those on Rauner’s side, this was a good tour. For those on the other side (and polls show there are a lot of them), well, they wouldn’t like it anyway.
Those in the middle probably got the message that the governor and his team wanted to send, with a big assist from the media.
* Democratic gubernatorial candidate JB Pritzker gave his campaign fund $7 million today, his campaign just confirmed. I’d been hearing about this for much of the afternoon.
$7 million is still $43 million less than Gov. Rauner put into his own campaign fund a few months ago, but vastly more cash than any other Democratic hopeful has on hand or has immediate access to. The A-1 hasn’t been officially filed yet, but if you click here it appears they’re having some technical difficulties with the Board of Elections’ website.
“J.B. Pritzker’s decision to drop $7 million into his gubernatorial campaign is more proof that he wants to be Madigan’s financial muscle. His deposit comes after Pritzker gave Madigan over $1.2 million in 2016 to stop reform, and just a day after Pritzker met with Madigan insiders and revealed to the press that he’s been conversing with Madigan himself. J.B. Pritzker’s talks with Mike Madigan and secret meeting with Madigan insiders reveal his true colors. He will work for and strengthen the Chicago machine at all costs.” – Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
*** UPDATE 2 *** The Larry Dominick jab is a nice touch…
Please find below the statement from the Biss for Illinois campaign in reaction to reports that JB Pritzker has put $7 million into his campaign account this evening:
“In the public eye, Mr. Pritzker talks about ‘progressiveness’ and ‘independence’ but if today taught us anything it’s that his campaign is more of the same. We’ve seen self-funding billionaires like Donald Trump and Bruce Rauner wreak havoc because of their accountability to no one but themselves. Illinoisans simply can’t afford four more years of the same.”
Earlier today, it was reported Pritzker met with Larry Dominick, the Republican President of the Town of Cicero, who among other things has been under investigation for giving out government contracts in exchange for campaign contributions, groping and fondling multiple female employees, and repeatedly using racially derogatory terms for Latinos.
That response was sent yesterday, but I didn’t see it until Saturday.
Gov. Bruce Rauner said pressure from Illinois House Democrats is responsible for the Senate’s failure to pass a “grand bargain” that would end the state’s historic budget impasse.
Speaking Friday on WBEZ’s Morning Shift, Rauner claimed Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) was “under relentless pressure” from Democratic “lieutenants” in the House and politically-aligned special interest groups. Rauner did not offer any specific evidence that House Democrats directly lobbied to kill the budget proposals.
“I’ve been told that several — I won’t name names right here on this program — but several of the Senate Democrats have decided, boy, it’s not worth the pressure they’re getting,” Rauner told Morning Shift host Tony Sarabia. “They’re pulling back off the grand bargain and not wanting to negotiate anymore.”
A spokesman for Cullerton said House Democrats had nothing to do with “all but one of the Republican votes for the budget deal disappearing overnight,” referring to Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont), who supported the grand bargain.
A spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) accused Rauner of putting the grand bargain on life support by telling Republican senators to not support the plan.
To be clear, there was definitely some harsh push-back from Madigan-allied groups in the Senate. But the real problem in that chamber wasn’t with Democratic votes. It was because Rauner pushed Republicans off the grand bargain.
* You don’t often see Gov. Rauner criticized by the Decatur Herald & Review editorial board, so this is interesting…
Have you seen Gov. Bruce Rauner lately?
Sure you have. It’s been hard to miss those TV ads in which the plaid-wearing executive chides lawmakers for their “duct tape” spending solutions.
And last week, with the Legislature on spring recess, the first-term GOP governor was crisscrossing the state on a two-day tour. He delivered stump speeches and had photo ops at restaurants and businesses in Chicago, Springfield, Quincy and Champaign. Two weeks ago, he was in Decatur.
So is Rauner campaigning?
He insists no, saying the tour, which was funded by his campaign, “has nothing to do with the election” in November 2018.
We’re not that naïve.
We think the whole thing highlights what’s fundamentally backwards about how the budget impasse is being handled by our elected officials. Rauner is on a PR blitz instead of what he should be doing full time – working with Democratic lawmakers to find common ground.
“On the road again, I just can’t wait to get on the road again. The life I love is talkin’ duct tape with my friends, I just can’t wait to get on the road again.” — Willie Nelson, mostly.
Why stay in Springfield to work on a state budget when you can tour the cornfields and coffee shops of Illinois?
We are talking about Gov. Bruce Rauner, of course, who this week made a campaign jaunt around Illinois a year and a half before the November 2018 election, and nearly a year before the March 2018 primary.
At a series of stops from the Chicago suburbs to Rockford, Springfield, Quincy, Champaign and southern Illinois, Rauner littered our state with dropped “g’s” instead of using them at the ends of the words on which they belonged.
Rauner insisted that his tour of the state had nothing to do with the election, but The Associated Press said it was paid for by his campaign and our newspaper did not consider his appearance with local Republican officials at The Machine Shed in Rockford to be newsworthy.
* The Daily Herald isn’t ready to take such a step, however…
The 2018 gubernatorial campaign season has begun, which means whatever hope there is of solving Illinois budgetary issues before next year’s election will not likely be coming from the party leadership.
The Democrats will say Gov. Bruce Rauner has failed to do anything substantive in two years. Rauner will make the same claim of the Democratic leaders. The rest of us will be tempted to lapse into despair that the brakes will be stuck on Illinois government for another year and a half.
The only glimmer of light — and it is admittedly faint — lies with legislators, the rank and file who are elected promising to enact change in Springfield, but who too often get absorbed into the herd soon after they are sworn in, scarcely to be heard from again.
The leaders won’t solve this issue. The legislators must.
* Sun-Times political reporter Tina Sfondeles is rapidly becoming one of my favorite people in this business. Sfondeles covered the governor’s non-campaign campaign event in Bloomingdale earlier this week and snapped a pic (click here) of Rauner wearing protective clothing.
* After convincing all the Democratic gubernatorial candidates to take a side on legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol (all but Chris Kennedy and Bob Daiber were for it), I figured I’d try to get them to talk about a different topic. Here’s the e-mail I sent…
Can you name one state spending program that you/your candidate would cut or reduce if elected? Not a tax credit, etc. We’ll get to those eventually. An appropriated spending program. And about how much would that save?
* Ameya Pawar’s campaign was the first to respond, so we’ll start with him…
To answer your question - The $5 million annual subsidy to White Sox Stadium (through IFSA) is a good place to start. Background here.
Sometimes, I really hate Cub fans. /snark
* Chris Kennedy’s campaign was next…
Illinois can’t cut its way out of the budget crisis just as it can’t tax its way out of it. A single cut isn’t a solution but a political talking point. We need comprehensive reform in terms of spending, government operations and taxes to pass a budget that grows Illinois’ economy while embracing our shared values. For example, Illinois could merge the offices of comptroller and treasurer saving over $12 million. But any reform must be part of a comprehensive solution.
Bruce Rauner has been governor for two years and just this Spring neither he nor his Directors could detail a cut to the state budget they will make. Governor Rauner has failed to present a comprehensive approach to Illinois’ budget crisis instead holding the state hostage to pass his extreme, personal political agenda.
* Sen. Daniel Biss…
I was pretty confused by Leader Radogno’s letter. It’s as if she hasn’t been in Springfield the last 2 years or even the last 2 months. Leader Radogno should know better than anyone that the Governor is an absolutist who only cares about his own political career and his inner circle.
Leader Radogno said herself on the Senate Floor that we’re losing 11 million dollars every day we don’t have a state budget. She knows that despite the Governor’s campaign pledge to cut more, not a single agency head was able to tell us what they would cut when brought before Senate Committees. She also knows first hand that this Governor has no interest in governing.
Governor Rauner’s obsession with politics at the expense of governing has led him to make high-priced politically-motivated hires like Leslie Munger. We should begin by cutting her $138,000 salary.
We also should not be making hundreds of millions of dollars in interest payments on overdue bills. It is especially absurd that the state deliberately sets a high interest rate and then allows private lenders to use it to turn a profit. Of course, the best way to avoid all interest payments would be to finally enact a truly balanced budget and pay down our bill backlog.
Unfortunately, Governor Rauner has failed to meet his constitutional obligations and present a balanced budget 3 times. Instead, he’s cut the services Illinoisans rely on to the bone, all to prevent the wealthy from paying their fair share.
So let’s start here: cut the political nonsense and work to pass a budget to save the state 11 million dollars a day.
* Bob Daiber’s campaign…
“Let’s start the ‘cuts’ discussion by saying we need substantial reform to the structure of government in Illinois in terms of the way money is spent. We currently have so much waste and mismanagement that structural reforms are the only way to see substantial change.
“So our first elimination would be the abolishment of CMS. We stand in support of Representative Brandon Phelps HB 2889. The abolishment of CMS could see savings of over $1 Billion within the first year of implementation. In addition, the potential savings through streamlining procurement procedures for all agencies and redistribution of the current CMS appropriated funds could see the elimination of nearly $2 Billion dollars in waste.
“Despite the politics as usual campaign rhetoric of Senator Rodogno, we are also in favor of many other reforms in spending and waste. Maybe Senator Radogno should spend a little less time campaigning for Boss Rauner and spend a little more time getting a budget passed,” states the Daiber campaign.
* JB Pritzker’s campaign…
Governor Rauner has failed to introduce a balanced budget, consistently refusing to do his job and dragging our state down a path of financial ruin. Instead of focusing on his constitutionally mandated duty, he chose to campaign for re-election this week, putting politics ahead of governing.
Rauner’s failure to pass a budget has led to misplaced spending priorities. Unlike Rauner, JB will focus on smart, long-term investments that would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in both the short and long term. For example:
* Illinois spends close to $35,000 per year for a senior citizen to live in a nursing home, while in-home care costs half that amount and allows our senior citizens the dignity of living at home. Yet, under Rauner, in home care services have been cut by 25 percent – and he wants to cut it more. As a result, the state fails to realize significant savings.
* Illinois spends $20,000 per family on emergency housing per year, while homeless prevention services for that same family cost little more than half that amount and keep families off the streets. Yet, under Rauner, those prevention services have been cut by 25 percent, once again demonstrating his misplaced spending priorities.
* Illinois spends $178,000 per year to house one child in a juvenile detention center, when it costs just $6,000 for community-based intervention programs that do not disrupt a child’s development and prevent recidivism. Yet, under Rauner, funding for those intervention programs was cut by a third, showing a lack of concern for children, their families, and our state budget.
Governor Rauner’s refusal to do his job has resulted in wasteful and inefficient spending that leaves working families and their children without access to the tools they need to reach the middle class. When JB announced his candidacy for governor last week, he made it clear that he will stand for progressive values that have been lost under Governor Rauner’s failed leadership. JB has taken on big challenges and gotten real results, and he will do the same as governor.
Ultimately, JB is committed to eliminating the one thing that has cost Illinois families the most: Bruce Rauner.
I’m expecting a late response from the Summers campaign. I’ll add it when it gets here, but I need to run some errands soon, so I wanted to get this post up.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is opposing legislation that would allow the state to cover abortions for its employees and Medicaid recipients. […]
The legislation is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Sara Feigenholtz. She says the measure would protect women’s access to abortions in Illinois if federal law legalizing the procedure is overturned. It also would remove prohibitions on state employee health insurance and Medicaid funds from covering the procedure.
Rauner has signed previous legislation expanding access to birth control and requiring physicians who refuse to perform abortions to inform patients where they can go instead.
* From Rauner’s spokesperson Eleni Demertzis…
“Governor Rauner is committed to protecting women’s reproductive rights under current Illinois law. However, recognizing the sharp divisions of opinion of taxpayer funding of abortion, he does not support HB40.”
The legislation is here. Medicaid money is already used at Cook County Hospital for abortions, and most non-state university and local government health insurance policies also cover it in Chicago.
But the governor was getting tremendous heat from his right flank on this bill and he needs to keep them together through this impasse.
[State Rep. David McSweeney (R-Barrington)] called on the governor to make his position clear earlier this week, saying whether Illinois becomes one of the few states where taxpayers pay for abortions for any reason could rest in the hands of Governor Bruce Rauner - even before the bill made it to his desk.
“If Governor Rauner makes his intentions known before HB 40 is called, there’s a very good chance that the bill will not pass the House,” McSweeney told Illinois Review Wednesday.
“I’ve talked to several Democrats that tell me they are torn on the issue, and if the governor said he was going to veto the measure, I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t get the 60 they need to pass it.” […]
McSweeney said he was expecting pro-abortion lawmakers to call the vote on the floor April 25th, when a “Women’s March” was being planned on the State Capitol.
“The vote was very close at last count,” McSweeney said. “This is very good news that the governor has announced he will veto HB 40 if it gets to his desk. I’m very happy he’s made his position clear.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** Press release…
Today, JB Pritzker released the following statement on Governor Rauner’s plan to veto HB40, which would cover abortions for women on state employee health insurance and Medicaid, and would remove a “trigger provision” that would make abortions illegal if Roe v. Wade was overturned.
“Bruce Rauner should be ashamed of himself. No pro-choice governor would take this position and restrict access to these critical services for Illinois women,” said JB Pritzker. “Rauner is proving yet again that he not only shares an extreme agenda with Donald Trump, but also lied to voters when he claimed that he cares about a woman’s right to choose. This decision is deeply hurtful to me and to women across this state. I have been fighting to protect women’s healthcare and reproductive rights my whole life and will do the same as Illinois’ next governor.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** Press release from Rep. Tom Morrison…
“I am pleased Governor Rauner has chosen to veto HB 40 should it come to his desk. The Democrat lawmakers behind this initiative want to force Illinois taxpayers to pay for elective abortions through all 9 months of pregnancy. Taxpayers would be on the hook for abortions for any reason - even sex selection abortions would’ve been covered. This may come as a surprise a lot of people, even those who hold ‘pro-choice’ views. The Governor is doing the right thing by promising to veto HB 40.”
Press release…
Paul Caprio, Director of Family-Pac, today commended the decision of Governor Rauner to oppose HB 40…legislation to provide taxpayer funding for abortion.
Said Caprio: “It’s clear that the majority of Illinois voters oppose the use of their hard earned tax dollars to fund abortions at a time when Illinois is facing a fiscal crisis, regardless of their personal views.”
“I wish to thank also the many pro-family legislators who have met with the Governor regarding this issue as well as the many thousands of Illinois citizens who have contacted their legislators urging them to oppose HB 40.”
*** UPDATE 3 *** Chris Kennedy campaign…
Politicians like Bruce Rauner have no business deciding when and if women can get access to health services - period. He is putting politics before women’s health and that’s just shameful. All women deserve nothing less than full access to doctors and health services of their choice. As Governor, I would sign any legislation that would affirm a woman’s right to choose is protected in Illinois.
*** UPDATE 4 *** From Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a co-sponsor of the bill…
Representative Morrison uses tired misinformation to launch a baseless attack on one of our state legislators. The reality is that State Representative Sara Feigenholtz (and her colleagues who are supportive of HB 40) are working to build a future where insurance coverage for necessary healthcare isn’t denied just because someone doesn’t make enough money.
However we may personally feel about abortion, no one should have that personal decision taken away by politicians who deny insurance coverage—which is exactly what the Hyde Amendment does to low-income families. Representative Feigenholtz’ bill would correct that injustice.
Voters agree. A poll from Hart Research Associates shows 86 percent of voters agree that “however we feel about abortion, politicians should not be allowed to deny a woman’s health coverage because she is poor.” And there is broad consensus across age groups (90 percent of voters ages 18 to 34 and 84 percent of voters 65 and over) and parties: 85 percent of independents, 79 percent of Republicans, and 94 percent of Democrats all agree.
This is about more than politics. The stakes for a woman whose decision is denied by Hyde are high: a woman who wants to get an abortion but is denied is more likely to fall into poverty than one who can get an abortion.
Representative Feigenholtz’s legislation simply affirms something that women in Illinois already know: that the legal right to an abortion is legal fiction if a woman can’t access and afford the care.
Nothing about HB 40 changes the law as it relates to when a person can have an abortion in Illinois.
Representative Feigenholtz wants to ensure that whatever happens in the future—the right to abortion is real for those in our state who already face too many barriers to care. I call that admirable and am grateful for this champion of health and women’s ability to make our own decisions.
*** UPDATE 5 *** Press release…
Sen. Daniel Biss made the following statement in response to Gov. Rauner’s announcement that he would veto House Bill 40, a bill that would protect the women of Illinois from dangerous attacks on their reproductive freedom coming from President Trump and his right-wing Supreme Court appointments:
“Since taking office out-of-touch billionaires like Donald Trump and Bruce Rauner have done everything in their power to wage a war on women. Bruce Rauner lied on the campaign trail when he said he didn’t have a social agenda — on the contrary, he’s now supporting President Trump’s dangerous efforts to take Illinois women back to the dangerous days before Roe v. Wade was the law of the land.”
It is disappointing, but not surprising, that Democrats are trying to ram through another stopgap spending plan instead of passing a truly balanced budget. This shows us that House Democrats do not intend to get a budget done before 2019. That is unacceptable. Our community colleges, universities, social service providers and entire state deserve better. Their plan does nothing to address the state’s long-term challenges and simply strings them along a few more months.
This from the same legislator who is the chief sponsor of the mother of all unfunded spending plans: An appropriation into infinity for all state employees.
Last week Governor Rauner shot down another proposal to fund public services in the current fiscal year. Sponsored by State Representative Greg Harris (D-13), the initiative would have tapped available special funds to cover $258 million in social service costs, and $559 million in higher education funding—primarily MAP grants for low income students, but also some operating revenue for community colleges ($36 million) and universities ($159 million). In a Facebook video explaining why he won’t support this proposal, the Governor made three, key points.
First, he maintained he’d oppose any stopgap funding that wasn’t coupled with a “permanent property tax freeze to protect the hard working taxpayers of Illinois.” Which begs the question, protects them from what, exactly — adequate levels of police and fire protection? Or maybe from having clean streets and access to things like public parks and libraries?
That’s pretty over-wrought. Our property taxes in this state are way too high. It’s a tax that isn’t based on the ability to pay. And while many local governments, including school districts, are struggling to make fiscal ends meet, others are sitting on fat cash reserves. That, to me, is the real problem with a freeze. The taxpayers who need the most relief are often the same folks who live in towns and school districts which are struggling mightily to pay expenses because of an eroded tax base and would eventually have to stop providing some much-needed and essential services under a permanent freeze. We gotta figure this out, but it’s impossible to do that when everyone from the state on down is in constant crisis mode.
Second, the Governor’s Facebook video lambasted stop-gap initiatives as keeping “universities, community colleges and social service agencies on the verge of collapse with no permanent funding.” Which is true, however, failure to provide any additional funding for higher-ed and social services will move them from the “verge” of collapse to actually collapsing. Indeed, higher education currently receives 64 percent less in annual funding than in FY2015, the last time Illinois enacted a full General Fund budget. And social service agencies aren’t living high off the hog either. In fact, funding for social services in the current fiscal year will run about $1.36 billion less than in FY2015. So while one-time funding for higher-ed and social services is neither ideal nor adequate, it’s clearly needed.
Finally, the Governor’s Facebook missive admonished Springfield to end its fixation on “stop gaps”, and instead “pass real and lasting solutions” to Illinois’ budget problems. Hard to disagree with that. Unfortunately, when the Governor had the chance to back his rhetoric up by supporting the bipartisan “Grand Bargain” pieced together by Senate President John Cullerton (D-6) and Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-41), he instead chose to crater it.
Which begs another question: is the Governor truly interested in making the political compromises needed to, in his words, “pass real and lasting solutions?” Or is the Governor’s real end-game more accurately revealed by his insistence on a permanent property tax freeze? Because just as such a freeze would degrade the capacity of municipalities and the like to provide local services, the failure to pass a comprehensive General Fund budget for Illinois has already materially degraded the state’s capacity to fund the public services it has the primary obligation to provide.
So, what Ralph’s saying here is that the governor’s “real” end game is to damage government, all government. Maybe not quite as radical as the old Grover Norquist line about shrinking government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,” but close.
An attorney for U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger has written Comcast Cable demanding it not air the conservative Club for Growth’s negative ad against the Republican lawmaker.
The ad calls Kinzinger a “professional politician” who won’t support President Donald Trump’s bid to get rid of Obamacare. Kinzinger, now in his fourth term, is from Channahon, near Joliet.
His attorney, John Fogarty Jr. of Chicago, wrote in a letter to Comcast on Thursday that the ad was “blatantly false” and that Kinzinger’s support for Trump’s repeal-and-replace plan is “exceptionally well documented.” […]
For his part, Kinzinger said in a statement that Club for Growth’s agenda included ending coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and dropping kids from their parents’ insurance plans. He said its plan is to achieve savings by relying on states to cut services to the poor, something the lawmaker said the Illinois legislature will never do.
The spot cites an April 6th story in the Kennebec Journal & Morning Standard for its claim that Kinzinger is “is in the way” of passing a bill . Kennebec is in Maine.
Maine Rep. Bruce Poliquin was reportedly among eight Republican House members who visited the White House on Monday as part of the party’s effort to revive health care legislation that was pulled before it went to a vote last month because it lacked enough support for passage. […]
In addition to Poliquin, The Huffington Post reported that the seven other Republicans who visited the White House were Reps. Greg Walden of Oregon, Chris Collins of New York, Rodney Davis and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, Martha McSally of Arizona,and Pat Tiberi of Ohio.
* From the Huffington Post story that the Maine paper used for its own report…
House Republicans still don’t have a deal to revive their health care bill, but the White House is laying the groundwork for negotiations to move quickly, meeting individually Monday with moderates and conservatives to discuss a possible agreement. […]
On Monday, for roughly an hour and a half, the White House hosted a meeting with House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and seven moderate Republicans from the Tuesday Group who had already supported the health care legislation ― Chris Collins (N.Y.), Rodney Davis (Ill.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Tom MacArthur (N.J.), Martha McSally (Ariz.), Bruce Poliquin (Me.) and Pat Tiberi (Ohio) ― to make sure potential changes wouldn’t lose their votes.
Those lawmakers met with Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and Andrew Bremberg, the director of White House domestic policy.
Collins, who said last week that he didn’t think Republicans could pass a health care bill until 2019, reported Monday that he had newfound optimism.
CAUGHT: Pritzker Meets with Madigan Insiders
-Admits he’s been conversing with Madigan himself-
“J.B. Pritzker’s talks with Mike Madigan and secret meeting with Madigan insiders reveal his true colors. Pritzker wants to be Madigan’s financial muscle and strengthen the Chicago machine.” – Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
Dan Mihalopoulos reports that Pritzker met yesterday with Madigan insiders, then dodged questions about the secret meeting.
Mihalopoulos writes, “Many of the others at the meeting with Pritzker have close ties to Illinois House Speaker and Democratic Party boss Mike Madigan, another name you can hardly equate with progressivism. The state’s Republicans have sought to link Pritzker to Madigan.
Cook County Commissioner Ed Moody — for decades a famously effective precinct captain in Madigan’s Southwest Side ward organization — left the meeting Thursday with a “J.B.” sticker on the lapel of his suit coat. Moody said he’s “100 percent” with Pritzker because “we’ve got to get rid of this Rauner.”
Also meeting with Pritzker was Madigan ally Steve Landek, the Bridgeview mayor and state senator.
In a statement sent later Thursday, a Pritzker spokeswoman said “of course J.B. has had conversation” with Madigan about the race.
…And it wasn’t just elected officials at the Pritzker event. Lobbyist Al Ronan was there, too, maneuvering his black Cadillac with the “R” vanity plate into one of the closest spots to the door. Ronan’s company — though not Ronan himself — admitted guilt in a 2004 in a bid-rigging scheme at McCormick Place.
I couldn’t tell you what Pritzker told all these guys Thursday. Del Galdo ushered me out of his offices on Harlem Avenue almost as soon as I walked in.”
The Sun-Times piece is here. The Republicans left out one attendee: Larry Dominick, the Republican president of the Town of Cicero. I guess they’re only willing to go so far with this.
* Anyway, here’s the Pritzker campaign response to the Mihalopoulos column…
Today, JB attended a meeting he was invited to with mayors and elected officials who represent over 700,000 constituents across Cook and the Collar Counties. He was doing exactly what a Democratic candidate for governor should do – talk to the local leaders who are representing people across our state directly impacted by Bruce Rauner’s failure as governor.
JB has been an independent thinker and leader his whole life, fighting for causes and ideals he believes in, and he’s certainly not going to change now. As a Democratic candidate for governor, of course JB has had conversations with the Chair of the Democratic Party, and he thinks we need to focus on uniting against the one person who is determined to dismantle all of the progressive gains we have made over the years and that’s Bruce Rauner.
The Illinois Prisoner Review Board is being asked to intervene on behalf of an Army veteran with a green card who faces deportation because of a 2008 drug conviction.
Advocates for Miguel Perez Jr. want the board to recommend that Gov. Bruce Rauner issue a pardon. They hope the Department of Homeland Security will then grant the 38-year-old Perez citizenship retroactively from when he joined the military in 2001.
Perez served two tours in Afghanistan. He’s being held a Wisconsin detention center where he awaits deportation to Mexico.
Perez pleaded guilty to a drug charge for handing a laptop case containing cocaine to an undercover officer. He served half of a 15-year prison sentence.
The Cook County State’s Attorney, who’s about as far from a Trump-loving, immigrant-bashing politico as you can get, opposes clemency.
Perez arrived in the country at age 11. Despite being a green card holder and serving two tours in Afghanistan, the Chicago resident never applied for citizenship. So when Perez was convicted of selling drugs after he left the Army, he was targeted for deportation.
At Thursday’s hearing, a representative for the state’s attorney said they opposed forgiving Perez’s crime and cited the amount of cocaine that Perez sold which was 4.4 pounds.
A spokesperson for veterans blamed PTSD for Perez’s drug addiction.
“Mr. Perez was exposed to a lot of trauma that aggravated any addiction he had,” Carlos Luna, president of Veterans Rebuilding Community, Inc., said.
“We cannot lose track of the specific facts of this case, which is why we are opposing executive clemency,” assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Peter Goutos told the review board Thursday. “We must hold the big drug dealers accountable.”
While Perez was convicted of delivering less than 100 grams of cocaine, Goutos said he was arrested for delivering much more and received a reduced sentence after a plea deal. Goutos also pointed out that Perez was given a general discharge from the military after a drug infraction and was arrested for misdemeanor cannabis possession as a teenager. […]
After returning to Chicago after his military service, he sought treatment at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Maywood, where doctors diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was supposed to return for more tests to determine whether he also had a traumatic brain injury. But the hours of waiting and slow progress took its toll.
In the meantime, he reconnected with a childhood friend who provided free drugs and alcohol. On the night of Nov. 26, 2008, while with that friend, Perez handed a laptop case containing cocaine to an undercover officer. Perez pleaded guilty to the drug charge and served half of a 15-year prison sentence.
And soon his fate could be in Gov. Rauner’s hands. The governor has done his best to distance himself from the president’s stances on immigration. Actually, he’s done his best to distance himself from the president, period. He’s also demonstrated time and time again that he favors second chances and reduced penalties for non-violent criminals. He’s a politician, so that alone guarantees that Perez’s military service in a theater of war is an issue.
But busted cold handing 4.4 pounds of cocaine to a cop is a tough one for any governor.
In a statement released Thursday, the state’s attorney’s office said its opposition to a pardon did not equate to support for Perez’s deportation. His immigration proceedings are a separate matter.
“Regardless of the outcome of Mr. Perez’s clemency hearing, he is still subject to removal by the federal government,” the statement said. “Mr. Perez’s case is an unfortunate reminder of the need for immigration reform, particularly when it comes to veterans who have served our country.”
* Eastern Illinois University President David Glassman testified at a House committee hearing yesterday about the impasse…
Glassman said, “EIU will come through this storm stronger, bolder … not because of the impasse, but in spite of it.”
I get the defiant bravado aspect and the fact that if a university president says his campus is doomed it would scare away even more students than are already fleeing to other states.
But one can also come away from that statement thinking the impasse may have done EIU some good.
Susan Davenport, associate dean for students and curricular affairs in the College of Liberal Arts, said the state budget impasse is affecting the university’s ability to recruit students.
[Interim Provost Susan Ford] agreed, saying parents are telling their children not to come to Illinois for college right now.
“We are swimming against a tsunami of bad press from the state budget crisis,” Ford said. “It harmed us last year, and we know it’s harming us this year.”
Compared to the financial health of other state universities, [SIU President Randy Dunn] said SIU falls in the middle of the pack. Eastern Illinois University, Western Illinois University and Chicago State University have all declared financial emergency, but Dunn said the University of Illinois system would likely be able to sustain operations indefinitely despite the budget impasse.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From EIU…
Rich,
Hey. Saw your post highlighting yesterday’s House Higher Education Appropriations hearing as well as some mistaken comments apparently made by or attributed to the President of SIU.
First, and most importantly, the Board of Trustees of Eastern Illinois University has NEVER considered, let alone approved, a declaration of fiscal exigency/emergency. It is regrettable that such inaccurate statements would be made let alone reported and then re-reported.
Second, the full line you are pulling a quote from is this: “Drowning out the negative narrative that the State has created for its public universities – that is, the crisis in confidence which permeates the conversations of most students, parents and high school guidance counselors – is not easy, but EIU will come through this storm stronger and bolder and wiser – not thanks to the impasse [sic], but in spite of it.” You are correct in characterizing the comment as “defiant” and the President’s full testimony included specifically explaining that the impasse-related layoffs have actually resulted in inefficiencies.
-Katie
Katie M. Anselment ‘02
Director, Constituent Relations
Eastern Illinois University
*** UPDATE 2 *** From SIU President Randy Dunn…
My comments you picked up from the Daily Egyptian’s reporting of an all-faculty meeting held at SIU Carbondale were in response to a question raised about the fiscal health of SIU as compared to the other state universities. While I agree that words do matter, we may be dancing on the head of a pin here. The EIU and WIU boards may not have done explicit declarations, but both boards in fact passed resolutions so as to access payment providing for “financial support for essential operations” under the authority of P.A. 99-0524, the second stopgap signed into law on June 30. Enabling provisions included in the BIMP amended the Board of Higher Education Act to provide: “In fiscal year 2017 the Board…shall conduct a review to determine the existence of a financial emergency at a public institution of higher education that requires financial assistance from the Board, but only after the institution’s governing board has formally requested the review by adopting a resolution stating that the institution is in a state of financial emergency that requires financial assistance from the Board.”
While I felt I should offer a response to a legitimate question posed at the faculty meeting, there was no attempt to drag any other institution down. We very much value the relationship we have with all the public universities in Illinois, and we’re all in this together. Indeed, the SIU Board is itself in the midst of considering a financial emergency declaration for the Carbondale campus within the coming months. But given the larger background, I stand by my comments made.
State Sen. Daniel Biss, a Democratic candidate for governor who is pushing legislation requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to be on the Illinois ballot, released five years of federal tax returns Thursday evening.
The returns show that in two of the years, including last year, Biss did not owe federal taxes.
For 2016, Biss reported $32,568 in adjusted gross income and, after deductions and exemptions, a taxable income of $2,958. The returns show he owed no federal tax. In 2013, the Evanston state senator reported $54,218 in adjusted gross income and $18,116 in taxable income, owing no federal tax.
Biss and his wife, Karin Steinbrueck, paid federal taxes of $581 in 2012, $629 in 2014 and $2,775 in 2015. Among the largest deductions he took were ones for local property taxes, state income taxes and home mortgage interest.
A campaign spokesman said Biss reported less salary than usual for last year because lawmakers’ paychecks were delayed during the ongoing Illinois state budget impasse.
Pritzker, Kennedy and Pawar all say they will release their tax returns. Gov. Rauner has released his returns every year. Rauner’s last return, for 2015, showed he had tripled his annual income. Biss, on the other hand, lost half of his income last year because of that “no budget, no pay” stunt.
* From the Biss campaign…
My fellow Democrats,
As you know, Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to release his tax returns for public scrutiny. The practice of candidates and executives releasing their returns isn’t simply a time honored tradition, but a necessary check to ensure elected officials don’t allow their responsibilities to the public to be compromised by potential personal gain.
Serious and consequential questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s finances and potential conflicts of interest. And voters deserve answers to these questions.
Indeed, voters have the right to be confident that their elected officials are doing things for the right reasons, and that they are putting the interest of the people first. In short, they need to have trust in their elected officials — something that is in short supply today.
That’s why I introduced SB 982 in the Illinois legislature, which would require any candidate for President requesting the vote of Illinois citizens to afford them the respect of releasing their tax returns. We’ve seen the value of releasing tax returns in our state recently: when Governor Rauner released his returns, the public was made aware of potential conflicts of interest between Rauner family holdings and the allocation of public funds.
In a state that has been controlled by money and the machine for so long, the transparency provided in releasing tax returns is an important signal to voters that elected officials in Springfield are ready to be held accountable to the people, and only the people.
Accordingly, today, my wife and I are releasing our tax returns for the last five years. We also pledge to release next year’s returns before the primary election, and we are calling on all other Democratic candidates for governor to do the same. If we are calling upon President Trump and Governor Rauner to do so, Illinois voters should expect nothing less from any Democratic candidate for governor.
Transparency of this kind is not a new idea in our state. In his own campaign for governor in 1971, Paul Simon volunteered his sources of income saying that without disclosure, “all of us who hold office will continue to suffer in the eyes of the public.”
Senator Simon added personal financial transparency is “the only way to meet the complex problem of conflict of interest. Put matters on the table in public view and then the citizenry can make reasoned judgments, whether we are serving ourselves, or serving the public.”
I agree. All Democrats should.
Let’s hold this field of progressives to a standard that Paul Simon would be proud of. Together, we can send voters a message that we are serious about getting the levers of power out the hands of the well connected, restoring trust in government, and putting our state on a new course.
