*** UPDATE *** There wasn’t a lot of media coverage. AP…
A state representative from Chicago says lawmakers across the state must work together to craft a rational and “common sense” concealed carry law.
Democratic state Rep. Ken Dunkin told an audience at a town hall meeting in Chicago Saturday that concealed carry “is coming” to Illinois. He and other Chicago lawmakers held the meeting to gather input from constituents about proposed firearms legislation.
But when long-time Chicago resident Gus Philpot asked for a show of hands he found 30 in the crowd of 80 who said they would seek concealed-carry permits immediately.
State Rep. Ken Dunkin (D-Chicago) said Chicago’s international reputation once again has become associated with gun violence, and said he wants to find a compromise that gives gun owners what they want with protections built in. He said Illinois is the last state to enact concealed-carry legislation because of one man, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago).
“The Speaker of our House knows, like most of us know, that if it hit the House floor it would pass,” Dunkin said.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* A town hall on Chicago’s West Side is discussing the concealed carry issue. The forum is being hosted by Sen. Mattie Hunter and Rep. Ken Dunkin and moderated by WVON’s Cliff Kelly. The NRA’s Todd Vandermyde has spoken so far, and Congressman Bobby Rush is in attendance. You can watch BlueRoomStream’s live video by clicking here. [UPDATE: Use that link for archived video.]
Let’s go to the ScribbleLive thingy, because BlueRoomStream is also live-Tweeting the event…
* For the most part, organized labor has stayed out of the 2nd Congressional District primary. AFCSME is the first major union to jump in…
The progressive union AFSCME today announced their endorsement of Toi Hutchinson in the upcoming special election in Illinois’s Second Congressional District. AFSCME cited Hutchinson’s strong record of looking out for middle class interests in making its decision.
“AFSCME Council 31 is proud to endorse Toi Hutchinson for Congress,” the union’s executive director Henry Bayer said. “Toi has a strong record on retirement security, affordable health care, tax fairness and other issues vital to union members and all working people. AFSCME will educate our more than 7,000 members and retirees in the Second Congressional District about her leadership, and encourage them to get out and vote on February 26.”
AFSCME Council 31 is a leading voice for working families throughout Illinois, with 100,000 active and retired members who provide the essential public services that residents rely on. AFSCME is the nation’s largest and fastest growing public-service union with more than 1.6 million active and retired members, including nurses, corrections officers, caregivers, EMTs, sanitation workers and more. With members in hundreds of different occupations, AFSCME advocates for fairness in the workplace, excellence in public services and prosperity and opportunity for all working families.
“When I’m in Congress, I’ll keep working with AFSCME and stand with President Obama to protect the services and programs that people across the country need and depend on,” said Hutchinson. “For too long, Congress has focused on the budget deficit instead of the opportunity deficit. When I’m elected I’m going to work hard to invest in exactly the kinds of initiatives that empower people and communities.”
* Turn it way up, campers, because you’re in for a treat. Here’s Dwight Yoakum doing an old Joe Maphis/Flying Burrito Brothers tune just a few days ago…
* From a prominent Toi Hutchinson supporter, sent a day after Sen. Napoleon Harris dropped out of the 2nd Congressional District special primary race…
Napoleon’s wallet mattered in this race, not Napoleon himself. He has little profile to move voters Robin’s way. He is now a marginal figure in the race at most.
The person most negatively affected by Napoleon’s departure is Halvorson, who needed Napoleon to spend money to gobble up black voters. That won’t happen now.
Robin has been running around town for 6 weeks telling donors the key to her win strategy was Bloomberg attacking both Halvorson and Toi on guns. That hasn’t happened yet and may not happen at all. She also moved heaven and earth to get her former boss Toni to endorse her, a key tactical goal. Instead Preckwinlke, who is the only endorser who has real name ID, went against her CoS and picked Toi Hutchinson.
So both strategically and tactically, Robin and Debbie each had a bad week.
Toi, on the other hand, had a good week. The Toni endorsement and Toni burning up the phone lines is already giving her a big financial bounce. That is a huge tactical victory and it helps the strategic strength for Toi, who is the only candidate who gets both white and black votes in a significant way. If she wins, having a geographic base and winning white and black votes will be the two main reasons why she won.
Agreed that Hutchinson had a pretty darned good week. However, Harris’ exit means that Frank Zuccarelli’s Thornton Township organization is now freed up to back Kelly. Not sure if that’ll happen, but it’s the only place he’d go.
Robin Kelly reported total receipts of $200,000 and about $198,000 cash on hand.
Toi Hutchinson reported a total of $135,000 in receipts and $129,637 cash on hand.
Debbie Halvorson reported $50,000 in receipts and $44,000 cash on hand. The total includes a $25,000 loan to herself. Note: this may be updated, according to the campaign, following a “big fund-raiser” last night. Stay tuned.
Anthony Beale reported just shy of $50,000 — though the filing only shows $5,000 in contributions, including from Tom Dart and Ed Burke’s committees. There’s $44,000 in unitemized contributions. That means he’s saying almost all his donations came in amounts less than $200. A Beale spokeswoman is getting back on this. He had about $44,000 cash on hand.
Kinda meaningless because those reported totals are as of December 31st. They’ve all been raising cash since then.
Kelly is perfect on our Orange to Blue Candidate Questionnaire, which is to be assumed in this district. But who could’ve predicted that we’d get a very real chance to deal a blow to the NRA, in this turf, at this time?
We need to tear the NRA out of Congress, not strengthen its influence. Bloomberg’s anti-gun Super PAC is already softening up the frontrunner, former Rep. Debbie Halverson. We can and should do our part to join the effort.
You want real gun reform? Make the NRA radioactive.
A: A 30-.06 rifle, and 1187 Remington shotgun, and a 9 millimeter Glock. As aldermen, were legally allowed to carry [handguns]. I don’t carry, but under the city ordinance and the state law, we have the right to carry a concealed weapon.
Q: Do you think the entire state should pass that law?
A: Absolutely not.
Q: Why not? If it’s OK for aldermen, why not the general public.
A: An alderman is a sworn peace officer, and we have to go through 40 hours training in order to obtain the license. I’ve even taken 20 hours additional training.
* Under what circumstances could you vote for Pat Quinn for governor in either the primary or the general election? Make sure to explain, and no snark, please. Thanks.
* Back on December 8th, activist Mary Claire Kendall wrote a story about how she and others were hoping to preserve a Hyde Park apartment building where Ronald Reagan lived for less than a year as a young child…
A hot war is now underway over the University of Chicago Medical Center’s decision to raze Reagan’s Chicago childhood home, which it announced this fall, giving no definite date (best guess: by Jan. 1). The property on which Reagan’s Hyde Park home sits is slated to become an empty lot. At the same time, the university is lobbying vigorously to build President Obama’s Presidential Library.
Somewhere among the environs of the University of Chicago Medical Center, they’re about to “pave paradise and put up a parking lot”.
In political lingo, the university medical center is going to demolish the house where President Ronald Reagan grew up in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighbourhood. […]
Meanwhile back at that ranch known as the University of Chicago, university officials, which once included Michelle Obama, are tied up in a pet project of their own. They are actively lobbying for an Obama Presidential Library. Obama’s own Tony Rezko-enabled home also happens to be in the Hyde Park neighborhood. (A Google map search places the two homes less than half a mile apart.)
Over the holidays, when the demolition and wrecking equipment showed up on site, we sprang into action and, after lots of behind-the-scenes work from Tuesday, January 1 to Wednesday, January 9, we discerned a palpable shift in the winds.
On Friday, January 11, Eleanor Gorski, Assistant Commissioner for Historic Preservation at the Department of Housing and Economic Development in Chicago, who approves demolition permits, affirmed that she fully expects the review process will take the full 90 days—until March 29—and that granting the Reagan home landmark status, after all, is one of the possibilities they are considering. The day before, I called the department and was told by a staff person that there had been “a lot of back and forth” vis-à-vis the home at “higher levels” and someone would be contacting me. Only two days before the department spokesperson, Pete Strazzobosco, was downplaying the worth of the Reagan home. As he told the Hyde Park Herald, “It’s a pretty modest apartment building for its style and age. It doesn’t have very much style, at least not enough for the Landmarks Commission to consider a possible landmark for it.” (January 9 issue) But, the next day at 8 p.m., the University of Chicago’s student newspaper, The Chicago Maroon reported that, according to Strazzobosco, “the City of Chicago’s Historic Preservation Division will use this time to ‘reach out to the property owner and discuss alternatives to demolition.’”
On Wednesday, January 16, the Friends of President Reagan’s Chicago Home incorporated in the State of Illinois and this week we added two new board members—Don Totten, the most prominent early Illinois Republican support of President Reagan, and Dan Proft, a rising star in the Illinois Republican Party and political commentator for WLS in Chicago.
* But on the very same day that Ms. Kendall posted that item about the change in attitude, Illinois Republican gadfly William Kelly posted this “story”…
While the university is planning to kill Reagan’s home, University of Chicago is also aggressively lobbying to be the site of President Barack Obama’s presidential library.
Could the Reagan site become a parking lot for Obama’s library? Opponents of the demolition say yes.
The Chicago home where the late President Ronald Reagan grew up is slated to be demolished and potentially turned into a parking lot for President Obama’s Library, it was revealed today.
The University of Chicago Medical Center has announced plans to turn Ronald Reagan’s childhood home in Chicago into a parking lot for President Barack Obama’s library.
* Also on Wednesday, Mary Claire Kendall, the childhood home preservation activist, declared the story to be a farce…
The claim published in Newsmax today and the Washington Times on Friday, re-posted in Drudge, that the University of Chicago is planning to demolish the Reagan home at 832 E. 57th Street to make way for a parking lot for the Obama Presidential Library is utterly inaccurate, according to informed sources in Hyde Park.
“832 E. 57th St. is one of a number of vacant buildings the University owns that will be taken down to allow for expansion of the medical and biological research campus,” Jeremy Manier, news director at the University of Chicago, wrote in a email to Mother Jones. “The University’s permit request currently is under review by the city. Recent media reports that have speculated on other potential uses of the property are inaccurate.”
* But Kelly was not backing down yesterday. From his Facebook page…
White House press secretary Jay Carney is responding to my story on Reagan’s Chicago home being bulldozed by the University of Chicago - which has been lobbying to be the site of Obama’s presidential library. I don’t believe Carney for a minute!
OUR STORY ON THE DEMOLITON OF RONALD REAGAN’S CHICAGO HOME GOES BIG ON DRUDGE REPORT!
COULD RONALD REAGAN’S CHICAGO HOME BECOME A PARKING LOT FOR OBAMA’S LIBRARY?!
RAHM’S PLAN: DEMOLISH REAGAN’S HOME?
A big thank you to Drudge Report, Newsmax, WND, Daily Mail and other publications that picked up my latest column on the demolition of Ronald Reagan’s Chicago home.
As of this morning the column had 11,000 likes and hundreds of thousands of views!!
* This move by Senate President John Cullerton would most certainly take away a fig leaf used by some recalcitrant Republicans…
Cullerton said he is open to a GOP demand to include judges in his plan to solve Illinois’ $95 billion pension crisis — a bill he said he hopes to have the Senate vote on by late February.
In every pension-reform plan that’s surfaced thus far, the 984 members of the Judges Retirement System of Illinois have been left out because of a constitutional protection against having their salaries be “diminished” and worries judges would block a pension deal on legal grounds. […]
The determining factor in whether to include judges in a pension package, Cullerton said, is whether “I pick up votes or lose votes” by adding the provision.
A spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont) said that addition has been one of her boss’ demands in a pension deal.
“To somehow not include judges because you think they might rule more favorably [on a broad pension package], that’s just ludicrous,” said Patty Schuh, a spokeswoman for Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont).
“Sen. Radogno has long believed [a pension package] ought to be comprehensive and include all five systems because this may be the only opportunity we get to do pension reform,” Schuh said.
Judges shall receive salaries provided by law which shall not be diminished to take effect during their terms of office.
The judiciary ruled during the Blagovjevich years that scheduled salary COLAs were covered by that constitutional provision, so including them in the pension bill is just asking for trouble.
But, if it’s severable and it attracts some votes, then by all means go for it. This is just an excuse by some people to avoid voting on a bill. So, take the excuse away if doing so attracts more net “Yes” votes.
Also, Radogno supported a pension bill last year which included neither the judges nor the teachers.
Valentine’s Day might wind up being more than just a day of romance for Illinois’ gay and lesbian couples.
Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) wants Feb. 14 to be the day his legislative chamber votes to legalize gay marriages in Illinois.
“I’d like to pass it out of committee next week and pass it on Valentine’s Day,” Cullerton told the Chicago Sun-Times in a meeting Thursday with the newspaper’s Editorial Board.
Cullerton said he believes the legislation, Senate Bill 10, has the necessary 30 votes to pass and move to the House, clearing a major hurdle in making Illinois the 10th state to legalize same-sex marriages.
* I think the biggest mistake some Republicans can make is to assume that their 2010 primary vote will equal their 2014 primary base. Times change. Tastes change. New candidates emerge. While some candidates will be more known than others because of their previous run(s), that doesn’t mean they’ll end up in the same place as before.
Keep that in mind while reading this e-mail that Sen. Bill Brady sent to his supporters…
In 2010, when I led the ticket, Republicans elected a United States Senator, four new Congressmen and several new state legislators. I unfortunately fell short by less than one percent – a swing of just 16,000 votes out of the more than 3.5 million cast. There’s no question that Illinois is worse off than we were four years ago and that there’s still much work to be done to rebuild our economy and rein in our state spending.
I am now asked every day whether I will run for Governor again in 2014, and I want you to know that Nancy, my campaign and I are laying the groundwork to finish the job we started together three years ago.
Our state debt has now soared to a staggering $21,607 for every resident of Illinois. Under Governor Quinn, more than 290,000 jobs have been lost. Wall Street has lost confidence in Illinois and downgraded our credit rating 11 times alone since 2009 when Quinn took office – more than half the total downgrades in our state’s entire history.
Illinois is at a tipping point. We’ve suffered a decade of decline, debt and despair under two Democrat governors. Our challenges are great, and our state’s leadership has proved itself weak. People may debate my solutions, but they should never doubt my resolve to helping lead Illinois toward a brighter future.
We need to reduce our debt, fix the pension system, and reinstate sound fiscal principles in the state of Illinois. Illinois families and employers continue to face tough times with unemployment, the economy and out-of-control government spending. The decisions we make today in response to those challenges will affect us for the next generation.
We must continue to work to rebuild our economy, encourage our employers to invest in Illinois, reduce the size and cost of government and provide greater opportunities for our children. I am committed to making the necessary tough decisions to bring Illinois back to the greatness we once knew.
Polling shows that I have earned far more support and recognition than any of the other Republicans who have expressed interest in running in 2014. Just as importantly, polling shows that I am best positioned to take back the Governor’s Office, no matter who the Democrat nominee is. Unlike others, I have shown I can build an enthusiastic first-class organization, raise the millions of dollars necessary and withstand the white-hot scrutiny of the media and Democrats in a hotly contested gubernatorial contest.
I hope you’ll offer me your advice over the next several weeks as I continue to travel throughout the state speaking to Illinois citizens and make my final decision. I want to hear what you think, the issues you consider important and the suggestions you may have to resolve those many challenges we face. Another email in the near future will contain an on-line issues poll that will take only a few moments to answer.
And I hope you’ll take a minute right now to support my efforts with your most generous contribution. . Your contributions and support in 2010 almost put us over the top. This will be another hard-fought campaign, and your investment today is important to the decisions I make. You may click on the link above to contribute by credit card, or you may send your contribution to the address below.
Thanks for your past support, and together, you and I can finish the job and set Illinois on a better course for our families.
California’s first credit upgrade in six years shows how curbs on pension costs, a voter-backed tax boost and an improving economy have allowed it to exit Wall Street’s basement, leaving Illinois as the lowest-rated state.
The higher rating by Standard & Poor’s marks a turnaround for California, which has the world’s ninth-largest economy and was once seen as ungovernable as it faced unrelenting budget gaps and issued IOUs to pay bills. Yesterday’s change came less than a week after Illinois had its score lowered, prompting officials to postpone a $500 million bond issue.
Both states have raised taxes. Both are controlled by Democrats, and both have seen unemployment decline. California Governor Jerry Brown, returning to the office he first held three decades ago, cut long-term retiree obligations, saving as much as $55 billion over 30 years. Illinois has skipped pension fund payments and failed to bolster America’s weakest retirement system, with a deficit that grows $17 million a day. […]
Brown persuaded voters in November to pass the highest statewide sales tax in the U.S. and raised levies on income starting at $250,000, for a temporary $6 billion annual revenue boost for seven years. He won reductions in pensions for new state employees and is benefiting from a legal change allowing his budget to be approved with a simple majority vote, rather than two-thirds of the legislature.
* Jerry Brown came into office and did exactly the opposite of what Pat Quinn did. Brown slashed government to the marrow, causing real pain. He reformed pensions. Only then did California voters agree to tax hikes.
When Quinn took the reins in 2009, he decided against deep cuts and allowed the problems to fester for two years, until he and the General Assembly raised taxes in 2011. But he didn’t raise taxes high enough to avoid spending cuts, so it’s been one excruciating budget after another, and except for that prospective employee pension reform, nothing accomplished on that front, either.
* The thing is, people don’t really pay all that much attention to state government. They don’t really understand what the state actually does. By slashing spending, Gov. Brown created a whole lot of hardship, but the pain showed Californians how vital state government can be.
There were good reasons not to slash the Illinois budget in 2009-10 - one being the economy. But the income tax hike eventually took some real steam out of the economy as well.
It’s easy for me as a successful white male with a grown daughter to say that Quinn should’ve taken the Brown route. A whole lot of real people got hurt by those California cuts. Universities and P-12 education suffered greatly as well.
But Brown has taught his state an invaluable lesson about government, while the message received in Illinois - no matter how erroneous - is that tax hikes don’t work and that government is messed up beyond repair.
Oy.
* Other stuff…
* Editorial: What can labor offer on COLA increases?
“I don’t have enough words to say thank you. All I can say is I’ll give you my whole heart and soul,” State Sen. Toi Hutchison said Wednesday as a group of African-American ministers prayed that the other black candidates- Robin Kelly, Alderman Anthony Beale and State Senator Napoleon Harris would remove themselves from the ballot. They believe by having one black candidate, it would be easier for an African-American to win on February 26.
Not long after that prayer, Napoleon Harris dropped out - and endorsed Robin Kelly.
Oops.
Also, after whacking Kelly for accepting Harris’ endorsement, who is pro-life and against gay marriage, you gotta wonder if any of those ministers endorsing Hutchinson feel the same way.
* Related…
* Gun violence a big issue at 2nd District candidates debate
Illinois yanked a $500 million general obligation bond issue slated for Wednesday because of credit concerns that could boost its borrowing costs, in the latest financial blow to the state, which has failed to fix its bloated public pensions.
Investment banks that planned to bid on the debt indicated investors would demand higher yields on the 25-year bonds, said John Sinsheimer, Illinois’ capital markets director.
“We were getting indications of higher spreads than we were anticipating,” said Sinsheimer, who declined to discuss specific spread levels. “We felt it was prudent to pull the deal for the time being.”
Illinois is already faced with the highest spreads - 137 basis points in the latest week - over Municipal Market Data’s benchmark triple-A scale among states and cities tracked by MMD, a unit of Thomson Reuters. By contrast, the spread for California, another low-rated, high-debt issuance state, was only 48 basis points in the week ended Jan. 25. […]
Tim McGregor, director of municipal fixed income at Northern Trust, said the state probably would have had little difficulty selling the bonds on Wednesday “with a little bit of yield” given low supplies of debt in the $3.7 trillion municipal market and yield-hungry investors. He added that if Illinois wants to attract lower rates in the market, it needs to fix its finances, particularly pensions.
“Spreads won’t tighten just because they want them to tighten,” he said, adding the state needs to impress the market by tackling pension reforms.
Either way, it was probably prudent to let the furor over the rating reduction die down for a while.
* People in civil unions can now file their taxes electronically…
[Department of Revenue spokesperson Sue Hofer] said couples in civil unions can file electronically this year as a result of a software upgrade at the revenue agency. Last year, the first tax year for civil unions in Illinois, paper returns were required.
“It’s not fair to say, because you’re in a civil union, you have to file paper returns,” said Hofer.
A “civil union income report” also is required that allows state and federal returns to be matched for online filing.
The revenue department does not separately track civil-union returns, but nearly 5,200 civil unions were reported statewide from the time of legalization in June 2011 through the end of 2012.
* The Civil Rights Agenda responded via press release…
Because the federal government does not recognize civil unions, couples cannot file joint federal tax returns, so each partner in a civil union must prepare their tax returns twice.
“Taxes are such a headache and that is especially true if you are in a civil union,” said Anthony Martinez, Executive Director of The Civil Rights Agenda. “We received a large amount of calls and emails last year asking about filing taxes when a couple is in a civil union. The process is complicated and lengthy and includes the couple doing their taxes twice, once as if they were single and once as if they were married. The process also creates a large amount of unique paperwork. ,We are pleased that the Department has taken steps to ease the burden of filing taxes when you are in a civil union. Hopefully, the new Schedule will make a painstaking process a little bit easier.”
“The fact that there has to be a special schedule created for couples in civil union highlights that civil unions are not equal to marriage,” stated Rick Garcia, Director of the Equal Marriage Illinois Project and Senior Policy Advisor for The Civil Rights Agenda “The couples file their Illinois taxes as if they are married, but then have to use a special schedule that creates extra steps. Although these changes are welcome, we still must point out that civil unions are a separate institution from marriage and do not provide the same rights or responsibilities.”
Building on its successful 2012 record, House Majority PAC today announced it will run political programs in 10 Congressional Districts to target vulnerable Republicans, beginning in 2013. The Republican members of Congress are Michele Bachmann (MN-06), Mike Coffman (CO-06), Gary Miller (CA-31), Rodney Davis (IL-13), Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-08), Michael Grimm (NY-11), Joe Heck (NV-03), David Joyce (OH-14), John Kline (MN-02) and Steve Southerland (FL-02).
Each of these Republicans represents a competitive district and has an out-of-touch, extreme record.
Over the course of 2013, House Majority PAC will execute individually tailored plans in each of these 10 districts, to include earned and paid media, online communications and social networking. These efforts will lay the groundwork for increased political activity leading up to Election Day in 2014.
“In 2012, House Majority PAC built a strong record of success and in 2013 we are ready to hit the ground running to hold these Republicans accountable and communicate with swing voters about their extreme records and backwards priorities,” said Alixandria Lapp, Executive Director of House Majority PAC. “Whether it’s supporting the end of Medicare as we know it, backing tax cuts for the wealthy, working to roll back the clock on women’s rights or opposing stem cell research, these Republicans are simply out of step with the districts they represent. House Majority PAC will work to ensure voters know the truth.”
During the 2012 cycle, House Majority PAC spent approximately $36 million, amassing a record that independent observers termed “impressive” and “winning.” The Democratic candidate won in 63 percent of the races in which House Majority PAC spent a significant sum. And of the 10 races in which House Majority PAC spent the most money, Democrats won eight. [Emphasis added.]
I have my doubts about the potential for success there. The district has a ton of college students, from Bloomington, to Champaign to Edwardsville and everything in between. They tend to vote Democratic, but they don’t vote big in off-year elections. If Davis had lost last year, he’d be my favorite to win in 2014.
But maybe you have a different idea. Let’s hear it.
The Illinois Department of Corrections filled a high-ranking prison administrator’s position with a man who had political clout but whose qualifications fell far short of the agency’s own job-description requirements, a state investigation has found.
The Illinois Executive Ethics Commission, in a report released Wednesday, did not name the administrator or the prison where he works. But it indicated he had prior experience only in teaching theater, as an assistant manager at a “movie store,” and managing an office for his father’s political campaign. The report did not name the father.
The agency’s description for the job cited the need for extensive educational and practical experience in criminology, penal administration and prison supervision. Corrections Director S.A. “Tony” Godinez, who is named in the report, acknowledged that the job required the ability to run the entire prison in an emergency.
The commission recommended that Gov. Pat Quinn’s office “take appropriate action” in the case of the employee because he wasn’t qualified. But one of Quinn’s lawyers responded that a review of the employee’s status showed that he “has achieved the requisite education and employment experience” for the job.
It’s the second time in less than three months that Executive Inspector General Ricardo Meza has found hiring violations in in the Quinn administration. Meza reported in November that he found 10 violations of hiring law at the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
The state’s top ethics watchdog Wednesday accused a campaign consultant for state Sen. Napoleon Harris of misusing family leave time from his state job so he could do legislative campaign work.
State Executive Inspector General Ricardo Meza recommended that University Park resident Curtis Thompson be barred from future state employment because of his alleged actions.
“Mr. Thompson sought [family] leave on a fraudulent basis, submitted a false [family leave] form and attempted to cover up his fraudulent activity by stating that he had resigned,” Meza’s report said.
Thompson, a one-time $66,612-a-year administrator at the Department of Central Management Services, obtained family leave time from the agency in January 2012 ostensibly to care for his terminally ill father in Alabama, Meza alleged.
But instead, the report said, Thompson did political work for parts of three months, leading up to the March 20, 2012 Democratic primary where Harris prevailed in a three-way race in the 15th Senate District.
Meza’s report does not explicitly name Harris as the legislative candidate for whom Thompson worked while on family leave from the state, and an aide to Meza would neither confirm nor deny Harris was the candidate.
* Republican Congressman Aaron Schock reiterated his opposition yesterday to gay marriage during a Springfield media availability. But when asked why he opposed gay marriage, the potential gubernatorial candidate hesitated and stumbled. Watch…
* Will Caskey, a regular commenter here and one of the state’s top opposition researchers, penned an op-ed for Crain’s about Debbie Halvorson’s self-published memoir “Playing With The Big Boys” and extrapolates what the real problem is in Illinois…
I have read her 147-page book and find that it unintentionally provides some insights into how Springfield works — or, more precisely, doesn’t work. Take, for example, her explanation for voting for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s ill-fated Gross Receipts Tax despite not liking it at all:
I quickly piped up and said that it was a terrible idea and it wouldn’t work. I was told otherwise and to watch it move through the legislature. Under my breath I was mouthing, ‘Not with my vote’…Those of us on the Senate Executive Committee (which is made up solely of Senate leadership) were pressured to vote on the measure to move it to the full Senate for discussion.
In Ms. Halvorson’s view, her voting record isn’t her fault; then-Senate President Emil Jones or, later, U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi are to blame. Even worse, as the memoirist tells it, Ms. Pelosi didn’t listen to Ms. Halvorson’s advice about her own district […]
Write it down, ladies: “Playing ball with the big boys” means doing whatever the big boys say even when you think it’s awful. And then you lose your election and self-publish a book about it. Ms. Halvorson’s career is a tragedy in two parts: She did what she was told, and then there were consequences.
(L)eaders in both legislative chambers in Illinois have an unusual amount of power: Committees are a formality at best, and legislation is almost always advanced as amendments to empty “shell bills” after last-minute deals. Rank-and-file legislators have almost no reason to raise their own money, or advance their own bills and whip their own votes, or show any other typical political skill. All they have to do is show up and vote as they’re told. And it works, right up until they try to move up into Congress, where a decent campaign costs over $2 million and no one is interested in giving them that much money.
That explains what happened to Ms. Halvorson. She went from Springfield to Washington and got clobbered.
And that, in a nutshell, is Illinois: We suck because of strong party leadership, not despite it. Ms. Halvorson and politicians like her are just the logical outcome of a top-heavy power structure. The setup has its benefits, sometimes, when both chambers and the governor have a minimally functional relationship. But whether that relationship exists or not, individual members are free to be knuckleheads, so they are. Democrats in Illinois don’t have to be smart, or good at their own fundraising, or effective at legislating, so they aren’t. When they face tough votes, they complain about having to take them instead of following the best path to re-election. When they have to raise their own money, they complain that the party hasn’t come through. When they face the consequences to their own actions and records, they’re astonished.
* However, it’s not always this way. Kurt Erickson takes a look at how sub-caucuses have often held sway in the Illinois GA…
In the frenzied final hours of the 2005 spring session of the Illinois General Assembly, the push to finalize a new state budget suddenly ground to a halt when a bloc of Democratic lawmakers announced they couldn’t support the spending plan.
Without their votes, there was no way the Democratic majority could adopt a budget without Republican input, raising speculation that the session could go into overtime.
Facing the prospect of being stuck in Springfield during the summer months, House Speaker Michael Madigan called the members of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus into his private office near the House floor to try to find a way to meet their needs and keep the budget-making process on track. Hours later, members of the caucus announced they were back on board. No terms of the negotiations were ever outlined, but Republicans pointed to the insertion into the budget of hundreds of millions of dollars for local projects as an example of how the deal likely was sealed. […]
The incident is just one example of the role that caucuses can play in the legislative process. And, with Democrats now holding super-majorities in the Senate and the House, the informal coalitions could become an even bigger factor in what gets done and what doesn’t on the floor of the House and Senate. […]
In theory, the majorities held by Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton could allow them to ignore the threat of a veto from the governor.
Cullerton, however, believes the possibility of that happening is “exaggerated’’ because of the diverse nature of the Democratic caucus. In other words, just because they are Democrats doesn’t mean they see eye to eye on every issue.
“We have numerous caucuses. We have to compromise within our caucuses,” Cullerton says.
And last year, Senate Democratic incumbents raised hundreds of thousands of dollars on their own, which was then supplemented by money from their leader. It was quite impressive.
* But, yeah, legislative leaders are often like ward committeemen and their members are like constituents. They are coddled and serviced into submission. And when that doesn’t work, the hammer comes down.
* First, click here and take another look at House Speaker Michael Madigan’s letter to the AFL-CIO about declining to attend the pension reform summit and labor’s response.
* The Question: Should public employee unions be more willing to negotiate a pension reform deal that doesn’t involve higher taxes and does involve benefit cuts? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
