An Illinois legislative body is being told today that the State’s civil asset forfeiture laws are unfair, inconsistent and chaotic. The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois today is calling on the legislature to work with urgency to rewrite these laws in order to ensure that Illinois residents whose property is seized by police cannot be permanently deprived of that property without clear proof that they were involved in criminal activity. The legislators will be told that Illinois recently received a failing grade for the fairness and transparency of its civil asset forfeiture laws.
“Our state’s laws in this area currently are grossly unfair,” according to Ben Ruddell, criminal justice policy attorney for the ACLU of Illinois. “As preposterous as it seems, you can lose your property – including your car, cash, or even your home – without ever being arrested or charged with a crime.”
“The system is bent to favor police and prosecutors who can use the laws as a profit center.”
The hearing on this issue is being held jointly by the Judiciary Civil and Criminal Committees of the Illinois House of Representatives. The hearing is set to begin at 4:00 p.m. in 114 Capitol. Among the witnesses will be two prominent Illinois defense attorneys who have dealt extensively with Illinois forfeiture law, as well as Lee McGrath from the Institute for Justice. That national organization, in a recent report evaluating states’ asset forfeiture laws, gave Illinois laws a grade of “D-“for fairness and transparency.
The Committee also will hear from Judy Wiese, a grandmother from the Quad Cities. She learned about the forfeiture laws the hard way when her car was seized after she lent it to her grandson, who turned out to be driving on a suspended license. No attorney was provided to assist Ms. Wiese to assist in getting her vehicle returned. Many people who face a similar situation must post a bond for 10% of the value of the car just to begin the process. It took five months without transportation, the intervention of the local media, and the kindness of strangers for Ms. Wiese to regain possession of her vehicle.
Residents of Illinois forfeit more than $20 million in property each year. The amount was more than $27 million in 2013. This amount does not account for seizures in Illinois by the federal government. The law provides that almost all of the money and property forfeited from Illinoisans goes directly to the law enforcement agency that seized the property. Many critics of forfeiture laws argue that such a system induces law enforcement to seize more property as a revenue generating opportunity.
“Police and prosecutors should not benefit from taking property away from persons when it is not justified,” added Ruddell. “It creates an incentive to engage in aggressive seizures that only hurt more people.”
* Back in the day, the Illinois Gaming Board ruled against putting a casino in Rosemont because they were worried about alleged mob ties. Instead, they put the casino next door in Des Plaines.
And for years, the Chicago Tribune editorial board was completely enamored with former Illinois Gaming Board Chairman Aaron Jaffe and his staff. In one of several laudatory pieces they did on him, they were all cheered for their “stellar record of insulating the Illinois gambling industry.” Another representative Trib editorial quoted Arthur Bilek, executive vice president of the Chicago Crime Commission, as saying…
“What’s safeguarding Illinois now is the integrity of Judge Aaron Jaffe and Mark Ostrowski,” the Gaming Board’s chairman and top administrator.
Rivers Casino has paid one of the largest gaming-related fines in modern times – $1.65 million – following an Illinois Gaming Board investigation spurred in part by questions over a security and maintenance contractor’s ties to reputed mob figures.
Last year, the Better Government Association discovered that Rivers – Illinois’ newest and most lucrative casino – hired United Service Cos. for security and cleaning work at the Des Plaines gaming site.
The BGA asked Rivers officials last May about United’s hiring because Illinois casinos are not supposed to have even a hint of organized crime connections – something that helped sink Rosemont’s years-long push to score a gaming license.
* If you look at the Gaming Board’s report, you’ll see that Simon’s cleaning firm did work for the casino for a year (2011-2012) without any vendor authorization. Simon’s firm was “lacking a documented bidding process and a formal contract” in 2012. In 2013, “no formal contract” was entered into between the casino and Simon’s company for cleaning work. In late 2014, the casino hired Simon’s company to do cleaning work “without an RFP, without soliciting bids and without entering into a contract,” according to the investigation.
Finally, in late 2014, the casino signed a contract with Simon’s company, but backdated it to July, 2011.
Last week, SEIU Healthcare Illinois began airing ads targeting Rauner and cuts to social services. Now the ads will be aimed at more than a dozen Republican House members, a union source tells Illinois Playbook: “The escalation will begin later this week and it will be statewide. More mail is coming. Cable TV spots. Digital. There will be a new child care TV spot coming, too.”
The ads took aim at the governor: “Governor Rauner is attacking those Illinoisans who care for our seniors and people with disabilities. Endangering our most vulnerable.” A caretaker then looks into the camera, saying: “I don’t know how he expects anybody to survive.”
* SEIU reached out about its new direct mail program today…
[Here’s the] first of several mailers. We have GOP targets that span the state. More than a dozen. Fewer than two dozen. They’ve been contacted individually, each asked to support fair contracts for our 53,000 home healthcare and child care workers, an end to the Rauner cuts and support for our our legislative package, which continues to advance in both chambers.
The Illinois House speaker has proposed a constitutional amendment to strengthen the state’s obligation to fund public education.
Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan introduced legislation Monday. It declares that education is a fundamental “right” — as opposed to “goal” — and that the state has the “preponderant financial responsibility” for funding schools.
If the House and Senate approve, the amendment would be on November’s ballot. Madigan spokesman Steve Brown says the Constitution is clear that the state should be the “primary” financial source, but that the language of the proposed amendment makes it abundantly clear.
Provides that a fundamental right (instead of goal) of the People of the State is the educational development of all persons to the limits of their capacities. Provides that it is the paramount duty of the State to provide for a thorough and efficient system of high quality public education institutions and services and to guarantee equality of educational opportunity as a fundamental right of each citizen (instead of requiring the State to provide for an efficient system of high quality public education institutions and services). Provides that the State has the preponderant financial responsibility (instead of the primary responsibility) for financing the system of public education. Effective upon being declared adopted
Subscribers have more background.
* The Question: Do you support this constitutional amendment? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
Ed Izenstark inherited Huntington’s disease from his biological father, but he only found out after the fatal nerve disorder began to show itself and after months of frustrating and costly efforts to learn more about his origins.
The 30-year-old father of three from the Chicago suburb of Batavia was hospitalized last May with severe stomach pains, nausea and involuntary twitching that his doctors couldn’t explain. Suspecting it could be genetic, Izenstark sought more information about his background but had a hard time getting it from state adoption agencies. In February, he finally learned that his birth father had the disease. On Friday, his fears were confirmed that he did, too.
“(The information) should be available to anyone, if it’s yours. But it’s not yours. It’s the state’s and the state decides,” Izenstark said.
The Illinois House is considering a measure that would allow agencies to let people know the reasons they were put up for adoption and other information that wouldn’t identify their birth parents, including details of their medical histories. Its sponsor, Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, a Democrat from Chicago who was adopted herself, said the changes would be a real benefit to adult adoptees.
* Meanwhile, from a press release…
Calling attention to the growing staffing crisis affecting people with developmental disabilities and urging immediate action to address the problem by raising wages for Direct Support Professionals (DSPs), a wide-ranging coalition of disability advocacy groups will join key legislators at a press conference [today] in the Illinois State Capitol.
In Illinois, over 27,000 people with developmental disabilities live in apartments, group homes and other residential programs. DSPs in community agencies provide the foundation for community living. They ensure the health, safety and well-being of people with developmental disabilities by providing daily personal care, teaching life skills, and supporting people to be actively engaged and working in their community. But the state has not adjusted reimbursement rates for community agencies to raise DSP wages for eight years. […]
The coalition includes The Arc of Illinois, the Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities, AFSCME Council 31, Don Moss & Associates, The Center for Developmental Disabilities Advocacy & Community Support, The Institute on Public Policy for People with Developmental Disabilities and McManus Consulting.
State Sen. Sam McCann is seeking to protect from government intrusion the longtime practice of “seed sharing.”
McCann, a Plainview Republican, is sponsoring a bill aimed at clarifying ambiguity in current state law that could require the exchanging and sharing of seed to be subject to commercial regulations such as testing and record-keeping.
“This is not a bill saying that anything has been done unfairly,” McCann said. “We’re saying that we’re trying to keep something from being interpreted unduly in the future.”
Illinois lawmakers are in no hurry to pass a state budget after 287 days, but they certainly are in a rush to be the second state in the nation to try to legislate bigotry regarding transgender teens. Those who fail to be effective leaders on the big picture items always seem to busy themselves micromanaging.
* Tax Illinois drivers by the mile?: A new proposal to pay for fixing Illinois’ roads could use devices to track how far Illinois drivers have traveled and tax them by the mile. The plan from Senate President John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat, is aimed at gasoline tax revenues that have fallen as drivers have bought more fuel-efficient cars.
* Editorial: School funding formula needs to change
* FiveThirtyEight ran the numbers on the recent drop in Chicago police activity and increase in crime…
Chicago police officers have said they are confused by public scrutiny in the wake of the [Laquan McDonald] video’s release and have pointed to new and burdensome paperwork as discouraging them from making street stops and engaging in other “proactive policing.” Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged that officers might have been more uncertain since the release of the video but suggested that the majority of the change was due to the paperwork requirements. Late last month, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed a new interim police chief, Eddie Johnson, in the hopes of improving department morale. Johnson faces the prospect of the bloodiest year since at least 2003: Chicago is on pace for roughly 570 homicides and nearly 2,100 nonfatal shooting incidents, numbers that could be even higher if the violence increases with warmer weather.
After some cities saw a rise in crime last year, police chiefs and even the head of the FBI suggested that the United States was experiencing a “Ferguson effect”: Police officers sensitive to public scrutiny in the wake of protests over the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, were pulling back on police work, the theory went, and emboldened criminals were seizing their chance. The evidence for any such effect nationally was mixed — our colleague Carl Bialik analyzed crime data from 60 major cities in September and found an increase in homicides in some places, but a decrease in others. Chicago had seen a 20 percent increase in homicides from the year before, but, as Carl noted, crime statistics are volatile.
The spike in gun violence in Chicago since the end of November, though, is too sharp to be explained by seasonal fluctuations or chance. There have been 175 homicides and approximately 675 nonfatal shooting incidents1 from Dec. 1 through March 31, according to our analysis of city data.2 The 69 percent drop in the nonfatal shooting arrest rate and the 48 percent drop in the homicide arrest rate since the video’s release also cannot be explained by temperature or bad luck. Even though crime statistics can see a good amount of variation from year to year and from month to month, this spike in gun violence is statistically significant, and the falling arrest numbers suggest real changes in the process of policing in Chicago since the video’s release. […]
Guglielmi placed much of the blame for the decline in proactive policing on a new form that must be filled out after some interactions with members of the public, a result of the city’s August 2015 settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union over the department’s “stop and frisk” program. The form, called an investigatory stop report, is much longer than the contact cards it replaces and can take hours to complete after some encounters. Officers told the Chicago Sun-Times in January that an “ACLU effect” was driving a reduction in police activity. “The rules of the game changed on Jan. 1,” Guglielmi said.
Although the ISR may be playing a minor role in curbing proactive policing, it doesn’t appear to be the major reason behind the downward trend in arrests. The ISR was implemented on Jan. 1, 38 days after the release of the Laquan McDonald video. In that five-week span, the overall arrest rate fell from 26 percent to 19 percent. Since Jan. 1, the overall arrest rate has risen slightly. The onset of the decline in arrests significantly predates the ISR, and arrests have actually increased since it was introduced, though they are occurring less frequently than they did in 2015.
Ander noted that several less controversial crime prevention and intervention resources in Chicago have had their funding cut recently because of a state budget crisis in Illinois, perhaps contributing to violence in the most troubled neighborhoods.
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2016 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Last week, a group of leading climate scientists and conservationists from Illinois and around the world, including Dr. James Hansen, Rachel Pritzker, and Michael Shellenberger, urged Illinois’ leaders in an open letter to save Illinois’ nuclear plants so they can provide clean energy for decades to come. They wrote:
Illinois generates more zero-emissions electricity than any other state. Most of it comes from the state’s six nuclear power plants, which produce about half of Illinois’ total generation and 90 percent of its low-carbon generation. These plants are in their prime and could stay in service many more years and even decades.
Unfortunately, Illinois is at risk of losing one or more of its nuclear plants and with them the progress the state has made in clean energy.
If Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear plants were replaced by natural gas, carbon emissions would immediately increase the equivalent of adding two million cars to the road. If they were replaced by coal, the carbon emissions would more than double.
… Illinois is at an urgent juncture. Failure to keep all of Illinois’ nuclear power plants running for the full lifetimes will result in more air pollution, and further cause Illinois to underperform on climate. Action now would establish all of you as leaders in safeguarding clean air today and the climate for future generations.
When Marty Flaska moved his forklift-manufacturing business to Illinois 18 years ago, he didn’t think to look at the cost of operating in other states.
In 2014, out of curiosity, his son ran the numbers.
“I didn’t believe him,” said the elder Flaska. His son told him that a short drive east would save the business $2 million per year.
Thus began the journey of Hoist Liftruck to greener pastures in Indiana; a move that resulted from policy mistakes that have made the Land of Lincoln a laggard state when it comes to forging well-paying manufacturing jobs.
On March 31, Flaska cut the ribbon on a massive facility in East Chicago, Ind., the new home of Hoist. The Indiana factory will house nearly 300 manufacturing jobs transplanted from Bedford Park as well as 200 new jobs Flaska plans to create. The average salary for one of those positions is $55,000.
Bedford Park is just down the road from Speaker Madigan’s house.
Indiana is giving the company up to $8.25 million in tax credits as a reward for the hiring, and $200,000 for employee training. East Chicago, the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority and NIPSCO also are offering additional incentives.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Senate President Cullerton told reporters today that the meeting was called “to discuss the budget,” and that he didn’t believe attendees would be talking about Turnaround Agenda items.
Rich Miller, publisher of the Capitol Fax newsletter and associated blog, is guest speaker at a Citizens Club of Springfield reception on Thursday.
The event, marking the club’s 10-year anniversary, is from 5-7 p.m. at the Illinois Realtors, 522 S. Fifth St. The public is invited, and tickets can be purchased at the door for $25. […]
The club’s mission is to bring area residents impartial, bipartisan discussions about issues affecting the quality of life in the Springfield area.
This is my first speech since the City Club thing last December that’ll be open to the general public, so it should be fun.
* If you go to about the 27-minute mark of this BlueRoomStream.com video, you’ll hear Republican state Rep. Bob Pritchard tell a Chicago audience yesterday that he is open to some specific tax proposals.
“We’ve got to look realistically at some revenue situations,” Pritchard said while speaking on a panel convened by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
“Broadening the sales tax,” Rep. Pritchard said, “could be part of the solution… perhaps even bring the rate down a little bit.” He didn’t say it, but he was likely referring to a sales tax on services.
He also said legislators “should look again at some type of income tax,” and “some type of pension tax,” but said he also wanted some of Gov. Rauner’s business-related reforms, without specifying which ones he backed.
Later, he said he thinks “most legislators” are coming to realize that more revenues are needed. But he also said he wants to see workers’ comp and tort reforms, as well as some modest limits on the prevailing wage.
* Related…
* Illinois Lawmakers: Rank-And-File Legislators Key To Breaking Budget Impasse
To: Members of the General Assembly
From: Richard Goldberg, Deputy Chief of Staff
Date: April 12, 2016
Re: HA 1 to SB 2046 – Another Partisan Spending Bill Filled With Empty Promises
Last week, Governor Rauner called for bipartisan cooperation to solve our budget crisis. “Now is the opportunity to put partisan differences aside and work together on solutions for the people of Illinois,” he wrote in the State Journal-Register.
But rather than work together to find bipartisan solutions to fund higher education and human services, the majority stands ready to pass another phony budget that promises to spend money the state simply doesn’t have. According to GOMB Director Tim Nuding, “at this point, appropriation bills that are not tied to revenue, spending reductions or savings-generating reforms are nothing more than IOUs that drive our state deeper into debt and exacerbate the bill backlog.”
House Amendment 1 (HA1) to SB 2046 would appropriate $3.89 billion, including more than $3 billion in General Funds, without any way to pay for it. That’s not compromise or fiscal responsibility – that’s just another partisan spending bill filled with empty promises for students, universities, community colleges, social service providers and our most vulnerable citizens.
Over the past few weeks, Republicans have proposed ways to fund MAP grants, universities, community colleges, social services, veterans homes, public health grants and much more – all tied to savings-generating government reforms. These alternatives would accomplish the overarching goal of HA 1 to SB 2046 without making empty promises, adding to our debt or exacerbating the bill backlog.
Now is the time to negotiate in good faith, not push each other farther apart. Now is the time for bipartisan solutions, not another partisan spending bill filled with empty promises.
“This money is not just for me,” Romanik said, “it’s for anybody running against any candidate backed by the culture of corruption.” Romanik, on his radio show, often refers to the local Democrat party as a culture of corruption.
He’s previously said he would spend “at least” $325,000 on his own campaign, with the rest going to other candidates.
* The local Democrats have already sent out a mailer blasting him…
On the flip side is a photo of Republican state representative candidate from the 114th District Bob Romanik, wearing a red, white and blue “Uncle Sam” suit. Beside the photo of Romanik, a radio talk show host, is a tersely-worded message urging voters not to vote for Romanik or any of 10 county office Republican candidates he supports in the November election. The photo is below a headline that says “A buffoon.”
“In St. Clair County, (the) Republican Party is in danger. Bob Romanik — the foul-mouthed, bigoted, sleaze jock — has used his ill-gotten money to hijack the party and replace it with his Freedom Coalition,” the Democrat Party’s political flyer states. “It’s time for St. Clair County Republicans to take their party back by rejecting Bob Romanik and his followers.” […]
“I want to thank them for their desperate action,” Romanik said. “This will just mean more votes for us…This shows that the Democrats are just trying to manipulate people like they always have. They are vulgar people.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** For whatever reason, I didn’t notice the “interactive graphic” in the article. According to that document, Chicago Public Schools’ funding would drop by more than $74 million under the governor’s plan. Many thanks to a commenter for pointing that out.
*** UPDATE 2 *** From the governor’s office…
CPS would have lost almost $200m ($189m to be exact) under the Democratic proration method.
Rauner’s 100% funding plan saves CPS over $100 million.
*** UPDATE 3 *** More from the governor’s office…
CPS will receive $74 million less state aid because they have fewer students.
*** UPDATE 4 *** Press release…
State Senator Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) issued the following statement in response to the governor’s education funding plan.
“This information gives us the opportunity to thoroughly debate the merits of the governor’s plan. Each school district deserves to know how it would fare under it.”
“Unfortunately, what I’m seeing is that the additional money flowing into the formula would continue to be funneled away from schools with the greatest need.”
“Putting more money into education is a great idea, but our flawed funding formula means that districts that lack resources and have been hit hard by cuts, districts like Taylorville, East St. Louis, Harvey and Streator, will be hit once again. In these four districts alone, there’s over $1.3 million in combined cuts. It’s not fair to the students, teachers, parents or taxpayers. These numbers show why change is needed.”
“I’m looking forward to similar debates about the education funding reform plan currently before the Senate, and I’m very encouraged by the overwhelming majority of legislators and state leaders who agree that the current system is flawed and needs to be changed.”
“The funding formula he defends makes no sense. If you’re a wealthy district you gain, if you’re a poor district you lose,” Claypool said at a news conference Tuesday.
He likened Rauner’s plan to “more akin to what we would see in the education system in Mississippi in the 1960s” because it shortchanges districts full of children who are poor and black or brown.
Claypool would not say what effect the proposal could have on stalled contract negotiations with the Chicago Teachers Union.
“It certainly makes our already grave fiscal crisis graver,” he said. “The threat to our schools in the coming school year is even more profound than yesterday.”
Gov. Bruce Rauner is releasing numbers Tuesday showing how individual school districts would do under his education funding plan as he continues to push lawmakers to approve it despite the ongoing state budget battle.
Rauner has called for adding $55 million to the state’s general school payments, eliminating a series of cuts from previous years known as proration. That’s in addition to $75 million more that would be spent for early childhood programs. […]
Among the biggest winners in Rauner’s general aid numbers: $5.9 million more for Carpentersville-based Community Unit District 300, about $3.6 million more for Elgin Area District U-46 and $2.2 million more for Aurora East District 131 in the next fiscal year.
A few others each would see more than a million dollars more, including districts in Antioch, Grayslake, Huntley, Wauconda and Waukegan.
Among the districts that would lose money next year under Rauner’s proposal: Indian Prairie District 204 would get about $973,000 less. Addison District 4 and North Chicago District 187 would each see a drop of more than $600,000.
Notice anything missing? The impact on Chicago and Downstate districts with high poverty levels. The Democrats have predicted those schools would fare poorly yet again with the Rauner plan. Stay tuned for those numbers.
The governor is speaking to business groups at 11:45 and then to the bankers at 12:30. We’ll have live coverage.
Cracks might be forming in Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s decades-long hold on House Democrats, as backbenchers continue to cook under the heat of the state’s incessant budget impasse.
Those fissures appeared suddenly Monday in Rock Island, as a pair of House Democrats championed legislation that would impose limits on how long a lawmaker can hold a legislative leadership post.
Provides that no person may serve more than 8 consecutive years in any of the following leadership roles: Speaker of the House of Representatives, President of the Senate, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, and Minority Leader of the Senate. Provides that the limitations imposed by the amendatory Act apply to service beginning on and after January 11, 2017.
According to the article, Democratic Reps. Pat Verschoore and Mike Smiddy now support that bill, although they haven’t yet signed on as co-sponsors.
“I think sometimes — I don’t think, I know — that the top guy can amass a lot of power,” Verschoore told business leaders at a Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce luncheon. […]
Rep. Mike Smiddy, D-Hillsdale, is fighting for his political life. Smiddy, like Madigan, is a vocal critic of Rauner’s “Turnaround Agenda.” Yet he, too, joined those supporting the ouster of leadership every eight years, a direct assault on Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.
“I agree, we need term limits for leadership,” Smiddy said. […]
But it was the candor of Verschoore and Smiddy that raised eyebrows. Madigan not only runs the House and determines a bill’s survival. He’s also head of the state Democratic Party, an organization Smiddy will rely on to beat back a tough challenge by Republican Savanna Mayor Tony McCombie for the District 71 seat. […]
Frustration with the Madigan/Rauner standoff has stewed for months. And distancing oneself from Madigan might behoove any non-Chicago Democrat looking to keep a job. But Verschoore has no reason to pander. And, now, Smiddy is on the record stating unequivocally that leadership should be regularly cleansed.
* The very simple explanation for Verschoore is that he’s still furious at Madigan for not backing his preferred replacement in the recent primary (his nephew Jeff Jacobs). Not to mention that Madigan’s not-so-secret support for the eventual primary winner, Mike Halpin, funded slams on Verschoore himself via negative direct mail and TV ads.
Madigan definitely has some trouble with Verschoore, but it’s not like the guy’s gonna walk over to Rauner. The man bleeds Democratic union blood.
And Smiddy is a Tier One target, so supporting this bill is kind of a no-brainer and isn’t nearly as consequential as saying he won’t vote for Madigan for Speaker come January. Smiddy also got himself elected without help from Madigan in 2012, so he has been more independent-minded, although he had to be bailed out in 2014.
* Madigan only “requires” two votes from his membership: Reelection as Speaker and the House rules. Other than that, they can do pretty much whatever they want, unless they’re a target and then they’re given constant “advice” on how their votes will impact the folks back home and, by extension, their own reelections.
The author of the above piece is the paper’s editorial page editor. And those folks throughout the state are almost uniformly anti-Madigan. I’m not saying there’s no grumbling about Madigan in the ranks. There most certainly is, and for good reason. I’m just saying here that an open revolt is unlikely at this moment, and it’s mainly because of who’s leading the opposition (which is pretty much always the case, but is especially true now).
The increasingly bitter national fight over the loyalty of delegates to this summer’s Republican National Convention is showing signs of spreading to Illinois, which will select 12 at-large delegates and 12 at-large alternate delegates that the Donald Trump campaign would like to consider theirs. […]
In position to make the final call is Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is expected to not only attend the convention but chair Illinois’ delegation as the effective head of he state Republican Party. Stuck in the middle is Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who normally would be expected to attend the convention, too, but, as an elected at-large delegate would be bound to vote for Trump on the first ballot.
In the March primary, Trump won 37 of the delegates selected at the congressional district level, compared to nine for Cruz and six for Ohio Gov. John Kasich. They technically are bound to Trump only for the first ballot, but were hand-picked by the Trump organization and generally are considered loyal.
Not necessarily so are the 12 at-large delegates and 12 at-large alternates who will be selected at the state party convention in Peoria on May 20-21. The delegates to the state convention, in turn, will be selected at potentially contentious county conventions over the next month. […]
State party Chairman Tim Schneider, who was installed in his job by Rauner, says he’s “hoping” to avoid the sort of nasty fights that have occurred in other states. Specifically, a committee headed by former state GOP Chairman Jack Dorgan will nominate a slate of candidates that likely includes some who will back Trump, as well as some who support Cruz or Kasich.
Hoo boy. What a sticky wicket.
* I have generally avoided national party conventions over the years (I went to one when it was in Chicago). But I do believe I’m gonna attend this one, although wearing a press badge might not be the safest thing to do. Then again, being a delegate might not be all that safe, either…
More than three months before any ballots have been cast at the Republican convention, Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again consigliere, has delivered the campaign equivalent of a severed horse head to delegates who might consider denying Trump the nomination. Trump’s supporters will find you in your sleep, he merrily informed them this week. He did not mean it metaphorically.
“We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal,” Stone said Monday, on Freedomain Radio. “If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this, if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed,” Stone said.
The Trump campaign later disavowed those statements.
Rank-and-file Illinois lawmakers frustrated by the 10-month state budget impasse are meeting on their own in bipartisan groups to discuss potential solutions.
Some of those legislators spoke Monday in Chicago during a forum on the budget hosted by The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
State Reps. William Davis, a Homewood Democrat, and Republican Robert Pritchard of Hinckley say they recently attended a lawmaker gathering in suburban Chicago to discuss tactics. They declined to discuss specific proposals, saying they’re in the initial phases. The goal is to present plans to legislative leaders in hopes of resolving the stalemate between Democratic legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who haven’t met in months.
Things are starting to happen again and we might see results pretty quickly. You’ll recall that Gov. Rauner shut down a similar process last year because it didn’t produce enough results for him and, to a lesser extent, because he was angry that the process became public. But times are changing.
An Associated Press analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data found that nearly 1,400 water systems serving 3.6 million Americans exceeded the federal lead standard at least once between Jan. 1, 2013, and Sept. 30, 2015. The affected systems are large and small, public and private, and include 278 systems that are owned and operated by schools and day care centers in 41 states. […]
In Galesburg, a community of 31,000 about 200 miles southwest of Chicago, lead levels have exceeded the federal standard in 22 out of 30 testing periods since 1992. City officials say their ground water and water mains are lead-free, but the toxin enters the supply in service lines that deliver water from the streets to 4,700 homes. Lead-based plumbing fixtures that were common in homes built before 1980 also contribute.
The city discovered its most recent problem last fall, when 7 out of 40 samples came back at unacceptable levels. The city followed EPA guidelines by informing residents of the situation two months later. Its notice said that a chemical added to the water since 1993 has been effective in reducing the lead levels and resulted in “lead compliance since 2010,” a misleading statement since no testing was required in 2013 and 2014.
The notice added that recent testing showed the standard had been exceeded “by a narrow margin.” In reality, lead levels were 1.5 times the standard.
According to data from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, tap water in the Champaign County village [of Sydney] has exceeded the national “action level” for lead three times since 2010. […]
There is no safe level for lead exposure — especially for young children, who could suffer behavioral and learning disabilities from the neurotoxin.
Following the crisis in Flint, Michigan, Illinois regulators want to increase their speed when it comes to notifying water customers of systems that exceed the federal lead standard.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and the Illinois Department of Public Health have decided on a 10-day deadline to let customers know about the lead violations.
That is significantly quicker than the federal standard that states homeowners must be notified within 30 days.
Good for them. That 30-day notice requirement is way too long.
* But, Illinois being Illinois, one hand at the IEPA wants action while the other hand at the IEPA is cutting off funding…
A university water-system operator training program is on the chopping block due to a lack of federal student loan money and state funding, even as headlines about the disastrous effects of negligent water system operators continue to appear daily.
The Environmental Resources Training Center at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is one of the few of its kind in the nation. The year-long program certifies personnel in the operation, maintenance and management of drinking water and wastewater treatment systems for work in Illinois and Missouri. […]
With or without loans, the program may have to be scrapped altogether if the state’s budget impasse is not solved. Gov. Bruce Rauner has not released funds to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which takes money from the U.S. EPA and gives it to the program for operating costs. The funds are mostly used for salaries.
Thus, the program will not receive the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” it is owed by the agency until the governor releases the funds, supposedly when the budget impasse comes to an end, said Marci Webb, program office manager. […]
“This program trains water operators who could help solve some of those problems you’ve seen up in Flint and Chatham,” he noted in reference to disastrous effects of lead-poisoned water in Flint, Michigan, and a new treatment plant in Chatham, Illinois, that has left residents questioning the village’s water quality.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation (IDFPR) and the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) are pleased to announce a new initiative that streamlines the professional licensing process for men and women who are being released from prison.
Starting immediately, offenders who’ve completed the required coursework for Barbering and Cosmetology will be able to apply for their professional license and meet with the licensing board via video conference up to six months before their release or parole date. This common sense policy change reverses the previous approach, which prohibited offenders from starting the application process until they were already released from the institution.
“By creating a pathway towards licensure while still in the institutional setting, we are able to provide near immediate opportunity for individuals exiting prison,” said Bryan A. Schneider, IDFPR Secretary. “We believe this regulatory revision provides real change for those leaving incarceration, while supplying our local economies with able bodied employees at the ready.”
“This is a step in the right direction as we work toward reducing the recidivism rate in Illinois,” said IDOC Acting Director John Baldwin. “When men and women know they’ll be rewarded for their hard work, they are more inclined to participate in programming that will improve their odds of success in the community. This new policy means offenders will be able to join the workforce as soon as they walk out of the correctional center doors.”
This effort is a direct response to the Illinois Criminal Justice and Sentencing Commission’s recommendation to “remove unnecessary barriers to those convicted of crimes from obtaining professional licenses.” It is a small but critical first step in reducing employment barriers for ex-offenders and driving down the prison population in the state of Illinois.
Interviews and b-roll of Cosmetology students at Logan Correctional Center are available on the IDOC Facebook page and on the CMS website at http://www.illinois.gov/cms/agency/media/video/.
With about 200 people dying of heroin overdoses each year in Chicago, the police are preparing to launch a radical new strategy to help addicts caught in narcotics investigations on the West Side.
As usual, officers will arrest people caught buying small amounts of heroin and take them to the police station. But officers will now give them the option of entering a drug-treatment program — and not being charged with a crime.
Users with violent criminal backgrounds and those who are “active gang members” will be excluded, police say.
“This is a one-time get-out-of-jail-free card,” said Ruth Coffman, executive director of the University of Chicago Health Lab, which will evaluate the program. […]
About $1 billion of heroin passes through Cook County alone every year, mostly on the West Side, Riccio said. One open-air market at Grenshaw and Independence had hundreds of people standing in line for heroin until police busted the operation last year, he said.
In the past five years, the legislature has slashed state funding for addiction prevention, cut addiction treatment by 40% and mental health treatment by nearly 25%.
Elgin Residential Rehab and Men’s Residence West are two inpatient treatment homes that will be closing within the next 30 days, leaving those battling addiction to try to find help elsewhere at a time such places are scarce.
Lutheran Social Services of Illinois announced it is closing both programs, among 30 other programs being phased out, because of the state’s inability to pass a budget. […]
A Roosevelt University study titled “Diminishing Capacity: The Heroin Crisis and Illinois Treatment in a National Perspective” found that as heroin use increases, the state is ranked third worst in the nation for providing publicly-funded addiction treatment.
As Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced growing criticism last fall over the city’s handling of police shootings, Chicago Police Department officials laid plans to have undercover officers spy on protest groups, records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show. […]
The undercover police operations last fall stemmed from plans announced by the Black Youth Project, the Workers Center and Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation — a coalition of churches and neighborhood groups known as SOUL — to protest the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, held Oct. 24-27 at McCormick Place.
Funders for Justice — a nationwide network of philanthropic groups that includes the Ford Foundation, one of the country’s biggest and best-known charitable organizations — posted an announcement of the “counter-conference” on its website. The Funders group had been formed to support discussions of police practices post-Ferguson.
A police department spokesman described the probe as “routine” and within the law, adding that it was “documented to ensure transparency with the public.”
“These protective actions — which happen in limited circumstances — are conducted to protect public safety and people’s First Amendment rights,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the newspaper.
Wait. They’re conducting these operations to “protect” First Amendment rights?
And I’m sure this had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the protesters were going to picket a police chiefs meeting.
Workshop titles include “Pathways to Violent Extremism: Understanding the Radicalization Process and How Best to Prevent Violence in Your Community” and “Use of Force By and Against the Police: Perspectives from the Local, State, and National Level.” […]
There will be a series of talks organized by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) on various themes, including something called “police legitimacy.” Among the CPD workshops is “The Chicago NATO Model: Bringing Order to Disorder While Ensuring First Amendment Rights
The recent reports about the level and breadth of police monitoring of peaceful protest groups is unsettling and requires a response. Thousands of Chicago residents have joined protests in recent months demanding a more accountable, more transparent policing system in the City, and these protests have been conducted largely in a peaceful, considerate fashion. Rather than being dangerous, it has been inspiring to see so many young people take a leadership role in helping to plan and shape these activities.
The exercise of one’s protected First Amendment rights should not be a catalyst for a police investigation, whether overt or the covert insertion of undercover officers inside an organization. Such spying on peaceful protesters chills speech. The ACLU strongly opposes police officers attending meetings and collecting information on people organizing to exercise their First Amendment rights.
Given Chicago’s bleak history of using undercover officers to investigate and infiltrate peaceful groups simply for opposing policies emanating from City Hall, there must be strong, written guidelines for guarding against abuses in the use of police to investigate these sorts of activities. Washington D.C., for example, has a protective ordinance requiring “reasonable suspicion of a crime” before beginning the kind of investigations described here. Chicago used this standard for decades, but since the dissolution of a long-standing federal consent decree in June 2009, the standard of “a legitimate law enforcement purpose” has guided the CPD’s decisions for whether to spy on political movements. That standard is too low and nebulous, and inevitably leads to the kind of troubling spying reported here.
The ACLU of Illinois urges the Chicago City Council to hold hearings into these investigations as a precursor to considering written, formal guidelines, adopted by the Council that can help assure every person in Chicago that exercising free speech is not a predicate for a criminal investigation.
Instead of spying on churches and other groups, how about using those limited resources to spy on some dangerous criminals? I mean, the city’s so very safe, right?
North Side activists rallied Sunday around legislation they hope will end Illinois’ nearly yearlong budget stalemate and secured commitments from lawmakers at a full-house community convention in Lake View.
ONE Northside is pursuing legislation in Springfield its members say would close $2.5 billion annually in corporate tax loopholes. The bill was filed in January by Rep. Will Davis, D-East Hazel Crest. […]
A small group of Democratic state lawmakers agreed to co-sponsor the legislation. Senate President John Cullerton vowed to move it through the Senate.
One person’s loophole is another person’s must-have business incentive. Eliminating them is harder than just about anything.
* This could turn out to be more important, however…
Cullerton also committed to seeking a statewide vote on a fair tax, and to working to pass a fully funded two-year budget that closed the corporate loopholes by May 31.
Yep. The fair (graduated) tax is being revived. It’s reportedly been tweaked a bit, but we’ll get more details soon and then we’ll talk about it when we do.
Also, a two-year budget? Hmm.
* The Question: Would you support the crafting of two-year state budgets? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please.
As noted several times before, as long as anti-union proposals are being demanded in exchange for a tax hike, the Democrats aren’t gonna budge, no matter who the Speaker is.
And even if Rauner isn’t publicly willing to compromise, I see no huge harm in meeting with the man.
Also, more competition in legislative districts will probably lead to more people refusing to tackle tough problems. Not that anybody is doing it now, but I’m just sayin…
* Along those lines, a lobbyist for local governments and a lobbyist for social workers showed a bit more willingness to accept reality in a Twitter exchange over the weekend…
The Comptroller's Office reports that Illinois' most recent tally of unpaid bills neared $6.8 billion.
“Since his recovery from a stroke in 2012, Senator Kirk has raised over $8 million from over 20,000 donors. During the most recent primary election, Kirk won all 102 Illinois counties and even received more votes than Duckworth in 89 counties - a strength that is also reflected in recent polling that outlines the race as a statistical tie. There is no doubt Senator Kirk will have the resources needed to continue highlighting Duckworth’s reckless national security positions, including her call for allowing in 200,000 unsafely-vetted Syrian refugees. At the same time, Rep. Duckworth will be forced to spend considerable resources dealing with her pending legal troubles where she is accused of retaliating against VA whistleblowers who alerted investigators to mistreatment of veterans under Duckworth’s care.”
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Press release…
Powered by a significant increase in grassroots, small-dollar donations, Tammy Duckworth’s U.S. Senate campaign raised $2.1 million in the first quarter of 2016, and has over $4 million on hand. Duckworth scored a decisive primary win on March 15th, and more than doubled its fundraising pace over the last half of the quarter, taking in over $1.4 million in that time. The campaign received more than 37,000 individual contributions in the first quarter, and has now received nearly 93,000 individual contributions overall. The average contribution this quarter was just $50, while the median was $20.
“This was our campaign’s strongest quarter yet, with both a decisive primary win and significant growth in our base of grassroots contributors,” Tammy for Illinois campaign manager Kaitlin Fahey said. “Tammy’s strong showing on March 15th and subsequent outreach throughout Illinois has demonstrated real enthusiasm and ability to grow. Our campaign is moving into the general election with momentum and expanding resources, and we couldn’t be more optimistic and enthusiastic. Compare that to Mark Kirk, who last week had to resort to releasing an internal poll showing him losing and under the 40 percent threshold, and who has pledged that he ‘certainly would’ support Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, despite Trump’s increasingly outrageous campaign and deep-seated unpopularity among Illinoisans. Kirk’s record of serving the interests of corporations and Wall Street banks at the expense of Illinois families may finally be catching up to him.”
Some key highlights from the report, which will be filed with the Senate Office of Public Records and Federal Elections Commission this week:
The campaign received 37,366 individual contributions from a total of 28,104 individuals in the first quarter. Since declaring in March of 2015, the Duckworth for Senate campaign has received 92,839 individual contributions;
Of those 1Q contributions, 96.1 percent were for $100 or less, a 1.5% increase over the previous quarter;
The average individual contribution was $50.81, and the median individual contribution was $20, both the lowest such figures for this cycle, demonstrating rapid growth in low-dollar contributors.
The Illinois Senate race is consistently ranked as the top race in the country, and Senator Kirk is routinely listed as the most vulnerable Senate incumbent. The Duckworth campaign raised $1 million more than Kirk over the last two quarters of 2015, essentially erasing Kirk’s longstanding cash-on-hand advantage. Duckworth raised $661,000 during the pre-primary period from January 1st—February 24th, compared to $458,000 for Kirk. Kirk has not publicly released his full first quarter fundraising numbers.
Last week, Duckworth was endorsed by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
As noted in the release, Sen. Kirk has not yet released his latest fundraising totals. Kirk raised $1 million in the fourth quarter, and ended last year with $3.8 million on hand. Duckworth, by contrast raised $1.6 million in that quarter and had $3.65 million on hand. So, her cash position didn’t increase by much.
But this is a long race and there will be tons of outside money spent here, so a few hundred grand difference between the two right now won’t matter much come November.
* Related…
* ADDED: Sun-Times editorial: False facts and fearful talk about Guantanamo give U.S. black eye: But Kirk has it wrong. Federal law already prohibits sending Gitmo detainees to Iran, Sudan or any other country on a list of nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism.
* Laura Washington: Debates will help settle Kirk-Duckworth race
Austin High School on Chicago’s struggling West Side is a proud school with a bad reputation and too few students. It likely has just one more shot at survival.
Austin has hollowed out in recent years, as have dozens of similar schools across Chicago’s poor and mostly Latino and black neighborhoods. With 391 students, including just 57 freshmen across three academies in a building meant for nearly 1,700, Austin is one of 35 Chicago public high schools that are well under half full. Ten schools aren’t even a quarter full.
These schools face a set of woes that make a turnaround all but impossible. A citywide school-choice system leaves these mostly open-enrollment schools with some of Chicago’s most challenging and low-achieving students. Deeply strained budgets fueled by declining enrollment hurt staffing levels, teacher retention, and programming. Mix in a stubborn reputation for violence at many schools—unwarranted in the case of Austin and some others—and these schools are in a death spiral.
In a high-school universe defined by choice, these schools and students are the clear losers. Chicago’s neediest students are clustered at the bottom of the pecking order of the district, in the most under-resourced and embattled schools.
Chicago has a poor track record of delivering for its weakest students but this latest chapter, arguably an inevitable and predictable consequence of school choice, may be a new low. Students who need the healthiest and most stable schools are segregated in the most unstable institutions, often with the most troubled classmates. Victims of a set of powerful and destructive forces that have undermined their schools and neighborhoods, these students and their schools face an increasingly bleak and uncertain future.
Meanwhile, the city since 2000 has opened dozens of schools to offer more choice and retain the middle class. Most are public charter schools that admit by lottery but a bevy of test-based schools and programs also launched. Chicago now has 101,000 students in 140 high schools, excluding alternative schools. In 2000, CPS had 93,000 students in 86 high schools. That’s a 63 percent increase in schools against an 8 percent increase in students. For neighborhoods like Austin that have lost population, this seats-students mismatch is particularly devastating.
Neighborhood schools weren’t working in many neighborhoods at the bottom of the economic ladder. So, Chicago embraced public school choice. But that isn’t working either for kids on the lowest economic rungs. Charters can kick kids out for low performance, behavioral problems, etc. and they do that a lot.
I happen to think charters can be a great thing. But, man, the costs sure are high to run all those new schools. And innovators like Kansas City are also having some very real problems.
All I do know for sure is that slogans on both sides don’t help matters much. So, try to avoid them in comments. Thanks.
* I was reducing some clutter in my office over the weekend and found a bunch of stuff that I forgot I had or hadn’t looked at in years. Here’s a campaign beanie from Bill Stratton’s campaign…
I think my dad bought me that one.
* I went to college with this guy. He was a PAR student back then and wrote a story in the college paper about me after my election as student president…
* I bought a painting online by Henry Hill of “Goodfellas” infamy, didn’t like it, put it away and couldn’t ever find it again. It was still in its original envelope buried in a box…
* A few mementos from a 1999 trip to Cuba…
* And here’s a piece of campaign lit that I completely forgot about…
I think somebody else inked his teeth. But he actually thought this was a good idea for some reason.
(T)he Illinois House still hasn’t had an appropriations hearing on next year’s budgets for Illinois’ public colleges and universities, those annual exercises where higher ed officials get called before House members with oftentimes ask parochial and unpredictable questions.
Normally those hearings are headed by the chair of the Appropriations-Higher Education Committee.
That would be Rep. Ken Dunkin, the Chicago Democrat who is viewed by some of his Democratic colleagues as a Judas for siding with Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on a couple of high-profile issues. In fact, Dunkin was defeated in last month’s Democratic primary, despite big bucks from Rauner allies.
There’s a higher education budget hearing in the House this week but it’ll be before Rep. Kelly Burke’s Higher Education Committee.
I asked Steve Brown, a spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, why the higher ed budgets weren’t going to Dunkin’s appropriations committee.
“We prefer to think of it as going to Kelly Burke’s committee,” he said with a smile.
Well, at least Dunkin is still getting his chairmanship stipend, even if he isn’t doing anything.
This is SOP for Madigan, by the way. He’s done this very same thing to at least two other members in the past (Al Ronan and Jay Hoffman) when he believed they were plotting against him.
“The last time the general state aid formula for school funding was changed was in ’03 when we had complete Democrat control of our General Assembly and governorship,” Rauner said [last week]. “There was complete Democrat control of our government for 12 years, and there was no change. Now all of a sudden, there’s this perception of crisis. This issue was created by Democrats.”
Not exactly. And you have to be careful not to draw the wrong conclusions from what Rauner is saying.
He’s correct that the last time the formula was changed was in 2003 when Democrats had complete control. Manar said he’s not sure what Rauner is talking about, but here’s his guess: “In 2003, there was a bill that was passed that dealt with how you count children who live in poverty. That’s not a formula change,” Manar said. “That bill in 2003 got 55 votes in the Senate.”
Or, as Manar put it, it wasn’t a bill that “Democrats crammed down Republicans’ throats.”
In fact, the essential part of the funding formula was put in place in 1997 when Republicans controlled the Senate and there was a Republican governor. Both made sure Republican interests were taken care of, so even wealthy school districts in GOP areas got their piece of the school-funding pie.
That’s all true.
But, as Finke clearly points out, Rauner is correct when he says the Democrats had control for a dozen years and did basically nothing and are now all of a sudden demanding reforms.
The problem is that more than two decades of consensus about how to fix the situation - a state income tax hike swapped for a local property tax cut - was tossed out the window by the Democrats when the state’s fiscal position became so imperiled that it needed every dime of a tax hike for itself. And then along came Speaker Madigan’s idea to make local school districts pick up their pension costs. Those two things completely upended the entire process and it took Sen. Andy Manar’s new ideas to finally get something going again.
Governor Bruce Rauner has hit a brick wall attempting to convince House Speaker Michael Madigan to come to the negotiating table to talk about ending the long governmental impasse and then working out a budget deal. So after holding numerous public appearances to demand a sit-down, Rauner shifted gears last week when the two Republican legislative leaders trotted out a new spending plan to provide $1.3 billion to fund human services and other programs.
The proposal would partly be funded with some pension reforms that Republicans claim will save $780 million. The reforms include some accounting changes and pushing off pension costs to local schools and to higher-education institutions for salaries above $180,000 a year. But there are relatively few employees making more than $180K a year, and the $780 million is about a third of the state’s annual “normal costs” for pensions, so it seems somewhat difficult to believe that these savings are actually as high as billed.
And even if the money is real, the $1.3-billion GOP proposal is significantly smaller than either appropriations bill passed by the legislature’s Democratic majorities. The Senate Democrats’ spending plan was pegged at about $3.8 billion, with half of that ($1.9 billion) going to social services.
Still, the bill could very well generate some interest among rank-and-file Democrats worried about the implosion of the state’s social safety net as a possible next step in the negotiating process. For instance, the legislation appropriates more than $10 million for the Adult Redeploy program, which diverts nonviolent offenders from prison terms. That money would come from the General Revenue Fund, but the legislation also uses money from special state funds to pay for programs popular with Democrats that aren’t currently being funded by the state, like homeless-youth services.
By far, however, the most intriguing aspect of the Republican bill is what’s not in it – at least not yet. None of Rauner’s usual anti-union “poison pills” is attached. The governor has demanded the passage of several reforms as a condition for talking about the budget, but none of those is overtly attached to this new Republican proposal.
The GOP legislation also gives the governor some spending-transfer authority within the budget, but it appears to be much more limited than earlier demands for near dictatorial control over moving around just about every state dollar as he saw fit.
And while the GOP appropriations bill might not actually be fully funded by its pension component, it certainly has more funding behind it than either Democratic plan out there right now. And still more funding could be found by using part of the Democrats’ proposal, which includes forgiving about $450 million in loans from special state funds (an idea that the governor had previously said he could probably live with).
The idea, it appears, is to present a far more “reasonable” GOP face than in the recent past – and put Madigan on defense both for hiding behind his incessant political games and for refusing to come to the bargaining table, thus allowing the state to crash and burn while waiting for the governor to cave.
An official close to Mayor Rahm Emanuel said last week that his boss and Rauner have regularly spoken with each other despite all the harsh public sniping between the two men. The governor, he said, claims that he wants to make a deal.
But Madigan just doesn’t believe that private talks with the governor will work because they obviously haven’t borne fruit since this crisis began in late May of last year, when the Democrats rammed through a hugely unbalanced budget that was then almost completely vetoed by Rauner.
I totally get the lack of trust the Democrats have in this governor. He has broken confidences, has broken his word, and has attempted to break their, um, stones by hurling insults for months. I also fully appreciate the tension that has built up on both sides during the past 14 months or so.
But it’s not like anybody’s doing anything else while we all wait around for Armageddon.
Private negotiations are obviously preferable to public negotiations, but private negotiations are off the table right now because Madigan says so. (And he has his reasons, some better than others.) So public negotiations are better than no negotiations at all, and we’ll have to take what we can get.
Hopefully, we’ll see a counter-offer from the Democrats soon.
*** UPDATE *** No surprise here. The governor’s budget office has recommended that the governor sign the GOP bill if passed. Click to read the memo.
