* Joel Brunsvold passed away this week and I really couldn’t give him a better sendoff than this Dispatch-Argus editorial…
If you drive across Veterans Memorial Bridge at Carr’s Crossing or take a stroll in a beautiful state park. If you play the slots at Jumer’s or attend a concert or a sporting event at the i wireless Center. If you or someone you know was saved by calling 911. If you fish or boat on an Illinois waterway, hunt duck or admire a mother and fawn against a beautiful sunset, you have Joel Brunsvold to thank for the privilege.
In the wake of the untimely death of the longtime public servant, Quad-Citians this week are treasuring the wonderful gifts like these which he gave to the the Quad-Cities and to the state. As mayor of Milan, he set that city on the path to the current and impressive progress it has seen in recent years. Mayor Duane Dawson is among those who were mentored by the former teacher and coach.
Speaking of coaching, he was a talented, record-breaking athlete in his own right who worked tirelessly for young people. For example, he trucked cinders to Sherrard High School so that it could have a track. Education remained a top priority in the 20 years as state representative.
He was, of course, a Democrat and served as Speaker Mike Madigan’s assistant majority leader, but that didn’t stop him from reaching across the aisle to do what needed to be done. Unlike the angry partisans too often on display today, he was a gentleman legislator who counted Democrats and Republicans among his friends. Rep. Brunsvold “personified what a lawmaker should be,” said reporter Scott Reeder, who covered him in the Quad-Cities and later in Springfield. “He never lost sight of who he was: a school teacher from the Quad-Cities. The Illinois General Assembly can be a pretentious place but Joel remained down-to-earth and approachable throughout his long career. He was a knowledgeable educator drafting legislation, a champion of gun-owner rights, a member of the House leadership team and the beloved coach of the House softball team.”
* The Speaker has said this before, but he’s seen the polling and he knows what Gov. Pat Quinn is doing to his targeted incumbents, so it was apparently time to say it again…
Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan today said he’s opposed to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn’s plan to increase the income tax and isn’t sure if lawmakers will go along with the idea when they return to Springfield following the November election.
“I am not a proponent of the tax increase, so I have no idea if the tax increase will pass or not,” Madigan said following a ribbon cutting for a union training center on the city’s West Side.
Madigan is working toward maintaining control of the House this fall. If he advocated a tax hike, that could be used against Democratic House candidates across Illinois. […]
“The governor stands firm that a 1 percent education surcharge is something that we need to help the state address it’s budget challenges,” said Quinn budget spokeswoman Kelly Kraft. “He is optimistic that lawmakers will do what’s right for Illinois.”
Remember towards the end of the movie “Titanic” when Kate Winslet finally let go of the frozen solid Leonardo DiCaprio and he floated to the bottom of the sea with their sunken ship? That’s kinda like this.
* For months, the Quinnsters laughed at the prospect that Bill Brady could win the governor’s race. Now, a least, Gov. Pat Quinn finally seems to understand that he’s this/close to toasthood…
Asked Thursday who should replace Mayor Richard Daley, Gov. Pat Quinn indicated he’s got enough of his own political problems.
“I am in the political fight of my life,” Quinn said. “I don’t think I need to be prognosticating on a race that’s down the road a piece.”
* The Quinn people, meanwhile, have reworked a video of Mike Ditka from July of 2009. I wonder how Da Coach feels about his old comments now that Quinn has been in office awhile…
“I took 24 hours to think about it,” he said. “But I’ve decided the race I’m in is too important to leave. It’s an opportunity for voters to take a stand against the insider culture that’s bankrupted our state and polluted our politics.”
Cook County Sherriff Tom Dart was inching closer to an announcement, which will come only if he gets the expected blessing of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Somebody clue this guy in, please. Dart has been a thorn in Madigan’s side for years, and vice-versa. The South Side Irish are often thought of as monolithical. They ain’t. Heck, you practically need a passport to cross the street in the 19th Ward.
Conflicting election questionnaire responses suggest a Cook County Board candidate may have been less than truthful about his criminal record, though his campaign blamed it on a staff member’s mistake.
In 1991 Maher, then a freshman at Illinois State University in Bloomington, was arrested and charged with felony aggravated battery after the brutal beating of another student. According to police records, Maher and a friend went to the dormroom of a man who had once dated Maher’s girlfriend. The victim suffered a broken jaw, broken eye socket and 25 stitches. Witnesses described finding a “puddle of blood” in his dorm room. He was hospitalized for two days.
But it’s the questionnaire. Yeah. Good one.
By the way, Maher’s cousin is Comptroller Dan Hynes. Then again, I have a cousin in prison for a double murder. One can’t be judged by one’s relatives. Of course, my cousin didn’t run for office, so I doubt he ever filled out a candidate questionnaire.
* Back to the statewides. A fight broke out in comments on our Question of the Day over numerous topics. I put a stop to it, but it can now resume here. From a statement by Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady…
“It is curious that Robin Kelly would focus on Ethics given her choice to remain on government payroll and collect full-time state benefits even as she campaigns for elected office in all parts of the state. Even more stunning is her brazen choice to hold an Ethics press conference at 1:30 p.m. Thursday while other ‘full time’ employees are required to, well, be at work.
“While the arrogance is fitting for an Illinois Democrat trained in mold of Blagojevich and Giannoulias, it is not in line with the honest leadership our state requires for its future. If Kelly is serious about Ethics change, she should start by changing her payroll status or changing the time of her political activities. Until then she is just another candidate who says one thing while doing another - and Illinois voters have had enough of those.”
But since a prize is involved, I’m forced to make a decision.
* Fifth runner-up goes to Anonymiss…
“Great, now we don’t match. You said to wear blue. I thought you meant eyeshadow. Stop laughing, this isn’t funny.”
I loved that entry, but I already owe her drinks, so I didn’t want to add to my debt.
* Our fourth runner-up is Rep. John Fritchey for this golden nugget…
“I told her those weren’t regular brownies,” chuckled Sen. Brady to Sen. Rutherford as JBT tries to win a staring contest against a microphone.
I almost awarded the top prize to Fritchey, but there’s no way we could limit this to a one-hour cocktail time, so he’s a no-go.
* Third runner-up is from Don’t Worry, Be Happy…
Bill Brady and Dan Rutherford laugh as Rich Miller’s head explodes due to Judy Baar Topinka’s psychic onslaught. Asked about the incident later, Topinka shrugged and said “well, he used an unflattering picture of me on his blog, so he had it coming.”
Yes, I probably did.
* Lefty Lefty is our second runner-up for most creative use of current pop culture…
At the 2040 Reunion of the Juggalos, Tila Tequila recounts her pummeling with food and beer bottles at the 2010 Gathering while Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope laugh it up. The crowd threw their dentures and Metamucil but much of it didn’t reach the stage.
* First runner-up goes to Oswego Willy, our resident Jason Plummer hater…
Plummer: “Before I begin … Whoever has a van, license plate ‘ABC 123′ with Judy Topinka signs all over it … The wiffle ball that broke your winshield is mine, sorry about that.”
He might’ve won had it not been for the misspellings. Then again, those may have been intentionally ironic. We’ll never know.
* Top prize and a one-hour cocktail party goes to Way Way Down Here. I’m pretty sure he’s referring to David Miller, Topinka’s Democratic opponent. At least, I hope so…
JBT: Get up Miller and I’ll give you another one just like it.
BB: Yeah get up.
DR: Yeah another one.
WWDH should use the “Contact Me” button so we can set up a time and place. Congratulations. And thanks much to everyone for playing. We had over 200 comments, which was pretty amazing.
* How about we try another one? Potential mayoral candidate Sheriff Tom Dart loves him some puppies…
* We haven’t had a whole lot of news about the state treasurer’s race, but things have heated up since Democratic nominee Robin Kelly accused Republican state Sen. Dan Rutherford of violating state law…
According to state campaign records, Rutherford this year received two contributions worth $3,000 from Fred Drake, the chief executive officer of Bloomington-based Heartland Bank & Trust Co.
He also received a $500 contribution from Pan American Bank.
Kelly, who is a top aide to state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, said since Heartland is a depository for state funds over $50,000, Rutherford is in violation of newly enacted pay-to-play laws aimed at cracking down on businesses getting lucrative state contracts by doling out campaign dollars. Pan American, she said, bid on a contract that would have been worth more than the $50,000 cap.
“Given the scandal and controversy surrounding Illinois politics, I am extremely troubled and disappointed that my opponent would take political money from banks that are doing more than $1 million in state business with the Treasurer’s Office,” said Kelly.
Rutherford said neither bank is technically a contractor, meaning they do not fall within the 2009 changes to the state’s campaign finance laws.
“Dan Rutherford has followed the law,” said spokesman Brad Hahn. “She forgot to check her facts.”
Kelly’s campaign has a new campaign video about the dustup. Watch it.
* The Question: Setting aside the legalities, do you think Sen. Rutherford should reverse his decision to accept campaign contributions from banks that have state deposits? Explain.
* This is what happens when ignorance rules the roost at the state’s largest newspaper. Today’s Tribune editorial lauds the House Republicans for proposing a series of reforms…
The state would move to a performance-based budgeting process, requiring state agencies to defend their requests based on how effectively they’d spent the previous year’s funding.
This idea was actually signed into law on July 1st. A member of the Tribune editorial board was told back in May that this bill was in the hopper. The bill’s original sponsor even sent the Tribune an op-ed in May which the paper never published. From that op-ed…
Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO) gives us the chance to change the rules of the Illinois budget game. Also known as “Results Budgeting,” BFO starts with identifying what revenue is actually available and defining spending priorities (for example, job creation, education, healthcare, transportation, public safety). It then requires measurable outcomes for money spent and encourages creative ways of achieving these goals within the limited resources available.
Recently adopted by The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) as a “recommended practice,” BFO allows taxpayers to be better informed and to get a better return on their investment in Illinois government. It also will ensure greater accountability and transparency in the budget process by requiring annual reports on results achieved from dollars spent. This will give us the necessary information to cut, eliminate or reform programs that are not producing in the future.
Former Washington Gov. Gary Locke introduced BFO in 2002 when his state faced a $2.5 billion shortfall in its budget. The state of Washington’s fiscal situation turned around so dramatically after implementing this initiative that many other states, municipalities and other levels of government converted to this budgeting method and realized immediate results and cost savings. We want Illinois to be the next success story.
You can read the budgeting for outcomes (which is also called performance based budgeting) language by clicking here…
In addition, the amounts recommended by the Governor for appropriation shall take into account each State agency’s effectiveness in achieving its prioritized goals for the previous fiscal year, as set forth in Section 50-25 of this Law, giving priority to agencies and programs that have demonstrated a focus on the prevention of waste and the maximum yield from resources.
Appropriations may be adjusted during the fiscal year by means of one or more supplemental appropriation bills if any State agency either fails to meet or exceeds the goals set forth in Section 50-25 of this Law.
For fiscal year 2012 and thereafter, [the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability shall] develop a 3-year budget forecast for the State, including opportunities and threats concerning anticipated revenues and expenditures, with an appropriate level of detail.
It takes a unanimous vote of the House to override the committee, impossible by definition. Republicans say they’d change that to a three-fifths vote. The idea is to stop party leaders from setting the state agenda unilaterally; an added plus is that it would strip lawmakers of their favorite excuse for enabling the status quo. They’d all vote for reform, they insist, if only they had a chance to vote. The Republicans’ plan would empower them to demand that chance.
What the Republicans are proposing is mere semantics. Right now, it does, indeed, require unanimous consent to pop a bill out of committee and onto the floor. But there’s almost always another immediate vote taken to overrule the presiding officer. That vote requires a three-fifths majority. The Republicans would just skip a step and go right to the three-fifths vote. And if you think that the environment would change because we’d no longer be looking at a simple up or down vote on the Speaker’s prerogative, you’re wrong. It would still be a party-line vote. Bet on it.
Some of the reforms the HGOPs are proposing are good ones. Some, like the committee discharge thing, are just window-dressing. Most don’t go far enough. For instance, one way to free members from the Speaker’s power is to elect committee chairs and forbid the Speaker from controlling their staffs. They’re appointed right now and their staffs all report to the chief of staff, not the chairpersons.
But with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points, the poll essentially put the nine contenders it included all in a statistical dead heat. […]
The survey relied on 600 personal interviews with randomly selected registered Chicago voters. It was conducted Wednesday evening, just a day and a half after Mayor Daley made his stunning announcement that he would not seek a seventh term.
* And there’s not nearly as much fear of the future out there as one might suspect, at least, not yet…
* The pollster the paper used was once brutally slammed by its late political columnist Steve Neal, so the Sun-Times’ choice was odd, to say the least.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the poll did find evidence of votes breaking along racial lines. Dart’s strongest support was among white voters, Meeks’ among black voters, and clearly Gutierrez benefitted the most from his base of Hispanic voters.
Emanuel, who is white, curiously also found his largest base of support among Hispanic voters — conceivably because “Emanuel” can also be read as a Hispanic name.
Voters who said they were most eager to vote were most likely to give their support to Dart or Gutierrez.
The survey did not include every possible candidate but focused on those most often mentioned as likely contenders.
*** UPDATE *** Your exclusive advance copy of this week’s WBEZ program “The Best Game in Town” can now be downloaded. Click here. From the producer…
No offense to the home opener for the Bears, but the best game in town this week is at City Hall. In this episode, it’s Daley, Daley, Daley.
UIC Professor and former Alderman Dick Simpson talks about how the Daley machine occupied the 4th floor of City Hall for 42 years.
WBEZ’s Sam Hudzik parses and analyzes the political rhetoric coming from alderman, jockeying for position.
And we host a roundtable discussion from Schaller’s Pump in Bridgeport, featuring Cheryl Corley (NPR), Salim Muwakkil (In These Times) and Carol Felsenthal (Chicago magazine).
I think I’d pay to see Rahm Emanuel elected mayor of Chicago.
Because I cover state politics, I don’t much care how he’d run the city. I’d love to see Emanuel elected just to watch him fight with House Speaker Michael Madigan.
To say that both men are accustomed to getting their own way and to accumulating massive amounts of power would be a horribly naive understatement. Stand between them and what they want, and you’re gonna get mowed down. They don’t call them “Rahmbo” and “The Velvet Hammer” for nothing.
Mayor Daley also falls into this category, of course. But he and the most powerful speaker in the history of Illinois practically grew up together. Daley’s father was Madigan’s second father. The two are like brothers.
There’s always tension between the brothers, as one fights to outdo the other in the never-ending battle to be the favorite son, but they almost always wind up on the same side. That’s something Rod Blagojevich never understood about them, even after I warned him. Blagojevich thought he could triangulate the two, and I told him he would be strangled instead. He was.
Emanuel has generally gotten his way by outworking, out-thinking and out-muscling his opposition. So has Madigan. And the pile of political corpses outside Madigan’s Statehouse door of those who tried to beat him one way or another is a mile high and a mile wide. There’s a smaller pile outside Emanuel’s door, but only because he hasn’t been around as long.
People who know Emanuel tell me that he can’t stand Madigan.
“He’ll end up strangling the guy,” cracked one longtime pal of Emanuel’s about what will happen if the fiery Rahmbo and Madigan go at it.
Madigan’s usual play is to let newbies come to him, and then make them stew endlessly while he decides what, if anything, he’ll give them. He has always worked with mayors, but there’s only so much he’ll do for anybody, including his brother by a different mother Daley.
Daley spent enough time in Springfield as a state legislator and around Madigan to know that he’d rather not deal with the state Capitol. You’ll be hard-pressed to find any Chicago state legislators who’ve been lobbied personally by Daley. That’s one reason why his grandiose schemes like the downtown casino never came to fruition. He knew the game was rigged, and he didn’t want to be shaken down by the players.
That has also been the case with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who is gearing up for a possible mayoral bid himself.
The sheriff and the speaker never got along when Dart was in the House, and they still don’t. He avoids Springfield like the plague. If he were elected, Dart would likely continue Daley’s general aversion to Springfield, but he wouldn’t have the longtime personal relationship to fall back on in a pinch.
Maybe he’d surprise me, but I just can’t imagine Emanuel letting Springfield — and, by extension, Madigan — do whatever it wants. The man who’s best known for regularly letting his partially amputated middle finger do his talking and who was widely ribbed for reportedly threatening a congressman while naked in the Capitol Hill gym shower just doesn’t appear to be built that way.
So, we’ll probably get a big showdown, at least at first as they test each other’s wills, and those piles of bodies will grow exponentially. Like I said, I’d pay to see that fight.
Of course, I’d rather that we not have a House speaker with so much concentrated power that he runs literally everything. But that’s life in Illinois.
* Rahmbomania roundup…
* Before Emanuel Looks at Mayor’s Job, He Should Look in Mirror: Notably, his managerial record, as opposed to his legislative record, is spotty, according to multiple White House sources without axes to grind. They cite a perceived lack of internal communication; a short attention span; political infighting, notably with Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president; a limited set of loyalties (many to Clinton-era colleagues); and a surprising lack of decisiveness on personnel matters.
* Mark Kirk isn’t the only one who said he’d go positive and then ran a negative ad. Alexi Giannoulias is doing the same thing. Rate it…
This is mostly a remake of an earlier ad, but with a new twist. At the end of the ad, the announcer says: “Now Mark Kirk is lying about Alexi Giannoulias in ads denounced as smears.” You may think they’re referring to Kirk’s latest hit, but they use a Sun-Times editorial headline from July. That editorial was about Kirk’s attempt to claim one of Alexi’s advisors was a BP lobbyist.
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Miller took over when his commander was wounded during a 2008 attack in Afghanistan, directing return fire and intentionally putting himself in the most dangerous position to protect his men.
His heroic actions helped save more than 20 fellow soldiers and Afghan army allies but cost the 24-year-old former Wheaton man his own life.
A cafeteria fight may have led to the murder of a 16-year-old Bowen High School student who was shot as he walked home Wednesday, the boy’s family said Thursday.
Sophomore Deantonio Goss became the first Chicago Public Schools student to be killed this school year, just two days after classes resumed at Bowen.
Goss and an 18-year-old friend were shot half a mile from the school — and just a couple of blocks from Goss’ home — around 3 p.m. in an alley in the 8600 block of South Saginaw, police said.
An analysis of the grades shows that a disproportionate number of schools scored in the D range or worse, including 48 percent of elementaries and 68 percent of high schools.
The highest average and median pay offers went to engineering majors. As a group, the average pay offer fell 1.7 percent to $58,669.
The average pay offer for liberal arts graduates fell 3 percent to $35,508. For sociology majors, it climbed 3.1 percent to $35,357. English majors saw a drop of 1.8 percent to $35,946, and for psychology majors, the average offer fell 6.7 percent to $32,260.
The average offer for business majors dipped to $46,672 from $46,735. For economics majors, it rose 4.2 percent to $51,698.
Lura Lynn Ryan isn’t expected to live more than a few years, attorney Dan Webb told Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer. […]
Pallmeyer set a Nov. 1 date to hear arguments on both the bail request and the primary legal question - whether a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that curtailed laws barring public officials from denying taxpayers honest services should nullify some of Ryan’s convictions.
If the convictions are tossed, Ryan could be let out for good - well short of his current release date of 2013.
“When he first came in, a lot of guys said, ‘This guy has potential to be a breath of fresh air.’ He had a contract. He could have run this department the way it’s supposed to be run. He didn’t. The impression of most officers is this department is run by the fifth floor (mayor’s office),” said Bill Dougherty, first vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police.
* OK, maybe it’s time for the media to stop looking for every possible Daley retirement angle and tone it down a bit…
With Mayor Richard Daley set to leave office, it’s time to bring back Meigs Field, according to private pilots who still bemoan the shutdown of the lakefront airport seven years ago.
General aviation pilots from across the country suggest that the changing political climate in the Chicago will not only lead to a new mayor, but also possibly a new Meigs.
“From what we’re hearing and seeing, the aviation blogs and Twitter are alive with conversations about whether Mayor Daley’s departure may create an opportunity to rebuild Meigs Field,” said Chris Dancy, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
There have been precisely two Tweets using the “reopenMeigs” hashtag in the past 24 hours, and five using the “Meigs” hashtag, and one of those was against reopening the airport. Most of the Twitter chatter yesterday was posted by one person who said he was working on a story about the topic, and who often Tweets about flight simulator programs. Meigs was the first airport on MS Flight before Daley carved those infamous X’s in its runway. Microsoft stopped including Meigs in the software and a few computer flight junkies were enraged.
The person quoted in the Tribune story gushing over all this newly invisible enthusiasm flaks for a group that published an article today about the possibility of reopening the field…
Although the airport was closed and turned into a park, AOPA President Craig Fuller has pledged to seek every opportunity to bring back Meigs Field.
“More than seven years have passed since Chicago’s Meigs Field was bulldozed under cover of darkness, but the airport has not been forgotten,” Fuller said. “Grassroots support for Meigs is still alive and many in the aviation community view Mayor Richard Daley’s decision not to run for re-election as a hopeful sign that the field could be restored.
Yeah. The field will be restored. They’re gonna kill off a lakefront park to rebuild an airport for state workers, millionaires and a handful of flight sim geeks when the city has no money. And people are clamoring for it because some pilots association flak says the Interwebtubes are just alive with activity, even though they’re not.
Millennium Park seems like the obvious choice. It hasn’t been around long enough for a name change to rile traditionalists and it certainly has Daley’s stamp. But let’s stretch our minds:
What about the Kennedy Expressway? It was re-named for the slain president in a fit of post-assassination sentimentality, but JFK’s connection to Chicago wasn’t so significant that it belongs forever on such a major thoroughfare?
Lake Shore Drive? Midway Airport? Your ideas, please.
* Statewide GOP candidates Judy Baar Topinka, Bill Brady and Dan Rutherford…
The person posting the funniest comment “wins” a cocktail hour with me in the Chicago or Springfield areas. I might even expand that geography if I know someone in your neck of the woods. I’m buying. You don’t have to drink to be eligible, but it helps.
Jeremy Schroeder, executive director of the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said public opinion on sentencing convicts to death is changing, and the state’s continued moratorium on the punishment, originally placed by former Gov. George Ryan in 2000 after innocent men were found on death row, shows the system isn’t working.
“After 10 years of a moratorium, we just have to admit, we can’t fix it,” Schroeder said.
A poll taken by the coalition in the spring shows 60 percent of Illinois voters would accept alternative sentences for criminals other than death, Schroeder said. He noted the greatest support is in the Chicago area, but a significant number of voters downstate also agree. The poll was taken by Lake Research Partners in Washington, D.C., and based on a telephone survey of 400 registered voters, with a margin of error at 4.9 percent.
Twenty men have been exonerated from death row after they were found to be wrongfully convicted, but prosecutors statewide continue to seek the death penalty in some cases at a cost of roughly $20 million annually, Schroeder said.
* The Question: Should Illinois abolish the death penalty? Explain.
* 54 percent favoring and 37 percent opposed is not a “slim” majority, but here’s the Tribune’s new poll on whether Rod Blagojevich should be retried…
A slim majority statewide, 54 percent, agreed with Fitzgerald’s decision [to retry Blagojevich], while 37 percent disagreed. Another 10 percent had no opinion in the survey of 600 registered Illinois voters conducted Aug. 28-Sept. 1. The error margin was 4 percentage points.
More interesting numbers…
In Chicago, 35 percent of voters favored retrial and 51 percent opposed it. But 54 percent of those in the Cook County suburbs and 57 percent of those in the collar counties agreed with the notion that Blagojevich should be retried, the survey found. […]
By a slight margin, voters who identified themselves as Democrats were more inclined to disagree with the decision to retry Blagojevich, the survey found. On the other hand, more than 7 out of 10 Republican voters surveyed said they backed a retrial.
There was also a stark difference between white and black voters on the issue. White voters were for a retrial by a wide margin: 60 percent to 31 percent. The position of black voters was almost the reverse: 63 percent against a retrial and 25 percent in favor.
The takeaway: US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is gonna have to present a far better case next time if he wants to convict this clown with that jury pool.
The federal judge handling Rod Blagojevich’s case said [yesterday] afternoon that after the former governor’s retrial, he will not release jurors’ names immediately after the verdict.
Instead, he plans to wait 24 hours after a verdict is in to make the names public, he said.
“That’s based on the experience some jurors had with the prompt release,” U.S. District Judge James Zagel said.
He gave the media until Nov. 1 to file any objections (as they did the last time around) disputing his closure of the names. The new trial is expected to begin early next year.
This is the same judge that advised jurors to call 911 if they didn’t like reporters’ questions.
Also at Wednesday’s hearing, Zagel set several deadlines for attorneys. Prosecutors will have to notify him by Nov. 15 about any major expansion of the case - though the judge said that wouldn’t include notice about new witnesses the government many want to call.
Zagel also said he expected the retrial to take no longer than 2 1 / 2 months. The first trial initially was expected to last more than four months, but ended up running about 2 1 / 2 .
One reason a second trial could be expected to take less time is that Blagojevich now is the lone defendant. Last month, prosecutors dropped a bombshell by dismissing all charges against the ex-governor’s co-defendant, his brother Robert Blagojevich.
The states where the Democratic dropoff is 10 points or more- Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine, and North Carolina- all have incredibly unpopular Democratic Governors who aren’t that strong even within their own parties. Obama’s still pretty solid in those states at least within his own party, but a sense that their party’s current leaders at the state level have not gotten the job done could be making Democrats less inclined to get out to the polls.
* Meanwhile,Rasmussen has a new poll out and the pollster finally added the Green Party nominee to the mix. That may have jumbled the results a bit. Ras still hasn’t added the Libertarian Party candidate, however, so we don’t yet have an accurate picture of the race. Numbers in brackets are from previous Rasmussen polls…
The Giannoulias campaign points out that the Republican Rasmussen may be “agenda setting” again. Their polls in recent days haven’t matched up well with others, including Barbara Boxer (where Rasmussen had the Republican up and the Democrat down, contradicting the CNN/TIME poll) and Jack Conway (where Rasmussen had the Republican way up and CNN/TIME had it tied).
If leaners are not included, Kirk has 37% support to Giannoulias’ 34% and Jones’ 12%, suggesting as is often the case that support moves away from third party candidates to one of the major party nominees as Election Day approaches. In the previous survey, Giannoulias captured 42% of the vote to Kirk’s 40% when voters were asked their initial preference.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Kirk voters say they are already certain how they will vote in November, as do 53% of Giannoulias’ supporters and 40% of those who are backing Jones. […]
Eighty-two percent (82%) of GOP voters favor Kirk, a fifth-term U.S. congressman, while just 69% of Democrats support Giannoulias, currently the state’s elected treasurer. Green draws single-digit support from voters in both major parties and 13% of those who are not affiliated with either the Democrats or the Republicans. Kirk leads Giannoulias by more than two-to-one among these unaffiliated voters.
Giannoulias is viewed favorably by 42% of Illinois voters and unfavorably by 44%.
For Kirk, favorables are 45%, and unfavorables are 39%.
Twenty-six percent (26%) have a favorable opinion of Jones, an African-American journalist, while 30% regard him unfavorably. But 44% don’t know enough about the Green Party candidate to venture any opinion of him.
Only eight percent (8%) of Illinois voters rate the U.S. economy as good, while 56% of voters in President Obama’s home state describe the economy as poor. Twenty-six percent (26%) say the economy is getting better, but 46% believe it is getting worse.
Fifty-three percent (53%) approve of the president’s job performance, while 45% disapprove. Obama’s job approval ratings in Illinois havenot unchanged for months and are higher than the numbers he earns nationally in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
* Methodology…
The survey of 750 Likely Voters in Illinois was conducted on September 7, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/-4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
* Republican Congressman Mark Kirk told the media yesterday that he was up with a new positive ad. As I told you yesterday, Alexi Giannoulias’ campaign thought the positive spot was a “head fake,” and that Kirk would go negative. They appear to have been right. Watch the “real” Kirk ad…
* We Ask America polled Chicago last night and found Rahm Emanuel leading the pack, with Sheriff Tom Dart and Congressmen Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Luis Guitierrez bunched up in the race for second place. Click the pic for a larger image…
Now for the caveats. I used this robo-poll firm a couple of years ago and had some concerns about response rates among African-Americans and Latinos. They have been trying harder since then, but Latinos are underrepresented in this poll by more than half.
Some names are obviously missing, but this is still an interesting mix. We’re looking at name recognition here. That will change if other lesser known candidates can raise the bucks.
Also, if you want to see how poorly the Daley name is faring these days, just look at Bill Daley’s numbers. Not great.
As we pull the trigger on this poll, we’ve found 40+ possible candidates mentioned in published reports, with more queuing up for consideration. We wanted to narrow it down to ten (because there’s only ten digits on a phone for an automated poll), so we added up the articles and chose the ten who were mentioned in the most clippings–not exactly as precise our usual polls…but what the heck. This is for fun.
* Roeder: Daley exit tough for biz: Unable to write checks toward another Daley victory, business executives will take their time and survey the field. Many will sit out a probably contentious election, or get involved only if the field is narrowed to two for an April runoff. “There is no up side to jumping in this early,” said Guy Chipparoni, president of the public relations firm Res Publica Group, which counsels clients on business and public policy.
* Reardon: Mayor’s leaving us high and dry: I’m sorry, Mayor Richard Daley. You may be tired. You may want to spend more time with your wife. I’m sure you know a lot more than I do about how bruising a re-election race could be next year and about what federal investigators may have found in their prying into your City Hall. But walking away from your fifth floor office right now, saying, “It’s time,” is just wrong. You’re abandoning the people of Chicago to the reality of democracy — but without the skills of democracy.
One day after announcing his decision not to seek a seventh term, Daley lashed out at the code of silence that has prevented police from solving the July 18 murder of Chicago Police Officer Michael Bailey.
It happened during a City Council debate on a resolution honoring Bailey, the third Chicago Police officer killed during a two-month period.
The Bailey murder remains unsolved, despite reward money topping $130,000.
The city had five more homicides through the end of August than the year-earlier period, bringing the total number to 313. But that is still lower than the 338 homicides recorded through the end of August 2008. […]
Through August, robberies dropped by 14.1 percent, criminal sexual assaults dropped by 10.1 percent and aggravated batteries dropped by 6.1 percent.
“These numbers are unacceptable until they’re zero,” Assistant Superintendent James Jackson said at a news conference Friday.
Still, Chicago has remained a more violent place than New York or Los Angeles based on the ratio of crime to population. The mayor could never shake the image of Chicago as a haven for gangsters going back to the days of Al Capone. That image may have been one reason why Chicago lost its bid to host the Olympics in 2016 — even though winner Rio de Janeiro is far more harrowing in some areas.
“Since the circuit clerk has signed the taxpayers up to spend tax dollars on private attorneys for her on the premise that she’s suing the taxpayers, let’s get on with it so we can better understand how to resolve this year-end budget dilemma,” McConnaughay said.
The comment came after yet another county board committee rejected Seyller’s request for a midyear, $555,000 cash infusion for her budget. The need for more money stems from the hiring of 14 employees over the past two years. Some of those hires replace employees who left. Others were new staff positions.
* 6:44 pm - Sources say that Chicago City Clerk Miguel del Valle told several aldermen and others today that he’s running for mayor.
Besides the dynamic the former state Senator brings to the race, del Valle’s move also means the city clerk’s office is now up for grabs.
Del Valle had only $948.08 in his campaign account as of the end of June, but he has reportedly told friends that he will quickly ramp up. He reportedly wants to get petitions out on the street this weekend.
* For a bit of comparison, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart had $191,855.67 in his account as of June 30. Sandi Jackson had $66,966.37 in her aldermanic account and $15,716.47 in her ward account. Rahm Emanuel has $1.2 million.
A voter can sign as many mayoral nominating petitions as he or she wishes, but only the first one counts, as Chicago Board of Elections Commission spokesman Jim Allen reminds us. The second, third and all subsequent signatures are technically invalid and will be erased if challenged.
This means the first mayoral candidate to knock on the doors on your block not only stands the best chance of getting valid signatures, but it also means that any signatures he gathers above the minimum are signatures that other hopefuls can’t get.
“I got a call from [someone close to Emanuel] telling me to expect a call from Rahm,” said one prominent Chicago Democrat, who had yet to hear from him as of Wednesday night.
“My sense is he’s got to do an assessment as to what his support would be and what his campaign would look like. . .He’s not in Chicago, so that makes it tough for him to know what people here are thinking,” added the person, who agreed to lobby others on Emanuel’s behalf, if he decides to run.
Emanuel himself, according to administration sources, knows he must make a decision relatively soon to be a viable player back home. But he doesn’t feel that waiting a while will compromise his chances.
Something that I’m not sure anyone has really talked about is the longer this talk lasts about a mayoral bid, the less influence he’s gonna have in the White House and DC in general. He’s gonna become a lame duck pretty darned fast, if he hasn’t already.
* 8:06 pm - OK, this has to be the goofiest write-up about the pending Chicago mayoral race I’ve seen so far. The Washington Times quotes a DC/Pennsylvania-based Republican consultant and a San Francisco-based Democratic consultant about Chicago politics. Sheesh.
* 4:39 pm - An organizer of the Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson fundraiser this Sunday in Chicago featuring Rahm Emanuel has just sent out a notice saying that the event has been postponed “due to circumstances which are probably obvious to most.”
So, no Rahmapalooza this Sunday, I’m afraid. They’re looking at September 26th instead.
* Meanwhile, this could give you something to chew on tonight. From Greg Hinz…
Gov. Pat Quinn, his election effort already reeling, appears to have suffered a staggering blow with Mayor Richard M. Daley’s stunning decision to retire.
There only is so much political energy in any town, even Chicago, and now all the energy here is going into the wide-open race for mayor.
That leaves little if anything for Mr. Quinn, who badly needs to rally Chicago’s Democratic base if he’s to get back into the contest with GOP nominee Bill Brardy.
It ain’t over yet, not with two months of campaigning left. But Mr. Daley’s oxygen-sucking move is the last thing Illinois’ rookie governor needed.
Republican Mark Kirk’s newest ad, which is set to go up on the air this week, according to a campaign spokesman, is positive and doesn’t mention his Democratic opponent.
“In a country where too many just vote the party line, there are only a few thoughtful, independent leaders who do what’s right for us,” the female announcer says in the ad.
The 30-second spot, which paints Kirk as “independent and effective,” was produced by Larry McCarthy of McCarthy Marcus Hennings.
*** UPDATE - 6:54 pm *** Just about every person I’ve talked to close to the Giannoulias campaign believes this ad will not run more than a few times. Even some Republicans say they don’t expect this to be up long. We’ll see.
Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., who has run for nearly every major office in the state, says he is not interested in replacing Richard M. Daley as mayor of Chicago.
“No, I’m not interested in running for mayor of Chicago,” Burris told reporters before he toured Southwind Park in Springfield this morning.
“Certainly there’ll be talk. Fortunately, my name has not been mentioned, so that’s on the good side.
Asked why he won’t run, Burris said, “How much money do you got? Get $5 million and then talk to me.”
Chicago State University business professor Jonathan Jackson is also interested.
“I had not seriously considered it before but now I am,” Jonathan Jackson told the Defender. “I will take a strong look at it and make a decision fairly soon.”
“I am not running for mayor. It’s just something I have not thought about,” she said. “But I do think a Black candidate has just as good of a chance of winning as any other candidate if they are qualified.”
* Greg Hinz looks at CTA Chairman Terry Peterson and state Sen. James Meeks…
Mr. Peterson — who’s held a half-dozen city gigs and clearly knows the game — could be formidable. If, that is, he’s willing to put aside his comfy private sector gig and really go for the gold. I have my doubts.
Mr. Meeks has feinted before for higher office, but he’s putting on a good show this time. Best-known as a leading advocate for better funding of schools, he comes out of Jesse Jackson Jr.’s organization. And he has one other interesting credential: He’s built, from scratch, a huge church and congregation in his day job as a minister, something that ironically could help him with the business community.
Peterson was uncommittal yesterday when asked about a possible race.
A Chicago pawnbroker said he will spend between $5 million and $6 million to get out his message - that he’s a successful small businessman and not a politician - in an unlikely race for Illinois governor.
Cohen said he would spend $3 million in the primary, but ended up spending about $2 million (and another half mil or so through the end of June). Pretty much everybody ignored Cohen’s spending plan announcement before the primary and we saw how that ended. But even if he spends $3 to $4 million on the general, that’s a whole lot of cash and completely unprecedented for an independent candidate here. The media is gonna blow it again if reporters don’t start covering this man.
* Gov. Pat Quinn is trying to attack Cohen, but most reporters aren’t paying much attention. The other day, Quinn demanded that Cohen release his tax returns, and it was buried in an AP roundup…
Quinn called on the wealthy businessman to make his income taxes public, as other candidates have. He also suggested Cohen and his family have taken advantage of the poor.
“I don’t know why anybody would ever vote for him. He has run a pawnbroking business. His family’s been involved in currency exchanges,” Quinn said.
* The reason Quinn is pushing the tax returns angle is because he is in possession of an opposition research report that heavily stresses Cohen’s extensive use of cash and lack of personal checking accounts. You can read that Cohen OR report by clicking here. I gave Cohen’s media advisor a chance to respond to what was in the report, but he declined. The report was prepared soon after the primary. I obtained it through a second-hand source and then verified where it came from.
* In other third party news, Libertarian Party US Senate candidate Mike Labno recently went off on Republican Mark Kirk. Click here for the audio. Transcript…
“I want to talk about many of the issues, Mark Kirk and one of the things you asked me to talk about was where our differences are. Our differences, between Mark Kirk and I, are great. The guy is practically a Democrat. I’m not even sure how he got on the Republican ticket in the first place. But when it comes to economics he’s just another big spender, cap and trade is where his interest lies.”
Historically, Libertarian candidates have received an average of just over 1 percent of the vote in Illinois Senate races, most recently in 2004 and 2008.
The Giannoulias folks are hoping Labno pulls away votes in a close race. We’ll see. So far, polls are showing that Kirk is doing pretty well with conservatives.
During an appearance at a Springfield coffeehouse last month, Whitney had an audience of fewer than a dozen people.
* And Forrest Claypool’s independent campaign has been sued…
A former Cook County Board of Review employee filed a libel and defamation suit Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court against assessor candidate Commissioner Forrest Claypool and his campaign.
Victor Santana filed the chancery suit against Claypool, Citizens for Claypool and campaign manager Tom Bowen charging that a post on the campaign’s joeberrios.com website was “factually inaccurate.”
The Claypool campaign has used the site to embarrass Board of Review Commissioner Joseph Berrios, the Democratic nominee for assessor, and to bolster Claypool’s independent candidacy. Republican Sharon Strobeck-Eckersall and Robert Grota of the Green Party are also seeking the office.
Santana took issue with a post implicating him in an investigation into charges that state Rep. Paul Froelich, an Arlington Heights Democrat, used his influence to get assessment appeals lowered before the Board of Review.
* In your opinion, who would be the single best and the single worst candidate for mayor of Chicago? Try to stick to those whose names have already been floated, please. Rod Blagojevich, Scott Lee Cohen, etc. aren’t exactly helpful here.
Unless Quinn can get his act together soon, he will definitely hamper Giannoulias, no matter what Alexi is telling the media. I find myself agreeing with Silver here.
* Nate apparently hasn’t gotten around to handicapping our congressional races yet, but here’s a link for future reference.
“I must admonish the media to end its coordinated commentary on who will be the next mayor of the city of Chicago,” Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said in a statement, alluding to his African American constituents’ ability to influence the race. “Whoever that person will be will have to come through my community….before anyone is deemed an imaginary front-runner in this particular race, they should pause and take that into consideration.”
Make no mistake about it, race will play a huge role in this campaign. Period. There’s no getting around this, no matter how distasteful Rush’s tactics can be. The question becomes whether black politicos can rally around one person. I don’t see that yet, partly because there’s a growing old/young split in the African-American leadership. But there’s a lot of time left. Pretty much the same thing goes for Latinos.
“The mayoralty in Chicago is an unbelievealy attractive opportunity,” Axelord said in a West Wing interview. “And I’m sure if Rahm decides to do that, the President will support that decision.”
But staffers at the White House expect that Emanuel will run, one administration official said, recalling what the chief of staff said several weeks ago: “If and when Rich doesn’t run, I’ll do it.”
One analyst said he doesn’t think Chicago voters would blame Emanuel for failures in Obama’s political strategy, or for Democrats’ poor performance in the midterms.
“If there’s one place that wouldn’t matter, it’d be Chicago,” said Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, adding that city voters would view his Washington relationships as assets. “’This guy has connections that could do us a lot of good.’ That’s how they think.”
We don’t know what the situation will look like on November 3rd, and if it’s really bad and Emanuel is still in the White House then the mayor’s spot will look like a consolation prize for a horrible loser. That could definitely hurt him. Plus, the Chicago media is not going to give this guy a free ride just because the DC media is all focused on him. It’s just about the toughest town in the news biz, and Rahm ain’t gonna coast through by any means. For example, here’s Lynn Sweet’s lede…
While White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is lionized in Washington, he would not start a mayoral race in Chicago automatically first in line to replace Mayor Daley.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as frontrunner,” said JPMorgan Chase & Co. Midwest Chairman William Daley, the mayor’s brother, a former U.S. commerce secretary and an Emanuel friend.
Other political experts agree that the opening is likely to attract a large number of candidates and that Emanuel, who still owns a home in the city, wouldn’t have the field to himself.
“He’s an opportunist, but he’s got his work cut out for him,” said John McCarron, an urban affairs writer and adjunct professor at DePaul University in Chicago.
Emanuel has a million dollars in his campaign fund and formidable fund-raising ability, giving him a running start against rivals — if he jumps in the contest. Emanuel, a former House member from a district anchored on the North Side, is without a solid political base in Chicago. The unions and other progressives are mad at him over national issues that would seep into a mayoral contest.
Emanuel would have to do a lot of work to get Democratic committeemen to unite around his candidacy — but he knows a thing or two about coalition building.
* The Tribune has a comprehensive list of most of the candidates who are being talked about. More from CBS2…
Right now, there are more names being floated than ABC’s in a vat of alphabet soup. We’re hearing boomlets for City Council powerhouse Ed Burke, Chief Judge Tim Evans and even County Assessor Jim Houlihan… If elected, Huberman would be Chicago’s first openly gay mayor. But back in April, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) said he would be interested in holding that distinction. He said he would be interested in “exploring the possibility” of running for mayor if Daley retired.
Gery Chico, 54, who lost a race for Senate to Barack Obama, was appointed by Daley recently to head up the City Colleges of Chicago. Chico says he’s seriously considering a run, even though he just recently gave away the last of his campaign funds to charity.
“My phone’s been ringing all day with people urging me to run — it’s something I’m very seriously considering,” Chico said.
Freshman Rep. Mike Quigley isn’t ruling out a run. About the only one who flat-out said no was former Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas, who has another year left on his contract running the New Orleans schools.
If Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart becomes a candidate as expected, he quickly becomes the favorite and shuts the door on a number of hopefuls. He’s riding a wave of good press, appeals to both Machine types and Independents and hasn’t burned his bridges in the African-American community.
But he won’t scare everyone off.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel won’t be backed down by a Dart candidacy — and vice versa. Just the same, Emanuel doesn’t seem well-positioned at this moment to make a run, and while he’d be the best-funded candidate, it’s not entirely clear where he finds his niche.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan could throw everything up for grabs if she were interested, though she has never indicated she would be.
If African-American voters were to unite around a candidate as they did with Washington, they could put that individual in the runoff. But if they could agree on a candidate, Daley probably wouldn’t have been mayor for 21 years.
With Daley’s announcement, Burke will gain power, as the aldermen seek to reassert themselves after spending decades stamping Daley’s writs with their rubber foreheads.
Uncertainty and anarchy scares the business community more than just about anything else. It’s bad enough that the state can’t get its act together. If the city’s politics fall apart, then biz leaders are gonna freak.
* Roundup…
* Daley might retire with extra $1.5M: As of June 30, the mayor had $1,479,823 left in his campaign fund. And under state law, he can claim that as income as long as he pays taxes on it.
* Democratic US Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias is up with a new statewide ad buy featuring President Obama. Rate it…
ADDING: The video should be working now.
*** UPDATE *** Response from National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) Press Secretary Amber Marchand…
Is this the ‘change’ that President Obama believes in? After telling Americans that our country doesn’t need another banker in Washington, he wants Illinois voters to elect a failed mob banker who loaned millions of dollars to known criminals? How are Illinois voters supposed to ‘trust’ Giannoulias with their pocketbooks after he squandered millions of taxpayer dollars set aside for the state’s college fund? How does the President propose that Illinois voters ‘count on’ Giannoulias after he drove his own family’s business into the ground, forcing the government to pay for his risky loans and reckless behavior? Shooting hoops and calling his buddy from Chicago a ‘friend’ is one thing, but President Obama should know that Illinois voters deserve more than a reckless mob banker with a thin resume of experience in the U.S. Senate.”
* 7:36 pm - A group of way overboard NIMBYs lost a big one, thankfully…
Officials from Navistar International Corp. are expected to announce the engine manufacturing company’s plan to move its headquarters to Lisle at a Wednesday morning press conference, DuPage County Board president Bob Schillerstrom said Tuesday. […]
Navistar President Dan Ustian, Gov. Pat Quinn and Attorney General Lisa Madigan, as well as other state and local leaders, are expected to be at the 10 a.m. press conference at the Alcatel-Lucent site, 2701 Lucent Lane, in Lisle.
Navistar officials previously said they were exploring locations in Alabama, Texas and South Carolina because of local opposition to the proposed headquarters site in Lisle. The company is currently located in Warrenville.
In one November hearing before the village’s planning and zoning commission, about 100 people spoke out against Navistar’s proposal, including nearby residents and representatives of a school for autistic children that had just opened next door to the building. They were concerned in part about air pollution, noise, traffic and safety issues.
