Never tweet
Monday, Apr 15, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Yet another dustup today about who is leaving Illinois and for what reasons. Rep. Guzzardi makes some valid points…
* But, campaign history is not on his side…
March 14 was just 6 days before the Democratic primary. Everyone knew that Guzzardi’s candidate Sen. Daniel Biss was going down, but the left was still piling on hard. The Internet is forever.
* Related…
* Former gubernatorial candidate Biss stumps for ‘fair tax’
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* Tom Schuba at the Sun-Times…
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said she is still on track to begin wiping clean thousands of minor cannabis convictions in the coming months, but acknowledges that her office is still trying to determine how exactly to implement her bold plan.
She also said in an interview with the Sun-Times last week that her office was also taking a look at her office policy toward prosecuting those arrested for the sale of marijuana, but said the review was still in its early stages. […]
Noting the arduous process of cataloguing years of convictions, Foxx told the Sun-Times that her office won’t attempt to expunge them all in one fell swoop. Nevertheless, the state’s attorney’s office hopes to start clearing the first round of convictions in a matter of months, she said.
Foxx said her office is seeking to enlist a nonprofit, Code For America, which has already assisted with expungements in California.
* Speaking of Foxx, here’s Comptroller Mendoza…
I am disappointed that “Quarters” Boyle received no jail time after he recklessly caused a 4-car accident two years ago. I went to every court hearing over the past two years to make sure these charges against Boyle did not get dropped. I would have preferred the Cook County State’s Attorney upgrade the charges from the misdemeanors Boyle essentially chose for himself when he finally turned himself in, cleaned up and sober, three days after he caused the accident and fled the scene. I turned over the video to police which showed Boyle staggering around; driving his car into one of his victims who was trying to keep him at the scene. The video showed Boyle falsely claiming to be a police officer. But even with the video, the State’s Attorney’s office never charged Boyle with DUI, reckless driving, battery or with impersonating a police officer. His conviction today for fleeing the scene is better than nothing. But the innocent drivers in those cars he hit deserved more justice.
* Other stuff…
* How legalized pot can help heal wounds inflicted on black and brown communities: Legal adult cannabis use won’t necessarily lead to fewer arrests of black and brown people for cannabis related offenses — Hailey and Childress are right about that. In Colorado, the first state to legalize adult cannabis use, black folks still are arrested for cannabis-related offenses three times more than whites. But rather than blame cannabis for these disparities, we should look at a deeper cause: Racial bias in the criminal justice system.
* Venom directed at Kim Foxx is about taking down an African American reformer: Her law enforcement critics, mostly white men, say Foxx is soft on criminals and an enemy of the police.
* Making the argument for cops on the street, not in schools: The video, obtained by the Sun-Times, flatly contradicts the two officers’ account of what happened during the January incident at Marshall High School. They claim that 16-year-old Dnigma Howard kicked and bit them as they tried to escort her out of the school. They also say they fell down a flight of stairs.
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It’s just a bill
Monday, Apr 15, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Post-Dispatch…
The owner of economically challenged coal-fired power plants in Southern Illinois is supporting legislation that, if passed, would help transform those sites into facilities for utility-scale solar and energy storage projects.
The Texas-based company, Vistra Energy, acquired the region’s fleet of coal plants when it completed its purchase of Dynegy Inc. last year. It says the facilities are beset by tough economic and policy conditions, and favors a bill before the state legislature that would provide funding to phase them out of production and repurpose the sites, instead of just shutting them down abruptly.
But some environmental groups oppose the measure, characterizing it as a potential “$140 million a year coal bailout,” according to J.C. Kibbey, an Illinois clean energy advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Chicago. […]
Vistra employs about 1,000 workers total across its eight Illinois coal plants, Cohn said. The proposal would rely on a combination of funding mechanisms, including renewable energy credits and state-awarded grants. “Transitionary assistance” would be capped at $140 million annually from 2020 through 2024, a five-year period during which given coal plants would remain in operation, with solar or energy storage joining the mix at each site in either 2021 or 2022. The legislation would allow the plants to retire if unforeseen capital expenditures of more than $10 million would be needed to satisfy environmental laws or regulations and keep them in operation.
* Tribune…
Legislation approved Thursday by the Illinois House would license craft distillers similar to the way craft brewers are regulated, with the aim of giving a boost to the burgeoning community of artisan spirits makers in the state.
The bill, which still faces a vote in the Senate, would create a license that allows small distillers to self-distribute some product, removing a major hurdle for unknown brands trying get on store shelves, and another license that allows distillers to open up to three satellite locations where they can serve their house-made spirits as well as other alcohol in a pub environment.
The changes would allow craft distillers to build brand awareness and new revenue streams, helping them grow and encouraging new distillers to set up shop in the state, said Noelle DiPrizio, who co-owns Chicago Distilling in Logan Square.
“Based on our surrounding states it would make us one of the more favorable states to start a business,” said DiPrizio, president of the Illinois Craft Distillers Association, which pushed for the bill.
There are 34 businesses federally licensed as craft distillers in Illinois, up from two in 2010, DiPrizio said. If the bill becomes law, “it could double very quickly,” she said.
* Other stuff…
* Illinois House passes bill calling for teaching work ethics in schools: A number of Republicans opposed the bill, arguing that it would be an unfunded mandate on schools and teachers, and that most teachers were already providing that kind of instruction.
* Illinois Senate recap: Scott’s Law awareness measure advances: The bill provides that renewal notices from the secretary of state’s office will advise drivers of how to properly approach a stopped emergency vehicle.
* CUB: Breaking news: SCOTUS will NOT review appellate court decisions that upheld states’ right to advance decarbonization goals through zero-emission credit programs in Illinois and NY. Important victory for cost-effective clean energy
* MisterJayEm: You will never find a more wretched hive of hacks and half-wits.
* The Illinois Keep Internet Devices Safe Act would have empowered average people to sue big companies for recording them without consent, but industry association lobbying defanged it: In its current, neutered form, the bill provides exclusive authority to the Attorney General to enforce the Act, which means regular citizens won’t be able to bring forward a case regarding tech giants recording them in their homes.
* Bill granting power to county board chairmen could die with session
* Recovering Addict Considers Social Impact Of Gambling Expansion
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Question of the day
Monday, Apr 15, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Daily Herald editorial…
If a school district — or any local government, for that matter — overtly promoted a bond issue that required voter approval, it would be drawn and quartered.
That’s against the law, and so when Barrington Unit District 220 recently held a referendum for one, school officials were careful to ensure that any publicity that was underwritten by the government was strictly informational, in tone as well as word.
Contrast that with the messaging you and we are financing through Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office. As one example: a “Fair Tax Calculator” on the Illinois government website that begins with the message, “Governor Pritzker is making good on his promise to protect working families and make our system more fair. With a fair tax, 97 percent of taxpayers will see some tax relief.”
Sounds more than a little promotional, wouldn’t you agree? […]
There’s only one reason for Pritzker to brand his proposal as a “fair tax:” to subliminally promote voter support. Who, after all, would want to consider themselves unfair?
At first I just figured this was a typical editorial from opponents demanding that the other side fight with both hands tied behind their back. But I checked the statutes and here’s one of the definitions for prohibited political activities on state time…
Campaigning for any elective office or for or against any referendum question.
Of course, the referendum hasn’t qualified for the ballot as of yet. But whatevs.
* The Question: Is the governor campaigning on state time? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
survey services
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* NPR Illinois…
Speaking before more than a hundred journalists at the Illinois News Broadcasters Association’s annual spring conference in Normal, Pritzker said he’s committed to helping Illinois media tell the stories that matter.
Pritzker said mutual respect between journalists and elected officials is critical in the era of “fake news.”
“If we want our democracy to thrive, we must have a first amendment that thrives,” Pritzker said. “Those with political power must be extremely careful that when we disagree with what’s being said, we nevertheless fight for your right to get the information out.”
Illinois Public Media reporters questioned Pritzker about the lack of cooperation from some state departments, namely the Illinois Department of Corrections and Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
Apparently, some reporters at WILL have been working on stories about education in prisons and mental health care for children, but haven’t been getting cooperation from the directors.
* More…
“Now more than ever it’s important that elected office holders remind the public how important journalism is in a healthy democracy,” he said.
Pritzker drew applause from the conference room full of journalists representing news organizations from across the state, and later he invited them to ask questions, calling it “the biggest press conference I ever had.”
The questions posed included a call for more transparency and access to state departments and agencies, to which Pritzker asked for “one more minute, so to speak” as his administration works through the process of bringing in new people and making adjustments.
* More…
Pritzker said he’s still hiring new staff after the Rauner administration — and that he’ll step in when government officials are unresponsive.
That time to “step in” may be now.
Pritzker has been in office three full months. He doesn’t yet have his own Corrections director. Rauner appointed an IDOC Director in March of 2015, but the guy resigned two months later and the department didn’t have a full-time director until August.
Pritzker appointed his DHS Director over three months ago.
[This post has been updated to reflect a correction in the NPR Illinois story above.]
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Pritzker rhetoric thrown back at him
Monday, Apr 15, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Last week…
At a news conference in his office Tuesday, Gov. JB Pritzker said it’s time to “let the people vote” on whether they would like to see the [income] tax structure overhauled.
“We have a constitutional amendment process that ultimately puts this decision to the voters,” Pritzker said. “It’s time to let the people of Illinois – our taxpayers – decide.”
* Tribune editorial…
We never guessed that, like spring introducing crocuses to wide-eyed baby bunnies, Gov. J.B. Pritzker would introduce a novel concept called democracy to his fellow Democrats. As in, letting the people of Illinois vote their wishes.
How startling, then, to see this lead story in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune: “ ‘Let the people vote’ on taxes — Pritzker pushes critics for their plan, says taxpayers can decide.” Boldface ours, with pleasure. […]
Yes, Illinoisans do have an amendment process, and Pritzker’s fellow Democrats have done a splendid job of making sure voters couldn’t make it work for them. For years citizens have tried — by amendment or statute — to enshrine pension reform, and term limits on lawmakers, and a redistricting process that lets voters choose their legislators rather than the other way around. […]
So how about a package deal, Governor, of amendments or statutory changes: Let the people vote not just on taking more billions of dollars a year from wallets — an amount sure to grow and grow as tax rates rise and rise. Let the people also vote on rewriting the rigid pension clause of the constitution. Let the people vote on term limits. Let the people vote on creating a fair remap scheme.
Easier said than done, of course.
* Jim Dey…
The result is his feverish interest in allowing voters to address an issue he cares about — generating more tax revenue — declines dramatically when it comes to other issues that would upset the status quo and the permanent political class.
Pritzker, of course, is no different from other politicians when it comes to issuing bogus cries to “let the people” vote. It’s a common refrain from intellectually dishonest pols who know a good line when they steal one.
But, like so much of the rhetoric from our public servants, its inherent insincerity is exceeded only by its grotesque selectivity.
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Pritzker signs local “right to work” ban
Monday, Apr 15, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Tribune…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday signed into law a bill that bars local governments from establishing so-called right-to-work zones, another rebuke to his Republican predecessor, who blocked similar legislation as he battled with Democratic lawmakers over his pro-business, union-weakening agenda.
The new law, which was passed with strong bipartisan support in the House and Senate and takes effect immediately, “makes it abundantly clear that we have turned the page here in Illinois,” the Democratic governor said during a bill-signing event at the Capitol, where he was joined by legislators and labor leaders.
Former Gov. Bruce Rauner was a major proponent of laws prohibiting employers and labor organizations from signing contracts that require workers to join unions or pay dues. In 2017, Rauner vetoed a previous version of the bill banning local governments from creating such laws, and the House fell one vote short of overriding him. This time, the measure passed the House on a 101-8 vote and was approved unanimously in the Senate.
“From the start, right-to-work was an idea cooked up to lower wages, slash benefits and hurt our working families,” Pritzker said. “ ‘Right-to-work’ has always meant, ‘right to work for less money,’ and it’s wrong for Illinois.”
* Illinois News Network…
But Liberty Justice Center Senior Attorney Jeffrey Schwab, who represents Lincolnshire in a case they’ve requested the nation’s high court take up, says right to work doesn’t ban collective bargaining.
“It just makes unions have to get voluntary consent from employees, rather than forcing them to join and pay them,” Schwab said. “It’s disappointing that even though Illinois doesn’t want to pass a statewide right to work that it’s prohibiting its local units of government from doing so.”
Schwab has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Lincolnshire’s case on appeal. Pritzker said he doubts that will change anything now that local right to work is banned in Illinois.
“This bill actually just establishes what is the law today, so I believe that that would be moot essentially at the [U.S.] Supreme Court,” Pritzker said.
Schwab said they’re still waiting to see how the new law will impact the lawsuit.
* Capitol News Illinois…
Marc Dixon, a sociologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, said during an August 2018 interview that different arguments have been used over the years to campaign for the laws.
The first states to adopt them were primarily in the South, he said, where the laws were used to weaken labor unions, especially the Congress of International Organizations, or CIO, which were actively supporting civil rights legislation for African-Americans.
Later, in the 1950s, he said, they were supported by people who claimed certain labor unions embraced communist sympathies or had ties to organized crime.
More recently, supporters have argued for right-to-work laws on the basis of free speech. As more and more blue-collar workers aligned with the Republican Party, supporters have argued that workers should not be forced to join unions that, broadly speaking, tend to support Democrats.
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* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
Sen. Melinda Bush, D-Grayslake, spent more than a year holding hearings and overseeing negotiations which eventually produced SB 1829, a massive omnibus bill on sexual harassment.
The proposal would do everything from limiting non-disclosure agreements that could prohibit disclosure of sexual harassment, to preventing unions from representing both an accuser and an alleged harasser in disciplinary proceedings, to protecting contract employees from sexual harassment for the first time in state history, to forcing employers to allow victims of sexual harassment to take leaves of absence from work to “seek medical help, legal assistance, counseling, safety planning and other assistance.”
Despite all this, the historically conservative Illinois Chamber Employment Law Council supported the bill and it passed the Senate last week without opposition. A Chamber representative even attended a press conference with Sen. Bush to tout the bill’s success.
Almost immediately, however, House Majority Leader Greg Harris, Assistant Majority Leader Natalie Manley and Majority Conference Chair Kathleen Willis released a joint statement that basically said Bush’s measure would be placed under review in the chamber and stuck in a special study policy panel that’s charged with coming up with the House’s own omnibus bill.
The statement didn’t contain so much as a thank you to the sponsor or a hint of praise for the massive bill. Indeed, the language used in the release made it seem as though the legislation was inadequate to the task at hand and was no big deal.
“Senator Bush’s legislation contains many elements which will be reviewed and evaluated alongside ethics and human rights issues proposed by members of the House in our effort to develop the most comprehensive legislation possible,” the statement read in part.
Sen. Bush served on the Democratic Party of Illinois’ Anti-Harassment, Equality and Access Panel (and intervened to have Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough kicked off the panel because she was too closely aligned with House Speaker Michael Madigan, who is also the state party chairman). She also co-chaired the Senate’s bipartisan Task Force on Sexual Discrimination and Harassment Awareness and Prevention. This is a life mission for her.
Bush has personally poured hundreds of hours into her bill, so to watch the House Democrats blithely shrug while tossing it on a pile with a bunch of other, lesser bills was simply too much to take. She was also furious that Rep. Willis had snatched up sponsorship of her proposal in the House without her consent and then refused to relinquish control.
House members say Bush confronted Leader Harris and others on the House floor last week to strenuously object to their press release and to question their intentions. She reportedly pledged to hold a press conference to angrily call them all out if they allowed her proposal to die.
It didn’t work. The chamber’s top Democrats stood by their decision.
Some House members have also complained about their bills being dumped into the informal sexual harassment and ethics study panel and have also been rebuffed by Harris, Manley and Willis every time they’ve asked to move their bills separately from the rest. But the senior Democrats are determined to put their own bill together and that’s that.
The legislative process is often compared to sausage-making for good reason. But Speaker Madigan and the House Democrats have had some, um, issues with this particular topic for the past couple of years, leaving some folks suspicious about his actual intent.
Madigan’s own chief of staff had to resign after he was accused of sexual harassment. Madigan’s political operation is being sued for retaliation after a former worker complained of sexual harassment by the brother of Madigan’s alderman. A former staffer lost his lobbying job after allegations of misconduct while on staff. Another former staffer was accused of misconduct while running some Madigan campaigns.
“We haven’t done enough. I take responsibility for that,” Madigan wrote to his members in February of last year after one incident.
“I didn’t do enough,” Madigan then wrote in September of last year. “I have made it a personal mission to take this issue head-on and correct past mistakes,” he added in his Chicago Tribune op-ed.
So, maybe the House will craft a tough new law. Maybe they just figured that since the Chamber enthusiastically supported it, Bush’s bill wasn’t strict enough. I guess we’ll find out by May 31, which is the scheduled end of the spring legislative session.
But that final product had better be pretty strong and comprehensive or there will be heck to pay. Sen. Bush will make sure of that.
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Unintended consequences?
Monday, Apr 15, 2019 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Earlier this month…
Legislation sponsored by state Rep. Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, to extend protections to DCFS and Adult Protective Services workers in honor of slain-DCFS worker Pam Knight has received the unanimous approval of the Illinois House of Representatives.
HB 1482 adds protections to DCFS and Adult Protective Service employees concerning assault, the same protections applied to teachers, police/fire, and other emergency responders who protect those in harm’s way.
“This is a public safety bill that closes a loophole to protect DCFS and Adult Protective Service workers. The loophole was discovered when DCFS worker Pam Knight was brutally beaten, and ultimately succumbed to her injuries,” said McCombie.
* But…
Kyle Hillman, an official with the National Association of Social Workers Illinois Chapter, does not believe this bill will better protect DCFS employees. Instead, he believes it could land foster kids who are already struggling with trauma, in jail for years.
“You have an 18-year-old that acts out that, let’s say kicks a social worker in a fit of rage. This individual could be hit with a Class One felony under this bill,” Hillman said.
He believes there are other ways to better protect DCFS employees.
“If we did a little bit better training, if we had more social workers go into those dangerous situations so they aren’t going at it alone, those would be much more effective at protecting our members than adding higher penalties to existing crimes,” Hillman said.
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