* I’ve been telling subscribers about this for at least a couple of weeks now. Speaker Madigan and Senate President Cullerton are both hoping to run a six-month budget this May…
Just days after the Civic Federation’s Lawrence Msall cast an ominous warning on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight that absent new tax revenue, “we run the risk of the state’s entire financial system collapsing,”a team of journalists convened on the set Friday night to talk about the political calculations for actually passing an inevitable income tax increase.
At one point, host Joel Weisman asked his panelists: “Where does Mike Madigan stand on it?”
“Where he’s always been,” veteran political reporter Mike Flannery responded. “He wants to protect his Democratic caucus. Madigan has set the earliest ever adjournment deadline, May 7 … [T]he thinking in Springfield is [pass] a six month budget, get the heck out of town.”
In theory, the “six month budget” would allow the Democrats to get through Election Day without putting any votes on an income tax hike.
The “theory” would be to pass another budget like the one they did last year, giving the governor tremendous authority to decide which budgetary line items to save and which to cut. If Quinn is reelected, then they’d take up a tax vote (if needed) in the January lame duck session. If Bill Brady is elected, they’ll just dump the problem in his hands.
* The Question: Your thoughts on this idea?
…Adding… Yes, the story is wrong about the “earliest ever” adjournment date. They adjourned April 15th one year. Stick to the question, please.
Picture this scene: Six or seven police officers struggle for a half hour on the floor with an uncooperative man while a phlebotomist repeatedly jabs the man’s hand with a needle, trying to draw blood.
It’s not a pretty picture. But it’s one you could see in Illinois if a bill that last week passed out of an Illinois House committee becomes law.
As the law stands now, police — even with a subpoena — are not allowed to use force to draw a suspect’s blood. House Bill 4969 would change that, allowing “all necessary and reasonable force” to obtain a blood sample.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Keith Farnham (D-Elgin), says he introduced the bill at the request of the Kane County state’s attorney’s office, which has staged occasional “no refusal” weekends since 2008 to crack down on DUI suspects who refuse Breathalyzer tests. […]
The scene described above — cops fighting a suspect for a blood sample — did in fact take place in Arizona, where the man was left with a hand so swollen he couldn’t use his thumb. Former Cook County Judge Daniel M. Locallo, who sits on the Illinois State Bar Association’s Criminal Law Section, calls it an example of “frontier justice.”
Farnham barely won his race last year, so apparently he thinks he has to look super-tough on crime and cooperate fully with his local prosecutor to win this time around. But this seems to be a bit much, no?
Legislation pending in the Illinois House would prohibit businesses from hiring based on a person’s credit history to spare people who lose their jobs and their homes from being “double victimized” when they can’t find new work, its top supporter said Monday.
“Can you imagine you’re someone who, at no fault of your own, you lose everything — you’re laid off, you can’t afford your mortgage so you lose your home — and then when you’re trying to get back on your feet, you got companies running credit checks on you while you’re looking for jobs?” said Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock), chief House sponsor.
I have a pretty good life, so I really can’t complain about much. However, I’d like to see some legislation to stop mobile phone companies from running those over-long explanatory messages (often with several-second pauses) during voice mail messages. I’m pretty sure everybody knows how to leave a message at the beep. I’m also pretty sure that those several seconds add up to huge profits when taken in the aggregate.
Chicago Children’s Museum officials said they plan to amend the museum’s federal tax filings to reveal its City Council lobbyists and how much they were paid in recent years after the Tribune asked why it had failed to do so.
According to council members, several professionals were hired to lobby aldermen — who in June 2008 sided with Mayor Richard Daley and approved a controversial plan to build a museum in Grant Park.
But those lobbyists weren’t disclosed, as required, on the museum’s Internal Revenue Service reports for a two-year period ending June 30, 2008, according to recent not-for-profit filings at the Illinois attorney general’s office.
“It was an administrative error, and we are currently amending those tax returns,” said museum spokesman Natalie Kreiger.
That’s a pretty big error.
* Related…
* Meeks’ School Voucher Plan Moves Ahead: His voucher proposal would allow parents of students in the academically lowest 10 percent of Chicago Public Schools to have the option of sending their children to a private school, if space is available.
* Alexi Giannoulias’ campaign is obviously planning to paint Mark Kirk as a definite vote to perpetuate the DC gridlock on President Obama’s proposals. Kirk is a smart guy, however, and is already trying to show that he won’t be an automatic “No” on everything…
U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk of Highland Park, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois, opposes a Kentucky Republican senator’s stand against extension of unemployment benefits.
Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., is blocking action in the Senate to extend the benefits. The blocked legislation also includes some highway money and Bunning’s action has temporarily shut down more than 40 projects nationwide, including a $1 million road project in Alexander County in far southern Illinois.
“I voted for the unemployment extension last week,” Kirk told The State Journal-Register during a visit to Springfield Monday. “In Washington, 41 senators can stop something, but one senator can only delay it. My read on this is the vote is pretty much 99 to one.”
Kirk’s campaign recently admitted that their own polling showed pretty high approval ratings for Obama in Illinois. So, he has to make sure he is more identified with, say, the new Republican Massachusetts Senator, who broke the impasse on a recent jobs bill, than people like Bunning.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk said Monday the fate of his Democratic rival’s family bank should be an issue of concern for voters.
“I think there’s no question that Alexi Giannoulias bears direct personal responsibility for reckless loans that could bankrupt the Broadway Bank,” Kirk said of the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee. “I also worry that the possible collapse of the Broadway Bank will leave taxpayers left paying for Alexi’s reckless loans.”
Kirk’s comments came after the Tribune reported Sunday that the bank’s chief executive, Demetris Giannoulias, said the family must raise at least $85 million by the end of April to prevent a government seizure of the financial institution. Demetris Giannoulias is the older brother of Alexi Giannoulias.
“While Alexi hasn’t been at the bank for four years, Mark Kirk has been in Washington for a decade supporting the failed and reckless Bush policies that got us into this economic mess,” Strand said.
It’s not a bad point, mind you, but it just oozes “DC talking point” blandness.
In addition, the Indo-American Democratic Organization is trying to collect 10,000 signatures on Krishnamoorthi’s behalf to present to House Speaker Mike Madigan.
I just can’t see how they could skip over an also-ran in the lt. governor’s race and give the slot to an also-ran in the comptroller’s race. But both parties are actively courting Indo-Americans, who haven’t quite yet established themselves here. It’s a delicate balancing act for sure. And that may be why more are saying they should just leave the slot open, including, apparently, Senate President John Cullerton…
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery has learned top Dems are seriously considering leaving the slot open while simultaneously asking Illinois voters to abolish the office entirely. […]
Wiping out the office of lieutenant governor would save millions of tax dollars. And Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, said Monday that having nobody as lieutenant governor would be preferable to the rookie Republican candidate.
He’s Jason Plummer, a 27-year-old whose main experience involves working for his father’s downstate lumber company. Democrats saw an opening last week, after Plummer stumbled repeatedly during an interview on WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight.”
Cullerton on Monday expressed interest in floating a constitutional referendum to abolish the office of lieutenant governor, following the embarrassment his party endured over Cohen. Voters could be asked to approve the measure on the November ballot, if super-majorities in the House and Senate can approve the proposal this spring.
*** UPDATE *** The Democratic Party of Illinois has published the list online of everyone who has applied to be considered for the open lt. governor slot, as well as their applications and their resumes. Some even supply references. Click here to see the list. Some of the bigger names aren’t on the list, like Rep. Art Turner, Raja, etc.
…Adding… The links on that page appear to be working now.
Nice try, governor, but when you asked the people of Illinois how to balance the state budget, you got thousands of responses, but not one that I could see who said cut my services or raise my taxes.
* Raising user fees (driver’s license, car registration, etc)
As I’ve been monitoring the comment section for the past few days, however, I have noticed that almost nobody has demanded that their own pet programs be cut. The teachers are flooding the site demanding no cuts to schools - or even saying they want more money for schools - and pretty much everyone else is focusing on cuts to “the other”…
* KEEP THE TEACHERS AND THEIR UNION OFF THIS WEBSITE!! THIS IS FOR HARD WORKING TAXPAYERS, NOT FOR A BUNCH OF WHINY OVERPAID FUTURE MILLIONAIRES!
* Have all elected and appointed state officials take off one day per week with no pay just as companies are asking of their employees.
Byrne’s conclusion…
The truth is that much of what the state spends is for things that someone in Illinois wants. If we’re to come anywhere close to balancing the budget, it will require more than a debate over bigger cuts versus higher taxes. It will require a fundamental downsizing of our expectations of what we, ourselves, can milk from the government.
That’s a good point. And as I’ve said many times before, when newspapers and their employees start editorializing in favor of getting rid of their industry’s bigtime tax breaks, I’ll be far more inclined to take their other positions more seriously. Just about everybody has their fingers in the state government pie. And that’s a big reason why it’s so hard to do anything about the size of government.
…Adding… Several people are leaving budget-cutting proposals in comments. As with the state site, these are all aimed at other folks. We’ve had numerous posts here about ways to cut the budget. Your little cut ideas don’t interest me unless you propose cutting something that you depend on. I may start deleting these comments if they continue. Don’t waste our time.
Cook County’s post-Sept. 11 security initiative, dubbed Project Shield, which has come under fire for being sharply over budget and years behind schedule, is proving to be an even bigger drain on taxpayers.
The city asks a judge to quash a defense subpoena seeking to call Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to testify at the bribery trial of developer Calvin Boender. Boender is set to go on trial next week on charges he bribed then-Ald. Isaac “Ike” Carothers to obtain support for a large project.
“Why are there no Poles on major boards and commissions?” Pucinski asked. “Why, on the short form for the Census are we not allowed to identify ethnic identity?”
On her way to work in Glendale Heights on Dec. 8, a deer jumped onto Locklin’s car, crushing the windshield. Locklin slammed on the brakes and caught her breath.[…]
The Westchester resident suffered only minor injuries, a few cuts and scrapes from the damaged windshield.
What hurt far more was a $350 bill from the Glenside Fire Protection District, a fee critics refer to as a “crash tax.”
“These fees are a hidden tax on all of us, and they hit the poor especially hard,” said the study’s author, Robert Shapiro, who was undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton administration.
To pay for the rewards programs, which are heavily skewed toward the higher-income brackets, the card companies have boosted the processing fees retailers pay. “The result is massive transfer of wealth from poor to rich” in the checkout line, said Shapiro.
* Downstate judge resigns after alleged threats: [Judge] Brunton was suspended for allegedly making threats, though the nature of them never has been spelled out. No charges have been filed.
Two weeks ago, Village President Debbie Herrmann surprised the community by announcing she placed Police Chief Anthony Sciarrone on administrative leave.
* Our quote of the day goes to Chris Mooney, a professor of Political Studies with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois Springfield speaking about the governor’s new budget.illinois.gov website, which allows people to post suggestions about ways to cut the state budget…
“I think blogs are a terrible thing in the American public because there is no responsibility,” Mooney said. “It’s interesting and a good thing that many people [on the governor’s budget site] are owning what they say, which is unlike a lot of blogs.”
Actually, the worst commenters are found mostly on newspaper websites, not blogs. Whatever the case, Mooney’s thesis is not wholly correct. There are lots and lots of pseudonymous and anonymous comments on the governor’s budget site. Have a look for yourself. And quite a few of the ideas are a little silly…
“It won’t save millions of dollars, but is it really necessary to use a new pen, that I’m sure isn’t a 10-cent Bic pen, every time the governor signs his name on a document?” Kevin Taylor, Chicago.
Susan Nikka Chicago Since most of the budget goes to the employee payroll and all benefits, I suggest taking back the last pay raises of ALL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, which means local and state-wide, administrative, congressman, alderman — EVERYONE!
“Most” of the budget does not go towards employee payroll and benefits. And how is cutting congressional and aldermanic salaries gonna help the state budget?
Several commentators wrote to promote hospital funding. They appeared to be form letters. Suggestion to writers: Don’t use form letters. Quinn may be an exception, but many politicians routinely ignore form letters.
“How could anything on this (Web site) have an impact on what is going to be said?” Mooney said. “The budget is put together over the course of an entire year and has the input of hundreds of people and specialists. And now two weeks before, (Quinn) sets up a blog to get input?”
What Professor Mooney fails to grasp is that Quinn can use some of the more lucid suggestions for political cover in his budget address. He can incorporate the suggestions into his speech and portray himself as a man of the people. Used properly, it could be an effective little gimmick.
* The Chicago Tribune laid out its own budget cut proposals yesterday. The paper wants a two-year solution with not tax hikes. One item on the list was the pension funds…
The most ambitious initiative to rein in costs now and in future decades comes from the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which has proved up its legal and financial implications. The plan would freeze, and guarantee, pension benefits already earned, but would set somewhat lower benefits going forward for current state employees and new hires. Retirement ages would increase, while accrual rates and annual cost-of-living bumps would decrease. An offsetting drop in employee pension contributions could put more money in some workers’ pockets.
These changes appear to be constitutional and parallel how private-sector employers have moved tens of millions of workers to less costly retirement plans, such as 401(k)s. One huge difference: The Civic Committee proposal keeps all employees in a defined-benefit plan — a golden nest egg that many private-sector workers no longer have. None of this would affect current retirees, whose pensions are constitutionally guaranteed for life. Actuarial studies estimate that these changes would reduce the state’s unfunded pension obligations, now approaching $95 billion, by about $20 billion. Budget savings: At least $2.1 billion.
A $2.1 billion savings right away? I haven’t been able to find anything at the Civic Committee’s website with that number, but I’ve been told an answer will be forthcoming. I’ll share the info when I get it.
That editorial also called for cutting local government revenue sharing in half, which would only transfer the problems to somebody else.
* Related…
* Dems must OK cuts to get tax increase: If, in the end, the Republicans refuse to play ball, Madigan should move forward without them, the political price be damned. He owes it to Illinois to use his power to deliver for the state — not just to accumulate even more power.
* Quinn: Lawmakers not cheering for tax increase: But Quinn has said he won’t back down from an income tax increase if House Speaker Michael Madigan and Illinois Senate President John Cullerton ask him to do so because lawmakers hesitate to support one in an election year.
* Range of services at risk due to city, state budgets: Like a frog in a gradually warming pot of water, not everyone notices the trouble brewing. But budget problems have already hurt the Chicago area’s way of life — public transit is shrinking, library hours have been cut, and public schools are laying off employees by the hundreds. And it looks like things can only get worse.
* A Titanic mistake or nothing at all: This ship of state is steaming full speed ahead as people scream, “Iceberg!” That’s what this State of Illinois budget mess looks like to me.
* College tuition costs causing heartburn: One year at Illinois State University, my alma mater, costs more than $16,500. If prices kept pace with inflation from the time I graduated, one year at ISU should cost $10,000. Instead, the price more than doubled.
Fridays are getting tense in the Chicago campaign office of Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat seeking the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama. That’s the day regulators announce which troubled banks they’ll close.
Broadway Bank in Chicago, owned by Giannoulias’s family, must attract at least $75 million in capital by late April to meet terms of a consent order with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prompted by losses on commercial real-estate loans. Even if successful, the family could lose control before November’s election, dealing a blow to Democrats and an Obama friend.
“The last thing that Alexi Giannoulias needs right now is another round of bad news stories and stories raising questions about the family’s business,” said Stu Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. “The one thing you don’t want to spend in a campaign is a lot of time defending yourself.”
Demetris Giannoulias, a Yale University economics and sociology graduate, said one of the few options for Broadway Bank to raise money is through private-equity firms.
But that won’t be easy. For one thing, many private-equity firms won’t bother doing deals of less than $100 million, he said. For another, banking regulations make it unappealing for private-equity firms to take more than, say, a 25 percent ownership stake. Exceeding that threshold would force such firms to register as bank holding companies. That would open up a typically secretive industry to more scrutiny in the highly regulated banking world.
A purchase of Broadway by another bank is virtually off the table, Demetris Giannoulias said. That’s because many healthy banks believe it makes more sense to wait until a lender fails before swooping in for the deposits, assets and branches. That way, the acquiring bank can usually strike a deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that limits its losses.
Also, with only four branches, including its 5960 N. Broadway headquarters, Broadway has scant franchise value, providing little incentive for another institution to fashion a deal before its collapse.
Sen. Durbin said over the weekend that he believes Giannouolias will address all these issues soon…
“There are a lot of people who want to attribute all sorts of things to him, but most people in fairness will say, you know ‘he’s been away from this for four years, and banks are failing’ he needs to answer these questions, he’s prepared to answer these questions and it will happen soon.”
[Giannoulias’] campaign presented figures showing 9 percent of about $240 million in non-performing assets now on the bank’s books originated while he was there.
Watch Giannoulias being asked about the bank by the Sun-Times…
* You may have noticed the new polling app in the center column for the US Senate race. I’m gonna keep it for a while unless it slows down the site (as these sorts of apps often do). I’ll also be adding the gubernatorial trendlines as soon as some more polls are taken so we can have some trendlines.
* John Patterson at the Daily Herald has a must-read retrospective today about what went wrong last year with the Illinois Reform Commission. Go read the whole thing, but this excerpt is quite important. Former GOP state Sen. Duane Noland was a member of Patrick Collins’ hand-picked Illinois Reform Commission. He was the only former legislator on the commission and has now become the first commission member to openly criticize the way the IRC handled last year’s push for reforms…
[Noland] said many of his commission colleagues had no idea what awaited at the Capitol and when advised what was coming chose not to engage the system even if it meant their proposals might falter.
“I tried to talk about ways we could be more effective,” Noland said in a recent interview. “But they wanted to be independent and above the fray.”
Noland said his advice was “hit singles and advance runners,” but the feeling of the commission was they’d been assembled “to hit a home run.”
The problem, he said, is those who swing for the fences often strike out.
“I sensed real quickly - it’s getting ugly and our people don’t know how to engage the process,” Noland said. “I could just see it, we were grinding to a halt.”
While that may look to many of my readers like common sense advice, engaging the system and coming up with reasonable compromises was obviously seen as somehow dirty by the commission.
Patterson’s article revolves around the controversy over Collins’ and the commission’s apparent overreaction to what looked like a fairly benign meeting between one commission member and the spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan. Former Republican Gov. Jim Edgar added his own two cents…
Edgar said negotiations are part of the process, the earlier they begin the better the outcome, and, while some things shouldn’t be sacrificed, wiggle room is needed. He said Collins should have reached out to legislative leaders.
“I can’t believe … that everything there was chiseled in stone,” Edgar said of the reform report. “And if it is, then you’re going to have a tough time.”
* Meanwhile, the Sun-Times has a report about how Northwestern University allegedly managed to keep a lucrative county traffic school contract. A cousin of Mayor Daley was involved. And so was Senate President John Cullerton. The Sun-Times provided his full explanation…
Like most members of the General Assembly, Cullerton serves as a part time state senator while continuing his professional career. As a partner with Thompson Coburn LLP, he continues to practice in law in areas of zoning, licensing, assessments, nonprofit law and other matters that come before Cook County and City of Chicago. The City of Chicago and Cook County lobbyist registration ordinances broadly define the term what constitutes “lobbying,” including traditional legal services. Out of an abundance of caution to ensure compliance with these ordinances, Cullerton has registered as a lobbyist for the traditional legal services he provides to clients with matters before the City of Chicago and Cook County.
The [National Safety Council] asked Cullerton for representation in the traffic safety school bid. Later the NSC issued a Request for Proposal for general representation on all legal work across the U.S. After submitting a proposal, competing with other law firms for the work, and a series of interviews, Thompson Coburn (the largest firm in St. Louis with offices in Washington D.C., Chicago and Belleville) was awarded the representation.
* As you already know, Sen. Bill Brady gave up his sponsorship of a bill last week to re-legalize mass euthanasia of dogs and cats by gas chambers after the press got wind of the legislation. But that wasn’t the only bill which Brady dumped…
The Illinois State Senate is considering a bill (SB3447) to roll back some protections of the Illinois Human Rights Act, which currently prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. […]
The bill was authored by State Senator Bill Brady, Republican gubernatorial hopeful, though the chief sponsorship has since changed to State Sen. John O. Jones. The bill has been assigned to the Judiciary Committee and a hearing on the bill is scheduled for Tuesday, March 2.
I wish I had known about that when I wrote my syndicated weekly newspaper column on Friday. The beauty of the column is I can somewhat bypass the Associated Press if they’re not covering an issue. The column appears in over 100 newspapers statewide, so I do reach a lot of eyeballs. This time around, the AP has so far completely ignored the uproar over Sen. Bill Brady’s bill to re-legalize gas chambers for dogs and cats. My column uses the legislation to partially illustrate how Brady’s campaign is doing so far, along with another related development…
Jerry Clarke is not easily ruffled. Not only has he seen it all in his years running campaigns in Illinois, but he’s served several tours of duty in Iraq as a combat helicopter pilot.
But I thought Jerry might actually faint last week when I called him with an update on his candidate’s latest piece of legislation. Clarke is running state Sen. Bill Brady’s gubernatorial campaign.
Sen. Brady’s bill would undo a compromise worked out over two years to stop the practice of mass euthanasia of dogs and cats. The animals were often put into auto exhaust gas chambers and killed en masse, sometimes allegedly by so-called “puppy mills” when the animals weren’t sold. The gas chambers were deemed cruel because it could take as long as 30 minutes for the animals to die, and some even survived the ordeal.
One of the state’s animal gas chambers is in Brady’s Senate district, and Brady has said he sponsored the bill on a local veterinarian’s behalf. Brady’s new legislation would delete the law’s requirement that “companion animals” be euthanized one at a time.
The Humane Society of Illinois blasted Brady’s legislation. “This bill would allow numerous animals to be gassed at the same time, in the same chamber, which will cause fear and panic, at the same time these dogs will be gasping for their final breath.”
That’s not exactly the image you want associated with your gubernatorial candidate, to say the least.
The point here is that Bill Brady is obviously not yet thinking like a statewide candidate. For crying out loud, you can’t introduce a bill to help out your local puppy gas chamber when you’re trying to be governor. I mean, seriously, what kind of thought process concocts an idea like that?
Clarke called me back to say that Brady would introduce an amendment to delete the bill’s content. The next day, Brady handed off sponsorship to someone else. At least his campaign is finally learning that they’ll have to keep this guy on a short and tight leash.
Jerry has no time to spare, either. As I write this, the Senate Democrats are drafting a state budget based on Sen. Bill Brady’s proposals from his Republican primary race.
During the primary race, Brady told the Chicago Tribune: “I believe Illinois needs to prioritize its programs and cut state spending by approximately 10 percent, saving $5.5 billion on the $55 billion base budget.”
Brady’s answer was dismissed by most budget experts because about half that $55 billion figure can’t really be altered much. You can’t, for instance, just tell Wall Street that you’re cutting your bond payments by ten percent. So a ten percent across the board cut to the operating budget would only provide about half of Brady’s projected savings.
And now the Senate Democrats have decided to show the world just what, exactly, Brady’s proposed ten percent cut and billion dollar tax cut would mean to Illinois - agency by agency.
The Senate Democrats have already passed a legislative scholarship “reform” that was specifically designed to call attention to Brady’s granting of a tuition waiver to the child of a campaign contributor. The ploy didn’t work, though, because Brady uses an independent committee to award the scholarships. Also last week, the Democrats forced a hearing on Brady’s campaign finance reform bill. The legislation was so poorly drafted that Brady was forced to agree to make numerous fixes, but the hearing got absolutely no media coverage.
The “Brady budget” proposal may finally break the media logjam, so this budget hearing could be a major test of Brady’s campaign, and its early reaction was fairly strong.
“When are they going to hold hearings on Quinn’s budget?” Clarke thundered last week when told of the planned budget hearings. Brady’s campaign manager accused the Democrats of using a Senate committee and state agency higher-ups for pure political gamesmanship while their own party - which has a huge majority in the chamber - hasn’t yet come up with solutions of their own. Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget address will not be unveiled until a full week after the scheduled “Brady budget” hearing.
If Jerry can just get a hold on his guy, he may have a real shot here.
As subscribers already know, the Senate appropriations hearing is scheduled for Wednesday morning.
“As long as I am governor, we’re never going to pass any kind of legislation that allows cruelty toward animals, whether it be dogs, cats or any other living things,” Quinn said to applause, barks and woofs.
Quinn spoke amid the booths of organizations that rescue abandoned pets and finds homes for them, holding the leash of a German shepherd.
“The governor has a veto pen and we’re going to make sure we protect our animals from any kind of cruelty,” he said, then added, “There are some folks in our society unfortunately they have dollar signs for eyes, and that’s all they think about is money. We’re not going to let that kind of monetary compulsion get in the way of treating our animals in a proper, dignified, friendly manner.”
Asked if that was a direct shot at Brady and his bill, Quinn said, “That was a terrible piece of legislation and I think everybody in Illinois knows it. A bill was put in to allow a mass killing of dogs and cats in the gas chanber. Putting all those animals together… many of them obviously very fearful as you put them in a small, contained place, perhaps fighting with each other, for them to be subject in their last minutes on earth to that kind of cruelty, is just plain wrong… There may be firms out there that think they can make money by mass killings of dogs, puppies and kittens. But that’s not what our state stands for and that law will never be approved.”
* Over 20 years ago, I walked into Bruce’s Tavern at 11th & S. Grand on a Sunday night to buy a gallon of beer. Back then, you could buy gallons of draught beer in Springfield for less than $3. A gallon is about ten and a half beers, and that worked out quite well for those of us who didn’t have much cashola.
While waiting for Rich Bruce the bartender/owner to fill the jug, I couldn’t help but notice that some guy was playing guitar and singing. I didn’t pay much attention because I was on a beer run and he didn’t have what you would call a sweet voice.
What I didn’t know at the time was the guitar player was Tom Irwin. I had left Springfield for a year or so and Tom had become quite the rage with some of my friends at a different bar. They reminded me that most singer/songwriters take just a little getting used to, but that if I gave him a chance I’d see that his songs were brilliant.
So, the next Sunday I was back at Bruce’s to check this guy out. His songs blew me away. A big crowd favorite back then was “Crystal Palace,” with its admonitions against destroying the environment we live in…
Don’t throw stones
In the crystal palace
Or you may find it all come crashing down
* Tom was our local protest songwriter. He railed against the “White Folks Mall,” bemoaned being “stuck out here in Pleasant Plains,” and penned one of the most ferocious songs I’ve ever heard about police brutality. A local African-American man was found dead in his county jail cell after he was allegedly beaten by the cops. The coroner astonishingly declared that he had died of “natural causes.” Many of us were outraged at the time, and Tom poured those emotions into his ode…
From the moment I heard that song, I was Tom’s fan for life. I’ve also been fortunate enough to be his friend over the years.
* Just about everybody who is into music in Springfield knows Tom Irwin. He’s a legend. Besides his frontman duties, he’s also played bass for Mr. Opporknockity and Elvis Himselvis and more bands than I can remember.
Here’s another personal favorite of mine, “Haven’t felt this good in a long, long time.” The background noise kinda distracts from it, but it’s surely worth a listen…
About 11 years ago, I was approached by a fledgling statewide radio network to do a weekly talk show. I came up with the idea of combining Tom’s music with political interviews, crazy poetry and even a quiz segment. It actually turned out better than it may sound here. We put four shows in the can (Judy Baar Topinka and Dan Hynes were guests on two of them), but before we could launch the new program the network fell apart and I eventually left Springfield for Chicago.
The opening song for the show was “Hootenanny Love Train Express,” which Tom wrote as a tribute to the huge crowds that eventually flocked to Bruce’s on Sunday nights for the weekly happening we at first called the “Sunday Hootenanny” and then shortened to “The Hoot”…
All aboard
All aboard
Be sure to wear your Sunday best
We’d often cram 100 people into that little space. It was free to get in and the beer was cheap and it was one of the greatest times of my entire life. The “Bruce’s Tavernacle Choir” - a bunch of us in the audience - would often join Tom or his other open mic night players at the microphone. We eventually got our own mic.
Most of the videos I’ve used here are from the the Capital Area Career Center TV station. I haven’t talked to Tom about it, so I don’t know why they posted the vids, but I’ve been haranguing him for years to make some videos so I could do a Friday Music Blogging post about him. So, I’m grateful.
* Bruce’s eventually shut down, and Tom moved the Sunday night extravaganza to the Brewhaus. From a recent SJ-R article…
Irwin and a long list of musicians have performed almost every Sunday at the Brewhaus since it opened in October 1994. The current lineup usually features the Tom Irwin Trio (Irwin and Raoul and Chris Warren), with frequent appearances by Danny Kerwin.
“It’s the steadiest job I’ve ever had, and I greatly appreciate the continued support of area music fans,” Irwin said in an e-mail.
The Brewhaus bought the bar and back-bar used at Bruce’s, so it’s almost like going home.
I don’t go out Sunday nights as often as I’d like because I gotta make the doughnuts on Monday mornings for y’all. But I’ll stop in every now and then and talk to Tom and Raoul and the half-dozen or so friends who have been following both men from the very beginning.
As for Raoul, well, we’ll save that for another day.
* Bills get out of committee all the time and they often then clear their original chambers with huge majorities. But don’t look too much into it because it can mean nothing. The other chamber is where bills often go to die. So keep that in mind when you see headlines and ledes like these…
* Free ride over for seniors?: Across the State of Illinois, the days of free bus and train rides could be coming to a halt. On Thursday, the Illinois House overwhelmingly approved a measure to withdraw the perk for better-off seniors.
* Illinois lawmakers rethink free-rides perk for seniors: The days of free bus and train rides for most Illinois seniors could be numbered.
* Free CTA Rides for Seniors Might End: The Chicago Transit Agency may soon end free rides for seniors.
* Free Rides En Route To Being Over For Most Seniors: Illinois’ cash-strapped public transportation system is one step closer to ending its free rides for senior citizens across the state.
* No More Free Rides For Affluent Seniors: The free ride’s over for some seniors.
The Senate killed the free rides ban last year and Gov. Quinn said back then that he was in favor of keeping the free rides for all seniors. And today, Quinn reiterated his position with a hedge…
Gov. Pat Quinn says he doesn’t think a move to rescind free transit rides for senior citizens will pass. […]
Quinn on Friday wouldn’t say if he would sign the measure to limit the benefit. He says he doesn’t think that will pass the Illinois Senate.
We see this a lot. A bill gets assigned to a committee and everyone goes nuts, or it passes a committee (like the aforementioned aldermanic petition bill) and people assume it’ll be law. That’s not the way things work at the Statehouse.
Anyway, here are some more bills that cleared one hurdle or another and received press coverage today…
* OK, it’s Friday, I have a lot more to do today, but let’s have a little non-political fun for a change. This map is almost a couple of years old, but here’s the Illinois county break-out on what we call sodafied beverages…
“You can’t cut yourself out of the $10 to $13 billion [deficit] that they’ve accumulated in the Blagojevich/Quinn administration over the last eight years. So what we have to do is we have to reconcile ourselves into a budget that’s not just balanced but has a surplus so that we can begin paying down the backlog of unpaid bills that are referred to as the $13 billion deficit.”
That’s not a fake quote. I swear. Watch the video…
So, we can’t cut our way out of the deficit, but we can’t raise taxes. Instead, we need a budget surplus so that we can pay down the overdue bills.
“Well, you do it the way businesses and families have done it. Every business and every family has had to deconstruct and reconstruct and reconcile its spending within its means.”
So, what about that ten percent across the board cut Brady proposed during the primary? Is that now “repurposed” as “deconstruction and reconstruction”?
We need a lot more details here or this can all be dismissed as mere pablum. Who gets deconstructed? Who gets reconstructed? Apparently, schools are not exempt…
…Adding… The $13 billion deficit is not all “unpaid bills,” as Brady claims in that first quote. About half of it is unpaid bills, the other half is a structural problem. We’ve gone over this before with him, but he’s apparently not yet figured it out.
If the governor and Legislature really want to help the universities, then they should get serious about addressing the state’s financial problems and pay what’s owed. […]
The sooner the state quits acting like the person who thinks there’s still money in his account because there are checks in his checkbook, the better all of us will be.
[IL superintendent of education Chris Koch] said the state is still trying to reduce a large backlog of education-related payments from as far back as October.
“Of course the State Board (of Education) issues the vouchers, the money is just not there.”
“We have over 18,000 outstanding vouchers and…almost $700 million in vouchers that are outstanding,” he said.
Yikes.
Here’s a roundup of school budget woe stories. It’s just too depressing to excerpt them all…
While revenue projections for Peoria County are flat for 2010, the larger concern rests with payments from the state of Illinois, where all sources of funding are suspect, said a Peoria County financial officer.
* The Senate Dems kinda-sorta unveiled their redistricting plan yesterday. What I mean is, they held a press conference, but didn’t introduce an actual bill…
Under [the SDem] plan the legislature would draw the new map. If they chose to de-nest the districts, not have the same districts for the Senate and the House, then each chamber would draw its own map and pass it with a three-fifths vote. If they decided to stick to the current nested system, then the General Assembly would create one map that would pass as a bill and require the governor’s signature.
If the legislature cannot agree on a map, or maps, by June 30, 2011, a commission, appointed by the legislative leaders would get the job. The leaders would each appoint seven members to the 14-member commission to create a map for approval by the General Assembly. If that doesn’t work, the Democrat’s plan mirrors the Republican one in the creation of a special master to draw the map. That master would be chosen by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and a justice of the other party.
The major difference between the parties’ plans is who draws the first map. In the Democrat’s plan the legislature does it, while in the Republican plan it is a commission appointed by the leaders. This is the point on which it seems neither side is willing to compromise.
“The Democrat plan allows the General Assembly to pick its voters in every district,” said State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon.
Sen. Righter also claimed that the new SDem idea was actually worse than the current redistricting apparatus. Watch…
* In other reform news, I’m always a bit torn when it comes to minimum signature requirements. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that would-be candidates have to knock on lots of doors in the rain and snow to get on the ballot. Putting together a decent petition drive can be a great tune-up for the upcoming campaign.
On its face, a bill requiring aldermanic candidates to gather 500 signatures doesn’t sound too horrific. That ain’t a lot. So, at first, this Progress Illinois piece seemed a bit off…
We recently stumbled across a bill (HB6000) introduced by State Rep. Joe Lyons (D-Chicago) that would make it a whole lot harder for new candidates to get on ballots in 2011. Lyons is attempting to bump up the number of required signatures on nominating petitions in Chicago elections to 500. Compared the current requirement — a mere 2 percent of the votes cast in the ward during the preceding election year — enacting the measure would raise the threshold in every ward. In some, the increase would be dramatic; last election cycle, for example, a 22nd Ward candidate only needed 87 names.
87 names? Sheesh. That seems way too low.
But, PI goes on to make a good point…
There’s another catch too. Lyons’ measure — which passed out of committee this week and is headed to the House floor for a vote — seeks to codify a state statue that ensures each voter can only ink one candidate’s petition. That’s currently the lay of the state election law, Jim Allen from the Chicago Board of Elections points out, but it has been routinely challenged because of a gray area in another state statute known as the Revised Cities and Villages Act of 1941. That, of course, would be eliminated by writing the rule into the amended statue.
Voters will be the big losers if the measure is adopted, David Morrison from the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform tells us. “It really puts a terrible burden on petition signers,” he says. “And in small wards, [candidates] could rack up 2,000 or 3,000 signatures and there would be no one left to sign.”
Well, not quite “no one,” but point well taken. The bill removes the cap on the maximum number of signatures that can be submitted at once, so the proposal could encourage vacuuming up as many sigs as humanly possible.
Could they at least lay off the crass attempts to protect the members of the City Council? Come on. Stuff the Lyons bill. It’s an insult to your constituents.
Instead we’ll just point out that it’s February — late February — and lawmakers have shown little interest in finishing what they barely started last year.
Yeah. It’s February. The House’s 3rd Reading deadline for House bills is March 26th - a month away.
The Tribune also claimed that not much reform was passed last year. FOIA reform, contracting reform and campaign contribution caps - no matter how leaky - were all enacted last year.
And as far as the caps are concerned, how did they work out for the Tribune’s favorite US Senate candidate David Hoffman? The white knight reformer had to mostly self fund because he found out the hard way that outsiders have a real problem raising lots of money under the capped federal system. Heck, the Tribune opposes caps anyway on principle, except for last year, when the editorial board raged about how the state reformers’ cap plan was being blocked, even though the Tribune didn’t like the idea in the first place.
Sigh.
And what about this year? I doubt any of the reformers thought they could reopen the campaign finance reform stuff this session. Their focus right now is redistricting reform. They’ll most likely get back to the finance reform after there’s actually been an election under the changes enacted last year.
* Ever the “me too” little brother, the Daily Herald edit board also raged and rambled about an allegedly stalled campaign finance reform bill today.
Somebody apparently did a great job yesterday of ginning up these two papers.
As I walked away from our pleasant little chitchat, I told my intern that Illinois would be a far different place today if Poshard had been elected governor in 1998 when he ran against George Ryan.
Federal prosecutors might not have had much interest in going after somebody who’d been voted out of public life. Even if they did, and Ryan still wound up in prison, he’d be an ex-secretary of state, not an ex-governor.
If the Democrat Poshard had prevailed, his fellow Dem Rod Blagojevich most likely wouldn’t have been elected governor four years later. Considering who he is, Blagojevich might’ve wound up in trouble with the law anyway, but not as our governor.
One big reason Poshard didn’t win was he was considered too far to the right for the Chicago area. Glenn Poshard was pro-gun, pro-life and anti-gay rights. Ryan had a reputation for being a conservative, but he ran to the left of Poshard on social issues and won.
Poshard won heavily Democratic Cook County by only 128,000 votes. To put that into perspective, Rod Blagojevich won Cook by over 500,000 votes in 2006. If Poshard had won Cook by just half that amount, he would’ve defeated George Ryan.
Sen. Bill Brady, the likely Republican gubernatorial nominee this year, has pretty much the same stances on social issues as Poshard.
Understandably, the Democrats will do all they can to scare people about Brady, and he isn’t doing himself any favors by reintroducing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages and civil unions.
Brady also caught some heat this week for recently introducing a bill to re-legalize the currently banned use of gas chambers to “euthanize” large numbers of dogs and cats at once. Illinois is home to almost twice as many Illinois pet owners as expected voters this November. Oops.
When Ryan defeated Poshard in 1998, the economy was humming along wonderfully, the state budget had a billion-dollar surplus and the last governor to go to prison for acts committed while he was in office was 30 years earlier.
I’m not saying that abortion rights, or gay rights or gun rights or even pet rights are unimportant here. They are to a whole lot of people. That pet gassing bill might actually say more about who Brady is than anything else. All of it deserves coverage and plenty of debate.
But Illinois’ unemployment is now over 11 percent. The projected state budget deficit is almost half of its operating budget. We’ve got one former governor in prison and another one on deck.
So far, Gov. Quinn hasn’t really come up with many great ideas to solve most of these problems. His budget plans have been unworkable and have therefore been tossed aside; his economic plan is mostly confined to public works projects; his reforms, while significant, have fallen somewhat short.
Brady’s budget plan is to slash programs and cut taxes, so we need to know far more about how, exactly, those ideas would truly impact Illinois. His economic program is somewhat vague, and while some of his reform ideas are pretty good, it’s unclear whether he can make them happen.
So, by all means, let’s pay attention to the hot buttons and the character issues, but this year we all need to give at least equal weight to how these two guys intend to repair the wreckage created after Glenn Poshard lost to George Ryan. The times absolutely demand it.
* Meanwhile, Brady’s gas chamber bill has Michael Sneed and Gov. Pat Quinn in an uproar and Quinn is vowing to keep the story alive…
Gov. Quinn, the devoted owner of the state’s first dog, Bailey, is on the war path over a dangerous dog path.
• Translation: Quinn is aghast over legislation that was pushed by Quinn’s likely opponent, state Sen. Bill Brady, which could have allowed the mass killing of frightened, fighting and gasping shelter animals in a box of 10!
• Upshot: Quinn, who has a yelping 12-year-old Yorkshire terrier, is so incensed, he channeled up a dog legend Thursday. “If that bill had ever gotten out of the Legislature, I’d veto it faster than you can say Rin Tin Tin!” Quinn told Sneed.
• Tipshot: Watch for Quinn to show up Saturday at the dog rescue section of the 2010 Chicago Dog Show at McCormick Place to show his displeasure over the legislation, which wound up being gutted by Brady on Wednesday after being condemned as cruel by the Humane Society of the United States.
(The heinous legislation was first tipped in Rich Miller’s Capitol Fax newsletter, Springfield’s political must-read.)
• Dogshot: Sneed is told Quinn has invited Uno, the Westminster Kennel Club dog show award-winning Illinois beagle, to visit the mansion anytime.
* Take it from me, doing live TV is a whole lot harder than it looks. One little screwup and you look like a freaking moron.
Republican lt. governor nominee Jason Plummer had one of those moments on Chicago Tonight last night. Less than two minutes into his interview with host Phil Ponce, he lost his train of thought and completely froze up. Phil mercifully bailed him out. Have a look…
Almost the same thing happened to me last night during a speech to Model Illinois Government. I was able to make a funny joke about it, though, and move along. That comes from experience. Plummer doesn’t have much of that yet.
What I always try to do is watch the tapes of my live appearances. It’s a painful exercise, but it’s the only way to learn. Plus, I’ve learned a few tricks about how to attract attention at crucial moments during panel discussions or undermine somebody else’s arguments - and that’s crucial if another person on the program is, um, dissembling.
Watching and learning is essential. Back during the impeachment brouhaha, I was on Chicago Tonight and I thought the camera was shooting Carol Marin and I from the shoulders up. Nope. Most of our bodies were in the shot while I was unconsciously twiddling my thumbs. Oops. But because I watched the replay, you won’t ever see me do that stupid thing again.
* Anyway, Plummer’s performance during the rest of the interview wasn’t exactly stellar, either. Ponce is an expert at calmly and dispassionately taking apart his guests, and this interview was no exception…
“So, in terms of what you got out of those internships that would help you be governor, what would you say?”
Oof.
Plummer’s answer to why the Madison County Republican Party rented an office from his family and paid $13,000 in rent and fees while he was chairman wasn’t the greatest…
“That was the best retail location. It was the only one available at that time for that function.”
The only retail location in all of Madison County? Really? Luckily for Plummer, Ponce let that one go by.
While waiting for Rich Bruce the bartender/owner to fill the jug, I couldn’t help but notice that some guy was playing guitar and singing. I didn’t pay much attention because I was on a beer run and he didn’t have what you would call a sweet voice. 
