“Courtesy titles” out at Crain’s
Monday, Dec 8, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Robert Feder writes about the new Crain’s Chicago Business website…
The folks at Crain’s Chicago Business unveiled a beautifully redesigned website this week — and now they want everyone to see it.
So they’re holding an “open house” on the site, dropping their usually strict paywall and inviting non-subscribers to sample everything online for one week (including the just-released “40 under 40” list for 2014). The free peek runs through December 12 at chicagobusiness.com.
He adds…
One other change longtime readers may notice: Crain’s no longer includes those quaint courtesy titles on second reference to subjects in its stories. So it’s no more “Mr. Smith” or “Ms. Jones.” Now it’s just plain “Smith” and “Jones.”
* Zorn rejoices…
The New York Times still clings to this custom, though not in sports stories, even in referencing non-sports figures.
I chafed at the courtesy titles when I first started writing for Crain’s, but one of the most common reactions to my moving over to the magazine were the comments about how my column was now “classier,” although nobody could put their finger on why. I think that had to do more with the courtesy titles than anything else.
So, now, believe it or not, I kinda miss ‘em.
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Rauner talks taxes… kinda
Monday, Dec 8, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Bruce Rauner denied today that his post-election warnings about the sorry fiscal state of Illinois’ budget are designed to lay the groundwork for a tax hike…
“I’m not saying that at all. I think it’s important for voters to understand exactly what’s going on,” Rauner said. “Our politicians have been making short-term borrowing to fill budget gaps. We are going to have honest budgets going forward.”
* But when asked if the 3.75 percent tax rate as of January 1st might be increased, Rauner didn’t say “No”…
“As I’ve said, we want to roll the income tax hike all the way back down to where it was in 2010. We’ll work that over time and right now the law is 3.75 and that’s what we’re going to manage with.”
When asked if that meant he was committed to 3.75 tax, Rauner hedged, saying “nothing will be off the table.”
“Well, 3.75 is the law. But I will also say this: everything will be assessed as an opportunity to getting our economy growing again. Everything will be assessed as a way to get back into a healthy, fiscal position. Nothing will be off the table,” Rauner said. “But 3.75 is the law. I’m going to implement the law, we have to plan for that. And the critical thing is over time we get the income tax burden reasonable and the real challenge and the real answer for revenue in the future is to become a growth state again. We got into this mess by only thinking short term. Let’s talk about short term but let’s also talk about long-term competitiveness.”
* But as Steve Schnorf said the other day about a Voices for Illinois Children budgetary study which predicted cuts of up to 33 percent if the tax hike partially expires on schedule…
This analysis, while almost certainly mathematically correct given whom it was done by, simply ignores the fact that the GA isn’t going to pass a budget that contains 25-33% cuts in all those programs. So, on to plans B,C, etc.
Exactly.
* More from Rauner…
“We don’t have the time to mess around, we are in deep, deep trouble financially,” Rauner told a meeting of the Illinois Farm Bureau at a downtown Chicago hotel. “The next 24 months are going to be rough. And I apologize. I ain’t going to be Mr. Popularity for a little while. That’s OK. Four years from now I think though, everybody will appreciate what we did.”
Also…
He did offer at least one hint Monday on how he’d govern, saying it’s possible some government agencies may be consolidated while numerous boards and commissions could be abolished. That’s a common move when a new Illinois governor takes over.
Consolidation rarely saves much, if any, money.
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Another view
Monday, Dec 8, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Joe Cahill wonders if the Illinois Supreme Court might just surprise everyone…
Professor Mark Rosen of IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law says “there’s ample leeway” for the court to uphold the pension law if it accepts the principle that even constitutional rights can be limited when necessary to serve an overarching state interest. I suppose the justices could dismiss the argument as airily as Belz did, but a deeper analysis could lead to a different outcome.
Plenty of courts have ruled over the years that important state interests can justify limiting constitutional rights. In fact, the Illinois Supreme Court acknowledged the principle in a 1985 case involving a change in the computation of judicial pensions that left some judges with lower benefits. The constitution “does not immunize contractual obligations from every conceivable kind of impairment or from the effect of a reasonable exercise by the states of their police power,” the court said in Felt v. Board of Trustees. The court invalidated the law because the state failed to show it was necessary to advance an important state interest.
A similar line of analysis in the pension case would lead justices to consider whether the reforms serve an important state interest. In the Felt case, the court said, “The state has an undeniable interest and responsibility in ensuring the adequate funding of state pension systems.”
The pension reforms are intended to advance the same state interest. But are they “reasonable”?
Professor Ann Lousin of John Marshall Law School says it depends on what other options legislators might have used that would have less impact on the constitutionally protected benefits. Lousin thinks this is where the state’s argument breaks down, noting legislators could raise money to pay full pension benefits by hiking taxes and/or cutting spending (however politically distasteful that may be to lawmakers).
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Rauner again vows support for capital bill
Monday, Dec 8, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* As I’ve written before, a big capital bill could help Gov. Rauner smooth out a whole lot of Statehouse problems. Rauner reiterated his support for an infrastructure bill while at the White House the other day…
He said he also met Thursday with Illinois Republican Ray LaHood, transportation chief during Obama’s first term, and on Friday with current Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and several other key administration officials.
“We have got to find ways to invest in our infrastructure, upgrade our infrastructure and expand it so it’s world class,” Rauner told reporters. “Illinois is the crossroads of America. We’re the heart of the transportation network for the United States. We need to invest in our infrastructure in Illinois.”
He said he and Pritzker talked about ways to improve economic opportunity and achieve more rapid growth. Illinois, he said, was “suffering with low job-creation rates and a difficult economic climate.”
* From my post-election Crain’s column…
Members of the General Assembly, for the most part, love capital bills. Projects help their districts and help boost their own images back home when they cut those ribbons.
The Republican governor-elect will need to heal some of the wounds he inflicted during a very bitter, brutish campaign. He also will need to ease the partisan panic of Democrats, who hold supermajorities in both chambers and have controlled just about every major state institution for the past 12 years. Aside from jobs and contracts, there’s almost no better way to do that than by giving out gifts in the form of fixed roads and bridges, new public buildings, etc.
Mr. Rauner also will face a tricky problem with GOP legislators, who have been shut out of power for so long that they’ve grown accustomed to opposing every budget and bashing almost every major piece of legislation the Democrats propose.
By my count, a grand total of 13 Republican legislators who previously have served under a GOP governor will be members of next year’s Legislature. The 54 other GOP members have no idea what it’s like to vote for unpopular stuff to help their party’s governor cut a deal with the other side.
The legislative tradition is that members of the governor’s party sponsor all budget bills. So, not only will many have to vote yes on a state budget for the first time ever, but some will have to actually sponsor the monsters and accept full responsibility.
Mr. Rauner has implied that after the income tax rate automatically rolls back to 3.75 percent in January, he may want to temporarily jack that rate up closer to the current 5 percent before stepping it back down. If so, that will require Republican sponsors and lots of Republican votes.
Pleas for partisan unity and arm-twisting go only so far with legislators. You must offer them some carrots to go with the big stick. Those capital projects can be parceled out judiciously to grease the squeaky wheels.
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* I’m told the governor now has the votes to make this happen…
Gov. Pat Quinn’s former campaign manager has decided to pursue overtures to become executive director of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, setting the stage for a lame-duck maneuver that could rankle Mayor Rahm Emanuel and tie the hands of Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner.
Aides to the governor had insisted Friday that Lou Bertuca was not interested in replacing Kelly Kraft as head of the state agency that built U.S. Cellular Field and rebuilt Soldier Field.
They confirmed a report by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed that Bertuca had been approached about the job by the governor’s appointees to the board. But, the sources insisted that Bertuca was not interested.
Over the weekend, Bertuca apparently had a change of heart and decided to interview for the job. Unless one of Quinn’s four appointees to the seven-member board jumps ship, Bertuca is likely to have the votes to win the coveted job.
* Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner was not pleased…
Asked if there was anything he could do to reverse the move once he was in office, Rauner said: “I hope so.”
I don’t think there’s much he can do.
*** UPDATE 1 *** It’s now a done deal…
Gov. Pat Quinn’s former campaign manager was hired as executive director of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority on Monday.
In a 4-3 vote during a meeting at U.S. Cellular Field, the board gave a two-year contract to Lou Bertuca.
*** UPDATE 2 *** It didn’t go well…
The decision drew outrage from the three ISFA board members appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. They blasted board Chairman Emil Jones for hiring Bertuca without a search process.
“We think the taxpayers of the state of Illinois are due a transparent process in how we select the executive director,” board member Jim Reynolds, Loop Capital CEO, said at the meeting. “That’s not what happened today.” […]
Jones argued that the board’s statute does not require a national search for a candidate, but Mesirow Financial Holdings Chairman Richard Price and longtime bank executive Norm Bobins joined Reynolds in staunch opposition to the way the hiring was done.
“Whether the law says you do a national search or not, I think just going with the government’s assistant isn’t much of a search,” Bobins said during the meeting.
Oof.
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* The 2014 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Campaign Staffer - Illinois House Democrats goes to Eric Lane…
He may not have the title of campaign manager but he oversaw 5 staffers who did.
Regionals never get the accolades they deserve. Eric had to juggle five races including Scherer and Sente in an environment that proved to be very hostile to incumbents. He not only kept his cool but kept his candidates and staffs focused.
Eric is the man behind the scenes pulling the strings…for not one but five campaigns this season. If that doesn’t deserve this award I don’t know what does.
And the fact that nobody really knows him means he does his job and does it really well - much like an offensive lineman in football. You only know their name when they do something wrong.
I think the fact that Eric has been a regional in both primary and general elections since 2010 and is mostly anonymous speaks volumes to his skills.
There were a lot of very strong nominations in that category, but Eric’s stood out above the rest.
* The 2014 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Campaign Staffer - Illinois House Republicans goes to Chris Guy…
[Chris] oversaw Dwight kay and Terri Bryant. Nearly everyone was counting Dwight Kay out a year ago, but he won going away, as did Bryant.
Guy was Joe Woodward’s right-hand man in the Downstate region. Downstate was the only real bright spot for the HGOP’s, so that was the tipping point for me.
* OK, let’s move along to today’s categories, with last year’s winners in parentheses…
* Best campaign staffer - Senate Democrats (Dovile Soblinskas)
* Best campaign staffer - Senate Republicans (Pat Barry)
As always, please explain your nominations or they won’t count, and please make sure to nominate in both categories. Thanks.
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* From the AP…
[The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois] objected to an expansion of the kinds of investigations in which police may eavesdrop without a warrant — at least initially. The bill allows police — with only permission from the state’s attorney — to surreptitiously record conversations for 24 hours when investigating such serious crimes as murder, the most heinous sexual assaults, kidnapping, human trafficking and others.
That, ACLU of Illinois spokesman Ed Yohnka said, is “the kind of unchecked police authority that we’ve always resisted in this country.” When citizens allow such intrusion, it’s typically been only after approval by an impartial judge.
Previous law allowed emergency eavesdropping in a hostage situation or undercover drug buy. The new exemptions don’t comprise a “danger situation” said Steve Clark, legislative liaison for the Cook County public defender’s office, who fears additional crimes will be added.
Nekritz acknowledged the eligible-crime expansion was a trade-off for eavesdropping protections, but prosecutors regard it similarly — they’d prefer so-called “one-party” overhear consent, like in federal law and 38 states.
“The best evidence of the crime itself … is that recording,” said Matt Jones, associate director of the State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor. “The defendants may have to defend what their actual words are, but they don’t have to defend against what a cop writes in his report.”
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Two towns fell through the cracks
Monday, Dec 8, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* According to the BGA, there have been 660 Chapter 9 filings nationwide since 1937. Chapter 9 is a form of bankruptcy for local governments. Illinois doesn’t allow local governments to file Chapter 9 unless they successfully navigate a lengthy and complicated procedure (and even then, no towns over 25,000 are allowed into that procedure), but two small towns somehow got away with it…
The village of Brooklyn, a town of 750 people across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, filed in 2003, in part to help restructure payments related to lawsuits alleging police misconduct and financial mismanagement.
In the wake of an embezzlement scheme, the town, in a cost-cutting move, dropped its insurance coverage, leaving it unable to afford mounting legal costs, according to court filings.
In 2005, the nearby village of Alorton, population 1,960, filed for bankruptcy around the time a police shooting victim obtained a $978,000 judgment against one of the town’s officers. The victim was one of Alorton’s largest creditors, court filings show.
“I’ll be honest, I just got away with it,” says Belleville attorney Stephen Clark, who filed Chapter 9 petitions on behalf of both towns. “Everybody either didn’t know [about the authorization requirement] or they knew and felt it was better to approve the plan.”
The village of Washington Park, another Clark client, wasn’t as fortunate.
A federal judge dismissed the town’s bankruptcy petition in 2010 because state officials didn’t authorize the move. Washington Park also filed in 2004 but later withdrew, Clark says.
A 2014 analysis by the law firm of Heyl Royster concluded that the bankruptcy proceedings “apparently survived because no one objected to the filing of the petition or raised this issue.”
Chapter 9 access has become a major issue for the Illinois Municipal League of late.
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A look ahead
Monday, Dec 8, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From last week…
Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office has asked the Illinois Supreme Court for an expedited hearing of her appeal of a lower court’s declaration the state’s pension overhaul is unconstitutional.
Madigan announced the motion Thursday. It says issues raised are of “widespread public importance'’ to state government and seeks a ruling in advance of lawmakers’ May 31 budget approval deadline.
Madigan’s office had already filed the appeal concerning the 2013 law designed to reduce roughly $100 billion in unfunded liability.
Court spokesman Joe Tybor says the court must first decide whether to expedite the motion before setting a schedule on the appeal.
Madigan’s motion is here.
* Kurt Erickson looks at what happens if Madigan’s motion fails to persuade the Supremes…
Madigan suggested the court schedule oral arguments for as early as Jan. 22, or no later than mid-March.
Attorneys for the retirees have until Tuesday to file their objections.
Without the expedited schedule, the deadline for filing the first significant set of records in the case wouldn’t occur until the final week of January.
After that, the typical court schedule calls for both sides to trade paperwork for nearly three months. Once that is completed, the high court would schedule oral arguments.
Under that scenario, the court could hear the case as early as May. If they miss the May docket, the next time the judges are scheduled to hear oral arguments is September.
Following the argument phase, the court could take months to issue a ruling.
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Plenty of blame to go around
Monday, Dec 8, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
Pretty much every Statehouse finger of blame was pointing North toward Chicago for the minimum wage hike bill’s failure during the legislative veto session which ended last week.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel does indeed have a lot of explaining to do. His decision to move up a vote to pass a $13 an hour minimum wage for his city completely undercut Springfield’s efforts to pass a statewide minimum wage capped everywhere at $11 an hour.
Months ago, Emanuel scheduled a vote on raising Chicago’s minimum wage for the week after the General Assembly’s annual fall veto session. After the election, though, retailers, restaurant owners and other business groups agreed to an eventual $11 an hour statewide minimum wage, but only if Chicago and other home rule municipalities were not allowed to raise their own local wages above that amount. Proponents say they were within two votes of House passage before the second and final week of veto session when Emanuel quietly filed paperwork calling for a special hearing on his own minimum wage proposal before the second week kicked off in Springfield.
There was just no way that House Speaker Michael Madigan would publicly rebuke his city’s mayor by reversing that ordinance via state law. It’s just not in his nature to go up against a mayor like that. Besides, Madigan lost of ton of votes from Chicago legislators who could not or would not risk supporting legislation which “cut” their constituents’ pay.
Even so, Speaker Madigan himself shares in the blame here. Yes, he’s not all-powerful, but he probably could’ve passed a minimum wage bill during the spring session. Instead, he didn’t want to rile up business groups before an election and believed he could use the issue to fire up his party’s base and the unions in the November election.
As Champaign News-Gazette columnist Jim Dey wrote not long ago, former Senate President Phil Rock’s autobiography contains a story which explains Madigan to a “T.”
Rock wrote in his book “Nobody Calls Just to Say Hello.” that he wanted to pass a bill guaranteeing women unpaid maternity leave. Rock told Madigan and another House Democrat that he’d like to get the issue off the table by passing it. The Senate President believed Madigan was stalling.
“We jousted back and forth, and one of the House members said to me, ‘You know, I’m getting a little tired of you trying to do what’s right all the time. We’ve got a great political issue here,’” Rock wrote.
That’s Mike Madigan: Use an issue for political advantage rather than pass it into law. And he’ll likely use the minimum wage issue again next year, perhaps by passing a bill that he knows will be vetoed by a Gov. Rauner. He can also use the issue to keep organized labor focused on that topic and away from other stuff that Madigan might oppose (like an electronic trading transaction tax, for instance). Business groups will also be frozen in place in opposition to a minimum wage threat.
But the blame doesn’t end there, of course. As I told you months ago, Gov. Pat Quinn and US Sen. Dick Durbin didn’t want Chicago to pass a $13 an hour minimum wage ordinance before the election, believing it would undermine their attempt to gin up the city’s vote for the statewide $10 an hour minimum wage referendum. Politically, this made some sense at the time. Why would any Chicagoan bother to vote for a $10 an hour minimum wage when it had already been raised to $13?
In reality, though, the minimum wage referendum didn’t work as planned. And instead of a statewide attempt to partially catch up with Chicago’s minimum wage during veto session, the whole effort fizzled.
The governor announced plans to make the minimum wage hike his final legacy, but he didn’t bother to make sure his ducks were in a row before saying so. And that is Pat Quinn in a nutshell. He’s good at press conferences, not so spectacular at governing.
And, of course, Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner’s demand that the General Assembly not pass a minimum wage bill in the veto session can also be blamed for the measure’s failure this week. He’ll have to wear that jacket unless and until he can come up with a plan to actually put something in place.
This was, in the end, a failure of policy, of politics and of governance all around. Low-wage workers deserved better.
Madigan’s spokesman said this morning that there is “no actual recollection on the Madigan side of the ball about the Rock story.” He also suggested that the Republicans and the business community deserve more blame for “stonewalling.”
Your thoughts?
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* Some libertarians are making the case that the problem behind the Eric Garner cause célèbre is “too many laws.” Here’s Stephen Carter in the Tribune…
On the opening day of law school at Yale, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce. Usually they greet this advice with something between skepticism and puzzlement, until I remind them that the police go armed to enforce the will of the state, and if you resist, they might kill you.
I wish this caution were only theoretical. It isn’t. Whatever your view on the refusal of a New York City grand jury to indict the police officer whose chokehold apparently led to the death of Eric Garner, it’s useful to remember the crime that Garner is alleged to have committed: He was selling individual cigarettes, or loosies, in violation of New York law.
The obvious racial dynamics of the case — the police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, is white; Garner was black — have sparked understandable outrage. But, at least among libertarians, so has the law that was being enforced. Wrote Nick Gillespie in the Daily Beast, “Clearly something has gone horribly wrong when a man lies dead after being confronted for selling cigarettes to willing buyers.” Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, appearing on MSNBC, also blamed the statute: “Some politician put a tax of $5.85 on a pack of cigarettes, so they’ve driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive.”
The problem is actually broader. It’s not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the death of those the police seek to arrest. It’s every law. Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right. I often tell my students that there will never be a perfect technology of law enforcement, and therefore it is unavoidable that there will be situations where police err on the side of too much violence rather than too little. Better training won’t lead to perfection. But fewer laws would mean fewer opportunities for official violence to get out of hand.
I don’t necessarily disagree. We do have way too many laws that unnecessarily imprison people in this country. They couldn’t have just written the guy a ticket?
* But while we may have too many petty crimes actively policed at the bottom of society, there are too few laws governing the top. Matt Taibbi…
That was economic regulation turned lethal, a situation made all the more ridiculous by the fact that we no longer prosecute the countless serious economic crimes committed in this same city. A ferry ride away from Staten Island, on Wall Street, the pure unmolested freedom to fleece whoever you want is considered the sacred birthright of every rake with a briefcase.
If Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon had come up with the concept of selling loosies, they’d go to their graves defending it as free economic expression that “creates liquidity” and should never be regulated.
Taking it one step further, if Eric Garner had been selling naked credit default swaps instead of cigarettes – if in other words he’d set up a bookmaking operation in which passersby could bet on whether people made their home mortgage payments or companies paid off their bonds – the police by virtue of a federal law called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act would have been barred from even approaching him. […]
But the policy looks worse when a white yuppie like me can live in the same city as Garner for 15 years and never even be asked the time by someone in uniform. And at the very highest levels of society, where corruption has demonstrably been soaring in recent years, the police have almost been legislated out of existence.
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GA sends Quinn hot potato
Friday, Dec 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Crain’s…
The Illinois Senate [yesterday] overwhelmingly passed a two-year extension of the smart grid law that permits Commonwealth Edison and Ameren Illinois to hike electricity delivery rates annually via a formula.
The 40-4 vote sends the bill, which authorizes formula rates through 2019, to Gov. Pat Quinn. Though the utility-backed legislation passed by veto-proof majorities, it may die anyway.
If Quinn, who vetoed the original smart-grid bill in 2011 and has vetoed changes to benefit the utilities since then, rejects this two-year extension, it may not get an override vote before the next General Assembly convenes in January. That would start the legislative process all over again.
* There is one minor twist, however…
Before leaving, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a bill that extends by two years the state’s smart grid law. The law allows Commonwealth Edison and Ameren Illinois to raise delivery rates for electricity each year under a formula for making upgrades to their infrastructure.
The smart grid law was set to expire at the end of 2017. The bill extends that to 2019. […]
Immediately after the bill was approved, Cullerton filed a motion to reconsider the vote, a maneuver that for now prevents the bill from being sent to Gov. Pat Quinn. Quinn has previously vetoed bills allowing utilities to raise rates.
* More…
Quinn’s office said the outgoing governor would “carefully study” the proposal. He vetoed the original smart grid law, but that move was overridden by the Legislature.
If Quinn nixes the latest plan, it likely will die because House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, sent members of the House home Wednesday and doesn’t plan to call them back to town before the new General Assembly begins its work. […]
“The sponsor chose to keep the bill in the Senate until he has a chance to speak with Gov. Quinn about his intentions,” said Cullerton spokeswoman Rikeesha Phelon.
Among the groups opposing the legislation is the Citizens Utility Board, which said the 2011 law should be allowed to work as planned without the changes sought by Ameren.
So, it’s all up to Quinn now.
…Adding… From comments…
You are missing the strategy. Cullerton looks to be holding the bill until Jan 13th one day into the new gov’s term and one day before the 98th dies.
He’s bypassing Quinn.
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* The 2014 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best State Senate Staffer - Non Political goes to Giovanni Randazzo…
Not many people arrive as early or stay as late as Gio. Simply put, he works his tail off. Manages two of the most time consuming and challenging committees, is always willing to work on a member’s project (usually because nobody else wants to) and has the institutional knowledge to help in almost any situation.
Love the guy.
The clear runner-up was Mike Hoffman.
* The contest for the 2014 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best State House Staffer - Non Political wasn’t even close…
Mark Jarmer is a staple to the HDEM Staff. He is a veteran. Yes he is an actual veteran, but also a veteran staffer. He has to deal with some difficult subject matters that are always controversial, but he handles each issue with integrity and professionalism. He offers guidance to new staff, just trying to navigate the insanity that is our job. He is a clear leader and one of the most trusted employees of the Speaker.
He is also just a great guy to work with. Always in a good mood, always there to offer advice or a kind word. There are not enough good things to say about Mark.
* OK, let’s move on to today’s categories, with last year’s winners in parentheses…
* Best campaign staffer - Illinois House Democrats: (Kristen Bauer)
* Best campaign staffer - Illinois House Republicans: (Nick Bellini)
Please nominate people for both categories if you can, and also make sure to fully explain your votes. Thanks.
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Today’s number: “Under half”
Friday, Dec 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Will Bunnett at Campaigns & Elections…
According to the Off the Grid National Survey 2014, under half of voters now say live TV is their primary way to watch video content—and other than sports, nearly 30 percent did not watch live TV over the past week. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, whose candidates made big gains this year, recommended spending 20 percent of total campaign budgets online.
* But as far as fundraising goes, social media ads alone don’t do the trick…
For years it was the zombie prediction that wouldn’t die: fundraising will shift to social media. Did you hear any of that buzz this cycle? Asking for money on social media is like going up to your friends and shouting, “Who wants to help move my couch upstairs this weekend?” Asking over email is like looking your friends in the eye one by one. […]
Most political advertising online relies on so-called “last click attribution” to measure effectiveness: somebody saw the ad and clicked to the website, so did they take an action or not? But commercial marketers long ago moved beyond simple last-click models. This cycle we learned that political marketers must, too. My employer, Trilogy Interactive, partnered with Facebook on a study that showed supporters who receive fundraising emails and ads simultaneously contributed 67 percent more via email.
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Unclear on the concept
Friday, Dec 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Bruce Rauner earlier this week…
“Our problems have not been created by the tax hike expiring,” he said. “That’s not what is creating our problems. What’s creating our problems is years and years of financial mismanagement.”
* So far, as we’ve already discussed, Rauner has said he’s found $1.4 billion in the budget which is “fundamentally dishonest” spending. It’s essentially money being moved around to keep things afloat, while creating problems down the road.
And as we’ve also discussed before, Voices for Illinois Children estimates revenue lost from the partial income tax rollback in January will blow a $2.3 billion hole in this year’s budget and $5.4 billion in next fiscal year’s budget.
And, as we’ve also discussed before, just about every dollar of the 2011 income tax hike has gone to pension payments, which had been skipped or skimped in years previous.
In other words, despite what Rauner is saying, the expiration of the tax hike is gonna cause severe problems. Fix all the mismanagement you want, but it ain’t gonna total $7-8 billion a year for pension payments.
…Adding… That’s not to say there weren’t “years and years of mismanagement,” but good management now won’t make that hole suddenly disappear.
…Adding More… From YDD…
Every time he says this, another Democrat steps off the roll call for phasing the tax increase back in and back out again.
And two Republicans.
According to him, all he has to do is manage the state’s current budget better.
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Guilty, guilty, hostile
Friday, Dec 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* The Sun-Times writes about the guilty plea by Curtis Thompson, former chief of staff to Ald. Howard Brookins…
However, according to Thompson’s plea deal, Thompson met with the informant and another unnamed individual Oct. 7, 2013, at Brookins’ ward office. That’s when the informant showed Thompson a note that read, “$7,500 to Ald for L.O.S.” Thompson took it to mean the informant was offering to pay $7,500 for a letter support from the alderman, according to the plea. Thompson said he understood and said he’d bring the proposal to his boss.
The document then describes an Oct. 29, 2013 meeting between Thompson, Brookins, the informant and another unnamed individual in Brookins’ ward office. There, the informant handed the alderman a sheet of paper that read “$12K to you for letter of support,” according to the plea deal. The piece of paper was then passed to Thompson.
At a Nov. 19, 2013 meeting attended by Thompson, Brookins and two others, the informant said he was trying to become a 7-Eleven franchisee, and Brookins expressed his support, according to the document.
When the informant asked Brookins who he should go to “to hold up my end” — and if the alderman was “good with the same arrangement” they’d spoken about before — Thompson understood the informant was making reference to the bribe, according to the plea deal.
Over the next few weeks, Thompson prepared two letters of support for the informant on Brookins’ letterhead, signing Brookins’ name. Before doing so, he sought Brookins’ approval, the plea deal said. Thompson knew the informant later picked them up and planned to use them to obtain a liquor license for his proposed store.
Finally, on Dec. 19, 2013, prosecutors said the informant handed Thompson a Christmas card in a red envelope at Brookins’ holiday party. It was filled with 75 $100 bills.
Yikes.
* In other guilty news….
A former Illinois state representative is expected change his plea to guilty in a child pornography case.
A defense filing this week said Elgin Democrat Keith Farnham intends to plead guilty in federal court in Chicago on Friday as part of a plea deal.
The 66-year-old pleaded not guilty earlier this year to possessing, receiving and transporting child pornography.
Prosecutors say Farnham possessed videos depicting child pornography on a computer. A complaint provided graphic details about images allegedly sought and traded by Farnham online. Some children were allegedly under 10.
Good riddance.
…Adding… From the US Attorney’s office…
In pleading guilty, Farnham admitted that on Nov. 25, 2013, he sent an email from a computer in his Elgin office with the following message: “do you trade. This is what I lik.” Farnham attached two files to the email that he knew contained child pornography. In addition, he possessed images and videos depicting child pornography on computers and electronic storage devices in his residence, car and offices.
On March 13 of this year, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed federal search warrants at Farnham’s state office and residence in Elgin and seized computers and electronic storage devices. On that day, Farnham possessed no fewer than 2,765 images of real minors engaged in sexually explicit acts, including sexual intercourse, with prepubescent children. Some of the images involved sadistic or masochistic conduct and depictions of violence, according to Farnham’s guilty plea.
According to the court documents, HSI agents were investigating information received from the HSI Cyber Crimes Center that an email address, later linked to Farnham, was being used to trade child pornography on the Internet.
A sick monster.
* Meanwhile…
Federal prosecutors plan to summon Dr. Eric E. Whitaker, one of President Barack Obama’s closest friends, into U.S. District Court in Springfield next week to question him outside the presence of jurors before a judge decides whether Whitaker can be called as a hostile witness in the fraud trial of a Chicago businessman.
The 49-year-old Chicago physician is set to be questioned by prosecutors at 2 p.m. Monday before U.S. District Judge Richard Mills. The judge ruled this week that prosecutors made a good case to treat Whitaker as a hostile prosecution witness but said he would hold off ruling on their request until first hearing how Whitaker answers questions outside the presence of the jury.
After questioning Whitaker and getting Mills’ ruling, prosecutors will decide whether to call him to testify in the trial of Leon Dingle Jr. and his wife, Karin Dingle, who are accused of stealing more than $3 million in state grants obtained from the Illinois Department of Public Health, which Whitaker headed from 2003 to 2007.
“The final determination as to whether [Whitaker] would be called as a witness in the case has not been determined,” Sharon Paul, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield, said Thursday.
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Protecting his people
Friday, Dec 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Gov. Quinn is trying to take care of a couple of folks at the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority on his way out the door…
Sneed has learned that Sports Facilities chief Kelly Kraft, who was Quinn’s controversial choice to lead the authority, is now out of a job after a contract expired last week. A movement may be afoot to hastily replace her on Monday, before Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner takes office next month.
But Sneed also hears Quinn could have a problem with such an appointment if his four handpicked facilities board team members decide not to approve the move before Rauner’s first day.
“Businessmen like doing business — and Rauner is now the state’s top businessman,” a Sneed source said. “Quinn would need all their votes to approve such a move.”
And a top Facilities Authority source claims that Lou Bertuca, Quinn’s former campaign manager, former deputy chief of staff and fellow Fenwick High School grad, is being floated as a possible appointee.
Quinn wants Bertuca to get a two-year contract. As of the other day, Quinn didn’t have the four votes needed to pull that one off. We’ll see.
* And this is from my colleague David Ormsby…
There may be a gubernatorial transition taking place, but the process of the state buying things - big and small - continues to trundle forward.
On November 17, Central Management Services issued a whopper of a RFP looking for a single Prescription Benefit Manager that will be responsible for the administration of the prescription drug benefit available under all state-sponsored self-insured health plans, including the State Employees Group Insurance Program, the Local Government Health Program, the Teachers’ Retirement Insurance Program, and the College Insurance Program.
The current contract expires June 30, 2015.
CMS wants all bids in by January 5 - one week before Bruce Rauner is sworn in.
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C’mon, man
Friday, Dec 5, 2014 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner was in Washington, DC yesterday meeting with the congressional delegation and stopped to talk to the media…
“To be clear, Illinois is in dire condition,” Rauner said. “Our financial condition is far worse than has ever been discussed publicly before.” [Emphasis added.]
* Um, no. I’ve already pointed to the column I wrote in June that found even more budgetary gimmicks and pressures than Rauner has talked about so far. The Senate Democrats also released this informative PowerPoint presentation in July…
Also in July, the CTBA released a detailed budget analysis that you can read by clicking here. And the Civic Federation released a report in October discussing the same stuff.
* Zorn…
Rauner, on the last day of May, ripped the spending plan as “phony” and “the same type of broken, dishonest budget that career politicians in Illinois have been passing for years.”
And adds…
The “If only I’d known how bad it really was!” pose from newly elected pols trying to lower the expectations of those who actually believed their commercials is always galling. But it’s especially galling here, given that Rauner spent much of the last year refusing to answer with any specificity questions about how he plans to address Illinois’ deep financial problems.
Rauner spent decades buying up companies. He has loads of experience doing “due diligence.” As some commenters have noted here, did he not do any due diligence or is this all just an act?
I’m betting on the latter.
It would be nice if the rest of the news media would start pointing out this stuff.
…Adding… Mike Flannery did a good job of rebutting Rauner’s claims this week…
“The voters have been misled intentionally by the politicians,” Rauner said.
Those politicians include Democrats, Republicans and Mr. Rauner himself. Among his campaign promises: billions of dollars in tax cuts, as well as increased spending on education, not to mention the re-opening of a Downstate facility closed to save money. He seemed to ignore six months of watchdog warnings about the current state budget.
“You would think the whole General Assembly was on medical marijuana when they were passing this thing. It’s grotesquely out of balance. It doesn’t have nearly the revenue that they claim. And they emptied their whole dirty bag of tricks to make it look balanced,” [said Mike Flannery] in early June.
In early October, the budget watchdog Civic Federation issued a detailed report on Illinois’ budget crisis. Their conclusion is one no politician wants to hear.
“There is no easy way, there is no politically attractive way to get through this. It’s gonna require sacrifice from all parties. The taxpayers are gonna end up having to pay more money. They’re gonna get less service. The employees are gonna have to take less benefits,” President of the Civic Federation Laurence Msall said.
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