* Democratic gubernatorial candidate JB Pritzker gave his campaign fund $7 million today, his campaign just confirmed. I’d been hearing about this for much of the afternoon.
$7 million is still $43 million less than Gov. Rauner put into his own campaign fund a few months ago, but vastly more cash than any other Democratic hopeful has on hand or has immediate access to. The A-1 hasn’t been officially filed yet, but if you click here it appears they’re having some technical difficulties with the Board of Elections’ website.
“J.B. Pritzker’s decision to drop $7 million into his gubernatorial campaign is more proof that he wants to be Madigan’s financial muscle. His deposit comes after Pritzker gave Madigan over $1.2 million in 2016 to stop reform, and just a day after Pritzker met with Madigan insiders and revealed to the press that he’s been conversing with Madigan himself. J.B. Pritzker’s talks with Mike Madigan and secret meeting with Madigan insiders reveal his true colors. He will work for and strengthen the Chicago machine at all costs.” – Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
*** UPDATE 2 *** The Larry Dominick jab is a nice touch…
Please find below the statement from the Biss for Illinois campaign in reaction to reports that JB Pritzker has put $7 million into his campaign account this evening:
“In the public eye, Mr. Pritzker talks about ‘progressiveness’ and ‘independence’ but if today taught us anything it’s that his campaign is more of the same. We’ve seen self-funding billionaires like Donald Trump and Bruce Rauner wreak havoc because of their accountability to no one but themselves. Illinoisans simply can’t afford four more years of the same.”
Earlier today, it was reported Pritzker met with Larry Dominick, the Republican President of the Town of Cicero, who among other things has been under investigation for giving out government contracts in exchange for campaign contributions, groping and fondling multiple female employees, and repeatedly using racially derogatory terms for Latinos.
That response was sent yesterday, but I didn’t see it until Saturday.
Gov. Bruce Rauner said pressure from Illinois House Democrats is responsible for the Senate’s failure to pass a “grand bargain” that would end the state’s historic budget impasse.
Speaking Friday on WBEZ’s Morning Shift, Rauner claimed Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) was “under relentless pressure” from Democratic “lieutenants” in the House and politically-aligned special interest groups. Rauner did not offer any specific evidence that House Democrats directly lobbied to kill the budget proposals.
“I’ve been told that several — I won’t name names right here on this program — but several of the Senate Democrats have decided, boy, it’s not worth the pressure they’re getting,” Rauner told Morning Shift host Tony Sarabia. “They’re pulling back off the grand bargain and not wanting to negotiate anymore.”
A spokesman for Cullerton said House Democrats had nothing to do with “all but one of the Republican votes for the budget deal disappearing overnight,” referring to Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont), who supported the grand bargain.
A spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) accused Rauner of putting the grand bargain on life support by telling Republican senators to not support the plan.
To be clear, there was definitely some harsh push-back from Madigan-allied groups in the Senate. But the real problem in that chamber wasn’t with Democratic votes. It was because Rauner pushed Republicans off the grand bargain.
* You don’t often see Gov. Rauner criticized by the Decatur Herald & Review editorial board, so this is interesting…
Have you seen Gov. Bruce Rauner lately?
Sure you have. It’s been hard to miss those TV ads in which the plaid-wearing executive chides lawmakers for their “duct tape” spending solutions.
And last week, with the Legislature on spring recess, the first-term GOP governor was crisscrossing the state on a two-day tour. He delivered stump speeches and had photo ops at restaurants and businesses in Chicago, Springfield, Quincy and Champaign. Two weeks ago, he was in Decatur.
So is Rauner campaigning?
He insists no, saying the tour, which was funded by his campaign, “has nothing to do with the election” in November 2018.
We’re not that naïve.
We think the whole thing highlights what’s fundamentally backwards about how the budget impasse is being handled by our elected officials. Rauner is on a PR blitz instead of what he should be doing full time – working with Democratic lawmakers to find common ground.
“On the road again, I just can’t wait to get on the road again. The life I love is talkin’ duct tape with my friends, I just can’t wait to get on the road again.” — Willie Nelson, mostly.
Why stay in Springfield to work on a state budget when you can tour the cornfields and coffee shops of Illinois?
We are talking about Gov. Bruce Rauner, of course, who this week made a campaign jaunt around Illinois a year and a half before the November 2018 election, and nearly a year before the March 2018 primary.
At a series of stops from the Chicago suburbs to Rockford, Springfield, Quincy, Champaign and southern Illinois, Rauner littered our state with dropped “g’s” instead of using them at the ends of the words on which they belonged.
Rauner insisted that his tour of the state had nothing to do with the election, but The Associated Press said it was paid for by his campaign and our newspaper did not consider his appearance with local Republican officials at The Machine Shed in Rockford to be newsworthy.
* The Daily Herald isn’t ready to take such a step, however…
The 2018 gubernatorial campaign season has begun, which means whatever hope there is of solving Illinois budgetary issues before next year’s election will not likely be coming from the party leadership.
The Democrats will say Gov. Bruce Rauner has failed to do anything substantive in two years. Rauner will make the same claim of the Democratic leaders. The rest of us will be tempted to lapse into despair that the brakes will be stuck on Illinois government for another year and a half.
The only glimmer of light — and it is admittedly faint — lies with legislators, the rank and file who are elected promising to enact change in Springfield, but who too often get absorbed into the herd soon after they are sworn in, scarcely to be heard from again.
The leaders won’t solve this issue. The legislators must.
* Sun-Times political reporter Tina Sfondeles is rapidly becoming one of my favorite people in this business. Sfondeles covered the governor’s non-campaign campaign event in Bloomingdale earlier this week and snapped a pic (click here) of Rauner wearing protective clothing.
* After convincing all the Democratic gubernatorial candidates to take a side on legalizing marijuana and regulating it like alcohol (all but Chris Kennedy and Bob Daiber were for it), I figured I’d try to get them to talk about a different topic. Here’s the e-mail I sent…
Can you name one state spending program that you/your candidate would cut or reduce if elected? Not a tax credit, etc. We’ll get to those eventually. An appropriated spending program. And about how much would that save?
* Ameya Pawar’s campaign was the first to respond, so we’ll start with him…
To answer your question - The $5 million annual subsidy to White Sox Stadium (through IFSA) is a good place to start. Background here.
Sometimes, I really hate Cub fans. /snark
* Chris Kennedy’s campaign was next…
Illinois can’t cut its way out of the budget crisis just as it can’t tax its way out of it. A single cut isn’t a solution but a political talking point. We need comprehensive reform in terms of spending, government operations and taxes to pass a budget that grows Illinois’ economy while embracing our shared values. For example, Illinois could merge the offices of comptroller and treasurer saving over $12 million. But any reform must be part of a comprehensive solution.
Bruce Rauner has been governor for two years and just this Spring neither he nor his Directors could detail a cut to the state budget they will make. Governor Rauner has failed to present a comprehensive approach to Illinois’ budget crisis instead holding the state hostage to pass his extreme, personal political agenda.
* Sen. Daniel Biss…
I was pretty confused by Leader Radogno’s letter. It’s as if she hasn’t been in Springfield the last 2 years or even the last 2 months. Leader Radogno should know better than anyone that the Governor is an absolutist who only cares about his own political career and his inner circle.
Leader Radogno said herself on the Senate Floor that we’re losing 11 million dollars every day we don’t have a state budget. She knows that despite the Governor’s campaign pledge to cut more, not a single agency head was able to tell us what they would cut when brought before Senate Committees. She also knows first hand that this Governor has no interest in governing.
Governor Rauner’s obsession with politics at the expense of governing has led him to make high-priced politically-motivated hires like Leslie Munger. We should begin by cutting her $138,000 salary.
We also should not be making hundreds of millions of dollars in interest payments on overdue bills. It is especially absurd that the state deliberately sets a high interest rate and then allows private lenders to use it to turn a profit. Of course, the best way to avoid all interest payments would be to finally enact a truly balanced budget and pay down our bill backlog.
Unfortunately, Governor Rauner has failed to meet his constitutional obligations and present a balanced budget 3 times. Instead, he’s cut the services Illinoisans rely on to the bone, all to prevent the wealthy from paying their fair share.
So let’s start here: cut the political nonsense and work to pass a budget to save the state 11 million dollars a day.
* Bob Daiber’s campaign…
“Let’s start the ‘cuts’ discussion by saying we need substantial reform to the structure of government in Illinois in terms of the way money is spent. We currently have so much waste and mismanagement that structural reforms are the only way to see substantial change.
“So our first elimination would be the abolishment of CMS. We stand in support of Representative Brandon Phelps HB 2889. The abolishment of CMS could see savings of over $1 Billion within the first year of implementation. In addition, the potential savings through streamlining procurement procedures for all agencies and redistribution of the current CMS appropriated funds could see the elimination of nearly $2 Billion dollars in waste.
“Despite the politics as usual campaign rhetoric of Senator Rodogno, we are also in favor of many other reforms in spending and waste. Maybe Senator Radogno should spend a little less time campaigning for Boss Rauner and spend a little more time getting a budget passed,” states the Daiber campaign.
* JB Pritzker’s campaign…
Governor Rauner has failed to introduce a balanced budget, consistently refusing to do his job and dragging our state down a path of financial ruin. Instead of focusing on his constitutionally mandated duty, he chose to campaign for re-election this week, putting politics ahead of governing.
Rauner’s failure to pass a budget has led to misplaced spending priorities. Unlike Rauner, JB will focus on smart, long-term investments that would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars in both the short and long term. For example:
* Illinois spends close to $35,000 per year for a senior citizen to live in a nursing home, while in-home care costs half that amount and allows our senior citizens the dignity of living at home. Yet, under Rauner, in home care services have been cut by 25 percent – and he wants to cut it more. As a result, the state fails to realize significant savings.
* Illinois spends $20,000 per family on emergency housing per year, while homeless prevention services for that same family cost little more than half that amount and keep families off the streets. Yet, under Rauner, those prevention services have been cut by 25 percent, once again demonstrating his misplaced spending priorities.
* Illinois spends $178,000 per year to house one child in a juvenile detention center, when it costs just $6,000 for community-based intervention programs that do not disrupt a child’s development and prevent recidivism. Yet, under Rauner, funding for those intervention programs was cut by a third, showing a lack of concern for children, their families, and our state budget.
Governor Rauner’s refusal to do his job has resulted in wasteful and inefficient spending that leaves working families and their children without access to the tools they need to reach the middle class. When JB announced his candidacy for governor last week, he made it clear that he will stand for progressive values that have been lost under Governor Rauner’s failed leadership. JB has taken on big challenges and gotten real results, and he will do the same as governor.
Ultimately, JB is committed to eliminating the one thing that has cost Illinois families the most: Bruce Rauner.
I’m expecting a late response from the Summers campaign. I’ll add it when it gets here, but I need to run some errands soon, so I wanted to get this post up.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is opposing legislation that would allow the state to cover abortions for its employees and Medicaid recipients. […]
The legislation is sponsored by Democratic Rep. Sara Feigenholtz. She says the measure would protect women’s access to abortions in Illinois if federal law legalizing the procedure is overturned. It also would remove prohibitions on state employee health insurance and Medicaid funds from covering the procedure.
Rauner has signed previous legislation expanding access to birth control and requiring physicians who refuse to perform abortions to inform patients where they can go instead.
* From Rauner’s spokesperson Eleni Demertzis…
“Governor Rauner is committed to protecting women’s reproductive rights under current Illinois law. However, recognizing the sharp divisions of opinion of taxpayer funding of abortion, he does not support HB40.”
The legislation is here. Medicaid money is already used at Cook County Hospital for abortions, and most non-state university and local government health insurance policies also cover it in Chicago.
But the governor was getting tremendous heat from his right flank on this bill and he needs to keep them together through this impasse.
[State Rep. David McSweeney (R-Barrington)] called on the governor to make his position clear earlier this week, saying whether Illinois becomes one of the few states where taxpayers pay for abortions for any reason could rest in the hands of Governor Bruce Rauner - even before the bill made it to his desk.
“If Governor Rauner makes his intentions known before HB 40 is called, there’s a very good chance that the bill will not pass the House,” McSweeney told Illinois Review Wednesday.
“I’ve talked to several Democrats that tell me they are torn on the issue, and if the governor said he was going to veto the measure, I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t get the 60 they need to pass it.” […]
McSweeney said he was expecting pro-abortion lawmakers to call the vote on the floor April 25th, when a “Women’s March” was being planned on the State Capitol.
“The vote was very close at last count,” McSweeney said. “This is very good news that the governor has announced he will veto HB 40 if it gets to his desk. I’m very happy he’s made his position clear.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** Press release…
Today, JB Pritzker released the following statement on Governor Rauner’s plan to veto HB40, which would cover abortions for women on state employee health insurance and Medicaid, and would remove a “trigger provision” that would make abortions illegal if Roe v. Wade was overturned.
“Bruce Rauner should be ashamed of himself. No pro-choice governor would take this position and restrict access to these critical services for Illinois women,” said JB Pritzker. “Rauner is proving yet again that he not only shares an extreme agenda with Donald Trump, but also lied to voters when he claimed that he cares about a woman’s right to choose. This decision is deeply hurtful to me and to women across this state. I have been fighting to protect women’s healthcare and reproductive rights my whole life and will do the same as Illinois’ next governor.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** Press release from Rep. Tom Morrison…
“I am pleased Governor Rauner has chosen to veto HB 40 should it come to his desk. The Democrat lawmakers behind this initiative want to force Illinois taxpayers to pay for elective abortions through all 9 months of pregnancy. Taxpayers would be on the hook for abortions for any reason - even sex selection abortions would’ve been covered. This may come as a surprise a lot of people, even those who hold ‘pro-choice’ views. The Governor is doing the right thing by promising to veto HB 40.”
Press release…
Paul Caprio, Director of Family-Pac, today commended the decision of Governor Rauner to oppose HB 40…legislation to provide taxpayer funding for abortion.
Said Caprio: “It’s clear that the majority of Illinois voters oppose the use of their hard earned tax dollars to fund abortions at a time when Illinois is facing a fiscal crisis, regardless of their personal views.”
“I wish to thank also the many pro-family legislators who have met with the Governor regarding this issue as well as the many thousands of Illinois citizens who have contacted their legislators urging them to oppose HB 40.”
*** UPDATE 3 *** Chris Kennedy campaign…
Politicians like Bruce Rauner have no business deciding when and if women can get access to health services - period. He is putting politics before women’s health and that’s just shameful. All women deserve nothing less than full access to doctors and health services of their choice. As Governor, I would sign any legislation that would affirm a woman’s right to choose is protected in Illinois.
*** UPDATE 4 *** From Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a co-sponsor of the bill…
Representative Morrison uses tired misinformation to launch a baseless attack on one of our state legislators. The reality is that State Representative Sara Feigenholtz (and her colleagues who are supportive of HB 40) are working to build a future where insurance coverage for necessary healthcare isn’t denied just because someone doesn’t make enough money.
However we may personally feel about abortion, no one should have that personal decision taken away by politicians who deny insurance coverage—which is exactly what the Hyde Amendment does to low-income families. Representative Feigenholtz’ bill would correct that injustice.
Voters agree. A poll from Hart Research Associates shows 86 percent of voters agree that “however we feel about abortion, politicians should not be allowed to deny a woman’s health coverage because she is poor.” And there is broad consensus across age groups (90 percent of voters ages 18 to 34 and 84 percent of voters 65 and over) and parties: 85 percent of independents, 79 percent of Republicans, and 94 percent of Democrats all agree.
This is about more than politics. The stakes for a woman whose decision is denied by Hyde are high: a woman who wants to get an abortion but is denied is more likely to fall into poverty than one who can get an abortion.
Representative Feigenholtz’s legislation simply affirms something that women in Illinois already know: that the legal right to an abortion is legal fiction if a woman can’t access and afford the care.
Nothing about HB 40 changes the law as it relates to when a person can have an abortion in Illinois.
Representative Feigenholtz wants to ensure that whatever happens in the future—the right to abortion is real for those in our state who already face too many barriers to care. I call that admirable and am grateful for this champion of health and women’s ability to make our own decisions.
*** UPDATE 5 *** Press release…
Sen. Daniel Biss made the following statement in response to Gov. Rauner’s announcement that he would veto House Bill 40, a bill that would protect the women of Illinois from dangerous attacks on their reproductive freedom coming from President Trump and his right-wing Supreme Court appointments:
“Since taking office out-of-touch billionaires like Donald Trump and Bruce Rauner have done everything in their power to wage a war on women. Bruce Rauner lied on the campaign trail when he said he didn’t have a social agenda — on the contrary, he’s now supporting President Trump’s dangerous efforts to take Illinois women back to the dangerous days before Roe v. Wade was the law of the land.”
It is disappointing, but not surprising, that Democrats are trying to ram through another stopgap spending plan instead of passing a truly balanced budget. This shows us that House Democrats do not intend to get a budget done before 2019. That is unacceptable. Our community colleges, universities, social service providers and entire state deserve better. Their plan does nothing to address the state’s long-term challenges and simply strings them along a few more months.
This from the same legislator who is the chief sponsor of the mother of all unfunded spending plans: An appropriation into infinity for all state employees.
Last week Governor Rauner shot down another proposal to fund public services in the current fiscal year. Sponsored by State Representative Greg Harris (D-13), the initiative would have tapped available special funds to cover $258 million in social service costs, and $559 million in higher education funding—primarily MAP grants for low income students, but also some operating revenue for community colleges ($36 million) and universities ($159 million). In a Facebook video explaining why he won’t support this proposal, the Governor made three, key points.
First, he maintained he’d oppose any stopgap funding that wasn’t coupled with a “permanent property tax freeze to protect the hard working taxpayers of Illinois.” Which begs the question, protects them from what, exactly — adequate levels of police and fire protection? Or maybe from having clean streets and access to things like public parks and libraries?
That’s pretty over-wrought. Our property taxes in this state are way too high. It’s a tax that isn’t based on the ability to pay. And while many local governments, including school districts, are struggling to make fiscal ends meet, others are sitting on fat cash reserves. That, to me, is the real problem with a freeze. The taxpayers who need the most relief are often the same folks who live in towns and school districts which are struggling mightily to pay expenses because of an eroded tax base and would eventually have to stop providing some much-needed and essential services under a permanent freeze. We gotta figure this out, but it’s impossible to do that when everyone from the state on down is in constant crisis mode.
Second, the Governor’s Facebook video lambasted stop-gap initiatives as keeping “universities, community colleges and social service agencies on the verge of collapse with no permanent funding.” Which is true, however, failure to provide any additional funding for higher-ed and social services will move them from the “verge” of collapse to actually collapsing. Indeed, higher education currently receives 64 percent less in annual funding than in FY2015, the last time Illinois enacted a full General Fund budget. And social service agencies aren’t living high off the hog either. In fact, funding for social services in the current fiscal year will run about $1.36 billion less than in FY2015. So while one-time funding for higher-ed and social services is neither ideal nor adequate, it’s clearly needed.
Finally, the Governor’s Facebook missive admonished Springfield to end its fixation on “stop gaps”, and instead “pass real and lasting solutions” to Illinois’ budget problems. Hard to disagree with that. Unfortunately, when the Governor had the chance to back his rhetoric up by supporting the bipartisan “Grand Bargain” pieced together by Senate President John Cullerton (D-6) and Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-41), he instead chose to crater it.
Which begs another question: is the Governor truly interested in making the political compromises needed to, in his words, “pass real and lasting solutions?” Or is the Governor’s real end-game more accurately revealed by his insistence on a permanent property tax freeze? Because just as such a freeze would degrade the capacity of municipalities and the like to provide local services, the failure to pass a comprehensive General Fund budget for Illinois has already materially degraded the state’s capacity to fund the public services it has the primary obligation to provide.
So, what Ralph’s saying here is that the governor’s “real” end game is to damage government, all government. Maybe not quite as radical as the old Grover Norquist line about shrinking government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,” but close.
An attorney for U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger has written Comcast Cable demanding it not air the conservative Club for Growth’s negative ad against the Republican lawmaker.
The ad calls Kinzinger a “professional politician” who won’t support President Donald Trump’s bid to get rid of Obamacare. Kinzinger, now in his fourth term, is from Channahon, near Joliet.
His attorney, John Fogarty Jr. of Chicago, wrote in a letter to Comcast on Thursday that the ad was “blatantly false” and that Kinzinger’s support for Trump’s repeal-and-replace plan is “exceptionally well documented.” […]
For his part, Kinzinger said in a statement that Club for Growth’s agenda included ending coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and dropping kids from their parents’ insurance plans. He said its plan is to achieve savings by relying on states to cut services to the poor, something the lawmaker said the Illinois legislature will never do.
The spot cites an April 6th story in the Kennebec Journal & Morning Standard for its claim that Kinzinger is “is in the way” of passing a bill . Kennebec is in Maine.
Maine Rep. Bruce Poliquin was reportedly among eight Republican House members who visited the White House on Monday as part of the party’s effort to revive health care legislation that was pulled before it went to a vote last month because it lacked enough support for passage. […]
In addition to Poliquin, The Huffington Post reported that the seven other Republicans who visited the White House were Reps. Greg Walden of Oregon, Chris Collins of New York, Rodney Davis and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, Martha McSally of Arizona,and Pat Tiberi of Ohio.
* From the Huffington Post story that the Maine paper used for its own report…
House Republicans still don’t have a deal to revive their health care bill, but the White House is laying the groundwork for negotiations to move quickly, meeting individually Monday with moderates and conservatives to discuss a possible agreement. […]
On Monday, for roughly an hour and a half, the White House hosted a meeting with House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and seven moderate Republicans from the Tuesday Group who had already supported the health care legislation ― Chris Collins (N.Y.), Rodney Davis (Ill.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Tom MacArthur (N.J.), Martha McSally (Ariz.), Bruce Poliquin (Me.) and Pat Tiberi (Ohio) ― to make sure potential changes wouldn’t lose their votes.
Those lawmakers met with Vice President Mike Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney and Andrew Bremberg, the director of White House domestic policy.
Collins, who said last week that he didn’t think Republicans could pass a health care bill until 2019, reported Monday that he had newfound optimism.
CAUGHT: Pritzker Meets with Madigan Insiders
-Admits he’s been conversing with Madigan himself-
“J.B. Pritzker’s talks with Mike Madigan and secret meeting with Madigan insiders reveal his true colors. Pritzker wants to be Madigan’s financial muscle and strengthen the Chicago machine.” – Illinois Republican Party Spokesman Steven Yaffe
Dan Mihalopoulos reports that Pritzker met yesterday with Madigan insiders, then dodged questions about the secret meeting.
Mihalopoulos writes, “Many of the others at the meeting with Pritzker have close ties to Illinois House Speaker and Democratic Party boss Mike Madigan, another name you can hardly equate with progressivism. The state’s Republicans have sought to link Pritzker to Madigan.
Cook County Commissioner Ed Moody — for decades a famously effective precinct captain in Madigan’s Southwest Side ward organization — left the meeting Thursday with a “J.B.” sticker on the lapel of his suit coat. Moody said he’s “100 percent” with Pritzker because “we’ve got to get rid of this Rauner.”
Also meeting with Pritzker was Madigan ally Steve Landek, the Bridgeview mayor and state senator.
In a statement sent later Thursday, a Pritzker spokeswoman said “of course J.B. has had conversation” with Madigan about the race.
…And it wasn’t just elected officials at the Pritzker event. Lobbyist Al Ronan was there, too, maneuvering his black Cadillac with the “R” vanity plate into one of the closest spots to the door. Ronan’s company — though not Ronan himself — admitted guilt in a 2004 in a bid-rigging scheme at McCormick Place.
I couldn’t tell you what Pritzker told all these guys Thursday. Del Galdo ushered me out of his offices on Harlem Avenue almost as soon as I walked in.”
The Sun-Times piece is here. The Republicans left out one attendee: Larry Dominick, the Republican president of the Town of Cicero. I guess they’re only willing to go so far with this.
* Anyway, here’s the Pritzker campaign response to the Mihalopoulos column…
Today, JB attended a meeting he was invited to with mayors and elected officials who represent over 700,000 constituents across Cook and the Collar Counties. He was doing exactly what a Democratic candidate for governor should do – talk to the local leaders who are representing people across our state directly impacted by Bruce Rauner’s failure as governor.
JB has been an independent thinker and leader his whole life, fighting for causes and ideals he believes in, and he’s certainly not going to change now. As a Democratic candidate for governor, of course JB has had conversations with the Chair of the Democratic Party, and he thinks we need to focus on uniting against the one person who is determined to dismantle all of the progressive gains we have made over the years and that’s Bruce Rauner.
The Illinois Prisoner Review Board is being asked to intervene on behalf of an Army veteran with a green card who faces deportation because of a 2008 drug conviction.
Advocates for Miguel Perez Jr. want the board to recommend that Gov. Bruce Rauner issue a pardon. They hope the Department of Homeland Security will then grant the 38-year-old Perez citizenship retroactively from when he joined the military in 2001.
Perez served two tours in Afghanistan. He’s being held a Wisconsin detention center where he awaits deportation to Mexico.
Perez pleaded guilty to a drug charge for handing a laptop case containing cocaine to an undercover officer. He served half of a 15-year prison sentence.
The Cook County State’s Attorney, who’s about as far from a Trump-loving, immigrant-bashing politico as you can get, opposes clemency.
Perez arrived in the country at age 11. Despite being a green card holder and serving two tours in Afghanistan, the Chicago resident never applied for citizenship. So when Perez was convicted of selling drugs after he left the Army, he was targeted for deportation.
At Thursday’s hearing, a representative for the state’s attorney said they opposed forgiving Perez’s crime and cited the amount of cocaine that Perez sold which was 4.4 pounds.
A spokesperson for veterans blamed PTSD for Perez’s drug addiction.
“Mr. Perez was exposed to a lot of trauma that aggravated any addiction he had,” Carlos Luna, president of Veterans Rebuilding Community, Inc., said.
“We cannot lose track of the specific facts of this case, which is why we are opposing executive clemency,” assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Peter Goutos told the review board Thursday. “We must hold the big drug dealers accountable.”
While Perez was convicted of delivering less than 100 grams of cocaine, Goutos said he was arrested for delivering much more and received a reduced sentence after a plea deal. Goutos also pointed out that Perez was given a general discharge from the military after a drug infraction and was arrested for misdemeanor cannabis possession as a teenager. […]
After returning to Chicago after his military service, he sought treatment at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Maywood, where doctors diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was supposed to return for more tests to determine whether he also had a traumatic brain injury. But the hours of waiting and slow progress took its toll.
In the meantime, he reconnected with a childhood friend who provided free drugs and alcohol. On the night of Nov. 26, 2008, while with that friend, Perez handed a laptop case containing cocaine to an undercover officer. Perez pleaded guilty to the drug charge and served half of a 15-year prison sentence.
And soon his fate could be in Gov. Rauner’s hands. The governor has done his best to distance himself from the president’s stances on immigration. Actually, he’s done his best to distance himself from the president, period. He’s also demonstrated time and time again that he favors second chances and reduced penalties for non-violent criminals. He’s a politician, so that alone guarantees that Perez’s military service in a theater of war is an issue.
But busted cold handing 4.4 pounds of cocaine to a cop is a tough one for any governor.
In a statement released Thursday, the state’s attorney’s office said its opposition to a pardon did not equate to support for Perez’s deportation. His immigration proceedings are a separate matter.
“Regardless of the outcome of Mr. Perez’s clemency hearing, he is still subject to removal by the federal government,” the statement said. “Mr. Perez’s case is an unfortunate reminder of the need for immigration reform, particularly when it comes to veterans who have served our country.”
* Eastern Illinois University President David Glassman testified at a House committee hearing yesterday about the impasse…
Glassman said, “EIU will come through this storm stronger, bolder … not because of the impasse, but in spite of it.”
I get the defiant bravado aspect and the fact that if a university president says his campus is doomed it would scare away even more students than are already fleeing to other states.
But one can also come away from that statement thinking the impasse may have done EIU some good.
Susan Davenport, associate dean for students and curricular affairs in the College of Liberal Arts, said the state budget impasse is affecting the university’s ability to recruit students.
[Interim Provost Susan Ford] agreed, saying parents are telling their children not to come to Illinois for college right now.
“We are swimming against a tsunami of bad press from the state budget crisis,” Ford said. “It harmed us last year, and we know it’s harming us this year.”
Compared to the financial health of other state universities, [SIU President Randy Dunn] said SIU falls in the middle of the pack. Eastern Illinois University, Western Illinois University and Chicago State University have all declared financial emergency, but Dunn said the University of Illinois system would likely be able to sustain operations indefinitely despite the budget impasse.
*** UPDATE 1 *** From EIU…
Rich,
Hey. Saw your post highlighting yesterday’s House Higher Education Appropriations hearing as well as some mistaken comments apparently made by or attributed to the President of SIU.
First, and most importantly, the Board of Trustees of Eastern Illinois University has NEVER considered, let alone approved, a declaration of fiscal exigency/emergency. It is regrettable that such inaccurate statements would be made let alone reported and then re-reported.
Second, the full line you are pulling a quote from is this: “Drowning out the negative narrative that the State has created for its public universities – that is, the crisis in confidence which permeates the conversations of most students, parents and high school guidance counselors – is not easy, but EIU will come through this storm stronger and bolder and wiser – not thanks to the impasse [sic], but in spite of it.” You are correct in characterizing the comment as “defiant” and the President’s full testimony included specifically explaining that the impasse-related layoffs have actually resulted in inefficiencies.
-Katie
Katie M. Anselment ‘02
Director, Constituent Relations
Eastern Illinois University
*** UPDATE 2 *** From SIU President Randy Dunn…
My comments you picked up from the Daily Egyptian’s reporting of an all-faculty meeting held at SIU Carbondale were in response to a question raised about the fiscal health of SIU as compared to the other state universities. While I agree that words do matter, we may be dancing on the head of a pin here. The EIU and WIU boards may not have done explicit declarations, but both boards in fact passed resolutions so as to access payment providing for “financial support for essential operations” under the authority of P.A. 99-0524, the second stopgap signed into law on June 30. Enabling provisions included in the BIMP amended the Board of Higher Education Act to provide: “In fiscal year 2017 the Board…shall conduct a review to determine the existence of a financial emergency at a public institution of higher education that requires financial assistance from the Board, but only after the institution’s governing board has formally requested the review by adopting a resolution stating that the institution is in a state of financial emergency that requires financial assistance from the Board.”
While I felt I should offer a response to a legitimate question posed at the faculty meeting, there was no attempt to drag any other institution down. We very much value the relationship we have with all the public universities in Illinois, and we’re all in this together. Indeed, the SIU Board is itself in the midst of considering a financial emergency declaration for the Carbondale campus within the coming months. But given the larger background, I stand by my comments made.
State Sen. Daniel Biss, a Democratic candidate for governor who is pushing legislation requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to be on the Illinois ballot, released five years of federal tax returns Thursday evening.
The returns show that in two of the years, including last year, Biss did not owe federal taxes.
For 2016, Biss reported $32,568 in adjusted gross income and, after deductions and exemptions, a taxable income of $2,958. The returns show he owed no federal tax. In 2013, the Evanston state senator reported $54,218 in adjusted gross income and $18,116 in taxable income, owing no federal tax.
Biss and his wife, Karin Steinbrueck, paid federal taxes of $581 in 2012, $629 in 2014 and $2,775 in 2015. Among the largest deductions he took were ones for local property taxes, state income taxes and home mortgage interest.
A campaign spokesman said Biss reported less salary than usual for last year because lawmakers’ paychecks were delayed during the ongoing Illinois state budget impasse.
Pritzker, Kennedy and Pawar all say they will release their tax returns. Gov. Rauner has released his returns every year. Rauner’s last return, for 2015, showed he had tripled his annual income. Biss, on the other hand, lost half of his income last year because of that “no budget, no pay” stunt.
* From the Biss campaign…
My fellow Democrats,
As you know, Donald Trump has repeatedly refused to release his tax returns for public scrutiny. The practice of candidates and executives releasing their returns isn’t simply a time honored tradition, but a necessary check to ensure elected officials don’t allow their responsibilities to the public to be compromised by potential personal gain.
Serious and consequential questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s finances and potential conflicts of interest. And voters deserve answers to these questions.
Indeed, voters have the right to be confident that their elected officials are doing things for the right reasons, and that they are putting the interest of the people first. In short, they need to have trust in their elected officials — something that is in short supply today.
That’s why I introduced SB 982 in the Illinois legislature, which would require any candidate for President requesting the vote of Illinois citizens to afford them the respect of releasing their tax returns. We’ve seen the value of releasing tax returns in our state recently: when Governor Rauner released his returns, the public was made aware of potential conflicts of interest between Rauner family holdings and the allocation of public funds.
In a state that has been controlled by money and the machine for so long, the transparency provided in releasing tax returns is an important signal to voters that elected officials in Springfield are ready to be held accountable to the people, and only the people.
Accordingly, today, my wife and I are releasing our tax returns for the last five years. We also pledge to release next year’s returns before the primary election, and we are calling on all other Democratic candidates for governor to do the same. If we are calling upon President Trump and Governor Rauner to do so, Illinois voters should expect nothing less from any Democratic candidate for governor.
Transparency of this kind is not a new idea in our state. In his own campaign for governor in 1971, Paul Simon volunteered his sources of income saying that without disclosure, “all of us who hold office will continue to suffer in the eyes of the public.”
Senator Simon added personal financial transparency is “the only way to meet the complex problem of conflict of interest. Put matters on the table in public view and then the citizenry can make reasoned judgments, whether we are serving ourselves, or serving the public.”
I agree. All Democrats should.
Let’s hold this field of progressives to a standard that Paul Simon would be proud of. Together, we can send voters a message that we are serious about getting the levers of power out the hands of the well connected, restoring trust in government, and putting our state on a new course.
The 10th annual Northwest Suburban Lincoln Day Dinner, an event which provides a who’s who of area Republican leaders, takes place next week in Palatine.
Three speakers are set to address the major area GOP fundraiser: U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Gov. Bruce Rauner and Tim Schneider, Illinois GOP chairman and 15th District Cook County commissioner.
The event’s master of ceremonies is Dan Proft, a conservative radio host and Liberty Principles Political Action Committee founder. […]
It is scheduled to begin with a private “Trump Wine & Wisconsin Cheese” gathering at 5:30 p.m. for those willing to pay a little extra for the exclusive reception, followed by a general reception at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. chicken dinner. [Schaumburg Township Republican Committeeman Ryan Higgins] said Trump Wine would be served at the event.
Higgins told the Journal that Rauner is expected to unofficially kick off his run for reelection at the event.
…Adding… From a top Team Rauner dude…
Saw your post - sorry Higgins but no campaign kickoff at that event
Many in the crowd nodded as Rauner went through his talking points, but there was not much applause. Some of Rauner’s staff members clapped at key points in his speech, but the audience generally didn’t take up the applause as they sat or stood quietly.
– Governor Rauner today discussed the administration’s efforts to cut the red tape in state government and make Illinois more competitive with surrounding states at the Illinois Competiveness Council Forum.
“Excessive red tape has been a barrier blocking small business and entrepreneurs from wanting to grow and expand in Illinois,” said Governor Rauner. “That’s why we created the Illinois Competiveness Council nearly six months go to see where we can streamline and improve the restrictions in government.”
Governor Rauner signed an executive order last year to form the Illinois Competiveness Council and undertake a comprehensive review of the Illinois Administrative Code. The governor has directed the agencies working with the Illinois Competitiveness Council to reduce regulations by 20 percent. The Council led by U-Jung Choe will work with agencies from those areas to reduce regulatory burdens and cut the red tape.
“We are deeply committed to this mission. We will listen to all suggestions, make immediate changes when possible, and do all we can to advance Illinois’ economic climate,” said U-Jung Choe, chairwoman of the Illinois Competiveness Council.
The Council solicited assistance from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University to analyze the Illinois Administrative Code to best understand where red tape existed, where to cut it, and how to improve Illinois’ business climate. Illinois’ current administrative code is significantly larger than a majority of states, according to the analysis by the Mercatus Center. Illinois has more than 259,000 restrictions that make up more than 15 million words.
Additionally, the Mercatus Center found that most regulatory restrictions were in five areas: public health, environmental protection, social services, professional occupations and transportation.
The Mercatus Center was founded and is funded by the Koch Family Foundations. According to financial records, the Koch family has contributed more than thirty million dollars to George Mason University, much of which has gone to the Mercatus Center, a nonprofit organization. […]
The Mercatus Center is an “associate” member of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country.
And they say, well, we need more regulations to force companies to pay people more.
No. It’s not gonna happen. Companies will just leave. That’s what they’re doing, they’re voting with their feet.
And they say, we don’t want to compete with Texas, they don’t have regulations there, their workers, you know, they need more protections down, they don’t have enough protections in Texas.
Well, you know what? Texas workers, factory workers make way more than factory workers in Illinois. Why? It ain’t because regulations are forcing their pay up, it’s because it’s a booming, healthy competitive economy with companies competing to hire workers. That’s why. And that’s the answer to long-term prosperity for the people of Illinois. And that’s the key to a better future for our children and our grandchildren, which is the reason I decided to be governor.
Setting aside the obvious minimum wage argument for now, click here for the BLS definition of production workers. Now, click here for the BLS Illinois page and you’ll see the median wage for production workers is $15.95 per hour. Click here and you’ll see that same median wage in Texas is $15.62 per hour.
Illinois has a higher cost of living in general than Texas, so those TX workers are putting more in their pockets. But do they make “way more” in Texas?
*** UPDATE *** Press release…
Following is the response of SEIU Healthcare Illinois Communications Director James Muhammad to news that Gov. Bruce Rauner today voiced opposition to raising the Illinois wage floor, even as momentum grows to raise it to $15, via House Bill 198:
“When he opposes raising the wage for Illinois workers, Bruce Rauner continues to describe his belief that labor should be cheap and that workers are not central to the health of our economy. He paid for his many mansions via the profits from cheap labor and yet he wants to deny any economic security to the working families of Illinois? This is wrong and hypocritical.
“The Rauner budget impasse has slowed growth in Illinois and the quickest way to put money back into the economy is to give a raise to the 2.3 million Illinois workers, more than 40 percent of the workforce, who make less than $15 per hour and who would benefit from passage of House Bill 198.
“As Gov. Rauner dismantles education, healthcare, social services and all the tools that helped grow the Illinois middle class from the bottom up in the first place, we hope he abandons his trickle-down opposition to raising the wage floor for the women and men who work hard while others, like him, reap the profits of the sweat of their brow.”
* Related…
* Democrats push for minimum wage increase: Rep. Litesa Wallace, D-Rockford, said the state has to “pick up where employers leave off” through government programs and subsidies. “I am really tired of working poor people being the bogeyman in the way that we talk about this,” Wallace said. “Let’s change the narrative, because you’re receiving welfare too.”
* Editorial: Find a way, lawmakers, to give Illinois residents a pay raise: Illinois residents who make the minimum wage are overdue for a raise. The same is true for Americans across the nation. Workers are more productive than ever, but you wouldn’t know it based on their wages. In the last four decades, their pay has lagged far behind their contributions in the work force. The disparity helped make “income inequality” a catchphrase of the decade.
* Bernie reported the other day on a “mystery website” called RealGOPIllinois.com, which bills itself as “the official news site for real Republicans.” But it’s not an official Republican Party website and nobody knows who’s really behind it…
The site is professional-looking, with items presented as news stories and a solicitation for tips. […]
Its creators aren’t making it easy to find out, either. A computer expert at my newspaper tells me there’s no easy way to track the origin of the site because its domain was registered anonymously. An address listed at the bottom of the group’s email is in Champaign, but turned out to be a UPS store. An employee there said they do rent mailboxes.
The group name doesn’t turn up in the Illinois State Board of Elections, but it appears to have started a Facebook page recently. […]
“We are just a group of everyday citizens who are upset with the Democrat Party and how they’ve ruined this state,” the response stated. “We are also upset with the Illinois GOP and Gov. (BRUCE) RAUNER. We all voted for Bruce Rauner in 2014 even though some of us were very unsure about him because of his history. Two years in, we’re disappointed in Gov. Rauner and the Illinois GOP. … With the debt mounting, taxpayers will probably be on the hook for even more and the politicians won’t care. … Gov. Rauner spends millions making sure his own people win GOP primaries and destroying other Republican candidates just because he can. Isn’t that what (House Speaker MICHAEL) MADIGAN does?”
The response also called the website a “free speech zone” and said “Republicans are afraid to criticize (Rauner) because of the money he can spend attacking people. Illinois won’t survive Mike Madigan or Bruce Rauner if we don’t stand up and speak out (about) what both political parties and their henchmen are doing now.”
The folks behind the site have posted a new video ham-handedly attempting to directly link Gov. Rauner to Bill Cellini. Needs better music.
The alleged getaway driver in the fatal shooting of Cook County Associate Judge Raymond Myles said the killer surveilled the judge’s house for a few weeks before the deadly incident, Cook County prosecutors said Thursday.
Joshua Smith said in a videotaped statement to authorities that Myles was being watched for at least two or three weeks, an Assistant State’s Attorney Guy Lisuzzo said.
The motive for the shootings was robbery, and 66-year-old Myles was targeted — but the shooting had nothing to do with his position as a judge, police had said on Wednesday.
Smith’s accomplice, who shot Myles and his girlfriend at 4:50 a.m. Monday in the 9400 block of South Forest, took the woman’s gym bag, expecting to find cash inside, Lisuzzo said. But there was no cash inside, and the killer threw the bag away. […]
Smith drove himself to the Area South Detectives division later that day “to speak with detectives” and has been in custody ever since, Chief of Detectives Melissa Staples said at a news conference Wednesday evening.
Assistant State’s Attorney Guy Lisuzzo said at the hearing Thursday that Smith and an unnamed accomplice attempted to rob the woman, who left the judge’s home for the gym shortly before 5 a.m., the same time every day. The accomplice allegedly watched the woman for 2-3 weeks to learn her habits.
He stole her gym bag, but became enraged when no cash was inside, prosecutors said.
Myles saw the two arguing and came outside, where he was killed, police have said. The woman was also shot.
Smith drove the getaway car, an orange Pontiac Sunfire registered to his ex-girlfriend, Lisuzzo said. He allegedly told the girlfriend and her daughter to lie and say the car had been stolen.
An early riser, Myles was up before dawn Monday, getting ready to go to the gym with his girlfriend before reporting to his courtroom. But as the 52-year-old woman left the two-story brick residence shortly before 5 a.m., she was confronted near the garage by a gunman who shot her in the leg, according to police. Hearing the commotion, Myles, 66, ran outside and exchanged words with the assailant before he was shot and killed.
A neighbor and friend of the judge told the Tribune he was awakened by the shouts of the woman and the crack of about six gunshots. “She was screaming, ‘Don’t kill him, don’t kill him!’ ” the neighbor said.
An autopsy found Myles had been shot multiple times, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said Tuesday. […]
Sheriff Tom Dart’s office investigates about 10 death threats against Cook County judges a year but had no record of any threats against Myles in recent years.
*** UPDATE *** They were targeting the girlfriend. Tribune…
Assistant State’s Attorney Guy Lisuzzo said Smith told police that he and the other man planned to rob the judge’s girlfriend and that the other man had conducted surveillance on her movements for two to three weeks.
* OK, let’s revisit that WDWS interview of Gov. Rauner. The governor was asked whether the Senate’s grand bargain was off the table and we’re back to square one…
I hope not. You know, I know the deal has struggled. It’s had problems.
Sigh.
He says this in a passive mode as if he’s watching from afar with zero involvement.
But you know these things take time. They go up and down, and they make some progress and then they take a step back. This is the nature of the legislative process. It’s the nature of change in our system. Our system is so broken and the politicians who broke it are still in power and they don’t want to change. But we’ve got to change.
The good news is the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, they’re negotiating over the right things that can really move the needle to grow our economy…
And then he went off on a long soliloquy about his usual TA talking points.
* A few minutes later, the interviewer asked him what the turning point will be, what will turn this around to get a budget in the next few weeks…
Well, I believe if the Senate stays strong and keeps their negotiations going, they’re on the right issues, if they get the changes to a place where they actually move the needle, not just a headline, but they’re actually moving the needle - and they’re close, they are very close.
If we can help them get across the goal line, I think that would break the logjam and put a lot of pressure on Speaker Madigan’s Democrats in the House who so far do not want to negotiate any changes whatsoever, just want to force a big tax hike with no reforms at all.
And if the Senate will come through, and we’ll try to help them do it, that’ll put pressure, break the logjam and I think we’ll get there.
OK, all well and good. I wish he’d put a whole lot more effort into that in January and February, before he knocked the Senate’s grand bargain off the tracks.
* I asked Senate President John Cullerton’s spokesman to listen to the governor’s remarks and then provide some comment…
You may recall, Governor Rauner pulled the plug on budget meetings with lawmakers. There wasn’t any progress until the Senate stepped up and started its own negotiations.
That’s very true, but it has been tossed down the memory hole. Rauner announced in December that he wouldn’t call any more leaders meetings. Radogno and Cullerton started meeting soon after to start crafting their own plan.
* Back to John Patterson’s react…
The Senate President continues to work with Republican Leader Radogno in the hope that we can get Republicans back to the table. The Republican Senators helped put the deal together and we need more than one vote from that side in order to pass it.
* From the Illinois Policy Institute’s news service…
During a more-than three hour House Revenue and Finance Committee hearing Wednesday in Chicago, the data center industry asked for breaks on sales taxes and job creation. Industry leaders said it would make Illinois more competitive with neighboring states that do offer the incentives.
House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, wasn’t a fan of the idea.
“I feel very uncomfortable that we are in a situation where if we want to compete, we may have to offer special deals to this group but not to that group, and at the end of the day I think we’re looking at something I think is hard for me to define as other than a little bit of corporate welfare and a little bit of corporate blackmail,” Currie said.
State Rep. David Harris, R-Arlington Heights, also questioned why one industry should get special preference over another.
But Phil Horstmann from data center company Ascent said without incentives, he doesn’t expect the industry to grow in Illinois.
“The simple fact is that it’s not economically viable to come here anymore,” Horstmann said.
Lance Alvarez, who helps select data center sites for Microsoft, said the company does “a tax analysis for all states and Illinois ranks in the bottom 3rd. Currently, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota offer incentives to attract data centers.”
He said Illinois doesn’t provide a level playing field to attract multi-billion-dollar data center investments.
Either way, we need a whole lot more research on this. If there’s demand, you’d think somebody would build. But if a subsidy is needed, how much would it cost taxpayers?
Some people say, well, term limits, that has nothing to do with the budget.
Boy, oh boy. Term limits, huge impact on the budget.
If we get folks in office who are there for the right reasons, not for a career to make money, but just as public servants, we’ll have more likely to have balanced budgets, we’ll have a democracy with less corruption, and businesses and job creators and investors and working families will have more confidence in the state and will expand our tax base.
Term limits can help balance our budgets for the long term in a very strong way.
What I care about is making Illinois strong and healthy for the next generation, with balanced budgets, good-paying jobs, high quality of life, rising family incomes and the best schools in America. And that’s what I’m fighting to do every day.
The Democrats, the Democratic Party has been in control of Illinois for years and years before I came into office. And they’ve taken us down the drain. And having more Democrat control in the governorship next year, boy oh boy, disaster for the people of Illinois.
The Democrats have had the ability to fix the problems in the past, they’ve controlled everything, they’ve done nothing. And all they’ve done is create the problems that we’re fighting to change right now.
So, I don’t spend any time worrying about who’s going to run. They’re all part of the system of supporting the policies and the politicians that created this mess.
We have to stand strong. I’m fighting for working families. I’m fighting for teachers in Illinois. I’m fighting for small business owners, I’m fighting for taxpayers. The people who’ve been ignored and abused and not taken care of in Illinois is who I’m standing up and working for.
We have got to change our direction. More Democrat control will fail us. They’ve already had control and they’ve broken our system. They’re the cause of the break, the broken system we’re dealing with. They just want to tape it over with tax hikes and more spending and more deficits. We need changes and that’s what we’re fighting to do.
Some suburban state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they share the fear that the budget impasse in Springfield won’t be resolved before the 2018 election for Governor. But, they are also using the “C” word: Compromise.
Naperville Republican State Representative Grant Wehrli feels lawmakers aren’t doing their jobs by allowing the budget standoff to continue, but he hopes both sides see the light. WBBM’s Political Editor Craig Dellimore reports.
“Well we all have a responsibility in this, but we also have divided government and that’s going to take compromise and that’s going to require all of us sitting down at a table and understanding that we all have a job to do,” Wehrli said. “And not point fingers at each other.”
I love me some Wehrli and I totally agree with his comments to Craig, but, man, is that ever some industrial strength chutzpah.
* The legislator is well-known for being one of the most active trolls on Twitter. A tiny sampling…
@HouseDemsIL careen from crisis to crisis for decades and call it governance. Illinois cannot afford more Madigan budget mischief. #twill
Quinn tried to solve the problem by persuading the Legislature to pass a 67 percent income tax hike (from 3 percent to 5 percent) in January 2011. The billions of dollars generated eased the state’s cash crunch and was used to make skyrocketing pension contributions. But the state still owed billions in unpaid bills, an obligation that tax increase was meant to eliminate.
At the end of calendar year 2014, just before that tax hike expired, the comptroller’s office had $4.36 billion in vouchers on hand. The office estimated there was another $2 billion which hadn’t yet been processed by the Quinn administration, but the comptroller was paying the state’s bills in under 30 days back then. In other words, we had a “normal” backlog - the sort you’d have in your own checking account as you were waiting to pay your bills before their deadlines.
The tax hike legislation created a special revenue stream in case the state sold bonds to pay off its pile of over-due bills, but the GA couldn’t muster the three-fifths majorities to borrow the money (mainly because Republicans refused to cooperate), so it had to pay those bills off bit by bit, and it was clearly succeeding.
Today’s backlog is $12.8 billion. Vendors are waiting up to six months to be paid.
What happened? The tax hike partially expired and no “real” budget has been passed since then to pare back spending and/or increase revenues.
The refusal to accept these basic facts never ceases to amaze me.
It’s not every day that Broadway comes to state government.
But Wednesday, a group of Broadway in Chicago performers brought the old razzle dazzle to a House committee hearing on state tax credits that are set to expire soon.
The Bilandic Building performance was part of a pitch from the theater industry asking lawmakers to extend the life of the theater tax credit. It’s set to expire June 1. Backers say it helps lure more shows to Chicago, create jobs and boost the city’s reputation.
Performers serenaded a legislative panel with a variation on the song “On Broadway,” changing the lyrics to highlight hotel and restaurant business that the live shows attract.
“We want to thank you for all you’ve done on Randolph and Monroe Street,” they sang. “You make the neon lights so bright in Chicago.”
Some of the performers had been sitting in the hearing room and then rose one by one to join in the song. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.
Yesterday’s hearing was subject matter only, by the way. There were no votes on the credits.
