A former top fundraiser for ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich, convicted of pressuring firms for kickbacks as part of a political pay-to-play scheme, was sentenced Tuesday to 10 1/2 years in prison but will get credit for time served.
Antoin “Tony” Rezko spent 3 1/2 years in custody awaiting sentencing on his 2008 convictions for fraud, money laundering and plotting to squeeze $7 million in kickbacks from companies that wanted to do business with the state during Blagojevich’s tenure
Attorneys for the former Chicago real estate developer and fast-food entrepreneur had asked that he be set free, arguing that he had served more time than others who were convicted as part of the federal investigation of Blagojevich have or are expected to.
But U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve told Rezko that his “selfish and corrupt actions” had damaged the trust people have in their government.
Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
The Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act, passed into law last month, is a ten-year, $2.6 billion investment program that will bring much-needed upgrades to our electric grid and much-needed jobs to our state.
Half of the investment to be spent on utility infrastructure improvement. Much of this work will involve refurbishing and replacing system cable, some of which is more than 40 years old. At its peak, this work will create 2,000 jobs.
The law directs the other half of the investment to be spent building a smarter grid. Digital meters will be deployed to every customer bringing them new tools and pricing options to save money. Also, new smart substations and other digital technology will help ComEd improve reliability for customers. When fully implemented, our modern grid will mean 700,000 avoided outages, saving customers $100 million in outage-related costs, and the law holds utilities accountable to met these goals.
This work will begin in January and continue over the next 10 years.
For more information on the many benefits of the new law, please visit www.ComEd.com.
* And we’ll keep the ScribbleLive program going during the break. BlackBerry users click here, iPad and iPhone users remember to use the “two-finger” scrolling method. Enjoy…
Tuesday, Nov 22, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
It’s no surprise that the Illinois legislature has voted against Tenaska’s Taylorville Energy Center three times, rejecting a project that would leave Illinois families, businesses and government agencies paying up to SEVEN TIMES today’s market price for electricity.
Three strikes in a row for the Taylorville Energy Center? This thing really is Tenaska’s Turkey.
And with a price tag of $286 million per year for Illinois consumers, it’s nothing to be thankful for. But Tenaska and its supporters are still trying to force this costly and unnecessary project on Illinois – in fact, it may be considered next week when the General Assembly reconvenes.
That’s why it’s important to take a moment to let your legislator know that it’s time to say “no more” to Tenaska’s Turkey, the Taylorville Energy Center.
Amends the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act. Adds personnel of institutions of higher education, athletic program personnel, and early intervention providers to the list of mandated reporters under the Ac
This is obviously a response to the Penn State horror show. The bill makes a lot of sense, so there doesn’t seem to be any real need for debate here. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the reaction by that university to the scandal. Continuing refusal to release documents, a student riot in support of the alleged enablers, etc., etc.
We can’t do anything about that university here in Illinois, but our state does have two members in the Big Ten, including our flagship university, so…
* The Question: Should Penn State be kicked out of the Big Ten? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. Thanks.
“This poll demonstrates that the race for the Illinois 2nd Congressional District is wide open. Even though almost all of the respondents in the poll know who Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. is, only 35% of them are willing to support his reelection and almost half of the total respondents were undecided.
“I’ve been out talking to residents of the district every day and what I hear most is that they are tired of waiting. Our district needs a strong representative who is going to fight for jobs now. Representative Jackson has had 15 years to get the job done and is vulnerable because he has little results to show to this district.”
We conducted these surveys as an internal test, not commissioned by any campaign or third party organization. We chose the 2nd Congressional District to run nearly identical Interactive Voice Recognition and traditional live interviewer surveys because of the unique dynamics of the district. Its population and the state of the race presented numerous beneficial attributes to test the viability of IVR surveying. We will be discussing the advantages and disadvantages we discovered through these two surveys after the Thanksgiving holiday, but for now, we present you some of the results
These two polls only have 301 respondents each, so the MOE is a pretty high +/- 5.65 percent.
* Here are the CD 2 trial heat toplines. The first result in each line is for robocalls, the second number is for live interviewers…
Jackson……………………………. 39%….. 35%
Halvorson…………………………. 22%….. 18%
Undecided/Other/Refused…. 38%….. 47%
No longtime incumbent wants to be under 50 percent. Ever. But that’s still a decent sized cushion.
* Name ID, favorability and Jackson job approval…
Jesse Jackson, Jr.:
Substantive Name ID……….. 95% 93%
Positive…………………………… 38% 44%
Neutral……………………………. 30% 27%
Negative………………………….. 27% 22%
Don’t Know…………………….. 5% 7%
Jesse Jackson, Jr. as Congressman:
Approve………………………….. 41% 56%
Disapprove……………………… 24% 25%
Don’t Know…………………….. 35% 19%
Debbie Halvorson:
Substantive Name ID……….. 58% 54%
Positive…………………………… 26% 25%
Neutral……………………………. 22% 22%
Negative………………………….. 10% 7%
Don’t Know…………………….. 42% 46%
Not hugely great favorability and job approval numbers for Jackson, considering that he’s so well known.
* President Obama’s job approval…
Approve………………………….. 82% 89%
Disapprove……………………… 7% 6%
Don’t Know…………………….. 10% 5%
* That high presidential approval will be key if Fox Chicago’s recent report is accurate…
The woman who vows to unseat Jesse Jackson Junior told FOX Chicago News the South Side congressman is so damaged by scandal not even a Presidential endorsement could save him.
Former Representative Debbie Halvorson (D-Illinois) was reacting to our Tuesday night report. A source close to the President’s re-election campaign told us President Obama would support Jackson in the March 20th primary.
It’s still not clear exactly what the President would do for Rep. Jackson (D-Illinois.) He’s still under investigation by the House Ethics Committee on charges related to Rod Blagojevich’s attempt to sell a U.S. Senate seat.
Halvorson declared, “People are sick and tired of his ethics problems, the fact that he’s never around, that he hasn’t done anything. The people of the Second Congressional District need somebody who can walk and chew gum at the same time, somebody who can actually do several things at once and work to bring jobs and economic development to each individual town in the district.
* I haven’t seen this number before and couldn’t find it elsewhere this morning, but Gov. Pat Quinn told the Illinois Radio Network that Ohio has offered Sears $400 million to move its headquarters out of Illinois…
“We are competing with, frankly, Ohio, which has announced they’re offering them $400 million,” Quinn said. “We aren’t offering anywhere close to that but I think Sears understands that being in Illinois is the best place to be in the Midwest.”
Kasich conceded that Ohio won’t land all the companies they go after. He didn’t seem too optimistic about Sears coming to the Buckeye State saying he expected Illinois to offer the company “whatever they wanted” to stay there. However, he said Ohio would never lose a company because “we’re not in the game.”
*** UPDATE *** The governor’s office says Sears testified to that number in committee recently.
In August, two school board members — one a former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist — formed a legislative committee partly to focus on the economic development area. The next month, school board members and other supporters began attending Hoffman Estates village board meetings, dubbing the effort “Occupy Hoffman Estates.” Then in October, the district hired veteran lobbyist John O’Connell, a former Democratic state lawmaker who has represented cigarette giant Reynolds American.
Not all of it sat well with some lawmakers.
“If I were to describe the district’s leadership, or one way to describe their approach, I would say it’s reckless,” said Sen. Dan Kotowski, a Mount Prospect Democrat, who helped the parties broker an agreement. “They’ve been going after bill sponsors, trying to attack their integrity and attack their credibility.”
[Superintendent Michael Bregy] said that on a Sunday in mid-October, a lawmaker asked him if he was willing to negotiate. Bregy said he was, and Kotowski set up a meeting that became the first time Bregy sat at a table with Sears officials.
* And a revised CME tax cut proposal along with a Sears deal could be unveiled this week…
[Rep. John Bradley] said he cannot yet say how far the bill he’ll submit on Nov. 23 will go or whether it will satisfy the companies.
Too many interest groups now have too many conflicting views to predict what will come out of the legislative hopper, Mr. Bradley said. “I really don’t have a good sense yet of what it’s going to be.” All that can be said now is that the measure will deal with “tax reform,” he added.
Mr. Bradley said he’d file his bill Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, because that’s the last day he can give legal notice for a committee vote on legislation on Nov. 28. The Legislature is due back in Springfield on Nov. 29 for a one-day session to consider the proposed tax breaks.
* Related…
* Illinois factory execs turning less bullish: survey: For the second quarter in a row, slightly fewer executives described their businesses as thriving, the survey finds. The share slipped to 43% in the fall quarter, from 44% in the summer and a four-year high of 45% in the spring. Still, just 4% said their companies were in decline. The most optimistic executives were those in automotive, food and beverage and chemicals companies. But the number of executives who are pessimistic about the U.S. economy more than doubled this fall from since last spring, to 78%.
The deal, struck after months of negotiations, calls for the Illinois Department of Employment Security to float bonds. The proceeds will be used to pay off the debt to the feds. It’s supposed to be a good deal because the state thinks it can get a much lower interest rate from a lender than from Washington. It’s expected to save businesses $405 million and the state $240 million.
If the concept of floating bonds to pay off a debt sounds familiar, it should. Gov. Pat Quinn has tried for months to convince lawmakers to float bonds to pay off the state’s backlog of bills. Billions are owed to state vendors, medical providers, social service agencies, you name it. When those bills are paid late, the state pays interest.
Quinn calls it a debt restructuring since the state owes the money anyway and now is shifting the burden of those nonpayments to people and organizations that are not in a good position to absorb that burden. The administration believes it can borrow money cheaply and get the state current on its bills.
So far, though, lawmakers have shown no inclination to go along. Many argue the Quinn plan will increase the state’s debt and not force spending cuts, so it is bad. It also doesn’t help that it’s Quinn’s idea, which automatically makes it suspect to many lawmakers.
Still, the idea of borrowing to pay off a debt isn’t anathema to every lawmaker in every case. Only one person - Sen. Chris Lauzen, R-Aurora - voted against the unemployment deal.
Borrowing is only bad when partisan politics makes it so. It’s like taxation. Raising taxes to fund the capital bill received broad bipartisan support. Raising taxes to fund operations received no bipartisan support. One set of taxes was good and one wasn’t.
As for this UI bill, the Chicago Tribune has repeatedly editorialized against any more borrowing, but uttered not one peep before, during or after the overwhelming bipartisan roll calls in favor of the legislation. Imagine that.
* But the DeKalb Daily Chronicle far too easily breezes past serious constitutional questions regarding the pension fund problems, although it’s right that a solution is still nowhere in sight…
Opponents to SB 512 say the bill is unconstitutional. The Illinois Constitution says pension benefits “shall not be diminished.”
So we sit and wait and wonder.
We wait for lawmakers to have the courage to tackle the pension problem and make an unpopular decision. We do so wondering if it will even be considered in 2012 because it is an election year for all seats in the Legislature.
Will lawmakers have the political will to demand sacrifice in the public sector?
Lawmakers are quick to point out the pension problem. They’re fast to say something needs to be done. But when it comes to fixing the problem, lawmakers have been dragging their feet, disagreeing with the only solution on the table without offering an alternative.
So we sit and wait and wonder.
When will lawmakers do their job?
All lawmakers solemnly swore an oath to defend the Constitution, so knowingly violating that oath would be a very serious breach of conduct. The oath is sacred and is not something to be cavalierly tossed aside, as the Chronicle and other publications, particularly the Tribune, are so wont to do. If a legislator has good reason to believe that a bill is unconstitutional, then that legislator absolutely must not vote for it. And there is ample reason to believe that the proposal in question is unconstitutional.
But I do agree that opponents ought to help find another solution to this pension mess, and quickly.
While all eyes last week turned to the Republicans’ lawsuit against the new district map for U.S. congressmen, a similar GOP lawsuit against the legislative district map for Springfield’s state senators and state representatives may be teetering on the brink of collapse.
Many of the same arguments are being used by the Republicans in both the congressional and state legislative cases. Both lawsuits have a partisan angle. The Republicans claim that the majority Democrats so intensely used political gerrymandering to draw their maps that the end result illegally deprived Republicans of their constitutional rights.
The court that is hearing the congressional map case has yet to rule on the political angle, but the court that heard the state legislative remap case dismissed the Republicans’ political charge last week. The political gerrymandering strategy was never considered all that solid because nobody has ever won a case using that argument. The strategy is given about the same chance of success — slim to none — in the congressional case.
As with the congressional map, the Republicans also challenged several Democratic-drawn state legislative districts for being racially gerrymandered. All but two of those challenges to the state legislative map have been dismissed. Actually, all of them were tossed, but the Republicans were told they could replead their case on two of the districts on Dec. 12.
One of those two is an Illinois House district that runs from Springfield to Decatur. The district takes in Springfield’s predominantly African-American East Side and then heads over to black neighborhoods in Decatur. The district has a black voting age population of 25 percent. The Republicans claim that the Democratic mapmakers’ predominant intent was to pack as many black voters as possible into the district, which they claim is illegal.
The other district was drawn for state Rep. Mike Zalewski (D-Riverside). That district, in and around Chicago’s Southwest Side, is about 46 percent Latino, and the Republicans claim it should be majority Latino.
Needless to say, even if the Republicans win their argument on these two districts, the state legislative map as a whole may not change all that much. However, changing just one boundary can have a wide-ranging ripple effect.
For instance, pulling enough people into Zalewski’s district to make it majority Latino would cause the Democrats to scramble to figure out what they’re going to do with the rest of Chicago’s Southwest Side, which was precariously balanced to give everybody what they wanted.
The end result there could be that some majority black districts lose Latino voters in order to make sure that current Latino districts remain Latino districts. That means the Democrats will have to find other places to take voters from, which could cause some suburban white Democratic legislators to lose black voters, which means the Republicans might have a better chance of winning one or two of those districts.
Got all that? Like I said, wide-ranging ripple effects.
A Republican win on the Springfield/Decatur district charge could take away a possible House Democratic pickup opportunity. That area now is represented by a Republican, who announced he was running in an adjacent district, mainly because it’s much better to sell a house in this horrible real estate market and find a new residence than possibly lose one’s job if one stood and fought an uphill battle. A court win there also could endanger Illinois Senate Democratic Chief of Staff Andy Manar’s bid to join the chamber, because the House district makes up half of Manar’s new Senate district.
The Republicans never have been all that confident about their lawsuit against the state legislative map. Legislative Democratic leaders worked extra hard to ensure their state map would withstand a court challenge.
But state Democrats don’t care nearly as much about the congressional map, and some Republicans still have hope they can prevail on at least some points in that case. Besides the probably doomed political angle, the Republicans say Congressman Luis Gutierrez’s Chicago-area district has too many Latino voters and want some of those voters parceled out to two neighboring districts, which are currently less than 50 percent Latino.
While a panel of federal judges weighs a Republican challenge to Illinois’ new U.S. House district boundaries, lawyers for the state and the GOP said Friday they will discuss whether to push back the deadline for congressional candidates to file their nominating petitions.
The three-judge panel in U.S. District Court heard closing arguments Friday after a two-day trial on the GOP’s lawsuit contending the Democratic-drawn map violates the law because it doesn’t protect the rights of Latino voters and contorts districts with the aim of creating areas that are friendly to Democrats and hard or impossible for Republicans to win.
“The only purpose of drawing the district boundaries is to corral Latinos,” said Republican Party attorney Joshua Yount, arguing the map excessively packs Latinos into an earmuffs shaped 4th District linking the Northwest and Southwest sides of Chicago. The district map was first approved by the courts 20 years ago and has been held by Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Chicago since 1993.
Attorney Michael Kasper, who serves as legal counsel to the state Democratic Party led by House Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago and who successfully defended Mayor Rahm Emanuel against a residency challenge, argued on the state’s behalf that the map did not violate minority voting rights or the U.S. Constitution.
Illinois election officials today asked a panel of federal judges to avoid any delay in candidate filing for the 2012 Congressional election while the court considers a Republican challenge to the new boundaries for U.S. House districts.
But one of the three judges on the panel hearing the case in U.S. District Court said election authorities should be prepared to make changes to the filing schedule that is supposed to run from Nov. 28 to Dec. 5 and suggested the state legislature be on standby over the Thanksgiving holiday. […]
Chief among the state’s concerns is a Feb. 4 deadline for mailing absentee ballots to overseas and military voters. The date is “set in stone,” the state’s lawyers said, based on federal law and a federal consent decree.
But federal Appellate Justice John Tinder of Indiana questioned the state’s hardline position during the second day of trial for the Republican challenge of the new map. Tinder is sitting on a three-judge panel along with U.S. District Judges Joan Lefkow of Illinois and Robert Miller of Indiana.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Because of redistricting, campaign season has been hot and heavy for months. Lately, though, I’ve been getting a lot of press releases sent as e-mail attachments. I say this every two years, and my hectoring has done some good, so I’ll repeat myself: Please,don’t do that. Attachments are needlessly time consuming, and if I’m not particularly interested in your race, or your headline isn’t all that appealing, I might not even download your doc-x or pdf file.
Just paste the text into the body of an e-mail message if you don’t have the technology to use html in your missives. I swear I won’t criticize you for plain text campaign e-mails. Promise. Word of honor.
Thanks.
* Meanwhile, I took a mild shot at Treasurer Dan Rutherford yesterday, mentioning that he might want to spend more time in the office after looking at his extensively detailed Twitter feed and noticing a recent news report about another administrative problem at his office. About seven o’clock last night, Rutherford sent out a string of Tweets…
Anyone that would not like to receive my Tweets should remove themselves as a Follower. Remember, you opted in!
There are obviously thousands that want to follow my Tweets because our Followers continue to grow.
Home after a few days at Chicago office and on the road with Cash Dash.
Scores of people found they had money coming from our Unclaimed Property program, even the Crystal Lake school district had $14,500!!!
First 9 months last year Treasurer returned $60 million to people, because of extra efforts in marketing we returned $72 million in 9 months
* Leave it to a Metro East trial lawyer to sue Facebook…
Illinois Facebook users won’t “like” that the social media website is keeping track of the websites they visit, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court.
Edwardsville lawyer Mark Goldenberg alleges that Facebook violated Illinois’ Wiretap Act when it tracked, collected and stored users’ Internet browsing history, even when they weren’t logged onto Facebook. […]
“Facebook should reasonably anticipate being hauled into court in Illinois to answer for its unlawful acts,” the lawsuit stated. “Illinois has a strong interest in providing a forum for its residents aggrieved by violations of the law.”
The Facebook suit is filed on behalf of Dana Howard — who is also listed as the plaintiff’s on Goldenberg’s lawsuit against Morgan Stanley. That case settled.
The Hill reports that Thursday Americans for Prosperity held a press conference to announce targeting 40 Congress members who, AFP says, have indicated they could vote for a tax increase if the supercommittee recommends it happen. Among those listed is Congressman Robert Dold (IL-10).
Republican lawmakers on the supercommittee have put down a proposal that would raise at least $250 billion in new net tax revenues. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the supercommittee chairman, said Wednesday he could go further if Democrats offered more on entitlement spending cuts.
* The explanation makes some sense, but that rate increase will rightly make for scary headlines…
Unemployment in Illinois rose in October for a sixth straight month, inching up to 10.1%, even as the state added 30,000 jobs, the Illinois Department of Employment Security said today.
The statewide jobless rate was 10% in September, the first time it reached double digits since August 2010.
The unemployment rate in Illinois is now more than a full percentage point above the national rate, which slipped to 9% last month, suggesting that the state’s recovery from the Great Recession is lagging much of the country. The U.S. rate has hovered between 9% and 9.2% since April.
The Illinois agency said the simultaneous increase in jobs and the unemployment rate could suggest that more residents feel optimistic about finding work and a re-energizing their job search, which is reflected in a higher unemployment rate.
As in most past months, “government” led all job loss categories, with 600 terminations. Governments in Illinois shed 10,500 jobs in the last year. That’s three times more than the second place finisher, “Information” employment.
Gov. John Kasich said yesterday that he spoke with Louis D’Ambrosio, chief executive officer of Sears Holdings Corp., on Wednesday in an ongoing attempt to lure the Sears headquarters from Illinois to Columbus.
Although Kasich reiterated that he doubts Sears will leave suburban Chicago, he has learned that Ohio, Texas and Illinois are the three finalists in the running to land Sears. The company had received proposals from 19 states.
“You know what he told me?” Kasich said, referring to D’Ambrosio. “He said ‘the presentation that your folks have made for us has been stunning. They have been so good, and so creative, and so ahead of the curve that it’s down to three (states).’ ”
llinois is trying to persuade Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest construction and mining- equipment maker, that its home state is the best location to build a factory that will employ more than 1,000 people.
“We have reached out to them and we will continue our discussions,” Marcelyn Love, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, said Nov. 15 in a telephone interview. “We want to continue our relationship with them as well as to strengthen the Illinois economy.”
Hackers gained remote access into the control system of the city water utility in Springfield, Illinois, last week and destroyed a pump, according to a report released by a state fusion center and obtained by a security expert.
The hackers were discovered on Nov. 8 when a water district employee noticed problems in the city’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA). The system kept turning on and off, resulting in the burnout of a water pump.
Forensic evidence indicates that the hackers may have been in the system as early as September, according to the “Public Water District Cyber Intrusion” report, released by the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center on November 10.
“CWLP has not had any breach of its Water or Electric Department Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems,” the utility said in a statement issued this morning.
To pull off video gaming, [Illinois Gaming Board Chairman Aaron Jaffe] said the board will have to hire many more investigators to handle licensing for all the people involved, from machine manufacturers and distributors to the establishments where the terminals would be located to repair people.
The Lottery already has a statewide network that video gaming could use, and it seems to work fine.
*1997: 14 new casino licenses, including two licenses for Chicago that would be city-owned; slot machines at racetracks and dockside gambling. Allowing casinos to dock instead of taking gambling cruises eventually became law.
* 1999: Three new riverboat casinos would be authorized to operate anywhere in the state, including Cook County, dockside gambling.
* 2003: Separate proposals would allow slots at racetracks; increase the number of gaming positions at current casinos; create casinos for Chicago and the south suburbs; legalize 47,000 video poker machines.
* 2005: Various proposals included increasing the number of gaming positions at casinos; giving Chicago a casino, authorizing two other casinos in the suburbs, allowing slot machines at racetracks, legalizing video poker
* 2008: To pay for a capital plan, Gov. Rod Blagojevich proposed three new casino licenses, including one in Chicago; selling the then-unused 10th license; allowing existing casinos to expand; and allowing slot machines at the tracks; and leasing the state lottery.
* And a national search could begin soon to replace Arlene Juracek at the Illinois Power Agency…
Arlene Juracek will remain acting director of the Illinois Power Agency for now, but the state Executive Ethics Commission is expected to conduct a nationwide job search that could lead to replacing the retired Exelon executive whose appointment last month by Governor Pat Quinn has stirred controversy.
Quinn, a Democrat, tapped Juracek to replace Mark Pruitt, who had been the IPA’s only director since its inception in 2008. Though tiny, the agency wields disproportionate clout through its procurement of power for the state’s two largest electric utilities — Commonwealth Edison, an Exelon subsidiary, and Ameren Illinois.
Indeed, Juracek’s longtime association with Exelon raised the eyebrows of some consumer advocates who questioned whether her selection posed a potential conflict of interest. Juracek’s appointment has yet to be confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Illinois Senate.
The General Assembly recently stripped Quinn of control over the IPA, placing the agency in the hands of the non-partisan ethics commission.
Last week, the House of Representatives, where Democrats also hold a majority, passed amended legislation that limits acting IPA directors to 60-day terms. The measure has not been approved by the Senate, however.
Chad Fornoff, executive director of the nine-member commission, said in a Monday interview that Juracek will continue in her current IPA capacity for the foreseeable future. “Unless and until the commission rescinds her appointment, she’s in the job,” he said.
But Fornoff acknowledged commission members appear interested in mounting a broad search for a permanent IPA director.
* Related and a roundup…
* ADDED: Occupy Chicago Holds Bread Line To Protest Tax Breaks for CME, other corporations
* Chicago-area coal plant to shut down earlier than expected - State Line Power Station to close by March instead of 2014
* Waiting for Emanuel on Pension Overhaul: “At this point, we have not had a lot of engagement from the mayor, so I think that’s good,” Cross told the Chicago News Cooperative.
* Businesses penalized for state unemployment insurance debt: But relief for employers in Illinois won’t come until the state actually issues the bond, probably sometime in 2012. So for companies in Illinois, just as in the other 19 other states facing a similar predicament, higher taxes will kick in next year whether the state passes legislation or not. The federal law governing unemployment loans to states has an automatic repayment process for those that fail to pay back their loans within a certain time. The most recent deadline was November 10.
The private voting booth seems natural to today’s voters. But to bygone generations, casting one’s ballot publicly seemed the obvious approach. How could citizens trust the ultimate tally if they couldn’t monitor the individual inputs? Alas, transparency had an unintended consequence: it made vote-buying easy. If John Smith offered George Cooper a barrel of whiskey to vote for Sam Brown, he could verify that he was getting his money’s worth. Under a secret ballot, he could still offer the barrel of whiskey. But it made no sense: what incentive did George have to keep his word if he secretly supported another candidate? Vote buying became difficult.
In an intriguing paper published at Yale Law School more than a decade ago, Ian Ayres and Jeremy Bulow argued that the same logic applies to campaign contributions. Presently, our intuition is that transparency and disclosure are the best policies. But what if, like our counterparts in early America, we’re just enabling a kind of vote buying, whereby legislators know exactly who is bankrolling their campaigns, and skewer their behavior toward special interests as a result? What if less transparency would be as effective for us as it was for them? […]
There is an obvious objection. It was reasonably simple to implement a secret ballot. But campaign contributions? What if it proved impossible to actually keep their provenance secret? What’s to stop me from whispering to Joe Legislator, “You’re going to see $10,000 show up in your campaign account a week from now. It’s from me.” That would be the worst of all worlds: gone would be the transparency of the current system, and politicians would still know who to keep happy!
After studying the issue, however, Larry Lessig concludes in his essential book Republic, Lost that anonymity is in fact possible to maintain. Citing “Voting with Dollars: A New Paradigm for Campaign Finance” by Bruce Ackerman and Ian Ayres, he writes that “the two critical elements are, first, an anonymous donation booth, which takes in contributions and then divides those contributions into random amounts, which it then passes along to the candidates;” that solves the “expect this amount on this day” problem; “and two, the right to revoke any contribution once made. It is this second element that does most of the work: for even if you watched me make the contribution to your campaign, I would still have an opportunity to revoke that contribution the next day. Once again, you’re free to trust me when I say I haven’t revoked it. But just as with vote buying, the need for trust will severely weaken the market.” […]
Lessig points to one failed experiment of this sort. In Dade County, Florida, a blind trust was set up to fund judicial elections. “The funds were solicited from all practicing members of the bar in Dade County, and the funds were distributed on a pro-rata basis to each ‘qualified’ judicial candidate in the county,” he writes. “The trust failed soon after it was adopted due to (i) a lack of attorney participation (donations), and (ii) criticism that the fund distributed funds to all qualified judicial candidates, thereby disallowing attorneys from directing contributions to particular candidates.” That confounding variable is unfortunate. I’d be curious to know what would’ve happened if the anonymous donations could’ve been directed to particular candidates.
* The Question: What do you think of this idea to keep campaign contributions secret? Would it work here? Should it be tried on a limited basis? Explain.
In a filing late Thursday, federal prosecutors argued against a new trial for Springfield power broker William Cellini amid revelations that a juror who helped convict him earlier this month apparently concealed her felony criminal background during jury selection.
In the 25-page filing, the government said Cellini couldn’t prove that the juror’s prior convictions were deliberately concealed or that the court would have excluded her if she provided accurate responses. […]
“Although (name redacted) appears to have two felony convictions, she was sentenced to probation for both, and her probationary sentences terminated over a year before the trial in this case. As such, her civil rights were restored under Illinois law, and (name redacted) was eligible to serve as a juror in this case.”
The prosecutors hope that the judge’s decision will revolve around whether the juror deliberately concealed her convictions or not. If it was an honest mistake, prosecutors say, it’s no big deal. The defense disagrees.
* And it’s been obvious for years that John Kass has had it in for Cellini, but this is a bit much, if you ask me…
But first, let me tell you what my friend Deuce and I did the other day. We went looking for that Cellini juror.
The one who apparently lied about her multiple felony convictions — a DUI and possession of crack cocaine — and by doing so may have screwed up Illinois’ most important political corruption case in years: The successful prosecution of a political untouchable, Illinois Republican boss William Cellini, the multimillionaire who spent decades in the shadows, undetected at the center of the Combine’s web.
Out in that juror’s neighborhood, it was getting dark but still bright enough so the man in her apartment could see us and buzz us in. A little boy stood out on the landing, waiting, and then the older gentleman wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey came out.
“She’s not here,” said the man in Hawks colors. His cellphone started to ring, and Deuce asked for his number.
“No,” he said. “I don’t roll like that.”
It was dinnertime. I figured she was behind that door. Just then the boy stepped back out. He said something about the Cellini juror who is believed to have hidden her felony convictions.
“She’s afraid,” he said.
She has nothing to be afraid of, I lied. Don’t worry, I told him. Then we left.
It’s hard to believe an editor signed off on such threatening nonsense. And he had to bring a wingman? I thought Kass was supposed to be a tough guy.
Friday, Nov 18, 2011 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Three different times, the Illinois legislature has rejected a proposal put forward by out-of-state energy company Tenaska to build the Taylorville Energy Center. This “clean coal” plant would leave Illinois families, businesses and government agencies paying up to SEVEN TIMES today’s market price for electricity.
When the legislature meets November 29, Tenaska will try once again to get Illinois consumers to foot the bill for their coal plant, which Illinois doesn’t need.
• The Taylorville Energy Center would cost Illinois electricity consumers $286 million per year.
• Illinois businesses and industry would bear the risks and absorb most cost overruns, making it harder to create jobs.
• Tenaska wants Illinois consumers to pay even if the Taylorville Energy Center never produces more than a single megawatt of power.
• The plant would add only two-tenths of one percent to the overall amount of power generation capacity available to Illinois
Paul Caprio, Director of Family-Pac, Illinois’ leading pro-family political action committee, today accused Governor Quinn of attempting to intentionally hide his pro-choice, abortion on demand position from many Catholics last fall.
Said Caprio, “Governor Quinn has repeatedly stated that he has simply followed his ‘conscience’ relative to his support and promotion of the pro-abortion agenda, including his recent involvement in a lunch sponsored by Personal PAC.
“If that were true, why did he refuse to complete a questionnaire which he received last October from the Catholic Conference of Illinois regarding the issue of abortion and other social issues of importance to Catholics?” (See attached.)
The purpose of the questionnaire was to distribute information to Catholic parishes across Illinois so that Catholics could be better informed on important issues before voting.
Said Caprio, “Why did Quinn not want many of Illinois’ Catholics to be aware of his opposition to the Ultrasound Opportunity Act before they voted last November?
“Did Quinn truly follow his ‘conscience,’ or did he follow the money…that is, the $500,000 that Personal PAC has reported to have donated to his campaign?
Gov. Pat Quinn’s ongoing dispute with the Catholic Church is showing no signs of stopping after Cardinal Francis George sent him a letter this week requesting a face-to-face meeting to discuss his support of abortion rights and civil unions for same-sex couples.
Quinn received the letter from the state’s six Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday, which asked for a meeting with the practicing Catholic to talk about a number of topics, “the first being your personal approval of laws permitting the killing of unborn children.”
“We would like to discuss with you, both as fellow citizens and as pastors of your Church, how you and we should position ourselves publicly on this issue so you may be true to your responsibility as Governor as we may remain true to ours as bishops,” the letter said.
Quinn revealed the correspondence shortly after presenting an award at the Personal PAC annual luncheon Thursday afternoon, which honors those who have worked to support the pro-choice group. George had previously attacked Quinn for his involvement in the gathering, but later apologized after learning Quinn was honoring Jennie Goodman, a rape victim turned advocate.
Quinn did not shy from his religion at Thursday’s luncheon where some $400,000 to $500,000 was raised to fund candidates who support abortion rights. Quinn even quoted the Bible in explaining why he agreed to present the award to Goodman, who now counsels rape victims.
“I think the essence of my faith is service,” Quinn said. “Service to others is the rent we pay for our place on God’s earth. Martin Luther King said everyone can be great because everyone can serve. … Jennie has found that ethic of service.”
Quinn gave Goodman a big hug to thunderous applause. Goodman starred in a television commercial Personal PAC spent $250,000 airing in the final days of the campaign for governor, helping Quinn eke out a narrow victory over anti-abortion Republican Bill Brady.
“You took a lot of heat over giving me this award, and I hope you know I was by your side cheering you on,” Goodman told Quinn.
Had Brady won, “he would be signing one anti-abortion bill after another,” Personal PAC Executive Director Terry Cosgrove told attendees. Cosgrove praised Quinn, saying “He stands up for what he believes in.” Turning to Quinn, Cosgrove shouted down to him, “Governor, I think that’s the Irish Catholic in us, isn’t it?”
The governor said he had offered to meet Cardinal Francis George and a dozen other Illinois bishops on Dec. 16 here in Chicago. He added that he planned to salute the Church for its school system - noting that he himself is the product of 16 years of Catholic education.
The bishops’ letter concluded by noting their concerns include the “life and well-being of the poor… the fair delivery of health care…aid to children in Catholic schools” and other issues affecting the common good.
Most striking though, is their concern that in light of recent gay rights legislation, “we may be penalized as a ‘discriminatory’ institution because we follow our consciences and the 2,000 year tradition and teaching of the Catholic Church.”
Illinois will owe $1 billion more to its pension funds next fiscal year as smaller employee contributions kick in, according to projections released this week by state actuaries.
The 19 percent increase in obligations, to $5.9 billion from $4.9 billion in fiscal 2012, wasn’t anticipated by budget officials when they presented the current plan in February. The higher cost to Illinois’s five retirement funds risks deepening a budget hole as lawmakers consider tax breaks for businesses threatening to leave the state.
* That billion dollars will take a huge bite out of the budget, but so will other stuff…
“Medicaid’s going to grow by $700 million or $800 million,” said House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, in an interview. “Now pensions are at $1 billion, and then you’ve got unpaid Medicaid bills. This year’s budget is going to be a very, very difficult one to balance.”
About $133 million of SURS’s increased request is because it assumes its future payroll growth will be less than previously anticipated. SURS believes its payroll will increase an average of 3.75 percent annually, instead of the previously assumed 5 percent. […]
Another $105 million of SURS’s increased request is because of a 2010 law establishing a two-tiered pension system. Workers who started after Jan. 1, 2011, receive lower benefits than those who started before that date. That law also capped the maximum salary on which a pension can be based at $106,800 annually.
Cross said the new amounts provided by the systems bolster his case that the state’s pension systems need to be reformed, but he conceded that his legislation, Senate Bill 512, would provide no immediate relief.
“Over the last three decades or more, the proper investment was not made in these funds by governors and general assemblies of their time,” said Quinn, a Democrat. “They postponed payments, didn’t make payments, shorted payments, and the chickens are coming home to roost. We have to deal with that reality.”
He didn’t say how the state would make pension payments next year.
He didn’t say because he doesn’t know. A billion more for pensions, $800 million more for Medicaid, tax cuts on the table… Another disaster, campers.
* After yesterday’s successful test, it’s time to roll this out on a daily basis.
I quietly killed off our daily Morning Shorts posts about a year ago, and I’ve been thinking about how to replace the feature ever since, without all the drudgery of link gathering and bother. The ScribbleLive software is a huge improvement over Morning Shorts.
Not only do you get links to stuff we may not discuss elsewhere on the blog, ScribbleLive offers us instantaneous updates from numerous selected news feeds. You can literally watch the day’s events as they happen by simply monitoring this post throughout the day.
It’s kind of like 24-hour news radio without the audio or the ads (yet). And you don’t even need to refresh your screen.
* BlackBerry users click here, iPad and iPhone users remember to use the “two-finger” scrolling method. Enjoy…
