* Gen. Enyart puzzled some folks with his big National Guard retirement announcement followed by a press conference where he announced he hadn’t yet decided whether to toss his hat into the ring for the vacant slot created when Democrat Brad Harriman dropped out of the race to replace retiring Congressman Jerry Costello. But today, he finally made it official. From a press release…
Retired Major General William Enyart Announces Candidacy for Illinois 12th Congressional District
Major General William L. Enyart of Belleville, retired Adjutant General and former commander of the Illinois National Guard, announced today his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Illinois 12th Congressional District. Enyart cited his dedication to service and his deep ties and loyalty to Southern Illinois as his reasons for pursuing the nomination.
Enyart submitted his questionnaire today and released the following statement:
“Coming to Southern Illinois as a 19 year old enlisted airman, raising my own family here, and serving our community in the Illinois National Guard for the past 30 years has been an honor and a source of inspiration. Today I am proud to rise to the challenge before us and heed the call to serve by fighting for good jobs and a responsible way to reduce the deficit to build a strong middle class and protect the Southern Illinois way of life.
“This is a family decision, and I am honored and humbled to have the support of my wife Annette, our sons, James and Alex, and my daughter-in-law Tanya, as well as our friends and neighbors and the all folks who called and encouraged me to take this important step to serve Southern Illinois. I look forward to an open and transparent process as I seek the Democratic nomination.
“I believe that the next voice representing us in Washington must share Southern Illinois values of hard work, honesty and fairness. Too many folks here are worried about making ends meet, and the future of Southern Illinois is at stake. We need to make sure that there are good jobs for our families, Medicare for our seniors, and an economy that Southern Illinois families can have confidence in.”
Ten Democrats submitted their applications today, including Enyart. Whoever is picked will face Republican Jason Plummer this fall.
* That would be the rocker Joe Walsh, not the politician, of course…
“I’m the real Joe Walsh and I’m proud to back a real American success story — Tammy Duckworth,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer said in a statement endorsing the Democratic candidate in her bid to unseat the incumbent Republican who shares his name.
“Tammy’s story, her service to our nation and her continued commitment to working families (like the one I come from) have convinced me that she’s the right choice for Congress,” Walsh, guitarist for the Eagles, said.
Walsh, a six-time Grammy Award winner, grew up in Evanston and will perform a special concert in support of Duckworth on July 1 at John Barleycorn in Schaumburg. Tickets are available at www.tammyduckworth.com/WalshConcert.
Ticket prices range from: $100 for general admission; $500 for reserved seating up front; $1,000 for a reception with Walsh; and $2,500 for a photo-op and meet and greet with Walsh.
The title of the event: “A Private Concert and Evening with The Real Joe Walsh.”
* Sangamon County Judge John Schmidt has issued a landmark ruling against Champaign’s attempt to keep secret electronic communications sent by city council members on their private phones during public meetings…
In July 2011, News-Gazette reporter Patrick Wade asked the city for “all electronic communications, including cellphone text messages, sent and received by members of the city council and the mayor during city council meetings and study sessions since and including May 3.”
The city originally provided The News-Gazette with 24 pages of emails generated during city council meetings. But officials withheld the remainder of the documents, arguing that the correspondence is not public record if it exists on council members’ personal accounts and cellphones.
But last November, the [attorney general’s] public access counselor ruled that all communications regarding city business on officials’ personal devices is subject to public disclosure.
In Monday’s arguments before Schmidt, Laura Hall, an assistant city attorney for Champaign, contended the electronic messages were not public records because an individual city council member could not be construed as the entire council.
“You are not a public body by yourself,” she said.
But Esther Seitz, arguing for The News-Gazette, said that “a public body acts through its individual members.”
And Laura Bautista, an assistant attorney general, said that even if council members used their own cellphones to send an electronic message, you “can’t use a private device to shield yourself from your communication becoming public.”
Gov. Pat Quinn uses his private cellphone to conduct business, and has maintained that those communications are exempt from state FOIA laws. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has also refused to turn over his text messages related to city contracts. Extending Schmidt’s logic outward, far less info could be shielded from public view.
* The Question: Do you agree with Judge Schmidt’s decision? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. Thanks.
* Pat Quinn just about lost the Democratic primary because of a botched early release program for violent prison inmates. Quinn overreacted and shut down all early release programs in order to avoid being whacked for crimes committed by parolees. As a result, the prison population spiked upward in 2010 and 2011. The General Assembly has sent him a new bill that reinstates a long-standing early release program that Quinn killed with the now infamous “Meritorious Good Time Push” program. The governor demanded legislation before reinstating any early release plan, but he’s not saying yet whether he’ll sign it, although the betting is that he will…
Prisoner early release programs nearly cost Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn his job two years ago, so he stopped them. Now state lawmakers have sent him a measure that once again would let some nonviolent inmates out before their sentences are finished.
Republicans say it’s a Democratic attempt to provide Quinn with political cover, arguing the governor already has the power to launch an early-release program because his administration runs the Illinois Department of Corrections. If lawmakers set up the guidelines, Quinn could blame them if a freed inmate went on a crime spree, Republicans said.
“If someone is released and they are causing a terrible crime which occurs, it’s easy to blame the legislature,” said Republican Rep. Jim Durkin, a former prosecutor from Western Springs. “To a certain extent, that could be viewed as passing the buck.”
The Quinn administration is remaining mum on the bill, with a spokeswoman saying no other person than the governor will review it.
* The bill faced Republican opposition in the House, but it passed the Senate by a wide margin. However…
The early-release bill had an easier time passing the Senate. Even Sen. Brady, who blasted Quinn on early release during the governor’s campaign, voted for it.
Brady later said his vote was a mistake, that he meant to vote “no” because he thinks the bill gives the prisons chief too much discretion and violates the spirit of truth-of-sentencing guidelines that require a prisoner to serve most of his sentence.
“I didn’t see any merit in what they were expanding,” Brady said. “It just doesn’t smell right to me.”
* As Bill Cosby used to say, I told you that story so I can tell you this one. Ever since the MGT Push debacle, Quinn has been trying to boost his crime-fighting bonafides. As part of that effort, Quinn staged a big, splashy press conference yesterday with Chicago’s mayor and law enforcement to sign the state’s new RICO bill into law…
Local authorities now have the power to go after street gangs as criminal organizations under a new Illinois law.
Gov. Pat Quinn signed the Street Gang RICO Act on Monday.
The federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act doles out stiff penalties for acts performed as part of a criminal organization, like the Mafia.
The Illinois law applies the same idea to street gangs. It takes effect immediately.
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is a proponent. She says it’ll help prosecutors go after gang leaders instead of treating gang crimes as isolated events. Her office has started a new division for RICO cases. More than two dozen states have RICO laws.
They may say it’s just about street gangs, but it could be used for a whole lot more than that. From the statute…
(b) “Enterprise” includes:
(1) any partnership, corporation, association, business or charitable trust, or other legal entity; and (2) any group of individuals or other legal entities, or any combination thereof, associated in fact although not itself a legal entity. An association in fact must be held together by a common purpose of engaging in a course of conduct, and it may be associated together for purposes that are both legal and illegal. An association in fact must:
(A) have an ongoing organization or structure, either formal or informal; (B) the various members of the group must function as a continuing unit, even if the group changes membership by gaining or losing members over time; and (C) have an ascertainable structure distinct from that inherent in the conduct of a pattern of predicate activity.
However, opponents argue the law gives Illinois’ 102 county state attorneys too much power and leaves potential for abuse.
“The fear is that politically elected people can use it politically,’’ said state Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago Democrat, who voted present on the bill. He also said low-level gang members could get swept up in investigations and charged with harsher crimes. […]
The Chicago Crime Commission, a nonprofit organization that studies city crime, applauded the law and said it was long overdue. Arthur Bilek, the commission’s executive vice president, said there had been little evidence in other states of abuse of power on the part of prosecutors.
“The dangers are insignificant compared to the good that bill can bring by finally beginning to put away these vicious violent drug gangs that are really the new mafia of the United States,’’ he said
The Chicago Police Department said nearly 80 percent of the city’s homicides are gang-related. It also said there are approximately 100,000 Chicago street gang members.
The violence is nowhere near its historical peak of the early 1990s, when Chicago recorded roughly 900 homicides per year. But from Jan. 1 through late May there were 203 homicides, an increase of more than 50 percent over the 134 during the same period in 2011.
Just as important have been dramatic changes within the gangs themselves.
“In the past the gangs were very organized from the top down,” said Sgt. Matthew Little of the Chicago Police Department’s gang enforcement unit. As more gang leaders are arrested, convicted and sent to prison, the gangs they left behind have become “very splintered,” he said.
Young men on the city’s streets agree.
“There is no one to control this, so it has become haywire,” said Devon Tims, who identified himself as one of the Chicago Vice Lords, making him one of the city’s estimated 70,000 gang members.
* Gov. Pat Quinn hasn’t even signed the full budget into law yet, but working parents and seniors are already getting notices that they’re about to be cut off from health coverage…
More than 25,000 working parents in Illinois stand to lose their state-provided health coverage on July 1 - and most of them don’t know it yet.
State officials will eliminate their coverage in just three weeks as part of the $2.7 billion package of cuts and taxes the Legislature passed in May in an effort to save Illinois’ Medicaid program from possible collapse. But with the clock ticking, the state has just sent out notices to the Medicaid families who will be affected once Gov. Pat Quinn signs the bill, as he has promised to do. […]
The state agency responsible for Medicaid sent roughly 26,000 notices to parents losing coverage on Friday, an agency spokesman told The Associated Press. Other letters to seniors losing help with prescription drug costs are being mailed in batches this week, Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services spokesman Mike Claffey told the AP on Monday. […]
Illinois has little experience informing Medicaid patients they’re losing coverage. The program has had few eligibility limits imposed, and mostly the program has grown to cover more residents over the years. Last year, a new income limit was placed on state coverage for children covered by a program called All Kids. But, in that case, the Legislature gave a year before the 4,000 children already enrolled lost their coverage. Their families got many months’ advance notice.
Now, advocates are bracing for phone calls from Medicaid recipients who may have only a week or two to make backup plans. Clinics are rescheduling appointments for patients in the middle of treatment.
NOTICE OF TERMINATION OF ILLINOIS CARES RX BENEFIT
Dear Illinois Cares Rx Member:
We regret to inform you that the Illinois Cares Rx program is ending June 30, 2012. Due to Illinois state budget reductions, funding for the program is being eliminated. This means beginning July 1, 2012, Illinois Cares Rx will no longer help you pay for your prescription drugs and Medicare Part D plan premium. It is important that you contact your Medicare Part D prescription drug plan to find out what your premium and prescription drug costs will be beginning July 1, 2012. See page 4 for phone numbers for the Part D plans that were coordinating with Illinois Cares Rx.
* Gov. Pat Quinn got a little bit overzealous with his pats on the back yesterday…
What appeared to be intended as a pat on the back turned into a little bit more than Emanuel bargained for.
“Thank you for the hit in the back,” Emanuel said — Quinn flashing a devilish grin next to him. “Thank god I was holding the podium when you did that.”
The two men recently, reportedly got into a heated argument on the telephone over gambling legislation. Maybe this was Quinn’s way of getting him back? […]
McCarthy, tough guy that he is, invited Quinn’s masculine back-slap when it was his turn to be introduced.
“Did you hurt yourself,” McCarthy quipped to the governor.
* Ben Polak, chairman of the economics department at Yale University, and Peter K. Schott, professor of economics at the Yale School of Management…
There is something historically different about this recession and its aftermath: in the past, local government employment has been almost recession-proof. This time it’s not. Going back as long as the data have been collected (1955), with the one exception of the 1981 recession, local government employment continued to grow almost every month regardless of what the economy threw at it. But since the latest recession began, local government employment has fallen by 3 percent, and is still falling. In the equivalent period following the 1990 and 2001 recessions, local government employment grew 7.7 and 5.2 percent. Even following the 1981 recession, by this stage local government employment was up by 1.4 percent…
Without this hidden austerity program, the economy would look very different. If state and local governments had followed the pattern of the previous two recessions, they would have added 1.4 million to 1.9 million jobs and overall unemployment would be 7.0 to 7.3 percent instead of 8.2 percent.
In the graph atop this post, I ran the numbers on total government employment after the 1981, 1990, 2001 and 2008 recessions. I made government employment on the eve of the recession equal to “1,” so what you’re seeing is total change in the ensuing 54 months, which is how much time has elapsed since the start of this recession.
As you can see, government employment tends to rise during recessions, helping to cushion their impact. But with the exception of a spike when we hired temporary workers for the decennial census, it’s fallen sharply during this recession.
Note that a Republican was president after the 1981, 1990 and 2000 recessions. Public-sector austerity looks a lot better to conservatives when they’re out of power than when they’re in it.
* NBC 5 recently ran a nice little story about Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. and his Washington, DC office dog…
The political barking that echoes through Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s Washington, D.C. office even had a dog bark to match it.
In an effort to promote animal welfare awareness, Jackson Jr. took in Mocha, a 1-year-old foster pup, from the Washington Humane Society, as a “temporary staff member,” according to a press release.
“She’s brought nothing but love and affection to the office since her arrival,” Jackson said. “I can’t imagine Mocha spending her days in a shelter, mostly alone, hoping for a new home.”
* The accompanying photo…
* But look closer, over the Congressman’s right shoulder…
Hmm.
No harm, of course. I’ve had my share of adult beverages in legislative offices. More than my share, probably. I used to keep a bottle in my Statehouse office, but my office mate [***cough!JohnPatterson!cough!***] kept drinking it without me, so I stopped.
But this should serve as a reminder to the Congressman’s staff - and to everyone else out there - that you might want to move the hooch out of the shot the next time a photographer stops by.
* Kimberly Vertolli and Mark Kirk were divorced in 2009, before Kirk’s successful US Senate run. Vertolli has alternated between high praise and criticism of her former spouse ever since.
The public posturing culminated about the time that Vertolli sat down for a photo shoot with the Chicago Tribune this past April 27th, while Sen. Kirk was still in the hospital recovering from a stroke. The paper subsequently ran a story on May 29th about how Vertolli had filed an FEC complaint last November…
Soon after Mark Kirk’s ex-wife announced she would no longer support his 2010 run for the U.S. Senate, he brought her onto his campaign team, then quietly paid her after his victory.
But Kimberly Vertolli, a lawyer who received $40,000 from the campaign, again is at odds with her ex-husband, filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Kirk and his then-girlfriend may have broken campaign finance law.
But check out what Vertolli apparently did after she sat down with the Tribune and before the damaging article ran. Vertolli’s online activities indicate that she attended the 100th anniversary of the Congressional Club’s First Lady luncheon on May 9th. The Congressional Club is for congressional spouses. Yep. Almost three years after the divorce, and weeks after she dissed him to the Tribune, Vertolli Tweeted and crowed on Facebook about attending a spouse event with the First Lady and bringing along some gal pals.
None of this would have happened without the supreme generosity of Kimberly Vertolli, who opened her home to Leora, Marta and I (Marta is a physical therapist who drove all the way from Texas to attend), and took the three of us as her guests. Kimberly is a knock-out force herself.
* House Speaker Michael Madigan sent out a memo today announcing his appointments to the committee which will decide what punishment to mete out to indicted state Rep. Derrick Smith (D-Chicago)…
Pursuant to House Rule 94, I appoint the following to the House Select Committee on Discipline for the purposes of hearing charges against Representative Derrick Smith.
Representative Barbara Flynn Currie, Chair
Representative Edward Acevedo
Representative Greg Harris
Representative Al Riley
Representative Camille Lilly
Representative Kim du Buclet
These appointments are effective immediately.
The Republican appointments are expected soon. The House may very well have to come back to town this summer to vote on Smith’s punishment, which will likely be expulsion. It will take a two-thirds majority to expel Smith, who was arrested and later indicted for allegedly accepting a $7,000 cash bribe. A House committee on investigations decided last week that there was enough evidence to go ahead with the punishment phase.
Chicago Teachers Union officials revealed Monday that nearly 90 percent of their members have authorized a strike — giving them the largest such mandate in the union’s history.
The 89.73 percent vote to authorize a strike easukt surpassed the 75 percent margin required under a new state law — a margin that some backers of that law once considered virtually insurmountable.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* The education reforms passed by the General Assembly last year were mostly teachers’ union reforms. One of the most highlighted of those reforms was setting the strike authorization bar much higher for the Chicago Teachers’ Union. Well, the CTU surpassed that threshold, with some to spare…
A spokeswoman with the Chicago Teachers Union says the organization has “well surpassed” the 75 percent threshold to authorize a strike, with 100 percent of teachers and staff in some school networks throwing their support behind a possible strike.
Union spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin said the vote tally will allow the teachers union to call for a strike next fall if contract negotiations break down. While the union has not decided whether a strike will be needed, the authorization by its members will give the union added leverage at the bargaining table, Gadlin said.
The teachers union will discuss the details of the vote at a 1 p.m. press conference today at its downtown headquarters.
In a released statement this morning, Chicago Public Schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard accused union officials of pressuring their members to authorize a strike. The school district had urged the union to hold off on a strike authorization vote until an independent fact finder could complete his review of the two proposals and issue his recommendations next month.
The last Chicago teacher strike was in 1987.
The unions warned everyone that teachers went out on strike a whole lot more back when it was illegal. This time around, the higher bar apparently just made them more organized.
A new Chicago-only law backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Stand for Children and others switched the margin needed for any CTU strike authorization from a simple majority of all those who voted to 75 percent of all eligible CTU voters. That meant failure to vote amounted to a “no’’ vote. As a result, several schools reported 100 percent of their CTU members had cast ballots.
And although some have raised questions about the integrity of the CTU’s voting procedure, the number to be announced Monday will “lay to rest the question” of whether the CTU “got it legitimately. It’s not even close,’’ said one source.
The action defies predictions of one force behind the law that created the new threshold. Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children bragged last year that “the union cannot strike in Chicago. They will never be able to muster the 75 percent threshold needed to strike.’’
* For a moment, I thought I was reading the Tribune editorial page. But, no, it was just the Republican state convention…
“We are under the thumb of a controlling, vindictive, ethically challenged, self-serving leprechaun, and I mean no disrespect to leprechauns, Speaker Mike Madigan. He has spent the last 40 years in Springfield, making himself rich, trading on his position of trust,” said Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady, likening the state to a “Third-World republic like Venezuela.”
Brady went so far as to tell delegates that Madigan is the chief political pressure point for Republicans. He said that when supporters greet prospective voters, “You have to tell them that any vote for any Democrat in this state … is a vote for Mike Madigan, and that’s the message we have to drive home in the next 150 days.”
Still, Brady noted that Republicans have “gotten our brains knocked in at the polls” in recent years because the GOP lacks the army of Democratic ground troops built in Chicago and doesn’t have the support of organized labor.
Illinois House GOP leader Tom Cross said Madigan, a Southwest Side Democrat, “has his fingerprints on every problem we have with respect to our pension problems.” Lawmakers left Springfield last month without addressing the state’s $83 billion unfunded public employee pension liability.
* Actually, the Tribune was a bit more high-minded in its latest criticisms. No “leprechauns” here…
Is there a smoking gun in this crime scene, a small-caliber pocket pistol with a hot barrel? Of course not. Madigan is much too clever for that.
But what cannot be ignored is this implicit fact: The confluence of Madigan’s roles does not allow for clean lines. To suggest otherwise is pure fantasy. Watch the lobbyists, lawyers and consultants swing through the House speaker’s office door on any session day, many of whom hire his law firm to fight their property tax assessments or to provide “legal guidance.” You don’t need an ethics expert to deduce that something is very wrong in Illinois.
Legislative leaders who have private business interests should be required to disclose far more information about their moonlighting, so voters can judge what’s a conflict. (Senate President John Cullerton and House Republican leader Tom Cross have law practices, too. Senate GOP leader Christine Radogno does not.)
We could start with a list of clients and the nature of the business relationship — why firms are being hired. Voters deserve to know how much the firms are paid. Other outside sources of income should be fully disclosed, including investments and tax returns.
City of Chicago workers who earn more than $80,700 a year are required to list real estate investments, spousal relationships that overlap with city business and capital gains. The disclosure requirements for everyday city workers far exceed those of the state’s most powerful politicians. That’s absurd.
The sponsor of a bill that would allow Illinois residents to carry concealed handguns is waiting for a task force to finish its work before calling the legislation for a vote.
Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, said lawmakers want to hear what the Firearm Public Awareness Task Force will say about the impact concealed carry might have on public safety. The House created the task force after Phelps’ legislation, House Bill 148, was defeated.
The task force’s deadline is Dec. 31, but Phelps said he is ready to call the bill for a vote if the legislature holds a special session to consider pension legislation or the fall the veto session. […]
The chairman of the task force is Rep. LaShawn K. Ford, D-Chicago, who voted “present” on HB148. Ford did not return repeated calls asking for comment.
Maybe this task force will change some minds. Maybe not. The reality of the situation is that the NRA could’ve passed a bill that allowed counties to opt in, but it wanted the whole enchilada - meaning Chicago. That’ll be a tough sell, or at the least a very hard bargain with the city.
It went mostly unnoticed at the Statehouse, but Senate President John Cullerton pulled a neat little trick at the end of the spring legislative session and may end up getting what he wants this fall.
We’re going to get into some “insider” terminology and a few numbers, but it’s really not all that difficult so stay with me here.
Cullerton (D-Chicago) refused to advance a measure known as a “budget implementation bill,” or BIMP, that transferred millions of dollars into special state funds, transfers known as “trouts.” For instance, the legislation transfers $4 million from the state’s general revenue fund (which is like the state’s checking account) into the underground resources conservation fund.
All told, Cullerton wants to fish out about $200 million from the “trouts” and use the cash to satisfy his members’ demand that schools be given more money.
Education took a big hit in the House’s budget. Overall, the education budget was cut about $200 million. It would’ve been more, but the House found $50 million from refinancing savings and put that into schools.
Several Senate Democrats initially voted against the House’s education budget. Those “no” votes kept the bill from receiving a majority and set off a scramble that resulted in what appeared to be a face-saving gesture of higher taxes on satellite TV providers and offshore oil company profits. Both of those tax hikes passed the Senate on partisan roll calls but were never called in the House.
Ever so quietly, though, while the media was watching the tax hike bills, the Senate decided not to pass that BIMP bill. The goal is to pressure the House during the fall veto session to use that cash for education.
This is the same game plan that the Senate Democrats used last year to increase state spending after the House jammed its budget down their throats. It worked last year, and the Senate Dems say it’ll work again this year.
The trout maneuver shows pretty clearly that Cullerton didn’t get the props for the spring session that he deserved. He worked quietly behind the scenes to advance proposals that weren’t high on the media’s radar.
For instance, Cullerton got the Senate to OK a bill to reform two of the state’s five pension systems, those that cover legislators and state workers. That happened even though the House failed to pass any major pension reforms due to partisan bickering.
Cullerton, however, put together a structured roll call with the Senate GOP and moved the bill forward. The move barely received any notice in the spring session’s immediate aftermath.
Cullerton’s pension reform theory also won the day. House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) believed that the unions could negotiate pension changes for everyone in the system.
Cullerton, however, believed that workers and retirees needed to be given a choice between two pension systems to avoid violating the Illinois Constitution’s mandate that pension benefits “shall not be diminished.” In the end, Cullerton’s theory was adopted.
And while Cullerton was trying to put together the votes to pass the pension reform bill, Gov. Pat Quinn was busily doing horse-trading on a bill that had no chance.
The Quinn administration spent much of the last two days of the session vainly searching for votes to pass the so-called “management bill,” which would allow the governor to kick 1,900 state employees out of their union. The administration has fought hard for the proposal for two years straight. They passed it through the House but came up empty in the Senate.
Illinois government’s workforce is more unionized than any state in the country. Somewhere around 95 percent are in a union, including lots of management and political staff. The administration claims it’ll be 99 percent not far in the future if nothing is done.
Cullerton advanced the management bill out of committee, but a quick head count showed that it was nine votes shy of passage so he moved on to pension reform.
But Quinn kept trying to find votes for the management bill. Sen. Dave Koehler (D-Peoria) confirmed that the administration agreed not to close a halfway house in his district if he voted for the bill.
In the end, though, the governor could not come up with enough votes, and the bill was never called.
Quinn has received high praise for this session, but Cullerton deserves much credit as well.
* I’m not feeling well. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep. Now I’m beat, and kinda ill. I’m going back to bed for a while.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, known for his temper and willingness to go toe-to-toe, reportedly lost it with Gov. Pat Quinn in a recent phone call.
A political source with knowledge of the situation who declined to be named told Ward Room Emanuel is upset Quinn wants stronger ethics rules when it comes to gaming.
I was told by the governor’s office that “the real reason Mayor Emanuel got so angry was because the governor told him in no uncertain terms that he would not sign the gambling bill without ethics improvements.”
* The Question: Recreate the conversation. But do so without profanity. Yes, I know that’s almost impossible to do since we’re talking about Rahm Emanuel here, but try it anyway. Thanks.
And, finally, I told him he should probably go a bit easier on Gov. Pat Quinn in private. Emanuel got all up in Quinn’s face last year during a meeting over a Chicago casino and angrily issued some not-so-veiled threats.
Quinn’s favorite line when he feels disrespected is, “I’m the governor!” — usually bellowed when he’s pounding on a table.
He’s like Eddie Murphy’s character on the old “Saturday Night Live.” “I’m Gumby, damn it!”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, known for his temper and willingness to go toe-to-toe, reportedly lost it with Gov. Pat Quinn in a recent phone call.
A political source with knowledge of the situation who declined to be named told Ward Room Emanuel is upset Quinn wants stronger ethics rules when it comes to gaming.
I seriously doubt that was the real reason why he got so angry, but whatever.
* At that same sitdown, hizzoner and I talked music for a little while. We both love this band, so this one’s for Rahm…
* It’s Friday, so let’s talk about something besides politics.
The White Sox are in St. Louis next week to play the Cardinals. Instead of a question, how about we do some serious trash talking ahead of the three-game series? Cub fans are not allowed to comment.
Enjoy.
…Adding… With a hat tip to a commenter for reminding me, here’s a photo of a typical Cardinals fan…
* UIC Political Science Department chief Dick Simpson released a study earlier this year called “Chicago and Illinois, Leading the Pack in Corruption.” Simpson’s study ranked Chicago and Illinois as the most corrupt places in the nation. But a group called Integrity Florida has released a new study that only uses the last ten years of information, and that examination showed Florida was on top…
In February 2012, the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Political Science and the Illinois Integrity Initiative of the University of Illinois’ Institute for Government and Public Affairs released the report “Chicago and Illinois, Leading the Pack in Corruption.”
While that publication indicated that Florida was the fourth most corrupt state in the nation, the U.S.Department of Justice data examined was from 1976-2010. In the modern era (2000-2010), there has been an upward trend towards more federal public corruption convictions in Florida. Florida was the top state for federal public corruption convictions five times since 1999 (1999, 2000,2001, 2004 and 2006).
The state’s rapid rise to the top position in the nation in five of the last twelve years of available data provides new evidence that reforms are needed to reduce corruption in the Sunshine State.
The only states that came close to Florida’s record during the modern era were Texas and California (Texas in 2008, 2009 and 2010; California in 2003, 2005 and 2007).
2010 is the most recent data set of federal public corruption convictions from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The key measure of spending on elementary and secondary education would be cut by $210 million, or 3.1 percent. When reductions in federal funds are included, the reduction tops $855 million.
State government is supposed to ensure a basic amount of money is available for all students, whether they live in rich districts or poor ones. That foundation level for the coming year is $6,119, and the budget cuts would mean Illinois provides only 89 percent of that amount, down from 95 percent last year.
The number of children getting help from early childhood education programs will fall sharply. Nearly 7,000 children lost services in the last round of cuts, the State Board of Education says, and now the service is slated to lose an additional 7.6 percent of its funds.
This year , the state will help provide about 194 million free or low-cost lunches to needy children. That service faces a 45 percent cut next year.
This year, the budget demanded by the Illinois House cuts another $210 million from education, bringing the total shortchanging of our schools’ and students’ needs to more than a half-billion dollars. It means next year the state-aid payments might stop in May while students are still in school.
This is unacceptable.
Senate Bill 7, the reform package I helped negotiate last year, was approved 112-1 in the House, 54-0 in the Senate. You’d think this overwhelming majority would similarly demand the resources needed for success. Instead, I watched many of these so-called reformers turn their backs on our children and our public schools. In one vote the General Assembly puts teachers and administrators on notice that they need to perform to higher standards, only to turn around and repeatedly slash funding for their training and development.
Make no mistake, resources are available. The Senate twice put the spotlight on hundreds of millions of dollars in special state accounts that somehow annually escape scrutiny. It is time to make education funding the priority we all claim it should be.
The path we’re headed down dooms our hard-fought reforms and, more important, our children.
They deserve better. They deserve more.
The higher education budget was cut about 6 percent, or $152 million.
* The General Assembly cut education, but restored lots of funding to the prisons budget, keeping facilities open that Gov. Pat Quinn wanted to shutter. But despite those restorations, inmate halfway houses are still closing. The Fox Valley facility will shut down in August…
Gov. Pat Quinn still intends to close the Fox Valley Adult Transition Center in August despite receiving enough money from state lawmakers to keep the Aurora facility open.
The women’s transitional center on North Lake Street houses about 130 low-level offenders who work to get back into the community after being released from prison. The center provides education, counseling and workforce training.
In the budget sent to the governor last week, lawmakers gave Quinn $18.8 million to keep the Aurora facility and a number of similar centers across the state open.
Women housed at the Fox Valley ATC work to gain full-time jobs and also participate in GED and college classes, and receive counseling on life skills, child care, anger management and avoiding substance abuse.
* Meanwhile, layoffs are on temporary hold at Tamms…
Worker layoffs at Tamms prison are on hold for now. The supermax prison was slated for closure because of budget issues, but the General Assembly proposed a budget that could keep it open. Apparently the state layoff procedure started on Monday, but ended yesterday reportedly because of a mistake by Central Management Services. Governor Pat Quinn has the final say on whether to close the facility.
* And the Singer Mental Health Center is still on track for closure…
The fate of one of Rockford’s Mental Health Centers is still up in the air. Chris asked us on Facebook when the Singer Center might be forced to shut its doors.
Here’s what we found out: a final date hasn’t been set. Senator Dave Syverson tells us that Governor Quinn’s office must first decide what will happen to the patients there. The plan is to shut it down by this fall, but it could be closer to the end of the year before any action is taken.
* 13th Congressional Democratic nominee David Gill released a poll last month showing he was leading the Republicans who wanted to replace incumbent Congressman Tim Johnson on the ballot. His lead over the eventual choice, Rodney Davis, was 10 points, 41-31.
We Ask America is out with a new poll, however, which has a big Davis lead over the Democratic candidate…
Since our sample was evenly divided between the two parties and Independents, Gill is probably a point or so closer than this nine-point spread.
I’m not sure why the heck they would do that, but whatever. More…
Gill is well-known among a large portion of the Democratic base of IL-13 (especially in the Champaign-Urbana area) due to the fact that he won the Silver Medal in three out of the last three elections. Plus, Gill barely won the March Democratic primary in a real squeaker where he was not the Party’s Chosen One. His openly bitter post-primary attitude has left a lot of area Dems unimpressed. Those wounds may heal, but in the meantime, Davis has received a lot of earned media in the last month. Gill hasn’t had a real chance to “define” Davis yet, so this one is like trying to decide the winner of a horse race a few seconds after the gate opens.
Davis is out to an early lead, but expect Gill to go the whip sooner than later.
*** UPDATE *** Davis was just put into the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program. From a press release…
Rodney Davis, Republican candidate for the 13th Congressional District, has been named to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns” program. The program, founded by Reps. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and Paul Ryan (R-WI) in the 2007-2008 election cycle, is the primary method for recruiting strong candidates for open-seat races like the 13th District.
“Rodney Davis has met a series of rigorous goals that will put him in a position to win on Election Day,” said NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX). “The momentum behind his campaign is proof-positive that Americans are fed up with Nancy Pelosi policies that spend too much, tax too much, and borrow too much at the expense of hard-working Illinois families. Rodney Davis is leading the pack as Republicans continue to send a loud and clear message that we will hold Democrats accountable for their unpopular partisan agenda.”
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I want to say right off the bat without any hesitation or equivocation whatsoever that I happen to like prosecutors and cops. I respect and honor their difficult jobs. I couldn’t do what they do, so I’m glad they’re there for me and everyone else.
But as much as I revere them, as much as I respect them, I believe they’ve had far too much power over the state legislative process.
For instance, some very well-intentioned, decent people have been trying to pass a medical marijuana bill here for years. Law enforcement always stops it dead in its tracks. Why? Well, the answers range from “We’d be sending the wrong message to children,” to “marijuana is a bad thing.” And you can forget about trying to decriminalize or, heaven forbid, legalize marijuana possession.
For crying out loud, our last three presidents smoked pot, and their lives seemed to work out OK. But imagine if one of them had been busted for possessing a joint back in college. History would’ve been changed. Pot doesn’t usually kill political careers, but pot arrests sure do.
This spring, an attempt was made to finally put some teeth into the state Constitution’s protection of victims’ rights. Prosecutors were dead set against it. When Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez testified against the constitutional amendment, she couldn’t say exactly why she opposed it except to claim that parts of it were too vague. But she also couldn’t say what could be done to make the proposed language less vague.
The fight was over the rights of victims who’ve been shunted aside by the system. The Illinois Constitution guarantees that victims have a right to be notified of court proceedings, the right to speak at sentencing, the right to know when their attacker is being released from prison and the right to have an advocate present at all court proceedings, among other things.
What the Constitution doesn’t contain, though, is any recourse if those rights are denied. They specifically can’t appeal to a higher court, for instance. So their rights can be ignored and nothing happens.
Most prosecutors treat victims well, but some don’t, and that’s just a fact of life. Supporters of the constitutional amendment produced reams of letters from victims whose rights had been ignored. But prosecutors refused to negotiate a reasonable compromise, and the proposal died.
But the coppers may have finally overstepped when they fought a proposal to decriminalize audio recording of police in public areas. Right now, if you use your iPhone to video a cop being shot at by a crack dealer, you can be charged with a felony and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The police complained that citizens would be interfering with their jobs and worried that video and audio could be altered to make them look bad. But even after those complaints were dealt with, the police still stood firm against the bill. The House took the rare step of overriding police objections and passed the legislation, but it stalled in the Senate when the cops persuaded Sen. Michael Noland (D-Elgin) to sit on it. Noland said he believed the police ought to be able to videotape citizens pretty much at will and that the House-approved proposal would create “bad law.” His eventual counterproposal was literally laughed off the Senate floor when he tried to bring it up for a vote.
Law enforcement should most definitely be listened to whenever legislators address criminal matters. But no group, no matter how important or vital, should ever have automatic legislative veto power. Opposing that bill was a big mistake, but it may finally open the door to some much-needed balance between the rights of citizens and the powers of law enforcement.
