* I noticed something missing from my e-mail in-box today. When the Tribune disclosed that union leaders were getting public pensions for little actual public work, House Republican Leader Tom Cross’ office pounced with denunciations and pledges to pass legislation.
So far, though, nothing today from Leader Cross about how Illinois State University put dozens of people into the state university pension plan, including 40 employees of the Special Olympics Illinois, five employees of the Illinois Association of School Administrators, four employees of the Illinois Principals Association, the executive director of the Association of Illinois Middle-Grade Schools and two employees of the Illinois Association for Supervision of Curriculum Development. Not to mention all the retirees currently collecting pensions. Sheesh…
How do these leaders of private organizations get in? Because of Illinois State’s unilateral decision to label them university employees, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has found. Any person with that designation can participate in the State Universities Retirement System, known as SURS, and state law allows colleges and universities to make the determination.
Illinois State, a public university based in Normal with a history of teacher education, does not hire or supervise the employees on its rolls who work for the five nonprofit organizations. Nor does the school fund or determine their salaries. Instead, the groups funnel payroll and benefit payments to the university, which then writes paychecks to the employees and sends pension contributions to SURS.
Illinois State spokesman Jay Groves said the partnerships with the education associations “are all directly aligned with the goals and mission of this institution. It makes sense for us because we are the education leader in the state.” […]
About 40 Special Olympics employees are considered university employees, including Breen, who makes $120,000 a year.
“It is the system we have grown up in and been involved in, and it is such a huge benefit to both groups,” Breen said. “I am not trying to hide anything. I am not ashamed of the relationship. I am proud of the relationship. People will decide what needs to be done or what legislators need to do.” […]
Retired employees of these groups also are collecting benefits, but it’s difficult to track how many because their past employer is listed as Illinois State in SURS records.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. As respected as these groups are, it’s more than a little nuts to allow universities to decide on their own whether to include anyone in a publicly funded pension plan. How about a bill, Leader?
Between 2007 and 2010, drunken driving arrests fell 16 percent, and the number of fatalities from alcohol-related crashes dropped 33 percent, according to figures from state police and the Illinois Department of Transportation. Fatalities this year have fallen even further in preliminary reports, to less than half of what they were just three years ago.
Anti-drunken driving advocates maintain the decrease is tied not just to societal shifts but to the strengthening of DUI laws and their enforcement. Other observers point to the economic downturn that has resulted in fewer people going out drinking.
“What’s the one thing that’s happened in the last three or four years that’s common to everyone? It’s the economy, stupid,” said Don Ramsell, a Wheaton attorney whose reputation defending DUI suspects has prompted the nickname “DUI Don.”
The state smoking ban went into effect on January 1, 2008. Since then, many smokers I know have stayed home rather than go out so much.
I’m not saying this is the only reason, but I think it’s one of them, and an important one at that.
Though Team Emanuel says the new board members are charged with reforming the sports authority, insiders think their ultimate mission will be much bigger, such as reviving Mr. Thompson’s plan of a few years ago to buy or otherwise finance the rebuilding of Wrigley Field.
[Former Senate President Emil Jones, the new board chairman] wants to do it. “Wrigley Field is Chicago,” as he puts it. “If we can do something to help . . . .” Chicago attorney and ISFA board member Manny Sanchez terms it “something that is likely to come up on our agenda.” And Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, as recently as when I talked to him last week, says he still believes in a public role—when the time is right.
What’s missing? Emil Jones is a Cub fan. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Lots of black South Siders of a certain age grew up hating the White Sox because Sox fans were not exactly the most, um, racially open-minded folks on the planet. He’s gonna do what he can for his team.
* And I’m not sure if anything is missing from this pretty comprehensive story about everything that was accomplished by the General Assembly in 2011, but maybe you can read it and see if they skipped over something.
* I’m creating a new award to honor the memory of the late Rep. Mark Beaubien. The Platinum Lifetime Service award for the General Assembly is posthumously given to Mark. Commenter “Oswego Willy” sums him up well…
His service to his district, his caucus and his state make this a deserving nomination. Many times we all say someone can not be replaced. This is one of the rare occasions that it’s too true.
* The Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Republican State Representative goes to Rep. Skip Saviano. He not only had the most intense nominations, but he also had the highest number of nominations by far. Commenter “eddy” gushed…
There is no question just how hard this man works for his consituents, his support for business and labor groups. He participates in negotiations and gets things done.
Tell me who, in the Capitol and in this state does not go to Skip for any type of problem or issue?
Nobody, that’s who. The man is a perpetual motion machine.
* Runner-up is Rep. Ed Sullivan…
Partisan but comfortable crossing the aisle to logically discuss matters. Understands district realities and their impact on voting allowing divisions to not be personal.
* I pondered the Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Democratic State Representative all morning and finally gave up. It’s a tie. Rep. John Bradley…
John Bradley. Risen in the ranks and in the estimation of colleagues and those who work with him on dicey issues. Smart, direct, almost scary in ability to stay focused.
* And Rep. Frank Mautino…
When you need to get something done and you want a guy smart enough to get it and hard working enough to work through institutional obstacles, Frank’s your guy.
Both of those gentlemen repeatedly showed their worth this year. I just couldn’t pick a favorite, so they’ll have to share.
* On to today’s nominations. We’re running out of time, so let’s do three today…
* The Steve Brown Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Government Spokesperson. Speaker Madigan’s spokesman won this thing so much that we had to name it after him.
* Best state agency director
* Best statewide officeholder
Please, nominate in all three categories. And remember to explain your nomination. Just posting somebody’s name will not work because I’ll ignore you. It’s about intensity, my friends, not just numbers.
* A Wall Street Journal editor named Allysia Finley manufactured a nasty little hit piece about Illinois over the weekend…
‘Why would anyone want to live in Illinois?” So muses Curt Wooters, who works for the state and helps his dad run the family’s sporting-goods store in Findlay, 200 miles south of Chicago. Imagine California without the sunshine, New York without the cultural elan, New Jersey without Chris Christie. That’s Illinois.
Mr. Wooters has another five years before he can retire, but he’s advising his kids to leave the state after college. He’s also talked with his dad about closing their shop because it costs too much to run a business in Illinois these days. Plus, “the customers are leaving town.”
Now two downstate Republican lawmakers think that they’ve found a solution for Mr. Wooters and other disgruntled Illinoisans who want to escape but can’t: Cut off the pesky tail that’s wagging the dog—separate Chicago from the rest of the state.
That’s the legislative initiative of State Reps. Adam Brown and Bill Mitchell, who think politicians from the Windy City have blown the state too far left. “At every town-hall meeting I hear, ‘Can’t we separate from Chicago?’” says Mr. Mitchell. […]
…as Mr. Wooters says, a lot “of the money that we have down here goes up there to bail out Chicago.”
* Why do I use the word “manufactured”? Because this was a setup from the beginning. I’m told that the WSJ editor called one of the resolution’s sponsors last week and asked if he could help her find somebody to quote.
You’d think that if this resolution was as popular as Rep. Mitchell claims it is, he could’ve found dozens of people to spill their guts about why they hate Cook County.
Instead, Ms. Finley was apparently sent somebody who could be relied upon to supply the sort of quotes that she wanted. And they came up with a politically active state employee whose wife works for Rep. Mitchell. I kid you not.
* Curtis E. Wooters works for the Illinois Department of Corrections as a stationary engineer at an annual salary of $112,000. I think that might answer his question about why anyone would want to live here. Also, I would assume that if Chicago and Cook County were to split off into a separate state, they’d want to build their own prisons, which would mean lots of highly-paid Downstate Corrections’ employees would be out of jobs. But he was never asked about those holes in his arguments because that wouldn’t suit the WSJ’s Finley.
There’s also a Melissa Wooters of Findlay, IL listed who works for the Illinois House of Representatives. She makes $32,440.16 a year working for Rep. Bill Mitchell, the resolution’s main sponsor. Ms. Wooters is, I’m told, married to Curtis Wooters.
And a Curtis E. Wooters of Findlay filed an objection to the petitions submitted by Rep. Adam Brown’s opponent. Rep. Brown is a co-sponsor of the secession legislation. Curtis E. Wooters, it turns out, is a Republican precinct committeeman…
The State Board of Elections is reporting 139 challenges to various judicial and legislative candidate petitions around Illinois, but only one was in East Central Illinois.
Rob Roman of Chrisman, who is running against state Rep. Adam Brown, R-Decatur, in the new 102nd House District, had his candidate petitions challenged by Curtis Wooters and Bruce Cannon, both of Findlay and both of whom are GOP precinct committeemen in Shelby County. Cannon also is chairman of the Shelby County Board.
John Fogarty, a Chicago attorney who is affiliated with House Minority Leader Tom Cross, had reviewed Roman’s petitions last month.
Thirteen applicants, three of them from Macon County, are seeking the appointment to the 51st Illinois Senate District seat left vacant by the retirement Monday of Greenville Republican Frank Watson. […]
Other applicants are Melissa Wooters…
So, the couple has a combined household income of over $144,000 a year, supplied by the taxpayers of all Illinois counties, including Cook, but the husband wants Cook gone and wants everybody to leave Illinois if he doesn’t get what he wants. Hey, that’s his right. I have no problem with his beliefs, no matter how contradictory. It’s Finley I have a problem with.
* Come to think of it, this is almost comical. It’s lazy quote shopping run amok. But, of course, it’s the bad ol’ bloggers we have to worry about because bloggers have no editors. Finley is an editor at the Wall Street Journal, and this is the crud we get. Garbage in, garbage out as they say.
Ms. Finley kinda sorta tried to redeem herself at the end of her column by saying that the Republicans ought to focus on winning the suburbs. But what she doesn’t say is that resolutions like this aimed directly at Cook County will only reinforce the suburban notion that Downstaters can be more than a little odd.
* Also, speaking of that resolution, Reps. Mitchell and Brown have just two co-sponsors for their legislation, even though it was introduced about a month ago. The two House members are getting lots of state and national media coverage for what is obviously little more than a stunt. And James Krohe makes a good point at the end of his most recent column…
Demonizing Chicago saves our Mr. Mitchells from coming to terms with an awkward truth, namely that it is not Cook County pols who don’t know how to govern Illinois. It is Illinoisans.
* This seems like pretty weak sauce to me, but when your client was just sentenced to 14 years in prison, you’ll take what you can get…
Attorneys for Rod Blagojevich claim the Naperville jury forewoman who helped convict the ex-governor engaged in misconduct for showing copies of her juror questionnaire to students at Metea Valley High School in Aurora.
In an emergency motion filed Friday, Blagojevich’s defense team called for an evidentiary hearing to determine if court rules were broken by Connie Wilson, who addressed about 300 government students on Tuesday. And if so, “her violations must result in a new trial,” attorneys wrote.
The motion cites a Dec. 13 Daily Herald article and Dec. 16 Naperville Patch report of Wilson’s appearance at Metea in which she showed copies of her jury summons and questionnaire.
Defense lawyers say they were told that information would remain confidential.
[Former federal prosecutor Gil Soffer] said it was a “desperate” move and not likely to work.
* The hearing is scheduled for 10 o’clock this morning. The ScribbleLive thingy is set up and ready to go. BlackBerry users click here everybody else can just watch as it happens…
“It was a nice meeting, the bishops of Illinois talking to the governor, who is a member of our church, but it was a pastoral meeting,” George said after the encounter. “We shared some concerns on both sides. It was a friendly and an open meeting. But it was pastoral, so it was on faith and conscience and the way in which the Church engages in public life for the common good.”
* Early Saturday afternoon, though, Abdon Pallasch at the Chicago Sun-Times ran this item…
Gov. Pat Quinn said Saturday that he had a productive meeting with Cardinal George and nine other Catholic bishops from around Illinois Friday. There was only “a little bit” of talk of Quinn¹s position in favor of abortion rights and of the gay rights law that has been interpreted to mean Catholic Charities must get out of the adoption business because it won’t work with gay couples, Quinn said.
Most of the two-hour meeting focused on where Quinn and the bishops can work together to fight poverty, Quinn said. “A lot of the discussion was how we could work together to fight poverty; help the people who are less fortunate and need a helping hand,” Quinn said as he left a Christmas toy give-away on the Far South Side.
Did the bishops and Quinn discuss any ideas for allowing the church to continue its role in helping get children adopted? Quinn said the church has to partner with agencies that will work with gay couples. […]
But the dialogue on that issue was “brief,” Quinn said. “There wasn’t a long discussion about that.” […]
Again, he emphasized there was just “a little bit” of discussion on abortion during the two-hour meeting Friday at the Union League Club.
According to confidential sources of the Rainbow Sash Movement the meeting was full of tension. Cardinal George calmly told the Governor that it was his hope that the Governor would no longer speak out as a public Catholic unless he is in agreement with the Bishops on controversial issues. The Governor sat quietly and respectfully listened to Cardinal George, but then told the Cardinal that he was the Governor of all the people of Illinois, and that he will speak out for all the people of Illinois and not just the Catholic position.
* There’s no link to the first Sun-Times story posted above because it was taken down later in the day and replaced it with a new one. The bishops were not happy…
Gov. Pat Quinn apparently did not understand that when he met with Illinois’ Catholic bishops Friday, they were taking him out to the woodshed. […]
But after reading Quinn’s comments posted on the Sun-Times website Saturday, the bishops that met with Quinn issued a written statement saying Quinn characterized the meeting wrong: The primary purpose of the sit-down, they said, was to admonish the governor for using his Catholic up-bringing to justify views that they say aren’t supported by the church. It was the second time in the past two months the bishops have issued a statement blasting the Catholic governor.
“We share the Governor’s concern for the poor,” they wrote. “From our point of view, however, this was a meeting between pastors and a member of the Church to discuss the principles of faith, not the works of faith. On several occasions, the Governor has referred to his Catholic conscience and faith as the justification for certain political decisions.”
The letter continued: “As Catholic pastors, we wanted to remind the Governor that conscience, while always free, is properly formed in harmony with the tradition of the Church, as defined by Scripture and authentic teaching authority. A personal conscience that is not consistent with authentic Catholic teaching is not a Catholic conscience. The Catholic faith cannot be used to justify positions contrary to the faith itself. It is a matter of personal integrity for people who call themselves Catholic to act in a manner that is consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
The bishops said they were particularly concerned about Quinn’s influence on others “since he holds a highly visible and influential position.”
The letter concluded: “This concern on our part, as pastors of the Church, was the fundamental and primary topic of our conversation with Governor Quinn.”
If at election time I were to say, “You can’t vote for Pat Quinn — he’s a Catholic and will be bullied into strictly following church doctrine” — I’d be accused of bias and rightly so. Yet the cardinal is trying to do exactly that, to exercise an authority over public life he does not and should not possess.
Quinn attended 13 years of Catholic school — the church already had its chance to mold him. Now he is 63 and an adult. It is Quinn, and not Cardinal George, who gets to decide how his faith influences his life. I’m sorry to be the one to deliver the news.
This is far more about Quinn publicly saying that his Catholic faith is influencing his decisions than about the bishops whacking him over making decisions contrary to that faith.
As I’ve noted before, if Quinn accepted an endorsement from, say, the pro-choice Personal PAC and then used that endorsement to justify signing an anti-abortion bill into law, Personal PAC would be outraged and rightly so. This latest uproar isn’t much different.
And I say this, by the way, as someone who is not a Catholic and never was. Groups that politicians associate with have a right to defend themselves when politicians use them to justify a position that the groups oppose. It’s really as simple as that.
CME Group Inc, which has given $22 million to Chicago-area schools and charities over the past five years, has stopped making grants through its main foundation, citing the collapse of MF Global Holdings Inc.
Investigators are still searching for hundreds of millions of dollars of customer funds that CME says were improperly siphoned off in the brokerage’s final days to plug its escalating liquidity needs.
Last month, the exchange operator said it would give former MF Global customers the entire $50 million held by CME Trust, which was originally designed to help traders caught out by a broker default but that in recent years has been a mainstay of the CME’s charitable giving.
Clients of MF Global who lived in Canada lost no money in the collapse. Canada’s regulations do not allow client-segregated monies to be borrowed for speculative purposes. Further, voting and lobbying laws there do not tolerate the sort of corrupt legislative lobbying that is rampant in the United States. Hence, regulators in Canada are far more independent and less affected by lobbying than the regulators in the United States.
* And my syndicated newspaper column looks at the renewed popularity of corporate tax cuts…
A massive turnaround in the Illinois House may have whetted political appetites for even more corporate tax relief. But don’t count on it just yet.
As you may recall, a tax cut plan for corporations and individuals failed miserably in the House a few weeks ago, getting less than eight votes — comically short of the 60 needed for passage.
So, the House went home for two weeks, and some intense lobbying began. When state representatives came back to Springfield, a slightly revised version of the corporate tax cut plan passed with a whopping 81 votes. The bill would grant large tax breaks to CME Group and Sears to keep them from leaving the state, as well as a few broad-based provisions.
Most House Republicans had refused to support a proposed increase in the earned income tax credit program for low-wage workers, which was included in the original plan. The Republicans were opposed — even though the program was considered a GOP idea when it was unanimously approved several years ago and signed into law by a Republican governor.
So, that provision and a small bump in the standard income tax deduction were moved to a separate bill. Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate Democrats had demanded an increase in the EITC in exchange for supporting the corporate tax cuts.
Splitting the bill into two parts meant that Democrats could mostly support the EITC while Republicans could get their corporate tax provisions. The plan worked, both bills passed and the corporate tax cut bill was signed into law a few days later.
House Republican Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego) said he thought that the two-week break had cooled some tempers, which was probably true.
A big push by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel helped, and CME Group’s well-publicized meeting with Indianapolis’ mayor about moving the Chicago-based company to that city just a few days after the tax cut bill went down in flames put added pressure on legislators in both parties.
But the day after the House and Senate had left town, Cross upped the ante by announcing legislation to roll back all of last January’s corporate income tax hike.
Cross was beaten to the punch by 24 hours, however. Some House Democrats with tough campaigns next year had introduced a bill the day before to kill the corporate tax hike by Jan. 1.
Rolling back the corporate income tax increase would cost the state budget about $900 million during the next fiscal year, based on current projections. That would be on top of the more than $360 million in tax breaks that the House and Senate approved last week.
January’s corporate tax boost has created a huge uproar in Illinois as one company after another has threatened to move away. Special tax breaks given to some companies to keep them here have only enraged other company owners who are left holding the bag.
The perception is that the connected big boys are making out like bandits while the unconnected and those who can’t move have no relief in sight.
Both the Illinois Manufacturers Association and the Illinois Chamber of Commerce have vowed to push for lowering the corporate tax rate in the spring legislative session. But lowering taxes on corporations while keeping the higher personal income tax might cause even more political trouble.
As it is, two-thirds of all companies don’t pay the state corporate income tax, partly because many small-business owners set up their companies so they pay taxes on profits via their personal income tax. Cutting the corporate rate without touching the personal rate wouldn’t help those smaller businesses.
And then there would be the understandable resentment of all the working people who weren’t getting tax breaks in these tough times as they view corporations again getting special treatment. As with most things, it ain’t as easy as it looks.
These latest proposals are probably all about election-year politics anyway. Barring some unforeseen miracle and/or a newfound desire to cut ever deeper into the state budget, there’s no way Illinois can afford to get rid of the corporate tax hike.
Instead, the governor will likely continue handing out tax breaks on a company-by-company basis, creating ever more resentment by those who are paying full freight.
A home-visiting program operated by Springfield’s Family Service Center for 70 low-income teenage parents will shut down this week because of chronic delays in state payments.
The not-for-profit center’s board voted last week to indefinitely suspend the Young Parent Support Services program — designed to prevent child abuse and promote educational success — after the state’s ongoing budget crisis led to a payment delay of six months and counting.
Federal funds to support home-visiting programs arrived on time at the Illinois Department of Human Services, but that money has been delayed because matching state funds have been unavailable.
The state says it cannot pay out the federal money until a certain level of matching state funds is reached.
* Statehouse Insider: Mystery funding for Illinois business tax cut: Any time talk turns to budget cuts, Republicans cite Medicaid, the program that pays for health care for poor people. Cross said he has met with a firm that looked at the state’s Medicaid eligibility and believes the rolls are rife with people who may not be eligible. Cross believes the state can save $1 billion, much of it coming from booting those who are ineligible. There already have been problems with implementing a Medicaid reform law passed by lawmakers earlier this year, which, incidentally, was projected to save only $774 million over the next five years. Federal regulators decided earlier this year that two of the income-verification methods in the reform bill could not be used. Republicans do not believe the Quinn administration fought hard enough for the bill with the feds.
-Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) will endorse GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Chicago on Monday morning, a move that had been expected. Kirk will be joined at a Loop press conference with Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford, who has been organizing Illinois for Romney.
Romney has the deepest Illinois operation of any of the 2012 Republican rivals. People have already been recruited to run for delegates and major Illinois endorsements have been out for months. In backing Romney, Kirk follows a string of Illinois Republicans: former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Rep. Judy Biggert and Rep. Aaron Schock.
“Romney will cut spending, repeal the health care law and restore private sector economic growth. He is a foreign policy hawk who will stand up to Iran,” Kirk said in a statement prepared in advance of his endorsement and provided by his political operation.
“America needs his managerial talent, team-building spirit and hard-nosed sense of economic common sense,” Kirk’s statement said.
The value of Kirk’s endorsement is debatable. Illinois doesn’t hold its presidential primary until March 20, and it is questionable whether a fluid race for the Republican nomination will continue. But Romney has a strong ground operation in Illinois, which has a large number of convention nominating delegates at stake if there is a Republican contest.
Earlier Romney told Fox News Sunday that a drawn-out contest is “certainly a possibility” because of new party rules that allocate delegates on a proportional basis of the popular primary vote in early states, just as Democrats do.
A Brady endorsement would give Mr. Gingrich two things he badly needs here: a big name on his side and, more important, help in putting together slates of delegate candidates for the GOP National Convention.
Right now, despite his national poll motion, Mr. Gingrich has little if any ground game or delegate operation here, with numerous establishment Republicans gravitating to Mitt Romney. Unless the federal courts toss out the new congressional map, the Gingrich campaign will have only until Jan. 6 to file its slates, so signing up someone who ran a statewide campaign like Mr. Brady would be quite helpful.
That having been said, Mr. Brady has not yet committed. “I’m not there yet,” he said, and if Mr. Gingrich helped him during his gubernatorial campaign “so did Gov. Romney.”
But when I asked Mr. Brady if he’s leaning one way or the other, he replied, “I like the energy Newt brings.”
I think they may be waiting a bit to see if Newt crashes and burns like so many other Republicans have this year.
* OK, you know how much I hate national politics, so let’s all do our very best to keep the bumper sticker slogans and DC talking points out of comments, please. Thanks.
* I can’t believe I forgot that Gov. Pat Quinn’s 63rd birthday is today. Gov. Quinn is without a doubt the state’s greatest country music fan and his favorite artist is George Strait, a true country music legend. I’m not a big Strait expert, but I really love this tune…
He was sitting there beside me
Throwing doubles down
* Did you ever have a moment when you heard a song and just knew that your life as you understood it was over? When you realized that you had suddenly and irrevocably changed and there wasn’t anything that anybody could ever do about it? When you had to admit that you had crossed some sort of other-worldly threshold that you didn’t understand, but you knew right down to your marrow that you could never go back to being the way you were just a few minutes before? When you raised up your head and asked “Is this where it is?” Well, this is the song that did it for me. Turn it all the way up…
* 4:12 pm - It’s a late Friday afternoon, so I can’t say that I’m surprised that Gov. Pat Quinn signed the CME/Sears corporate tax cut bill.
However, the governor’s bill action announcement didn’t include the companion bill, SB 400. I gotta figure Quinn will probably want to do a media event when he signs the Earned Income Tax Credit increase into law. That bill would be “good” press, while the corporate stuff is apparently in need of weekend burial.
* 4:27 pm - From a press release…
Statement from Mayor Rahm Emanuel on the Signing of Illinois Tax Reform Legislation
This tax reform legislation will protect thousands of jobs in Chicago and keep the CME Group where it belongs, here in the city. I want to thank the Governor and the Illinois General Assembly for their work to modernize our state’s tax policy and bolster Chicago’s economic competitiveness now and into the future.
* 4:29 pm - From Sears spokesman Chris Brathwaite…
“We are pleased that Governor Quinn today signed legislation designed to keep Sears in Illinois. We applaud the governor for his leadership and recognition of Sears’ contributions to our state – thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of tax dollars. And, we once again thank the General Assembly for the considerable time and effort lawmakers put into this package to ensure it was passed by the end of the year. In particular, Senate President John Cullerton, House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno and House Leader Tom Cross along with Senate Revenue Chairwoman Toi Hutchinson (D- Olympia Fields) and House Revenue Chairman John Bradley (D-Marion) and our local legislators - Senators Dan Kotowski (D- Park Ridge) and Matt Murphy (R- Palatine) and Representative Fred Crespo (D- Hoffman Estates). We look forward to remaining in Illinois and building on our long and rich history here.”
* 4:32 pm - From a press release…
CME Group Commends the State of Illinois’ Efforts to Address Corporate Tax Disparity
CHICAGO, December 16, 2011 – CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today commends the State Legislatures’ efforts to address the corporate tax disparity in Illinois.
“We are pleased that Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and the State Legislature have addressed the inequitable distribution of corporate taxes currently levied on CME Group,” said CME Group Executive Chairman Terry Duffy. “This necessary adjustment to the Illinois corporate tax laws will put CME Group on more equal footing with other Illinois companies and other global exchanges. CME Group has been a part of Chicago for more than 160 years and, because of the efforts of Governor Quinn, Senate President John Cullerton, House Revenue Committee Chairman John Bradley, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, Senator Toi Hutchinson and other members of the State Legislature, we will continue to call the great State of Illinois and City of Chicago the risk management capital of the world.”
Duffy also recognizes Mayor Rahm Emanuel for his extraordinary efforts and leadership in securing CME Group as a mainstay in Illinois and the City of Chicago for the next 160 years.
* 4:43 pm - From the Chamber…
Chamber Applauds Measures to Attract and Keep Illinois Jobs
Chicago - The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce commends Governor Pat Quinn today for signing SB 397, legislation that provides much-needed relief for Illinois businesses, large and small. The bill addresses key concerns of the business community and paves the way for Sears and the CME Group to continue their long history as Illinois-based companies. Additionally, all small, medium and large Illinois businesses and farmers will benefit from the bill signed today.
The Chamber also recognizes and thanks the General Assembly for their hard work on crafting and passing the bill earlier this week, especially Senate President John Cullerton, GOP Senate Leader Christine Radogno, Speaker Michael Madigan, and House Leader Tom Cross. Representatives John Bradley and David Harris, and Senator Toi Hutchinson are commended for their determination to see through the passage of tax relief and incentives for businesses to help keep employers in the state.
“This is a move in the right direction by the Governor and Legislature to make Illinois friendly to business,” said Jerry Roper, President and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber in response to the Governor’s action. “Not only will Sears and the CME Group continue to remain in Illinois, but the entire Illinois business community will benefit from these important tax changes.”
* The other day, I asked you to help my former intern Paul Richardson win an online contest for one of the blogs that his fledgling, but growing company manages. What I didn’t know was that the contest was sponsored by LexisNexis. So, it was the big time. Anyway he won. And it wasn’t even close. From an e-mail…
Hey Rich-
I can officially send you a huge Thank You, because I just received this….
Congratulations !! The Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog was chosen by our voters as the LexisNexis Top Tort Law Blog of 2011! Your site received outstanding support from your viewers, garnering more than 40% of the votes. It must be gratifying to know that all your hard work on the site is appreciated by so many. We will post the results on our Litigation Resource Community later today once all of the participants have been notified of their status.
In a 25 person race, I think 40% is considered a landslide. Obviously the CapFaxers support made it happen. You’re the best.
Your votes have been counted and the results are in for the LexisNexis Top 25 Tort Law Blogs of 2011. Congratulations to the Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog, which received the most votes for Top Tort Law Blog for 2011 on the LexisNexis Litigation Resource Community!
We were pleased about the volume of voting and the outstanding list of nominees in this year’s Top Blogs campaign. Our Top 25 Tort Law Blogs contain a wealth of valuable information for Tort Law practitioners. All nominees and those selected for the Top 25 can be proud of the important content, expert analysis and tips these blogs provide to Tort Law attorneys.
And we can all be proud of Paul.
* My mom was apparently rummaging around and found a confirmation letter from WGN TV. Back in 1972, when their five children ranged in age from ten down to a newborn, my parents applied for tickets to attend Bozo’s Circus. The station eventually sent my parents a letter saying we had 8 tickets for the November 8, 1979 show - seven years hence.
We were living in Germany by 1979, so we didn’t go. Here’s the letter. Click the pic for a larger version…
Seven years was the standard waiting period for Bozo tix back in the day. Often, parents would request the tickets just after their kids were born. Every schoolmate of mine desperately wanted to go to that show and my brothers and I were the envy of the schoolyard when we got our confirmation.
Just about everybody we knew back then sent in postcards to enter ourselves for the Grand Prize Game, and my brother Denny’s postcard was picked out of the Bozo Drum. The kid who played for him only made it to Bucket Number Two, but Denny was still a hometown celebrity after that.
* Speaking of WGN TV and my mom, remember Ray Rayner? Ray had a great show when I was a kid (actually, he had two shows a day at one point, one, an after-school show, where he was supposedly an astronaut circling the globe). One of the things he’d do on his morning show was make crafts. The staff would make a finished product, and then he’d demonstrate to his viewers how to make that particular project in real time. Ray’s versions were never as good as the staff version, but it was fun to watch him stumble his way through.
My mom was really into crafts, and still is. When I was a kid, we’d all sit at the table and make whatever craft Mom had come up with, often inspired by Ray Rayner. It was a lot of fun, and we all had a great time laughing at our occasional ineptitude. That’s my mom in a nutshell. She taught us how to laugh at ourselves and not take things too seriously, while still pushing us hard to excel and to broaden ourselves with music, sports and reading.
I still have one of those crafts I made. It’s a Christmas Tree topper that’s supposed to be an angel. It doesn’t really look like an angel, but I thought it was cool back then and I’ve often topped my trees with it.
* I thought about Ray Rayner when Mom posted a link on her Facebook page. It was an article about how to make homemade snow globes. What a great Christmas project for the kids…
Snow globes are magical, whimsical, and fun. And they’re super easy to make at home.
The first thing you need are jars, with nice snug lids. Check out your fridge; I grabbed an almost empty bottle of peperoncini peppers (that I have been using on Greek Salads and Greek Tacos, you’d think I was the pregnant one with the cravings I have for those. I am most definitely not.) I also had a bottle of capers that I finally finished by making one last batch of this Grown Up Dipping Sauce (another obsession, you guys need to all try that one), and a big jar from marinara that we used for dipping Pizza Rolls. Marinated artichoke heart jars work really great for these, as do little teeny tiny baby food jars. Really any size jar works; you just have to find things to fit inside of them.
* Speaking of quality stuff, the Tribune has a fascinating story today about pension funding. According to the article, pension laws have been revised “nearly 700 times” since 2003. Many of those revisions was due to duplication because of the large number of pension funds and regulations here. But check this out…
Not all revisions captured in the review by the Tribune and WGN-TV had a fiscal impact, but the legislative record shows that more than half of the pension laws passed during the last eight years came without any fiscal analysis. [Emphasis added.]
One particularly egregious example of the lack of fiscal analysis was George Ryan’s early retirement program…
The original plan targeted up to 7,000 state employees and had a relatively modest price tag of about $550 million. But as Ryan and legislative leaders gathered around the negotiating table to finalize the incentive, a variety of perks were thrown in. The cost estimates, meanwhile, were not updated in time for legislators to weigh the full impact of the program. […]
In the end, more than 11,000 state employees took advantage of the lucrative deal, which caused the immediate cost of the incentive to climb to $2.3 billion, a fourfold increase from the original cost estimate.
When lawmakers realized how expensive the incentive turned out to be, they asked the staff of the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability for options. The commission offered various scenarios to pay down the debt over time, but the Legislature opted for the most costly — stretching out payments over 40 years.
All it took for former state Rep. Robert Molaro to nearly double his public pension was spending one month as an aide to Ald. Ed Burke, the powerful chairman of the Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee.
Among Molaro’s duties: Write a 19-page white paper about Chicago’s ailing pension funds. For his services, the former lawmaker was paid $12,000.
That paycheck sent his pension soaring, as many lawmakers’ benefits are based on 85 percent of their final pay on the last day of service. When Molaro officially retired on Jan. 1, 2009, his pensionable salary would be calculated at $144,000 — the amount he would have earned had he worked for Burke for a full year.
Oy.
* Not all “hit pieces” are created equal, but this one in the Reader is close to a classic. It’s about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “New Chicago Committee” and includes this priceless paragraph about a $15,000 contributor...
I wondered why Southern Wine & Spirits was keen on reforming Chicago, but my calls to the company’s corporate office in Miami weren’t returned. In 2008 the beverage distributor gave $20,000 to the governor committed to reforming Illinois, Rod Blagojevich.
If you don’t return a reporter’s calls, you’re in danger of getting broadsided. But that company has contributed to tons of candidates over the years, so pairing Emanuel up with Blagojevich is grossly unfair and totally unwarranted and really shows what sort of “story” this is.
* Chicago Magazine ran a pretty good piece about gangs and Chicago politics this month. The piece mentioned legislators, but offered up no names or evidence. A sidebar story tried to make the connection between legislators and gangbangers by listing the Chicago legislators with the most requests for Department of Corrections prisoner transfers.
The two topics aren’t necessarily connected, but Chicago Magazine never makes that clear. Legislators are often asked by families to help them get family members transferred closer to home. It’s been common practice for decades, if not centuries. The top requester was Sen. William Delgado. And here’s the one gangbanger whom Chicago Magazine highlighted…
RONNIE “MAD DOG” CARRASQUILLO, 53, a founder of the Logan Square–based Imperial Gangsters, fatally shot a Chicago police officer in 1976 and was sentenced to 200 to 600 years. In June 2008, Delgado requested that Carrasquillo be transferred from Hill Correctional Center to Dixon, a lower-security facility closer to Chicago. The transfer was denied.
The guy has been in prison since Gerald Ford was president and this transfer request is portrayed as evidence that Delgado is somehow in league with gangsters? Pretty thin soup.
There are too few folks like him left that are not dogmatic, but willing to listen to the facts and *gasp* change their mind when a reasonable argument is presented to him. He understands that good policy is too often hostage to good politics. He will be missed.
Millner is one of the best legislators in the building. He’s intellectually honest and pragmatic, which are always big plusses in my book. Plus, he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet.
* Runner-up is Sen. Matt Murphy…
R: Murphy, a message bulldog who always lands punches. Rarely agree with him, but he makes a pretty compelling case for his party.
Murphy is one of those guys who can ably fight the good fight on the Senate floor and then socialize with the other side when he’s “off duty.” Over the years, legislators have seemed to separate themselves both day and night. Murphy is one of the few remaining who understands that building relationships with all his colleagues is important to the process.
* The Golden Horseshoe Award for best Illinois State Senator - Democrat was a tough one. There were lots of very strong nominations. But I went with Sen. John Sullivan because he’s done some things that could hurt him politically, but were still the right things to do…
Any man who is willing to tackle some of the real problems facing our state (bill backlog, paying ROEs after Quinn’s debacle, etc.) by not only supporting solutions , but leading on those issues time and again, deserves our respect. Then, when you learn he does all this with the kind of district he has… Yeesh, he deserves a medal. Especially on bonding–he is going to catch hell in his district for it, but he did it anyway…because its the right thing to do. We could use a few more with this kind of courage.
Agreed.
* Runner-up is Sen. Kimberly Lightford…
Great at the negotiating table. The education reform bill she passed this year is a testament to her “stick to it” attitude and her ability to get all the stakeholders on an issue together to hash out their disagreements. When the process began, nobody thought that she could craft an agreed bill, and she did it.
That reform bill was really quite something. Lightford ran some of the best negotiating sessions that many people had ever attended. If she sticks to what she knows, she’ll be a true star.
* OK, on to today’s categories…
* Best Illinois State Representative - Republican
* Best Illinois State Representative - Democrat
For the umpteenth time, make sure to fully explain your nomination. No explanation means I won’t count your vote. This is about intensity far more than numbers. And let’s leave the two top dogs out of the competition. This should be about the rank and file, not their two overlords. Also, please make sure to nominate in both categories. Thanks much and have at it.
* The key to political spin is that it has to either be believable enough for most normal people to buy into, or have enough red meat that the base can use it at the water cooler. Pat Brady’s react to yesterday’s unanimous judicial decision to approve the Democrats’ congressional map does neither…
Reacting to the decision of the court last night, State GOP Chairman Pat Brady told reporters that “the serious issues in the case regarding Latino disenfranchisement were thrown by the wayside.”
Sorry, but I don’t see this resonating with either the public at large or the base. It’s no secret that preventing “Latino disenfranchisement” has not exactly been all that high on the GOP’s priority list over the past few years. And I highly doubt you’ll see too many hardcore Republicans arguing that their party wants to enfranchise as many Latinos as possible.
Just sayin…
* Senate President John Cullerton might also want to rethink his words a bit. Asked by a reporter after the Senate passed the corporate tax cut bill “Who’s the next in line, and how do you answer this idea that everybody is going to want to get in line…” Cullerton interrupted and responded thusly…
“They can get in line and I guess they need to pass a bill in Springfield,” is probably not the way to go. This is precisely the argument against doing these sorts of tax breaks. The connected get the breaks, the non-connected pay the full rate.
* Talk about an understatement. The Pew Center on the States released its ratings on state election board websites this week. From the summary for Illinois…
(U)sers could have a challenging time finding the content they seek, accounting for a lower overall score.
More precisely, the Board’s front page is a massive jumble of scattered information which is so disorganized that it almost seems designed to confuse. It brings to mind this brief exchange between Capt. Willard and Col. Kurtz…
I don’t see any method, either. Two of the Pew Center’s recommendations…
Use informational labels to guide users to content from the home page, rather than vague filters such as “Top Documents” and “Top Pages.” […]
Organize information logically, so that users do not have to jump around the website or visit multiple pages to find related content.
Yes, do that, please. And soon. The Board of Elections’ site has always been a bizarre mess. It’s time they got a real developer over there.
Chicago Bears wide receiver Sam Hurd was locked up in federal custody Thursday as his stunned teammates learned he had been charged with trying to set up a drug-dealing network following his arrest with more than a pound of cocaine.
U.S. Magistrate Young Kim ordered Hurd held until at least Friday while prosecutors and defense attorneys work out bond details before he is sent to Texas to face charges.
The handcuffed Hurd declined to comment on the charges. Asked before the hearing if he was still a member of the Bears, he said: “As far as I know.” He shook his head when asked if he had talked to anyone on the team.
“Sam intends to fight these charges, and we intend to defend him fully,” said high-profile defense attorney David Kenner, one of Hurd’s lawyers. “We have complete confidence in him.”
Is former Gov. Rod Blagojevich actually addicted to a substance requiring a prison rehab program?
A top Blago source tells Sneed the answer is “Yes” and the substance is . . . alcohol.
“It’s not drugs,” said the source.
The backshot: “Rod can’t sleep without drinking,” the source said. “So he drinks himself into a condition to do so, and it became an addiction. Considering what he has been through for the past few years, it became a problem. He’s not addicted to sleeping pills or anything like that.”
* There is no doubt that the folks at School District 300 in Carpentersville did a bang-up job in their effort against extending Sears’ tax package without modifications. They used protests, massive grassroots organization, visits to Springfield and a harsh media campaign to hammer their area legislators and pressure the General Assembly to bend to their will. For example…
Parents, students and staff staged two massive rallies, one in Springfield and another in a high school gym with TV cameras rolling. They circulated petitions, organized letter-writing and phone campaigns and went door-to-door in the Capitol, catching legislators on the way to the bathroom, if necessary.
At an October rally, attended by about 3,000 supporters, Bregy closed his remarks with a quote from the movie Independence Day. “We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight.”
The signs in front of all District 300 buildings last week read: “NOT GOING QUIETLY.”
Some legislators didn’t like it at all. Rep. David Harris (R-Arlington Heights) scolded the district in a committee hearing for its antics. But that didn’t stop the protests.
* Throughout it all, D300 portrayed itself as a financially struggling district in desperate need of cash. Here’s the latest such story from the Chicago News Cooperative…
As chief financial officer for one of Illinois’s largest school districts, Cheryl Crates watches the money.
Early this year, she was counting on $14 million more rolling in for Community Unit District 300, after the expiration of a tax break at Sears Holdings’ 800-acre headquarters in Hoffman Estates; it is the Sears corporate campus, which includes an on-site auto center, walking trails and even a hair salon for employees. When Crates met with Hoffman Estates officials in March, she learned the money might not be coming after all because the tax break might not expire.
“I cried,” Crates said. “The school district has cut for the last two years. We’ve had no wage increases, and we were planning on that revenue to bring down our class sizes. We have one algebra class with 47 students. It was devastating.” […]
“Nobody around here has cut as much as we have,” Crates said. “Our neighboring high school district spends $5,000 more per student than we can,” she added.
OK, first of all, according to the state, D300’s average high school class size is 23.1. That rose from 19.7 percent the previous year, but it’s way down from a high of 29.8 percent in 2004. Elementary class size is 22.7.
The closest school district to D300 is Elgin School District 46. It does not spend $5,000 more per student than D300, not even close. It actually spends less. The Elgin district spends $9,860 per pupil while D300 spends $10,514..
But even though it spends less, Elgin’s high school class size is actually smaller than D300’s, at 19, although its elementary class size is much larger at 25.1. And Elgin’s district has far more children in poverty than D300, at 52 percent vs. D300’s 39.2 percent. Elgin’s graduation rate is 88 percent, while D300’s is a bit higher at 88.9 percent.
* I guess the point is, congrats D300. You did well. But spare me the tears.
* Oh, and another thing. Sen. Michael Noland (D-Elgin) has been D300’s hero throughout all of this. Noland has gone so far as to publicly bash fellow legislators for not toeing the D300 line.
But here’s the rub. Sen. Noland voted against the tax hike last January. The revenues from that tax hike took enormous pressure off school funding. Noland was also one of two Democratic Senators who blocked a borrowing bill which would have helped pay off old bills, including more than $5 million owed to D300 as of September. Some education “hero.”
* 2:41 pm - Three top sources confirmed moments ago that the Republican challenge to the new congressional map was struck down by a three-judge federal panel today. Stay tuned for more info as it becomes available.
* Click the pick for a larger version, but this is the e-mail that was sent out by the federal court…
* 3:13 pm - No comment yet from the GOP plaintiffs’ spokesperson. Still working on getting a copy of the opinion. Stay tuned a few more minutes.
In a sign of the continuing divisions among Chicago aldermen on how to draw new ward boundaries, a group of 16 including the entire Latino Caucus today filed its preferred map with the city clerk.
Latino, black and white aldermen have been negotiating without success for two weeks to reach agreement on a new map for the 50 wards that could win a 41-vote majority of the City Council and avoid the uncertainty of presenting competing proposals to voters in the March primary election.
*** 3:22 pm *** To read the opinion and order, click here.
* All emphasis added, but this is from the opinion…
As to the partisan gerrymander claims, although we agree with the Committee that the crafting of the Adopted Map was a blatant political move to increase the number of Democratic congressional seats, ultimately we conclude that the Committee failed to present a workable standard by which to evaluate such claims, therefore they fail under Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267 (2004).
The Committee’s vote dilution claims fail because the Committee has not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that the state legislature intentionally discriminated against Latinos in passing the Adopted Map. Again, we acknowledge that Latino ethnicity was a factor in creating District 4 in 1991, but times have changed: the weight of the evidence shows that the predominant intent of the 2011 Illinois legislature in maintaining Adopted District 4 in substantially the same shape as when it was created in 1991 was a desire to enhance Democratic seats in the state as a whole, to keep Democratic incumbents in Districts 3, 4, and 5 with their constituents, to preserve existing district boundaries, and to maintain communities of interest. Because race was not the predominant factor, the Committee failed to meet its burden of proof on its racial gerrymander claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or the Constitution. […]
…our conclusion that the Committee hasn’t shown intentional discrimination against Latinos dooms all three vote dilution counts. […]
The Committee has not proved the first Gingles precondition that the Latino minority group is large enough and geographically compact enough to be a majority in more single-member districts than the redistricting plan created. The Committee’s Map does not create two majority-minority Latino districts. District 4 under the Committee’s Map has 59.4 percent Latino voting-age population and District 3 has only 46.5 percent. […]
But, given the rule of thumb, and the need to account for Latinos within the voting-age population who are not citizens eligible to vote, we do not infer that 65.9 percent voting-age population of Latinos in Adopted District 4 suggests excessive packing… The addition of low Latino voting-age population areas to District 4 and exclusion of certain high voting-age population areas suggests that the state’s intent was not maximization of Latino voting-age population. […]
Further, as the Committee itself argues, the Adopted Map was drawn for predominantly political reasons, and we believe this is evident in Adopted Districts 3, 4 and 5. Maintaining substantially the same boundaries of District 4 allows Congressman Gutierrez to remain in a district with 82.3 percent of his current constituents. This in turn allowed the Democrats to draw Districts 3 and 5 with substantially the same boundaries, resulting in Congressman Lipinski’s remaining in a district with 76.4 percent of his constituents and Congressman Quigley in a district with 78.9 percent of his constituents. […]
The issue is whether District 4 was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Latinos. If the Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly crafted Adopted District 4 for reasons other than discriminatory intent, whether those reasons are legitimate state interests or not, the Committee cannot succeed. […]
The Committee contends that the Democrats want to keep Latinos out of District 3 to preserve Congressman Lipinski’s primary win because he has recently lost favor among Latinos on account of his stance on immigration. The state cannot draw district lines to exclude minorities merely because they might oppose an incumbent… Given that the Latino voting-age population in Cook County has nearly doubled since 1990 and is projected to continue increasing steadily, a 4.7 percent reduction in Latino voting-age population in Adopted District 3 doesn’t notably reduce the opportunity for a Latino candidate of choice to successfully run against Congressman Lipinski in the Democratic primary over the next decade. Additionally, the Committee presented little evidence, and certainly nothing convincing, that Latino voters in District 3 disfavor Congressman Lipinski. For example, the Committee did not offer Congressman Lipinski’s voting record on issues important to Latinos, or present examples of Latino organizations opposing his reelection.
Further, the Committee does not dispute Dr. Lichtman’s findings that in the 2010 primary election Congressman Lipinski received 57 percent of the Latino vote when running against a Latino candidate. […]
Neither do other relevant factors point to intentional discrimination against Latinos. Evidence that the redistricting process was “secretive” and excluded Republicans reveals partisan motivation, not racial discrimination. […]
Because the Board of Elections asserts that politics was the predominant factor in crafting Adopted District 4, it has made no attempt to justify the oddly shaped district under strict scrutiny.20 Despite the history of District 4, we agree with the Board of Elections that the predominant intent in maintaining the district in the Adopted Map was not race, but a desire to keep Democratic incumbents in Districts 3, 4, and 5 with their constituents, to preserve existing district boundaries, and to maintain communities of interest. […]
Preserving the core of prior districts and keeping incumbents with their constituents are legitimate redistricting objectives.
Keep in mind that two Republican justices from Indiana were on that three-judge panel.
*** 4:26 pm *** From a press release…
Statement of Illinois GOP Members of Congress Regarding Federal Ruling on Congressional Redistricting Case
“We are disappointed with the court’s ruling today, especially considering the very serious issues we raised in our challenge to the Democrats’ map, including discrimination against the state’s growing Latino population. We are in the process of reviewing the decision and evaluating our options for future action.
“Regardless of today’s decision, we continue to believe that fairness should be the driving principle in the redistricting process. A balanced congressional map is necessary to ensure that the people of Illinois have an opportunity to express their will at the ballot box and elect those representatives who best reflect their shared interests. Unfortunately, the Democrats who control state government decided instead to maximize their partisan advantage in the map-making process to serve their own interests. That kind of selfish approach to governing should never be tolerated.”
A probation report says ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich may be a “ripe candidate’’ for a drug treatment program in prison.
That’s according to defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky, who says he doesn’t know what Blagojevich said to a probation officer to lead to that conclusion.
Judge James Zagel has agreed to recommend Blagojevich for a drug treatment program when he starts his 14-year prison sentence for corruption in March.
A prisons spokesman told the Sun-Times last week there typically has to be a documented history of abuse for an inmate to qualify.
[Blagojevich attorney Shelly Sorosky] said there is documentation. […]
The report came after a summer interview between Blagojevich and a probation officer, Sorosky said. Sorosky said he did not know the nature of what Blagojevich told the probation officer about substance abuse at the time — a few weeks after his June conviction — but it caused a recommendation to the judge.
I never saw the governor drink more than a tiny bit of alcohol, but, then again, I wasn’t around him that much in the evenings.
A successful completion of the program could shave a year off his sentence and allow him to go to a halfway house six months before the end of that sentence.
Kristin Milligan - for putting up with the throngs of “hangers on” in Skip’s office.
The non-stop crush of people in that office suite is always astounding and more than a little amusing. Yet, Kristin usually handles the chaos with aplomb, which is why they apparently all descended on the blog at once yesterday afternoon. And then there’s this…
Kristin because a) she has to put up with more crap than most and b) the end of session party. Well, ok, mostly because of b.
The work she does every year on that end of session party is enough to win this prize on its own.
Sally Smith for the House, although she’s so much more than an administrative assistant. She is one the smartest, hardest working people in this building. Many don’t know her because she’s tied to her chair in Ellis’ office, but this classy lady is the reason that office functions. She’s den mother to the Speaker’s legal staff. She tracks every bill and knows everything that’s going on in this place. She’s priceless.
* In the Senate, the clear winner is Bunny Fourez…
How has Bunny not won this award before? She always gets tons of votes because she is so amazingly organized, friendly, and on top of things. Add my vote for Bunny Fourez.
I love Bunny, and, like that commenter, I can’t believe she hasn’t won. This historical tragedy has finally been corrected.
My vote is for The Bulldog Selena Gorman. She has one of the. toughest groups in the capitol to wrangle, the Senate Democrat Legal Review Staff, while also being trusted with highly sensitive material.
* Before I move along to today’s nominations, let me just say that I have never met an administrative assistant who I didn’t like. They put up with a lot of guff at the Capitol, yet they’ve all treated me with such kindness over the years that this is by far the most difficult category for me. I hate to pick the winners because it implies that the rest are somehow losers. They’re most definitely not.
* On to today’s nominations…
* Best Illinois State Senator - Republican
* Best Illinois State Senator - Democrat
Please nominate in both categories. And, as always, keep in mind that this is more about intensity than numbers. If you don’t explain your nomination, I’ll ignore it - and I mean that. Thanks much.
The November unemployment rate fell to 10 percent as the state added 600 jobs, according to preliminary data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES). The data is seasonally adjusted. The decline from 10.1 percent occurs as Illinois has added jobs in eight of the past 11 months.
600 ain’t much, and 500 of those were government jobs. It’s the first time in a while that the government sector has added significant positions. The sector is down 9,500 over the past year.
Professional and business services added 3,600 jobs, which led the pack. 1,700 construction jobs and 1,300 financial services jobs were lost. Manufacturing lost a hundred jobs, but that sector is up 10,800 in the past year.
Illinois led the nation in October with 30,000 new jobs, so that’s why this is more than a little disappointing. I’m glad we’re trending up, but we need a ton of jobs to replace those lost during and after the ‘08 Crash.
Now that Chicago has fought off Indianapolis’ dastardly effort to woo away our CME Group Inc. (not that the outcome was ever in doubt; the Windy City has forgotten more about bribery, corporate and otherwise, than they’ll ever know in Indy) it’s time to even the score.
And I’m happy to report that someone here actually is planning to do that. Sort of.
In an under-reported development, the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau recently formed a sports commission. It’s been given a reasonable $300,000 start-up budget, an experienced and capable executive director and a mission that ought to raise a few eyebrows east of the state line.
The goal: Develop and implement plans to lure NCAA meets, world wrestling championships, soccer tournaments, auto races and other athletic competitions, mostly amateur, that can bring a lot of cash into town — and that Indianapolis has specialized in producing in recent decades. […]
“We’ve got a reputation of being one of the great sports cities in the world, but we haven’t had any organization whose job it is to attract and build sporting events,” said bureau chief Don Welsh — who, need I add, came here from Indianapolis.
The state should do this as well. As I’ve pointed out before, St. Louis has no basketball team. Let’s steal the Pacers and put them in the Metro East. That’ll teach those Hoosiers a lesson they’ll never forget.
Rep. Raymond Poe, R-Springfield, who attended the news conference [with House Republican Leader Tom Cross], said that he wasn’t worried that blowing an $800 million hole in the budget would mean layoffs to state workers. During the veto session, Poe and other downstate Republicans said their top priority was to restore cuts to the budget by Quinn that would have resulted in layoffs and facility closures.
That hole would be closer to $900 million and it would most definitely force state layoffs. Rep. Poe is dreaming.
Seven House Democrats filed a bill on Tuesday to repeal the corporate income tax increase entirely starting on or after Jan. 1, an idea Cross said that House Republicans proposed long before now. Cross said with the seven Democrats and the 54 House Republicans, the House should have no trouble passing corporate tax relief. […]
[House Speaker Michael Madigan Steve Brown] acknowledged that the House was not coming back into session before the end of the year, so there is no way the Democratic bill could take effect by Jan. 1.
Leader Cross first used that line yesterday about how they would have to come back into session this month so that the tax hikes could be rolled back by January 1st.
But this year’s income tax hike was retroactive back to last January 1st, so any tax cut could be retroactive as well. Another unscheduled session isn’t necessary. And, frankly, I don’t want to go back to that place for a while. I’ve had more than my fill.
* Meanwhile, I can’t believe it took them this long to go totally Hollywood…
After more than a half-century as a Chicago-based institution, Playboy magazine is packing up for the West Coast.
Executives confirmed Tuesday that the magazine’s editorial, art and photo departments will be based out of the company’s Los Angeles office by May of next year.
“Some of the magazine’s Chicago employees have been asked to relocate, while others have been asked to stay on in Chicago to ensure a seamless transition,” Playboy spokeswoman Theresa Hennessey said in a statement.
No final decisions have been made about other departments located at Playboy’s Chicago headquarters, including human resources, public relations, legal, accounting and information technology. Hennessey declined to say how many employees are based in Chicago.
The move has been the subject of much speculation since March, when octogenarian founder Hugh Hefner bought back Playboy Enterprises, the company he founded in his Chicago apartment in 1953. Hefner vacated the Chicago Playboy Mansion and moved to Los Angeles in 1975.
A good friend had a job at Playboy many years ago. I was single back then and she said she could get me invited to some parties. That was very cool of her, I thought, until the first invite finally arrived: A Lake Michigan boat cruise with centerfolds from the 1950s and early 1960s.
I took a pass. But as it turns out, my friend was testing me and I failed. Oh, well.
* Dems, GOP push plans to roll back biz tax hikes sooner: But small- and medium-sized businesses that don’t file with the state as corporations pay the same individual income tax rate that households do. Kim Clarke Maisch, the Illinois director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which advocates for small- and medium-sized businesses, said some form of tax relief for those paying the individual income tax is necessary.
Dropped by @Wendys at 111th and State for lunch http://twitpic.com/7qwcd4
* The photo, which I cropped down to size and color-adjusted to make it easier to see…
Dude… Seriously?
* I’ve been thinking about what to do with this pic for the past 24 hours, and I finally decided that we just can’t pass it up. I mean, hey, he posted it. Besides, we’re finally done with this year’s session and I need as many distractions as I can get.
So, campers, while this could very well be the most difficult assignment I have ever given you, I’d like you to caption the above photo without any racy (and I mean that both ways) commentary.
Do not get yourself banned for life. Keep it totally clean. If you have doubts about your comment, don’t post it. Yes, I’m fully aware that this will be almost impossible to do, but I have faith in you… I think. Don’t let me down, but do make me laugh.
It’s well documented that Illinois is technically bankrupt.
Illinois is neither technically nor legally bankrupt. It’s not even figuratively bankrupt. Bankruptcy is reserved for individuals and corporations that have no hope of increasing revenues to pay off their bills. Illinois is far from that point. Very far. Also, Illinois cannot legally declare bankruptcy.
Yes, the state has a huge backlog of bills, but the Pantagraph and other editorial boards have made sure that a solution couldn’t be implemented for that problem. Yes, the state has a large unfunded pension program, but as I’ve written before, we ought to consider abandoning this notion that it must be permanently 90 percent funded when there’s no need to always have anywhere close to that much cash on hand. Yes, the state has a large number of bonds, but most of those bonds have identifiable funding streams.
So, enough with the stupidity, please.
Editorial commentary like that makes me want to demand that the General Assembly get rid of the sales tax exemptions on newsprint and ink.
Come to think of it, yesterday’s report on how Illinois doesn’t connect tax incentives to job benefit requirements fits right in with that idea. You’d be hard-pressed to find an industry that has laid off a higher percentage of its workforce than print media over the past five years, or has stripped them of more benefits.
…Adding… From a commenter…
you’d think the Pantagraph opinion writers would be a little more knowledgeable about bancruptcy, given that they fit the technical and legal definition:
The owner of the Pantagraph and dozens of other newspapers announced Friday that it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to complete a comprehensive debt refinancing plan.
Indeed.
* Meanwhile, check out this fascinating poll from California…
A new poll shows 60 percent of California voters, weary of state spending cuts and unsettled by the prospect of more, are ready to support Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to raise taxes.
The Public Policy Institute of California poll, released Monday, is the first public measure of voter opinion about Brown’s tax initiative since he announced it this month.
Brown plans to ask voters in November 2012 to temporarily increase the state sales tax and to impose higher income taxes on California’s highest-earners, raising $7 billion annually for five years.
The poll comes amid deep pessimism about the economy and concern about the state budget. More than 80 percent of likely voters think the budget situation is a big problem, and more than two-thirds of likely voters predict bad times financially in the year ahead.
Gov. Brown made huge budget cuts which brutally showed Californians what life is like without the proper revenue streams to fund the services that most everybody wants. There was some thought of doing that here back in 2009. The consequences would’ve been awful in the short term, but Illinoisans might’ve eventually realized that they have to pay for what they ask for.
College Illinois!, which was started in 1998, is supposed to let families lock in today’s tuition rates for their children’s college educations at state universities in future years. But according to the report, the prepaid tuition program could require a $1.6 billion bailout from the state to remain solvent during the next 25 years.
The state hasn’t promised to come up with the money, but it must. Illinois simply can’t stick families with the bill. This is a problem created by the state, and it’s up to the state to solve it.
The families that bought into this program, often with an eye toward sending their son or daughter some day to the likes of University of Illinois or Illinois State University, are generally not folks with enough money to envision sending their offspring to pricey private schools. They had to put cash into the program at the same time they were trying to pay for everything from piano lessons to the mortgage.
If the state doesn’t deliver on its end of the bargain, they’ll be in trouble.
The Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which runs the program, has been criticized for slow sales and its investment decisions. The program’s underfunding rose from 7 percent in 2007 to 18 percent last May. As of March, the commission had 54,275 prepaid tuition contracts, but it stopped selling new contracts on Sept. 30 while it sorts everything out.
While a serious problem, the math shows it’s not quite the disaster that the media is claiming.
The fund needs $1.6 billion over 25 years. Without compound interest, that’s $64 million a year. The fund has 54,275 participants, so that works out to less than $118 per year, per contract, or less than $10 a month. Again, that’s without the magic of compound interest. A very modest fee increase coupled with perhaps an order to Illinois universities to accept what the program gives them, along with some much-needed internal reforms could wipe out that problem quite easily.
* Related…
* Chicago Tribune subscriber sues over rate hike: Cheryl Naedler, whose subscription rate more than doubled to $97.50 per quarter this year, contends in the lawsuit that her credit card and those of other subscribers were charged without their knowledge or consent of the increased price.
* Charter-school agency’s funding raises questions - A new Illinois commission can authorize charter schools rejected by local officials. Its money comes from a foundation that backs charter schools.
The Journal learned two area U.S. Representatives, Peter Roskam (R-6th) and Judy Biggert (R-13th), would back Republican candidate DuPage County Regional School Supt. Darlene Ruscitti in her run for the 8th Dist. seat.
Walsh announced he would run in the newly drawn 14th Dist. several months ago, after which Ruscitti, area businessman Andrew Palomo and Republican activist Richard Evans entered the Republican primary race in the 8th. Last week, Walsh announced he would run in the 8th.
A senior Roskam aide said the congressman is supporting Ruscitti. Biggert spokeswoman Kathy Lydon said Biggert gave her support to Ruscitti in September, donated money to Ruscitti’s campaign and is not one to go back on her word even with Walsh in the race. […]
Lydon said, “If the map stands (Biggert) supports her.”
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s support for one candidate apparently altered the landscape of the race for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. House in the new 17th Congressional District.
One of the prospective candidates was state Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, but he decided just days before the end of the legislative filing period to run again for state Senate instead. As the Capitol Fax newsletter has reported, one factor in Koehler’s change of heart was a call from Durbin.
Durbin, a Springfield resident, is close to Gene Callahan, the father of one of the other candidates in the new 17th — Cheri Callahan Bustos. She is a former member of the East Moline City Council and also has support from Emily’s List, a nationwide organization that promotes pro-choice Democratic women.
“I knew that there was a relationship with Senator Durbin and the Callahan family,” Koehler told me this week. “I was hoping that the senator would be willing to stay neutral in the race.” But Koehler said Durbin called to say he was going to be supporting Bustos.
“I had to assess very quickly what that meant for my chances,” Koehler said.
Koehler has been in the state Senate for five years and thinks that would have helped him in the congressional primary in the Peoria area. However, he said Durbin’s expected endorsement of someone else would have been a factor elsewhere in the new 17th, “where I didn’t have any name recognition.”
This goes beyond Durbin’s close ties to Gene Callahan. Bustos just doesn’t have the same voting record as Koehler, who voted for the tax hike, borrowing, repeal of the death penalty and sponsored the civil unions bill. None of those bills are especially popular in that congressional district (although some less so than others), so the Republicans could have a field day with Koehler in the general election.
* Related…
* Harriman officially announces his bid for Congress
* City ward remap takes turn toward the bizarre: But this particular remap shows signs of becoming particularly ugly, with open clashes among white, African-American and Latino aldermen; rumored plans to cheat lakefront neighborhoods of their proper representation, and more threats of lawsuits than there are snowflakes in a December Chicago sky.
* Latinos and some others say they’ll file own ward remap plan: According to Mr. Fioretti, the proposed map — to be filed first thing on Thursday — will include 17 predominantly African-American wards plus one “influence” ward where a black would have a good chance of winning. It also would create 13 Hispanic-majority wards plus two Hispanic-influence wards.
Since the early days of the 2008 campaign, Smith has distinguished himself by being first to the news. Having a jump on the competition of even just five minutes has made all the difference, he says. But a lot has changed since 2008. Twitter, Smith says, is “sort of draining the life from the blog.”
“Where people were hitting refresh on my blog because they wanted to see what my latest newsbreak was, now they’ll just be on Twitter, and I’ll tweet it out and they’ll see it there,” he says. “What I’m doing right now is just incredibly old school. I might as well have ink all over my fingers and be setting type.”
Buzzfeed is basically just a headline and Twitter feed aggregation site, but it’s done so in a way that attracts the type of people who like to see what everybody else is being distracted by on the Interwebtubes. Smith is hiring some reporters, so it appears that the site will soon be breaking news itself.
Despite Ben’s praise, Twitter is only good for a sentence or two. There is no room for thought, analysis and debate with that product. I like to drill down, and most of you do as well.
Besides, there simply aren’t as many hot, breaking political news stories day in and day out in Illinois as there are in DC. Twitter and headline aggregation alone aren’t enough for us.
Even so, there’s no doubt that Twitter has become an indispensable news tool. We were all glued to the Twitterverse during Rod Blagojevich’s recent sentencing hearing, for example.
* And that’s a big reason why I became so interested in ScribbleLive. Their program is so awesome that Tweets usually appear on ScribbleLive before they appear on Twitter itself. Twitter went down in my part of the world yesterday for about a half an hour, but ScribbleLive was still up and running and kicking out the Tweets.
Also, website owners like myself can’t monetize Twitter. To me, anyway, there’s no sense in allowing some faceless corporation to make money off of me if I don’t get a piece of the action as well. The idea is to use Twitter to bring people here, not the other way around. ScribbleLive allows me to do that by aggregating Tweets from numerous sources on my own site, along with news story excerpts, photos, video, audio and my own commentary/reporting. It’s almost a perfect platform for me, and it’s incredibly easy to update posts when I’m not in the office.
* The new system appears to be working. The live session posts are getting more popular with every passing session day. People are watching the House debate while sitting in the gallery, for instance, and following Senate action via ScribbleLive right here. We not only had tons of views for the Blagojevich sentencing hearing, the automatic updating benefits of ScribbleLive took a huge load off our servers. On a day when we might have been in danger of crashing from too much traffic, we had no problems at all. It’s just a very cool thing.
I’ve also come up with a way to monetize the ScribbleLive feeds without taking away from their value by adding too much clutter. I’m still working on pricing and frequency, but I should be launching it sometime soon.
* Anyway, you’ll notice this morning that I’ve moved the daily ScribbleLive news feed from its own post to the middle column. I’ve done this for a couple of reasons. The feed is getting a huge amount of views throughout the day, but it’s getting lost in the clutter in - and adding to the clutter of - the main section of the blog. I decided to put it in the center column to increase the value and usefulness of that column, which hopefully will then draw even more eyeballs to the same column as the advertising. Hey, if you think I wanna do all this for free, you’re insane.
But I couldn’t decide what to do about the icons in the ScribbleLive feed. I turned them off and on last night. Turning them off allows more stories to be seen before you have to scroll down. Turning them on makes the feed “pop” better.
…Adding… For BlackBerry users, just click the icon above the ScribbleLive feed. It’ll take you to a separate page.
*** UPDATE 1 *** OK, even though the poll is heavily in favor of leaving the icons “on,” I’ve turned them off for a while so you can see what the feed looks like without them.
*** UPDATE 2 *** I’ve turned the icons back on for those who didn’t see the blog earlier today.
