Mayor Emanuel to call for state lawmakers to amend the IL constitution to reduce the mandated 3% Annual Cost of Living adjustments in public pensions, to try and help with the city's massive pension debt
Rahm re Pensions: "What kind of progressive, sustainable system guarantees retirees 3 percent annual compounded pay increases when inflation has been at basically zero and current employees have at times been furloughed, laid off, or received one percent raises?" https://t.co/USspdkndO9
“Too many people look at our pension obligation through green eyeshade – in terms of dollars and cents. That is just one way to see it, but it is not the whole picture. The other is in terms of our principles and priorities,” Emanuel is expected to say in his speech. “That is why I am also for amending the clause added to the constitution in 1970 that caused the Supreme Court to shoot down our initial agreements with labor.”
Emanuel in particular will cite the 3 percent annual compounded cost of living adjustments, or COLAs, for retirees in the laborers fund.
“Think about it. What kind of progressive, sustainable system guarantees retirees 3 percent annual compounded pay increases when inflation has been at basically zero and current employees have at times been furloughed, laid off, or received one percent raises?” Emanuel said. “There is nothing progressive about 3 percent compounded raises for retirees and furloughs for workers. The mantle of progressivity must not just be more taxes on the wealthy, it must be more respect for our workers’ paychecks. I applaud our labor unions for being willing to fix this inequity in 2012 with me.”
*** UPDATE *** Jordan Abudayyeh at the Pritzker transition…
As JB has said, pensions are a promise and the state has a responsibility to live up to that promise. As governor, he will work with the General Assembly to propose a balanced budget that meets our pension obligations and puts the state on a more sustainable path forward.
* The 2018 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Democratic State House Campaign Staffer goes to Tiffany Moy and it wasn’t even close…
She was responsible for nearly all of the top tier races. Tiffany is a no-nonsense powerhouse who will tell it like it is and do what is necessary to get the job done. She works more than she should, but does it all for the House Democrats. Tiffany is the campaign staffer others should be measured against and aspire to be.
Tiffany Moy for the already mentioned reasons, but also for her many efforts that can go unnoticed in the off-season. She’s one of the few who puts in the work for candidates and campaigns all year round. From recruitment, to petitions, to candidate management and everything in between - she does it all. It’s not glamorous stuff, but it’s that kind of work that helps campaigns build a strong foundation and she does it all without complaint.
* The 2018 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Republican State House Campaign Staffer goes to Ryan Tozer…
Not only did he do an awesome job in Norine Hammond’s general, but he also did a great job on the primary too.
No way that his ground game was going to be outmatched in either race. Lots of Republicans that fended the right flank in March went down in November. Not Hammond, and that’s because of Ryan.
It’s been six plus years since I’ve lived in the state or had anything to do with politics but I still got hit up by Ryan Tozer to knock doors for Norine Hammond. Dude, how about “how are the kids?”
* Honorable mention goes to Deb Kraulidis, who was nominated by Rep. Mark Batinick…
Based on performance my Staffer, Deb Kraulidis, should win the GOP staffer award. Only one to win a competitive race in a district Rauner AND Harold lost. Outperformed Rauner by 3.75% while most targets in the suburbs were 3%-7% behind him. Withstood the massive late spend. She managed/developed a large team of volunteers. And she did on the smallest budget of any incumbent target. She’s unknown in Springfield and is unlikely to be nominated but she should be!
* OK, on to our next categories…
* Best Government Spokesperson
* Best Campaign Spokesperson
Don’t forget to explain your votes or they won’t count. And please do your best to nominate in both categories. Thanks!
A volunteer for a candidate for alderman of the 15th Ward was shot while on Facebook Live as he was out canvassing the West Englewood neighborhood Sunday, officials said.
Maxwell Omowale Justice, 32, a volunteer for the Joseph Williams campaign, is speaking to the camera when shots can be heard in the video.
The shooting took place while Williams was a few houses away with his two children, as a group from the campaign tried to get affidavits from residents following a challenge to Williams’ petitions, said Erin Ellenbolt, Williams’ campaign manager.
“Maxwell had just shown up and he was handing out flyers as well and trying to get signatures,” Ellenbolt said.
Justice drove himself to Little Company of Mary Hospital, where he was treated and released. Reached Monday morning, Justice said he was resting and wasn’t ready to speak more. In social media posts, he shared an image of his bleeding leg.
The shooting of a campaign worker in Chicago’s West Englewood neighborhood has led to a heated war of words between the incumbent alderman and one of his challengers in the 15th Ward.
Campaign worker Maxwell Little was handing out literature for candidate Joseph Williams in the 6600 block of South Marshfield Avenue Sunday afternoon, and broadcasting his efforts via facebook live. Suddenly, without warning, a series of gunshots are heard on the video, and after a brief jumble, the broadcast ends. […]
Little made news earlier this year, when he and other staffers sued then-gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker, alleging racial discrimination and intimidation within that campaign.
He is also a staffer for mayoral candidate Lashawn Ford.
Police said a masked gunman had come out of a gangway and fired the shots. No one was in custody.
Little posted a Facebook message from his hospital bed saying, “This was no random shooting. Someone wanted me dead.”
Community activist Jedidiah Brown has just parked his car to help campaign with 15th ward candidate Joseph Williams. There were about a dozen people around including Williams’ two young children.
Chantal Grant, a friend of Little’s, said she didn’t believe the shooting was targeting Williams’ campaign or Little, specifically. […]
Chicago police were canvassing the neighborhood, looking at video footage from doorbell cameras and home security systems to establish a timeline surrounding the incident. Police do not believe at this point that Williams was specifically targeted, instead suggesting this was a case of mistaken identity.
* Little’s boss also more than just implied that the incumbent alderman may have been involved. But…
An aldermanic candidate in for Chicago’s 15th Ward is backtracking further from remarks he made Monday, suggesting that incumbent Ald. Raymond Lopez might have been responsible for the weekend shooting of a campaign worker in the city’s Englewood neighborhood. […]
Speaking Monday, Williams said, “I don’t put anything past the incumbent,” when asked who he felt might be responsible. […]
“It is disgusting, it is outrageous,” Lopez said. “And it takes away from the real violence that we are facing in our communities.”
But Williams released a statement overnight, seeking to distance himself from the controversy.
“As it is with so many of us who have experienced gun violence, I am still trying to make sense of Maxwell’s shooting and my children’s exposure to it, so my emotions may have been running high,” he said.
Two of those editorials were calls to amend the Illinois Constitution so the state could cut pension benefits of current employees/retirees going forward…
Reworking that amendment and giving elected officials the ability to adjust pension benefits going forward is the only transformative solution for Illinois. It is the most pro-growth, pro-taxpayer, pro-jobs pathway the state’s leaders could embrace. But it will require them to stand up to public employee unions.
“What’s most important to me is the principle that people who’ve been promised a pension should get the pension they’ve been promised,” Pritzker said. “That’s the principle we’re going to go by. But there’s no doubt that we’ve got to address the challenge in the budget of the increasing share of the budgeting going into pensions.”
Pritzker supports putting more tax dollars into pensions in earlier years of a pension ramp to lessen how much needs to go toward the funds in later years. One idea is to sell bonds to make those payments in earlier years. Pritzker said everything is on the table.
The Tribsters and others can scream “But Arizona!” until they’re blue in the face. The incoming governor is dead-set against the idea and I doubt there’s even a super-strong majority of legislative Republicans who would be for it and they’re in the super-minority anyway.
In other words, the anti-pension chattering class needs to come up with another idea. Right now, they’re simply shouting into the wind. They may prefer that role, but it doesn’t move anything forward.
Also, the gubernatorial candidate who hated public unions received 38.8 percent of the vote last month. His position was thoroughly rejected.
The Cook County Board is considering hiking a tax that it established two months ago on apps like SpotHero and ParkWhiz, which allow drivers to find parking spots.
In October, then-Commissioner John Fritchey proposed creating a baseline 1.75 percent tax rate for parking-reservation apps, which is in line with the sales tax. The measure was approved by a 12-4 vote and would take effect Jan. 1. Chicago-based SpotHero and other apps supported that measure, saying a 1.75 tax rate was fair given they don’t operate the parking lots—whose owners pay a 6 percent tax rate. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle opposed it.
With Fritchey no longer on the board, Preckwinkle has moved to ramp up the tax to 6 percent—or, as Preckwinkle sees it, the board would return it to 6 percent. She says SpotHero should have been paying that all along. “Despite the administration’s objections, the board approved an amendment to the existing tax that passed with the help of a number of outgoing members of the County Board,” Preckwinkle’s team said in a statement. […]
How the current tax works: Say a driver reserved a spot costing $20 total with one of the apps. The parking spot owner typically pays a 6 percent tax to the county. The apps pay 1.75 percent on the portion of the transaction it receives for its services—it’s less because they don’t control the parking facility.
SpotHero opposes the new measure, saying it “incorrectly and unfairly” characterizes apps as parking garage owners.
Toni Preckwinkle just added $1 million to her mayoral campaign treasure chest.
The cash infusion Monday came from the Service Employees International Union state council.
In 2015, the group — the political arm of SEIU in Illinois, comprised of SEIU Local 1, SEIU Local 73, and Healthcare Illinois Indiana — backed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia with $3 million mainly in the form of direct contributions, in kind contributions and television ads in an unsuccessful bid to unseat Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
As the crowded race for Chicago mayor heats up – and with 21 candidates who hope to be on the ballot – those campaigns are hiring field staff for the work ahead. A political consultant firm working with Toni Preckwinkle’s campaign is recommending the current Cook County Board president hire workers from out of town.
An internal email was forwarded to NBC 5 from Democracy Partners Recruiting Services. It provides advice for interviewing field staff including going over job requirements, the possible seven-day workload and recommends:
“It will be so much better for the campaign if we can get out-of-towners instead of Locals, who have distractions, family, friends. If we need to fire someone for being trump-y with the ladies, or missing numbers, it’d be far better if they leave town than hang around to try to make trouble.”
A spokesman for the Preckwinkle campaign says “this is not our position, the majority of our staff is from right here; this does not represent our position.”
Renowned Chicago broadcast journalist, Charles Thomas, whose stellar career has spanned four decades, is joining Amara Enyia’s mayoral campaign as a senior advisor. He started his career as a Midwest Correspondent for ABC News and then spent more than 25 years at ABC Eyewitness News in Chicago. In a new video being released today onwww.amaraenyia.com and on social media, Thomas talks about why he is endorsing Amara Enyia, what he loves most about Chicago, and what Chicago needs in a future Mayor.
“I remember my first interview with Amara. I was impressed at how she listened to the questions. Because a lot of politicians – you ask them questions - and they immediately go to their talking points. Amara didn’t do that, said Thomas. “She is a good listener. And she will listen to all sections of the city: the downtown businesses and the neighborhoods too. But she will listen to everyone,” he added.
In the video, Thomas underscored the fact that this is the first time that he has publicly endorsed any political candidate adding that “Amara is the future of Chicago”. He went on to acknowledge that Amara is a bright and dynamic generational bridge builder. Since she announced her run for Mayor, Enyia has been running a people-powered campaign with the slogan: All People. All Voices. One City. Thomas acknowledges her platform in the video saying “Amara has based her whole campaign around people, and her goal is to return control of the city government to the people. No other candidate is doing that”.
During his career in journalism, Thomas has interviewed everyone from Mayors to Governors to Senators and even Presidents. His impressive and dynamic career began in 1973. After working at various stations across the country, he eventually landed a job in 2009 as a political reporter at ABC Eyewitness News in Chicago. Looking back at this transition in his career, his main recollection is that his first full day on the job happened to coincide with President Obama’s first full day in the Oval Office.
“As a trained journalist, it is such an honor to receive the support of Charles Thomas – someone I’ve always admired in the profession, said Enyia. “He is proof that it is possible to reach all people across all generations and have a message that resonates and energizes people of all ages. Charles Thomas’ endorsement means a lot to me, and I appreciate and fully embrace his support as we move forward on to the next phase of our campaign.”
Furious about Willie Wilson’s attempt to knock him off the ballot, Ja’Mal Green is fighting back—by attacking Wilson as a Republican and tying Wilson to outgoing Gov. Bruce Rauner and President Donald Trump.
On Monday, Green released an attack ad that will be posted on YouTube and other social media sites.
It opens with the words, “Willie Wilson, a Republican for mayor?” That’s followed by a clip of Wilson at a podium declaring that he voted for Rauner, who was overwhelmingly defeated by Democrat J.B. Pritzker.
As the background music plays the song “Thank You For Being a Friend,” the ad shows two still photos of Rauner and Wilson yukking it up.
* Hearings on ballot petition challenges for mayoral candidates to begin Tuesday: The first challenge to be reviewed was filed by mayoral candidate Paul Vallas against Bill Daley. It’s up at 9:30 a.m. Reviewing Preckwinkle’s challenge to Mendoza begins at 1 p.m. Early voting is scheduled to begin next month, January 17th. But election officials warn it’s possible the ballot won’t be finalized until early February.
* I’ve already told subscribers about this, but every year about this time, I’m asked if there are any tickets left for my annual “Christmas with Rich Miller” event with the City Club of Chicago. And every year I have to either turn people down or send them to the City Club people to see if they can squeeze another one in.
We decided to do something a little different this year. The City Club held back ten tickets so we could auction them off to benefit Lutheran Social Services of Illinois. The annual event is this coming Monday at Maggiano’s in Chicago and the auction has begun.
The bidding starts at $35, which is the normal price of a ticket. Six tickets are being sold individually, and four are being sold in pairs of two. I don’t think we’ll get a hot bidding war on every ticket sold, but I would like to see all of the tickets purchased for at least the base price - and LSSI does great work and was pummeled hard by the impasse.
* Click here to bid. You’ll be asked to create an account. Then they’ll send you a verification e-mail and you click a link and enter your bid. The whole thing takes about a minute.
And if you’ve already purchased a ticket, please don’t forget to bring a toy to the event for LSSI’s child care program.
A new report says Illinois lacks comprehensive guidelines when it comes to dealing with sexual misconduct cases in elementary and high schools.
Wendy Pollack heads the Women’s Law and Policy Initiative of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. She authored the report, based on a series of interviews with students and service providers across the state.
Pollack says the lack of guidance leads too often to problems like school employees mishandling survivors’ confidentiality, and survivors being revictimized by having to explain the abuse repeatedly. Pollack says when situations are mishandled it can even lead to bullying, and some students interviewed dropped out of school as a result.
In the midst of the #MeToo movement, there are more conversations about the existence of problems resulting from sexual violence. But Pollack says not enough of those conversations involve young survivors.
This report provides a snapshot of Illinois K-12 schools’ responses to student survivors of domestic and sexual violence. The report’s findings are based on four focus groups and 31 in-person and phone interviews conducted in 2015 and 2016; a total of 59 students (middle school and high school students) and service providers participated. The participants were diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and LGBTQ status; in addition, the participant service providers served diverse student populations. Geographically, participants were from all over the state, including Chicago and surrounding suburbs, and smaller cities and rural areas in northern, central, and southern Illinois. The schools varied in size, the availability of resources, and their response to and support of students and their experiences of domestic and sexual violence.
Although since 2007 Illinois law requires K-12 schools to conduct trainings by experts in domestic and sexual violence once every two years for all school personnel who work with students, including teachers, administrators, counselors, and nurses, the lack of comprehensive school policies creates barriers to student survivors’ success in school. Focus groups uncovered issues due to the lack of survivor-centered, trauma-informed policies in the following areas:
• Protocol and Training — Protocols that are sensitive to survivors and their needs were too often either absent or not followed by school personnel.
For example, staff generally did not know when and to whom they report. Compounding the problem, the required training of school personnel is generally not conducted, leaving school personnel unequipped to appropriately respond to disclosures of domestic and sexual violence.
• Confidentiality — School personnel often lacked understanding of the need for confidentiality and how to ensure it. Even when processes were in place, they were often unaware of confidential reporting processes. Routinely, confidentiality was either knowingly breached or there was a lack of privacy necessary to maintain confidentiality.
• Accommodations and Support Services — Schools too often did not provide any accommodations in response to student survivors trauma — whether academic-, safety-, or health-related. And if offered, in-school support was often
inadequate, and relationships with external service providers in the community that could offer expert support to student survivors were lacking.
• Revictimization — School personnel often dismissed the experiences of student survivors out of disbelief or through minimization, criticism, or even punishment.
Repairing and replacing the city of Springfield’s sewer system is estimated to cost more than $50 million over the next decade. […]
When averaging the age of Springfield’s oldest in newest pipes, the sewer system is about 60-years-old. The oldest pipes were laid about 150 years ago.
If necessary repairs aren’t made, sinkholes can form. […]
Since most of the city’s major sewage pipes run under roads, cave-ins could cause roads to collapse. […]
[Springfield’s Sewer Engineer John Higginbotham] said the city should be spending roughly $4 million a year on repairs and upgrades, but last year they only spent $1 million.
When people think of infrastructure, they often think only of roads, bridges and transit. But sewer and water systems in this state also need attention. It’s easy to get away with neglecting them because they’re underground. Out of sight, out of mind - until, that is, a sinkhole forms and a main road collapses.
One of Illinois’ biggest and most critical assets always has been its transportation network. We’re smack dab in the middle of America, but we lost Amazon’s HQ2 and we could lose more economic opportunity if we don’t tend to that network. That means planes, trains, transit, roads and, especially, bridges, noted Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Randy Blankenhorn.
Three quarters of Illinois’ bridges are in need of repair. We should be rebuilding five major bridges a year, but we’re working on one every five years, he said. “This is a crisis that’s coming,” Blankenhorn said. “This is what keeps me up at night.”
If we want to build our communities, attract new people who can contribute to those communities and fund governments, then we need to invest in transportation, Blankenhorn and others said.
He called for an increase of at least 15 cents in the state gas tax, which hasn’t been increased since 1990.
Once again, Blankenhorn says this stuff about a big gas tax hike after the election even though the governor has been saying for years that no tax hike is needed to pay for a capital bill.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday called for a 20 to 30 cent per gallon increase in the state’s gas tax to fund a major statewide transportation bill.
Emanuel made the push during a City Hall news conference in which he was joined by members of the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, an organization that represents the Chicago region’s 275 cities, towns and villages.
“Our state can’t wait any longer,” Emanuel said, noting neighboring states have passed transportation bills with gas tax hikes.
Pritzker said he hasn’t decided if he will give separate State of the State and budget messages next year. He said he will give a speech at his inauguration, but beyond that “it depends on how much we need to convey during that one-month period.”
If he gives a State of the State address, people will bemoan the fact that he didn’t talk about the state’s budget problems. If he skips the State of the State, he loses out on some publicity. Some governors have combined the two, some have given both.
Pritzker has dispatched invites to Senate President John Cullerton; House Speaker Michael Madigan; House Minority Leader Jim Durkin and Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady — and their wives Pam, Shirley, Celeste and Nancy — to wine and dine at Pritzker’s Astor Street mansion.
“It’s a first,” said one of the invitees, who asked not to be identified. […]
“Certainly, Gov. Bruce Rauner never entertained us this way for dinner,” the source said.
And what do you bring as a party gift?
“A bottle of wine … or a plunger,” said the source, jokingly referring to the campaign imbroglio over the controversial removal of toilets at the home, which lowered Pritzker’s property taxes.
That’s a fine way to repay the guy for the invite.
* Click here for background if you need it. Here’s Adam Schuster with the Illinois Policy Institute’s response to the Center on Tax and Budget Accountability’s defense of its pension obligation bond proposal…
The CTBA plan does use the POBs to reduce contributions, but in the long-run rather than the short-run/Blago-style. It reduces the contributions by both lowering the funding target and extending the pension ramp, both of which violate Actuarial Standards of Practice from professional actuary associations.
Hertz correctly points out that a recession is increasingly likely, but then comes to the exact opposite conclusion about what this should mean. Just prior to a recession is the worst possible time to play an arbitrage gamble with taxpayer money, which is what this plan does. It would be like going all in on a Black Jack hand knowing the dealer has 21. This will likely make our pension repayment even more expensive than already envisioned by CTBA.
Hertz’s admission that arbitrage benefit “isn’t really the point” tells us what their true motivation is here. Potential arbitrage benefit is the only positive aspect of their plan. But that’s not their goal; their goal is to trade soft debt for hard debt by putting taxpayers on the hook for these bonds, which cannot later be made cheaper through reform like the pension debt can.
Hertz claims to be worried about the service cuts being caused by the rapidly growing pension payments, but the CTBA plan explicitly puts pension payments above those services with its $11 billion cash infusion. That insulates pensions from the risk of economic downturn while also restricting the amount of revenue available for the services Hertz claims to care about, by making them hard debt.
You know what our alternative is, because I’ve seen you write about it. I know you think a federal contracts clause challenge is likely. We’ll have more on that soon, but for now its worth noting that Arizona did not face such a challenge despite a virtually identical situation. They have the same pension clause and their court also struck down a prior round of reforms, claiming they diminished benefits. And yet they’ve successfully amended their constitution twice now.
Arizona hasn’t yet faced a federal court challenge. That doesn’t mean it won’t. Or that it wouldn’t be challenged here.
…Adding… Schuster has a new post up on the topic. Click here.
…Adding… From comments…
Not weighing in on the CTBA proposal itself, but it’s worth pointing out that the IPI response seems to misunderstand (or misrepresent) it in several ways. First, IPI writes that CTBA’s proposal “reduces the contributions”, which isn’t really true. In the short-term CTBA’s proposal would increase contributions above what’s required under current law. Yes the CTBA proposal does not conform to actuarial standards, but making payments that align with actuarial best practices would require dramatically higher pension contributions (both above current law and CTBA’s proposal). Second, IPI is critical of the proposal’s use of POBs because it’s an “arbitrage gamble,” but this is simply not what CTBA is proposing. In CTBA’s proposal the POBs are meant to be a revenue source for making pension payments that are higher than required under current law in the short term. This using POBs for budgetary relief. POBs resolve CTBA’s issue of wanting to increase pension contributions without cutting other aspects of the budget or simply raising taxes. It’s also worth pointing out that Quinn issued two POBs for budgetary relief (in 2010 and 2011). The Blago POB was issued for arbitrage reasons; however, once issued Blago used some of the proceeds for budgetary relief (which was a different use than original proposed). Blago’s use of POB proceeds for budgetary relief is one source of criticism; however, it remains to be seen whether the arbitrage play materializes as the bonds aren’t paid off. As of 2017, investment returns have actually exceed the 2003 POB interest rates. (see p. 121 http://cgfa.ilga.gov/Upload/FinConditionILStateRetirementSysMar2018.pdf)
Last, I think people should realize that CTBA’s proposal actually has several distinct policy components that can be independently debated. 1) switching the amortization method (aka debt repayment schedule) from level % of pay to level dollar. Doing this alone requires higher pension payments; 2) changing the funded ratio target from 90% to 70%; and 3) using POBs to make part of the state’s pension payments.
I know who that commenter is, by the way, and the person knows this topic well.
Chicago’s most powerful alderman, Edward M. Burke, had his cell phone seized by federal agents who raided his government and political offices late last month, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
It’s unclear why the FBI seized the phone or where it was when they took it.
I had heard they tracked him down the day of the raid and took his phone.
Shortly before FBI agents raided the offices of Ald. Edward M. Burke, they knocked on the door of the alderman’s top political aide, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
The FBI showed up at Peter Andrews Jr.’s home in Mount Greenwood around 7 a.m. on Nov. 29. […]
Andrews is the chairman of two of Burke’s three campaign funds, which total a combined $12 million — money the alderman has raised from companies that have gotten business from City Hall, some that also have hired his law firm, Klafter & Burke, to challenge their real estate assessments, seeking to lower their property tax bills.
Burke has paid Andrews more than $100,000 since 2001 to serve as a political consultant, according to records the alderman has filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Fourteen years ago, Andrews and his wife, Ginger, got caught up in the scandal over the city’s Hired Truck Program under which the administration of Mayor Richard M. Daley spent $40 million a year to hire dump trucks that often ended up doing no work on city construction projects.
Oh, that’s big. Andrews is to Burke ~ what Marty Quinn is to Speaker Madigan.
* The Southern Illinoisan’s Gabriel Neely-Streit has a well-written story about the many tough challenges facing volunteer fire departments in the rural south…
“It’s hard to be a non-paid department and get anybody that wants to participate,” Grant said. “Then, if we do get people, we don’t have the proper equipment to give them for them to be safe.”
Throughout Southern Illinois, small town fire chiefs say they’re fighting to recruit and retain volunteers, and to provide expensive and time-consuming training to keep up with stringent state regulations.
Meanwhile, small towns like Buncombe are shrinking, and residents are growing older.
“We’ve had seven people pass away in Buncombe this year,” said Tommy Groner Jr., the town’s assistant fire chief. That means empty houses in town, less taxpayers to support the department, and a smaller pool of potential volunteers.
But as Buncombe’s population decreases, its need remains.
In rural Southern Illinois, having trained firefighters and first responders next door, instead of two towns over, can save lives, local officials say.
* Illinois Public Media News interviewed Sen. Heather Steans (D-Chicago) about her work on a new legislative draft to legalize marijuana in Illinois. The whole thing is worth a read, but here’s one excerpt…
Steans: We see this as a three-piece process. One of them is the expungement, and two is inclusion and enabling people of color with backgrounds to be included in the industry now going forward.
We also want to ensure that anybody who is in the business has to have plans to do minority hiring. To the extent that we can do it, we want to encourage preference for minority-owned, women-owned and veteran-owned [cannabis businesses].
Then we also want to create new classes of licenses. You know right now we just have cultivation and dispensary [for medical marijuana], limited opportunities for people to get involved in the industry. We want to add additional license categories so that there’s more opportunities for people of color to get involved, and women and veterans.
And then the third piece is we think some of the revenue [from marijuana taxes] should be going toward neighborhoods that have been disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs.
* Opening up opportunities is important because, as Tom Schuba reports, some real heavy-hitters are circling above…
Cannabis is becoming big business in Illinois, with some local pot companies emerging as national leaders after inking record-setting deals and starting to trade publicly in Canada, where marijuana was recently legalized. […]
The River North-based pot firm now has operations in six states, with plans to expand to New York and Massachusetts. In October, Cresco began trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange after carrying out a reverse takeover of an existing company. The public offering comes on the heels of a $100 million private funding round, the second-largest for an American pot company. […]
Almost two decades later, Kovler started Green Thumb Industries. Headquartered in River North, the rapidly-expanding cannabis company now has eight manufacturing facilities and 60 dispensaries spread across eight states. Earlier this year, GTI raised $67 million after the company was listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange. According to Kovler, the company’s growth has happened “one step at a time.” […]
Teddy Scott recently brokered the largest acquisition in the history of the marijuana industry, selling Oak Park-based PharmaCann to touted California pot brand MedMen for $682 million in October.
Under the bill promoted up by Assistant Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford on Friday, a petitioner could ask a circuit judge to expunge the record of a conviction or plea of guilty for an offense from before July 29, 2016, if three years or more have passed since the petitioner has completed their sentence.
“As the conversation about legalizing recreational marijuana continues to gain traction, it would be irresponsible of legislators to overlook the damage over-criminalization has caused,” Lightford, D-Maywood, said. “This measure is about helping nonviolent offenders rehabilitate and have a better chance of getting a job.”
Lightford will have to get the bill through the Senate and get it to Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desk next month, or the process will have to start anew in the 101st General Assembly.
State Rep. La Shawn Ford, who initially sponsored the bill, said that expunging the low-level conviction would allow people to once again tell prospective employers that they’ve got a clean record. […]
According to a 2013 report from the American Civil Liberties Union, African-Americans in Illinois are more than 7 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession. […]
The city of San Francisco is in the process of clearing all marijuana convictions there dating back to 1975, a move that could result in the clearing of an estimated 3,000 misdemeanors and the possible reduction of an estimated 5,000 felonies to lower charges.
McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally has asked state representatives to vote against legalizing marijuana in Illinois, if and when the time comes. […]
“It is disheartening to see legislators willing to unleash recreational cannabis with all the driving force of capitalism before the health and social consequences are fully understood,” Kenneally wrote. “It is far better to wait for the ongoing experiments in Colorado, Washington, Michigan and Canada to reach fully mature and conclusive results over the next several years.”
The state’s attorney said he’s not opposed to decriminalizing the possession of larger amounts of marijuana, but he claims legalizing it entirely would open the door for cartels and black market dealers to move in and take advantage of Illinois’ “exorbitant” taxes.
Skillicorn, R-Crystal Lake, is a sponsor on a bill seeking to legalize marijuana in Illinois. As it’s written now, the bill would not allow for additional taxes to be tacked onto marijuana sales. The cautionary measure should be enough to stave off potential black market dealers, Skillicorn said.
Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker, traveling the state on a thank-your tour, told a crowd in Sangamon County Democratic headquarters Monday that his travels downstate and his efforts to build the party will continue. […]
Pritzker also said that as a “competitive sort,” he wanted to talk a little politics, in part saying that his defeat of Gov. Bruce Rauner was by “the largest margin that anybody’s beaten an incumbent governor” in history.
“It’s really because of you,” he said. “We all hung together, we Democrats.”
I asked Team Pritzker if “margin” meant percentage or vote total and was told it meant percentage.
He seems to be right. Or, at least, I think so. All of the results aren’t online and my set of “Centennial History of Illinois” had some of the results (all with much more narrow margins than Pritzker vs. Rauner), but is missing two volumes, so I couldn’t be sure. And then I found the online version, but I couldn’t find all the results there, either. Maybe one of you will have better luck because I ain’t got all day to mess with this.
The next biggest margin over a sitting governor appears to be Democrat Adlai Stevenson’s 1948 win against Republican Gov. Dwight Green. Stevenson won by 14.5 percentage points. Pritzker won by 15.7 points.
By the way, Stevenson won by 572,067 votes, which was apparently the record until now. Pritzker won by 713,995 votes. So, the record is apparently for both percentage and vote margins.
* The 2018 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Democratic State Senate Campaign Staffer goes to Natalie Benner…
It’s nice to see women in the Senate Dem campaign apparatus start playing a more sustained, significant role on the managerial front and even more wonderful when it is someone like Natalie. Just being in the Tom Cullerton office for a short while, you can tell that Natalie’s hard work yielded a strong operation. And she even camped out at DuPage County Election Authority when her race was in the bag. Watch out for Natalie. She’s going places.
She received several strong nominations. Runner-up goes to Ben Donovan…
Ben is a hard worker, fast learner, and super nice guy. He will out work the competition and he treats everyone on the campaign with respect. Ben was a major part of turning a district that went for Nybo by 20% in ‘14 to winning the rematch by 1.6%.
* The 2018 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Republican State Senate Campaign Staffer goes to Rachel Bold…
Rachel Bold did an outstanding job getting Senator Anderson back to Springfield. Held off a strong opponent during an otherwise blue victory party. Strong TV and mail ads. I hope we will get to see her in the quad cities again.
That was a no-brainer. Runner-up goes to Jon Nelson…
One of the few bright spots for the Republican caucus was hanging on to Curran’s seat while the other “safe” suburban GOP seats went under.
Congrats to everyone.
* OK, let’s move on to today’s categories…
* Best campaign staffer - House Democrats
* Best campaign staffer - House Republicans
Please make sure to explain your nominations or they won’t count. I’d prefer nominations in both categories, but if you work exclusively with one party I will understand if you can’t.
Governor-elect @JBPritzker greets and thanks supporters in Springfield. Someone joked every Democrat in Sangamon County is crowded into this small room. pic.twitter.com/oqGxLFfx8R
Candidates Toni Preckwinkle and Ja’Mal Green would get rid of TIF districts altogether.
“We’ve really got to look at unwinding as many of those TIFs as we possibly can and turning the resources back to Chicago Public Schools,” Preckwinkle said last Monday, a day before she won the Chicago Teachers Union endorsement. She said she would give all annual TIF surpluses to the schools until all 144 TIF districts are phased out. […]
Lori Lightfoot, Robert “Bob” Fioretti and LaShawn Ford called for a moratorium on creating new TIF districts. […]
Paul Vallas vowed to “implement a new paradigm” with “clearer TIF guidelines for developers.” Vallas would dedicate a third of TIF revenue to a Chicago Equity Investment Fund to be used in blighted areas.
Lightfoot touched on a topic during a mayoral debate last month that merits more attention: the issue of regressive taxation in the city of Chicago.
“We live in one of the most taxed cities and the most taxed county, unfortunately, in the country,” she said at a debate in November. “And low-income families and individuals and working families have shouldered far too great a burden because our tax system, our levies and fees have been completely regressive.”
Technically, Lightfoot’s wording was a bit overstated, as my colleagues at the Better Government Association recently pointed out. But her larger point—about the inequity of how taxation in Chicago affects the rich and the poor—is one that deserves consideration. It would be useful to hear more on this from all the candidates hoping to occupy the office on the fifth floor of City Hall.
I agree that, “technically” she might possibly have “a bit overstated” the facts, but Greising’s BGA colleagues rated her claim “mostly false” in yet another example of the BGA’s attempt to police political rhetoric instead of hard facts. Maybe the group should follow its leader and focus on policies and not goofy little click-bait gotcha pieces.
But most of the contenders so far are barely touching this issue. Like businessman Willie Wilson, No. 2 on the February ballot, who says on his website that he wants to “create safe neighborhoods” and “end carjackings . . . (and) police brutality”—along with letting seniors ride free on the Chicago Transit Authority. I appreciate that, sir. This senior just loves free stuff—providing the CTA doesn’t slash service to pay for it, that is. But what specifically are you going to do to make the streets safe?
Ditto Bill Daley, who says in his new TV ad that he’ll “make getting gangs and guns off of our streets priority No. 1″ but doesn’t give a clue as to how. […]
As usual, the most detailed policy plans come from Paul Vallas, and I give the former Chicago Public Schools chief lots of credit for daring to open himself up to critics rather than peddling bromides. Among ideas from him: bringing back—perhaps part time—retired but experienced detectives who could help the Police Department clear up a huge backlog of unsolved cases, and offering a city witness protection program for those who are worried about gang retaliation if they help prosecutors. Of course, it’s not clear Vallas has a plan to pay for that and other proposals. But his ideas are worth a look.
Then there’s Toni Preckwinkle, who calls herself a progressive but lately has been focused on trying to knock foes off the ballot on technicalities and lining up endorsements from powerful labor chiefs. On her website, she talks not about cutting crime but cutting the number of nonviolent drug offenders in the county jail and the number of children tried as adults. There’s some merit to both, but what does Preckwinkle want to do about crime? What would she do to those who run around with guns, terrorizing people?
* Another good question…
Where are the mayoral candidates on Rahm's plan to let this guy try to bore a tunnel to ORD from the Loop? https://t.co/B18mr238dw
The Chicago Sun-Times editorial board has the heft to put all of these questions and more to the candidates. What they did with TIF districts was a good start.
…Adding… Sounds like I hurt the BGA’s fee-fees…
My name is Bob Secter and I am the senior editor at the Better Government Association. I realize that it has become fashionable these days for people to elevate themselves by trying to diminish others, so I usually laugh off your gratuitous commentary about us and others as well. Today’s ridicule of our recent Lori Lightfoot seemed particularly ill-informed, however. Here we have a candidate for Chicago mayor who is making sweeping assertions about complicated tax policy that are ill informed. The irony was that she could have made a compelling point had she simply stuck to the facts about how the tax system was particularly unfair to low-income residents. But she didn’t do that, and our job is to provide context for the claims politicians make. One of the reasons tax policy is so difficult to fix is that its too easy to demagogue rather than deal with the nuance. Your ill-informed attack on us simply reinforces that problem.
Politifact does not allow us to slap any old rating we feel on a statement we are vetting. There are a strict set of guidelines we are required to follow in rating comments, and all ratings are decided on by a jury of three editors. We are not doing this by the seat of our pants. In case you are interested, here are the guidelines: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/feb/12/principles-truth-o-meter-politifacts-methodology-i/
The definition of Mostly False is: “The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.”
And that’s exactly where Lightfoot’s claim fell. She didn’t just “overstate things” as you contend. She got a little bit right, but a lot a bit wrong.
As for your snark about “goofy little click-bait gotcha pieces,” have you read your blog lately?
Pot meet kettle.
“I” didn’t originally “contend” that she “overstated” things a bit. That was David Griesing, the president of the Better Government Association, for crying out loud. I therefore have no choice but to rate this Bob Secter reply “Pants on Fire!” /s
Also, I don’t sell ads based on clicks. Never have. So, the senior editor is wrong once again. Is there a double “pants on fire” rating allowed?
* From Fitch Ratings’ “Illinois: What Happens Next” report…
The governor-elect’s plans regarding pension liabilities focus more on possible adjustments to the state’s funding schedule, rather than on any steps to seek employee consent for or constitutional changes to allow for accrued benefit changes, or shifting costs to school districts or public universities as proposed by the incumbent. When asked about his pension proposals during the campaign, the governor-elect suggested stepping up the statutory payment to a level-dollar amortization that would potentially mean higher annual contributions in the near- compared to the systems’ level percentage-of-payroll amortization under current statute. He did not provide extensive details on where the necessary funding would come from. Fitch notes that the current statutory contribution remains inadequate relative to the level recommended by actuaries to ensure full funding over time.
So far so good.
* Onward…
One possibility, advocated by the also progressive-leaning Center on Tax and Budget Accountability (CTBA) in Illinois, is to use pension obligation bonds (POBs) to partially fund stepped-up pension contributions for several years. The proposal also calls for re-amortization of pension liability with a new funded ratio target of 70% by 2045, versus the already comparatively weak 90% statutory funding target (also by 2045) under the current statutory ramp-up. The CTBA’s executive director was recently appointed as one of 17 members of the governor-elect’s budget and innovations transition committee.
Fitch has previously noted that issuance of POBs is generally neutral to negative for an issuer’s credit quality. If POB proceeds are deposited with a pension trust, while actuarial contributions continue to flow uninterrupted from annual budgetary resources, the issuance of POBs offsets unfunded liability and has little immediate impact on the issuer’s overall long-term liability burden.
However, the CTBA proposal to use proceeds for budget relief by offsetting an annual pension contribution is viewed by Fitch as deficit financing. Such situations result in the issuer’s bonded debt increasing without necessarily a corresponding decrease in its net pension liabilities, a factor that may negatively weigh on the credit ratings.
* I asked the CTBA’s Daniel Kay Hertz for a response…
CTBA agrees that using POBs to “offset an annual pension contribution”—ie, to replace funding that would normally be coming from tax revenue—is irresponsible. That was one of the upshots of our Crain’s editorial in August.
But I think it’s not right to say the POBs in the reamortization plan are “offsetting an annual pension contribution.” Those POBs are *in addition to* the amounts paid with tax revenue as scheduled under current law. In other words, CTBA’s reamortization plan doesn’t create false savings by substituting tax-funded spending with debt-funded spending; it uses all of the POB proceeds to directly increase contributions to the pension systems as a bridge to the level-dollar amortization contributions.
As for the 70% funded ratio target, two things. First, and most importantly, by putting more money in the pension systems up front, CTBA’s reamortization plan actually increases the funded ratio *faster* than the current ramp through about the mid-2030s. That’s crucial in the short term because it gives the pension systems more breathing room in the increasingly likely case of a recession. In the longer term, it’s important because it means that, fifteen years from now, if the state decides it wants and is in a position to increase its funded ratio target for 2045, *it will be in no worse, and maybe a better, position to do that than under the current ramp*. Because, again, the funded ratio is actually higher under the CTBA reamortization than under the current ramp through the mid-2030s.
Second, while pushing the pension systems’ funded ratios higher is important, it needs to be weighed against the state’s capacity to raise revenue and fund crucial public services. Our view is that the current ramp—which achieves a 90% funded ratio in 2045 by calling for annual contributions approaching $20 billion at the end of the schedule—is just not sustainable without unrealistic, and intolerable, revenue increases and service cuts.
In large part because of the pressure created by pension debt in the ramp, Illinois’ real per capita General Fund spending on current services has already declined by more than 20% since FY2000, including a 50% cut to higher education. We understand that a 70% funded ratio target isn’t ideal in the abstract, but in the actual circumstances Illinois finds itself in, we believe it is part of a plan that responsibly stabilizes the pension systems while creating room for the state to meet other obligations that Illinoisans depend on.
* I had earlier asked Hertz to explain the group’s idea…
So basically the challenge with replacing the ramp with the level-dollar reamortization is that, while the level-dollar saves a lot of money over the whole 2019-2045 period, it requires higher payments for the first eight years.
Our suggestion, essentially, is that in each year where the level-dollar payment is higher than the ramp payment (as currently projected), we fill the gap with a POB, to avoid facing a cliff of either new revenue just for pension contributions or service cuts. So if in a given year the level-dollar payment is $1 billion over what the ramp would have called for, the state would issue $1 billion in POBs. Since the level-dollar payments are higher than the ramp payments for the first eight years, that means we’re talking eight years of POBs, which add up to a total of $11.2 billion.
The period over which we pay off those POBs is 30 years, at (in our model, using a very high 6.5% interest rate) between $900 million and $1 billion per year when all of them have been issued.
Then there’s the question of the freed up revenue from the old POBs that are coming off the books in the next year or so. In our model, we see that revenue—nearly $1 billion a year—as money that should be redirected from paying debt service on POBs to directly supporting the pension systems, and so we use that as well to boost the state’s annual contributions.
* Is there arbitrage involved?…
No. There may very well be some arbitrage benefit, but that isn’t really the point. The point is to be able to immediately get annual contributions to the pension funds up to the amount called for by the level dollar plan.
In a “pure” version of reamortization, you just make that full payment from tax revenue, and the state would be forced to either immediately raise a sizable amount of additional funds or cut spending. The POB idea is to ease that transition so there aren’t big shocks on either side.
And to be clear, making the full payments with tax revenue would save more money, looking just at the pension systems, than easing the transition with POBs. But a) the POB version still saves $67 billion between 2019 and 2045 in our estimates, and b) the POB version may be more realistic, given that the state has many other crucial services it needs to fund. In other words, we don’t think it’s a great idea for the state to find the money to make the level-dollar contributions by further slashing higher education funding or human services.
Immediately upon reaching office, Macron abolished the Solidarity Wealth Tax (ISF), giving €4 billion to the richest; and has strengthened the Tax Credit for Solidarity and Employment (CICE), a tax cut and exemption program transferring €41 billion a year to French companies, including multinationals. Shortly afterwards, with the 2018 budget bill, Macron established a flat tax that allowed a lowering of taxation on capital, handing another €10 billion to the richest.
At the same time, the government has increased the General Social Contribution (CSG) income tax to be paid by pensioners, while pensions themselves have ceased to be indexed to inflation (and thus to retirees’ ability to buy consumer goods). It has got rid of the subsidized contracts (which allowed large numbers to work on contracts partly financed by public bodies) and lowered by five euros a month the amount of housing contributions (APL) for the most disadvantaged.
The [tax] cuts, which mainly target employers, fit into a strategy of making work pay more in a country where labor costs are high and unemployment — currently stuck above 9 percent — is plaguing the presidency.
But to pay for his cuts, Macron is hitting the less productive sections of society: Pensions are to be capped, as are welfare benefits, and public sector jobs are to be axed, according to a sneak peek of the budget provided Sunday by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
However, Macron has ruled out a return of the impôt de solidarité sur la fortune, or solidarity tax on wealth (ISF). The president reportedly told a meeting of the council of ministers on Wednesday: “We’re not going to unpick anything we’ve done in the last 18 months.”
Lifting part of the ISF was a pillar of Macron’s election campaign and one of the first fiscal measures he implemented on taking power in May 2017, leading to his nickname “president of the rich”.
Flatter taxation, tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations, pension “reform” and austerity. That pretty much sums up the Tribune editorial board’s policy road map for Illinois.
In France, an individual earning between $30,675 and $82,237 is taxed at 30 percent. In the U.S., an individual earning $30,675 would pay 12 percent in federal tax while someone earning $82,237 would pay 22 percent.
Joseph Downing, an expert in French politics at the London School of Economics, agreed that the protests were about “much more” than taxes on gas.”
The tax will increase the price of fuel by about 30 cents per gallon and will continue to rise over the next few years, the French government says. Gas already costs about $7.06 per gallon in France.
* There is so much disinformation out there. From the AP…
THE CLAIM: Video shows French firefighters turning their backs and walking out on French President Emmanuel Macron during a ceremony.
THE FACTS: Macron was not at the event where firefighters were captured on video turning their backs on officials on Saturday, Dec. 1, but the video is real. Social media users began sharing the video with the false claim after grassroots demonstrations in France turned violent last weekend. The protests began as a response to Macron’s plan to increase the fuel tax. Sebastien Delavoux, secretary general of the local fire and rescue union, told The Associated Press that firefighters turned their backs toward their employers because they were angry that their yearslong concerns about staffing issues had not been addressed. […]
THE CLAIM: Video shows French citizens chanting “We want Trump!” during recent protests.
THE FACTS: Social media users are misrepresenting the video, falsely claiming it was taken during recent protests in France. The video actually shows people at a demonstration in London chanting for President Donald Trump. The video was taken June 9, 2018, during a rally held in support of Tommy Robinson, a right-wing activist who was jailed for contempt of court in England. In the video, a demonstrator wearing a Trump mask can be seen on top of a blue sightseeing bus trying to rally the crowd by chanting, “We want Trump!” Posts saying the video was taken during a French demonstration began circulating widely on social media after protests in France turned violent the weekend of Dec. 1.
* Related…
* Chris Miller calls pension benefits ‘legalized extortion’: State Rep.-elect Chris Miller (R-Oakland) points to news that just over 19,000 state retirees received pension benefits totaling nearly $2.4 billion in fiscal year 2018 as yet another example of how taxpayers are victimized in Illinois. … “One of the biggest reasons why pensions are so underfunded is the people in them don’t have to fund them,” he said. “They don’t have to pay any income taxes on their retirement benefits and are making a 1,000 percent return on this investment.” … The 110th House District includes Clark, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, Edgar and Lawrence counties.
* INN: Rauner say yes to infrastructure bill, no to new taxes
The nearly 181,000 jobs in Michigan tied to the auto industry constitute 19 percent of the nation’s total, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Indiana has the second-most auto jobs, heavily concentrated in recreational vehicles. Illinois ranks No. 8, with about 13,000 jobs building chassis or bodies and 23,600 making auto parts.
Michigan and Indiana are the dominant players in the auto industry and both states lost a whole lot of jobs during the economic crash during the final years of the previous decade. But when auto sales rebounded, so did their state economies.
* But while other states are now reeling from GM’s recently announced layoffs, the same article has some good news for Illinois…
That popularity [of the Ford Explorer] means the 5,400 employees at Ford’s plants on Torrence Avenue and in Chicago Heights can breathe easier, at least a little, even as GM announces up to five plant closures and Ford transfers 1,150 workers in Michigan and Kentucky to build better-selling models. The same is true in Belvidere, near Rockford, where 5,300 Fiat Chrysler workers pump out the Jeep Cherokee, another model with solid sales. […]
The question is whether, when the Taurus disappears, anyone at the Torrence Avenue plant will even notice. The facility is operating at 150 percent capacity, running above and beyond the two shifts that equal normal production. The Explorer placed among the 10 best-selling light trucks for the first 10 months of the year, with 218,805 purchased nationwide. […]
The Jeep Cherokee also sells well. Fiat Chrysler sold 198,341 of the model in the first 10 months of the year, a 48 percent increase over the year-earlier period.
Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker was asked last week about the timeline for passage of a new minimum wage law.
“That’s very important to me,” Pritzker said, “It’s probably something we’ll be able to get done in the first six months in office.”
Pritzker had campaigned to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, so he was asked whether he was still on board for that goal.
“Yeah,” he said, and then went on a somewhat long, rambling explanation, during which he repeated a talking point about how he wants to make sure that small business “are not ill-affected” by a minimum wage hike and that “large businesses are implementing it in as rapid fashion as we can make happen.”
I’m told that Pritzker hopes to shield small businesses from excessive harm to their bottom lines by using some sort of tax relief, including tax credits. The devil is always in the details, including defining what is and isn’t a small business, but that’ll apparently be part of the upcoming negotiations.
Illinois’ current minimum wage is $8.25 per hour. Indiana, which has often made a public spectacle of poaching Illinois businesses, has a $7.25 an hour minimum wage. Chicago’s minimum is $12 per hour and will rise to $13 an hour next year. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has claimed an increased minimum wage would attract workers from around the region.
The governor-elect also noted that his team has the “various constituents and stakeholders … at the table. The Illinois Retail Merchants, the entrepreneurs and the labor unions, all at the table.”
The Illinois Retail Merchants Association voted earlier this year to not endorse anyone in the governor’s race, making it the only major business group that didn’t back Gov. Bruce Rauner. It also took a pass on the gubernatorial contest four years ago, but endorsed Republican state Sen. Bill Brady over Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in 2010.
This year’s decision came after two meetings between Pritzker and Rob Karr, IRMA’s president and CEO. Karr came away impressed, believing that, while Pritzker has some very liberal goals, he will negotiate in good faith on ways of reaching those goals.
Retailers are very sensitive to labor costs, and Karr was instrumental in convincing House Speaker Michael Madigan to not move forward with a minimum wage increase bill in 2014. Instead, Madigan pushed through legislation to put a non-binding referendum on the ballot. It passed overwhelmingly, but Gov. Rauner was also elected that year and he had once said he opposed having a minimum wage at all. A minimum wage hike has been put on the back burner ever since.
Crain’s Chicago Business has referred to the pre-campaign version of J.B. Pritzker as the “unofficial mayor” of Chicago’s downtown business community. Not many of those business titans stepped up to endorse Pritzker, but they also didn’t rise up in strong opposition to Pritzker or in fervent favor of Rauner. So, there’s also a level of trust that Pritzker won’t go totally overboard.
The Pritzker folks say they want to negotiate with all stakeholders on numerous issues, with the minimum wage being just one of them. This is the way things were done before Rod Blagojevich came onto the scene. Blagojevich was a big fan of jamming major ideas through on partisan roll calls.
IRMA has always tried to be an honest and willing negotiator. And its leader Karr was reportedly convinced from his two meetings with the then-candidate that once Pritzker made a deal he’d stick with it and pass it, despite any objections from the hard left.
Pritzker will have his work cut out for him in that regard. The head of the legislative Progressive Caucus, Rep. Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago), recently threw down an online gauntlet about how Illinois “must not” follow the lead of Colorado Democrats, who after taking over their state’s legislature have now signaled that they’ll be more open to negotiations with the business community.
“People elected us because we said we’d make their lives better,” Guzzardi wrote. “Raise their wages, provide decent benefits, make college and healthcare more affordable, etc. We ran on this. We won. And now… we run away? If so, why vote for us at all?”
And Pritzker will also have to deal with more moderate Democrats on this topic. Those I’ve spoken with are not necessarily opposed to a minimum wage increase, but going all the way up to $15 an hour gives them serious pause, even with possible tax credits.
*** UPDATE *** Pritzker was asked about a possible tax credit for small businesses and the phase-in of the higher wage today…
Governor-elect @JBPritzker reaffirmed his support for a gradual minimum wage hike to eventually reach $15/hour this morning. He also confirmed @CapitolFax's reporting that a tax credit for small businesses could be part of a compromise to entice business groups to back the idea. pic.twitter.com/jFiYQLHbfZ
The Illinois Manufacturers Association held a huge party for retiring president and CEO Greg Baise today. This video was shown. It’s pretty funny at times and there are a few obvious references to the shortcomings of Gov. Bruce Rauner…
Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I’m on my way
But when I think it’s time to leave it all behind
I try to find a way, but there’s nothing I can say to make it stop
Today the US EPA released the results of 2 ambient air tests that were conducted near the Sterigenics site. These test results are still being analyzed by experts, but one thing is clear – these new test results confirm our position that this is an immediate public health threat, a health crisis that most dangerously affects hundreds of children and families in the immediate area.
Another round of air monitoring near Sterigenics detected alarming levels of cancer-causing ethylene oxide near the west suburban facility, but federal officials cautioned Friday that they need more information before deciding if neighboring communities are still at risk.
Spikes of the highly toxic chemical were detected in samples collected during three days in mid-November at Willowbrook Village Hall and a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warehouse, according to results posted online by the EPA. Both monitors are close to a pair of buildings off Illinois Route 83 and Interstate 55 where Sterigenics uses ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment, pharmaceutical drugs and food.
The highest average level of ethylene oxide detected during a 24-hour period was 6.62 micrograms per cubic meter of air, more than three times greater than the amount that federal officials relied on earlier this year to calculate potential cancer risks in the area.
However, six other monitors — located at schools and in nearby residential areas — did not register measurable amounts of ethylene oxide during the same testing period, the EPA reported.
The latest results are the first posted since the company installed new equipment intended to reduce the amount of ethylene oxide leaking from its sterilization chambers. EPA officials said they won’t be able to determine if neighbors are in danger until the agency has completed three months of community air monitoring and plugs the results into its computer modeling of pollution emitted by Sterigenics.
* Sterigenics…
“Sterigenics is reviewing the results of the initial air sample tests from the US EPA, but it is no surprise that the samples indicate variable levels of ethylene oxide (“EO”) in the air. We note from the samples that all of the residential, parks, and school locations selected for testing had non-detect readings. The two locations in the commercial area next to our Willowbrook facilities had variable levels of EO detected. As is commonly known, EO levels in the air vary greatly based on a number of factors including proximity to sources of EO, of which there are many including exhaust from diesel trucks and automobiles, and the weather conditions on the days that samples were collected.
“”As the EPA states, “It is premature to draw conclusions from the data. EPA plans to continue monitoring in the Willowbrook area for three months and will continue to post data as it becomes available.” We will continue to work with the EPA to understand the results and will continue to cooperate fully.
“Sterigenics has operated, and continues to operate, well within the limits of its permit and the regulations. By properly controlling emissions while preventing life-threatening infection, the Willowbrook facility serves to safeguard global health every day. Sterigenics remains committed to working with public officials to evolve regulations in the continued interest of public safety.”
…Adding… US Rep. Dan Lipinski…
Despite Sterigenics’ claims that it isn’t a public health threat, and despite their new pollution control equipment, initial EPA testing has shown significant EtO emissions around the facility. While more testing will be occurring, this preliminary data confirms my belief that this plant is a threat to public health and unless data is provided to the contrary, I maintain that this plant should be shut down.
* The 2018 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best State House Staffer - Non Political goes to Sherri Garrett…
No question. To go from someone very few folks were familiar with to the greatest change agent this place has seen in ages is stunning. To do all of that with grace, humility and humor makes it all the more worthy of recognition.
Sherri Garrett stood up, spoke out and changed the culture immediately and permanently. That took enormous courage and it gave every non-political staffer protection from what had become a toxic work environment. Her action put powerful men on notice that this (stuff) will no longer be tolerated.
This is her year. Bravo.
* The 2018 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best State Senate Staffer - Non Political goes to Aaron Holmes…
I have to echo an above comment. Aaron is the most valuable asset that President Cullerton has. His knowledge of the legislative process is quite impressive. Aaron helps review every bill that comes through the chamber. He constantly has to help new members of staff and is potentially the nicest person under the dome. It should be obvious that Aaron is the best.
Congrats to both recipients.
* OK, on to today’s categories…
* Best campaign staffer - Senate Democrats
* Best campaign staffer - Senate Republicans
Make sure to explain your responses or they won’t count and please try to nominate in both categories if you can. I will understand if you work with only one party and can’t, however.
14th CD State Central Committeeman Stan Bond… expressed hope that the IL GOP will stick to its party platform - meaning a conservative slant. Bond’s hope clashes with others who expect the current leadership to abandon if their proposed “unified” message is embraced. Bond says that conservative IL GOP platform is crucial to the party’s future.
“Conceptually I will say our party must remain loyal to its platform - a document which seemed largely ignored by losing candidates in this last cycle,” Bond told Illinois Review. […]
State Rep. Jeanne Ives - who almost unseated GOP incumbent governor Bruce Rauner in the 2018 GOP primary - has signed on as a “fellow” with the Illinois Conservative Union, spoke with Illinois Review about the state party chairman’s refusal to step down. Ives has become a key spokesperson for the state’s conservative movement. She pointed directly to the party leadership for failing to organize to take advantage of the Democrats’ obvious weaknesses and strategic failures. […]
“There are motivated Republicans still willing to fight in this state so we can save our homes and afford to stay in Illinois,” Ives said. “We will work together outside of official leadership to advance policy solutions at the local level and block bad policy at the state level. We will support and work only for candidates that support the party platform.” [Emphasis added.]
We believe that our natural rights, as enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, begin at conception and continue until natural death. We believe that these rights include the fundamental right to life of unborn children, and we support the appointment or election of judges who share that belief.
We support a human life amendment to the federal and Illinois constitutions affirming the right to life of unborn children, and we support making clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.
We advocate the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
We oppose the use of taxpayer funds to pay for abortions or to support organizations that perform abortions, that participate in the purchase or sale of fetal tissue or organs, or that create and destroy human embryos for the harvesting of stem cells for research or treatment purposes. […]
VII. EMBRACING THE TRADITIONAL FAMILY
The family is society’s central building block. Thus, efforts to strengthen family life are efforts to improve life for everyone.
Our children need secure and nurturing environments, which are best found within the traditional family. No law should be enacted nor policy implemented without fully contemplating the effect it would have on children and their families.
While not universally achievable, the ideal environment for children is within a two-parent family based on the principle of marriage between one man and one woman. The Republican Party endorses a constitutional amendment protecting our Defense of Marriage Act and enshrining in constitutional law marriage as it is defined in our “DOMA.”
Therefore, we accept that good Republicans do not have to agree on all the issues contained in this Platform and that this Platform shall not be used as an instrument of division or attack on others within the party who hold opposing views. We must unite as a party behind those items on which we agree.
* I’ve been working on a story involving lots numbers and I suddenly hit a brick wall and in the process lost all track of time. Oops. Be kind to each other and keep it Illinois-centric, please.
Equality Illinois is making the unusual move to endorse a candidate for the city treasurer’s office. The gay-rights advocacy group has long endorsed in legislative and mayoral races. This time, it’s getting involved in the treasurer contest because of “concerns about a candidate’s commitment to the LGBTQ community,” Brian Johnson, the group’s CEO, told POLITICO.
He was referring to state Rep. Melissa Conyears-Ervin, one of four candidates running for treasurer. Equality Illinois, which tracks voting records, says Conyears-Ervin hasn’t taken a stand on two particular pieces of legislation.
On HB1875, the birth certificate-sex designation bill (which allows trans folks to change their gender on their birth records without having surgery), Conyears-Ervin was the only lawmaker to vote present (instead of yea or nay). And Equality Illinois says Conyears-Ervin hasn’t committed to SB3249, which would add LGBTQ issues in school history books. That bill was just placed on the calendar for a second reading.
Conyears-Ervin, who this week was endorsed by SEIU 73 and Chicago Teachers Union, responded to POLITICO about Equality Illinois’ concerns. In an email sent through a spokesman, she wrote:
“My record on issues of fairness and equality is second to none and I will continue to work with anyone promoting these causes. I support teaching LGBTQ history in schools and I will work with my colleagues to achieve this measure as it comes up for consideration and a vote in the General Assembly. Finally, I did not oppose legislation changing the criteria medical professionals require to change the gender on a person’s birth certificate, and in hindsight recognize the value of a law that relieves the burden put on transgender men and women to be recognized by the state as the gender that they identify. I support this law.”
The bill number in the story is wrong, it’s HB1785. She did indeed vote “Present.” SB3249 passed the Senate with 34 votes.
What little hope remained of reopening or repurposing the shuttered Tamms Correctional Center continues to grow dimmer.
The prison and its adjacent work camp are “rampant” with mold, Lindsey Hess, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections, confirmed on Wednesday, and would require millions of dollars of treatment.
A 2015 inspection by ExecuClean Restoration found high levels of Aspergillus and Penicillium molds, which are “responsible for more human health issues worldwide than any other group of fungi,” including many respiratory illnesses, the company stated. […]
Just addressing the mold issue would cost some $2.5 million, Hess said, and would require the removal of all “drywall, carpet, counters, counter tops and cabinets,” per ExecuClean’s recommendations.
Southern Illinois legislators and candidates have been demanding the prison’s reopening since it was closed in January of 2013, apparently without the knowledge that the site is rampant with mold.
Freshman state Rep. Terri Bryant, a Murphysboro Republican, has been pushing lawmakers to join her in urging Gov. Bruce Rauner to reopen the facility at the southern tip of Illinois.
“I think there is a pressure building within all of the facilities that has to be relieved somehow. I think that’s only going to be relived by either kicking inmates out or creating some more bed space,” Bryant said in a recent interview.
The Democrat running for state representative in southern Illinois wants to re-open the state’s super-max prison. Marsha Griffin told reporters yesterday that if the state of Illinois can build a new prison mental health center in Joliet, the state can re-open the Tamms Prison. Griffin said the decision to close the prison back in 2012 is still hurting southern Illinois. The state spends about 750 thousand-dollars a year on Tamms, just to keep up with maintenance.
Wait. The state is spending $750K a year on maintenance and it’s been full of mold for at least three years?
* David Krupa is a 19-year-old freshman at DePaul University who had big dreams of running for alderman. Unfortunately, he wants to represent the 13th Ward and he ran into one of the weirdest brick walls I’ve ever heard of. Krupa says he collected 1,703 petition signatures, far more than the 473 he’d need to qualify for the ballot against Ald. Marty Quinn. But even before he filed them, this happened…
An organized crew of political workers — or maybe just civic-minded individuals who care about reform — went door to door with official legal papers. They asked residents to sign an affadavit revoking their signature on Krupa’s petition.
Revocations are serious legal documents, signed and notarized. Lying on a legal document is a felony and can lead to a charge of perjury. If you’re convicted of perjury, you may not work for a government agency. And I know that there are many in the 13th Ward on the government payroll.
More than 2,700 revocations were turned over to the elections board to cancel the signatures on Krupa’s petitions. Chicago Board of Elections officials had never seen such a massive pile of revocations. […]
The number of revocations far exceeds the number of signatures Krupa collected. That means false affidavits were filed with the elections board.
If this story by John Kass is accurate, the 13th Ward has just brought a whole new round of heat on itself.
…Adding… To address some questions in comments, here’s Krupa’s attorney…
“We turned in 1,703 signatures. We compared them to the 2,796 revocations, and found only 187 matches, meaning only 187 people who signed David’s petitions filed revocations,” Dorf said. “So, what about the 2,609 people who didn’t sign for David but who filed revocations? That’s fraud. That’s perjury. That’s felony.”
The only other explanation is that they might’ve filed revocations to signatures Krupa collected but didn’t turn in. But how they knew those names would still be a mystery.
Under state law, the revocations need to be filed BEFORE Krupa filed his petitions so they wouldn’t have been able to cross-check these with actual Krupa petition signers.
A petition, when presented or filed, shall not be withdrawn, altered, or added to, and no signature shall be revoked except by revocation in writing presented or filed with the officers or officer with whom the petition is required to be presented or filed, and before the presentment or filing of such petition.
If there ever was any hope that five Chicago city workers pension funds would make any money by investing $68 million with then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew and one of his key political supporters, it didn’t last long.
Only months after the deals were made a dozen years ago, problems began to emerge.
The nephew, Robert G. Vanecko, and his business partner Allison S. Davis, a developer who gave campaign money to Daley and was appointed by the mayor to head the Chicago Plan Commission, started investing in a series of property deals that, by the time the last of them are unwound by the end of December, will have cost the city workers pension funds 80 percent of the $68 million they put in — $54 million in all. […]
And somehow they even lost money — more than $11 million on the deal that built a busy Mariano’s supermarket in the North Side neighborhood of East Lake View, a location that has 90,000 people living within a one-mile radius.
Hello, this is a very important message. Did you know that you probably received more robocalls per day in November than any previous month in the history of recorded phone messages? […]
There were 5.1 billion robocalls made in November — a record 1,963 per second — meaning that the average person did in fact hear more annoying health insurance, easy-money and interest rate scam pitches than ever before, according to a monthly YouMail survey.
Chicago ranked fourth among cities with more than 164 million robocalls received last month, trailing only Atlanta, Dallas and New York, according to the survey.
* From yesterday…
Attorney General Lisa Madigan today announced she is joining with a bipartisan group of 38 other attorneys general to stop or reduce annoying and harmful robocalls.
“Robocalls are an obnoxious form of consumer harassment,” Madigan said. “I am pleased to be part of this bipartisan group that will provide people simple ways to avoid annoying and invasive robocalls.”
Madigan and the multistate group has had in-depth meetings with several major telecom companies about technological capabilities currently in existence or in development that would reduce robocalls. The coalition of states is pushing the carriers to, among other things, quickly develop and implement technology to help identify and block potential unwanted robocalls for their customers.
Madigan and the coalition will seek to develop a detailed understanding of what is technologically feasible to minimize unwanted robocalls and illegal telemarking. They will also engage the major telecom companies to encourage them to expedite the best possible solutions for consumers, and determine whether states should make further recommendations to the FCC.
All these robocalls are making polling vastly more difficult to do because people aren’t answering their phones. It also has to be hurting campaigns for the same reason.
Illinois Family Action seeks to fortify the traditional foundations of civil society through efforts to educate, inform and influence elected officials in support of the country’s historic ideals of equality under the law, and the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on which the nation was founded.
Illinois State Senator Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington) has been an outspoken proponent for legalizing high-potency marijuana and he wants a “seat at the table” when Gov.-elect JB Pritzker and other Chicago Democrats move the bill in 2019.
Take ACTION: Barickman will be the featured speaker Dec. 4 at the McLean County Chamber of Commerce’s BN The Know event in Bloomington, titled “Recreational Marijuana and the Business Community.” You can register to attend HERE. […]
The chart below is from a new report released this month put out by the Centennial Institute titled Economic and Social Costs of Legalized Marijuana. It is the first of its kind to calculate the negative costs associated with legalization. For every dollar spend on legalization, it’s costing Colorado residents $4.50. They claim this is a low estimation. Can Illinois afford more bad public policy that will cost the taxpayers in the end? […]
Please plan to attend this event and bring up this timely report. Point all in attendance to the www.NoWeedIllinois web site to get the facts for themselves.
Hey, what happened to liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Also, Kathy Valente happens to be the author of every, single article at NoWeedIllinois.
A new report from Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute claims that “for every dollar gained in tax revenue, Coloradans spent approximately $4.50 to mitigate the effects of [marijuana] legalization.” That factoid is already showing up in arguments against legalization, even though it is plainly fallacious.
Centennial Institute Director Jeff Hunt, who is also the university’s vice president of public policy, takes the approach favored by anti-pot polemicists, conflating correlation with causation and counting every purported cost to which a number can be attached, no matter how implausibly, while ignoring every benefit except for tax revenue and the increased value of Colorado homes since legalization (which suggests the state has not turned into the drug-addled dystopia predicted by prohibitionists).
Most glaringly, as Paul Danish notes in the Boulder Weekly, Hunt et al. make no attempt to isolate the impact of legalization, which is supposed to be the subject of the report. Instead they tote up supposedly marijuana-related costs without regard to whether they were caused by the change in policy the authors claim to be analyzing.
The study, which was carried out for the Institute by a research firm named QREM, is a dog’s dinner of statistical scraps that run the gamut from misleading to dishonest, irrelevant and embarrassing.
The assertion that “for every dollar gained in tax revenue, Coloradans spend approximately $4.50 to mitigate the effects of legalization” is the first sentence of the study’s executive summary.
In order to arrive at this conclusion, the study’s authors had to tote up all the supposed costs of legalization they could think of, including some that are pretty silly. Like the $54.8 million cost of stoners’ “physical inactivity” due to marijuana turning them into couch potatoes.
Other “costs” are not so silly, but are much more dishonest. Like the alleged $423.4 million in lost income over a lifetime of the kids who dropped out of high school in 2017 supposedly due to their marijuana use. The latter figure is the single largest “cost” in the study’s laundry list. […]
The figures, even if accurate, represent the economic and social costs of marijuana use in 2017. But the study’s supposed purpose is to identify the economic and social costs attributable to marijuana legalization, which are different than the overall costs (real, imaginary or theoretical) of marijuana use generally.
Marijuana use in Colorado didn’t begin when pot became legally available at the beginning of 2014. Coloradans used marijuana illegally for decades before then, and it’s reasonable to assume that if pot was producing stoner sloths and stoner school dropouts in 2017, it was also producing them prior to legalization.
And that means that the only economic and social costs that can be attributed to legalization are those that occurred incrementally after marijuana became commercially available at the beginning of 2014.
But in most cases the Institute’s study doesn’t include cost estimates for the years prior to the beginning of legal sales, so it’s not possible to calculate what costs, if any, are attributable to legalization.
Chicago mayoral candidate Bill Daley unveils a proposal to freeze homeowners’ property taxes in a television ad his campaign is set to start airing Thursday. […]
After the spot shows Daley talking to various people of different ages and ethnicities, the narrator gets to the big promise: “Bill will put a moratorium on tax hikes to keep families in their homes.” The words “PROPERTY TAX FREEZE” appear on the screen in large letters next to images of Daley speaking to a Hispanic woman in a store and a white man with a young child. […]
He previously had stressed the need to get away from raising the taxes on homeowners, but had not proposed an outright freeze. In a speech to the City Club of Chicago last week, he vowed that any property tax increases would be met with “dollar-for-dollar” cuts to city government. […]
While Daley is calling for a moratorium on property tax hikes, he previously has advocated for City Hall to consider a wide range of new taxes and fees to deal with the city’s ongoing pension crisis, which will require the next mayor to come up with nearly $1 billion in new annual retirement fund payments by 2023. In his City Club speech, Daley opened the door to a commuter tax on suburbanites who work in the city to help fill the pension gap while also saying an increase in real estate transfer fees and taxes on legalized marijuana and a long-sought Chicago casino “must be on the table.”
Refusing to raise property taxes while waiting on Springfield to give the city a casino or whatever pie in the sky idea Richard M. Daley had at the moment is what got the city in trouble in the first place because it didn’t adequately fund its pension systems (or even pay a dime into some of them).
And now Bill Daley thinks that the General Assembly is gonna pass a commuter tax? Does he not know that a record number of suburban Democrats were elected to the legislature last month and that they will be highly resistant to a possibly unconstitutional tax on their own constituents to benefit Chicago, on top of any graduated income tax plan? Or is he just being a Daley?
Daley said that should include considering an amendment to the state’s constitution, deleting a provision that says current public employees cannot have their pension benefits “diminished or impaired.” […]
Many legal scholars question whether changing the constitution would allow the city to reduce the retirement benefits of current city employees, and changes already have been made to lower benefits for new city employees. As a result, it’s unclear what changes a future mayor could make with state lawmakers to save additional money, and Daley did not outline any specifics.
The Illinois Department of Corrections continues to flounder in its efforts to care for inmates with mental illness, according to a new report authored by Dr. Pablo Stewart, a psychiatrist and court-appointed monitor on a 2016 settlement agreement on a class-action lawsuit. […]
The report singles out Pontiac Correctional Center for having a “culture of abuse and retaliation” against mentally ill inmates.
The monitoring team found both an “informal use of force and retaliation system” and “evidence of intimidation of the mental health staff at Pontiac by the custody staff”—problems that have persisted since the lawsuit was settled 30 months ago.
“It is my opinion as Monitor that the Department has not done anything to effectively address this ongoing problem at Pontiac,” wrote Dr. Stewart, adding that he is “absolutely convinced” that staff are physically assaulting mentally ill inmates there.
We as a state don’t provide decent mental health care for our residents, then we turn jails and prisons into de facto mental health centers, then we abuse the mentally ill inmates and people trying to help them. Wonderful.
I have also encountered the presence of an elaborate system of retaliation perpetrated by the custody staff against the mentally ill offenders at Pontiac. These retaliatory acts include, but are not limited to:
1. Withholding of food/visits/phone calls.
2. Not allowing certain mentally ill offenders to attend required structured or unstructured activities.
3. Setting up certain mentally ill offenders for assault by labeling them “snitches.”
4. Providing mentally ill offenders with the means for them to perform self-injurious behaviors (i.e. staples, paperclips, or other sharp objects.)
5. Planting incriminating evidence in the cells of mentally ill offenders, such as weapons or other forms of contraband.
During my site visits, I often encounter mentally ill offenders who present with injuries to their heads and face. I have even encountered mentally ill offenders with newly missing teeth and physical exam evidence of recent trauma to their faces. If I had encountered these types of injuries with my own patients, I would be obligated to report them to the police.
* The 2018 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best House Secretary/Admin. Assistant/District Office Director goes to Mika Baugher…
I don’t know how she stays on top of everything but she does. There’s no way I could ever do what she does!
Agreed. Joann Sullivan had been with Speaker Madigan for several decades. Stepping into that job couldn’t have been easy, but she makes it look that way.
* The 2018 Golden Horseshoe Award for Best Senate Secretary/Admin. Assistant/District Office Director goes to India Hammons…
There are all kinds of great people doing great work behind the scenes in this category.
I’d like to honor India Hammons for her outstanding work during her tenure in Senator Lightford’s Capitol Office.
She juggled a lot of responsibilities in deftly managing everything that came her way.
India recently moved on to a different job, but she is missed.
She really was great at her job.
* OK, let’s move on to our next category…
* Best State Senate Staffer - Non Political
* Best State House Staffer - Non Political
As a reminder, this category also includes folks who work for the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate. Please try to nominate in both categories, but I’ll give you a pass if you mostly deal with one chamber. Also, please make sure to explain your votes or they won’t count. Thanks!
With nearly a decade having passed since lawmakers approved Illinois’ last major capital program, billions of dollars worth of deferred maintenance has racked up. […]
“We’re behind, to be perfectly frank,” said IDOT Secretary Randy Blankenhorn, one of the panelists. “We are not funding transportation as well as some of our neighbors and as our competitors. … I spend $250 a month on my phone. I spend $50 a month for water. This is the infrastructure of my life. It’s what I need to make things happen. And we’re spending 50 cents a day on transportation. And, honestly, it’s inadequate.”
To help fix the chronic funding problem, an increase in the state gas tax, which has not been raised since 1990, and vehicle registration fees will be inevitable, Blankenhorn said.
Blankenhorn said such an increase would provide “revenue necessary to maintain, enhance, modernize our system. That’s the conversation that we need to have.”
Five years after the conservative think tank criticized lawmakers for passing a pension bill it once called “grossly inadequate,” the group has changed its mind. “It turns out it was pretty darn good,” John Tillman, CEO of IPP, told POLITICO. His organization recently revisited SB1, the bill that passed in 2013 but was found unconstitutional in 2015.
Tillman said the measure would have saved somewhere between $1.1 billion and $1.4 billion a year in 2016, 2017 and 2018. “It would have put the state on a much better path to fully funding pensions,” he said, crediting Democratic state Rep. Elaine Nekritz for shepherding the bill and the bipartisan nature of it.
IPI’s turnaround signals an olive branch toward Democrats and the state’s new administration. And it follows a tumultuous four years working with Gov. Bruce Rauner. The anti-union, anti-tax group appeared aligned with Rauner when he first took office. That changed when the governor signed the controversial HB40 abortion law—after he said he wouldn’t. Tillman called him a “failed” leader. Their relationship spiraled downward. […]
He insists pension reform is still possible, but only with bipartisan support. Tillman hopes to talk to Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker about creating a two-pronged pension system that would protect already-earned current retirees and current workers’ benefits (possibly with a 401K system) and also those of retirees.
Tillman is indeed on a mission here. We had a long off the record conversation in Springfield this week.
And while he is trying to position himself as extending an “olive branch,” I doubt that the governor-elect is all that interested. Pritzker has talked a lot about the CTBA plan to reamortize the pension debt, but has rejected all other reform ideas. Tillman claims the CTBA plan is unworkable because it won’t contain costs.
…Adding… The group’s opposition to SB1 was a lot harsher than described above. From 2013…
Government workers and taxpayers should call out Illinois’ pension bill for what it is – a farce. […]
Workers and taxpayers will need to say no to fake reforms and call for the only sustainable solution going forward: giving state workers control over their retirements through defined contribution plans that workers own and control.
…Adding… And the group knew the projected savings back then as well, but dismissed them…
The pension bill saves only $1.3 billion in its first year
…Adding… Tillman also says in that Politico piece that he hopes to meet with Madigan, but his group just published a cartoon comparing Madigan to Satan. I kid you not. Click here.
Tillman admits he was wrong about SB1. It would have been good if it stayed in place, he said.
“It turns out it wasn’t just one good step, maybe it was five or six very good steps. If you look at what would have happened since that bill was passed and if the Supreme Court had not ruled it unconstitutional,” Tillman said.
So, now, the controversial think tank, at the center of some turmoil under Governor Rauner, is suggesting a bipartisan effort under JB Pritzker to change the Illinois Constitution and create a two-option pension system that, he said, won’t affect benefits earned by current workers or retirees. He is not expecting an easy sell.
“The most important thing to do is to fix the problem now and that’s why we are using the anniversary day of the 2013 reform to hold ourselves accountable and to encourage the General Assembly to look back at what they did in a bipartisan fashion and say hey there’s a lesson there,” Tillman said.
* And the Illinois Policy Institute’s Austin Berg kinda/sorta explains what they want to do via an op-ed for the Illinois News Network, which is based at the same address…
That’s why a constitutional amendment is so necessary. And it doesn’t have to eliminate the pension clause in order to allow cuts.
A solid amendment simply needs to allow for changes in future benefits, while protecting what has already been earned by public employees. Voters could approve the amendment as early as 2020, and lawmakers could pass specific reforms that trigger the morning after Election Day.
Those changes need to be a bit more substantial than in 2013, because the problem has grown tremendously since then. But the principles can remain the same.
A constitutional amendment allowing reductions in the growth of future benefits could be followed with legislation that essentially reintroduces the 2013 reform concepts with differences in degree, including the following:
Increasing the retirement age for those not currently close to retirement
A cap on the maximum pensionable salary that grows at a rate pegged to inflation
Replacing Illinois’ 3 percent guaranteed benefit increases with a cost-of-living increase tied to inflation
Potentially suspending COLA increases for certain years to allow inflation to catch up to past raises
* But even Gov. Rauner told Crain’s this fall that a constitutional amendment was futile…
He wants pension reform, but said the idea of amending the Illinois Constitution to reduce such benefits likely is a political and legal non-starter.
If I recall correctly, Rauner specifically said he doubted that voters would approve such an amendment even if you could get it out of the House and Senate.
* And changing the state’s Constitution won’t help with this clause in the US Constitution…
No State shall… pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts
For instance, while the unemployment rate in the region dropped from 9 to 7.6 percent overall, among blacks it dipped just four-tenths of a percentage point, or 0.4 percent. That’s significantly smaller than the drops among Latinos, Asians and non-Hispanic whites, even though the unemployment rate was and remains far higher among blacks, more than 17 percent.
Similarly, median household income among blacks is still off nearly a tenth—9.4 percent—among blacks. In comparison, among whites, the drop was 1.5 percentage points; among Hispanics, 4.2 percentage points, with Asians gaining a bit. And while the drop-off in labor force participation rates was smallest among blacks in the 2010-17 period compared to other groups, blacks already had and still have the lowest rate, with just over 60 percent holding a job or actively looking for one.
Among non-Hispanic whites, Asians and Latinos age 16 to 64, a clear majority of 53 percent to 64 percent, respectively, of those leaving the region already hold jobs. But among blacks, only 42 percent are employed. The remaining 58 percent of those moving either are unemployed or out of the workforce and not looking at all.
CMAP Associate Policy Analyst Aseal Tineh said there could be various reasons for the latter distinctions, such as more rapid aging among white residents. But overall, it’s likely that African-Americans here are having a harder time finding jobs, and a harder times getting jobs that pay well, she said. Beyond that, the report itself notes previous research that black commuters tend to have a longer trip to work than other area residents.
