Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has consistently maintained through his first term that he has the correct prescription for Illinois but hasn’t been able to deliver his message to voters.
On Monday, he continued that theme. Appearing on the Steve Cochran Show on WGN AM-720, Rauner said he needs to communicate better to voters if he wins a second term.
“I have two things that I would do differently. One is to focus very much on lots of baby-step improvements and announcing ‘em, playing ‘em up more than we’ve done. That would be No. 1,” Rauner said in response to a question about his biggest first-term mistakes. “No. 2, I would have been much more focused with my time on communications. I spent my time doing, not communicating. I would do far more communicating.”
“I spent my time doing, not communicating.”
Sigh.
…Adding… React from the governor’s former chief of staff…
After the debate, Rauner told reporters he’s cried over the deaths at the Illinois Veterans Home and he does not believe he’s trailing by 20 points as a recent poll suggests.
While not wanting to make light of the people who lost their lives at Quincy, I have heard the governor talk about weeping several times, so I took a quick look at the history and asked around for some help.
“Waiting for Superman” — a documentary billed as the “Inconvenient Truth” of public education — will debut in New York and Los Angeles. But a select group of Chicagoans has already seen the film by Davis Guggenheim, who also directed “An Inconvenient Truth.” […]
“I’ve seen it twice, and I’ve cried both times,” Bruce Rauner said. “I think it’s very powerful.”
One of the most emotional times here in Springfield, two teachers came up to me at an event after I became governor. One of them started to cry. I gave her a hug and I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ and she said, ‘You are healing a wound in this community that you don’t fully appreciate.’ I said, ‘Really? Well, God bless you.’ We hugged and I was tearing up. I said, ‘Don’t make me cry. I’ve got to go give a talk here.’
“I watched the video when it came out last week. I cried,” Rauner said. “That video is shocking, terrifying. I cried for the young man who was brutally shot. I cried for the thousands of police officers who are honest and hardworking, who put themselves in harm’s way to serve and protect us and whose reputation gets damaged by the behavior of a few bad people. I cried for the violence that is tearing apart so many of our communities.”
I took my Swedish grandfather back for his 90th birthday. I had never been to Sweden. He had been writing to his relatives his whole life from Wisconsin and he’d never been, or at least not since he was like two years old and I took him over and we spent a week. I cried every day.
They came to my office in the Capitol a number of months back and we sat, a large group of youth and myself and Director Sheldon. And we just had a talk about their lives, what’s going on, what their issues are. And it was one of the most emotional but uplifting and inspirational discussions I’ve ever had in my life. Many of us cried.
I travel the state, seven days a week, and everywhere I go, people come up to me and say, ‘Governor, stay strong. You’re on the right track. Don’t give in, stay persistent.’ One woman came up to me with tears in her eyes, and I started to cry, too. She said, ‘You’re our last hope. Don’t give up.’ I said, ‘I’m not gonna give up. I’m the most persistent son of a gun on the planet. I’m very competitive.’
One of the most special times for me every year is going to Honor Flights to welcome our heroes home here in Springfield, and in Peoria, and in Chicago. I have to tell you, it brings tears of joy to my eyes when our heroes come through that airport door to be reunited with their children and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren.
Most emotional moment was last year, an elderly woman saw me shopping in Schnucks, the grocery store. She came up to me, grabbed me by both hands, looked up at me and she started to cry. I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ She said, ‘Governor, you’re our last hope. Please don’t give up.’ I kind of lost it. I started crying, I gave her a hug and I say, ‘I will never give up, I can’t. I’m doing this, this is a labor of love.’
Back before being governor, I would love the classics, like for example I would always like to see “The Dick Van Dyke Show” or some other classic, family shows the 60s. I love that stuff, it’s kinda teary-eyed to me, and it’s a great way to relax.
* Gov. Rauner and his allies showered more than $40 million on legislative races two years ago. This year? So far, not so much…
The roughly $14 million Rauner’s put up for the state party or legislative candidates for 2018 is not only a fraction of his 2016 largesse, it’s offset by Pritzker’s $7.5 million for Democratic legislative candidates.
That doesn’t mean the GOP is tossing in the towel. The party is on the offensive in southern Illinois, where Trump coattails still have pull, and its candidates are running strongly, if defensively, in traditionally GOP-influenced suburban Chicago districts. […]
That’s the case in the other southern Illinois races on which Republicans are pinning their House hopes. In three key races, Redfield’s numbers suggest spending of $4.7 million — $3.5 million of it by the Democratic incumbents.
In 10 closely watched Senate races, spending could top $14 million, according to Redfield’s figures. But even though six of those races feature Republican incumbents, Democrats control $11 million of the funding.
“Last time it was like they (GOP) had unlimited money but now, he (Rauner) is focused on the governor’s race,” Redfield said. “It seems he thinks Republicans are not going to do well and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If he doesn’t give them as much, they won’t do as well.”
Speaking of which, Republican treasurer candidate Jim Dodge filed his quarterly reported today. He ended the quarter with… get this… $4,333.99 cash on hand.
Republican secretary of state candidate Jason Helland did the “best” of the three, ending the quarter with $60,746.85 in cash. Helland was even endorsed by the Daily Herald.
The Democratic Party of Illinois has announced a statewide “voter protection initiative” hotline as part of its get out the vote effort.
“Voting is every American’s fundamental right, one that was fought for in countless battles. Even today, there are countless examples of voter suppression and barriers to voting, and we will work diligently to dismantle those efforts,” the party’s executive director, state Rep. Christian Mitchell, said in a statement.
Voters can call 1-833-VOTER18 to access the hotline about complaints over alleged voter suppression. The hotline follows the party’s efforts with governor candidate J.B. Pritzker’s campaign spending $1 million on voter registration and early voting advocacy.
This initiative goes way beyond a hotline. More details soon.
* From Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt’s induction ceremony into the Illinois Senior Hall of Fame on Friday…
And speaking of her experiences during March Madness, she said she was once told she had more reporters in the room than Tom Brady.
“So I guess that’s a real compliment,” she said. “And you know, I always say to the press — don’t let anybody put you down. You know you have special work to do. So just keep doing it. It’s very important.”
“That’s true,” Rauner interjected.
That’s true? Coulda fooled me.
* Just a tiny sampling of the governor’s whining about media coverage…
* June 27, 2016: “Crains is supposed to be a business publication but they’re a little bit more collectivist than your standard business publication.”
* December 15, 2017: “It’s such spin baloney… What’s frustrating to me and many people around the state is how biased a lot of the media is around Chicago, around the state. Biased for the status quo. Biased for, you know, against the changes that we’re recommending. The bias is, is hard to overcome.”
* December 20, 2017: Rauner accused WBEZ, the public radio station, of dropping its monthly “Ask the Governor” feature, in which he took questions from callers, because WBEZ is “really more of a Democrat station.”
* May 11, 2018: “Don’t get me started on the bias in the media.”
* August 17, 2018: “You know [laughs] one of my biggest frustrations is there’s a lot of left-leaning press, especially up around Chicago, and they’re plenty biased.”
“The American people know the truth of the matter is this economy isn’t growing because of the Obama administration,” Pence said. “This economy is growing again because under President Trump’s leadership, and this Congress, we’ve been repealing the failed policies of the Obama administration and the American economy is roaring back.”
“After years of a war on coal,” Pence said, and what seemed like efforts to stifle American energy, the Trump administration, with support of Congress, has approved pipeline projects and got the United Stats “out of the disastrous Paris climate accord – and we’re exporting energy as never before.”
He said the historic tax cut passed by Congress will yield $2,600 a year to “the average working family here in Illinois.”
In addition, he said, “We cut taxes for Illinois job creators so that businesses large and small here in Springfield can create jobs in Illinois and not see them created around the world. And we also cut the heart out of Obamacare” he said, with the removal of the individual mandate, requiring a penalty for those tho don’t purchase insurance.
Pence did promise to preserve coverage of pre-existing conditions, which I think more people would consider the real “heart” of Obamacare. Every Republican congresscritter in the country is now running away from their vote on that repeal bill, including Davis. And that’s mainly because of the way it undermined pre-existing coverage.
The Vice President spoke at a Davis campaign event at the Panther Creek Country Club Friday afternoon.
“Illinois 13 may be the district that decides whether we have a Republican majority or whether Nancy Pelosi is speaker of the House in the next Congress,” Pence told the crowd. […]
“While we were trying to repeal and replace Obamacare … Rodney Davis was in there every step of the way … but every step of the way, Congressman Rodney Davis made it clear that, as we repeal and replace Obamacare … we will always protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.”
Susana Mendoza for Mayor petitions in full force at #WomensMarchChi … even though Mendoza has not entered and is in the midst of a battle for IL Comptroller pic.twitter.com/8RBizMa8pt
* I also received a photo of this person’s clipboard. The photo I have came from the Daley campaign, but it didn’t include the 1060 W. Addison address (Wrigley Field), so it apparently was from slightly earlier in the day…
Supporters of Susana Mendoza have begun circulating nominating petitions to get her on the ballot in the crowded race for Chicago mayor — but the Illinois comptroller still insists she’s only focused on the reelection campaign to keep her current job.
The petitions were passed around Saturday at the downtown “Women’s March to the Polls” by volunteers from a committee formed last month to “draft” Mendoza to run for mayor, an effort led by former U.S. Civil Rights Commission chairman Marty Castro.
A Mendoza spokesman declined to comment on Saturday. Mendoza has said she’s “flattered” by calls for her to jump in the race, but is “entirely focused on her reelection campaign as comptroller.”
* ILGOP…
When asked on October 3rd if she would run for Mayor, Susana Mendoza responded, “I’m not lying to you when I tell you I’m not even close to making a decision on that.” Just 10 days later, reports surfaced of petitions being circulated for Mendoza’s Chicago mayoral run. Illinois Republican Party Executive Director Travis Sterling issued the following in response:
“Just 10 days ago Mendoza told journalists that she wasn’t even close to making a decision on running for mayor, but today her campaign is circulating petitions to run for Mayor next year. One principle has held true during Mendoza’s 17 years in public office - she has always put her own advancement first. Mendoza’s current deceptions and lies are obvious proof points to her continuation of putting her own self-service ahead of public service.” - Illinois Republican Party Executive Director Travis Sterling
* Related…
* Republican comptroller candidate says she would ‘commit to Illinois’: “She should be fair with people and commit to Illinois, and right now what’s happening, the firm commitment is not to Illinois,” Senger said. “Her commitment has always been … to her ambition and the city of Chicago. She’s from Chicago. She’s been a state representative under (Speaker of the House Michael Madigan) for 10 years, she was the city clerk of Chicago and now comptroller, so I’m looking at this as a situation where we’re really not rolling up our sleeves and getting the work we need to get done in the state of Illinois.”
* Republican Candidate for Illinois Comptroller visits Quincy: Senger said Mendoza seems to be more interested in running for Mayor of Chicago instead of running for re-election, commenting on a recent ad from her. “Really a different kind of ad at this phase in the campaign, it’s all about ‘I’m hard as nails’, she wears a shirt that looks like the flag of Chicago, so in appearance it looks like she’s trying to get her name out there running for mayor already,” said Senger.
* Illinois comptroller candidate: Susana Mendoza: Mendoza said she has not decided if she will run for mayor of Chicago. Current Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently annouced he would not run for re-election. Mendoza could win comptroller and still have time to file papers to run for mayor by the Nov. 26 deadline. The Chicago municipal election is Feb. 26.
Two men exonerated after 23 years in custody claim Cook County Circuit Judge Matthew Coghlan took part in framing them for murder, standing by as disgraced former Chicago police Detective Reynaldo Guevara convinced an informant to falsely accuse them, according to a pending federal lawsuit.
The informant eventually recanted, saying prosecutors and police had worked together to prepare a story they knew to be false. And one of the key players involved was Coghlan, who in a previous job as a gang prosecutor had worked with Guevara, whose misconduct has led to 18 exonerations of falsely convicted people.
The Cook County Democratic Party took the rare step Friday of refusing to endorse a sitting Cook County judge, deciding not to recommend Circuit Judge Matthew Coghlan for reelection in November. […]
The party normally urges voters to reelect all judges, listing their names on sample ballots and recommending them in automated calls to voters.
The party doesn’t want people to get into the habit of voting “No” on retention elections, so they encourage everyone to vote “Yes.” It’s a rarity, indeed, when the party goes against a judge.
Embattled Cook County Circuit Judge Matthew Coghlan’s hopes of keeping his job have suffered another blow.
The committee that provides funding for circuit judges’ retention campaigns is turning over much of its money to the Cook County Democratic Party. And the party is campaigning to defeat Coghlan in November’s election, according to Jacob Kaplan, the party’s executive director.
Cook County’s circuit judges formed the committee years ago so they wouldn’t have to directly raise money when they face election to remain in office.
The move to shift the money was the result of a secret vote by the retention judges. They decided to fund the party’s efforts despite the Democrats’ opposition to Coghlan, one of 59 Cook County judges who will be on the November ballot seeking new six-year terms.
(O)ne of the three elevators that people can use from the Capitol rotunda remains closed.
It was shut down in mid-April while the session was still going last spring. It’s not a big deal this time of year, but when the legislature is in session and the place is packed, the elevator gets a lot of use, especially from the public which may not be aware of other elevators in the building. (And we’re talking about people who need to use them because they can’t negotiate stairs).
The thing was shut down for maintenance last spring, then returned to service for a couple of days before it was shut down again. It’s been that way ever since.
The secretary of state’s office said the elevator needed a part to ensure safe operation. However, the elevator is so old, parts to fix it are no longer available. As of several months ago, the elevator maintenance company was trying to find a company that could custom make the part. Illinois companies were contacted, but no luck. The search was expanded nationwide. Still nothing.
So now the plan is to do a “modernization repair” that basically involves replacing all of the equipment that makes the elevator go up and down. That means an extensive bidding process, not to mention the work itself.
No cost estimate yet.
The Statehouse looks better than I’ve ever seen it, but looks can obviously be deceiving.
The handgun used to kill a Chicago police commander had once been bought and sold by an unlicensed gun dealer who federal authorities say described peddling guns “like an addiction.”
The Chicago Tribune investigated the various sales of the gun that was used to kill Cmdr. Paul Bauer in February. The accused shooter, Shomari Legghette, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
It’s unclear how Legghette allegedly got the weapon. But federal investigators traced the gun to a 68-year-old Wisconsin man, Thomas Caldwell, who has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of selling firearms without a license. A man Caldwell said he sold the gun to last year has pleaded not guilty to a similar charge; investigators say federal agents found 40 guns at that man’s home.
Experts say the case illustrates the ease with which people can illegally buy and sell guns either online or hand-to-hand. Chicago police say that’s a big factor in the hundreds of shooting deaths each year in the city.
Anyone who makes a regular business of selling guns is supposed to obtain a federal firearms dealer license. Anyone buying from a licensed dealer has to submit to a background check that screens out those who are legally barred from gun ownership, such as felons. Caldwell, however, bought and sold dozens of guns a year without a license, and peddled them through a website that doesn’t require users to prove identity and undergo background checks.
That activity brought him to the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner and Annie Sweeney reported. In 2015, the ATF sent him a letter warning him not to sell more guns until he got a license. He agreed but didn’t stop. In 2017, the agency traced another gun to Caldwell and found he was still posting hundreds of firearms for sale online. Undercover ATF agents arranged to go to his home, where they bought a pistol.
He wasn’t charged with a crime, though, until later — after Bauer was shot. In the aftermath of that death, the ATF visited Caldwell’s home and found he was still plying his trade without a license, telling agents “that selling firearms was like an addiction,” as an assistant U.S. attorney said. Even then, he kept selling, finally earning his date in federal court.
Why didn’t the ATF move sooner to get prosecutors to put this chronic, dangerous scofflaw behind bars? The agency “declined to comment,” the Tribune reported.
This case shows the need for stricter enforcement of federal firearms licensing laws — which are meant to prevent people from operating as gun dealers without following sensible rules. The laws are also meant to block sales to prohibited buyers. The largely unregulated private gun market makes it much too easy for shady sellers and criminal buyers to find each other. That’s a good reason for Congress to pass legislation requiring federal background checks for all firearm purchases, rather than let private sellers continue to operate on the honor system.
It’s also a reason why the state might want to step in where the feds are failing to do so.
Today, Democratic candidate for attorney general Kwame Raoul released a new digital ad - “Survivor” - about his personal connection to prostate cancer and the healthcare that saved his life.
Kwame lost his father and both grandfathers to prostate cancer. An old-fashioned doctor who made house calls, Kwame’s father often came home with a block of cheese or home-cooked meal, because he would never turn away a patient who couldn’t afford care.
In the Illinois Senate, Kwame led the effort to give hundreds of thousands of low-income Illinoisans access to medical assistance under the Affordable Care Act. Last year, he helped pass a law prohibiting health insurance plans from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions.
As attorney general, Kwame Raoul will continue Illinois’ participation in a lawsuit to block the Trump administration’s dismantling of Obamacare.
“I lost my father to prostate cancer. My day came three years ago. As a cancer survivor and son of a community physician, I know how important access to healthcare is. That’s why when I replaced Barack Obama in the state senate, I fought to expand Obamacare. Healthcare should not be a privilege; it should be a human right. I’m Kwame Raoul. This is the work of my life, and I’m just getting started.”
Today, the Chicago Tribune reported that JB Pritzker used non-union workers during the renovation of his mansion. This is just the latest in a long line of hypocritical actions from Pritzker following union busting at Seadog Cruises and turning on the heat lamps on striking union workers.
In response, Governor Bruce Rauner issued the following statement:
“This is not surprising. Pritzker’s support of union workers is all talk – he’s a hypocrite. Pritzker has made it seem like he’s looking out for working people, but between this and his scheme to defraud hardworking taxpayers of $330,000, it’s clear he’s only looking out for himself.”
Billionaire Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker has portrayed himself as a champion of working families and received substantial support from organized labor, but he used nonunion workers to remodel his Gold Coast mansion.
Nonunion labor from three trades was hired to work on the yearslong, $25 million renovation of Pritzker’s 20,000-square-foot residence, according to a June 2007 email filed as part of a court dispute that arose between Pritzker and the general contractor.
“A note of caution,” wrote construction consultant Douglas Kaulas to Pritzker’s brother-in-law Thomas Muenster, who oversaw the renovation. “Now that the front yard is screened off and scaffold is going up, the jobsite has a much higher visibility. We’re perfectly legal with our permits, but we do have a non-union mason, demo contractor and roofer working. We are a little concerned that the union (business agents) may come to visit.” […]
“It’s important to finish the exterior work in the three months allotted by the scaffold contract so we can resume our lower profile,” wrote Kaulas, who also told Pritzker’s brother-in-law that “we’re putting a priority” on finishing the exterior work to both hold down scaffold rental costs and “to limit our visibility.”
As part of that renovation project, Kaulas occasionally met with Muenster and J.B. Pritzker to give updates.
…Adding… The governor is holding a press conference on this topic at 10:30 this morning. Stay tuned.
…Adding… “Hypocrisy” rarely works in campaigns, but you go with what you got I suppose…
SMN reporting from Chicago where Gov. Rauner called a presser to condemn his competitior Pritzker for using non union workers to renovate his mansion…then says he used non union workers to renovate his own mansion.
*** UPDATE *** Greg Hinz says today’s press conference is a metaphor…
Rauner exposed himself to new attention on his own union record—and the fact that not one major labor group in the state is backing him for re-election.
He conceded under questioning that he, too, has used nonunion labor in construction jobs on his own property. And he suggested, with a straight face, that he is the real pro-labor candidate in the race for governor.
Yes, he really did that: charge straight ahead without consulting with advisers and associates who might have urged him to be a little less risky. While attention on this issue won’t help Pritzker any, Rauner’s handling of it isn’t likely to help him much, either. In fact, it might hurt.
* “Focus, Amanda, Focus” makes yet another appearance…
Those Illinois Economic Freedom Alliance ads attacking McCann for his “$3 billion tax hike” that he voted against were all over my teevee yesterday during football games.
I totally understand the campaign politics of not wanting to say what you think the income tax rates should be under a graduated tax structure. I also get why you won’t say what ought to be the income level at which people will begin paying a higher income tax rate than they do now.
Actually, nearly everyone understands your political calculation. It’s elementary. You don’t want to give the other side any ammunition to attack you.
I greatly dislike your reticence, but I understand it. And as we all know, Gov. Bruce Rauner has a particular fondness for twisting words, particularly when it comes to stuff like this.
Back in December of 2015, House Speaker Michael Madigan was asked what the income tax rate should be. It had automatically rolled back almost a year earlier and the state was in the throes of what would become a two-year standoff over what that rate should be and what anti-union measures Rauner could extract in exchange.
Madigan said a “good place to start,” would be where it was before the last tax hike had partially expired. “And starting there,” he said, “you can go in whatever direction you want to go.”
Rauner immediately pounced on Madigan for wanting to increase taxes and he’s repeated that line ever since, even though Madigan didn’t really say that. It’s still to this day one of the governor’s favorite attacks.
I also get why you wouldn’t answer Mary Ann Ahern’s question last week: “What does someone make who is middle class?”
If you laid out an estimate, Rauner would immediately twist it into making some point about how the middle class is gonna get whacked under your idea. Again, I don’t like what you’re doing, but I get it.
But, my dude, you need to come up with some sort of answer other than the evasive stuff you’ve been spouting whenever anyone approaches you on this general topic. It’s just painful to watch you dodge and weave and bob and duck, for sometimes minutes at a time.
You’re a smart guy and you do your homework, so you probably know all the statistics by heart about the relatively fragile economic realities of many middle-class folks, or the barriers to reaching middle-class status from the lower rungs of the income ladder.
Let’s face it, though, you were raised with money. You’ve never had to borrow money from your brother to take a bus to work. You’ve never had to worry about not being able to pay for health insurance. You’ve never had to decide which household bills to hold off paying because of an unexpected expense. You’ve never had to figure out how you’re going to pay off your student loans, while trying to save to pay for your kids’ college bills, or debate whether to beg your boss to let you leave work because your child is sick, or even whether you can afford to buy a car.
Instead of constantly and blatantly dodging the kabillion questions about your tax idea and the middle class, how about using the question as an opportunity to show you can at least empathize with people who are working hard to stay in the middle class or struggling mightily to get there, and/or perhaps pivot against a wealthy governor who made huge promises to middle-class taxpayers and hasn’t come through?
Or, at least just say something like this: “The dollar amount can range and depends on where you live, but if you’re working and worried about paying your mortgage and bills, good schools for your kids, affordable healthcare and safe streets, you’re middle class.”
Short and sweet. By the way, I stole that line from my blog commenter who goes by the name “Wordslinger.” He’s got an annual award named after him for a reason.
You kinda/sorta almost got there a couple of weeks ago when you unveiled your higher education plan, but it was so long and meandering. You’ve yet to succinctly state that you understand what the middle class is and what those folks deal with.
The last five polls have given you an average lead of 18.2 percentage points. Barring utter catastrophe (and these things do happen), you’re probably going to be our next governor. But if your non-answers on this general topic are any indication of how you intend to govern, I guarantee you’re gonna have a rough time.
It was designed to be a feel-good event with the Loyola Ramblers’ beloved Sister Jean.
But it ended with Gov. Bruce Rauner yet again explaining his position on illegal immigration.
That’s because the 99-year-old Loyola University-Chicago basketball team chaplain was being honored in part for helping the university’s undocumented students receive financial aid. That caught the governor off guard on Friday, even though the state’s Senior Hall of Fame award was being bestowed by Rauner’s own Illinois Department on Aging, and the governor was helping present the honor. […]
Speaking to reporters after the induction, Rauner was asked whether he supports financial aid programs for undocumented students, in light of Sister Jean’s work with the program. The university was the first to accept undocumented medical students, and also has a “safe space” program for undocumented students.
“I’m not familiar with the [Magis] program,” Rauner said. “I’d have to learn more about it before I could comment on that program.” […]
Earlier this week, Rauner came under fire for linking illegal immigration to crime.
* Other reporters ignored the flap, however, so it wasn’t a total wash…
* ABC 7: Loyola’s Sister Jean receives Senior Illinoisans Hall of Fame Award: “The world knows her as the chaplain for the Loyola Men’s Basketball team but here in Chicago, and on the Loyola campus - we know her as a teacher, counselor, adviser, coach, and civil rights activist,” Rauner said. “She sets a world-class example for all of us to follow.”
We can’t afford another four years of confrontation and stalemate. […]
Progress must come from somewhere, and we know that because of Illinois’ political realities, it will not be through Rauner’s re-election.
Hope for change rests only with Democrat J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire heir of the Hyatt hotel family fortune.
We’re not without reservations about Pritzker. We’re concerned about the lack of specificity in his graduated income tax vision. We’re offended by toiletgate. And we’re troubled by his ability to buy not just the governorship but also most of the legislature.
But Pritzker and Pritzker alone, among the four candidates on the ballot, can drive the change within the Democratic Party itself that must take place to solve Illinois’ enormous problems.
He has the wealth to maintain his independence, the personal skills to build collaboration, the breadth of ideas necessary to address the issues and the ambition to make a difference.
We endorse Pritzker because status quo is not an option.
With Election Day rapidly approaching, the campaign for Illinois governor has been contentious, to say the least - with ad after ad saturating the state and each of the candidates firing off countless attacks on their opponents at every turn.
To help cut through the noise, we asked all four candidates 11 of the most important questions to help inform voters on who they are and where they stand on certain issues facing Illinois.
* I think I told you during the primary that the Sun-Times made a better case for JB Pritzker than he made for himself…
Among the essential leaders in building Chicago’s vibrant tech industry, which barely existed two decades ago, has been J.B. Pritzker, whom we endorse in the Democratic primary for governor. He bought into the vision of “Silicon Prairie” early on, as a venture capitalist and public servant. He has put his energy, leadership and money behind it ever since.
Pritzker founded 1871, the tech business incubator in the Merchandise Mart credited with creating some 7,000 jobs. This remarkable nonprofit has raised Chicago’s profile nationwide as a high-tech hub. He served as chairman of Chicago’s Technology and Entrepreneurship Committee. He was a founder of Matter, the nonprofit healthcare technology incubator.
This kind of future-focused approach to economic development is precisely what Illinois sorely needs right now. It is also reflective of what seems to be Pritzker’s philosophy for trying to make a difference in this world: work it from the bottom up.
That’s the common thread — start at the beginning — running through Pritzker’s many years of public service, whether he was supporting new technology, working to expand childcare services and early-childhood education, or simply trying to provide every child with a good school breakfast.
Pritzker saw the promise and nurtured it.
Illinois could stand more of his positive and inclusive approach to leadership, as well as his ability — as witnessed in this campaign — to build broad coalitions.
Illinois has been losing ground for four long years, and that’s just pathetic for a state blessed with so many strengths.
Take a boat ride on Lake Michigan and wonder at Chicago’s skyline. Ride the California Zephyr through western Illinois and marvel at the cornfields that run to the horizon and feed the world. Fly into O’Hare Airport and remember that our state is still the crossroads of the nation, even now, and our future is bright.
If only we’d get moving.
We’ve been a bed-ridden strongman for too long.
So that’s why we’re endorsing Democrat J.B. Pritzker for governor in the Nov. 6 election. We believe he offers the best plan to put Illinois back on its feet in a way that benefits all of us, from billionaires to bus drivers.
His main opponent, incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, has been a failure.
Pritzker, like Rauner, pledges to do what’s necessary to grow our state’s economy, but he wants to do so in a way that best benefits ordinary people. Sounds good to us. Illinois has suffered through almost four years of a governor whose whole pitch has been to make life easier for the monied classes; it’s about time we remembered who really built this state and country
It’s not that the endorsement is surprising. Of course they endorsed Pritzker. That’s a given.
But Mario Cuomo once said you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. Pritzker campaigns in prose. Those endorsement editorials are much more like poetry.
An attack ad released this week depicting Cook County commissioner candidate Kevin Morrison as a puppet prompted the Democratic challenger to dub his opponent “a homophobe” Thursday — an allegation Republicans called “despicable.”
The ad shows Morrison with a “limp wrist,” Morrison said, a “bigoted caricature of gay people.”
But zoom out on the ad, and you’ll see Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan pulling the strings on Morrison. Commissioner Tim Schneider, R-Bartlett, and the Illinois GOP, which Schneider leads, are calling Morrison a Madigan puppet. […]
“The whole image paints the entire picture clearly,” [Travis Sterling, the executive director of the Illinois GOP, which mailed out the flier] said in a statement. “This is nothing but a desperate attempt from Kevin Morrison to try and hide the fact that he takes his orders from Tony Preckwinkle and Mike Madigan.”
The Equality Illinois PAC is deeply disturbed that the Chairman of the Illinois Republican Party would exploit a shameful anti-LGBTQ stereotype and homophobic imagery against openly gay candidate Kevin B. Morrison for Cook County Commissioner. The irony of this mailer arriving on National Coming Out Day makes it all the more offensive and tasteless. We call on incumbent Tim Schneider to denounce the mailer and affirm his support for LGBTQ Illinoisans.
* LGBTQ Victory Fund…
“Let me be clear: Tim Schneider and his team knew exactly what they were doing when they altered a photo of Kevin Morrison to show him with a limp wrist and on his tiptoes,” said Mayor Annise Parker, President & CEO of LGBTQ Victory Fund. “Schneider is taking a page from the playbook of his pal in the White House – engaging in the divisive and destructive politics that Donald Trump thrives on. For too long, openly LGBTQ candidates were defeated by opponents who appealed to homophobia in a desperate effort to win votes, but I am confident this attack ad will backfire on Schneider. He has misread and misjudged his constituents, which is unsurprising given how rarely he interacts with or listens to them. Cook County voters are demanding leaders who unite their constituents, respect differences, and put forward positive solutions for the region. Kevin is running to do just that, and we are thrilled he is on his way to becoming the first openly LGBTQ person to serve on the commission.”
It’s not saying much, but House Republicans have seen more bright spots in the past week of polling since the Kavanaugh confirmation fight than they saw in over a month. Both sides agree Democrats’ enthusiasm advantage has narrowed, and Republicans are benefiting from their base “waking up” in red districts. However, there’s little evidence of movement in blue and swing districts.
Republicans suddenly feel more confident about several incumbents who have previously been tied or behind but have the luxury of sitting in Trump-won districts: Reps. Mike Bost (IL-12), John Faso (NY-19), Claudia Tenney (NY-22) and Steve Chabot (OH-01). They’re also newly optimistic about Toss Up open seats in Trump country, like Kansas’s 2nd CD and North Carolina’s 9th CD.
However, it shouldn’t come as a shock that the highly charged Supreme Court fracas has barely moved the needle in high-income, Clinton-won suburbs. Republicans are especially concerned about Reps. Mimi Walters (CA-45) and Peter Roskam (IL-06), who now appear to be narrowly behind. In fact, there’s evidence the map was beginning to polarize before the Kavanaugh fight.
Republicans continue to face especially strong headwinds in states where gubernatorial races aren’t going well for them. Illinois, where GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner trails by more than 15 points is a particular concern as Roskam and Rep. Randy Hultgren (IL-14) face an onslaught of Democratic cash in the Chicago media market. […]
Rating Changes
IL-06: Roskam - Toss Up to Lean D ←
IL-14: Hultgren - Lean R to Toss Up ←
Yikes. If a traditional Republican like Randy Hultgren could conceivably lose to a young African-American woman who was previously unknown in an 86 percent white and 3 percent black district encompassing most of McHenry County, parts of DeKalb County, northern Lake, western Kendall, etc. then we may be in for one really weird election night, campers.
* Meanwhile…
U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren, running for re-election in the 14th Congressional District, has released his third ad of this campaign season.
As a senior member of the Science Committee and Chair of the STEM Caucus, Randy Hultgren is focused on training the next generation of leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.
“I am working to make us a leader in STEM, by providing our kids with the building blocks for success and strengthening our economy with good and high paying jobs. That means encouraging innovation in our schools and businesses, and establishing scholarship initiatives so our kids are prepared to succeed.” Said Rep. Hultgren. “To keep us competitive in the future, we have to be working at it today.”
…Adding… One of my best guys tells me this ad is only on cable and he only put $50K behind it. Apparently, Hultgren has only spent $187k since 9/11. Meanwhile, Underwood is pushing 250 points a week on broadcast.
* Incumbent, challenger in Illinois’ 14th Congressional District stake out positions on health insurance: Underwood has said during numerous campaign events that her decision to run for office was motivated by a promise from Hultgren to support repealing the portion of the Affordable Care Act that protected health care coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, which she felt was broken when Hultgren voted for the American Health Care Act.
* Election 2018: A year for women in McHenry County?
* GOP-Held Illinois District Pounded with Outside Money as Election Nears: The independent spending arm of the environmentalist League of Conservation Voters political action group is dropping $291,000 to run negative advertisements against Roskam on digital platforms throughout the district. Naral Pro-Choice America, another national liberal organization, will shell out $148,000 over the coming weeks on digital advertising opposing the incumbent. The group is also mobilizing its supporters this weekend to canvass for Casten. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting Casten, is pouring another $109,000 into the district against Roskam. … The independent expenditure arm of the Koch brothers-backed group Americans for Prosperity is injecting $55,700 into the district to support Roskam with advertising and canvassing. And the House GOP’s campaign committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, is adding a cool $1.5 million to its budget for the district over the next several weeks, Roskam told the Tribune.
Today, the Rauner campaign is launching the next “Brewskis with Bruce” video. This edition features Governor Rauner enjoying a cold brew with folks at DESTIHL Brewery in Normal, where he is asked about how we keep young Illinoisans from leaving the state. The governor speaks about how deficits and high taxes hurt job creation, and that forces young people to move elsewhere. This has been a problem in Illinois for decades and Governor Rauner is fighting every day to change that.
Question: What are you doing to make it more feasible for people like me after I graduate to find a job and stay in Illinois?
Governor Rauner: That is the number one priority. Because we have lots of challenges. Number one priority is to make Illinois competitive and attractive, and grow our economy faster. Our problem in the state of Illinois is that our government spending has been growing at a high rate and our economy has been growing at a slow rate.
As long as you’ve got that, you’ve got deficits, you’ve got higher taxes, and young people don’t see as many jobs, so they go to where they see more jobs. And then our tax base erodes and then that exacerbates the problem.
So that’s what’s been going on in Illinois for 30, 40 years. That’s what I’m fighting to change.
Since Pritzker supports legalizing marijuana, maybe he should counter this with “Joints with JB.” Just a thought. /s
Rauner pivoted from Quincy to questions about Pritzker’s $330,000 property tax breaks that involved removing toilets from his Gold Coast mansion. Pritzker has repaid the money, but the issue is being examined by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
“The voters cannot in anyway trust Mr. Pritzker on any issue,” Rauner said. “A bank robber that gets caught and returns the money is still a bank robber. These are serious white collar crimes. Four of my five predecessors went to jail, Mr. Pritzker has a chance to be the fifth.”
“The voters can in no way trust Mr. Pritzker on any issue. He’s demonstrated a complete lack of integrity, ethics and character. He is not worthy of elective office in the state of Illinois,” Rauner said, adding later that the Democrat faces “likely indictment in the next few months.”
When the inspector general of a solidly Democratic county calls out a “scheme to defraud” involving a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, that’s legitimately a huge story. And it will likely continue to be a story for a while longer.
But is JB Pritzker himself in any danger here, outside of politics?
* The empty mansion is owned by a trust, so there’s one legal buffer. His brother-in-law is the trust’s agent, so there’s another buffer. The brother-in-law signed the documents exposed by the IG report as the “owner,” so that’s another buffer. Pritzker never signed anything, so there’s another. Pritzker’s spouse is alleged in the IG’s report to have told a contractor to remove the toilets ahead of an inspection, but she’s alleged to have told that to somebody who then told somebody else who then told the IG. And she never signed anything, either. Also, she’s not running for governor.
Gov. Rauner is fond of making dramatic, exaggerated claims, most of which never turn out to be true. Remember this from 2014?…
“Pat Quinn has been rolling the dice with taxpayer money, and after years of Quinn corruption, the U.S. District Attorney looks like he’s about to hand Pat Quinn the worst Monopoly card there is — go to jail, go directly to jail,” Rauner said.
I think it will take a very highly motivated prosecutor and a lot of stuff not yet in evidence and a bunch of luck to pin this solely on a guy who nobody has yet claimed any evidence of direct or indirect involvement in the alleged scheme. Not saying it won’t happen. The Trump administration could come in full bore against one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest supporters. Just sayin…
On the same day Pritzker released a TV ad featuring a family member of a veteran who died of Legionnaires’ disease at the home, Rauner apologized to family members of those affected by the outbreak: “I am sorry for your loss. It is deeply painful.”
But the embattled Republican governor still asserted that the outbreak was dealt with “immediately.”
“When the Legionella infection occurred, immediately the first day, action was taken to keep the veterans safe,” Rauner said. “Water supplies were shut off. Windows were closed. Fountains were shut down. Bathtubs drained and no longer used. And the veterans were evaluated for their health condition. Those who were infected were treated properly. Everyone else was monitored, and the families of those veterans who showed some symptoms were notified immediately when a change in health condition of their loved ones.”
“No one is perfect. In retrospect we could all learn lessons about how to do things better, but the veterans were well served by the outstanding staff here,” Rauner said. “Action was taken immediately to keep them safe.”
At a news conference before the debate, Rauner made this false claim: “There were no delays. Immediate action was taken and if there were any change of the health status of a veteran, family members were immediately notified.”
However, e-mails show there was a delay. The state did not notify the families of the veterans living in the home and it also did not notify staff.
“Immediately, the first day, action was taken to keep the veterans safe,” Rauner said.
“Water supplies were shut off. Windows were closed. Fountains were shut down. Bathtubs were drained and no longer used. And the veterans were evaluated for their health condition. Those who were infected were treated promptly. Everyone else was monitored, and the families of those veterans who showed some symptoms were notified immediately when a change in the health condition of their loved ones” was detected.
Pritzker countered that “actions were not taken immediately. In fact, six days went by (before residents and families were notified), and as a result, people got sick and someone died.”
Pritzker pledged he would keep open the Veterans Home if elected governor.
“Actions were not taken immediately,” Pritkzer said. “And as a result of his failures and his fatal mismanagement, he’s now under a criminal probe, as is his administration. It’s a shameful neglect of our veterans, who we should be standing up for every single day.” […]
Insiders say Rauner has come to be embraced by some locals, though, who he’s gotten to know after making trips to the area, even staying overnight at the veterans home and pushing for this year’s budget to include funding of a new campus for veterans, complete with updated plumbing.
The debate played out on a sensitive stage - Quincy, home of the state-run military veterans’ home beset by a deadly Legionnaires’ disease crisis. […]
Rauner has been sharply criticized for his handling of the Legionnaires’ situation and whether his administration notified the public in a timely enough manner, which has become the focus of the criminal investigation launched last week by Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who’s not seeking re-election.
“Much of this so-called criminal investigation is a political ploy to divert attention from the tax fraud that Mr. Pritzker engaged in, and it’s a shameful abuse of power by the attorney general,” Rauner said.
Rauner has been a regular visitor to the Quincy veterans home and plans to return for another stay later this month. The 1886 facility saw a deadly Legionnaires’ outbreak that killed 12 residents and sickened dozens more in 2015. Since then, there have been annual outbreaks at the home. A dozen negligence lawsuits have been filed by families against the state, and the governor’s veterans affairs director at the time resigned in June.
This year, a guest from the Quincy home that Rauner featured at his State of the State speech, Ivan Jackson, was later diagnosed with Legionnaires’ and subsequently died.
An investigation by WBEZ-FM 91.5 found that the Rauner administration waited six days before notifying the public about the initial outbreak. The governor has said his staff acted properly because the Legionella bacteria is not contagious and he wanted to avoid any potential panic.
After the debate, Rauner told reporters he’s cried over the deaths at the Illinois Veterans Home and he does not believe he’s trailing by 20 points as a recent poll suggests.
Voters this year can make a declaration: We want an aggressive attorney general who will expose, investigate and prosecute public corruption, no matter where it lies.
That’s a key reason the Tribune endorses Erika Harold of Urbana, an attorney with the Champaign-based firm of Meyer Capel, for attorney general. She is a Harvard Law School graduate — winning the 2003 Miss America pageant helped pay for her education — with experience in commercial litigation, criminal law, class action, fraud and contract disputes. On policy, she has been outspoken on the need for criminal justice reform and prison rehabilitation. […]
We are confident Raoul would be an aggressive attorney general for the citizens of Illinois — on some fronts, none of which would offend Illinois politicians. But he oddly downplays the role of the attorney general in pursuing public corruption — “I’m not going to go fishing for it,” he says — and he defends the thin anti-corruption record of the departing attorney general. […]
Voters: If you’re looking for a smart, well-rounded and self-reliant watchdog in state government, Harold is it. She also is a Republican in a state that, with Democrats controlling most levers of government, needs checks and balances on that one-party dominion. Erika Harold is the superior choice for attorney general.
It’s a new era for attorneys general in states across the nation as they step up to fight for the environment, workers’ rights, access to health care, consumer protections, and a free and open internet.
Illinois’ next attorney general will have to take the lead in these battles and others, countering the retrograde policies of President Donald Trump’s administration.
Kwame Raoul, the Democratic candidate for Illinois attorney general, gets our endorsement. We believe he is the best qualified — and most inclined — candidate to lead the charge, following in the footsteps of Lisa Madigan, who is retiring from the office. Raoul’s Republican opponent, Erika Harold, has signaled far less enthusiasm for taking on such important broader issues. […]
Madigan has sued to stop the separation of families at the U.S. border, to reinstate energy efficiency standards for home appliances such as fans and air conditioners, and to prevent young adults who were brought to our country illegally as young children from being deported.
Action by state attorneys general, including Madigan, also recently stopped the Trump administration from permitting designs for untraceable, homemade 3D-printed guns to be distributed online.
Raoul has demonstrated the ability to work effectively on a wide range of big issues.
Pritzker fired back after the governor touted various successes and plans for a second term.
“Well the governor made all these promises four years ago,” Pritzker said. “He’s living in a state of denial, the rest of us are living in the state of Illinois.”
Pritzker, a billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist, for the umpteenth time dodged questions about the rate of his proposed graduated income tax. And Rauner pledged big promises about changes he’ll make to the state during a second term, without explaining how he’d get a Democratic supermajority to go along with his plans.
“You’ve just heard a desperate rant by a failed governor who is in the final hours of his campaign and his governorship,” Pritzker said to applause after Rauner once again called the Pritzker a “bank robber” who got caught. […]
“You’re likely to hear more of that tonight because he’s got nothing else, just lies and excuses,” Pritzker said.
He said Pritzker’s graduated income tax plan will “crush the middle class, crush job creators.”
“They will flood out and the sound of that flood will not be the sound of toilets being flushed, it’ll be the sound of businesses getting flushed down the drain in this state of Illinois,” Rauner said.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner says a criminal investigation into his administration’s handling of a Legionnaires’ disease crisis at the state-run veterans’ home in Quincy is a “shameful abuse of power” by Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
Pritzker once again refused to give detailed answers as to where Illinois would come up with the money for that as well as the billions of dollars’ worth of other promises he’s made, nor would he share projected tax rates despite a debate moderator needling him for having “tap dancing” around his centerpiece plan of amending the constitution so that Illinois could tax income based on wealth brackets.
The mental image of Pritzker tap dancing made me chuckle at the time.
Asked how a Peoria teacher, making an average salary of $51,481, would fare under Pritzker’s plan, the Democrat responded: “That teacher ought to get a tax break. In fact, people in the middle class and those striving to get there should get a tax break.”
But Pritzker didn’t elaborate on any more specifics, once again saying rates would have to be negotiated with lawmakers and that implementing a graduated tax would go before the voters as a proposed constitutional amendment.
That prompted Rauner to say, “Mr. Pritzker dodges questions like he dodges his taxes.”
That was the governor’s best rehearsed and best delivered line of the night. In fact, it was his only high point, I think.
“Why not give a rate? We didn’t get a rate in the first forum, we didn’t get a rate in the ABC7 debate, this is your chance tonight, in the last debate, can you give us a rate?” the moderator asked.
“Well let me tell you this, we want to make sure we’re negotiating it with the people in the legislature,” Prtizker answered.
He just looks so bad whenever he’s asked these questions.
RAUNER: “Kaitlin, education funding is simply the most important thing we do together as a community. I ran for governor to have the best schools in America and the strongest, fastest growing economy, and we’re making progress on both. Truth is, in the ten years before I became governor, we had one party rule, dominated by Mike Madigan, along with Blagojevich and Quinn. In that ten years, state support for education was cut four times in the prior ten years. We were one of the worst states for state support for local education. I ran for governor to fix that. And this baloney about Andy Manar. He was in the Senate then, he was part of the failure of that. I became governor. I created a bipartisan task force. We now have $1.4 billion dollars more every year from the state to our local schools. Record funding. And we have a new education funding formula that’s more equitable.”
PRITZKER: “That happened in spite of you, not because of you, governor.”
RAUNER: “That I led, Mr. Pritzker. Could have happened anytime prior to my governorship.”
PRITZKER: “Happened in spite of you.”
RAUNER: “And you know what? If you’re going to interrupt, [PAUSE] be careful about the perjury, Mr. Pritzker.”
* Gov. Rauner told reporters this at a Quincy press conference today about the veterans home…
To be clear, there was absolutely no delay in doing what was critical, and that is keeping the veterans safe, treating them, evaluating the health of every veteran, every staff member, communicating with the vets and the staff and to any of their families to report any veteran who was showing any symptoms. That’s what was done. That was done day one.
“That’s what makes me sick. Do they think we’re all stupid? Here they are, not telling us for six days, and our family members are in there. We could’ve had a choice, people. We could have took our fathers and others out. We could have gotten them other help, and they have the audacity not to tell us for six days?”
Gov. Bruce Rauner’s own administration formally rebuked the state agency overseeing the Quincy veterans’ home for how it told staffers about the fatal Legionnaires’ disease outbreak after workers there got sick in 2015. […]
But the Aug. 22, 2015 mass email to Quincy workers — which Jeffries has pointed to as proof the home’s workforce was informed early about the outbreak — downplayed the severity of the epidemic and failed to alert staff that two Legionnaires’ cases had already been confirmed by that time.
The email, sent by an infectious disease nursing supervisor to nearly 140 staff members, emphasized with all capital letters that there had been “an UNCONFIRMED diagnosis” of Legionnaires’. The correspondence admonished workers not to talk about the case with residents because “the last thing we need is for the residents to get worried and upset.” […]
In fact, 19 hours before that first message went out to Quincy workers, top state health officials already knew that a 90-year-old man and an 89-year-old woman had tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease, according to another email circulated to Public Health Director Nirav Shah and the former administrator of the Illinois Veterans Home. Shah would later acknowledge that by Aug. 21, 2015 — the day before the first note went out to Quincy’s front-line staff — the state knew it was dealing with “the beginning of an epidemic.”
* To the timeline…
July 24: Earliest known case of Legionnaires’ disease at the Illinois Veterans’ Home in Quincy, according to a report issued later by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
August 21: Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Director Erica Jeffries later claims that on this date, her department “shut down the water, we removed aerators from all the showers, we shut down our fountains, we started issuing bottled water” because of the outbreak.
August 21: Public Health Director Nirav Shah acknowledges later that on this day the state knew it was dealing with “the beginning of an epidemic.”
August 21: Illinois Veterans’ Home resident Melvin Tucker develops a fever. He is given Tylenol.
August 22: (E)mail, sent by an infectious disease nursing supervisor to nearly 140 staff members, emphasized with all capital letters that there had been “an UNCONFIRMED diagnosis” of Legionnaires’. The correspondence admonished workers not to talk about the case with residents because “the last thing we need is for the residents to get worried and upset.”
August 23: Illinois Department of Public Health notifies CDC of “five laboratory-confirmed cases of Legionnaires’ disease among residents and staff.”
August 24: Adams County Health Department Director of Clinical and Environmental Services Shay Drummond claims this is the date when “environmental control and mediation” actually starts
August 24: In an email, a state Veterans’ Affairs spokesman alerted the governor’s press staff about the Legionnaires’ test results, saying, “We have a situation at the Quincy home.” The spokesman went on to say he did not intend to publicize details of the test results that day unless “directed or in the case of wide media interest.”
August 25: Rauner does media event with Veterans’ Affairs Director Erica Jeffries at Springfield airport. No public mention of Quincy.
Aug. 25: Rauner’s press secretary at the time, Lindsay Walters, directed press aides in the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Illinois Department of Public Health not to issue a public statement about the growing Legionnaires’ threat at the home, documents show. “I do not think we need to issue a statement to the media. Let’s hold and see if we receive any reporter inquiries,” she said.
Aug. 26: There are now 28 Legionnaires’ disease onsets, the CDC reports later.
August 26: Three days after CDC was first notified of the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, and 2-4 days after remediation efforts began, Gerald Kuhn, 90, is given Tylenol for a fever that reaches 104 degrees. Kuhn asks to go to the hospital and tests positive there for Legionella.
The veterans’ home didn’t test Gerald Kuhn. He had to ask to go to the hospital to be tested. So much for “evaluating the health” of all the veterans.
* More…
August 26: Last day Dolores French is seen alive. Her military veteran husband lives in another section of the complex.
August 27: “The Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs (IDVA) and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced eight confirmed cases of Legionnaires’ disease in residents at the Illinois Veterans’ Home - Quincy. There have been no known deaths related to this outbreak.”
August 27: After six days with a fever, Melvin Tucker is still not on any kind of antibiotic and hasn’t yet been tested for Legionnaires’, despite the CDC being notified four days earlier of an outbreak and the state announcing eight confirmed cases that same day.
So, Mr. Tucker still wasn’t on any medication six days into the breakout even though he was showing clear signs of danger. He wasn’t being protected. He was being ignored.
* Back to the timeline for the disheartening conclusion…
August 28: “Two residents of an Illinois veterans home have died of Legionnaires’ disease, the Illinois Department of Public Health said Friday…. [both] had underlying medical conditions. Both were among 23 residents of the facility who had earlier been diagnosed with the disease.”
August 29: Dolores French is found dead and her body was decomposed. Her only underlying medical condition was deafness.
August 30: IDPH formally requests Epidemiologic Assistance (Epi-Aid) from the CDC.
August 31: Melvin Tucker and Gerald Kuhn die, bringing the death total to four.
August 31: Three CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers and one environmental health specialist arrive at the veterans’ home.
September 1: “The Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs (IDVA) and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today announced the deaths of a total of seven residents at the Illinois Veterans’ Home-Quincy. The seven residents, all of whom had underlying medical conditions, were among the 39 individuals who had been diagnosed with Legionnaires’ disease to date.” [Dolores French’s only underlying medical condition was deafness.]
September 1: E-mail to Illinois Department of Public Health Director Nirav Shah: I received a voice message from Ann Irving with AFSCME asking about the remediation plan at Quincy vets home. She would like to know at what point we can say the systems that present the greatest risk of spreading Legionella bacteria have been cleaned. When can we say that any additional cases are due to the 2 week incubation period and not due to current exposure?
September 2: E-mail from IDPH spokesperson to administrative group: Can you help me? Let them know I’m not the one who should be responding. I fight enough with the media. I don’t went to fight with the union too.
September 2: E-mail from Director Nirav Shah: I think we should refer them to the Gov Office. There are several other sensitivities here. Or as Craig suggests, to DOL. I agree that weighing in here is not our job.
September 9: Adams County health officials report 2 more deaths.
September 14: Another resident dies, bringing the death toll to 12 out of 54 who have by now contracted the disease.
No matter how many times I read that timeline, my blood still boils. And the constant lies just make it worse.
* My bank shut down my debit card last month because somebody tried to withdraw money from my account in Portland, Oregon. I’ve always wanted to go to Portland, but never have. Some of my money did, though. They successfully withdrew $88 from an ATM machine and then the bank locked down my card. The bank told me the fraudsters somehow had my pin number, which I never share and don’t even have written down.
Credit card fraud is at an all-time high. That’s according to the Federal Trade Commission’s latest Consumer Sentinel Data Book, which tracks and summarizes consumer complaints about fraud, identity theft, and other consumer concerns. In 2017, there were 133,015 reports of credit card fraud across the United States—nearly a 7 percent increase over the year prior. This trend corresponds with a simultaneous sharp rise in data breaches where personal information was compromised. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, 2017 represented an all-time high of 1,579 data breaches—a nearly 48 percent increase over 2016’s 1,091.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines credit card fraud as the “unauthorized use of a credit or debit card, or similar payment tool (ACH, EFT, recurring charge, etc.), to fraudulently obtain money or property.” Interestingly, the Federal Trade Commission categorizes credit card fraud as a type of identity theft, since it can only be accomplished by stealing credit card numbers, usually by means of an identity theft scheme.
The risk to individuals isn’t spread evenly across states. Instances of credit card fraud range from a low of 17 per 100,000 residents in Mississippi to a high of 81 per 100,000 residents in Washington D.C. The average across all states is just under 33 per 100,000 residents.
There is a slight positive correlation between median household income and instances of credit card fraud per 100,000 residents. This suggests that higher-income states are potentially more attractive to scammers, representing a better chance of “striking gold.”
Median household income is also positively correlated with the percentage of identity theft cases that are credit card fraud. In other words, credit card fraud appears to be occurring more frequently relative to other types of identity theft in higher-income states. This again might be due to the high payout attached to a successful scheme on a wealthy resident. This trend could also be explained by lower credit card approval rates in states with higher levels of poverty.
Higher levels of poverty also correspond to lower rates of credit card fraud. This may be attributable to lower credit card approval rates, ownership, and credit limits in less wealthy states.
Credit card fraud complaints: 48 per 100,000 residents
Total identity theft complaints: 130 per 100,000 residents
Credit card fraud percent of total ID theft complaints: 39%
Household median income: $60,960
Percent below poverty level: 13%
In the race for governor, opponents are ganging up on Bruce Rauner today.
No less than three press events dumped on Rauner.
One about his handling of the deadly Legionaries disease at the Quincy Veterans Home, another about him equating the undocumented with crime and a third claiming he’s breaking the law by not paying state workers their step increases, which the governor’s office denies.
State Comptroller Susana Mendoza was at that last one saying that the state will have pay 7% late payment interest on those step increases, and she added this about Rauner, “This is just his personal grievance with state employees. It’s his obsession with right-to-work, and ya know, I think the governor has a right to work, just someplace else!”
* Everybody is doing their best to get the other side off their game. The governor is holding a 3 o’clock press conference in Quincy (I’ll update with whatever I get), and his campaign just sent this out to his supporters to urge them to watch the debate…
You can expect Governor Rauner to hold JB Pritzker accountable for his “scheme to defraud” taxpayers out of $330,000. Pritzker wants to raise taxes on every single Illinoisan, but he won’t even pay his own taxes. That means hardworking Illinois families just like yours have to pick up the tab.
Governor Rauner is going to speak the truth tonight. He’s standing up for taxpayers and fighting corruption in state government. This is the most important election of our lifetime. Be sure to tune in to see Bruce fight for our state’s future!
Click here to watch the debate, which begins at 7 pm. We’ll have a live coverage post.
* Pritzker campaign…
As the son and grandson of Veterans, I have so much respect for the sacrifices brave men and women make for our country. So I was especially moved when I heard the story of Illinoisan Eugene Miller, who, when he turned 17, went to serve in the United States Army in Germany. Eugene was proud of his military career. That’s why, when he started to get older, the choice to move into the Quincy Veterans’ Home, surrounded by his fellow service members, was clear. But one day, Eugene’s family got a call saying he had fallen ill. In the next few days he continued to get sicker and within a week he had died.
His son Tim found out later that the state knew that there was a Legionnaires’ outbreak at the Quincy Veterans’ Home and had chosen to keep that information concealed from the public and even from family members. “At that moment my dad needed for the state to honor him and serve him the way that he served his country.” Instead, Bruce Rauner let down Eugene and 13 other Veterans and their spouses, who died after getting sick with Legionnaires’ at the Quincy Veterans Home.
Rauner has failed Illinoisans in many ways. But his handling of the Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at the Quincy Veterans’ Home is one of the most egregious things he’s done while in office.
* The campaign also released some raw footage of Tim Miller talking about his dad. As we’ve already discussed, Miller appears in Pritzker’s new TV ad…
As the son and grandson of Veterans, I’ve seen the sacrifice brave men and women make for our country. That’s one reason why it was so heartbreaking to hear the story of Eugene Miller, a Veteran who tragically died at the Quincy Veterans’ Home during the Legionnaires’ outbreak. Eugene, his family, and Veterans across Illinois deserve better than Bruce Rauner. We need a governor that will honor Veterans and work to provide them with vital resources, not one that will turn their back on the needs of our nation’s heroes.
Posted by JB Pritzker on Thursday, October 11, 2018
* Let’s return to ProPublica’s story on the attorney general’s public access office (PAC), which handles FOIA disputes…
“Here’s what they need to do: Pull the plug on the PAC’s office,” said Bruce Rushton, a staff writer for the Illinois Times newspaper who has written about delays and inaction from the office. Rushton argued that the attorney general’s office is too politicized to oversee disputes involving other politicians and government bodies, including state agencies it’s charged with representing in court.
“Only a fool would put an elected official in Illinois in charge of riding herd on other elected officials,” Rushton said. “But that’s what we’ve done.”
Madigan was not available for an interview, according to a spokeswoman. But other officials in her office said the PAC has helped thousands of people access government information while leading a shift in the culture of the state toward more transparency.
“We started from scratch and created this, and I think we really do help people every day,” said Ann Spillane, the attorney general’s chief of staff.
“We have areas where we need to improve,” she acknowledged. But in addition to its rulings, Spillane stressed that the office provides education to the public on open-government laws, including through a hotline. “We’re one of the rare places in government where you can pick up the phone and talk to a lawyer.”
* The Question: Should the public access counselor’s office be removed from the attorney general and set up as an independent office? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please. And if you vote “Yes,” tell us how you would set it up.
* ProPublica takes a look at the attorney general’s public access counselor, known as the PAC…
The PAC’s heavy caseload is one reason the office rarely uses its full authority to order compliance with the transparency acts. Under the laws, the PAC has 60 days to issue a binding opinion. If the case is too complicated to make that deadline, or if the PAC’s attorneys aren’t able to move faster, the most the office can do is issue an opinion that’s nonbinding.
And binding opinions are rare. While closing 26,000 cases through mid-August, the PAC only used the weight of the law to issue binding opinions in 127 of them — less than half of one percent of the total. And four of those opinions sided with government bodies blocking the public from information.
Officials in the attorney general’s office said they issue binding opinions on issues of broad public interest, and each one is researched to ensure it could withstand a court challenge.
“Our binding opinions in particular we’ve been exceedingly careful about,” [Ann Spillane, the attorney general’s chief of staff] said. “We’ve only been overturned once. We thought it would be a devastating blow to our credibility if we didn’t have success with the courts.” […]
Spillane said the office has “struggled” to decide the best way to deal with public agencies that ignore requests or PAC opinions, opting in most cases for the “ask again and again and again” approach. But the office has started to respond more forcefully with binding opinions, she said.
The state attorney general has found the governor violated the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to turn over emails on his decision-making process on government appointments to One Illinois.
The office of Attorney General Lisa Madigan ordered Gov. Rauner in a binding opinion issued Tuesday to turn over 1,783 identified emails on appointments to various state boards and other bodies.
One Illinois first made the request in June for emails from either Rauner or his wife, Diana Rauner, on a series of issues. Told by the Governor’s Office that there were none applicable for the governor, One Illinois narrowed the scope of the request in July and focused instead on emails to or from seven current or former state employees on appointments to 13 state boards, councils, and commissions, and narrowed the scope additionally after that.
The Governor’s Office nonetheless replied that was “unduly burdensome,” and that it could not identify specific search terms to narrow the focus, even though there’s nothing in state FOIA law requiring adequate terms for a search. […]
At that point, on Aug. 10, One Illinois asked the Office of the Attorney General to review the FOIA process. The Public Access Bureau asked the Governor’s Office for an explanation, a request that at first was ignored entirely. On Aug. 29, the bureau repeated the request, and eventually the Governor’s Office revealed it had found 44,536 “potentially responsive emails,” but that narrowing the focus with the search term “appoint” had produced 1,783 emails, which it still found unduly burdensome and not of sufficient public interest to merit the work required to redact and otherwise process them.
The binding opinion is here. The governor can challenge the order, but he’ll have to sue the attorney general to do it.
* This One Illinois explainer video is very good. The FOIA basically focuses on Mrs. Rauner’s impact on the appointment process in the wake of the governor’s hiring of several Illinois Policy Institute staffers…
Rauner also bristled when asked about his personal and family foundation investments in offshore tax havens following a Tribune report Wednesday dealing with the financial holdings of the governor and Pritzker. The Tribune found that Rauner’s family foundation invested more than $10 million in a Cayman Islands fund after he became governor, that he has personal investments in three offshore funds, and that his former private equity firm was a “top client” of a major law firm that provides offshore legal services.
Asked if it was hypocritical to attack Pritzker’s offshore holdings while also having money parked offshore, Rauner sought to distance his “tiny” financial dealings from Pritzker’s more extensive investments.
Rauner defended his personal offshore investments, which includes two funds registered at the Ugland House in Grand Cayman, the listed address for thousands of companies and investment funds. Former President Barack Obama once criticized the place as a tax haven.
“I have investments all over the world, but mostly in America, and what I don’t do is cheat on my taxes,” Rauner said.
Pritzker has said money from the offshore trusts goes to his charity, the Pritzker Family Foundation. He also has said his trusts have paid tens of millions of dollars in state and federal taxes.
* The Sean Casten campaign sent along a few news clips today. New York Times…
In a tactical retreat, Republican groups have already withdrawn some or all funding from a few embattled incumbents, mainly in suburbs where President Trump is unpopular, including Representatives Kevin Yoder of Kansas, Mike Coffman of Colorado and Mike Bishop of Michigan. They have abandoned more than half a dozen seats where Republican lawmakers are not running for re-election, including most recently the Tucson, Ariz.-based seat of Representative Martha McSally, who left to run for Senate.
Party strategists said several other incumbents must recover quickly or risk losing funding, including Representatives Peter Roskam of Illinois and Mimi Walters of California, who represent white-collar suburbs near Chicago and Los Angeles, respectively. […]
Former Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said … “This is the kind of year where Republican are going to have to give up on some races and they’re going to have to make some hard choices.”
The same dynamic is taking place outside Chicago, where veteran Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R-Ill.) is in the fight of his life against Sean Casten. A clean-energy entrepreneur, Casten has reserved $4.6 million worth of ads, well ahead of Roskam’s $2 million in ads. […]
This energy among liberal donors has forced Republicans into making hard choices about where to spend their dollars. At the moment, the NRCC has no money reserved to defend Roskam, a former member of Republican leadership.
Of the 31 seats rated a “tossup” by the nonpartisan Cook Report, the NRCC is only playing in 14 of them. That means teetering Republicans like Reps. Mimi Walters, in Orange County, Calif.; Peter Roskam, in Illinois’ Chicago suburbs; and Dave Brat, in Virginia’s Richmond suburbs, aren’t receiving air cover from the NRCC’s independent expenditure unit; neither are Reps. Andy Barr, R-Ky., Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine, or Rep. David Young, R-Iowa.
But the NRCC believes its strategy, while counterintuitive, is paying dividends. By forcing Democrats to spend in Colorado 6 and Virginia 10, there is less money to throw against other endangered Republicans who aren’t as well known or battle tested as Coffman and Comstock. Essentially, the two are being used as cover to distract Democrats from easier targets. Additionally, some incumbents, like Roskam, are to begin benefiting from NRCC advertising in the form of “hybrid” ads that are coordinated with the candidate.
So, Roskam may be getting some money after all. We’ll see.
The League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund is launching a digital campaign targeting GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in IL-06 over the environment. The $291,000 campaign features two ads saying “polluters heart Peter Roskam” and that the “polluter in chief” Donald Trump can count on Roskam’s vote.
Sleazy Illinois politicians Mike Madigan and Sean Casten. Madigan and Casten are two sides of the same coin.
Madigan supported a state budget that would raise taxes on our families. So did shady Sean Casten. Madigan opposed the property tax freeze. Casten also opposed it. Higher gas taxes? Madigan supports those. And you guessed it, Sean Casten supported them too.
Mike Madigan and Sean Casten, shady Illinois politicians who’d make you pay more.
According to Roskam’s campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House campaign committee, just committed $1.5 million to a new TV ad buy in the expensive Chicago media market, $702,000 of which will go out the door in the next week.
* I was wondering when they were gonna get around to this, partly because I heard about a polling question on the topic several days ago. A new CLF Super PAC ad…
Liberal Betsy Londrigan is out of touch.
Londrigan belongs to an exclusive yacht club that costs thousands of dollars to join…
…but opposes middle-class tax cuts that are saving $2,000 a year for families like you.
Liberal Londrigan is so far adrift…
…her radical health care plan could cost $32 trillion – and drown us in debt.
Liberal Betsy Londrigan. Too expensive for Illinois.
The Illinois Republican Party has been sending out fliers backing U.S. Rep. RODNEY DAVIS, R-Taylorville, and attacking his opponent, Democrat BETSY DIRKSEN LONDRIGAN.
Among descriptions of Londrigan on fliers is the word “lobbyist.”
Turns out that in 2013, when Londrigan was a consultant to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation, she registered as a lobbyist for the foundation for just that year.
CARLA KNOROWSKI, CEO of the foundation, also registered that year, as the foundation — which purchased the Taper collection years earlier, including a purported Lincoln top hat — was seeking state funding help to supplement private funding. Knorowski said there were “a handful of meetings that Betsy helped me as a staff member, but I was basically the one making the presentations.”
She said no state money resulted from those meetings, which included officials like Senate President JOHN CULLERTON, state Sen. ANDY MANAR, and perhaps representatives of other legislative leaders. Knorowski also said as she and Londrigan weren’t paid as lobbyists, they didn’t have to register, but did so to be “abundantly cautious.”
I’m told that Davis has a new TV ad about the allegedly fake hat, but I haven’t seen it yet.
And with that ad, all four embattled Republican congressional incumbents are using Mike Madigan to attack their opponents.
* This story is based on a tweet that cut off part of the polling memo. I tried getting more info from the CLF Super PAC yesterday, but never heard back, so I didn’t post it. Also, the poll is old (September 29 through October 1), and was released shortly after Londrigan released a poll showing her down by a point, making it a bit suspect. And it was released ahead of the Vice President’s trip to the district. Anway…
Two days after Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan’s campaign released a poll showing her running neck-and-neck with GOP Rep. Rodney Davis, a top Republican polling firm has released its own poll showing Davis with a comfortable lead going into the final month of the election.
The poll released Wednesday shows Davis with a 50 percent to 37 percent lead on Londrigan in the race for the 13th Congressional District, with 9 percent undecided. It also shows Davis leading among independents, 45 percent to 38 percent, and independent women, 40 percent to 35 percent.
Vice President Mike Pence is coming to Springfield Friday for a fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville.
According to the Sangamon County Republican Party’s calendar, Pence will be special guest at the luncheon at Panther Creek Golf Course.
Wait. Isn’t Panther Creek Golf Course an “exclusive” club “that costs thousands of dollars to join”? Why, yes, it is. /s
* From the Rodney Davis campaign…
Today, Rodney Davis called on his opponent’s supporter, EMILY’s List/Women Vote, to remove a negative TV ad featuring his children. The ad says Davis wants to gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions and features their three children. Davis’ wife Shannon has a genetic form of colon cancer that could also be passed down to their children.
“In my book, kids are off limits in politics and it’s appalling to me that this outside group, who is spending nearly a million dollars in support of my opponent, would use my children in a negative TV ad against me,” said Davis. “My opponent has spoken about her son several times throughout this campaign and I would never use him, nor condone an outside group using him, in a negative way to make a political point. Lying about my voting record over and over again and using scare-tactics to do it is bad enough, but bringing my kids into it is a new low. At some point enough is enough in politics.”
Click here to view the ad. It uses footage of Davis’ own ad which features his kids. And since this is an independent expenditure, Londrigan can’t do much about it either way. We’ll see if the media picks up on it or if Davis uses this in an ad.
Also, it’s clear that Congressman Davis has voted to undermine preexisting condition protections. That’s the bill the late US Sen. John McCain killed with his dramatic thumbs-down.
Republican leaders on Wednesday said they were “appalled” to learn of Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker’s efforts to get property tax breaks on his Chicago home, and contended that he shouldn’t be elected as a result of the findings.
Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti, U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville and Dan Caulkins, the Republican state representative candidate for the 101st District, criticized Pritzker and rallied support for Gov. Bruce Rauner’s re-election campaign during a joint news conference at the Macon County Republican Party headquarters, 445 N. Franklin St. […]
On Wednesday, Davis said he hopes that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is working to initiate an investigation, and said that the calls for it to move forward will not stop.
“Let this sink in: The Cook County inspector general accused the Democrat gubernatorial candidate in the state of Illinois of committing a ’scheme to defraud’ the taxpayers of the same state that he wishes to represent,” Davis said.
* The Sun-Times website has been a plague on its own readers for years. I spend an unnecessarily large chunk of my days trying to deal with it. So, thank you, Edwin Eisendrath from the bottom of my tiny little heart…
The Chicago Sun-Times will launch a completely redesigned website early next year on a platform powered by digital publisher Vox Media, the news organizations announced Thursday.
It’s Vox Media’s first licensing agreement with a newspaper to use Chorus, the publishing technology behind the company’s roster of seven editorial brands, including Vox, Eater, Curbed and SB Nation.
Sun-Times management says it will fix once and for all the series of clunky website overhauls in recent years that have caused headaches for readers, reporters and editors alike.
“It’s going to be cleaner, it’s going to be less clutter, it’s going to be less popups,” Sun-Times CEO Edwin Eisendrath said. “It’s going to be easier to get to the stories that people care about.”
Vox Media began licensing the company’s content-management system last year with the sports and pop-culture website The Ringer and earlier this year with the comedy site Funny or Die, but the Sun-Times will be the company’s first traditional daily news media partner.
Vox Media runs clean, accessible websites. That would be a welcomed change at the CS-T. Now, if I could just get them to always remember to put my weekly column on their state politics page I’d be thrilled.
* As early voting, no-excuse absentee voting and same-day registration/voting become more commonplace and understood, the usage rates naturally rise. So, it may not be accurate to assume this year’s big surge in mail-in ballot requests automatically means a surge in interest. But it’s still pretty interesting because the Pritzker campaign and the state’s Democratic Party have put lots of effort into this mail-in push…
Requests for mail-in ballots in Illinois have surpassed 2014 numbers, and they’re outpacing ballot requests from two years ago, too — remarkable given that was a presidential election year. And there are still three weeks left to apply for a ballot.
In Chicago, mail-in requests are expected to overtake the all-time record set in 1944, a presidential year. That’s when the city had “tens of thousands” of voters serving in Europe and the South Pacific during World War II, Chicago Board of Elections spokesman Jim Allen told POLITICO. That year, Chicago handled 116,117 mail-in applications. Fast-forward to Illinois removing the rule that voters needed an excuse to vote by mail. In 2014, there were 38,982 requests for mail-in ballots, and in 2016, 93,518. For this year’s midterms, Chicago has seen about 80,000 mail-ballot applications. “With three weeks to go, we haven’t hit our heaviest period,” Allen said.
Statewide, there have been 310,532 requests so far for mail-in ballots. That’s up from 2014, when 268,218 requests were made, and it’s expected to exceed the 370,740 requests made in 2016, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections.
In Cook County, 75,688 mail-ballot applications have been requested–so far. That compares with 108,000 in 2016. “We’re going to come close, and that would be significant,” Cook County Clerk David Orr told POLITICO. In 2014, 62,000 early voting ballots were sent out.
I prefer to wait until election day to vote. Part of it is my own tradition, but one excuse I’ve used for a few cycles is that scandals have a tendency to break in the final weeks and I prefer not to cast my ballot until all the oppo is in.
* Bloomberg’s Elizabeth Campbell talked to bond investors about the gubernatorial campaign. At the top of their list, they don’t want another budget impasse. More…
“We don’t care if it’s a Democrat or Republican, we just want to make sure that whoever is in the office knows how much new taxes and revenue increases are needed to make those hard decisions of trying to deal with pensions,” said Dora Lee, vice president at Belle Haven Investments, which manages about $7.5 billion in municipal bonds, including Illinois debt. “We just need someone who has the vision and the political capital to make those hard choices because time is kind of running out.” […]
Even though Rauner pushed for fiscal reforms that would have cut costs, none of those were enacted, said John Miller, head of municipals at Nuveen, which holds more than $140 billion in state and local debt, including Illinois bonds.
“The concept that there could be a better, maybe a more productive dialogue where you could actually pass some fiscal changes that require legislation, that’s got to be considered better than gridlock,” Miller said. “I actually think the bond market would respond more positively to a change,” said Miller, who noted that his comments were from a revenue, expenses and budgeting point of view and not a political perspective. […]
“If there’s unified government, whether you view that favorably or unfavorably, it does mitigate appropriation risk and decreases the chance of a government shutdown, and it also mitigates the risk of not having a budget passed,” said Dennis Derby, a portfolio manager at Wells Fargo Asset Management, which holds $39 billion of municipal debt, including Illinois bonds. “No matter who wins, going forward, we would want to see balanced budgets, attempts at pension reform and a reduction in the payables backlog.”
JACKSON: Let me stop you right there because you talked about unemployment and crime. And the put it on the front page of the paper that you said that part of this was illegal immigration. Talk to me about illegal immigration, how it impacts crime, and how it impact unemployment in our community, the black community specifically.
RAUNER: So here’s what I said that got spun incorrectly in the media. What I said is violence in part is driven by unemployment. That’s just a fact. When a young person doesn’t see a future for themselves, sees massive unemployment in their communities, no way to get an income, when the gangs call and says “Hey join us, we can get you some money, we can get you a gun, some protection” a lot of the kids say “Okay.” I mean it’s not an unreasonable decision for a young person to make if they don’t see another alternative, join a gang. And the gang violence is horrific. We’ve got to have more economic growth. 79th St. here should be booming. It should be an economic mecca like it was 40, 50 years ago. We can do this, and it won’t take 2-3 years. But it’s the unemployment that drives so much of the violence and the crime because it’s the despair, the lack of seeing a future for our young people.
JACKSON: Well governor as I drive down 79th St. and I am going to be honest with you. You know maybe the media spins it, but I am going to say it. For the black community when we look at illegal immigration and we see working on 79th St., and 87th St., King Dr. King Dr., and they are undocumented immigrants, illegal aliens, not illegal aliens that’s hate speech, undocumented immigrants, and our party pushes to the forefront the issues of noncitizens before citizens it is a real issue. If we say what about the people who are already citizens it seems like we are being skipped over.
RAUNER: Totally, you’re right. So this is what I was trying to say. It’s politically unpopular and the media attacks me but I just try to speak the truth and sometimes I get bopped for it but I got to speak the truth. If an economy is booming and there’s more than enough jobs for everybody illegal immigration, what it does is not cause unemployment, what it does is hold down wages because when companies have to compete to higher people they raise wages up. So wages don’t grow as fast if there is illegal immigration in that case. But if there’s not enough jobs and there’s already unemployment, if there’s illegal immigration, unemployment gets worse. That’s what’s happened in Chicago. That’s one of the reasons. We have hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants here the jobs they’re working, they’re here because they got a job, that could be a job for a Chicago citizen, and American citizen. This is just true. People get mad at me. People criticize, but it’s the truth. And when we make a sanctuary city in Chicago, which we have, so illegal immigrants can come here and be protected here that takes away jobs from citizens of America in Chicago. It’s just true. It’s not debatable.
I don’t think the media spun it at all. All the stories that I read correctly reported what Rauner said.
In September of last year, the president of the American Action Forum, a center-right policy group, told The Washington Post there was no proof that immigration — legal or illegal — “squeezes out native-born workers in any systematic way.”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was senior policy adviser to the late Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who leads the group, said, “We’ve experienced waves of immigration and still, on average, reached full employment.”
Additionally, the Marshall Project reported in March that while the number of immigrants — including those living here illegally — overall in Chicago rose by 73 percent from 1980 to 2016, the city’s violent crime rate fell by 14 percent during the time period.
Rauner has sought to heal a divide among the GOP’s social conservative base over his signature on laws that expanded immigrant, abortion and transgender rights. Those conservatives have supported President Donald Trump’s push for tougher border protections and actions against those in the country illegally.
He ran as a moderate in the primary and barely won and is running as a Trump-like conservative in the general and is currently getting thumped. Dude has it all backwards.
…Adding… Not a bad point…
Yeah, um, so - according to @brucerauner, undocumented immigrants hold down wages which leads to violent crime.
Also, Rauner opposes raising the minimum wage.
Also, Rauner wants to repeal the prevailing wage, to reduce wages.
Democratic candidate for Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker has repaid the $330,000 he received in property tax breaks after removing five toilets from one of his Gold Coast mansions, according to a spokeswoman Wednesday.
Las week, Cook County’s inspector general said in a report that Pritzker had engaged in a “scheme to defraud” in order to receive more than $330,000 in property tax breaks on his mansion in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood.
According to the spokeswoman, the check was mailed to the Cook County Treasurer’s office last week.
* Rauner campaign…
Yesterday, JB Pritzker cut a $330,000 check to try and make his “scheme to defraud” Illinois taxpayers go away. Illinoisans aren’t fooled by Pritzker’s attempt to buy his way out of his potentially criminal activity.
Rauner campaign Communications Director Will Allison released the following statement in response:
“A bank robber who gives the money back is still a bank robber. Pritzker paying back the money he conned out of Illinois taxpayers is nothing less than an admission of guilt that he committed fraud.” -Will Allison, Rauner Campaign Communications Director
JACKSON: Governor, I’ve heard it, you know, I go places and people tell me “Bruce Rauner is an enemy of black people.” Why do people say, are you an enemy of black people? And why is that the perception?
RAUNER: Again political false baloney. The spin is, because we had a budget fight for two years and some human services got hurt and cut, that somehow I wanted to hurt, and some of those hurt the black community. And that’s true. But you know what? I was working to try to get a balanced budget, I proposed a balanced budget, that would have funded human services and funded Chicago State. Mike Madigan had the super majority. He could have passed any budget he wanted at any time he wanted to for those two years, with or without my support. He wanted, he wanted the crisis. What’s Mike Madigan, and his unions, his union buddies, what’s they’re track record in the black community? It is horrible. How many African-Americans are working on the construction sites on the South Side of Chicago? Virtually none. How many African-Americans are in apprentice programs with Madigan’s union buddies? Virtually none. They were happy to see the black community suffer during the budget impasse. They were happy to do that. They had no problems with it. It was breaking my heart. And then they have the gall to turn around and say it was my fault? I’m sorry, that’s a bunch of horse manure. It’s not my fault. They caused it. They did it.
Rauner has admitted in the past few weeks that he was at least partly to blame for the impasse. Apparently, those days are over. “It’s not my fault!”
* Rauner also took on the Legislative Black Caucus yesterday, and they responded this morning…
Governor Rauner spouted off lies about his failed record during an interview with Maze Jackson, stealing others’ credit as his own while struggling to survive on the campaign trail.
In one interview, Rauner once again claimed to be the best governor for the black community, took credit for a school funding he vetoed twice, and undermined the work of the Legislative Black Caucus. After being asked about reforms the Black Caucus championed, Rauner said, “I created the taskforce that drove all that. They could have done that any time. They didn’t. I did.” It’s simply a fallacy and desperate move to draw votes from the African American community when we all know he’s failed us.
The truth is under the Rauner administration minority contracting requirements have been waived and the percent of state business going to minority businesses has actually plummeted by 22 percent. And African-American unemployment in Illinois remains among the highest in the nation under Rauner’s failed leadership. That’s after Rauner put child care funding in jeopardy, decimated funding for social services like summer programs and Teen Reach, and jeopardized the MAP Grant Program.
“Governor Rauner says he’s done more for the black community than anyone, but that’s news to black communities across the state who are hurting from his years of failed leadership,” said Sen. Kimberly A. Lightford. “The truth is that this governor slashed funding for gun violence prevention programs and social services, blocked funding for schools while insulting teachers, vetoed a minimum wage increase, and sent black unemployment skyrocketing. We deserve better than a governor who shamelessly takes credit from others and spews empty rhetoric and then leaves our communities behind when it really matters.”
JACKSON: Governor, have you made any black millionaires?
RAUNER: Oh, we’re sure helping a lot of black entrepreneurs and black business owners. [Reaches for paper] So, so, I knew you were gonna ask, so I brought a list.
JACKSON: You brought papers?
RAUNER: I brought papers.
JACKSON: Cause you know how I feel about papers.
RAUNER: Cause I got names for it. So, how we’re gettin’ contracts. So Dr. Willie Wilson is a good personal friend of mine. I love him. He’s a man with a good heart, and I worship with him and I work with him. He’s a self-made businessman who’s become a millionaire just from his own hard work. He’s overcome discrimination and a lot of hurdles in his life, and he didn’t come from a background of anything other than just hard work and wanting to give back to the community.
JACKSON: Well he was a millionaire already, man. You didn’t make him. You helped him.
RAUNER: No I did not say, no no. I’m saying he made his own…
JACKSON: Okay.
RAUNER: But he and I are working together cause we both care about creating more black millionaires. That’s what we’re trying to do. Dr. Wilson is my friend and my ally, and I appointed him to be chairman of the fair state contract task force. He is doing it, and we now are demanding that more black businesses get state contracts. It used to be lip service by the Democrats. I’m doing it as a Republican. And so here, what have we done? RGB Properties, Angela Shumpert. Okay, $31.9 million potential contract.
JACKSON: Angela?
RAUNER: Angela, go Angela.
JACKSON: You need a consultant?
RAUNER: Logsdon Stationers, Ian Brown. We got a contract for him, $446,000 from CMS. Annasha Corporation, Robert Bellamy, $3.3 million for a temporary services management project. Carepaks Health Services, $413,000, home health care services.
First of all it’s heartbreaking that Legionella bacteria got into an ancient Veterans’ Home in Quincy. It breaks my heart ’cause I’m an advocate for veterans. And we’ve done everything humanly possible to protect our veterans there. But this investigation by Lisa Madigan is a fraud, it’s phony. She declared this investigation started 24 hours after her ally, Pritzker, got accused and found to have committed criminal fraud. She said ‘Oh, let’s distract the media. Let’s distract all the discussion. Let’s trump up a phony investigation of criminal fraud.’ The Quincy tragedy of infection has been reviewed by the legislature. It’s been reviewed by the press. We’ve had testimony. All our emails. And there’s been no evidence of criminal behavior whatsoever in the Quincy Veterans’ Home. None.
* Pritzker campaign…
Ahead of the final gubernatorial debate in Quincy, the Pritzker campaign released a new TV ad, “Heroes,” featuring Tim Miller, the son of Eugene Miller who died after contracting Legionnaires’ disease at the Quincy Veterans’ Home.
In the ad, Tim Miller recounts visiting his father at the hospital during his final days and talks about how his family wasn’t told about the Legionnaires’ crisis even while the state was emailing back and forth about the outbreak, concerned about public relations. While Bruce Rauner continues to maintain “our team did exactly what they should have done, exactly when they should have done it,” Tim Miller sees things differently, saying “Governor Rauner was more interested in protecting his image than he was the heroes who served our country.”
“Eugene Miller and 13 others lost their lives too soon because Bruce Rauner cared more about headlines than our heroes,” said JB Pritzker. “This failed governor chose to manage his public image instead of managing a health crisis. The Rauner administration waited six days to tell families why their loved ones were sick, six days when treatment could have started and families could’ve helped keep their loved ones safe. Bruce Rauner’s fatal mismanagement and his cover-up is callous, baffling, and frankly, it’s criminal. Eugene Miller deserved better, all of our nation’s heroes deserve better, and as governor, my administration will serve our Veterans just as they served our country.”
Tim Miller: I met my dad at the ER, and when I walked into that room, he was laying in a fetal position, unresponsive. He just looked like he was about to die. It was not the dad that I saw before.
On screen: For six days the state of Illinois knew of a Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak and said nothing.
Tim Miller: At that moment, my dad needed for the state to honor him and serve him the way that he honored and served his country. Nothing was said about Legionnaires’. While the state was sending back emails about PR and different things, my dad was dying.
On screen: Emails paint a sad, cold reaction to crisis
Bruce Rauner: Our team did exactly what they should have done, exactly when they should have done it.
Tim Miller: My question to Governor Rauner is: If it were your parents who were living at that home, would you have handled it differently? Would the response time have been quicker?
On screen: Eugene Miller was one of 14 people who died after getting sick with Legionnaires’ Disease.
Tim Miller: I looked up to my dad a lot and I loved him, and whatever life he had left on this earth, it was his, and Governor Rauner was more interested in protecting his image than he was the heroes who served our country.
Tonight’s debate is in Quincy, so this sets it up pretty well.
* Related…
* Hugs, Handshakes, And Anger: Before Debate, Quincy Legionnaires’ Families Gather To Reflect: “That’s what makes me sick. Do they think we’re all stupid? Here they are, not telling us for six days, and our family members are in there. We could’ve had a choice, people. We could have took our fathers and others out. We could have gotten them other help, and they have the audacity not to tell us for six days?”
