Question of the day
Monday, Jun 21, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Bloomberg
Supermarket prices are rising, and restaurants are reopening. But Americans keep stocking up on groceries.
Grocery sales accelerated in late May and early June, according to Nielsen data cited in a Morgan Stanley note. That’s despite restaurant revenue growth turning positive in April for the first time during the pandemic. Meanwhile, supermarket prices are up 15% on average versus before Covid-19. More than a third of Americans said they’re still buying more groceries in the first quarter of the year, with only 8% saying they’re purchasing less, according to a survey from researcher Jungle Scout.
The situation has confounded analysts, who expected robust grocery-store sales to diminish as the year progressed and as vaccinated Americans returned to offices, restaurants and travel. It can’t be explained by inflation, because grocers are also returning to their normal practice of discounting, which partially offsets the price hikes they’re taking elsewhere. Sales of groceries on a unit level, which exclude the effects of inflation, have held steady. […]
Two-thirds of people said they’re buying the same number of grocery items weekly as they did during the height of the pandemic, according to a survey conducted this week by market researcher CivicScience for Bloomberg News.
* The Question: Are you still buying the same amount of groceries as you were at the height of the pandemic, or have you mostly shifted back to your restaurant dining habits? Explain.
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* Press release…
On Friday, U.S. Representative Rodney Davis (R-IL) visited the Prairie State Energy Campus, toured their power plant and mine, and spoke with employees about their careers and the benefits the company provides to the state and local economy.
“The municipally-owned Prairie State power plant is the cleanest coal-fired powered plant in the nation and one of the most efficient, and it creates hundreds of good-paying jobs, including union jobs, for our state,” said Rep. Davis. “The company is actively pursuing and adopting additional carbon sequestration and storage and emissions-reducing technologies, and they should receive support from state and federal agencies for their efforts. Our country needs more base load generating capacity from a broad array of sources, not less, particularly when we can use technology to reduce emissions.”
“Prairie State, and CWLP like it, should be allowed to remain open, but Governor Pritzker is catering to the demands of left-wing environmentalists by advocating for their closure,” Davis continued. “I challenge Governor Pritzker to make a trip to Prairie State, tour the power plant and mine, and talk directly to the men and women who work there like I did. The Governor should personally hear what the plant’s closure would mean for the hundreds of hardworking, taxpaying Illinois families he wants to put out of work. State leaders must craft an energy bill that meets Illinois’ energy needs without forcing the closure of vital plants like Prairie State and CWLP.”
Attached pic…
* Meanwhile, from Paul Schimpf…
Paul Schimpf, Republican candidate for Governor of Illinois, issued a statement this morning from the Monroe County jail along with Sheriffs Neil Rohlfing of Monroe County and Shannon Wolff of Randolph County in response to the failure of the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) to take custody of DOC prisoners as required under Executive Order 2020-50 issued on July 27, 2020.
Executive Order 2020-50 mandates the DOC to determine the scheduling of arrivals of inmates from county jails based on the several health and safety factors. It further ordered that the DOC work closely with county sheriffs to implement this process. At this time, inmates are not being regularly transferred from county jails to the DOC despite the fact that Illinois is finally in Stage 5 and those health and safety factors conditions have been met. Furthermore, the DOC has failed to compensate the individual counties for the state prisoners who are being held in county jails. Lastly, according to the President of the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association, Sheriff Brian VanVickle of Ogle County, the DOC has failed to communicate with county sheriffs to solve this problem. In response to these conditions, Senator Schimpf stated:
“Once again, we are witnessing the ‘Pritzker Leadership Deficit’ as Governor Pritzker remains hands off when it comes to providing solutions to the problems caused by his unilateral shutdown of our state.
It is only by the strong leadership of our 102 sheriffs across Illinois that our communities and citizens remain safe from DOC prisoners even though they are not obligated to house them without recompense. Unfortunately, the taxpayers of each county are left to foot the bill despite the fact that the DOC budget has not been cut during the pandemic. This is simply unacceptable.
I call on Governor Pritzker to order the Director of the Illinois Department of Corrections to reopen and start transferring prisoners in a safe and regular fashion, to pay each county the DOC’s arrears for housing prisoners, and pay counties the cost of housing those DOC inmates in the future.”
Keep in mind that local governments are getting billions from the feds to deal with unexpected costs.
WGEM did a story on this topic and this is IDOC’s response…
The Illinois Department of Corrections is committed to safely admitting as many men and women from the counties as possible. Intakes are scheduled based on space availability, quarantine requirements and COVID-19 test results. We have been accepting transfers from county jails since August 3, 2020 and have processed 7,975 new admissions and 1,206 turnarounds to date.
* And…
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* From Brenden Moore’s interview of House Speaker Chris Welch…
Moore: Speaking of partisanship, there’s a sign outside your office that says ‘it’s a new day,’ which has been a slogan of yours this past session. But, some Republicans don’t feel like it’s a new day.
Welch: I don’t even think Republicans believe what they’re saying. If they would drop their talking points for a minute and you actually talk to them outside of the playground that we’re in, they would be honest with you and tell you that it is a new day. Many of them have come and sat in this office and they’ve said, everyone of them, this is the first time they’ve ever been in the speaker’s office.
I have thank you notes in my office — I got one when I arrived here today from a Republican, thanking me for the help that I gave on an initiative. There’s countless of those. I’m not gonna put individuals out there, that’s not what I’m here to do. They know that I’m here, they know that I’ve been accessible and open to them and working with them, and I have helped not just Democrats, but several Republicans get priorities done this session. I’m gonna continue to do that, regardless of the partisan political rhetoric that’s being spewed out there.
* I asked HGOP spokesperson Eleni Demertzis for a response…
He’s probably right - ‘new things’ that happened this session were massive budgeting errors, abuse of power to change Chamber rules to fix said errors, Republicans cut out of all negotiations on major issues, and a huge uptick in social media usage from the Speaker’s office talking about how hard he is working. Definitely some ‘new things’ for the people of Illinois. Despite the flowery rhetoric, this session was bitterly partisan and another disappointment for taxpayers. Actions speak louder than words.
Discuss.
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We will survive (and likely even thrive)
Monday, Jun 21, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Lots of hand-wringing out there after last week’s Tribune buyouts, but Chicagoland is a thriving news center with huge numbers of quality reporters covering just about everything under the sun. It’s 2021. All your news doesn’t always have to come from a single newspaper. Case in point from Robert Feder…
Invisible Institute, the Chicago-based nonprofit journalism production company, won its first Pulitzer Prize Friday for its work on a year-long investigation of K-9 units and the damage that police dogs inflict on Americans.
Along with the staffs of The Marshall Project, Alabama Media Group and the Indianapolis Star, Invisible Institute was cited in the national reporting category. It was the sole Chicago winner among the 2021 honorees.
Invisible Institute reporters Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Andrew Fan and Ellen Glover collaborated on the joint project with their counterparts.
The Pulitzer Prize board also cited Invisible Institute as a finalist in the audio reporting category (along with The Intercept and Topic Studios) for “Somebody,” a seven-part podcast series investigating the murder of a 22-year-old Chicago man, Courtney Copeland, and the institutional indifference surrounding it.
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* Press release…
To continue our commitment to collective safety, the University of Illinois System will require that all students receive a COVID-19 vaccination if they plan to be on campus for fall semester 2021. This requirement is consistent with our own scientific modeling of the risks associated with the spread of the virus and its variants. It is also consistent with the Illinois Department of Public Health’s goals.
We recognize that some individuals have health conditions or other reasons why they cannot be vaccinated. That is why it is so important that those of us who can get vaccinated do so. Those who are not vaccinated will need to follow campus-specific guidelines and any exemption protocols issued by each university. Individuals who plan to work or study remotely are exempted from these requirements.
Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, students have helped make the University of Illinois System a model for the nation – a model of community, a model of safety and a model of pulling together for the common good. We look forward to their help in setting the standard again this fall, a semester that will restore most in-person instruction and many of the other traditional rhythms of campus life that COVID interrupted last year. Widespread vaccinations will help us do that.
Each university will follow up with additional guidance on vaccination information as well as other safety measures planned for fall. We also will continue to monitor our policies closely, making adjustments as appropriate based on advances in scientific understanding and updated guidance from public health authorities.
Guidelines for faculty and staff are still being developed and will be shared later this summer.
Thoughts?
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* Senate President Don Harmon was recently interviewed by WBBM Radio’s Craig Dellimore. Here’s part of what Harmon said on an elected Chicago school board…
I believe there is broad support within the city of Chicago and frankly across the state for an elected Chicago School Board. The Chicago Public Schools are the only schools in the state not governed by an elected school board. Every other suburban and downstate school district has an elected school board. Politically, it has been proved it referendum in the city. And frankly, by just about every politician campaigning for election in the last several years. I know I campaigned in favor of an elected school board. I believe the Speaker of the House did. I know that the governor did and frankly, I know that the mayor did. So it’s hard to derail an issue that everybody has already come out in support of publicly. Nor do I think there was any appetite to do that. The time had come in the Senate.
The House had passed a version of this bill several times before, including earlier this year. In the Senate, we sat down and tried in good faith to negotiate a compromise. And so Senator Rob Martwick from the Northwest Side was the lead sponsor of the original bill. Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, who represents a part of the West Side of the city as do I, was a sponsor of the mayor’s counter-proposal. And we tried to negotiate a bill that provided for a measured and reasoned transition from the fully appointed school board we have today to a fully elected school board. So in the end, it won’t go into effect in the fall of next year as the original proposal would have. It will transition over time with a fully elected school board being seated in January of 2027. And I hope that gives everybody time to weigh in, measure the consequences and do this right. And I trust that the mayor is going to be a willing and necessary partner.
* Harmon was also asked about Mayor Lightfoot’s opposition to the size of the new 21-member board, something that House sponsor Rep. Delia Ramirez said would not be changed…
We spent a lot of time wrestling with that issue, because it is a large board. But at the same time, the city of Chicago is a very large city. And if the model in other school districts is seven members elected at-large, and if you did that in Chicago, you would have seven people running citywide for a position on the school board. I think it would tilt the scales in favor of those folks with money or those folks backed by people with money. The wisdom of the 20-member board with one member elected city wide as the as the chair is that the size of the district is manageable. It’s not much different than a House of Representative district. And what that means is that somebody without money, somebody without a political organization can still run an effective campaign by going door to door and talking to neighbors and listing friends. And so real people will have a fighting chance of getting elected to the to the Chicago Public School Board. And I think that’s really important. And that persuaded me in the end.
* Harmon was then asked why no spending limits were put on school board campaigns…
Well, I would be all for that, or for public financing for the races. But the US Supreme Court fairly well resolved that issue for us with the Citizens United decision that said we can’t stop rich people from spending all the money they want from their own pocketbook on these elections. So it’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube on an issue like that. I hope that the size of the district will give those real people that fighting chance to get themselves elected to the school board and have a voice in their children’s future.
* From House Speaker Chris Welch’s interview with Laura Washington and Lynn Sweet…
Q: Is it possible that the the fundamental bill itself will change? The mayor doesn’t want to fully elect the school board, and she’s been fighting that battle for a long time. Is it possible that you could retreat or the leadership could retreat from that? […]
A: No. We supported a fully elected school board. That’s what’s in the bill that passed. I don’t see that changing. There’s other issues that the mayor has addressed.
* When asked how allowing undocumented residents to vote would work, even though it’s not in the bill passed by both chambers, Welch said…
You’re asking me to answer a hypothetical question. I don’t even think it’s, you know, got to be an issue. The lawyers are going to guide the parties in this. If it’s not constitutional, it’s not going to be in the bill.
* Harmon was asked if he would be open to changing the law to allow undocumented residents to serve on the elected board…
Well, the beauty of the legislative process is it is just that it is a process. We are never done. We don’t go out of business. And as proud as I am of the work that we have done in a variety of arenas, we never get everything right. And even when we think we’ve gotten something right, something in the rest of the world might change that requires us to revisit. So this is a process.
* Related…
* A bill for an elected Chicago school board has passed. Now what?: Ramirez called the red alarm about CPS finances “fear-mongering” and a late attempt to come up with reasons to kill the bill. “The city has this liability regardless,” Ramirez said. “This bill passing or not, this debt was beginning to incur more and more. I don’t see the city in any way walking away from its schools and the school district.”
* Mayor Lori Lightfoot declines to concede defeat on elected school board bill passed by lawmakers, says there’s still time to negotiate: “We’ve got to address some of the obvious deficiencies in the bill,” Lightfoot said, adding that those include the size of the board and a lack of campaign finance “guardrails” to prevent exorbitant political spending.
* Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch reflects on his first legislative session
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* Speaker Welch caused a bit of a stir back in February with these remarks…
New Democratic House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch suggested Wednesday that the state should again ask voters to approve a graduated-rate income tax, but this time target the new money toward paying down Illinois’ massive pension debt.
The call for a do-over came after voters in November overwhelmingly rejected Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s graduated income tax proposal. Opponents, including Republicans and business leaders, used distrust of Springfield to argue for keeping the state constitution’s flat tax requirement.
“We have to tell the voters what we’re going to do with that money,” Welch said during a virtual event hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago. “I certainly think tying that new revenue to pensions would be a winner.”
Whether there will be an appetite among other Democrats for another attempt at passing a graduated tax remains unclear. Pritzker did not immediately join Welch’s push.
* Chicago Sun-Times columnist Laura Washington and Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet asked Welch about the topic again the other day…
We didn’t do it this year, likely not next year. We have a great budget that we did do some structural things in this year’s budget. Do I think that Illinois tax system is broken? I think so. I think that the wealthy doesn’t pay their fair share. I think at some point that it has to be revisited. But it probably won’t happen anytime in the next couple of years.
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Postponement Of Care Leads To Public Health Risk
Monday, Jun 21, 2021 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
More than two-thirds of Americans surveyed in July 2020 by the Harris Poll on behalf of Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies say they or someone in their household delayed or canceled healthcare services due to COVID-19. Delayed care is even more prevalent among communities of color. In fact, Black and Hispanic adults, people with disabilities, and those with two or more underlying conditions are putting off medical care at higher rates than others. That’s why Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Companies introduced My Health Can’t Wait Illinois, a public information effort and resource hub designed to help Illinois residents get the information they need to prioritize their health and seek needed care. Learn more at MyHealthCantWait.com/Illinois.
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Wellness check!
Monday, Jun 21, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Everybody OK out there? From the Tribune…
Five people were injured, one of them critically, 16 homes were uninhabitable, at least 10 people have been displaced and at least 125 damage reports have been filed as the result of a “considerable” tornado that tore through Naperville late Sunday, officials said.
And that’s in just one of three southwest suburban communities hit by what meteorologists suspect was at least an EF-2 tornado — a ranking on the Enhanced Fujita scale — which goes from zero to five. An EF-2, should it be confirmed later Monday, would mean the tornado had wind speeds of 111 to 135 mph.
Matt Friedlein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said there’s a chance the tornado — forecasters think it was a single funnel cloud that touched down multiple times in Naperville, Woodridge and Darien, in that order — may even be classified as an EF-3 once a team of meteorologists goes into the field to investigate its path and the damage it caused. An EF-3 is defined as a tornado with wind speeds of 136 to 165 mph.
“We suspect it was one tornado. We don’t know that for certain, but based on the nature of the information and what we know about the character of this event, that’s what we’re leaning toward,” Friedlein said around 7:30 a.m.
* More…
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* Jerry Nowicki at Capitol News Illinois…
With the first year of the 102nd General Assembly mostly wrapped up, lawmakers as of Friday had officially passed 664 bills through both houses for eventual consideration by the governor.
Gov. JB Pritzker had signed 17 of them as of Friday, including the Thursday signing of the state’s operating budget and a bill making several changes to the state election code.
Charlie Wheeler, an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois Springfield who covered the Illinois General Assembly for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than two decades, said he was struck by the “progressive nature” of the bills passed by the General Assembly this year.
“The voting legislation, for example, you look at what other states are doing and then you look at what we did, that was kind of an example” of the strongly Democratic legislation that passed this year, Wheeler said.
The total so far is 317 Senate bills and 347 House bills.
* Related…
* Illinois Primary Election Moved to June 2022 After Pritzker Signs Voting Bill: The measure also requires election authorities to make voting by mail - which increased exponentially during the 2020 election cycle due to the pandemic - a more convenient option by creating a permanent vote-by-mail list to which voters can request to be added so that they will receive their ballot by mail in each election, rather than having to apply to vote by mail every time.
* Pritzker signs election package that moves 2022 primary to June, makes fixtures of curbside and mail-in voting: In addition, due to a previous hacking of the Illinois State Board of Elections, the law requires the state’s 108 election authorities — primarily county clerks and boards of election — to conduct monthly vulnerability risk scanning.
* Pritzker signs law that will make alderman name more inclusive
* Lawmakers Approve Proposal To Allow Sex Workers To Expunge Past Felony Prostitution Convictions: Back in 2013, Illinois reduced a prostitution conviction down to a Class A misdemeanor. Despite no longer being considered a felony offense, a conviction can still carry a maximum fine of $2500 and up to nearly a year in jail.
* Bill allows Illinoisans to keep unemployment overpayments
* Here are 5 things to know about how a FOID card bill would change Illinois law
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Budget game led to budget problem
Monday, Jun 21, 2021 - Posted by Rich Miller
* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
I’d been hearing since the end of May when the General Assembly adjourned for the summer that there were some problems with the state budget legislation that needed to be fixed. Some effective dates apparently weren’t drafted right. But, silly me, I failed to follow my own rules and didn’t read the bill (SB2800) for myself.
The scope of the problem was worse than I thought, but the most pressing issue was the House did not have nearly enough votes to correct its massive mistakes when the chamber returned to Springfield on June 16. It became a major test of rookie House Speaker Chris Welch’s influence.
The House and Senate got caught up in a heated dispute on the night of May 31 (the last scheduled day of session) over whether to fund legislative pay raises. The House wanted to follow the Illinois Constitution’s clear mandate and fund them, but the Senate refused for political reasons.
So, at almost the last minute, the House cobbled together the state operating budget, including the pay raise appropriations, with the capital budget (which the Senate was supposed to handle) and rammed the bill out of the House and over to the Senate at around 11:30 pm. The Senate passed the bill not long after midnight. But, apparently, when the House hastily combined the two bills, nobody checked the effective date language at the tail end of the legislation.
The budget bill has 178 different articles, and each appropriation is spelled out in individual sections of those articles. The end of the appropriations bill has a short paragraph listing the effective dates for the articles. But articles 45-128 were not given any effective dates — about 47% of all the articles in the appropriations bill. And since the Senate passed the bill after midnight, by law, the appropriations articles without an assigned effective date can’t take effect until June 1 of 2022, only a month before the end of the coming fiscal year.
Oops.
The mistake means that the entire supplemental appropriation for the current fiscal year couldn’t be spent until almost a year from now. And tons of other programs, from tourism, to natural resources, to corrections, to employment security, to human rights, to, well, you can pretty much name it, wouldn’t legally have access to their appropriations until next June, either.
A plan was developed for Gov. J.B. Pritzker to issue an amendatory veto to insert the proper effective dates. Accepting an amendatory veto on a budget requires a three-fifths vote in both chambers (36 in the Senate and 71 in the House). No way could Democrats count on Republican help. Republican moneybags Ken Griffin is still said to be angry at legislative Republicans for cooperating on the 2019 capital and budget bills, so if they helped the Democrats correct their massive errors, well, that would be the final straw.
The Senate has a huge Democratic super-majority, and it also has a remote voting rule, so dealing with the issue was no big deal.
The House was another story, however. Five House Democrats out of 73 were saying they couldn’t be in Springfield on Wednesday. Unlike the Senate, the House had no remote floor voting procedure, so it can only afford to lose two members before it fell below the 71-vote threshold required to accept the amendatory veto.
If House Speaker Chris Welch couldn’t get enough members to Springfield to fix this problem, the New York bond houses could’ve conceivably dinged the state’s credit rating — and the state is only a tick above junk bond status as it is.
Welch’s chamber made the drafting mistakes, and it was on Welch to fix them and, hopefully, never, ever do anything like this again. Last-minute, late-night budget votes have been far too routine in Springfield. It really needs to stop.
In the end, Welch decided to temporarily change the rules to allow for remote floor voting. The Republicans vigorously spoke against it, but two of their own members voted remotely (and against the budget fix, of course).
All but one of Welch’s members were either in Springfield or participated in remote voting.
Welch forced Rep. Carol Ammons (D-Urbana) to resign from her leadership position last month and she has since been unapologetic about the controversies which led to her ouster.
Ammons claims she wasn’t aware of the remote voting opportunity, but Speaker Welch said he tried to reach out to her and she never returned his messages.
Again, this is all too important to leave to chance or the whims of a single member. This stuff needs to stop.
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