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Quinn to get gun control nod; And the press finally notices some of Quinn’s Friday night actions

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* The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence will be endorsing Gov. Quinn this morning…

A national antigun group is endorsing Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in the November election.

Quinn’s campaign office says he will pick up the backing of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence at a Tuesday event on Chicago’s South Side.

The group believes that the recent Supreme Court decision striking down Chicago’s gun laws can still be used to promote robust gun control. From their website…

“We are pleased that the Court reaffirmed its language in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment individual right to possess guns in the home for self-defense does not prevent our elected representatives from enacting common-sense gun laws to protect our communities from gun violence. We are reassured that the Court has rejected, once again, the gun lobby argument that its ‘any gun, for anybody, anywhere’ agenda is protected by the Constitution. The Court again recognized that the Second Amendment allows for reasonable restrictions on firearms, including who can have them and under what conditions, where they can be taken, and what types of firearms are available.

“Chicago can amend its gun laws to comply with this ruling while continuing to have strong, comprehensive and Constitutional gun laws, just as Washington D.C. has done. After the Heller decision, at least 240 legal challenges have been brought to existing gun laws, nearly all of which have been summarily dismissed. There is nothing in today’s decision that should prevent any state or local government from successfully defending, maintaining, or passing, sensible, strong gun laws.”

* Meanwhile, somebody in Illinois finally noticed that Gov. Quinn signed a bill into law late Friday evening. From the Sun-Times editorial page…

If you play a long shot in poker, you’d better be ready for a losing hand.

With legislation that Gov. Quinn signed Friday to amend the 2009 Video Gaming Act, Illinois is playing a long shot: that organized crime won’t creep into the newly authorized video gaming industry.

Theoretically, this law could prove a winner for Illinois, just as you can theoretically win a poker hand with a pair of deuces.

Problem is, the odds against you are pretty steep.

Now, if they’d just open their eyes and look around, they’d see a whole bunch of other actions that Quinn successfully buried Friday night. It’s truly amazing to me that the entire Illinois media has let Quinn get away with this.

* In other news, the Tribune whacked the guv but good today…

On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that Quinn budget director David Vaught had predicted during an interview that, in January, Illinois lawmakers would raise the income tax by 2 percentage points. Quinn, in full damage control mode, on Thursday admonished Vaught for speaking out of turn, said Vaught’s remark was “misconstrued” and added that a Bloomberg reporter from out of state didn’t understand what Vaught said. Quinn reiterated his support for a 1 percent income tax increase — sorry, a 1 percent surcharge for education — and added that he would veto anything else.

The wheels fell off that “misconstrued” explanation Friday when the Capitol Fax Blog posted a video recording of Bloomberg’s interview with Vaught. His words: “We fully expect that we’re going to pass a tax increase in January. We think it’s going to be substantial.” Asked to define “substantial,” Vaught explained Quinn’s support, variously, of a 2 percent hike and a 1 percent hike and concluded, “To me that’s the range of possibilities.” Then John Sinsheimer, Quinn’s director of capital markets, made 2 percent sound like Quinn’s true goal: “The overseas investors we talked to, when we told them we could balance the budget with a 2 percent increase in individual and corporate income taxes, that pretty much raises about $6 billion, slightly less than that — that’s the deficit.” The overseas investors, he added were impressed. “They looked at us and said, ‘Only a 2 percent increase?’ They were amazed by that.”

Illinois taxpayers may be amazed too. We can’t top the headline on Bloomberg’s follow-up story: “Illinois sends contrasting messages to bond buyers, voters on deficit plan.” Oh, and about that supposedly clueless out-of-state Bloomberg reporter: Among the three Bloomberg journalists conducting the interview with Vaught and Sinsheimer was Flynn McRoberts, a former Tribune staffer and now Bloomberg’s Chicago bureau chief.

I can’t argue with any of that.

* And non-union state workers won’t have to use holidays for furlough days…

However, CMS said employees may voluntarily use that option to meet the requirement that they take 24 unpaid days off by June 30, 2011.

Rules fleshing out how the furlough program, ordered by Gov. Pat Quinn, will work were issued to state agency directors, budget directors and other managers who work under Quinn’s control. The rules still leave a lot of discretion to agencies to see that the furlough day commitment is followed while still ensuring that the agency can function. […]

At one time, the administration was considering requiring employees to use their paid state holidays to fulfill the furlough requirement. State employees get 12 paid holidays between now and the June 30, 2011 end of the current fiscal year. Forcing non-union workers to forego pay on the holidays would allow the state to get the benefit of furlough days at a time when the majority of employees would be off work anyway.

However, the CMS memo makes the use of holidays as furlough days voluntary, not mandatory. CMS spokeswoman Alka Nayyar said the idea was dropped because it would have required a change to state personnel rules, a process that would take a minimum of 90 days. That would have further compressed the time in which employees had to take furlough days.

* Related…

* Our Opinion: Nix furlough plan once and for all

* Pro-Gun Control Group To Endorse Quinn

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 10:24 am

Comments

Well if you keep the friday night stuff subscriber only of course they will not report on it….

Comment by OneMan Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 10:30 am
OneMan, almost all of them subscribe.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 10:34 am
Yeah like his jerk move on the care act…

http://thecareact.com/Veto.html?v=O6ucuyM0y8Y

Sorry kids with Diabetes but you need to continue to have issues and problems so I can make nice with the teachers unions….

His ‘logic’ behind this is sort of like saying, “Well we don’t have enough lifeboats right now for everyone so lets make it so no one can get in one”

Also a classy way of sticking it to Tom Cross and the parents who have been working on this for years.

Since the papers subscribe, I bet if they made the effort they could have field day with this one.

Comment by OneMan Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 11:16 am
Capt Fax:
Your readers will certainly want to cherish the day the vaunted, bankrupt, accused of fraud Chicago Tribune edit board cites the Capt Fax Blog as a source….
“The wheels fell off that “misconstrued” explanation Friday when the Capitol Fax Blog posted a video recording of Bloomberg’s interview with Vaught…..”

Meeanwhile when will you or the Sun Times edit board ever acknolwedge that the Gaming Board has kept the mob out of the river boats and have the same authority over video poker. Lawmakers and the Governor agreed that it is very difficult to create crimes and punishments retroactively.

Kudos again on your new status. Imagine how the paid mopes on the Trib staff must feel!

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 11:18 am
Re: Furlough

How many SPSAs, taking a month off with no pay, does it take to pay the shuttling expenses of the Chicago-area “managers” who refuse to live in the same location as their underlings? (I know, I know. Rod didn’ live near the job site so why should)

C’mon, Pat. This unbeliveable practice has nothing to do with service to the citizens. It has everything to do with the personal convenience of the shuttlers. Save some working families unnecessary grief and stop this extraordinary waste of money.

Comment by Joe from Joliet Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 11:23 am
===Meeanwhile when will you or the Sun Times edit board ever acknolwedge that the Gaming Board has kept the mob out of the river boats and have the same authority over video poker.===

I already have.

Comment by Rich Miller Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 11:28 am
Rich - are the CMS rules just internal or were they emergency rules filed with JCAR? It would be interesting to see how the JCAR members react to this, in indeed they are true administrative rules proposed by agencies.

Comment by DzNuts Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 11:52 am
Furloughs: Does anybody know how many merit comp positions have been moved into the union? I gotta think that the annual salary increases paid to the people who were moved into the union within the last 8 years more than offsets the $18M in furlough savings.

Comment by SAP Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 11:55 am
DZ — Don’t know about the emergency regs, but the online SJR article has a link to a CMS memo and FAQ for the new program.

SAP — just the new wave of merit comp employees joining the union as a result of the furlough days may cost the state more than $18 million. Many of the merit comp employees are already making less than some of the unionized people they supervise, so getting into the union will result in substantial salary increases to put them ahead.

Comment by Pat Robertson Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 12:20 pm
SAP afew thousand postions. In fact, the salray increases paid to those folks, and what will be going into the union cost the State a lot more money then if they had just matched the COLA’s and pay raises union employees recieved.

more interestingly, many of those unionized workers are now protected, but were hired into positions based on poliical conections. They are now protected from fumigation.

Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Aug 3, 10 @ 2:42 pm
The Sun-Times in clueless on The Outfit. Currently, unlicensed and unregulated video gaming is one of their biggest moneymakers.

The Outfit used to run the numbers racket. Now the state does in the form of the lottery. The Outfit is out of that business.

Comment by wordslinger Wednesday, Aug 4, 10 @ 6:48 am