Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Mayor Emanuel testifies to House committee on pension issues (Live Video)

Posted in:

Illinois
YouTube

* As subscribers were told earlier this morning, Mayor Rahm Emanuel will visit Springfield today and testify to a House committee…

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday makes his first physical trip to Springfield since he took office in Chicago last year.

Emanuel’s office confirmed he will testify at 10 a.m. before the Illinois House of Representatives Committee on Personnel and Pensions.

This isn’t the mayor’s first dealing with Springfield. He’s been known to work the phones (i.e. for Chicago speed cameras) and has a team in place, but this time, he’s traveling there himself. […]

Though the meeting is the only thing on the mayor’s Tuesday public schedule, sources say he has an open-ended return to Chicago.

* The hearing begins at 10 o’clock. Emanuel will probably testify soon after it starts. Follow live Tweets here. You can find the General Assembly’s live audio/video feed for hearing room 114 here. The folks at BlueRoomStream.com have also provided us with a live embed…

Live broadcast by Ustream

* Emanuel is not expected to speak to the media, but my intern Owen is on the scene, so we may have some video later.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 9:54 am

Comments

If they want to give Da Mare the full experience the committee should start a half hour late, only after a lengthy wait while members talk extensively to young aides about lunch plans, then he should be asked his indulgence to get through one quick other bill first which is expected to be non controversial but ends up having some testimony from a true believer who’s never met a tangent he/she wouldn’t follow and is then engaged by a member that clearly doesn’t understand the issue so it is followed by 30 minutes of confusing and pointless follow up questions. When the Mayor finally does get to testify he should be repeatedly interrupted so the chair can note that a new member has been assigned to the committee as the committee members play musical chairs. This should then be followed up by a series of questions that begin with, “excuse me Mr. Mayor but please forgive me as I was in the hall during your testimony so I may have missed this …” and are followed by the most obvious question imaginable.

Comment by The Captain Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 10:14 am
Classic post The Captain, makes me miss the days when I worked for the House

Comment by Publius Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 10:23 am
Seems like the new model for government services is to promise everything and then under fund everything until it becomes a crisis so huge that it that drastic measure must be implemented. Of course blame is always cast on previous events.

Comment by Choice? Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 10:25 am
You mean Rahm rerally has to show up in little ole springpatch for this? Isn’t that below him?

Comment by Dan Shields, Springfield, IL Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 10:57 am
Nominate Captain for post of the day.

Comment by unspun Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 11:19 am
The fact is that there will be several lawsuits filed after the effective January 1,2013 date of any legislation. An injunction will be filed to halt any implementation of the legislation and granted because no judge is going to want to mess with the constitution. Secondly, any legislation that affects current employees or retirees will almost certainly be ruled unconstitutional. Thirdly the lawsuit will be filed in Madison County, Illinois where there is a large labor concentration and the judges are known to rule for the plaintiffs in civil cases.

Comment by Teamster Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 11:20 am
@Choice-Previous events, and even current pension holidays are not to be mentioned. The mayor didn’t want to talk about those trivialities, he just wanted to fix the problem…(on the backs of the employees and current fixed income annuitants (i.e. Grandma and Grandpa meet the curb via a kick in the behind).

Comment by PublicServant Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 11:34 am
Mayor Emanuel survived a residency hearing in front of Cook County election attorneys and judges and didn’t lose his patience, so this will be a piece of cake.

Comment by Robert Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 11:56 am
I second unspun’s motion.

Comment by Champaign Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 2:15 pm
I know a lot of folks — teachers, janitors, food service workers — who are anxious about their future pensions and health insurance costs.

I understand. They’re not the big-swinging jamokes like Daley, Gannon and others who scammed the system for huge paydays. Shame on them. I don’t even want to know them, they can look themselves in the mirror.

But whatever the reasons, there comes a time when every generation needs to step up and get things straight for those coming down the line.

I’m not a Cassandra (the mythic Cassandra, not the Oak Parkie poster) about debt. I’m a Keynesian. You take debt in bad times, you pay it back in good times, a la the Clinton era.

But right now our appetites are unsustainable, for health care, which is understandable, and for empire, which is not.

We’re tossing away $2 billion a week for as far as the eye can see to keep misogynistic heroin kingpins in power in Afghanistan. This ain’t beating the Nazis or the Commies. These are nobodies. I wouldn’t give you ten bucks for the whole country.

We pay more on the military, every year, then the next 17 countries combined, and most of those countries are our allies. It’s lunacy.

We all had a good time at the party, now it’s time to sober up. I’m 48, at the tail-end of the Baby Boomers, and thanks to my folks and those of their generation, I’ve been part of the most pampered, catered-to generation that ever lived. No other generation is even in the ballgame. You can look it up.

But through our recklessness and self-reverence, encouraged and abetted by the do-nothing, produce-nothing, no-good Wall Street and Madison Avenue vampires, we’re leaving things worse for our kids than our folks left it for us.

That’s unacceptable, if you have any pride at all.

It’s going to hurt, but there is only one mission: leave it better than you found it.

http://www.esquire.com/features/young-people-in-the-recession-0412

Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 5:14 pm
Mayor Emanuel gave a very professional performance. Fran Spielman and Dave McKinny in the Sun Times gave a very good summary of the proposals from the City of Chicago.

But here is what I found interesting, Mayor Emanuel again took up the theme of City of Chicago residents paying for downstate and suburban teachers pensions via their income taxes while the state pays relatively little for CPS teachers pensions.

As Rich reported here Senator Christine Radogno comments at the City Club of Chicago on April 23 where she questioned if in fact the City residents were getting an unfair deal on this issue. She argued that CPS was getting funding breaks in special educatin and elsewhere that all other districts were not. She demanded that if there was to be a pension deal CPS would have to give up these breaks.

House minority leader Tom Cross today questioned the Mayor and did not in anyway take up Senator Radogno’s argument. I can only conclude he is not backing her up on this issue at all. Lastly CPS, and the CTPF (Chicago teachers penison fund)are now floating a bill HB4246 that will evenutally shift the burden for the Chicago teachers pension fund to the state completely if CPS can catch up on payments, and it will increase the current state payment from around $10 million to $191.3 million in FY 13.

Now that will help the state deficit. Clearly Leader Cross is aware of this bill which is in executive committee and yet he said not a peep, nice work Tom. Those Republicans are real fighters for budget control.

Comment by Rod Tuesday, May 8, 12 @ 6:12 pm
The mayor wants a 10 year “Pause” in the COLA. Tell me. Will health insurance premiums that retirees pay also be “Paused”?

Comment by PublicServant Wednesday, May 9, 12 @ 6:55 am
Will there also be a “Pause” in his failure to make pension payments?

Comment by PublicServant Wednesday, May 9, 12 @ 6:56 am
The people of the 27th Ward were smart enough to avoid electing a republican mascarading as a democrat. Apparently the people of Chicago, weren’t smart enough to avoid Wall Street Rahm.

Comment by PublicServant Wednesday, May 9, 12 @ 6:59 am