Chicago Sun-Times

Illinois GOP is out of step with changing electorate

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:24:54 -0500

Not all that long ago, DuPage County was about as reliably Republican and rock-ribbed conservative as they came. Things are changing For one, it’s not nearly as Republican. Back in the 1998 governor’s race, Republican George Ryan defeated Democrat Glenn Poshard by 104,000 votes in DuPage. But in 2010, during the greatest Republican landslide since 1946, Republican Bill Brady managed to beat Gov. Pat Quinn by less than half Ryan’s total: 45,000 votes. Barack Obama carried the county in both of his presidential bids. DuPage used to be dominated by Pate Philip, the no-nonsense conservative former state Senate president. Pate …

Black pastors hit gay marriage

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:24:20 -0500

There was a time at the Illinois Statehouse when using African-American ministers as political props was all the rage. ComEd touted support from black preachers to pass a bill to raise its rates. AT&T did the same when it passed a major piece of legislation. Before the national real estate and banking crash, the mortgage industry fought a bill to crack down on excessively lenient home loans by putting black ministers up front. And though the ministers were obviously just doing a bit of payroll shilling, their state legislators took them quite seriously. ComEd and AT&T won their fights. The …

It’s Cullerton vs. crowd on pensions

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:37:36 -0500

What we have in Springfield right now is an epic legislative stalemate over an issue of absolute importance. On one side we have the Senate president, John Cullerton, who says he wants to make sure that any pension reform legislation has a chance of being constitutional. On the other side, we have pretty much everybody else. And I’m not sure why. Cullerton came up with a plan that makes a whole lot of sense. His legal team was dubious at first that any public worker pension benefit could be reduced because our state constitution expressly forbids it: “Membership in any …

Fracking could be Illinois’ savior

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 02:25:19 -0500

Before “fracking” and horizontal oil drilling was tried in North Dakota, the state was producing about 80,000 barrels of the sticky black stuff a day, not much more than Illinois. Last December, North Dakota pumped out almost 800,000 barrels a day, making it the second-largest oil producer in the nation, ahead of Alaska. Thanks to fracking, jobs are now so bountiful that the biggest problem is persuading qualified workers to move to the remote state. North Dakota’s state government coffers are bursting with cash, and the governor wants to cut taxes and embark on a major infrastructure program for roads …

Gay marriage won’t ruin Illinois

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:35:37 -0500

For well over 30 years, whenever the subject of gay rights came up in the Illinois General Assembly, legislators ran away in droves. The excuses were always the same. Homosexuality is immoral, so religious businesses owners shouldn’t have to hire a gay person, or serve a lesbian in his restaurant, or sell one of “those people” a home. The state shouldn’t “condone” this immoral act by passing such a law. Besides, they said, Illinois just wasn’t ready to provide the same protection for gays as everybody else. It’s been a long road. Way back in 1819, a year after Illinois …

Gov. Quinn is short on ideas for more jobs

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 02:25:16 -0500

I spent Thursday afternoon looking at some numbers and discovered some good news that you probably don’t know. For the first seven months of the fiscal year (through the end of January), Illinois tax revenues grew by about a billion dollars. That’s almost a 7 percent growth rate, according to a nonpartisan legislative commission. But man, is there ever a lot of bad news. You knew there’d be bad news. This is Illinois, after all. All of that extra money is barely enough to cover the state’s increased pension payment this year. That pension payment is going up another billion …

Miller: There’s no viable center in state gun debate

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 02:24:38 -0500

If you want to understand why little to no progress will likely be made on gun control here in Illinois or nationally, just look at the abortion issue. Abortion is a hugely emotional and divisive issue in this country. At the heart of the matter is the belief by the extreme opposition that no legal right to an abortion ought to ever exist, while those on the other extreme view any tiny, baby step infringement as a giant leap toward prohibition. Both sides are well-funded, well-organized and have reams of studies, talking points, experts and lawyers to back them up. …

It’s wise guy or schnook for Gov. Pat Quinn

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:24:14 -0500

At the end of the movie “Goodfellas,” mobster-turned-informant Henry Hill laments that he’s out of the business. “Today everything is different. There’s no action. Have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food. Right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I’m an average nobody. Get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.” I’ve often said that if you want to understand politics, then you have to watch that movie. The insights it offers about Outfit members applies loosely to politicians, who operate …

Concealed Carry will not do us in

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 17:55:21 -0500

I’ve long subscribed to the belief that if someone’s behavior isn’t hurting anybody else, then the government ought to leave them alone. Legalizing marijuana certainly falls into that belief structure. If somebody wants to get high and eat Cheetos all day, then I don’t think they ought to be locked in steel cages. There was a time just a few years ago when the “mainstream” media constantly fretted about blogs — forgetting that the First Amendment didn’t belong solely to “traditional” news outlets. But the country is much better off after a literal explosion of free speech. Blogs have made …

Beware, Illinois GOP: Get smart or die

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 02:41:08 -0500

The challenges facing the Republican Party in this state are simply enormous. For the first time in 20 years, more Illinoisans identified themselves to exit pollsters as independents than Republicans. Latinos made up 12 percent of the Election Day voting population this year, a 50 percent increase from 2010, and 81 percent of Latinos voted for President Barack Obama. Just 35 percent of Illinois women voted for Mitt Romney. The new district maps played a significant role in the defeat of Republicans, but the party’s perceived hostility to women and minorities and the less fortunate is just killing them. They …

To return to relevance in Illinois, GOP must change

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 02:29:43 -0500

For the first time in at least 20 years, more independents voted in Illinois last Tuesday than Republicans. I spent part of Thursday afternoon going through some exit polling data to see if I could find anything to cheer up my Republican friends. I really couldn’t. Way back in 1992, when Republican Jim Edgar was governor and George H.W. Bush was running for re-election against Bill Clinton, 39 percent of Illinois voters told the exit pollsters they were Democrats; 34 percent said they were Republicans, and 27 percent said they were independents. Two years later, when the country turned against …

Money and jokes with SuperPACs

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:56:02 -0500

According to the Sunlight Foundation, independent expenditures on federal campaigns by so-called “superPACs” and others have just about reached the half-billion dollars mark. Yes, that’s billion with a “b.” About three-quarters of that money has been spent on negative attack ads. And about $14 million of that has been spent in just three Chicago-area congressional races. So now you know why you’ve been so inundated. Some people look at all this moolah and shake their heads and worry about its impact on our democracy. Others see all the cash and want in. Two buddies of mine are thinking about starting …

Ousted lawmaker Derrick Smith is a formidable foe

Fri, 28 Sep 2012 02:26:10 -0500

I first met Maze Jackson when he was running the Chicago and suburban ground game for Gov. Pat Quinn’s Democratic primary campaign. He’s brash, smart, funny, with a mind that can go a dozen directions at once. I couldn’t help but like the guy. And now Jackson is running his toughest campaign ever. Jackson is managing Lance Tyson’s uphill race against indicted former state Rep. Derrick Smith (D-Chicago). Smith was expelled from the House in August, months after being arrested for allegedly accepting a $7,000 bribe. There is no legal way to kick Smith off the ballot, and he refused …

Foes of strike? Older white guys

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 20:16:44 -0500

A good friend e-mailed me after I published a poll in my “Capitol Fax” newsletter Thursday which revealed that 55.5 percent of Chicagoans approved of the Chicago teachers strike. My friend, a widely known pundit, wanted to tell me that he didn’t believe the poll, which was conducted by We Ask America. After some back and forth about what the pollster could’ve or should’ve asked, I finally told him that as an older, white person with no kids in the public school system, he’s not supposed to support the strike. The poll, taken after three full days of no school, …

The real reasons why pension reform failed

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 02:26:44 -0500

There are a couple of stories the media isn’t telling you. Both are pretty important to understanding what’s happening in Springfield these days. Let’s start with Gov. Pat Quinn. The governor called a special legislative session last week that failed miserably. Quinn wanted pension reform addressed, but the House couldn’t even pass a bill, at Quinn’s request, to eliminate future legislative pensions and reform the system that legislators have. The Senate adjourned before the House even voted, strongly signaling that it wasn’t interested in the bill, either. To avoid looking like a weak and unfocused leader, Quinn has loudly blamed …

Gov. Quinn’s budget scare tactic is bogus

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 16:26:33 -0500

Numbers are hard. People hate math. People really hate reading about numbers and math. This is why politicians are so successful at using numbers to confuse people. The media too often just accept the numbers and move right along. But there is a number sticking in my craw these days, and it’s driving me nuts that nobody else is really challenging the governor about it, so I’ve decided to talk about it here. Wait! Don’t turn the page! It won’t be that bad. I promise. This stuff may look hard at first, but it’s really pretty simple. Gov. Pat Quinn …

My Uncle Kenny is no state pension scammer

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:39:36 -0500

I spent some time at my Uncle Kenny’s house in Ashkum last weekend. We went to the Iroquois County Fair, which is like taking a step back in time. The fair hasn’t changed much at all since I was a kid. They still don’t allow alcohol on the clean grounds where kids safely run free. I was at that fair every day back when I was growing up, often accompanied by my Uncle Kenny. I’m the oldest of five sons, so Kenny was like my big brother growing up. It was a nostalgic weekend, and it felt like old times. …

Jesse Jackson Jr. story is a summery mystery

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 06:25:21 -0500

In the grand scheme of things, the disappearance of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. hardly matters at all. A minority party congressman drops out of sight, checks himself into some sort of treatment facility and won’t say where he is or for what, exactly, he’s being treated. Watergate this is not. But everybody loves a good summertime mystery. “Embattled congressman takes it on the lam!” Oh, such fun. And there is a veritable smorgasbord of salacious details for reporters assigned to write about Jackson’s disappearance. They’re all in need of lots of padding for their stories because, frankly, there isn’t …