A criminal defense attorney who represented former Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese has joined the growing list of Democrats who want to succeed Scott Lee Cohen as the party’s lieutenant governor candidate.
Another 25 political newcomers submitted their names to the state Democratic Party, bringing the total to 69. Two potential candidates who submitted their names already have dropped out of consideration.
My favorite from the form is from someone else though:
5. Please list any organizations or elected officials that have endorsed your candidacy for
lieutenant governor. None yet, but I bet I could get my NSDAR (National Society of the
Daughters of the American Revolution) Chapter to endorse me. Who knows who else. I know
lots of little people.
Blagojevich, a Northwestern alum, who married his wife, Patti, on the campus 20 years ago, revealed the feds have subpoenaed his grades and student information from when he attended 30 years ago.
He invited the FBI to also look at his law school performance at Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, Calif.
“If they look at those grades they’ll see — I obviously never cheated on an exam,” Blagojevich said to much laughter.
Blagojevich spoke to a skeptical student body, who didn’t cut him much slack. They laughed when he plugged his book and drew parallels between his case and the war in Iraq.
Blagojevich won chuckles when he said there was “nothing ethically wrong,” with wanting to meet Sarah Palin.
He was booed when he likened U.S. Senate leaders to southern segregationists for initially not allowing his pick for senator — Roland Burris — into the U.S. Capitol last year.
“Shame,” someone from the crowd shouted.
“You don’t like Burris?” Blagojevich asked.
“No — you,” he responded.
“My friend, I have love in my heart for you,” the ex-governor said.
Like soughern segregationists? Really?
More likely, the story about the student records subpeona is bogus. Not that it matters, but he lies about silly stuff like that for sport.
You too can apply by downloading the form. Some even have references!
And yes, I would, but that Missouri address makes it out of the question.
I do want to give credit to the Party and Madigan’s people for doing this–even if it’s a horrible way to go about this–that’s not fully in their court, but I am very impressed they are using the web site and doing so productively. Just don’t lose the password to the site for another couple years
This will get a lot of ink tomorrow, but here’s some perpective: Illinois politics is as divided by regional culture as by party, and the House Ag & Conservation Committee is heavily populated with rural downstaters, who tend to be pro-gun regardless of party affiliation.
Next stop is the full House, which is controlled by Chicago Democrats like Hamos, who are overwhelmingly anti-gun — and who are unlikely to even let this come to a floor vote unless they’re sure they can defeat it.
(Case in point: At the same time the House committee was passing the measure today, a committee of the Senate — also controlled by Chicago Dems — was sticking a similar conceal-carry measure into a subcommittee, which is often code for, “kill it.” We’ll see.)
This same committee has passed a concealed carry bill at least 3 times and probably more. It’s nothing more than political theater. It will never get to the floor because it will die in Rules and not just because of Chicago Democrats. Suburban Republicans don’t want to have to vote on the bill and certainly Cross doesn’t want it brought up anymore than Madigan. They won’t let it come to a vote on the floor regardless of whether they can defeat it. That’s the whole point of putting it in the Ag Committee. It’s largely full of pro-gun Rs and Ds and so they get to go home and say they voted for concealed carry and those in areas where it’s a tough vote never have to see the bill. The only people the bill matters too get to vote on it and use it in their reelection campaigns. Everyone else gets to ignore it.
Same stuff, different day.
Every time I write this I get some dimbulb in arguing the merits of concealed carry and how it really might pass this year because of the strength of their reasoning ability. Bullcrap. It’s a bill designed to protect incumbents on both sides of the issue and meant to never see the light of day. If those backing concealed carry don’t see that, well, that explains their level of success over the years doesn’t it?
I don’t mind that reporters have to play things evenhanded about an issue, but this kind of reporting is ridiculous. Everyone with any clues knows this game–we’ve seen it for years on this issue alone. No one should pretend this is a serious bill–it misrepresents the situation to readers.
Five leading Democrats–including Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin–have publicly announced that they will vote for a public option if it’s offered up during the budget reconciliation process, where legislation can pass with a majority vote.
“Sen. Durbin has long been a supporter of the public option,” reads a statement from Durbin spokesman Joe Shoemaker to the progressive groups Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, and Credo. “I don’t know whether the votes exist in the Senate right now, but if the House version of the public option came up for a vote in reconciliation Sen. Durbin would vote yes.”
I don’t think there was much of a question about whether he was willing, but whether he would go on record. As second in leadership for the Dems in the Senate this is a strong message. The last 21 will be tough, but it’s a possibility.
Why Does Alexi Need a Special Request to Give Back His Million-Dollar Payout When the Family Bank is Near Collapse?
“If my family asks me, sure” – Chicago Sun-Times, February 22, 2010
Does Alexi need a special request to do the right thing and stop a potential taxpayer bailout for his family’s bank?
—-
Now 25 days since promising reporters he would answer questions surrounding his role in the near-collapse of his family’s Broadway Bank, the Illinois Republican Party is asking Democrat Alexi Giannoulias to explain why he needs to wait for a request from his family to return his million-dollar payout when the bank is already near collapse and it could help prevent a taxpayer bailout for the bank from the FDIC.
This morning, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the Giannoulias-owned Broadway Bank “was struggling because it had relied so heavily on high-risk loans of the type Giannoulias approved as vice president” and added that Giannoulias’ “Democratic primary election rival, David Hoffman, hammered Giannoulias on the stump with that fact.” But when asked by the Sun-Times whether he would “give back any of that $1 million” in dividends he removed from the bank in 2007 and 2008, Giannoulias replied, “If my family asks me, sure.”
“While Alexi Giannoulias refuses to answer basic questions about his risky loan schemes, reckless investments and ties to organized crime figures, the least Alexi can do is return his million-dollar payout he received from the risky banking practices and work to prevent a federal taxpayer bailout for the bank he helped bring near collapse,” Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady said.
Illinois’ Republican Party is keeping up a steady drumbeat of pressure on Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias to answer questions about his family’s Broadway Bank.
“Why is Alexi hiding?” the party asked in an e-mail to reporters a week after the election and after news conferences Giannoulias had held in Chicago and Springfield.
“Put Alexi on the phone,” they repeated Wednesday.
In at least 10 e-mails sent out since the election, the party says Giannoulias is ducking questions about loans he authorized four years ago as vice-president of his family’s Broadway Bank and about the bank’s current troubled financial state.
They repeat a line he used days before the election to wave off further questions about the bank: “If I’m fortunate enough to make it out of the primary, we can have that conversation.”
The Chicago Tribune’s editorial page piggy-backed on the e-mails and said Giannoulias needs to answer more questions about his role at the bank now that he has been fortunate enough to make it out of the primary.
But the truth is that Giannoulias has been answering questions about the loans for four years, ever since his first run for office. Never gleefully or enthusiastically. He often tries to beg off questions by noting he has not been at the bank in four years. But over the years, when pressed, he has admitted he made loans to mobsters and said if he had known they were mobsters he would not have made the loans.
Most recently in December, Giannoulias spent 12 minutes before Sun-Times editorial board members answering questions about the loans. Hear the full conversation at www.suntimes.com.
At first he said, “Knowing back then what the bank knew at the time, we probably wouldn’t have given the loans.” Then he clarified: “If I knew then what we knew now, obviously we wouldn’t have made those loans.”
What has changed since Giannoulias sat and answered questions for the Sun-Times and Tribune editorial boards the last time is that his family’s bank entered into a consent decree with state and federal regulators just before the election. While that development is new, the fact that Broadway Bank was struggling because it had relied so heavily on high-risk loans — and that Giannoulias had approved some high-risk loans as vice president — was already well-known. His Democratic primary election rival, David Hoffman, hammered Giannoulias on the stump with that fact.
One question the e-mails from the Republicans and the Tribune editorial say Giannoulias should answer is whether he plans to give back any of the dividends paid out after his father’s death. That was $70 million to $86 million the Giannoulias family took out of the bank as it was struggling. Giannoulias said that money went to cover taxes on his father’s estate and the administration costs of handling that estate. Only $2.5 million of that went to Alexi Giannoulias and about $1.5 million of that went to taxes Giannoulias campaign has said. Will Giannoulias give back any of that $1 million?
“If my family asks me, sure,” he told the Sun-Times.
The rest of the article covers Alexi’s specific answers which cover most of the questions. When you go over the top on this stuff, the press in Illinois at least, stops listening. It’s fine to bring up Broadway, but don’t pretend he hasn’t been answering questions about it.
Republicans partnered with the Fair Map Group to promote the proposed amendment. Under the measure, a commission with nine members would draw the map. The leaders would appoint four of the members, and the commission would chose its ninth member.
But I thought the “leaders” were the problem according to Patrick Collins and his group?
I have no idea how this is an improvement. It essentially creates one of two things. An incumbent protection map which all of the leaders can agree to or a tie breaker by some great non-partisan commission member who is chosen by the leaders.
How the hell is this an improvement? Sitting there and trying to say that legislators aren’t drawing the map while the four leaders appoint representatives is a distinction without a difference.
Worse, if you are naive and stupid enough to think they will do the real negotiations in public, you are hopeless.
If you want to go for a truly open process and you think you can do it by initiative (debateable) go for something similar to the Iowa plan which sets out criteria for districts, has a computer then draw lines according to the criteria, and then allow the General Assembly to accept or reject. The only reason the Simon Institute initially proposed using the 8 member committee is because they assumed the change had to come from the General Assembly where this would not be approved. However, if you think you can do it by Initiative there is absolutely no reason to have the 8 member panel selected by the Four Tops.
I think the Dem plan isn’t much better, but easier to work with–if you assume that they will not pass a computer based system with objective criteria, then go with the Democratic plan, but get rid of the commission. The commission is pointless–if the legislature cannot agree, it’s not going to happen there. Instead, move it directly to the Special Master who has objective criteria specified to use and is appointed by a Justices from both parties. This is far more effective in doing what the 1970 Constitution tried to do. Let the politics sort it out (this is a democracy after all) and then if they can’t sort it out politically, go to a truly objective process.
In the current situation you had a fifty-fifty chance of coming out ahead. In the case I’m outlining, objective criteria by a Special Master mean everyone could end up with less preferred outcomes making choice to punt far more risky. Will everyone compromise in this case? I don’t know, but the incentives improve. Does this solve the problem of incumbent protection? No, but the only process that does is the Iowa system and no one is pushing that.
And he takes on the 10 percent cut idea (thanks to Dillard)
But here’s the Gov Candidate displaying incredible ignorance confidently:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpENAFj7CW8[/youtube]
BRADY: You can’t cut yourself out of the $10 to $13 billion [deficit] that they’ve accumulated in the Blagojevich/Quinn administration over the last eight years. So what we have to do is we have to reconcile ourselves into a budget that’s not just balanced but has a surplus so that we can begin paying down the backlog of unpaid bills that are referred to as the $13 billion deficit.
The statement above is verbal diarrhea and has no relation to reality. The $10 – $13 billion includes the backlog of bills so what the hell he is talking about is anyone’s guess, but what is clear, he doesn’t have the first clue about the state budget. The budget has to be balanced every year and it’s certainly true that for years we have been using gimmicks to do so. One of the most popular is to roll bills over to the next fiscal year and count them in the new fiscal year. He seems to think those debts aren’t included in the deficit, but they are.
One could argue he’s suggesting we need to reduce long term debt, but that doesn’t make any sense given what he said. Debt maintenance is all part of the projections for the current deficit. You could be talking about pension payments that have been shortchanged, but again, given what he said, that makes no sense. Pension payments at the required level are included in the projections. It’s probably true that we need to make bigger pension payments, but that’s more than the current deficit projections.
The man isn’t a 27 year old guy who is probably in over his head and trying, he’s a long time elected who just demonstrated how totally clueless he is about the state budget. It’s unclear if he understands even the difference between debt and deficit.
UPDATE: Rich adds a very good couple points.
So, we can’t cut our way out of the deficit, but we can’t raise taxes. Instead, we need a budget surplus so that we can pay down the overdue bills.
“Well, you do it the way businesses and families have done it. Every business and every family has had to deconstruct and reconstruct and reconcile its spending within its means.”
So, what about that ten percent across the board cut Brady proposed during the primary? Is that now “repurposed” as “deconstruction and reconstruction”?
We need a lot more details here or this can all be dismissed as mere pablum. Who gets deconstructed? Who gets reconstructed? Apparently, schools are not exempt…
…Adding… The $13 billion deficit is not all “unpaid bills,” as Brady claims in that first quote. About half of it is unpaid bills, the other half is a structural problem. We’ve gone over this before with him, but he’s apparently not yet figured it out.
It’s so unclear what Brady is actually saying there, Rich’s points are essential too. Cutting your way out, but then you have to create a surplus? It’s contradictory.
But also, the structural issues in the budget are about half the problem, the leftover bills are the other half–for this year. In one sense on can argue that we’d be half way there if we had fixed the leftover bills, but then we would have previously dealt with some of the structural issues as well.
We wanted to answer the basic question of whether “reconciliation” is inherently disfavored or considered corrupt by voters, as Republicans claim. After describing what reconciliation is, we ask, “If the Senate passes a health care reform bill that you consider to be beneficial to your family, would you object to the Senate’s use of ‘reconciliation’ rules to pass that bill with a majority vote, or not?”
In state after state, people were perfectly fine with reconciliation for a GOOD bill.
NV – Reid: 55% favor reconciliation to 36% oppose (Independents 64% favor to 23% oppose
IL – Durbin: 67% to 26% (Independents 81% to 17%)
IA – Harkin: 66% to 29% (Independents 83% to 14%)
MO – McCaskill: 58% to 35% (Independents 73% to 20%)
We also asked folks, “If Senate Democrats use ‘reconciliation’ to pass the final elements of health care reform with a simple majority, should [SENATOR] fight to include a public health insurance option in the bill?” In state after state, more voters said yes than no:
NV – Reid: 52% yes to 41% no. (Independents 58% yes to 33% no)
IL – Durbin: 42% to 7% (Independents 44% to 6%)
IA – Harkin: 39% yes to 12% (Independents 40% to 12%)
MO – McCaskill: 37% yes to 15% (Independents 38% to 12%)
And if there’s any doubt what voters want in the underlying bill, there is our polling that made waves earlier this week that showed in all these states people overwhelmingly want a public option — and would rather have a bill with a public option and zero Republican votes than a bipartisan bill. See Wash Post Plumline:
Polls: In Key States, Public Option Far More Popular Than Senate Plan
* In Nevada, only 34% support the Senate bill, while 56% support the public option.
* In Illinois, only 37% support the Senate bill, while 68% support the public option.
* In Missouri, only 33% support the Senate bill, while 57% support the public option.
* In Iowa, only 35% support the Senate bill, while 62% support the public option.
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