I’d like to blame Ozinga for it, but this was a cheap shot by Jackson–this kind of thing doesn’t go out without your boss’s approval.
The Illinois Senate quietly approved a bill this spring that would have steered the proposed third airport down a path of pay-to-play politics – and certain doom.
I know, because Antoin “Tony†Rezko attempted to lead Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. down that same path two years ago – a proposal Jackson flatly rejected.
Pay-to-play was the pathway laid out in Senate Bill 2063, sponsored by state Sen. Debbie Halvorson. That bill would have codified what Rezko essentially proposed to Jackson, ALNAC and its developers (SNC-Lavalin and LCOR), which was to create an airport board comprised of appointed – not elected – commissioners.
These non-elected insiders would have enormous powers to control the project – including eminent domain, condemnation, taxation, and contracts galore – yet they’d stand accountable to no one.
What Bryant doesn’t mention is that the purpose of the appointed commissioners was to give Will County Board President (currently Larry Walsh) control over the board with 4 of the seven being appointed by him. 1 would be appointed by the Governor. It’s great that Tony Rezko wanted to turn it into another cash cow, but that has nothing to do with this legislation and would only give the Governor one appointment.
This is Democrat on Democrat bloodletting and it’s bull by Jackson.
Worse, Jackson was willing to give the Governor the appointments in 2006:
During the construction phase, the Board will be comprised of one appointee each from University Park, Park Forest, South Holland, Calumet Park and Elk Grove Village, plus four appointees by the Governor from Will County home-rule communities.
*After Opening Day, Elk Grove Village departs and is replaced by a Governor’s appointment from the Kankakee County home-rule communities.
Bryant is lying his butt off for his boss. Attacking Halvorson for wanting to have Will County control an airport in Will County is a bit bizarre.
Section 4-5. Board of Directors. |
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| 2 | (a) The governing body of the Authority shall be a Board of |
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| 3 | Directors. The Board of Directors shall have 7 directors |
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| 4 | appointed as follows: |
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| 5 | (1) Four directors shall be appointed by the Will |
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| 6 | County Executive, with the advice and consent of the Will |
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| 7 | County Board; one of these 4 directors shall be a resident |
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| 8 | of the 6 township eastern Will County area consisting of |
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| 9 | the townships of Crete, Green Garden, Monee, Peotone, |
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| 10 | Washington and Will; |
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| 11 | (2) one director shall be appointed collectively by the |
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| 12 | municipalities of Beecher, Crete, Monee, Peotone and |
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| 13 | University Park; the selection procedure for this director |
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| 14 | shall be as follows: the village president of each |
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| 15 | municipality, with the advice and consent of the |
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| 16 | municipality's board of trustees, shall submit one |
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| 17 | candidate for consideration within 30 days after the |
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| 18 | effective date of this Act, and thereafter within 30 days |
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| 19 | of any vacancy or expiration of the term of the board |
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| 20 | member selected pursuant to this subsection; the |
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| 21 | municipalities may, by intergovernmental agreement, |
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| 22 | establish an open interview or other public hearing process |
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| 23 | to review the candidates; the Board of each such |
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| 24 | municipality shall vote, within 30 days of receipt of |
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| 25 | candidate nominations, for one candidate; candidates |
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| 1 | receiving the highest vote total shall be appointed to the |
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| 2 | Board; in the event of a tie vote among the candidates |
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| 3 | receiving the two highest vote totals, within 15 days of |
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| 4 | receiving notice of the tie vote, the village presidents of |
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| 5 | each municipality shall cast a vote for a single candidate |
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| 6 | to break the tie; the failure of a municipality's village |
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| 7 | president or board to act within any of the time frames set |
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| 8 | forth in this subsection shall forfeit that municipality's |
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| 9 | right to participate further in the selection and |
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| 10 | appointment process for the Authority's board position |
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| 11 | then under consideration; |
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| 12 | (3) one director shall be appointed by the Governor |
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| 13 | upon the recommendation of the Cook County Township |
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| 14 | Supervisors whose townships border Will County; the |
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| 15 | director must reside in one of the Cook County Townships |
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| 16 | that border Will County; |
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| 17 | (4) one director shall be appointed by the Chairman of |
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| 18 | the Kankakee County Board, with the advice and consent of |
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| 19 | the Kankakee County Board. |
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| 20 | (b) One of the directors appointed by the Will County |
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| 21 | Executive, with the advice and consent of the Will County |
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| 22 | Board, shall be designated and serve as the Board Chair. |
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I’d like to blame Ozinga for it…
I’m glad you clarified that. This way nobody can ever accuse you of being objective.
Do you find it at all curious that the Rezko plan and the Halvorson plan are almost identical? Do you think she came up with that plan herself or did she perhaps receive guidance from a corrupt, now-convicted felon?
You are…not so smart.
Seriously, reading comprehension not your thing?
This Penn State alum seems to have a thing for Marty Ozinga the Third. brings him out of the woodwork. Gee, I wonder if his last name in real life starts with an “ozing”…
And no, my Nittany Lion friend, Arch is not always objective.
That’s the point.
Though, here, he clearly is objectively looking at the Jackson/Halvorson battle and pointing out where Jackson is just flat-out wrong.
So why were the Rezko and Halvorson plans so similiar? No one has answered that.
Were they similar? All we have is this guy’s say-so based on what he remembers of a conversation two years ago.
What we do know is the text of the bill which clearly mixes board membership:
Four to come from the Will County board, one appointed after elected by officials from four cities, one from Kankakee County and only one from the Governor.
So, yes they are appointed, but need the approval of elected county and village officials.
Jesse Jackson Jr.’s interview this morning puts this story into a new spin. He is publically calling her out. He is forceful and angry and labels her as a Rezko stooge.
So this isn’t about semantics anymore. This isn’t about Bryant anymore. This is about Halvorson’s campaign getting prime time denunciations from a fellow Democrat, a US Congressman with over a decade of experience.
If Halvorson was expecting black voters to support her, Jackson just nuked that expectation this morning. He made himself clear. He said he didn’t care about Halvorson getting her job, but that 15,000 Illinoians getting theirs.
Rich Miller was right. This story isn’t about the damn commission, it is about a powerful Congressman taking down his neighboring Congressional candidate.
“If Halvorson was expecting black voters to support her, Jackson just nuked that expectation this morning.”
Yeah. The district is roughly 4% black. And I’ll lay wager they aren’t accustomed to voting Republican.
Rob_N:
No, my Nittany Lion friend, Arch is not always objective. That’s the point.
So sad my sarcasm was lost on you.
Though, here, he clearly is objectively looking at the Jackson/Halvorson battle and pointing out where Jackson is just flat-out wrong.
So most of the time he’s partisan, but this time he’s just “calling it like he sees it”? Uh-huh.
—Do you find it at all curious that the Rezko plan and the Halvorson plan are almost identical? Do you think she came up with that plan herself or did she perhaps receive guidance from a corrupt, now-convicted felon?
Ummm…the Jackson plan and the Rezko plan were very similar. Jackson and Blagojevich were negotiating over the number of appointments the Governor got compared to a fairly involved process involving local communities, the County Board and local trustees that Halvorson put forward.
Jackson’s plan was far more open to pay to play than Halvorson’s.
JonShibleyFan:
The district is roughly 4% black.
You’re roughly half right. The U.S. Census Bureau says the 11th District is 7.8% Black or African-American.
The U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t measure registered voters.
JonShibleyFan:
The U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t measure registered voters.
Nice try, but your statement “the district is roughly 4% black” is demonstrably wrong. No amount of spin/obfuscation can change that. Perhaps you should consider fact-checking rather than just shooting from the hip and hoping nobody notices.
I am neither “shooting from the hip and hoping nobody notices,” nor am I spinning/obfuscating.
So, you want demonstrably correct, here it is:
284,201 people in the 11th CD voted in at least one of the last four general or primary elections. They won’t all vote, but at least in recent history, they HAVE voted.
There are, as of 11/06, 10,390 new registrants in the 11th CD.
That makes for 294,591 active voters in the 11th cd.
There are an estimated 12,045 African American VOTERS in the 11th CD.
12,045 out of 294,591 is .0408, or “roughly 4%.”
If you’re still learning about how politics and campaigning works, that’s fine – I know I sure am. I do know this – when all of the spin has come and gone, when all of the dimestore analysis and rank overconfidence on blogs has past, it is about the numbers. And the census bureau does a fine job of telling us how many people live in the US. But for politics they are an imperfect tool.
So, the attitude, and the overconfidence…keep it.
BTW, the numbers come from a data vendor used by telephone, mail, polling and other political.
got cut off:
other political organizations.