Archive for March, 2008
March 25th, 2008
Virginia has offered to give $100,000 to each of the families of the 32 people killed during the April 16 Virginia Tech shooting spree last year and similar compensation to those who were injured.
However, that proposal, which includes a confidentiality clause, is not sitting well with everyone.
The money would come from taxpayers’ wallets, according to the Washington Post.
Under the proposed offer, the state would not admit liability but would justify the payments as a way to avoid a series of lawsuits. The offer came after several weeks of closed-door talks between attorneys for the state and attorneys for families of the victims. […]
As part of the deal, the state would create a fund to help pay for the medical expenses of some of the more than two dozen students and faculty members injured in the shooting, state officials familiar with the offer said. The families of the 32 victims killed by the shooter would get about $100,000 each. The money would come from taxpayers.
Money is only one facet of the settlement, which the Virginian-Pilot detailed here.
Those who survived the shootings say $100,000, which is the maximum the state can pay in damages, would not begin to cover their long-term health costs.
Roger O’Dell of Roanoke, whose son, Derek, was wounded, said families were asked not to discuss the settlement negotiations. He added that his son has made no decision - he doesn’t want to become adversarial toward the school that he loves, but he has been told his lifetime counseling costs could range from $125,000 to $500,000, plus higher health-insurance costs because of his pre-existing conditions.
Post-traumatic stress disorder “could flare up at any time and could be disabling without regular treatment,” Roger O’Dell said. “He’ll have constant reminders because he’ll have the bullet holes.”
In the fall, the victims received money from the Hokie Memorial Fund, in which people donated close to $8.5 million to go toward the families, the injured and the school.
In the wake of the Feb. 14 shootings at NIU and other campus shootings recent years, it is likely that we will see more of these sort of lawsuits surface.
Is $100,000 enough for a life cut short or a life to be forever hampered with long-term health issues? Should there be, or can there be, a uniform policy for this sort of thing, as one commenter asked on a New York Times’ blog?
March 25th, 2008
A recent fax alerting the media to one of Rep. Ron Wait’s publicity events looked as if somebody had scribbled it on a random sheet of scratch paper.
Actually, it looked as if the writer opted to write it with writing instrument clenched firmly in fist. The penmanship was a little rough, you might say.
In substance, the advisory contained the necessary points: It announced a Ron Wait press conference at 1 p.m. on March 10 at Dial Machine in Rockford concerning the “capital budget & economic development.” Yet in style, the advisory, pictured here, was most peculiar.
Wait, R-Belvidere, is a veteran lawmaker. Moreover, this is an election year and Wait is facing a stiff challenge from Rockford lawyer Greg Tuite, the immediate past chairman of the Winnebago County Democratic Party. One might think Wait would be on his toes.
“Geez, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Wait told our Statehouse intern, Andrea Zimmermann, by phone on Friday. “It’s sure not my writing. I have never seen this before. I sure wouldn’t have sent this out. It’s new to me. … I don’t know who would have sent this out. … Believe me, I’ll start asking questions though.”
Tuite saw the media release as well, and said it struck him as odd.
“We all have our ways of communicating, but you would think that a state representative would try to put out something a little more professional when he’s communicating either with the media or with businesses,” Tuite told Zimmermann.
On Monday, a spokesman for House GOP Leader Tom Cross called and said that Wait’s staff had, in fact, distributed the scribbled advisory to media. The spokesman, David Dring, said the staffers were determined to notify the media of Wait’s appearance as quickly as possible.
Just for the record, House GOP staff subsequently distributed a formal media advisory for the Dial Machine event. This time, they typed it.
March 24th, 2008
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
The decision won’t have to be made for almost a year, if at all. But speculation already is rampant in Springfield about who Gov. Rod Blagojevich would appoint to fill Sen. Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat if Obama leaves it for the presidency (or vice-presidency) in January 2009.
Possibilities include U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Chicago, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, or state Sen. James Clayborne, D-Belleville, any of whom would maintain Illinois’ position as home to the nation’s only black senator.
Or he could turn to state Attorney General Lisa Madigan or state Comptroller Dan Hynes, on the premise that these are people Blagojevich wouldn’t mind sending to another time zone.
Blagojevich could even appoint himself.
If more influential Democrats continue to line up behind Obama and his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton to step aside, speculation like this will only increase and will move further from political bar banter and into the public domain.
Talk Back: If Obama’s seat is open after the November election, who would you like to see appointed to the U.S. Senate? Is it important for another African-American fill the seat?
March 24th, 2008
Last week, the Chicago Tribune’s local politics blog had an interesting interview with Illinois House Republican Leader Tom Cross.
Cross told the Trib that the recent election to replace Dennis Hastert proves that Illinois Republicans need to stop fighting with each other. Hastert’s district was considered a strongly Republican district, but the GOP challenger there, Jim Oberweis, lost by a significant margin to Democrat Bill Foster.
Cross said the congressional results point to a larger problem for Republicans in general—a continued “fight because people aren’t on our same page on every issue”—that could leave the GOP “in the minority for a long time.”
“For us to lose, even in a special election, the seat held by the former speaker of the United States House of Representatives should be a big wake-up call for every Republican that the infighting—because someone’s not conservative enough or this enough or that enough—may have lasting consequences for us,” he said.
Cross’ words reminded me of something Jim Edgar, the popular Illinois governor who Republicans beg to run for a new office each election year, said when he visited one of my grad school classes last year.
Edgar predicted that the only way the Republican Party could win back the governor’s mansion will be with a moderate GOP candidate, because Illinois, once considered a belwether state, is becoming more and more Democratic.
Now Democrats do have a stranglehold on state government leadership, and by picking up Hastert’s seat, may be slowly pushing the Congressional delegation further into blue territory as well.
But I have to wonder: If Gov. Rod Blagojevich does eventually get indicted, as some people are predicting, isn’t it easier to believe it wouldn’t be quite so hard for Republicans to get a GOP governor?
After all, Blagojevich in 2003 was able to become the first Democratic governor since the ’70s, because former Gov. George Ryan was under investigation for federal corruption charges as well. He was able to win re-election in 2006 by very effectively beating this same dead horse.
I know it is not as simple as that, but it seems like the state Republicans could easily capitalize on the very public infighting among the state Democrats.
In a 2007 freelance article for an Illinois political magazine, our own Aaron Chambers took a close look at the state GOP.
The unraveling of the party’s stature laid bare the fragility of its statewide organization and the gulf between its leadership and its base. That weakness, ironically, may have resulted partly from the long string of top-of-the-ticket victories. The levers of party control were concentrated in the governor’s office through 26 years of Republican rule under Thompson, former Gov. Jim Edgar, and Ryan.
So when considering this issue, it seems we must also take remember this:
Statewide political organizations are not what they used to be. Increasingly, campaigns are driven by flashy candidates and television commercials, rather than party slating and palm cards. Last year, for instance, the Illinois Democratic Party couldn’t deliver a nomination for the one nonincumbent statewide candidate it backed in the primary election. Following the wishes of House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat who is that party’s state chairman, Democrats slated Knox County State’s Attorney Paul Mangieri for treasurer, but primary voters nominated Chicago banker Alexi Giannoulias, who enjoyed a personal endorsement from ultrapopular U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.
Don’t forget to slather on a layer of “angry voter” backlash from an increasingly unpopular GOP administration in the White House, and maybe that simple equation actually looks more like a Harvard-level calculus problem.
Finding viable Republican candidates that can win contests against Illinois Democrats brings its own set of problems.
Part of this may come from the fractured views of what the state party should be. While Edgar, a moderate, would say a social moderate is the ideal Republican candidate to win in Illinois, others believe the party should return to its ideological roots.
One way to foresee the future of the state Republican Party may be through its “farm team” - or through the up-and-coming politicos throughout the state that the party is throwing its support behind financially and otherwise.
A good example of that was the southern Illinois race between incumbent Mayor Brad Cole and then-Councilwoman Sheila Simon, the daughter of the late Sen. Paul Simon. I covered that race for the student newspaper, and in a story just a few weeks before the April election, Cross’ spokesman David Dring, explained why the state Republicans donated so much money to a mayoral race in this 30,000-person college town.
“We’ve been trying to do a better job of grooming young talent such as Mayor Cole,” Dring said. “If he chooses, we believe he has a bright future.”
Back to the Trib piece, Cross, who is considered a moderate, also had one other interesting point:
Still, Cross acknowledged there is no one with the authority within the GOP to stop the infighting.
“I’d like to think in an ideal world, we’d have the big strong person who comes in, bangs everybody’s head together and says, ‘This is stupid. It doesn’t accomplish anything. It hurts us,’ ” he said. “I don’t know that that person exists right now.”
But then again, maybe Republicans will be able to use the November election to start swinging things back in their favor, or at least be able to minimize the damage, according to this Stateline article.
Nationally, it is possible that the Democrats could make significant gains once again, but history is against them. Some of the biggest landslides in voting for the legislatures have come during midterm elections — 1958, 1966, 1974, 1994 and 2006 among them — and not presidential years. This pattern isn’t set in stone, but early analysis by “Out There” sees only modest legislative gains this cycle — maybe even a wash — meaning that Democratic strength in the legislatures looks likely to last for at least another cycle.
This analysis calls Illinois a “Likely D” state, but not safely Democratic. With a 67-51 split in the House and a 37-22 mix in the Senate, is the Illinois Republican Party on its way to an early grave? Or can they claw their way back into relevance? If so, how? Or would you argue that politics is cyclical and voters will begin choosing Republicans soon enough? There is even more to this story, I’m sure, and I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
March 21st, 2008
Gov. Rod Blagojevich has tried his best to act like he’s not paying attention to the federal corruption trial of his pal Tony Rezko. He has said repeatedly that he is not following the case and that, in fact, it has nothing to do with him.
You might conclude, then, that Blagojevich has nothing to hide. You might think he’d be happy to talk about that which he presumably is familiar — those matters pertaining to his administration.
Only, he doesn’t have much to say about that, either. He rarely appears in public. When he does, he does so only during short, highly choreographed events with a cadre of guards and stiff-lipped press aides.
If you buy the case made by federal prosecutors, Rezko’s allegedly corrupt activities were practically synonymous with Blagojevich’s administration in its early years. It may be no wonder, then, that Blagojevich insists he knows nothing of Rezko’s allegedly crooked behavior, even as he won’t talk about the activities of his own administration.
With each passing day of testimony at Rezko’s trial, they appear increasingly indistinguishable, according to reports published by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Associated Press and other media.
Susan Lichtenstein, the governor’s former general counsel, testified that when she interviewed to become top attorney for the governor, Rezko sat in on her interview. An aide to Blagojevich’s patronage chief testified that the patronage chief, Joe Cini, met Rezko every Monday morning. The aide, Jennifer Thomas, went to those meetings and brought along a spreadsheet so Rezko could view open state positions.
Thomas testified that she and Cini visited Rezko’s Chicago office on “most Mondays” between late March of 2003 through June of that year. She brought with her a spreadsheet of open positions on various state boards and commissions to Rezko’s office so they could talk over how to fill vacancies. They would also talk about how Rezko’s favored people were faring in the vetting process.
Separately, the governor’s director of boards and commissions testified that Rezko had great influence over who won appointments to state boards.
The Health Facilities Planning Board’s former chairman testified that he schemed with Rezko concerning board approval of hospital construction. Guess who appointed him to the board, at Rezko’s behest?
Thomas Beck, appointed by Blagojevich in 2003 as chairman of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning board, testified under immunity from prosecution that he got the post after seeking out support from Rezko. When he approached Rezko, Beck said he also came with a $1,000 donation to the governor’s campaign fund.
Prosecutors played tape of Beck calling co-conspirator Stuart Levine on the phone to talk about their plan to rig an upcoming board vote. Beck referred to Rezko in that call.
“I got the marching orders,” Beck told Levine. “…Our boy wants to help them.”
Rezko allegedly conspired with Stuart Levine, a longtime political insider, to shake down firms seeking business from the state. Their alleged scheme related to two state boards, in particular, where Levine had seats — the Teachers’ Retirement System, which manages a pension fund for teachers, and the Health Facilities Management Board, which regulates hospital construction projects.
Levine has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the feds. In exchange for a reduced sentence, he is the government’s chief witness against Rezko. He has spent the better part of this week on the stand describing Rezko’s uncanny power over Blagojevich’s office.
On Thursday, prosecutors played a tape of Levine talking on the phone about Rezko’s extraordinary influence over state government.
Levine was plainly excited to be so close to power and eager to share his feelings with others – including corrupt contractor Jacob Kiferbaum.
“I have never been in a better position than I am right now,” Levine tells Kiferbaum on a recording played at the trial. “Maybe it’s because there has never been such tight control of the central apparatus.”
“I mean, this guy is making decisions,” he says on the recording.
“He can get anything done that he wants done,” he said.
In the courtroom, Levine was on the stand.
The “central apparatus,” Levine testified, was Gov. Blagojevich’s office. And the guy who was “making decisions,” according to Levine, was Rezko.
“Although I had been involved in politics and in corrupt political deals before,” Levine said, “I had never witnessed . . . someone who was able to influence the governor as I saw that Mr. Rezko could. And I had never been as close to an individual who had that type of power.”
On Wednesday, Levine told the jury about a plane ride he shared with Blagojevich after the governor reappointed him to the Health Facilities Management Board. Levine said he thanked the governor for reappointing him.
Levine told jurors this morning at the corruption trial of indicted Blagojevich fund-raiser Tony Rezko that Blagojevich responded: “Never discuss any state board with me. You discuss them with Tony Rezko or Chris Kelly, but you stick with us, and you’ll do very well for yourself.”
Levine told the jury how he interpreted that statement: “I took it to mean I would have an opportunity to make a lot of money.”
Also Wednesday, Levine said Rezko reached through Blagojevich’s chief of staff, Lon Monk, to control all major decisions made by the governor’s office.
According to Levine, “Mr. Rezko told me that all major decisions that were made in the governor’s office were cleared by Mr. Monk through Mr. Rezko.”
A Blagojevich spokeswoman, breaking with the governor’s know-nothing position, confronted the damning testimony directly on Wednesday.
“Stuart Levine’s assertions about the governor are wrong,” communications director Abby Ottenhoff said in an e-mailed response. “As we’ve said before, that’s not how the governor does business.”
I suppose that’s progress. At least the governor’s spokeswoman acknowledged that the government’s key witness is on the stand in federal court saying he viewed the governor as a fellow crook. These are serious allegations and the public deserves a serious response — something the governor has yet to provide.
Rezko is innocent until proven guilty. Chris Kelly, another top Blagojevich fundraiser and adviser under indictment in a separate case, also is innocent until proven guilty. Blagojevich has not been charged with a crime.
But federal prosecutors in Chicago don’t often lose when they take on public corruption. The odds are stacked against Rezko, Kelly and, yes, Blagojevich. Blagojevich’s campaign fund allegedly stood to share in kickbacks demanded by Rezko and Levine.
At the very least, if you believe a parade of former Blagojevich insiders, Blagojevich handed control of his administration’s affairs to Rezko. The governor has not even begun to explain why he made that happen.
March 20th, 2008
The Feb. 14 shooting deaths at NIU’s Cole Hall, coupled with the previous massacre at Virginia Tech, have fueled a movement dedicated to encouraging concealed guns on college campuses.
A group called Students for Concealed Carry on Campus is growing at campuses across the nation, as at least 12 states are considering legislation to allow college students to carry concealed guns on campus, NPR reports. A print version of NPR’s story, as well as a link to an audio interview with a SCCC leader, are here.
After deadly shootings at schools in Illinois and Virginia, 12 states are considering legislation to allow guns on college campuses. Stephen Feltoon, a director for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), is part of a movement that says college students should have the same gun ownership rights as others.
Feltoon says he purchased his first gun for recreation. “Now I own it for defense,” he says. “I can take a firearm anywhere that’s not a college campus, a liquor establishment, or any business that posts a ‘no gun’ sign. When am I carrying it? That’s the beauty of conceal and carry. You’ll never know until I need it.”
It’s not clear how great of a presence SCCC has among Illinois campuses. But students at four Illinois colleges identify themselves as local contacts for the group. Their names and contact info are here. (The list of contacts, nationwide, is extensive and worth a look.)
Illinois law does not permit concealed carry, despite the best efforts of advocates. However, there are those who argue that Illinois law does permit a citizen to carry a handgun concealed in a fanny pack.
In November 2005, the Register Star published this report:
SPRINGFIELD — Just store your handgun and ammunition separately in your fanny pack, and go about your day.
As long as you own the gun legally and you don’t happen to be in a local government that precludes such a move, you’re perfectly legal in Illinois.
At least that’s the interpretation of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, which raised the issue Tuesday during a Capitol news conference where law-enforcement officials called for greater state restrictions on guns.
Giacomo “Jack” Pecoraro, the group’s executive director, called the loophole “Illinois’ implied conceal carry” law.
“If you’ve seen tourists with the small bags, you can have the firearm in the bag over here and the clip or the necessary rounds. It takes a mere second to load it,” he said. “And that’s allowable, and this is what we’re trying to stop.”
Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, agreed with that interpretation. However, he said an individual carrying an unloaded gun in a fanny pack would not be legal “on a public street.”
UPDATE 1
Stateline.org offers a good deal of background on how state lawmakers around the nation are revisiting concealed carry laws in light of campus violence. These two stories are dated — they were published last spring, following the Virgina Tech shootings — but useful nonetheless.
The first story:
The most recent legislative debate in Virginia, one of 48 states that issue permits allowing citizens to carry concealed firearms, arose after Virginia Tech disciplined an unnamed student who brought a firearm to class in 2005.
State Del. Mark Cole (R) this spring failed to push through a measure that would have let students with concealed-carry permits bring firearms on campus, trumping the school’s policy prohibiting them. The legislation languished in a subcommittee after a hearing. A similar measure failed last year.
The same issue came up this year in Utah, too, with the opposite result. The University of Utah gave up its struggle to keep its gun restrictions. A new law signed last month by Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) allows students to request roommates who don’t have a concealed-carry permit. Students 21 or older can bring firearms to campus if they have permits.
The second story:
In reaction to the Virginia Tech shooting spree, a Louisiana state lawmaker and higher education officials unveiled legislation Wednesday (April 18) to make clear that the state’s public universities can ban guns in student dorm rooms.
Legislation by Louisiana state Rep. Richard Gallot (D) seeks to remove any doubt that guns are banned from college dorm rooms, despite a conflict between a state law allowing Louisiana residents to keep guns in their homes and one banning firearms at universities.
The Louisiana proposal is the latest illustration of the collision between gun-free policies at state-run universities and state laws that are making it easier for citizens to carry firearms in other public places. While some states explicitly allow college campuses to ban guns, public universities such as Virginia Tech have had to defend their firearm restrictions in the face of laws in 48 states allowing citizens to get permits to carry concealed firearms. Sometimes, students have been the ones to challenge campus gun bans.
UPDATE 2
I reached out to the SCCC’s contacts at Illinois campuses to find out more about the group’s activity in this state. D. Scott Dennison, the SCCC campus leader at Parkland College in Champaign, responded by e-mail:
Thank you for the email and for your interest in the SCCC cause. It is very difficult to say exactly how many members are from a particular area. Anyone can become a member, and disclosing your location is not required. This is also the case for your question about exactly which campuses are active. What I can say, though, is that we are very proudly over 20,000 members strong and are still rapidly growing. From the beginning, SCCC has been a nation wide organization, so all states have always been included. Unfortunately, Illinois is one of the only two remaining non-carry states. Therefore, we Illinois based campus leaders have a much more serious situation on our hands. We must appeal to state representatives as well as college campuses. Illinois and Wisconsin will come to their senses soon enough. Again, thank you for contacting me.
March 18th, 2008
David Axelrod is the Chicago-based mastermind behind U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The political consultant has long been well known to Illinois political insiders, with clients like Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, and insiders of national politics too, with a slew of congressional races and other high-profile races behind him.
Now the behind-the-scenes campaign guru is gaining a celebrity of his own.
In the most recent in a series of Axelrod profiles, Business Week looks at Axelrod’s other consulting firm, ASK Public Strategies. The firm has worked mostly in secret, though its clients have included ComEd and AT&T. Just as Axelrod’s well-known firm, AKP&D Message and Media, is focused on aiding the campaigns of Democratic candidates, ASK is geared toward the (super-secret) interests of corporations.
ASK’s predilection for operating in the shadows shows up in its work. On behalf of ComEd and Comcast, the firm helped set up front organizations that were listed as sponsors of public-issue ads. Industry insiders call such practices “Astroturfing,” a reference to manufacturing grassroots support. Alderman Brendan Reilly of the 42nd Ward, who has been battling the Children’s Museum’s relocation plans, describes ASK as “the gold standard in Astroturf organizing. This is an emerging industry, and ASK has made a name for itself in shaping public opinion and manufacturing public support.”
ASK’s Web site says little about the firm’s activities. AKP&D’s Web site, on the other hand, is loaded with info, including the firm’s impressive client list.
Perhaps the more comprehensive profile of Axelrod appeared last spring in the New York Times Magazine. It walks through the evolution of Axelrod’s career, from his days as a Chicago Tribune reporter to campaign aide for the late U.S. Paul Simon of Illinois to chief strategist for Obama’s presidential race.
When the first major profile of Axelrod appeared in Chicago magazine in 1987, three years after he left a high-profile job as the lead political reporter for The Chicago Tribune to work as a political operative, the article (“Hatchet Man: The Rise of David Axelrod”) began by comparing him to an “exotic rodent.”
The Times Magazine story continues:
Two decades later, there remains the matter of the comb-over and the damp mustache, but his looks seem less important now. In the last four years, Axelrod has helped steer campaigns for fully four of the Democrats now running for president — Obama, Clinton, John Edwards and Chris Dodd — and one who dropped out (Tom Vilsack); framed the messages for the new young governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick; and served as the chief political adviser for Representative Rahm Emanuel when the congressman helped orchestrate the Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives last fall.
The Washington Post also profiled Axelrod last February.
A measure of his status in the top tier of Democratic spinners, scripters and fixers is that when his peers detect something subtle and good, they presume Axelrod must have had a hand in it.
Of course Axelrod won’t take credit for specific lines. Consultants are supposed to stay in the background. “One thing I came to realize early in the process of working with Barack was, he was always going to be the best writer in the room,” Axelrod says. “If you appreciate words and the power of them, he’s a wonderful person to work with. . . . I’d say 80 percent of what he did on that platform on Saturday was in that initial draft,” which Obama had e-mailed to Axelrod at about 4 a.m. Thursday.
The liberal Nation weekly also weighed in last February. And if you’re looking for video, here is PBS’s Charlie Rose’s interview with Axelrod. A Tribune profile, complete with video, is here.
From the Trib:
By 1984, while still in his 20s, David Axelrod had already built an impressive career as a star political reporter, columnist and City Hall bureau chief for the Tribune, the largest and most influential newspaper in Illinois.
It was his dream job. But he was unhappy.
Always awash with doubts and anxieties, Axelrod would agonize over the nuances of the stories he was writing, putting in long hours in the city’s wards doing research and then spending hours more at the computer keyboard. But that was who he was.
March 18th, 2008
From the governor’s office: 
Governor Rod R. Blagojevich and Illinois State Fair Manager Amy Bliefnick today announced the theme for the 2008 Illinois State Fair will be “A Family Tradition” and feature a contest inspired by the well-known 1950s advertising campaign for Burma Shave. A brand of brushless shaving cream, Burma Shave was made famous by their catchy rhymes on small highway billboards across the U.S. As part of the 2008 State Fair, the Governor and Bliefnick are launching a contest modeled after Burma Shave’s advertising campaign encouraging children statewide to submit five-line rhymes that reflect the theme.Winners will be featured on State Fair promotional materials and signs.
“This year’s theme for the Illinois State Fair truly reflects what the ten-day event is for so many families across our state – a tradition – as traditional as those Burma Shave billboards that dotted our landscape in the 50s,” said Governor Blagojevich. “That’s why we’re modeling our theme after the Burma Shave advertising campaign and inviting children to participate in our efforts. We’re bringing generations together in celebration of this year’s Illinois State Fair.”
A couple of years ago, I spent a summer as an intern for another GateHouse paper, the (Springfield, Ill.) State Journal-Register. The Illinois State Fair is a pretty big deal in Springfield, and among the myriad stories on the fair in the paper that summer, I was assigned to write a feature about the clown band, which has been a fixture of the State Fair for more than 45 years.
Over that time, the band’s leader, Gene Trimble, said he has watched fewer and fewer families come to the state fair. You can read the full story here.
Strolling around the state fair for 45 years, Trimble has watched as the annual celebration has evolved.
After years of declining attendance, the fair crowd has begun to pick back up, he said, adding that the fair is an important part of Illinois history and tradition.
“It is dependent on families bringing their kids and making a tradition out of it,” he said. “You’ve got to find people who want to take their kids out and see the fat cows or the pigs or the fish.”
So, it should be interesting to see if a family-focused theme will help the fair continue to slowly crawl back from the mid-90s, when low attendance figures almost closed the celebration down.
Oh, and if you are feeling exceptionally witty today, perhaps you should consider entering the State Fair’s contest. Here are some examples of the Burma Shave slogans.
UPDATE 1 - By AC
The most common Burma Shave-style signs along Illinois highways belong to a pro-gun group called gunssavelife.com. Or at least, they’re the signs I see most often in my travels.
Bob Steigmann, a downstate appellate court justice, co-opted the group’s strategy when he ran unsuccessfully for Illinois Supreme Court in 2002:
The signs alert motorists that Steigmann is “tough on thugs” and has “earned your vote.” They don’t speak to gun owners’ rights, and the judge says they were not a deliberate attempt to court pro-gun voters. Nonetheless, he acknowledges that, in as much as his signs mirror the pro-gun signs, they could help make his campaign attractive to voters who care deeply about that issue.
March 17th, 2008
The New York Times had a piece today that shows Illinois isn’t the only state with budget problems, in fact, some states have it much worse.
Many states are reporting their largest budget shortfalls since the recessions of 2001 and 1991-2.
Of course, the usual suspects appear in the Times’ story as the reasons that states are hurting financially.
Ms. Lav pointed to a confluence of factors — including weak consumer spending, high energy prices, dropping housing values and growing foreclosure rates — that suggest states will face a protracted struggle to keep their budgets afloat.
Earlier we told you how the Illinois tax revenue is slowing, and the state’s mound of unpaid bills is growing by the day. In fact, even though our governor’s pet issue is health care, Illinois’ mutli-million dollar Medicaid debt landed the state on the list of states with proposed health care cuts. (Check out this great graphic that shows where Illinois and other states fall. You will need to click on the graphic to see it better.)
The governor delivered a skeleton budget this year with old revenue ideas that have failed before, but unsurprisingly, he was mum on the idea of a tax increase. A few Democratic senators, however, believe this is the only way to pay off the state’s bills.
A couple of other states agree.
While most states are looking to address their budget anguish through cuts, tax increases are occasionally broached.
The Maryland Legislature made the difficult choice of increasing the state’s sales tax to 6 percent from 5 percent, raising its corporate taxes to 8.25 percent from 7 percent, and bumping the state’s cigarette tax to $2 per pack from $1. In Kentucky, the governor has proposed a 70-cent increase on cigarette taxes, raising it to $1 a pack, and Mr. Schwarzenegger in California has spoken vaguely about closing “tax loopholes” in his state.
The piece ends with this warning:
Ray Scheppach, the executive director of the National Governors Association, said things were likely to worsen over all. “The major impact on states is the year after a recession stops or the following year,” Mr. Scheppach said, because personal income taxes tend to lag economic recoveries. “It is really sort of the worst as you begin to recover.”
March 17th, 2008
Rockford Mass Transit buses may soon carry more blue-haired passengers than normal.
RMTD spokeswoman Lisa Brown said senior citizens have been flooding the city’s mass transit office in recent weeks to make sure they can get their state-mandated free rides.
Today marks the first day that Rockford residents and others in metropolitan cities across the state can hitch a free ride on the mass transit buses.
“I think that we will see more and more people join the family of transit riders,” Brown said.
Of course, the governor, who is trying to deflect the negative publicity he is getting while a top fundraiser is on trial for federal corruption charges, is milking the free-ride story for all its worth. On Tuesday, the administration is sending one of its lackeys to Rockford, where he will be joined by other transit officials, to hold a news conference about the new option.
The press pops seemed to help Blagojevich’s poll numbers, which jumped a bit in January, and he was able to seem like he was swooping in to save the day for seniors. However, this plan did backfire when he visited seniors on the north side of Chicago.
In response to one lady who asked a lengthy question about the governor’s policies on mass transit and taxation, the governor finished with this:
“It’s not so bad. Just hold your nose and take a bus for free.”
At the end of the day, seniors got free rides and sadly for Blagojevich, the governor’s good press ended quickly.
In Rockford, people who are 65 years and older must have a RMTD-issued photo ID card to get their free ride. Brown said the office holds photo ID sessions every other Wednesday, and the sessions, which normal handle 15 people, have averaged 70 customers sinc late February.
Starting Monday, March 17, 2008, all senior citizens will be able to ride RMTD’s fixed routes for free. To take advantage of free rides To take advantage of the free rides, anyone 65 years of age or older will need an RMTD photo ID. Photo ID’s are taken every other Wednesday between 1:00 and 4:30 pm at 501 W. State Street.
The cost is $2.00 and proof of age, such as a State ID, driver’s license or birth certificate will also be required. For more information call 815.961.9000 today.
Before today, seniors purchased half-price tickets to ride the bus, but political manuevering in January created the free rides for seniors.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich agreed to break his campaign promise to not raise taxes in order break a legislative stalemate over crucial funding for the Chicago transit systems, but before doing so, he demanded the Legislature approve his free-ride provision.
In January, Brown said RMTD did not expect to lose much money on free-ride clause, because seniors, who already paid half price, also only consisted of 24,000 of the 1.4 million Rockford mass transit riders.
Rockford transit policy allows non-residents to also ride the bus, but they must have the same photo ID as Rockford riders. Because of the way the state law is written, each transit district must set their own rules, which means guidelines can vary between cities and seniors may not be able to ride for free everywhere.
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