Winters: Jones sees Jefferson as black first, Madigan’s guy second

3 comments May 9th, 2008

Rep. Dave Winters, R-Shirland, recently made what struck me as a remarkable observation about the politics of race and leadership in the General Assembly. In response, Rep. Chuck Jefferson, D-Rockford, provided some insight into how he sees those powerful, yet delicate, dynamics.

Jefferson

I was talking to Winters about the status of Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey’s truancy agenda — sponsored by Jefferson — and he said he was confident that Jefferson could garner Senate President Emil Jones Jr.’s support for Morrissey’s plan once it clears the House and lands in the Senate.

I’m no expert on Jefferson’s relationship with Jones, I told Winters, but I wouldn’t think Jefferson would necessarily have the inside track to Jones. Last spring, Jefferson joined House Speaker Michael Madigan’s leadership team. Jones and Madigan, both Chicago Democrats, are feuding. So my first assumption would be that Jones would view Jefferson as a Madigan surrogate and would therefore be hostile toward him, I told Winters.

Winters

“I would assume that he is not seen as Madigan’s guy as much as he is the Black Caucus guy,” Winters responded. “Emil probably has very good relations with the Black Caucus.”

Members of the House Black Caucus — the collection of African-American state representatives, all Democrats — pick three members of Madigan’s exclusive leadership team. Last spring, they picked Jefferson for one of those three seats.

Like Jefferson, Jones also is black.

“Blood is stronger than water,” Winters said.

Jefferson disagreed with Winters’ interpretation. In fact, Jefferson suggested the sentiment may be just the opposite of what Winters suggested — that perhaps Jones is disappointed in black House members for following Madigan’s lead.

“Jones has some animosity toward the House members as it relates to the Black Caucus because we are under Mike Madigan’s reign,” Jefferson said.

“Well, he’s the speaker of the House. That’s who we supposedly follow. (Jones is) upset sometimes that maybe we don’t follow his lead the way he feels we should. And that’s OK. That’s his perception of the situation. Just like Emil holds his members accountable, we’re accountable to Mike Madigan. And because we’re accountable to Mike Madigan, it doesn’t get us favoritism with the president of the Senate.”

Jones spokeswoman Cindy Davidsmeyer declined to comment.

Jones

“(Jones) views that sometimes it’s maybe not (the House Black Caucus) being in his corner as it relates to a lot of things. Well, that’s not the case,” Jefferson said.

“If we’ve got to pick an issue, we’re probably going to be more supportive of the House issue, under Mike Madigan’s reign, than we would under his leadership as president of the Senate. I don’t think we’re enemies. But I don’t think that I can get anything done (in the Senate) any sooner than (Sen.) Dave Syverson (R-Rockford) in the Senate. If anyone is going to champion a bill, I’d certainly want to go and talk to President Jones about the bill. But I think that we need to pick it up on that side with Sen. Syverson to make sure he’s doing everything.”

Jefferson concluded, “We need to be able to cut across party lines. And the fact that I’m black and Emil is black, I don’t think carries a lot of weight with Emil at this point in time.”

Rep. Jefferson: What Truancy Officers? Updated X1

Add comment May 8th, 2008

Rep. Chuck Jefferson on Wednesday pitched Rockford’s truancy plan to a panel of lawmakers, but he appeared to miss the mark when describing Rockford’s existing anti-truancy program.

Mayor Larry Morrissey’s plan would allow the city to fine the parents of children under the age of 13 — to encourage those parents, in the city’s view, to get their children in school. Rep. Monique Davis, D-Chicago, asked Jefferson what responsibility the Rockford School District to ensure the students are in school.

“Well, I guess that’s one of the problems,” Jefferson said. “We don’t have truancy officers in place; so this is a mechanism to deal with that problem. The truancy officers are no longer available.”

In fact, the School District does have seven truancy officers who deal with elementary and middle school students, said Ed Hayden at the Rockford School District. At the end of Feb. 28, the district hired three truancy officers to work in the high school as well, he said.

Hayden said these truancy officers go by another title — home-school counselors. Until the Feb. 28 meeting, the high school did not have people who dealt solely with truancy, but the seven other workers have been in place for some time, he said.

But Hayden also said dealing with truants is “definitely a part of their job description.” In fact, he said the home-school counselors’ job descriptions recently changed from dealing with chronic truants who have 18 or more unexcused absences to handling truants who have at least four unexcused absences.

Moreover, the School District’s truancy officers have been at the heart of the community’s discussion about its rampant truancy problem in recent months. Morrissey is frustrated with what he views as a lack of information about truants flowing from the School District to his administration. The School District says it does pass the names of repeat truants to the city, but only after its truancy officers first have an opportunity to deal with these students.

Morrissey’s plan also is designed to facilitate the flow of more information from the School District to his administration.

The bill passed committee with an 8-1 vote, and is pending on the House floor. It is not clear when this bill will come up for a vote.

UPDATE 1 by AC

Stephen Katz, the School District’s attorney, said in an e-mail:

We have 10 home school counselors.  Hired 3 more this winter.

House Tussles Over Gun Legislation

Add comment April 9th, 2008

The House has debated two gun-control bills over the past two days, but both times the measures failed to pass.

Today, Rep. Deborah Graham, D-Chicago, presented a bill that would require adult gun owners who have minors under 18 years of age living in their house to keep their gun in a locked box. Rep. Chuck Jefferson, D-Rockford, is a co-sponsor on this bill.

Since September, 21 students in the Chicago Public Schools have been killed. Twenty of those are by gunfire. Last year, 24 students were shot to death. In previous years, the numbers have been between 10-15.

This legislation was one of many bills the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus is carrying this session, prompted by a rash of gun violence among teens in Chicago.

Graham, the bill’s sponsor, moved the bill to postponed consideration before the vote was officially recorded, which sponsors often do when it looks like they haven’t gotten enough votes to pass the bill. By doing this, Graham will be able to call her bill for a vote again later.

According to the bill, if the gun is not locked up or otherwise temporarily unusable, the offense is punishable by a Class C misdemeanor. The punishment, a Class A misdemeanor, becomes harsher if a minor shoots someone with the unlocked gun.

During the debate, Graham called the bill a preventative measure, “much like having a smoke detector in your home.”

Despite Republican speculation during the debate, Graham said the homes of gun owners would not be ransacked to check for compliance.
“The authorities are not going to bombard your home if you have not done this,” she said.
Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, said the Chicago gun violence is simply about “gang warfare,” a comment that Graham disputed.

“This does not do anything to save peoples lives,” Reboletti said.

On Tuesday, a bill backed by Rep. Luis Arroyo, D-Chicago, also failed to pass. The bill aimed to limit the number of handguns a person could buy in one month to help curb illegal gun traffiking. Hunters and sportsmen purchasing rifles and shotguns in bulk would be exempt.

Before the vote could be recorded, Arroyo also moved his bill to postponed consideration.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich issued this statement:

“We’ve already lost over 20 Chicago students to shootings this school year. Parents, friends and neighbors are crying out to their elected leaders for help. How many more children have to die before lawmakers pass legislation that will save lives and keep guns out of the wrong hands? … Today’s House vote is a big disappointment to everyone involved in the fight against gun violence. But we won’t give up, we’ll keep lobbying and pushing lawmakers to take action. The young lives at stake are too important to forget.”

Sticking Landlords With the Bill

Add comment March 10th, 2008

I caught up this morning with Rep. Harry Osterman, a Chicago Democrat spearheading legislation to make landlords pay for the cost of housing tenants when the landlord’s property is condemned.

Rep. Chuck Jefferson, D-Rockford, is co-sponsoring the measure, and the mayor’s office is backing it, as the Register Star reported this morning.

“If a municipality takes an action against a building with condemnation or makes a ruling on safety hazards, and the people are forced to vacate the building because it is deemed unhealthy by the municipality, many of these people don’t have the means to go and find another place to live. They’re going to go live with their relatives,” Osterman told me by phone.

“So what we want to do is have this individual slumlord or landlord, who’s responsible for this building, pay to move someone to another place to live. If for whatever reason that (landlord) is not able to do that, we would enable municipalities to front-end those costs, and then to try to get them back through a civil action against the landlord. The bottom line is what we’re trying to do is if there are renters, who through no fault of their own are in a building that is in disrepair and has been condemned, we want to make sure they have some kind of protections.”

Osterman’s bill:

The landlord would need to pay each displaced tenant $2,000 per unit or three times the monthly rent, whichever is greater, plus the tenant’s deposit, interest and prepaid rent, within seven days of getting a condemnation notice, under the bill.

Critics complain that the measure doesn’t recognize the possibility that a tenant may have caused the damage to a rental unit, prompting the city to condemn it. Osterman said he is prepared to negotiate a provision making that clear.

“What I have committed to do is to work with them to strengthen that provision, to very explicitly and flesh out in an amendment, that this is not the tenant’s fault, but this is something due to the inaction of the owner,” he said.

What’s Madigan Up To? Updated X3

1 comment February 18th, 2008

A great pastime at the Capitol is speculating on the objectives and motives of House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago. Madigan seldom speaks in public and he generally is the last of state leaders to show his cards.

When he does show them, he tends to stake out a contrarian position. By positioning himself opposite other interests, he creates leverage to accomplish his goals — whatever they may be.

This spring session, Madigan was the first to show a card when he spread word last week that no major initiative will clear the House, the chamber that he controls, unless it contains language effectively pre-empting Gov. Rod Blagojevich from attaching rules elaborating on its thrust.

It’s uncanny for Madigan to announce such a radical position before the governor has a chance to set forth his own strategy Wednesday in his State of the State/budget address. Then again, Blagojevich and Madigan are great political adversaries. Together with Senate President Emil Jones Jr., a third Chicago Democrat allied with Blagojevich, the two last year faced off in a battle last so fierce that session literally dragged from the spring straight into this year.

But to truly understand the extraordinary nature of Madigan’s pre-emptive strike, you must consider the actual substance of his plan. By requiring all major bills to include language prohibiting the governor or his agencies from attaching administrative rules, the strategy could potentially shut down the legislative process.

In other words, Madigan has kicked off the session with a strategy that may do nothing but disrupt and delay the legislative process.

If Jones continues to side with Blagojevich through this session, he is unlikely to adopt Madigan’s strategy in the Senate. If the Senate rejects the strategy, and Madigan refuses to budge, it will be impossible for the two chambers to agree on legislation. And even if Jones does capitulate, and both the Senate and House do agree on legislation including the no-rules language, the governor could simply veto the language and send each bill back to lawmakers.

Lawmakers would then need to decide whether to override the governor. But I’m getting way ahead of myself here.

The bottom line is that Madigan does not often bluff. If he does bluff, he is not one to quickly go back on it.

Blagojevich and Jones, for their part, don’t tend to quickly swallow Madigan’s wishes.

UPDATE 1

Rep. Chuck Jefferson. D-Rockford, supports Madigan’s new strategy. Jefferson is a member of Madigan’s leadership team, so this is not surprising.

Jefferson echoed the speaker’s position, articulated last week by House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, that the governor directly assaulted the Legislature when he declared that the body’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, which reviews the governor’s administrative rules, lacks the power to reject his rules.

“I think it’s a good idea if in fact the governor is going to continue to try and pull the political maneuvers to undercut what JCAR is in place to do,” Jefferson said. “I think it’s to the governor’s advantage at this point, but he doesn’t seem to think so.”

UPDATE 2

Rockford GOP Sen. Dave Syverson also supports Madigan’s strategy, at least the concept, he said.

Syverson said state agencies have misinterpreted his bills when they write the rules, but he could not think of any examples. He said he is then forced to pass another bill to clarify the first legislation.

“I agree with the Speaker to the extent that we need to put more in there in regards to the major issues because the governor has taken more leeway to expand definitions … taking it way beyond what the intent was and we need to rein that in,” Syverson said.
“The House version may go too far but the what’s currently in place does not go far enough. There may be some room for compromise, which we hope we can do.”

UPDATE 3

In line with the House Republican party line, Rep. Dave Winters, R-Shirland, disagrees with the House Democrats’ plan. He said rule-writing needs to be done by people with the expertise in that bill, such as those at the state agencies.

“I think the administrative rules should be written by the agencies that are to administer them,” Winters said, “not by a bunch of legislators who are not bureaucrats.”

Jefferson: Steady as She Goes Updated X1

Add comment January 23rd, 2008

Rep. Chuck Jefferson’s fundraising seems relatively light. In the last six months of last year, Jefferson, D-Rockford, raised $17,806.72 and spent $17,774.26.

He had $28,676.76 on hand at the close of the reporting period.

Then again, Jefferson has no challenger in the next election. He doesn’t need gobs of money to defend himself.

Jefferson’s biggest contributions include:

Yes, Jefferson’s campaign apparently misspelled the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association on its disclosure statement. Either that or Jefferson is getting substantial support from lawyers who practice on trails.