One would think that given recent events in illinois politics voters would be more engaged than ever not less engaged; more aware of the need to be vigilant and educated in the voting booth. And this is a particularly high profile seat. It was recently vacated by Rahm Emanuel who left to become President Obama's chief of staff.
What if they gave an election and no one cared? (The answer: they hold it anyway.)
Perhaps the biggest news this week is that the FEC deadline has passed and/or the Chicago Tribune endorsement session. It may depend on who you are and who you support which you believe is the biggest news. Others have argued that the dearth of coverage by the traditional media is the biggest news of the week.
What has become increasingly apparent to those who have been paying attention is that the special election in IL-05 enjoys an unusually smart, ambitious field who are working hard to win this election and paying attention to the issues in which voters are interested. As early voting begins on Monday, this race is turning increasingly from fund-raising and media to the ground game. Given the extraordinary density -- much of it in single family dwellings -- this has always been true. Which is also why all the candidates are out knocking on doors and calling voters.
Because of the large Democratic field, the Chicago Tribune editorial board conducted two different interview sessions, one which is the video to the right. Video for the second session is below the fold, but this article talks about "the rest of the field:"
Late Friday, Progress Illinois posted a diary raising questions about John Fritchey's work as a lobbyist before the city government of Chicago. The post represents a point of view, "In relation to some of the issues we've covered over the past year," or what is defined as the interests of "working families."
This happens to be a point of view I am happy to see represented in the blogging community, which I think is heavy on the idealist or romantic end of politics and incredibly light on the practical or real world end of politics. But this post appears to be something of an ambush -- and a bit misleading. So I asked the writer what Fritchey's response to the post was, and came to find that he never requested a comment from the subject of the story.
The beef against Mike Quigley, the reform candidate/progressive with the highest name recognition (and currently leading in the polls) in the 5th Congressional District in Illinois is that he's simply too valuable in his current job as Cook County Commissioner.
Progressives in Chicago respect Quigley's opposition to the Democratic machine, especially with regard to his fierce stands against corruption, nepotism and the wasteful spending related to both. In setting up the camera to do a scheduled interview, I asked Quigley his response to this criticism.
"Yeah, let's start with that question," Quigley responded. "I want to answer that."
Three major events capped this week in Illinois' 5th Congressional District: the nominating petition process was completed, voting has begun and a whole beavy of Candidate Forums was begun. On the Democratic side, objections to Charlie Wheelan's petitions were overruled, objections to Roger Thompson's petitions were sustained (removing Thompson from the ballot) and Pete Dagher withdrew in the face of challenges to his petitions. Thus, the field on the Democratic side was narrowed, from 14 to 12. I don't expect much more narrowing in the field before the primary, as voting has actually begun in this race.
One person has voted so far in this race. Illinois has what is called "grace period voting," which allows people who missed the deadline to register to vote to simultaneously register to vote and vote at the same time:
"Grace Period Voting" is a safety net offered to those who fail to register to vote by the deadline of 28 days before the date of the primary or the date of the election. Grace Period Voting requires the voter to register and vote all at once and in person at the Election Board offices
In Illinois, the first step for getting on the ballot is collecting signatures on one's nominating petitions. a sub-element of this step is staying on the ballot, as four of the 14 democrats competing for Rahm Emanuel's Congressional seat have discovered. The Cook County County Officers Electoral Board has set February 5th hearings for three of the cases (Charles Wheelan, Pete Dagher and Carlos Monteagudo) and continued the process for Roger Thompson. College students connected to the Bryar campaign, Mary Scala and Rudolph Trejo ("son of a former 32nd Ward Democratic Organization precinct captain"), were the objectors for Wheelan, Thompson and Dagher; Thomas Root was the objector for Monteagudo.
The second step (in Illinois elections) is the ballot lottery for those who are first to file their nominating petitions (iow, are in line when the Clerk's office opens up for filing). Charles Wheelan won the first ballot position. The complete ballot order is here:
Charles J. Wheelan DEM
Sara Feigenholtz DEM
John A. Fritchey DEM
Victor A. Forys DEM
Pete Dagher DEM
Jan H. Donatelli DEM
Frank Annunzio DEM
Carlos A. Monteagudo DEM
Paul J. Bryar DEM
Roger A. Thompson III DEM
Tom Geoghegan DEM
Cary Capparelli DEM
Mike Quigley DEM
Patrick J. O'Connor DEM
Overturning Republican State Senator Dan Cronin's efforts to restrict DuPage County candidate ballot access, Democratic State Senator Don Harmon and Democratic State Representative Paul Froehlich sponsored a bill passed in the Illinois General Assembly last Friday that requires DuPage candidates to collect the same number of signatures to get on the ballot as is required by every other county in Illinois. The legislation moves to Governor Rod Blagojevich's desk, where he is expected to sign it into law.
Frank Craig to Discuss Public Education Funding Initiatives. Democratic State Senate Candidate proposes immediate funding initiatives for public education
Aurora – Democratic state Senate candidate Frank Craig will hold a press conference at 12 p.m. on Wednesday, November 1, at Freeman Elementary School in Aurora (153 S. Randall Road) to discuss how the state can begin to immediately address the funding gaps in public education.
Craig said, “While I strongly believe that our legislators must find the political will to permanently reform the way we fund public education in order to remove the burden that our property owners and businesses currently face, our children cannot wait for the grownups to resolve the urgent need to properly fund public education in order to ensure that all children receive access to a quality education, regardless of the quality of the neighborhood they grow up in.”
Craig is proposing several near-term, actionable goals that can begin to pump more money into public education and to address the urgent financial needs of school districts.
1. Aggressively collect outstanding debt. The state of Illinois is currently owed $4.3 billion dollars in unpaid fees, fines and penalties according to some reports. If the state is successful in collecting a mere 50% of that debt, we could bring in over $2 billion dollars that could be used for education funding as well as helping to shore up our pension systems. We need to commit ourselves to that goal.
2. Award 10th casino license. By awarding the unused 10th casino license and properly siting it in an economically depressed area, away from existing casinos to minimize impacting current operations, the state could reasonably expect to collect around $30 million in
additional revenues yearly for the Common School Fund and the Education Assistance Fund.
3. Reduce the amount of incentives offered to Lottery ticket vendors. Currently, Illinois pays Lottery vendors an average of 7% of Lottery revenues through commissions, bonuses and other incentives. A portion of these incentives are arbitrary and not set by the legislature. In FY 2004, these incentives totaled $115 million. By reducing the incentives to a more reasonable 3-4%, Illinois could provide an additional $50-60 million per year for funding public education.
4. Leverage the purchasing power of the state. By centralizing purchasing of school supplies and utilizing online procurement, the state could realize a 2-5% reduction in costs on an annual basis, saving millions of dollars per year that can and should be spent in the classroom.
5. Insist on more accountability and transparency from local school districts. While it is critical to maintain local control over school budgets, we must ensure that each and every school district is living within its means. Citizens have every right to be leery of never-ending requests for more funding via referendums when evidence shows that some school districts continue to spend lavishly on expenditures that do not directly benefit our children in the classroom.
Craig’s proposals could provide a one-time infusion of approximately $1 billion for public education funding while providing ongoing revenues of approximately $100 million per year for public education funding needs. “While this infusion of revenue will not fully address the long-term public education funding needs of the state and our schools, it is a solid first step in addressing the current funding gaps we face in educating our children,” Craig said.
“The long term goal of removing the burden of funding public education from our homeowners and hard working families is a goal that I strongly support, and I urge all legislators to join with me in calling for a special session in Springfield to address this issue in a bi-partisan manner to find common sense solutions that will provide long-term sources of stable funding for public education to eliminate the current funding gaps the state faces, while providing our hard working families and retirees with real and lasting property tax relief,” Craig added.
For more information, please visit www.frankcraig06.com.
As a Delegate to the State Board of IVI-IPO ("Your home for good government since 1944"), I wanted to make sure everyone who is interested knows where and when this summer's endorsement sessions will be. You can find them all here:
