With the D-2s all in, Toni Preckwinkle began 2010 from a commanding position. After raising $302,690.50 in individual contributions this half of 2009, she had $444,519.05 available to start 2010. This is more than twice the amount that Dorothy Brown had on hand to start the new year ($187,101.08), almost three times what Todd Stroger had and more than four times what Terry O'Brien had at the end of the reporting period.
Hinz is reporting that Michael Madigan is allowing a vote on two bills (HB4624 and HB4625) which would place limits on Todd Stroger's power, both which would effectively reverse his sales tax increase:
One bill would outright repeal the increase, overriding Cook County's home-rule authority. The other would lower the threshold needed to override a veto by Mr. Stroger, the president of the Cook County Board, from four-fifths of board members to three-fifths.
The bills are sponsored by Rep. Mark Walker, a Democrat from Arlington Heights. Fritchey and Feigenholtz are co-sponsors of both bills. Hamos is a co-sponsor of HB4625.
The primary reason Team Obama wants other-than-Paterson to head the Democratic ticket in the Empire State is that Paterson is considered a drag on the Democratic ticket.
OK. Is Todd Stroger a drag on the Democratic ticket?
Sims is as loyal to the Strogers as one can be. As a resident of the 5th County Commission district, this would be less distressing if we actually got something from her loyalty. You wouldn't know it unless you drove around the county, but the condition of county property, facilities and roads are much worse in the South Suburbs than in the Western and Northern suburbs.
While this neglect suggests to people that the South Suburbs just doesn't care, it is really evidence of the lack of money spent by county government in the Southland and a massive failure of leadership on the part of those who represent us.
Cook County Commissioners who favored repeal of the 1% tax increase thought they had the votes (14 of 17) to override President Todd Stroger's veto.
However, Commissioner Deborah Sims switched positions and voted to uphold Stroger's veto. Sims provided the following explanation to Sun-Times (Lisa Donovan).
Sims said she decided against rolling back a portion of the tax increase because "we have so many unanswered questions" about what slashing the sales tax could mean.
From where does Sims expect the answer to this question? From Stroger? So, because Stroger wouldn't give Sims information about how he would cut spending, she decided to punish Stroger by voting to uphold his veto.
On May 12, Ald. Toni Preckwinkle came down to the South Suburbs to talk to "Team Obama" at the Flossmoor Station as part of her outreach to the suburbs as she gathers momentum in her race for the Cook County Board President. She mentions near the end that the previous evening she had been in Glenview (in the north suburbs).
She started off talking about what the Cook County Board does and her approach to County government. But she quickly turned to answering the questions of the 50-odd people who showed up for our May meeting.
At approximately 8 AM today a person or persons not yet identified or apprehended fired seven shots into a home in Riverside. The police have told the media they believe the shooter intended to target the house next door where Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica lives. See Riverside/Brookfield Landmark (Bob Uphues).
Two days ago, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted 12-3 to repeal the 1% sales tax increase implemented at the request of Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. See Chicago Public Radio (Tony Arnold). While Stroger does have the option of vetoing the repeal of the sales tax increase, he has publicly considered cutting Cook County health services by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Peraica has harped on the sales tax increase aggressively since it was passed. He contends it is unnecessary and that it's purpose was to expand the number of political workers loyal to Stroger and the Democratic Party on county payroll.
Does government exist to serve the citizens or do the citizens exist to support the government?
On Tuesday, November 6, I attended a hearing about the Cook County tax increase proposed by Board President Todd Stroger and finance committee chair John Daley. The hearing was held at Proviso East High School in Maywood and many of the commissioners attended, including Daley and Stroger.
All Cook County employees were allowed to testify before the first non-employee taxpayer. Even employees who were late or out of the room got called a second and third time before any regular citizens were allowed to testify.
Note: I have posted something similar at www.blogforamerica.com.
"Start planning now for 2010" was the message of Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin at our Thursday, June 7th, Edgewater/Rogers Park DFA meeting (http://www.dfalink.c...). That is when Board President Todd Stroger, and all 17 commissioners, will be up for re-election, and when we can try again to bring some reform to Cook County government. To the disappointment of many in the room, Comm. Suffredin stated that there is no legal way to remove Todd Stroger from office until that election. The Cook County Board does not operate under a parliamentary system, so votes of "no confidence" are meaningless, and there is no provision here for impeachment or for recall elections. In other words, we are stuck with Todd's less-than-adequate leadership until 2010.
And though 2010 seems like a long time away, it really isn't. A February primary means that the majority of the campaign will happen in 2009, which means candidates will start fundraising and forming their committees as early as fall of 2008,which is just a little over a year away.
Below is a more detailed write-up of Comm. Suffredin's comments, which were excellent and really eye opening. My message to folks who live in Cook County who have non-reform commissioners: start organizing and start recruiting candidates now.
In most cases, the best way for governments to handle pollution is to tax it.
Pollution dumps problems into the air (or water), to cause problems for other people. The sensible thing for government to do is to put a price on these problems and meke the polluters pay that price. Then, people decide whether to burn sulfur, for example, according to how much it will cost them. (More on this at: Taxing Pollution.
The Cook County Commission recently passed a tax on sulfur dioxide. It showed more brains than I ever expected from that body. Then what happened?
Stroger vetoed the bill.
I voted for the man in the general; now I wonder if he was a lesser evil than even Peraica.
(I found the title of this to be jumping the gun a bit, considering that Cook County hasn't actually done anything yet. So I modified the title to reflect a possibility rather than something that has already occurred. - promoted by bridgetdooley)
Despite Todd Stroger's politically advertised need to cut the County budget for '07, particularly after Bobbie Steele's baldfaced looting of that budget during her brief tenure as interim Board president, the proposed "solution" to the budget crisis in the public defender's office will involve spending more money.
progressives and machine democrats in chicago/cook have the same goal in campaigns and elections: to put together the right coalition of blacks, browns and whites to win. time and again when talking with volunteers with the claypool campaign, i got the impression that some of his (white) volunteers thought that all they had to do to win was to turn out the (white) northside. but that's not where the votes are.
as a (chaotic) physicist, one of the most fascinating principles that i've worked with is self-similarity. what interested me when working with the unique part of the world that is fractal in nature was not the intuitive beauty that people found there, but the rather persuasive assumption that self-similarity was common, not unique. other people think like us, right? self-similarity (that other people think like us) is intuitive, we do not realize the aberrational character of self-similarity.
post-election analysis is one of the most important elements of the campaign season that republicans undertake. the genesis of the voter vault actually began after three cycles of intensive electoral analysis, where the incisive questions emerged that led to this comprehensive database.
during the course of these open threads (i will do one on each race that had followers here), i will try to expose readers to another way of looking at electoral outcomes. basically, these are the "fundamentals" of campaigns & elections, and have been found to have been determinative to outcomes. the point is not to frame the discussion for each particular race to be analyzed -- i've found that people tend prefer one over the others, the one that makes the most sense (is most intuitive) to them.
i'm not expecting people to post within that framework. i expect people to think, bored, that's interesting, but here's what i think! this is as much about data collection (anecdotes, etc) as analysis. analysis is only made better by specific examples that are probably unknown to others.
This started out as a comment on the post about the "machine's" recent choice of Todd Stroger as the Dem nominee for Cook County Board President.
In that post a commenter was lamenting the fact that Forrest Claypool didn't win the primary. Though I voted for Claypool, I never got a chance to vote for for my preferred candidate, Mike Quigley. Not only did I like Quigley better on the issues, but he would have gotten the support of labor, which Claypool had no chance at. Would that have given him the edge to beat Stroger in the primary election? Who can know. What I do know is that I talked to many people who agreed that they preferred Quigley on the issues, but that they were supporting Claypool because he was almost as good and had raised more money. There would be little argument, I think, that it was was Claypool's money advantage that caused Quigley to drop out of the primary -- and the fact that if one of them didn't drop out there would be no chance of beating Stroger.
I tried to go to the IL Board of Elections to look up their financial reports, but their search engine seems to be down. However, it is my understanding that Claypool gained his money advantage due to large donations from a handful of donors (remember at the non-federal level in Illinois there is no limit to the size of the contribution) who gave money to his campaign very early on. I also remember that his final quarter fundraising was not that strong, meaning that his big donors were tapped out early and he did not attract significant numbers of new donors. In other words, big money decided who the opposition candidate would be, corruption and cronyism choose the nominee.
And I am not saying that Claypool would not have been an excellent Cook County Board President, I am saying that he was not choosen by the voters.
"The Deed Is Done" Democratic leaders all but hand over the Cook County reins from father to son, unless voters have another idea. These words appeared on the Chicago Tribune's front page today, July 19, 2006.
As I see it, the people of Cook County have two options: (1) To draft Forrest Claypool as a write-in candidate. Everyone knows how Claypool narrowly lost in the primary elections to John Stroger. There are some who suspect foul-play on the part of the Stroger Camp. Without a doubt, Claypool is the most qualified man for this important slot.Claypool is a respected lawyer and a fine family man. Before being elected a Cook County commissioner, Claypoor successfully served as President of the Chicago Parks System. He is the only one with the intelligence, integrity and experience to become Cook County President.
(2) If you are an unintrenchable Republican, by all means make sure you get out the heaviest vote you can for Tony Peraica who is on the ballot. Peraica doesn't have any of Claypool's qualifications but is far and away my choice over Tod Stroger.
Cook County voters now have an unbelievable opportunity to make some crucial changes in Cook County politics. Changes that will benefit them and their families. Most decent people felt a real sense of loss by Forrest Claypool's defeat in the primaries. Cook County voters are being given a rare second chance to make-up for Claypool's loss, and finally break-away from John Stroger's brand of politics. For the record, Cook County is one of the largest counties and amongst the wealthiest and most influential counties in the Nation. Cook County people are hard working, well-educated and civic-minded citizens. Family earnings in Cook County rank among the highest in the Nation. Cook County people take great pride in their communities and in their homes. It's no secret that Cook County residents pay a great deal in taxes. They quietly go about their business, usually never complaining. If they ever gripe, and rightfully so, it's only if they see their hard-earned dollars wasted by indulgent politicians and their inept, poor management. These hardworking people and their families deserve better than another self-styled power broker of the Stroger line!
On July 18 there will be a vote by all the Cook County Ward and Township Dem Committemen as to who will replace John Stroger as the Democratic Nominee for Cook County Board President. According to an article in the Tribune, this meeting is open to the public, and will be at the Hotel Allegro, 171 W. Randolph Street, Chicago, 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday the 18th.
On Wednesday the 19th the Cook County Commisioners will meet to vote on an iterim president, at a meeting that is also open to the public, and will start at 10:00 a.m. at the Cook County Board Room 569, 118 N. Clark Street, Chicago.
In the last couple of days I have gotten:
- an email from Commissioner Mike Quigley stating that he will be voting for Forrest Claypool for interim President, and encouraging people to contact their committeeman to let them know who we feel is the best candidate to replace John Stroger on the ballot as the Dem nominee for President
- an email from Commissioner Roberto Maldonado stating that he plans to support Commissioner Bobbie Steele as the interim replacement, and will support either Bobbie Steele or Congressman Danny Davis is the Dem nominee, and encouraging people to attend the slating meeting on July 18
- an email from IVI-IPO stating that all three candidates have been invited to meet voters and answer questions at a public forum on Sunday, July 16, 3:00 pm at Old St. Paul Church, 531 N Kedzie, Chicago.
- and a personal email from Debra Shore expressing her support for Comm. Bobbie Steele as the Dem nominee for President.
More details, and my take on it, after the flip ...
