Sunday, February 15, 2015

Boehner ready to let funding lapse for Homeland Security agency - Yahoo News

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Boehner, the Republican House of Representatives speaker, said he is willing to let funding for the Department of Homeland Security lapse as part of a Republican push to roll back President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration.

With a Feb. 27 deadline looming for funding the department, Senate Democrats three times this month blocked consideration of the Homeland Security appropriations bill, which has already been approved by the House.

"Senate Democrats are the ones standing in the way. They’re the ones jeopardizing funding," Boehner told Fox News on Sunday. Asked if he was prepared to let financing for the department lapse, he said: "Certainly. The House has acted. We’ve done our job."

Arizona Senator John McCain, a leading Republican voice on national security matters, told NBC's "Meet the Press" of his alarm at the situation.

"The American people did not give us majority to have a fight between House and Senate Republicans," McCain said, referring to Republicans taking control of both the House and Senate after November's congressional elections. "They want things done. You cannot cut funding from the Department of Homeland Security. We need to sit down and work this thing out."

Democrats want to fund the department but oppose House amendments stripping funding from Obama's 2012 and 2014 executive orders lifting a deportation threat for millions of illegal immigrants.

TOUGH POSITION

The Republican legislation passed by the House put Senate Republicans in a tough position because not only do they lack the votes to prevent Obama's fellow Democrats from using procedural hurdles to block the bill but also some Republican senators have expressed misgivings about tying homeland security funding to the immigration issue.

"The House has acted to de-fund the department and to stop the president’s overreach when it comes to immigration and his executive orders," Boehner said. "... And the Congress just can’t sit by and let the president defy the Constitution and defy his own his oath of office."

The House's top Democrat was quick to fire back.

"With only four legislative days left until the Republican Homeland Security Shutdown, Speaker Boehner made it clear that he has no plan to avoid a government shutdown that would threaten the safety of the American people," Drew Hammill, spokesman for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, said in an email.

"The speaker’s reliance on talking points and finger-pointing was a sad reflection of the fact that (the) Tea Party continues to hold the gavel as they insist on their futile anti-immigrant grandstanding."

Obama has threatened to veto the House-passed measure. Democrats insist on a "clean" funding bill with no immigration restrictions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said last week that the Senate was "stuck" and the next move was up to the House.

"Unfortunately, I don't see exactly how Congress is going to resolve this," White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told CBS's "Face the Nation".

Boehner ready to let funding lapse for Homeland Security agency - Yahoo News

State owes some Illinois State Police troopers $10,000 each : State

SPRINGFIELD — Illinois budget woes mean Illinois State Police troopers aren't getting all the pay they're owed.

Some are due as much as $10,000 in back pay, as well as in unpaid raises and allowances, the Springfield Bureau of Lee Enterprises newspapers reported over the weekend. That's true even though troopers secured raises through arbitration last year.

Steve Clemente, president of Troopers Lodge 41, which represents more than 1,400 state police employees, was in Springfield earlier this month to lobby for the money to be included in the upcoming budget. And Clemente said, "We're hoping it comes through."

But with yawning budgetary shortfalls, there's competition for state money from a long list of agencies insisting they need cash injection, too.

State legislators put together a budget plan in May that counted on the state's temporary income tax increase being extended on Jan. 1; but it wasn't extended. And without that extra revenue, state programs this fiscal year could be short hundreds of millions of dollars.

New Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner is expected to address these and other issues when the Republican delivers his first budget address on Wednesday.

Read the entire story by clicking on the following:  State owes some Illinois State Police troopers $10,000 each : State

Runaway Rauner: Confrontation, not collaboration - The DePaulia

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Feb. 12 marked the one-month anniversary of Bruce Rauner’s tenure as governor of Illinois. In that span, there have been plenty of PowerPoint presentations breaking down the bad economic shape the state is in, there was a State of the State address where Democrats openly laughed at some of the governor’s suggestions and then there was Rauner’s executive decree curbing the power of the state’s unions. To translate, there was a lot of talk, unlawful action and not enough action.

Of course, many are prone to give the governor the benefit of the doubt since it is early in his tenure. After all, he inherited a mess. Illinois is probably in the worst financial shape of any state in the union. Anyone in that position should be given the opportunity to turn the state around.

However, the rhetoric and actions the governor has taken so far are troublesome and reflect someone who is looking for confrontation not collaboration. After his win on election night, Rauner pledged to find bipartisan solutions to the state’s problems. Fast forward three months, and one of the first real actions taken is banning fair share agreements, which curb union power and essentially will make Illinois a right to work state.

Unions are not the problem in this state. They are a blip on the radar of the state’s problems. Rauner going after workers’ rights is merely political. Unions are the lifeblood of the middle class, and, as that, they provide the money, manpower and votes on Election Day that often go to Democrats. It is all politics, nothing more.

Rauner tried to play it off as if it was a conflict of interest that leads to sweetheart deals, when unions give to political candidates who they will be negotiating with when it comes time for a new contract. Yet the governor would have no problem giving tax breaks to corporations that have given to his campaign. Again, all politics.

To solve the state’s massive problems, Rauner must move beyond politics. He must work with Democrats who have supermajorities in the legislature to find bipartisan solutions to the state’s problems. Everyone knows that the governor inherited a mess, but people are tired of hearing about it.

Instead of continuing to rail against his predecessor, the “cronies” in Springfield and state workers, the governor must start proposing solutions. That is what he was elected for. The people of Illinois did not vote for someone to tell them how much their state sucks. We already know the challenges the state faces.

Enough talk. More action. That’s what the people want and deserve.

Runaway Rauner: Confrontation, not collaboration - The DePaulia

Labor groups file suit to stop Kentucky county right-to-work law - Yahoo News

How legal are county right to work laws?

Reuters

By Steve Bittenbender January 14, 2015 11:33 PM

LOUISVILLE,, Ky. (Reuters) - Nine labor unions filed suit in a Kentucky federal court late on Wednesday to stop a county from enacting right-to-work legislation they say violates the National Labor Relations Act.

The suit comes just a day after Kentucky's Hardin County became the fifth in the state in less than a month to pass a local ordinance that prohibits unions from requiring members to pay dues in exchange for representation.

The lawsuit only covers Hardin County, but plaintiffs' attorney Irwin Cutler said the suit could expand to cover challenges to laws passed in Warren, Simpson, Fulton and Todd counties.

Proponents of right-to-work laws say they can be a tool to attract new businesses. Officials in Warren County said their community, 20 miles (32 km) north of Tennessee, has lost several opportunities to its neighbor, which is a right-to-work state.

But United Auto Workers’ Local 3047 President Renard Duvall, whose chapter is one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said he fears unions would lose power in collective bargaining negotiations, leading to reduced wages that could impact the communities where workers live.

"We have never tried to price our wages so high they run the company out of business," said Duvall, 48, who has worked 16 years as a tool-and-die maker at Metalsa’s Elizabethtown plant in Hardin County. "We want our company to be profitable."

Cutler said that federal law only allows states or territories to enact such legislation. Allowing the decision to be made at a county level could produce "an administrative nightmare" for companies with operations across a state, he said.

However, Brent Yessin, an attorney who has offered to represent Kentucky counties that pass a right-to-work ordinance called the argument simplistic and misplaced.

Since the Labor Relations Act became law, courts have ruled that counties are considered subdivisions of states and have the right to pass such ordinances, Yessin said.

Right-to-work laws exist in 24 states, but efforts to pass similar legislation in Kentucky have failed on pushback from the state's Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

Warren County, which is home to General Motors’ Chevrolet Corvette plant, became the first county in the state to pass the ordinance on Dec. 19.

Opinions regarding the legality of county-based right-to-work laws are mixed.

Kentucky's Attorney General's office issued an opinion prior to the Warren County vote saying counties did not have the proper authority, while two former Kentucky state Supreme Court justices issued a statement in support of the counties' right to pass such laws.

(Editing by Curtis Skinner and Robert Birsel)

Labor groups file suit to stop Kentucky county right-to-work law - Yahoo News

Picking a fight with unions may haunt Rauner - Opinion - Crain's Chicago Business

Crain Business’ view on Governor Rauner’s attack on Fair Share Service union dues.

Whether that's a noble goal is another matter. What's clear is that Rauner's full-on attack on unions is an odd choice for a blue-state governor who, for a while, had been sounding more temperate on the need to reach across the aisle and find consensus. Antagonizing your unionized workforce, their leaders and their powerful Democratic allies who control the General Assembly could be a move that comes back to haunt Rauner—and, in turn, those of us who are counting on him to lead the state out of crisis.

Read the entire article:  Picking a fight with unions may haunt Rauner - Opinion - Crain's Chicago Business

Prosecutor in Scott Walker Probe Asks Justices to Recuse | PR Watch

 

The prosecutor leading the probe into possible coordination between Governor Scott Walker's campaign and outside groups has asked some Wisconsin Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves from hearing a challenge to the investigation.

A notation in court records titled "Motion for Recusal and Notice of Ethical Concerns" indicates that on February 12, Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz filed a sealed motion for one or more of the Supreme Court justices to recuse themselves from the case. Schmitz was previously on George W. Bush's shortlist for U.S. Attorney and said that he voted for Walker.

A bipartisan group of prosecutors allege that the Walker campaign illegally coordinated fundraising and expenditures with Wisconsin Club for Growth (WiCFG) and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) and perhaps other groups) during the 2011 and 2012 recall elections. WiCFG director R.J. Johnson was also Walker's campaign manager when the state faced a series of nine recall races after the passage of the union-busting Act 10 legislation. Representatives of the campaign or the dark money groups could face civil or criminal liability if prosecutors find that they conspired to evade campaign finance disclosure requirements and contribution limits. (U.S. Department of Justice recently settled a criminal campaign coordination case in Virginia.)

The Walker probe has been subject to a barrage of state and federal lawsuits, and in December the Wisconsin Supreme Court consolidated four different challenges to the investigation.

The Center for Media and Democracy first identified the conflicts-of-interest facing some Wisconsin Supreme Court justices in April of 2014. The groups bringing the challenge to the probe, WiCFG and WMC, have been the dominant spenders in Wisconsin Supreme Court elections in recent years, spending over $10 million since 2007 to elect the Court's Republican majority. In most cases, the groups spent more than the candidates themselves. In two instances, the judges were elected by very narrow margins.

In Wisconsin, the decision to recuse rests solely with the justices themselves, and in 2010 the Court adopted rules drafted by the WMC declaring that the fact of a campaign contribution alone won't require recusal. Yet the level of spending by the groups in this case -- and their direct stake in the outcome -- could demand recusal under the U.S. Constitution, following the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caperton v. Massey. A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court declared that where a donor "had a significant and disproportionate influence on the outcome" of a judge's election, and where an election was decided by a small number of votes, the risk of bias is significant enough to demand recusal.

The court record does not indicate which justices prosecutors are asking to step aside in the case.

According to CMD's analysis, WiCFG, WMC, and their offshoots spent $3,685,000 supporting Justice David Prosser in his 2011 race, five times as much as the Prosser campaign, in an election decided by just 7,000 votes. WMC spent five-and-a-half times as much supporting Justice Michael Gableman as Gableman's own campaign in 2008, in a race he won by 20,000 votes, and WiCFG also surpassed Gableman's campaign spending. WMC and WiCFG together spent twice as much as Justice Annette Ziegler's campaign in her 2007 race, and WMC and WiCFG together outspent Justice Patience Roggensack in her reelection campaign last year, but those races were not as close.

Plus, if the justices hear the case and strike down the coordination rules, their campaigns could take advantage of the newly-lawless electoral landscape. In future elections, the same justices who will be deciding whether Wisconsin’s coordination rules are constitutional could work hand-in-glove with the same groups that are bringing the challenge to those rules. When Justice Annette Ziegler is up for reelection in 2017, her campaign could coordinate with WMC, which spent $2.5 million on her last race. When Justice Michael Gableman runs again in 2018, his campaign could coordinate with Wisconsin Club for Growth, which spent at least a half-million when he first ran for the Court.

Here is a recap of the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court races and the money spent:

Justice David Prosser

Supreme Court Justice David Prosser

Supreme Court Justice David Prosser

In 2011, Justice Prosser narrowly won reelection by just 7,000 votes, in a race widely viewed as a referendum on Governor Walker's controversial union-busting legislation. Prosser's campaign spent only $700,000. WMC spent $2 million helping reelect Prosser, according to its own numbers. A new front group, Citizens for a Strong America, came out of nowhere and spent $985,000 backing Prosser and attacking his opponent. Donations to the group were not disclosed, and it was only discovered years later that the group was entirely funded by Wisconsin Club for Growth. Wisconsin Club for Growth itself spent an estimated $520,000 supporting Prosser.

Together those groups spent five times as much as the Prosser campaign, in an election decided by just 7,000 votes. All of their spending was undisclosed "dark money."

Notably, a letter later obtained through an open records request showed Justice Prosser thanking a GOP donor who worked on his campaign, telling him that "the coordination you provided with organizations outside the Republican Party [was] absolutely indispensable." The same donor boasted to Governor Walker's office about his efforts to "get very creative with diverse State and National organizations to help [Prosser's] campaign due to being financially capped at $300,000." Some have read the email as suggesting coordination between Prosser's campaign and independent groups -- an issue whose legality the Wisconsin Supreme Court will be asked to resolve.

Justice Michael Gableman

Michael Gableman

Michael Gableman

Justice Gableman won his 2008 election by around 20,000 votes. The Gableman campaign spent only $411,000 -- but WMC spent $2.25 million in undisclosed dark money getting Gableman elected, nearly five-and-a-half times as much as the justice's own campaign, according to WMC's own numbers.

Wisconsin Club for Growth also surpassed Gableman's spending, dropping over $500,000 in undisclosed spending to help put the justice on the bench. Another phony issue ad group, Coalition for America's Families, which received funding from Wisconsin Club for Growth and shared a board member, spent $480,000 supporting Gableman that year.

Justice Annette Ziegler

Annette Ziegler

Annette Ziegler

The 2007 elections marked a turning point for big money in judicial races. Justice Ziegler's campaign spent $1.4 million, and she won by 145,000 votes. WMC made an eye-popping $2.5 million in undisclosed expenditures supporting Justice Ziegler's campaign, according to its own numbers, making it the biggest spender in the race. Wisconsin Club for Growth added $400,000 in dark money. Together they more than doubled the amount spent by Ziegler's own campaign.

Ziegler faced ethics charges from the Judicial Commission in 2007 for failing as a circuit court judge to recuse herself from cases involving a bank whose board included her husband. The Supreme Court had the final word on the matter -- after Ziegler had been elected to the court -- and issued the first public reprimand of a fellow justice in the court's history, calling her failure to recuse "serious," "inexcusable," and a "bright-line" violation of judicial ethics, although many viewed it as a slap on the wrist.

Justice Patience Roggensack

Patience Roggensack

Patience Roggensack

In the 2014 Supreme Court race, WMC spent an estimated $500,000 supporting Justice Roggensack's reelection, and Wisconsin Club for Growth spent $350,000. Together they outspent the $652,318 spent by the justice's own campaign.

WMC issued a special Supreme Court edition of its "Business Voice" magazine in advance of the election, with page after page warning that if Roggensack were to lose, "all of the reforms of Governor Scott Walker and the business community would hang in the balance." WMC's president described the group's efforts to "elect 'strict constructionist' judges to the high court," and Justice Ziegler penned an op-ed endorsing Roggensack.

For more about the John Doe investigation, see CMD's reporting on PRwatch.org

Prosecutor in Scott Walker Probe Asks Justices to Recuse | PR Watch

Rauner defends aides’ pay while ripping state salaries : News

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“There is some understanding by the public that competitive salaries are necessary to draw good people to government,” wrote the Chicago Sun-Times late last month, as the stories were unfolding, “but that doesn’t quite square” with Rauner’s talk of shared sacrifice to address the state’s fiscal problems.

“So then we should expect six-figure salaries to keep rolling in?,” asked the paper. “Or will they too be asked to share in the sacrifice?”

The imagery of patronage hires and inflated executive salaries looks especially bad when “they’re trying to sell people on the need for some dramatic cuts” in other areas of government, said David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

“The optics of this look bad,” Yepsen said. Even if the higher pay for staff and the rest are justifiable, he said, “they have got to be sensitive to how this stuff looks.”

While none of the well-publicized controversies has proven debilitating to the new administration, there are already signs that they may have cut short the honeymoon that new governors generally enjoy from the voters.

A poll released last week by Chicago-based Ogden & Fry found Rauner with a 43 percent approval rating after one month in office. That’s a 9-point drop from another poll taken in mid-January, right after Rauner assumed office.

Read the entire story by clicking on the following:  Rauner defends aides’ pay while ripping state salaries : News