SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Union-friendly Illinois Democrats say Gov. Bruce Rauner has so poisoned contract negotiations with state workers that they pushed legislation Thursday that would prohibit either a strike or the Republican governor locking workers out.
A House committee endorsed a measure backed by the state council of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees to require binding arbitration in case the two sides reach an impasse.
It moved to the House floor, with just three days left in the legislative session, on a partisan, 16-9 vote of the House Labor and Commerce Committee.
The new governor, who has made curbing union influence a hallmark of his first six months in office, wants a wage freeze and benefit concessions, according to memos circulated to AFSCME's 38,000 members. AFSCME Deputy Director Mike Newman told the committee the union has never seen such a hostile tone in three decades of collective bargaining.
"Instead of working to reach a fair settlement, and avoiding a strike," Newman said, "the administration seems to be focused primarily on planning for a lengthy and painful strike."
The legislation would ban a strike or lockout and require a deadlock be broken by a mutually agreed upon independent arbitrator who would render a decision. The process is currently only available to security workers such as prison guards whose jobs are so important a strike would be devastating.
Jack Vrett, a labor relations lawyer for Rauner's personnel agency, said the proposal would allow either side to call in an arbitrator, not require both sides to agree one's necessary. He said an arbitrator deciding on a taxpayer-financed contract is inappropriate because he or she is not elected - "it's not a democratic process."
Vrett also disputed Newman's contention that the two sides are so far apart on a deal that would replace the current pact expiring June 30. Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said later, "We are negotiating in good faith."
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The bill is HB1229.
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Friday, May 29, 2015
Union presses measure to prevent strike, lockout
Gov. Rauner Quietly Drops Right-to-Work Zones from Agenda
SPRINGFIELD -- During his campaign and after taking office, Gov. Bruce Rauner often called for right-to-work zones in Illinois. However, that item is missing from the bills that make-up his legislative agenda that was introduced in the General Assembly.
Union leaders made sure the governor heard protests from their members at some of his stops around the state. And just last week, they showed-up in force in Benton, spurring the Franklin County Board to pass a resolution that decries this part of Rauner's economic plan.
"I think that the governor and his advisors recognized after touring the state repeatedly and running into some of that opposition and seeing the makeup of the House and Senate with Democratic super majorities that it was just not in the cards for something like this to be called and approved this year," said Madeleine Doubek, a veteran journalist and COO of Reboot Illinois.
Gov. Rauner's communications staff declined News 3's request for an interview Wednesday afternoon. However, press secretary Catherine Kelly seemed to confirm Doubek's belief that the deletion of the right-to-work zone proposal was an attempt at a compromise with Democrats.
"The Turnaround Legislation filed represents a compromise based off of months of discussions with Republican and Democrat legislators," Kelly said in an e-mailed statement.
"But the Democrats decided that's not good enough," Doubek told News 3 in an interview Wednesday.
As evidence of that, she pointed to the Democrats' announcement this week that they will pass a budget bill without Gov. Rauner's support. The Democrat's budget would put Illinois $3 billion deeper in debt without an increase in taxes. Speaker Madigan and Senate President Cullerton are trying to get it through the General Assembly before the May 31 deadline, which is Sunday.
Doubek believes that without the governor's support for the Democrats' budget, it will die, leading to a possible budget impasse. That could lead to Illinoisans waking-up in July to find their state government shut down, she said.
"Things like prison guards not getting paid and how does that all shake-out? And so I think probably sometime in July is when you start to have really serious problems," Doubek said.
Above is from: http://www.wsiltv.com/home/top-story/Gov-Rauner-Quietly-Drops-Right-to-Work-Zones-from-Agenda-305262551.html
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Lease sale closes on Indiana Toll Road for $5.72B
IFM Investors plans to invest $260 million in capital improvements on the Indiana Toll Road over the next five years, The (Munster) Times (http://bit.ly/1J50f5k ) reported. The company's plans include improvements to deteriorating pavement, bridges and travel plazas, according to Ken Daley, the new CEO of ITR Concession, which will continue operating the toll road under IFM Investors' ownership.
During a public meeting in Indianapolis two weeks ago, the Indiana Finance Authority, which acts as owner of the land under the toll road, voted unanimously for operations to be transferred from ITR Concession to IFM Investors.
More than 70 U.S. pension funds provided a significant portion of the equity for the transaction, said Julio Garcia, head of North American infrastructure for IFM Investors.
The Indiana Toll Road was completed in 1956. It spans across 157 miles of northern Indiana, connecting Interstate 90 in Chicago to the Ohio Turnpike.
Read more by clicking on the following: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/ct-indiana-toll-road-lease-20150528-story.html
Ex-House Speaker Hastert charged with evading currency rules and lying to FBI
Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been indicted on federal charges alleging he agreed to pay $3.5 million in apparent hush money to a longtime acquaintance blackmailing him, then lied to the FBI when asked about suspicious cash withdrawals from several banks, federal prosecutors said. The stunning indictment of the longtime Republican powerhouse alleged he gave about $1.7 million in cash to the acquaintance, identified only as Individual A in the charges, to “compensate for and conceal (Hastert’s) prior misconduct” against Individual A that had occurred years earlier. Hastert, a former high school teacher, served eight years as House speaker and has been working as a lobbyist in Washington since stepping down from office in 2008. Hastert, 73, of Plano, was charged with one count each of structuring currency transactions to evade Currency Transaction Reports and making a false statement to the FBI, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He will be arraigned later at U.S. District Court in downtown Chicago. 8 According to the seven-page indictment, Hastert withdrew a total of $1.7 million in cash from various bank accounts between 2010 and 2014 to give to Individual A. In December, Hastert began structuring the cash withdrawals in increments less than $10,000 to evade bank reporting requirements, the indictment said. When questioned by the FBI about the withdrawals, Hastert lied and said the cash was for his own use, according to the charges. “Yeah, I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing,” the indictment quoted Hastert as telling agents. Hastert was not charged with any counts specifically alleging blackmail or extortion of Individual A, and further details of the alleged misconduct against Individual A were not provided in the indictment. Read more by clicking on the following: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-dennis-hastert-20150528-story.html
Here is the actual legal indictment: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-dennis-hastert-indictment-pdf-20150528-htmlstory.html
Here is an older story about Mr. Hastert’s retiring perks: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-use-this-hastert-0218-20100217-story.html#page=1
Bruce Rauner’s view of cards different than what voters dealt
By 
As state budget talks grind to a standstill, I’ve been thinking about a couple of conclusions I drew from three results in the November election:
1. Bruce Rauner 50.3 percent, Pat Quinn, 46.3 percent: Against a beleaguered incumbent who had run Illinois’ financial ship aground and appeared helpless to control the Legislature, Rauner spent $27 million of his own money to score a solid victory. Bigger than Quinn’s margin of victory in 2010 (0.9 point) but nowhere near Rod Blagovich’s 10.5-point victory over Judy Baar Topinka in 2006. (Voters also were far more eager to toss Republicans from governorship in 2002 amid the brewing George Ryan scandal: Blagojevich became the first Democratic governor in 26 years by a 7.1-point margin.)
In other words, a decisive victory but hardly a landslide. For perspective, the last time a Republican defeated a Democrat for governor in Illinois, Jim Thompson beat Michael Howlett by nearly 30 points.
2. (a) When asked, “Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to require that each school district receive additional revenue, based on their number of students, from an additional 3% tax on income greater than one million dollars?” 63.6 percent of voters answered yes. (b) When asked, “Shall the minimum wage in Illinois for adults over the age of 18 be raised to $10 per hour by January 1, 2015?” 66.7 percent of voters answered in the affirmative.
So Rauner wins by 4 points and the millionaire tax and $10 minimum wage win by 27.2 and 33.4 points, respectively.
My conclusions? (1) Voters were tired of haphazard and corrupt governance under 12 years of Democratic governors. They were willing to give a Republican, any Republican, a chance to do better. (2) Voters in Illinois philosophically are miles away from the governor they elected.
To vote for Bruce Rauner and on the same ballot vote for a tax to be applied only on incomes of more than $1 million has to be one of the greatest electoral contradictions in Illinois history. (More fun with numbers: The millionaire tax question got 376,000 more “yes” votes than Rauner got votes even though more people cast votes for governor than on the advisory question.)
That’s because, I believe, voters felt contradicted. If they were behind Rauner and all he stood for, Rauner would have won as decisively as Thompson won in 1976 and the two ballot questions would have been resoundingly rejected.
The message voters delivered in electing Bruce Rauner on Nov. 4 was this: “Our state government is a mess, Democrats have made bad governors for 12 years, we’d like you to get our books straight. But we also think exactly the opposite as you on taxing and wealth disparity. Show us what you can do with our messed-up state budget and maybe we’ll come around. A little.”
Obviously, my interpretation of the numbers and the governor’s are much different. Ever since he delivered his Budget Address in February, Rauner has toured the state talking up an extensive package of reforms that, essentially, tell Democrats to quit being Democrats.
Where I saw voters deal Rauner a pair of 3’s, Rauner picked up the cards to find a handful of aces.
That’s certainly how he’s playing things in the budget process so far. Where voters gave him an inch to apply his deal-making acumen to the numbers, Rauner logged many miles on his “Turnaround Tour.” Now he wants to leverage his broader philosophical causes for budget concessions.
This, says House Speaker Michael Madigan, is mixing “apples and oranges;” mixing non-budget items with budget items. Madigan’s approach, says Rauner’s office, amounts to “Speaker Madigan and the politicians he controls are walking away from the negotiating table and refusing to compromise on critical reforms needed to Turnaround Illinois.”
Whichever version you prefer, it’s a stalemate, and that’s not what voters sent Rauner to Springfield to engineer.
Barely four months into his first term, Rauner has plenty of time to bring more voters over to the ideas in his Illinois Turnaround plan. (He’s also got the means to substantially enhance the Republican presence in the Legislature in the years to come.)
First, though, he needs to demonstrate that we’ve got competent fiscal leadership in the executive branch again. And he needs to remember the totals from Nov. 4: Millionaire tax, 2.2 million; Bruce Rauner, 1.8 million.
REBOOT STAFF
As state budget talks grind to a standstill, I’ve been thinking about a couple of conclusions I drew from three results in the November election:
1. Bruce Rauner 50.3 percent, Pat Quinn, 46.3 percent: Against a beleaguered incumbent who had run Illinois’ financial ship aground and appeared helpless to control the Legislature, Rauner spent $27 million of his own money to score a solid victory. Bigger than Quinn’s margin of victory in 2010 (0.9 point) but nowhere near Rod Blagovich’s 10.5-point victory over Judy Baar Topinka in 2006. (Voters also were far more eager to toss Republicans from governorship in 2002 amid the brewing George Ryan scandal: Blagojevich became the first Democratic governor in 26 years by a 7.1-point margin.)
In other words, a decisive victory but hardly a landslide. For perspective, the last time a Republican defeated a Democrat for governor in Illinois, Jim Thompson beat Michael Howlett by nearly 30 points.
2. (a) When asked, “Should the Illinois Constitution be amended to require that each school district receive additional revenue, based on their number of students, from an additional 3% tax on income greater than one million dollars?” 63.6 percent of voters answered yes. (b) When asked, “Shall the minimum wage in Illinois for adults over the age of 18 be raised to $10 per hour by January 1, 2015?” 66.7 percent of voters answered in the affirmative.
So Rauner wins by 4 points and the millionaire tax and $10 minimum wage win by 27.2 and 33.4 points, respectively.
My conclusions? (1) Voters were tired of haphazard and corrupt governance under 12 years of Democratic governors. They were willing to give a Republican, any Republican, a chance to do better. (2) Voters in Illinois philosophically are miles away from the governor they elected.
To vote for Bruce Rauner and on the same ballot vote for a tax to be applied only on incomes of more than $1 million has to be one of the greatest electoral contradictions in Illinois history. (More fun with numbers: The millionaire tax question got 376,000 more “yes” votes than Rauner got votes even though more people cast votes for governor than on the advisory question.)
That’s because, I believe, voters felt contradicted. If they were behind Rauner and all he stood for, Rauner would have won as decisively as Thompson won in 1976 and the two ballot questions would have been resoundingly rejected.
The message voters delivered in electing Bruce Rauner on Nov. 4 was this: “Our state government is a mess, Democrats have made bad governors for 12 years, we’d like you to get our books straight. But we also think exactly the opposite as you on taxing and wealth disparity. Show us what you can do with our messed-up state budget and maybe we’ll come around. A little.”
Obviously, my interpretation of the numbers and the governor’s are much different. Ever since he delivered his Budget Address in February, Rauner has toured the state talking up an extensive package of reforms that, essentially, tell Democrats to quit being Democrats.
Where I saw voters deal Rauner a pair of 3’s, Rauner picked up the cards to find a handful of aces.
That’s certainly how he’s playing things in the budget process so far. Where voters gave him an inch to apply his deal-making acumen to the numbers, Rauner logged many miles on his “Turnaround Tour.” Now he wants to leverage his broader philosophical causes for budget concessions.
This, says House Speaker Michael Madigan, is mixing “apples and oranges;” mixing non-budget items with budget items. Madigan’s approach, says Rauner’s office, amounts to “Speaker Madigan and the politicians he controls are walking away from the negotiating table and refusing to compromise on critical reforms needed to Turnaround Illinois.”
Whichever version you prefer, it’s a stalemate, and that’s not what voters sent Rauner to Springfield to engineer.
Barely four months into his first term, Rauner has plenty of time to bring more voters over to the ideas in his Illinois Turnaround plan. (He’s also got the means to substantially enhance the Republican presence in the Legislature in the years to come.)
First, though, he needs to demonstrate that we’ve got competent fiscal leadership in the executive branch again. And he needs to remember the totals from Nov. 4: Millionaire tax, 2.2 million; Bruce Rauner, 1.8 million.
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