Conservative group bets $165,000 on McGuire

 

Rauner and friends spending in Quad City races.

 

Posted: Monday, February 15, 2016 5:20 pm | Updated: 5:20 pm, Mon Feb 15, 2016.

 By Eric Timmons, etimmons@qconline.com qconline.com

ROCK ISLAND — An independent expenditure group headed by conservative talk show host Dan Proft and closely linked to Gov. Bruce Rauner has spent $165,530 to back Brandi McGuire's primary election campaign.

Mrs. McGuire, a Republican, is running against Fyre Lake marketing manager Jordan Thoms for the GOP nomination to succeed the retiring state Rep. Pat Verschoore, D-Milan, in District 72. The primary is March 15.

Mr. Thoms donated $55,000 of his own money to his campaign last week, according to the Illinois State Board of Election, but to date does not have the benefit of major backing from an outside group.

The Liberty Principles money has largely gone on a TV advertising campaign for Mrs. McGuire.

Liberty Principles also has spent money producing a newspaper called Rock Island Today that is distributed to local homes and includes favorable coverage of her campaign.

Major donors to Liberty Principles include Richard Uihlein, owner of packaging supply company Uline, who donated $2.5 million to the group in December. Other backers include Super PAC Turnaround Illinois, which gave $1.8 million to Liberty Principles in January and is backed by Gov. Rauner's fundraising committee and Sam Zell, the wealthy investor and former Chicago Tribune owner.

Mrs. McGuire said in an interview Monday she was "thrilled" to get the backing of Liberty Principles, and said she likes the TV commercial the group has funded to promote her campaign. She said she had no foreknowledge of the advertising campaign or the content of the commercial.

Independent expenditure groups are not supposed to coordinate what they do with any candidate's campaign, although the candidates and the outside money organizations often have close ties.

Liberty Principles spending on the District 72 race is an indication that the race to succeed Rep. Verschoore is shaping up to be an expensive proxy war between Gov. Rauner and Speaker Mike Madigan.

Democrats Jeff Jacobs, Mike Halpin, Glen Evans and Kate Hotle are contesting the Democratic primary in District 72. Mr. Halpin and Mr. Jacobs are the front-runners and have raised almost $150,000 between them to date.

Speaker Madigan is officially neutral in the Democratic primary in District 72 but Democratic Majority, a fundraising committee he chairs, has spent about $7,500 on mailers criticizing Ms. Hotle.

It's not clear why Speaker Madigan has trained his sights on Ms. Hotle, a Rock Island alderwoman, although his spokesman called her a "Rauner plant." She said she has no links to the governor and would turn down any campaign money offered by any group linked to him.

The large sums of money being invested in the Republican campaigns for District 72 is unusual, as the seat has been a Democratic stronghold for decades.

In 2014, Rep. Verschoore was unopposed in the general election and in 2012 he took 64 percent of the vote to defeat now state Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Rock Island.

Another local state race that's likely to see Gov. Rauner flexing his financial muscles is the District 71 contest between state Rep. Mike Smiddy, D-Hillsdale, and Savanna Mayor Tony McCombie, a Republican. Neither candidate has a primary opponent.

Rep. Smiddy, who receives heavy financial backing from AFSCME, raised $453,000 in the last quarter of 2015 in preparation for what he expects to be a costly campaign. He beat Republican Jim Wozniak by less than 300 votes in 2014 and his seat is likely to be targeted by the governor. Mrs. McCombie has yet to file a financial report.

Above is from:  http://www.qconline.com/news/local/conservative-group-bets-on-mcguire/article_a5a861b9-eedc-5421-81e6-99627d2a5d39.html

Bill Knight: Rauner wants weaker workers comp

 

Weakening workers compensation is a key part of Gov. Bruce Rauner's 'Turnaround Agenda,” the main roadblock to a state budget.

 

By Bill Knight Posted Feb. 15, 2016 @ 9:18 am

Bill Knight

Weakening workers compensation is a key part of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s ‘Turnaround Agenda,” the main roadblock to a state budget. Rauner reasons that workers file phony claims. That may seem reasonable (though it’s mostly hogwash). Or he reasons that companies want to pay lower insurance premiums, which undoubtedly is true in a “something-for-nothing” world.

His scheme could clog the courts if injured workers have no recourse but to file lawsuits against employers – originally a reason to make workers compensation the “exclusive remedy” in a no-fault system that’s worked for decades. Further, workers still get ill or injured on the job – increasingly so, according to a recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) – mostly due to inadequate oversight by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), poor supervision on the job, or non-union contractors’ operations.

But … Rauner is a reasonable man.

Fatalities on construction sites in 2014 were up 6 percent, BLS reported, to almost 900 victims.

“The fatal injury rate for workers in construction and extraction occupations was 11.8 per 100,000 full-time-equivalent workers in 2014,” BLS reports. “Fatal injuries among construction trades workers increased 3 percent in 2014 to 611 fatalities, the highest count since 2009. Fatal work injuries to construction laborers [totaled] 206. The number of fatally-injured electricians increased to 78.”

Also, thousands of injured workers survived and filed about 1 million workers comp claims.

But … Rauner is a reasonable man.

“They fall from ladders, roofs and scaffolding, get electrocuted, and breathe in toxic chemicals and dust,” writes author Eleanor Bader. “They get hit by falling objects and find themselves on the receiving end of mechanical failures and equipment malfunctions. For 7.45 million construction workers, going to work as a bricklayer, carpenter, electrician, framer, mason, painter, plumber, or drywall or tile installer means facing acute dangers within their daily work.”

OSHA, the federal agency responsible for protecting worker health and safety, is ridiculously underfunded and understaffed. Nationally, fewer than 3,000 OSHA inspectors (about 60 per state) are responsible for monitoring 8 million job sites.

But … Rauner is a reasonable man.

“The root cause of injury and death is the lack of construction oversight,” said attorney Robert Mongeluzzi, who’s represented victims of construction negligence for 30 years in the Northeast. “When builders incur debt, the faster they do the construction, the more profit they make. Given the profit motive, shortcuts are sometimes taken.”

Scott Allen, with the Midwest office of the U.S. Department of Labor, said, “We know what we’re dealing with and don’t even use the word ‘accidents’ for death and injury on construction sites. We call them incidents because almost every one of them could have been prevented if the employer had done the right thing for his or her workers.”

But … Rauner is a reasonable man.

Charlene Obernauer, director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, told Bader, “There is a huge correlation between non-union jobs and fatalities. Eighty percent of the deaths occurred on non-union sites, among workers employed by small non-union companies with only a few employees. On union sites, there is rigorous training. Just to get into the union a worker needs to complete a nine-month apprenticeship program.”

But … Rauner is a reasonable man.

Targeting labor – whether attacking state employees and Prevailing Wage laws or promoting Right To Work “zones” – adds to Rauner’s obsession with empowering business at the expense of working people.

Meanwhile, Illinois’ debt is getting worse than ever, some 1,000 college students couldn’t return to school this semester because the lack of a budget killed Monetary Award Program (MAP) grants they needed; Rauner’s calls for a Chicago Public Schools bankruptcy caused lenders to charge a yield of between 7.75 and 8.5 percent on a $675 million loan to CPS; the state’s largest social-services provider (Lutheran Social Services) was forced to close 30 programs and eliminate 750 jobs (more than 40 percent of its staff); and the governor’s promise to have a state budget by the end of last year – and failing – contributed to General Electric’s decision to move its headquarters to Boston instead of Chicago.

But … Rauner is a reasonable man.

Bill Knight, a former environmental reporter, critic and assistant editor at the Peoria Journal Star, writes for newspapers and radio and taught journalism at Western Illinois University for 21 years.

Above is from:  http://www.galesburg.com/article/20160215/OPINION/160219859

Nearly $617,000 could be put into revitalizing downtown Belvidere

BELVIDERE (WREX) -

By Tori Clark

 

Posted: Feb 15, 2016 7:34 PM CST

BELVIDERE (WREX) -

A $600,000-plus plan to rehabilitate downtown Belvidere could be approved during the Belvidere City Council meeting Monday, February 15.
Small business owners in the city's downtown want leaders to consider them in these construction plans.

This month marks the 3rd since Lloyd Roberts has been in business. He owns a vacuum shop in downtown belvidere called Little Lloyd's Vacuums and he's nervous about the city's new plans.

Roberts says, "The real fear is as business owners is that we won't have the customer base coming back."

Belvidere City Council members are expected to take a final vote on a nearly $617,000 bid from Alliance Contractors to rehabilitate downtown. The project is called 2016 State Streetscape Rehabilitation Project. State street from the railroad tracks all the way north to Madison street would get a makeover. This will replace downtown's bricks with concrete, the same bricks that Belvidere Mayor Mike Chamberlain says are hazardous to the public.

Mayor Chamberlain states, "It is important that provide a good place to live and the kind of place you can be proud of."

This plan will also bring the city up to code with "Americans with Disabilities Act" mandates. Belvidere will have ramps on every corner. The city would also add planters throughout downtown.  Business owners would have to work around all the construction.

"On a day to day basis there will be some parking on the street where they are working that will be affected," Mayor Chamberlain continues, "but there will not be blocked access to parking lots."

Belvidere's Public Works Director, Brent Anderson, also weighed in on the plans.

Anderson says, "There might be some lane reductions during construction and stuff but no it will not close off the streets."

These months of construction, Llloyd says are not good for the vacuum business.

Lloyd explains, "That could actually cause a lot of heartache."

Spring cleaning is his high point... the months that construction will most likely take place. He wants city leaders to be conscious of his desire to stay in business as they try to build a better path for downtown Belvidere.

Construction could start as soon as March and go is expected to last until late June. Right before Belvidere's Heritage Days Festival. 

Above is from:  http://www.wrex.com/story/31227203/2016/02/15/nearly-617000-could-be-put-into-revitalizing-downtown-belvidere