The View from Right Field

Illinois Had a Budget Stalemate, Too: With Democratic Supermajorities*

Last October, Governor J.B. Pritzker was campaigning for re-election on his stewardship of Illinois and its budget.  Things were so good he was sending out checks from the state, just in time for the election, to people who had paid property taxes. 

But, of course, things were not that good.  Illinois’s budget was balanced not because Governor Pritzker was doing a good job, but because the state was getting so much Covid relief money from the federal government.  It should have been obvious last fall that the money from the federal government was ending.  And, with the stock market going down last year, it should have been obvious, to anybody who was paying attention, that Illinois would get a lot less money from taxes on capital gains this year.  With stock prices down, the gains would be less if people sold, and many people would decide to wait for the market to go back up before selling, which would mean there were fewer gains to tax in 2022.

The ComEd Four: Yet Another Political Corruption Conviction in Illinois.

Yesterday, the so-called ComEd Four were convicted.  The four included a former state legislator and long-time lobbyist who was a big friend of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, a couple of ComEd¹ executives, including a former CEO, and a lobbyist who worked for ComEd for 30 years.  The charges were basically bribery by ComEd.  Here is a description from the Chicago Tribune:

“The indictment alleged the four conspired to funnel $1.3 million in payments to ghost ‘subcontractors,’ largely through Doherty’s company, who were actually Madigan’s cronies.

The utility also hired a clouted law firm run by political operative Victor Reyes, distributed numerous college internships within Madigan’s 13th Ward fiefdom, and blatantly backed former McPier chief Juan Ochoa, the friend of a Madigan ally, for an $80,000-a-year seat on the utility’s board of directors, the indictment alleged.

Chicago Is Electing a Mayor - And It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again

The headline on Sunday’s Chicago Tribune read: “Pension debt, property taxes and budget holes: Huge financial problems await next Chicago mayor, whoever wins.”  My question is: How is that different than the situation that faced Mayor Lightfoot when she was elected four years ago – or her predecessor when he was first elected twelve years ago. 

For that matter, does anybody think this headline won’t still be true when Chicago votes for mayor in 2027?  After all, when it comes to finances in Chicago, and Illinois, for that matter, it’s always, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra (or not), “Déjà vu all over again.”

The Most Important Election in Illinois in 2022: Amendment 1

The most important election in Illinois this year isn’t the race for governor or for the U.S. Senate.  It’s the vote on a proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would add a guarantee of workers’ collective bargaining rights, and a very broad definition of those rights, to the Constitution.  (See the language of the proposed amendment here. )

The proponents of the amendment claim it’s necessary to protect the collective bargaining rights of workers.  Really?  The legislature, both houses of which have been controlled by the Democrats for 20 years, and will be again after this election, can’t do it? 

Who Are the Stupid People in Illinois?

Yet another Illinois public official has been indicted for corruption, and once again it is somebody whose parent was a public official, too.¹  It is amazing to me that these kids, who have seen so many people, including friends of their parents, indicted and convicted of corruption, wind up being accused of doing the same things themselves.  It’s like they haven’t learned anything.  But when I said to my wife, “How stupid can these people be?”, she said maybe they’re not the stupid ones.  Maybe the stupid ones are the people of Illinois, who keep electing people like this.
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¹ In this case, it is State Senator Emil Jones III, son of former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, Jr.
UPDATE (9/26/22 10:20 pm): A version of this post was published in the "Voice of the People" in today's Chicago Tribune.  See here.

Nancy Pelosi’s Visit to Taiwan – and Joe Biden

So, was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan a good idea?  I don’t know,¹ though once the visit was leaked and China objected so vociferously, she had to go.  Still, the visit raises all kinds of questions.  Here is one I had: I find Joe Biden’s comments last month criticizing the trip and saying the Defense Department was worried about the trip, more than a little bizarre.  Speaker Pelosi and President Biden are both Democrats.  I am sure Speaker Pelosi knows how to reach President Biden when she wants to talk to him.  I am sure he picks up the phone when she calls.  Did this mean Secretary Pelosi planned her trip without talking to President Biden, or at least to his people, first?  That would truly be bizarre. 

What’s Wrong With Chicago?

A couple of weeks ago, we were on Michigan Avenue.  We went into a store to buy a baptismal present for our granddaughter, and we found a wonderful little necklace.  The clerk boxed it up and put it in a bag.  But then she put the store’s bag in another bag, a plain white bag.  The store has a trademark color for its boxes and bags.  If you see that color, you know where it’s from.  But the clerk understood, and we understood when she did it, that you don’t walk on Michigan Avenue with a bag that color. 

The next day, our son was standing on an El platform, a busy one, when somebody came up and just punched him in the face at 9:00 am for no reason at all.  Nobody came to help him, and when our son took the person’s picture, the person punched him again.  The police were able to apprehend the person, which was great.  But whether there will be any consequences for him, who knows.

Illinois in 2021 Reminds Us of the Suddenness of Change and the Brittleness of Autocracy

Here’s something I was going to write as an end-of-the-year post, but things got busy, so I’m writing it as a looking-back-at-2021 post:

At the end of last year, the media was full of lists of the biggest stories of 2021.  Most of them were pretty much the same: Covid, inflation, Democrats not being able to pass President Biden’s Build Back Better bill, Vladimir Putin massing troops on Ukraine’s border, etc.

Irresponsible Governance – Chicago and Washington

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the Democrats in Congress were trying to pass a package of new social programs.  Obviously, they have been having a bit of a problem getting the bill passed.  Some Democrats only want to set up programs they can pay for.  A lot of others want to set up as many programs as possible, even if it is just for a year or two.  They are willing to spend all the money required to set up lots of new programs, even if the programs have to shut down after a couple of years because there’s no future money to continue them.  In other words, irresponsible governance.

But it’s not only Washington where you see this kind of irresponsible governance.  It’s happening in Chicago, too. For example, for a moment last week, I thought that Chicago had not only solved its huge pension liability¹ but also figured out a way to replace its hundreds of thousands of lead water pipes.² 

JB Pritzker, Redistricting, and the Illinois Way

In the 2018 campaign, then-candidate JB Pritzker said he supported an amendment to the Illinois constitution to have state legislative redistricting done by an independent commission.  If an amendment wasn’t adopted, he said the legislature should set up an independent commission, and he pledged he would veto any maps “drafted or created by legislators, political party leaders and/or their staffs or allies.”

Governor Pritzker first broke his pledge earlier this year when he approved redistricting maps passed by Springfield Democrats for state legislative districts.  Now, I am sure, he is set to break his promise again on the Congressional remap drawn up by Democratic “legislators, political party leaders and/or their staffs”.¹