Author: Newsdesk

Posted by Michelle Manchir at 5:43 p.m.



SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Senate today approved new restrictions on the controversial century-old practice of lawmakers handing out scholarships to students at state universities, an often-abused award that has been distributed to relatives, political donors and the children of political allies.



The legislation, sent to the House by a 54-0 vote, would ban a legislator from giving the scholarship to someone whose family could be linked to a campaign contribution within the previous five years. In addition, family members of a scholarship recipient could not give a campaign contribution to a lawmaker who distributed the award.



Further restrictions would require a recipient to be accepted into a school before the scholarship could be awarded.

Though they voted in favor of the restrictions, many Republicans maintained the scholarships should be banned rather than continued with restrictions.

For years, the Tribune and other media outlets have shown that lawmakers often award the scholarships to campaign contributors.

In September, a Tribune analysis of scholarship and other public data from the past five years shows some lawmakers gave free rides to the children of campaign donors, party loyalists and state employees. At least three students whose fathers were later charged with public corruption had their tuitions waived by Democratic lawmakers.

Posted by Ray Long and Michelle Manchir at 1:05 p.m.

 

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois House today voted to scale back the number of senior citizens who get free rides on buses and trains, leaving the freebies for the poorest and raising the fare to half-price for others.



Applying the means-testing to the free ride program would generate about $37 million, said sponsoring Rep. Suzanne Bassi, R-Palatine.



The measure passed 83-27, with three voting present. The Senate also must approve and Gov. Pat Quinn must sign the measure for it to become law. You can see how the House voted by clicking here.



Under the bill, senior citizens 65 and older would keep riding for free if they qualify for the state’s circuit breaker program. A one-person household with an income of $27,610 would be eligible under the guidelines. A two-person household could have a maximum income of $34,635. The Circuit Breaker program is used to set income guidelines to give seniors property tax relief and aid to buy prescription drugs.



Seniors with higher incomes would ride at half price on the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra and Pace. That’s the same discount seniors got before then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich demanded the free ride program in return for signing a sales tax increase to bail out the bus and rail agencies two years ago.



Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, saying he opposed the legislation, argued he refused to put bloated transit bureaucracies over senior citizens.

Posted by Ray Long and Michelle Manchir at 10:55 a.m.; updated at 2:32 p.m.

SPRINGFIELD — House Speaker Michael Madigan today advanced legislation aimed at eliminating the lieutenant governor’s office in 2015, a response to embattled Chicago pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen’s primary victory and quick resignation upon disclosure of his tawdry past.

Under Madigan’s proposed constitutional amendment, a lieutenant governor elected this November would serve four years before the office went away.

The House Executive Committee voted 8-0, with three voting present, to send the measure to the full House. But it still must be approved by the Senate and voters also would have to sign off this November.

Cohen’s surprise Feb. 2 victory came after he spent more than $2 million of his own money to best several lawmakers who spent far less. But Cohen’s neophyte foray into into statewide politics ended shortly after the Tribune revealed he once was accused of putting a knife to the throat of a girlfriend who turned out to be a prostitute.

The political firestorm only grew bigger upon disclosure of allegations that he abused steroids, raged at his children and fell tens of thousands of dollars behind on child support payments while spending heavily on his campaign.

Under the plan, the attorney general would be next in line if a governor quit, died or got booted. The current Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, is the House speaker’s daughter. But it’s unclear whether she’ll still hold that office in 2015.

An alternative proposal already has advanced in another House committee. Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, a member of Madigan’s leadership team, wants to require the governor and lieutenant governor candidates to run as a team in primaries, starting in 2014.

Madigan today also updated the search process to find a Cohen replacement.

"In terms of people personally contacting me, I think it’s less than
five. We’ve generated a list of names where in conversations people
have said, well, what about this person, what about that person. In
addition, where people have made contact with others, other members of
the committee, Gov. Quinn, President Cullerton, we just put them on the
list. And at the appropriate time, why, we’re going to notify all of
those people of the procedures that we’ll be following on the state
committee," Madigan said.

Madigan, who doubles as Illinois Democratic chairman, said the replacement would likely be picked over two days. "Day one will be a hearing day where people will come in and present their credentials. Day 2 would be the vote. The vote will be an open vote," Madigan said.

From today’s print edition:

Dillard aids Brady, admits hopes slim

Trailing in GOP governor race, he awaits vote totals

By Rick Pearson, Tribune reporter

Even as state Sen. Kirk Dillard still hopes a counting error will cut
into state Sen. Bill Brady’s slim lead in the Republican governor’s
contest, he’s already helping his rival prepare for the general
election campaign against Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.





"Other than Bill, no one wants this over faster than I do," said
Dillard, a veteran lawmaker from Hinsdale. "I want to get on with my
life."





Dillard’s comments came Tuesday as county clerks and election officials
representing the 110 ballot-counting agencies across Illinois sent the
findings of their canvass of Feb. 2 primary results to the State Board
of Elections. The elections panel is scheduled to certify the results
March 5.

But Dillard indicated he might not wait that long to decide the fate of
his campaign for governor. Trailing Brady by about 250 votes, Dillard
has set a bar of finishing 100 votes or fewer behind his rival as the
trigger for a recount.





"I’d prefer to say up or down before" March 5, Dillard said, adding
that he wants to hear a final figure issued from a state elections
official.





Dillard acknowledged his hopes are slim at this point. After talking to
various local election officials, Dillard said he has "no hint of
fraud, no hint of improprieties" in the results.





And Dillard said he doesn’t want a recount, a process that could cost
him more than $1 million to conduct on a statewide basis and
potentially delay the start of the Republican campaign against Quinn,
whose Democratic ticket remains unsettled by the flap that led to his
embattled running mate, Scott Lee Cohen, dropping from the ballot.





The senator said his best hope is that a "small scrivener’s error"
could change the outcome of a statewide election involving more than
three-quarters of a million ballots. "One little error changes
everything," he said.





Brady, a senator from Bloomington, and Dillard have remained cordial
during the three weeks of ballot-counting, a rare dose of civility in
Illinois politics. Brady has not declared victory but has instead
insisted Dillard be given time to digest the numbers and allow the
certification process to proceed.





Behind the scenes, the two men have had several conversations during
the weeks of electoral limbo, sources close to both candidates said,
with Dillard offering ideas on ways to help Brady, including in the
GOP-rich collar counties. One source close to both men, who was not
authorized to speak for either campaign, termed the talks "what-if"
conversations, based on "what the outcome appears to be."





Should Brady become the nominee, Dillard, a former DuPage County
Republican chairman, could become a valuable resource in helping the
central Illinois lawmaker make inroads with suburban GOP voters. In the
primary, Brady’s support in the collar counties ranged from 5.6 percent
in DuPage County to 8.5 percent in McHenry County, according to local
election totals.





A Brady victory also sets the stage for an ideologically driven
showdown between the conservative Republican and Quinn, who has long
touted his progressive idealism on issues ranging from taxes to health
care. It would mark the first gubernatorial election in decades in
which voters would choose from two major party candidates at such
opposite ends of the political spectrum.





[email protected]

Posted by Bob Secter and Monique Garcia at 5:30 a.m.; last updated at 4:05 p.m.

The state’s chronic budget woes will force more than $2 billion in spending cuts by this summer, including $922 million for elementary and secondary schools, unless taxes are hiked or a new round of federal stimulus aid rides to the rescue, the Quinn administration said today.



The bad news predictions from David Vaught, Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget director, also included a nearly $400 million drop in spending in the budget year for higher education, another nearly $400 million drop in spending on human services programs, and a $69 million cut for public safety programs.



Vaught said only health care programs would be immune from broad cuts, and that is only because of rules which would financially penalize the state if spending was cut.



"This is a budgetary crisis of huge magnitude and it’s going to take a lot of work to get out the hole," Vaught said.



The projections were part of a sketchy preliminary budget released by the Administration today in advance of Quinn’s March 10 budget address which will lay out a more detailed spending plan for the state for the budget year beginning July 1.



The sneak peak at budget assumptions was part of an effort to underscore the perilous nature of the state’s fiscal position and lay the groundwork for some bitter medicine that taxpayers, state workers and political leaders seeking re-election will be asked to swallow in coming months.



Vaught said Quinn’s bad-news preliminary budget did not factor in any potential tax increases, but the budget director strongly suggested that Quinn would soon put such ideas on the table.



Last year, the governor initially proposed a 50 percent hike in the state income tax to ease fiscal  troubles that were already evident at that time. The idea went nowhere, but Vaught said Quinn’s support for the concept “has not wavered.”



Even factoring in the cuts, Quinn’s office is predicting that the state will rack up nearly $11.5 billion in unpaid bills by the end of June 2011 if the status quo remains.

Given the education cuts, school districts could be forced to lay off scores of teachers.

"It’ll be very tough," Vaught said. "The districts have until April 1 to give their layoff notices, you know, they’re going to tighten their belts and face up to this. Then they’re going to have to help us find a solution, we don’t just want to have a message of pain and lack of feeling here in the ramifications of these cuts, but what we want people to do besides feeling the pain and understanding the reality is help us find a solution."

Quinn posted budget information on a state Web site, budget.illinois.gov. In a message on the site, Vaught asked voters what their preferences are.

"Would you cut money from education and give more money to health care? Or would you reduce spending to both and spend more on new road construction. Would you raise taxes and by how much?" Vaught says in the short message.

Quinn is scheduled to speak at an event tonight at a downtown hotel.

Posted by Ray Long at 9:30 p.m.

SPRINGFIELD — A state lawmaker from Chicago is headed to Iraq to monitor critical elections on March 7 as one of nine elected women from across the United States.

Rep. Susana Mendoza, 37, is part of a mission in conjunction with the National Foundation for Women Legislators and the U.S. Department of State to travel to Baghdad.

The Southwest Side lawmaker is working to move her legislation through Illinois House committees this week before the trip.

Mendoza plans to return to Springfield in time for Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget presentation March 10, which she says "may remind me a little bit of Baghdad."

Tammy Duckworth, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said today she was removing herself from consideration to be the Democratic nominee for Illinois lieutenant governor.



“I made a commitment to President Obama and our nation’s veterans to serve at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and I want to fulfill my promise before returning home,” she said in a statement. “As an Illinoisan, I’m proud to continue to serve in the Illinois Army National Guard and I know that real work lies ahead as the state recovers economically.”



Shortly after the Feb. 2 primary winner, embattled Chicago pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen, gave up the nomination, the Tribune reported that Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn had placed Duckworth at the top of his list of potential running mates.



Quinn said he met with Duckworth when he was in Washington last weekend for National Governors Association meetings and that she called him this morning to say she was staying put.



"I think it was an agonizing decision for her," Quinn said.



Duckworth, a helicopter pilot who lost both of her legs in combat in Iraq, expressed her “full support” for Quinn while declining to run with him. Though Duckworth’s unsuccessful 2006 run for a west-suburban congressional seat drew national attention, Quinn already has strong support among military veterans dating to his days as lieutenant governor.



Democratic leaders are supposed to gather March 15 in Springfield to ratify the selection of a running mate for Quinn. State Rep. Art Turner of Chicago, who finished second to Cohen in the primary three weeks ago, is campaigning to fill the vacancy.



But some party officials are looking to balance the Chicago-heavy ticket by considering possible candidates from downstate or even a suburban woman to counter the expected GOP Gov. nominee, conservative state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington.



— By Rick Pearson

Posted by Rick Pearson at 5:30 a.m.

Local election officials face a deadline today to submit their Feb. 2 primary vote totals to the state, amid increasing pessimism from state Sen. Kirk Dillard about his chances of overcoming the narrow lead held by his Republican rival for governor.

State Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington has been ahead of Dillard by a few hundred ballots as county clerks and local election boards finalize their counting in preparation for the State Board of Elections certifying the results on March 5.

Dillard, a Hinsdale lawmaker, said he wants state election authorities to issue a final number in the contest and has set a bar of being behind by 100 votes or less as a trigger for proceeding with an expensive recount.

The numbers being forwarded to Springfield by local election officials are supposed to have been double checked through a canvassing of local precinct results. Dillard said he still is hoping there was a small error somewhere that could change the outcome of a statewide election involving more than three-quarters of a million ballots. “One little error changes everything,” he said.

But in speaking with local election officials, Dillard said, “I have no hint of fraud, no hint of improprieties” in the results.

Lacking clear evidence of success, Dillard said he doesn’t want a recount that could cost him more than $1 million and potentially delay the start of the Republican campaign against Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. Quinn’s ticket remains unsettled by the flap that led to his embattled running mate, Scott Lee Cohen, dropping from the ballot.

“I’d prefer to say up or down before” the March 5 date on which the state board certifies the results, Dillard said. But he said he does not expect to make a final decision today.

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton said Monday both an income tax increase and budget cuts are needed to erase an estimated $13 billion state budget hole, while Mayor Richard Daley emphasized that cuts should come before the state asks taxpayers for more money.

Both Chicago Democrats were responding to a report by the Civic Federation of Chicago calling for a combination of cost-cutting and tax increases to bail out state government.

“You just can’t increase taxes and say, ‘That’s the answer,’” Daley told reporters. “That’s not the total answer. If you think that is, you’re kidding yourself.”

Although he had yet to read the group’s report, Daley said he knew it called for deep spending cuts.

“You have to streamline government,” said the mayor, who has both cut some spending and raised taxes and fees to balance the city’s precarious budget in recent years. “You have to look at priorities and figure out if there’s waste, inefficiency and corruption, anything, because you have to look at that. ”

Speaking at the City Club of Chicago, Cullerton said lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn should be prepared to make deep budget cuts in addition to a tax increase.

He called on lawmakers in the House to vote on the plan passed by the Senate last year that would boost the state’s personal income-tax rate to 5 percent from 3 percent. The House never considered the Senate plan and instead rejected a smaller, temporary tax hike. Republicans, who make up a minority in both chambers, have refused to endorse an income tax increase.

Cullerton said the media should draw more attention to the state’s budget problems in order to build public support for a tax hike.

Cullerton also called for changing the state’s underfunded pension system, which has become a major drag on the budget. “This has come to a head,” Cullerton told reporters. “We’ve got to do it right away.”

He suggested the age at which retirees can receive maximum benefits be raised to align more with federal Social Security guidelines, and that those payments be lowered from the current maximum of $245,000 a year. Cullerton said those changes could result in a long-terms savings of $120 billion, but acknowledged they would not have an immediate impact.

Cullerton also took a swipe at colleague and presumptive Republican governor nominee Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, who says the state can cut its way out of its money problems without raising taxes.

“Maybe he hasn’t spent enough time like I have in trying to figure out how to balance this budget, maybe he’s been a back-bencher and hasn’t really been looking at this” Cullerton said.

He called on Brady to introduce his own budget proposal before the November election.

“Why should we wait until after the election to find out what the budget proposals are?” Cullerton said. “He wants to be the governor during the fiscal year that we’re going to be voting on the budget. So put the budget in. Put it in."

Brady, who is awaiting official results from election authorities on his slim lead over fellow Sen. Kirk Dillard of Hinsdale following the Feb. 2 GOP primary, said he plans to release "key points" on how his budget ideas differ from those of Quinn. The governor is scheduled to give his annual budget address on March 10.

But Brady said the main difference is that he will reduce spending and cut taxes, not raise them.

"I’m not going to spend beyond our means like John Cullerton and Pat Quinn and Rod Blagojevich," Brady said. "Those guys have spent money that the people of Illinois frankly didn’t have. They have been completely irresponsible. We will bring responsibility back to the state’s fiscal condition."

Posted by John Byrne at 3:33 p.m.

Mayor Richard Daley today insisted his hiring oversight chief was suspended for mishandling a sexual harassment complaint, not because of a City Hall political power grab.

The mayor appeared in public for the first time in more than a week Saturday and offered his reaction to the lawsuit filed against him and others by Anthony Boswell, Daley’s hand-picked choice to lead the Office of Compliance.

Boswell’s attorney, Jamie Wareham, told reporters Thursday that Boswell has was targeted for retribution in part for exposing what he said was an attempt
by mayoral attorney Mara Georges to circumvent court-ordered hiring
rules.

"This is Chicago. … Do we understand how people in the mayor’s office
target people and continue to beat them like a drum until they leave
town with their tail between their legs and their reputations
destroyed? Is this a fact pattern that sounds familiar to any of you?"
Wareham asked at a news conference.

The suit was filed after city Inspector General Joe Ferguson recommended Boswell’s suspension, concluding that Boswell mishandled a student intern’s sexual harassment
complaint against a 911 center boss. Daley announced the suspension
without pay Feb. 12.

Today, Daley dismissed the notion that Boswell is a target of political retribution.

"There was an investigation in regard to a sexual harassment situation, and no one followed through, and that’s what the complaint was," Daley said at a Lunar New Year celebration hosted by the Vietnamese Association of Illinois at a church in the Edgewater Beach neighborhood. "Had the complaint been followed through — no one followed that. And there was an investigation by the inspector general, who gave the report and he was disciplined for thirty days."

 

Daley said he has no hard feelings toward Boswell, who will be welcomed back to the administration once the suspension is complete. The mayor, however, has been working to strip Boswell’s office of hiring oversight and shift that authority to the inspector general’s office.

 

"Today, everybody sues everybody," Daley said. "Like anything else, you have that. Remember, (Boswell) came from Texas, he was found by an independent group who really recommended him: great credentials, good family man, very committed public servant."

Posted by John Byrne at 5:30 p.m.

Moderate Republican U.S. Senate nominee Rep. Mark Kirk said today he’s not worried about sharing the statewide ticket with conservative downstate governor candidate state Sen. Bill Brady.

"On some of the social issues, (Brady and I) don’t agree, but this is part of the big tent," Kirk told reporters after speaking to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs about Iran’s growing nuclear threat. "I think I’ll be strong especially north of I-80. He’ll be strong south of I-80. It’s a good team."

Brady’s campaign has been in a holding pattern since the Feb. 2 primary. He holds a lead of more than 200 votes against state Sen. Kirk Dillard of Hinsdale. Dillard has not conceded yet and is awaiting the Feb. 23 deadline for county election officials to send their results to the state, which must certify the election by March 5.

On Iran, Kirk said the American military is too preoccupied elsewhere to get involved with trying to put down the country’s accelerating quest for the atomic bomb. He discussed the possibility of an Israeli military strike in Iran, before dismissing that plan as too complicated, costly and uncertain to succeed.

 

Kirk, an intelligence officer in the Naval reserves who used to work for the State Department, instead called for sanctions targeted at Iran’s petroleum imports as the best way to force Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s government off the nuclear ledge by promoting internal dissension from Iranians who would get fed up with scarce gas supplies.

 

"I cannot feed a nuclear weapon to my family," Kirk said. "And therefore it is more important to feed my family than to need nuclear weapons."

Posted by John Byrne at 3:45 p.m.

A longtime top aide to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin has been reassigned but will remain in a senior advisory role after an internal examination showed he had a flirtatious relationship with a subordinate.

Durbin’s Illinois director, Mike Daly, showed "a lack of judgment" in his Chicago office dealings with 29-year-old aide Kathleen Rooney, according to Durbin spokesman Joe Shoemaker.

The senator ordered his staff to interview Rooney, Daly and other employees
in his Chicago office after Shoemaker read Rooney’s book, "For You, For
You I am Trilling These Songs." In one essay, Rooney writes of her "unrequitable (but not unrequited)" love for her boss, who is not named.

Rooney was fired Feb. 5 for violating U.S. Senate rules by personally benefiting from her Senate job through a book that focused on her work there, Shoemaker said.



All involved insisted "there was no sexual harassment or harassment of any kind" in their interactions, which amounted to nothing more than flirting, but Durbin decided it would nonetheless be best to move Daly out of a position in which he has direct supervision over other employees, Shoemaker said.

 

Daly, who has worked for Durbin for 27 years, could not be reached for comment today.

 

Rooney described her relationship with Daly as "kind of a complicated, but not complaint-worthy, situation."

 

She said the two were friendly during her off-and-on work in Durbin’s small Chicago office, which began with a 1999 summer internship. Rooney returned to the senator’s staff most recently in 2007 as a staff member.

 

"I found it a situation worth making sense of in an essay," said Rooney, who also wrote "Reading With Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America," two books of poetry and a non-fiction work about her time as a nude model for artists.

 

Rooney said she asked to be terminated because a resignation comes with a non-disclosure agreement and she wants to continue writing about her time in Durbin’s office.

Posted by Monique Garcia at 11:45 a.m.; last updated at 4:09 p.m.

Gov. Pat Quinn today said he has encouraged Iraq military veteran Tammy Duckworth to pursue the vacant Democratic lieutenant governor nomination.

“I think she’s a very formidable human being, who’s an all-American hero and I think we should honor her heroism. She lost her limbs in Iraq on behalf of our Democracy, so she is somebody I will always honor no matter what,” Quinn told reporters.

“I certainly said to her in the course of visiting with her, I said that I thought if she was interested, if she wanted to bring her name forward, she should let us know promptly," he said.

But the governor said Duckworth told him she has other considerations to weigh, including her job with the Obama administration in Washington. She serves as the assistant secretary for public and intergovernmental affairs for the U.S. Veterans Administration.



Quinn is searching for new running mate after Chicago pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen dropped out after winning this month’s lieutenant governor primary. Cohen was pressured by Democrats to get out after revelations that he has been accused of abusing women, injecting illegal steroids and failing to pay $54,000 in child support even as he spent more than $2 million of his own money campaigning.

Duckworth, who unsuccessfully ran for a west suburban congressional seat in 2006, could not be immediately reached. Duckworth lost both of her legs in combat in Iraq during a helicopter crash.



The governor, who has kept out of the public eye since the Cohen debacle, praised Duckworth at a West Side event honoring black history month. Quinn said he has other candidates in mind if Duckworth says no, but declined to offer specifics.



Two other politicians who lost to Cohen for the Democratic lieutenant governor nomination were in the room and voiced their interest in the running mate slot. State Sen. Rickey Hendon, D-Chicago, said he could help Quinn bring in African-American voters. State Rep. Art Turner, D-Chicago, a longtime Hendon rival, pointed out that he finished second to Cohen.

Asked about Turner’s second-place argument, Quinn replied: “Well that isn’t exactly the way that it works in the law of Illinois. Something happened after the primary so under the law of our state the elected members of the Democratic Party have to meet and hear various candidates who are interested. I invite everybody to come forward.”

The Democratic State Central Committee is expected to meet after the election results are certified March 5 to start the replacement process. Illinois Democratic Party Chairman Michael Madigan, who’s also the House speaker, has said he will work with Quinn and Democratic Senate President John Cullerton on finding a candidate to replace Cohen.

Quinn also said he doesn’t agree with attempts to eliminate the lieutenant governor office. Madigan filed legislation to ask voters this November whether the office should be eliminated in January 2015.

“I told Mike Madigan I don’t think that’s a good way to go,” Quinn said. “I think we should have a lieutenant governor who is capable, who in the case of an emergency can assume the office of governor and do a good job for the people. I think it’s also important to have a lieutenant governor who’s a strong voice for veterans and for service members, for their families, that’s what I have done over the last six years when I was lieutenant governor.”

Quinn also didn’t provide many details about what might be in the budget plan he’ll release next month.

“Well I’m going to have a budget address on the 10th of March, and you’ll hear plenty about that, tax reform. I think that’s really what we need in our state, we have a system that has a burden that’s way to high on ordinary people and I want to try to reduce that burden.”

Posted by Ray Long and Michelle Manchir at 5 a.m.; last updated at 1:53 p.m. with Thompson, Madigan reaction

SPRINGFIELD — The Illinois Supreme Court today ruled that imprisoned ex-Gov. George Ryan should not get get any of his state
pension because of his federal conviction on political corruption charges.

The 6-1 decision means Ryan, who turns 76 next week, won’t be able to start collecting about $5,900 a month, or around $71,000 a year.

Justice Bob Thomas, the former Bears kicker, wrote the majority opinion against Ryan.

"George H. Ryan Sr. has clearly forfeited all of the pension benefits he earned from the general assembly retirement system. As the victims of Ryan’s crimes, the taxpayers of the state of Illinois are under no obligation to now fund his retirement," the opinion reads. You can read it by clicking here.

Justice Anne Burke, wife of Chicago Ald. Ed Burke, was the lone dissenting justice who favored Ryan getting some of his pension back. She wrote that the court majority ignored precedent and "incorrectly construes the forfeiture provision" in state pension law.

"I would conclude there is a connection between the felonies and Ryan’s position as governor and secretary of state," Burke wrote. But "there is no such connection between the felonies and Ryan’s position in the General Assembly or as Lieutenant governor. … Without such nexus, there is no basis to disqualify Ryan from receiving those benefits related to these positions."

The $71,000 estimate is
based on his years as a Kankakee County board member, state lawmaker
and lieutenant governor for two terms under then-Republican Gov. Jim
Thompson, who argued on Ryan’s behalf before the state Supreme Court. Thompson also is asking
President Barack Obama to grant a clemency request to release Ryan from
a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. to be with his ailing wife, Lura Lynn
Ryan.

"It’s deeply disappointing, not only to me, his counsel, but to the governor and his family," Thompson said. "He now not only sits in the penitentiary at the age of 76, having served two years already, but now there is no hope for he and his family. So he’s not only lost his office, his name, his reputation, but he’s lost his pension even for the years he served faithfully. He’s lost his Social Security. He has nothing."

Thompson said he would not ask the court for a rehearing, saying he did
not know how he could persuade a majority of justices to change their
positions if Burke could not persuade them already.





"So this is the end," Thompson said.




A woman who answered the phone at the Ryan home in Kankakee today said Lura Lynn wasn’t available.

A spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said the office is pleased with the decision.



“Former Governor Ryan breached the public trust by using his state government positions to engage in criminal conduct," spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said. "His actions were exactly the type of misconduct that the pension forfeiture law is designed to deter.  This decision confirms that public officials cannot be allowed to benefit from conduct that violates the public trust."



At the center of the closely-watched case was whether Ryan could receive credit for time he spent in government positions up until he became secretary of state and governor — time not covered by a lengthy federal investigation into his tenure as a public official.

Thompson told justices last year that Ryan deserves the pension because the crimes he was convicted of are linked to his service as secretary of state and governor, a 12-year span ending in January 2003.

Ryan was found guilty in April 2006, of steering state contracts and leases, including a $25 million IBM computer deal, to political insiders while he was Illinois secretary of state during the 1990s and then governor for one term.



In return, he got vacations in Jamaica, Cancun and Palm Springs, and collected gifts ranging from a golf bag to $145,000 in loans to his brother’s foundering business.



Ryan now is serving a six-year, six-month prison sentence. He reported in November 2007 and could be released July 4, 2013, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.



Ryan retired with a $150,691 salary as governor, but his 36 years climbing the ladder of local and state politics allowed him to collect about $200,000 a year until he was convicted. He and his wife, who is suffering from a terminal lung disease, also lost health benefits.

Thompson asked state pension board members following Ryan’s conviction to give "Gov. Ryan and Mrs. Ryan the pension to which he is entitled, the pension for service which had nothing to do with the facts leading to his conviction — as though he left public life at the end of his second term as lieutenant governor."

"That is the appropriate thing to do. That is the right thing to do. That is what the law of Illinois demands that you do," Thompson said.

The pension panel, made up of lawmakers and retirees from both parties, rejected that argument and stripped Ryan of his pension.

A circuit court judge agreed with the pension board’s ruling, but an appellate court sided with Ryan.

So the case went to the state’s highest court, which reversed the appellate decision.

"The trust to which Ryan was unfaithful was that which he owed to the people of the state of Illinois, who for 30 years placed their confidence in him and whose continuing confidence he repaid by transforming two of this state’s highest constitutional offices into an ongoing and wholly self serving criminal enterprise," the court’s opinion stated today.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a Democrat, argued Ryan is not entitled to his pension due to his criminal conviction.

"The very people whose trust Ryan betrayed for personal gain should not now be required to fund his retirement," according to a brief filed by Madigan’s office.



Madigan and Thompson rely on different precedents. Ryan’s team cited a case in which Illinois courts let one corrupt former official keep a pension from a local government not linked to his crimes, but he lost pension credit for time he spent working for the government victimized by his wrongdoing.



Madigan’s argument was simple. Ryan should lose the whole pension because he was a member of the same state pension system before and after his crimes. He had shifted his pension credits from the nearly six years in county government to the state pension after joining the legislature in 1972.



"Through his felonious conduct while in service to the citizens of Illinois, Ryan knowingly placed at risk all of he pension benefits he had earned and to which he otherwise would have been entitled," Madigan’s brief said, adding: "He cannot now complain that forfeiture is unjust or unfair.



"No unfairness exists where the General Assembly gave notice to Ryan when he was first elected to that body that future abuses of the public trust in the form of service-related felony convictions would deprive him of his pension."



Madigan also attacked the appellate court ruling in Ryan’s favor, saying the arguments by lawmakers in writing pension statutes "cannot be squared with the appellate court’s decision."

Thompson said Madigan’s arguments were misguided.

In addition to the $5,900 a month, Ryan also would have been
eligible for back payments worth about $233,000 because pension
payments had stopped in September 2006, but he also would have had to
pay a $78,500 reinstatement fee, said Timothy Blair, who heads the
pension system.

Ryan received $235,500 from the pension system when his pension was
voided, representing personal contributions he made to the retirement
fund over the years, Blair said.

Read Madigan’s argument by clicking here: Download Ryandocumenttwo

Read Ryan’s response: Download Ryandocumenetthree

Read Madigan’s counter-arguments: Download Ryandocumentone

Posted by Michelle Manchir at 5:15 p.m.



SPRINGFIELD — Heroin dealers would face tougher penalties under legislation the Illinois House approved today.

The minimum sentence for possessing five grams of heroin with the intent to sell would jump from four years to six years under the measure. Right now, heroin dealers face the longer sentence if they’re convicted of having 15 grams or more.

Sponsoring Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, said he wants to imprison distributors of heroin, which he said tends to be packaged and distributed in amounts far less than 15 grams.



Reboletti said the increasing popularity of the drug in the Chicago suburbs led him to take on the bill.



"These drug dealers are poisoning the community," said Reboletti, a former prosecutor. "They’re making huge profits."



Democrats protested the proposal loudest on the House floor today, saying the bill would only fill up prisons. Rep. Eddie Washington, D-Waukegan, said the proposal is shortsighted, failing to offer solutions for drug abuse like increased job availability and access to treatment.



"I am not for putting more people in American jails," Washington said. "The statistics that I get must be different from yours saying that it costs more to incarcerate than educate."



The measure passed 68-40 and now heads to the Senate for consideration.

Posted by Michelle Manchir at 5:01 p.m.



SPRINGFIELD — Criminals would no longer qualify for good time credit before setting foot in state prison under legislation a House committee approved today.



The measure is a response to Gov. Pat Quinn’s botched early release program that ended after reports surfaced that some criminals who got out were arrested for new offenses. It became a major issue in the final month of the Democratic governor primary campaign between Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes.



The proposal would eliminate prison officials’ authority to award credit to inmates before they begin their terms.

Rep. Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, a former county prosecutor, sponsored the bill to help curb crimes from inmates who are released early. He said that criminals’ release dates too often are anticipated to be six months earlier than the amount of time they were sentenced to serve.



"A lot of these guys are ending up right back into custody anyway," Reboletti said.



The latest measure complements a law Quinn signed last month that requires prisoners to serve at least 60 days in state custody before they become eligible for good conduct credit.



The measure now goes to the full House, but Reboletti said he will not push for a vote until the Illinois Department of Corrections is fully on board with the plan. Representatives at the committee today said  housing inmates for longer periods of time could be problematic for the cash-strapped prisons.



"You’ll need more bed space and there will be a cost," Reboletti said. "But again, I think the number one priority of Illinois is public safety."



The bill would not eliminate prisoners’ ability to collect good time credit for their time served in county jails or their involvement in substance abuse classes and earned college credit while imprisoned.

Posted by Hal Dardick at 12:45 p.m.



Chicago city government is infamous for corruption, but Cook County’s no slouch when it comes to graft and other malfeasance, concludes a report issued today by university researchers and government watchdogs.



Nearly 150 county politicians, employees and contractors have been convicted on corruption charges since 1957, according to the report released this morning by the University of Illinois at Chicago political science department and the Better Government Association. You can read the report here.



“This is Cook County’s corruption catalog,” said Andy Shaw, the BGA’s executive director and a former TV political reporter. “This is a perfect storm moment for reform in Illinois.”

The groups recommendations include limiting individual campaign contributions to county candidates to $1,500 per election.



In her recent victory for the Democratic Cook County Board president nomination, Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, 4th, received scores of contributions greater than that amount, including $150,000 from the local branch of the Service Employees International Union.



Also recommended is a ban on the “solicitation of gifts from any government employee for their supervisors or superiors” — a response to a Tribune report on Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown’s practice of accepting thousands of dollars of cash gifts from her employees, said Professor Dick Simpson, a former alderman and one of the report’s authors.



Brown pledged to stop accepting birthday and Christmas gifts from employees after the Tribune asked her about it.



Another recommendation is to prohibit elected officials, supervisors or employees from collecting or holding cash from county employees — a response to several media reports on Brown requiring $2 or $3 contributions to wear jeans on specified days.

Posted by Todd Lighty and Hal Dardick at 12:05 p.m.; last updated at 4:43 p.m.

Mayor Richard Daley was sued today by his top ethics officer who claims that the mayor wrongly suspended him.



Anthony Boswell, executive director of the mayor’s Office of Compliance, earlier this month was suspended for 30 days without pay after an inspector general’s investigation found that he had allegedly mishandled a student intern’s sexual harassment complaint. Daley said at the time he was following the inspector general’s recommendation by disciplining Boswell. You can read that story by clicking here.

Boswell also sued Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, claiming Ferguson had “blatantly exceeded” his authority in investigating Boswell, who heads an independent office.

You can read the lawsuit filed in Cook County Chancery Court by clicking here: Download Boswellsuit

At a downtown news conference, Boswell said he filed the suit because he wants to regain his job and his reputation. Boswell did not criticize Daley.

“I have a great deal of respect for the mayor and believe he has responded to a bad recommendation,” said Boswell, who appeared with attorney Jamie Wareham.

“I moved my family here approximately two years ago from Dallas to serve a four-year term. I was intrigued by what the mayor wanted to accomplish, namely to establish a corporate-style office of compliance for the city of Chicago. The city Chicago is currently still the only city in the world that has an office of compliance," Boswell said. “All you have in the end is your reputation, and this is very important to me.”



Asked if the fight could get nasty because of what Boswell had learned during his time in Chicago, Boswell replied, “Possibly.”

The Daley administration said it just received the suit and had no immediate comment. Ferguson also had no immediate comment.

Boswell alleges that Ferguson’s investigation was politically motivated and formed the basis for his suspension. The suit alleges that senior aides to Daley — notably the mayor’s top lawyer Mara Georges — used the inspector general’s report as a pre-text to retaliate against Boswell.

“Georges has targeted and threatened the Office of Compliance because staffers in that office have uncovered numerous violations of the hiring plan, including an effort to promote the under-qualified daughter of a political crony,” according to a statement accompanying Boswell’s lawsuit.

The suit claims that Boswell’s office exposed and stopped Georges’ attempt to get around court-ordered hiring rules and promote her predecessor’s daughter to “an elevated position” in the Law Department.  Boswell alleges that Georges and her department continue to violate hiring rules.

Georges issued a statement late this afternoon.

“Mr. Boswell’s allegations that I engaged in a campaign of retaliation against him, anyone on his staff or the Office of Compliance are completely false. I always tried to work cooperatively with Mr. Boswell, the monitor and the IG to improve the hiring processes in all City departments to ensure that the City would be found to be in substantial compliance with the Shakman decree,” Georges’ statement read.

Jenny Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the Law Department, said that then-Inspector General David Hoffman investigated the matter involving Kathleen Crowe Barakat, the daughter of Daley’s former corporation counsel Brian Crowe.  Hoffman “did not concur with Boswell’s allegations,” Hoyle said.

Hoyle released the inspector general’s report on the Crowe case. You can read it by clicking here: Download Croweinvestigation.

Crowe Barakat, who left  the Law Department last year, said today that she was qualified for the promotion and no one had done anything improper, noting that was the conclusion reached by the inspector general. “In short, it’s ridiculous,” she said. “It’s sour grapes here and Boswell is trying to lash out at anyone he can.”

As for the reason cited for his suspension, Boswell said he decided against taking action for the sexual harassment complaint against the employee cited in Ferguson’s report after relying on the opinion of an experienced investigator. She laughed at the allegations, Boswell said.

City Hall is operating under a decades-long consent decree aimed at keeping politics out of most personnel decisions. A federal judge appointed a monitor in 2005 to oversee hiring after federal authorities accused Daley’s patronage chief and others of circumventing that decree by rigging hiring to reward the mayor’s political allies with jobs, promotions and overtime.



Daley has said he plans to ask the court this year to end oversight, arguing that the city is in "substantial compliance," a legal threshold for ending court involvement.

Daley has moved to strip Boswell’s office of any responsibility for hiring and giving it to the inspector general as part of an effort to end court oversight.

Asked today if he thinks there are serious, ongoing problems with city hiring, Boswell said, “I think there are certain departments in the city that think they are above the processes that have been established.”

Posted by Bob Secter at 11:00 p.m.



No state has done worse than Illinois in setting aside funds to pay the pension and health care benefits promised to retirees in public sector jobs, according to a study released today by the Pew Center for the States.



That dubious distinction bestowed by the non-partisan Washington-based think tank weighs heavily over Illinois’s current budget mess that has left Gov. Pat Quinn and lawmakers with a coming record $13 billion deficit in the state’s main checkbook to try and close by summer.



The Pew report found that states collectively are $1 trillion in arrears in setting aside funds to cover pension and health care promises to current and future retirees — and nearly one-tenth of that total was from Illinois alone.

“The growing bill coming due could have significant consequences — higher taxes, less money for public services and lower state bond ratings,” warned Susan Urahn, the Pew Center’s managing director.



That day of reckoning appears fast approaching. The state’s bond ratings already are crashing and pension costs, if fully met, could top $5 billion next year — nearly one-fifth what the state is spending to fund day to day operations in the current fiscal year.



The Pew report found that as of the mid-2008, Illinois had funded just 54 percent of what was then a $119 billion obligation to its public employee pension funds. And that may understate the problem. A more recent estimate from the legislature’s bipartisan fiscal watchdog agency pegged the funding ration at a hair under 50 percent by the end of last June.



Pew also said that Illinois had set aside less than 1 percent of the funds it need to pay for $40 billion in health care and other benefits promised public sector retirees.



Despite the recession, Urahn said Illinois and other states with huge pension and health care debts will only make the situation worse by not addressing it now.



“The future fiscal burden will be enormous,” she said. “Postponing a solution will only leave states and their taxpayers in worse shape and lead to higher taxes or cuts in important services.”

Posted by Hal Dardick, John Byrne and Todd Lighty at 7:42 p.m.



The Daley administration today moved to fire a political operative with ties to felonious former Ald. Isaac Carothers from his high-paying job in the city’s water management department.



Deputy Commissioner Tommie Talley has five days to respond to the dismissal, then Water Management Commissioner John Spatz will make a final decision on his employment, department spokesman Tom LaPorte said.



Spatz’s decision to fire Talley came after a recommendation from Inspector General Joseph Ferguson for disciplinary action. The office was investigating Talley for allegedly overseeing “side jobs” — private work done with city materials and crews, sources familiar with the probe said.

One of those alleged side jobs was done nearly two years ago at Nativity of Our Lord Roman Catholic Church, in the 11th Ward, Mayor Richard Daley’s native turf, the sources said. Pastor Dan Brandt said the Water department did no work on church property when the parish had problems with water pipes in April 2008.



Though city workers initially checked on the leak, they quickly determined it had occurred on private property, and the church paid a private contractor "over $10,000" to make repairs, Brandt said.



After a disgruntled former Water Department employee alleged the city did the work, Brandt said then-Inspector General David Hoffman’s office sent investigators to the church.



"They checked it out and said everything was fine," Brandt said, adding he does not know Talley but "would certainly go to bat for him" if Talley’s firing has anything to do with allegations about work at the church.

Talley, who had worked for the city since 1981 and was being paid nearly $128,000 to oversee water mains and sewers throughout the city, also could not be reached.



Talley often was seen at City Hall with Carothers, who this month pleaded guilty to accepting bribes for a zoning change in his 29th Ward.



When Talley sought a promotion in 1993, he was backed by Carothers, according to a “clout list” once kept in the mayor’s office that was entered into evidence during the 2006 trial of Daley’s former patronage chief, Robert Sorich.



Carothers, a Streets and Sanitation Department official when the list was drawn up, was a ward coordinator for Daley’s 1995 re-election campaign.



Nearly five years ago, Talley was suspended for 15 days for what officials said was a failure to exercise proper supervision as part of a city investigation into a time sheet scam at the Jardine Filtration Plant. That scandal also led to the firing of Water Management Commissioner Richard Rice and nine employees.