St. Louis Cardinals are like the Fighting Irish in their local fans amongst us

The Illinois secretary of state’s office has come up with what is, in some ways, just another money-making scheme – license plates allowing baseball fans to show their love of the St. Louis Cardinals.

For the set surviving around Effingham

Meaning one can get an official plate for their automobile that includes the famed “birds on bat” logo that the Cardinals have used for nearly a century. I can envision many residents of Southern Illinois choosing to identify their automobiles with such a plate.

PARTIALLY, IT MAY be a further way of identifying one as not being a part of Chicago.

But considering that the secretary of state’s office has offered specialized license plates identifying with colleges and sports teams for decades, it’s kind of shocking that they didn’t sign up with the Cardinals a long time ago.

For the Gateway Arch that is the prominent symbol of downtown St. Louis is visible for miles around into Illinois. Heck, Illinois includes a piece of the St. Louis metropolitan area amongst its residents – even though I don’t doubt that many Missourians wish they could somehow distance themselves from East St. Louis.

And some do think it bizarre that Illinois government would be willing to recognize a Missouri-based sports team.

BUT IF THE Secretary of State’s office has acknowledged both the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs with official license plates and there is a significant chunk of Illinois where the locals don’t pay much attention to either team, then I suppose it’s only common-sensical to include the Cardinals in the sporting mix.

For sensible baseball fans

For what it’s worth, the state uses the money from the $69 fee charged of motorists who can’t just have a generic number identifying their automobile to support a state fund meant to benefit public schools.

Which almost sounds a bit like the rhetoric we’ve heard for so many years about Illinois Lottery money supporting education. We’ll see someday if there are merits to the rhetoric.

Or is this just an ego-boost to sports fans who want to say “shove it” to the fans of other teams.

NOW I KNOW the state is claiming this is the first sports team from out-of-state they’re acknowledging with their own license plate. Although I’d question the accuracy of such an over-statement.

For Fighting Irish faithful

Because the state also has a series of license plates acknowledging assorted public and private colleges. One of the schools included is none-other-than Hoosier-based University of Notre Dame. Where Fighting Irish football rules, regardless of which side of State Line Road one happens to live upon.

Is it really any more unusual for someone in Illinois to root, root, root for the Cardinals any more than the Irish football?

Besides, I personally will get a bit of a kick out of watching Chicago Cubs baseball fans be forced to acknowledge the fallacy of their biggest myth – that the entirety of the world roots for the Cubbies.

JUST THINK OF when Southern Illinois residents feel compelled to make the drive to Wrigley Field to catch a ballgame, and Cubs fans will see just now many people are present to root against them.

There is, however, one gripe I still have about such license plates – mainly that even though it has been a couple of decades since the collegiate plates were created, they still haven’t gotten around to offering up one in the green-and-white colors of my Illinois Wesleyan University alma mater.

For those who are just determined to be different

One can literally show their support for Milliken University in Decatur or the West Side’s Malcolm X College, And now even for the Cardinals.

Yet I’m still waiting for the day I can proclaim Fighting Titan loyalties while driving my car. Even though, to be truthful, I might well turn out to be too cheap to shell out the $69 fee (charged on top of the regular cost of registering a car) to actually buy the plate!

  -30-

Short-term ‘retirement’ post turns out to be a long-term one for Jesse White

It was a couple of decades ago when Jesse White ran for election as Illinois secretary of state.

WHITE: At age 84, is he up to sixth term?

The line of logic that existed amongst his political supporters is that White had been an 18-year member of the Illinois House of Representatives from Chicago’s Near West side who then returned home to Chicago for a term as Cook County’s recorder of deeds.

AT AGE 64, sending him back to Springfield for a term as secretary of state (replacing George Ryan, who gave up the post for his now-infamous stint as governor) was sort of a reward for White.

He could finish out his political career “on top,” so to speak. Before wandering off into a retirement from a life of community and public service, while occasionally reminiscing about “what might have been” if he had made it to the major leagues with the Chicago Cubs back in the 1960s.

Shows you how little we all knew back then.

For now, 20 years later, White is about to finish his fifth four-year term as the man who runs the state government office that – most prominently – puts his name on everybody’s driver’s license. Along with a whole slew of other services that makes the local secretary of state’s office the one Illinois residents most frequently deal with in their daily lives.

HELLAND: Out to make it a prime issue

NOW, COME NOV. 6, White will be the Democratic nominee seeking a sixth term, taking on Republican Jason Helland and Libertarian Steve Dutner. Both of whom are ridiculously young, compared to White.

Dutner is a 2002 college graduate, while Helland was in high school back when White was running the recorder of deeds office.

It almost brings to my mind the old Ronald Reagan debate wisecrack, the one where he said of presidential opponent Walter Mondale, “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

 

REAGAN: Able to beat it down against Mondale

The point being that Reagan already was 73 years old, and wasn’t about to be intimidated out of running for office just because some people would prefer he retire to memories of his days as a B-grade movie actor.

JUST AS SOME people, including Republican Helland, are trying to make age an issue in this election cycle.

They’re claiming that electing White to a sixth term is really nothing more than putting control of picking the secretary of state into the powers-that-be of the Democratic party.

They’re claiming White has every intention of retiring shortly after his re-election – thereby giving the governor the ability to hand-pick a replacement – similar to how Rauner in 2014 picked an Illinois comptroller when Judy Baar Topinka died before she could be sworn into office.

An 'alternate life' version of White … 

Of course, Republicans want to believe that all Democrats are puppets of Michael Madigan, the Illinois House speaker and state Democratic chairman whom they’re trying to demonize.

OR COULD THIS be the admission by Republicans that Bruce Rauner’s re-election dreams are little more than delusions? Which means a “Gov. J.B. Pritzker” will go along with whomever Madigan desires for the post!

Even though the real admission is that Helland is a candidate with no chance of winning secretary of state, and is merely doing service to the GOP by allowing his name to fill the ballot slot.

… if there hadn't been an 'Ernie Banks?'

Because running the Grundy County state’s attorney and a former prosecutor in Kankakee County for the post comes across as falling way short of White’s political service dating back to 1975, and his work with kids, particularly leading the Jesse White Tumblers, that goes back even further.

About the only reason people might find a negative about White is his time as a professional athlete – playing first base for Chicago Cubs minor league affiliates back in the 1960s and futilely trying to beat out Ernie Banks for his major league job. Then again, I don’t think even Chicago White Sox fans would hold that against him.

  -30-

All Chicagoans are equal; what a downright subversive thought to have

I’m enjoying the misery that I’m sure the conservative ideologically-motivated amongst us in our society are feeling these days with the fact that Chicago has moved forward this week with its “City Key” card program.

Subversive idea, or a matter of convenience?

Those are the cards that the conservative ideologues (particularly those who get all riled up over “foreigners” being treated with any respect whatsoever) say are meant to complicate the lives of immigration officials in determining who is in this country (and this city) without a valid visa.

BECAUSE PART OF what they rely upon in their effort to complicate the daily lives of people who weren’t actually born in this country is that such individuals can have difficulty in obtaining the identification commonly required to obtain routine services.

For me, pulling my driver’s license out of my wallet is a simple act. If I didn’t have a driver’s license, I could obtain an official identification card from the Illinois secretary of state’s office. A perk of having been born in Chicago just over a half-century ago.

But not everybody in Chicago can do that. Which is why city officials came up with the City Key, an identification card the city clerk will issue that will be accepted as just as valid for ID purposes as a driver’s license.

City officials began issuing the cards this week to anybody who wants one – provided they can document their identity with a photo identification card of some type, their date of birth and something that shows they actually live in Chicago.

It does double-duty as ID and library card, ...

FOR SOME PEOPLE, their passport will wind up being the documentation that enables them to get a City Key card. My point being is that it’s not like anybody who is not a U.S. citizen is going to be using such a card to cover up that fact.

But what bothers the ideologues is that the card is designed in such a way that there will be full-fledged U.S. citizens (also Chicago residents) who will find there to be benefits of having a City Key card.

The card isn’t about to do anything to indicate which of its holders had the luck of the draw (which is all that birthright citizenship really is) of being born in this country. If anything, it treats the citizenship issue as one that’s not very relevant to a daily life in Chicago – or anywhere else, for that matter.

... and also can pay train or bus fare

Which is a fact that I’m sure infuriates the ideologically-inclined amongst us. Something that undermines their way of thinking, and the way they want everybody else to think.

PERSONALLY, I FIND it intriguing that the card is meant to serve not only as identification, but also can be used as a valid library card for the Chicago Public Library system and can also have money loaded onto it for the Ventra system that now collects fares for the Chicago Transit Authority elevated train and bus systems. There also will be discounts to card holders at museums and Chicago Sky women’s professional basketball games – and even the Joffrey Ballet, if that appeals to you.

Which may be why many people who otherwise wouldn’t have any interest in immigration or citizenship status are amongst those who have expressed interest.

Combining those functions into one card to be carried around, rather than juggling many different cards or having to load money into those machines at the “el” platforms every time one wants to ride the train somewhere.

How convenient.

THEN AGAIN, I’M sure the ideologues out there probably think that riding mass transit itself is somehow a subversive thought. How people who don’t have a car as a part of their daily lives somehow deserve more of a hassle.

If they ever offer discounted Sox tickets, I'm in

Even though for many Chicago residents (particularly those who are native-born and raised in the city), the lack of an automobile is about convenience. As it can be a hassle to have one and have to keep it legally parked when not in use.

Plus the fact that it can be downright convenient when traversing Chicago’s expanses to take the train or bus (or use a taxicab or one of those Uber vehicles for special occasions).

So having all these services on a single card to carry about – it almost makes me wonder if the ideologues’ real objection is that the local government officials in their home communities didn’t come up with such an idea first!

  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Not living up to bloody reputation Trump tries to tag our city with?

Whatever shall Donald J. Trump have rants about when he sits at his keyboard and taps out another 140-character missive meant to make himself feel better about his existence?

TRUMP: He should stifle self on Chicago

For a common topic for Trump to get worked up over is the homicide rate for Chicago, which is actually running a little bit lower this year compared to last but is still significantly higher than it has been in most recent years.

BUT FOR THE time period stretching from Feb. 26 through Saturday, there were no deaths in Chicago caused by any other human being's deliberate actions. On Sunday, a 23-year-old man was shot repeatedly in the Austin neighborhood, dying from his wounds. You have to go back to a week in December of 2009 to find a stretch of time with less fatal activity than we had in Chicago this past week.

Now as the Chicago Tribune points out, we have had more shootings occur in Chicago this year compared to last. But fewer fatalities. People are surviving. Which is good.

For everybody except Trump and his miscreant followers who are absolutely determined to look down upon the Second City. My own suspicion is they are bitter that a Chicagoan provided our society with the president they came to despise so intensely because he was so unlike them, so they're going to keep up the rants for as long as they're alive.

Maybe we'd hear less ranting about Chicago if the city hadn't been so overwhelmingly opposed to Trump last Election Day that his campaign might have been somewhat competitive in Illinois and this state might have joined other Great Lakes/Rust Belt states like Michigan and Ohio in backing the Trumpster.

De Blasio: Ate a Portillos, but prefers Nathans

WE'D BE HEARING more about New York or Los Angeles or the neighborhoods of Washington, D.C., that many of us don't have a clue even exist. Anacostia?

Even New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, in Chicago for a speaking engagement last week said he was tired of hearing Trump's Chicago rants, adding they surprise him because Trump himself is not some rural bumpkin but a genuine Noo Yawker.

Although I'd argue the view on the 69th floor of the Trump Tower in Manhattan provides a much different glimpse of urban life than does living in a place like Brooklyn. Particularly if they have the Mar a Lago mansion in Florida (whom various reports have pointed out is near a Florida municipality whose crime rates per capita are remarkably similar to that of Chicago).

An old Peanuts comic strip has Lucy spew a slew of statistics for Charlie Brown about how bad their baseball team is, with the final panel having Charlie retort, "Lucy, tell your statistics to shut up!" Don't you wish we could do the same to The Donald? What else is notable about life these days on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan?

RAUNER: Needs to find education solution

YOU WILL LISTEN TO WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!!!: Chance the Rapper, who on Friday was granted a token audience with Gov. Bruce Rauner to talk about the financial problems confronted by the Chicago Public Schools, felt the need to speak out again Monday.

Then again, he only got a half-hour, and I suspect the governor wasn't exactly subtle in letting it be known he wasn't terribly interested in hearing opinions other than his own about how the state's financial mess (which he wants us to believe is the fault of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state Comptroller Susana Mendoza) is impacting public education programs.

Anyway, the music star who actually won a Grammy Award this year held a press conference at the Westcott Elementary School in the Auburn/Gresham neighborhood, where he made a $1 million donation to the Chicago Public Schools. People were able to watch his largess via his personal Instagram account.

Which means you could have heard the whole lot of nothing being spewed that Rauner was ignoring. Of course, I have to confess the entity that is most worthy of criticism in this whole matter are those news media organizations that felt compelled to cover any of this as though it mattered. Focusing on the trivia is the easy way of pretending to have significance, rather than pushing people to try to find a real solution to the state's financial mess.

IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING (and Queen):  Barack and Michelle Obama may not live at their Kenwood neighborhood residence these days, but they are capable of possessing drivers' licenses issued by the state of Illinois.

Nobody gets drivers' license photos ...

The State Journal-Register newspaper in Springfield reported that the secretary of state's office issued the now-former first couple new licenses without them having to make a return trip to Illinois. The deal was done through the mail, and the state even waived the $30 renewal fee, sending the new licenses -- which used old photographs the state already had on file -- to a D.C.-area address.

... that look this good

Officials said the deal was done right about the time of Election Day, and they say they would have made a similar accomodation for anyone "serving in that office" who happened to have an Illinois license. Not that any others have had one.

It also helped that both Barack and Michelle qualified for the automatic renewal program intended for anyone who manages to go all four years without accumulating traffic tickets. Then again, it's not like Obama has been in a position to get a ticket -- unless you really think some motorcycle beat cop is going to pull over the presidential motorcade to cite the president for having a busted taillight.

  -30-

People ought to have enough sense to keep track of their own due dates

Excuse me for not being the least bit sympathetic to people who are now getting hit with late fees and other financial penalties because they miss deadlines in place for the various functions of the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.

 

WHITE: Not a bandit taking our $$$

These fees are occurring in part because of people who don’t file their applications for renewal of various functions on time because the secretary of state is not sending out as many warning notices via the mail to indicate that application deadlines are approaching.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reported how the amount of money being collected by the state in such fees is significant – nearly double.

Which has some people whining and crying about this being a scam on the part of the state – a way of collecting even more money from the taxpaying public than it is entitled to.

Which is a line of logic that I find to be a tad nonsensical!

I honestly believe that people ought to be capable of keeping track of things such as when their license plate registration expires or when the driver’s licenses need to be renewed.

UNLESS THEY HAVE the interaction quotient of a six year old who perpetually needs to have “mommy” nag them in order to get them to do anything on time, people ought to have some sense of when something is on the verge of expiring.

They ought to know when they need to renew. They ought to be able to have a clue, then figure out how to get to the secretary of state’s office on their own to do their business with the state.

The people who are crying and whining these days about the penalties they are paying are most likely just cheap people looking for excuses to get out of paying what they owe.

I can’t express the least bit of sympathy for them, and honestly believe that anybody who can’t comprehend this as fact is somehow clueless in their own right.

IT MAKES ME wish that stupidity could be a public offense for which people could be fined, or at least subjected to some form of public humiliation.

Seriously, how hard is it to remember that one’s license plates need to be renewed each year. One has to go to a secretary of state’s facility and buy that little sticker that goes in the corner of one’s license plate.

The interesting part comes when one has had a particular plate for years and has accumulated layer upon layer of registration stickers.

There’s also the renewal of a driver’s license itself – which occurs every four years on one’s birthday. That ought to be the ultimate in remembrance.

EXCEPT THAT SOME people are determined to be mentally lazy. You’d think they’d be too embarrassed to complain about the fines they pay because it makes them appear even more clueless/vacuous/lazy/inept or whatever other label one can think of than they truly are.

Which makes me think Illinois WOULD be better off without the roughly $5.2 million in revenues it collected more this year compared to than it did last year from people who couldn’t remember exactly when their license plates expired – AND also didn’t have enough sense to just look at their plate to see exactly when the sticker is set to expire.

It is printed right on the sticker, and my own sense is that people ought to pay attention to their own vehicle because the police certainly will do so.

And if they have to remind you by pulling you over for a traffic violation, you truly are worthy of any fines or harassment you get for such a petty offense.

  -30-

When is an ID not an ID?

I’m sure that to the general public in Illinois, an identification card is an identification card.

Not necessary yet!

A name, a picture (probably depicting you in a bad light)? What more do you need?

BUT THE ILLINOIS driver’s license that many of us carry about in our wallets and tend to think of as the be-all of end-all in terms of identification in any situation came ever so close to being inadequate for those of us who travel to any degree of frequency.

For Sunday was supposed to be the day that the federal government would quit allowing people entering federal facilities to do so using an Illinois driver’s license as their basic identification.

As it turns out, the Federal Aviation Administration backed down, saying they’ll extend the amount of time for Illinois to amend its license operations to make them acceptable as proper ID until 2018.

Jan. 22 of 2018, to be exact.

AFTER THAT DATE, if Illinois and the secretary of state’s office has not made changes, people trying to get through airport security would not only have to show up an hour-and-a-half prior to their scheduled flight time (then grumble about what a massive waste of their time it is), they also would have to have a passport.

Even if the trip in question is just a short jaunt from O’Hare International to Lambrecht airport in St Louis. Although personally, I can’t envision anyone seriously making that flight – it would just be less of a hassle to drive an automobile to get there.

Now I’m not about to explain exactly why the Illinois license is so inadequate that the federal government questions its legitimacy. Something about how we don’t require enough verification measures in gathering up information about the people we legally permit to drive automobiles on our roadways.

Yet another headache to be added to use of O'Hare International Airport?

Although the bottom line could be a factual tidbit from the Illinois Policy Institute, which says that to fully create an Illinois driver’s license or state ID card (for those people who don’t drive) would cost the state about $100 per license issued – compared to the $30 it now costs.

WHICH I’M SURE will tick off enough local people into questioning whether or not they ever need to fly again. I can already envision the griping that would have occurred if the federal government had maintained a hard line on this issue.

Instead, they backed off for two years, as they have every few years for the past decade whenever this issue comes up.

Who’s to say when, if ever, Illinois will be in compliance with the REALID Act that was meant to bolster the level of national security, and quite possibly be a step toward creating a national identification card?

Which is a step that would truly tick off the ideologues of our society who would worry about having so much personal information in the hands of a federal government agency.

ALTHOUGH IF YOU think objectively about all the information that the Internal Revenue Service or the Federal Bureau of Investigation is capable of getting about any individual with a few strokes of computer keyboard keys, you’d have to wonder what the real difference is.

Do we really think more highly of Homeland Security than we do the IRS?

There’s also the fact that in my own case, I actually have a father and step-mother who left town for a Las Vegas weekend, and weren’t set to come back until after the Sunday cut-off.

It would be just my luck that they would win big at the casinos to make the family independently wealthy, only to make it impossible for them to return to Chicago next week. Or maybe that’s just their way of keeping the cash and telling the rest of us, “See ya!”

  -30-

Will lack of license renewal notices irritate public about lack of Ill. budget?

It shouldn’t make any difference that the state of Illinois will not be able to send out written notices via mail reminding people that their driver’s licenses are on the verge of expiring.

It includes an expiration date!

After all, the date of expiration is printed on every single license. It is spelled out for you right on the card. And it falls on your birthdate every four years!

THE ONLY REAL trick is to remember whether this year is the year you have to make the trip to a secretary of state facility to do the renewal, and whether this year is one of those where you have to submit to a written or actual driving test to show the state that you’re still qualified to be capable of operating an automobile.

But I can already imagine the complaints we’re going to hear from the public; or at least those who won’t receive a notice of renewal in coming weeks – all on account of the fact that the state is running low on cash it has authorization to spend.

It’s that dreaded lack of a budget for state government – something that is required by the state Constitution for the government to operate at full services.

Both the Chicago Tribune and State Journal-Register newspaper of Springfield reported that the secretary of state’s office will have to stop sending out the notices because the cost of postage is too much.

THE STATE HAS been sending out notices the past three months because there was some money left over from the past fiscal year (the one that ended June 30).

RAUNER: You'd think he'd be ashamed by now

The bit that still remains will now be used by the state to mail out license renewal stickers, along with license plates themselves. Although if the politically partisan-motivated stalemate between Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, continues much longer, even those services may have to be cut.

Personally, I feel lucky. My license expired at the end of August – meaning I got my notice back in June. Aside from complaining that my new driver’s license photograph makes me look old (then again, I did just turn 50), I can’t complain.

Could Cullerton and Ragodno ...

Just as my brother is due to renew the license plates on his automobile by Wednesday.

I GUESS THIS means we beat the rush. By the time we have to deal with these duties again, I’d hope our state would be in a position to have an actual budget.

At which time, things would resume the way they’re supposed to within state government.

... resolve budget crisis themselves?

Personally, I find little details such as this to be laughable because they show just how ridiculous the financial status of Illinois has become; so precarious that something as basic as one’s driver’s license can be threatened by the inability of public officials to fulfill one of their most basic duties.

Considering that the conservative ideologues of our society believe that state government ought to pass its budget, and do as little else as becomes necessary, it makes me think that the Republican caucus is the ultimate failure in this situation by putting their desire to bash organized labor ahead of their official duty.

THEY’RE NOT EVEN fulfilling their basic responsibility. Which makes me wonder if they’re more derelict in their duties than that rural Kentucky clerk who wants to thwart a basic duty of her own office (marriage licenses) to make an ideological point about the legitimacy of gay marriage.

DAVIS: Who's more embarrassing; her or gov?

Now I’m fully aware that Madigan is just as capable of being stubborn, although I get the sense he’s at least interested in moving forward on the budgetary issue.

Which also makes me note the interviews that Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, and Minority Leader Cristine Radogno, R-Lemont, gave to WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight” program earlier this week – saying that if it were just the two of them, they’d be able to approve a budget that would allow the state to move forward.

It makes me wonder if we need to dump all our leadership – and if it will be something as petty as driver’s license notification that will ultimately irritate the public enough to put the pressure on political people to get them to actually do something.

  -30-

Money has to come from somewhere to maintain state government services

It’s going to get interesting to see how much the rhetoric gets ratcheted up in coming weeks with regards to the state’s income tax.

QUINN: Doing right, if unpopular, thing?

That’s the one that got increased a few years ago, with the concept written into the language of the law that it was an increase ceasing to exist at the end of 2014.

MEANING, IF THE General Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn don’t do something specific to extend the life of the increase, the income tax will revert back to its previous level (5 percent to 3 percent – remember the infamous “67 percent tax hike” talk).

Of course, there have been many occasions in the past where “temporary” tax hikes became permanent, or at least extended for another length of time.

As I have written before, I fully expected this particular tax increase would become permanent. I never expected the Legislature to allow it to wither away with inaction. I’m braced for this particular tax hike.

Even though the conservative ideologues are trying to make an issue by campaigning for allowing the increase to wither away. And Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has said he does not right now have enough votes in the House to actually approve a bill that extends the life of the income tax increase.

WHICH IS WHY we’re getting the rhetoric from government types who want the increase to remain in place.

I still have my copy of a list from the Illinois Senate Democrats telling me exactly how much money each public school district would lose in state aid – IF the state budget suddenly took a big hit financially.

WHITE: No more renewal notices?!?

Get the educators convinced they’re about to lose even more in state funding than they’ve already been getting cut in recent years, and you can be assured they will be a faithful force in favor of persuading legislators to vote “aye” on a measure related to maintaining the income tax at its current level.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White last week added to the talk by telling how he’d have to cut the number of facilities where one can get, or renew a driver’s license.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, HE’D also have to cut back on those notices his office sends out each year to remind people that the license plates on their cars need to be renewed.

OGILVIE: Quinn hopes to avoid fate

Along with the notices every four years telling them their driver’s licenses are about to expire.

Personally, I’d like to think that’s something people ought to keep track of on their own. Although I’m sure some will gripe that without such a notice, they can’t be expected to know on their own when they have to renew.

Will we suddenly get an increase in the number of people with expired license plates or driver’s licenses who will complain that “It’s not my fault!” when they get pulled over by police and ticketed?

I’M NOT SURE how this issue is going to be resolved – other than to know that by month’s end it will be over.

A part of me believes that the Democratic Party leadership that runs both the Illinois House and state Senate will manage to use their power to persuade/pressure/twist the arms of legislators to approve the income tax continuation – which is desired by Quinn.

Which is all the reason why Republicans will spew the rhetoric – if they can derail a Quinn desire, they can make him look weak and ineffectual. And if they can’t, they will try tagging him as the guy who got both an income tax hike AND a property tax hike in Chicago!

Bringing back memories of Bill Ogilvie – the one-time governor who lost his re-election bid for having the nerve to do the right thing in creating the desperately-needed state income tax to begin with.

  -30-

EXTRA: Lege does something this lame duck session – driver’s license passes

As I write this, I have no idea whether pension funding reform will pass in any form come Tuesday.

But it seems the General Assembly won’t be able to say it didn’t do anything of note during these final few days of the 97^th legislative session.

FOR THE ILLINOIS House of Representatives gave a 65-46 vote on the issue of permitting people without valid visas to obtain a driver’s license from the Secretary of State’s office.

Backers of the bill say that allowing people to get a driver’s license will also get them to comply with the requirements of having auto insurance – which means safer conditions on the road for all motorists.

While some people who have their hang-ups about immigration policy want to claim this wrongly interferes with federal law – even though regulating motorists is a state issue.

I couldn’t help but be amused to learn that state Rep. Randy Ramey, R-Carol Stream – the step-son of one-time outspoken Senate President James “Pate” Philip – said he’s already getting criticism of being a “hater” and a “racist” because of his “no” vote on this measure.

FOR I SUSPECT Pate would have done whatever he could have to thwart this measure from ever coming up for a vote. Some things about Springfield just never change.

Now the measure, which got its final vote in the Illinois Senate last month, goes to Gov. Pat Quinn – who couldn’t wait to release the statement saying how happy he will be to sign this measure into law.

“I want to commend members of the Illinois House for their bipartisan passage of legislation that will help ensure every Illinois motorist is properly licensed and empower more immigrants to become stronger contributors to our economy,” the governor said, in a prepared statement.

At least the legislators will be able to say they accomplished something on Tuesday.

  -30-

Solving a problem that doesn’t exist?

I’m not quite sure what to think of city Clerk Susana Mendoza, who on Wednesday came up with a solution to a problem that I never really realized existed.

MENDOZA: Solving a non-existent problem?



The problem is the inconvenience factor involved in having everyone in Chicago who owns an automobile having to renew their city stickers by June 30.

I’M SURE MOST people think of it less as an inconvenience and more as a citywide rip-off that they have to purchase a city sticker at all for every vehicle they own – or else risk the Wrath of Rahm and other city officials who will have them ticketed (should Chicago police ever stumble across their vehicles) and fined!

But Mendoza seems to think that it will seem less painful for people to have to buy the stickers if they don’t have to deal with massive lines as every single motorist rushes to her office all at once to make their purchases – at $85 a pop.

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday how her office is drawing up a year-round sticker purchase plan – one that is being copied heavily from the way the Illinois secretary of state’s office handles the renewal of license plates.

Those identification plates on our cars are good for one year, then we have to purchase a new sticker each year that indicates we paid our $100 fee for the upcoming year.

BUT THERE ARE 12 different deadlines, on account of the fact that everybody gets until the end of the month from one year they purchased them to renew them.

In my case, June 30 is the big date – the one by which I have to go to a motor vehicle bureau and wait in the lines for a procedure that – once I get to a clerk of some type – takes all of about three minutes to complete.

It’s the wait in line that winds up being annoying to us – envision an hour-long wait for a three-minute process.

It can be just as bad when it comes to buying the city sticker, except that I’m not sure it is really appropriate to compare the two because there is a bit of a difference.

THE LICENSE PLATE is something that is meant to help public safety officials (particularly those highway patrol types of the Illinois State Police) identify an automobile much quicker than would otherwise be possible if they had to look up the VIN number every single time they made a traffic stop.

The city sticker always reeked of being just another fee the city charges us to try to raise revenue – and not one that provides any real benefit to the public.

Which is why a part of me admires the rare community that doesn’t sell city vehicle stickers. I still remember when I lived in Springfield, Ill., and first moved to the capital city.

Local officials looked at me like I was a circus freak when I inquired about how to get a city sticker. Of course, Springfield city officials have their own tax (1 percent on the purchase price) on local residents whenever they buy automobiles – which I learned when I bought a car while living there.

BECAUSE I BOUGHT the car from a suburban Chicago dealership (out in Oak Lawn, if I recall correctly), I wasn’t charged the tax. So Springfield sued me, although they dropped the lawsuit when I came up with $148 for the tax.

But back to city stickers. I’m just not convinced people are going to feel at all relieved that they won’t have to cram into a clerk’s office (or a currency exchange) all at once.

If Mendoza really wanted to make people happy, she’d figure out a way to reduce the fee – if not eliminate it altogether.

Not that I expect that to ever happen. City officials are too dependent on the revenue (about $110 million this year, according to the clerk) by now to be able to afford to give it up.

BESIDES, IF THERE’S a date we’d really like to do away with, it’s April 15.

Tax Day!!!!!!

All the tension we all feel from having to account for our incomes and hope that the Internal Revenue Service doesn’t find some bureaucratic rule that can be used against us.

That would be a significant move if we could reduce it by 1/12^th.

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Will White still be around in ‘19?

On the one hand, the idea of a man pushing age 85 holding the political post that is one of the most visible in Illinois government reeks of absurdity.

WHITE: The pol who won't leave?



That’s how old Jesse White will be if he actually runs for Illinois secretary of state in the 2014 elections and manages to make it all the way to the end of his term in January of 2019.

EVEN RONALD REAGAN wasn’t that old when he finished his terms as U.S. president early in 1989 – and was starting to show signs of the behavior that later was diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease.

But then again, Jesse White has never been the typical politician – or person.

Anyone who saw White as I happened to see him on Saturday – helping to lug heavy mats around in hot, humid weather while helping to set up a stage in suburban South Holland for his Jesse White Tumblers gymnastics team (which was making its second of four scheduled appearances that day) – would not have seen a 77-year-old man.

To play off that old cliché, White was working so hard that it made me tired just watching. Let alone having to keep track of 17 young people AND handle the driving of the bus that was taking the tumblers from appearance to appearance.

WHITE OBVIOUSLY DOES not give much thought to retiring. He got elected to his fourth term in the office that most prominently issues our driver’s licenses (his name sits in the wallet of nearly every legal driver in the state) during last year’s election cycle.

He’s already thinking ahead, using political rallies at the Illinois State Fair last week to tell people he’s already planning to be the Democratic nominee in 2014.

Any other government official who talked of running for re-election this early in the process (three years and three months remaining until Election Day) would be considered delusional.

Yet in the case of White, the reaction seems to be mere acceptance. It’s like White has become one of those officials that we just assume belongs in political post.

IT’S MAKING ME wonder if the name “White” is becoming something akin to “Daley” for Chicago-area politicos.

What amazes me the most about White’s longevity as secretary of state is the fact that he had already had a full political career by the time he first won election to the position in 1998 – the year that Democrats started once again getting elected to Illinois government posts and culminating with the 2002 and 2006 elections that saw Democrats take over everything.

It’s almost like White was the leader who plowed the path for his political allies to come along and take control of the Springfield Scene from people who always saw the purpose of their authority as keeping Chicago under check – instead of trying to work with the city on issues.

But back on that day in January 1999 when White first took that oath, he was already pushing 65 years of age. He was the guy who had been a long-time state legislator from the Near North Side and who had moved “up” to the world of Cook County government by serving as recorder of deeds.

THAT, IN AND of itself, would be a full political career that few other government officials in our city could match. The perception back then was that White would be secretary of state for a term (or two, at most) before retiring. By that logic, White should have moved on years ago.

But he hasn’t.

He doesn’t want to seem to go anywhere, except to work.

That is, when he’s not engaged in the act of operating his self-named tumbling team that he created in 1959 to provide inner-city youths with an alternative to urban street life (a sweet-sounding euphemism for street-gangs and drugs). Which is work.

THE TEAM ROUTINELY performs all over the United States, and in fact later this year has plans to perform in London and in Edinburg, Scotland.

Which means that White could be busy enough if he were to focus his time on managing the tumblers – which in-and-of itself would be a noble way to spend his final years.

Yet White seems determined to hang on politically, knowing full well that anybody who seriously thought of challenging him in a Democratic primary would be seen as bringing down the Wrath of God (a.k.a. state party Chairman Michael J. Madigan) for causing internal political problems.

About the only way that White won’t run for secretary of state in 2014 is if he literally suffers a mishap and departs this planet. Not that I’m wishing for anyone’s death. But it seems that will be the only way that White won’t try to get a fifth term as secretary of state.

AND AFTER SEEING White in action during the weekend, I can’t say I see a man who looks like he’s going to leave us any time soon.

So much for a man whose sense of failure in life probably extends only to the fact that he was once a professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization in the 1960s who never made it to the big club.

Was the Cubs’ loss the people’s gain?

  -30-