One-fifth of Illinois Legislature in Havana? What if they got trapped!

Call it my wildest fantasy come true – the 33 state legislators who on Wednesday arrived in Havana for a six-day journey through Cuba somehow get stuck on the Caribbean island nation.

How would Dan Burke ...

They are unable to return to the United States. Should we consider Fidel Castro a hero for helping us to do away with legislators who (had they been permitted to return to their political playground in Springfield) probably would have caused significant governmental mischief?

YOU HAVE TO to admit the thought is worth a chuckle. Because if we try to look at this trip on a rational level, the first (and only) question that comes to our minds is “What are you doing going to Havana?!?”

It may be one of the few logical statements made by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich when he tried to mock the actions of his gubernatorial predecessor – George Ryan – by saying that any action by Illinois officials to expand business with Cuba was a waste of time.

That trade embargo wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon, so significant business opportunities would continue to be thwarted in the name of ideology and trying to embarrass the Castro regime (which has shown throughout the years that it has no shame whatsoever).

But this week’s trip by 33 legislators is reminiscent of that journey that Ryan took to Havana back in 1999. It may be one of his finest moments as governor – or it may be further evidence that he was craven in character. It all depends on your own ideological hang-ups.

I'LL CONFESS TO believing the former stance, and saying that I think the people who want to bash Ryan for his Cuban sojourn do little more than show how small-minded they truly are.

One of the results of that first Cuban trip (Ryan later made a smaller-scale trip to Havana later in his gubernatorial term) is that Illinois companies worked out a deal by which they can sell foodstuffs and medical supplies to companies providing direct aid to Cuba.

... and brother Edward compare ...



Of course, that was only permissible because of some changes made back during the Bill Clinton years that allowed for some humanitarian aid.

Now, the legislators who went to Havana have hopes to build upon what can be sold, so that Illinois companies can make even more money off of Cuba when it eventually goes through a rebuilding period (which won’t truly start until the demise of the Castro brothers).

AND QUITE FRANKLY, Fidel and Raul aren’t showing any signs of dying off soon – even though the ideologues have had us thinking of the pair as decrepit old men on their death beds for decades.

What we really have happening this week is the same thing that George Ryan tried to do a dozen years ago – put the name of Illinois in the mindset of Cubans so that when they need precious goods, they will come to our companies.

Cuba is already Illinois’ fifth largest trading partner, with most of those items being agricultural products. There are a lot of business people who would like the figure to go up significantly.

That is what makes state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo, think it worthy of  paying for this trip out of his own pocket, while state Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago, and brother of almighty 13^th Ward Alderman Ed Burke, and all the other legislators who went along for the journey decided to use the money in their campaign funds.

AS AN ASIDE, I can’t help but wish that Eddie Burke could have gone along on this particular trip with younger brother Dan. What would los hermanos Castro make of the brothers Burke?

Would the two brother pairings meet, exchange pleasantries, then depart, while exchanging snide comments about how the other was a couple of power-hungry, political animals?

And if they did, who would be more correct. Eddie and Dan Burke on the Castros? Or Fidel and Raul on those lovable Irish-American politicos who manage to survive each Election Day, despite the fact that their ward/legislative district is turning increasingly Latino?

Although not Cubano. We’re talking about a Mexican-American mix that the Burkes will represent both in the City Council and in the Illinois House of Representatives.

I COULDN'T HELP but note Dan Burke pointed out that fact in some of the news coverage written in advance of the trip – as though he thinks people who come from places like Guanajuato or Guerrero are going to be swayed because he took a propaganda trip to the land where Che Guevara is a real icon – and not just some hairy dude who turns up on t-shirts!

... to the Castro brothers when it comes to tough politics?

So if it seems like I’m being disrespectful of this trip, I’m really not. I think it is a noble goal – because the day will come (no matter how many aging Miami exiles rant and rage against it) when Cuba becomes a part of the real world again.

Heck, beginning next month there will be direct flights from O’Hare International Airport to Havana’s Josè Martì International Airport. No more having to catch a flight to Montreal or Mexico City in order to get to Havana.

I’m just wondering how much our sometimes-bumbling state legislators (this is the governmental body with a member who this year tried to give a full tuition waiver to the kid of an organized crime figure, then tried to rescind it rather clumsily) are up to this trip.

  -30-

Rahm-bo tactics, not school talk, is what has teachers upset about extension

In theory, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is being rational and reasonable in his talk of wanting to extend the length of the school day in the Chicago Public Schools system.

EMANUEL: Tough talk ticks off teachers



A little more class time and a few more school days isn’t an unreasonable request. The idea of a school day that starts at 8 a.m. and ends at 3:30 p.m. – about 90 minutes per day more than what is currently being offered – is not a radical concept.

YET I CAN fully appreciate why school teachers are offended these days and are talking about the need for additional compensation if they’re going to be expected to do more work.

It’s because we’re getting Rahm-bo at work. Meaning, that persona Emanuel developed as a ranking advisor in the Bill Clinton White House and as chief of staff under President Barack Obama.

The tough-talking, hard-nosed guy who would engage in hard-core politics and pressure others into accepting his way.

This is the guy who got health care reform passed despite a vocal Republican opposition that was determined to do whatever it could to thwart it (and now openly talks about the day when they can try to repeal it – no matter what benefits it provides for our society).

EMANUEL IS NO longer taking on the House Republican caucus. Now, he has the Chicago Teachers Union in his sights.

Which is why he’s spewing the rhetoric meant to make schoolteachers think they ought to be grateful to be employed in any fashion. That might get the anti-union types off his back for a bit. But it’s not going to win over those people who aren’t interested in playing partisan politics – and actually have education issues on their minds.

They are taking it poorly. Just last week, Chicago Teachers Union head Karen Lewis was in the East Side neighborhood with a lot of those Wisconsin labor leaders who led those nationally-covered protests at the Statehouse in Madison, Wis.

Emanuel’s name got taken in vain on many an occasion – and his actions were compared negatively to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels – both of whom tried their own tactics this spring to try to take down their own teachers unions and their collective bargaining rights.

THAT’S GREAT COMPANY he’s putting himself into. And there is a touch of truth in the teacher retort that it wasn't their $40,000 pensions that put the Chicago Public Schools in financial distress.

But then again, there are those people who take an interest in immigration reform and the distinct lack of interest that the Obama Administration showed in the issue during the Emanuel years, and we start to wonder if Emanuel has some sort of hang-up against the people who theoretically are supposed to be his allies.

Because the opposition is those people who are disgusted with Emanuel because he succeeds even though he has ties to Clinton and Obama – and ought to be tainted beyond redemption if their view of the world were to prevail.

It just seems to me that Emanuel is going out of his way to tick off the people among the school teachers who ought to be his biggest supporters – and also are the ones who deal with the daily reality of what is wrong with the public schools system in this city.

IT’S NOT GOING to be pretty. It certainly wasn’t on Tuesday – which was the first day of school within the Chicago Public Schools system.

Emanuel made a point of offering “incentives” to the administration of every single public school in Chicago, provided they accepted his desire for a longer school day.

The Chicago Tribune reported that Emanuel offered schools $150,000 and individual teachers a $1,250 raise – if they shifted to a longer school day beginning now. If they make the shift in January, the schools would get $75,000, and the teacher raises would only be $800.

Realize that the $1,250 and $800 raises are for the entire school year. That ain’t much. The 2 percent boost can be seen as about an extra $40 per week.

FOR EMANUEL TO try to portray these boosts as something significant that the teachers should be thankful for is as pompous and arrogant a stance as the anti-labor activists like to think the unions themselves are making.

If this has become a fight of arrogance versus arrogance, then this is a political battle that will become incredibly ugly. Even though I don’t sense a strike anytime soon, I can’t help but wonder if this is going to be the trigger that will result in future incidents that will pile up – one on top of the other – until teachers feel they have no choice but to walk.

Would Emanuel be the type of mayor who would have his appointees who run the Chicago Public Schools try to impose scab school teachers in such an event? That would be a unique condition. I hope it never gets close to being that outrageous.

Because it already has become ridiculous enough. Like I wrote earlier, the demands themselves aren’t unreasonable.

KEEP IN MIND that Tuesday was the first day of school in the Chicago Public Schools system – which by tradition waits until after Labor Day to start classes.

Their suburban counterparts and the city’s private schools, many of whom are routinely outperforming the city public school students, have already been in class for two to three weeks – depending on which school district is involved.

It’s too bad that the mayoral arrogance covers up the truth of that statement.

  -30-

Cook County Board makes immigration statement they’ve already made

The Cook County Board this week is likely to take an action that I’m sure the conservative ideologues of our society will lambast as a federal offense, if not treasonous and downright “un-American.”

GARCIA: Making national news?

Actually, it’s more a symbolic gesture. But leave it to the overly partisan among us to exaggerate the significance of something.

THE ISSUE AT stake here is immigration reform. And for what it’s worth, the county board back in 2010 approved a resolution stating that it officially supports the concept of comprehensive reform of the nation’s immigration laws, and also has passed vague measures saying the county wouldn’t do business with Arizona companies because of that state’s hostile laws on this particular issue.

The action likely to be taken when the county board meets on Wednesday merely reinforces the fact that the Democrat-led government body supports the idea that treating people from other countries whose papers aren’t in line as vicious criminals is just absurd.

So I personally don’t think this gesture is really worth much attention, although the reports being disseminated in anticipation of the county board’s likely vote would have you think that Cook County is “taking center stage” in the ongoing debate over immigration reform.

The measure in question is being sponsored by county Commissioner Jesus Garcia (one of two Latino members of the 17-member county board), and it says that the county sheriff should refuse to hold people in the Cook County Jail just because federal immigration officials have issued a “detainer.”

WHAT HAPPENS IS that if someone gets arrested in the county and there becomes reason to suspect that their immigration status is suspicious, a federal detainer is issued.

That detainer means that the person gets held at the county jail even if they are capable of posting bond for their charge – or even if their charge gets dismissed or otherwise resolved.

It means that county jail officials get roped into the business of holding onto immigration cases until the officials with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency are able to get around to resolving those cases.

In some cases, the county incarceration for people who have no pending criminal charge against them is significant.

CONSIDERING THAT IT’S only the ideologues who want to view these people as criminals, it puts the county into having to take up the “wrong side” of the debate on this particular issue.

Garcia’s resolution does include a clause saying that the county jail should only hold these immigration cases if the U.S. government provides the county with a written agreement by which it will reimburse Cook County for all costs of incarceration.

Immigration officials have said they have no intention of reimbursing Cook County because they don’t reimburse any local jurisdiction for the costs caused by immigration detainers. I’m sure they want to view this issue as a courtesy extended by one law enforcement agency to another, and that Cook County officials are off on some sort of diatribe.

What it really is about is making sure people understand that the government officials in Chicago are sympathetic to the people who live here, particularly since it is a city where even the so-called white people are strongly aware of their ethnic origins.

MEANING THAT THE county board’s opposition to being involved in this issue has nothing to do with money. I suspect that even if the federal government were to offer to “pay up” for incarceration costs, the officials who vote against this idea when it comes up this week would still be opposed to the general concept.

As for those who are going to say that this issue is going to cause a lengthy court battle, you’d already be correct.

For the National Immigrant Justice Center already has filed a lawsuit that claims detainers are an un-Constitutional concept. It is pending in the U.S. District Court for Chicago and northern Illinois, and is based on the idea that someone who does not have a pending local criminal charge against them should not be held in a local jail.

Consider it the equivalent of the county telling the federal government, “Do your own dirty work” when it comes to detaining people and holding them while their status is resolved.

PERHAPS IF FEDERAL ICE officials had to be responsible for full incarceration for everybody they take an interest in, then they’d seriously try to find only those people without papers who pose a serious threat to our society – instead of engaging in mass raids that try to pick up as many people as possible (almost like a ballplayer trying to boost his batting average at the end of the season to try to get a contractual bonus).

I have a hard time getting that excited about this particular action because, like I wrote earlier, this is more of a symbolic gesture. This particular measure already has nine sponsors, including the county board president herself.

There will probably be heated debate, and at least a couple of angry suburban types on the county board who decide to vote against this measure just to be ornery.

But anyone who thinks that Toni Preckwinkle and the county board majority is significantly changing its thought process by approving this measure is seriously missing the point.

  -30-

Baseball season nearing its end, ’11 typical for Chicago in oh, so many ways

If there really is purgatory – as in a place where a less-than-pure soul has to spend some time in suffering before being admitted to Heaven – then fans of the Chicago White Sox got a taste of it this past weekend.

Raburn had another "big day" on Saturday

Seeing the last shards of hope of a playoff spot come October go up in smoke by watching the White Sox blow a seven-run lead (losing 9-8 to the Detroit Tigers) was an agony that will be repeated for many, many years (Remember The Sopranos’ Paulie Gualtieri formula for determining a purgatory sentence?) before being admitted to eternal paradise.

YET AS AGONIZING as that moment was for some (personally, I accepted the idea that 2011 was “over” for the White Sox about a month ago), this may well show the difference between the fans of the Sox and those of the Chicago Cubs.

For all those people who try to claim one ballclub or the other as truly representing the character of Chicago baseball, I’d argue it is the split in support that is the true character.

So while White Sox fans are going to remember this weekend (needing the possibility of a sweep, and instead going into Sunday with the chance of being swept) for what happened on the field, fans of the Cubs are going to remember 2011 because of another loss.

Of Old Style.

AS IN THE cheap beer that some of us drank in our younger days because it was inexpensive, but which Cubs fans have deluded themselves into thinking it somehow tastes good and adds to the character of the 97-year-old ballpark.

The other man destined to appear in White Sox purgatory



This hasn’t been a secret. It seems that the manufacturer of Old Style beer wants to put more effort into making other brands – perhaps something that real beer drinkers would enjoy. The contract they had with the Chicago Cubs to manufacture and sell Old Style at Wrigley Field ends this year.

And the brewer has no interest in renewing the deal.

You can buy it on e-Bay, believe it or not!



So after Sept. 21 when the Cubs play their final home ballgame (ironically enough, against the Milwaukee Brewers) of 2011, you won’t be able to get an Old Style at Wrigley Field. You’ll have to pay your roughly $7 per cup of brew for some other brand come 2012.

BELIEVE IT OR not, there are Cubs fans who are thoroughly upset. In fact, I think Cubs fans are more upset about losing Old Style than White Sox fans are about losing to the Detroit Tigers so badly on Saturday.

Even the Associated Press is picking up on this, having disseminated a dispatch about how fans are upset about the loss of the brand of beer. If anything, it is moments like this that make me think the Cubs are a civic embarrassment to the city of Chicago.

Knowing that the nation (and possibly, the world) now knows about Chicago baseball fans getting worked up over losing a brand of cheap beer at the ballpark makes us all look like a batch of boobs.

I know occasionally, you’ll find an old White Sox fan who will remember that they used to sell Schlitz at Comiskey Park (the real one located north of 35^th Street). But then he takes a sip of his Miller beer product and gets back to watching the ballgame.

PERHAPS CUBS BASEBALL gets to be so bad that it can only be appreciated when inebriated.

But getting all worked up over Old Style is just so trivial, it strikes me as something only a Chicago Cubs fan could possibly do.

Heck, I don’t remember this much outcry when they quit selling Hamm’s Beer at Wrigley Field – which was another brand that had been a part of the Cubs’ scene for decades.

Makes Joe Camel look like an advertising hack



At least that brand is memorable for its marketing (my brother, now 41, still gets a chuckle when thinking about the animated Hamm’s bear and his antics promoting Hamm’s Beer), if not for its actual taste.

AS FOR THOSE people who are now complaining that Wrigley Field won’t be the same if an Anheuser-Busch product (with its long-time associations with St. Louis and the arch-rival Cardinals) is sold there, I’d only argue that it was Harry Caray himself during his 17-year Cubs broadcasting stint who used to proclaim himself, “a Cubs fan, and a Bud man.”

So where do we go from here? There are just a few more weeks left in this season, which I suspect most White Sox fans are going to want to forget (similar to 2006 when the team managed to be the only ballclub that won more than 90 games that did NOT make it to the playoffs, even though they had been pre-season favorites to do something significant).

’11 will be yet another lost season on the South Side, as well as on the North Side. No championship hopes for the White Sox fan. No cheap beer for the fans of the Cubs.

That, more than anything else, may well describe the difference in character between the supporters of the two ballclubs.

  -30-

Jackson versus Halvorson: Will it get ugly? There’s no way it can’t

Debbie Halvorson is the former state legislator and one-term member of Congress who wants back into the political game. And it seems she’s willing to consider playing politics in a district that could result in stirring up ugly racial tensions.

HALVORSON: Does she really want it?


For if Halvorson seriously thinks she can unseat Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., she’s going to have to get into bed (symbolically, of course) with some fairly ugly attitudes and may wind up saying some things she will someday regret.

I ONLY HOPE she’s not destined to become the female version of Bernard Epton. He, of course, was the long-time state legislator from the Hyde Park neighborhood with a fairly liberal record who these days is only remembered for being Harold Washington’s GOP mayoral opponent in ’83.

Halvorson is a resident of Crete – one of those Chicago suburbs that lies just across the Cook/Will county line. And the newly-drawn congressional district boundaries for the next decade did a real number on Will County.

No longer is there one member of Congress whose district covers the bulk of the county – along with bits of surrounding territory. Now, the county is hacked up and split among so many districts – including a few that start in Chicago and work their way south through Will.

Those political operatives who drew the boundaries always knew it was possible that Halvorson would consider a comeback attempt (she lost in 2010 to Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.). They figured she would try to run for office from one of the districts that included a part of Will County but that was either without an incumbent or had a weak incumbent.

BUT IT SEEMS that Halvorson is deciding that since her home is in Crete and it is now in the Illinois Second Congressional District, that she should consider running for that district’s seat. She told the SouthtownStar newspaper on Friday that she has filed a statement of candidacy for the Second District.

That action is not absolute. She could always change her mind and file a new one elsewhere. Or she could decide eventually not to run at all for a seat in Congress. But for now, she’s taking the actions necessary to raise money for a campaign against Jackson – who has long been a Halvorson critic.

EPTON: Will she learn from his mistakes?



It comes down to one of Jackson’s pet actions – he’s the loudest mouth in favor of a new Chicago-area airport near Peotone (just a couple of towns south of Crete). He views it as a way of forcing metropolitan officials to recognize that the South Side and surrounding suburbs are a full-fledged part of the Chicago area.

Halvorson views it as a Will County facility that should be run by Will County people and would be an asset that asserts Will County’s independent status within the Greater Chicago Area.

WHICH MEANS THE two have routinely squabbled throughout the years, including most recently when Jackson used his influence to kill off any chance Halvorson had of becoming director of the Illinois Department of Transportation (a post that would have given her some say over a Peotone airport).

Is this political payback by Halvorson – trying to dump Jackson from Congress because he stopped her from getting a director’s post that some political insiders say she was a long-shot for anyway?

If it is, it WILL be ugly.

Because there is a very real sentiment that will take place during the upcoming decade in that particular district. It is one that already has occurred in the Illinois First Congressional District, and will continue for as long as Bobby L. Rush is the representative.

JACKSON AND RUSH get elected with ease because the districts have their base in the Far South and South sides, respectively. They are majority African-American districts, even though their southern ends stretch into suburban areas have significant white populations.

That has been true for Rush, who has to deal with a certain element that is upset they are represented by a one-time Black Panther Party activist in Congress.

Now, it will be true for Jackson. There are those Will County people who will be upset that not only are they not represented by someone from a place like Joliet or Frankfort, they will have as their representation in Washington the son of the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Race factors into this. Which is why I found it humorous this week when I happened to do some paying work by covering a speech Jackson gave at a community college in suburban Chicago Heights.

HE TOLD THE crowd that he only spoke about race relations because he was specifically asked to, and would love to talk about larger issues. But talking about race helped bolster his strength among his part of the congressional district.

He realizes that talking about how racial perceptions are keeping the South Side and surrounding suburbs economically strapped will be pleasing to people who will be offended by Halvorson’s appeal to people who want to think that Chicago is “invading” their home area.

Halvorson’s problem, however, is that the voters who are most willing to accept this line of logic on her part most likely are looking for candidates in places other than the Democratic Party.

JACKSON: Favored north of Steger Road?



She’s going to be asking the same people who eagerly dumped her in 2010 for a Republican (even though the bulk of Illinois voters went Democratic) to put aside their past hang-ups about her.

SHE MAY WELL wind up being the candidate who campaigns among Will County voters; never actually setting foot north of Steger Road (in Chicago terms, that would be 234^th Street, A.K.A., the county line) during the election cycle.

Will she become the woman who desperately tells those Will County voters how they need to cast ballots for her in the 2012 Democratic primary, “before it’s too late?”

  -30-

With minorities being the majority, will this pressure Quinn to back casinos?

Call it the “white guilt” tactic, if you will, to try to persuade Gov. Pat Quinn to quit being the obstacle to the city of Chicago being able to get a long-desired casino.

QUINN: Will he listen?

How else should we think of the fact that the Latino and African-American members of the City Council this week banded together to make a statement that Quinn will lose ethnic and racial support if he doesn’t give in on this particular issue?

NOW AS A Latino male who personally thinks of casinos as tacky places and doesn’t really relish the thought of losing money while playing cards, I kind of find that tactic to be embarrassing.

While I realize that the decision whether to gamble or not to gamble is an individual one and that many Latinos probably would like to spend time at a casino based within the city limits, I’d hate for people to think that the concept of a casino near downtown Chicago is some special concern that ALL Latinos are supposed to get behind.

Which is why I must say that I wish this had not been presented as anything resembling an ethnic concern.

As 25^th Ward Alderman Danny Solis told reporters, Quinn needs to think of this issue in ethnic terms because, “These are also the constituencies that … have the worst neighborhoods and, as far as infrastructure is concerned, the biggest need.”

SOLIS SAID, “SPEAKING for Hispanics, this is the constituency that really does need to look at the problem of our crumbling schools and more schools being built.”

And 21^st Ward Alderman Howard Brookins said Quinn owes a casino to minorities (68 percent of the city’s population, according to the latest Census Bureau reports) on account of the support given to him during the last election cycle.

SOLIS: Latino communities need money



“There’s always a political consequence to anything you do or you don’t do,” he said.

So is the minority that makes up the majority of Chicago really going to remember and quit on Quinn come 2014? I doubt it, and I’d like to think that the Latino electorate isn’t that shallow.

WE (AND I mean all people, not just Latinos) ought to have higher priorities in mind than whether or not some business consortium gets a license to print money by operating a casino in Chicago – whose real purpose is to take away from the gross incomes of casinos in places such as Joliet, Aurora and Elgin.

And Hammond, East Chicago and Gary in Indiana – which may well be the top priority of putting a casino in Chicago. Keep the dollars in Illinois.

The idea that anyone is pushing for a casino to raise more municipal dollars to benefit the non-white neighborhoods of Chicago is just incredibly naïve. To hear select aldermen try to claim that ethnic neighborhoods are going to be the major beneficiaries of a casino sounds less-than-honest.

Because I’m realistic enough to know that a significant share of any money raised through municipal taxes from the presence of a casino will go toward projects that benefit the downtown business district, or the North lakefront neighborhoods.

OR SOMETHING THAT cannot be strictly defined as an infrastructure project in a place like Pilsen, Englewood or South Chicago.

Will these same aldermen then be complaining that not enough of the casino money is being spent on their communities? That would be a more honest charge to make than these claims that Quinn is somehow selling out the non-Anglo segment of Chicago because he has serious concerns about the way in which the General Assembly went about passing a bill for casino expansion.

I would only hope these same aldermen will be willing to hold Mayor Rahm Emanuel to the fire to ensure that their wards receive equitable shares of any proceeds that come from casinos.

But I doubt, somehow, that these aldermen will be willing to make such a bold statement against the mayor as they have this week against the governor.

BECAUSE I REALLY view this week’s action as being one meant more to curry favor with Emanuel – who in recent weeks has engaged in an often-juvenile exchange of insults with Quinn over the casino issue.

The aldermen have now taken sides. Which means they had better hope he prevails. Although considering that Quinn is the one with the “veto” pen, I’d say that the governor will ultimately succeed on some level.

BROOKINS: Political payback?

Considering that the issue is not likely to get to Quinn until some serious revisions are made to the bill through political negotiation, I would think those aldermen would be more interested in pressuring their respective legislators if they were serious about this particular issue.

I only hope that Quinn is big enough a man not to let this become personal. Or else he might try to figure out some political equivalent of using the National Guard against those ethnic and racial minority wards – which in Chicago political terms could easily result in them getting less than their needed level of services and funding when it comes to state grants that the city relies upon to bolster its own budget.

  -30-

Political “kids” keep breaking into news

It has been four full decades since Mike Royko, in his book “Boss,” included an aside about nepotism in the Chicago political scene.

MELL: The newlywed



You know, all those political people who “begat” even more political people for the next generation.

WELL, NOTHING HAS changed. That trend has continued well into the 21^st Century. In fact, one of Royko’s examples (how “Joe Burke, ward boss and alderman, begat Edward Burke, ward boss and alderman”) can literally be extended yet another generation, since Eddie Burke – along with spouse and Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke – have now “begat” Jennifer Burke of the state Pollution Control Board.

But I’m not about to complain about Jennifer Burke – who has legal credentials and may well be totally qualified for her new political post (and its $117,000 annual salary).

It’s just that in going through the news reports of recent days, it just strikes me as humorous how many of these “stories” involve the kids of Chicago-area politicos.

They’re doing good and bad. They’re making national news. And on some level, they may be causing their elder politico “parents’ to think to themselves, “You’re not too big for me to smack you upside the head.”

THE POLITICAL “KID” who is likely to draw the national attention is the daughter of 33^rd Ward Alderman Dick Mell. Not Patti Blagojevich – she’s had her day in the public eye.

Political parents Mell ...



It’s other daughter Deborah, who got herself elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, has always made it publicly known that she is a lesbian in a committed relationship, and recently took advantage of the fact that neighboring state Iowa is one of the few in the country that permits gay couples to marry.



So at the age of 43, Deborah finally is “settling” down and putting aside her single gal days. She has a spouse, Christin Baker, who works for the YMCA. The couple has known each other for seven years.

Their relationship seems as legitimate as that of any married couple and certainly nothing that was rushed into – a fact that some ideologues are going to refuse to accept as they are now trying to push for legal measures that would allow their states to ignore the validity of marriages performed in other states.

... Philip ...



WHICH MEANS THE Mell/Baker coupling is likely to be an example often cited in public debate when it comes to the “gay marriage” debate and trying to get other states – including Illinois – to get with the program.



For Illinois only has the “civil union” concept, which allows the ideologues to claim that “real” marriage is only meant for them. Which is absurd.

Considering that this marriage took place in Davenport, Iowa, it was right across the Mississippi River from Illinois. It is a shame that ideology prevented the couple from making their union legal on our side of the river.

To his credit, Mell the alderman has long accepted his daughter’s orientation and isn’t one of those parents who lets hang-ups cause him to do something stupid.

NOT AS PLEASED these days (I’d bet) is one-time Illinois Senate President James “Pate” Philip, who has a step-son by wife Nancy. After Philip retired from the Legislature in 2003, step-son Randy Ramey rose to the ranks of the Legislature himself.

He also serves as head of the DuPage County Republican Party. Which is why it drew public attention when, on Sunday, he got caught driving his car while under the influence of alcohol.

To his credit, he’s not trying to deny what happened, or use his political influence to pressure people to go easy on him. Ramey went so far as to issue a public statement admitting he had been drinking.

“I am prepared to face the consequences,” he said, in that statement. “I am deeply sorry to disappoint my family and my constituents.”

THEN AGAIN, WHEN the police have him with a .179 blood/alcohol level (.08 is the legal standard for intoxication), being noble and accepting guilt is the only way to go.

Either that, or his step-father likely would have led the parade in giving him a tongue-lashing for his behavior. And those of us old enough to remember Pate know that man’s rhetoric can be downright blunt and chilling – when he wants to be.

Then, there’s the saga of Allyson Reboyras, whose father is 30^th Ward Alderman Ariel Reboyras – which I’m sure has some political watchers saying is the most important of these tales because it involves the City Council.

Anyway, Allyson now has gainful employment. She is a secretary (annual salary, $37,570) for the state’s Liquor Control Commission.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reported this story as being merely the latest in a line of politically-motivated hires made in recent months by Gov. Pat Quinn – giving jobs on the state payroll to several people of political influence, although commission officials (including its chairman) claim there was no political pressure to hire her.

... and Reboyras



For the record, Allyson has been out of college for three years (a B.A. in political science). So this position could well be her introduction to government. Will she someday follow the route (a stint in the state Legislature, followed by a move up to a city or Cook County post) of many local aspiring politicos?

If so, we may well have to add the line, “Ariel Reboyras, alderman, begat Allyson Reboyras, yet to be determined” to that list of all the begatting that is a part of our local political scene.

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