The latest urban vs. rural spat – how fast can Chicago-area motorists drive?

It has been more than a decade since I regularly rode the interstates between Springfield and Chicago. Yet one of my lasting memories of the three-hour drive each way was that moment when I entered the greater Chicago area.

QUINN: Squabbling over speed

It was the point in Will County when the landscape went from rural to suburban – and the speed limits suddenly dropped (if driving toward Chicago) from 65 miles an hour down to 55.

IT WAS JUST a given that when the state of Illinois increased the speed limits from the traditional 55 mph (and telephone calls used to cost a dime) to 65, the higher limit only applied to the portions of interstate highways that were in rural parts of the state.

The areas where there wasn’t as much traffic – or what traffic there was merely passed through the area without making stops – were allowed to drive at the faster rate.

It also meant that someone could literally go from doing the speed limit to exceeding it by 10 miles an hour – and could get a ticket for speeding if an Illinois state trooper just happened to be in the area.

If anything, the fact that troopers liked to hang out in the area to bolster their traffic citations issued was the sudden warning that one had to slow down their vehicles to accommodate the slower speed limit meant for urban areas.

BUT THINGS COULD change. Or maybe not. We’re going to see in coming weeks what will become of our interstate speed limits.

For Gov. Pat Quinn this week signed into law a measure that boosts the speed limit to 70 miles an hour – although only on the rural portions of interstate highways. To listen to Quinn, the speed limit remains 55 on urban and suburban-area highways.

Although in what has become the latest urban/rural political spat, we have the state legislator who crafted the increase (state Sen. James Oberweis, R-Sugar Grove) claiming he meant for the change in law to be truly statewide.

OBERWEIS: Statewide attention?

A sudden surge from 55 to 70 – once the new law takes effect Jan. 1.

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES reported that the new law may bolster the speed limit on all parts of the interstates in Illinois. But it also cited an “opt-out” provision that allows officials in the urban-area counties (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will) to exclude themselves from a 70 mile-an-hour speed limit.

Although there are those officials who think that that counties don’t have jurisdiction over interstates, no matter what any opt-out provision says. There also seems to be confusion amongst county officials as to just what the law says.

Nobody seems to know what the new law says. Which could make the whole concept so confusing that it can’t even stand up in court. Who knows what will happen?

Although the idea that drivers need to slow up their vehicles once they get into the Chicago area is such an entrenched concept in Illinois that the Quinn interpretation of the law is the one that is consistent with the way things are done in Lincoln’s land.

UNLESS THE TRUE intent of this new law was a desire to force some rural standard down the collective throat of the state’s urban majority. In which case, it is nothing more than a politically partisan stunt.

There is, of course, the bottom line that makes the idea of legally whizzing through Chicago at 70 miles an hour nothing more than a fantasy.

With the way Chicago roads are perpetually under construction and repair, there’s just no way anyone is going to seriously get their cars going anywhere near 70. If anything, their cars will creep along at 20 miles an hour while he drivers see the speed limit signs and dream about getting up to 55 – let alone 70.

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Does Rauner think his money can squeeze political opposition out of race?

It would seem that Bruce Rauner, the venture capitalist with ambitions to be Illinois governor, wants to use the Blair Hull political playbook (without the messy ending, of course) in his attempt to win his first-ever political campaign.

RAUNER: Will barn coat image succeed?

Rauner’s business successes qualify him as a billionaire who could, if he wished, self-fund a political campaign – making him accountable to virtually nobody as he goes through the motions of running for office.

YET I COULDN’T help but be amused by an Associated Press report that showed how many of the wealthiest regular contributors to Republican Party candidates this time around(including Kirk Dillard's 2010 campaign manager, Ron Gidwitz) are choosing to make significant financial contributions to the Rauner campaign.

In many instances, the wire service reported, those donors are on record as having supported the other gubernatorial candidates (such as Dillard, William Brady and Dan Rutherford) in past election cycles. But their past loyalties are not carrying over.

This time around, they want Rauner.

I’m not being critical of their fact. It’s their right to choose who to support, and who to give their money to. If they feel that Rauner is "one of their own" and they want to back him, let them.

ALL I’M GETTING at is that the Rauner campaign, which started out with significant financial advantages, is going to have the potential to be a cash-packed outfit that can use its money to overwhelm the opposition.

It will have the money to pay to get its message out early, and often. It may be able to do so in such a way that people start paying attention to it now, and just choose to ignore whatever any of the opposition candidates have to say.

They may be dead already, and not even know it!

HULL: Rauner hopes to avoid his ending

That is what nearly happened in the Democratic primary election cycle of 2004; the one where Peter Fitzgerald decided that one six-year term in the U.S. Senate was enough. He didn’t seek re-election.

HULL, HIMSELF AN extremely wealthy man who had never held electoral office, decided he wanted to go for the post. He used his wealth – reports indicate that much of the $29 million ultimately spent on his campaign came from his own resources.

So Rauner already has an edge in terms of getting other peoples’ money to bolster his own.

The result of Hull’s money were a flood of campaign ads and other promotional stunts that got the name “Blair Hull” into the public mindset. Nobody really knew anything about him. But his name stood out, compared to the other candidates.

The early polls showed that people would say they support Blair Hull just because he was the only candidate they had heard about in the primary. As time progressed, that lead for Hull remained intact.

IT WAS ONLY when word about Hull’s divorce (and the affidavits from his ex-wife that alleged abusive acts) became public that the Hull campaign went from self-funded frontrunner to something lower than Mudd that anybody started paying any attention to the Democratic primary opposition – ultimately resulting in little-known state senator Barack Obama beginning a rise through the federal government to the top post.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying that Rauner has anything in his record or background along the lines of Blair Hull.

All I’m saying is that there is a sense in which an election campaign can be bought – particularly if you don’t exactly have overwhelmingly powerful candidates. Which is certainly one way to think of the upcoming Republican primary for governor.

This probably will be the election cycle won by the person whom the Illinois people despise the least. It may be Pat Quinn. It may be Bruce Rauner, or someone else. At this stage, I can’t figure who it could be.

ALL I KNOW is that Brady has already lost this fight once, Dillard couldn’t even beat Brady before, and Rutherford (a long-time state legislator from near Pontiac who is serving a term as state treasurer) may be the kind of candidate who only appeals to people who follow every single act of state government and take it way too seriously.

Just the kind of field where a candidate with overwhelming financial advantages could spend so much to get his name out there that people go to the polling places recognizing only his name – and casting their ballots accordingly.

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Illinois Legislature addresses sex ed issue for kids in an adult manner

Being a “blue” state is a complicated matter.

There are those ideologues of a conservative bent who want to believe that everything that happens in this state is somehow out of touch with “real America.” Heck, there are those residents of the rural parts of Illinois who think the Land of Lincoln is somehow lost.

BUT IT DOESN’T always work out that way.

Take the whole political fight over gay marriage. If any state ought to have been capable of being at the forefront of altering the laws on this issue, it should have been one with as dominant an urban area as Chicago is over the rest of the state.

Yet as we all know, that issue got all tangled up. It never did come up for a vote in the Illinois House of Representatives, and the conservative-leaning interests are taking pride in that fact.

The Baptist religious influence that impacts many African-Americans has the black caucus being separate from the rest of the Democratic majority on this issue. It’s not clear when this issue will come up for a vote again.

SO MUCH FOR Illinois being some sort of liberal bastion that won’t respect the concerns of the ideologues!

Keeping that fact in mind, we ought to consider it a part of the partisan balancing act that is the real way things work amongst our political people.

SEX ED: From the Statehouse ...

How else to consider the fact that the Legislature this spring approved, and Gov. Pat Quinn last week signed into law, a measure that expands the content of what is taught in the public schools as part of sex education programs.

The change, which along with many other new laws will take effect Jan. 1, says that sex education programs must include provisions about birth control methods. Existing laws allowed for schools to offer sex education programs that emphasized abstinence – as in telling children that “no sex” is their only option.

AND IF BY chance they chose to ignore that advice in their daily lives? Then I guess they were just on their own – going about their lives in ignorance.
 

... to school boards across Illinois?

The ideologues, many of whom were the same ones who ranted and raged this spring against gay marriage becoming a legitimate concept in Illinois, hated this bill too. They want to say that parents should be the only ones determining what their children know about sex.

Ignoring the fact that some people are determined to keep their kids clueless – leaving them vulnerable to the realities (which can be scary) of life. It most likely was this bill's relative anonymity (compared to the gay marriage issue) that let it slip through the legislative process and gain approval.

Although those people who really hate the idea of sex education including information about contraception and protection for health reasons still have an out.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS HAVE the option of dropping sex education programs altogether – if they so wish. It has me wondering if the ideologues who failed to get the General Assembly to kill this bill will now be nagging their local school boards.

All in an effort to get them to do away with sex ed, health class, personal biology, or whatever label the local schools choose to put on the issue of letting young people know that sex isn’t just about Whoopee!!?!

And yes, I have dealt with enough school board officials throughout my decades as a reporter-type person to know that some of them will be susceptible to such an appeal. This issue may turn into a reminder about how the real governing of our society is done at the local level that most people pay no attention to.

Before anyone starts to nag me on the grounds that I’d feel differently about this issue if I had kids of my own, I should point out that I have two nephews and two nieces who are exactly the age that they’re going to be impacted by this change.

I’D RATHER THEY have some sense of reality about this issue, even if it might make someone else feel uncomfortable.

That strikes me as being less embarrassing than having a youthful family member either pregnant or suffering from chlamydia because he/she truly didn’t know any better!

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Whodathunk we’d see day when Cook Dems wouldn’t blindly back a Daley

I’m sure there are some people scratching their heads and wondering why the Cook County Democratic Organization would give its official backing for Illinois governor to a candidate with approval ratings in the mid-20s.

QUINN: The officially preferred Dem

Because that is what happened Friday. The Democratic Party’s 50 ward committeemen and 30 township committeemen officially slated Gov. Pat Quinn for re-election.

PARTY OFFICIALS WILL be required to tout the campaign of Quinn, even though William Daley (the son and brother of former Chicago mayors) is also in the running – and there is speculation that Kwame Raoul (a state legislator from the Hyde Park neighborhood) may get into the primary race.

This is the same Pat Quinn who has had approval ratings of about 25 percent. There are those who are determined to believe that Quinn is beatable by anybody who challenges him.

Yet most of those people have their own partisan interests. They WANT to believe Quinn is a loser.

When one erases those people from the equation, the fact that the strongest Democratic Party organization in Illinois would decide to throw its lot in with the incumbent is such an obvious decision.

IT IS THE reason that Bill Daley (the former Commerce secretary and White House chief of staff) didn’t even bother showing up for the slating session held Friday morning.

He can save face by saying he wasn’t even interested in getting the support of the organization that was the reason his father, Richard J., was “the Boss!!!” of local politics. It allowed him to decide just who even got to run for office – knowing full-well that the committeemen of his era would rubber-stamp his choice.

Things are different today. The party slating doesn’t mean what it used to. And I’m  sure the people who are eager to dump Pat Quinn are going to ignore what happened on Friday.

DALEY: Not about to give up campaign

But the reality is that political parties always prefer to endorse an incumbent. The idea being that picking somebody else is an admission that somebody screwed up in voting for the incumbent to begin with.

AS FOR THE fact that Quinn has such low approval ratings, I don’t get as shaken up by those low levels the governor receives.

Because the fact is that most people these days don’t think highly of any government official. Anybody currently in office these days seems to draw these record-low levels of support.

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is the guy who has had approval ratings as low as 16 percent. The “Daley” name is in one of its lulls when it comes to support (although I won’t be surprised if the next generation produces a politician or two).

I suspect most people don’t have a clue who their state legislator or member of Congress is. Because if they did, those officials would have lower approval ratings.

SO THE IDEA that Cook County Democrats went for Pat Quinn? Not surprising. As one south suburban state legislator told me recently, “At least Pat Quinn listens to us and sort of has the right idea.”

Compared to Daley, who is developing a reputation amongst some people as being so business-oriented (he likes to boast that his stints as chairman of JPMorgan Chase and on the Fannie Mae board are more significant than his political posts) that people wonder if he wishes he could really be a Republican.

If there really was serious support for Daley and a split in the Cook County Democrats, what would have happened on Friday was a lengthy debate behind closed doors – with an eventual public announcement that the party was not going to slate either candidate.

It would have remained neutral – which would have allowed the committeemen to publicly support whomever they wanted come the March primary election.

INSTEAD, IT MEANS the official Daley support will be muted. Unofficial support will continue (people do, after all, have a right to express themselves). But for the official backing of party officials, Daley is going to have to turn to the other 101 counties.

Slating not the same as when HE was in charge

And the fact is that those Democratic Party organizations don’t have the numbers or the strength to turn out the vote the way the Cook Dems do.

Not that I’m convinced Quinn achieved a significant plus in his desires to serve another four years as Illinois governor. There may be a Republican field of candidates to offer an alternative, but I’m convinced this election cycle is really one where the winner will be the candidate whom the voters despise the least.

That may well be Pat Quinn. You never know.

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EXTRA: Ryne a Phillie or a Cubbie?

RYNO: The Phillie-in-training

Ryne Sandberg is a product of the Philadelphia Phillies organization.

He signed out of North Central High School in Spokane, Wash., back in 1978, played with assorted Phillies minor league affiliates and got in his first major league appearances with Philadelphia near the end of the 1981 season (one hit in six at-bats, 13 games played overall).

AND ON FRIDAY, the Philadelphia National League ball club named the 53-year-old Sandberg as their new manager. He gets to finish out the season, which thus far hasn’t been much better than either of the Chicago ball clubs.
 

RYNO: The Cubbie all-star

Sandberg finally gets to achieve his dream of being manager of a major league ball club. It would seem that the Phillies can claim to have promoted one of their own to the top spot – someone who has been with the organization at every level.

If only it weren’t for those couple of decades that Sandberg spent with the Chicago Cubs – both as an infielder whose play was good enough to get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame and as a manager of Cubs minor league affiliates. Maybe we can pretend the “Cubs” never happened! Although acquiring Sandberg as a minor league throw-in to balance out a trade of aging Phillies shortstop Larry Bowa for younger Cubs shortstop Ivan Dejesus was one of the few times the Cubs did something right!

Yes, there are those Cubs fans on Friday who are disgusted that one of their favorite team’s most popular ballplayers is now in charge of another team – and that they’ll have to see him as “the enemy” when the Phillies come to Chicago Aug. 30-Sept. 1.


TRAMMELL & WHITAKER: Ought to be in Hall

PARTICULARLY SINCE SANDBERG made it clear during his time in Chicago he wanted to be manager of the Chicago Cubs, which the new ownership made it clear they wanted no part of.

Could Sandberg really have been any worse than Herman Franks, Jim Essian or Jim Lefebvre in terms of leading the Cubs to dismal won-loss records? Probably not.

But there is one reason that Sandberg probably is better off never having been responsible for the home team lineup card at Wrigley Field. He would have had a lot of losses to his record, and that could have diminished his reputation.


VENTURA: Was '12 or '13 the fluke?

Just think of Alan Trammell, the one-time Detroit Tigers shortstop whom some fans think also belongs in the Hall of Fame (along with his counterpart second baseman Lou Whitaker).

HE LATER GOT a chance to manage the Tigers for three seasons – including that atrocious season in Detroit when the Tigers lost 119 games Which ought to put the trashy seasons we’re seeing this year in Chicago into perspective; one-time White Sox third baseman-turned-manager Robin Ventura isn't anywhere near as awful this season, and was far better last year.

How many Tigers fans can reminisce about Trammell and the ‘80s teams (a World Series victory in ’84 and a division title in ’87) without also remembering the year their team came within a single game of losing more than the 1962 New York Mets?

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Residency issue, in reverse?

Usually when we hear of residency being an issue in government, it involves those people who have some requirement related to their jobs that they live in the city of Chicago proper – but try to have a more suburban lifestyle.

RAKESTRAW: No longer suburban

We’ve all heard of the enclaves of city workers (with a large percentage of police and firefighters) on the southwest and northwest edges of the city – allowing them to live within blocks of the city limits and suburban communities.

NOT THAT I have anyone choosing to live in a suburb. It’s their life, and if they’re willing to endure the lengthier commute to get into downtown Chicago, so be it.

But it is a reality that makes the current residency controversy on the Metra commuter railroad board all the more ironic.

For in that board’s case, there is a member being asked to resign his post because he is not in compliance with the residency requirement. For the Chicago Tribune has figured out that the board member actually lives not only in Chicago, but is one of those people living in a high-rise that gives him a wonderful view of Millenium Park.

He’s right in the heart of the action.

BUT SINCE HE was given a seat on the Metra board by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, it seems she believes he must have a suburban Cook County home address – even though he believes he merely has to live somewhere within the county (either city or suburb).

For the record, I have never met Stan Rakestraw (the Metra board member in question). He used to be a nursing home administrator, but now operates SCR Medical Transportation, Inc., along with his wife, Pam. I don’t know how good a performance he provided in his service on the board that oversees those commuter trains taking people from the outer suburbs into downtown Chicago (and include some stops in the Far South and Southeast sides of Chicago).

Published reports indicate that Rakestraw got the appointment back at a time when he still had a home address in suburban Flossmoor. Although the Tribune reported that the house was damaged by fire, and his response was to move to a downtown-based condominium.

PRECKWINKLE: Needs a Metra member

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In my wildest fantasies, I wouldn’t mind living that close to the action of urban Chicago. If he can swing it financially, more power to him.

AND HE CERTAINLY isn’t gaining that wealth from the political appointment – the Metra board post only pays $15,000 annually.

But there is the fact that the Metra board was meant to be a suburban dominated entity; as a counterpart to the Chicago Transit Board that oversees the CTA buses and elevated train lines and has a Chicago-dominant board.

In the case of the Metra board, Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets one appointment to Preckwinkle’s five – with the understanding that only the mayor gets to pick a city resident. The heads of county government in the five surrounding counties each get one appointment.

Which makes for a 10-1 suburban/city ratio on the Metra board. That may be a bit much (and goes a long way toward explaining why Metra is willing to let its stops in the city deteriorate).

BUT I ALSO comprehend the idea of regulations that ought to be followed. Maybe we ought to consider a change in the composition of these boards? To that end, Gov. Pat Quinn created on Thursday a 15-member commission to study mass transit boards -- one of whose members is former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. A move that had many political cynics pleased.

But until some sort of action is taken, the regulations are going to have to be followed. Which is why Rakestraw peacefully resigned his post Thursday afternoon, instead of putting up a political fight. He does, after all, serve at the pleasure of Preckwinkle, who to her credit asked for Rakestraw’s resignation once the situation was brought to her attention.

Although we all should admit that, relatively speaking, this is a minor infraction by a government appointee. We can only fantasize that this is the worst thing we will see one of our officials commit.

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Jackson’s “lesser” prison sentence upstages Springpatch political spats

It’s probably a good thing that the Democrats didn’t bother with a political rally at the Illinois State Fair on Wednesday – I doubt political observers would have cared much about what was said.

JACKSON: "I was wrong"

For the attention was on the District of Columbia where former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., finally had to stand before a federal judge and have sentence imposed upon him for the misuse of campaign funds to purchase all kinds of tacky memorabilia for himself.

FOR THE RECORD, Jackson got a 2 ½-year prison term, while wife Sandi (the former 7^th Ward alderman) got 1 year. There’s nothing that the Springfield-based Democrats could have said on Wednesday that would have mattered by comparison.

As it was, the Democrats had their annual breakfast of county party chairmen – and all it turned into was a Bill Daley vs. Pat Quinn hissy fit. We’ve had them before, and will have many more in the future between now and the March primary elections.

None of that will catch the public attention in the way of the Jacksons having to appear in court – including the moment when Jesse, Jr., became tearful and said the words, “I was wrong.”

Great drama. Except that I doubt the people who have been most eager to see Jackson go down to defeat will be satisfied.

BECAUSE THE FACT is that federal prosecutors had recommended the four-year prison term for the former Congressman. The ideologues who were anticipating Wednesday for many months now were hopeful that the federal judge in this case (also named Jackson, although not related in any way) would ignore the recommendation and go harder.

Instead, the judge went lighter, and went along with the Jacksons' desire to stagger their prison terms. He must report to prison by Nov. 1, while she must report within 30 days of Jackson completing his sentence.

With the concept of time off for good behavior, Jesse, Jr., will do slightly more than two years in federal custody. Admittedly, he will have another three years of supervised release – which means he’ll still have federal law enforcement-types scrutinizing his every action.

It’s more than the 18-month sentence that Jackson’s attorneys asked for, but it is not going to be perceived as enough for the ideologues – for whom they had fantasies of something along the lines of that 14-year sentence received by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

WHICH IS WHY I expect the rhetoric is being spewed about in certain quarters about how lenient this particular sentence is – even though I personally view it as being more in line with common sense.

As Jackson’s attorneys put it on Wednesday, the congressman’s actions, “are not a Ponzi scheme.”

Besides, I’m sure the ideologues (whose real objection to the couple is their relation to the Rev. Jesse Jackson – whom they dream of incarcerating someday) will revel in the fact that Sandi Jackson got a prison term, rather than her preference for supervision and some sort of community service.

In fact, the judge did her sentence in a way that she qualifies for no early release – she’s going to do one full year in a federal facility.

NOT THAT WE know yet where either Jackson will be detained. The Bureau of Prisons decides that, and we don’t know yet if they will be willing to go along with Jesse, Jr.’s, preference for a facility sort of close to the District of Columbia.

So perhaps the Jackson critics will get their kicks from seeing the couple denied their preferences? That strikes me as being pretty petty. Then again, much of electoral politics and government is about trying to accomplish something despite the pettiness of the people who we elected!

BLACKBURN: Over, before he began?

Although definitely more intriguing than the Springfield-based activity. Unless you were anxiously awaiting the decision by Will County Auditor Duffy Blackburn NOT to run, after all, for the Democratic nomination for Illinois comptroller.

So now it seems clearer that departing Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon will be the Democrat who gets her butt kicked by incumbent Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka come November 2014.

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