Hoosier booze on Sundays; cheap(er) pop in Illinois. Freedom? Or $$$!

As one who was born in the part of Chicago and raised in the part of the suburbs where the Illinois/Indiana border was nearby and Hoosiers were a different (although not quite alien) species, I have long been used to having to remember who can buy what (and when) on which side of State Line Road.

You won't have to cross the state line ...

The issue received some prominence last year when Cook County tried enacting a special sales tax on pop and other sweetened beverages – resulting in some Illinoisans making special trips to places like Hammond, Munster or Dyer to avoid paying the tax.

WHILE ALL ALONG, some Hoosiers were making a trip westward every Sunday if/when they wanted to purchase alcoholic beverages – and just couldn’t bring themselves to wait until Monday.

The “pop tax” went away a couple of months ago, although some people who long had been in the habit of buying cheap pop in Indiana continue to do so. Personally, I feel like it’s their gasoline they waste for such a trip – although they probably justify it on the grounds that gas is cheaper in Indiana ($2.42 a gallon, the last time I bought some Friday in Hammond a couple of blocks from Illinois).

Now, the liquor ban – which actually dates back to Indiana’s earliest days as a state two centuries ago – is also withering away.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed into law this week a measure eliminating Sunday restrictions on alcoholic beverage sales, and it takes effect with this Sunday. Heck, Holcomb plans to have a “cook-out” at the governor’s mansion in Indianapolis to celebrate.

UNDER THE NEW law, liquor sales can start at Noon – which means you can’t skip out on going to church to get yourselves liquored up. But you can buy your booze after church services.

This is an idea whose political time had come, because for many years the lobbyists for the liquor industry opposed Sunday sales. Small liquor stores feared people would go to supermarkets with well-stocked liquor aisles and big-box retailers with sizable liquor departments to make such purchases.

But it seems that the mood of the public was such that the liquor industry took up the cause of the bigger retailers. Holcomb himself said of the move, “Today is a big day… it’s all about the consumer.”

... to buy your booze Sunday afternoon

So my guess is that the entity that will take a hit will be some of the Illinois-based retailers who were getting Sunday sales from people living near the state line who just couldn’t wait to consume some alcohol – some beer or booze, some hooch or whatever other snazzy term you use to describe it.

MY GUESS IS that there are enough Illinois-based boozers who will continue to make their Sunday purchases that our state’s retailers won’t take on a total financial loss.

Will we now have to find some other product that Illinois and Indiana residents can quibble over, or find some sort of moral grounds to dispute?

We in Illinois should be honest in not trying to claim some sense of superiority about liquor sales, because there are communities which have harsher laws governing liquor sales within their boundaries

I remember when I first moved to Springfield a couple of decades ago and discovering that I had to wait another hour on that particular Sunday before I could pick up a six-pack of beer.

ALTHOUGH IT’S MY understanding that the Illinois capital city has since eased its own standards on liquor sales.

HOLCOMB: A 'kegger' at guv's house Sunday?

There’s money to be made by letting someone buy some beer on Sunday – instead of having to wait a little longer. Heck, it seems that even Indiana has come to its senses with its new laws that will allow people to walk into the Jewel-Osco or the Strack & Van Til supermarkets to pick up the liquor they think will enliven whatever party or other weekend gathering they happen to be holding.

Just one question – is part of the reason for expanding liquor sales to the east of the state line that one needs to have a bit of a buzz going to be able to spend that much time living in the land of Hoosierdom?

Which may be like the people from Illinois who used to go in search of cheaper pop and cited high-minded moralistic points, when all the carbonation in the pop ensured they were full of gas (as in the belching kind)!

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Will Midwestern U.S. govs display political pettiness for all of Asia to see?

Theoretically, it sounds good to know that our state’s governor was in Tokyo, and will spend this week on a tour of Asian nations, along with business interests that want to get those countries intrigued by the thought of doing business with us.

Can Gov. Bruce Rauner successfully urge Asian business interests to come to Illinois and Midwest? Photograph provided by state of Illinois

Bruce Rauner representing Illinois and trying to get foreign companies to spend their money in our state? It’s a wonderful idea. Yet excuse me for being skeptical that he’s capable of pulling it off.

FOR WHILE SOME people like to think Illinois’ pettiness centers around Rauner’s inability to get along with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and the Democrats who control the state Legislature, one could argue it is no more petty than the squabbles that occur between the governors of Illinois and the surrounding states.

As much as Rauner tries to portray this trip as his personal meeting with government interests in Japan and other parts of Asia, the fact is that both Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker are also along on this trip.

It is a chance for Midwestern U.S. interests to band together to show that this part of the country is an intriguing part that perhaps foreign interests should take more seriously than anything out east or in the land of Dixie (what with all its anti-labor measures that it tries to portray as being the key to a successful business climate).

Will Rauner be able to 'play' nice ...

Yet these are the governors who seem to think that the success of their respective states is to pick away at the business interests of Chicago whose management are petty enough to be swayed by some of those same anti-labor measures that exist in the land of Hoosiers or cheese.

TO TELL YOU the truth, the idea of those three men being put on international display scares me. It makes me think of the potential for some sort of incident that will make our part of the country come across as a batch of rubes.

Which may be enough to send those Japanese business interests off to other parts of our nation and further ensure that our Great Lakes region becomes further decrepit.

... with Govs. Walker and Holcomb?

Which I’m sure the types of people who are supportive of this Age of Trump that we’re now in will be more than willing to blame on Democratic political operatives. Even though these three particular governors are all Republican, and supposedly ought to be allied with each other.

I fear our nation’s petty political climate will be on full display this week.

SO WHAT ARE our region’s chances of benefitting from what Rauner is billing as the first international trade mission he has engaged in since being elected our state’s governor in 2014?

Let’s hope Rauner didn’t engage in gaffes when meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe just before attending the Midwest U.S.-Japan Association conference held Monday.

“Japanese companies have been instrumental in creating jobs and driving economic development throughout the state of Illinois,” Rauner said, during his address to the group.

“It is not that often that we gather together, but when we do, like for this conference, we unite with an unprecedented strength on economic growth,” the Illinois governor said.

“WE NEED TO send the message that our growth is interdependent,” he said.

Government and business officials preparing to talk Monday in Japan. Photograph provided by state of Illinois

All of which sounds nice. It’s what our governor ought to be saying with the heads of the other Great Lakes states, and in fact when dealing with all the regions of Illinois as we address our state functions.

Let’s only hope that Rauner is actually listening to the words that were prepared for him by his gubernatorial staff. If he does, then perhaps there’s a chance that Illinois can gain something of economic value from this trip. Rauner bringing back a business or two with jobs would certainly be better than a crummy t-shirt.

And if he doesn’t? Then let’s hope Rauner at least picks up an interesting souvenir, or else the trip will be nothing more than an overly-elaborate vacation-like journey at taxpayer expense.

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EXTRA: Rauner thinks campaign money can make politicians behave

Gov. Bruce Rauner has made it clear he’s not really interested in negotiations or compromise. He wants to get his way, and nothing else!
 

RAUNER: Turning to his wallet

And since the venture capitalist is quite wealthy, he’s used to the idea of throwing his money around to sway people to go along with his desires.

WHICH IS THE way he plans to go about governing for the remainder of time that he’s the chief executive of Illinois government – a title I suspect he’s probably more comfortable with than governor.

It explains the way he’s approaching this election cycle; one in which he has made many significant donations to Republican legislative candidates. He’s hoping he can create a gigantic sway in the partisan leanings of the General Assembly.

In his wildest dreams, he’d like the House of Representatives and state Senate to sway over to Republican control – which would be a big leap considering that both legislative chambers are so overwhelmingly Democratic that they theoretically can override any attempt by the governor to use his veto power.

Some $16 million, the Associated Press reports, is being spent this election cycle by Rauner to bolster the chances of GOP legislative candidates of winning.

WHO’S TO SAY what the chances are it will be successful. Since in the past, Rauner’s money hasn’t had much of an effect politically. Although I’m sure the governor is thinking that the past is the past. All he cares about is the future, and all it will take is one election cycle for him to try to undo all the opposition he has faced during his two years as governor thus far.

Rauner on Tuesday made his attitude all the more clear, what with the way the state Supreme Court refused to reconsider its rejection of a proposal that would have allowed for a voter referendum come November related to redistricting.

 

State Supreme Court wouldn't give gov power he desired

One that I’m sure he dreams would have allowed for the redrawing of political boundaries to eliminate that majority of legislators who are never going to give in to his idea of reform – which really amounts to nothing more than reducing the influence that organized labor has over government.

Or which can also be described as giving big business interests a dominant place over government as it tries to protect the public interest!

AS RAUNER PUT it, “now that the courts have denied Illinoisans the right to vote on a redistricting referendum in November for the last time, it is up to the General Assembly to address political reform – term limits and independent redistricting – as soon as they reconvene in the fall.”

Which isn’t going to happen, let’s be honest. So Rauner will focus his attention on trying to rig the Legislature to his favor.

I suspect Rauner was paying way too much attention to the City Council all these years, which acted as a rubber stamp to whatever desires the Chicago mayor had at any given time. Do we really think we’d be better off if the General Assembly started behaving in such a manner?

I also wonder how many of the ideologues inclined to back Rauner are also of the sort who are thankful that Congress has acted as an obstructionist body to President Barack Obama. Which means I don’t really want to hear any idealistic political theory talk from them!

WHAT WE HAVE these days is a well-funded candidate who can use his own personal wealth to try to buy silence from those people who’d oppose him.

 

HOLCOMB: Will it be enough cash?

Which is the best way to view the $100,000 he has donated to the gubernatorial campaign of Eric Holcomb in Indiana. Holcomb is the recently-appointed lieutenant governor who wants to succeed Mike Pence – who is now Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate.

Pence has been a royal pain in the derriere to Illinois and to Rauner what with his initiatives to steal away piddling little businesses from Illinois to the Hoosier state, and Rauner would like to see a change in Indiana attitude.

Perhaps he figures a hundred grand is enough to get Holcomb to back off and stay on his own side of State Line Road in coming years.

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EXTRA: Hillary win a Hoosier miracle? Or a Democratic fantasy?

When it comes to the Great Lakes states, Illinois has become the Democratic stronghold, while the other states are the ones that can flip back and forth between the two major political parties based on the mood of the nation as a whole.

Will we unite Nov. 8? Or remain split by State Line Rd.

Then, there’s Indiana – the Hoosier state, our neighbor to the east. The one place in the Great Lakes region Republicans usually can count on to gain some support in the Electoral College presidential tally.

BARACK OBAMA WON the state when he first ran for president in 2008. But the last time before that a Democrat won the state was in 1964 – the year that Barry Goldwater showed us how “nuts” he was and lost to Lyndon B. Johnson.

It may be a key to the line of thinking amongst those Indiana residents who persist in calling themselves Democrats – mostly those people who live in or near Indianapolis and Gary.

Is Donald Trump more nuts than Goldwater to the point where Hillary Clinton’s Democratic presidential bid could actually take the state? Or is this just an absurd fantasy by people with too much free time on their hands to concoct screwy political theories?

It is a line being speculated upon by those Indiana residents who live close enough to the Illinois/Indiana border that they’re really part of the Chicago area – even though some of them like to pretend they’re not.

HILLARY COULD ACTUALLY win Indiana’s 11 Electoral College votes. That would be a disaster to the hopes of Donald Trump since there are certain places in the country he absolutely has to prevail if he’s to have any chance of winning the Nov. 8 election.

Part of it is that the Trump camp is too ridiculously absurd to be taken seriously.

While Democrats supposedly benefit from two other factors – that the state’s candidate for a U.S. Senate seat is the well-known former governor and senator Evan Bayh who has been out of politics since 2010 but decided to go for a comeback this year.

 

Could Chicago influence in Indiana help Hillary

There’s also the fact that Gov. Mike Pence gave up his position to be Trump’s vice presidential running mate. Meaning the new Republican gubernatorial nominee is Eric Holcomb, the lieutenant governor who himself has only been in that post for a couple of months when former Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann decided that being president of a community college in Indiana was more prestigious than being a ‘lite gov.”

THOSE FACTORS COULD combine with the “Trump is nuts” line of logic to scare some Hoosiers into thinking semi-friendly toward the Democratic ticket.

As one Gary councilwoman, LaVetta Sparks-Wade, said of Trump, “The man has no filter. He doesn’t seem to have any control over what he says. He doesn’t seem to be able to control what he does.”

That is a sentiment common to political observers of all persuasions these days.

Yet still, I have to admit to being skeptical that Indiana will go for Hillary and there will be a clean sweep of the Great Lakes states for the Democrats – and not just because Trump himself is putting efforts into taking Ohio paired up with Indiana.

HILLARY WON THE vote in Lake County, Ind., back in the May primary, but Bernie Sanders took the state among those who wanted to vote Democrat. While more Indiana residents chose Republican ballots, and used them to give Trump a majority vote in the GOP primary.

Could it just be the wishful thinking of people so isolated in Gary, Ind., that they don’t see the rest of the world? Or could it be the outrage that the Trump people don’t see because they can’t comprehend the whole world doesn’t share their Hillary rage?

For as the aforementioned Sparks-Wade said, “If the people wind up deciding that a Donald Trump presidency is any good, then we (in society) are in trouble.”

Ultimately, we’ll get to see if “Illiana” truly comes together on Election Day for the Democrats. Or was it the same type of wishful thinking that made some people nearly three decades ago think that Michael Dukakis was cut of presidential timber?

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