Will Illinois budget battle take so long to resolve that state Supreme Ct winds up coming up with ultimate ruling?

Illinois state government employees wound up getting paid for the work the past couple of weeks, and the Supreme Court of Illinois ruled Friday that it wasn’t about to put the rush on the issue of whether such payments were appropriate.


The high court's justices chose not to get involved in budget issue -- right now

That’s about the best way to describe the current situation with regards to Illinois state government – nothing is really resolved, and the political brawling will draw out for as long as Gov. Bruce Rauner and the legislative leaders are so inclined.

FOR THE LEGAL status quo is that there are cases in the courts for Cook and St. Clair (the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis) counties; which have shown a tendency to go in differing directions on the issue.

The state’s high court rejected a request by the Illinois attorney general’s office to immediately get involved and decide which court got the issue right – Cook when it said state workers could only get a federal minimum wage while the budget battle is ongoing, or St. Clair which said labor union contracts mandated payment of pay checks.

So now, the Cook County case will have to be appealed through the legal system to the appellate court in Chicago, while the St. Clair case will work its way through the appellate court in Mount Vernon.

Only then, will the Illinois Supreme Court get involved – although I suspect they’re hoping the two appeals courts wind up coming up with rulings similar enough that there’s no need for the Springfield-based court to get involved.

Will Bilandic Bldg. justices agree ...

THIS ISSUE HAS come up because Rauner wanted state workers to get their salaries even though the Illinois Constitution clearly states that money cannot be spent on anything government-related if the state doesn’t have a balanced budget in place for the current fiscal year.

Because angry state workers would be quick to blame the governor for their lack of receipt of paychecks (or direct deposits into their bank accounts, if they prefer).

That would have given Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and the others in the Democratic Party caucuses that run state government some serious leverage in their desire to prevent Rauner from using his gubernatorial authority to push forth some seriously anti-labor union-related measures.

... w/ Mount Vernon-based counterparts on payroll issue?

Instead, the Supreme Court rejected taking action that would have imposed his desires, and political observers are proclaiming a Rauner “victory” because the courts didn’t dump all over him and the state workers got paid.

BUT ANYTHING IS possible. What happens if these cases work their way through the legal process (instead of being rushed through with an instant political ruling like Madigan wanted) and the Supreme Court ultimately decides that the Illinois Constitution literally means that no money can be spent on government (not even salaries) until a budget is in place?

Do we wind up getting a contempt ruling issued against the governor AND his state comptroller – who was the one who sought the St. Clair court ruling that she ultimately used to have legal authority to make the salary payments?!?

The sad thing is that with the way the political people have dug in their heels over this budget – which really has nothing to do with finances and has become completely about who gets the political upper hand – there’s a chance that the legal process could take its usual meandering pace and there STILL won’t be a budget in place for Illinois government.

RAUNER: Won Round One, as did all of Rocky's opponents

I’ll also have to admit to being disappointed that the state Supreme Court chose not to act on Friday.

BECAUSE THE REALITY is that the only way the state’s budgetary battle is going to be resolved is for some higher entity to administer a swift kick to the behinds of all our government officials.

Consider that Madigan earlier this week said it’s possible that the final budget will not be something negotiated by all the political parties – but is something that gets forced down one side’s throat.

And I doubt that Madigan envisions any scenario in which he is the one who has to swallow something that has the vile taste of anti-labor union attached to it. Even the courts realize that too many people will revolt if something like that happens.

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EXTRA: ‘Damn Yanqui’ helped give Chicago that ’05 White Sox champ

I wish I could make it out to the ballpark this weekend, not because I care one bit about seeing the Kansas City Royals play. But because former pitcher Orlando Hernandez was supposed to be among the White Sox players on hand for ceremonies paying tribute to one decade having passed since the World Series came to Chicago.

Already traded to Arizona by time card came out

Hernandez was the Cuban defector and star of the Cuba national baseball team who wound up being for a time the best pitcher for the New York Yankees.

BY THE TIME he joined the White Sox for the 2005 season, he was presumed to have been washed up. As in only the White Sox were willing to take a chance on him.

In fact, by the halfway point of that ’05 season, Hernandez had been dropped from the starting rotation.

Which is why when the playoffs began, Hernandez had his roster spot but was relegated to the bullpen. He pitched in relief in rare situations.

Yet the guy who was part of those Yankees teams that won three straight World Series in 1998-2000 got called on in the third game of the first round of the playoffs against the Boston Red Sox.

I STILL REMEMBER the White Sox with a one-run lead in the sixth inning, nobody out and the bases full when manager Ozzie Guillen called upon the one-time Yankee and Cuba ace to get the White Sox out of the jam.

His job was to keep the Red Sox from completely blowing the game open. Keep it close, and perhaps the White Sox could do something later.

Instead, Hernandez got all three batters out with no runs scoring. Including that final out where Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon couldn’t check his swing in time (I’m sure Red Sox fans still whine that it should have been called Ball Four).

Although to me, it was equally impressive that Hernandez pitched two more shutout innings without giving up a hit – including appearances against Red Sox star hitters David Ortiz and Manny Hernandez (making the latter look like a total chump in the process).

Yankee-style glory in White Sox greys

THE WHITE SOX went on to win that game, and round of the playoffs, before going on to beat the Los Angeles Angels for the American League pennant and the Houston Astros for the World Series title.

I still remember ESPN announcer Chris Berman getting all worked up during that sixth inning going on about how this was THE MOMENT that the Red Sox would take a lead and begin a momentum that would let them win two more games and result in Boston reclaiming its rightful place atop the baseball world.

Instead, the ‘damned Yanqui’ from Havana, Cuba dumped all over that vision, much to the glee of South Side baseball fans, creating a moment that I must admit to periodically rewatching from time to time.

I actually purchased a DVD set of the ’05 playoffs and World Series games in their entirety, yet usually only watch that one inning over and over and over again.

SO EVEN THOUGH he only pitched that one season with the White Sox (a 9-win, 9-loss season with an earned run average of 5.12) and is now a Miami resident, the man known in baseball circles as “El Duque” (the nickname passed along from his father, who also pitched competitively in Cuba) gets to be an honorary Chicagoan for life!

Clinching the series victory

Just like Mark Buehrle, A.J. Pierzinski (he of the quick thinking that 'stole' a win from the Angels in the next round of the playoffs), Juan Uribe (remember that final out in Game Four of the World Series?) and Neal Cotts – the four remaining members of that team who are still playing baseball for other ball clubs who we'll cheer for even if they play against the White Sox.

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A good thing Heinz gets back into mustard – would we want company known for catsup in top hot dog town?

When I read reports about how Kraft Heinz has plans to move one of its corporate offices into Chicago proper, I couldn’t help but think about the company’s efforts to bolster the amount of yellow mustard it manufactures.



Will she be favorite hot dog condiment?

Would we really want to be the home base of a company known for catsup – in light of the fact that many of us Chicagoans find that condiment so repulsive on our take on hot dogs?

FOR THE RECORD, Heinz has long manufactured mustard. But they focused their efforts on making the condiment for sale to food service buyers. You could put Heinz mustard on your food at the local diner or at the ballpark.

But try going to the grocery store, and you’d find shelves filled with French’s mustard; along with various brands of gourmet mustard for those who look down on anything colored yellow.

That is until this year, when Kraft Heinz decided to start selling its mustard products for retail. I’m sure many of us have seen the television commercials where Heinz catsup brings along Heinz mustard, making the previously-available brand all jealous to the point where she blows her stack (and yellow goop gets squirted all over the place).

Now, the Chicago Tribune reports that Kraft Heinz will move one of its corporate headquarters from the suburb of Northfield to Chicago proper – specifically at the Aon Center, 200 E. Randolph St.

CORPORATE EMPLOYEES WILL have a wonderful view of the Millennium Park that I’m sure will make the Chicago office the desirable place of employment (who in their right mind would rather work in an office in Pittsburgh?) within the corporate structure.

As far as Chicago’s public persona is concerned, this is a good thing.

Because while I don’t deny that Chicagoans consume catsup (way too much, I personally find that condiment repulsive and don’t put it on anything I eat), I wouldn’t want it to become one of those products that Rahm Emanuel sees the need to include whenever he makes a bet with another mayor whenever one of our professional sports franchises plays against another for some sort of championship.

Now if we can claim in those bets that we’re putting up Chicago-style hot dogs coated in part with Heinz mustard, that would make it all the more appropriate.



A personal favorite

AND IF IT adds to the corporate image that Chicago likes to offer (being able to attract top companies from around the globe, as opposed to rinky-dink companies that move to places like Indiana), then the city benefits in more ways than one.

It’s just a shame that the city’s leadership can’t be as concerned with bolstering the neighborhood public image as it is that of downtown. But that’s a problem that goes back generations before Emanuel came to office.

So back to mustard, since there will now be a major brand that will have a Chicago association, just as we now claim that the only legitimate hot dog is one of the Vienna Beef brand (although personally, I prefer the hot dogs made by the Bobak Sausage Co. on Archer Avenue).

Although I’m not a total snob on the hot dog question.

FOR AS OFTEN as I have a hot dog minus catsup that contains all the ingredients that turn two wieners into a meal, there also are times when I’m just as likely to give a hot dog some onions (usually raw) and a squirt of mustard.

For those nights when a hot dog just won't cut it

Now, by using the Heinz brand, I can claim to have a truly Chicago “experience” even when I’m doing nothing more than munching on something to tide my appetite when I don’t have time for a full meal.

Like a Chicago-style pan pizza (which I actually had for dinner Wednesday night). As for whether the thin-crust pizza is a more legitimate culinary experience, that is a debate for a future commentary.

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Did Cook County sales tax hike become political equivalent of Sox/Cubs brawl?

The Cook County Board narrowly voted in favor of President Toni Preckwinkle’s proposal to boost the county’s share of sales taxes, and I couldn’t help but notice the breakdown among how county commissioners voted.




PRECKWINKLE: She got her (or Stroger's) tax hike

All of the African-American and Latino members of the county board supported the idea, along with certain white members who had one thing in common with their non-white colleagues.

THEY WEREN’T FROM the North Side or its surrounding suburbs.

It would seem that Madison Street, the informal dividing line between South and North sides, also applied here. Forget about any support for the increase of the county sales tax from 0.75 percent to 1.75 percent on the North (supposedly more affluent) side of the city.

South of it, it would seem that political people were in line with the thought expressed by Commissioner Stanley Moore, who said that while he doesn’t like a tax increase, he is showing his “faith” in Preckwinkle’s judgment that she’s not guiding the county into a political sinkhole.

It is a potential sinkhole for him, since his county district includes neighborhoods such as South Chicago, the East Side and Hegewisch, along with suburbs such as Calumet City and Lansing that are located directly on the Illinois/Indiana border – where local governments tend to think the sales tax is something meant only for state government to use.

JUST THINK OF how low the Illinois sales tax would be if there weren’t local and county governments staking their own claim to it. Seven percent, to be exact – instead of the 10.25 percent it will be now.

If anyone is likely to feel a direct blow to their political futures for supporting this, it is Moore – who only got onto the county board when he was appointed to replace William Beavers following his indictment and conviction on charges related to his desire to use campaign contributions while gambling at casinos.


MOORE: Will his 'faith' come back to bite him?

I suspect that for Robert Steele (whose mother had a stint as county board president), Jerry “the Iceman” Butler and Deborah Sims, the same faith was a factor, as it would be for Jesus Garcia (how would Rahm have used this against Chuy if the mayoral campaign were still ongoing?) and Luis Arroyo.

As for white commissioners, John Daley of the Bridgeport neighborhood is a political establishment type who likely was consulted before the sales tax hike was even introduced.

WHILE JEFFREY TOBOLSKI of McCook and Joan Patricia Murphy of Crestwood also come from parts of the county that align with the South Side.
 

DALEY: Wound up backing Toni

The only Sout’ Sider, so to speak, who didn’t back Preckwinkle was Elizabeth Gorman of suburban Orland Park, although she was a Republican who had consistently said she would vote against a tax hike – and wound up being the lone abstention on the grounds that she’s quitting her political post next week to take a better-paying job outside of politics. Just like there's always a lone South Sider or two who winds up  going goofy and rooting for the Cubs.

Whereas all the opposition to the tax hike came from the North Side and suburbs.

Even from people like Bridget Gainer and John Fritchey – both of whom are people with urban constituencies that usually think highly of Preckwinkle and her Hyde Park ways. As are Richard Boykin of Oak Park and Larry Suffredin of Evanston.

THEN, THERE ARE the Republicans who naturally would oppose anything that Preckwinkle would put forward – particularly if it was an idea identical to something they dumped all over former County Board President Todd Stroger for.

SCHNEIDER: Voted the party line

Do you know how badly Tim Schneider, who also is Illinois Republican Party chairman these days, would be castigated by his GOP colleagues if he were to back this proposal – no matter how badly the county needs the revenue?

The same likely goes for Peter Silvestri of Elmwood Park, a former mayor, and Gregg Goslin of Glenview, a former legislator. I’m sure some will argue it is a matter of a more affluent North Side not needing to rely on government as much.

Although I’m wondering if it would be easier on all of us to have our South Side vs. North resolved on the ball fields each summer – it certainly would be a lot cheaper on our pocketbooks!

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Will workers get paid? Will legislators vote to override? Or will Wednesday be a whole lot of nothin’ in Springpatch?

Why do I suspect that employees of Illinois state government all will be anxiously checking out their bank accounts sometime Wednesday around mid-day.

Because for those workers who get their salaries deposited directly into their bank accounts, that’s usually about the time the money shows up so they can then withdraw it for use to pay whatever personal expenses they may have.

THIS PARTICULAR PAYDAY is unique because it is the first during which the current political spat between Gov. Bruce Rauner and the General Assembly’s leaders will have an impact.

There is no budget in place for state government, which theoretically means no money can be spent by state government.

Not even for the payroll for the workers who provide the services that we rely upon for state government.

Of course, we have the dueling court rulings.

A COOK COUNTY judge ruled that no budget means no payroll. Whereas a St. Clair County (as in suburban St. Louis) judge says payroll can be met because the state has contractual obligations to its workers that must be fulfilled.

Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger has made it clear she wants to make the payroll and is prepared to ignore that pesky Cook County judge. She’ll go along with the court whose ruling will reduce the likelihood of her boss (Rauner) looking bad for having unpaid state workers.

But Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan this week filed a request with the Supreme Court of Illinois, basically asking them to take the two dueling rulings and figure out which one actually interprets the law correctly.

It’s always possible that the state’s high court could come in with an early morning decision that could pre-empt any desire by the Rauner people to pay state workers in order to keep them appeased while Rauner and the Legislature’s leadership fight it out amongst themselves for control of state government.

WHICH IS REALLY what this particular budget fight is all about. The two sides aren’t even talking about the budget. It’s about Rauner wanting to impose measures meant to undermine organized labor and the unions that represent state employees.

That is something Rauner’s corporate-type buddies desperately want, because they’re really not adept in figuring out how to grow a business into something profitable.

Their idea of success is to view expenses as money that rightfully should be profit! If only those damned employees would just be grateful for whatever they’re offered by corporate types, then we’d all be better off.

Or at least that’s what the corporate types think amongst themselves.

THAT IS WHY I find it ironic that Rauner types are relying on contractual obligations to labor unions as their reason to prevail. Those are the same types of contracts they’d just as soon undermine and view as the source of all evil within state government.

We’ll have to see how things turn out on Wednesday; not only with whether or not state employees get paid but also what the Legislature tries to do.

In theory, the Legislature could try to override the governor’s veto of the budget. Although whether their veto-proof majority would actually unite is questionable. No matter what Republicans say, it is their political party that is more likely to be in lock-step unity as opposed to Democrats who often can’t agree on what to order for lunch, let alone pull off a political maneuver of any consequence.

Besides, passing that budget would merely put state government seriously in arears as it calls for spending that state officials know they don’t have the income to support. Plugging that hole would be an ongoing problem and the political brawl would continue unabated.

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Grand Old Party: From Party of Lincoln to Party of Crackpots – how truly sad

I used to think that the one-time Party of Lincoln was more interested in wishing it could be the Party of Reagan.

TRUMP: Did anybody watch his pageant?

Although I’m now wondering if the Republican Party has its desires to become the Party of Extremists who can only “fit into” society by marginalizing all the normal people.

HOW ELSE TO explain the fact that real estate mogul Donald Trump has polls showing his presidential fantasies being taken seriously by those people inclined to cast ballots in Republican primaries.

Or the fact that presidential dreamer Rick Santorum (a former senator from Pennsylvania) is taking up his own issue – gay marriage. He wants it written into the Constitution that gay couples have no business thinking of marriage as something that applies to them.

He’s sure there are enough people still peeved about the Supreme Court of the United States striking down efforts by the states to ban gay marriage that they will unite behind his would-be presidential campaign.

Of course, it would mean that everybody in society not interested in voting in the Republican primary would be united against him. But what does he care; the basic principle of ideologues is that everybody who doesn’t think like themselves is irrelevant and to be disregarded.

THAT’S DEFINITELY THE strategy of Trump, who got the people worked up with his nonsense talk of Mexico (he wants the nativist and xenophobe vote) and now is claiming he’s owed an apology by his detractors – on account of the fact that the drug boss who was imprisoned in Mexico managed to escape.

Does he think those two morons who escaped from an upstate New York prison last month somehow allow him to score political points against some other group? Or is it just as irrelevant a point as anything related to Joaquin Guzman.

SANTORUM: Looking for his political niche

Or is all of this just more cheap political rhetoric of the sort that IS the inherent problem with our political system these days?

Although I don’t take Trump’s poll lead at all seriously.

FOR ONE THING, it is early in the process. There also are so many candidates in that Republican primary.

Which is why a 15 percent support total (which is all Trump can claim) is enough for him to be “the leader” at this point in time. It’s also possible that those people in the 15 percent are the only ones who will ever support the idea of a president who probably thinks he can remodel the White House and rename it “Trump Mansion.”

 

GUZMAN: Nobody owes Trump an apology

They’re also probably the people who actually bothered to watch the Miss USA pageant Sunday night; living in their own world and pretending that Trump didn’t say anything out of the ordinary.

As though the fact that the pageant wasn’t on a national network and had to settle for being viewed on an obscure cable TV channel wasn’t evidence enough – some people are just way too eager to live in their own world and think the rest of us have to live there subordinate to them.

NOT THAT THE GOP is alone in playing its political games with these issues. My e-mail inbox has been getting flooded with its share of messages such as, “Trump’s ridiculous, offensive ideas (and the Republicans who agree with them”).

The real point of those messages is to encourage us to donate money to the Democratic National Committee, or other allied groups, to bolster their own election efforts. After all, what good is a “President Clinton” or whomever if they run into a Congress determined to vote “no” on anything they desire?



CLINTON: The beneficiary?

Such as the kind of people who fall into the “15 percent” and would be inclined to sympathize with Trump’s business interests over the concerns of the people.

Which may be what Trump really hopes to achieve by running for office – being able to tell the president what he should do is better than having to hold the office and deal with all its inherent stresses and frustrations.

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Let’s hope we don’t have to endure ’95-like summer any time in near future

Sunday was a summer-like day in Chicago – temperatures that got up into the high-70s Fahrenheit and enough humidity in the air that one wanted to wear as little clothing as possible while outside.

The big picture of what happened 20 years ago this week. Image provided by Pic2Fly.com

Yet aside from putting on the fan that sits near where I tend to write, my thoughts were going back to that time 20 years ago.

BECAUSE IT HAS been exactly two full decades since that five-day stretch of time in mid-July 1995 when temperatures got so intense and people were caught so off-guard that the number of heat-related deaths skyrocketed.

Some 485 people officially died in Chicago due to the hot weather, although the city Health Department has acknowledged that as many as 739 people wound up dying because of heat as a contributing factor.

Consider that we the public got all worked up that about a dozen people were killed during the Independence Day holiday weekend due to gunfire.

I’m not diminishing the severity of that many homicides in the city. But we have to be honest – that was one incredibly hot time-span. It’s not something any of us wants to relive.

HOT AS HELL? We’d have to ask a deceased politician’s soul to find out precisely how hot the afterlife is for those of us who misbehaved during life on Earth.

The most serious explanation I ever heard of what caused the intense heat was an inadvertent shift in this planet’s weather patterns. For a couple of weeks in July of ’95, Chicago became hit by the kind of heat that usually hits Saudi Arabia. Just like our recent winters reached such record cold levels due to Arctic-like blasts swooping down through Canada and hitting large swaths of the United States.

The estimate turned out to be too low

In the Middle East, the locals have learned either how to tolerate the heat, or how to make themselves more comfortable. We in Chicago were caught off guard.

Particularly those amongst us who, for whatever reason, were inclined to live shut-in lifestyles and to think of air conditioning as some sort of stupid luxury for mental weaklings.

MANY OF THOSE amongst the hundreds who died fell into that category.

Which is why many of Chicago’s efforts to make “cooling centers” easily available to the public date back to the mid-1990s; just like that winter storm we always say took down Michael Bilandic as mayor and made future officials wary of the idea of letting the streets get too sloppy from snow and ice.

We don’t want a repeat of so many people being found dead in their apartments – so many people that the Cook County medical examiner’s office gave us the image of freezer trucks having to be parked outside their West Side offices to accommodate all the bodies that had to be processed.

Now I have to admit; I don’t have first-hand memories. Because back in that decade, I was living and working in Springfield, Ill. I usually joke about how I’m a native Chicago soccer fan who missed the sight of the World Cup in ’94 and the opening ceremonies being held at Soldier Field.

YET I FEEL fortunate that this was something I merely heard about on news reports while enduring a more reasonable summer sweat while working at the Statehouse.

Although I still remember talking to my own mother, who told me how my brother took her out to movie theaters just about every single day during that heat peak so they could enjoy the air conditioning.

She felt comfortable, even though she later joked about the agony of having to endure the sight of a lot of crummy films.

Which I’m sure is the kind of story we’d like to be hearing from those hundreds of people who did die because they didn’t have a place to go to help them cope with the hundred degree-plus temperatures that we got 20 years ago this week.

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