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James Meeks
Quick Hit
by Adam Doster
2:26pm
Thu Jan 6, 2011
2 comments

Veto Session Round-Up: Taxes, Medicaid, Union Bashing

The veto session continued to hum along in Springfield yesterday. Here's a brief recap of where things stand:

Let's start with the issue on everyone's mind: the income tax. Reports suggest that Democratic legislative leaders are serious about pursuing a 2.25 or 2.5 percentage point increase in the income tax rate, two points of which could be temporary. (The remainder would be used to pay down the interest costs on Gov. Pat Quinn's multi-billion borrowing deal, which would be utilized to erase Illinois' backlog of unpaid bills.) There's no firm word yet on whether the package would expand the sales tax base or include additional tax credits or exemptions to soften the blow for low-income earners. State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) and some other leaders in the legislative black caucus are warning that if the House doesn't earmark some of the new revenue for property tax relief and education funding, as does the tax bill that the upper chamber passed in 2009, they might oppose the measure. With the Senate only scheduled (PDF) to serve two-and-a-half more days at most, time is really ticking.

In other big news, the State Senate unanimously approved a major Medicaid reform bill yesterday (HB 5420). The State Journal-Register provides a quick but informative overview of its main planks. Not all of the proposed changes are ill-advised, but a requirement that 50 percent of Medicaid recipients be enrolled in a private managed (or "coordinated") care program by 2015 is still troubling. (We've discussed our problems with this approach at length.) The bill would also cut kids out of the state's All Kids program if their families earn more than 300 percent of the federal poverty level, or roughly $66,000 per year for a family of four. There is a lengthy waiting period for this type of coverage, which charges significant premiums and co-pays. This demonstrates that the population -- roughly 3,100 kids, most of which are relatively cheap to insure -- has difficulty obtaining health coverage on the private market. Booting them off the rolls to save a few million dollars is awfully callous and bad for public health.

Public employee unions were thrown under the bus again yesterday, as well. As part of a budget reform package (SB 3383) that cleared the House, a governor would be prohibited from signing collective bargaining agreements with labor unions if the contract extended more than six months past the end of that pol's term in office. Clearly a response to the controversial (but misunderstood) deal Gov. Quinn struck with AFSCME Council 31 this fall, laborers argue (accurately) that strict guidelines could force new governor's to devote serious energy early in their terms to complicated labor negotiations. This seems like just another instance in which unions are being used as scapegoats by lawmakers facing huge deficits and nervous taxpayers.

PI Original
by Micah Maidenberg
4:23pm
Mon Dec 20, 2010

Hearings, Forums, Health Care, Contracts: A Mayoral Wrap-Up

2011 Municipal Elections

With Christmas fast approaching, Chicago's mayoral race is slowing down a bit. We track a few of the dynamics in this wrap-up piece.

Quick Hit
by Progress Illinois
1:31pm
Thu Dec 16, 2010
1 comment

Meeks Tacks Right, Del Valle Left

You can add one more quote to the list of controversial comments State Sen. and Chicago mayoral candidate James Meeks has made over the years. In an interview yesterday, Meeks offered up, in essence, a new definition of who is a minority. "I don't think women, Asians, and Hispanics should be able to use that title," he told WVON. "That's why our numbers cannot improve, because we use women, Asians, and Hispanics, who are not people of color, who are not people who have been discriminated against. We fought for these laws based on discrimination. Now, groups that have not been discriminated against are the chief beneficiaries."

Meeks later tried to clear the air by saying that as mayor he would not allow "white women" to be considered minorities.

The obvious absurdity of Meeks' comments add to a long line of positions held by Meeks that reinforce his role as the conservative in the race. And yesterday was a two-fer on that front. The South Side minister is also pushing a plan to give school vouchers to 50,000 students in Chicago, an expansion of a previous voucher bill he backed in the General Assembly.

On the other side of the political spectrum, City Clerk Miguel del Valle was given the label of the "liberal's liberal" by Edward McClelland, who noted that del Valle has strongly supported the Sweet Home Chicago ordinance, backed three voter referenda about police hiring, the meter lease, and a financial speculator tax, and garnered support from progressive activists.

UPDATE (1:23 p.m.): Here's a statement from the Meeks campaign:

"Senator Meeks strongly believes all minority and women-owned businesses deserve their fair share of City contract opportunities. But there's no pretending that Chicago has a history of systemic corruption in its minority and women-owned business program and that African-American owned businesses are the most underrepresented among city contractors. Lucrative contracts have repeatedly gone to companies disguised as minority- or women-owned, resulting in multiple investigations, firings and imprisonment on this issue."

"This completely violates the intent of the City's minority and women-owned program and has contributed to African American businesses receiving a disproportionately low number of city contracts, a fact that is widely known and has been reported extensively in the media."

Quick Hit
by Micah Maidenberg
4:45pm
Tue Dec 7, 2010

More Ideas, Pitches, Plans From The Mayoral Candidates

Chicago's mayoral contenders are releasing platforms and talking up their ideas for the city at a fairly regular pace at this point. (Though, to be sure, the would-be mayors' plans for the biggest-ticket items -- the city's budget and job creation come to mind -- are still largely under wraps.) We recently took a look at ethics pitches from some of the contenders and noted Rahm Emanuel's energy efficiency proposal. Three other mayoral platform-related news items are below:

City Clerk Miguel del Valle got into the education mix last week, promising to increase the number of "community learning centers" around the city by 50 percent during his first term as mayor. In announcing the plan, del Valle lauded the work of Communities in Schools Chicago, a group that connects schools with non-profits to provide academic support and programming focused on arts enrichment, health, and other topics; the group says it reached 63,000 students during the 2009-2010 school year.

In a recent speech on the Southwest Side, Gery Chico said he'd ensure all of Chicago's industrial corridors have high-speed internet access and actively recruit so-called green companies to the city. A Chico administration would also "strategically utilize the city's tax increment financing dollars to support large and small businesses," according to a press statement. That's likely music to the business community's ears. Outgoing Mayor Richard Daley's TIF grants to large, profitable Loop companies have come to symbolize the TIF program's excesses. Chico says his full jobs plan is coming soon.

State Sen. James Meeks, meanwhile says he'd create a "mobile City Hall" to allow residents to conduct city business in a different neighborhood each week. Meeks, by the way, is on board with the Sweet Home Chicago ordinance, and he discussed it -- and criticized Emanuel -- in Englewood yesterday*.

UPDATE: Sen. Meeks' event in Englewood occured on December 7.

Quick Hit
by Adam Doster
11:47am
Mon Dec 6, 2010

Meeks The "Neighborhood" Mayor; Emanuel's Modest Green Initiative

With Chicago's mayoral election 12 weeks away and the news cycle easing up a bit locally, candidates are slowly starting to unveil portions of their potential City Hall agenda.

State Sen. James Meeks, who launched a "50 wards in 50 days" tour Sunday, announced that he would visit different neighborhoods on every Friday while in office. Although Meeks called downtown Chicago the city's "centerpiece," he said that Chicago's communities should be the "city's true core." On this front, we have to agree; the Daley years weren't always kind to the 2.5 million or so residents who don't live in the Loop or adjacent neighborhoods. Still, listening is different than acting. By February, we hope Meeks brings to the table some concrete plans to develop economic opportunities across the city.

One of Meek's main contenders, Rahm Emanuel, made known that he would spend $10 million in unused stimulus and economic development money to improve the energy efficiency of 21,000 homes and businesses during the first year of his administration. According to the Sun-Times, the investments would be targeted in "12 of the least energy efficient areas of the city," could leverage $100 million in additional capital from public and private funds, and would reduce carbon emissions by 5,000 tons. Buildings account for approximately 70 percent of all city carbon emissions; Chicago's Climate Action Plan calls on officials to retrofit 50 percent of Chicago's homes and commercial and industrial buildings by 2020. In the residential sector alone, that would mean fixing up 400,000 units. So Emanuel's initial plan, while encouraging, is pretty modest.

Expect more coverage from us on the candidate's policy proposals as we edge closer to February 22, 2011.