Progress Illinois

We have some good news and bad news on the Illinois labor front.

First, the good: before SEIU joined with Illinois seniors in protest this afternoon, SEIU's Sadie Kliner emailed to let us know that the Department on Aging has found a way to avoid implementing cuts to home care services for seniors in the Community Care Program that were scheduled to begin Sept. 1st. In some ways, it's a stop gap; legislators still needs to pass revenue options to prevent future cuts. But for now, home care workers are safe.

Now, the bad: according to officials at the public employees union AFSCME, Gov. Blagojevich plans to lay off more than 450 state employees in the following departments: Children and Family Services, Human Services, Natural Resources, and Historic Preservation. The cuts will all take place before the end of the year. AFSCME Council 31 executive director Henry Bayer responded to the news with this statement:

"The governor's actions will put abused and neglected children at greater risk, reduce access to Medicaid and food stamps, and further harm state parks and historic sites. These cuts are irresponsible and they are deep, slashing 12 percent of the frontline workforce in child protection and more than 20 percent from historic preservation."

We're going to try to get a comment form the Sierra Club on the Natural Resources cuts.

To fill a $2 billion budget shortfall his office identified in the House's state budget, Gov. Blagojevich announced a variety of controversial cuts this summer.  Much of the uproar has surrounded his spending reductions for substance abuse prevention and treatment centers.  But SEIU and area seniors are now taking up their own fight, aiming to block a new cut announced last week. This one would hit the Illinois Department of Aging’s Community Care Program and would delay payments for home care workers who provide essential services to 50,000 seniors each year. Sadie Kliner of SEIU Healthcare IL & IN explains over email:

Across-the-board cuts that could mean a 10-15% reduction in care for 1.5 many seniors are scheduled to hit Illinois seniors in less than a week, on Sept. 1st.

These cuts are devastating to seniors who are already struggling to get the care they need and fighting to stay in their homes and their communities. This has been an undeniably tough year, but we feel this is the wrong time for the state to cut vital services and the wrong way to deal with budget constraints.

Home care workers and seniors are simultaneously calling on legislators to pass supplemental funding and urging Blagojevich to reverse the cuts. Tomorrow at 3 pm, union members will protest alongside the Illinois AARP, the Jane Addams Seniors Caucus, Access Living, and others at the Thompson Center in Chicago.

(Full disclosure: SEIU Illinois sponsors this website)

Today, with Gov. Blagojevich's signature, Illinois became the third state in the country to enact the National Popular Vote bill, which stipulates that all of the state's electoral votes should be allotted to the presidential candidate that wins the popular vote nationally.

From the governor's statement:

"This nation is built on the principle 'for the people, by the people.' By signing this law, we in Illinois are making it clear that we believe every voter has an equal voice in electing our nation's leaders.

Earlier this year, the Illinois state legislature passed the bill, which is part of a nationwide effort by the organization FairVote to subvert the Electoral College by pushing states to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote rather than their own contests. Proponents point out that the plan is legal and legitimate because the U.S. Constitution grants states the power to determine how to cast their electoral votes.

Critics from sparsely populated states have consistently bemoaned the proposal, however, arguing that issues affecting their communities will be ignored if the system is altered. Problem is, the Electoral College disadvantages them already:

Because small states are apt to be one-party states, 12 of the 13 (92%) least populous states are non-competitive in presidential elections. Non-competitive states—with or without a bonus of two extra electoral votes—simply do not matter in presidential politics.

So if it doesn't protect small states, what does it do? Rob Richie, executive director of FairVote, summarized the proposal's impact succinctly in The Nation:

It gives voters unequal power based on where they live, can defeat the winner of the national popular vote and sidelines the majority of Americans, who live outside the dozen or so swing states.

The shrinking number of battleground states is perhaps the most worrisome product of the Electoral College. In 2004, presidential candidates spent 99 percent of campaign funding in only 16 states, ignoring wide swaths of the country. As The New York Times points out, urban policies are often first on the chopping block, even though the largest 100 cities and their surrounding communities are home to 65 percent of the nation’s population and account for about 75 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The Electoral College system depresses turnout in non-competitive states, too. It's no surprise, given the lack of targeted get-out-the-vote efforts and the knowledge that one's vote will not be decisive. Nonetheless, the statistics are startling. According to the Progressive States Network, 2004 voter turnout was 63 percent in the 12 most competitive states while only 53 percent in the 12 least competitive states. The gap was even wider among young voters; turnout among 18-29 year-olds was 64.4 percent in the 10 most competitive states and 47.6 percent in the remaining states.

All in all, it's an antiquated, undemocratic system, and one that 70 percent of Americans reject in polls. Thanks to the work of the Illinois legislature and the governor, we're now one step closer to abandoning it.

Gov. Blagojevich knows how far $100 million could go in the state budget. So it's no surprise that last month, he announced his intention to close the maximum-security wing at Joliet's Stateville Correctional Center instead of spending approximately that amount to make needed improvements to the aging facility. But his plan has spurred controversy among various constituencies, and at the moment, it's unclear who makes the most convincing case.

On one side, you have the Governor's administration, who would rather not spend a boatload of cash to revamp an outdated prison when others are willing to house additional inmates. Opened in 1925, Stateville boasts America's only remaining roundhouse-style cellblock, a design officials say is well behind the times. And like almost all of the state's prisons, it is running well over capacity (pdf). Roger Walker, director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, told the Tribune that "it makes more sense to move the inmates to Thomson Correctional Center, a $140 million facility whose maximum-security wing has been sitting empty since construction was completed in 2001."

Then you have Will County legislators blasting the economic impact Stateville's closing will have on the region. "I look at Stateville as the flagship of the state's prison system, and it's in good condition," said state Rep. Jack McGuire (D-Joliet). "We need those jobs." Although various studies have demonstrated that prisons add few economic benefits to the communities where they are located, it's been a successful political play for years and one Joliet legislators are certain to push. Understandably, the prison guards don't want their 400 jobs shipped off either. While the guards' complicity in the prison-industrial complex is often blurry, blue collar, union-wage jobs are tough to come by these days.

Finally, you have the families of those incarcerated at Stateville, who would be forced to travel even further to visit their loved ones if the Governor's plan passes.

(More after the jump ...)

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This morning, the Beachwood Reporter posted a letter from Chicago Metropolis 2020 to the members of Gov. Blagojevich's Illinois Works Coalition, which was recently formed to help pass a state capital plan. In the letter, Chicago Metropolis 2020 urges the new working group to focus on a plan that is "substantial in size and scope," with a "revenue source that is reliable and sustainable," and investments that are more than just a "grab bag of projects":

As you execute your responsibilities, there are three points that we ask you to keep in mind.

First, the transportation program needs to be substantial in size and scope. In light of the need - estimated at $14 billion over five years in new state and local dollars for rail, road and transit - a small symbolic program makes no sense. The business community and public will lose patience with inadequate, piecemeal efforts that allow our infrastructure to crumble and the economy to suffer.

Second, you need to find a revenue source that is reliable and sustainable. Burdening the state's balance sheet with more debt without new revenues to pay for it is unacceptable. Raiding the road fund to pay for new debt is a shell game. Increasing user fees or taxes is the most responsible way to fund a capital program.

Third, it is essential to create a process to ensure that investments are based on clearly articulated state goals and a rationale for setting priorities. The process should result in investments that yield the greatest transportation, economic and environmental benefits. Two recent reports, by the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission and the Eddington Commission for the United Kingdom, recommend this type of thorough analysis. If you only produce a capital bill that is a grab bag of projects without such a rationale, it will fail to give the public confidence about how their money is used.

The letter goes on to note the "C" grade received by Illinois in a Pew Center for the States report on government performance, adding: "Illinois taxpayers that have to foot the bill for infrastructure have a right to expect better before they open their pocketbooks once again."