Tag: Illinois

Categories
crime and punishment insider corruption

The Quanta of Corruption

Michael Madigan, Illinois, corruption

The first initiative petition drive I ever ran was the Tax Accountability Amendment in Illinois in 1990. I remember canvassing Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives Michael Madigan’s district. 

He was a problem way back then. It was as if everything he worked for I worked against! The Democrat really knew how to wield power: going on to become the longest-​serving leader of any state or federal legislative body in the history of the United States, holding the position for all but two years from 1983 to 2021. 

Well, he’s in the news again— and not for receiving a laurel of appreciation from a grateful state.

“Longest-​serving legislative leader in US history given 7 1/​2 years in federal corruption case,” reads the Associated Press headline.

In addition to the prison sentence following his February conviction for “trading legislation for the enrichment of his friends and allies,” Mike Madigan has alsobeen fined $2.5 million.

The “Velvet Hammer,” as Madigan was called, was, in the end, hammered, found guilty “on 10 of 23 counts in a remarkable corruption trial that lasted four months. The case churned through 60 witnesses and mountains of documents, photographs and taped conversations.”

At sentencing, U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey demonstrated anger over Madigan’s perjury on the stand. “You lied. You did not have to. You had a right to sit there and exercise your right to silence,” the judge told the convict at sentencing. “But you took the stand and you took the law into your own hands.”

Just as the corrupt career politician did as Speaker for four miserable decades. 

Justice may have taken too long, but I applaud it. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Common Sense: Clown Car of Felonies
December 18, 2018

Common Sense: Keystone Correlation
September 28, 2017

Common Sense: Most Messed Up
July 13, 2017

Townhall: Term Limits, Now More Than Ever
May 04, 2014

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initiative, referendum, and recall secession

Seceding from Chicago

Chicago, Illinois, secession,

Thirty-​three rural Illinois counties have voted — count ’em, 33, with seven added just last November — to secede from their state.

Sort of.

The citizens of those counties have approved non-​binding measures saying they wish to secede. In this case, the initiative and referendum process has been used as a form of petitioning.

They want a divorce. From Chicago and Cook County. 

The reasons? The age-​old country-​city divide: taxes, scope of government, a complete clash of values.

On the table are two counter-offers.

“Instead of seceding and forming a 51st state,” suggests Indiana’s Speaker of the House Todd Huston, “they should just join us.”

This is pretty much what the Oregon secessionists are trying to do with their “Greater Idaho,” as covered here in the past.

In February, the Indiana House passed a bill to create a bipartisan committee to explore the notion; it now heads to the Senate.

Indiana’s lieutenant governor said it would “Make Illinois Great Again.”

Illinois’s governor, on the other hand, dubbed it a “stunt.”

But District 109 State Representative Charlie Meier has taken those 33 expressions of extreme dissatisfaction seriously, offering an alternative: reconstruct the State Senate so that one senator would be elected from districts made up of three contiguous counties, rather than the cumbersome gerrymandered array that  has been legally challenged by Republicans — giving rural counties more say, more political oomph.

For that’s what it’s really about.

Note that two previous attempts to separate from Chicago and Cook County  — in 1925 and 1981 — hailed from the Windy City itself. 

Now it’s the rest of the state that wants out.

Interesting development in comparative power and grievance, no?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Categories
ballot access insider corruption local leaders

Clown Car of Felonies

Michael Madigan, Speaker, House, Illinois, corruption, machine

“It’s overkill of epic proportions,” John Kass writes in the Chicago Tribune, “like using a sledgehammer to kill a gnat, or firing off a nuclear weapon to kill a sparrow.”

In three columns, Kass tells the story of David Krupa, a 19-​year-​old DePaul University student, who gathered over 1,700 voter signatures on petitions to gain a spot on the ballot for alderman of Chicago’s notorious 13th Ward.

Why notorious? It’s Boss Madigan’s home.

Yes, the “Land of Lincoln,” home to nearly 13 million people, is ruled by one man, Michael J. Madigan, Speaker of the Illinois House, “the longest-​serving leader of any state or federal legislative body in the history of the United States.” 

And 13th Ward Alderman Marty Quinn, the incumbent, is Madigan’s guy.

Quickly, a lawsuit was filed challenging Krupa’s petitions and, as Kass explains, “A crew of mysterious political workers — perhaps they were Buddhist monks, or the gentle sun people known as the Eloi, or maybe Madigan precinct captains — filed 2,796 petitions of revocation of signature.”

While almost three thousand people executed affidavits stating that they wanted their signatures removed from Krupa’s petition, only 187 actually signed his petition.

Since the revocations require swearing to a legal document, under penalty of perjury, and perjury is a felony, more than 2,500 people — and their knowing helpers — appear to have committed what Krupa’s attorney calls a “clown car of felonies.”

Then — voilà! — the legal challenge evaporated. Young Krupa won’t be squashed; there will be a challenger on the 13th Ward ballot for the first time in decades. 

Is that enough? No. 

Election process corruption and the possible suborning of thousands of felonies must be investigated. 

No quarter for boss rule.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Michael Madigan, Speaker, House, Illinois, corruption, machine

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Categories
Accountability local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics responsibility tax policy too much government

Panic in the Prairie State

Illinois, pensions, politicians, taxes, tax, theft, shake down

When your state has the lowest credit rating in the union, the highest population decline rate, and spends nearly a quarter of its annual budget on an out-​of-​control government-​employee pension system, what do you do?

Raise taxes, of course!

That’s the advice of experts in Illinois, anyway.

You can see why they panic: The unfunded portion of Illinois’s public employee pension system amounts to $11,000 per person in the state. Something extraordinary must be done.

Yet, as Pat Hughes at the Illinois Opportunity Project insists, taxpayers need relief — not a statewide 1 percent property tax increase.

Besides, it is not as if tax hikes could solve the problem. “It was just last year that politicians raised the state income tax by 32 percent in a desperate attempt to balance the budget,” Hughes explains. “Despite over $5 billion in new taxes, the state was back in deficit spending in less than a year.” 

Hughes mentions a number of tax limitation measures in the works. More power to them. 

But what’s needed even more? Spending limitation measures.

No government can be trusted to offer anything but defined-​contribution pensions — and no government, at any level, should ever manage a pension system. Politicians can’t help themselves. They just cannot resist the temptation to buy off the government-​worker constituency by promising more in the future than financially feasible (or just plain old politically possible) to pay for now. 

Other people’s money is theirs to spend. And a future financial bind? Some other politician’s problem. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

N.B. Congratulations to the Illinois Policy Institute for its Liberty Center, which won its case against forced unionization, Janus v. American Federation, on June 27. Commentary about this Supreme Court case appeared on this site in early May, “Post Blindfold.”

 

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Categories
Accountability folly general freedom insider corruption local leaders moral hazard nannyism porkbarrel politics too much government

The Biggest Loser

Illinois, corruption, exit, vote with your feet, taxes

Government is supposed to serve everybody … according to good, old-​fashioned republican theory. But most governments serve some more than others. We can define as “corruption” any attempt to make government serve a few at the expense of the many — or the many at the expense of the few.

Illinois is corrupt, and most of us can only watch it get worse. But what can we say about those who live under the Prairie State’s thumb? When citizens see an institution slipping out of control, they can remain passive or take charge. Illinois citizens have petitioned for term limits, redistricting reform and a more transparent legislature only to be blocked again and again by the state supreme court.

What more can conscientious citizens, folks I like to call “liberty initiators” do? Well, they can

  • express themselves in criticism as well as offer alternatives; 
  • vote thoughtfully and be well informed;
  • consider running for office or work for good candidates; 
  • donate money to reform projects. 

Alas, these and other expressions of “voice” have not exactly forestalled disaster.

The last resort is to “exit,” leave — vote with your feet. 

The population of Illinois has declined. Many have pulled up stakes and fled across the border to Indiana and elsewhere. In the most recent year for which we have data, Illinois lost nearly 34,000 people, more than any other state.*

Unfortunately, this population loss is only an indicator of how bad Illinois State Government is doing. It offers no solution.

Except, of course, for the people who leave.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Idaho has experienced the biggest population increase. See Reason’s reportage.

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Categories
Accountability folly general freedom government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders moral hazard national politics & policies term limits

Illinois’s Chicken-​and-​Fish Supreme Court

Illinois, Supreme Court, term limits, initiative, democracy, gerrymandering

A constitution is the law of the land only to the extent that it’s enforced. And in Illinois, the right of citizen initiative — provided for in the state constitution — is not enforced.

The constitution’s wording is explicit: “Amendments … may be proposed by a petition signed by a [specified number of electors].… Amendments shall be limited to structural and procedural subjects contained in Article IV.”

Does that Article IV discuss the subject of election procedures, including eligibility requirements, thereby opening the door to a citizen-​initiated term limits amendment? Yes, it does. Section 2, subsection ©, for example, specifies citizenship, age, and residency requirements.

Yet the Illinois Supreme Court has repeatedly chucked the results of effective petition drives to get a state legislative term limits question on the ballot.

The justices rely on the venerable Fallacy of Tortured Misreading. 

Former Illinois legislator Jim Nowlin recently pointed out that in 1976, the court concluded that the wording about how initiative proposals “‘shall be limited to structural and procedural subjects’… meant a proposal must make both kinds of changes.” The lone dissenter on the court “opined to the effect: When I see a restaurant sign that says, ‘We have chicken and fish,’ that doesn’t mean you have to order both chicken and fish!”

The right of citizen initiative is a crucial means of reforming government when those in government won’t reform themselves. The citizens of Illinois have that right. But, for now, they also don’t.

That ain’t Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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