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Gov. Rod Blagojevich waited until state lawmakers left town Thursday, without voting on his budget-saving package, and then lowered the boom.

He approved most of what legislators wanted to restore in order to prevent a first round of deep budget cuts, but then signaled that some spending — to keep state parks from closing, for example — wouldn’t necessarily be saved.

Another chunk of money lawmakers approved was cut entirely, putting historic sites, including the Dana-Thomas House, and personnel in the offices of several statewide officials in peril. And more bad news is on the horizon.

It’s just another sordid chapter in the ongoing state budget drama. Here are some questions and answers about the mess and what could happen next:

Q: How bad is the budget situation right now?

A: Bleak, by just about any measure.

Lawmakers tried to prevent about $230 million in cuts, including closings of 11 state parks and 13 historic sites and layoffs of hundreds of state workers Nov. 30. But the governor said some of the funding the legislature approved can’t be used, so he trimmed $55 million out of that package.

Now, seven of the 11 state parks will close, as will all 13 historic sites, and personnel lines for the state treasurer, attorney general, secretary of state and lieutenant governor will not be spared.

Other areas are in limbo because the administration says the revenue picture is just too uncertain. Funding for child-care workers was restored by the governor, but the administration says human-services workers still will be laid off.

And the governor already is warning cuts will need to go much deeper in the not-so-distant future to deal with a budget hole of at least $2 billion.

Q: Why has the situation gotten so bad?

A: A combination of factors, including more political games.

Lawmakers and Blagojevich have pointed fingers at each other since last summer, when the governor said the budget legislators sent him was $2 billion out of whack. He made cuts, they tried to restore them, and neither side has found a solution.

The national economy continues to slide, causing a big hole in tax revenue the state was counting on. So, even as officials try to deal with the initial budget problem from months ago, it continues to grow and make their jobs more difficult.

And then there’s the question of the record $4 billion in unpaid state bills, leaving the comptroller’s office far short of cash to pay hospitals, day care centers and other service providers. That growing backlog threatens to create major problems early next year.

Q: What is the governor doing to address the problem?

A: Mostly, he’s in cutting mode. He made $1.4 billion in budget cuts last summer, including the $230 million lawmakers tried to restore.

But the governor doesn’t want to be the only bad guy. Last week, he proposed a “budget-saving” plan to close the gap by getting billions of dollars more from the federal government and asking state lawmakers to give him greater authority to make cuts throughout state government.

However, legislators have balked at giving Blagojevich authority to cut or hold back up to 8 percent of spending in areas such as pensions, schools and even local government aid. They want to limit how much cutting he can do and where he can cut.

“Whether you agree or disagree with the concept, the bottom line is that everyone agrees we’re in a very difficult fiscal mess,” said Rep. Jay Hoffman, a Collinsville Democrat and Blagojevich’s top legislative ally.

Q: How about lawmakers’ role in all this?

A: They’ve mostly reacted to what the governor does. He proposes cuts, they try to restore them. He asks for more budget-cutting power, they look for ways to limit that.

Unlike in the case of some of his previous ideas, though, legislators say they are working with the administration on his budget plan. But they’ve gone home until January, unless there are more special sessions, and aren’t expected to return to Springfield short of a deal.

“Unless you have an agreement, I’m not certain that coming back serves any real purpose,” said Rep. Gary Hannig, D-Litchfield.

Q: Is there any hope for good news?

A: That depends on your priorities. The governor did spare many areas from cuts, at least initially. Substance abuse treatment centers are getting the $55 million they were owed, most of the child-welfare workers on the chopping block were spared, and some other areas will be protected.

“Difficult decisions are being made this year, but we have to do so while maintaining core services,” Blagojevich spokeswoman Katie Ridgway said.

Q: When will this get resolved?

A: Expect more back-and-forth and few answers in the coming months.

A new legislature takes over in January. Blagojevich could call the present General Assembly back into special session before then, but both sides seem willing to sort out their next moves over the holiday season and deal with the problem in 2009.

By then, though, almost everything will be worse.

Blagojevich’s office isn’t talking about what cuts could happen next, and when.

Real solutions are scarce. Blagojevich won’t discuss tax increases. Other revenue sources have little support in the legislature. More cuts only cause more pain and anger from affected interest groups.

A breakthrough will take compromise and sacrifice from both legislators and the governor. That message hasn’t truly hit home at the Capitol.

“We’re going to have to make adjustments in the budget, just like a lot of people will, and they’re probably going to be painful,” Hannig said. “But we have to recognize the reality that we’re in a recession.”

Source: The State Journal Register - Oldest Newspaper In Illinois

Melvin Caldwell (Principal, IGCI) discuss with Host Walter Burnett Jr (Alderman 27th Ward) and Co-Host Darlena Williams-Burnett (State Central Committeewoman for 7th Congressional District), the Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) college financial aid outreach program.

IGCI represents the ISAC, headed by Andrew “Andy” Davis, Executive Director, in the Illinois General Assembly and the Chicago City Council. ISAC is a one-stop financial aid center, offering a comprehensive array of programs and services. ISAC acts as a centralized source of information and guidance. In Illinois, ISAC administers most of the key state and federal grant, scholarship, loan and prepaid tuition programs available to postsecondary students. The Agency annually awards in excess of $1 billion to over 250,000 qualified applicants.

Click here to view video Caldwell Network 27.

Mayor Daley said Wednesday he’s been warned by a parade of corporate CEOs that a blizzard of job cuts are about to bury the souring Chicago economy.

“Huge layoffs are coming in November and December. And next year, there’s going to be [even more] huge layoffs. All the corporation CEOs have come in to tell me. That’s just the beginning. It’s not their end result,” Daley told reporters after a City Council meeting.

“Each one of them tell me what they’re laying off and they’re going to double that next year. So, you’re talking about huge numbers of permanent layoffs…It’s going to have a huge effect upon all businesses relying off of one another. And for cities, counties and states, your revenue is going to keep coming down….Some of these local governments are going to be in jeopardy. They won’t have enough money to [meet] their payroll. It’s that serious.”

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that Chicago will close the book on 2008 with an unreserved corporate fund balance of just $1.5 million, a dangerously low level that, Wall Street Rating agencies warned, threatens the all-important bond rating used to determine borrowing costs.

If already depressed revenues fall even shorter than expected, Moody’s and Standard & Poors warned that Daley could face a difficult choice: Raid the $500 million Skyway fund; establish a new line of credit to pay employees, contractors and retire debt; or order even deeper budget cuts, beyond the 929 layoffs already planned.

Asked Wednesday if he’s concerned about Chicago’s ability to pay employees, “No. I’m talking about in general, people are saying that. You know in your own industries. It’s very, very dangerous, very frightening.”

Pressed on whether city government was “in the same boat,” he said, “Everybody’s in the same boat in this economy. No one is outside the boat — except the federal government. There’s no layoffs in the federal government. They print money.”

Last month, Daley told the Sun-Times editorial board that he would not touch the Skyway fund unless the city was literally on the verge of bankruptcy.

On Wednesday, the mayor was asked if he was still intent on keeping his hands off that Skyway money.

“So far — unless everything goes into the bottom. Unless everything hits a Depresssion. That word is dangerous to use. But this is going to be a very difficult economy. I keep saying it. It’s very, very serious,” he said.

At the moment, Daley’s tough times, 2009 budget is precariously balanced with 929 layoffs, slow police hiring and $52.5 million worth of taxes, fines and fees.

A final vote on the $5.97 billion spending plan is scheduled for Nov. 19. But, aldermen are threatening to introduce a slew of ammendments to soften the mayor’s plan to license garbage dumpsters—at an annual cost of $80-to-$780.

“No one is happy with the budget,” Daley said.

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

WASHINGTON — Democratic Congressional leaders said Tuesday that they were ready to push emergency legislation to aid the imperiled auto industry when lawmakers return to Washington next week, setting the stage for one last showdown with President Bush.

“Next week, during the lame-duck session of Congress, we are determined to pass legislation that will save the jobs of millions of workers whose livelihoods are on the line,” the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said in a statement.

His call for the session, the first since the election, came shortly after the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said Congress and the administration “must take immediate action” to stave off a possible collapse of the American auto industry.

Ms. Pelosi stopped short of saying Congress would adopt legislation to provide emergency financial aid to the automakers, giving the Treasury Department the option of using money from the $700 billion bailout program instead.

But with the White House insisting that the bailout money be reserved for financial institutions, that option seemed unlikely, leading a senior Democratic official to say Democrats would try to force Mr. Bush’s hand.

Congressional aides said that Democrats, should they move ahead with emergency legislation, would have to decide whether to put forward a stand-alone measure for the auto industry or include the aid in a wider economic stimulus measure. Such a package as the latter is likely to include extended unemployment benefits, aid to strapped states and cities, new money for health care and food stamps and possibly money for public works — all programs Mr. Bush has resisted.

Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi have urged the Bush administration to help the major automakers, especially General Motors, which is fast depleting its cash reserves and seems to be hurtling toward bankruptcy. G.M. shares, pummeled for weeks, fell an additional 13 percent on Tuesday to $2.92, its lowest point since 1943. G.M. on Monday warned shareholders that it might not be able to continue as a “going concern.”

At a meeting on Monday at the White House, President-elect Barack Obama also urged Mr. Bush to help the automobile companies, and Congressional aides said Democratic leaders were coordinating their activities with his transition team.

“In order to prevent the failure of one or more of the major American automobile manufacturers,” Ms. Pelosi said in her statement, “which would have a devastating impact on our economy, particularly on the men and women who work in that industry, Congress and the Bush administration must take immediate action.”

She added, “I am confident Congress can consider emergency assistance legislation next week during a lame-duck session, and I hope the Bush administration would support it.”

A senior Democratic official, who did not want to be identified talking publicly about party strategy, said Ms. Pelosi had decided to challenge Mr. Bush to work with the Democrats or veto aid to the teetering auto companies — and take the blame if one of them fails.

The White House has resisted calls by Congress to use the $700 billion to help the automakers, saying that money is better spent easing the credit crunch at the heart of the economic crisis.

Tony Fratto, the deputy White House press secretary, said it was not clear what the Democrats were proposing to do. But Mr. Fratto said Congress might better focus its efforts by easing restrictions on $25 billion in plant-retooling loans for the automobile industry that were approved in September.

The automakers have called for at least $25 billion more in assistance, and industry experts say G.M., Ford and Chrysler need quick access to unrestricted cash to help meet payroll and other basic obligations.

Mr. Bush, at his meeting with Mr. Obama on Monday, reiterated his longstanding desire to a reach a free-trade agreement with Colombia, which Mr. Obama and other Democrats have opposed. Some officials suggested Mr. Bush would back aid for the automakers in exchange for Democratic support on the free-trade deal, a notion that the White House dismissed.

A standalone bill would have the best chance of winning passage in Congress, where Republicans for the moment still retain a powerful minority in the Senate, and the best chance of winning Mr. Bush’s signature.

But many Democrats, and many leading economists, have said there is a need for a broader stimulus, and Democrats have been working on a package that would include an increase of unemployment benefits, new infrastructure spending, financial assistance for states struggling with increased Medicaid costs and increased food stamps.

Whichever path they choose, Democrats could be headed for a confrontation with Mr. Bush and were setting the stage for a dramatic lame-duck session, including a potential reunion on Capitol Hill of Mr. Obama, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the defeated Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.

Mr. Obama does not intend to play a leading role in the session. Aides said he was focused on the economic packages he would offer as president, as well as working behind the scenes with Congressional Democratic leaders. But aides have not definitively ruled out the prospect of Mr. Obama casting his vote if it was needed. His Senate replacement will not be named by then.

The Senate had long planned to come back into session next week to deal with a public lands bill, and both the Senate and the House had planned to begin organizing for the next Congress.

But it was not certain that the House would convene for a formal post-election session, in which dozens of retiring and defeated lawmakers will be called back to work. House Democrats have said they are not inclined to spend time considering a stimulus package if it was only going to be vetoed by Mr. Bush.

With the auto companies reeling and Mr. Bush sending no signal that he would act, Ms. Pelosi said she had asked Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Financial Services Committee, to begin drafting legislation directing that part of the $700 billion bailout be used to help the automakers.

“Emergency assistance to the automobile industry would be conditioned on executive compensation restrictions, a prohibition on golden parachutes, rigorous independent oversight and other taxpayer protections to ensure that any companies that benefit from this assistance and not the taxpayers bear the full burden of repaying any costs that are incurred,” Ms. Pelosi said in her statement.

Ms. Pelosi’s position drew quick support from Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan and a top ally of the auto industry, who said he was working with other Michigan lawmakers on a measure to help the industry “re-emerge as a global, competitive leader in fuel efficiency and in new, path-breaking, energy-efficient technologies that protect our environment.”

General Motors, and to a lesser extent, Ford, were also mobilizing their car dealers and suppliers across the country to exert pressure on the White House and Congressional Republicans to support federal relief, according to industry sources.

They noted that Kentucky, the home state of Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has auto manufacturing facilities that could make him sympathetic to moving quickly on aid.

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The struggling auto industry was thrust into the middle of a political standoff between the White House and Democrats on Monday as President-elect Barack Obama urged President Bush in a meeting at the White House to support immediate emergency aid.

Mr. Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia, a measure for which Mr. Bush has long fought, people familiar with the discussion said.

The Bush administration, which has presided over a major intervention in the financial industry, has balked at allowing the automakers to tap into the $700 billion bailout fund, despite warnings last week that General Motors might not survive the year.

Mr. Obama and Congressional Democratic leaders say the bailout law authorizes the administration to extend assistance.

Mr. Obama went into his post-election meeting with Mr. Bush on Monday primed to urge him to support emergency aid to the auto industry, advisers to Mr. Obama said. But Democrats also indicate that neither Mr. Obama nor Congressional leaders are inclined to concede the Colombia pact to Mr. Bush, and may decide to wait until Mr. Obama assumes power on Jan. 20.

Separate from his differences with Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama has signaled to the automakers and the unions that his support for short-term aid now, and long-term assistance once he takes office, is contingent on their willingness to agree to transform their industry to make cleaner, more energy-efficient vehicles.

A week after Mr. Obama’s election, and more than two months before he takes office, the steadily weakening economy and the prospect of many more job losses are testing his effort to remain aloof from the nation’s business on the argument that “we only have one president at a time.”

As the auto industry reels, rarely has an issue so quickly illustrated the differences from one White House occupant to the next. How Mr. Obama responds to the industry’s dire straits will indicate how much government intervention in the private sector he is willing to tolerate. It will also offer hints of how he will approach his job under pressure, testing the limits of his conciliation toward the opposition party and his willingness to stand up to the interest groups in his own.

G.M.’s shares tumbled on Monday to 1946 prices, closing down 23 percent to $3.36, as analysts downgraded the stock on worries it would soon run out of cash and shareholders would be wiped out by any federal bailout.

Mr. Obama has been far more receptive than Mr. Bush to having the government intervene to rescue another major sector of the economy. He called automakers “the backbone of American manufacturing” in his first post-election press conference last Friday, and many thousands of their employees belong to unions that are part of the Democratic Party’s base.

But Mr. Obama’s stance raises the question, with the country in a worsening economic situation, where would the Democrat draw the line as president?

Mr. Bush has drawn his line at the automakers’ doors, having already been forced to shelve the free-market principles of his Republican Party to bail out the financial industry over the past two months. But Republicans say he would acquiesce in aid to automakers in return for Congress’s ratification of the Colombia pact and pending trade agreements with Panama and South Korea.

The outgoing and incoming presidents met at the White House in private, without staff.

The Democratic leaders in Congress, the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, have declined to call a lame-duck session for next week, as they had hoped, without assurance that Mr. Bush would support a stimulus package.

Mr. Obama has called on the Bush administration to accelerate $25 billion in federal loans provided by a recent law specifically to help automakers retool. Late in his campaign, Mr. Obama proposed doubling that to $50 billion. But industry supporters say the automakers, squeezed both by the unavailability of credit and depressed sales, need unrestricted cash now, simply to meet payroll and other expenses.

On Friday, Mr. Obama said he would instruct his economic team, once he chooses it, to devise a long-range plan for helping the auto industry recover in a way that is part of an energy and environmental policy to reduce reliance on foreign oil and address climate change.

While Mr. Obama campaigned on a promise of bipartisan conciliation, his choice for his White House chief of staff, Representative Rahm Emanuel, indicated on Sunday that no such deal linking auto-industry aid and a stimulus package with trade pacts was in the cards. “You don’t link those essential needs to some other trade deal,” Mr. Emanuel said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Democrats close to both Mr. Obama’s transition team and to Congressional leaders seemed willing to call Mr. Bush’s bluff, calculating that he would not want to gamble that G.M. — an iconic, century-old American corporation with business tentacles in every state — would fail on his watch and add to the negative notes of his legacy. Also, economists as conservative as Martin Feldstein, an adviser to a long line of Republican presidents and candidates, have called more broadly for stimulus spending of up to $300 billion.

The major automakers — G.M., Ford and Chrysler — are each using up their cash at unsustainable rates. The Center for Automotive Research, which is based in Michigan and supported by the industry, released on Election Day an economic analysis of the impact of one or all of them failing. If the Big Three were to collapse, it said, that would cost at least three million jobs, counting autoworkers, suppliers and other businesses dependent on the companies, down to the hot-dog vendors and bartenders next door to their plants.

The center also concluded that the cost to local, state and federal governments would reach to as much as $156.4 billion over three years in lost taxes and higher outlays for things like unemployment and health care assistance. Separately, some economists say the demise of even one of the automakers could tip the current recession toward a depression.

For Mr. Bush, however, the hard-line approach is his only leverage to make the trade agreements part of his legacy. The Colombia deal, especially, is strongly opposed by organized labor groups, which are a major force in the Democratic Party, and by human-rights activists.

In the Senate and during his nomination race against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, Mr. Obama opposed the pacts and especially the Colombia agreement, given that country’s reported human rights abuses against unionists. He insists he favors free trade, but only if trading partners agree to protections for their workers and the environment — reflecting the standard Democratic Party line since President Bill Clinton’s administration.

On his campaign Web site, Mr. Obama said he would oppose the Colombia pact “if President Bush insists on sending it to Congress because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements.”

Organized labor is not the only interest group with influence in the Democratic Party that is weighing in as Mr. Obama plans his transition. Environmentalists are adamant that any aid be conditioned on the auto industry’s dropping of its opposition to higher fuel-efficiency standards and investing more in new technology. That puts them at odds with unions, who oppose any strings, leaving it to Mr. Obama to mediate.

Both as a candidate and now as president-elect, Mr. Obama has been in contact with former Vice President Al Gore, who last year won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change. In a column published in Sunday’s New York Times, Mr. Gore wrote that “we should help America’s automobile industry (not only the Big Three but the innovative new start-up companies as well) to convert quickly to plug-in hybrids that can run on the renewable electricity that will be available.”

Mr. Obama has said that he wants to meet with the Big Three auto executives, but advisers say no meeting is scheduled. Among his advisers who have communicated with the industry chiefs and their representatives are Jason Furman, the Obama campaign’s economic policy director; John D. Podesta, the head of Mr. Obama’s transition; and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, an Obama adviser who is under consideration to be Treasury secretary again.

Source: The New York Times

CHICAGO — Armed with millions of e-mail addresses and a political operation that harnessed the Internet like no campaign before it, Barack Obama will enter the White House with the opportunity to create the first truly “wired” presidency.

Obama aides and allies are preparing a major expansion of the White House communications operation, enabling them to reach out directly to the supporters they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the mainstream media.

Just as John F. Kennedy mastered television as a medium for taking his message to the public, Obama is poised to transform the art of political communication once again, said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who first helped integrate the Internet into campaigning four years ago.

“He’s going to be the first president to be connected in this way, directly, with millions of Americans,” Trippi said.

The nucleus of that effort is an e-mail database of more than 10 million supporters. The list is considered so valuable that the Obama camp briefly offered it as collateral during a cash-flow crunch late in the campaign, though it wound up never needing the loan, senior aides said. At least 3.1 million people on the list donated money to Obama.

Millions more made up the volunteer corps that organized his enormous rallies, registered millions of voters and held countless gatherings to plug the senator to friends and neighbors. On Election Day, they served as the backbone of Obama’s get-out-the-vote operation, reaching voters by phone and at the front door, serving coffee at polling stations and babysitting so parents could stand in line at voting precincts.

After Obama declared victory, his campaign sent a text message announcing that his supporters hadn’t heard the last from the president-elect. Obama conveyed a similar message to his staff in a campaignwide conference call Wednesday, signaling that his election was the beginning, and not the culmination, of a political movement.

Accordingly, the president-elect’s http://www.change.gov transition Web site features a blog and a suggestion form, signaling the kinds of direct and instantaneous interaction that the Obama administration will encourage, perhaps with an eye toward turning its following into the biggest special-interest group in Washington.

Once Obama is sworn in, those backers may be summoned to push reluctant members of Congress to support legislation, to offer feedback on initiatives and to enlist in administration-supported causes in local communities. Obama would also be positioned to ask his supporters to back his favored candidates with fundraising and turnout support in the 2010 midterm elections.

“There’s this network of people now,” said Martha Page, a neighborhood leader in Warren County, outside Cincinnati, where Obama managed to reduce a traditionally large Republican vote margin. Page received six calls Wednesday from volunteers looking for new assignments. “It’s a sea change,” she said.

People in technology circles have been musing for months about how Obama would use his list, said Peter Daou, who oversaw Internet operations for the Senate campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). “Once you have people connected through a network, you can’t disconnect. It’s like unbreaking an egg. People all across the country have formed these groups to support Obama. They’ve worked together for a successful purpose,” Daou said. “You don’t let go of that easily.”

But Daou noted that the initiative could have a downside. Obama faced an intense backlash when he broke from the left on the issue of immunity for telecommunications companies that took part in the warrantless wiretapping program. “People who have helped you reach this historic goal by self-organizing can also organize in opposition to your policies,” he said.

As part of the presidential transition, Obama officials are looking to add a significant “new media” component to the White House communications operation. The campaign employed 95 people in its Internet operation, building a user-friendly Web site that served as a platform for grass-roots activities and distributed statements, policy positions and footage of Obama events. The White House Web operation will follow a similar but probably more ambitious path, transition officials said.

The process is just beginning, and many questions remain unanswered. The simplest approach might be to convert the campaign organization into an incarnation aimed at 2012 and an anticipated run for reelection, but some inside the Obama team are concerned about appearing too overtly political. Another course could be to create a nonprofit organization. Obama officials said all options would be examined over the coming weeks.

Over the course of the campaign, Obama’s e-mail list gathered not only names and contact information, but also details about issues important to those supporters.

In past years, such lists were considered useful tools for political campaigns but not particularly helpful for governing. But Peter Greenberger, manager of political advertising for Google, said such information could be a boon for Obama in building public support for policy proposals.

The White House could “geo-target” ads so they appear online in congressional districts where members remain undecided. Obama could use Internet ads to solicit signatures for petitions, or he could place display and video ads contextually — so they would appear on the screen next to news coverage of his proposals.

“If there’s an article in the New York Times or The Washington Post about health-care legislation,” Greenberger said, “the administration or a pro-Obama advocacy organization could run an ad right alongside it.”

Republicans have also seen the potential value in organizing online. In recent days, a small group of prominent young Republicans launched a Web site, http://www.rebuildtheparty.com, calling on their party’s next chairman to use the Internet to organize and galvanize their grass roots.

“Online organizing is by far the most efficient way to transform our party structures to be able to compete against what is likely to be a $1 billion Obama re-election campaign in 2012,” the Web site says.

Source: The Washington Post

• Obama Signals Need for a Sharp Break From Past
• Obama team pledges open transition to White House
• For Obama, a Challenge to Clarify His Message
• Anxious Party Hopes to Show Strong Obama
• Obama Assures Nation: ‘We Will Rebuild’

CHICAGO — A Chicago Bar Association lawyer ripped into the statewide ballot asking voters if they favor a constitutional convention as “a joke” Wednesday, saying a judge has already found its language is misleading and false.

No matter how flawed the ballot is, though, there is insufficient time to fix the situation beyond what a judge already has ordered because Election Day is less than three weeks away, an attorney for election officials told an appellate panel.

The three-judge panel of the Illinois Appellate Court is expected to rule as early as today on efforts to create a new and separate ballot on which voters will say if they favor holding a state constitutional convention.

Such a convention would be held in Springfield by elected delegates from around the state and would have the duty of drafting a new state constitution to replace the one that was adopted by a similar convention in 1970.

Cook County Circuit Judge Nathaniel Howse held earlier this month that the ballot language is misleading and false for two reasons:

* It says that not voting is tantamount to a “no” vote. Howse said that is false.

* It says that a previous such ballot proposition failed with 75 percent of the voters casting ballots against it. Critics say that makes it sound as if Illinois voters don’t want such a convention and amounts to electioneering against the idea.

The Illinois Supreme Court said Tuesday that an appellate court should decide how to fix the ballot. The Chicago Bar Association, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn and others asked the high court to directly reverse Howse’s remedy for the faulty ballot because so little time remains before the Nov. 4 election.

“It is a joke,” attorney Steven F. Pflaum told appeals Justices Denise O’Malley, Robert Cahill and Joseph Gordon on Wednesday. “This ballot is flagrantly misleading.”

Pflaum and other critics of the ballot want a completely new and separate ballot. Howse said that was impractical and instead ordered officials to give voters a notice in the polling places warning about false and misleading words.

That isn’t good enough, Pflaum said.

“This ballot is flagrantly misleading,” he said. But his plea seemed to draw a measure of skepticism from Cahill.

“You want to start over from scratch on Oct. 15?” he said incredulously.

That viewpoint was echoed by Daniel P. Madden, legal adviser to Cook County Clerk David Orr, who administers elections in the state’s most populous county.

Madden said 20,000 election judges are well into their training in Cook County and that to “throw them a curve” by introducing a new paper ballot separate from the one that will be used for state and federal offices on Nov. 4 would cause trouble.

He also said thousands of ballots have already been marked by voters engaging in early voting and there would be no way to notify them of the misleading language.

“There is no Election Day,” Madden said. He said that elections now are “a 28-day process” that starts with early voting and goes through Nov. 4.

Earlier Wednesday, Quinn argued that touch-screen voting ballots could be easily changed and that paper ballots used in optical scanners could be adjusted in time for Nov. 4.

“That’s the proper remedy,” Quinn said in a telephone interview from Carbondale, where he was visiting precincts. “(Howse) didn’t want to go that far, he thought the notice would be sufficient, but if they’re not even carrying out the notice, it really undercuts the court’s ruling.”

Quinn said election authorities in Cook County seem to be handing out the notices with the corrected wording to those taking part in early voting, but claimed that’s not always happening statewide.

“It doesn’t appear that even the, in our opinion, limited remedy is being carried out by the election authorities,” Quinn said.

He said it’s up to the State Board of Elections, which was named as a defendant in the lawsuit, to ensure the notices are being distributed to early voters statewide.

“They have a duty to communicate with election authorities outside of Cook County,” he said.
Dan White, executive director of the state board, said the board sent paper notices to local authorities that could be reproduced and handed to voters, on Oct. 4 — the day after the notice was agreed upon in court.

The notice also was posted on the state board’s Web site and local authorities with Web sites were instructed to post their own link.

“We advised them in no uncertain terms to follow the court’s direction and the judgment in the order. I had no reason to suspect they won’t do that,” White said. “We certainly didn’t drag our feet, we complied with the order the next day. The rest is up to the locals.”

Source: The State Journal Register, Springfield, IL- The Oldest Newspaper in Illinois

The major exchanges in New York moved sharply higher Monday morning on hopes that the global efforts taken over the weekend to control the financial crisis would stick.

Moving swiftly to restore confidence, central banks around the world opened their wallets to flood the financial system with billions of dollars in liquidity. Britain, France, Germany, and a several other European nations unveiled aggressive plans to guarantee loans, take ownership stakes in banks, and put up billions of dollars to prop up ailing companies.

The moves amount to a dramatic reshaping of the world of high finance. While stock markets in New York, Europe and Asia all moved higher on Monday, doubts still lingered that investors would be able to fully shake off the fears unleashed by last week’s enormous sell-off, the worst on Wall Street since 1933.

By 10:45 a.m., the Dow was 462 points higher, a 5.5 percent gain that sent the blue-chip index above 8,900. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index gained 5.6 percent, and the Nasdaq was up by 5.7 percent.

European markets saw even bigger gains, with the German DAX index rising 8.8 percent and the CAC 40 in Paris up 7.2 percent. London’s FTSE-100 rose 4.8 percent.

Shares of Morgan Stanley were 50 percent higher after the embattled investment bank said it had closed on a deal for $9 billion in financing from a Japanese bank, a critical lifeline that had been closely watched by the market ahead of the open on Monday.

The ultimate judgment on this weekend’s developments, however, may have to wait until Tuesday, when credit markets re-open after the Columbus Day holiday. Problems in the flow of credit are at the root of the current crisis; if these markets remained locked on Tuesday, stocks could once again fall.

“It’s going to take actions more than words at this time, given the extreme distress that the money markets are in and the extreme distress that the equity markets were in,” said Douglas M. Peta, a market strategist at J.&W. Seligman & Company.

In additional moves meant to restore confidence, Neel T. Kashkari, an assistant Treasury secretary who was recently put in charge of the government’s plan for tackling the crisis, appeared in Washington on Monday morning to offer investors their first glimpse at the plan’s inner workings. And the Fed said it would make billions of dollars available to banks via swap lines with the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank.

Oil prices moved higher by $3.56 a barrel to $81.26 in New York trading. The bond market was closed Monday.

Shares of Deutsche Bank rose nearly 25 percent in Frankfurt, while BNP Paribas and other major French banks rose more than 6 percent.

Royal Bank of Scotland, which is raising billions of pounds worth of equity with British government backing, rose more than 5 percent.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index bounced 9.6 percent higher. The S&P/ASX 200 index in Sydney closed up 5.6 percent. Tokyo markets, which lost about a quarter of their value last week, were closed Monday for a national holiday.

In Moscow trading, the Micex index rose 4.5 percent.

“We’re extremely cautious,” Philippe Gijsels, senior equity strategist at Fortis Global Markets in Brussels, said. “This looks like the start of a typical bear-market rally.” He said measures Group of 7 countries announced over the weekend had helped banking stocks, but that the market had been due for a rally after major indexes posted some of their worst declines last week.

“To repair the market will take some time,” he said. “The problem is that the financial problem has now become a real economic problem. The damage has been done.”

Meeting in Paris late Sunday, European financial and political leaders agreed to a plan that would inject billions of euros into their banks in a bid to restore confidence to the teetering financial system.

Taking their cue from a rescue plan announced last week by Britain, the European countries led by Germany and France pledged to take equity stakes in distressed banks and vowed to guarantee bank lending for periods up to five years. Spain and Italy also announced bailout plans.

The Bank of Japan, it said, will consider the introduction of similar measures.

Stocks in Sydney rose a day after Australian and New Zealand governments joined the scramble to calm markets, saying they would guarantee all bank deposits and some interbank lending.

Source: The New York Times

Presidential Second Debate

The deadline to register to vote the old-fashioned way is here.

Would-be voters have until the end of business today to sign up to vote in the Nov. 4 election. County clerk’s offices, driver’s license facilities and Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services offices are among the locations for registering.

State Department of Employment Security offices also are registration locations under state law. But voters can sign up there only if external authorized registrars ask to use the employment offices for registrations, IDES spokeswoman Alka Nayyar said.

“We’re not seeing a whole lot of that,” Nayyar said Monday.

If today’s deadline is missed, a “grace period” starts Wednesday and continues through Oct. 21. For that option, voters must register and then cast ballots immediately at their county clerk’s office.

Registered voters who have lost their homes to foreclosure still might be able to vote.
The State Board of Elections on Monday notified election authorities throughout Illinois that voters who move close to Election Day could still be eligible to weigh in.

Requirements for relocated voters depend on when the move took place and whether their registrations were transferred to their new addresses. For more information, visit the State Board of Elections Web site at http://www.elections.il.gov .

Source: The State Journal Register, Springfield, IL - The Oldest Newspaper in Illinois

The Chicago Election Board will be open at 69 W. Washington Street
and at City Hall on the Deadline, Tue., Oct. 7, from 8 a.m. to Midnight.

Voter Registration Form (Need Adobe? Click here.)

Since Oct. 1, the Cook County Clerk’s office has received more than 30,000 registrations from suburban voters, of which 13,000 were for first-time voters.Source: Chicago Board of Elections (www.chicagoboardofelections.com) and Cook County Clerk’s Office (www.voterinfonet.com)

Orr reminds voters who have recently moved that they must re-register at their current address prior to the deadline. Voters who have changed their name also must re-register.

Registration applications for suburban Cook County residents can be printed at voterinfonet; Chicago residents should visit chicagoelections.com for information.

After completing the application, suburban voters should return it to the Cook County Clerk’s office, 69 W. Washington St., Fifth Floor, Chicago, IL 60602. All applications must be delivered or postmarked by Oct. 7.

Residents wishing to register in person can visit Orr’s office, their municipal or township clerk’s office, or one of the Clerk’s offices located at the five suburban Cook County courthouses:

• North suburbs: 5600 W. Old Orchard Road, Room 149, Skokie
• Northwest suburbs: 2121 Euclid Ave., Room 238, Rolling Meadows
• West suburbs: 1311 Maybrook Square, Room 109, Maywood
• South suburbs: 16501 S. Kedzie Ave., Room 238, Markham
• Southwest suburbs: 10220 S. 76th Ave., Room 238, BridgeviewProspective voters should bring two pieces of identification to register, including one displaying a current address (a bill mailed to the prospective voter may serve as one form of ID).To qualify to vote, a person must be a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years old by Election Day (Nov. 4) and a resident of his or her precinct for at least 30 days prior to the election.The Clerk’s office will send a voter identification card to each voter after the applications are processed. The card lists each voter’s precinct information and voting districts.

Those who miss the regular registration deadline will still be able to vote if they register during the 14-day grace period from Oct. 8-21. During grace period registration, voters must sign up to vote in person at the Clerk’s downtown Chicago office (69 W. Washington St., Fifth Floor) or at one of the Clerk’s five courthouse locations. You must show two pieces of identification to register.

Grace period voters must vote absentee immediately after signing up to vote or via a mail absentee ballot completed at home and returned to the Clerk’s office before Election Day. Grace period registrants are not allowed to vote at the polls on Election Day or vote at any Early Voting site.