McHenry County Blog

The Chicago Sun-Times reports today that former Governor George Ryan is writing a “tell-all” book.

Dan Walker, who also served time in Federal prison, although not for any crime committed while Governor, wrote a book that I enjoyed a lot.

With the help of a co-author, every other chapter talked about his public and his prison service.

They played off against each other quite well.

Columnist Michael Sneed has the pipeline to Ryan and wrote this about the project.

“I think it’s safe to say a few former top state leaders might be a little worried,” son Homer told her.

While his son says that the book will be a “no holds barred” book, I’m betting there will be little embarrassing about former Governor Jim Thompson, whose law firm represented Ryan in his criminal trial and who ran interference for him with the media.

When Governor Dan Walker was in office, fall sessions were called “veto override sessions.”

The next Democratic Party Governor, Rod Blagojevich has similar problems.

As this past week shows, the third Democratic Party Governor in a row can’t get along well enough with the General Assembly to sustain his vetoes.

Even when he is right, as he most assuredly was on his veto of the Com Ed/Ameren electric rate hike bill.

If you have not seen the contributions that the State Senators who voted to override Senate Bill 1652, please take a look at what I found.

Governor Pat Quinn is bragging that his office budget is down.

But reports are coming out that employees on other payrolls are working for the Governor’s Office.

The obvious question is whether the amount of resources being spent to support the governor is down or just hidden.

Back in the 1970′s Pat Quinn worked at the Department of Local Governmental Affairs. That was the department that handled property tax assessments at the time, so I visited it a fair amount. One day I asked where Quinn’s office was. I was ushered to the back of the building on the second floor. There was a desk, but no Pat Quinn.

I figured he was a ghost employee.

Working for the governor, wouldn’t you think?

I have one other bit of information.

When I was in Springfield while Walker was in office, I stayed at the Hotel Governor. It was a low-end hotel within a block of the Old State Capitol, next to the St. Nicholas, where Paul Powell’s boxes of money were found after he died in Michigan, in bedwith his mistress, I was told.

The hotel had legislators like Prescott Bloom, state senator from Peoria at whose first fund raiser I spoke, Lewis Caldwell, a black graduate of Northwestern University and certainly an independent-minded guy in the Illinois House. (Caldwell wrote “The Policy King,” which advocated making policy legal, to treat it like the insurance industry. We passed his bill in the house. Now we have daily lotteries, but have cut out the small entrepreneurs. Nobody is allowed to go door-to-door to sell the tickets, as policy salesmen used to in the black neighborhoods.)

In any event, I got to talking to a young man in the hallway one night and found out that he wrote speeches for Governor Walker.

And, who paid him?

The Illinois Department of Agriculture.

The Hotel Governor is now a parking lot but the practice I discovered there of hiding those working for the governor on another payroll apparently continues.

More about Walker and Quinn can be found in the articles below:

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 1 – Primary Campaign

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 2 – College Days

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 3 – General Election

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 4 – Quinn’s View of the 1972 Campaign

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 5 – What Quinn Thought of Walker’s Term

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 6 – Why Did Quinn Leave State Government?

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 7 – Afterward

I don’t know which is the bigger story:

• Green Party candidate Rich Whitney’s coming to McHenry County or
• the Northwest Herald’s finally covering a 2010 gubernatorial appearance in McHenry County

Let’s start with Whitney.

I made it to the Woodstock train station before the train pulled in.  There were messages telling folks to stay behind the yellow line.

Waiting were local Green Party candidates Frank Wedig and Scott Summers, plus a Northwest Herald reporter Sarah Sutscek.  (You can read her story here.)

Both Summers and Wedig, McHenry County Sheriff’s candidate Gus Philpott, owe their ability to be on the fall ballot to Rich Whitney’s receiving more than 5% of the vote for governor in 2006.

That accomplishment—one that I spectacularly missed for the Libertarian Party in 2002—established the Green Party as what I call a “power party.” It meant local Green candidates could get on the ballot with the same relatively small number of petition signatures as Democrats and Republicans.  To continue to have that privilege for the next four years, someone on the Green Party ticket must get 5% this fall.

I wanted to get a photo of Whitney getting off the Metra train, but the announcement of today’s schedule didn’t reveal in which car he would ride.

Philpott had gone to Barrington to ride with the candidate and campaign manager Lynne Serpe. He got off first and got the photo I wanted. Mine had to be taken from afar.

But I did get one of Philpott and Whitney approaching those of us who were awaiting his arrival.

Greetings and introductions were exchanged among the Green candidates.

The Northwest Herald reporter introduced herself.

Whitney started his press conference and I took pictures, as did Philpott.  His Woodstock Advocate story can be found here.

He told of how this was the early part of his tour of Illinois by mass transit and bicycle.

It reminds me of the way that Dan Walker walked the state, starting in Southern Illinois and working north. He go incredible publicity, plus lots of blisters.

Far before the time he got to the Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago television stations were doing stories.

By enticing the Northwest Herald to send a reporter, Whitney could be starting on a similar publicity roll. He is, however, missing the opportunity to build momentum Downstate while working his way toward Chicago.

Whitney told of how he had participated in the Ride of Silence in Chicago. Its route featured bikes painted white where cyclists had been killed while riding.

Commenting on riding a bicycle in Chicago, he said,

“It’s a challenge.”

While I was taking photos the Northwest Herald reporter was asking questions.

She asked about whether Whitney expected to be included in any debates. Whitney explained that he had sent invitations to both Governor Pat Quinn and State Senator Bill Brady requesting nine debates. When contacting potential sponsoring organizations, he said they had been receptive.

Whitney, of course, was promoting the use of bicycles and mass transit.

“All of us benefit from a healthier environment.”

People “should be able to get from place to place without using an automobile,” he said.

In the state capital bill, Whitney bemoaned that only $4 billion was earmarked for mass transit when $10 billion had been requested by mass transit advocates.

Since he brought up the capital bill, I asked if he favored financing it with video poker.

“No. We need to stop looking at gambling. We’re not going to smoke and drink and gamble our way to fiscal health.

“Gambling tends to act as a hidden tax on the poor.”

Whitney then revealed that he supports a “tax on speculation,” mentioning the Board of Trade and the Board of Options in Chicago.

I asked what income tax hike Whitney favored. He said he favored Senate Bill 750.

As supporters of income taxes always do, Whitney would not say that it was a 67% tax increase. He said the increase was from “3 to 5%.”

He pointed out that it was not just a tax increase, but a “tax restructuring” in which “the bottom 60% don’t pay the higher tax.”

I asked about its imposing an income tax on retirement income, something Illinois presently does not do and he conceded the point, but pointed out that until that pension or other retirement income went “over a certain amount, it wouldn’t tax retirement income.”

His second choice for an income tax hike is House Bill 174, which he described as “705 light.”

There was one intriguing idea about which I had not heard previously.

Whitney said he favored a state bank similar to what North Dakota has. The advantage would be that state government could borrow money at the same rate from the Federal Reserve System which private banks can obtain.

That’s zero to .025% in this economic recession.

If Illinois had a state bank, the money could be borrowed to make the multi-billion pension payment now for next to nothing.

I asked if Whitney were willing to support a tax on bicycles to help pay for the bike paths he supports. Specifically, I asked if he would support licensing of bicycles.

“I would be willing to consider that. I think the priority should be simply subsidizing it.”

Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer had arrived at the station and observed mischievously,

“So, you’re not in favor of an Allen wrench tax?”

I mentioned that Governor Quinn had announced that an Amtrak route would run from Chicago through McHenry County to Rockford and beyond and asked if he favored such an expansion of service.

“Absolutely. That’s one think I would agree with the Governor.”

I asked if he favored a stop in McHenry County, something the original Amtrak plan for this route does not envision.

Naturally, I pointed out the relative large population McHenry County has attained. While the smallest county in the six-county Chicago metropolitan area, McHenry County is larger than any other county in Illinois.

“There’s a certain logic. I think you need one in McHenry County.”

With Summers leading the way, Whitney and Serpe rode off to see Woodstock’s windmill at Other World Computing.   Summers took them to the Woodstock Square so they could see where Eugene Debs had been incarcerated.

They then headed down Business Route 14 after making appropriate left turn hand signals at the four-way stop.

The campaigners took the train to Harvard and, then, will bicycle to Rockford where they ought to get good TV coverage. Tomorrow they will bike 50 miles to South Elgin via DeKalb County. I warned the campaign manager Serpe that they might get an Amtrak question in DeKalb County from those whose track route was rejected by Quinn.

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Oh, about the Northwest Herald’s coverage of the 2010 gubernatorial campaign.

GOP nominee State Senator Bill Brady has been in McHenry County several times, most recently at the April 15th TEA Party demonstration, where he spoke.  It may just be a case of bad advance work on the part of the Brady campaign, but he did speak and got no newspaper coverage.  STAR101-FM’s Stew Cohen did interview Brady there, however.  Earlier, Brady spoke at the McHenry County Republican Central Committee Lincoln Day-Valentine’s Day Dinner Dance.  He also sp0ke at State Rep. Mike Tryon’s fund raiser.

There was no coverage of any of these events in the Northwest Herald.

No loss of any consequence to McHenry County to Governor Pat Quinn’s announcement that 400 State Policemen would be laid off.

We didn’t have any in the 1990′s until I asked Governor George Ryan’s Director of the Department of Law Enforcement why we had none.

The next year he appeared before our Appropriations Committee he announced that we would get a couple.

Downstate they are more important and play the role the county sheriff’s deputies play here.

And they do issue a lot of tickets.

In the Chicago area, most motorists know the State Police by their presence on Chicagoland’s Interstates.

That started in 1975 newspaper articles are saying.

What they are not saying is why the State Police all of a sudden started issuing tickets and handling accidents on the Tollways and other multi-lane roads.

It was a deal cut with the first Mayor Richard Daley by Governor Dan Walker.

And, it was part of the multi-element deal that created the Regional Transportation Authority.

Most won’t remember, but Rockford State Rep. Zeke Giorgi could not get his beloved lottery idea passed until the state needed money—about $60 million—to finance the RTA.

The lottery was not passed to help finance education, no matter what is impressed upon your mind.  The money was only directed to education during the 1980′s when legislators got tried of answering the question,

“Wasn’t the lottery passed to finance education?”

By coincidence, the lottery was estimated to being in about the same amount.

So, the two were joined at the hip.

I was one leading the charge against passage of the RTA, but, considering my father’s mother’s Watling relatives won the London Lottery in about 1830 and used the money to come to the US of A, I thought I would be a hypocrite to vote against it.

I waiting until I could be the 89th vote. With 177 members at the time, 89 votes were required for passage.

As another part of that deal, Walker wanted to sell lottery tickets at O’Hare Airport.

Daley told him he could, if the state would assign State Policemen to patrol the expressways.

It probably helped that the 1976 primary election had made Walker want to curry Daley’s favor.

Now, one of Walker’s lieutenants, Pat Quinn, has come full circle.

The primary is over, Quinn has won and now Quinn has obviously alienated the second Mayor Richard Daley.

If you would like to learn more about Quinn’s role in the Walker Administration, the stories below will tell you:

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 1 – Primary Campaign

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 2 – College Days

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 3 – General Election

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 4 – Quinn’s View of the 1972 Campaign

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 5 – What Quinn Thought of Walker’s Term as Governor

The Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 6 – Why Did Quinn Leave State GoveThe Pat Quinn of the Dan Walker Days – Part 7 – Afterward

Looking for something else, I found a summary of the Daily Herald’s endorsements in McHenry County’s Republican primary.

All the incumbents were endorsed. When the paper couldn’t find enough incumbents running, it endorsed incumbent Republicans who were defeated by Democrats two years ago.

It appears the Daily Herald doesn’t think there is reason for any voter unrest in McHenry County.

But it does remind me of Dan Walker political operative and Department of Transportation Rest Stop Inspector Gary Fears.  In 1976, my intern Art Sternberg, then a Lakewood resident, now a Chicago lawyer, examined Fears’ time cards to make sure he didn’t take more time off for politics than he had coming in vacation and personal days off.

And off the public payroll came Fears.

At the time Springfield Republican Bill Cellini’s group got money to build a new Downtown hotel next to the new convention denter, Fears got money to build a Holiday Inn in Collinsville, my failing memory tells me.

At one point Walker ally State Rep. Hal Byers said that Fears wanted to know why I disliked him so much.  Since I had never met Fears, I had and have no animosity toward him.  I just thought if Dan Walker were going to have political operatives they should be on his political payroll, not my constituents’.

I don’t know whether it was then or later, that someone, maybe Byers, told me that Fears was a member of “the Incumbent Party.”  He supported whoever was in power.

Maybe the Daily Herald is a member of the Incumbent Party, too.

when I saw the Chicago Tribune editorial on McHenry County’s former Democratic State Representative Tom Hanahan, I sent his and my former State Senator Jack Schaffer an email asking for his memories. It gave me two of the five belly laughs that everyone should have every day to keep healthy. It follows:

Sorry Cal, I don’t check my emails as often as I should.

I did have an opportunity to talk to Tommy about a week before he died. While you could tell the disease was getting to him, you could also tell that the old Tommy was still there. You are right, I do have a lot of memories of Tommy.

In 1974 when the RTA was being created, I was a little curious as to what Tom was going to do about it because the labor unions were very much for the new unit of government and Tom was first and foremost a labor guy.

He must have convinced his leaders that he had to oppose it or he wouldn’t be back (a very accurate perception), which led to a very unusual election in that primary with the four of us; Tommy, you, Bruce and I out stomping against the RTA.

I recall one meeting in Crystal Lake (at the Nature Center) at which all 4 of us took different approaches as to why the RTA was evil – Tommy said it was bad for working men and women. As the meeting broke up a proponent for the RTA, who I knew, thought the four of us had covered every negative angle he could think of against the RTA.

The crowd was so hostile, I felt the need to walk the proponent back to his car. And as you know, 90%+ of the voters voted no with the largest primary turnout in history.

Another time, Tom and I were working on a piece of legislation to give homeowners property tax breaks if they improve their homes, or put an addition on.

I got wind, through a friend in the Dept. of Rev., that the Dept. was about to adopt rules that would require three inspections to qualify for the exemption.

I got hold of Tommy and we both went to see the Director of the Dept of Rev. I don’t recall that I got 5 words in during the meeting but Tom did such a war dance on his desk and threatened him and his descendents…the rule came out with a simple procedure.

During the RTA fights, we came up with the idea to send Gov. Walker petitions signed by people in the area opposing the RTA.

The problem was Tom got along with the democratic Governor Walker no doubt about as well as Jack Franks did with democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich…probably for some of the same reasons.

Governor Walker indicated he’d be happy to meet with me but refused to meet with Tom.

So we issued press release saying that opposition in McHenry County was bipartisan and if the Governor wouldn’t meet with Tommy then I wouldn’t meet with him either.

You’ve already talked about Tommy’s famous/infamous (choose your own word) opposition to the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), but one of the things that I do definitely remember the time during candidates nights when the speeches and Q & A were over;

• you would be in the corner talking about property tax assessment,
• Bruce in another corner discussing creeping socialism,
• I would be talking with a group about Mental Health and the state budget, and
• Tommy would be in the front of the room talking to every good looking woman there about the ERA with a huge grin on his face.

It’s almost impossible today to explain the cumulative voting system that allowed for a minority party member in every district, and while the system certainly had its flaws, we did see some incredible individuals elected because of it.

And Tommy Hanahan was one of those.

About the only thing Tommy and I had in common was the same constituency and because of that we worked together fairly well.

I doubt we’ll see his likes again.

Thanks for letting me share some of my thoughts with you (it’s more than the local paper did!!!!!)!

The pamphlet printed on my father’s offset printing machines–180,000, maybe more–can be seen interspersed throughout the article. The little kNOw RTA clip-on button, front and back, is also shown.

Other stories about Tom Hanahan:

Johnsburg Democratic Party State Rep. Tom Hanahan Dies – Part 1

Johnsburg Democratic Party State Rep. Tom Hanahan Dies – Part 2

More Memories on McHenry County’s State Rep. Tom Hanahan

Jeff Ladd Calls for RTA Tax Hike

The Wiring of Rep. Pete Pappas

Why did Pat Quinn leave state government?

Pages 356 and 357 of Taylor Pensoneau’s and Bob Ellis’ biography of Dan Walker gives this insight.

Quinn enjoyed the excitement of the campaign, but couldn’t adjust to the daily tedium of state government.

Wearing a tie didn’t excite him either.

His jobs included being Walker’s personal ombudsman where he learned how state government didn’t work for people and even got a taste of handling patronage the book says.

Government was just too tame for him.

“…the energy and enthusiasm of the administration was obviously beginning to wane after several years in office. Walker was no longer enough of a populist for me…His administration had stopped being a vehicle for organizing citizens.”

He was frustrated trying to operate as a “government insider.”

“He was itching to get back on the streets again, eager to resume raising cain with the political establishment, to further nurture the spirit of political mutiny at the grass roots unleashed by Walker.”

(Isn’t that a marvelous sentence?)

Quinn told Walker “it was time to hit the road again, time for me to do what I do best—which was organizing people to bring about change.”

“…no hard feelings. I just old him I was a better outsider than insider.”

Tomorrow – From the perspective of the 1993 out of print book, what did Pat Quinn do after leaving the Dan Walker administration?

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The picture is of Lt. Governor Pat Quinn facing a camera wearing a tie about a week after his running mate, Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested woken by the FBI–as a courtesy–before being arrested.

The title of former Governor Dan Walker’s biography is “Dan Walker, the Glory and the Tragedy.”

Written by Taylor Pensoneau and Bob Ellis, it reports on page 355 what Pat Quinn thought of Walker’s term as governor.

Playing off Blackburn College political science professor John Forbes’ opinion that Walker had fallen “from a very promising guiding light in the Stevenson tradition to a largely confusing mishmash,” the book says,

“Patrick Quinn would not go that far, but he too was not satisfied that the full potential of Walker’s governorship was being fulfilled when the young political activist left Walker in 1975 after holding a series of posts in the administration.”

Tomorrow – Why did Pat Quinn leave the Dan Walker administration?

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Here’s a picture of Pat Quinn standing in the background as the man he replaced as Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich, speaks. The photo was in an ad run by the Illinois Republican Party.

You’ve read what others thought of Patrick Quinn’s role in Dan Walker’s 1972 primary and general election gubernatorial campaigns.

Today, we look at what Taylor Pensoneau’s and Bob Ellis’ biography of Dan Walker heard from Quinn himself. It’s on page 356:

It “was entrepreneurial in every way. It changed the way candidates ran for office. The citizens coalition it flowered was was a truly unique happening, a rare moment in history for the iconoclasts, the mavericks and the independent thinkers to bloom.”

Tomorrow – Pat Quinn evaluates Dan Walker’s term as governor.

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The picture of Patrick Quinn is from another press conference during the Governor Rod Blagojevich ouster process.