McHenry County Blog

The roll call shows three of four McHenry County State Representatives voted for Lou Lang’s House Bill 1.

They are Jack Franks, Mike Tryon and Barbara Wheeler.

Tim Schmitz, who represents the smallest part of McHenry County (near Huntley), and David McSweeney voted against the measure.

The vote was 61-57.  Sixty votes were required for passage.  If passed by the Senate and signed by Governor Pat Quinn, it would take effect on January 1, 2014,

The bill has 211 pages. You may read it here.

$16,000 from the Democratic Majority and $16,000 from Friends of Mike Madigan.

Reported to the Illinois State Board of Elections was $32,000 more from Political Action Committees controlled by House Speaker Mike Madigan.

Plus $5,000 from one of Madigan’s House Floor Leaders, Lou Lang.

And, there’s also $2,000 from Chicago’s Robert Kohl, Investment Manager for Robert Kohl Investment.

Dee Beaubien (Ind.-Madigan) is running against Republican David McSweeney.

Jack Franks brought colleagues to his home town of Marengo Saturday to the hard-to-find new Marengo High School for a reapportionment hearing whose process will be completely controlled by Democrats in the General Assembly and Governor’s Mansion.

To reach the high school, one had to take Franks Road, observed State Rep. Mike Tryon.  (He wondered if that “is s a sign that this will be the center of the 63rd (Franks’) District.”)

Not mentioned was that when one enters the auditorium, one walks past a placard saying the performing and fine arts programs are supported by financial contributions of the Franks family.

State Rep. Lou Lang chaired the meeting, which was attended not only by McHenry County residents but people from as far away as Plainfield and Sycamore.

Tryon took the microphone to point out that McHenry County was “fortunate to have two House districts that (were entirely within McHenry County).”

The Republican Party Chairman said he was “hoping that we will have three House seats that will substantially, if not wholly, in McHenry County.”

He asked that county and city boundaries be considered.

He also asked for an ability to see the map, as well as what it is based upon, for a two to three week period prior to passage.

Judy Szilak, President of the McHenry County League of Women Voters testified first, calling for openness and echoing Tryon’s wish for several weeks to contemplate the maps before passage.

Former State Rep. Rosemary Kurtz (R-Crystal Lake) took the microphone in support of a less partisan approach to reapportionment.

McHenry County Board Chairman Ken Koehler was second to speak.   He asked a series of questions about whether the public would have two weeks to analyze and comment on the suggested maps, how they will be shown to the public and whether the transcripts would be posted on the internet.

He pointed out that the county had not grown as much as had been expected, but how it was now the sixth largest county in Illinois.

“I would hope that  103,000 (McHenry County residents) would be represented in each of these (three) districts,” Koehler said.

 

Tryon asked if Lang would answer Koehler’s questions.

“I have no intention of doing that today,” Lang replied.

Just after Janet Silosky, a Republican Precinct Committeeman from Plainfield introduced herself, the lights went out in the auditorium, indeed, in the whole school.

“If this doesn’t tell us something about the process, I don’t know what would,” State Rep. Tim Schmitz (R-St.Charles) observed.  [I wonder if that will make it on the transcript.]

The Will County precinct committeeman expressed distrust in the reapportionment process.

 

“How are we going to get this done in an equitable process?” she asked.  “Gerrymandering that goes on will not create a map that is contiguous and compact.

“What difference does it make?”

“It’s already decided,” she continued, mentioning House Speaker Mike Madigan.

“I’ve lived in this state for 50 years and the Democrats have been in control since I was knee high to a grasshopper.”

She commented on the unfairness of Democrats who are going to be running for office knowing what their districts will be already, while challengers are left in the dark.

“I’d like to hear some input from you gentlemen.”

There was none.

McHenry County Board member Mary Donner came next.  She read a statement from an indisposed colleague, Tina Hill.

Donner said that the new 2030 County Land Use Plan had growth occurring next to areas that were already populated.

A DeKalb County band teacher from Sycamore, Ken Goodman, asked that his community be put in one congressional district.  His area now has two congressmen, Randy Hutlgren and Don Manzullo.

Stephen Polep, a retired teacher who lives in Cary, asked that Cary and Crystal Lake be kept in the same district [as they were until 2002, which this plus parts of eastern McHenry County further norther were included in a Lake County House district].

Algonquin’s Jim Carlin, a Republican Precinct Committeeman who said he was in the leadership of the Huntley Tea Party, pointed to the huge growth west of Randall Road, said that Tryon had represented it well and asked that it continue to be in his district. Carlin is a former Huntley School District Board member.

Noting the “communities of interest” mentioned in the meeting’s introduction, he asked that both the Kane and McHenry County portions of Sun City be included in the same legislative district.

He was effusive of his praise of Tryon.

“I like this,” the represented interjected.

“You’re kicking me out of Huntley,” Schmitz asked.

“Once we get a state government and federal government that encourages jobs, we’re going to take off.”

He said he was talking about taxes.

That was the end of those who signed up to speak. Then Lang asked if there was anyone else who wanted to talk.

Yours truly couldn’t resist criticizing the district boundaries included in “Currie II.”

I called it “Currie 2.”

I argued that McHenry County had little in common with the tract subdivision east of the Fox River in Carpentersville. It’s mainly Meadowdale, one of the first post-World War II housing developments.

Following me was MaryMargaret Maule, who ran a hard campaign for McHenry Count Board in District 4. She suggested that legislative districts try to have as much as McHenry County College in them as possible, rather than crossing the Lake County line. She complained about part of the eastern part of McHenry County being used to complete State Rep. Mark Beaubien’s Lake County district.  She manages MCC’s Shah Center in McHenry, which is an area split between two legislative districts.

Kathy Bergan Schmitt, another Democrat, one who got elected to the County Board from District 3

and who used to be Chair of the McHenry County Democratic Party, also complained about being the tag end of a Lake County district.

“I often feel in the orphan part of the county,” she said.  “There is an overabundance of the disease known as ‘incumbent protection.’”

She agreed that it would always be a factor, but “it doesn’t have to be (the main) factor.”

Without it, she said, “Civil life would be ever so much better.”

Bill Jordan of Woodstock also spoke up.

He talked about having “a certain amount of skepticism about the process.  Iowa has a (computerized) system of drawing districts.”

Jordan pointed out that we were “moving toward a government that can be audited.”

He suggested that the process used by both the Greek and Venetians–random selection of public officials–might be better than what we have in Illinois.

Not speaking from the microphone was Cary resident Raymond Scheff (at least that’s what my notes say).

He had suggested reapportionment maps that he had prepared for Tryon.

Lang asked if he wished to share them with the committee.

The reply was that was up to Rep. Tryon.

The following announces Democratic Party State Reps. Jack Franks, Lou Lang and Frank Mautino will take testimony in Marengo Saturday concerning the drawing of congressional and legislative map lines for the next decade.

No Republicans are on the panel, which, in a way, is appropriated, because Republicans will have no input. That’s because Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly, the Governor’s Office and the Illinois Supreme Court.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported today the fifty largest Political Action Committees in Illinois.

Buoyed by contributions from relatives and family friends when he was puffing himself us as a potential candidate for Governor, Franks retained enough to rank him 37 in the whole state.

As of the end of last year, he had $462,609 available.

That’s certainly the biggest pot of political money for any McHenry County politician.

And, now Franks has more.

Saturday night he held a fundraiser in Chicago to sweep up money most of which would not as obtainable at a McHenry County fundraiser.

Franks reported five entities who gave $1,000 this year:

• Arnold G. Rubin, Chicago attorney
• BNSF Railway Company
• Salvi Schostok & Pritchard, a Waukegan law firm
• Seth & Michael Gilllman, Lincolnwood
• Intren, Inc. , Union

That’s just the tip of an iceberg that will be hidden until March.

But, Franks really deserves a higher ranking than 37.

That’s because he is not competitive with most of the politicians on the list.

With all of that money, I’d guess he is positioning himself to run for statewide office in 2014.

That’s if he can’t pull off a campaign against 8th District Republican Congressman Joe Walsh. (I doubt most of the money in Franks’ war chest can be used to run for Congress. There are much stricter limits on campaign funding at the Federal level than exist, even after the imposition of the $5,000 a person/company limit on January 1st.  And corporate contributions can’t be converted.  Some individual contributions can be.)

Os not in the same political arena, one can eliminate the current candidates for mayor of Chicago, the legislative leaders and all of the statewide Democrats, except maybe Pat Quinn and Alex Giannoulias.

Most retired and defeated public officials also present no threat to a statewide run by Franks. I won’t even list most of them. Most will take whatever money they can convert to their private use and walk away from the political game.

Likewise, none of the Republicans are likely to run against Franks in a Democratic Party primary for statewide office.

• Roger Claar
• Judy Baar Topinka
• Larry Bomke
• Bradley A. Stephens (Lower than Franks)

Let’s eliminate the following Chicago politicians as not being direct competitors of the Marengo Democrat:

• Rahm Emanuel
• Edward M. Burke
• Lisa Madigan
• Gery Chico
• Ray Suarez
• Jesse White
• Michael J. Madigan
• Brendan Reilly
• John Cullerton (lower than Franks)
• Larry R. Rogers Jr. (lower than Franks)
• David Orr (lower than Franks)

Maybe one or two of them might be potential candidates for statewide office (Rogers, Reilly?), but I don’t know that arena well enough to do more than guess.

Now we get down to those who might think about running for statewide office.

Those include Giannoulias and Quinn.

While Quinn did get elected governor, he did so without Franks’ endorsement and it must gall him when he compares himself with Quinn.

That leaves five legislators with hefty campaign funds.

I can’t imagine State Rep. Mike Smith, the one with the most money running for statewide office, so we’re down to four:

• State Rep. Lou Lang (Skokie)
• State Senator James Clayborne (East St. Louis)
• State Rep. Jack Franks
• State Senator Bill Haine (Alton – Lower than Franks)

Lang positioned himself to run for statewide office two years ago. He even spoke to the McHenry County Demcoratic Party Central Committee in 2009.  He is Jewish like Franks, so is a definite potential competitor.

Clayborne and Haine are prominent Downstate legislators, so also could be in the competitor category.

Having completed my triage on campaign resources, it appears to me that Jack Franks deserves to be ranked Number 3 among those who might be interested in running for statewide office three years from now.

Reading the post-veto do-over that Democrats want of campaign finance reform put State Rep. Lou Lang’s vision of the subject in a new light.

At last Wednesday night’s meeting of the McHenry County Democratic Party Central Committee, Lang, state representative and Niles Township Central Committeeman, was the guest speaker.

The House Democratic Party Floor Leader talked about accomplishing “some ethical reforms, including strengthening the Freedom of Information Act and campaign finance limits.

“There too high there,” he said of the bill vetoed last week by Governor Pat Quinn, a bill he previously endorsed.

Then, Lang laid out his own idea of campaign finance reform:

“I’d put strong limits on expenditures, for example, $100,000 (on House campaigns).

“Each candidate would get exactly the same access to exactly the same voters.”

I hope that I was not the only one in the room who figured out such a restriction is a way to give incumbents even more of an advantage than they have now.

Incumbents already have so many advantages.

Because they have won at least one election and had the support of state-paid public relations persons for almost two years by the time they seek re-election, public officials have a huge name identification advantage, just to mention one benefit to being in office.

Another is that newspapers quote you. (Check out the number of times non-incumbents pry their way into articles during a campaign.) That makes the incumbent and his r her ideas seem more important than a challenger.

Want to keep the same people in office?

Enact Lang’s suggestion.

= = = = =
Greenwood Township’s Ed Riley greets Lou Lang at the McHenry County Farm Bureau building in Woodstock.

In he opening remarks McHenry County Democratic Central Committee Chair Kathy Bergan Schmidt stressed the importance of the 2010 election year by pointing out that it would determine who would reapportion the General Assembly. Of course, congressional districts would also be up for grabs.

Speaker State Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie) also emphasized that importance of the coming elections.

At one point he said,

“Remap drawing is a very important process.”

Lake in the Hills McHenry County Board member Jim Kennedy asked about county board reapportionment.

“That’s going to affect me because they’re (the Republican county board members are) going to be redrawing the district.”

“The Republicans control the county board,” Lang agreed, suggesting,

“Even the most Neanderthal will recognize that the two-party system is important.”

Democrats now have two seats in county board District 5 and one in District 3.

= = = = =
State Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie) is the man in the photograph. The map of McHenry County shows the six county board districts.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of looking at State Rep. Lou Lang’s view of what really happened in the spring session of the Illinois General Assembly, he talked about how not enough votes could be garnered from Democrats, but that there were sufficient Republicans willing to vote for a (50%, not mentioned by Lang) income tax hike had not Republican Leader Tom Cross intimidated them.

This article continues with the questioning of McHenry County Board member Paula Yensen.

“(I was) just trying to follow it in the newspaper and wonder why people could not be working together.

“The not-for-profits have made cuts for the last ten years. They’re five months, seven months in arrears in getting (state payments). Financial institutions are not lending (so they) can make payroll. I don’t think people fully understand.”

“I think they do understand,” Lang replied, “but when politics rules over common sense, you know where it’s at.

“There are elected officials who don’t give a dame. They’re looking at November 2, 2010.

“When a person gets most of his money from business interests…it won’t matter to that legislator.

“They’ll say it matters, but it doesn’t matter.

“Regular people can’t believe this. People say,

“But they don’t care.

“The not-for-profit community dropped the ball her,” Lang explained, pointing out that they came to Springfield for demonstrations, but that was not enough.

“But, how many of those thousands of people went to see their own legislator in their own offices?

“None, very few.”

Lang then explained, “The last time Illinois raised income taxes not one single legislator in either chamber or party lost his next election.”

Land did allow that people remember Republican Governor Richard Ogilvie losing to Dan Walker in 1972 after Ogilvie signed the bill imposing the income tax.

“If you explain to (constituents) why your doing what you’re doing, they will (support you).

“But when gutless wonders stroll the Capitol, (it won’t happen).”

= = = = =
At the Wednesday meeting you see above, from left to right, you see Marti Swanson in the foreground, Ed Riley, who ran for Greenwood Township Supervisor, former District 6 McHenry County Board candidate Robert Ludwig, District 5 McHenry County Board member Paula Yensen, Ed Rotchford, Bob Kaempfe, candidate for state representative against Mike Tryon, Nunda Township Trustee candidate Meredith Reid Sarkees, District 5 McHenry County Board member Jim Kennedy and Mike Bisset.

At last Wednesday’s meeting of the McHenry County Democratic Central Committee State Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie) talked about “what really happened in Springfield.”

Let me skip to what he said Republicans did and didn’t do.

“Twelve brave souls said they would (vote for the income tax increase.) We only needed five of those brave souls.

“Their leader Tom Cross said, ‘No.’”

Lang said he was told there were two arguments:

• It’s against our (Republican) philosophy
• We’re not helping Democrats

“Once is was June 1st, it made it impossible to pass the income tax,” Lang explained, pointing out that passing a bill took an extraordinary majority of 71 votes and the Democrats only have 70 House members.

“The leader of the Republican Party personally killed the income tax increase,” the House Democratic Party Floor Leader said.

“There was one woman on the Republican side of the aisle that I sat beside in a meeting in the Governor’s office after the vote,” Lang elaborated.

“She’s a person who actually cares about human services.

“She was sitting there crying real tears.

“Do you recall you voted ‘No?’” Lang said he asked.

“This is the kind of hypocrisy that go4s on in Springfield on a daily basis,” he added.

“So, the reason we did not pass the income tax was the Republican Party.”

In the question and answer question, McHenry County Board member Paula Yensen asked Lang to comment on what a not-for-profit lobbyist had told her:

“The reason Republicans wouldn’t cross over was because they wanted a greater say in reapportionment and wanted $2-3 billion more cut.”

“Cross was most interested in getting to June 1st (when an extraordinary majority higher than the number of Democrats in the Illinois House took effect),” Lang said.

“The idea that the Republican Party was protecting the taxpayer is a bunch of bull.

“Mr. Cross was protecting the Republican Party.”

Other articles in the series:

• Part 1.
• Part 3.

= = = = =
From left to right, those sitting at the table are Jeff Jenkins, BJ Rendine, Bill Nowaskey, Mark Freund, John Darger and John Farnick. Standing is Carolyn Quinn.

That’s what State Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie) said he was going to tell McHenry County Democrats at their central committee meeting Wednesday night.

Lang is a 22-year member of the Illinois House and Mike Madigan’s floor leader.

“I’m involved in a lot of noise on the floor,” he said.

“We just got through five years of a governor who didn’t understand his job. I’m not just talking the criminal charges.”

Lang talked about the impeachment trial, observing that there had been a lot of talk about it in the back rooms for a long time.

“One who did not talk about it quietly in the back rooms was your own State Rep. Jack Franks.

“I’d prefer to have taken him out (in an election). Impeaching a governor isn’t too good for your party.

“Democrats were moving forces in cleaning up our own act, in cleaning up Springfield,” said one of the members of the House Impeachment Committee.

“While it looked like fun, it was not fun.

“This is the most important time I’ve spent in the legislature.

“Governor (Pat) Quinn takes over…at the worst possible time.

“(We are in) unprecedented fiscal crisis in the state. All fifty states (are in the same condition).”

Referring to Quinn, Lang said, “He’s been practicing for this job for a very long time. He wakes up as Lieutenant Governor and went to sleep as Governor.”

Lang praised the courage of Quinn for proposing an income tax increase.

“It took a significant amount of political courage.”

“We must do something to maintain the level of services,” was the way Lang characterized Quinn’s motivation.

Lang told how the Federal government made it impossible to use most of the stimulus money to fill the $6-11 billion budget hole. Congress wrote into the law that Medicaid payment cycles had to be lowered from Illinois’ 90-days to 30-days.

“All that was left was the human service programs.”

He pointed out that when human service agencies faced a 50% cut in subsidies that “doesn’t equal 50% of the cost because of fixed costs.”

“I voted for the income tax.”

Lang was one of 42 Democrats who voted for it.

“Jack Franks, my very good friend, didn’t vote for it. He had legitimate, thoughtful reasons.”

“Dozens who voted, ‘No,’ did so just to protect their next election.

“Jack Franks is my good friend, but at least he had a reason.

“There are so many who did not.

“We did have thirteen more people (Democrats) ready to vote for an income tax increase,” Lang added.

Doing the addition, that meant the Democrats had 55 of the needed 60 votes to pass an income tax. Lang said that those 13 saw no reason to expose themselves to political challenge, if the bill were not going to pass.

Tomorrow: “Twelve Brave Souls.”

The next day: “More About the Income Tax Fight.”

= = = = =
In the photograph of the three men during the question and answer session, you see, from left to right, Mark Freund, John Darger and Jonathan Farnick