Entries associated with the tag "Governor Rod Blagojevich":

For the last few months I've been making bets with other political junkies on who will make the first move if Barack Obama's senate seat becomes vacant.

Early guesses were split between U.S. reps Jesse Jackson and Jan Schakowsky.

Looks like the smart money was on Schakowsky.

Over the weekend on Carol Marin's talk show City Desk, the congresswoman from Evanston said she was interested in being appointed, adding: "I think it is unseemly and untimely right now to do much beyond stating my interest in that."

You can say that again. For one thing, Obama has to win first. And for another, Governor Blagojevich would have to pick Schakowsky over all the other senatorial wannabes, including, but not limited to, Jackson and state comptroller Dan Hynes.

In any event, Schakowsky got off to a quick start by sucking up to Blagojevich. "We do have a working relationship," she told Marin. "I agree with him on his priority of health care and applaud him for the work he has done as the health care governor."

If I were Schakowsky, I wouldn't be too eager to talk about my relationship with Blago, with witnesses testifying in the Rezko trial about unseemly corruption reaching into the governor's inner circle.

I suppose there's nothing wrong with a politician being ambitious, but there's something a little amusing, if not self-defeating, about Schakowsky cozying up to Blagojevich. Whoever he appoints will hold office for all of maybe six months before having to run for "re-election" in the 2010 Democratic primary. And then he or she will have to deal with the fallout of having been the handpicked nominee of a governor held in wide contempt by his own party.

For all we know, he won't even be governor if and when Obama moves to the White House. Over the weekend lieutenant gov Patrick Quinn suggested he might get behind a movement to recall Blagojevich. Maybe Schakowsky should start sucking up to Quinn.

I've never been a fan of Governor Rod Blagojevich. Back when he was first running for state rep, Blago pretended to be a reformer even as his father-in-law, alderman Richard Mell, ushered him to the head of the line of wannabe northwest-side politicians. Once elected governor, in 2002, Blago cut Mell out of patronage deals and tangled with him in a very public family feud. So on top of everything else  (Rezko, federal indictments, the Public Official A hoohaw), he isn't very loyal.

Still, I have to admit I have a soft spot in my heart for the governor's proposal to let senior citizens ride the CTA for free. Back when Harold Washington was mayor, I knew a city planner who had an idea for making the CTA's trains and buses free for everyone. Dreaming big, he planned to enlist the help of then-powerhouse congressmen Dan Rostenkowski and William Lipinski to pay for it with a hike in the federal income tax -- a progressive tax hike. He claimed Mayor Washington supported his idea, even if it didn't stand a chance. Man, those days are gone.

In contrast, the CTA bailout plan will be paid for with hikes in the sales tax -- the most regressive of taxes -- and the real estate transfer tax, one last slap in the face of beleaguered home owners.

Almost as soon as Blagojevich announced his plan, the powers that be ripped into it, probably because they can't stand the governor either. The Chicago Tribune even found a nice little old lady -- 87-year-old Marion Cheney  -- who said she didn't want the break if it meant service had to be cut. "I'm not going to turn down a free ride," Cheney told a Tribune reporter, who interviewed her while she was writing the Belmont bus. "But if it costs too much money for the CTA, they can have my dollar. I don't want them to have to cut routes because I'm getting a free ride."

Words to live by. I hope Sam Zell was reading as he pushes on with his plan to duck out of paying property taxes by selling Wrigley Field to the state.

Mayor Daley was among those who promptly blasted Blagojevich's plan. "Any politician can give things for free, but there's no such thing as a free lunch," Daley lectured reporters over the weekend. "Someone has to pay for it."

Amen, brother. Though I have to say the mayor's fiscal restraint caught me by surprise. By coincidence, I'd attended the party-down scene at the January 8 meeting of his Community Development Commission, where city officials were throwing around property tax dollars like confetti: $75 million to Rush University Medical Center, $8.5 million to Grossinger Auto, and a to-be-announced TIF handout to a consortium of developers led by former First Ward alderman Ted Mazola to build a bunch of town houses in a swamp down by Wolf Lake, on the city's southeast side. And that's just one CDC get-together -- they meet once a month.

So on the city pushes with its massive transformation, tearing down public housing, closing schools, selling off property on the south and west sides, moving out the poor people, and driving up the cost of living with higher fines, fees, and taxes. Then free rides for seniors get condemned as a waste.

It's a great day to be a zoning lawyer, or a lawyer working on commercial property tax appeals, or a developer, or an alderman-turned-developer, or a Daley-administration-aide-turned-lobbyist, all merrily riding the gravy train. But it's not such a great day for old ladies riding the bus.   

Next Wednesday, Cook County Board commissioner Mike Quigley is taking his TIF act on the road, heading off to Springfield to address a private meeting of legislators, legislative aides, and gubernatorial advisers.

"I talked to the governor's office and they said, 'Leadership wants you to come to Springfield and talk about tax increment financing,'" says Quigley. "I assume that means the speaker [Michael Madigan], the senate president [Emil Jones] and the governor [Rod Blagojevich] will have people there. But I really don't know."

Quigley, who commissioned a report (PDF) critical of Mayor Daley's TIF program, is being intentionally circumspect about his role in the ongoing behind-the-scenes struggle between the state's most powerful elected officials. Here's what going on.

For the last several years Blagojevich has held his tongue while Daley and schools CEO Arne Duncan rip the state for not providing more money for Chicago's public schoools.

It hasn't been easy for Blagojevich to remain silent. As gubernatorial insiders have explained it to me, they're all for giving more money to Chicago's public schools, but they find it hard to call for more state funding knowing how CPS suckers the state for the money it already gets. It's complicated, as most TIF matters are, but the bottom line is that it's a schools scam: for roughly every property tax dollar the schools divert to the TIF districts, the state gives them about 70 cents in educational assistance. Effectively, Daley and Duncan are manipulating the state's goofy education-funding system to divert money intended for schoolchildren to TIF deals -- like the $58 million handout they're ready to give developers to build an 18-story tower on top of Union Station.

Up until now Blagojevich has stayed away from TIFs, allowing Daley to freely spend the money. But apparently this last session was the last straw. Not only did Daley not support Blagojevich's ill-fated business tax, he embarrassed the governor by sending Duncan and busloads of schoolchildren to Springfield to call for more state education funding.

As a result our governor has evidently decided to send Daley a message: Mess with me and I'll mess with your TIFs. Over the last few weeks Blago's aides have been contacting Quigley, no fan of the mayor's, to pick his brain on the TIF scam. Now they've quietly let everyone (particularly Daley aides) know that they're inviting Quigley to Springfield.

Among the many things that Quigley intends to talk about is the Central Loop TIF, a $100-million-dollar-year boondoggle that funds development in an area where developers don't need incentives. Created in 1983, it's supposed to expire this year. But Daley's been asking the state to extend it for another 12. According to statehouse sources, Daley and Madigan recently struck a deal on the TIF: Daley agreed to support Madigan's watered-down home owner's property tax exemption in exchange for the speaker's support for an extension.

Blagojevich has the power to cut off Daley's TIF slush fund. He could hold hearings on the program. He could oppose extending the Central Loop TIF. What's at stake for the mayor? The Olympics, for one thing. As folks in Springfield will tell you, Daley's looking to use the TIFs to pay for his games. If the state threatens to plug up his money pipeline, he'll have to figure some other way to pay for them.

Quigley says he understands there are larger issues at play. "I don't have any expectations about any of this," he says. "They asked me to talk about TIFs, and that's what I'll talk about."