Friday, April 27, 2007

“Bingo-bango” legislative roundup

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A lot of drama and legislation zipped through the Capitol this week, so Deanese and I compiled a quick list of interesting action in additio...
Thursday, April 26, 2007

Update on hospital assessments

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A House committee approved a so-called supplemental budget Wednesday afternoon that would give the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Fa...
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Missed opportunity

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The Illinois comptroller’s office says the state missed the boat in early April to do three things at once: 1) reduce its backlogged Medicai...
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Golden Rule exemption

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Deanese Williams-Harris offered the following observation: On stage, Gov. Rod Blagojevich repeatedly campaigns for his health care initiativ...
Friday, April 20, 2007

This week at the state Capitol

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This week’s events provided little evidence of how things will play out before the state legislature reaches its constitutional deadline of ...
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

GRT or nothing?

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If Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s revenue idea to create a gross receipts tax fails to get legislative approval this spring (or summer), the governo...
Thursday, April 12, 2007

Ethical dilemmas

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Deanese Williams-Harris wrote the following post. The results of a recent state employee ethics survey paint a gloomy picture of the environ...
Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Corruption, power and money

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Corruption I'm actually talking about my computer's hard drive, which has "major corruption." While my laptop is in the sh...
Thursday, March 22, 2007

Busy day

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Maneuvering inside the Statehouse was interesting today. About 1,000 people stood shoulder to shoulder on the three tiers of the Capitol rot...
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Education and electricity

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Two juicy debates In downtown Springfield, the Illinois Commerce Commission heard Ameren Illinois president Scott Cisel defend his recent de...
Friday, March 16, 2007

Price fixing?

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The mess over electricity rates just got messier. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulat...
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

ICC calls Ameren to account

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This just in: The Illinois Commerce Commission asked Ameren in a letter to explain all the threats they’re making about how a negative cred...
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Reconsidering rebate

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Shortly after the Illinois Commerce Commission approved a plan Monday to reimburse some Ameren Illinois customers for high electricity bill...
Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Budget reaction

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Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year now goes to the General Assembly. Many Democratic and some Republican lawmak...

The governor's "moral imperative"

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Gov. Rod Blagojevich proposed levying new taxes and floating bonds pay for his spending plans, particularly “universal health care,” educati...

Budget highlights

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Tom Johnson, tax expert and president of the Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois, breaks down Gov. Rod Blagojevich's budget proposal f...
Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Utility campaign contributions

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The House conducted a rare Committee of the Whole Tuesday that included hours of testimony about Illinois’ electricity rates. Commonwealth E...
Thursday, February 15, 2007

TGIF

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Nothing has gone as planned this week, so here are some links that could be useful throughout the spring session. They provide thinking poin...
Saturday, February 10, 2007

Obama for president

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Thousands of people — kids in snow pants, adults in long johns — saw U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s breath as he said the highly anticipated words...
Friday, February 09, 2007

Moneymakers

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Pressure is mounting for Illinois to milk the cow this year. Lawmakers need a long-term plan to pay for education, transportation, health ca...