January 2, 2017
Chicago Sun-Times
Quit kicking innocent people, once freed, to the curb
It is an embarrassment that our criminal justice system sometimes sends an innocent person to prison, often for decades.
Compounding the shame, society often fails to do right by these wrongfully convicted people in the most basic ways once they are freed. Illinois does not always provide them with even modest financial compensation, though by law it is obligated to do so. Even at a time when Illinois has big unpaid bills and no budget, this is indefensible.
Under Illinois law, people who have been locked away for crimes they did not commit are supposed to get compensation from the Illinois Court of Claims, but it doesn’t always work out that way. When Rod Blagojevich was governor, for example, he stonewalled the process by letting requests for clemency and pardons pile up on his desk. At that time, the governor had to grant clemency or a pardon before the Court of Claims could release the money.
To get around the Blagojevich roadblock, the Illinois Legislature in 2008 created a “certificate of innocence” that could be granted directly by judges, who are in a position to determine who is innocent without having to conduct a separate inquiry. The idea was that truly innocent people - as opposed to those whose innocence might be less certain - would be compensated for their time behind bars without having to wait for the governor to act.
People who have been wrongfully imprisoned, sometimes for many years, need support immediately upon being freed to restart their lives. The Court of Claims would give them a maximum of about $220,000, depending how many years they spent behind bars.
Blagojevich tried to stop that reform by vetoing it. The Legislature overrode the veto. And that, for a while, solved the problem.
But now there’s another roadblock.
This time, the problem is the budget impasse in Springfield. As long as there is no budget, people who have been exonerated can’t get their money. There hasn’t been a budget for nearly 18 months. Lawyers say about 14 people have been exonerated during that time. Some are scraping by near the poverty line and could really use the money. Some have filed civil lawsuits, but it could take years to adjudicate those, and the results are uncertain.
In the last session, the Legislature approved a special appropriation so that wrongfully convicted people could get their money, or at least get in line as the state comptroller juggles bills trying to figure out which ones to pay first. But Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed the idea, and there were not enough votes in the Legislature for an override.
The best way out of this unconscionable state of affairs would be for Rauner and the Legislature to sign off on a budget. But if that is not about to happen - and it is not - it remains unacceptable to keep innocent people, finally freed, waiting for their just and legal compensation.
Typical of these exonerated inmates, reports the Associated Press, is Angel Gonzalez, who served 20 years for a 1994 rape conviction. DNA tests on forensic evidence collected from the victim and the crime scene later was found to match two other men - neither of them Gonzalez.
Nobody was reluctant to pack these people off to prison in the first place, though prisons are expensive. Nobody fretted about state finances when perceived public safety was on the line. And we can’t see how the budget dispute now should delay delivering basic fairness to the wrongfully convicted. They deserve to get their compensation now, without any more runarounds.
This is a problem that could be fixed for about $2.5 million, a relatively small amount of money. The governor and Legislature should get on it.
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January 3, 2017
The (Champaign) News-Gazette
Mandate appetite keeps growing
It’s the hairdressers today. Who will it be tomorrow?
It was with an air of triumphalism that the news media reported over the weekend about a new state law that drafts hairstylists into the war on domestic violence.
Illinois, the first state in the nation to do so, now requires that stylists, cosmetologists, aestheticians, hair braiders and nail technicians must receive an hour of abuse-prevention training if they wish to continue in their chosen field. The power of licensing gives the government work-or-no-work power over applicants, and Illinois’ legislative policymakers, in their finite wisdom, have decided that domestic violence is an important enough issue to issue another mandate.
It is based on two premises.
One is that those who work in this field have a special relationship with their clients, ones in which clients might be inclined to share deep, personal secrets. There’s probably some truth to that, although relationships vary.
The other premise, one posited by a spokeswoman for a cosmetologists’ organization, is that abusers strategically inflict punishment on their victims so as to inflict injuries not easily discovered. Because of the close contact between a hairdresser and his/her clients, according to this theory, the hairdresser “can see things that cannot be visible to the casual observer.”
That’s true, except in those cases when it’s not. But, apparently, the logic was persuasive enough for members of the Illinois General Assembly.
There is no doubt that domestic violence is a serious problem, and it may well be that a hairdresser, armed with a useful phone number or a helpful suggestion, can be helpful on the fringes of this problem.
But the bigger question is how far the government ought to be allowed to go to draft private parties into the public effort to address this issue?
If hairdressers can be co-opted, as a condition of employment, what about others who have what might be considered close relationships with business clients.
Bartenders are renowned as listeners, whether they wish to be or not. Accountants surely hear a story or two as they review family financial issues that may be related to financial problems that can be at the root of family discord.
Further, why limit the mandate to business relationships? Aren’t neighbors often close? If they are, why not another mandate requiring everyone who has a neighbor to be subject to this well-intentioned mandate? After all, what’s good for the goose (hairstylists) ought to be good for the gander (everyone else).
Of course, as is often the case with legislative solutions aimed more at attracting votes than solving problems, there is less to this mandate than meets the eye.
The law does not require the stylists who become aware of a domestic abuse problem to report it. It also shields them from any legal liability if they do.
All it orders is that the targets of the legislation submit to an hour of mandated-abuse training as a part of the licensing process.
After that, they may forget about it. Or they may use what they learn to connect clients with services. As government intrusions go, it’s minimally invasive on a chosen few. As a precedent for future government overreach, however, it’s troubling.
One of the common complaints about government today concerns its failure to function effectively in pursuit of the common good. In other words, the more government fails to meet its core functions, the more grandiose it becomes in pursuit of nontraditional issues to address.
Illinois, an essentially failed state deep in debt and paralyzed by willful political dysfunction, can’t even pass a state budget as mandated by its Constitution. But it can pass domestic violence mandates on hairdressers. It’s no wonder a vast majority of the people here say this state is headed in the wrong direction.
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December 31, 2016
The (Springfield) State Journal-Register
No. 1 priority for 2017 is getting a state budget passed
A new year begins today, and with it the optimist has a sense of renewal that the next 365 days will be filled with only good tidings and new beginnings.
That might be the attitude in most places, but for us in Illinois, the pessimist emerges just shortly after the new year rings in at midnight. Because here, 2017 signals the beginning of once again having no spending plan to guide the state’s operations, as the stopgap budget that has provided funding for the past six months expired Dec. 31.
For being the start of something new, it’s awfully familiar. It’s been 18 months since the state had a real budget, and judging by the political posturing between the governor and legislative leaders, it’s going to be a while until a spending plan is in place. That means more agony for universities and colleges, nonprofits, social service agencies and vendors that provide goods and services to the state, as they wait for action in Springfield.
It means postponing - and in all likelihood intensifying - the pain that will come when state politicians are brave enough to put politics aside and make the necessary reforms and cuts needed to right the state’s fiscal ship. And that is why the No. 1 priority for this year needs to be getting a state budget in place.
Other priorities seem to pale when put next to the desperate need for a state budget, but there are other actions we would like to see at the local, state and national levels in 2017:
(asterisk) The continued revitalization of downtown Springfield. There are promising signs, including plans for renovating the historic Ferguson, Bateman-Kennedy and Booth buildings, the St. George Building and the former First United Methodist Church. The mix of uses - some businesses, some housing - should go a long way toward reducing the estimated 40 percent commercial vacancy rate downtown.
(asterisk) It’s time for a full, comprehensive city plan that will do more than just sit on a shelf. The city needs to take ownership of creating, and then implementing and adhering to, a plan that will direct Springfield’s long-term economic future. A city planner should be hired. A regional plan that includes Logan, Menard and Sangamon counties would be good too.
(asterisk) The Springfield City Council should reconsider its Ethics Committee. In November the city council essentially eliminated the Ethics Committee - which was created in December 2014 to oversee the post of inspector general - and decided instead that all 10 aldermen would hear at the first council meeting of every month complaints of wrongdoing against the city. It’s vital the city has a way to investigate complaints and hold its staff (including aldermen) accountable. That panel should have an independent voice, like the now-eliminated citizen post.
(asterisk) The commitment to improving race relations in Springfield needs to continue. It’s been a topic discussed more frequently this year, such as in June when the Springfield Race Unity Committee held a planning meeting to discuss the issue. There’s been talk about how to best preserve the history of the Race Riots of 1908. The community is stronger when it’s unified, and these types of conversations help strengthen that bond.
(asterisk) See the Kidzeum open its doors. Springfield’s children’s museum is tentatively slated to open at the end of 2017 in the 400 block of East Adams Street. Besides providing a fun and educational place for kids to explore, an economic study found the Kidzeum will bring in $3 billion of tax-based revenue.
(asterisk) Focus on economic development at the state level. Even with the state’s dire fiscal situation, the business climate won’t improve if all leaders do is dis Illinois. Yes, there are many aspects that could use reform, like workers’ comp. But there are good parts to the state too - it has, for instance, the fifth-largest economy in the nation - that are rarely focused on.
(asterisk) Enact funding reform for K-12 education. The Education Fund last year named Illinois as having the most unfair school funding state in the county, as it found that districts with the greatest number of low-income students received nearly 20 percent fewer state and local dollars than richer counterparts. It’s time for more equality in how our kids are educated.
(asterisk) Have the nation collectively give Donald Trump a chance to succeed. Yes, he isn’t going to be like any other president this country has ever had. Maybe that isn’t a bad thing. He could fail spectacularly, but let’s at least give him a shot to succeed. Remember: If he fails, so does the country.
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December 28, 2016
The (DeKalb) Daily Chronicle
No redistricting reform among 2016’s biggest disappointments
Looking back at the election of 2016, the results brought joy to some and disappointment to others.
For many reform-minded Illinoisans, one of the biggest disappointments had to do with a decision they never got the chance to make in the voting booth.
That’s because a lawyer friend of powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan, 74, D-Chicago, succeeded in having the Independent Map Amendment thrown off the ballot.
The Independent Map Amendment had the potential to reform the Illinois political scene immensely.
It would have taken the once-a-decade redistricting process out of politicians’ hands (namely Speaker Madigan’s for the past four decades) and placed it in the hands of an 11-member citizen redistricting commission.
Those bipartisan commissioners would not have been permitted to use political and incumbency considerations in drawing new state House and Senate districts. (The next ones are due to be created in 2021.)
The idea was to increase the number of competitive districts, and hence the accountability of lawmakers elected from those districts. The result would have weakened Madigan’s power to block other needed reforms in our financially troubled state.
The Independent Maps group got farther than two previous redistricting reform efforts in 2010 and 2014. This year’s well-organized effort actually succeeded in gathering enough petition signatures (more than 563,000) and getting enough of them certified by state elections officials that the proposed constitutional amendment was well on its way to being placed on the ballot.
But a lower court judge ruled the proposed amendment unconstitutional, and by a 4-3 vote in August, the Illinois Supreme Court agreed.
The decision, with four Democratic judges voting against the Independent Map Amendment and three Republican judges voting for it, shook the faith of many in our so-called independent judiciary.
We’re disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision.
We’re greatly disappointed that justices provided so little legal guidance that any future redistricting reform petition efforts likely have minimal chance of success.
And we’re greatly, greatly disappointed that Illinois voters on Nov. 8 were denied the opportunity to institute a far-reaching reform that could have brought real accountability to the Madigan-dominated Illinois General Assembly.
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