Two possible GOP gubernatorial candidates speak

Bill Grimes
Effingham Daily News
February 27, 2009

Republicans don’t have Rod Blagojevich to kick around anymore, but that didn’t stop a host of speakers from attacking the former governor’s political legacy at Thursday’s 36th annual Effingham County Lincoln Day dinner at the Effingham Knights of Columbus Building.

“We’ve only removed one bad apple,” said state Sen. John O. Jones. “There are plenty more up there.”

Thursday’s dinner offered a possible preview of the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary. State Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington was the keynote speaker, but Illinois Chamber of Commerce president Doug Whitley also spoke.

Brady is expected to formally announce his candidacy during a statewide fly-around Monday. Whitley said after the dinner he would likely formally announce his candidacy sometime this spring. Brady is expected to be favored by the GOP’s conservative wing, while Whitley has expressed an interest in reaching out to moderate Democrats and independents.

Like Jones, Brady said corruption in state government goes far beyond Blagojevich, the first-ever Illinois governor to be removed from office.

“He (Blagojevich) had several enablers,” Brady said. “One man doesn’t get the state in the trouble we’re in.”

But Brady said the Illinois GOP has finally recovered from the trauma caused by former Gov. George Ryan’s legal troubles several years ago. Ryan is currently serving time in federal prison for corruption-related offenses.

“The Republican Party is alive and well and will win elections in 2010,” he said.

Brady said Illinois has become the land of unfulfilled opportunity because of Democratic mismanagement of state government.

“No state in the nation has more opportunity than Illinois,” he said. “But we are abysmal, because the people in charge are making short-term decisions that are bad for the long term.”

Brady said he had a four-point blueprint for revitalizing the state. Those points include lowering fees for taxes on business, improving roads and bridges and balancing the state budget

Most importantly, Brady said, the state needs to end its “culture of corruption.” He added the recent Blagojevich problems put a negative spotlight on the state that must be overcome.

“The world found out that to make inroads in Illinois, you have to have Chicago politicians shaking you down,” he said. “Illinois has great promise, but we just need to have the right people in place to make that happen.”

Brady vowed he would stay true to the conservative tenets of the state’s GOP platform.

“A lot of people tell me I should go to the middle,” he said. “But that’s what lost us the last several elections.”

Brady said candidates who tack toward a more centrist path risk losing the party’s conservative base.

“If our party is to have strength, we have to stick to our values and virtues,” he said.

Later Thursday, Whitley said he was running for governor because he had seen enough of Democratic mismanagement.

“We’re tired of this dysfunctional government,” he said. “I’m asking you to power a revolution that restores Illinois.

“I want to see a government that works and a government that is responsive to its citizens,” Whitley added. “We have a great state, but we don’t play to our strengths.”

Whitley warned the 2010 election is critical to the state’s short-term future, because the party in power at the beginning of each decade controls legislative reapportionment.

“If we don’t take the governor’s mansion in 2010, the Democrats will be dictating everything, and they threaten to destroy the state,” he said.

Whitley said the state has never recovered economically from the 2001 recession.

“Downstate Illinois is hurting,” he said. “Almost every major community has lost its No. 1 employer. Very few places outside the Chicago metropolitan area are doing well.”

Whitley said the GOP also needs to energize voters in a way that was not done in 2006.

“Our challenge is to get people back to the Republican Party,” he said. “We have to step up as the party of the big tent so we can take back the state in the 2010 election.”

County GOP Chairman Steve Donaldson emceed the event. Other speakers included state Rep. David Reis, 19th District central Committeeman Bob Winchester and Rodney Davis, an aide to U.S. Rep. John Shimkus. In addition, Illinois GOP aide Steve Edinger read a letter from state party Chairman Andy McKenna.

Bill Grimes can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 132 or bill.grimes@effinghamdailynews.com.

Brady: Time for Burris to Resign

Whether or not Roland Burris committed perjury in his testimony to the House impeachment committee is now up to prosecutors to investigate and determine. His lack of candor is now the subject of a U.S. Senate Ethics Committee inquiry.

What is clear that Roland Burris sidestepped his way through his testimony at the House impeachment committee last month. What is clear that his story has changed not once, not twice, but three times – going from having had no contact with any associates of disgraced ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich to having multiple conversations with the former governor’s fundraiser and brother and others close to Blagojevich.

He dodged. He ducked. He misled the committee, and he has misled the people of Illinois.

What is clear is that it is time for Senator Burris, now a United States Senator for just a month, to go. He is yet another stain on the fabric of Illinois government and yet another national embarrassment to the people of Illinois.

This is not an issue of partisan politics; it’s an issue of character. Honesty is what the people of Illinois want from their public officials, integrity is what they deserve. Roland Burris has given them neither.

Roland Burris should resign immediately, and his fellow Illinois Democrats should now – finally – support a special election to fill that vacancy. It is time to give the people of Illinois, not the politicians of Illinois, the voice in who represents them in our nation’s Capitol.

It is time for a new generation of Illinois leaders who are not conflicted by the politics of the past. It is time for a new beginning. It is time to elect people who will stand up for a new Illinois.

Here are links to relevant documents from the House Special Investigative Committee:

• January 5, 2009: Affidavit of Roland Burris

• January 8, 2009: Transcript of Testimony from Roland Burris

• February 4, 2009: Affidavit and client list of Roland Burris

Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board might expand Lawmakers’ idea part of response to recent corruption

By DEAN OLSEN
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Feb 14, 2009 @ 11:41 PM

A scandal-plagued state board that decides the fate of billions of dollars’ worth of Illinois hospital projects would be expanded, and board members would be paid, based on long-awaited proposals from a legislative task force.

Along with an estimated $1 million in new spending on annual salaries and benefits for members of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, the recommendations call for the hiring of 13 new staff members, at a cost of $1.5 million annually, who would examine the long-term health-care needs of Illinois residents.

The Illinois Task Force on Health Planning Reform was created in response to corruption connected with former board member Stuart Levine, former board chairman Thomas Beck and Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko. Levine, who has pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, and Rezko, who was found guilty by a jury, were linked in their court cases to efforts to illegally influence the board, but they haven’t been sentenced.

Allegations of influence-peddling connected with the board also were part of the recent impeachment proceedings for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The task force’s recommendations are designed to make the state planning board more efficient and professional, the task force’s co-chairwoman told The State Journal-Register.

“This is one of the most important boards in the state of Illinois,” said state Sen. Susan Garrett, D-Lake Forest.

Representatives from the hospital and nursing home industries praised the task force recommendations.

“Taken as a whole, they did a real good job,” said Howard Peters, senior vice president of government relations at the Naperville-based Illinois Hospital Association. “There are a lot of reasons to be grateful to the task force.”

Susana Lopatka, a retired state employee and the board’s acting chairwoman, said she agreed with some of the proposed changes, including expanding the board from five members to nine, with not more than five belonging to the same political party.

Lopatka, a Chicago Republican who has served on the board since 2004, said a larger board would reduce the likelihood of tie votes or meetings canceled for lack of a quorum. The board, appointed by the governor with approval by the Senate, hasn’t had a full complement of members since she joined.

But Lopatka, a retired registered nurse, said other suggestions such as eliminating the board’s top staff position — whose current, $109,850-a-year job would be done by a proposed full-time board chairman paid about $90,000 a year — would “fix things that were not broken.”

The recommendations also require money state government may not have, she added.

Lopatka said the proposed salary levels — $40,000 to $65,000 for the remaining eight board members — aren’t justified and would “hyper-politicize the board rather than removing politics from it.

“I think people are going to clamor to be nominated for the board strictly because of the payment involved,” she said.

Board member James Burden, a Republican and retired Glenview urologist, agreed with most of the proposals but also thought the board salaries might be too high.

Board member Courtney Avery, a Chicago Democrat who works as an administrator for a not-for-profit mental-health agency, said she agreed with all the recommendations but wondered whether the new nominating process for new board members would be cumbersome.

Garrett said the salaries would be justified for the once-a-month meetings and hours needed between meetings to review project applications. Current board members receive only travel and hotel expenses and occasional $200-a-day stipends for meetings.

Garrett said the pay would attract high-quality applicants.

“What we’re saying is this is a very important position,” she said. “It has nothing to do with profit motive.”

The board also would be renamed the Health Facilities and Services Review Board.

Everyone on the task force except for Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, approved the proposals. He issued a minority report that said greater steps should be taken to remove the board and its staff from the influence of the governor.

Otherwise, he said, “The threat of ‘pay-to-play’ scandals is always present.”

The recommendations, issued on the last day of 2008, are the product of a year’s worth of discussions by the 18-member task force of state lawmakers and representatives of hospitals, unions, consumers and the business community. They’ll be inserted into a bill that will be considered this spring by the General Assembly, Garrett said.

Reforms enacted by the legislature in 2004, after the illegal activities took place, removed all the previous members and downsized the board from nine to five members. The changes also prohibited contact between hospital officials and board members and excluded people from serving on the board if they or a relative worked for many types of health-care providers.

The chief executive of Naperville-based Edward Hospital has complained publicly that bias among the board’s staff — including non-voting executive secretary Jeffrey Mark — led to the board repeatedly turning down the hospital’s proposal to open a hospital in nearby Plainfield.

Lopatka said board members aren’t swayed by the staff.

Mark denied any bias, saying: “I present no subjective opinion as to the merits of any application. That’s not my role. Myself and other staff to the board present statements of facts and statements of findings, in conformance with the rules.”

Peters wouldn’t comment on the Edward Hospital case but said the board’s staff — he wouldn’t say who — have been “inappropriate and disrespectful” toward some hospital officials.

Complaints in Illinois about the certificate-of-need process aren’t unique among the states, said Dick Cauchi, health-care program director at the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures.

Research hasn’t established conclusively that certificate programs hold down health-care costs, he said, noting that most projects get approved. In Illinois, the planning board gave the go-ahead to 560 projects worth $10.9 billion from July 2004 through June 2008 — an 86 percent approval rate.

Hospitals traditionally support certificate programs that can make it more difficult for doctors and other for-profit entities to open surgery centers that can siphon insured patients away from hospitals.

Illinois hospitals must seek planning board approval only when a project’s cost would exceed $8.9 million. The task force recommended that the planning board increase that minimum to $11.5 million for new facilities and $3 million for equipment purchases and other projects.

Peters said it’s uncertain whether the task force proposals would eliminate corruption.

“No matter what laws are put in place, if somebody is determined to be corrupt and break the law, no matter how good the law is, it will happen,” Peters said.

Dean Olsen can be reached at 788-1543 or dean.olsen@sj-r.com.
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