July 27, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Whether  Gov. Pat Quinn’s staff moved the location for a southern Illinois news conference to avoid protesters remains a mystery.

The governor’s office Thursday denied a Freedom of Information Act request by IllinoisWatchdog.org, formerly Illinois Statehouse News, about planning for the event, held earlier this month.

Watchdog asked for “any and all correspondence to and from governor’s office employees regarding the governor’s appearance in southern Illinois on July 16.” This included correspondence for July 12-17.

Watchdog wants to know if  the news conference was moved from a Waltonville farmstead to a field several miles away, with local police monitoring the entrance.

Rumors abounded that the governor’s staff moved the location to dodge state employees, family members and others protesting Quinn’s plan to close several state facilities in southern Illinois, including prisons and centers for developmentally disabled people.

Quinn’s spokeswoman, Brooke Anderson, denied the rumors.

Benno Weisberg, an attorney and the FOIA officer for the governor’s office, denied the records request. In a letter, he said staff found “approximately 10 emails responsive to your request,” but that they were being withheld in their entirety.

Weisberg cited a FOIA exemption that allows officials to withhold “preliminary drafts, notes, recommendations, memoranda and other records in which opinions are expressed, or policies or actions are formulated.”

The denial will be appealed to the Illinois attorney general’s public access counselor.

Don Craven, a Springfield attorney who specializes in open government matters, said the “preliminary drafts” exemption to Illinois FOIA law is overused and that attempts to get lawmakers to rein in the exemption have been unsuccessful.

The justifiable purpose of the exemption, he said, is to allow staff members debating policy to be candid as they’re discussing the nuances of a particular issue.

“It’s got nothing to do with frantic emails or texts among the governor’s staff about where to set up a podium so he doesn’t have to look at state-employee protesters,” Craven said.

“Pat Quinn from four years ago would have demanded that those very documents be released. Pat Quinn from 20 years ago would have demanded that those very documents be released. Those are precisely those kinds of documents that the taxpayers are entitled to see.”

July 25, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Crop insurance — not disaster aid — will cover the losses of most Illinois grain farmers hurt by the summer’s severe drought.

Even so, the state’s taxpayers will be on the hook for millions of dollars – billions nationwide – because of a flawed program that has quietly mutated since 2000, one environmental watchdog group says.

“There’s really a lot of smoke and mirrors behind this crop insurance program,” said Craig Cox, senior vice president of the Environmental Working Group, which tracks farm subsidies. “We’re growing more and more concerned about who is this program being designed to benefit – crop insurers and farmers, but certainly not taxpayers.”

Gov. Pat Quinn is seeking disaster designations for most of Illinois, because of the drought. Illinois has had the warmest first half of the year on record, and rainfall is at least seven inches below normal levels.

Twenty-six counties already hold the disaster designation. Quinn asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to add 69 counties to the list, meaning farmers in most of the state’s 102 counties would be eligible for loan programs through the USDA.

Congress no longer authorizes the ad hoc disaster programs of old, which sent billions in one-time cash payments flowing into the countryside. These days, lawmakers must find cuts elsewhere in the federal budget to pay for such programs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture can provide low-interest loans and other conservation programs to help farmers.

Loans, though beneficial for emergencies, really aren’t much help to farmers hurting because of drought conditions, which occur gradually, said John Hawkins, spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau.

“Floods happen right now. You’ve got a lot of damage that you have to get rid of like sand in fields and trees and debris. That’s something (in which) you can bring a bulldozer down, and trucks,” Hawkins said. “But with drought, it’s such a slow process because it happens over a series of months that it just kind of creeps up on you, and by the time you figure out ‘I’m really in trouble,’ it’s already too late.”

That’s where crop insurance, which about 80 percent of Illinois farmers have, comes in.

But it doesn’t work like traditional home or auto insurance policies, in which a person or a business takes out a policy, experiences a problem, has an adjuster examine the damage and receives a check to cover that damage based on the limits set when the policy was purchased. Major changes to the crop-insurance program in 2000 have taxpayers picking up more of the tab, Cox said. They pony up millions to help cover premiums, administrative costs and revenue guarantees.

For example, Cox said:

• Taxpayers cover about two-thirds of the premiums for crop insurance policies. The cost to taxpayers has grown from $1.5 billion a year in 2002 to $7.4 billion last year, he said, citing USDA figures. Plus, taxpayers foot another $1.3 billion a year for overhead costs for the insurance companies, such as administering the policies, adjusting the policies, examining the crop losses and more.

• Taxpayers, not the crop insurance company that sold the policy, are on the hook for most of the payout when a farmer suffers a loss. Cox said the formula used to determine the risk sharing on policies is complicated, but the bottom line is as the losses get bigger, the taxpayer pays more. “And when losses get really big, like they’re likely to be this year because of this horrible drought, taxpayers are going to end up on the hook for the vast majority – over 90 percent – of the loss,” he said.

• The latest crop-insurance policies, which are the most popular policies in the Corn Belt, have something called “revenue protection,” insuring a crop based on dollars per acre instead of bushels per acre. The insurers may have no idea how much a farmer gets for his crop at the end of the season, but they pay out an amount based on the insurer-established harvest price and the actual yield. If it’s less than the per-acre guarantee established when the policy was taken out, the company pays the difference.

• In addition, these revenue-protection policies allow the guaranteed payment to be adjusted according to grain-price fluctuations. If the price of corn or soybeans, for example, rises during the growing season, the policies calculate the guarantee based on the highest price.

“That’s turned crop insurance on its head,” Cox said.

“It’s no longer simply protecting a farmer from a loss of yield. It’s now protecting the farmer against a loss in yield, a drop in prices or a combination of the two. Taxpayers pick up a big chunk of that premium. And so these policies have become insanely popular. It’s really hard to find a corn or soybean farmer that still insures his or her crop with an old-fashioned yield-protection policy.”

The cost to the government for the crop insurance program in Illinois between 1995 and 2011 was more than $1 billion, according to figures from the Environmental Working Group based on USDA data.

Think taxpayer dollars here.

The reality, Cox said, is that disaster assistance really isn’t needed for grain farmers.

“If that farmer loses his entire crop, he’s going to get more money from the insurance policy than he expected to get if he saw no loss in yield at all and sold his entire crop under the insured price when he bought that insurance policy,” Cox said.

Not necessarily so, Hawkins said, noting not every farmer will be made whole by their crop insurance. The goal is to at least get them some money so they can start again the next year.

Food is a national-security issue, he said.

“If you don’t have somebody raising it, we’d be in a world of hurt. Farm programs are there to ensure that we have an affordable, safe food supply. I think if you did away with disaster aid or some of the other, even crop insurance, you would insert an extremely high level of volatility on farm owners,” he said.

“If we have another year like this, you’d probably have a lot of people just get out of the business. People wouldn’t be very eager to enter (farming) either, because of the investment and time. Whenever you have a disaster like this you’re always glad there is crop insurance or some kind of cushion there that farmers can depend on to get them through the short times so that when we have normal crops we’ll still be there.”

Any business, particularly farming, is inherently risky. Typically.

But in this case, it’s the taxpayers who will pay. Again.

It could be a record year for insurance payouts because of the drought, which stretches across much of the country. Estimates run from nearly $20 billion by the chief economist for the USDA to $40 billion by the president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, Cox said. No one will know until the harvest is in and the insurance companies make their payments.

Illinois is nowhere near the top of the heap when it comes to total crop-insurance costs by state. At $902 million, it ranks 16th. Texas’s costs are $7.8 billion. Also in the top 10: North Dakota, Kansas, South Dakota, North Carolina, Minnesota, Oklahoma, California, Missouri and Georgia.

In terms of disaster assistance, Illinois received $318 million between 1995 and 2011. The largest amount of disaster money funneled into Illinois came in 2010, when farmers received nearly $61 million. The smallest amount – $21,000 – came to the state in 1998.

In 2011, disaster payments for Illinois totaled $45.2 million, coming in sixth among states last year, behind Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Kansas and Montana.

During the severe drought of 1988, most farmers did not have crop insurance and relied heavily on government disaster aid. Hawkins said this summer’s drought is the first real test of the crop insurance program in Illinois.

Cox agreed.

“There are very few people who have taken the time to really dig into what the crop insurance program has become since that 2000 act. This has happened very quietly,” he said. “This year, with this drought and these huge payouts and the way these new-fangled policies work, it may indeed draw a lot of attention.”

The Environmental Working Group supports crop insurance, Cox said, but the organization questions how much taxpayers should be responsible for and why taxpayers should be on the hook for the costs. It’s OK for taxpayers to compensate farmers for a significant loss in yield, but that’s about it, he said.

“We think lawmakers ought to just be really smart about what they do in response to this drought,” he said.

“Assistance really needs to go to the people who are really hurting, and we shouldn’t simply do one of these disaster programs that sends money out willy-nilly, regardless of whether it’s going to someone who is already going to be made more than whole by crop insurance, or whether it’s going to a livestock farmer that’s really facing the potential financial viability of their operation.

“Disaster assistance ought to be really carefully targeted to those producers who really need it.”

July 19, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

SPRINGFIELD – Indicted state Rep. Derrick Smith will be on the ballot come November.

His challengers? Well, no one knows for sure.

Objections are pending for the filing petitions of all three challengers for the incumbent’s seat.

In an ironic twist, no objections were filed against the petition for Smith, who may be kicked out of the House in the coming weeks. His paperwork was filed in November.

One challenger, Lance Tyson, appears poised to give Smith a run for his money in November.

Tyson is a Democrat – just like Smith. Both are black candidates in a predominantly black, predominantly low-income but historically well-organized 10^th House District on Chicago’s west side.

Here’s the rub: Tyson has the backing of the state’s Democratic machine – something Smith had until after the primary election. But the word “Democrat” won’t come after Tyson’s name on the November ballot.

Things get even trickier, as voters will have to know to look for “Unity Party,” the party Democrats set up when they chose to run Tyson against the embattled Smith in an effort to retain control of the seat.

That could be a problem for Democrats, one Illinois political observer said.

“Tyson is favored to win, even though the Democrats will have to do considerable work to make sure the voters in the district know the true Democratic candidate,” said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a former Chicago alderman.

Simpson said Smith automatically will get 10 percent to 20 percent of the vote from people who don’t know any of the candidates but want to vote Democrat, as well as from those people aware that Smith is — or was — a legislator for a little more than a year.

“My assumption is Smith isn’t going to campaign because he’ll be busy fighting his corruption charge. He hasn’t been much of a state legislator, so I don’t expect him to be much of a campaigner,” he said.

Tyson is a well-connected Chicago attorney with ties to both former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley and former Cook County board president Todd Stroger. Campaign filings this week show no donations yet to Tyson’s campaign. He used just more than $2,600 of his own money for mailing services, office supplies and travel.

But White is hosting a fundraiser for Tyson on Tuesday at 312 Chicago, a restaurant in the Chicago Loop. An individual ticket is $150. And the list of endorsements on Tyson’s site already includes numerous politicians, such as White, various Chicago aldermen, Cook County officials and two state representatives, Daniel Burke and Jack Franks, both Chicago-area Democrats.

Smith’s campaign filings this week show he had about $42,000 in his campaign fund at the end of June.

“Smith really has no chance of getting re-elected,” said Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois-Springfield. “He has no support from the Ward organizations in the district and will not be able to raise any money from interest groups, who will not want to have their names on campaign disclosure documents as having given him money.”

It’s not too late for Tyson to make up the fundraising difference, Simpson said, noting that most political campaigns don’t start until around Labor Day, when voters become more focused.

Calling Smith “an embarrassment to the Democratic Party,” Simpson said the real issue is whether Democrats will help Tyson raise money.

“Will Tyson be able to use his contacts with corporations he developed from the time he was in the county board office as chief of staff? Will any political figures, like Rahm Emanuel, endorse him?” he said. “All of that is still to be seen.”

Smith’s Republican challenger is Kimberly Small, a moderate and a businesswoman. No records could be found about her campaign at the Illinois Board of Elections.

Joseph W. Sneed Jr. is running against Smith as an independent. His last campaign filing was in March for the quarter ending Dec. 30. At that time his fund had $128.

Redfield said the House no doubt will vote to expel Smith.

“The Ward organization and Jesse White’s organization will provide all the ground troops and money that the ‘independent’ candidate will need to win,” he said.

Smith, who has been in Legislature just more than a year, is accused by federal prosecutors of accepting a $7,000 bribe in connection with his job as a lawmaker. A bipartisan committee of his House colleagues on Thursday voted to recommend he be kicked out of the House. Only one, Rep. Al Riley, D-Olympia Fields, voted against the recommendation.

The matter now goes to the House for a vote and must have a two-thirds majority to pass. Lawmakers could be called back for a special session to vote, but it is unclear when that might occur.

“I would think the general mood and interest of the House of Representatives would be to dispose of whatever recommendation the committee makes as soon as possible,” Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, said Wednesday.

If lawmakers vote to remove Smith from the House, they would be kicking him out of the 97^th General Assembly, which adjourns later this year. The 98^th General Assembly convenes in January. That means Smith, if re-elected in November, could reclaim his seat in the House then. Nothing prevents a legislator who has been expelled from seeking re-election, and lawmakers cannot expel a colleague more than once for the same offense.

Simpson said he expects the House will vote to expel Smith.

“It’s in many ways a pretty standard corruption case, particularly because the prosecutors do have him on tape,” he said. “And, obviously, all the political figures believe it to be true. If there was a doubt about him being guilty, they wouldn’t be backing a candidate to run against him. They would give him the benefit of the doubt.”

July 16, 2012

By Jayette Bolinski

WALTONVILLE – Farm families are “our families, our neighbors” and are owed “an eternal debt of gratitude,” Gov. Pat Quinn said Monday in a brown, drought-stricken field in rural Jefferson County.

Meanwhile, workers and families affected by upcoming state facility closures lined the entrance to a farm where reporters and others gathered before driving several miles to a remote field for a news conference.

Quinn did not stop to speak with the protesters, which included both prison and developmental center employees, as well as families who have relatives who use the facilities slated for closure, according to Ed Caumiant, regional director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.

A police officer turned away the protesters when they showed up at the entrance to a dirt lane that led to the site of the news conference.

“I think it’s, frankly, kind of cowardly to play hide and go seek with your event just to avoid people who have something to say,” Caumiant said.

Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said rumors the location for the news conference was changed to dodge the protesters were incorrect.

“The farm today was selected because the owner volunteered it to allow us to inspect the damage and make the relief announcement,” she said.

Quinn was in southern Illinois to announce a series of assistance programs that will be made available to farmers who have corn crops damaged by the extreme heat and lack of rain.

Unions and lawmakers representing workers affected by the closures have asked Quinn to reconsider. The General Assembly included enough money in its budget to fully fund their operation and save jobs, they argue.

Quinn, a Democrat, said the closures will go forward, noting that some of the facilities are only half full.

“We are not building prisons or any center for the sole purpose of employment. We have to understand the common good comes first,” Quinn said.

“In our state, the Legislature funded those particular institutions, but they underfunded our Department of Children and Family Services, and we cannot have that. We cannot have abused children in dire straits.

“I have to make decisions, many times very difficult, but I make those decisions on behalf of the common good, and I stick to them.”

Monday was Quinn’s first appearance outside of the Chicago area in about a month. That also is roughly the last time it rained in Waltonville field where the news conference took place. The area received sixth-tenths of an inch on June 11, Quinn noted Monday.