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May 13, 2015

May 13, 2015, 5:55 pm
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Madigan Stacks Committee Hearing To Favor Tort Victims
From Illinois Review
House Speaker Mike Madigan called for a Committee of the Whole hearing in the House Chambers Wednesday afternoon to hear from panel after panel of people whose lives have been negatively affected by product failure, accidents or medical malpractice, and who've been affected by Illinois' tort reform laws.
The hearing continued more than four hours, as victims told their heart-wrenching stories. The witnesses, invited by Democrat committee planners, told story after story in response to Governor Bruce Rauner's Turnaround Illinois call for tort reform.
"When someone is hurt by a medical accident, a faulty product or extreme recklessness, they should have the opportunity to present evidence in court - a court that allows everyone to stand on equal footing, as even the largest, richest corporations," said State Rep. Elaine Nekritz (D-Chicago) as she introduced the hearing subject to the House members.
"Each year, special interest groups spend millions of dollars to advance policies that would prevent people who've been injured through no fault of their own from being heard in court. Today, we have an opportunity to hear a side of the story that is considerably less represented. Today, we will hear from individuals who have been forced to turn to the courts to get justice," she said.
Republican Floor Leader State Rep. Ron Sandack (R-Downer's Grove) "Can you tell me when these witnesses were assembled? Because we just received the agenda a few minutes ago," he asked of Rep. Nekritz.
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Civil Case Plaintiffs Weigh In On Caps In Tort Reform

May 13, 2015, 6:02 pm
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From the Associated Press

Plaintiffs in medical-malpractice and wrongful-death lawsuits weighed in Tuesday about the impact of jury award limits as Illinois lawmakers began debating whether to make changes to the state’s tort reform law.

Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan called a meeting of the Illinois House to hear testimony on tort reform, which Gov. Bruce Rauner has made a component of his pro-business agenda. This is the second hearing in two weeks — a similar one on Rauner’s pension reform proposal is scheduled for Wednesday — with the purpose of poking holes in the Republican governor’s priorities.

Rauner has said tort reform is a way to save employers money, as Democratic and Republican lawmakers meet with his administration behind closed doors in an attempt to forge compromise with the governor’s “Turnaround Illinois” agenda and next year’s state budget. Democrats want Rauner to consider raising taxes to help balance the budget, but he has said he will only consider doing so if the legislature approves some of his priorities.

Family members of malpractice victims testified for several hours Tuesday about how their lives changed because of mistakes made by doctors and other medical professionals, describing how caps in Missouri and Indiana limit how much can be awarded from a jury decision.

John Pastuovic of the Illinois Civil Justice League, which argues that too much litigation hurts the business environment, said Illinois has become a magnet for plaintiff attorneys across the country because of the “lawsuit-friendly courts.” A report from the group found disparities in case filing and verdict totals between Cook and five southern Illinois counties versus the rest of the state.

Read the entire article from the Associated Press.

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May 14, 2015

May 14, 2015, 7:05 am
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Why Chicago’s Bonds Are Junk
From the Wall Street Journal
Illinois’s domination by public unions has the state dancing on the edge of fiscal freefall. The state Supreme Court ruled last week that Springfield can’t alter pension benefits, prompting Moody’s this week to downgrade the debt of the city, its public schools and park district all to junk status. Now the Chicago Teachers Union wants to make another contribution to the collapse.
In May the union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board, accusing the school district of failing to bargain in good faith and rejecting mediation to reach a new contract. The union’s complaint? The school district wants teachers to chip in more for their pensions. The horror.
The dispute goes back to 1981, when in lieu of larger pay raises the district agreed to pick up seven percentage points of the teachers’ contribution of 9% of their salaries to their pensions. This is on top of the district’s own contribution. Teachers have since become accustomed to paying only 2% of their salaries for pensions, about $1,496 a year on average.
Many current teachers weren’t in the school system in 1981, but they like the perk of paying a fraction of their pension cost. Who wouldn’t? The 2% contribution is far less than the 9% contributions made by many other public employees in Illinois, let alone the 6.2% payroll tax for Social Security or what private workers pay into 401(k)s.
Teachers are also comparatively well compensated. The Illinois State Board of Education says the average Chicago teacher salary is about $71,000 a year. That compares to Chicago’s median salary of $47,270 in 2009-2013, according to the Census Bureau. The average starting pension for a Chicago teacher retiring in 2011 after a public-school career was $77,496, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. The city will pay a teacher who retired in 2011 some $2.4 million during retirement, up from $1.35 million a decade earlier.
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May 15, 2015

May 15, 2015, 6:40 am
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Database Provides Insight Into How Much Asbestos Claims Are Worth
From the Madison County Record
A recently unsealed database showing the awards of hundreds of claimants from bankruptcy trusts and non-trust entities provides a glimpse of the staggering amount of money generated by the business of asbestos.
Madison County asbestos claimants represented by the Simmons firm, for instance, have received on average more than $800,000 apiece, according to the database.
Identified as the “Supplemental Settlement Payment Spreadsheet,” the document provides details from a sample of 850 of 1,000 randomly selected claimants who responded to a questionnaire requested by economic consulting firm Bates White as part of the discovery process for gasket manufacturer Garlock, a company forced into bankruptcy in 2010 by the weight of asbestos claims litigation.
Those 850 claimants from across the country – representing just a sliver of the asbestos claimant universe – have so far been awarded $334,711,143 in the court system and $182,259,276 from the bankruptcy trust system, for a total of $516,970,419.
The database was made public as part of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge George Hodges’ order unsealing evidence in the Garlock Sealing Technologies bankruptcy ongoing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
Garlock sought bankruptcy protection to escape increasing settlement awards and jury verdicts which it blamed on plaintiff attorneys who were allegedly withholding evidence of other company culpability.
Hodges agreed, finding that the amount of previous awards and settlements paid by Garlock in the civil justice system were not reliable because plaintiffs’ attorneys had withheld evidence of their clients’ exposure to asbestos-containing products manufactured by other companies in order to maximize recovery against Garlock.
Among other things, the database lists names of claimants, their lawyers, how much they got from bankruptcy trusts and how much they got from “non-trust” entities such as solvent companies.
Of the 850 questionnaires returned per Garlock’s discovery request, 75 of the claimants were or are represented by the Simmons law firm in East Alton.
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May 18, 2015

May 18, 2015, 6:41 am
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Should Illinois Follow South Dakota? How Other States Tax Lawyers, Other Professional Services
From Crain's Chicago Business
To lawmakers looking for revenue, lawyers and other highly paid professionals can be pretty attractive.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has floated the idea of expanding the state's tax on services to include lawyers and others, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel argued during his re-election campaign that Springfield should extend the state sales tax to “dozens of professional services.”
Only five states tax professional services, as part of either a wider gross receipts or business and occupation tax. South Dakota, New Mexico and Hawaii tax gross receipts at rates of 4 or 5 percent, with local jurisdictions adding another 2 or 3 percent. Delaware taxes gross receipts that clear certain income thresholds at less than 1 percent, and Washington levies a 1.5 percent business and occupation tax.
Four of the states collected a total of $704 million from professional services in the most recent year for which data was available (either 2013 or 2014). Hawaii does not track revenue by industry.
But Illinois has a far larger professional services industry, raising questions about whether the other states are good guides to how much revenue such a tax might raise here, how it would be administered and whether it could be passed at all, given certain opposition from well-organized professional associations.
A proposal Rauner's campaign released last summer said taxing Illinois lawyers would raise $167 million, but it did not advocate taxing accountants, architects or engineers.
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May 19, 2015

May 19, 2015, 8:41 am
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Illinois Supreme Court To Hear $10B Phillip Morris Appeal
From the Associated Press
The Illinois Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on a $10.1 billion class action verdict against cigarette giant Phillip Morris USA.
The court, which will hear the case Tuesday, has previously been involved in the 10-year-old case.
Last year an appellate court reinstated a 2003 local verdict that Phillip Morris broke state law by marketing "light" and "low-tar" cigarettes as safer than others.
The Illinois high court initially ruled with the company because federal rules allowed such marketing. A 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decree allowed for reconsideration of the Illinois case.
The plaintiffs asked Justice Lloyd Karmeier to recuse himself because they say he's biased in favor of Phillip Morris. Karmeier refused and says he has no conflict.
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May 20, 2015

May 20, 2015, 8:42 am
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Tobacco Case Gets Second Go-Around
From the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
To one side, it was “the most massive fraud in American history.” To the other, the Illinois Supreme Court should not become the first court to overrule itself based on a federal agency’s amicus brief.
Those were the characterizations lobbed across the courtroom by lawyers in the long-running, multibillion-dollar lawsuit against tobacco giant Philip Morris that returned to the Supreme Court Tuesday morning after a decade of legal-system wrangling.
For roughly 50 minutes, the state’s top justices heard lawyers for the company argue the court’s original decision to toss a $10.1 billion verdict was the right one.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, meanwhile, argued an appellate court was correct to reinstate the litigation last year on the basis of new evidence.
The original claim was that the company violated the Consumer Fraud Act, tricking consumers into purchasing cigarettes by using terms such as “light” and “low tar” to make them seem safer.
The high court overturned the verdict in 2005, saying the Federal Trade Commission had authorized the descriptors through consent decrees in 1971 and 1995.
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May 21, 2015

May 21, 2015, 8:44 am
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It Isn't Just Illinois: Other States Are Struggling To Balance Budgets, Too
From Bloomberg News
Illinois isn't alone.
Six years after the recession ended, many U.S. states are hard pressed to balance budgets because of a sluggish recovery and their own policy decisions. The fiscal fragility raises questions about how they will weather the next economic downturn.
A majority of states are making cuts, tapping reserves or facing shortfalls despite an improving national economy and stock markets at record levels, according to Standard & Poors and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. State revenue hasn't rebounded to a prerecession peak adjusted for inflation, and other factors are putting pressure on budgets.
Alaska, Oklahoma and energy-producing states saw receipts fall with global oil prices. Kansas overestimated revenue after tax cuts, while New Jersey faces a shortfall thanks to unfunded pensions. Even some Republican governors have championed tax increases to avoid further diminishing services curtailed during the 18-month recession, the deepest downturn since the Great Depression.
“The extent of the weakness is really impressive,” said Donald Boyd, who tracks state finances at the Rockefeller Institute in Albany, New York. “There's a lot of pressure on governors and legislators.”
Thirty-two states faced budget gaps in fiscal 2015 or 2016 or both, according to an April 27 report by Standard & Poors. The fiscal year ends June 30 in all but four states.
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May 22, 2015

May 22, 2015, 6:54 am
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Rauner: Expect A Very Long Extra Session
From the Chicago Daily Herald
Gov. Bruce Rauner and lawmakers were doing battle in April 2015 over a state budget created in May 2014.
That's something to keep in mind as Illinois Republicans and Democrats get ready to enter the "final" week of their annual scheduled session in Springfield.
The specter of possible big cutbacks has mobilized suburban mayors, school leaders and taxpayers to pay more attention than usual to the state's spending plan.
It might be a long haul for them. If the Democratic majority in the coming days sends Rauner a spending plan he has not agreed to, the governor could be left with tough decisions over what gets funded that will continue throughout the year.
Plus, Rauner needs some support Democrats to win approval for his policy agenda, and if they're going along without him on the budget, he might lose a key point of leverage. He showed Thursday he didn't plan to back down.
"If legislators are willing to reform how we do business, they will find me an eager partner," Rauner wrote in a Springfield State Journal-Register op-ed. "If they are not, then they should expect a very long extra session because I will keep fighting for major reforms that will grow jobs and help properly fund services by shrinking waste inside government."
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May 25, 2015

May 25, 2015, 6:56 am
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Gov. Rauner Softens Some 'Turnaround Agenda' Demands
From the Associated Press
Gov. Bruce Rauner plans to introduce legislation Friday to advance a scaled-back version of the pro-business agenda he's been pushing across Illinois for months, setting up another potential showdown with Democrats who've criticized him for not putting his priorities in writing as the end of session nears.
Among the measures are bills to impose term limits for state lawmakers, freeze property taxes and make workers' compensation insurance less costly for employers, according to documents provided to The Associated Press. The Republican also wants to make it tougher for people to file lawsuits against businesses and is backing legislation introduced earlier this year to allow municipalities to file bankruptcy.
Not included in the stack of new bills is legislation to create right-to-work zones where union membership would be voluntary — a proposal that has drawn heavy protests from organized labor and that House lawmakers soundly defeated during a symbolic vote last week.
But the legislation will include measures to allow some local governments to opt out of collective bargaining with public-employee unions and prevailing wage agreements, which set a minimum level of salary and benefits for work on government projects. Rauner has said the agreements drive up the cost of public construction projects.
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May 26, 2015

May 26, 2015, 6:57 am
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Madigan: Democrats Will Pass Their Own Budget; Need $3 Billion In More Revenue
From the Springfield State Journal-Register
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan Monday said Democrats are prepared to act on a spending plan that needs $3 billion in additional revenue to be balanced and advised Gov. Bruce Rauner to keep non-spending issues out of the discussions.
The statement was a reference to Rauner's "Turnaround Agenda," a series of pro-business reforms and other changes he said must be adopted before he will entertain discussions of raising additional revenue.
Even before Madigan held his late afternoon news conference, the Rauner administration issued a statement blasting Madigan.
"Speaker Madigan and the politicians he controls are walking away from the negotiating table and refusing to compromise on critical reforms needed to (turn around) Illinois," spokesman Lance Trover said.
"Instead, they appear ready to end the regular session with yet another broken budget or a massive tax hike and no structural reforms. The speaker and his allies in the legislature are sorely mistaken if they believe the people of Illinois will accept doubling down on a broken system that has failed Illinois over the last dozen years."
Madigan said Democrats are prepared to approve a budget that spends about $36.3 billion next year. He acknowledged that's about $3 billion more than estimated state revenues for next year.
Madigan said the Democratic spending plan "is consistent with our view of what the state of Illinois should do for Illinoisans who need the government to be helpful for them. We will publicly acknowledge that we don't have the money to pay for this budget. But we are prepared to work with the governor, negotiate with the governor to raise the monies to produce a balanced budget."
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May 27, 2015

May 27, 2015, 6:59 am
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Judicial Inquiry Board Caseload Could Get ‘Unmanageable’
From the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
The panel that investigates alleged judicial misconduct in the state court system is long on complaints and short on members.
That’s according to findings by the Illinois auditor general’s office that show the Judicial Inquiry Board has received more complaints over the years, from about 430 per year about 15 years ago to about 530 per year in fiscal years 2012 and 2013.
Additionally, the nine-member board hasn’t been at full strength since 2006 — short its required non-lawyer appointees — making it difficult to proceed on decisions to either dismiss allegations or prosecute them in the Illinois Courts Commission.
One seat had been vacant for more than two years by the time the audit was concluded at the end of fiscal year 2014. The other had been vacant nearly four years.
Auditor General Bill Holland’s staff noted the board couldn’t provide a category breakdown of the 311 allegations it still had pending at the end of fiscal year 2014. That’s because the board’s staff hadn’t been able to analyze them and the board itself hadn’t made decisions on how to proceed.
Although there’s no deadline on the board’s decision-making for allegations, “the growing inventory level increases the risk the [board's caseload will become unmanageable,” the report says.
Board officials told the auditor’s office that the overall increase is largely due to a higher volume of complaints from incarcerated offenders. Complaints are also taking longer to process because there is more paperwork being sent along with them.
In the report, released last week, the board acknowledged Holland’s recommendation to “seek sufficient resources” to process complaints. But it also pointed out that its budget is in the hands of legislators and the governor.
Gov. Bruce Rauner recently appointed Raymond McGury, who previously served on the panel from 2005 to 2009, to fill one of the vacancies. A spokeswoman for the governor said he plans to fill the other vacancy soon.
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May 28, 2015

May 28, 2015, 7:01 am
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Work Comp Reform Rejected In Senate Judiciary
From the Madison County Record
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday afternoon voted down Gov. Bruce Rauner’s proposal to reform the state’s workers’ compensation system in a 8-4 party line vote.
The committee heard from administration officials and others who said reform was necessary to make the state more competitive.
Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago), committee chair, challenged proponents’ position that they didn’t want to dismantle the work comp system. He said that it matters how states treat their workers.
When “free labor” was in place, he said, “southern states were a lot more competitive.”
He said that more time is needed to realize benefits of reforms made to the work comp system in 2011.
Raoul also took issue with the proposal’s causation standard which would mandate that at least 50 percent of a worker’s injury must be related to work done for an employer in order to receive compensation.
He said it would be unfair, if for example, his bad knees from playing basketball rendered an injury uncompensable if a piece of equipment fell on those knees while working at a factory.
Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno (R-Lemont) said the problem in Illinois is that jobs are leaving and the state is not competitive.
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May 29, 2015

May 29, 2015, 7:03 am
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Report Names Chicago "Corruption Capital Of America"-- Again
From NBC Chicago
Chicago has maintained its first-place status, but not for something for which the city should be proud.
The city was once again named the corruption capital of America, according to a report released Thursday by the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The judicial district, which includes Chicago, Cook and 17 other counties across the northern tier of Illinois, reported 45 public corruption convictions for 2013 and a total of 1,642 convictions for the 38 years since 1976 when the U.S. Department of Justice began compiling the statistics, the report states.
While the city remains the most corrupt city in the nation, Illinois is not the most corrupt state.
Illinois was ranked as third most-corrupt state in the country. New York was the most corrupt state with 2,657 public corruption convictions from 1976 – 2013. California followed with 2,549 convictions and Illinois was third with 1,982.
"All of this corruption in Chicago and Illinois has real costs -- hard dollar costs and intangible costs," Dick Simpson, a political science professor at UIC and co-author of the report, said in a statement.
Simpson estimated the cost of corruption to be about $500 million per year in Illinois.
The report indicated that police corruption, including the more than $100 million paid out to victims of Lieutenant Jon Burge, cost about $50 million each year.
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No Deal: Springfield Session Ends Without Budget

June 1, 2015, 7:09 am
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From the Associated Press

The increasingly nasty feud between Gov. Bruce Rauner and majority Democrats is about to spill from the Illinois statehouse to voters’ mailboxes and televisions, as the rookie Republican unleashes a multimillion-dollar ad campaign against lawmakers he says are intransigent over the state budget and his political agenda.

The entrenched, more experienced Democratic leaders—who say Rauner warned them of the coming campaign—began pushing back yesterday. Senate President John Cullerton said GOP lawmakers are being “lured away by the siren song of Gov. Rauner’s campaign cash,” hindering compromise.

“We find ourselves trying to work with a governor who continues to run campaigns rather than the state that elected him,” the Chicago Democrat said. “Rather than roll up your sleeves and work on solutions, he’s dictating demands and threatening those who defy him.”

Majority Democrats in the General Assembly approved a $36.3 billion spending plan they say preserves Rauner-proposed cuts to essential programs. They acknowledge it’s $3 billion short on revenue and want Rauner to agree to a tax increase.

A solemn Rauner spoke to reporters yesterday evening as the session officially came to an end, calling that plan “phony” and warning of a “rough summer,” but reiterating his pledge to meet anywhere, any day to resolve the differences.

The lack of a budget deal means any compromise to close a $6.2 billion deficit for the year starting July 1 now will require a three-fifths vote rather than a simple majority.

Read the entire story at the Associated Press.

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June 1, 2015

June 1, 2015, 7:10 am
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Rauner: ‘Rough’ Weeks Ahead For Illinois Lawmakers
From WGN News
There’s a standoff in Springfield and what was supposed to be the conclusion of the legislative session Sunday wasn’t so at all.
Democrats call Governor Bruce Rauner’s ideas extreme. Republicans say the middle class can’t stomach another property tax hike. Now, the House will remain in continuous session this summer.
A Democratic legislature plus Illinois’ new Republican governor added up to no budget at the scheduled end of session Sunday, and leaders from both parties aren’t budging — not in their positions at least. But they are out of Springfield and headed home for now.
Democrats opted for their own $36.3 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1, instead of a $32 billion budget proposed by Rauner in February.
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Litigation Tourism Is Bad For Illinois

June 1, 2015, 4:35 pm
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By Mark Behrens

Illinois has a nationwide reputation as a prime destination for “litigation tourists.” Each year, people without a meaningful connection to Illinois flock to the state to file lawsuits in the hope of a big payout. Illinois law makes it easy for plaintiffs to forum shop and sue in counties with a reputation for jackpot justice.

The problem is particularly bad in Madison County, which has become a magnet for asbestos lawsuits generated by TV ads in Texas and other states. Plaintiffs today file asbestos lawsuits in Madison County for the same reason the prolific bank robber Willie Sutton is said to have robbed banks - because that is where the money is. According to the Illinois Civil Justice League, Madison County asbestos injury lawsuits settle for upwards of $2 million each, and collectively could produce nearly $600 million annually in fees for plaintiffs’ lawyers.

The Madison County courthouse is home to perhaps one-third or more of all asbestos lawsuits filed in the entire U.S., although only 10 percent of the plaintiffs live in Illinois and far fewer actually live in Madison County. Forum shopping abuse is a key reason the American Tort Reform Foundation has called Madison County one of America’s top “Judicial Hellholes.”

The problem of distant plaintiffs suing in the Land of Lincoln is not unique to Madison County. Nearby St. Clair County is also a frequent destination for out-of-state plaintiffs.

In Cook County, nonresident filings are on the rise too. Likely drawing cases from other counties, Cook County has a little over 40 percent of the state’s population but almost 64 percent of the litigation. Plaintiffs are drawn by the fact that verdicts in Cook County are four times greater-an average of almost $1 million-than the surrounding four counties of DuPage, Lake, Kane and Will.

The filing of lawsuits by far flung plaintiffs in Madison, St. Clair, or Cook Counties is a strong indication that the playing field is uneven in these places. Plaintiffs obviously perceive a litigation advantage there or they would sue in their home courts.

As a consequence, citizens in these counties bear a disproportionate burden. When residents of Cook, Madison or St. Clair Counties suffer harm, they may be forced to wait for justice because someone from another state or county has taken a trial slot. For some, justice delayed may be justice denied. As the volume of cases increases, so does the need for more jurors. Illinois residents should not be forced to take time away from work or family to serve as jurors in cases that belong in a different state or county. Many jurors may go uncompensated by their employers during this time and will receive only $50 a day after the second day of service under a new law that is effective June 1.

Businesses believe that the venue rules applicable to them in Illinois are designed mainly to produce biased results in favor of plaintiffs. According to a recent survey by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform, Illinois has one of the worst lawsuit climates in the country, ranking at 46th out of 50 states. Madison and Cook Counties have two of the least fair and reasonable legal climates in the entire country.

The skewed administration of justice in Illinois is undoubtedly hurting the state’s competitiveness. It should come as no surprise that companies generally like to avoid Judicial Hellholes, preferring instead to do business in places with more welcoming legal environments. States like Texas, with its booming economy, have figured this out.

For a state with economic growth and employment rates that consistently rank below the national average, Illinois job seekers deserve sensible litigation reforms that will attract new employment opportunities.

Governor Bruce Rauner pressed the need for Illinois to restore confidence in the administration of justice by strengthening the state’s venue laws, yet the Illinois Senate Judiciary Committee blocked the effort by failing to move the Governor’s worthy venue reform bill out of committee. If Illinois is to ever shake its reputation as a lawsuit magnet, legislators must try again next session to bring a venue reform bill to the General Assembly floor. Fixing the permissive venue law would not solve all of the problems facing businesses with regards to the fairness of the state’s legal system, but it would be a very good place to start.

Mark A. Behrens is an attorney in the Washington, DC office of Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. and represents defendants in complex civil litigation.

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June 2, 2015

June 2, 2015, 7:13 am
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Hinz: Business-Backed Group To Sit Out Springfield Budget War — For Now
From Crain's Chicago Business
A well-financed centrist group that some expected would be allied with Gov. Bruce Rauner in this summer's state budget war instead has decided to keep its financial powder dry, at least for now.
Illinoisans for Growth and Prosperity, a business-backed group formed to support Democrats who take tough votes on the state budget, has raised more than $14 million in two political funds. But it will not be joining Rauner in a media campaign for legislative term limits, workers compensation reform and other changes the governor is pushing to be packaged with a 2016 state budget agreement.
Instead, says Greg Goldner, a longtime Chicago political operative who is the organization's consultant, the group will engage only in limited activities for now, and only positive ones.
"Our primary goal is to defend Democratic legislators who are willing to take tough votes, not to push them," Goldner told me. "Legislators who made good votes (this session) deserve a little pat on the back instead of always being criticized."
Goldner and other IllinoisGO officials always have said that the group, which is interested in school and pension reform, was focused on helping Democrats. Big early donors—including Groupon CEO Eric Lefkofsky and Peak 6 Investments co-founder Matthew Hulsizer—have given to members of both major political parties
Goldner hinted in recent weeks that it was about to open its wallet soon, seemingly preparing for a two-pronged attack on lawmakers alongside Rauner, who has gathered an even bigger warchest that he says will soon target legislative foes, especially House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.
But in the interview, Goldner seemed to suggest there is little role for IllinoisGO in what is starting to look like a personal battle between the governor and the speaker. "We will be most effective if we can articulate a positive alternative," Goldner said.
Goldner didn't identify any specific issues or lawmakers that will win the group's largesse. But he noted the support that the Democratic establishment last year gave state Rep. Christian Mitchell, a Chicago Democrat from a minority district who bucked the Chicago Teachers Union to vote for pension reform.
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June 3, 2015

June 3, 2015, 7:17 am
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Perry Browder Of Simmons Firm Appointed President Of ITLA
From the Madison County Record
Madison County asbestos attorney Perry J. Browder, shareholder at Simmons Hanly Conroy in Alton, will take over as president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (ITLA) at the group’s annual convention on Friday. He succeeds Chicago asbestos attorney John Cooney of Cooney and Conway.
“My goal is to help our members focus on our clients and zealously protect their rights,” Browder stated in a release. “Anybody who is injured deserves their day in court to seek justice.”
Browder, of Skokie, attended Bradley University in Peoria and later graduated from Valparaiso University School of Law in 1998. He was admitted to the Illinois Bar Association following his graduation.
Browder began his legal career as an intern in the Livingston County State’s Attorney’s Office in Pontiac and at the Gary Indiana Legal Clinic in Gary, Ind. He continued his career as a felony prosecutor in McHenry County and later joined the law office of William Kozial.
By 2001, Browder began working at the Simmons firm. Eight years later, he became a member of the leadership committee, where he was in charge of managing the firm’s nearly 40 asbestos attorneys.
The Simmons firm has been key to building Madison County’s into the nation’s busiest asbestos docket The firm has filed the most asbestos cases in Madison County and most of the claimants are from out of state.
Browder has litigated hundreds of asbestos cases, the press release states. He has been a member of ITLA since 2002 and has served on its Board of Managers for several years.
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June 4, 2015

June 4, 2015, 6:21 am
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AFSCME Launches Its Own Campaign For Contract
From the Bloomington Pantagraph
With negotiations on a new labor contract heading into their final month, the state's largest employee union is poised to take its message to the people.
Beginning next week, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 will sponsor a series of local events at work sites across the state.
The aim is to educate the public about the work the employees, AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall said Tuesday.
"There will be public events where people are talking about those services and, at the same time, showing their commitment to a fair union contract," Lindall said.
The events are part of campaign aimed at blunting Gov. Bruce Rauner's tough talk on employee unions that has led to concerns that he wants to force a strike or order a lockout if a new collective bargaining agreement isn't completed by June 30.
Along with publicly criticizing the union over wages, the use of overtime and seniority, the administration privately is pushing for a wage freeze, an increase in health insurance costs and other concessions during the closed-door bargaining talks that have been underway since January.
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