Politics & Government

Political Rewind: Three State Races Key for Republicans

It's always good to be caught up on state politics. Here's an easy guide to what happened this week.

Editor's Note: This article was created by aggregating news articles from Illinois Statehouse News that were written by various Illinois Statehouse News reporters.

March primaries: Crystal ball for GOP or test of IL candidates

To hear Adam Andrzejewski tell it, the Republican primary this spring is not a contest between candidates, but a contest for the heart of the Illinois Republican Party. 

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Andrzejewski ran for, and lost, the GOP nomination for governor in 2010. However, since then, he has become the face, and in some cases the checkbook, of Illinois' new conservative wing.  

"The true split in the Illinois Republican Party is the establishment, business as usual Republicans versus real Republican reformers," Andrzejewski said.  

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Andrzejewski said three contests on the March 20 ballot will be tell-tale races for Republicans:

  • The new 50th District race with Gray Noll, state Sen. Sam McCann, R-Carlinville, and Springfield Councilman Steve Dove;
  • The new 110th District race between state Rep. Roger Eddy, R-Hutsonville, and Shelby County GOP Chairman Brad Holbrook;
  • The new 54th District race between state Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, and state Sen. John O. Jones, R-Mount Vernon.

"Many of these primary races are going to be wheat (and) chaff separating races," Andrzejewski said. "That's what the primary season is all about."

The latest on Rod Blagojevich’s sentencing

Check out Illinois Statehouse News' live chat during the Blagojevich sentencing. 

Fed crackdown on online food stamp fraud empowers IL

The federal government is trying to crack down on abuse of food stamp benefits, as the cost of the nationwide program continues to climb toward record heights. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced new rules Tuesday intended to curtail the illegal practice by food stamp recipients of using the Internet to trade their government aid for cash. Food stamps must be used by their recipients according to the specific parameters set out by the federal government.

Selling one's benefits to another person for cash is specifically prohibited. There were 1,715 cases of fraud in Illinois in fiscal 2011, said Januari Smith, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Human Services, which administers the food stamp program in Illinois. 

Food stamps, known in Illinois as LINK Cards, are a joint federal-state program that provides low-income households with credits to buy food.   

To circumvent the law, some people have used social media to set up deals to illegally sell their benefits.  

An Illinois Statehouse News search of Twitter posts using the words “food, stamps, sell” turns up results like “This is illegal but I needa sell my food lmao…. wanna buy?” and “Found someone to sell me some food stamps.” 

States were unsure whether they could act if someone simply posted on Twitter his intent to sell his food stamps or if officials had to wait until the actual sale took place. 

USDA's new rules said someone saying online that he wants to sell his benefits is punishable in the same way as someone who actually sells his benefits. 

Illinois eyes less money from feds in future

Still dealing with the fallout created by years of budgets when spending outpaced revenue, Illinois now faces uncertainty about a major revenue source — the federal government.

The federal Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, commonly referred to as the supercommittee, failed to reach an agreement last month on how to slice up to $1.5 trillion in spending from the national budget over the next decade. Without this agreement, automatic cuts of $1.2 trillion will be triggered.

“For states, the name of the game is uncertainty,” said Jeff Hurley, a policy analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that provides research and technical assistance to all of the states’ Legislatures.

Illinois received $23 billion in federal aid in fiscal 2010, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. That translates into a little more than $1,800 per capita in Illinois, which is slightly less than the national average of about $2,000 per capita.

State-federal programs as a whole would see a reduction of 8.8 percent in fiscal 2013 under the current scenario, Hurley said.

The most costly and widely used federal programs, like Medicaid and Social Security,are exempt from any automatic cuts, leaving programs such as education, homeless assistance, food shelters, home weatherization and substance abuse, on the cutting board.

Closing Illinois institutions: Cost savings or cost shifting?

Closing mental health and developmental institutions in Illinois will save at least $50 million a year — eventually.

Lawmakers earlier this week ensured that the Tinley Park, Singer and Chester mental health centers and the Mabely and Jacksonville developmental centers will stay open by shifting nearly $300 million inside of the state budget.

But as workers and families of those in the institutions breathe a sigh of relief, Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration is making plans to close some of those institutions within two and a half years.

The governor’s office has proposed closing two mental health centers and up to four developmental centers by June 2013, which is the end of the 2014 fiscal year. However, the names of those centers were not known.

As many as 600 patients will be moved from state run facilities to community care settings.




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