State, local candidates woo Democrats at La Salle

At their annual Democrat Day Dinner — formerly called the Jackson Day Dinner — La Salle County Democrats heard the usual rallying messages to defeat Republicans in November.

Ex-governor Pat Quinn, who was scheduled to attend, was absent for the fundraiser and rally, but state comptroller Susana Mendoza delivered the keynote, after-dinner message.

But there was plenty of intra-party politicking going on Saturday night at Celebrations 150, where many competitors for nominations in the March 20 primary shook hands, mingled and talked to anyone who wanted to hear their messages.

All four of the candidates vying for the nomination seeking to be the Illinois Valley’s U.S. representative showed up for the dinner, including Sara Dady of Rockford, Neill Mohammad of DeKalb, Amy Murri Briel of Joliet and Beth Vercolio-Osmund. Candidates for attorney general, running for Lisa Madigan’s position, also showed up in force.

Local candidates for lone the 16th Congressional District committeeman and committeewoman posts at the dinner included Tom Walsh, who has been active in politics since 1958, and former state senate candidate Chris Benson. But their competitors from Rockford, John Nelson and Angie Bodine, also showed up. The L-shaped district includes La Salle, Bureau and Putnam counties and runs from the Indiana border to Rockford. The Republicans, Walsh noted, appoint their district committee leadership.

The Democrats also gave awards to Rocky Raikes, who was the county’s party leader for 20 years, and county clerk Joann Carretto, who is retiring after more than a decade in office and after working in the clerk’s office since 1979.

Comptroller Susana Mendoza on Illinois’ budget messes

State comptroller Mendoza will be challenged in November by Darlene Senger, a Republican financial adviser, Illinois Policy Institute adviser and former Naperville City Council member who served as 14th District state representative 2009-15 and also is one of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s chief advisers on legislative affairs. A Libertarian, Claire Ball, also will appear on the ballot in November.

Before her speech, Mendoza was asked what her two biggest challenges have been.

“Obviously, navigating through the largest fiscal crisis in the history of the state with governor Rauner at the helm,” Mendoza said.

What can a comptroller do to help solve the problem?

She said Rauner did not create one of the $5 billion budgetary disasters that he inherited when he took office, but he “is complicating it at every step.”

She said in the two to three years before Rauner’s election, the state had been paying back bills it owes, but under Rauner, she said, the amount of unpaid bills grew to $9 billion. She said she had to convince the governor for the state to refinance the debt, at about 3.6 percent rather than the 12 percent the state had been paying.

“That was a no-brainer,” she said. She also said she wanted to make sure all of that money is used to pay old bills, prior to July 1, 2017.

She also said her new initiative, the Debt Transparency Act, took effect this year and should give legislators more accurate information in budget talks. The act requires each state agency and office to file a report with the comptroller’s office every month, something that did not happen before.

Instead, state agencies gave annual reports, and when state officials went to debate over budgets, they were using outdated figures from June 30 of previous years.

Her office received its first reports Jan. 11, and more reports are coming in this week — right before the governor’s scheduled budget address.

Now if the General Assembly, politicians on both sides of the aisle, can just pass a budget. She hopes it happens by April. And of course the state’s myriad problems still include nearly $2 billion in general fund deficit spending and more than $120 billion in unfunded pension liability.

Governor hopefuls

Only two gubernatorial candidates showed up for the event, and not the ones who have been buying the most ad time on television. A representative for Chicago’s Chris Kennedy, his brother Max, did attend, but state Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Skokie) and venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker did not.

Bob Daiber, regional superintendent of schools for Madison County, sat and one of the head tables with Chris Dvorak, regional superintendent for La Salle, Putnam and Marshall counties.

Chicago suburban social worker Jonathan Todd

Daiber said he believes he has been gaining some ground as the aforementioned three candidates take some bashing on television, plus he believes people like the messages he has been conveying in the debates so far.

He said he believes people recognize that he has the most experience in government. He was a shop teacher for 20 years and then advanced to serving as a school administrator as the area career technical director for the Triad school district (enrollment about 1,200) while also serving on the county board. He served as a village board member and township supervisor in addition to serving as state president of the regional superintendents and fought against Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn to keep regional offices open and make sure regional superintendents got paid. State leaders had attempted to eliminate regional offices of education.

Another candidate for governor, Vietnam War medical hospital veteran and Burr Ridge radiologist Robert Marshall also make the drive to La Salle for the event. Marshall proposes breaking up Illinois into three states — Chicago, the suburbs and everything, basically, south of Interstate 80. He also proposes immediate legalization of marijuana, saying taxation of cannabis sales would be a windfall for the state, save on prison costs and create 30,000-40,000 jobs. He said that would be better than the state trying to pay a fortune to get Amazon to locate offices in Illinois.

Craig Sterrett can be reached at (815) 220-6935 or ntlocal@newstrib.com. Follow him on Twitter @NT_NewsEditor.