Progressive Advocacy

The US has single-payer health care (and a public option): TRICARE by the US military

2009-09-15T09:37:00.003-05:00

There are almost 10 million Americans in a world-class single-payer health care system today. It's called Tricare and it is for those in the military, their families and reservists.

There is no insurance company involved.

That's the beauty. No parasitic for-profit paper-pushers between a doctor and a patient. High-quality health care to make people better when they get sick.

And it's run by the goverment.

Kind of like....a public option.

I'd like to enroll in Tricare instead of playing the lottery with the claims I submit to my for-profit insurance company (and hope they get paid off). I'd like a public option so I don't have to play games with different for-profit insurance companies and hope that some insurance bureaucrat doesn't get a bonus by denying my claim for seeing a doctor -- especially if I get really sick and need to go to the hospital. I'd much rather just know that I'll be covered, just like the 10 million people know they'll be covered by Tricare.

I came across Tricare -- the US military's single-payer health care network -- through this Kos post referencing this Newsweek article.

Check out the Vision of Tricare:

Vision
A world-class health care system that supports the military mission by fostering, protecting, sustaining, and restoring health

Note that it is not: produce high financial returns to our shareholders. It is: make people healthy. That's what the point of health care should be about. Not making money for the parasitic insurance companies.

Either you're on the side of health for people or you're on the side of the insurance companies making money. Which side are you on?

Great high speed rail blog post comparing France to Midwest -- it's all policy choices

2009-08-20T22:04:00.002-05:00

For some people who still think that Eruope is better suited for high speed rail than the United States because of higher population densities or flatter terrain or any other reason, check out this long post by The Phony Coney comparing the Cincinnati-Chicago corridor to France's TGV showing that the a Cincinnati-based route in the US is a better fit for high speed rail than wildly-successful France!

High speed rail is a policy choice. And the last few generations of Americans have chosen highways and airports over high speed rail. That has made us poorer, largely because our infrastructure requires us to buy cars and burn oil more than high speed rail would. It's time to reverse those policy choices (join the Midwest High Speed Rail Association to get involved in doing so).

Governor Pat Quinn improves elections starting in 2010 with better voter registration (extends grace period an additional week)

2009-08-17T10:18:00.006-05:00

A little more progress in the permanent effort for more responsive government: Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a measure that gives Illinois citizens an additional week to register to vote or update their address before each election.

The bill is HB 267 (now Public Act 96-0441), sponsored by Representative Will Davis and Senator James Meeks. Our government still puts the burden on citizens to register to vote (instead of taking the view that the least that government employees can do is to prepare the list of citizens eligible to vote ahead of time so citizens can vote on election day without a trip to some local government office ahead of time). The regular deadline to register to vote at one's current address is 29 days before the election. Illinois has a grace period (thanks to Treasurer Candidate Robin Kelly's efforts to pass this bill in 2004 with me) where citizens can register to vote or update their address for an additional two weeks after the regular deadline. The only catch is they must do so downtown at the office of the election authority (usually the county clerk). Registering in person at their offices during the grace period (instead of at drivers license facilities or post offices or on the street) minimizes any chance of fraud and gives the election workers more control over the paperwork.

This year, I helped Will Davis with his effort to extend the grace period all the way to election day. Some of the election administrators thought that would have been too much, so Representative Davis compromised with them on a bill to extend the grace period another week up until 7 days before the election, but not all the way to election day. Essentially, they split the difference. With an agreement with the election administators not to oppose the bill (since they decided they were able to process the new registrations and address updates with 7 days to spare), I thought this might become a bill that passed unanimously. After all, the people who run elections had no objection. Who could oppose ending the practice of stopping citizens from voting just on principle?

Apparently, most Republican legislators. I wrote about the bill when the Senate passed this on a party-line vote out of the Elections Committee (and the Republicans opposed the concept of more people vote on principle!) back in April.

Fortunately, the Democrats are running things, and with Democratic Governor Pat Quinn on the 16th floor of the Thompson Center, he signed the bill into law on Friday. Starting in the February 2010 primary, all Illinois citizens will have more of an opportunity to vote in elections because the grace period will be extended until 7 days before the election.

If a Republican were the Governor, this bill would have not have been signed into law this week, and thus there would be thousands of Illinois citizens would not be able to vote in 2010.

Thanks to the Democratic General Assembly (especially Will Davis and James Meeks) and Governor Pat Quinn for making our government more responsive to voters. And, ultimately, thanks to Illinois voters for deciding they would like their government run by people who value democracy more by voting for Democrats. We're making progress.

I'll be on BBC's Simon Mayo programme tomorrow at 9:15 am CST defending our President

2009-08-10T14:40:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow from 9:15 - 10:00 am CST I'll be explaining to the good listeners of the BBC's Simon Mayo programme that President Barack Obama retains the solid support of a majority of the nation (not to mention the largest number of Democratic senators in decades) and that the months-long process of passing health insurance reform legislation as well as a progressive federal budget and climate change laws to shift to a green economy is a product of our slow legislative calendar.

In the UK, when the Government comes up with its legislative agenda, it is implemented, just like that. There is no separate executive branch. And the process of coming to an agreement happens largely behind closed doors in the UK, where in the US, we have a more wide-open debate with two separately-elected branches of government and a culture of deliberation and delay in DC. That can look a little odd, I'd imagine, to UK eyes that might have thought a Democratic mandate in November of 2008 would surely have translated by August of 2009 to a series of implemented Democratic policies. I think our policy-making process is a bit too rusty for our own good. But that's not any evidence that President Obama has lost the support of the people who elected him. The white-hot excitement and glamor of a new President has faded, and what remains is the regular work of implementing the mandate of November 2008.

Anyway, tune in if you can.

I'm glad Obama is calling for "health insurance reform" not "health care reform"

2009-07-22T15:30:00.002-05:00

Great news.

President Barack Obama is holding a press conference tonight on the topic of "health insurance reform" and not on "health care reform." I just received my email from the White House (or the DNC) with the vastly superior language.

The problem is with our broken health insurance and not with health care. That's why it is so smart for the President to define the terms of the debate and focus on the problem - not allow opponents to confuse swing voters by discussing health care and raise fears of poorer care in the future. Few defend the parasitic health insurance industry and by correctly identifying the source of reform as insurance the opponents of the President will have to defend the insurance industry.

This shift in language is a great sign of progress and cause for more optimism.

The Founding Fathers would have loved the European Union (they would have let Canada join the US!)

2009-07-09T20:31:00.004-05:00

The Articles of Confederation (the United States' governing document from 1781 until before the Constitution replaced it in 1788) allowed Canada to join the United States at any time it wished, simply by accepting the terms of the Articles of Confederation. Here's the language:

Art. XI Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the united states, shall be admitted into, and entited to all the advantages of this union: but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine states.

Even better, any other colony could join up if 9 of the 13 states agreed to it. That's pretty flexible! With a 70% vote of the states, any colony could have joined the United States of America.

Can you imagine Mexico and Canada joining with the United States today in a North American Union? Look at our friends in Europe for an example of the power of a new, modern form of government. The European Union has transformed a continent of perpetual war and bitter enemies into one of the world's strongest economies with almost 500 million people.

Building a North American Union would be one of the smartest long-term investments in our economic well-being we can make. Here, we spend billions on patrolling borders and wasting millions of hours for people and cargo to pass through heavily-fortified checkpoints. And for what? To make it more expensive to for all of us to build businesses, create jobs and improve our quality of life throughout North America.

I can already hear conservatives and those afraid of fundamental improvements in our government resurrect our Founding Fathers and our sacred Constitution as weapons to dismiss any discussion of a North American Union or integrating Canada and Mexico into the United States as un-American or fundamentally unconstitutional. It's nice to learn that the original government of the United States of America explicitly embraced the same progressive spirit now seen in the European Union.

You know, the best way to honor our Founding Fathers is to emulate then, not worship them. They spent their political capital fundamentally improving their governments and they weren't afraid to reject altogether the deficient governments they inherited. We ought to be infused with that same bold spirit of government-making to imagine and create modern institutions.

2010 Illinois primary election calendar shortened: candidate petitions in one month

2009-07-06T17:18:00.003-05:00

Lisa Madigan already deserves credit for single-handedly achieving a long-held goal of voters and reformers: she has dramatically shortened the 2010 Illinois primary season. Consider that petitions hit the street in one month and almost no one has decided what they are running for yet. Usually a primary campaign season drags on for more than a year. This time, we're looking at a six month sprint to the February 2 primary, all because of Lisa.

Only when Attorney General Madigan decides what she will be running for in late July (or maybe even early August) will the dominoes fall on the most exciting Democratic primary in ten years.

We'll likely have a contested Democratic primary for the US Senate, Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, Treasurer, Cook County Board President as well as open seats from all the legislators who compete for those seats sparking even more contested primaries. This is exciting!

As an election attorney, it's also a good time for me to remind potential candidates to make sure you hire an attorney to draft your petitions and to fully and thoroughly review them before submitting them. I have seen dozens (hundreds?) of well-intentioned, intelligent, decently-funded candidates knocked off the ballot because they chose not to hire an attorney to navigate the treacherous, technicality-filled waters of Illinois ballot access. Candidates, my number is 312.933.4890 and my email is dan (at) ProgressivePublicAffairs.com . Don't be a statistic!

But for voters, especially the million or so Democratic primary voters, the next seven months will be prime time in setting the direction of the most important Democratic state in the Union (the home of our President). There will never be a better time to get involved in Democratic politics (from the perspective of influencing the direction of the Illinois Democratic party). So pick a candidate and help them out!

Petitions hit the street August 4th for county, state and federal candidates. They are due November 2nd (but most candidates will file on the first day they can, October 26th, to try to get the top spot on the ballot). So they need help now -- or at least, as soon as they know what they are running for.

November 9th is the last day to file objections to those petitions, and thus November and December will be filled with line-by-line challenges to the petitions of those candidates that did not collect far more than the required signatures of registered voters in their district.

The holidays knock out the last two weeks of December, and then we're looking at a final four-week campaign season between New Years Day and February 2, 2010.

The only downside to Lisa's shrinkage of the primary campaign season to less than six months will be a nine-month general election campaign for all the statewide races between the nominees of the major parties (a bit long for my taste). Well, that isn't her fault -- the General Assembly didn't move the primary back from early February. They probably should (on behalf of all the campaign workers freezing outside while walking precincts in January .... how about a May primary?).

After eight years of relative stability, the next two cycles are going to be full of churn (because remember, the 2012 cycle will involve all new districts). This is going to be fun!

Mark Kirk tells China not to trust the US government. Seriously.

2009-06-14T23:58:00.004-05:00

The Chinese government is largely financing most of our debt, and now that we're trying to spend our way out of a recession (the right economic policy, by the way), we really need to keep China on our side.

Well, Representative Mark Kirk made that a little more difficult. Here is Representative Mark Kirk in his own words on how he told the Chinese not to believe the United States government!

So, this elected official decided to tell the Chinese government -- our number one creditor and a crucial partner in ensuring that we climb out of this recession -- not to believe the US government. Instead they should believe him, I guess. And if he is successful in convincing the Chinese government not to believe the Obama Administration and the United States government, and they then logically decided not to finance the debt of a government that they didn't believe, then we would really be in a heap of trouble economically.

So thanks Representative Kirk! I hope you are unsuccessful in your efforts to scare the Chinese away from investing in the United States.

Europe votes this week. Imagine if we participated as well

2009-06-07T10:27:00.002-05:00

People in 27 European nations are voting this week to elect the members of the European Parliament.

This is a triumph of democracy in the history of the world. Only elections in India involve more people.

The people of Europe speaking several different languages and with grandparents who fought and killed each other have found a way to embrace their common interests and form a European government with continental elections. The European Parliament has some information about elections in English worth a read.

Imagine if we could participate in those elections as well to help set a global climate change policy, or a global policy for trade and immigration, or a global policy towards eradicating money laundering and terrorism. We have shared interests with Europe. Climate change and global economic development are two of the biggest, and I would like a chance to vote for the people who will make these global policies.

Consider North America. While Europe is finding a way to knock down barriers to trade and commerce among their nations, we're putting them up with a new rule requiring passports between the US and Canada and Mexico going into effect this year. What a waste! Those long lines at the borders are the definition of economic waste. We should recognize our common interests with Mexico and Canada and figure out how to integrate our governments (like the postal service or immigration or trucking regulations or drug policy or energy development) where it makes sense to do so. Political integration generates economic benefits.

I find European elections inspiring and I hope to help build support for North American elections in the new few decades. We already have a free trade agreement (where disputes are adjudicated by secretive, appointed officials). We should have an elected body to help resolve disputes and develop North American institutions that make life better for everyone.

Gladwell: Relentless effort trumps skill, and underdogs win more than you think

2009-05-09T23:21:00.003-05:00

One of the best ways to win against someone who superior skills is with relentless effort.

That's how underdogs win: they take the fight to their opponent in a socially unacceptable way to trump their opponent's superiority.

Malcolm Gladwell has a good feature in the New Yorker on this topic.

Here is a great slice of his story:

David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.

In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

Some lessons for politics and advocacy: relentless effort for the underdogs is a requirement to win. And when the other side looks strongest, don't play by those rules.

Obama's 100 days on Milt Rosenberg's WGN show tonight

2009-04-29T16:42:00.002-05:00

I'm leaving Springfield early to appear on Milt Rosenberg's Extension 720 show tonight from 9 to 11 pm to discuss President Barack Obama's wildly successful first 100 days.

Who would have thought in 1999 when a state senator from Hyde Park was working here in Springfield under Pate Philip's rule and not really moving much legislation at the time that we would be saying that a decade later? Barack's rise is basically the political feel-good story of the generation.

And his Administration is on track to be transformational (like FDR, LBJ or Reagan).

Another difference between Democrats and Republicans

2009-04-29T08:11:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, the Senate Republicans voted to keep government barriers in place from citizens and taxpayers from voting while the Democrats in the Illinois Senate Elections Committee voted to reduce some of those government restrictions from citizens voting in elections.

The place was Room 400 of the Illinois Capitol (the same room where President Barack Obama used to chair the Health and Human Services Committee five years ago). The occasion was the meeting of the Senate Elections Committee yesterday. And the topic of discussion was House Bill 267, a proposal advanced by Senator Meeks to cut in half the 14-day period before each election when the government no longer permits citizens to register to vote at their current address.

The four Republican Senators (Dale Righter, Randy Hultgren, David Luechtefeld and Dan Rutherford) were united in opposition to the very concept that the legislature might limit the amount of time that the government denies citizens the ability to register to vote. That would lead on a very dangerous path, they said, to same-day voter registration. Besides, the idea of a herd of voters just showing up to vote that are presumably uneducated in not good government, they said.

Got that? The government officials are going to judge which of the taxpayers and citizens -- who decide whether they get to keep their job -- are worthy enough to vote.

The Democratic Senators -- James Meeks, Terry Link, Ira Silverstein, Lou Viverito and Maggie Crotty -- were united behind the bill and the belief that there should be as few restrictions as possible put up by the government between the people and the ballot. The bill passed on a party-line vote, and it will likely pass the Senate on a party-line vote.

I should have been happy, since I drafted the bill and testified in favor of it. But I was left with a very sour feeling. Why would the Republican legislators oppose the bill -- when the election administrators who run the elections were good enough to suggest an amendment last month that removed their opposition to the bill? So even though the bill is not an administrative burden on the people who actually conduct elections in Illinois, the Republican Senators still opposed the bill on principle!

I think this is a hint as to why the Republican Party is dying. On the same day that Pennsylvania (a big, northern industrial state like Illinois with big cities and small towns) lost its last Republican Senator and went into all-blue status with Arlen Specter's switch and the day before a popular Democratic President celebrates 100 days in office and the most ambitious progressive federal agenda in 30 and maybe 70 years, this vote in the Illinois Senate Elections Committee showed me that Republicans have a hostility towards regular people getting more power. They have a fundamental streak of elitism. And it's deadly for them.

There are exceptions. Beth Coulson and Sid Mathias, two suburban Cook County Republicans, voted for the bill in the House. But every other Republican voted no and every single Democrat voted yes. I think there might be a Republican Senator or two that votes yes.

But at base, the principle that the government should stop citizens from registering to vote -- not because it might be administratively difficult or because there might be fraud, because the election administrators who run elections agreed not to oppose the bill, but just because on principle it is better for democracy and for government if fewer people vote -- that's one of the principles of the Republican Party.

And as long as the Republican Party believes that we're better off when fewer people vote, we Democrats are going to be running governments for a good long time.

White House to announce high speed rail plans Thursday....very exciting

2009-04-16T00:56:00.002-05:00

This is very exciting news.

President Barack Obama (who essentially single-handedly transformed American rail policy by investing $8 billion of stimulus funding into rail -- 15 times more than what the federal government had ever invested in one year before) is scheduled to announce the federal plan for how that eight billion will be spent tomorrow in the White House.

And my very first lobbying client (since 2004), Rick Harnish of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, is in Washington right now to participate in that announcement.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice article about the state of intercity rail in the nation today (and the reporter spent some time with Rick this week as you can read from his report).

I can't wait to find out what the Obama Administration is going to do.

Finally! A President who gets it! As the Bush-ites were fond of saying: Elections do have consequences....

Today's special election is a waste; fill vacancies in one election, not two

2009-04-07T07:12:00.000-05:00

Today’s special general election between Mike Quigley, Rosanna Pulido and Matt Reichel is a waste of time, money and resources. Taxpayers will shell out almost two million dollars to hold an election in the 5th Congressional district with only three names on the ballot. And the result of the election – the Democratic nominee is going to win – has been a foregone conclusion for a month.

The seat has been vacant since January. Meanwhile, during the debate on the federal stimulus and budget, the 600,000 people of the 5th congressional district have been without a voice in the House. That’s not good, because we have literally lost our seat at the congressional table while federal policy is made. Our election laws should fill a vacancy as quickly as possible to minimize the loss of our political clout.

In this case, the people spoke clearly last month in the primary election: they want a Democrat to represent them in the House.

Look at the numbers from the March 3rd primary: Mike Quigley, Democrat, earned 12,118 votes. Rosanna Pulido, Republican, earned 1,006 while Matt Reichel Green, earned 166. That’s 91% for Quigley, 8% for Pulido and 1% for Reichel. That’s a landslide. So why are we going through the motion of another election today between these three people when Quigley has already earned 91% of the vote last month? Why can’t we give the people what they already voted for?

Illinois should fill a congressional vacancy in one election, not two, particularly when the results are so clear. There are several ways to do it. We could replicate Chicago’s municipal elections where there is a runoff only if no candidate earns a majority of the vote. We could count a vote in the primary election as a straight ticket vote in the general election for whoever the nominee will be. Or we could use Irish-style instant runoff voting where voters rank all the candidates.

But whatever the method, we should absolutely not continue to waste two million dollars and minimize our own clout by waiting a month to finally elect a Representative in a second election when we could get the job done in one day.

Metra should take credit cards -- a Senate bill would require just that

2009-03-27T21:26:00.005-05:00

Yesterday Senator Michael Bond (D-Grayslake) and I held a press conference on his legislation that requires Metra to accept credit cards for fare payments.

I represent the Transit Riders' Alliance, a project of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, and we enthusiastically support Senator Bond's bill. Hopefully Metra will just decide to start taking credit cards in the places where it immediately makes sense to do so. If not, we'll keep working to try to pass Senate Bill 577 into law.

There's a new service in the Illinois General Assembly's press room that offers a feed of press conferences. Here's the full, unedited C-SPAN-ish feed of the press conference.

And here is a story in the Daily Herald:

"The problem is fairly simple: they only accept check or cash," [Bond] said. "Metra is the second largest commuter train system in the country and happens to be the only one that doesn't take electronic payment."

Bond says checks are outdated and younger commuters today do not always carry checks or cash because they expect places to take debit or credit. The CTA currently takes credit cards as payment.

Judy Pardonnet, spokeswoman for Metra, said the agency is looking into the change to credit cards and said the procedure will be phased in.

Dan Johnson-Weinberger, representing the Transit Riders' Alliance, said many times people are unaware the trains don't accept credit and debit. "We believe there is some lost revenue from riders who would like to get on the train but because they don't carry a checkbook - and honest to God who does anymore? - and they don't happen to have cash on them, they can't buy," said Johnson-Weinberger.

Poll: Majority of >100K income earners favor a higher tax rate for high incomes

2009-03-23T00:12:00.004-05:00

This report is a few months old, but particularly timely.

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University conducted a poll last fall and asked Illinois respondents what revenue-generators they would support. The most popular way for the State to raise more money was a federal-style progressive income tax where higher incomes pay a higher rate than lower incomes. 65.9 percent of respondents favored a progressive income tax.

Interestingly, while 74.2 percent of respondents who make less than $50K annually favored a progressive tax, and 68.9 percent of those who make between $50K and $100K favored the tax, more than half of the people who make more than $100K and would presumably pay the higher rate still favored a higher rate for themselves. 57.5% of the respondents who make more than $100,000 support a higher rate for higher incomes. (See page 26 of Professor Charles Leonard's Public Policy Institute Occasional Paper #12 to read the report yourself.)

Governor Quinn's proposal to raise the state's flat rate income tax rate from 3% to 4.5% combined with the uber-progressive move to triple the amount of tax-free income from $2,000 to $6,000 is as close to setting up a progressive tax as the General Assembly can get, since the Constitution unfortunately mandates a flat rate.

So while it is not only the right thing to do to tax lower income people less than higher income people (why would we possibly tax people who are earning money below the poverty line?), according to the SIU poll, it is also the most popular option on the table -- even among the people who would pay more.

I suspect a progressive income tax is popular because it is the right thing to do.

Media headlines are wrong: Quinn proposes tax cuts for most, tax increase for some

2009-03-13T17:12:00.004-05:00

That's what the headlines should be about Governor Quinn's likely budget proposal.

The Governor has confirmed that he wants to cut the income tax for everyone by making the first $6,000 of income tax free. Right now the first $2200 of income is tax free. So the benefit is basically $120 from the 3% tax rate. And with a 4.5% tax rate, the benefit of not taxing an extra $4000 is $180.

In other words, the Governor proposed an income tax cut of $180 for everyone.

He also wants to raise the income tax rate from 3% to 4.5%. Illinois has the lowest income tax rate of any state in the Union that has an income tax. We're lower than Indiana (at 3.4%). We are lower than every other state that has an income tax. So that is an income tax increase.

To be clear, he proposed an income tax cut of $180 and then a higher rate of 4.5% instead of 3%.

That is not a 50% increase.

Most people get a tax cut. (If you make $6,000 a year, you will pay less than you do today. That's a tax cut). A few people get a wash (the $180 tax cut from the personal exemption about equals the higher rate). And some people will pay more because the higher income tax rate will be bigger than the $180 tax cut from the personal exemption.

So media headline writers! Don't screw this up! Quinn did NOT propose a 50% income tax increase! He proposed a tax cut and a tax increase. Most people will pay less (that's my initial cut of the math -- I may be wrong). Some people will pay more. But most people will NOT face a 50% income tax increase.

And, since state income taxes are deductible on federal income tax returns, this is a really smart move, because it means that the actual dollars paid in taxes by our wealthiest Illinoisians (a group I hope to join), will not be 50% higher than they were before Quinn's proposal. For every dollar a millionaire pays in state income taxes, she cuts 35 cents off her federal tax bill. So the actual bottom-line increase for even the wealthiest people in Illinois is 65 cents on the dollar for every dollar increase in the state income tax (making the 50% increase even more incorrect).

From Bush-Blagojevich to Obama-Quinn. What an upgrade!

2009-01-30T00:05:00.002-06:00

Just think: two weeks ago, the two chief executives for Illinois residents were President George Bush and Governor Rod Blagojevich. Tonight, they are President Barack Obama and Governor Pat Quinn.

That is the biggest upgrade in an eight-day span we've ever seen.

We went from two executives who regularly expanded their powers and authority in defiance of the law to two with humility and an honest commitment to greater democracy.

I'm with Senator Meeks: this is a great day for Illinois.

President Barack Obama. Sometimes the good guys win.

2009-01-20T09:34:00.002-06:00

The first time it hit me was after his speech in Grant Park when the brassy presidential music started to play. All the pomp and circumstance around the closest thing we have to a King would be placed on the thin shoulders of a guy who was working three jobs to get by a few years ago, a guy who believes all politicians are not judged by their greatness but by whether they improve the lives of ordinary people and a guy who comes from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party but believes in governing with an open door to build a consensus rather than make a point.

This guy -- a guy who was essentially drafted into the race -- will be the President of the United States of America.

These things aren't supposed to happen. The smart guy who stays clean and sides with the weak and the powerless usually doesn't end up in power. It's the shady people who saddle up to the moneyed interests, the operators who shift and pivot wherever the wind is blowing, the sons and daughters of wealth and privilige -- they are the people who end up running things. But not today.

Today, thanks in part to the largest grassroots organization in modern history, one of our own is going to the White House. A President for the people, not the powerful. It's a wonderful day.

Live from Cleveland: Speaking engagement on Amtrak advocacy before All Aboard Ohio

2009-01-07T06:17:00.002-06:00

Good morning from Cleveland!

I'll be speaking in a few hours before a meeting of All Aboard Ohio on the topic of Amtrak/transit advocacy, sharing lessons learned from the successful effort in Illinois to double the size of the Amtrak program in 2005-6. I helped to lead that campaign for my client, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association.

If you won't be able to join us in Cleveland today, here's the bottom line:

1. Develop a reasonable but aggressive legislative ask. This is something that the government can do this year -- not a nebulous vision like "get us better service" or "European-style high speed rail" but instead a specific, actionable request like "increase the Amtrak line item in the budget from $12 million to $24 million in order to double service in the state." The best way to develop this request is in close consultation with legislative champions who are the ultimate test for political viability, since they are the ones who will expend their political capital to implement the request.

2. Focus relentlessly on the decision-makers: elected officials. Everybody else in the world, particularly organizations, are a means to the same end of convincing elected officials to implement the request. Don't fall into the trap of working to convince civic leaders and non-profit organizations and then hoping that somehow that consensus of non-elected officials will transform into a consensus among elected officials. The decision-makers are the prize to keep your eyes upon.

3. Cultivate your legislative champions. It takes at least one legislator to decide to move beyond passive support of an idea towards active support for a bill. Someone has to introduce a bill. That one legislator who is willing to introduce your idea as legislation is the most important legislator in the body, because that legislator is your champion. Finding that champion and convincing him or her that your idea is worth his or her limited political capital is essential.

4. Campaign for a yes as the junior partner. Advocates work for their legislative champions, not the other way around. So take direction from him or her and generate a sense of urgency by mobilizing as many influencers as possible to convince the other legislators to join with your champion in implementing the bill this year. "There's always next year" doesn't apply. Push hard for action this year -- until your champion says no. Then, and only then, do you wait.

I lay this out a bit more in graphic format on the Progressive Public Affairs website. And transit advocacy is the cover story in the latest issue of More Riders Magazine (published by my sister company, More Riders).

My discussion of Professor Barack Obama as part of Time's Person of the Year coverage

2008-12-28T16:01:00.004-06:00

Barack Obama was my law professor in 1998. I was fortunate to be interviewed by Time Magazine (along with Illinois State Board of Education Chair Jesse Ruiz) in Classroom 5 of the University of Chicago Law School where we shared our thoughts and experience with Professor Obama's inclusive and real-world-oriented pedagogical style.

The video is available on Time's website here.

Jesse and I start at the 1:10 mark. Here's a partial transcript.

Dan Johnson-Weinberger: My first opportunity to take a class with him came my
second year which was 1998. He taught a class called Voting Rghts.

Narrator: Obama continued to teach, even as he became a state senator,
challenging students to use his political office as an example in class
discussions.

Dan: He was exceptionally generous with allowing his
political career to sort of be autopsied as an academic exercise.

Narrator: Dan Johnson-Weinberger went on to a career in politics after
finishing his law degree.

Dan: The tough questions that you're kind of not supposed to ask about -- he wanted us to really dig deeply into the intellectual challenge of reconciling competing demands in a campaign finance regime, so he allowed himself to be used as part of the classroom.

Narrator: And, these former students say, the intellectual inquiry they
saw in Professor Obama is what they expect from a President Obama.

Jesse Ruiz: Sometimes you can get lost in the law and the loftiness of what we're
studying and we forget this involves the lives of people. He wouldn't let us
forget that.

Dan: One of the skills he developed at the University of
Chicago Law School was a real hunger for lots of people presenting new and
innovative and sometimes untested ideas to solve problems. I think the times are
calling for and his campaign was calling for bold change. And I don't think
Washington is a bold place. My hope is that that broken political culture in
Washington really does change.

Jesse: I think the greater gains will be seen long after he leaves office in eight years and that will be a change in the attitude of Americans

The people at Time did an excellent job with the video (and they were kind enough to include a screen shot of my company, Progressive Public Affairs) so please do check out the full video. Apparently CNN ran a story about this video as well.

On related broadcast media news, Beyond the Beltway will be airing their taped year-end program where I represented the Democratic point of view tonight on WLS radio from 6 to 8 pm and on WYCC at 10:30 tonight (as well as on the Comcast cable network over the next few days). I'll also be on a BBC Five Live radio show at 6 pm (Chicago time) Tuesday night with my frequent other-side-of-the-aisle pundit friend Dan Proft discussing how Barack will live up to the lofty expectations an anxious world has put upon his shoulders.

Stockholm traffic management lessons from Randy Blankenhorn

2008-12-17T14:44:00.002-06:00

Today at the Metropolitan Planning Council's "Around the World in 90 Minutes in Global Infrastructure Best Practices" Randy Blankenhorn of CMAP shared some insight into how we can reduce traffic congestion through better management, Stockholm-style.

We don't really do much to manage traffic flow in Northeastern Illinois. There's an Illinois Department of Transportation website on real-time highway congestion, but nothing on arterial streets. Drivers should be getting information about what routes are congested (so they can avoid them), but that information isn't widely disseminated. As an example Randy brought up, there are big signs on the highways that tell drivers how much time it takes to get downtown, but those signs should be before the entrance ramp so drivers can decide whether or not to take the expressway or stick with arterial streets. And we don't really manage traffic signals at all, particularly in the suburbs.

Part of the problem is that the municipalities own and set the traffic lights. There is no regional body to run traffic signals on a real-time basis to adjust traffic signals to changing conditions (like an accident). Airports have the federal air traffic control to manage the traffic. There is no Illinois road traffic control to open express lanes or change traffic signals or (ideally) adjust prices on tollroads to keep roads at a free-flow level). And there should be.

Stockholm has a Trafik Stockholm Joint Traffic Management Centre that takes information in from thousands of cameras and sensors and immediately dispatches roadside assistance, shifts or closes lanes and (I think) adjusts traffic signals. That's something we should emulate as we learn how to manage our transportation infrastructure more efficiently.

Senator Jeff Schoenberg hits the blogosphere

2008-12-02T15:34:00.002-06:00

Joining Representative John Fritchey in Blogistan, Senator Jeff Schoenberg launched Deep Blue Illinois, a policy-oriented blog with some good political insight as well (at least based on his first three posts....).

Senator Schoenberg was one of the first blog readers, even telling me on the record when I came to testify before his Senate Appropriations Committee a few years ago "you can submit your testimony on your blog if you'd like."

Senator Schoenberg has one of the best financial minds in the General Assembly, so his discussion about Treasurer Giannoulias' proposal to merge the state's five pension funds into one is definitely worth a read.

Federal stimulus an opportunity for passenger trains and transit

2008-12-02T09:32:00.003-06:00

Change is coming to Washington, and that change could mean a new investment in transit and passenger trains.

Today, President-Elect Barack Obama is in Philadelphia meeting with almost all of the nation's governors who are pushing for a major federal investment in infrastructure and Medicaid spending. The governors are looking for a stimulus package to pass in less than eight weeks (!) to reverse the economic contraction that is throwing people out of work.

This is happening so fast that it can be hard to see the fundamental change in the federal government's philosophy towards the economy. For most of the last 25 years, the ideas has been that the best government is an anti-government - cut spending, cut taxes, cut regulation of business and prosperity will follow. Well, that failed miserably. Now the philosophy is to increase spending, increase regulation (and maybe increase taxes on high incomes) to generate prosperity. This is good news for transit and passenger trains.

Advocates need to have their projects "shovel-ready" in order to overcome objections from Republicans that the additional spending won't create additional jobs in the short term. So now is the time to ensure that every one of your potential projects are ready to go in order to get in line for a bigger share of federal stimulus funding.

And now is *definitely* the time to tell your Members of Congress than the nation needs a major investment in infrastructure. The Midwest High Speed Rail Association is calling for a $5 billion investment in high speed rail (and you can participate in that action alert as well). Speaker Nancy Pelosi's team said they are looking for a total package of around $400 to $500 billion. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he thought the package would come in around $500 billion. It is not clear how much of that could go to transit and passenger trains, so call your Members of Congress and ask them to push that figure as high as possible to get people working again and expand transit and trains!

[Cross-posted at More Riders and Improving Amtrak Incrementally]

Best bailout for GM, Ford, Chrysler: Government health insurance (with private doctors)

2008-11-14T08:21:00.004-06:00

While the Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing hard for a bailout of some kind to the nation's big three automakers (Ford, GM and Chrysler), the Republicans have basically said no.

"The financial straits that the Big Three find themselves in is not the product of our current economic downturn, but instead is the legacy of the uncompetitive structure of its manufacturing and labor force," Mr Richard C. Shelby, senior Republican on the banking committee said.

And on the House side, Republican and Minority Leader John Boehner said:

"Spending billions of additional federal tax dollars with no promises to reform the root causes of crippling automakers' competitiveness around the world is neither fair to taxpayers nor sound fiscal policy."

What most Republicans want to do is just bust the union and lower wages. High wages is a central economic strategy of any recovery, so it's bad policy to try to lower wages. (That's the single strongest reason why government policy should always be to encourage more labor unions to form -- unions result in higher wages for workers, which results in more purchasing power for Americans which results in a stronger economy).

However, the Republicans do have a point. It's too expensive to make cars in the U.S. compared to Japan or Europe. And it's not because we pay our workers too much.

It's because the cost of buying health insurance to workers and retirees is contained in the cost of the car for American companies and not for Japanese and European companies.

We force GM, Ford and Chrysler to pay for health insurance and run a huge insurance division. If we handle health insurance the way most European companies and Japan handles it -- which is to have the government pay for all health insurance while hospitals and doctors and providers are private and they just get paid by the government -- then the American automakers would save billions of dollars and become much more competitive.

Even just extending Medicare -- the most efficient health insurance company in the nation -- to people who are 55 and over and letting them buy into the plan (as many Democratic Members of Congress have suggested) is a great bailout of automakers by helping to solve a structural problem that makes them (and every other manufacturer) less competitive.

I hope that's part of change in Washington. And I suspect that a smarter way to pay for health insurance than making American manufacturers less competitive will be.