Mark Shelden's blog

David Frum from NR has been a critic of the Palin choice.  He put up an e-mail Saturday that contained a nugget that I really liked and to a large degree agree with.

My final thought is that (as you know), the GOP is in desperate need of re-branding. Palin does bring that ... my only regret is that McCain had to reach so far down into the GOP talent pool in order to accomplish that. That says volumes about the state of the party. 

I had an interest in a court case in Will County and thought I'd look at their website to see whether I could access anything there.  Here's what I got.  $240 for access to their website but I can get a special deal for $300 to access a host of other counties, including Champaign.  WAHOO!

I understand that there are more than a few problems with JANO, some of which were discussed here.  But we ought to appreciate the fact that Linda Frank didn't buckle under the pressure to join this cabal of counties who charge outrageous fees for the most basic public information.

Wow.  Biden.  I was shocked, but happy for Republican chances in November.  I've been hoping for this ever since I heard what I figured to be preposterous rumors of this pick.

So to hear the guys at First Read come out with this statement demonstrates pretty well how out of touch much of the media is with the average Republican.

On the GOP side, the sound you heard was disappointed silence. Of everyone on the short list, the candidate many Republicans least wanted to see Obama pick was Biden.

Actually, guys, this was a dream come true for me.  It’s time to start figuring out how McCain stacks up against Hillary in 2012. 

A few random thoughts on the Biden pick.

The low expectations set by Obama in his Philadelphia speech are put into action with this pick.  Biden has offended Indians and blacks in his public comments in a way that would have taken him out of the running for this spot a decade ago.  Maybe he can offer a spot to George Allen in his administration and allow Allen to redeem himself as well.

Congress has the lowest approval rating of any public institution in America.  Two Senators, neither of whom has been able to distinguish themselves from their colleagues, seems politically suicidal.  Biden is everything that everyone disdains about Congress.  In 20 years Obama will be too.

Picking a pro-choice Catholic accentuates Obama’s problems with abortion and will cost Obama Catholic votes.  I remember when an evangelical friend suggested to me that a Giuliani nomination might gather a lot of extra Catholic votes for Republicans.  I told him that actually the opposite might happen because pro-life Catholics will actually tolerate a pro-choice Protestant more than a pro-Choice Catholic.  For example, Bush actually gained in Catholic votes against Kerry vs. his numbers against Gore. 

Obama is offering some relatively commonplace policy ideas that certainly don’t distinguish him from any other Democrat.  What did distinguish Obama was that he supposedly represented a new way to engage in politics, including a more moderate tone.  Now he’s picked a career politician who demonstrated during the John Roberts and Samuel Alito hearings to be a Dick Durbin wannabe when it comes to partisanship.

The Democrats have correctly underemphasized Biden's foreign policy background.  Simply, chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations committee has little to do with your abilities in Foreign Policy and more to do with inside the beltway politics.  Knowledgeable, perhaps.  But still highly inexperienced.  I recall when Dick Lugar wanted to run for President and was hoping Republicans would buy this line as well.  With most issues, Congressional experience can translate well to the executive, but not in Foreign Policy.  Besides, Biden was wrong on the surge, wrong on the partition, and according to Obama, wrong on the original authorization for the war.

Finally, what bothers you more?  Serial flip flopping?  Or serial plagiarism?

It’s unfortunate that the News-Gazette wasn’t able to get all the details correct regarding Tony Fabri’s press release.  They bit on Fabri’s misinformation and unfortunately missed the real story.

Here’s a little background.  We have been looking for ways to improve the way that we draw information, especially signatures required for election day poll books, off of the registration applications that we receive.  Up until recently, we were using a Kofax product that required a great deal of programming that was beyond me or my staff.  At a conference, one of my staff members saw a demonstration of Teleform, a software package that not only could do what I needed, but could also integrate with the new software we were developing in house, including pulling data off of type written forms.  The City of Chicago and Cook County are already using the product. 

I got a demonstration module to verify that it would indeed work with our software.  I also did some research to look for other packages that could work.  I wasn’t able to find one and two calls I made to other software companies (ABBYY was one, the other I can’t remember), did not result in comparable packages.

We passed a budget amendment at the July meeting to allow us to pay for this software pending a state grant. 

We submitted a $41,000 purchase order to the County Purchasing department.  I received a call from Deb Busey informing me that software purchases over $25,000 required a bid according to state law.  At this point there was no intervention from Tony Fabri and he was not involved.  I informed my vendor who gave me a new quote on a reduced package that included fewer work stations.  Unfortunately, he caused a little bit of confusion because he did what most salesmen would do and he also quoted the remainder of the $41,000 initial quote.  I was on vacation and my staff submitted the wrong quote.  The vendor immediately caught it, since the second quote was useless without that base software package, similar to purchasing an upgrade of Excel without an older version on your computer. 

My staff then VOIDED the one order and submitted the quote for $22,950, which was under the statutory limit, and which would meet the needs of our office.  The $22,950 PO was submitted on Wednesday.  That was then VOIDED because the Auditor’s office incorrectly informed my staff that the limit was $20,000.  We resubmitted two POs, one for the base software and one for an additional module.

On Friday, my staff followed up on the Wednesday submission and learned that the Auditor’s staff was waiting on a decision from Fabri on whether to process it.  We continued to wait and then yesterday I asked for an update from Fabri.  That’s when I finally received his memo explaining why he was not accepting the PO. 

The problem is, the Fabri memo is inaccurate, and that is the real story.  Fabri claims that the PO’s in total amount to $41,000 when in fact, $18,000 had been voided a week prior to Fabri’s memo.  Either Fabri’s computer system doesn’t let him know that the PO was voided or after 18 months on the job (if that’s what you call it) he’s not yet able to understand the operations of his office.  I explained this to Fabri in a lengthy e-mail exchange where upon he let the purchase order go through.  A least one media source took this as a misunderstanding and didn’t run a story that they had intended to go with.  The News-Gazette did run the story, although do to their lack of understanding or editing for space, didn’t get all the facts straight.

The story to me is this.  First, Fabri’s office misinformed my staff of the $25,000 limit on software purchases.  Second, Fabri waited 7 days to respond to our concerns and in fact informed the media of the issue, incorrectly it turns out, before he ever approached me.  Third, we voided the one purchase order, and Fabri somehow wasn’t able to understand or was just plain ignorant of that all important fact.  At no time was there a $41,000 request from our office on Fabri’s desk awaiting approval. 

In retrospect, I certainly could have done a few things differently.  Nevertheless, I’m confident we have a solid product that exceeds our expectations.  The fact that other election authorities are using it also provides opportunities for development over time.

But whatever criticism you might have for my actions here should be weighed against my overall record. 

But the real issue here is Tony Fabri, who demonstrated himself in this episode to be largely ignorant of the operations of his office.

A group of college presidents, chancellors and assorted other campus dignitaries are part of something called the Amethyst Initiative.  Their goal is to lower the drinking age to 18 in an effort to eliminate binge drinking.  No U of I signatories, but Nancy Cantor signed. 

Not sure how or if this will solve the problem.  I'd personally like to see a little more attention given to the Illinois statute which allows those under the age of 21 to drink in their own homes with their parents.  It seems if parents did more modeling of responsible drinking, and the minors actually practiced it before going to college, perhaps the rush of illegal drinking would lose a little of its lustre.  

The Policy Committee tonight after long debate tabled the motion to put a property tax hike for the nursing home on the November ballot, effectively killing it.

The County Board Policy Committee passed the County Schools Sales Tax Referendum on to the full County Board tonight.  The resolution passed with the full one cent. It is to place the question on the November ballot.

Here is the report presented tonight at the committee meeting of the school districts based in Champaign County and how much they have proposed in property tax relief.

Here is a chart of the rates for bonds for the various school districts for this year's tax bills. These numbers can vary dramatically from one year to the next.

I'm not fully aware of the law.  I'm guessing that the districts which are only partly in Champaign County will probably get revenue from this as well. 

My post yesterday about the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Act highlights what many consider to be an important point about Barack Obama.  In three years in the Senate, he’s left virtually no footprint.  But it goes beyond that because of the choices that Obama has made in that short Senate career.

The  Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Act is intended to stop people from using nefarious tactics to keep people from voting.  It passed without dissent in the House while basically being killed by Obama’s inaction in the Senate. 

But it’s not as if Obama hasn’t done anything in his Senate career regarding the voting rights of minorities.  In June of this year, right in the middle of his campaign, he managed to find time to get Senate Resolution 600 passed.

A resolution commemorating the 44th anniversary of the deaths of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi, while working in the name of American democracy to register voters and secure civil rights during the summer of 1964, which has become known as "Freedom Summer".

If, as Obama claims, there are thousands of voters who are kept from voting this election because of intimidation, this Senate Resolution is filled with bitter irony.  Obama takes the time to honor three men on the 44th anniversary of their deaths in the name of voting rights and doesn’t take the time to call a bill to protect voting rights of people alive today.

“Don’t tell me words don’t matter” was the theme of one of those great Obama speeches.  Perhaps.  But one thing is certain.  Senate Resolutions honoring civil rights workers mean little if you aren’t willing to take action as well.

Or so it would seem.  You’ll recall in the aftermath of the 2004 and 2006 elections, Democrats made claims of voter intimidation across America, especially of minorities.  The Democratic report on the Ohio election in 2004 mentions intimidate 36 different times.  The National Campaign for Fair Elections summed it up thus:

Armed gunmen. Crank calls. Poll worker bullies. Do you think those things should be part of fair and free elections?
Neither do we.

In the House, the Democrats responded with HR 1281.  Rahm Emanuel, a former Clinton administration official and one of the most partisan Democrats in the House, was able to get the bill passed on a voice vote in June of last year.

In the Senate things haven’t gone as well.  There the bill, S 453, is sponsored by Barack Obama.  The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill in September 2007.  It has languished in the Senate since it was put on the Senate Calendar, ready for a full vote, on October 4, 2007.  With the Senate now in recess until September, the bill is effectively dead for this election.

Is this bill important?  Well, here’s what Barack Obama’s press release had to say about it when it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee

"For too many elections, misinformation and intimidation have kept thousands of Americans from voting,"

If thousands of voters, many of them presumably yours, are being kept from voting, one would think the bill is important. 

Here is what Donna Brazile, Democratic Party strategist, had to say in her testimony before Congress.

"The rise in voter harassment and voter intimidation is a direct result of some political operatives – often with the blessing of their political leaders trying to gain an electoral advantage at the ballot box. This practice of discouraging people from voting, from schemes that misinform or challenge the electoral status of eligible citizens to participate, should be outlawed in this nation."

The list of campaign reform and minority voting rights groups that have chimed in on the importance of this bill is long.  The editorial support from newspapers was substantial.  For a host of links, try the Brennan Center.

What kind of person sponsors legislation to address the voting rights of thousands of people and then fails to call the bill?  What kind of person doesn’t take the time to pick up the phone to one of the cosponsors and tells them how important it is to pass the bill?   Is his Presidential campaign important?  Of course it is.  Does that mean there was no way to get this legislation passed?  Of course not.

The next time you hear these claims of voter intimidation, remember how Barack Obama didn’t even call this bill for a vote.

Frank Calabrese won his case in Circuit Court.  The order from Judge Leonhard is on the County Clerk website.

Besides the obvious bit of good news for Calabrese, this is also good news for voters as the ruling from Leonhard moves this case along in the process quickly enough to ensure the timely issuance of ballots.

Perhaps publicly vetting a Vice Presidential candidate at a time when the Republican Party is beginning to coalesce around the McCain candidacy isn’t wise, but here goes.  I’m really hoping that McCain doesn’t select Romney as his VP pick. 

It seems that Romney is the choice of many of the beltway types, or as Jonah Goldberg put it, the “rightwing wonkosphere”.  But I just don’t get a sense that he does much to excite the grassroots base of the party.  Dick Morris penned a great article that exposes just how weak Romney was and is as a candidate.

My hope is that McCain finds a conservative running mate with the credentials and philosophy to excite the base.  It wouldn’t hurt to find someone who can help in either a target state or with a key demographic group.

A few names have been mentioned that have the potential to excite the base, but also have some deficiencies.  Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska and Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Louisiana, both have a lot to offer but both are in their first term as Governors.  Huckabee excites part of the base but turns off perhaps an even bigger part with his protectionism and tax positions.  Carly Fiorina just doesn’t have a track record that will convince conservatives that she’s one of them.  Charlie Crist, like Jindal and Palin is pretty green plus comes off as more of the pragmatist than the true believer, ironically, in part, because of his endorsement of McCain in the primaries. 

Of the most talked about candidates I like Tim Pawlenty, Governor of Minnesota and Rob Portman, former OMB director and U.S. Congressman.  Both have the executive and legislative experience, are right on the issues, and have appeal in midwestern battle ground states. 

But my personal favorite would be John Kasich, former Congressman from Ohio and some time Fox News television personality.  Kasich represents the type of populist conservatism that I think is underrepresented in the national Republican party.  He complements McCain’s fiscal conservatism very well and adds a strong record in opposition to corporate welfare, a long forgotten issue by both parties.  He’s conservative on social issues and hails from the ultimate swing state of Ohio via his Pennsylvania birthplace.  He comes from a working class back ground and his expertise on budget issues is unmatched by any of the candidates.

There’s not much chatter about Kasich which probably isn’t a good thing for his few partisans such as Quin Hillyer and Michael Novak.  Of course, Vice Presidential picks have very often been surprising so perhaps Kasich is in play but no one knows it.  He’d excite the base and bring solid expertise to the White House, while giving conservatives something to look forward to in the post McCain party.

Running against the golden girl of the News-Gazette is no easy task.  But Janie Miller Jones is giving it a try.  She's got a website up now that gives voters some background on her as well as some of her ideas for the office.

A couple new items at the Champaign County Clerk website. 

First, our various County Board and Legislative maps have been updated.  Take a look.  I think they look great. 

Second, in a somewhat ironic twist given my other blog post, we've added Google Translate to the site.  I'd be curious what others think of how well it works.  While I've managed to repress my xenophobic tendencies and sent some of my staff to training in Spanish it's not particularly practical to be in  a position to always be able to deal with everyone who comes to the counter in the various languages we see in Champaign County.  This gives anyone an increased ability to access our services.

One hesitates to write about Barack Obama.  Not because of the predictable outcry from his supporters, but because whatever position of Obama’s you write about may be changed by the time you hit the Publish button on your website.

But I can’t pass up the opportunity to write on his recent comments about being embarrassed by the American’s relative lack of foreign language ability.

You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], "Merci beaucoup." Right?

My concern about Americans’ inability to speak French is about as great as my concern about the price of arugula.  I would imagine that the vast majority of Americans feel the same way.

What I can’t understand is the infatuation of the last two Democratic Presidential candidates with France and the candidates’ inordinate desire to be in the good graces of a nation who has spent much of the last 60 years being a thorn in the side of the United States. 

Why should Obama be embarrassed about visitors to France not speaking French but not have similar embarrassment about those traveling to Poland, or Moldova, or Georgia, or South Korea; all countries who stood with us in the Iraq war and none of which bilked the Iraqi people out of billions of dollars in the Oil for Food Program.  Shouldn’t we be more embarrassed as a nation that we kowtow to the French after so many slaps and relegate nations like Poland to second class status?  Why isn't Obama embarrassed that we can't speak Polish?  Why is it more important for us to speak French then it is to speak Swahili or Thai or Arabic?

And do any of the people bemoaning the number of Americans who speak only one language really think the opinion of Americans would change if we all took up another language?  After all, George Bush speaks fluent Spanish (EDIT: Grade school level according to Vicente Fox) and it hasn’t helped his standing in the world and hasn’t earned him any praise from those who decry our ethnocentricity regarding languages.

Anyway, for those who want to spare Barack Obama embarrassment when he goes to his first G8 summit next year, you can sign up to take a French class at Parkland. Who knows, perhaps after this recent pontification he'll even take a French class himself.

Today would probably be a good day to not be in the Courthouse.   The County's new courts technology  program is launching and it will be remarkable if it goes smoothly. 

In 1998, when the 1/4 cent sales tax for public safety passed, $250,000 per year was allocated to improve the technology in the criminal justice system.  After reviewing a number of options, the County went with New World Systems with a so called "box" solution that would need to tailored to the needs of Champaign County.  Getting this product out of the box and installed and running in Champaign County has taken about 7 or 8 years. 

The system should incorporate the Sheriff's office, Circuit Clerk, Probation, State's Attorney, Public Defender, and Circuit Judges into one system. This will eliminate needing to reenter court records at each stage in the process.  In addition, the system envisions scanning court documents in order to eliminate transferring files to Courtrooms. 

But whenever you involve this many offices in such a large project there are likely to be problems.  While each of the offices works together, each also has it's own way of doing things.  Because so many of these people are elected officials in their own right, they also don't necessarily have to go along with the program.  For example, if a judge still wants the entire paper court record brought to his courtroom, that's what's going to happen. 

I have little doubt that in the end, hopefully within weeks, the system will be running smoothly.  But the transition could give some  heartburn to more than a few people.  From a public perception, Circuit Clerk Linda Frank stands front and center on this project.  It is her staff that is going to have to inform legal secretaries that  their filing which would have sufficed last week may be lacking this week.  Or that someone with a traffic ticket has had their case postponed because the data didn't make it into the new system.  I give a lot of credit to Linda for pushing forward on this in an election year.  It would have been easy to put off this launch for six months to place it outside the political debate.

One positive for the public is that Linda fought for continued free access to the docket sheets as she has been providing for years.  Some enterprising officials apparently would have liked to go to a pay system.  That free system also is in transition, so don't be surprised if your access this week is sporadic.

No doubt some readers will be at the Courthouse this week.  I'd like to hear comments.

Who are the needy?  Or the poor.  However you want to phrase it. 

That's been a big part of the debate regarding the viability and profitability of the Champaign County Nursing Home.  The debate has been generally focused on Medicaid vs. private pay patients.  Those on medicaid are thought to be poor and more in line with what should be the Nursing Home's mission as a public institution to help those in most need.  Those private pay people can go anywhere and the public nursing home ought not be overloaded with such people.

The reality is much different.  Clearly, a Medicaid resident should be classified as poor.  A few accounting tricks over a lifetime might give you a life of relative affluence while having minimal assets, but this is certainly not the norm.

Private pay individuals are those people that have assets that allow them to afford care.  But many of these people are truly poor, and will only be able to afford care for a limited amount of time.  Here's an example.

Let's say you have income from Social Security of $1200 per month, you've saved $50,000 in IRAs and other retirement funds,  and you've sold your home for a net gain of $100,000.  Under this scenario,  of $150,000 in assets and $1200 in fixed income, I believe that you're a private pay individual.  I'll leave others with more knowledge to fill us in on just how far you  have to "spend down" your assets, but I'm pretty sure it's well below $150,000. 

So your income amounts to about $2,000 per month when you include return on your investment.  Not too bad if you're in assisted living at $2500 per month.  That will last you about 15 years.  But if you're going into a nursing home at $4,000 a month, you'll be tapped out in four years. 

Clearly that person who is private pay is far from being rich.  Not destitute, but clearly a person that fits into the mission of the public Nursing Home to help the "needy".

My experience has been that within the admissions process, assets and income are both given by the prospective resident.  I think this part of the population, those with assets, but undoubtedly on their way to Medicaid, should be included in the discussion on what our mix should be between private pay and Medicaid patients.

It is no exageration to suggest that the votes tomorrow at the Champaign County Board meeting are among the most critical to ever face the Board.  The two issues are whether to extend a loan to the Nursing Home from the County's General Corp fund in the amount of $592,000 and whether to hire Management Performance Associates to manage the facility.  I've uploaded a copy of the last draft of the MPA contract which you can open below.  Not sure if other revisions are in the works.

The County is in an extremely bad situation.  The Nursing Home continues to put us in a bad fiscal situation.  The bed count has dropped and while some cost saving measures have been put in place, it still looks as if the facility will continue to bleed significant dollars without some action.

The Nursing Home board of Directors has been in existence for a mere six or seven weeks.  They've been handed a bad situation, dug in, and have recommended hiring MPA in a unanimous vote.  With more time, it would have been interesting to see what other options might present themselves, but time is a luxury that has been squandered by this Board. 

On the negative side with MPA is the lack of a guarantee that this will actually turn the situation around.  There is still a union contract to be negotiated, and MPA won't have the final say on that, the County Board will.  Does this contract really give MPA all the tools they need to turn the situation around.

On the positive side, MPA has done what appears to be a good job running a very similar Dekalb County facility.  They also run other county owned facilities.  The current web of government regulations suggests that some efficiencies can be gained by having experts handle some of those tasks.  It's no coincidence that so many nursing homes are owned by larger corporations, whose central offices can handle many of the things that seem to not be handled well in Champaign County. The other positive side is that whatever management problems exist at the current facility, I think MPA will deal with.  Doing a bad job for the County will never cost you your job if the County Board makes the decision.  But if its up to someone who's in private business, I believe that it will.

A lot of things could have happened in the last decade, and certainly the last couple years, to prevent this debacle.  Unfortunately, that's blood under the bridge.  Now there are two votes, two critical decisions for the County.  Neither one is easy and both have tremendous consequences for our community.

EDIT:  I should also point out that the Board will no doubt be discussing in closed session the status of our public health violations.  How this impacts the MPA discussion is interesting.  Purely conjecture here, but the hiring of MPA might be seen by Public Health as a good faith effort to address compliance issues.

I got a kick out of a recent article headlined "Historians see little chance for McCain"  

It reminded me of an article in 2000 headlined "Academics Say It's Elementary: Gore Wins"

As prognosticators, I'm not sure that I'd trust either group.

Is there any other reason for him to not give in to Hillary's demands on the Florida and Michigan delegates?  As it stands now, with the 50% deal that was struck yesterday, Obama is 66 delegates short of locking up the nomination.  In the last two months, I think he's far outpacing Clinton in super delegates, even though Clinton has had the best of Obama in the primary contests.  By appearances, Obama needs just to wait this thing out and he'll continue to rack up the super delegates necessary to get the nomination.

By my calculation, if you gave Florida and Michigan their full allotments, and gave Hillary the share that she demands in Michigan, then the new number for nomination would be 2198, and Obama would have 2112, putting him just 86 short of the nomination.  Wouldn't a magnanimous move by Obama to seat all those delegates take a legitimate argument away from Clinton?  There seems to be little doubt that the current Obama position will foster some hard feelings among some Clinton supporters, and perhaps some voters.  Why take that chance when it seems apparent that you're going to put the nomination away anyway?

In what will bring a sigh of relief to down ticket Republicans, the Democratically controlled legislature failed to pass straight party voting, effectively killing it for the November election.  It would have presented some challenges to election officials as the election equipment isn't currently set up to handle straight party voting as envisioned by some in the legislature.  Politically, it probably would have helped Democrats, although the only person more unpopular than George Bush in our state is Rod Blagojevich, so who knows how it would have turned out.