April 04--Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield.
Topspin
Friday's one-day teachers strike gave the union and its supporters the bully pulpit of marches, rallies and picket lines to capture the political narrative of the school funding fight for at least one day. But Mayor Rahm Emanuel is never one to cede the news cycle, so he stopped by the recreation center at Eckhart Park in West Town to visit students who were locked out of school as the teachers picketed across the city as part of the walkout.
Emanuel toured a room of about 20 kids seated at tables and painting white floppy hats. His press office informed reporters about the pop-in less than an hour before it took place, a short window that allowed him to get coverage while making it hard for any sign-waving strikers to get over to the park in time to ruin the optics of the event.
The mayor struck up a conversation with six children who were talking about the recently released "Batman v Superman" movie. Ever the political animal, Emanuel inserted himself into the discussion and quickly found himself moderating a debate among the kids as to which was the stronger comic book hero -- Batman or Superman.
The second-term mayor asked several different kids for their reasoning. One cited Superman's known weakness against kryptonite. Another one noted that Batman really can't fly and leap buildings. Emanuel did not weigh in with his own position, perhaps concerned with alienating any of the grade school vote.
In the end, the debate was a draw and Emanuel soon was standing before a bunch of microphones criticizing the teachers walkout as harmful to students.
Once the mayor finished giving his remarks, Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. revisited the Batman vs. Superman topic, but with his own twist, comparing the two heroes to two feuding Springfield politicians -- Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrat Speaker Michael Madigan.
"What I'm saying is Madigan is Superman and Rauner is Batman," Burnett proclaimed to no one in particular as reporters gathered their microphones and recorders. "Rauner's money is the kryptonite, and he's trying to use it on Superman. But Superman, he always gets around the kryptonite. He always comes back. He can't be defeated."
As Burnett waxed on about his Springfield superhero theory, Emanuel was signing a kid's floppy hat, grinning and shaking his head.
"Walter," the mayor said, "you got too much time on your hands, man." (Bill Ruthhart)
What's on tap
*Mayor Rahm Emanuel has no public schedule.
*Gov. Bruce Rauner will attend career day at St. Charles East High School this morning.
What we're writing
*Emanuel reiterates kids shouldn't 'pay the price' for teachers union strike
*Might be too expensive to institute no-kill policy at Chicago shelter
What we're reading
*Oak Brook hair restorer benefits from work on Urlacher
*License plate late fees growing after state ceases mailing reminders
*Chicago unemployment climbed over 7 percent in February
From the notebook
*The lure of high tech: Monday marks the first meeting of investment fund managers, technology incubator leaders and entrepreneurs interested in the $220 million Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, state Treasurer Michael Frerichs says.
The fund will invest with investment firms that provide capital to technology businesses that seek to locate or expand in Illinois. The meeting will be held at the Chicago offices of 50 South Capital Advisors, which is the program administrator.
In addition to the meeting, a new website, www.ilgif.com will be launched to help provide a way for entrepreneurs to pitch ideas to a wider audience searching for investment potential.
"Illinois is a tech leader, and this gathering is the next step on our path to innovation and job creation," Frerichs said in a statement. "This project has generated a lot of excitement among diverse groups and I expect this gathering will add to the momentum." (Rick Pearson)
A new medium for the mayor's office: Mayor Rahm Emanuel's press operation churns out dozens of announcements, news releases and other tidbits throughout the week, many of them aimed at gaining traction on morning news shows and afternoon radio news updates.
But like many politicians, Emanuel also has sought to communicate outside of the traditional media, through social media.
The mayor, ever the cognizant political messenger, has a press shop that regularly uses Facebook and Twitter to present his agenda directly to Chicagoans, like when @chicagosmayor tweeted a video last Wednesday with the mayor announcing he would ban travel to North Carolina, in light of that state's "bathroom" law, widely viewed as anti-LGBT. The tweet favored pretty well, by mayoral standards -- with more than 70 retweets and 90 likes.
The mayor's office also has used Instagram to circulate photos -- sometimes behind the scenes -- of the mayor in action, like this photo of the mayor jogging along the lakefront with the Italian prime minister earlier this week.
Now Emanuel's office has moved onto another online frontier -- Medium.
The mayor's press shop has started utilizing that platform, geared toward longer-form writing that can feature large photos, to write about Emanuel's various activities. Last Thursday, Emanuel's office wrote a post about the mayor hiring Alicia Tate-Nadeau as the city's new director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
Emanuel's communications team has made four posts since March 22 on Medium. The first was a 13-minute read with Emanuel's name attached to it, highlighting his future plans for the city's parks, river and lakefront that he unveiled last week in what was tabbed by his office as a major speech. The piece also was filled with photos highlighting the city's parks, including one showing the mayor high-fiving a child on a swing.
So far, the office's dives into the new platform haven't exactly broken the Internet. The four posts had a total of 15 likes. (Bill Ruthhart)
*State official to head Rauner's private economic development agency: Gov. Bruce Rauner's director of the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity is leaving the agency to lead Rauner's newly-created private economic development organization.
Rauner formed the private not-for-profit earlier this year and issued an executive order directing the state agency to work with the private entity on economic development efforts.
At the time, Rauner said he was creating the private corporation in order to free state economic development efforts from "the restrictions we've got around recruiting talent," like seniority rules, salary limitations and requirements to hire from within the ranks of state employees.
DCEO Director Jim Schultz will move over to the private shop, the Illinois Business and Economic Development Corp., where he'll be the chief executive officer, the governor's office announced Friday.
Replacing him will be Sean McCarthy, currently a policy adviser on economic development. McCarthy will "collaborate with Schultz and the ILBEDC to further economic development in Illinois," the governor's office said. (Kim Geiger)
*Rauner pledges fight to pay state employees: When Illinois state government entered a new financial year last July without a full budget in place, Gov. Bruce Rauner promised state workers that they'd still be paid, and he went to court to make sure of it. Now he's back at it, assuring workers last week in an email that he will "fight to ensure that state employees are fully paid on time."
The missive from Rauner was a response to speculation that a recent Illinois Supreme Court ruling could open the door for state Attorney General Lisa Madigan to bring the issue back to the courts. Madigan's office would say only that they are reviewing the ruling.
The ruling was narrowly focused on a multi-year contract between the state and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, in which some state agencies reneged on a deal to make pay raises when the General Assembly failed to appropriate enough money to pay for the raises. The court found that the contract between AFSCME and the state was superseded by the appropriations powers held by the General Assembly under the state constitution, meaning that the pay raise deal was only valid if the legislature appropriated the money for it.
The ruling immediately sparked speculation that it could be used to close the spigot on worker paychecks, which have been going out on time and in full, even though no appropriation exists to pay for them. But it should be noted that the court made it clear in its ruling that the decision applied narrowly to one contract, not "every species of contract with the state."
Still, the speculation gave Rauner an opening to remind state workers, with whom he is currently deadlocked over a new contract, that he's fighting for them. And it was another chance for him to hammer Democratic leaders for taking a spring break vacation from Springfield during the budget impasse.
"If House Democrats can take a month-long vacation and still get paid without a state budget, surely our dedicated state employees who show up for work every day deserve to get paid as well," Rauner wrote. (Kim Geiger)
*The Sunday Spin: This week's show featured a breakdown of the significance of the Chicago Teachers Union's Friday strike, a chat with Democratic State Rep. nominee Theresa Mah, and a discussion about how much longer the stalemate will continue in Springfield. Listen to the full archived version here.
Follow the money
*Track campaign contribution reports in real time with this Tribune Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ILCampaignCash
Beyond Chicago
*Presidential race, Republican side: Some Trump delegates poised to break off if contested convention
*Presidential race, Democratic side: A look at FBI email probe of Hillary Clinton
*Cable impasse continues to shut out many Dodgers fans
