Jan. 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
The 2016 presidential campaign on Monday moved to Illinois, however briefly, when the filing of petitions began at 8 a.m. for March 15 primary ballot spots for White House candidates and their all-important nominating delegate contenders.
Among the first to file were backers of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Chicago native who grew up in Park Ridge, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
On the Republican side, the early filers were businessman and reality TV show star Donald Trump, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
The 8 a.m. petition filers for president will now be part of a lottery to determine top ballot position if their lists of signatures withstand any potential challenges.
Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator, said they expect to file petitions on the last day of filing Wednesday. Unsuccessful 2015 Chicago mayoral candidate Willie Wilson also was an early filer in his longshot bid for the Democratic nomination.
Petitions for delegates seeking election to back the candidates at national nominating conventions were still being processed by the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Delegate filing is particularly important in the Republican contest. The presidential preference vote is often called a "beauty contest" since it has no bearing on the number of delegates, who are directly elected by GOP primary voters.
A total of 54 GOP presidential nominating delegates are eligible for election -- three from each of the state's 18 congressional districts. That puts the onus on presidential campaigns to file a full slate of delegate candidates to maximize their potential take from Illinois.
For Democrats, the nominating process is more complicated, using a hybrid approach that requires presidential candidates to get at least 15 percent of the vote in each congressional district to gain a percentage of the delegates.
There are 102 elected Democratic presidential nominating delegates.
With the Feb. 1, first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses approaching, the Illinois presidential filing is viewed as an opportunity to look at the organization, breadth and long-game of the White House contenders. (Rick Pearson)
What's on tap
*Mayor Rahm Emanuel has no public events. He's been out of the public eye since his return from his Cuban family vacation Wednesday, when he talked about Chicago Police Department changes.
*Gov. Bruce Rauner is scheduled to be out in Oak Brook in the morning to discuss a "local government consolidation and unfunded mandate task force report." He'll be joined by Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti in the event at a DuPage County Mayors and Managers Conference meeting.
From the notebook
*Mayor's New Year's Eve dump: The Emanuel administration released more than 3,000 pages of emails Thursday morning. You can catch up with our story here.
How much heat was on the administration as it prepared for the court-ordered release of the police dash-cam video that showed African-American teen being repeatedly shot by white police Officer Jason Van Dyke?
So much that Corporation Counsel Steve Patton was editing what the mayor would say in a conference call with religious and community leaders, emails showed. Various drafts of both the invitation and the script from which Emanuel would read during the call were sent around.
Patton reviewed the mayor's remarks as well as various other talking points and letters sent out about the McDonald shooting, records show.
"In the sixth paragraph, I would not say that Laquan was 'wielding a knife.' He was carrying a knife," Patton wrote. " 'Wielding' suggests he was threatening officers with it. He was not."
Patton saved the mayor on that one.
Consider that Van Dyke said after the October 2014 shooting that he believed McDonald was attacking him after the teen raised a knife across his chest and over his shoulder. And Van Dyke also said he continued to shoot McDonald after he fell to the street because he appeared to be trying to get back up while still pointing the knife at the officer.
Additional police reports indicated that Van Dyke's partner and two other officers also said that McDonald was advancing on the officers with the knife when Van Dyke opened fire.
The video contradicted those statements.
*Mortar board idea: One of the oddest things to emerge from the mayoral email dump was the idea of Emanuel taking part in a peaceful demonstration. The concept was raised by Graham Grady, an attorney at Taft Stettinius Hollister, whom Patton described as "a leading African-American lawyer in town and a friend."
In an email, Grady suggested Emanuel convey a positive image, using as motivation the widely published photo that featured a picture of a smiling McDonald in a red graduation cap and gown.
"I love Chicago and I'm concerned that the city may erupt when and if the video gets out," Grady wrote. "What if the mayor and some community leaders such as Father Pfleger lead a peaceful demonstration with 100+ African-American youth wearing red mortar boards to symbolize education as the solution while also invoking the image of Laquan McDonald in a positive manner. You can get red mortar board caps for $10 bucks a piece. I'll pay for 100 of them."
Senior adviser David Spielfogel and Clothilde Ewing, the mayor's chief of strategic messaging and planning, both liked the concept. "Not a bad idea," Spielfogel wrote. "We have five days to build community buy in and dialogue. We shouldn't waste a second." Patton wrote to thank his friend and tell him, "I really appreciate your offer and we may well take you up on it."
The march, however, never happened. Perhaps someone in the administration stopped to consider the visual of 100 or more Laquan McDonalds walking down the street next to Emanuel.
*Read 'em: To read some of the City Hall emails our story was based on, click here.
*Rauner and the flood: Emanuel wasn't the only one who had to cut short a holiday family vacation. Rauner returned from his European trip last week and spent New Year's Eve through Sunday touring flooded areas of Downstate.
*The Sunday Spin: State Sen. Matt Murphy talked Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. Monmouth College's Robin Johnson on the Iowa caucus. Statehouse public radio correspondent Amanda Vinicky on the state budget. Full show here.
What we're writing
*Rauner looking at borrowing $480 million this month.
*New juvenile justice laws aim to keep teens out of prison.
*The yearly new laws roundup.
*Taxman cometh here, there and everywhere in 2016.
*Chicago police shootings drop from 37 in 2014 to 22 in 2015. It was 56 in 2011.
*Tasers, training not enough to fix Chicago Police Department, experts say.
*Darin LaHood (Schock successor) profile.
What we're reading
*This one is more like "What you're reading" -- that New Yorker column hitting Emanuel. Let's clean up some of the factual errors in that one:
-- Emanuel was never behind in the 2015 mayoral campaign, so tough to call it a "come-from-behind" win. He was, however, forced into a politically embarrassing runoff.
-- Emanuel won a seat in Congress in 2002, not 2004.
-- Jean-Claude Brizard took the fall for the teachers' strike, not the school closings (he was gone in September 2012, closings announced in spring 2013. The publication later corrected this).
-- And the number of police shootings not sustained since 2007 was two, not one. From a Dec. 6 Tribune story: Of 409 shootings since the agency's formation in September 2007 -- an average of roughly one a week -- only two have led to allegations against an officer being found credible, according to the Independent Police Review Authority. Both involved off-duty officers.
Still, it's worth noting that Emanuel is being hit nationally from both the left and the right following the McDonald video release. A lot of pent-up glee being displayed now that the national political chattering class senses they maybe no longer have to fear Emanuel.
Follow the money
*We took a look at how Speaker Michael Madigan used a quirk in state campaign finance law to have labor unions and trial lawyers max out to three and four of his campaign funds.
*Track campaign contribution reports in real time with this Tribune Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ILCampaignCash
Beyond Chicago
*Presidential race, Republican side: Trump claims Cruz copying him on border wall.
*Presidential race, Democratic side: Clinton fundraising big time in presidential bid.
*President Obama done with the yearly vacation to Hawaii.
*What those militiamen in Oregon are mad about.
