June 03--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
A group of Republican lawmakers -- and one politically targeted Democrat -- are calling on Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino to take an unpaid leave of absence while he is undergoing a federal investigation of his campaign spending while he was a state lawmaker.
The Republicans, led by Rep. Grant Wehrli, of Naperville, seized on a letter written this week by Democratic Sen. Laura Murphy, of Park Ridge, who asked Mautino to step aside.
"Once the probe is complete and only after the cloud over your office has lifted would it be appropriate for you to return to work as auditor general," Murphy wrote.
Murphy, a former Des Plaines alderman who was appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant when Dan Kotowski resigned midterm, is up for election this fall.
Murphy's letter was enough for the Republicans to claim a bipartisan movement. They wrote their own letter also asking Mautino, a Democrat, to step aside.
"He's under the cloud of a federal investigation," Wehrli said. "He is the fiscal watchdog for the state of Illinois, and yet he is under investigation for his own campaign finance misreporting, underreporting, we don't know exactly."
News of the federal investigation surfaced in March. Wehrli said he and his colleagues had been consumed by the budget negotiations in Springfield, and had been asking Mautino for an explanation but "he has remained silent on that."
"We have tried multiple times to reach out for a clear explanation from the auditor general. They have all been rebuffed," Wehrli said. "It is imperative that he respond to the members of the General Assembly, who he directly reports to."
Mautino's spokesman declined to comment Thursday. (Kim Geiger)
What's on tap
*Mayor Rahm Emanuel is in Washington, D.C., for private meetings.
*Gov. Bruce Rauner has no public schedule.
*Michelle Obama's final commencement address as first lady takes place Friday morning at the City College of New York campus in Harlem. The speech will be her 23rd commencement address since her husband became president, aides said. It's planned for 9:30 a.m. Chicago time and will be live-streamed here. (Katherine Skiba)
What we're writing
*Emanuel and Rauner, from friendship to insults.
*CTU blames school funding impasse on lack of leadership.
*City to make public dozens of recordings of police shootings, other incidents.
*Judge agrees to appoint special prosecutor in Laquan McDonald killing.
*Tunney says Cubs want giant outdoor beer garden.
*Plan to move some City Colleges courses to North Side draws outcry from aldermen.
*McDonald's to move HQ to old Harpo Studios space by 2018.
What we're reading
*Police: Son issued manifesto before killing Northbrook parents in Vegas.
*UCLA shooter's kill list had dead Minnesota woman.
*Tribune Publishing renames itself Tronc, Twitter critics go all-in.
From the notebook
*Airbnb takes to TV: A new front is opening in the fight over rules to regulate online apartment rental platforms in Chicago as a pro-internet lobbying firm launches a series of ads aimed at persuading Mayor Rahm Emanuel and aldermen not to adopt a proposal that could get a City Council vote this month.
The Internet Association will spend over $1 million on TV commercials and radio and digital ads, titled "Protect Chicago's Middle Class," that focus on regular Chicagoans who rely on income from renting out rooms in their homes to make ends meet. One commercial features a single mother in Logan Square who says her son might have to drop out of college if she sees a decrease in the money she makes from having people rent a room in her home.
In another, a substitute teacher in Hyde Park talks about how his rent has gone up while his salary has not, and says "if he's the mayor, he should be the mayor on every street corner, all over the city."
The ads note that "new laws to drastically restrict Chicago's home sharing rules will be voted on soon" and urge viewers to "Call Mayor Emanuel," with the main phone number for his office listed.
The ads play up the most benign, sympathy-inducing version of online rentals, with hosts sharing rooms in their own homes to make some money from visitors who come to stay in Chicago neighborhoods that don't have many nearby hotel options.
Aldermen who have staked out positions against Airbnb and other such online platforms say residential parts of their wards are getting overrun with rentals that look very different: apartments and condos turned into commercial enterprises without full-time residents that house groups of partying out-of-towners nearly every weekend.
The most recent version of the proposed ordinance would set limits on the number of units in buildings that could be rented out through online platforms. And it would make Airbnb and companies like it responsible for removing the listings of hosts who violated city rules. It would tack a 4 percent tax onto rentals, with the proceeds going to homeless services.
Emanuel wanted to pass the package in May but pulled it back when several aldermen expressed confusion about exactly what they were being asked to vote on amid repeated changes to the particulars by his administration.
Mayoral spokesman Adam Collins said it isn't surprising that a well-financed special interest group like the online rental industry would "fight for the best deal that will be the most profitable for them."
"It's a political game," Collins said in a statement. "Our focus has been, and continues to be, on working closely with the aldermen and industry stakeholders to pass reasonable, common sense regulations that protect the quality of life in our neighborhoods and also creates a new dedicated funding stream to reduce homelessness." (John Byrne)
*Republicans go on cable: The campaign arm of Illinois' House Republicans is launching a $46,806 cable TV ad buy Friday in the suburbs and north central Illinois, likely against targeted Democrats.
It's the latest move by the House Republican Organization, which also has been using digital ads to link House Democrats to Republican Gov. Rauner's chief nemesis, longtime Democratic Speaker Michael Madigan.
The digital ads referred to lawmakers as being a "rubber stamp" for Madigan.
From the location of the targeted cable buy, Republicans look to be aiming at Democratic Reps. Michelle Mussman, of Schaumburg; Sam Yingling, of Grayslake; Kate Cloonen, of Kankakee; and Andy Skoog, of LaSalle, who was appointed to fill the spot of Frank Mautino when he became auditor general.
It's unclear if several Downstate Democrats being targeted by Republicans will have ads running against them.
The ad buy comes after Rauner made a two-day campaign-style swing, railing at Democrats to show their independence from Madigan even as he urged them to compromise with Republicans on a short-term budget agreement and a full-year school funding plan. (Rick Pearson)
*Return of Khan: More details emerged Thursday as to who's involved with the nonprofit Project Six public watchdog group being run by former Chicago City Council Legislative Inspector General Faisal Khan.
Incorporation papers released Thursday to the Tribune list three directors who are Chicago businessmen. One is Gary MacDougal, former CEO of what is now Mark Controls Co. and a former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.
The two others listed on the papers are Mike Keiser, a golf resort owner, and Randy Nornes, an executive vice president at Aon Risk Solutions.
Keiser in 2013 and 2014 contributed $155,300 to Gov. Rauner's campaign fund. He's also contributed $51,000 to the Illinois Liberty PAC led by Dan Proft, who ran as a Republican for governor in 2010 and has supported some of the same causes as Rauner.
Khan has declined to reveal who's funding Project Six but insists it has no political or ideological bent. (Hal Dardick)
*S says more work needed on city pensions: Despite some success in Mayor Emanuel's effort to restore financial soundness to the woefully underfunded city worker pension systems, a lot more work needs to be done to prevent further downgrades to the city's already low debt rating, one Wall Street ratings agency declared Thursday.
Standard Poor's issued a report noting that Emanuel's plan to restore police and fire pensions over the next 40 years is now law -- after the General Assembly override of Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto -- and is funded for now with the city's recent record property tax increase.
The report also pointed to Emanuel's announcement that a deal with two unions was in the works to fix the pension fund for city laborers, partly by spending new revenue from the city's increased emergency services fees on landline phones and cellphones.
But it noted that the laborers' plan must gain approval of the state legislature, and that a plan and funding mechanism to fix the city municipal workers' fund -- the city's largest -- has yet to be put forth. That would involve reaching agreements with 32 unions and finding hundreds of millions of dollars in additional tax, fee or fine revenue.
Those uncertainties leave the city "vulnerable to further rating downgrades," the report stated. City "officials have publicly said that they expect to have solutions for the municipal plan in the coming weeks." (Hal Dardick)
*The Sunday Spin: Chicago Tribune political writer Rick Pearson's guests this week are Democratic state Rep. Brandon Phelps, Illinois Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno and political analyst David Yepsen of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. The "Sunday Spin" airs from 7 to 9 a.m. on WGN-AM 720.
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: Speaker Ryan says Trump endorsement "is about saving the country."
*Presidential race, Democratic side: Clinton goes nuclear on Trump.
*Three dead, six missing after Army truck swept away in Texas flood.
*Autopsy: Prince died of Fentanyl overdose.
