The people of Illinois don’t expect their government to be corrupt; they insist on it. That’s why nary an eyebrow was raised when it recently came out that two lobbyists for the Illinois Federation of Teachers were able to qualify for generous teachers’ pensions by working as substitute teachers for one day.
One man could receive up to $3.8 million if he lives to age 84. This is in addition to the 401(k) the union gives him as an employee. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Preckwinkle’s one day of subbing qualified him to become a participant in the state teachers pension fund, allowing him to pick up 16 years of previous union work and nearly five more years since he joined. He’s 59, and at age 60 he’ll be eligible for a state pension based on the four-highest consecutive years of his last 10 years of work.
His paycheck fluctuates as a union lobbyist, but pension records show his earnings in the last school year were at least $245,000. Based on his salary history so far, he could earn a pension of about $108,000 a year, more than double what the average teacher receives.
Nationwide spending on K-12 education is around $13,000 per child per year. Not all of that spending is actually for the children, contrary to popular rhetoric. Fortunately, it appears only two people took advantage of this scheme. But the real kicker is that one of the two actually helped write the legislation that made it possible.
Since time immemorial, Cook County, Illinois, has had very strict personal conduct regulations for its forests. Among other things, it has been illegal to:
- Hang out (only applies to felons)
- Tell fortunes
- Have your fly open
- Juggle
- Do a somersault
- Park illegally (redundant?)
- Perform acrobatic stunts
All those clandestine activities are now legal. Those laws are at least 100 years old, and were mainly intended to prevent traveling circuses and carnivals from setting up shop in the forests surrounding Chicago. No citations for any of these offenses have been issued within living memory.
That’s why Cook County’s forest preserve took the hygienic step of repealing the regulations. If a rule isn’t going to be enforced, or if it is clearly a relic of the horse-and-buggy era, it shouldn’t be on the books. Legislators around the country at all levels of government would do well to follow the example that Cook County’s forest preserve has set. It’s the regulatory version of spring cleaning.
Collinsville, Illinois, officials know that when you look good, you feel good. That’s why they are now regulating the height at which people shall wear their pants. Some young people these days prefer to wear their pants somewhat low. This fashion trend is no doubt a direct reaction against World War II-era fashion, when men wore their pants much higher.
According to the new dress code regulations, Collinsville residents must not wear their pants more than three to four inches below the waist. First-time offenders get a $100 fine. A second offense nets a $300 fine and 40 hours of community service. There is no corresponding regulation for wearing pants super-high.
Collinsville regulators do not unanimously favor the new rules. Bob Knable, the city manager, has apparently heard of opportunity costs. Police forces only have so much time and resources. He points out that time officers spend eyeing peoples’ pants is time not spent on more serious matters.
Regulators kept themselves plenty busy for yesterday’s holiday. Highlights:
Silly string is forbidden in Hollywood on Halloween. Revellers are warned by street signs featuring not one, but two sets of unnecessary quotation marks (pictured above). The punishment is a $1,000 maximum fine and up to six months in jail. The punishment is the same as the maximum for a DUI, less a six-month driver’s license suspension.
Across the country in Zebulon, North Carolina, a 20-year old man was arrested for “wearing a mask or hood in public” on Halloween. The 1953 ordinance was anti-Ku Klux Klan measure. Ironically, yesterday’s arrestee is black. His bond is set at $7,500.
And in the Midwest, Belleville, Illinois, has made it illegal for anyone over age 12 to go trick-or-treating.
Liberal judges insist that it’s racist to keep prison inmates from voting, because inmates are disproportionately members of minority groups. See the dissents of liberal judges Calebresi, Sotomayor, and Katzmann in this appeals court ruling upholding New York’s law prohibiting prison inmates from voting (Hayden v. Pataki).
But some liberals are not very enthusiastic about soldiers voting. As noted earlier, Illinois officials missed the deadline to mail ballots to U.S. troops overseas, but they hand-delivered ballots to inmates in liberal Cook County, Illinois, and the Obama administration is failing to enforce federal laws that require states to mail ballots to overseas troops in a timely fashion.
Sadly, to a few liberal commenters, the soldiers who protect America are just “right-wing neanderthals” who lack the “intellectual” capacity to “vote intelligently” and fail to appreciate the need for “social change.”
The irony is that soldiers are a bit more likely to be black than the general population (see this graph for the percentages of army recruits by state), so failing to protect the votes of soldiers also has a “racially disparate impact.” If liberals really care about such “discrimination” — as they claim in arguing that prison inmates should be allowed to vote — why aren’t they defending the voting rights of soldiers, rather than turning a blind eye to violations of their voting rights?
Presumably, the answer is that soldiers aren’t liberal enough for them — the way inmates are perceived as being.
Illinois officials missed the deadline to mail ballots to U.S. troops overseas, but they hand-delivered ballots to inmates, without even waiting for inmates to apply.
Perhaps this discrimination can be explained by the fact that inmates vote mostly for liberal candidates, while soldiers vote predominantly for conservative candidates.
There are federal laws requiring states to send ballots in a timely fashion to troops overseas, but the Obama administration is not enforcing them, as part of its ongoing politicization of the Justice Department (such as rubberstamping unconstitutional legislative proposals, and downplaying of voter intimidation by liberal activists, while investigating Tea Party pollwatchers who uncovered rampant voter registration fraud in Houston).
Meanwhile, Virginia Congressman Jim Moran (D) has dismissed his opponent, a retired colonel who served in the military for 24 years, saying that he has not “served or performed in any kind of public service,” and had simply “taken a government check.” (Moran himself has collected a government paycheck for many decades, first as a state official, and then, for the last 28 years, as a congressman.)
Welcome back to LibertyWeek, where your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist bring you the best in news and views, always from the perspective of free markets and limited government. We start this week’s episode with praise for the new look and feel of OpenMarket.org: the blog you want to read. We then move on to the most delicious edition of Scandal Watch yet — the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on federal charges of “staggering” corruption. After that we look at the demise of Rep. William “Freezer Cash” Jefferson, the rise of Rep.-Elect Anh “Joseph” Cao (pictured, right), investigations into the mortgage mess, how taxpayers get trashed by recycling mandates and a debate over the ethics of scalping tickets in Olympic News.
# Special thanks to Josh Barro for the Tweet of the Week.
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