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With Republicans trying to celebrate their day at the Illinois State Fair nearby, House Speaker Michael Madigan's Democrats at a hearing Wednesday picked apart Gov. Bruce Rauner's changes to legislation to reshape the state's school funding system.

The House later is expected to debate and reject legislation that reflects Rauner's version, an attempt by Democrats to embarrass Rauner on what is supposed to be a celebratory day for Republicans at the fair. The Senate has already voted to override the Republican governor's veto, but doing so in the House would require GOP lawmakers to defy Rauner to join Democrats.

Without a new formula in place to divvy up education money, the state is unable to cut checks for schools. That's left districts scrambling to cut costs in an effort to keep their doors open if an ongoing political fight means they have go months without state funding.

"Yesterday, I denied stamps for our kindergarten teachers to send welcome letters to parents," said Sandoval School District 501 Superintendent Jennifer Garrison told the House hearing. "This is not on us, this is on the legislature to solve."

Under Rauner's changes, Chicago Public Schools would get $463 million less in state money this year compared to the Democrat-approved version, according to an analysis by the Illinois State Board of Education. That money would be redistributed to other districts, meaning more than 97 percent of school districts would see more money this year under Rauner's plan than the legislation backed by Democrats.

"There's no reason why we should be putting districts against each other," said Rep. Will Davis, a Democrat from Homewood who sponsored the bill vetoed by Rauner. "Why are we unnecessarily taking dollars from one district just because the governor has a problem with that district? Maybe he and the mayor need to sit in a room and hash out their problems, but there's no reason why schoolchildren throughout the state of Illinois should be subject to whatever their issues are. And clearly they have some issues."

Garrison and other education officials criticized Rauner's amendatory veto, saying he risks undermining other provisions that would bring greater equality to how funds are distributed and help ease local property tax burdens. While they acknowledged some of their schools would see an initial bump in funding under his plan, they said other changes in his veto mean districts that lose even a handful of students would be financially penalized in future years. They said some of his changes also seem to pit the school districts against business development.

Under both the Democratic-passed bill and the governor's version, the amount of state money schools receive would depend in part on the assessed value of property in the district. The less available property wealth in a district, the more state money it could receive.

But unlike in the Democratic bill, Rauner's version would count the assessed property value that includes TIF districts and in areas that have mandated property-tax caps. School districts can't tax the growth of property value in those areas but still would receive less state money.

Rep. Jeanne Ives, R-Wheaton, questioned the superintendents' prediction of a loss of state money under Rauner's version, saying the Illinois State Board of Eduction has not produced any numbers to back up those claims.

"Nobody knows what the numbers will be in 2020," Ives said.

At one point, she asked a group of education officials testifying before the committee a question, and Ralph Martire, executive director of the liberal Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, leaned in to talk to the panel.

Ives said Martire's offered counsel was an indication that members of the panel could not answer questions on their own. That prompted a rebuke from Davis, who said the comment was insulting and that panelists are allowed to consult with advocates and lobbyists.

"Is this really what it's deteriorating to in state government? Really?" Canton Superintendent Rolf Siversten asked Ives. "You are embarrassing yourself."

Ives said that she was "standing up for taxpayers across the state who are funding enormous systems that fail to educate children."

mcgarcia@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @moniquegarcia

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Madigan's Democrats criticize Rauner's education plan on Republicans' day at the fair - Chicago Tribune

Donald Trumps comments on the weekends violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, claiming both sides were to blame for the clashes have attracted ire from Republicans and Democrats alike, including former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

In the aftermath of Trump's reportedly unscripted press conference, Sanders tweeted that the president was embarrassing our country and the millions of Americans who fought and died to defeat Nazism.

Related: Watch Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson defend Trump on Charlottesville in bizarre slavery segment

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Other leading Democrats have condemned Trumps comments. Democratic Senator Brian Schatz tweeted: "As a Jew, as an American, as a human, words cannot express my disgust and disappointment. This is not my President."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that the president had made comments showing what he really believes.

The President's continued talk of blame 'on many sides' ignores the abhorrent evil of white supremacism, the statement reads.

U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions about his response to the violence, injuries and deaths at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, as he talks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City on August 15. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Republican heavyweights also lambastedthe president's stance.Republican Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted:White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity."

Senator John McCain criticized the president, directly calling on him speak out against bigotry. "There's no moral equivalency between racists [and]Americans standing up to defy hate [and] bigotry. The President of the United States should say so," he tweeted.

A White House insider revealedtoCNN reporter Jeff Zeleny that the conference, in which Trump said alt-left protesters had chargedat the group of white nationalist demonstrators, had been wholly the presidents own initiative. "That was all himthis wasn't our plan," the official told Zeleny.

In the Trump Tower conference, the president appearedto return to his initial position on the riots, a switch from Saturday, when he called racism evil. Im not putting anybody on a moral plane, Trump said. You had a group on one side and group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs. There is another side, you can call them the left, that came violently attacking the other group. You had people that were very fine people on both sides.

Not all those people were neo-Nazis. Not all those people were white supremacists. Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E Lee."

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Democrats and Republicans Condemn Trump's Remarks After Charlottesville Violence - Newsweek

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Pierce County Democrats repeatedly violated campaign finance laws attorney general The News Tribune The Washington State Attorney General's Office says Pierce County Democrats repeatedly violated state campaign finance laws by failing to properly report thousands of dollars in spending and donations. The attorney general's complaint, filed Monday in ... and more »

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Pierce County Democrats repeatedly violated campaign finance laws attorney general - The News Tribune

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told The Washington Post on Aug. 15 that President Trump "has some level of sympathy" for white supremacists in the wake of his remarks about events in Charlottesville. (The Washington Post)

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) had harsh words for President Trump in a brief interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday.

The Fix spoke with Ellison for a few minutes after a town hall event he held in Minneapolis on Tuesday, just hours after Trump's news conference at Trump Tower in New York. The congressman shared his thoughts on Trump's rhetoric, last weekend's clashes in Charlottesville and what Democrats can do to reach out to voters.Here are his comments, lightly edited.

THE FIX: Can you share your thoughts with us about the violence in Charlottesville over the weekend?

ELLISON: Well, honestly I think you have to put it in context. You know, it happens within the context of a president that is knocking down every check and balance on the presidency.

He's attacking the press, which is one of the elements of our democracy that shines a light on government to hold him accountable. He's pushing through members of the judiciary based on them promising to support certain things, and by escaping the normal rules Supreme Court justices have to follow. He is attacking people like Senator Murkowski because she didn't vote his way. And McCain, where, you know, we used to say that members of Congress should vote their district. Well, according to Trump, you better vote his way, or he's going to use his Twitter feed to attack you. And he has used violence at rallies to encourage his rally participants to hit people.

So in the midst of all this you have this, this hate movement that has always been in the United States but has been dormant, getting energized during the campaign. And now they're openly bringing the fight to folks who are standing up for religious and racial healing and tolerance and inclusion.

And they're also led by some pretty scary folks. I mean this fellow Richard Spencer is an intellectual. I listened to him. His thought is that he wants to make one group of people preeminent above others based on race, and he is organizing this movement. He has a long-term view. And you know, Trump is giving comfort and solace to people like David Duke, Richard Spencer, other people who are promoting this hate-oriented movement.

So look, I mean our country fought hard to come to a point where we tolerate each other. I mean, we had a civil war in which we lost 600,000 people died because one part of our country wanted to own other people, and the other part of the country said, Well we're not going to allow that. And yet here we are today, facing a movement that, if it had its way, it would restore the old order. And these people are openly carrying flags that were borne by Nazis. I mean the Allied powers fought the Nazis because they were trying to promote a master race. Now these people are waving flags with swastikas on them. The enemy. And Confederate flags.

And so my point is, this is happening within a certain context. I have to come to a conclusion, based on all of the behavior I've seen out of Donald Trump, that the reason he is reluctant to denounce white supremacy and neo-Nazis and Klan members is because he has some level of sympathy for them. I can't come to any other conclusion based on the facts that I'm seeing and evaluating, that are in front of me. I mean he is quick as a whip to verbally attack anyone he pleases. When people started jumping offhis manufacturing council, he attacked them immediately. When Mitch McConnell didn't pass the repeal the Affordable Care Act, he attacked him right away. But somehow it takes him two and a half days to denounce neo-Nazis, including Ku Klux Klan people. You can only come to the conclusion that there's something about them that he tolerates and thinks is acceptable. That's my thought.

FIX: These things keep happening not too far from here, in Bloomington, Minnesota, at the mosque.

ELLISON: Well no doubt. I mean you cannot ignore the fact that when the mosque bombing took place, the president of the United States has never commented on that. And the only thing we've heard out of the White House is when Sebastian Gorka, his aide, said it was likely or possibly a false flag operation, meaning that somebody on the inside bombed their own mosque, or some liberals did it, which is an absurd idea.

[American mosques and American Muslims are being targeted for hate like never before]

So the thing is, we live in troubling times. When you cannot count on the leader of the free world to denounce hatred, white supremacy, racial superiority, then who can you count on? This man manages the entire government. And the core function of government is to protect its citizens. He said he will not protect some of its citizens unless they meet certain racial religious criteria. That is deeply disturbing.

FIX: White supremacists used to hide behind hoods now theyre showing their faces and giving interviews. Why do you think they feel so emboldened?

ELLISON: I think the white supremacists are feeling emboldened because they received the signal from the president of the United States that it's all right for them to be active, to be aggressive, to be threatening. They feel greenlighted.

In fact they said after the initial attack that they made, in the killing of Heather Heyer: Hey look, he has not denounced us specifically, he has not specifically criticized us. That's what they put on the Daily Stormer. Now I do read the Daily Stormer. I'm a little disappointed that they've been kicked off Google and other aspects of the Internet, because I like to know what they're up to. But I can tell you this. You know their initial response was that they felt like they were being emboldened.

[Why GoDaddys decision to delist a neo-Nazi site is such a big deal]

But I'll tell you this, I mean, this is not the first time they've come out and been very, very aggressive. They have been holding rallies outside of mosques for the last several years. And the federal government, the FBI, Homeland Security, has issued reports saying these people are getting more aggressive and more violent. But Donald Trump doesn't seem to have a problem. In fact, Donald Trump, you know, seems to be encouraging them.

FIX: Charlottesville seems to have brought people together, at least for the moment how do you keep that sense of unity and common purpose alive in the longer term?

ELLISON:Well let me tell you, I don't think we're going to have any trouble building unity and common purpose, and I just want to say that I am asking every church, every mosque, every synagogue, every temple, every Quaker meeting, every religious gathering, secular people, even if you have no religious affiliation at all, gathered in your neighborhoods, gather in your communities and in your houses of worship, in your clubs and your VFW halls, and talk about what it means to have a tolerant society.

We have fought hard. We went through a civil war, a civil rights movement, a women's rights movement. We have done so much to create a country where we can say liberty and justice for all. We believe that these things, this unity we have, this tolerance we have, is hard fought. We cannot let these people drag us back to the bad old days.

The truth is that we need leaders to stand up. And these are not people who will, maybe they won't ever be on national television, but they will be in their local communities gathering neighbors together to say, You know what? In this church, this mosque, this synagogue, this block, this neighborhood, this VFW hall, we are going to talk about how we as Americans live together. We're going to talk about the contributions of all. We're going to talk about the unity, we're going to talk about how we stay together, how we stick together, and that is what I'm calling on people to do.

I think it is critical that we retie ourselves to that core value of liberty and justice for all, equal protection under the law for all. This is essential, that we do this right now.

FIX: What do Democrats need to do between now and 2018 to have a chance at taking back the house?

ELLISON: The Democrats have got to go into the streets, go into the neighborhoods, go into the communities. We have got to be visible, palpable and present in the lives of Americans. People have got to know that this is not about winning some election. This is about saving our country. This is about and anybody who calls himself a Democrat needs to step up and meet their neighbors, engage them and tell them, this is the time to have a community meeting, a town hall meeting, write a letter to the editor. This is a time to vote. This is a time to vote your values, because representative democracy, tolerance and inclusion, constitutional law is on the line at this moment.

You know, we have a president who is greenlighting the worst elements, not just in America but in the world. And so we've got to do something about it. And so we're calling on people's patriotic commitment to step up and get involved. And we definitely have to vote, and more than vote, we have to build a community that is inclusive, that allows everyone to be who they are, be free without fear of violence or exclusion.

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Rep. Keith Ellison blasts Trump, but says Democrats have a lot of work to do - Washington Post

Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor running for the Democratic nomination in Tuesdays special election primary for U.S. Senate in Alabama, sounds confident he can win in a state that hasnt sent a Democrat to the Senate in over two decades.

The Trump administration has not only galvanized a lot of people out there who are truly opposed to a lot of [his] policies, but its also caused a lot of hesitation and second guessing on the part of a number of people who say, we just really need that backstop, we need the checks and balances, Jones said in an interview. Thats what were seeing.

What Happens When Trump Endorses the Candidate of the Hated Establishment?

Tuesdays primaries will decide which Republican and Democratic candidates face off in Decembers general election to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. If no candidate earns a majority of the vote, the top two vote getters advance to a run-off in September.

Although a majority of Americans disapprove of the president nationwide, in Alabama, the opposite is true. A majority approve of the job Trump is doing. Thats why Republican candidate former Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, who was temporarily appointed to fill the open Senate seat, U.S. Representative Mo Brooks, and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore are trying to one-up each other in proving who is more loyal to the president.

Trumps enduring popularity in the state makes it unlikely that a critical mass of Republicans will peel away from their party to vote for a Democrat in Decembers general election. Thats part of the reason the Alabama Democratic primary has received far less national attention than other races for seats vacated by lawmakers who went on to serve in the Trump administration. Still, special election outcomes are hard to predict, and its not out of the question that the Trump administration could energize Alabama Democrats.

I think its going to be a very interesting test of how deep the Trump opposition runs, said Richard Fording, a political science professor at the University of Alabama. I have to think that the general election will be a low turnout election, and although Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 2-1 in this state, I would guess that Democratic voters are about twice as motivated to vote in this election as the Republicans to protest the Trump presidency. We could see something like we saw in Georgiaa closer than expected result but Republicans winning in the end.

Tuesdays special election primary offers a window into the messages Democrats are testing out in the hopes of gaining ground in a deep red state, even if winning outright isnt an expected outcome.

Jones, who is known for prosecuting members of the Ku Klux Klan for the 1963 bombing of a black baptist church in Birmingham, is viewed as the Democratic front-runner. Thats in part due to institutional advantages like a string of high-profile endorsements from former Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic Representative and civil rights icon John Lewis, and Alabamas only Democratic Representative Terri Sewell. An Emerson College poll earlier this month showed Jones leading in the Democratic primary field with 40 percent of the vote.

In an interview, Jones resisted questions as to whether he considers himself to be liberal, moderate, or conservative. I dont engage in that. I think those labels are completely meaningless these days, he said, telling me he wants to focus on kitchen table issues like healthcare, jobs, and the economy.

His campaign website calls for a living wage, without specifying what the minimum wage should be, and supporting the growth of small and mid-sized business in part by streamlining regulations,a pitch that might appeal to a conservative crowd. He added during the interview, however, that we have got to have more dialogues in this country about race, saying that what happened in Charlottesville [Virginia] has to be a wakeup call for people of conscience, for people to understand we cannot let white supremacy continue to divide us.

The few public polls conducted in the special election show a Democratic candidate named Robert Kennedy Jr. running either in second place to Jones or beating him. AL.com reported that Alabama Democrats were unfamiliar with Kennedy when he entered the race. And despite having no relation to the famous political family, the candidate may be benefitting in polling from the name ID all the same. The Kennedy campaign did not respond to requests for an interview. His website tagline describes him as a former Naval officer and a fiscally responsible Democrat who leads with FAITH.

A handful of other Democratic candidates will compete in Tuesdays primary, despite not having gained much traction in public polls, including Will Boyd, who unsuccessfully challenged Mo Brooks for his House seat in 2016, and Michael Hansen, a candidate who describes himself as a progressive Democrat.

Hansen, who is running as an openly gay candidate, argued in an interview that if Democrats want to regain a foothold in Alabama, the party should stop running to the political center, and not be afraid to support liberal agenda items like universal healthcare and a $15 dollar minimum wage, both of which he backs in his campaign.

I think if we had the guts as progressives to take a stand and talk about Medicare-for-All and how it would improve the system, then we would move the needle quickly, Hansen said. He was unsparing in his assessment of how weak the Democratic Party is in the state. Ill put it this way: Democrats in Alabama are losing badly across the board.

But Hansen worries that Alabama Democrats won't embrace a progressive agenda out of fear they'll face criticism in the red state. He added that he's been surprised at the resistance to his candidacy from the state's established Democratic political network.

"Politics is a lot dirtier than I thought," Hansen said, claiming that he faced pressure from political allies of Doug Jones to drop out of the race. "I like Doug quite a bit, and I think this was without his knowledge," Hansen said, but he added "there was this narrative that it wasn't my turn, and I need to wait my turn." When I asked if he believes the state Democratic Party has remained neutral, Hansen said: "I'll bite my tongue."

For his part, Jones told me weve certainly not been pushing back, against other Democratic candidates in the race. Nancy Worley, the chair of the state Democratic Party, told me that the state party has gone out of its way to be neutral in this primary, adding that shes taken a world of flack, quite frankly, as the chair for not endorsing a candidate.

Still, the accusations hint at the kind of tensions that Democrats across the country are confronting as different factions within the party compete to push their agenda to the front-and-center of national politics.

The Democratic candidate that prevails in the primary could help set the tone for future candidates running on the party ticket in the state. If the general election ends up as a competitive race, that alone would be a remarkable achievement for a party that has long been sidelined in Alabama.

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Alabama Special Election: Democrats Face Off in Primary - The ... - The Atlantic