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The moment state Rep. Steve Andersson, R-Geneva, picked up the Tribune last Friday and saw the now-famous photo running from edge to edge across the front page, he figured he'll be seeing it again. And again. And again.

The image, captured by Justin L. Fowler of The State Journal-Register and reprinted by media outlets all over the state, shows Andersson shaking hands with Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan. Madigan is simultaneously clasping Andersson's right elbow with his left hand, one of those lightly intimate gestures that suggests more than an obligatory greeting.

The lawmakers were on the floor of the House of Representatives in Springfield. Andersson had just voted, along with nine other Republicans, to join 62 Democrats in overriding Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto of a budget bill that included increases in the state's personal and corporate income tax rates.

Andersson said he'd stopped on his way off the floor to chat with Rep. David Harris of Arlington Heights, another Republican defector, also in the photo, when Harris suggested he turn around. There was the speaker, his hand outstretched.

To further set the stage: Andersson, 52, began serving as a Republican precinct committeeman when he was a college undergraduate, and has been loyal to the party ever since. His voting record in the General Assembly has earned him an 86 percent lifetime approval rating from the American Conservative Union and he seldom agrees with Madigan politically.

Madigan, 75, is the archvillain in every Republican narrative about the state's dreadful finances. The party portrays him as the corrupt insider and cruel despot who for decades has hoodwinked leaders from both parties into agreeing to let him run Illinois into the ground for his own dark purposes.

For a Republican to be seen, much less photographed, having a chummy moment with Madigan is highly risky. Think of the all the grief that New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie took for embracing President Barack Obama when Obama came to survey storm damage in Jersey in 2011. Then double it.

Andersson didn't hesitate. "When someone offers his hand to me, I'm going to shake it," he said. "I'm not the kind of person to turn away."

They had a very brief conversation Andersson estimates it lasted 10 seconds in which they expressed mutual gratitude for the passage of the first full-year budget since 2014. Madigan's spokesman Steve Brown confirmed the outlines of Andersson's account.

Andersson, who moved up from the Geneva Library District Board to the General Assembly in 2015, was unopposed in both the primary and general elections when he ran for a second term last year. In January his colleagues elevated him to the position of House GOP floor leader.

But Monday, House GOP leader Jim Durkin asked for and received Andersson's resignation from that position. And Andersson said he fully expects to receive a primary challenge from the right in 2018, one that prominently features the photo of him shaking hands with Madigan on mailers and billboards and in web ads.

"They'll play it as evidence that I sold out," said Andersson. "But I didn't. It was the hardest vote I've ever taken, but I took it to protect my district and save my state."

Andersson said that earlier in the budget standoff between Rauner and Democrats, most constituents he heard from in his far west suburban district encouraged him to stand firmly with Rauner, who was refusing to negotiate a new taxing and spending plan until the Democrats agreed to pro-business legislative changes.

But as the stalemate dragged on and the increasingly disastrous effects of operating without a budget became clear, Andersson said sentiment shifted. At a mid-June town hall meeting he heard no support for a radical, spending-cuts-only budget or for continuing to operate without a budget, he said, and grudging acknowledgment, even from "superconservatives in the room," that bringing tax rates back nearly to where they were in 2014 was necessary to prevent a full-on meltdown of state finances.

"They told me they want me to keep fighting for reform, but they want a budget now," he said.

The House and Senate passed a budget bill that included many elements of the so-called Capitol Compromise, a Republican plan with tax rates Rauner had agreed to and spending cuts at least as deep as Rauner had proposed. But Rauner vetoed the plan because, he said, it didn't contain enough "reform."

Andersson announced he would join most Democrats in the vote to override. And my theory that Rauner secretly wanted the budget deal enacted so the state would stay afloat and he could also blame Madigan for the tax increases is supported by Andersson's report that Rauner's only effort to get him to support the veto was a brief and bland voicemail message delivered the morning of last Thursday's override.

He's taken considerable heat for both his vote and the photo taken in its immediate aftermath it was pouring in through social media and on his office and personal phone lines. He was called a traitor, a devil, a fool, a dupe and many names he would not repeat. He received a death threat serious enough that he referred it to the Illinois State Police.

But he has no regrets.

"I voted for what I believe are Republican values," he said. "We don't stiff our vendors. We provide our businesses with stability and predictability. We don't let our state collapse."

I asked how he thought history will judge him.

"History will forget me," he said. "But I did the right thing."

ericzorn@gmail.com

Twitter @EricZorn

Continued here:
Rep. Andersson sticks up for 'Republican values' by bucking GOP governor - Chicago Tribune

The delay on passing a health care bill is one reason Republican lawmakers from both houses of Congress are asking to stay at work this summer. In less than 15 legislative days, lawmakers are scheduled to leave town for the entire month of August.

In their home districts, they will likely face angry constituents frustrated Congress has so far not passed any major pieces of legislation, especially health care.

The congressional August recess goes back to a time before air conditioning when spending time in Washington during the summer was painful. But some lawmakers are starting worry about the heat they'll get when they head home for August if they haven't fulfilled some major promises, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

The calls for a congressional scheduling change are getting louder. Georgia Sen. David Perdue is one of many Republicans pushing to do away with the annual five-week break.

"I can tell you what: if you did a vote out there in the real world, they would vote for us to stay here and get their work done," Perdue told CBS News.

In a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Perdue and nine colleagues point out there are only 31 working days until the end of the fiscal year and lots of work to do, including passing a health care bill, tax reform, funding the government and handling the debt limit.

"The gridlock is not understood by people back home, nor is it going to be tolerated," Perdue said.

Perdue is not the only Republican speaking out.

"We should be locked on the House floor until we get some things done," Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher said.

"I'm ready to work through August," Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said.

"We cannot be taking a vacation or a break in August if we haven't done the people's work," Alabama Sen. Luther Strange said on Fox News.

Maine's Republican Sen. Susan Collins has served in Congress for more than two decades.

"Why does Congress go home so often and for such a long period of time?" Cordes asked her.

"We learn so much when we do go home. It gives us the chance to spend extended periods of time with our constituents," Collins responded.

Congress is actually on track to spend more days in session this year than the 20-year average, as Republican leaders try to make the most of their control of Congress and the White House.

"Look, if time were the only consideration, absolutely staying through August would make sense," congressional scholar Norm Ornstein said. But he said so far, Republicans don't have much to show for the extra workdays.

"They don't have a consensus of the votes and they refuse to try and broaden that base to find consensus by bringing in Democrats," Ornstein said.

Any changes to the congressional calendar would need approval by leadership of both sides, and Democrats aren't eager to give Republicans more time to try to enact their agenda.

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Republican lawmakers' calls for doing away with August recess grow louder - CBS News

America's colleges are harming the country, the majority ofRepublicans now say. It'sastrong downward slide inpublic opinion that, some experts fear, could exacerbate growing divides among Americans and lead to higher levels of student debt.

Theconclusion, from a Monday reportby the Pew Research Center in Washington, based on a June survey of 2,504 adults, reflects a reversal from just two years ago, when 54 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning Americans said colleges and universities had a positive impact on the way things were going in the country. Now, 58 percent say the opposite: thathigher education institutions are having a negative impact on the U.S.In 2015, only 37 percent of Republicans said that.

It's first time a majority of Republicans has said colleges are hurting the U.S. since Pew began askingthe question in 2010. Just 36 percent of Republicans say colleges are benefiting the country.

These findings come asprotestsandfree speechdebates have been roiling campuses nationwide over the past few years, sparking criticism from Republicans inCongress and President Donald Trump, who earlier this yearthreatened to strip one university of its federal funding.

Donald Moynihan, a professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he worries that Republican-dominated legislatures could act on their low regard for public colleges and universities by slashing their funding, resulting in tuition increases that would swell levels of student debt already at record levels.

The nation's roughly7,000colleges rely on electedofficials at all levels of government for assorted subsidies, loans, grants and preferential tax treatment that allow some of them to amass billion-dollar endowmentswhile their students borrow to make ends meet. Republicans control most state legislatures, governorships, both houses of Congress and the White House, though Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has focused much of her first five months in office on making life easier for the nation's colleges by eliminating "burdensome" rules developed by the Obama administration.

Pew spokeswoman Bridget Johnsonsaid the report's authors couldn't speculate on why Republicans' views had shifted so dramatically in just two years. But Moynihanpointed to a steady diet of headlines making hay of controversies such as protests against campus speakers. "This is a consequence of cultural and political messaging,"hesaid.

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The negative sentiment among Republicans is widely shared across various income, educationand age groupseven 63 percent of Republican bachelor's degree holders say colleges are having an adverse impactwith just threeexceptions: Fewerthan half of Republicansaged18 to 29, those whose family incomeis less than $30,000, and those who identify as moderate or liberal members of the GOP felt thathigher education institutionsare damaging the country.

"There's no way to sugarcoat it.Its just very disappointing and worrisome," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the Washington-based American Council on Education, a higher-education trade group.

In contrast to Republicans, the vast majority of Democrats say colleges are helping the U.S. The share of Democrats who have a favorable view of colleges, 72 percent, has increased from 65 percent in 2010. Fewer than one in five Democrats, or 19 percent, have a negative view of colleges and universities.

But even that bright spot masks challenges facing the nation's colleges. Years of tuition hikes, dismal graduation rates, skyrocketing student debtand slow wage increases for graduates have generated persistent questions about the value of college.

"Forget about Republicans versus Democrats: It's a growing backlash against higher education," saidBrandon Busteed, executive director of education and workforce development at Gallup, the polling organization.

The partisan divide on colleges also reflects increasing polarization in America, experts said, where members of the two main political partiesoftenhave starkly different views on everything from climate change to how far apart they want to live from their neighbors. That probably won't change anytime soon, saidHartle, thehigher education sector lobbyist.

As a result, Busteed warned, Republicans could increasingly choose to attend schools that are perceived as Republican, creating a cycle that'll lead only to greater levels of polarization, as conservatives and liberals segregate themselves from Americans with different political leanings.

"We've always thought ofhigher education as the place to broaden your horizons and interact with folks from different backgrounds. If college can't be that place, then where else?" askedBusteed.

Colleges are now viewed so unfavorably on the right that more Republicans say banksare having a positive impact on the country than are colleges, a first since at least 2010. "It makes for depressing reading,"Moynihan said.

View original post here:
Most Republicans Say Colleges Hurt America - Bloomberg

With the Republican health care bill facing an uncertain fate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine Monday highlighted the potential impacts to children with complex medical conditions who rely on Medicaid an effort to shame the GOP into compromise while boosting Democratic prospects in the upcoming statewide elections.

Its important that we share stories about what Medicaid really does, Kaine (D) said before convening a roundtable discussion with parents and health care providers of children with disabilities inside Northern Virginia Community Colleges Medical Education campus. For many, Medicaid is about enabling them to live more independently, enabling them to be more successful in school.

The event was one in a string of appearances by Democrats around the country in recent weeks as they seek to rally opposition to Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with legislation that, among other things, would phase out extra funds provided by the federal government as an incentive to expand eligibility for Medicaid.

The Republican Better Care Reconciliation Act would also wipe out the system of open-ended entitlements under Medicaid by putting the program on a budget.

In Virginia, Kaine has campaigned against the bill through public meetings that underscored the potential impacts to seniors, public school children, foster kids and others among an estimated 1 million Virginians who rely on Medicaid.

His office says that more than 11,000 people have called during the past three weeks to urge the former Democratic candidate for vice president to fight harder to defeat the Republican health care plan.

More broadly, a recent Quinnipiac University poll pegged President Trumps approval rating in Virginia at 40 percent and found that nearly six in 10 Virginians disapproved of House Republicans health-care bill.

That may reflect a larger backlash against Republicans in the state that could help Democrat Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam beat Republican Ed Gillespie during Novembers gubernatorial election, political analysts say.

Gillespie, aware of the more moderate views in his state, has avoided taking a firm stance on the Republican health care plan, arguing that he is focused on state policies as a gubernatorial candidate and would match state policies to whatever the federal policy is.

Quentin Kidd, director of Christopher Newport Universitys Wason Center for Public Policy, said Northam and his supporters will nonetheless try to link Gillespie to the health care plan as much as possible.

They want voters to think about this issue in the context of a national referendum on Trump and Republicans, said Quentin Kidd, director of Christopher Newport Universitys Wason Center for Public Policy. If that offensive could take hold at the gubernatorial level, it would be natural that it would also roll down to the state house levels.

In addition to governor, lieutenant governor and state attorney general, all 100 House of Delegates seats are up for grabs in November.

At Mondays roundtable, the parents and pediatricians there said they were more concerned about how the health care bill would affect their ability to provide care to children dealing with an array of health problems.

Though Republican Senators returned from their holiday break seeming deeply divided over several aspects of the legislation, the roundtable participants said they arent convinced the bill is on its way to dying.

It should be dead, but I dont think we can say that it is, Kaine warned.

To the participants in the roundtable discussion, that means tens of thousands of dollars per year in Medicaid support is still on the line.

Several said the federal subsidy has helped pay for feeding tubes, wheel chairs, surgeries and in-home nurses aid for people with disabilities that is already in short supply in Virginia, with more than 11,000 people on a state waiting list for Medicaid vouchers.

These costs are going to be so high, worried Corinne Kunkel, whose son Dylan, 5, was born with a condition known as Spinal Muscular Atrophy with Respiratory Distress and receives a Medicaid waiver to help pay for a ventilator that allows him to breathe.

Its not like were asking for handouts, added Jennifer Reese, whose daughter Cailyn, 9, was born with a genetic seizure disorder and receives help from Medicaid for her treatment, including diapers that run $350 per box.

This is all stuff we need, said Reese, a director at the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, an advocacy group for people with disabilities. If we didnt have Medicaid we definitely wouldnt still own our house and I probably wouldnt have been able to keep working.

Dr. Samuel Bartle, an assistant professor at the Childrens Hospital of Richmond at VCU, predicted more families without insurance will turn to emergency rooms as a primary source of care.

Ive seen them come in at 2 a.m., where they come in and say: `I cant get an appointment because no one will take me, he said. We end up having to hospitalize them just to provide a certain service. Having Medicaid cut is going to put a bigger strain.

Nodding his head, Kaine said those dark scenarios have been mostly absent from discussion on Capitol Hill because the Republican leadership in the Senate crafted the legislation largely behind closed doors.

Weve had no hearings, said Kaine, who sits on the Senates Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Were ready to talk and to try to find the improvements but were being given no opporunity to.

Over the long term, that will prove to be politically damaging for Republicans on both the national level and in Virginia, he predicted.

When you have a guy running for governor like Ralph Northam, who has spent his life as a pediatrician, youre gonna hear an awful lot about health care in this governors race, he said. And, that is on peoples minds.

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Va. Sen. Kaine lobbies against Republican health care plan on both national and state political fronts - Washington Post

Forget questions about the Trumpsa Tennessee politician has been lavishing the funds from his campaign coffers on family members long before the first family moved into the White House.

Rep. Jimmy Duncan Jr., a Republican congressman who represents Knoxville, has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign money into his family members and their businesses since at least 2013, campaign finance filings first reported by the Knoxville News-Sentinel reveal. The payments included hundreds of thousands to an apparently non-existent company registered to Duncans son, who previously pleaded guilty to a felony relating to the alleged misappropriation of government funds.

The Duncans are a Tennessee political dynasty. Patriarch John Duncan Sr. first took local office in 1959, when he won a special election to replace Knoxvilles deceased mayor. In 1965, Duncan Sr. made the leap to Congress, representing Tennessees second district until his death in 1988. His son, Duncan Jr. won a special election to replace him, and has held the congressional seat with virtually no opposition for nearly three decades. Duncan Jr.s sister, Becky Duncan Massey, is a member of the Tennessee Senate representing Knoxville and its surrounding county.

Duncan Jr.s son, John Duncan III, has also been viewed as a political up-and-comer. He was elected Knox County Trustee in 2010. The election was an easy victory for Duncan III, who ran unopposed in the general election, and whose only primary opponent dropped out before the vote.

But shortly after taking office in September 2010, Duncan III allegedly ordered tens of thousands of dollars in bonuses for himself and other employees. The bonuses were purportedly for completing a training program, prosecutor Bill Bright alleged at the time. But seven of the bonus recipients, including Duncan III, allegedly never completed the training. When the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation became involved with the case, Duncan III allegedly told investigators that he hadnt known he wasnt allowed to award bonuses for the incomplete training. Three employees claimed otherwise, telling investigators that they had warned Duncan III against the payouts.

On July 2, 2013, Duncan III pleaded guilty to felony official misconduct on the case, and resigned from office without a jury trial. Thirteen days later, he was back on another politicians payroll: his fathers.

On July 15, Duncan Jr.s re-election campaign paid Duncan III $3,000, according to Federal Election Commission campaign records. The payments recurred every other week until Nov. 1, when records show the biweekly payments shifted to American Public Strategies. The company was registered on a county level to John J. Duncan less than a month earlier. While both Duncans share the name and middle initial, American Public Strategies was registered to the younger Duncans home address.

Payments to American Public Strategies soon increased to $3,500 every other week, and have remained at that rate ever since, FEC filings show. But while American Public Strategies was earning a steady $7,000 a month, its legal standing appeared less stable. Tennessee has no records of American Public Strategies ever being registered with the state, and the companys county registration (which would have expired within a year, the Nashville Post notes) was never renewed after its 2013 creation.

The $7,000 monthly paychecks raise questions about Duncan Jr.'s compliance with FEC rules, Brendan Fischer, a staff attorney for the Campaign Legal Center said.

"FEC rules specifically say if youre going to pay a family member for work for the campaign, the family member has to be providing bona fide services, and the amount paid has to be commensurate with the fair market value of the services provided," Fischer told The Daily Beast. "For a congressional candidate in a non-competitive district in Tennessee, it appears the payments to John Duncan III are exceptionally high for the services hes providing.

"Particularly in a non-election year, its difficult to see how theres a need to pay someone $7,000 a month to engage in campaign activities."

Duncan III did not return The Daily Beasts request for comment on the companys registration status. Between the payments to American Public Strategies, and the seven initial payments directly to him, Duncan III has made just short of $300,000 from his fathers campaign. His salary, which hit $84,000 in 2016, is greater than those of all but two of Duncan Jr.s staffers: the representatives chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, both of whom have worked in Congress since 2009, according to public records.

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In a statement to the News-Sentinel, Duncan III sent a text message, which he attributed to his father.

Every expenditure from my campaign has been done according to law and in compliance with all pertinent regulations of the Federal Election Commission, the statement, attributed to Duncan Jr., read. In the last four years, I have paid my son, John, who has been in charge of my entire political operation doing everything from putting up yard signs and answering campaign calls to conducting polls, giving speeches, and raising funds. He was paid far less than many campaign managers and consultants while doing many things that they would not do.

But Duncan III is not the only family member on the congressmans payroll.

Beginning in 2013, Duncan Jr.s campaign began paying a monthly $600 to Sage Investment Group, according to FEC filings. The monthly payments, which continue to this day, are labeled campaign office: rent expense. They appear to be the first time Duncan Jr.s campaign ever listed office space in its FEC filings. The Nashville Post reports that Sage Investment shares a P.O. box with the company JMB Investment LLC, where Duncan Jr.s son-in-law is one of four partners. That son-in-law has received $350 each month from Duncan Jr.s campaign since 2011, FEC filings show.

The campaign also shelled out three payments worth a combined $9,100 to Duncan Jr.s other son, Zane, although he did not receive a regular salary, FEC filings show. At the time of two of those payments Zane Duncan and his wife were running Road to Victory PAC, Duncan Jr.s political action committee. In every two-year election cycle since 2011, the couple has received $15,000 annually from the PACmore than it donated in any politician during those cycles. During the 2011-2012 cycle, the PAC only donated to two candidates: $1,000 to a California candidate, and $2,000 to Duncan Jr.s sister, Becky Duncan Massey, who won her local Tennessee Senate seat that year.

The campaign has also reportedly paid a monthly $750 to Duncan Masseys daughter, a Texas-based gymnastics teacher in charge of the campaigns bookkeeping.

"This is all for a congressperson in a noncompetitive district who has not faced a serious challenger for many years," Fischer said. "There does appear to be a pattern of payments to family members that raises the question of whether Congressman Duncan is illegally converting campaign funds to personal use."

See original here:
Republican Congressman Jimmy Duncan's Campaign Paid His Son Nearly $300000 - Daily Beast