Category Archives: Ray LaHood

Bradley University, Ray LaHood

LaHood for President

12 Comments

Ray LaHoodPresident of Bradley University, of course. I’m officially throwing my support behind LaHood’s efforts to get the job.

I understand if Mr. LaHood gets the job, he will resign Congress and a special election would be held to replace him. That sounds like a win-win for everybody.

I’m generally a Republican, but I’ve been disappointed in LaHood for a few reasons. One is his defense of congressional earmarks — a practice I think is corrupt and wastes our tax money. If a project is worthy of federal funding, it should be able to withstand scrutiny as a separate bill or part of a related bill subject to debate. It shouldn’t have to be tacked on secretly. Earmarks grease the wheels for pork-barrel spending.

Another reason I’ve been disappointed is because he’s thwarted efforts to improve transportation in Peoria. He shot down funding for a Chicago-Peoria highway, and he recently spoke disparagingly about plans to try to lure Amtrak back to Peoria. And, of course, he’s been a proponent of mothballing the Kellar Branch rail line and turning it into a hiking/biking trail, even though we need that rail infrastructure to keep businesses in Pioneer Park and lure new businesses to Growth Cell Two.

And then there were his comments during the Mark-Foley/congressional-page scandal. You may remember his solution to the problem was to get rid of the pages. I suppose if there were no pages, there would be no one for Foley to harass, but isn’t that essentially blaming the victims? He also supported Dennis Hastert, then Speaker of the House, who should have taken action against Foley sooner.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Besides, it appears LaHood is more interested in local politics than national affairs, so having him get a local job seems only fitting. He can still lead efforts to oust Election Commissioners, join forces with the Recreational Trail Advocates on the Kellar Branch issue, and try unsuccessfully to broker compromises between the city and the school board. But he would be out of Congress, and that would give Peoria the opportunity to have a representative with better judgment.

Amtrak, City of Peoria, General News, New Urbanism, Ray LaHood

Morning briefing

15 Comments

I’m too busy to do a lot of blogging today, but here are a few comments on the news of the day:

  • West Main Street needs to be narrowed from five lanes to three, the on-street parking restored, and sidewalks widened. That’s the only way to slow traffic on the street. The 30 mph speed limit is a joke — the street is built for speed and people are going to go the speed the road is designed to accommodate. There’s a meeting planned to discuss this issue on Tuesday, May 29, at 6:00 somewhere at Bradley University (exact location TBD).
  • I see the Journal Star caught up with WCBU today by reporting how Ray LaHood has been throwing cold water on the Peoria Amtrak plan. LaHood’s comments are devoid of logic. He thinks no one will take a train to Chicago from Peoria unless it can get there quicker than driving, but on the other hand he thinks people will take a bus to Normal or Galesburg and take a train to Chicago from one of those stations. Who’s whispering in LaHood’s ear to try to sabotage this effort? Auto makers? Oil companies?
  • Now that’s what I call a “happy meal.”
  • Whenever I try to go to WMBD radio’s website, it crashes my Firefox browser. However, it works in Internet Explorer. It’s really annoying.

Feel free to discuss anything else you want. This is an open thread.

Amtrak, City of Peoria, Ray LaHood

Ray LaHood pooh-poohs Peoria Amtrak plan

26 Comments

Ray LaHoodThis morning as I listened to WCBU’s news broadcast, I was shocked to hear Ray LaHood say that Amtrak is never going to come to Peoria and we should be satisfied with bus service to Galesburg and/or Bloomington to connect with Amtrak there.

First of all, IDOT hasn’t even done a feasibility study on the proposed Amtrak route to Peoria yet. Why is LaHood prejudging the outcome of that study? There are a lot of people working on getting Amtrak back to Peoria because they believe it will be good for the economy, for college students, for tourism, and of course for transportation options for Peoria residents.

Secondly, this is the second time that LaHood has tried to sabotage local transportation plans. LaHood torpedoed attempts to build a Chicago-Peoria interstate highway, suggesting widening Route 29 instead. Now he’s trying to undermine the efforts of local officials to bring passenger train service back to Peoria.

LaHood has supported upgrading existing transportation facilities, such as I-74 and the airport terminal and runways, but he apparently doesn’t support adding more transportation options that could benefit Peoria. Why is LaHood holding Peoria back? Why does Ray think Peoria doesn’t deserve better?

Update: I talked to Jonathan Ahl tonight at the city council meeting and discovered that he had posted about this topic and I missed it. My apologies. You’ll want to read Jonathan’s take on it since he’s the one who interviewed LaHood.

City Council, City of Peoria, Elections, Ray LaHood

Dan Irving picks up high-profile endorsements

12 Comments

Dan IrvingCity Council candidate Dan Irving held a press conference today to announce several endorsements of his campaign. Announcing their endorsements in person were Congressman Ray LaHood, Mayor Jim Ardis, and fifth-district councilman Patrick Nichting. Also announcing endorsements but unable to attend the news conference were third-district councilman Bob Manning and fourth-district councilman Bill Spears.

Congressman LaHood took advantage of early voting and cast his ballot this morning at 9:30. He said he was giving his support because of Irving’s business experience, involvement in the community, and his perspective as part of the “younger generation.” Ray said he was endorsing candidates for city council because he lives in Peoria, pays taxes in Peoria, and thus he cares about what happens in Peoria. LaHood disclosed that he also voted for George Jacob, Ryan Spain, Gale Thetford, and Eric Turner. LaHood voted early because he will be returning to Washington this weekend.

Mayor Ardis feels that Dan has a good background on the issues the city is facing and that he will be a good addition to the “team.” Ardis specifically mentioned that he agreed with Irving’s platform on the issues of crime (supports saturation patrols, surveillance cameras), strengthening neighborhoods, and promoting economic development. Ardis also endorses George Jacob, Ryan Spain, and Eric Turner.

Councilman Nichting believes that Irving has strong leadership skills that will “progress Peoria forward,” and generally agreed with the mayor’s reasons for endorsing him. Nichting also endorses George Jacob and Eric Turner.

Ray LaHood

LaHood doesn’t want to make it too easy to form a union

8 Comments

Ray LaHoodEarlier this month, Ray LaHood voted against the Employee Free Choice Act (which passed the House anyway, 241-185), H.R. 1696 H.R. 800, which would make it easier to form a union. Here’s a good explanation from a blog called The Chicagoist:

In a nutshell, the current process of administrative rules and labor laws require at least 30% of workers to sign union cards indicating that they want to have a union, petition the government for an election, and then go through a campaign before getting to vote to have a union or not. […]

The Employee Free Choice Act changes the rules regarding union representation, granting union recognition by signing up a simple majority of workers on union cards, eliminating the petition process. Furthermore, this bill creates meaningful consequences when employers violate employee rights to organize and provides for mediation and arbitration in first contract negotiations.

LaHood voted against it, telling the Pekin Times he felt it would “take away the opportunity of the worker to participate and have their voice heard through the ballot.” Wikipedia further explains why he may feel that way:

Critics contend union administered elections, with a lack of Federal oversight, will lead to coercion on the part of union organizers. Opponents of the EFCA also assert that the measure would not protect employee privacy [i.e., there is nothing requiring a secret ballot].

Thank goodness we have Ray LaHood in Congress to protect workers from those horrible unions! I mean, the current system is so much better, isn’t it, with all its protective red tape and long delays? I suppose that’s one way to fix the trade deficit — if we can get rid of the unions, then American workers can start competing for the low wages corporations are paying to workers oversees.

Meanwhile, staunch defender of the democratic process LaHood continues to defend the decidedly un-democratic federal earmark process.

Ray LaHood

Quick poll: Who thinks LaHood has “influence”?

5 Comments

Ray LaHoodThis news happened while I was on hiatus: WHOI reported last December on a group of people who were outside Congressman Ray LaHood’s Peoria office “holding signs stating he is spending too much on local issues.” Wow! I’ve only heard about this event from WHOI — was it covered by any other media outlets?

Anyway, the news reporters decided to try to find out why LaHood was getting so local all of a sudden. One political science professor thought it was LaHood’s way of trying to “stay in touch” with his constituents. But the most interesting quote was from LaHood himself:

“People look at me as somebody that has influence and if my office and my position can influence things in a positive way in the community, I want to be a part of that.” LaHood said.

LaHood has influence? Let’s recap his success in influencing things in a positive way: He tried to play mediator in the rails-to-trails issue to no avail; he tried to play mediator in the Glen Oak School siting issue to no avail; he’s trying to get two election commissioners thrown off the commission — the results of this latest one are yet to be determined. So far, he’s batting .000.

Is this an indication of the kind of “influence” he has in Washington?

Board of Election Commissioners, Ray LaHood

Mitzelfelt firing draws LaHood’s ire

1 Comment

Rep. Ray LaHood wants Mary Harkrader and Camille Gibson booted off the Peoria City Election Commission for firing Executive Director Jeanette Mitzelfelt, the Journal Star reports. Whether or not they deserve to be ousted is a separate issue I’m not prepared to debate at this time. But I do think the situation is filled with irony.

One of the big reasons touted for why the city election commission is supposedly superior to the way the county clerk oversees elections is that the city election commission is bi-partisan and, thus, supposedly not as susceptible to political interference. But the charge now is that the commissioners acted on political motivations in firing Mitzelfelt. “The Peoria Board of Election Commissioners has never experienced a failure of the public’s trust,” the Election Commission’s website proudly states. Guess they’ll have to change that copy.

But getting back to LaHood. He’s quoted in the Journal Star as saying, “This is the most outrageous political move I’ve seen in a long, long time…. This is absolutely pure politics.” Well, Ray knows a little something about playing politics. Just a couple of months ago, he participated in retaliation against the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee’s deliberate leak of a classified document, then bragged about it to Fox News saying, “If the ranking member wants to play politics, there are some of us on the other side that can play politics, and I’m not afraid to do it.” Now he’s got his sites set on Harkrader and Gibson.

Is retaliation becoming a pattern for Ray?

Ray LaHood, State Legislation, State of Illinois

LaHood remark ignores gerrymandering

6 Comments

Rep. Ray LaHood was on 1470 WMBD-AM this morning explaining and defending his position in support of House Speaker Dennis Hastert and in favor of reforming the page system. Most of that conversation was nothing new, but one passing remark LaHood made really irritated me. I don’t have an exact quote, but it was pretty close to this: “If my constituents feel I’m doing a bad job, there’s a referendum coming up in 32 days [Nov. 7] and they can vote me out of office.”

To a certain extent, that’s true. If he really ticked off enough people, they probably would kick him out of office. But the problem is that our congressional districts are drawn in such a way that instead of the voters choosing the representatives, the representatives choose their voters. It’s called gerrymandering, and it looks like this:

IL Congressional Districts

Notice especially the 17th district (in purple) along the western border of the state. Have you ever seen anything so ridiculous? It’s so egregious, The Economist recognized it as “the champion gerrymandering” of the whole country. It essentially takes Democratic voters out of the 18th district and puts them in the 17th district, helping the 17th district stay Democratic and the 18th district stay Republican. Lane Evans represents the 17th district; LaHood represents the 18th district.

In fairness, Evans and LaHood aren’t personally responsible for this inequity; they’re only the beneficiaries. The congressional districts are drawn (or, more accurately, manipulated) at the state level. But there is state legislation proposed that would change the way districts are drawn.

House Bill 3699, “The Legislative and Congressional Redistricting Act,” was proposed on March 10, 2005, by Republican Lee Daniels and would set up a redistricting plan similar to Iowa’s redistricting process, “where the non-partisan Legislative Research Unit draws the maps and writes the legislation with the advice of a 5-member appointed commission” (FairVote.org, the source of this explanation of the bill, has a wealth of information on gerrymandering in general, and Illinois’ pending legislation in particular).

I called Schock’s office to find out his views on this legislation, but was unable to get an immediate answer. Since the legislation was referred to the Rules Committee immediately after it was introduced, there hasn’t been any floor debate on it yet. It’s likely that he’s in favor of a fairer redistricting process, although he probably won’t be able to comment on HB3699 specifically.

If we want to see real accountability to the voters in this state, the gerrymandering has to stop. We should be writing to our representatives and demanding redistricting reform.

UPDATE: I received a call back from Rep. Schock’s office and he has expressed support for HB3699 or a similar bill that would reform the state’s redistricting process. HB3699 was referred to the Rules Committee by Speaker of the House Mike Madigan, and according to Schock’s office, Madigan is the one who has the power to bring it out of committee. It’s been in the Rules Committee since March 2005.

Well, then I called Rep. Daniels’ office (Elmhurst, IL) to find out some more information about the status of the bill. His office confirmed that Speaker Madigan had referred it to the Rules Committee and that the bill is dead. Since Daniels is retiring this year, he won’t be back next legislative session to reintroduce the bill. So, it needs a new sponsor.

I called Rep. Schock’s office to request that he (should he be reelected) sponsor this or similar legislation. (I say “similar legislation” because I’m not tied to Daniels’ particular plan; there’s more than one way to reform the process. The important thing is to ensure the redistricting process is indeed reformed so that regions, not political loyalties, are represented.) His staff will confer with him on it and let me know. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Ray LaHood

LaHood loses marbles

17 Comments

Ray LaHoodFrom the Associated Press via ABC News:

LaHood said Wednesday he was standing by Hastert and predicted his fellow House Republicans would, too. It’s not the speaker who should go, LaHood said, but the “antiquated” page system that brings 15- and 16-year-olds to the Capitol and has resulted in scandals in the past.

“Some members betray their trust by taking advantage of them. We should not subject young men and women to this kind of activity, this kind of vulnerability,” LaHood said in a CNN interview. He said the program should be suspended, at least until its flaws can be corrected.

Isn’t that like saying, “Johnson up on the fourth floor is a sexual pervert; he does nothing but sexually harrass the young women who work here. Obviously the only course of action is to fire the young women he’s been harrassing — for their protection”?

As far as I’m concerned, LaHood has completely lost his marbles. There’s nothing antiquated about the page system. It’s a simple co-op program similar to the kind a lot of businesses provide to give high school and college students some job experience.

The problem is with the perverts in Congress, and the leaders who cover for them. If LaHood really wants to be visionary in solving the problem, he should advocate suspending Congress “until its flaws can be corrected.”

This is a no-brainer, folks. Condemn Foley, work on passing real ethics reform, and shut up. Instead, LaHood has chosen to defend Hastert, work on abolishing the victims, and talk about it on national TV. What a disgrace and an embarrassment to his congressional district.

General News, Ray LaHood

I suppose I should have known this….

3 Comments

Emile LahoudRay LaHoodI was reading this article in the Jerusalem Post and it appears that Ray LaHood “is a distant relative of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.” I’m guessing that’s common knowledge around here, but I didn’t realize it. It wasn’t mentioned in the Journal Star’s recent story about LaHood’s trip to the Middle East, and I couldn’t find mention of it in the Journal Star’s archives, but I didn’t do an exhaustive search either. I suppose it’s not a big deal, depending on how “distant” a relative he is. Still, it’s interesting to know.

Also interesting is LaHood’s report of his meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, compared to the Jerusalem Post’s report. From the Journal Star’s article:

“We had a very frank discussion with her [Livni],” LaHood said. “We brought up the blockade and her point – and it’s a good point – is you can’t dispute the fact that Israel is surrounded by Arab countries that want to do them in, like Iran and Syria.”

“They feel like Lebanon can be a good friend and a good partner,” LaHood said, but Israel wants to be assured that Hezbollah will not be rearmed and continue to pose a threat.

The Jerusalem Post article states:

Livni […] told representatives Ray LaHood (R-IL), Charles Boustany (R-LA) and Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) that Israel would not make any gestures toward Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.

According to officials in Livni’s office, the three congressmen came to Israel after meeting Saniora in Lebanon with a message that the blockade should be lifted for humanitarian reasons. LaHood is a distant relative of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud.

Livni’s reply was that Israel’s “pockets were empty” of gestures until UN Security Council Resolution 1701 is implemented. She said that if Saniora wanted to improve the situation, he should do everything within his power to work for the release of kidnapped IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev and enforce the arms embargo against Hizbullah.

At first glance, they’re pretty similar. But it’s worth noting that Israel is not only asking for Hezbollah not to be rearmed (that is, to get new arms shipments), but for Hezbollah to be disarmed. Israel wants UN Security Council Resolution 1701 fully implemented, which includes this provision (emphasis mine):

[The UN] Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:
[…]
— full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of 27 July 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State;

Resolutions 1559 and 1680 specifically call for the disbandment and disarmament of “all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias,” which would include Hezbollah.

Livni also mentioned that it would be a good thing if those kidnapped Israeli soldiers were returned, since that’s part of what triggered the escalation. LaHood didn’t mention that, either.

Nevertheless, it looks like LaHood is going to get his wish tomorrow. CNN reports that “Israel will lift its sea and air blockade of Lebanon on Thursday evening, the Israeli government announced Wednesday.” In accord with Resolution 1701, international forces are taking over for Israeli forces, hence the step down from a full blockade on Lebanon.