Mayor Emanuel punishes the Cubs for an anti-Obama ad campaign that never ran
Remember that renovation Wrigley Field was supposed to get- with support from the state of Illinois?
Well, as they say in another large American city, fuhgeddaboudit. Looks like the Ricketts family will have to pay for it out of their own pockets, or else go without.
It seems that Joe Ricketts, the patriarch of the clan that owns the Cubs (one member of which is the only lesbian owner of a major sports franchise in America and ouspoken in support of "gay rights" causes, and thus presumably kosher from da Mare's point of view) briefly considered contributing $10 million to an anti-Obama ad campaign featuring the racist sermons of Mr. Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Ricketts quickly decided against the plan and publicly repudiated the proposed campaign's message. But hey. This is Chicago.
Da Mare won't accept Cub chairman Tom Ricketts' phone calls, and has apparently decided not to act as a go-between with the legislature after all. The mayor's press office, in fact, describes Emanuel as "livid," and says, "The Ricketts have tried to contact the Mayor but he's said that he does not want to talk with them today, tomorrow or anytime soon."
The younger Ricketts has been actively lobbying African-American alderman and appearing on African-American radio stations, but to no avail.
The amazing thing is that Joe Ricketts has absolutely nothing to do with the Cubs. It's his kids who own and run the team. But in a city in which long memories for perceived political slights and slight regard for the First Amendment is a tradition, I doubt that anybody is particularly surprised.
Democratic party politics are always in vogue in Chicago. But democratic values are not- and never have been.
Sadly, there is nothing particularly surprising about this story. But that doesn't change the fact that Mayor Emanuel ought to be ashamed of himself.
ADDENDUM: An hour or so after posting this, I noticed that I had omitted the word "million" from the amount of money Joe Ricketts had considered in vesting in the ad campaign that never was.
It was indeed $10 MILLION, not $10. The principle remains the same, but in all fairness I don't think Rahm Emanuel would be petty enough to throw a snit over ten bucks.
Comments
As a conservative (as opposed to a Paulista), I believe that people should be able to spend their money as they choose. And if they favor giving the Cubs help to renovate Wrigley (which many do), I don't think it's any of your business, frankly.
If I lived in Illinois, I would favor a state constitution that disallowed the legislature from allocating tax money for corporate welfare. Make of that what you will.
Reading this article, it seems the Illinois state legislature could still allocate the funds whenever they want, they just aren't even putting it to a vote at this time. I'm happy on behalf of Illinois taxpayers.
Illinois has no such provision in its constitution, and your theories as to what its constitution should say are neither relevant nor interesting.
Finally, yes, the legislature still does have that right. But in that ivory tower you live in, you don't take into account the political consequences of having a state legislature effectively controlled by a political machine, headed by Mayor Emanuel.