UCDI's Citizen Bulletin for January 29–February 4

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Good morning. Our highlights from this week include: Mayor Rahm Emanuel convinced Shop & Save Market to build a grocery store in South Shore’s Jeffery Plaza in exchange for a tax increment financing subsidy, four years after he promised to replace the Dominick’s grocery store that closed at that location; Representative Bobby Rush boycotted the State of the Union address; President Trump approved the release of a memo containing classified information, over the objections of senior intelligence officials, that sought to discredit the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign.

CHICAGO CITY GOVERNMENT

Alderman Leslie Hairston (5th Ward) ~ call your alderman! (773) 324-5555

• Feb 2—Responded with “cautious optimism” about Shop & Save’s decision to move into Jeffrey Plaza in the South Shore neighborhood; she had been asking Mayor Emanuel to bring a grocery store to the area for four years

Alderman Willie Cochran (20th Ward) ~ call your alderman! (773) 955-5610   

• [No News]*

Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) ~ call your mayor! (312) 744-3300

• Feb 2—Convinced Shop & Save to write a letter of intent to build a grocery store in the South Shore’s Jeffery Plaza in exchange for a tax increment financing subsidy, four years after he promised to replace the Dominick’s grocery store that closed at that location

COOK COUNTY BOARD

President Toni Preckwinkle ~ call your Cook County board president! (312) 603-6400

• Feb 1—Announced that 30 suburban Cook County police departments will be trained to administer opioid overdose antidote Narcan, through a partnership between Cook County and Loyola University
• Feb 1—Stated that an independent property tax assessment survey she commissioned seven months ago is proceeding on schedule, despite claims that the study is a delay tactic to assist Cook County assessor Joe Berrios in the March primary election; independent studies have already found flaws in the assessments

ILLINOIS STATE GOVERNMENT

Representative Barbara Flynn Currie (D–District 25) ~ call your state rep! (773)-667-0550

• Jan 30—Announced that the House Sexual Discrimination and Harassment Task Force she leads will complete a year-end report on deficiencies in the legislature’s harassment response procedures, including recommendations for improvement

Senator Kwame Raoul (D–District 13) ~ call your state senator! (773) 363-1996

• Jan 29—Attended the State of the Union address as a guest of Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly, who invited him in order to highlight the value that immigrants bring to America

Governor Bruce Rauner (R–IL) ~ call your governor! (312)-814-2121

• Jan 31—Delivered the annual State of the State Address, in which he highlighted accomplishments over the past year, called for property tax reform, term limits, income tax cuts, and announced his administration will introduce a balanced budget in February

U.S. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

Representative Bobby Rush (D–IL1) ~ call your representative! (773) 779-2400

• Jan 30—Boycotted Trump’s State of the Union address, condemning the Trump presidency as “built on racism, stupidity, and lies”
• Feb 2—Criticized Trump and the GOP for releasing a memo containing classified information that sought to discredit the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign; Rush also called for action against Russian election interference

Senator Tammy Duckworth (D–IL) ~ call your senator! (312) 886-3506

• Jan 30—Introduced, with Senator Durbin, the Creating American Investment, Redevelopment, and Opportunity (CAIRO) Task Force Act which aims to solve health, economic, and housing problems in Cairo, Illinois
• Jan 30—Brought a high school principal from Cairo, Illinois to the State of the Union address to highlight the negative impact of the Trump administration’s housing policies
• Feb 2—Sponsored a bill to allow “captive insurance companies” into the Federal Home Loan Bank system following their exclusion by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in 2016

Senator Richard Durbin (D–IL) ~ call your senator! (312) 353-4952

• Jan 30—Hosted an undocumented medical student, brought to the U.S. as a child, as a guest for Trump’s State of the Union address
• Jan 30—Urged Congress to address predatory practices of for-profit universities when debating reauthorization of the Higher Education Act

President Donald Trump (R) ~ call your president! (202) 456-1414

• Jan 31—Withdrew Victor Cha as the candidate for U.S. ambassador to South Korea after Cha warned about the consequences of a hypothetical preemptive strike on North Korea; the ambassador position remains vacant
• Feb 2—Approved the release of a memo containing classified information, over the objections of senior intelligence officials, that sought to discredit the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign
• Feb 4—Withdrew his nominee for Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, following controversy over the nominee’s skepticism of climate science

*Our research process involves searching for press releases from the elected representatives, Google News stories, and any Twitter and Facebook posts. If no information is displayed in the Citizen Bulletin, then our research process turned up nothing new from this past week.

The Citizen Bulletin is a product of the University of Chicago Democracy Initiative (UCDI). UCDI is proudly supported by Andrew Goodman Foundation’s nonpartisan Vote Everywhere project. In addition to the UCDI website, you can find past versions of the bulletin here. For news closer to campus, subscribe to the twice weekly newsletter produced by our partners at the Chicago Maroon.

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