By John Dempsey, WLS News
(CHICAGO) Republican Governor Bruce Rauner says he is “very disappointed” in his friend and former vacation partner, Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel, for Emanuel’s response to the police brutality crisis. Rauner spoke on Monday at a public appearance in Oakbrook, saying, “I am very disappointed in the Mayor, and in the State’s Attorney for Cook County, very disappointed. I’m not gonna say more than that right now, because there’s a lot of investigation going on, but I’m very disappointed.”
Emanuel and Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez have faced widespread criticism for their actions in the wake of the release of a video showing white Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, shooting black teenager LaQuan McDonald to death in October of 2014. In the wake of the release of the video, the U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into the Chicago Police Department.
Rauner is not elaborating on specifically why he is disappointed in Alvarez or Emanuel, but during an appearance on “The Big John Howell Show” on WLS AM 890 Tuesday morning, he said Emanuel has not done enough to convince his fellow Democrat, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, of the need to enact Rauner’s pro-business reforms in the State Legislature.
“We’ve asked the Mayor to help publicly and openly to nudge the speaker to bring reforms. We need structural change. The Mayor has been helpful in background, in private, as has President Cullerton from the Senate. They’ve both been willing to come up with helpful ideas, they’ve both been willing to compromise and come up with interesting proposals, but when the speaker pushes back against them or ignores them, they don’t do anything. They just sit passively off in the side.”
Rauner also says as long as Emanuel fails to help lobby Madigan, Chicago cannot count on any help from the State in solving it’s pension crisis in the public school system.
The State is now entering it’s seventh month without a budget, because of the standoff between Rauner and Madigan. Rauner, who has said he would support an income tax increase, told WLS that will only happen if he is able to weaken labor unions and enact other pro-business changes in the State.
“I’m one of the most persistent people on the planet, and I’m just gonna stay strong and stay persistent. What we can’t do, and even the Democrats in the legislature, many of them agree, what we should not do is just pass a massive tax hike on the people of Illinois. Our taxes are already high and if that’s all we do to balance out of control spending in the state, that will chase more employers away, that will increase the cost of living for families.”
@ 2015 WLS News
