Progress Illinois

The Obama administration's Making Home Affordable loan modification program has stumbled out of the gate. Through July, only 160,000 homes went into trial modifications, according to the Government Accountability Office. (The Obama administration pegged the number a bit higher at 235,250, but the number of successful modifications is undoubtedly lower than that.) Meanwhile, foreclosures keep stacking up. In Illinois alone, 13,000 homeowners received a foreclosure notice last month. And the economic devastation is focused in communities least able to recover. A new paper by the Woodstock Institute found that vacant, lender-owned properties "are concentrated in African American communities, go unsold longer, and incur greater losses to the lender." Clearly, more action is required to protect vulnerable homeowners and the communities in which they live.

Enter Sen. Dick Durbin and three of his Senate colleagues. Yesterday, they introduced a bill titled the "Preserving Homes and Communities Act of 2009" that would expand federal loan-modification programs to more borrowers and crack down on lenders eager to foreclose on delinquent homeowners.

Continue reading »

Calling it "a national disgrace" that veterans still constitute such a large share of Illinois' homeless population, Sen. Dick Durbin and members of the state's congressional delegation met with Veterans Affairs Assistant Secretary Tammy Duckworth yesterday to come up with a plan to address this issue. Last year alone, veterans filled an estimated 18,000 shelter beds in the Chicago area. After meeting with Reps. Bill Foster, Debbie Halvorson, Mike Quigley, and Dan Lipinski, Durbin noted that it's going to require some creative thinking to stretch federal resources and begin solving the problem. The AP reports:

"A possibility might be to turn foreclosed homes into opportunities for training and employment for veterans — maybe even ultimately a residence that they can live in," said Sen. Dick Durbin, the delegation's chairman and the Senate's second-highest ranking Democrat.

"Some homeless veterans are struggling with addictive issues and issues of mental illness, and they need counseling, and that has to be part of it."

Encouragingly, the Obama administration increased spending on homeless veterans programs by $3.2 billion this year. A majority of the funding ($2.7 billion) will be used to fill gaps in medical care and counseling services across the nation. The remaining $500 million is earmarked specifically for homelessness initiatives. Because Illinois and the Chicago area in particular have been struggling with an affordable housing crisis for years, the state's share of the funding will only go so far. To mitigate the impact on veterans, Durbin is co-sponsoring the Zero Tolerance for Veterans Homelessness Act (S. 1547), which would extend 30,000 federal housing vouchers to veterans in 2010 and phase in up to 60,000 vouchers by 2013.

After receiving more criticism from human rights organizations for failing to take immediate action, Illinois Department of Corrections Acting Director Michael Randle finally passed along his review of conditions at Tamms Correctional Center to Gov. Pat Quinn last week. Details of Randle's findings were not made available and it remains unclear when decisions about possible reforms might be made. But a spokesperson for the governor assured Lee Newspapers' Kurt Erickson that "the governor and his staff will thoroughly review the plan and make a decision on how to proceed."

Thankfully, Quinn's office isn't the only government body peeking behind the walls of the supermax lockup. Yesterday, Sen. Dick Durbin chaired a hearing in D.C. on mental illness in U.S. prisons, the first-ever domestic human rights abuse investigated by the Senate subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. According to the Belleview News-Democrat, Tamms figured prominently. Here's Durbin:

"The numbers of inmates at Tamms who were facing segregation and isolation for extraordinarily long periods of times, it's just heartbreaking," Durbin said. "I don't believe the cause of justice is being served in these cases, and I'm glad Gov. (Pat) Quinn is taking a hard look at it. I hope he comes up with a much different approach."

Continue reading »

All eyes are on the Senate Finance Committee today, as Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) formally introduces his long-awaited health care reform bill. Yesterday, however, the committee took some time to focus on another pressing concern: unemployment.  And the results were encouraging.

After holding a hearing on the options available to support the nation's unemployed, Baucus said Congress should act quickly to further extend unemployment benefits. The Detroit News has more:

"It's a major problem, the number of people who are unemployed," said Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. "We are going to act in the best way we possibly can." [...]

Baucus said he expects to prepare legislation for a full Senate vote but expects the House to pass its version first and send it to the Senate.

Baucus should have support in his own caucus. Both Sens. Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer, the second and third ranking Democrats in the upper chamber, are backing the extension as well. "We need to be honest about this," Durbin told reporters yesterday, "we had hoped the economy would turn around, it has not come as far as we want it to."

Continue reading »

Durbin: The Public Option Is Not Dead

Is the public option dead in the U.S. Senate? Not according to Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, who denied moderator David Gregory's assertion on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday that votes in the upper chamber aren't there to pass a bill that includes a government-run health insurance plan. Watch it:

At the beginning of the clip, Durbin also says that he "can't presume any Republican senators at this point" will support the reform bills working through the Senate. Even though Democratic senators went well out of their way to include the GOP in their negotiations, it's become painfully obvious that the minority has no real interest in compromise. Even the two most open-minded Republican lawmakers, Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, are backing away from the table. Over the weekend, both expressed reservations about a public option trigger, which was Snowe's idea in the first place.  "There's nothing wrong with moving toward a compromise," blogs Ezra Klein today. "The problem comes when the compromise starts moving, too."

Continue reading »

Some members of Senate Finance Committee may be looking to pare down the size of the upper chamber's health care package and the White House is deliberating if they would accept such a deal. Back home, lawmakers are staking out their positions as well. Here's the latest in local health care news:

Foster's Tele-Town Hall

Rep. Bill Foster, a potential swing vote, clarified his stance on many health reform issues during a tele-town hall meeting with constituents last night. The Geneva Democrat reiterated his support for a public option, albeit one that operates on a level playing field with private insurance companies. He also expressed openness to a few funding mechanisms, including a surtax on the top 1 percent of the nation's wage earners or a tax on high-level health insurance policies that currently are provided tax free. For reformers, this should come as a good sign.

Continue reading »

It's becoming quite clear that policy makers can't just will the region's foreclosure problem away. Two articles by the Sun-Times' Francine Knowles paint a pretty grim picture of the local housing market's health. According to a report from First American CoreLogic, 29.4 percent of properties in Illinois had negative equity, meaning a mortgage was greater than the value of the home, giving homeowners a huge incentive to abandon the property. In Chicagoland, the number is over 30 percent. Moreover, 14 percent of home mortgage loans in Illinois were in foreclosure or behind on payments at the end of the second quarter, a five percentage-point jump since last year.

As we've pointed out, it's not that new government regulations have "led to a spike" in foreclosures. It's that elected officials have done too little -- both the state and federal levels -- to step in and protect homeowners. And the most stinging failure has come from Washington where cowardly lawmakers have refused to stand up to financial institutions and pass Sen. Dick Durbin's judicial modification proposal, which is designed specifically to address underwater mortgages.

Most legislative attention nationally is being taken up by health care. In Illinois, the budget deficit has imposed severe limitations on what lawmakers can do. But getting people out from under these onerous debts should be a key priority for officials at both levels moving forward.

While Attorney General Lisa Madigan may have decided against running for U.S. Senate, she is still doing her part to help the upper chamber's chief anti-usury advocate, Dick Durbin.

Yesterday, Madigan joined attorneys general from 23 other states in urging members of Congress to support Durbin's bill to establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).  This proposed body would be tasked with shielding American consumers from unscrupulous lending practices. Under the current regulatory system -- where bank regulators set loose rules that allow large financial institutions to circumvent stricter state laws -- attorneys general have been limited in their ability to crack down on predatory practices such as exborbitant interest loans and credit card fees (a problem Madigan discussed in testimony before the House this past spring). The CFPA would theoretically change that by giving local authorities the power to enforce more stringent regulations. In a letter to the House and Senate banking committees (which have been sitting on the legislation since July), the attorneys general explain the significance:

“[T]his legislation recognizes the key role that state Attorneys General serve in spotting new frauds and abuses, responding to citizen concerns, and enforcing state laws. The preservation of our role is critical to fighting fraud in the financial marketplace and a crucial factor in our support of this legislation."

Continue reading »

The August recess is in full swing. Here's the latest health care news:

More Hedging On The Public Option

The big news nationally is that the White House hinted again yesterday at a willingness to drop a public insurance option from the health care reform packages if it means ultimately passing a bill. While progressives activists have pushed hard for a robust government-run program to compete with private insurers,  Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNN that a public option was “not the essential element” for reform. This isn't the first time the Obama administration has hedged on this point, but at this stage in the negotiations, it should send a strong signal to moderate and liberal Democrats where the president currently stands.

In its place, Senate Democrats will likely turn to non-profit cooperatives, an alternative already favored by the Gang of Six senators on the Finance Committee. Ezra Klein's June interview with Sen. Kent Conrad is a good place to get caught up on the specifics. The New York Times' briefly explains the idea here:

The co-op, modeled after rural electric and agricultural cooperatives in Mr. Conrad’s home state, would offer insurance through a nonprofit, nongovernmental consumer entity run by its members. Mr. Axelrod said one downside of a co-op, from Mr. Obama’s point of view, was that it might be unable to “scale up in such a way that would create a robust” competitor to private insurers.

Will that concession go far enough to win the support of moderate Democrats who remain on the fence? None of Illinois' still undecided lawmakers -- including Reps. Debbie Halvorson, Bill Foster, and Melissa Bean -- have explicitly identified the public option as the major problem with the bills working through Congress. However, if they felt the inclusion of a government-run plan left them vulnerable to overblown conservative attacks about expanding government, co-ops could give them some leeway while preserving some choice on the private market. Of course, the full House would still face a vote on a bill that includes the public option; it would likely be gutted in the Senate version, where moderate votes are really needed, and then negotiations would begin over specifics in conference committee. And the entire package could crumble if progressives in the House revolt, like Rep. Jan Schakowsky and her colleagues vowed to do last month. Stay tuned. Continue reading »

As Adam highlighted in his round-up earlier today, the health care debate has really been picking up in Illinois. Numerous editorial boards chimed this week and, with the exception of the Tribune, were largely on the same page in urging the congressional delegation to hold more public forums on this issue, and quickly. We've plucked out some choice excerpts:

The Peoria Journal-Star urges Rep. Aaron Schock and Sen. Dick Durbin to jump into the fray:

[C]ongressmen and senators ought to hear passionate discussion and be able to see just how divided America is on this. They ought to understand just how many unanswered questions there are. And they also ought to hear both sides of things clearly - and so should the people who are going to be affected by whatever final product comes out of Congress. Who knows, a few minds might even be changed.

The Belleview News-Democrat reminds Reps. John Shimkus and Jerry Costello that their job is to subject themselves to even the most contentious meetings:

They are not just a chance for the congressmen to learn, but for the public to hear and help make informed opinions.

Continue reading »