More McHenry County Blog

Name: Cal Skinner
Date of Birth: June 11, 1942
Home: Crystal Lake, Illinois 60014-5411
Home page address: Skinner4Governor.org
Campaign contact person: Mike Ginsberg, 847-650-8747
Candidate for what office: Governor
Party affiliation: Libertarian Party
Occupation: Retired
Previous political experience: (elective and appointed positions):

United States Bureau of the Budget (65-66),
McHenry County Treasurer (66-70), GOP precinct committeeman (70-72, 86-00),
Illinois House Appropriations Committee Staff (70-71),
State Representative, 33rd District (73-81),
Unsuccessful challenger to Republican congressman (80),
Transportation Consultant to Speaker George Ryan (81-83),
Unsuccessful GOP nominee for State Comptroller (82),
Bureau of Benefits Manager, IL Dept. of Central Management Services (80-85),
In-house management consultant and special projects for CMS, including initiation of direct purchase of natural gas for state government (85-87),
Advisor & research consultant to various state legislators (87-92),
State Representative, 64th District (93-01).

Education: Economics degree from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio (64), master's degree in public administration from the University of Michigan (class work 64-65; thesis finished and degree awarded in 1971, I believe);

Awarded Certified Illinois Assessing Officer designation in 1970.

Taught State and Local Government at Rockford and Harper Colleges.

Cal Skinner
Chicago Tribune Questionnaire
Gubernatorial Candidates
November 5, 2002 General Election

1. After two years of careful study, the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment issued a set of 85 recommendations for reforming Illinois' administration of the death penalty after a long string of wrongful convictions. Please indicate whether you would support or oppose each of the following reforms to the state's capital punishment system, and provide a brief but specific explanation of your choices.

Sequential, as opposed to simultaneous, police lineups.

The criminal justice community is divided on this issue. It seems logical to me that a witness ought to be able to make comparisons, but I am open to factual arguments.

Reducing eligibility factors from 20 to 5.

I don't pretend to be an expert on eligibility factors, nor do I intend to become an expert before this campaign is over. Certainly removal of premeditation as an eligibility factor defies common sense. I heard an activist on WTTW suggest that the current definition of "premeditated" is overly broad. If so, narrowing it might be in order. Elimination is not.

Mandatory videotaping of all custodial interrogations and confessions.

If Illinois can afford to place cameras in rest stops on Interstate highways, it ought to be able to afford to videotape all custodial interrogations and confessions. I voted for Rep. Monique Davis's bill on videotaping when I was in the General Assembly

Pretrial screening by judges of jailhouse snitch testimony.

Considering the pressure that authorities can place on prisoners, even in the DuPage County Jail, this is a must.

A statewide, centralized review system (centralized in the attorney general's office) that all county prosecutors would have to go through before winning approval to pursue a capital sentence.

There is a real, unintended consequence that could result from this suggestion. Candidates for Attorney General might well compete for election on the basis of which would be "tougher on crime." Indeed, that seems to be happening this year. I understand the purpose of having some outside authority review local state's attorney's decisions to seek the death penalty and generally agree with such a review. I am not, however, convinced that the attorney general is the place to put that authority.

A systematic, statewide monitoring and data collection system by which to identify trends and rectify mistakes in how our capital punishment system is administered in Illinois.

Sounds like something an agency of state government should be doing. I don't understand what relevance "trends" have when individual prosecutions are involved.

2. Should all casino licenses be auctioned to the highest qualified bidders? Why or why not?

Of course all casino licenses should be auctioned periodically to the highest qualified bidder. What part of open bidding doesn't Jim Ryan understand? It makes no sense for Jim Ryan to agree to allow pre-selected so-called minorities to have a piece of the action in the successor to the Rosemont casino. It makes no sense for him to allow failed gambling investors to get all their money back. John Kass is correct in his assertion that lottery losers should get their money back if the Rosemont casino investors are given their money back. Why should such investors be any different that those who invested in Enron or WorldCom?

3. Under Illinois' system of campaign rules, there is nothing illegal about state workers doing political work, either paid or volunteer, as
long as they don't do it on state time. Recent reports, however, suggest that these rules routinely are broken by campaigns. Would you support a measure prohibiting state government workers from doing any campaign work, even on their own time? Please explain.

I understand the problem you are addressing because I blew the whistle on Lee Daniels to one of your reporters before you published anything about his misuse of state employees. (In fact, you still have not published that information.) However, your absolutist solution would just give more power to media giants like yourself. I don't know how you can constitutionally prohibit people from exercising their right to political free speech on their own time…assuming, of course, they are not going to be compensated for such time and effort by the taxpayers either before or after they do it.

4. Assuming the state is likely to be financially hamstrung for at least another year or two, please list three initiatives (and their estimated costs) that you think the legislature needs to focus on its next session. Also please identify three things that ought to be cut, downsized or consolidated. Do you favor raising the state income or sales taxes to balance the state's budget?

Illinois' GENERAL FUND REVENUES WERE DOWN this past year, but the decrease was ONLY TWO PERCENT. What was the big deal? I have now visited with 80% of the daily newspapers in Illinois. None of them had any sympathy with state politicians who could not cut their budget by 2%. (Neither do other businessmen.) All of the newspapers had cut their budgets by 2%, most by 5%, one admitted a 7% cut. When $113,000 is being given to a private individual in Tennessee to develop a $6 million water park on Rend Lake next to a presumably failing state-subsidized hotel, Illinois does not have a budget problem. It has a spending problem. There was no need for a 69% cigarette tax increase, and there is no need for a state income tax hike.

I am the only candidate for Governor you can be certain would veto an increase in the state income or sales tax. We all know the people supporting Rod Blagojevich want more money. No one will be surprised when he signs any number of tax increase bills. Republican want to believe in their heart of hearts that Republican governors won't raise taxes, but every Republican governor for the last five decades has raised taxes, no matter what he said before the election. I repeat, I am the only gubernatorial candidate you know will veto an income/sales tax increase.

Initiative one: Term Limits for Legislative Leaders. I propose a constitutional amendment to limit the terms of legislative leaders to six years as leaders. The over-concentration of power in four men in Springfield is the biggest systemic problem I see in Illinois politics. Federal prosecutors should not be setting term limits for legislative leaders. The State Constitution should. Before I announced my proposal, I mailed a copy to Bruce Dold. It has been crafted to withstand constitutional challenge. If you would like to see its contents, they may be found on my web site. I believe that anyone seeking to lead his legislative party in Springfield should be able to make a good dent in his policy goals, if any, in six years. It is obvious that Mike Madigan and Lee Daniels, Pate Philip and Emil Jones have no policy goals. Their only goal is power and gaining more power. "Controlling the process." That's the way I put it when I taught state and local government at Rockford and Harper Colleges. It is not healthy for the body politic to have so much power concentrated in so few hands for so, so many years. Without fear of contradiction, I predict that neither Jim Ryan nor Rod Blagojevich will support my proposal. The Secretary of State would have to pay for distribution of the proposed amendment to the voters.

Initiative two: Passage of a Personal Security Act that will allow licensed, law-abiding citizens to use a gun in self-defense. The research is in. Passage of such a bill will lower the violent crime rate by 2.3% per year! (Rape goes down 3.1 % per year. See Chapter 9 of Dr. John Lott's paperback book, "More Guns, Less Crime.") Crime statistics were examined in all 3000 counties in the United States before and after gun laws were passed. In the twenty states that passed laws similar to what I am proposing the violent crime rate went down 2.3% per year. Because it's unrealistic to count solely on the police for protection, my Personal Security Act should be made law. (For more details, see my web site: Skinner4Governor.org) The proposal would be financed with user fees.

Initiative three: Turning the Tollways to Freeways. We must end the double taxation of tollway drivers. Motorists using the tollways pay twice-once with their tolls and a second time when they buy gas where they pay motor fuel taxes. It is obscene that this system of double taxation is allowed to continue to exist. Its only beneficiary is the DuPage County Republican Party. Here's how to turn the tollways into freeways:

(1) Pay off the tollway bonds with the gas taxes paid by drivers while using the tollways. The tollway bond payments range from $79.7 million this year to $72.2 million in 2017. Motor Fuel Taxes bring in from $82 million to $107 million per year, depending on the study (and those estimates are 5-10 years out of date in a time of rising tollway use).

(2) Use the federal aid we already receive to maintain these roads. On August 22, 2000, Secretary of Transportation Kirk Brown testified before the Senate Transportation Committee that Illnois received $52 million in Federal highway assistance because of the 274 miles of Interstate highways in the tollway system. I believe that is enough to pay for the type of routine maintenance now occurring on the tollway system.

(3) If additional money is needed, take it from the $8 million in concession revenue that is already coming in.

Obviously, Jim Ryan and Rod Blagojevich merely favor postponing a toll tax hike until after the election. I have identified the source of money for the conversion. No new money would be required. No toll tax hike-No Tolls!

Cost-cutting initiative one: Consolidation and pay cuts. This is not a time for costly legislative or gubernatorial initiatives. There is so much serious work to do and so little desire to do it. Obviously, government can be run more efficiently. A small example: instead of having two labor relations boards filled with patronage appointees doing very part-time jobs, let's merge them and cut their salaries. United Airlines management took a 10% pay cut. Why shouldn't management employees in state government
do the same? Does anyone think that most of them could earn as much in the private sector? There's an organization called the Mercatus Center at George Mason University whose head helped down-size the New Zealand government. I certainly will make good use of talent like that. It will be more than setting measurable performance standards. I believe we can cut the cost of state government enough to provide tax cuts to Illinois taxpayers.

Cost-cutting initiative two: Bulk purchasing of medical care and commodities for those financed by state government and the adminstration of such health care by entities for various geographic areas throughout Illinois. Only the campaign contributions of pharmaceutical companies to Republicans can explain why state government has separate contracts to purchase prescription drugs for each separate department. Think of the purchasing power of buying the health care needs of state employees, prisoners, Medicaid, DCFS wards, retired teachers, retired state employees, etc. It is estimated that merely buying pharmaceutical drugs on one contact per company would save from $120-180 million. I have no way of estimating how much would be saved by having entities bid for the right to provide all health care for those for whom the state pays from conception to death for various geographic areas in Illinois. I do know that it will save money at the end of life, because the administrating entity will spend up to the cost of keeping someone in a nursing home ($35,000 per year average cost now) to keep someone out of a nursing home. (This has the side benefit of making a lot of seniors and disabled persons happier.) After conception, the entity will figure out how to get teens to deliver their babies as close to nine months as possible in order to avoid the cost of neonatal hospitalization. (Certainly, public health officials have had their chance to solve this problem.) The entity will similarly figure out how to keep people with doctors from using expensive emergency room care. Probably, on-site general practitioner availability will result. All will save large amounts of money. I don't believe either Blagojevich or Ryan are capable of making this happen. Both would rather "milk" the current system. Perhaps we can save enough to provide the kind of tax cut that a "welfare reform dividend" should have already provided.

Cost-cutting initiative three: Turning our median strips and shoulders into a tourist attraction. Illinois is the "Prairie State," but all people who drive through see are corn and soybeans. I propose making the median strips and shoulders of at least our Interstate highways (and, yes, I am also talking about the tollways) look like they did before Illinois was settled. Imagine fifteen-foot blue stem prairie grass, which is reported to have been high as a rider on a horse before the prairie was broken. Imagine waves of yellow flowers for miles on end. We need not settle for short prairie grass. The prairie was much more beautiful. I would have our prisoners plant and maybe even grow the prairie plants. I believe this would save money, because we would not need to buy mowers and certainly wouldn't need people to do the mowing.

5. What is the proper use of tobacco settlement funds? Do you favor securitizing future tobacco settlement money to balance the state's budget?

I do not favor securitizing future tobacco settlement money. You are right that is like a farmer's eating his seed corn. Cutting back on spending makes more sense. Everyone knows that politicians will spend every dime that is available and, in Illinois, the Springfield politicians have proven they will spend more than is available.

Because general fund revenue paid for medical costs related to smoking, I see no reason expenditure of tobacco settlement money should be earmarked for any particular purpose.

6. Do you support the elimination of member initiatives?

You would think with all the commotion in Springfield about the budget that member initiatives would have been eliminated…but they weren't. Member initiatives should never be handled like they are now when one cannot figure out how money in a "holding" fund will be spent. Authority to execute the budget belongs to the Executive Branch, not to the legislative leaders. Any money appropriated for specific projects must be put in its individual line item. Having been a Budget Examiner for the United States Bureau of the Budget, you can be sure that I shall examine my budgets very carefully.

7. Do you favor or oppose elimination of legislative tuition waivers for the state's public universities?

I have already voted to eliminate legislative scholarships. I would sign a bill that would do so. Having said that, I may have been the first person to develop an outside committee (in 1974) and a form, complete with essay requirement, to award my legislative scholarships. I didn't think it was right for students to get these scholarships because of what their parents had contributed to a campaign or campaign work their parents had performed. My "Public Affairs" scholarships were awarded on the basis of what the applicant him- or herself had done.

8. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the way for education vouchers, how should Illinois proceed? Would you support a bill allowing expansion of the number of charter schools in the city of Chicago from 15 to 30? Please explain why or why not.

I believe that Illinois schools already have the authority to offer financial incentives for students to attend other schools. Under Senate Bill 22 of 1995 (Public Act 89-3), schools are granted virtual home rule power. They are allowed to do anything not prohibited by state law. (Until this is published, the teachers' unions won't have figured out that this possibility exists. Needless to say, they will immediately try to plug the "hole" in Springfield.) So, immediately, I believe any school board could decide to allocate funds to allow parents to send children to other schools or even to allow them to home school. I proposed such a bill in 1995 while I was in the General Assembly as a "growth management" tool. When I costed out what it would take to build and operate a new public grade school, I discovered that it would almost always be cheaper to pay parents to send their children to school elsewhere. I certainly would be supportive of any similar proposal that would save taxpayers money.

I also endorse the Heartland Institute voucher plan. (See Heartland.org.)

With regard to additional charter schools in Chicago or anywhere else in Illinois, I would support expansion.