But we should still wear our masks, right?

As far as I know, this photo was not taken anywhere in Cook County.

There are three types of elected officials in Illinois

And if you reflexively answered, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, congratulations. You remember more of your junior high civics classes than some of our most prominent public figures.

But, actually, I would suggest a different division. Those are the three branches of government, true. But, in my view, our three types of elected officials are really Policy Making, Ministerial, and Judicial.

On the federal level, we are voting this year for a President, one of our Senators, and our Representive in Congress. These are all, in theory, Policy Making positions.

In Illinois, the Governor and the members of the Illinois House and Senate are the Policy Making officials. Again, in theory, the Governor and the legislature craft the laws under which we live and the budget pursuant to which those laws are implemented. In practice, perhaps, it may seem that legislators exist for the sole purpose of seeking reelection -- automatic in many cases, for incumbents of both parties, since they are unopposed. In some cases, though, incumbents are inconvenienced by challengers on the road to reelection. Sometimes there are open seats. Occasionally legislators die, or retire, or are indicted. Then others must replace them. In these rather rare circumstances, the Democrats and Republicans may both field candidates.

This year, in contested races, though they might be male or female, and though their parents or spouses or children might know them by different names, all Republican candidates are, judging from their opponents' TV commercials and direct mail pieces, named Trump. Similarly, in Illinois, all Democratic candidates, of whatever gender, however they might be known to their friends and in their communities, are, judging from their opponents' TV commercials and mail pieces, named Madigan.

In the 20th House District, where I live, Trump is the Mayor of Rosemont and Madigan is a Chicago firefighter. I thought Trump and Madigan had different jobs, but the mailers I get every day, sometimes three or four a day, suggest otherwise. Millions of dollars are being poured (through a firehose?) into a race for a job that doesn't pay $70,000 a year. So, even if those in most Policy Making offices have little say in actually making policy, control of Policy Making offices is considered very important.

Ministerial offices are offices in the executive branch that aren't Policy Making. In this election all the Ministerial elections are for county offices -- Clerk of the Circuit Court and State's Attorney being the two prominent ones.

Ministerial officials do not make laws; rather, their functions are defined, often minutely, by statute. A State's Attorney has some discretion, under the law, to decide which crimes to prosecute in a specific case, and that has given rise to confusion, and argument, over the extent of that discretion. Discretion exercised too broadly can effectively rewrite, or even repeal, whole sections of the Criminal Code without the actual input of the Policy Making elected officials. This may be acceptable to some Policy Making elected officials, who are thereby spared the embarassment of having to take a position on potentially controversial issues -- and who can thereby have Someone To Blame if voters become upset enough to threaten their own reelections.

The good-government types, the BGA and the like, look at Ministerial Offices as fertile fields for cost-cutting and consolidation. Thus, for example, the recent merger of the offices of Recorder of Deeds and Cook County Clerk was hailed by good-government types as a Good Thing.

But the good-government types make these assessments without proper consideration of the unintended consequences of such mergers: They reduce the already fleeting opportunities for the not-independtly wealthy to begin the ascent of our own cursus honorum. The Pritzkers and Rauners and Trumps of the world can buy their way into public life -- but others less fortunate could use a good track record in these lower-level, Ministerial offices in order to come to the favorable attention of the public and thereby have real hopes to advance up the ladder into prominent Policy Making posts.

That was certainly the goal of outgoing Clerk of the Court Dorothy Brown---to grasp another rung up the ladder of political success---but it was a goal she never achieved. Why? I believe it was because she was always looking for that next job, and therefore never devoted herself sufficiently to the duties of the office she held. With her departure, we may finally behold a future without carbon paper -- if the courts ever fully reopen.

Policy Makers should have big, sweeping plans and ideas even if, in practice, too many aren't told what their big plans and ideas are until the last few days of the legislative session. Ministerial office holders may have big, sweeping plans, too, but they are, or are supposed to be, irrelevant to the discharge of their duties.

Big, sweeping plans and ideas are potentially harmful to Judicial officials: Judges too strongly tied into their well-devloped world views might feel tempted to view, and fit, the facts of the cases before them into their world-views.

Judges should not have empty minds -- they may well cultivate, as other citizens do, an overall world view -- but they must be able to maintain open minds as they hear cases. If Policy Makers have an expansive, macro view of the world, judges need to cultivate a focused, micro view.

I have often argued that it should usually make no difference to the result if the judge is a "progressive" or a "conservative" or even a Trotskyite, as long as are each faithful to their judicial oaths. And this is certainly true for simple questions -- was the car making the left turn at fault? -- and many others, less simple -- was the notice given in the required form? Was the suit filed within the statute? Depending on their philosophical outlook, not every judge will be equally pleased with the result -- that's human nature -- but, when a decision must be made, it should be made consistently.

But there's a reason why the unofficial motto of the legal profession is, "It depends."

Sometimes a judge must figure out which of several potential statutes apply. And there may be compelling reasons supporting the application of each of these. Choosing from among these competing strands of the law would be an illustration of judicial discretion -- significant autonomy, but case specific.

Even when the choices are narrowed, and the apparently proper statute identified, there may not always be only one right answer. This was more obvious when I was a young lawyer: We often used research aids called books, like the old annotated statutes. When reviewing the annotations under any given statute, we might find one list of a dozen or more cases where the statute indicated one result and, immediately following, an equally long list of cases, equally valid, suggesting just the opposite. For all their technological advances Lexis and Westlaw have never quite duplicated the contradictions that can be observed by the Mark One Eyeball looking at facing pages in a book. The equities of the case may suggest that this line of cases should apply, the circumstances of the case may suggest the proper application of that line of cases. A carefully crafted order pulls all the pieces together and resolves the controversy -- and then the Appellate Court comes along and bollixes the whole thing up.

Or any number of other possibilities. If results were always cut-and-dried, we could just get an app for that. Plug, chug, and enter the data for the next.

Sometimes the best result may be not to decide, but to guide the parties to a settlement that all can live with. Zero-based discovery might be one tool for judges to preside and guide a civil case to a reasonabe solution.

For the Judicial official (unless that Judicial official is on the Illinois Supreme Court, in which case he or she may have some Policy Making responsibilities, especially if he or she serves long enough to be Chief Justice), it is only the parties before the bench that should matter in any given case. It is the narrowest view. The Ministerial official should not be particularly concerned with individuals, but with processes and implementation of the controlling stutory plan. The Ministerial view should be practical and prosaic. Poetry and vision are reserved for the Policy Maker, who should take the broadest possible view. Individual cases may illustrate a need or a problem, but the individuals are props in service of a larger vision.

A great Judicial official might also be a great Policy Maker, and vice versa, but that person would have to bring very different approaches to these very different responsibilities.

Can these numbers possibly be real?

The lead story yesterday on POLITICO's Illinois Playbook was Census Down for the Count, addressing the impact that undercounting may have on particular local communities. This sentence jumped out at me (emphasis mine):

Illinois is ahead of the national average with a 72 percent response rate compared to 69 percent. But Chicago lags at about 55 percent.

I don't know, of course, how one can count the percentage of those counted if one does not know the actual count and, if we already know the actual count, how come we're still counting? But, then, it was my inability to complete the 300-level probability and statistics course that kept me from being a math major in college.

But if the compliance percentages are accurate, how can this possibly be?

The first big push for census compliance was underway when the world ended, back in March. We are now entering the eighth month of our two-week shutdown -- but I distinctly recall, during the actual first two weeks of the two-week shutdown, turning on the TV every day at 2:30 p.m., risking exposure, on some days, to whole minutes of Maury if the start of the IDPH briefing was delayed. With all industry, commerce, and ordinary social interaction at a standstill, I was also tuning in most mornings for the City briefing as well. And I also recall, vividly, being annoyed with the Governor and the Mayor prefacing their daily updates on the collapse of civilization as we had known it with virtual commercials about completing the census.

I can't fathom how anyone with a pulse didn't know---in March---about the need to complete and return the census form. I will admit that I hadn't done it before the world ended. But I did do it in March. It gave me something to do while waiting for next press conference.

Now I fully understand that some people, in some communities, may have been reluctant to participate. Even without the Never Ending Pandemic, as the Illinois Playbook noted this morning, referring to Rep. Chuy Garcia's concerns, "many residents born outside of the United States... may fear they’ll be questioned about their citizenship status, something President Donald Trump tried unsuccessfully add to the census." That explains some undercount, surely -- but 45% of the population of the City of Chicago?

The Census Bureau, for its part, said, in a press release Tuesday, that the count is "99.9% complete" with "33.1% counted by census takers and other field data collection operations, and 66.8% of housing units responding online, by phone or by mail." Which is a far cry from 72% compliance in the State of Illinois, or 69% nationally, or 55% in the City of Chicago. Somebody is doing the math wrong.

But, whoever's right, and whoever's wrong on the numbers, if you have not been counted yet, today is the deadline. You must go to the Census 2020 website today and make sure you are not part of the missing .1% -- or the missing 45%.

Ken Griffin has dropped over $46 million in opposition to the Fair Tax Amendment -- and I have a question

Rich Miller reported on CapitolFax.com that Ken Griffin recently contributed $26+ million to the Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment. The exact amount of Griffin's September 30 contribution was $26,750,000, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections website.

This was in addition, Miller reports, to a $20 million donation that Griffin previously made. So... over $46 million.

That's a lot of money -- and it raises, for me at least, a question.

Before asking my question, I should point out that I am not now and (unless I hit it big in Powerball or Megamillions) not likely to be a millionaire during this lifetime. I am also, as FWIW readers know, no politician. So there's a whole bunch of this high-stakes, big money, power politics stuff I don't understand. Most of it, in fact.

Still, I am a registered voter, and a citizen, and I hope I am as entitled as anyone to ask a question here.

And my question is... why?

Why would a rich person, or in Mr. Griffin's case, a very rich person, be opposed to a graduated Illinois income tax rate?

Don't laugh at me. Stay with me just a minute.

I'm no prophet, but here's what I think the future may hold: The tax rate for rich people will go up, as promised, if the Fair Tax Amendment passes. In which case the Illinois tax return, which is now extremely easy to complete, will become increasingly more complex with each passing year. Many lobbyists will find full employment getting particular exemptions from the new, higher rates that benefit these rich people, and other lobbyists will make small fortunes seeking different exemptions for those rich people. Accountants and tax lawyers will also prosper.

So the tax rates will go up... but will rich Illinoisans really pay more? History and precedent suggest otherwise.

By 1918, just five years after the adoption of the 16th Amendment, Wikipedia says (footnotes omitted), "the top rate of the income tax was increased to 77% (on income over $1,000,000, equivalent of $16,717,815 in 2018 dollars) to finance World War I. The average rate for the rich however, was 15%. The top marginal tax rate was reduced to 58% in 1922, to 25% in 1925 and finally to 24% in 1929. In 1932 the top marginal tax rate was increased to 63% during the Great Depression and steadily increased, reaching 94% in 1944" during World War II. These days, the top rate, again according to Wikipedia, is 37%. Which is a lot less than 94% -- but still a lot higher than the 4.95% flat tax rate in Illinois today.

Who actually pays those high Federal tax rates? Does anyone? Take an extreme example -- Donald Trump is almost always an extreme example -- according to the New York Times, Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax in the year he was elected and no tax at all in 11 of the 18 years of returns the Times reviewed (source). That's with a progressive, graduated federal income tax, too. Somehow, no matter what the rates are, many rich people finds ways to avoid paying their "fair" share. That's part of the secret of their success.

Seems to me, Mr. Griffin would have been better off spending his millions hiring Trump's accountants, or paying his own accountants to study the methods employed by Trump's accountants. But Mr. Griffin didn't ask me.