With the 100th anniversary of Labor Day as a backdrop, Illinois’ two major candidates for governor on Monday sought to portray themselves as the best friend of the state’s workers.
Democratic nominee Dawn Clark Netsch, standing in front of the state Department of Public Aid office in the West Pullman neighborhood, marked the traditional start of the fall campaign season by attacking Gov. Jim Edgar’s record on creating jobs and addressing unemployment in Illinois.
Netsch said that during Edgar’s tenure Illinois has trailed other Midwestern states, including Michigan and Indiana, in economic vitality.
“We are in the midst of a national economic recovery, yet is seems that Illinois is lagging behind our Midwestern neighbors,” said Netsch, who joined Edgar and other politicians at a parade that also marked the centennial of the Pullman strike.
Netsch said Edgar has not been involved enough in economic development discussions or labor negotiations. She also said the state’s job-training programs need to be consolidated, although she acknowledged that Edgar’s administration has recognized the need to change the system.
After a speech at the parade that was interrupted by loud boos, Edgar said Netsch “has her facts all wrong.”
He said the state has created manufacturing jobs over the last 18 months and has seen its unemployment rate drop below the national average during nine of the last 10 months.
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“We’ve bucked the national trend. We have more manufacturing jobs than we did 18 months ago,” Edgar said. “I think that demonstrates the policies we put into effect have paid off.”
Edgar also said the state’s tax rates have attracted businesses, as evidenced by Motorola’s decision to build its new plant in Illinois.
Motorola officials “said Illinois has a lower corporate income tax rate than Wisconsin,” he said, adding that if Netsch’s plan to raise income taxes were in place, “Motorola would have gone to Wisconsin.”
Netsch and Edgar weren’t the only candidates taking advantage of the Labor Day holiday to push themselves as sympathetic to workers. Frank Giglio, the Democratic candidate in the 11th Congressional District, expressed his support for worker retraining programs.
“Retraining gives working people what they want and deserve: the freedom to be responsible and take care of themselves,” Giglio said in a statement.
Crime was the other big campaign topic Monday, a day after Edgar called for state law to be changed so violent offenders under age 13 can be detained more than 30 days.
Edgar and Netsch expressed concern that some of the state’s juvenile offenders are shipped out to other states, because Illinois has no locked residential facilities.
Edgar said his administration plans to propose in the next few days several solutions to the problem of violent youth crime. He said he favors the idea of bringing youthful offenders back to Illinois rather than having them incarcerated elsewhere.
Netsch, too, said the state needs to be looking after its own juveniles, not shipping them out of state.
“There has to be some way of dealing with even extremely young children, who cannot be allowed to roam free, both for the safety of their communities and the safety of themselves,” Netsch said.
Joe Morris, the Republican candidate for Cook County Board president, joined the fray by announcing his ideas to combat juvenile crime, including a proposal to convert Cook County Hospital into a locked detention facility for juvenile offenders.
Morris, who previously has called for privatizing the county’s health care system, said converting County Hospital would be inexpensive and allow judges to detain young offenders rather than release them for lack of room at other juvenile facilities.
With the County Hospital closed, he said, indigent patients would be sent to other area hospitals with spare beds.
He also called for having all public school students wear uniforms to inhibit gang activity and “instill a sense of pride.”
And Morris said school officials ought to “mainstream” magnet school students and instead establish “military-style” magnet schools for the most troubled students.