Jim Dey | Campaign funds helping Chicago mayor to look good (2024)

It’s time once again to dive in to another round of quick takes on the people, places and events that were being talked about over the past week:

Check out Chicago’s new mayor. He’s sporting an expensive, if not necessarily improved, new look.

That’s because Mayor Brandon Johnson is spending big money from his campaign treasury on expensive grooming care.

Recent news reports from Chicago state Johnson spent more than $30,000 in campaign funds “related to hair and make-up expenses during a period of 15 months.”

Campaign spending rules in Illinois are so intentionally vague that elected officials pretty much have a free hand to spend as they please. Still, Johnson’s grooming costs are raising eyebrows, although those eyebrows are not as impeccably groomed as those sported by Johnson.

NBC in Chicago quoted one election lawyer as saying that it’s “not a function of government to look good.” Another noted that campaign spending laws don’t “explicitly prohibit use of campaign funds for grooming expenses” and that “it’s absolutely clear that how you look is as least as important as what you say in any political situation.”

The original Mayor Richard Daley probably didn’t agree. In his time, unsavory pols would take, for example, $30,000 and spend most of it on booze, women, drugs and/or gambling and then waste the rest.

But practices have changed.

According to news reports, Johnson “expensed more than $32,000 from January 2023 through the end of March 2024. His make-up artist was paid $28,000, with the hair salon receiving approximately $4,000.”

By contrast, campaign records show Johnson’s predecessor, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, spent $8,000 for hair and makeup from campaign funds.

The issue has proved so contentious that the Illinois State Board of Elections felt compelled to issue a statement that using “a makeup and hair artist” for a specified event would probably be “legitimate” but probably not so for a “strictly social event.”

The professional guidance may have improved the personal appearances of both Lightfoot and Johnson. But it didn’t boost their images in terms of governance.

Downstaters have long felt resentment over the dominance Cook and the collar counties have over all of Illinois.

Today, they can feel a certain amount of glee about the downside of that dominance.

Call it the “Cicadapocolypse,” which is well underway in more than a “dozen states mostly east of the Mississippi River.”

Cicades are loud, noisy and prone to swarm when disturbed — in other words, not much fun to have around.

The Washington Post and, more recently, the Wall Street Journal have reported that “Illinois is facing an unusual crop.”

“A 17-year brood of cicadas has climbed out of the ground in the northern half of the state, while a 13-year brood has surfaced in the south — a rare convergence of the two broods that hasn’t happened since 1803,” the Journal states.

The Journal said “the alien-looking creatures with big eyes and a deafening mating call spend most of their lives underground, then emerge for a few weeks to feel the air under their wings and make baby cicadas. For humans, the bugs generate disgust ...”

In other words, the cicadas bear a striking similarity to University of Michigan fans.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s main man reported to a federal prison in Florida last week.

Tim Mapes of Springfield, a longtime Madigan chief of staff and hatchet man, began serving a 30-month prison sentence for perjury. Under federal law, Mapes must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for release.

Mapes, who is 69, was convicted of lying to a federal grand jury investigating Madigan’s role in the Commonwealth Edison bribery conspiracy case.

He will serve his time at a minimum security federal prison in Pensacola and see at least one familiar face.

The Chicago Tribune’s Jason Meisner tweeted that former Chicago state Rep. Luis Arroyo — a former Mapes’ associate in Springfield — also is serving time there.

This year is shaping up as a real bummer for Cardinals, Cubs and White Sox fans.

The Cubs, so far at least, are marginal. The Cards look even worse.

But the White Sox, mon dieu. They’re exploring the deepest depths of awful.

A tough 8-4 loss to the Mariners last week — the Sox blew a four-run lead — made the Sox the first team in the majors to lose 50 games this season.

They are on a pace to lose 120 games, a feat that would equal the modern major-league record set by the expansion 1962 New York Mets.

Members of the Illinois House and Senate had a hard time putting together a $53.1 bilion 2024-25 budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

But they had no trouble at all giving themselves a 5 percent pay raise on their current base salaries of $93,712.

Annual pay raises are automatic for legislators, although they could have rejected or reduced them.

But don’t be fooled — almost all of them make more than base pay under a “stipend” plan that pays generously to the overwhelming majority of them who are committee chairmen or ranking members or serve in party leadership posts.

At least it ought to be now that a local politician and both libraries are offering rewards to youngsters who deign to open a book this summer.

State Sen. Paul Faraci recently announced a “summer book club to encourage kids to read.”

“I encourage families with children to participate and join the 60 students who completed the Summer Book Club last year,” he said.

Faraci’s book club requires students “to read eight books of their choice during the summer break,” “record the names of the books on a form,” and “return the form to Faraci’s office by Aug. 16.”

Those who do will receive a gift card and a certificate.

Forms are available to download at SenatorFaraci.com/SBC. People with questions can call (217) 355-5252 or (217) 442-5252.

The Champaign Public Library also is holding its Summer Reading Challenge for children, teens and adults. Prizes will be awarded in all categories for those who log their reading activities and achieve specific benchmarks.

Not to be outdone by its neighbors across Wright Street, the Urbana Free Library is conducting its “Read, Renew, Repeat’ program.

More information is available on the libraries’ websites.

Reading opens up new avenues of the imagination. But the programs pre-suppose that young people — and perhaps adults — will actually turn away from their smartphones, iPads and computer screens.

Parents should assure their children that they won’t turn into pillars of salt if they chart a new trailblazing, literary course.