The Spin: U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos to retire | Following report, Pritzker says he fell short in hiring ex-VA boss | Illinois AG’s office hit by ransomware attack

Democratic U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos of Moline says she won’t seek reelection next year in northwest and west central Illinois’ 17th Congressional District after narrowly fending off Republican Esther Joy King in last year’s contest.

“I feel it’s time for a new voice,” she said in a video announcement. It also comes as the district is starting to lean more heavily Republican. Once a rising star among House Democrats, Bustos mulled a bid for governor in 2018 and has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the 2022 Illinois secretary of state’s race, which already has a crowd of Democrats in the race.

An independent report released today lambastes Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s former state Veterans Affairs director and some of her lieutenants for last fall’s COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home that killed 36 residents, the Tribune’s Rick Pearson reports.

The Illinois Department of Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General and the law firm of Armstrong Teasdale found that then-VA Director Linda Chapa LaVia “abdicated” her responsibilities as the outbreak grew. The report also describes the home’s former administrator, Angela Mehlbrech, who the governor fired in December, as detached from her staff.

Pritzker said of Chapa LaVia, “I have to admit that if I knew then what I know now, I would not have hired her.”

Meantime, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced today she’s doing a little shopping for electrical providers as the city weighs a new agreement with utility behemoth Commonwealth Edison. But the mayor’s request for information from potential electrical providers may be more about due diligence while potentially gaining a bargaining chip in negotiations with ComEd.

The utility comes to the table under a cloud after admitting last year to its involvement in a bribery scheme that padded its profits and helped topple former Speaker Michael Madigan, who has denied wrongdoing.

And, Lightfoot is putting one in the win column for the Chicago Bears after the team last night drafted quarterback Justin Fields from The Ohio State University. A season ticket holders, Lightfoot tweeted: “We got our QB! Welcome to Chicago, Justin.”

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Bustos announces she won’t seek reelection for Congress in increasingly Republican western Illinois district

U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos announced she wouldn’t run for Congress in a video today.

“My North Star has always been to serve our community, drive real results and help build a better future. As I have rounded each new decade of my career, I’ve taken time to reflect on how I can best serve. That’s how, 10 years ago, I decided to run for Congress. And it’s why, today, I’m announcing I will not seek reelection after completing this term,” Bustos said.

The 60-year-old narrowly won reelection to a fifth term last year.

As the Tribune’s Rick Pearson points out, “Bustos’ ability to win in GOP areas earned her the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2018. But she almost immediately ran into difficulties as more progressive Democratic candidates challenged party incumbents.”

She’s bowing out as Democrats who control state government prepare to redraw the maps for Illinois’ 17 congressional districts, one fewer than in the last decade as a result of the findings of the 2020 federal census, Pearson writes.

He also notes: “Keeping a Democrat in Bustos’ seat under a new map poses challenges for Democrats, who are looking for territory to keep it under their control while also looking for ways to shore up the suburban and exurban seat of two-term U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood of Naperville.” Full story, including reaction from both sides of the aisle and what Bustos might do next, here.

Following blistering report about LaSalle home, Pritzer says he fell short in hiring former VA director

From the Tribune’s Pearson and Dan Petrella: “Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday acknowledged a failure of leadership in hiring a former legislator as director of the state’s Veterans Affairs department following this week’s blistering report that found widespread mismanagement of last fall’s COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home where 36 veterans died.

“Pritzker said he believed Linda Chapa LaVia, a veteran and former state lawmaker from Aurora, was ‘an ideal person to root out the problems in our veterans homes’ following her role on legislative panels investigating outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease at the Quincy VA home where 14 veterans died,” Pearson and Petrella write.

“But,” Pritzker said, “I have to admit that if I knew then what I know now, I would not have hired her.”

The independent report from the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General and the law firm of Armstrong Teasdale detailed systemic mismanagement from top VA officials down to administrators at the LaSalle home, creating an “inefficient, reactive and chaotic” response to controlling the outbreak that began Nov. 1. Read Pearson’s original story on the report here. And reaction from the governor and lawmakers here.

Pearson and Petrella also report that “Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Friday used terms such as “horrible” and “beyond disgusting” to describe the events that took place at the home — and questioned whether nothing had been learned from the Quincy Legionnaire’s outbreak.”

“The governor’s stark admission of failure in hiring Chapa LaVia comes in the lead up to an expected bid for a second term,” Pearson and Petrella write. “In winning the office in 2018, he accused Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner of “fatal mismanagement” for the Legionnaire’s deaths at the Quincy VA home that began in 2015.”

Illinois attorney general’s office was warned about weak cybersecurity before ransomware attack

Petrella also reports: “A state audit released earlier this year warned that Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office had a ‘weaknesses in cybersecurity’ that potentially left sensitive information on the agency’s computer network ‘susceptible to cyberattacks and unauthorized disclosure.’”

Three weeks ago, a hack resulted in data being stolen from the attorney general’s office in a ransomware attack, Raoul said in a statement this week.

“While we do not yet know with certainty what was compromised in the ransomware attack, we are working closely with federal law enforcement authorities and outside technology experts to determine what information was exposed, how this happened, and what we can do to ensure that such a compromise does not happen again,” Raoul said in a statement.

Gov. Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference today that attorney general’s office operates on a separate platform from the rest of state government, attempting assure that the attack wasn’t more widespread, Petrella notes. Full story here.

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As city mulls re-upping with ComEd, Lightfoot administration seeks information from possible electrical providers

The Tribune’s Gregory Pratt writes, “Mayor Lori Lightfoot has put out a new request for information from potential electrical providers as she evaluates whether to sign a new deal with ComEd, the city said.”

A statement from the mayor’s office made clear the city hasn’t decided to move on from ComEd. Lightfoot said the request for information “will enable my administration to secure the best deal possible for Chicagoans.”

In fact, it may not be economically feasible to move on from ComEd. As Pratt reminds, “City officials commissioned a study in 2020 that found it can’t afford to take over the utility, dealing a blow to long-shot proposals by progressive aldermen calling for Chicago to run its own electric system.”

ComEd released a statement highlighting its reliability and describing recent discussions with the city as “productive,” Pratt reports.

“No matter who runs the grid, the first priority is reliability because as all Chicagoans know the climate crisis is creating unprecedented weather events that in the last year alone have resulted in catastrophic grid failures in Texas and California, an experience that lies in sharp contrast to how our grid performed in August after the derecho,” ComEd said. “We believe our discussions with the city have been productive as evidenced by our recent agreements to expand energy efficiency and more than double the assistance to low income customers, as well our recently approved agreement with City officials and other stakeholders to provide unprecedented levels of support to families in need and to limit disconnections.” Full story here.

Advocates to Lightfoot: Fatal fires investigation shows Chicago building safety policies need fixing

“Tenant advocates and public officials are calling on Mayor Lightfoot to hold landlords more accountable and establish clear rules on how the city handles housing safety complaints after a Better Government Association and Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that known hazards were allowed to go unfixed, sometimes for years, before fatal fires,” the Tribune’s Cecilia Reyes and the BGA’s Madison Hopkins write.

Jake Marshall, an organizer with the Chicago Tenants Movement, as well as Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert, who lost three colleagues in a 2003 fire inside the Cook County Administration Building, called on the mayor to take immediate action on the heels of the “The Failures Before the Fires” series.

The stories examined every fatal residential blaze in Chicago over six years and found city officials previously knew of fire safety problems in about a third of the blazes. Sixty-one people died in those 42 fires; most were Latino or Black.

Lightfoot was asked about the findings and contended that her administration has begun to address some of the issues the stories raised. She also tried to pin the enforcement failures on past administrations.

But Marshall questioned whether things had improved in the two years since Lightfoot took office. Full story here.

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