COALITION CALLS FOR ILLINOIS TO SUE WALL STREET BANKS

A coalition of organizations is calling on Governor Rauner to not sign away the state’s right to sue Wall Street banks.
A coalition of organizations is calling on Governor Rauner to not sign away the state’s right to sue Wall Street banks.

COALITION CALLS FOR ILLINOIS TO SUE WALL STREET BANKS

Chicago- A coalition of organizations including Grassroots Collaborative, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, ReFund

America Project, SEIU Healthcare, University Professionals of

Illinois, and State Representative Will Guzzardi (D-39) recently held a press conference about financial deals being cut between Governor Rauner and Wall Street banks.

Participants called on Governor Rauner to not sign away

the state’s right to sue the banks, as Mayor Emanuel did

when he negotiated the city’s toxic swap deals, the coalition

alleged in a press release.

The coalition called on Attorney General Lisa Madigan

to sue Wall Street for allegedly defrauding Illinois

taxpayers.

“Wall Street banks used predatory financial deals to

take hundreds of millions from Illinois taxpa yers. For

over a year, Grassroots Collaborative has been organizing

against these deals that are draining public budgets

here in Illinois,” said Amisha Patel, Executive Director

of Grassroots Collaborative. “Our efforts pressured the

Governor to act and successfully prevented the state of

Illinois from paying out $870 million to Wall Street banks

on November 27th, but the toxic swap crisis has only been

delayed, not averted.”

Saqib Bhatti, Director of the ReFund America Project

added, “We're glad we forced the Governor to act to avoid

this payout, but we are very concerned that he just kicked

the can down the road to the end of his term in of fice.

The main part of the deal that the Governor negotiated

just moves the time bomb two years into the future, until

November 8th, the day after he is up for re-election in

2018.”

During the press conference, speakers reiterated the

need for legal action to produce a long-term solution to the

swap crisis.

Tanya Moses, a homecare worker with SEIU Healthcare

stated, “We want the Attorney General to take legal action

to recover our tax money. I understand that other states and

cities have successfully sued over these deals. We need the

Governor to not get in the way of the state using it's full legal

options by signing away the state's right to sue and get our

money back.

Following the press conference the Rauner

administration released a statement saying that the state will

maintain the ability to take legal action. Representative Will Guzzardi responded to Rauner ’s announcement stating, “We have to keep pushing to make sure that Illinois maintains its legal right to sue to recover money from these bad bank deals. And we need transparency.

We need to know what is in the financial deals that Governor

Rauner is entering into with Wall Street banks behind closed

doors. The state needs to get its priorities straight; it is high

time we put working families ahead of Wall Street banks.”

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