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* The Daily Southtown urges a mushroom revolt…
Don’t sit back and let these three men’s childish antics hamstring this great state any further. Let them and your representatives and senators know how you feel. And those representatives and senators need to let the leaders know how they feel, too. We know there is discontent within the rank-and-file, but until the members rise up in unison and tell the leaders to get their acts together, those leaders will continue to treat those members like peons. The leaders need to be sent a message that if problems within the state are not addressed, their days of being leaders are numbered. But based on what’s happened in the past, we know the fearful rank-and-file members will barely utter a peep.
What an embarrassment the state government has become.
Illinois needs a fair, fiscally responsible budget passed now. Problems need to be dealt with through reasoned discussions and compromise — not locker-room antics or crybaby talk or another layer of makeup.
* And Phil Kadner is dubious of Senate President Emil Jones’ renewed emphasis on school funding reform and the whole issue in general…
Down in Springfield, some of the most useless elected officials in the country are holding hearings into education funding. […]
After 15 years of doing basically nothing to help education, after three blue-ribbon panels shouted, “You folks are destroying the public school system in this state,” the Illinois Senate (meeting in special session) is going to spend the entire week listening to education advocates explain it all again. […]
t’s truly amazing how much political juice the folks in Springfield have squeezed out of the education turnip.
Jones knows one thing for certain. If he passes a bill out of the Senate now, it will be dead on arrival in the House, where Madigan and Republicans can kill it. And even if it passes out of the House, the governor has vowed to veto the bill.
Calling these people “useless” may be too kind. They’ve done real harm to the children and taxpayers of this state.
* The Pantagraph notes that we’re heading for a new overtime record…
On July 24, which is less than a week away, the General Assembly and Gov. Rod Blagojevich will surpass their 2004 record for the amount of time the state has gone into a new fiscal year without an overall spending plan.
With little progress to report Tuesday, observers said the record is almost sure to be broken.
* …And checks the latest floor census…
Attendance by lawmakers picked up Tuesday after several days where dozens failed to show up to work. In the Senate, 36 of 59 members were on the floor when the session got under way. The roll call in the 118-member House roll topped 100 for the first time in a week.
* The Pennsylvania overtime session received a lot of national media, mainly because the state shut down government services. That hasn’t happened here yet, but as Mike Skarr notes…
Maybe since our budget crisis has lasted about nine times as long as the Pennsylvania budget woes, we, the taxpayers will get a result that is nine times as good, but probably not.
* Bethany Carson gives us a quick rundown…
The governor has been in town since Monday, but no official leaders’ meetings have convened. The legislature has broken up into small group meetings so far to discuss gaming, a capital plan, education, revenue, agency spending and the Illinois Department of Corrections. They’re closed to the public.
The governor also sent a letter to House Speaker Michael Madigan, House Minority Leader Tom Cross and Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson criticizing them for halting progress on a proposal to expand gaming, which would pay for the debt service on a capital plan and for education. “Negotiations broke down over your refusal to dedicate some portion of new gaming revenue to education,” the governor wrote. He also said, “A budget that invests in infrastructure without providing resources for education and health care is not an option. We must find a way to meet all of our obligations.”
* To which Madigan’s spokesman replied…
“We had $400 million in new education spending in the budget the House passed on May 30. We’ll remind him of that.”
* And state Sen. Terry Link says that gaming ain’t dead yet…
“This is not ‘The Sopranos’, this is more like a soap opera, and nothing is dead down here,” state Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan, asserted Tuesday. “It might have looked like it is dead, but it is very much alive.
Link conceded that consensus on the extent of expanded gaming and what the revenue will be used for is “elusive,” but he said there are plenty of incentives for legislators to keep hammering away at a compromise.
“I think you will see some negotiation and compromise before this winds down,” Link said, adding that letting the gaming issue die would amount to “the loss of a lot of revenue” without a tax increase “on any individual.”
* And Sen. Bill Peterson offers this observation…
[Peterson] said there appears to be progress in working out a compromise on electric rates, and added that school aid formula payments are due in August. If the aid formula payments are not made, a lot of districts would be negatively impacted and would have to borrow money, which would not reflect well on the Legislature. “There’s an Aug. 10 drop-dead date to get something done,” he said.
posted by Rich Miller
Wednesday, Jul 18, 07 @ 9:41 am
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Responsible citizens might want to consider
asking for political asylum in Wisconsin or
Iowa…..this whole thing is like a bad joke.
Comment by Esteban Wednesday, Jul 18, 07 @ 9:49 am
I think that what citizens really need to be doing is organizing against obstructionists to popular proposals, like House Bill 750. In my experience, politicians rarely respond to anything other than a threat to their reputation, campaign finances, or vote totals (one affecting the other, in that order.) This means that there must be an aggressive campaign against Madigan in his own district.
I don’t think that his district will elect a Republican; but I know his district, and it seems likely to me that they would be willing to listen to a strong Green candidate–especially with the mess that is Springfield right now. In fact, this may be exactly the impetus needed in order to get a new Green local up and running in this area. After all, the absolute worst polluter in all of Cook County–Argo Corn Products–is located right there on the district boundary; and the world’s very first nuclear reactor lies buried and leaking in a forest preserve at the other side.
I mean, Madigan’s district office is located way over on the extreme east side of the district, in Chicago, which is culturally a world apart from places like Indian Head Park, Countryside, and Willow Springs. In many ways, Madigan is also the perfect Green target, as not only is he the Chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party but he’s also the epitome of a antidemocratic, corporate-sponsored, machine politician; and it was his attorney that led the frivolous objection proceedings against Rich Whitney’s nominating petition in 2006. All that I can say is that he had better be ultra sure that all of his nominating petition paperwork, eligibility requirements, campaign finance disclosure reporting, and everything else is in perfect order.
Comment by Squideshi Wednesday, Jul 18, 07 @ 10:19 am
Glad to see that the Southtown editorial writers agree with me. I think, I’ve been advocating for a revolt against Democratic leadership for approximately the last two months.
Comment by Captain America Wednesday, Jul 18, 07 @ 10:54 am
“I’ve been advocating for a revolt against Democratic leadership for approximately the last two months.”
Only two months? LOL. In all honesty here, you do make a really good point–you used the phrase “Democratic leadership.” I have no problem with a large majority of rank and file Democrats, nor Republicans or Libertarians for that matter–it is the leadership with which I have problems. I suspect that the rank and file does too, but it seems that very rarely are people willing to do something about it. Change doesn’t come about by continuing to give people a free pass just because they’re “members” of the same party, which incidentally, doesn’t really mean much according to the way Illinois election law defines it.
Comment by Squideshi Wednesday, Jul 18, 07 @ 2:02 pm
Not a lot of comments on this one. Makes me wonder why.
Comment by Rich Miller Wednesday, Jul 18, 07 @ 3:36 pm
Not a lot of comments on this one. Makes me wonder why.
Maybe the leaders did not approve of the revolt idea, so it died in committee.
Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Wednesday, Jul 18, 07 @ 4:35 pm
I think the reason there isn’t a lot of comments about this is because the writers of these news comments are about two weeks behind us at the thecapitolfaxblog. We have been feeling angry over this fiasco for a long time.
Reading these guys regurgitate what we have been posting is just anti-climatic.
Comment by VanillaMan Wednesday, Jul 18, 07 @ 4:51 pm