My Sun-Times column today is about Senate President Emil Jones…

Senate President Emil Jones often recommends that Statehouse newbies watch “The Godfather, Part 1″ to get an idea of how Springfield operates. It’s a good idea, and I told my intern this year that he needed to watch the flick as well.

Loyalty, honor, respect and ruthlessness are the lessons we’re supposed to learn from the classic film, which follows mafia chieftain Don Corleone and his sons as they deal with “family business,” including killing off all their enemies.

Jones often quotes lines from the movie, and his management style is regularly compared to the loyalty-obsessed brutality of the Corleone “family.” But his schtick has gotten way out of hand this year.

To put it simply, Jones has become far too enamored with “whacking” his enemies — politically speaking, of course. Jones hasn’t actually had anybody killed this year, but he has definitely made it known that he will ruthlessly avenge any sign of disloyalty.

The column then goes through a long litany of abuses and/or misuses of power by Jones and ends thusly..

Here’s the lesson about Mafia movies that Jones is missing: They don’t end well. There’s no singing and dancing by victorious mobsters as the credits roll. Michael Corleone may have “won” his battles and wound up on top at the end of “The Godfather,” but he was clearly a doomed man.

Please read the whole thing before discussing below. Thanks.

*** UPDATE *** Eric Krol’s column takes a look at Jones and his new suburban freshman. It’s something I’ve been writing about in Capitol Fax, and Krol doesn’t like what he sees (neither do I, for that matter)…

As I listened online to the Illinois Senate in the final hours before overtime loomed, I heard something unfold I could hardly believe.

Democratic Senate President Emil Jones pushed through a doomed major gambling expansion that would put new casinos in Chicago, Waukegan, the South suburbs and near O’Hare. It was doomed because the House had left for the day, not that it had much of a prayer there to begin with. This vote was symbolic.

I was anxious to see if Jones, who’d reportedly been working hard all day to get this legislation passed, put any of the four suburban freshmen on this dangerous roll call. Democratic Sens. Michael Noland of Elgin, Michael Bond of Grayslake, Linda Holmes of Plainfield and Dan Kotowski of Park Ridge had scored upsets but remain politically vulnerable.

Jones allowed all four of them to vote for the gambling expansion, the largest since the state first legalized floating casinos. All four just handed their future opponents a ready-made glossy campaign attack flier: “(Insert senator’s name here) swims in the cesspool of gambling.”