Deputy Governor Sheila Nix stood with other top gubernatorial staff today to announce next steps the Blagojevich Administration will take to work with the General Assembly and leaders in order to reach a budget by the end of the state’s fiscal year, June 30th. The Governor wants to avoid relying on last minute budget negotiations, such as those that took place in the end of May that resulted in no budget bills reaching his desk by the end of session.
To help move the process forward, the Governor will call for meetings with all four legislative leaders at the start of each week, with additional meetings throughout the week as needed. He will also call for meetings with all caucuses at the end of each week and regular meetings with the budgeteers. He has already called for a leaders meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, June 5.
“The Governor and his top staff want to be helpful over the next few weeks to keep the dialogue going. We will all be assembled here, as we have been throughout session, to assist legislators and leaders in any way we can. It’s our hope that by beginning the month of June with an aggressive schedule, the General Assembly can avoid dealing with tough budget choices too late in the process. We don’t want a repeat of what happened at the end of May,” said Dep. Gov. Nix.
Nix said that the Governor and top staff responsible for the budget, health care, capital and education will be on hand throughout the month of June to help legislators and leaders address any questions and issues in these key policy areas.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Rep. John Fritchey posted this graphic and the following over at Illinoize…
This overtime was avoidable.
The Governor attempted to lead by edict, with a plan that was doomed from the start no less. I can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of colleagues that feel that they have a positive working relationship with the man. It didn’t have to be that way.
And style aside, he is attempting to foist an $8 billion dollar increase upon the Legislature, and the people of the State, to support programs that many experts feel are substantively unworkable.
Here is a math equation for future Governors to remember:
Bad funding plan + Unproven massive fiscal expenditure + alienated legislators + Complete unwillingness to compromise = Overtime
*** UPDATE 2 *** I haven’t checked yet to see what the hotel situation is, but I imagine it might be tough to get a hotel room tonight or tomorrow…
As many as 4,000 high-end performance machines are expected to roll into the Illinois State Fairgrounds on Tuesday as part of the Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour, a seven-day, seven-city tour that is one of the largest of its kind.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Blogger Dan Curry makes this observation about Nix’s announcement…
After more than four years in office, there’s an exciting announcement from Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich: He’s going to keep a regular work schedule, just like the other 49 chief executives.
Curry also posts this suddenly relevant ad from the 2002 campaign…
Let’s get to work. That’s the message today from Governor Rod Blagojevich’s office. […]
The governor’s office says frequent negotiations now can prevent another deadlock at the end of June.
But Blagojevich didn’t attend the news conference announcing this proposal. And his aides would not answer questions about the governor’s heated argument last week with a state senator.
*** UPDATE 6 *** I’ve been meaning to link to this for days, but considering Nix’s press conference it seems a good fit here. Eric Zorn’s Gov. Nocommentevich
*** UPDATE 7 *** Fritchey has another post up about the Nix presser, and it’s quite something. “Is Rodacity a Word?”
Do NOT make the mistake that I made of listening to the Sheila Nix press conference, posted at Capitol Fax. Unless of course, you will feel encouraged by the Governor’s position that we ‘really need to get to work’ and that we can’t ‘just engage in 3 day workweeks’ as the Speaker has proposed.
Does the Governor’s office really think that it is smart and/or productive to continue to antagonize the very people that he claims to want to work with? And especially on the issue of how much time we spend working in Springfield of all things?!
He ends with this cryptic passage…
All I know is that none of my constituents have been calling complaining about seeing me jogging in the neighborhood in the middle of the day. (Although I could definitely use the exercise.)
Besides this site, what’s your favorite blog? It doesn’t even have to be political. Explain why.
Also, Illinois political bloggers should use this thread to promote their own sites. Paul is revamping our blog list and could use some help finding more links.
* It’s pretty much the consensus that the governor’s outsized health insurance proposals (and the tax increase to go with it) have led directly to the spring session’s demise. This is from my syndicated column…
The simple truth is that very few legislators in the General Assembly have ever campaigned on providing universal health insurance, which is usually considered a federal issue. Many, including Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, go so far as to say that universal insurance ought to be a solely federal issue. […]
While the vast majority haven’t campaigned on universal health insurance, most legislators have been campaigning for school funding reform and infrastructure development for the past 20 years or more.
As a result, the public and the politicians are far more familiar and comfortable with those concepts, and they were super-ripe for passage this year.
Instead, what the governor did was essentially attempt to conjure a gigantic, expensive issue from scratch, gin up a groundswell of support statewide and ram it through the legislature in three and a half months, along with billions of dollars for education funding reform and infrastructure development.
So far, he has failed on all counts. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen here, or in any other democracy for that matter.
How could you squander this unique opportunity to craft the lavish political legacy you crave?
First, you unfurl something you didn’t mention during your campaign — your plan for the biggest tax increase in your state’s history. But you don’t do the hard groundwork of building constituencies in advance. You just toss this out in your budget address — itself a peculiar, populist rant that tries to pit your state’s people against one another. […]
When labor, business and government groups suggest that what your state really needs is a transportation program, you issue an ultimatum. You’re determined to fund health insurance coverage and education. You declare, “That’s the priority, and unless we do that, as far as I’m concerned nothing else is on the table.” […]
When the legislative session ends with a whimper, and your party has nothing to show for all the expenses legislators have rung up in the state capital while doing zip, you might want to lie low. There’ll be plenty of opportunities in an overtime session to demand that your agenda prevail. Plenty of time to posture as the victim.
At this point, of course, you have nothing. Nothing except speaking points for the day your state government finally adopts a budget.
Presumably, Blagojevich was emboldened this time by his easy re-election in November. But he promptly misplayed his victory by calling for an enormous tax increase that he failed to mention during his campaign. Never was there a mandate for a $7.6 billion tax increase that could damage the state’s businesses. Nor did his declaring health care the state’s top priority necessarily make it so for most state residents. Many Democratic lawmakers realized as much, which is why the regular session closed with virtually no support for the gross receipts tax and only scattered support for expanding health care. The governor compounded his problems by avoiding Springfield, failing until late in the game to sit down with legislators, and implying that those skeptical of his agenda were on the wrong side of a basic moral equation.
Add to this basic disagreements between Jones and Madigan, Jones’ unseemly ComEd links, and downstate legislators’ refusal to budge on any other issue unless their constituents receive electric rate relief. The result is a classic case of how to waste what once appeared to be limitless political capital.
* Eric Krol has a George W. Bush comparison. I specifically warned the governor about the danger of this during the bus tour, but he brushed it aside…
Blagojevich won re-election last November, but he was unable to score a majority of the vote in what was nominally a three-way race. The governor found himself in a position similar to President Bush, who, after narrowly winning a second term, still tried to boast that he earned “political capital” and intended to “spend it.” […]
“I think the governor has to give back his flight suit and roll up his ‘mission accomplished’ banner,” said state Rep. Jack Franks, a Woodstock Democrat, making an allusion to Bush’s famous visit to that aircraft carrier declaring the Iraq war won.
* The Post-Dispatch editorial board, which backed the governor’s massive health insurance proposal, now piles on…
It was a bold plan and this page supported it. But neither Mr. Madigan nor most House members would stand behind it. The business lobby despised it, of course, and it crashed and burned with a 107 to 0 vote against it.
At that point, Mr. Blagojevich would have been wise to seek middle ground in order to rescue at least part of his health insurance plan. A consensus has been slowly building in Springfield for a plan that would raise income taxes, while cutting unpopular property taxes. By twiddling with the tax numbers and adding some business taxes, Mr. Blagojevich might have rescued part of what he wanted on health care as well as schools.
Instead, he dug in his heels and stood firm on his campaign pledge not to raise personal income taxes no matter what. He’s been hinting that he’ll keep lawmakers in session until they bend to his will.
* And Kristen McQueary has some harsh words for Senate President Jones, comparing him to former Republican Senate President Pate Philip and echoing some complaints I’ve heard a lot at the Statehouse lately…
Education funding reform. Philip blocked the most significant piece of legislation to date on school-funding reform. While the Democratically controlled House passed Gov. Jim Edgar’s 1997 swap plan, Philip sat on the proposal like a fat goose. […]
At the time, Jones wrote a letter to the Daily Southtown calling Edgar’s plan “the best way to accomplish those goals because the income tax offers a steady stream of revenue, the plan has a continuing appropriation that allows education spending to keep up with inflation, a dedicated growth fund for property-tax relief, and it’s fair because those who can afford to make the most sacrifice for children would make the largest sacrifice.”
Jones criticized Republicans for following their leaders in the House and Senate “like sheep.”
Then two months ago, Jones followed Philip’s playbook. He declared Sen. James Meeks’ tax-swap bill dead and advocated for Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s gross-receipts tax instead.
When it flopped, he turned to gambling, just as Philip introduced stiffer taxes on riverboats as an alternative to Edgar’s plan.
With Jones in charge, the Senate is no closer to narrowing the gap between rich and poor school districts than it was under Philip.
The whole thing is a mess.
* More budget and end-of-session stories, compiled by Paul…
Considering all the comments on Friday, you’re probably done with this issue, but there were several stories over the weekend, so let’s take another crack at it, shall we?
Here’s some of what led up to the fight over the Western Illinois Unviversity money…
For example, Jacobs said, the governor promised school construction funding for Silvis, but then didn’t deliver because lawmakers didn’t pass a capital spending bill.
“The governor came in and presented a $13 million check that bounced,” Jacobs said. “That’s been in my craw.”
“But on the whole … we’ve enjoyed a pretty good relationship. I don’t want to willy-nilly knock him. But I will tell you that … other people have said to me, `You can’t trust him; you can’t trust him.’ Everybody keeps telling me this … After a while, you begin to think, well, maybe you can’t.”
Jacobs initially agreed to vote for the [governor’s] health insurance bill [on Thursday], but reportedly changed his mind when he came to the conclusion that he couldn’t trust the governor to keep the promise he made. The governor reportedly offered to release $75 million for a college expansion in Jacobs’ district in exchange for his vote on SB5.
Some might say he came to his senses, others might say he double-crossed the guv, depending on their perspective.
* Much of what was said behind closed doors is in dispute…
Jacobs said Blagojevich specifically threatened funding for a Western Illinois University extension campus. The university is slated to receive $73.2 million in construction funds in Blagojevich’s capital budget for next year — a budget the Legislature hasn’t passed yet. Of that total, $14 million is for a new university building in Moline, which is in Jacobs’ district.
Jacobs said Blagojevich offered to make sure that the $73 million went to WIU in exchange for Jacobs’ support on the health care bill. When Jacobs refused, he said, Blagojevich “blew up.”
WIU Associate Vice President John Maguire confirmed that the governor’s office called university President Al Goldfarb on Friday but denied that the office threatened to withhold any funding. “The outcome of that was the president was asked to call the senator to encourage his support (of the health care plan),” Maguire said. “We did so.”
I’m so sure that the governor’s office routinely calls university presidents to lobby their legislators. Not. This was obviously part of the threat against Jacobs.
“Senator Jacobs wanted a commitment of a $75 million project in his district in exchange for his vote to provide health care for everyone,” Blagojevich spokeswoman Rebecca Rausch wrote in an e-mailed statement. “The governor refused.”
Told of the statement, Jacobs heatedly denied that he ever asked the governor for $75 million.
“The guy’s a liar,” the senator said. “I dare him to hook himself up to a lie detector test to prove it.”
As I told subscribers this morning, that’s just not true (on both sides). But you’ll have to subscribe to find out why.
* The Sun-Times also had some quotes from Jacobs’ fellow legisltors backing him up…
“That’s wrong, absolutely wrong,” said Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson (D-Crete), who supports the governor’s plan. “I just don’t understand how people think fighting legislators for their votes works. It doesn’t.”
No one else wanted the state to do health care. It cost too much money. The state had other programs in need of funding.
But Baby Blago got so mad Friday at a state senator who refused to vote for his health care plan that during an argument he reportedly used profanity, balled up his fists and threatened to ruin the man’s political career.
If Blagojevich had talked that way to him in a tavern, said state Sen. Mike Jacobs (D-East Moline), “I would have kicked his tail end.”
Apparently calling people “fat cats, fat cats,” didn’t work, so the governor has become a potty mouth.
The legislative pay raise has been attached to the widows and orphans fund for soliders for weeks, so I’m surprised that it wasn’t really an issue until the Sun-Times splashed the story over the weekend…
On its own, a plan to grant Gov. Blagojevich, his Cabinet, statewide officeholders and rank-and-file lawmakers nearly 10 percent pay raises might as well have had an anvil tied to it.
But tie the politically unpalatable plan to a funding bill that also provided money to the families of deceased soldiers, police officers or firefighters, and the $1.4 million in pay raises are on a fast track to the governor to approve. […]
“It’s just outrageously ludicrous. To hang their pay increase, and it is theirs, on to a bill that has line-of-duty pay for the loss of our sons and daughters in Illinois is just outrageous,” said Jim Frazier, a St. Charles resident whose son Jacob, a member of the Illinois Air National Guard, died while on duty in Afghanistan in 2003.
The program Frazier cited provides survivors of Illinois military members who died while serving in Afghanistan or Iraq payments of $283,130. The funding bill contains $7.7 million for that program.
The idea is to make it politically unpalatable to vote against the pay raises. If a legislator votes “No,” then he or she could be blasted in the upcoming election for voting against the survivor benefits. It is also designed to provide cover for members, who can say that they had no choice in the pay raise matter because they wanted to help out those survivors.
But attaching their salary boost to this particular issue is more than a little reprehensible. Yes, it’s all part of the supplemental funding bill, but this move ought to have some consequences. Considering the way the map was drawn and the likely high Democratic turnout in next year’s presidential race, however, it probably won’t mean all that much.
