*** 1:20 pm *** The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules voted 8-2 this morning to block the governor’s health care expansion plan.

JCAR and the administration have been deadlocked over the issue since the governor ordered his agencies to ignore JCAR’s ruling that they couldn’t expand health care with vetoed budget money last year. Some additional background on today’s specific vote is here.

* The AP notes…

Administration officials hurriedly left the committee hearing room after the vote without taking questions.

* But the governor’s office just released this statement…

JCAR has provided its input. We will move forward and continue to, within the parameters of the law, assist the uninsured in getting access to affordable coverage as well as helping to protect coverage for working parents within the FamilyCare program.

Your guess is as good as mine on what that means.

* My intern Kevin Fanning was at the meeting and filed this report…

After a few introductory questions were asked, Representative Lou Lang fired the first shot:

“Where do you have the money?”

To which the administration officials replied, “In our budget.”

“But if there wasn’t a surplus, and you added a program that wasn’t already there, where is the money coming from?” Lang asked.

The panel had no answer to the question, and more grilling ensued. Finally, Lang asked “Why did you even come to JCAR in the first place?” to which the increasingly angry panel replied: “Because we wanted to go through the process.”

Representative Fritchey added to the fray when he stated, “All we’re being told is ‘Don’t worry we can pay for it.’ How? ‘Don’t worry we can pay for it.’ Help us help yourselves.”

A member of the administration responded: “It shouldn’t be like Mother may I.”

With that Representative Lang made the motion to block the expansion. The motion was seconded, and subsequently passed 8 to 2. The director of DHFS stormed out of the meeting before it formally adjourned.

I asked Representative Lang if he considered the hearing a proxy war with the administration. “The Governor’s office will consider this a battle over process,” Lang said. “They will say that nothing is more important than healthcare. I will say that nothing is more important than the Constitution of the State of Illinois. If the Governor wants to provide healthcare, then I will sit down and join him in that effort, but he needs to come to the General Assembly.”

“We’re going to see if the administration proceeds to continue a program that we’ve now denied twice. We have something on the third floor of the Capitol called the Illinois General Assembly, and if they’re interested in changing the laws of the state of Illinois they can come there with a bill like everybody else. They can propose a law in bill form, and we will vote for it up or down. I might even vote for it. They consider JCAR to be advisory.”

*** 1:51 pm *** Congressional Democratic candidate Bill Foster just released a new poll which shows him leading Republican Jim Oberweis…

This is a special election, held on a Saturday, so polling may not be all that much help. The ground game is gonna be very important and Foster claims superiority there.

The poll itself had just 402 respondents and was taken over a four-day period (Feb. 21-24). It has a rather high margin of error of 4.9 percent.

* More from Foster’s poll…

Foster continues to hold a significant lead (47%-25%) among the critical segment of voters who identify themselves as Independents. Foster has also succeeded in consolidating his party behind him following the primary, as 89% of self-identified Democrats now say they will vote for the businessman and scientist. On the flip side, Oberweis’ biggest problem is his failure to consolidate his party following the negative and divisive Republican primary. Just 76% of self-identified Republicans say they will vote for Oberweis, a number which is less surprising when we see an astonishing 11% of Republicans who are STRONGLY unfavorable to him, a number which has not changed at all since the first survey we conducted (an additional 2% hold somewhat unfavorable views).

The party results have a much larger MoE, of course, so take those numbers with a grain of salt.

* 2:01 pm - From Taegan Goddard…

LegiStorm launched a database of personal financial disclosures for thousands of the most powerful congressional aides.

By law, members of Congress and their highest paid staff are required annually to disclose information about their personal finances, including details about their debts, investments, outside earned income, spousal employment, major gifts received and even their gambling winnings.

*** 2:43 pm *** Reps. David Miller and John Fritchey just held a Statehouse press conference to announce they would sponsor legislation to codify the governor’s health care proposals which were once again rejected by JCAR this morning.

Miller and Fritchey said that their disagreement with the governor wasn’t necessarily over policy, but process. So, the governor’s proposals ought to be subjected to the will of the entire General Assembly, not just JCAR. More in a bit.

UPDATE: From the Miller-Fritchey press release…

“From the beginning, we have maintained that we fully support the principle of providing access to quality, affordable health care,” Fritchey, a co-sponsor of the bill, said. “Our concern has been rooted in the means by which the Governor has sought to do it. An initiative of this scope and importance should go through the Legislature, and that is what we are attempting to do with this bill.”

And here’s the bill: HB 6297