* As you’re probably aware by now, there’s a big argument over whether the appropriations bills passed by the House and Senate violate the state’s Constitution…

The Illinois Constitution prohibits lawmakers from appropriating more spending for a fiscal year than they expect the state to gain in revenue during that year. Madigan said it’s up to Blagojevich, using his veto power, to cut spending if he has a problem with it.

Dawn Clark Netsch, a Northwestern University law professor, said it’s the Legislature’s responsibility to do its “absolute double-best” to approve a budget that’s actually balanced, just as the governor must begin the spring session by introducing a balanced plan for that budget.

“It’s an important moral imperative,” said Netsch, who was vice chair of the committee which drafted the “balanced budget” mandate at the 1970 convention.

* The governor, who claims he got a “C” in consitutional law, agrees…

The governor said the state constitution is “pretty clear and unambiguous” that both chambers must pass a balanced budget.

* The Constitution requires the governor to submit a balanced budget, and it has this language…

The General Assembly by law shall make appropriations for all expenditures of public funds by the State. Appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year.

Seems pretty clear to me.

* But what about the history?

“Certainly there have been many budgets that governors have viewed as exceeding their projected revenue,” said Laurence Msall, president of The Civic Federation, a nonpartisan government research organization based in Chicago. “But I don’t recall the General Assembly majority leadership indicating that as they were passing the budget to the governor.”

* And…

Charles Wheeler, director of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said he couldn’t recall another instance in which lawmakers deliberately and publicly approved an unbalanced budget, as they did on Saturday.

* But…

[House Democratic budgeteer Rep. Gary Hannig] disputed the idea that what was done this year is breaking new ground. Instead, he said, it was a return to his early days in the General Assembly, starting in 1979, when he said it was more usual for the legislature to takethe lead in crafting the budget, knowing that the governor would use line-item veto power to get it in balance.

“If you go back and look at those days,” he said of the era of Gov. Jim Thompson, a Republican often working with a Democratic legislature, “you will see that veto sessions had a lot of budget items … and a lot of override efforts.”

Having a governor work out a detailed budget with legislative leaders became the model most used when the GOP had majorities in the House and Senate for two years starting in 1995, when Republican Jim Edgar was governor, Hannig said.

That’s before my time, and Speaker Madigan has said the same thing as Hannic. Still, Msall and Wheeler were both around during those days and Charlie was the press room’s resident budget expert. There may have been lots of override motions, but if things were that out of balance, you’d think those two guys would remember it. This requires more research. Perhaps the intern can get on it after the Rezko jury finishes its duties and we can unchain him from his laptop.

* Whatever the case, the political feud continues…

Blagojevich accused lawmakers of violating the state constitution by passing an unbalanced budget. The state constitution requires that the state appropriations each year aren’t higher than anticipated revenue.

‘’This would be the first time the guy has ever been concerned about a balanced budget,'’ countered Madigan spokesman Steve Brown.

Oof.

* The Peoria Journal Star asks…

Every time you think the dysfunction can’t get any worse in Springfield, it does. Isn’t there someone Illinoisans can sue?

* Nope…

“But I don’t think you could ever go to court and get a court to say, ‘OK Legislature, you did not appropriate in accordance with the Constitution.’ And do what? Send them all to jail? Hold them in contempt?”

*** UPDATE *** Thanks to a commenter, here’s an excerpt from a 1990 story about Jim Thompson’s last year in office…

The bottom line is that the lawmakers’ budget as sent to the governor was $150 million to $200 million out of balance. The governor’s Bureau of the Budget put the shortfall at $199 million through a simplified computation. After Thompson was done with the lawmakers’ plan, he had balanced the budget by “cutting” $179 million and by directing agencies to create a 2 percent reserve that would set aside $20 million that could only be spent with the governor’s written approval.

Thompson’s “cuts” amounted to a return to the payment deferrals that he had originally proposed. He lopped $115 million from Medicaid spending, $20 million from circuit breaker payments and $25 million from state employee’s group insurance. “These vetoes in essence return the billing cycle back to the budget levels,” budget director Robert L. Mandeville said. Other major vetoes included $5 million cut in general state aid for public schools and $3.9 million in “new” money for a pre-trial program in Cook County.

Rep. Hannig is apparently right.