*** UPDATE *** From the Naperville Sun…
Gov. Pat Quinn will name Merchandise Mart CEO Chris Kennedy to the University of Illinois board later Wednesday.
Quinn mentioned the appointment Wednesday morning after speaking at a labor breakfast at Local 176 in Joliet.
[ *** End of Update *** ]
* After postponing the event several times, Gov. Pat Quinn intends to take action on the U of I trustee issue later today. From a press release…
CHICAGO- Governor Quinn will make an announcement regarding the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.
To listen and watch the press conference live, please visit http://www.illinois.gov/ioci/iisradio.cfm
WHO: Governor Pat Quinn
TIME: 2:30 p.m.
WHERE: James R. Thompson Center
100 West Randolph Street
15th Floor Blue Room
Chicago, 60601
Background…
Quinn said [yesterday] he will detail his plans for the board and holdout trustees Montgomery and Frances Carroll, who have refused the governor’s call to resign. The governor wouldn’t say what he plans to do, but he promised to act “with certainty and with dispatch.”[…]
Montgomery told The Associated Press that if Quinn removes him, he’ll seek an injunction to stop the action, then try to force the governor to prove in court that he was incompetent, neglected his duties or was guilty of malfeasance. The state constitution says political appointees may be removed for those reasons.
“I’m not going to take the responsibility for conduct that I had nothing to do with, and I don’t want to voluntarily acknowledge that I did something that I did not do,” Montgomery said.
But Senate President John Cullerton is advising against firing the two remaining trustees…
Cullerton said his advice to Gov. Quinn is not to fire the holdout trustees now — “they’ll sue, they should sue, and it’ll cost us a lot of money to fight it if nothing else” — but to wait to see if the state Senate passes the fumigation bill, which would have the same effect but in a much more pro-forma way that would be unlikely to prompt a lawsuit.
Cullerton wants the two holdouts to resign on their own. If they don’t, he threatened to advance the House-approved “fumigation” bill. The Tribune originally reported that Cullerton would move a bill targeting only the U of I trustees if they don’t all resign, but Cullerton said that was incorrect.
* Meawhile, the Associated Press has a story today about the governor’s numerous flip-flops and Quinn’s defense of himself…
Quinn, however, argues that most of those actions amount to maneuvering over details as he focuses on the big picture — getting a tax increase to balance the budget, for instance, or toughening Illinois ethics laws.
More…
Christopher Mooney, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said Quinn risks weakening himself by being seen as indecisive. Lawmakers, for instance, are less likely to concede to him in negotiations if they think he’ll fold soon.
But Mooney doubts the average voter pays much attention to the kinds of issues on which Quinn has been accused of flip-flopping. He said they’re not big, fundamental issues, such as presidential candidate John Kerry’s 2004 statement that he voted for war funding before he voted against it.
They’ll likely pay attention if the issue is effectively used in TV ads and if the meme continues in the media.
- Niles Township - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 9:45 am:
I’m with Prof. Mooney on this one. I think most of flip flop has been on inside. The public just isn’t paying attention to that type of thing, and I’m not sure even a good ad moves more than a few percent of the electorate in the days we now live in.
On the cocktail/dinner party circuit, I still hear that thanksfully Blago is gone, and Quinn seems like a good enough guy to deserve his own shot to do things right. Since the Hynes non-announcement, I’ve heard only one person mention him saying he was a good guy like Quinn, and why do the good guys have to run against each other.
- Wumpus - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 9:45 am:
Fire them. You will be seen as a weakling, Quinn. I think the entire ultimatum thing was ridiculous, but you made the ultimatum so follow through. They need to bow before General Zod…I mean Gov Quinn.
- Pat Collins - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 9:45 am:
Hard to get slammed for firing the trustees over this.
As a board member, you have a responsibility for what happens. The fact that they themselves did not do it is not important. That they did nothing about the practice is.
- wordslinger - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 9:46 am:
Quinn put himself in a real trick bag, but I suspect the best way out of it is to look tough, fire them, and let the chips fall where they may. At least he would look decisive.
I don’t know anything about Carroll, but I find it hard to believe an accommodation couldn’t have been reached earlier with Montgomery. The guy knows how to play hardball, but I think he could have been brought around with some subtle diplomacy.
- Small Town Liberal - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 9:51 am:
How can they possibly have a case when they hold these positions at the Governor’s pleasure? He could get rid of them even if they weren’t involved in any kind of scandal couldn’t he? I say Quinn should stick to his guns and let them try.
- Fire Ron Guenther - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 9:59 am:
I will gain a lot of respect for Governor Quinn if he shows some testicular virility and sacks Carroll & Montgomery.
- Rodd - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 10:06 am:
What about the student rep to the board? Does he or she go too?
- lake county democrat - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 10:07 am:
Cullerton didn’t mind wasting the state’s money on litigation over the constitutionality of that anti-Blago book bill. (And for those who think “who cares, it’s just Blago — why would you want to chill books by crooked pols which might name other crooks. Think Jose Canseco and steroids). But I digress — it’d be a slap in the face to the trustees who had a soupcon of decency and resigned to let these two slide by an extra day.
- You Go Boy - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 10:25 am:
Oh, but for simple honesty and competence in this government and all the hoopla about all the rest (e.g. “Ethics Reform” - HA!) would be properly relegated to the bottom of the pile (you decide ‘pile’ of what).
- Obamarama - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 10:27 am:
===What about the student rep to the board? Does he or she go too?===
That’s immaterial. I do not believe that the Student Trustee has voting privileges.
- Matt Diller - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 11:01 am:
@Rodd and Obamarama:
One of the three student trustees has full voting privileges, the others have advisory votes only. The Governor designates one of the three to receive that privilege each year. The student trustees are not appointed - they are elected by the student body at each of their respective campuses. Given that the governor’s power to remove is limited to removing “any officer who may be appointed by the Governor”, I suspect that he does not have the power to remove them from office. In any event, removing the student trustees from office would probably be inadvisable from a PR perspective.
- Obamarama - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 11:12 am:
Thanks for the clarification.
- Captain Flume - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 11:13 am:
I wonder why Cullerton is talking about moving the fumigation bill now but was not so willing to move it during the spring session?
- Jake from Elwood - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 11:18 am:
I can’t believe that the two holdout won’t resign on their own. Perhaps they are oblivious to the fact that they are splattered with the stain of the scandal whether they held the paintbrush or not. Time for some turpentine.
- CircularFiringSquad - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 11:22 am:
Capt Fax:
Did you bump your head during the night?
Grabbing comments from the academic quote %(*%*( is beneath you. Perhaps another vacation is needed
“Christopher Mooney, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said Quinn risks weakening himself by being seen as indecisive. Lawmakers, for instance, are less likely to concede to him in negotiations if they think he’ll fold soon.”
V
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 11:37 am:
Good Lord!
Fire them!
Who do these people think they are? They are not entitled to circumvent the rules - they are expected to follow the damn rules!
Not everything has to be political. So, when these two know-it-alls decided to turn this situation into a political one, they signed their own pink slips by their actions. Their actions say they cannot do their jobs.
Fire them!
- Arthur Andersen - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 12:29 pm:
Good Lord indeed, VM. Remember that things were supposed to get better after Blago got removed.
Not.
Because PQ is intimidated by a pair of race-carding hacks and won’t carry out his own directive, now hundreds of State workers and their families may again be dragged into weeks of terrible uncertainty thanks to Junior Cullerton’s helpful “fumigation” idea.
- Arthur Andersen - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 12:39 pm:
…and so much for consultation with the UI Alumni Association on new trustee appointments.
Another non-alum from Chicago. How original.
- Niles Township - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 1:14 pm:
I hear the Alumni Association will get two spots with they Assoc. essentially picking those two subject to a Quinn veto. That is more than the A.A. has gotten in the past from governors.
- jaundiced eye - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 1:39 pm:
I’m not sure Chris Kennedy could find CU and get to a Trustees’ meeting … His car would probably veer toward Indiana and South Bend. Besides, he would bring little or nothing to the board and its deliberations.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 1:41 pm:
That was a bit much, JE. Seriously. The guy is a major Illinois CEO.
- jaundiced eye - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 1:57 pm:
Sorry, Rich. Having served on a board with him …
- Will County Woman - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 2:11 pm:
cullerton now says that trib git him all wrong? hmmm… was he got at by mike madigan? madigan’s name figures heavily in the clout admission thing. he was one of the first lawmakers to decline the mikva commissions request thast he appear before the commission to answer question.
i agree with montgomery and carroll, and i hope they fight on. firing them in the absence of proving that the engaged in malfesence or any of the other things that the gov. must prove to fire them, is wrong.
i’m glad zorn bought up the gov’s hyprocisy viz a vis his silence on blago, and i hope that the skilled and seasoned montgomery uses that to illustrate why he and carroll did not resign.
- Rich Miller - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 2:36 pm:
Live blog of Quinn presser… https://capitolfax.com/2009/08/26/quinn-press-conference-live-blog-2/
- Keyser Soze - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 2:39 pm:
The U of I has the largest alumni association in the world. A great many of the alumni reside in Illinois, one of the largest economies in the world, and are very successful due in no small part to their education at the “big U”. Why then would an Illinois Governor appoint as a trustee to the university someone who has no connection to the university and its traditions. First it was Carroll, and now it is Kennedy. Why can’t we reintroduce some dignity to the position of trustee and stop appointing politicians and their lackeys. This alum is offended by the appointment of both of the above named. Borrowing from Jaundiced Eye, it may be necessary to equip the most recent appointee with a GPS unit so that he can find the place. For this selection I am awarding Quinn five dirty points.
- Keyser Soze - Wednesday, Aug 26, 09 @ 3:14 pm:
From no class to no spine. Cullerton do your job.