* Patterson makes an excellent point…

One day last May, the 37 Democrats in the Illinois Senate went behind doors only to emerge and, on the strength of their votes alone, pass an income and sales tax increase to help balance the state budget.

At the same time, the Senate Republicans were meeting privately to plot their opposition to the tax plan. In the end, the increase never passed in the state House.

Yet there was nary a complaint from the media or good government groups that monitor the Capitol over the Democrats’ meeting.

One summer when Rod Blagojevich was still governor, he met collectively with the vast majority of the Illinois House behind closed doors at the executive mansion to discuss the budget. Not a peep was heard from the reform groups or the editorial pages.

But when the Senate decided to hold a “joint caucus” last week to hear from an NCSL representative, all heck broke loose…

Why such diverse reactions? Why is it OK for the Democrats, who have enough votes to control the Senate agenda, to privately discuss strategy on actual issues, but then seemingly a sin against the constitution to include the political minority Republicans who, on most days, are powerless to do anything but object in the Senate?

“That’s actually a really good question,” said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a group all too familiar with the ways of the Capitol.

“They always have closed partisan caucuses. The difference was this was the Senate as a whole. This was the entire body. There is no such thing as a joint Senate caucus. There is simply a Democratic caucus or a Republican caucus or the Senate.”

OK, I agree, but party caucus meetings, particularly in the Senate, often involve actual roll calls. The “real” questions are asked in caucus meetings and that’s almost always where the “real” debates take place - in both chambers.

I developed a niche for myself back in the 1990s by writing about the goings-on in the House Democratic caucus. When the HGOPs took over, I wrote about their meetings as well. My reporting on the Senate GOP caucus meetings were so detailed and inflamed tempers so much that members were told they’d be expelled if they leaked any more information to me - which, of course, was my headline the next day.

I still write about caucus and leaders meetings. It’s the only way to shine any real light on this process, which is almost entirely conducted in secret.

The only big difference between now and then is that Speaker Madigan rarely ever divulges information in caucus now. Back in the day, I had a couple of his members taking detailed notes in every meeting. So, he eventually stopped sharing information.

…Adding… After months of angrily and loudly and insistently pushing for a state reform bill that capped campaign contributions (sometimes noting parenthetically that it actually opposes contribution caps), the Tribune editorial board’s latest “reform” screed more than suggests that banning federal campaign contributions from foreign corporations would be unfair…

Justice Anthony Kennedy said explicitly in the court’s opinion that the government “may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements.”

Where the [federal] bill faces more uncertain prospects is in banning certain corporations from engaging in political speech at all. Foreign companies, government contractors and banks getting federal bailout money would all be barred.

The court justified its invalidation of the corporate ban on the ground that it deprived voters of information and interfered with the “marketplace of ideas.” The same problems exist when only some corporations are restricted. If the information is potentially helpful to voters in assessing candidates, should it matter whether it comes from a domestic or foreign source?

* Related…

* Statehouse Insider: ‘Transparency,’ Illinois-style

* Conduct state business in public

* Illinois Senate should meet openly