The rest of the story
Monday, Apr 19, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* Where have I heard this one before?…
If 60 is too old for a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, how about a 43-year-old attorney general who used to sit next to President Obama in the Illinois Senate?
Slate.com lists Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, 43, as one of its top 21 Supreme Court prospects.
Madigan at first laughed off her status as a hot prospect for the nation’s top court, saying “only if you have the longest list.” But she then said, “It’s flattering to even be mentioned as someone who might be considered. But we have some other fine people who would be extraordinary for the Supreme Court.”
Turns out, this is really old news. Slate has had AG Madigan on its “short list” since last year, before Sonia Sotomayor was picked. We even had a long discussion about it last May. Madigan remains on its list this year.
* Between December of 2000 and September of 2008, the FDIC seized just three Illinois banks. Since then, it has taken over 25 Illinois banks, mostly in the past 11 months. Something to think about as the Chicago media’s “Broadway Bank Death Watch” heats up.
* Gov. Pat Quinn had this to say Friday about Sen. Bill Brady’s refusal to release his income taxes…
“I don’t know what he’s thinking, to be honest. If you want to be governor and you don’t want to disclose your income tax return, I think you’re really letting the people down.”
Quinn is supposed to release his returns today. But last year, you had to make a reservation to review Quinn’s returns and couldn’t make copies…
Getting a peek at Gov. Pat Quinn’s taxes isn’t as easy as you might think.
Quinn didn’t make copies of them available today when he released the returns, instead requiring people to make appointments to see them at his Chicago or Springfield offices.
Other politicians, including President Barack Obama, e-mailed copies of their returns.
Quinn spokesman Bob Reed said in an e-mail that Quinn prefers viewers take notes from his original documents.
Brady has said that he won’t release his tax returns, but people can find out about his investments by checking his filing with the secretary of state. That filing doesn’t say a whole lot, but you can read it by clicking here.
And Alexi Giannoulias hasn’t filed yet…
“As he has done every year, he has filed an extension,” said a spokesperson. The campaign had no comment on why Giannoulias files late
* And what kind of tool tries to call the governor at 11 at night on New Year’s Eve? Patricia Quinn of Bloomington has been getting calls from folks thinking she’s the governor for months, including that one…
Her calls began in late fall, which is also when the “other” Pat Quinn set off national debate and international protests by announcing plans to sell a little-used Illinois prison to the federal government so it could hold terrorist suspects now held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“The most amazing call,” says Pat, “had to be the one at 11 p.m. … on New Year’s Eve. The man said, ‘I’d like to talk to the governor about selling that prison,’ and I said, ‘This is a different Pat Quinn. You need to call Springfield.’ But he was from Green Bay, Wis., and he just kept talking to me about it.
“I’ve never met him,” Quinn says about the governor, “but I’ve been reading up on him. He’s had a lot of government offices in his life, so when he got to be governor, I was happy for him so he can fulfill his dreams.” She added, “I can tell you, too, he sure gets a lot of phone calls.”
- shore - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 9:51 am:
Alexi has 365 days to file his taxes and needs an extension? weak.
I also don’t buy the notion that broadway is a victim of the economy. Leadership starts at the top and that begins with alexi.
- Leroy - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 10:02 am:
Is it just me, or in a country of 300,000,000 people, Lisa Madigan is considered to be a candidate for the Supreme Court?
Now granted, Lisa is a great at going after fly-by-night mortgage companies, and dangerous crib manufacturers. And her drug dogs argument was solid, but I really don’t see her as any kind of legal heavyweight in any sense of the word.
I think this is more Illinois ruling class “cult-of-personality” smack talk. Lisa seems to be the queen of that.
- wordslinger - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 10:03 am:
What are we supposed to discover in tax returns, anyway? In the annals of Illinois corruption, I don’t think any politicians were revealing their funny money on their returns.
You give up a lot of privacy when you run for higher office, but looking through tax returns just seems nosy, like checking medical records.
- Adam Smith - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 10:28 am:
There are hundreds of banks chartered in Illinois. In a huge recession a very small number of those banks has gone belly up. Even if it is ten times more than usual, it is still a fraction of the total.
Rather than serving as an excuse for Alexi and his kin, this statistic highlights that, even in recession, most banks are managed well enough to stay in business and only a small number were so overexposed that they failed.
The Giannoulias family was aggressive and made lots of money in the real estate bubble. But while so many home buyers got in over their heads, one would expect that bankers knew a little more about finance and would manage their business accordingly.
And for the Alexi shills who keep claiming that Kirk is “rooting for Broadway to fail,” that is like saying that Barak Obama promoted domestic violence since he exploited Blair Hull’s personal problems in the 2004 Senate primary. Only the few desperate passengers left on the SS Giannoulias could claim Kirk bears any responsibility for their candidate’s self-inflicted problems.
- Loop Lady - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 10:45 am:
Quinn probably figures that he doesn’t want to waste paper…if you want a copy of his returns, print it yourself…sounds like Quinn rationale to me…
- Joe from Joliet - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 10:46 am:
If I were Quinn, I would also look for any reason, any reason at all, to deflect the discussion away from the last 7+ years of disastrous mismanagement that we have experienced under the direction of him and the previous. Won’t work, tho.
- OneMan - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 10:51 am:
Also keep in mind if you asked to see his tax returns someone (I am guessing a state employee) took notes on what you looked at and lingered over.
They also take down your name (but the dude totally spelled my name wrong
- OneMan - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 10:53 am:
Loop lady you can’t make copies of it, you just have to take notes..
As for taking the extension, isn’t that something Rod did every year…
I suspect that the extension is so they can release at a different time when the stuff about the bank is less of an issue.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 11:17 am:
Between December of 2000 and September of 2008, the FDIC seized just three Illinois banks. Since then, it has taken over 25 Illinois banks, mostly in the past 11 months. Something to think about as the Chicago media’s “Broadway Bank Death Watch” heats up.
Considering what we are uncovering regarding Broadway Bank - it would have failed regardless, right? When you are a small family bank, loaning millions to convicted felons isn’t good business practice that may result in fiscal troubles, in any economy.
- cover - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 11:32 am:
Leave it to a cheesehead to think that someone living in Bloomington is the Governor. He should try calling a Pat Quinn in Chicago, which seems to be where most of state government leadership is now based.
- VanillaMan - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 12:46 pm:
What are we supposed to discover in tax returns, anyway?
Nothing. Nothing constructive at all. How much they contribute to charities? That seems to be the only usage over the past decade. Making tax returns public is about as canned now as videos of candidates voting for themselves.
- Ghost - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 1:11 pm:
this reminds me of the song about Jenny which disclosed a phone number…which was then became overwhelemd with calls in various area codes… and created the new tradtiion of using 555- numbers in tv/movies etc
- Ellen Beth Gill - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 1:14 pm:
ooooo…sinister. It’s so sinister to request a tax filing extension that the IRS reports that it expects to receive 10 million extension requests. It seems you can make up a story about anything provided most folks have no idea what they’re talking about.
- Rich Miller - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 1:20 pm:
Ellen, nobody suggested here that the extension was sinister. Take a breath.
- the Patriot - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 1:45 pm:
Lisa Madigan is not a candicate for Supreme Court it is a hat tip to Mike and that is all. She has never got a position for any reason other than her name. You can read her legal opinions and see she lack the intellect for her current position, much less the Supreme Court(see Blago filings). She has failed to uphold her own state’s constitution in violation of her oath of office and as a practicing attorney.
- Anon - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 2:07 pm:
Lisa made this list because she’s a popular progressive female attorney who knows Obama decently well and hasn’t served in the Judiciary. Unfortunately for her, there are others who fit this bill and have a resume which reflects a far superior legal intellect (see Kagan). I think Lisa would make a great judge - principled, smart and committed to the Rule of Law. But the reality is you don’t become a justice without top undergrad and law schools on your C.V.
- Scooby - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 2:55 pm:
Shore’s not just bad at political analysis, she’s bad at math too. How many days has it been?
- Wumpus - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 3:01 pm:
Of course lisa didn’t want to buy the senate seat, she registered for the Supreme Court lifetime appointment.
Please appoint a judge or someoen with court experience. Whehter it was Harriett Meiers or anyone else, that is kind of important. If not, APpoint Wumpus
- ourMagician - Monday, Apr 19, 10 @ 11:46 pm:
You can see in a tax return how successful (or unsuccessful) a businessman is in running for the state’s highest office using that “experience” as one of his top selling points.