Senator Lightford. The architect of major school reform who was able to bring the groups together and pass something meaningful.
Rep. Bradldy and Senator Raoul. Both worked hard to pass work comp. Bradley a real up and comer in the house. Raoul also passed death penalty abolition. Watch these two.
Approps committees. Actually did the work of appropriating.
Losers:
Governor Quinn. You cant just disappear, governor. Your leadership is needed throughout the process.
Medical Society. Part of the unholy alliance in work comp negtiations, you were thrown under the bus, and docs will bear the brunt of the cost of reform.
Senator Mike Jacobs. His temper has finally gotten the best of him, and he assaulted a member of the senate on the senate floor. Settle down, Sir.
Biggest Winner - Speaker Madigan, got the budget he wanted with Republicans and then passed legislation to lower workers comp costs without needing a single Republican. So, he worked with Cross to get the budget he wanted and then made him look bad on the workers comp bill.
Loser - The Republicans, all of them. They just looked completely useless during the entire session. The House Republican’s let the Speaker get the best of them on the workers comp issue and the Senate Republicans did absolutely nothing the entire session. They had no input on the budget and they never came to the table willing to make deal on late payments. I believe Rodogno is a capable leader, but she has a caucus that is filled with bozos.
Also, the new Map. The Republican’s are big losers there.
Winners: McCarthy who handles significant and controversial bills, such as the Com Ed rate hike and pension reform
Losers: The feckless state GOP, whose status as the minority party is confirmed until 2022 by the new maps.
Winners:
Leader Lou Lang, Sen. Terry Link, Sen. Kim Lightford, (and Rahm Emanuel) - passing complex difficult bills is never easy.
The public university lobbyists - they got cut less this year and pushed back on the NRA to get campuses cut out of the conceal carry bill.
Losers:
NRA - Todd V hurt himself in so many ways on the CC bill
Tom Cross - cooperated with the Dems on budget but lost face on workers comp. Got deeply involved in pension reform but couldn’t bring his own members on board.
Pat Quinn, his priorities and goals were nowhere to be found in anything the GA did this session.
Congressional Republicans - I knew they were going to get shafted by the map, but never thought this badly. ouch.
Sen. Jacobs - at least when you threatened to knock out Blago we all wanted you to do it. This time, you look like a fool for defending what we all see is a conflict.
Worth noting: Latino Caucus and Illinois Immigrant Rights Coalition - killed all anti immigrant bills, passed bill against deportations in House; passed Illinois DREAM Act into law; and got Gov. Quinn to throw federal Secure Communities program out of Illinois. Lined up everyone from Cullerton to Cardinal to University Presidents to Rahm on DREAM, and got serious Republican support on both their bills, including both Radogno and Cross. Showed ability to negotiate with even Rep. Ramey to advance their agenda.
WINNERS: Speaker Michael Madigan for passing the House budget, Work Comp, and new map.
The business community (Retailers, Manufacturers, Chicagoland Chamber) for Work Comp reform.
Mayor Rahm for casino and new sphere of influence.
NEUTRAL: Christine Radogno: Holding caucus and playing role in many key issues. Lost on Map.
President Cullerton. New map, Work Comp, and Casino. Lost on budget and cigarette tax.
Unions: Forced to give ground on Work Comp but able to win a victory on pensions.
LOSERS: GOP Congressional delegation for map.
Civic Committee because they spent millions and couldn’t get a vote on pensions.
Anheuser Busch: Spent a gazillion dollars and got hammered by the beer guys.
Med Society: As said earlier, thrown under the bus by the lawyers and unions.
IL Chamber: Lost a ton of credibility on the Work Comp issue among lawmakers and leaders. Then cut the House GOP off at the knees when Whitley endorsed the WC bill after it passed.
BIGGEST LOSER had to be Tom Cross. Lost on the map, lost bigtime on the pension bill both in the General Assembly and lost credibility with the financial backers of the program, and led the lemmings off the cliff on Work Comp.
Winner: Madigan. After patiently waiting for Blago to implode and maintaining a strong majority in a big GOP election year, he ran the table in the most productive session in memory.
Losers:
– Illinois State Rifle Association. Politics is the art of what’s possible, not an excise in ideological purity. Blaming lame-duck Daley for the lack of a super-majority sounded weak.
– Senate GOP. After putting on a big dog-and-pony show regarding their budget ideas — complete with press conference, briefing books, graphics and website — they inexplicably just walked away from it. Strange.
Winners:
Kwame. He finally showed leadership and he won on the matters he pushed.
Lang for getting the job done in tough circumstances. Nice work. A true professional.
Losers: Tom Cross. Took the wrong side on WC reform and still lost. Better hope the docs write some big checks anyway. If he’s not going to help IL business with WC reform, then what purpose does he serve? This seemed like an easy one for the GOP but Cross managed to blow it. The House needs new GOP leadership ASAP.
Quinn. We all need to chip in and buy the guy a backbone. He was invisible and frankly, not respected. The rare “hey I might veto it” was way too little and was not taken seriously. I’ve said it before here but he is just not a leader. In no way does he act like one. He needs serious coaching on everything from posture to tone of his voice. He needs to start carrying himself like a leader and to start acting like one.
Winners: Rank and file public employees, who proved able to block (at least temporarily) drastic pension and health benefits cutbacks against a corporate and bi-partisan political juggernaut.
Losers (long-term): The Democrats. Most of the party’s leadership is taking a consistently pro-big business position on every major issue, from workers’ compensation, to pensions and health benefits, to utility hikes, to cuts in human services. At least on the state level, there is now little or no philosophical difference between the parties–indeed, the biggest objections to the pension cutbacks came from the Republic caucuses. If the Democratic establishment believes an influx of corporate money will be a substitute for the loss of support from their base, they are sorely mistaken.
The other loser is Todd/ILNRA. Every other state but one has some form of conceal carry, and in IL they can’t get the job done. At some point, they need to win one or go in a different direction for leadership.
Winner (Short term): Lightford. Her bi-partisan efforts were rewarded and she should receive a deserved boost in her name recognition and approval ratings. If she can capitalize on these things, she can position herself for a state-wide office next time around.
Winner (Long term): Illinois Republicans and their supporters. The remapping will force a bottoms-up effort to rethink the party into a new type of organization that can compete in these new districts. Failing that, the party will collapse, which will allow supporters to provide money, time and efforts to fresh candidates, or at the least, save some money normally routed to the state party.
Loser (Short term): Pat Quinn. After squeaking by in his election, and getting his income tax passed, Our Boy Pat squandered his advantage to the point that he is now virtually irrelevant. Somewhere in his arsenal he has the weapon to control his fate, as witnessed by his narrow election victory, but it remains to be seen whether or not he can accomplish a turnaround remains to be seen, and he may well tie for the Loser (Long term) award if he cannot.
Loser (Long term): Illinois taxpayers. Taxpayers are being forced to pay higher income taxes, fees, and utility rates while still facing an unbalance budget, overspending, backlogs of payments, borrowing, and unfunded pension obligations.
Winners - Anyone in the GA. They can squabble amongst themselves and put on nice shows of outrage or reasoned planning, but they have jobs (until some future election) and good benefits. They get to come back in Fall to repeat the show.
Losers - Any organization who contracts with or rely on the state for a significant part of their business (Schools, vendors, medical, human services, municipalities, pensions, infrastructure etc). Just a small cash shortage ($8B) from unpaid bills, decreased payments, and increased payment cycles. Layoffs, closures, local tax changes coming. Again.
The frustrated - There need to be severe cuts, just not to the things I think are important or will use. My cause is very important because … (insert favorite talking point). Costs need to come down, the fact that general costs keep clicking up is irrelevant.
Loser - Jack Franks. He didn’t get all of McHenry County in his new 14th congressional district. Instead of having a congressional base of over 300,000, Madigan cut 88,600 out and gave it to Peter Roskam.
Quinn seems to be increasingly irrelevant and the legislators are openly critical of the governor.
Omitting Blagojevich, who is a peculiar anomaly, I cannot think of another Illinois governor who was less respected by his own political party. Quinn is treated like a temporary.
Biggest winner: CapitolFax.com as evidenced by your earlier post.
Biggest loser: Pat Quinn. The man’s considerations are not taken into consideration when bills are being crafted. Usually, you try to craft legislation to pass two houses and be signed by an executive. Quinn’s an afterthought on the budget, smart grid, casinos.
Winner; Lisa Madigan, Quinn looks more one and done than ever, and she gets ready to take over a state that is going to be in much better shape no thanks to Quinn.
Loser; All R’s, the map is going to make it hard for any future R’s to have any voice unless they convince Quinn he’s really a Republican
Lightford, Bradley and Raoul were big winners. So were Latinos and the Democratic Party in the new map. Madigan always wins, so that’s no surprise.
Other winners include any big corporation who needs a state hand-out. The spigot is on fellas, just threaten to move away and we’ll all bend over for you.
Losers were mostly mentioned above, but I would place Radogno above (below?) Cross on my list as a bigger loser. I can’t believe she won’t get a leadership challenge given how schizophrenic her caucus acted. They blocked borrowing, hooray! Now the budget has to be cut even more to pay old bills. And they got nothing, bupkis, for their trouble, while Cullerton raked in huge contributions and drove his agenda through.
Between the fundraising edge and the new map, it’s hard to see the GOP making any progress in the General Assembly anytime soon.
Losers also include those waiting for capital construction payments since those remain on hold and no one knows how to finance all of the bonds that were authorized for projects promised two years ago. That’s a heck of a jobs plan guys.
And as has been pointed out, Todd and ISRA suffered a very public defeat, mostly thanks to themselves and their supporters.
The ISRA already were losers so that’s not much of a suprise.
No matter what happens most of you always call Madigan a winner. Maybe he is but he is certainly not a democrat.
The real losers are Madigan’s former democratic base of labor, minorities, and all the other groups that have helped him over the decades. He’s not the same guy anymore. He should be honest and change parties. He is all about big business now.
Republican voters were biggest losers, hands down.
GOP lawmakers gave away the store completely. Gave the Dems everything they wanted. Tom Cross might as well get a title in the Dem caucus, Chief Puppet or something like that.
Biggest Winner: Illinois Democratic Party establishment. Counterintuitively in comparison with the rest of the country, their agenda remained solidly in place with union interests fairly well protected, no serious budget cuts that directly impact Democratic constituencies, no budget, tax, or regulatory reform, and gerrymandering to promote the future of their elected cadres.
Biggest Loser: Illinois taxpayers — see Biggest Winner above.
The big winners are Dem incumbents and the big losers are the GOP (especially their congress critters who will be out of work in Jan. 2013) and the people of our wonderful state who got socked with a 67% income tax increase but still didn’t get a plan for balancing the budget and a way to pay out of our overdue bills.
Special mentions to chinatown, which got more or less put into one house district (that will be represented by an hispanic) but got divided into four congressional districts; voters in the new Congressional District 4, which is virtually the same as the old District 4 and makes a complete mockery of the idea of compact legislative districts and the people who live in the downtown Chicago area who were gerrymandered to death and are guaranteed to be represented by people who don’t need them to get re-elected.
Winners: Dan Lipinski, Speaker Madigan and Kevin McCarthy
Loser: Ed Maloney single handedly produced the largest state capitol mob scene outside of Madison with a silly atack on home schoolers. Time to hang up the gloves and enjoy the triple dip pension.
Biggest winners (and whiners)- Business which got $400 million off the backs of injured workers thru decimation of w.c., even as 2/3 of Illinois corporations pay no state income tax.That’s a very good return on a non-investment.
Biggest losers: Working families who will bear the brunt of the unprecedented bi-partisan attack on education and human services
- anon - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 8:47 am:
Winners:
Senator Lightford. The architect of major school reform who was able to bring the groups together and pass something meaningful.
Rep. Bradldy and Senator Raoul. Both worked hard to pass work comp. Bradley a real up and comer in the house. Raoul also passed death penalty abolition. Watch these two.
Approps committees. Actually did the work of appropriating.
Losers:
Governor Quinn. You cant just disappear, governor. Your leadership is needed throughout the process.
Medical Society. Part of the unholy alliance in work comp negtiations, you were thrown under the bus, and docs will bear the brunt of the cost of reform.
Senator Mike Jacobs. His temper has finally gotten the best of him, and he assaulted a member of the senate on the senate floor. Settle down, Sir.
- just sayin' - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 8:47 am:
Easy. For about the 12th time in a row, biggest winner, Mike Madigan. Biggest loser, Tom Cross.
Madigan got pretty much everything he wanted for the Democrats, and Cross jumped on command and helped deliver the other side’s agenda.
I don’t even know what the gop’ers are doing in Springfield. Complaining about not being able to eat fried chicken at their desks?
- Spliff - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 8:49 am:
Winners:
Lightford & Stand for Children on the passage of the education reform.
Losers:
Pat Quinn. He spent 6 years as Lt. Gov seeing how to NOT be governor and then he spent all session not doing anything.
- OneMan - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 8:53 am:
Biggest Winner — Rahm, got the casino and the Chicago made it a story of his influence.
Loser — Illinois GOP, the map is going to have impacts well beyond 10 years from now
- Ahoy - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:05 am:
Biggest Winner - Speaker Madigan, got the budget he wanted with Republicans and then passed legislation to lower workers comp costs without needing a single Republican. So, he worked with Cross to get the budget he wanted and then made him look bad on the workers comp bill.
Loser - The Republicans, all of them. They just looked completely useless during the entire session. The House Republican’s let the Speaker get the best of them on the workers comp issue and the Senate Republicans did absolutely nothing the entire session. They had no input on the budget and they never came to the table willing to make deal on late payments. I believe Rodogno is a capable leader, but she has a caucus that is filled with bozos.
Also, the new Map. The Republican’s are big losers there.
- One of the 35 - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:19 am:
Winners: Mayors for preserving LGDF
Losers: people of Illinois - the new budget represents an increase in total spending from the previous year.
- reformer - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:28 am:
Winners: McCarthy who handles significant and controversial bills, such as the Com Ed rate hike and pension reform
Losers: The feckless state GOP, whose status as the minority party is confirmed until 2022 by the new maps.
- siriusly - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:29 am:
Winners:
Leader Lou Lang, Sen. Terry Link, Sen. Kim Lightford, (and Rahm Emanuel) - passing complex difficult bills is never easy.
The public university lobbyists - they got cut less this year and pushed back on the NRA to get campuses cut out of the conceal carry bill.
Losers:
NRA - Todd V hurt himself in so many ways on the CC bill
Tom Cross - cooperated with the Dems on budget but lost face on workers comp. Got deeply involved in pension reform but couldn’t bring his own members on board.
Pat Quinn, his priorities and goals were nowhere to be found in anything the GA did this session.
Congressional Republicans - I knew they were going to get shafted by the map, but never thought this badly. ouch.
Sen. Jacobs - at least when you threatened to knock out Blago we all wanted you to do it. This time, you look like a fool for defending what we all see is a conflict.
- Elder - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:35 am:
Worth noting: Latino Caucus and Illinois Immigrant Rights Coalition - killed all anti immigrant bills, passed bill against deportations in House; passed Illinois DREAM Act into law; and got Gov. Quinn to throw federal Secure Communities program out of Illinois. Lined up everyone from Cullerton to Cardinal to University Presidents to Rahm on DREAM, and got serious Republican support on both their bills, including both Radogno and Cross. Showed ability to negotiate with even Rep. Ramey to advance their agenda.
- 4 percent - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:35 am:
WINNERS: Speaker Michael Madigan for passing the House budget, Work Comp, and new map.
The business community (Retailers, Manufacturers, Chicagoland Chamber) for Work Comp reform.
Mayor Rahm for casino and new sphere of influence.
NEUTRAL: Christine Radogno: Holding caucus and playing role in many key issues. Lost on Map.
President Cullerton. New map, Work Comp, and Casino. Lost on budget and cigarette tax.
Unions: Forced to give ground on Work Comp but able to win a victory on pensions.
LOSERS: GOP Congressional delegation for map.
Civic Committee because they spent millions and couldn’t get a vote on pensions.
Anheuser Busch: Spent a gazillion dollars and got hammered by the beer guys.
Med Society: As said earlier, thrown under the bus by the lawyers and unions.
IL Chamber: Lost a ton of credibility on the Work Comp issue among lawmakers and leaders. Then cut the House GOP off at the knees when Whitley endorsed the WC bill after it passed.
BIGGEST LOSER had to be Tom Cross. Lost on the map, lost bigtime on the pension bill both in the General Assembly and lost credibility with the financial backers of the program, and led the lemmings off the cliff on Work Comp.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:36 am:
Winner: Madigan. After patiently waiting for Blago to implode and maintaining a strong majority in a big GOP election year, he ran the table in the most productive session in memory.
Losers:
– Illinois State Rifle Association. Politics is the art of what’s possible, not an excise in ideological purity. Blaming lame-duck Daley for the lack of a super-majority sounded weak.
– Senate GOP. After putting on a big dog-and-pony show regarding their budget ideas — complete with press conference, briefing books, graphics and website — they inexplicably just walked away from it. Strange.
- mokenavince - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:36 am:
WINNER: And still Champ Mike Madigan
Loser: Quinn By TKO not even close all he can do now is muck things up with a veto.
Future contendors;: Lightford & Bradley
- Skeeter - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:39 am:
Winners:
Kwame. He finally showed leadership and he won on the matters he pushed.
Lang for getting the job done in tough circumstances. Nice work. A true professional.
Losers: Tom Cross. Took the wrong side on WC reform and still lost. Better hope the docs write some big checks anyway. If he’s not going to help IL business with WC reform, then what purpose does he serve? This seemed like an easy one for the GOP but Cross managed to blow it. The House needs new GOP leadership ASAP.
Quinn. We all need to chip in and buy the guy a backbone. He was invisible and frankly, not respected. The rare “hey I might veto it” was way too little and was not taken seriously. I’ve said it before here but he is just not a leader. In no way does he act like one. He needs serious coaching on everything from posture to tone of his voice. He needs to start carrying himself like a leader and to start acting like one.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:40 am:
Can’t we just retire the trophy and give it to the Speaker?
- Quiet Sage - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:40 am:
Winners: Rank and file public employees, who proved able to block (at least temporarily) drastic pension and health benefits cutbacks against a corporate and bi-partisan political juggernaut.
Losers (long-term): The Democrats. Most of the party’s leadership is taking a consistently pro-big business position on every major issue, from workers’ compensation, to pensions and health benefits, to utility hikes, to cuts in human services. At least on the state level, there is now little or no philosophical difference between the parties–indeed, the biggest objections to the pension cutbacks came from the Republic caucuses. If the Democratic establishment believes an influx of corporate money will be a substitute for the loss of support from their base, they are sorely mistaken.
- Skeeter - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:41 am:
The other loser is Todd/ILNRA. Every other state but one has some form of conceal carry, and in IL they can’t get the job done. At some point, they need to win one or go in a different direction for leadership.
- Cincinnatus - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:45 am:
Winner (Short term): Lightford. Her bi-partisan efforts were rewarded and she should receive a deserved boost in her name recognition and approval ratings. If she can capitalize on these things, she can position herself for a state-wide office next time around.
Winner (Long term): Illinois Republicans and their supporters. The remapping will force a bottoms-up effort to rethink the party into a new type of organization that can compete in these new districts. Failing that, the party will collapse, which will allow supporters to provide money, time and efforts to fresh candidates, or at the least, save some money normally routed to the state party.
Loser (Short term): Pat Quinn. After squeaking by in his election, and getting his income tax passed, Our Boy Pat squandered his advantage to the point that he is now virtually irrelevant. Somewhere in his arsenal he has the weapon to control his fate, as witnessed by his narrow election victory, but it remains to be seen whether or not he can accomplish a turnaround remains to be seen, and he may well tie for the Loser (Long term) award if he cannot.
Loser (Long term): Illinois taxpayers. Taxpayers are being forced to pay higher income taxes, fees, and utility rates while still facing an unbalance budget, overspending, backlogs of payments, borrowing, and unfunded pension obligations.
- zatoichi - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 9:47 am:
Winners - Anyone in the GA. They can squabble amongst themselves and put on nice shows of outrage or reasoned planning, but they have jobs (until some future election) and good benefits. They get to come back in Fall to repeat the show.
Losers - Any organization who contracts with or rely on the state for a significant part of their business (Schools, vendors, medical, human services, municipalities, pensions, infrastructure etc). Just a small cash shortage ($8B) from unpaid bills, decreased payments, and increased payment cycles. Layoffs, closures, local tax changes coming. Again.
The frustrated - There need to be severe cuts, just not to the things I think are important or will use. My cause is very important because … (insert favorite talking point). Costs need to come down, the fact that general costs keep clicking up is irrelevant.
- Cal Skinner - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:15 am:
Winner - No contest. Mike wins again.
Loser - Jack Franks. He didn’t get all of McHenry County in his new 14th congressional district. Instead of having a congressional base of over 300,000, Madigan cut 88,600 out and gave it to Peter Roskam.
- Esquire - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:17 am:
Quinn seems to be increasingly irrelevant and the legislators are openly critical of the governor.
Omitting Blagojevich, who is a peculiar anomaly, I cannot think of another Illinois governor who was less respected by his own political party. Quinn is treated like a temporary.
- Precinct Captain - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:18 am:
Biggest winner: CapitolFax.com as evidenced by your earlier post.
Biggest loser: Pat Quinn. The man’s considerations are not taken into consideration when bills are being crafted. Usually, you try to craft legislation to pass two houses and be signed by an executive. Quinn’s an afterthought on the budget, smart grid, casinos.
- Spring - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:37 am:
Winner; Lisa Madigan, Quinn looks more one and done than ever, and she gets ready to take over a state that is going to be in much better shape no thanks to Quinn.
Loser; All R’s, the map is going to make it hard for any future R’s to have any voice unless they convince Quinn he’s really a Republican
- 47th Ward - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:38 am:
Lightford, Bradley and Raoul were big winners. So were Latinos and the Democratic Party in the new map. Madigan always wins, so that’s no surprise.
Other winners include any big corporation who needs a state hand-out. The spigot is on fellas, just threaten to move away and we’ll all bend over for you.
Losers were mostly mentioned above, but I would place Radogno above (below?) Cross on my list as a bigger loser. I can’t believe she won’t get a leadership challenge given how schizophrenic her caucus acted. They blocked borrowing, hooray! Now the budget has to be cut even more to pay old bills. And they got nothing, bupkis, for their trouble, while Cullerton raked in huge contributions and drove his agenda through.
Between the fundraising edge and the new map, it’s hard to see the GOP making any progress in the General Assembly anytime soon.
Losers also include those waiting for capital construction payments since those remain on hold and no one knows how to finance all of the bonds that were authorized for projects promised two years ago. That’s a heck of a jobs plan guys.
And as has been pointed out, Todd and ISRA suffered a very public defeat, mostly thanks to themselves and their supporters.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:42 am:
–The spigot is on fellas, just threaten to move away and we’ll all bend over for you.–
47, I hope you’re mixing metaphors there, lol.
- Bill - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:46 am:
The ISRA already were losers so that’s not much of a suprise.
No matter what happens most of you always call Madigan a winner. Maybe he is but he is certainly not a democrat.
The real losers are Madigan’s former democratic base of labor, minorities, and all the other groups that have helped him over the decades. He’s not the same guy anymore. He should be honest and change parties. He is all about big business now.
- 47th Ward - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:50 am:
Lol Word,
In my head I was thinking “bend over backward,” but Dr. Freud must have influenced my typing again.
- MJMspksman - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 11:05 am:
Winners: The House Democrats, Kim Lightford, Mayor Rahm
Losers: All Republicans, Doctors, Riverboat lobbying crew
- funny... - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 11:25 am:
Really? Jack Franks is the biggest loser this session? Might need to take the McHenry County visor off for a second.
- too obvious - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 11:31 am:
Republican voters were biggest losers, hands down.
GOP lawmakers gave away the store completely. Gave the Dems everything they wanted. Tom Cross might as well get a title in the Dem caucus, Chief Puppet or something like that.
- Conservative Republican - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 12:11 pm:
Biggest Winner: Illinois Democratic Party establishment. Counterintuitively in comparison with the rest of the country, their agenda remained solidly in place with union interests fairly well protected, no serious budget cuts that directly impact Democratic constituencies, no budget, tax, or regulatory reform, and gerrymandering to promote the future of their elected cadres.
Biggest Loser: Illinois taxpayers — see Biggest Winner above.
- anon - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 12:20 pm:
Winners:
Rahm displaying his influence in Springfield even before officially becoming mayor.
Losers: State Workers for losing their insurance because of PQ
- LouisXIV - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 1:46 pm:
The big winners are Dem incumbents and the big losers are the GOP (especially their congress critters who will be out of work in Jan. 2013) and the people of our wonderful state who got socked with a 67% income tax increase but still didn’t get a plan for balancing the budget and a way to pay out of our overdue bills.
Special mentions to chinatown, which got more or less put into one house district (that will be represented by an hispanic) but got divided into four congressional districts; voters in the new Congressional District 4, which is virtually the same as the old District 4 and makes a complete mockery of the idea of compact legislative districts and the people who live in the downtown Chicago area who were gerrymandered to death and are guaranteed to be represented by people who don’t need them to get re-elected.
- Southside - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 5:24 pm:
Winners: Dan Lipinski, Speaker Madigan and Kevin McCarthy
Loser: Ed Maloney single handedly produced the largest state capitol mob scene outside of Madison with a silly atack on home schoolers. Time to hang up the gloves and enjoy the triple dip pension.
- Wow - Thursday, Jun 2, 11 @ 10:15 pm:
Raoul biggest winner, passed abolition of death penalty, workers comp and map. He is one to watch for higher office!
Biggest loser- Quinn he was irrelevant on budget, smart grid, massive gambling expansion
- truthteller - Friday, Jun 3, 11 @ 4:47 am:
Biggest winners (and whiners)- Business which got $400 million off the backs of injured workers thru decimation of w.c., even as 2/3 of Illinois corporations pay no state income tax.That’s a very good return on a non-investment.
Biggest losers: Working families who will bear the brunt of the unprecedented bi-partisan attack on education and human services
Biggest losers: