32 Comments - Langhorne - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:13 am: Clueless comments from a rabble rousing rock slinger who would rather get a quote and headline than actually PASS something. - wordslinger - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:14 am: Quinn is part of a large group of Democratic Big Hitters who didn’t get the job done here. Throwing Harris under the bus is weak. - G'Kar - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:14 am: I wonder if he feels the same way about the Madigan not calling SB 2404? - Formerly Known As... - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:19 am: The entire thing seems a bit odd. Per ABC: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local/illinois&id=9124179 Until Friday night, Illinois was poised to become the 13th state to legalize gay marriage. Many of Saturday’s speakers were in the house gallery last night, among them Lee and David Neubecker, who were to marry as soon as the bill was signed into law. “We never would have taken the kids there, they said they had the votes,” Lee Neubecker said. “The votes suddenly disappeared. Something was short circuited.” - Rich Miller - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:20 am: FKA, it’s not odd at all. If you were a subscriber you’d know. - Responsa - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:23 am: Oh, I think that was a ringer. If the guy didn’t mention the Mississippi River in his comments about democracy I’m almost positive it was not Quinn speaking. - Cassiopeia - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:23 am: Quinn always has a scapegoat for every failure. In 1994 after he lost the race for Secretary of State he fired many of his staff at the Treasurer’s office who (in his mind) lost his race for him. He is so often clueless that its a miracle when he occasionally stumbles across a win. - zatoichi - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:24 am: There are surely some lobbyists available who can show the Gov how to get a bill passed. This excuse is right up there with not having a phone. - Small Town Liberal - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:27 am: I think this is much more about Madigan than Harris. With 71 members, could the Speaker really not put 60 votes on this bill? I realize he doesn’t like pressuring members to vote against their district, but what’s he afraid of? Losing the super majority? As I understand it he doesn’t even really like having one. He’s certainly not going to lose his position as Speaker, so what is it? This wasn’t called for a vote because it couldn’t be allowed to die. Harris probably wouldn’t want to anger Madigan, but would Madigan really be willing to let his chamber fail to pass it? - Wensicia - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:32 am: Quinn is like the bull in a china shop. He barges through, causing critical damage, then turns around and blames the proprietor. - Susiejones - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:33 am: another example of how clueless and useless this governor is…2014 can’t get here soon enough to get rid of this guy! - Served - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:36 am: Time is on the side of the pro-marriage people on this one. A lot of the anger, I think, is coming from the fact that the momentum is increasing for marriage equality, other states are passing legislation. Impatience is growing, the finish line is in sight, and the race got extended another six months. The activist wing and advocacy groups are partially responsible for this, as they often cheerleaded that this vote was going to happen during the latest. Whether or not that line came from Harris himself (which I very much doubt), squared and forthright information was not being relayed to supporters by IL Equality orgs. - In the know - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:39 am: And in order to please the related gun control activist wing of his party, what will he do with concealed carry? Not trying to mix threads, but its clear to me that he has LOTS of motivation to create the chaos that his activist wing wants. - Just Me - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:45 am: I’m kind of hopin’ mad over this. Greg Harris is focused on getting the bill passed and signed into law. Too many others are focused on getting their name in the paper. You’re absolutely right, Rich. Where is Quinn’s record of success in getting bills passed?!?! - walkinfool - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:46 am: ==”Quinn pander to the activist wing”== is the generous interpretation. Just plain dumb was my reaction. - Formerly Known As... - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 11:51 am: Thanks, Rich. Looks like I may have to pony up soon - dupage dan - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 12:29 pm: === Quinn admitted long ago that he doesn’t know how to pass a bill === There’s an old “Schoolhouse Rocks” video on youtube called “I’m Just a Bill”. Can’t get the post link here (I am not savvy). Hey, Pat, check it out - you might learn something. - Arthur Andersen - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 12:32 pm: Pathetic, but not surprising. - OneMan - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 12:32 pm: I think Pat is upset he isn’t going to sit in front of some same sex couples and their children and pontificate about freedom, Lincoln and so forth as he signed the bill. He wasn’t going to get pension reform and even if he did, that was going to upset people who like him. SSM was going to make those folks who like him happy, it was going to help him raise money ’see what I did’ now… Not so much. - titan - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 12:39 pm: === “I think the only way you find out how people feel about a bill is to have a roll call vote.” === Or, the party leaders could have talked to everyone earlier and known what votes were going what way. - Newsclown - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 1:13 pm: Quinn’s view is that taking meaningless public votes and making resolutions as a “statement” is more important than actually *passing* laws. Quinn is all about the promotion of something up front, not the hard work of closing the deal. Don’t give the man any coffee: coffee is for closers. - Cutler Fan - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 1:53 pm: Small Town - the roll call was going the wrong way. You can’t put votes on a bill like that from the top against the momentum. In fact, it works the other way. Leadership is the closer, not the starting pitcher. - Living in Machiaville - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 1:57 pm: once a gadfly, always a gadfly… - SAP - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 2:40 pm: Call me cynical, but I don’t think the Speaker wanted to call the Marriage Equality bill for a vote this year. It’s too good of a campaign issue to use up this far in advance of election day. - Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 2:51 pm: Quinn is clueless. He is parroting those supporters of the bill who felt it more important to have an emotional moment than to, at some point, pass the bill. Harris did the smart thing. And I agree with SAP; the bill didn’t pass this session because Madigan didn’t want it to. - RNUG Fan - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 3:00 pm: He wasn’t going to get pension reform and even if he did, that was going to upset people who like him. One -We don’t like him RNUG gave and est that the pension interest population was 10 percent plus of the voting base and its looking at every single gov candidate and seeing no diff As to the Illinois house its a blu dog conservadem body that benefits from hiding behind a D to a voting public that just never pays attention to the candidates especially in NE Illinois …..The Senate is better but those D supermajority numbers are illusory These bodies do not reflect the electorate. If you want progressives or “real democrats” you have to have primaries and let them face some losses in Novermber - Sunshine - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 4:39 pm: I have felt for a long time that Quinn truly is that clueless! Had Madigan shown some backbone, the bill would have passed. Instead he hid. A pretty sorry performance on his part and it will bite him. - Joan P. - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 5:33 pm: You’d think that Quinn and Garcia and Baim didn’t want marriage equality. Because they seem to be doing everything in their power to ensure this bill is defeated. - Just The Way It Is One - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 5:41 pm: I said weeks ago that I didn’t believe the time was ripe for this bill and major socially and religiously significant change in Illinois life, and that timing is everything in Politics, and I was shelLACKED by at least a few of a whole bunch of such zealous “activists” you refer to who couldn’t fathom how it might not pass who were commenting left and right then when they naively thought passage was somehow a gimme–where are they now? Crying over their spilled beer, to borrow a line. It’s not over yet, and a vote up or down would’ve done little harm, and if someone was not sure, they could’ve just voted “present” for land’s sake, and tell constituents they were still formulating their position. Either way, what’s the big deal–it’s day, with better timing, WILL come and it’ll either pass, or it won’t (which it obviously would NOT have the other day–despite all of the hype from many of the over-zealous pro-ssm “activists” out there, who get awfully quiet, when the Fat Lady has finished singin’, at least for now…! - Angry Chicagoan - Wednesday, Jun 5, 13 @ 9:43 pm: Well it’s an example of what makes Quinn a poor governor. He thinks you can achieve change through grandstanding. Perhaps not in many jurisdictions. Absolutely not here in Illinois, where gratuitously calling people out is a cardinal sin. - Robo - Thursday, Jun 6, 13 @ 9:01 am: What if, let’s say in November, the black churches are mollified and the AG jumps in and brings in the deciding votes? Pretty juicy scenario, eh? How ya like them democracies PQ? - Anon - Thursday, Jun 6, 13 @ 9:09 am: @RNUG Fan-I think you have that backwards. The idea of a “real democrat” is illusory, not the composition of the Senate. 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