65 Comments - Ratso Rizzo - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:35 pm: In the meantime, Goveror Rauner is cross crossing the State in full campaign mode. My response to SJ-R is “Puh-lease.” - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:37 pm: ===…House members are paid to do what it best for Illinoisans — and they don’t have to wait in line to get paid, like the people they aren’t helping.=== … and yet they didn’t get paid. Not paying them, that’s a constitutional issue. I’m not sure about the point here. … - A Jack - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:41 pm: Well since the Governor’s unbalanced proposal included items from a Grand Bargain that isn’t even ready per the senate Republicans, there doesn’t seem any point in them sticking around Springfield at the moment. - Annonin' - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:42 pm: SJ-R does not seem to understand that for many it is a full time job to stand up to DopeyDuct and his sttooges. House members are paid to represent their districts. And they are. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:43 pm: My thought is move to a system like in NH, state legislators get $200 per term. - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:44 pm: To the question, It’s embarrassingly off to actual events, given that Rauner first blew up the first grand bargain, then second, refused to support any current bargain. The only way this editorial makes sense is if the Senate and Rauner decided to send something to the House. Cullerton wanted to, Rauner did not. When Rauner decides he wants to deal in good faith with Cullerton to force Madigan and the House to act, editorials like this aren’t remotely close the what’s going on. - Stark - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:45 pm: We have nothing for you to vote on. We will not have anything for you to vote on in the next week. We need you to stay in town instead of directly communicating with the providers and servicers struggling to survive in your districts. Please stay. Gimme a break, SJ-R, and actually call out our incumbent governor for blatantly lying as he buries our state six feet under. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:45 pm: What do these goons make in the IL legislature? We have the worst government in the union. - A Jack - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:45 pm: Besides, it is Mother’s Day weekend. The only ones that need to be working are the Senate Republicans who need to get their Grand Bargain bills ready. - Stark - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:46 pm: Ron, this thing you’re using to comment, the computer, would be of help to you if you want to know that information. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:46 pm: They most certainly do not need taxpayer guaranteed pensions - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:47 pm: Please, do not feed the Troll. Thank you. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:48 pm: Jack, it was rhetorical. New Hampshire legislators make $200 per elected term and that state is run very well. Illinois is an economic basket case with the worst legislators in the nation. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:48 pm: Lol, Willy is public union supporting troll - Anonymous - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:48 pm: I’d like to think the SJ-R knows better, but apparently not. Sometimes you keep them in Springfield voting on soup. Sometimes you send them home so constituents can yell at them to go make soup. Both can be productive, though only one helps the hospitality industry in the State Capitol. - Roadiepig - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:50 pm: Bad idea to cheer leaving early, but until their overload shift (respectively) tell them they can do their actual job, no need for per diem - Louis G. Atsaves - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:53 pm: Hard to argue against that sentiment. - Roadiepig - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:55 pm: Overlords, not overload shift. Forgot to spellcheck, as usual - Anonymous - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 12:57 pm: Those that applauded showed off their true character Sad! - Taxation = Civilization - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:00 pm: I favor locking the gov. and four legislative leaders in a room until they figure it out. To the question, yeah, its a terrible optic. But, they probably weren’t doing anything productive. They don’t have a whole lot of power; they just take marching orders from the big four and Rauner. - Cook County Commoner - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:02 pm: That “some people in the chamber” lacked the good sense to maintain decorum should not be sufficient reason write a poison pen editorial. - btowntruth from forgotonnia - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:02 pm: Cheering it wasn’t smart. But if nothing is going to get done,why should they be there? - Rocky Rosi - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:06 pm: They have personal lives and its mother days weekend. It’s not like they get paid that much. - Just Observing - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:06 pm: They need to be secretly cheering in their head, not out loud. - Anonymous - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:07 pm: Yeah, blaming them for not doing their job? It’s the governor who is supposed to put a budget in place. Budget related items go in a budget, the rest of the year you argue non-budget related items. Let’s not forget this person also bankrolls the state GOP and owns nine homes. Louis, are you ever going to say something productive? - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:08 pm: “House members are paid to do what it best for Illinoisans — and they don’t have to wait in line to get paid, like the people they aren’t helping. They should be working every day they’re scheduled to — we’d argue the weekends too — until a budget is approved. Cheering because they don’t have to come in and work toward productive solutions that would benefit the people of Illinois is disgraceful.” Impossible to disagree with this. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:09 pm: “They have personal lives and its mother days weekend. It’s not like they get paid that much.” They get paid way too much, especially for the work they produce. - Big Muddy - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:10 pm: I’m saddened to announce that Big Muddy is officially leaving Illinois. I’m taking with me my business that employs 12 people. Those 12 employees are more like family and all have been invited to keep their respective jobs should they too choose to move anywhere near our new location. I’m sad because I was born in Southern Illinois and now live and work in the far western suburbs. Illinois has always been my home. It is just gotten too bad of a place for business and the future here doesn’t look too bright. Closed on the new digs May 1 and move in by May 31. Goodbye Illinois. And Oswego Willy, BITE ME. - Honeybear - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:13 pm: Dude Taxation, Rich is gonna hammer you about the lock them in a room stuff It’s illegal Just sayin Also I’ve seen rich rip someone a new one over it - GOP Extremist - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:14 pm: Good riddance!! - Oswego Willy - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:15 pm: - Big Muddy - Good luck, all the best to you and your family. Oswego Willy - JS Mill - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:16 pm: @Big Muddy- Did your mom or dad get transferred? Hope you adjust well to your new middle school. Just guessing your age by the intellectual level of your remarks./s - Anonymous - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:18 pm: “It’s the governor who is supposed to put a budget in place.” - it is just as much the GA’s job to put forth a revenue and spending plan, a budget. - Anonymous - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:18 pm: @Ron You don’t hold others hostage especially the aged, blind, college students, and the disabled while refusing to enact a budget to get your way. There is a huge difference between campaigning and governing also governing doesnt’t include bankrolling people. - Ratso Rizzo - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:19 pm: ===- Big Muddy - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:10 pm: I’m saddened to announce that Big Muddy is officially leaving Illinois. I’m taking with me my business that employs 12 people. Those 12 employees are more like family and all have been invited to keep their respective jobs should they too choose to move anywhere near our new location. I’m sad because I was born in Southern Illinois and now live and work in the far western suburbs. Illinois has always been my home. It is just gotten too bad of a place for business and the future here doesn’t look too bright. Closed on the new digs May 1 and move in by May 31. Goodbye Illinois…= Dang. If only we had those term limits. Bid’niz goes bananas over term limits! Well, as was said in Inglorious Basterds, “Au revoir, Shoshanna!” - Anonymous - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:20 pm: @Big Muddy Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. - GOP Extremist - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:25 pm: @Big Muddy. Please take @Ron with you!! I hear New Hampshire is nice this time of year. - wordslinger - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:26 pm: Harrumph, harrumph. The SJR edit board must be new in town. They think the work gets done on the chamber floors. The governor has ever-changing if not incoherent pre-conditions before he’ll engage in the budget process, if you actually believe that he is even willing to do that in good faith, after more than two years. Considering his ongoing sabotage of the Senate process, I don’t believe he’s acting in good faith. So why hang around Springfield? I’m sure the SJR is more interested in keeping the Springfield bars, restaurants and hotels full. - Ratso Rizzo - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:27 pm: === GOP Extremist - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:25 pm: @Big Muddy. Please take @Ron with you!! I hear New Hampshire is nice this time of year.=== And LP, Sue, Louis Atsaves, yellowdog, etc. Imagine the utopia you’d live in in your little commune! All makers—no takers. - Earnest - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:30 pm: I see it as a buy-in to distracting from Rauner’s deliberate destruction of state vendors, human services and higher education while he intentionally digs the budget hole deeper and deeper. House Republicans don’t do any legislating anyway. They just wait for Rauner to tell them what they’ll do while they parrot his mandated talking points. House Democrats should be getting a budget ready to send over to the Senate, so they should be pushing hard on that right now rather than taking a day off. - Original Rambler - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:30 pm: Ron’s comments sure have me missing Bill. - Saluki - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:33 pm: Ron. What bridge do you live under? - Altois - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:34 pm: Spot on. Why would anyone who truly cares about our state disagree? - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:36 pm: Saluki, which public employee union are you a member of? - 47th Ward - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:38 pm: ===Cheering because they don’t have to come in and work toward productive solutions that would benefit the people of Illinois is disgraceful.=== I thought the SJR ed board would be savvier when it comes to understanding what is happening in the General Assembly. The Governor, the leaders and their negotiating teams, the Governor’s senior staff, counting everybody who is relevant to ending the impasse, that’s about 20 people? So the other 150 members of the General Assembly, who have been doing their jobs day in and day out (I was just there this week and watched votes being taken on the House floor), they are supposed to beg to stay in Springfield longer than they have to, with nothing to do? Let the 20 or so people who are actively engaged in this stay. And maybe the SJR could list them all next time, then at least their criticism would be fair. It’s not fair to blame passengers for the car accident. You blame the drivers. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:39 pm: Altois, great question. I think a lot posters here work for the state. - Just Me - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:42 pm: I wouldn’t be “cheering” for anything right now if I was a member of the General Assembly. - Lucky Pierre - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:44 pm: Legislators make over 100 K in salary, health care and pension benefits for part time job. That is the fifth highest compensation for state legislators. I think the other 49 states have passed budgets so why are ours taking long weekends during crunch time? - Michelle Flaherty - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:45 pm: The SJR has cut back its staff so much that the newsroom looks like the Illinois House on a Friday. - filmmaker prof - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:48 pm: I work for the state. so what’s your point? - Scamp640 - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:53 pm: @ Big Muddy. Where are you going? What tax incentives did you take to move? What was the catalyst for your departure? It is one thing to make a scene as you depart, but not telling us the specifics makes us wonder about your true motivations. Just curious. - Norseman - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:55 pm: We’ve heard this song before. It sounds great to the folks, but doesn’t reflect the reality of the process and the impediments to achieving anything meaningful. Of course, Springfield earns some financial benefit from the solons staying in town another night. Not convening for an unproductive day saves the state some per diem money. Now back to the unproductive chest thumping by the editorial pages, etc… - VanillaMan - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 1:56 pm: The SJ-R opinion is embarrassing. A state capital’s newspaper should be more enlightened and not fall for juvenile anctics. There is no work which can be done. Locking legislators under the dome like hostages is foolish, silly and pointless. Worse, the editorial seems to want citizens believing that the lack of progress is due to laziness under the Dome. FAKE NEWS! SAD! - Demoralized - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 2:06 pm: Meh. There’s no reason for them to be here while negotiations are ongoing. Not all members are part of the negotiations. It’s not as if a budget would pass today if they were here. - SAP - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 2:23 pm: It looks bad, but even the SJ-R knows that the real work isn’t done on the floor. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 2:31 pm: “Legislators make over 100 K in salary, health care and pension benefits for part time job. That is the fifth highest compensation for state legislators. I think the other 49 states have passed budgets so why are ours taking long weekends during crunch time?” And yet the usual suspects defend these useless legislators. They could spend some time finding spending cuts. - Cassandra - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 2:31 pm: Is there a connection between how long the rank and file are present in the Capital and the quality of governance. I suspect not. I suspect that a lot of final decisions are made rather quickly, by a few powerful legislators. Or not. The rest of them might be better off holding more office hours back in their districts, thus being more available to their constituents, however pesky those constituents can sometimes be. - Anonymous - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 2:51 pm: Cassandra, agreed. Which is why they should be paid as New Hamsphire’s state legislators are, $200/term. - 47th Ward - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 3:00 pm: ===I think the other 49 states have passed budgets so why are ours taking long weekends during crunch time?=== Because your Governor won’t let them vote on any budget bills yet. Even with reforms. He needs more time, he says, but they’re getting close. He needs more time. Lol. We’ll give him another 18 months, and that’s all. - A guy - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 3:02 pm: If there were no cute ‘call to arms’ and the schedule was just announced…sans applause of course, it would just be another procedural announcement. The idea that; from the leadership down to the rank and file, didn’t realize what the perception of this silly scene would be, is a bit surprising. - Last Bull Moose - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 3:05 pm: Big Muddy, Sorry to see you go. Hope your family and business successfully manage the dislocation of relocation. - btowntruth from forgottonia - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 3:38 pm: And the SJ-R knows that our helpless victim of a Governor can call the Legislature into session if he wants to,right? - Lucky Pierre - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 3:48 pm: What can’t legislators vote on budget bills? The Governor controls what bills the Speaker and Senate President call? What reforms has the Speaker proposed? - AlfondoGonz - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 3:58 pm: It would be wise to show more grace than children hearing on the radio that school is cancelled due to snow. - Ron - Friday, May 12, 17 @ 4:00 pm: Just lazy useless legislators feeding off the taxpayer teat. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.