* Yet another weird week in a seemingly never-ending streak of weirdness and hilarity. I’m done. Going back to the State Fair for some non-work activities. Hope you have a relaxing weekend and I’ll see some of you Tuesday.
* Head on over to Illinoize for more fun, and don’t forget to check out InsiderzExchange. It’s busting loose.
* The Senate will reportedly be back for session on Tuesday, August 19th at two o’clock. The Senate will take up the two amendatory vetoes that the House accepted this week and the “mini capital bill” that the House passed.
The state and the American Federation of State, County and Muncipal Employees have reached tentative agreement on a new contract, union officials said Friday.
AFSCME Deputy Director Roberta Lynch declined to discuss details of the contract.
“We feel it is a fair settlement,” Lynch said. “We feel it is fair to our members and the taxpayers of Illinois.” […]
Lynch said the union hopes to begin the ratification process next week, with meetings held across the state to explain the contract terms to members. She said the ratification process will probably take a week.
* Meanwhile, Carlos Hernandez Gomez takes a look at the governor’s astonishing comment that there are times when “I consider myself the first African-American governor of Illinois”…
Illinois has already had a black governor, albeit for only a few hours.
It was trailblazing African-American pol Cecil Partee, the first black president of the Illinois Senate.
And it was because of something that the late Illinois Senator Paul Simon, who was then Illinois’ lieutenant governor did.
Simon describes the little-known history in his autobiography P.S., read on:
“As president pro tem he [Partee] followed me in the succession line for the governorship, if anything happened to the governor and me. Because of the constitutional provisions that succession followed even for temporary vacancies, one day when I knew Governor Ogilvie would be out of the state I made it a point to go over to St. Louis so that Illinois had an African American governor for the first time, even if only for one day. And I’m pleased Cecil Partee had that honor.”
The governor may be the Rain Man of presidential factoids, but he may need to bone up on his Illinois trivia.
Just so there’s no confusion, that happened under the old constitution. A governor can leave the state now without passing along power.
Our ‘’Ridiculous Quote of the Week'’ award goes to Andy McKenna, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.
Here’s what he said Thursday about the importance of GOP unity at a time when Illinois Democrats are feuding and fighting.
‘’We’re a party that stands together and stands with Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was famous for his `House Divided’ speech. If he were here today, he would have to tell the story of a house divided that’s even more outrageous than the one that lived in his time,'’ McKenna said.
Whaaat? Lincoln’s speech was about the nation being torn asunder by slavery.
The infighting among Democrats who control state government is a trifle in comparison.
Wednesday was the 30th session day since the panel issued its report. But Jones said that special session days held during the summer don’t count. Only regular session days count, he insisted.
“To say, ‘The Clock is running. If you don’t act this week, the pay raises will go into effect.’ Biggest lie ever told,” Jones said.
Really? The biggest lie ever told? In the history of the world?
Forbes is reporting that there will be 15,000 journalists at each of the two upcoming political conventions.
Unbelievable.
At a time when news budgets are being slashed because of declining revenue, how can a news organization possibly justify sending a raft of people to the conventions?
I won’t be going to either convention. I have no desire to cover this circus on the road. I get enough of it here.
If Illinois Republicans looked more unified than Democrats Thursday, perhaps it was because there were fewer of them.
Where 1,500 Democrats packed into a standing-room only banquet hall at Springfield’s Crowne Plaza Hotel on Wednesday, a mere 150 Republicans stood for a gathering in a lobby at the same hotel on Day 2 of the parties’ politicking at the Illinois State Fair.
Where the Democrats had well over 1,000 cheering and sometimes booing members at their State Fair rally Wednesday, Republicans drew a more sedate and mannerly crowd of 350.
350 is a generous estimate…
Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans didn’t bus anybody in, and it showed. They must’ve relied on word of mouth.
“I don’t know how you go down further,” said DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett, who’s considering a 2010 run for governor or attorney general, offices he’s failed to win before.
November may be instructive.
* Despite the attendance and the lack of overall enthusiasm, GOP leaders did their best to put a positive spin on things…
Republicans are clearly the state’s minority party. Democrats hold every statewide elected office, as well as control of the Illinois Senate and House.
But state Sen. Dan Rutherford, R-Chenoa, noted that after the 1994 election, Republicans dominated state government in the same way that Democrats do now.
“That pendulum eventually swung,” Rutherford said. “I think that the public has now heard the gong of the bell of the swing too far and (is) ready for a correction to come.”
The IL GOP has certainly suffered because of George Ryan, but its biggest problem in the past few years has been President Bush. After he finally leaves, they may have a shot at something.
Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson of Greenville suggested the GOP would link local Democratic candidates to problems at the top of the party, namely the low approval ratings of Democrat Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
He said top Democratic lawmakers should share the low ratings.
“They need to be held accountable and responsible, and so should their members,” Watson said. “And that’s what we’re going to take to them in this November in this election.”
* Remember, though, that whatever Watson and House GOP Leader Tom Cross say about Blagojevich, they’re still wholeheartedly endorsing his capital plan. Sen. Bill Brady offered up some gentle criticism…
Even as Republicans sought to rally around a unity theme with an “action agenda” of principles, some GOP legislators who have spent years castigating Blagojevich for a lack of trust eagerly jumped aboard the Democratic governor’s statewide construction program this spring. Some even went as far as embracing the long-taboo Republican issue of expanded gambling in hopes of bringing some projects back to their districts.
Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, among several potential 2010 candidates for governor to attend the fair, chided some of his GOP legislative colleagues for backing a Blagojevich-driven construction plan.
“Some of the Republicans have been put into a position to where they feel they’ve got nothing else to do but trust,” said Brady, who has opposed the governor’s construction plans. “Do I applaud our leadership for trying to do something to work across the aisle? Yeah. It’s just not something I would have negotiated or I would have supported.”
* Col. Jack Jackson (retired), a John McCain surrogate, was the keynote speaker…
Jackson said Illinois sent two of the greatest U.S. presidents to Washington, D.C.: Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.
“I want to tell you something, though. Don’t send me a third,” he said, referring to Barack Obama of Illinois.
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that. Obama would be a great president, so don’t send him? Or, don’t give the country a third Illinois president? Actually, if Obama is elected he would be the fourth. Jackson forgot about US Grant.
* You can listen to audio clips at this link. I thought congressional hopeful Aaron Schock’s speech was surprisingly flat, given that he reportedly still has hopes of being tapped to speak at the GOP national convention.
* Mayor Daley is back in Chicago, so he was asked about Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s plan to call him up and get him to intervene in the Statehouse imbroglio over the capital bill…
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley isn’t sure what he can do to end a feud between Gov. Rod Blagojevich and House Speaker Michael Madigan over a stalled statewide capital construction program.
“Patch what up? This been going on for how long?” Daley told reporters Thursday.
“You can’t break trust, once you break trust then you have a difficult time, it doesn’t have nothing to do with Mayor Daley, this has to do with government, first and foremost. Once you break trust, it is hard to build the trust back up.”
Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero said the governor wants the mayor to get involved because Chicago stands to gain from a capital program if they can push it through the General Assembly.
Daley said the Democrats who run the state should be able to come up with a capital program that makes it clear to all lawmakers what public works projects would get done in their districts.
* Meanwhile, the governor compared showing pigs to dealing with the Legislature…
The Democratic governor, his wife, Patti, and 5-year-old daughter, Annie, climbed into a ring at the Illinois State Fair’s Swine Pavilion and took a pig for a quick spin before the show judges.
Blagojevich said there are a “lot of similarities” between working on the state budget and leading a pig around a pen.
“You know, you’ve got to take a knife to pork,” said Blagojevich, who campaigned against lawmakers pet projects but has doled them out as part of budget talks.
The Blagojeviches gently guided the big pig around a ring by lightly tapping it with a stick, but the governor insisted he didn’t need one.
“Are you kidding me? I’m used to working with people like this,” Blagojevich said.
* While Senate President Jones mulls his options on bringing the General Assembly back to town, the governor lashed out at anyone who would vote for his two amendatory vetoes in order to set up a lawsuit…
The Illinois Senate may soon return to Springfield to address health care for young adults and the elimination of property taxes for severely disabled veterans.
Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) is reviewing his options at this point, said Cindy Davidsmeyer, his spokeswoman. […]
At the state fair Thursday, Blagojevich said “it’s hard to believe” that lawmakers would vote for legislation “to set up a lawsuit to take health care away from young adults.”
The Democratic governor said that would be “an act of gross dishonesty and a fraud” and considers the lawmakers’ actions sincere.
* You gotta wonder whether the delegation will be surrounded by armed guards…
Illinois delegates will have the best seats when the Democrats meet later this month at the Pepsi Center in Denver to make Barack Obama the party nominee. It’s traditional for home state delegates to get prime position on the floor.
* Related…
* FBI didn’t need billboard to see this insider cabal
Giannoulias already has plans to lay off six employees, but has to take further measures that include a salary freeze, a hiring freeze and short unpaid furloughs, a spokeswoman said.
The second annual “celebrity” harness horse race featuring the four legislative spokespersons and myself will be held today at the Illinois State Fair.
We’ve been told that the contest will start after the 2nd race, which puts it at about 3:30 pm.
I came in second to the governor’s office last year, and we all had a major blast.
There is no “legal” betting on this race since it’s just an exhibition, but you might wanna check around the stands anyway.
* The setup: Secretaries who work for House members have been sent to the House floor today to clean out their bosses’ desks because of a “big mouse infestation.”
The infestation was apparently caused by legislators leaving food (mostly candy) in their desks. A Republican House member announced the problem last night during session, and there are no reported mouse problems on the Democratic side of the aisle as of yet.
This is not a good thing, considering the millions of dollars spent on a truly stunning remodeling of the House chambers.
Traps will apparently be set after the desks are cleaned out.
Not even a former United Nations ambassador could quell feuding among Illinois Democrats Wednesday.
With former diplomat and current New Mexico governor Bill Richardson on hand for a day of Democratic rallies, the sniping that’s marked Democrats tenure at the helm of state government continued.
* The “first African-American governor of Illinois” continued the schtick…
“Like the civil rights activists who’ve given Barack Obama a chance to run for president, they didn’t take no for an answer. We shouldn’t take no for an answer when we push to create jobs and give every family in Illinois a chance to be able to have a job and live the American dream,” the governor said.
* The governor did his best to avoid direct confrontation with Speaker Madigan. The two men started out on a positive note…
‘’Let’s come together, put aside our differences,'’ Blagojevich said. […]
‘’Our goal is to bring Democrats together. That’s always my goal. Division just helps the opposition,'’ said Speaker Madigan.
House Speaker Michael Madigan says he’s taking a new look at the governor’s idea of privatizing the Illinois lottery to pay for a statewide construction program.
* The Republicans didn’t see things in such a “positive” light…
But as Madigan spoke optimistically, state Republican leaders held a rival news conference to blast the Democrats for calling special sessions then taking no action. They even drew up a “Help Wanted” sign with a picture of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, inviting him to take over here because there is an executive mansion in Springfield “available for immediate occupancy … hasn’t been used in six years.”
Blagojevich has suggested bringing lawmakers back to work throughout September to get education funding and the capital program resolved. But Madigan stressed his chamber won’t be rushed in its work.
“Speaking for the members of the House, we’re not prepared to have things dictated to us, and everybody in the building ought to understand that,” Madigan said.
Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair, featuring an afternoon rally of the Democratic faithful, indeed had Gov. Rod Blagojevich in attendance.
Missing, though, was the chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, who has had sharp differences with the governor for the past two years.
Also absent were Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Comptroller Dan Hynes. Quinn was attending the funeral of an Illinois soldier killed in the Middle East. Lisa Madigan said she had to tend to work at her office. Hynes said he simply didn’t want to go.
“I really don’t want to participate in some sort of campaign demonizing Democrats,” Hynes said. “It’s lost its traditional role of being an event where Democrats come together and unify and speak of our common values and goals. Now it has become the governor’s latest tactical maneuver.”
Hundreds of state government workers showed up at Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair on Wednesday to protest the Blagojevich administration’s demand that they pay a lot more for their health insurance.
Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees clustered around entrances to the fairgrounds passing out leaflets detailing their objections to paying higher health insurance costs. […]
“They’re lucky to have a job, and they have health care,” Blagojevich said of the state workers. “They’re going to keep their jobs and keep their health care. Now, start helping us create jobs for other people and provide health care to other people.”
After his speech, Blagojevich said AFSCME’s complaints about health-care coverage “is a negotiating ploy. There’s no question they will keep their health care.”
It’s not about losing health care, it’s about paying a whole lot more for the health insurance they have.
* If you were following the blog last night, you saw that the House voted to accept both of the governor’s recent amendatory vetoes…
The Illinois House on Wednesday approved new versions of legislation that Gov. Rod Blagojevich had rewritten to cut taxes for disabled veterans and lower insurance costs for college students. […]
Asked if approving the governor’s changes was meant as an olive branch, Madigan said, “You could take it that way, if you wish.”
House leaders originally indicated the governor was going too far in revising legislation, but they reversed course Wednesday. The House supported both amendatory vetoes, with leaders indicating it was possibly time for courts to weigh in on just how much authority the governor has to change legislation.
“It’s time to get more clarity from the court,” said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago.
Republicans criticized approval of the vetoes as setting the wrong precedent.
* The Senate now has fifteen calendar days to accept the AV. If not, then the entire bill dies…
Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, said before senators left town Wednesday night that he wasn’t sure they would come back to take up those vetoes. Blagojevich said he planned to talk to Jones today about bringing the Senate back soon.
* Madigan had been expected to kill off the AV’s as he has done in the recent and the distant past. Bethany Jaeger takes us back to a 1999 article…
[Gov. George Ryan’s] amendatory veto of the generic drug bill, along with others he has issued, will set in motion a process that House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has followed for a decade because he believes governors sometimes abuse their authority in changing legislation. “What he’s concerned about is a preemptive strikes by the governor’s office on the work of the legislature,” said Madigan’s spokesman, Steve Brown.
* Three things essentially happened last night. 1) Madigan tossed the AV hot potato into Jones’ court and avoided being tagged yet again as an obstructionist; 2) Jones may now be forced to call his members back to town - not a popular idea - or risk knocking out the first legs of the governor’s much-vaunted “Rewrite to Do Right” campaign, which would be a big embarrassment; 3) A lawsuit over the guv’s AV powers is pretty much certain, which is probably a good plan since the governor is expected to roll out 50 of these AVs in the coming days. Let’s get some clarity.
“I think that the lack of clarity from the court decisions may mean that it’s time for a second crack for the judicial branch. Maybe we ought to invite the question before the courts whether this particularly amendatory veto, for example, does go beyond the scope of that authority provided in the Constitution. For that reason, I would suggest that an aye vote may help us answer this question that has been so contentious between the two branches ever since 1971.”
llinois home sales dropped 25 percent in the second quarter, a real estate trade group reported Wednesday, and the median statewide price of a single-family home or condominium fell 6.8 percent from the year-ago quarter.
Chicago has a $425 million budget gap that will require a “paradigm shift” in services the city provides, the way they are delivered and the number of employees and agencies responsible, top mayoral aides told organized labor on Wednesday.
In a closed-door meeting with 40 union leaders, Mayor Daley’s chief-of-staff Lori Healey, Chief Financial Officer Paul Volpe and Intergovernmental Affairs Director John Dunn promised that redundant layers of middle management would share the burden of employee layoffs.
“They are asking our people for concessions, yet giving their bosses a raise,” said Chicago Federation of Labor leader Dennis Gannon. “It leaves a bad taste in your mouth. It’s just not rational.”
“Mr. Governor,” said Mulvey, pointing his camera at Blagojevich and getting his question in despite the competition from older reporters, “I’m a junior at Rochester High School and I’m still wondering — three years ago, you came to our school and told us we were going to get our money. I was just wondering where it is. We’re still on the top of that list.”
Mulvey was referring to the March 2006 visit Blagojevich made to Rochester High. At that time, Blagojevich traveled to the school as part of his public relations attempt to get the General Assembly to approve a $3.2 billion construction plan — which seemed like a lot at the time. He entered the school gymnasium through a column of cheerleaders and urged students to contact their legislators, particularly GOP lawmakers. Senate Republican Leader FRANK WATSON hadn’t had any contact from the governor in more than a month, a spokeswoman said at the time.
And — surprise, surprise — the program did not pass.
“Um, yes, yeah, look, I want to work with you,” Blagojevich said Wednesday after Mulvey’s question. “We got to call those legislators and free up that money. I’m dying to do it.”
