* Earlier this week, Carol Marin interviewed Sen. Dick Durbin on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight…
“Is [Gov. Blagojevich] talking to you now, are you talking to him?” Marin asked.
“No,” said Durbin. “We have, maybe, once every two or three months he’ll call about something and I’m there to take the calls, but we have not had a close relationship.”
The two went on to talk about the stalled capital plan, and Durbin bitterly complained about the Springfield gridlock. [Hat tip: PI]
* Last night, Marin had a devastating take-down of Blagojevich’s “pay to play” politics on NBC 5, which isn’t yet online.
*** UPDATE *** Marin’s NBC 5 report is now online….
Marin wanted to take a closer look at who was giving and who was getting, so she looked at just one day in the governor’s fundraising life: June 17, 2008.
That night, at an unpublicized fundraiser, the governor’s campaign took in nearly $167,000. Of that total, $102,000 — about 60 percent — came from companies doing business with the state. On this day, they were mostly engineering firms.
“I think that we’ve seen a lot of trumped up contracts,” Canary said.
That night, 23 companies that have state contracts gave money to the governor.
Remember Dudley Do-Right? The jut-jawed Canadian Mountie cartoon character on “Rocky and His Friends” and later, the subject of a 1999 Sarah Jessica Parker movie?
Dudley Do-Right had lots of hair and always got his man despite the cunning Snidely Whiplash’s efforts to do him in.
Gov. Blagojevich, as a Monday press conference proved, is now close to becoming that cartoon.
Asked by WTTW “Chicago Tonight” reporter Rich Samuels if he was going to sign the ethics bill that’s languishing on his desk, the governor declared he might take his amendatory veto pen to the legislation. With the slash of his mighty amendatory sword and the help of a goofy new slogan, Blago boldly declared he will, “Rewrite to Do Right.”
As state Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago) acidly told Samuels, when the General Assembly unanimously passed the measure out of both houses, lawmakers viewed the governor’s desk as a “final destination, not a suggestion box.” […]
But the governor needs to give up the games, abandon the “Rewrite to Do Right” nonsense, and sign the ethics bill before he walks into the special session he’s called for next week.
Say what you will about Dudley Do-Right being just a cartoon. At the end of the day, he got the job done.
And some people think I’m busy.
Discuss.
* Related…
* Tribune: Blagojevich should try a novel approach—stop sloganeering and just sign the ethics bill. That would help to build legislators’ trust in him, and build the public’s trust in the whole bunch in Springfield. Just sign it.
* Illinois ethics bill still awaits governor’s signature: Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, a top House official who was in on the talks, said last week that such a move might soften some opposition to the plan, but she stopped short of agreeing to it. “One of the concerns is whether the governor is looking for a capital plan as a way of rewarding his friends,” she said. “Whether (signing the ethics bill) is enough to solve the problem of trust, I don’t know, but it’s a good first step.”
* Radogno: Blagojevich seems to think he’s ‘king’: Radogno said Blagojevich is egging on lawmakers he has feuded with by changing bills. She said it would be a misuse of authority if Blagojevich makes wholesale changes to bills that lawmakers didn’t intend when they passed them.
* State needs law against ‘pay to play’ now more than ever
* Frank Watson: There’s been some misinterpretation of what I’ve said. There was an editorial in the Champaign News-Gazette saying that I was tying this to the capital bill. That’s not what I said at the meeting at all. I said it’s the ethics concern that [the Senate Republicans] have, and I said [Blagojevich] ought to sign House Bill 824, and that would end some of the ethics concerns that we in the Senate have. I’m not tying ethics to capital. That’s what he said. He said he would sign the ethics bill if the capital bill passed. I said, ‘You ought to sign it now and put that issue behind us.’
* Thanks to a reader for sending this direct mail piece from Republican congressional hopeful Marty Ozinga. I strongly encourage all readers to do the same.
You can click the pics for larger images…
Thoughts?
* The Illinois Republican Party has a new Internet video bashing Democratic congressional candidate Dan Seals. The Repubs have been attempting for several days to make some hay out of fundraising for Seals done by powerful Congresscritter Charlie Rangel, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. You can find more background on the story here, here, here, here and here. It’s a mostly inside the beltway “scandal” that isn’t exactly earth-shattering. Rangel is accused of using a rent-controlled apartment for his campaign headquarters, in apparent violation of NY law. He’s since closed that office.
Anyway, the IL GOP vid ends with this tag line: “Dan Seals. He’ll do anything to buy your vote.” That’s quite the charge.
And here it is…
* The Rangel thing is also an issue in Democrat Debbie Halvorson’s campaign versus Marty Ozinga…
[Halvorson[ also has set up a joint fundraising committee with Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, for a future fundraising event. The Ozinga campaign has sought to portray the relationship negatively following a story in the New York Times alleging that Rangel, whose home and office in Harlem are in a rent-controlled building, is getting favorable treatment from his landlord. The office is the address listed for the joint fundraising committee with Halvorson.
Rangel responded Friday to the article, telling reporters at a news conference he is paying the maximum rent allowed by law and he is not getting special treatment. […]
Regarding Halvorson’s fundraising, Sere said Halvorson’s affiliation with Rangel shows she has a pattern of “forming close alliances with fellow career politicians who just so happen to have this scandal or that scandal attached to their names,” a reference to efforts by the Ozinga campaign to tie her to unpopular Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Ozinga issued a press release Wednesday calling attention to the committee titled “Halvorson Fundraising Committee Based out of Rangel’s Sweetheart Apartment.” […]
[Halvorson campaign manager Brian Doory] declined to respond to the Ozinga criticism of her joint committee with Rangel.
* Meanwhile, Bobby Rush announced yesterday that he’s cancer free…
Rush returned to Congress last Wednesday. His doctors said they are not discouraging him from jumping back into politics as he continues his recovery.
“I don’t know that asking Congressman Rush to sit down and relax would be good for him,” said Dr. Elizabeth Blair, the surgeon who removed a tumor the size of a large plum from his jaw earlier this year.
* Congressional hearing today on CN, EJ&E purchase
* For lawyers who choose public service over private enrichment, new financial hope - Legislation to unburden some of up to $60,000 in law school debt is awaiting president’s signature
