* Speaker Madigan talked to reporters today. Here’s some of what he said…

We’re attempting to reschedule the meeting that was canceled by Gov. Rauner. We’ve suggested tomorrow at one o’clock. And my office has spoken with the other three leadership offices to reschedule the meeting of the four leaders that Gov. Rauner canceled one or two days ago.

I’ve reached out to the press people for the two Republican leaders to see what their response to this invitation is, but haven’t yet heard back. I’ll let you know.

*** UPDATE *** From Leader Durkin…

“With 6 days remaining in this fiscal year, I once again call upon Speaker Madigan to meet with me immediately to negotiate a resolution to the budget impasse. We are making good progress with workers compensation reform as a result of our Wednesday meeting. I believe we can resolve the unfinished areas in a collective manner. The work needs to be in the House and we should mirror the collaborative efforts performed in the Senate. As Senate President Cullerton told Rick Pearson on WGN Radio last Sunday, ‘Madigan and Durkin should do what Radogno and Cullerton did. Sit down and come up with a plan.’  

We are past the point of having these Committees of the Whole.  We just need to finish the job.”

* This is raw audio from Madigan’s availability and it doesn’t get going until about the 1:30 mark, so skip ahead. Many thanks to our buddy Dave Dahl for the file.

Madigan starts by sparring with the Illinois News Network’s Statehouse correspondent because the INN is a project of the Illinois Policy Institute…

Just for the record, I have lots of beefs with the Illinois Policy Institute, but their Statehouse guy Greg Bishop works hard and asks tough questions. He’s not a Republican Party operative, as Madigan more than just implied today. If he was, he’d be actively supporting or downplaying the governor’s proposed tax hikes. Instead, he’s one of the only Statehouse reporters who has written some in-depth stories on the governor’s actual proposals. You’d barely know the governor was backing a 33 percent income tax hike by reading most of the stories filed from Springfield this week.