* 10:42 am - House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton told reporters after the leaders meeting that they had talked with the governor about his new stopgap budget proposal.

But Madigan said he “made it clear” to Rauner that while the budgeteers would work on the proposal, “this is not something that’s going to happen today.”

Word from inside is that Madigan only wanted to talk about a stopgap for this fiscal year, not next.

* Cullerton said that the governor’s proposal to increase K-12 funding by another $100 million, which would hold CPS harmless, was “inadequate” and would have to be negotiated.

“I expect the news will evolve over the day,” Madigan’s spokesman said as he ended the presser.

This post will be updated.

* 10:57 am - After saying last week that Senate President Cullerton’s idea for a stopgap amounted to “pulling the plug” on negotiations, the two Republican leaders said today that not passing their own stopgap proposal would prevent schools from opening and create a serious crisis.

Leader Radogno said that the Democrats’ refusal to pass a stopgap bill meant they were saying no to “minimal stability to this state.” Leader Durkin said there was plenty of time remaining to pass something, pointing to the hurried approval of the long-ago White Sox stadium bill.

Durkin also pointed out that passing the bill today, rather than waiting until later, would make it “easier” to get it done because it would only require simple majorities.

“They don’t care if the universities close, they don’t care if the schools close… it’s all about politics,” Radogno said of the Democrats.

And Durkin called on rank and file members to “force their leaders” to pass something today.

* Look, they’re not wrong here. An agreed bill is always preferable and there’s plenty of time to do this. It would also be much easier to pass this stopgap bill in the Senate than Madigan’s because rank and file Senate Democrats aren’t happy about Madigan’s proposal.

But, man, their overreaction to Cullerton’s proposal last week is gonna bite them hard. The budget director was trotted out last week to emphatically say he could not support a stopgap, but now he says he wants one and actually created his own. And then they leaked it to the media before handing it to the Democratic leaders. (And, yes, the House Democrats ran their own budget bill last week without talking to the governor first. Not good, either. Two wrongs, however, don’t make a right. Let’s get off the war footing for the rest of the day, shall we?)

* 11:07 am - The Illinois Republican Party is already out with a statement…

The Democrats’ Choice

Democrats’ Decision Today Will Show Whether They are Serious About Keeping Government Running or Intent on Running Illinois into the Ground

Democrats face a critical choice today. Their first option is to support Gov. Rauner’s paid-for budget proposal that ensures schools open in the fall and keeps critical operations, like state prisons, running. The other choice is for Democrats to pass a phony budget that is $7 billion in the hole and forces taxes to record highs.

“The Democrats’ real intentions will be revealed today,” said Illinois Republican Party spokesman Steven Yaffe. “They can either choose a balanced, paid-for budget that keeps schools and prisons open while work continues on critical reforms or they can pass the most unbalanced budget in state history, proving once-and-for-all that all Democrats want to do is crush Illinois under a mountain of debt, push taxes to the highest levels in state history and hold the state hostage to their outrageous anti-taxpayer demands.”