* From Aviva Bowen’s Facebook page…

Lemmegetthisstraight. And I’m not commenting on pro/con of Quinn’s move.

But when it comes to the promised compensation of our state legislators, we are focused urgently on the constitutionality of cutting it.

But when it comes to slashing the promised compensation of a half-million teachers, emergency responders, and public service workers with their life savings in a state pension system some say, “Meh. who knows. Let’s just do it and worry about constitutionality later.”

Aviva works for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, so she’s a bit biased, but I don’t disagree at all.

* Also, Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced within hours that she’d be looking into the constitutionality of the governor’s line-item veto. But AG Madigan has yet to publicly voice an opinion on any of the proposed pension reform plans.

That seems rather duplicitous. Madigan’s office has said that she won’t comment on an issue that could be litigated. But Quinn’s veto could very well be challenged in court.

I’m not sure I quite understand this, other than the fact that she may run for governor and wants to stay out of the pension fight.

*** UPDATE *** From the attorney general’s office…

Rich, regarding Aviva’s Facebook comment and your post, we have not publicly weighed in on the governor’s actions on the legislative pay. We simply said we were looking at issue based on questions brought to our office and raised by our lawyers.

As you noted, we have not publicly weighed in on the pension matter given the anticipated litigation once a reform measure is passed. We anticipate possibly litigation involving the governor’s actions as well, which explains why we have simply indicated we are doing a legal analysis.