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* UPDATED x2 * Tax the refugees - Amtrak flip-flop - Flores in trouble - Cooperating with MO

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Illinois

* Rep. Mike Tryon (R-Crystal Lake) just rose on the House floor to demand legislation which would require “non resident legislators” who’ve fled to Illinois to pay income taxes. Tryon said that the Wisconsin and Indiana Democratic legislators should pay taxes here just like the Green Bay Packers players had to pay taxes when they played the Bears during the NFC Championship game.

Heh.

*** UPDATE 1 *** Video of a Tryon interview from IL Statehouse News…

He all but admits this is tongue in cheek, but the IL GOP is taking him seriously.

*** UPDATE 2 *** Here’s the audio of Rep. Tryon’s floor speech…

Click to Download

[ *** End Of Updates *** ]

* From tongue-in-cheek common sense in Springfield to cheekiness in DC…

In his first interview since voting to eliminate a $230 million federal grant to build an Amtrak line from Chicago to Iowa City, U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling sat down with News 8 to discuss his decision, and how he thinks that rail service through the Quad Cities could still eventually happen. […]

Ironically, Schilling said two players from opposite sides of the aisle will make sure the rail comes across his desk again.

“Durbin and [Sen.] Mark Kirk aren’t going to let a lot of this stuff flow through, and then it’s going to come back and then we break it down on an individual basis,” he said. “You know, that’s just how the process works.”

Schilling said he met with Paul Rumler, the executive director of the Quad Cities Passenger Rail Coalition, and for the first time he was willing to go on the record on the issue.

“Rumler, he’s explained to me exactly why the rail will help our area and I’m in agreement with almost 100 percent of what he’s had to say,” he said. [So if it comes down to it] I’d be with it, yeah.”

So, he voted against it, but he finally checked into the biggest project in his district in years and now he’s OK with it.

* And there’s more trouble for a Pat Quinn appointee…

A long-simmering standoff between Gov. Pat Quinn and the Illinois Senate over the nomination of Illinois Commerce Commission Acting Chairman Manuel Flores is coming to a head, with signs pointing to Mr. Flores’ imminent departure.

The Senate Executive Committee has scheduled a vote for Tuesday on Mr. Flores, who’s been acting as head of the state’s utility regulatory body for over a year but hasn’t been confirmed. People familiar with the matter said Senate President John Cullerton privately has told the governor’s office in recent months that the votes aren’t there to confirm Mr. Flores, a former Chicago alderman who has run into a buzzsaw of opposition from some members of the state Senate’s Latino caucus and from utilities who see him as pro-consumer.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Cullerton referred questions about the nomination to Sen. Willie Delgado, D-Chicago, in whose district Mr. Flores lives.

Sen. Delgado is vice-chairman of the committee and an ardent opponent of Mr. Flores due to a long-standing feud over their differing political allegiances within the Hispanic community. In an interview, he predicted Mr. Flores will be voted down in committee if the governor doesn’t withdraw the nomination.

They’re looking for another job for Flores, but he doesn’t want to move. And the problem isn’t solely with Delgado. Subscribers know more, and they may know even more tomorrow if the stories I’ve been hearing this week are true.

* But at least Quinn’s getting along with Missouri…

Illinois and Missouri will share the nearly $5.3 million cost of emergency repairs to a Mississippi River bridge just south of St. Louis.

Missouri Department of Transportation spokesman Jack Wang tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the Jefferson Barracks Bridge remains safe and accessible to traffic.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 12:24 pm

Comments

==A spokeswoman for Mr. Cullerton referred questions about the nomination to Sen. Willie Delgado, D-Chicago, in whose district Mr. Flores lives.==

Say what you want about Cullerton, but sometimes you really have to admire his sense of humor.

Comment by Bill Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 12:28 pm
A novel approach indeed- now one’s vote against something is in fact a vote for it?

Comment by Dirt Digger Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 12:29 pm
It takes the Senate to fix Schilling’s mistake. When is this guy going to be districted out again?

Comment by Anon Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 12:30 pm
Dirt Digger @ 12:29,

“It’s Okay If You’re A Republican” covers a lot of flip-flopping, lying, and hypocrisy.

One hopes the voters of his district are realizing, like the voters in Wisconsin, that when you elect fools, you get foolish decisions and bad policy. One also hopes they remember that between now and November 2012.

Comment by Northsider Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 12:31 pm
Willie Delgado….seriously? that’s just small and sad.

Comment by amalia Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 12:41 pm
Schilling’s finding out that keeping your tea nice and pure is a little tougher when you have actual constituents.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 12:45 pm
Gee I wonder who was behind Proco Joe Moreno when he ran against Willie Delgado?

Comment by Ward Heeler Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 12:50 pm
I don’t think the WI Senate Dems would mind paying IL state income tax since that income would not be taxed in WI at a higher rate.

Finally, a Republican willing to address the budget with a specific plan, and a revenue raiser at that. I hope he has a billion of them.

Comment by MikeMacD Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:11 pm
Flores: just the latest casualty of the Guttierrez, Ochoa group.

Comment by Statesman Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:15 pm
Schilling arrives at the biggest Republican defensive offense — only my future actions count. The Teflon Futurists cover a whole lot of cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, and simple minded conformities with the history erasers. But, no matter how they present themselves, they come off, as Mike Royko used to describe them — “very clean, but stupid”.

Comment by vole Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:21 pm
I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Flores end up at Chicago’s law firm. Although i think its a shame this has all happened, he’s a smart guy just picked the wrong battles.

Comment by Ethan Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:23 pm
Great editorial in the Moline Dispatch a few days ago noting that Schilling voted for the wasteful second engine for a fighter jet that Speaker Boehner asked for in his district, a project that even the Defense Department said was wasteful. However, Schilling votes against money in his own district.

He may be learning that campaigns are easier than governing.

http://www.qconline.com/archives/qco/display.php?id=532113

Comment by Anon Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:25 pm
Gotta Love PizzaBobby
BTW Tryon’s demand for taxes from the Refugees from WingNutLand confirms these lawmakers ARE working. We believe the WN are preaching the contrary message
Fire, Aim, Ready!

Comment by CircularFiringSquad Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:27 pm
So being pro consumer is bad for a Illinois Commerce Commission Acting Chairman. Really?

So members of the GA don’t want someone who would hold the utility companies profits in check and would keep them from issuing checks. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Comment by Irish Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:31 pm
=== pro-consumer ===

Nope, we sure wouldn’t want that trait in our bureuacrats.

Comment by Joe from Joliet Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:34 pm
lets sell the bridge to a private company that can charge tolls for its use generate money plus cover the cost of repairs…. hasnt this concept worked well for parking meters?

Comment by Ghost Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:36 pm
Leave it to a Republican to kill tourism in Illinois. I guess Rep Tryon hasn’t wrapped his head around the ongoing battle to lure people from other states to Illinois and vice versa. (also tongue in cheek)
It isn’t an issue anyway because they don’t get paid until they return to get their checks. (I wonder if they work 24/7 365 days a year, too.)

Sorry, guess the weather has me being a little snarky.

Comment by Irish Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 1:43 pm
“So, he voted against it, but he finally checked into the biggest project in his district in years and now he’s OK with it.” As a constituent of Bobby Schilling all I can say is “REALLY”?

Comment by Mex Girl Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 3:05 pm
What happened to Mike ‘Pickle’ Joyce’s nomination to the Illinois Labor Board now that it has come out that he was arrested? I haven’t heard anything further since the ABC7 Chicago report last week.

Comment by Because I say so Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 3:14 pm
That nomination is still on track. People make mistakes. He quit drinking, cleaned himself up and married Muhammad Ali’s daughter. Go elsewhere for your gossip.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 3:26 pm
I’m sure GOPers in the Quads might appreciate this.

So Schilling, true to his Tea Party nonsense, votes against a Quad-Cities project. Fair enough.

But later, he backs down, and hopes the non-believers Kirk and Durbin will bail him out.

Let us know sing the praises of a real Midwestern GOP conservative, before the word was warped beyond all meaning.

Rep. Jim Leach, R-Davenport, from right across the river.

Straight out of Davenport Central (he could have gone to Choate or anywhere else), state high school wrestling champ (that says a lot in Iowa), Harvard, Princeton, London School of Economics, he was the backbone of Midwestern GOP conservatism.

And the fundamentalists ran him out of business.

When GOPers and Dems on both sides of the river wanted the Feds to spend hundreds of millions to replace the Arsenal Bridge (linking Davenport, the Arsenal in the river, and the city ofr Rock Island, Leach said “no.”

In his Clutch Cargo voice, he said “the bridge can last another hundred years. I can’t talk about cutting spending and ask for money for a project that’s not needed. I won’t support it.”

He got creamed by everyone on both sides of the river. But he kept winning, for a little while.

Later, when both the Tea Partiers and Dems went against him, he publicly called out the NRCC and Iowa GOP for running negative ads against his Dem opponent, and pledged to spend what little campaign money he had left against the Iowa GOP if they kept slurring his opponent.

He was also the only GOP rep to vote against Newt Gingrich for Speaker — he voted for Bob Michel of Peoria, who had retired.

As Bobby Schilling tries to figure out what he’s doing in Washington, let’s have a requiem for Jim Leach, who knew better than most.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 3:37 pm
I realize that it was said tongue-in-cheek, but doesn’t the law already require people from other states who are working in Illinois to pay Illinois income tax? I know it’s only enforced for a small portion of the people who come to Illinois to work (pro Athletes, mostly), but it is the law already (I think).

Comment by Jerry 101 Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 3:52 pm
Quinn Will always pick a consumer friendly chairman. Why does Flores keep a 300,000 congressional fund open if he wants to be an administrator?

Comment by some call me Maurice Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 3:58 pm
–Muhammad Ali’s daughter.–

Little-known fact, Muhammad Ali’s first name, “Cassius Clay,” was that of a Kentucky abolitionist cousin of Henry Clay.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 5:26 pm
It’s kind of amazing to me how the Republicans simply read off Heritage Foundation talking points or else act like a bunch of grumpy condo retirees in Florida mindlessly complaining about everything.

The interesting thing about Chicago to Iowa City for rail is that it’s basically a track upgrade project the Rock Island Railroad, the original owners of the line, should have done about 50 years ago. But facing onerous government regulation, the ticket tax, the Interstate Highway Program and various other slings and arrows designed to shift traffic from rail to road, they just ran the trains at reckless speed over deteriorating track until it wasn’t viable any more. As did railroads all over the rest of the country, except few even attempted to run trains as fast as the Rock Island, though most were more reliable.

We’re playing catch-up for three generations of government policy favoring roads, and yet your average Republican reflexively states that massive government subsidies to make people continue to depend on cars is “conservative” and therefore “good.”

Comment by Angry Chicagoan Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 5:57 pm
Manny Flores is not the last caualty of Gutierrez and Ochoa group. There are more of them holding jobs in the state and should be fired. Please “fumigate”

Comment by Henry Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 7:22 pm
Can whatever sane Rockefeller Republicans still exist in Illinois concede that whatever it is your Republican Party once stood for, the party has now been hijacked by Know-Nothing Rush dittoheads obsessed with abortion, illegals, gays and Muslims and corporate think tanks advancing ideas that benefit rich people to the detriment of everyone else?

For the sake of yourselves and your future electoral hopes in this liberal state and the economic future of this country, why don’t you be bold and bring back the Whig Party, the original Party of Lincoln?

http://www.modernwhig.info/

Stop living a lie Judy Baar Topinka, Christine Radogno, Tom Cross, Dan Rutherford, Mark Kirk, Kirk Dillard, etc… You have NOTHING in common with these wannabe Confederates preaching state’s rights and limited government and bound together by assorted hates and prejudices (hate for illegals, hate for unions, hate for women, hate for the government itself) running the Republican Party nationally since the Southerners took over the party from the Midwesterners. You know that government investments in infrastructure and education can build prosperity because that’s the Illinois you grew up in. You know that forcing a government shutdown in Washington or refusing Quinn’s plan to borrow and pay down our backlog of bills or opposing high-speed rail projects in Illinois are bad things for Illinois workers and businesses.

Where’s your courage?

Comment by hisgirlfriday Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 8:51 pm
“It takes the Senate to fix Schilling’s mistake. When is this guy going to be districted out again?”

So the party that won four counties and lost the rest is going to gerrymander the whole state again. Keep it up boys. ‘nother election in 2 years.

Comment by Park Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 9:24 pm
—hisgirlfriday—-

i thought we wannabe Confederates were the haters here….

Comment by way south of chicago Thursday, Feb 24, 11 @ 10:01 pm