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* The quote of the day goes to Sen. Susan Garrett, who said this during a press conference…
“We weren’t sent to jail. The governor was sent to jail. It is ironic that the focus is on [the] legislature when the wrongdoing was occurring at a much higher level.”
* Reform commission chairman Patrick Collins, who will be in Springfield again today, has another op-ed…
Will this session be the one where we charted a definitive new course and returned to our proud roots as the Land of Lincoln - or did we squander the opportunity and thereby remain fodder for Saturday Night Live’s next popular skit?
SNL often spoofs appointed US Sen. Roland Burris, but the reform commission never recommended taking away the governor’s power to appoint Senate replacements. In fact, the commission’s final report only mentioned special elections in passing…
The costs of maintaining the status quo, with its concurrent
public corruption trials, special elections and inflated procurement costs…
We had a governor who thoroughly abused almost all of his powers and was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on his home. Yet, while proposing many laudable reforms, the reform commission left this one blank.
* The reform commission also didn’t get behind the recall idea, but a proposal is advancing in the House…
The legislature continues to advance measures that would try to prevent the alleged wrongdoing by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich from going on long enough for a federal indictment to intervene.
Rep. Jack Franks, a Woodstock Democrat and longtime Blagojevich critic, revived his effort to change the state Constitution so voters could “recall” elected officials. The effort failed last year. This time, however, he’s calling for a constitutional amendment that would only focus on allowing voters to recall the governor, not other statewide officeholders or legislators.
That proposal is part of a broader deal on reforms cut by the Democratic leaders and the governor…
A public TV program called Illinois Lawmakers reported that Madigan said he and Senate President John Cullerton have come to an agreement on capping the amount of money political parties can transfer to candidates’ campaign committees. Both leaders have withheld their support of the idea in the past.
“We are moving in the right direction.” Madigan said. “There should be caps on contributions. There should be caps on transfers between committees.”
Those transfer caps have been a major sticking point, but the caps aren’t real. Subscribe to find out why, or just wait.
* Meanwhile, a FOIA deal was reached with the attorney general and the Illinois Press Association. Here’s a roundup…
* State ethics efforts continue with public records push
* Illinois open-records bill passed by House: The attorney general’s office and a newspaper trade group said they grudgingly went along with a provision that would exempt state lawmakers from most of the enforcement provisions.
* State House passes revamped Freedom of Information Act
* House favors new rewrite of open government law
* Almost there
* Opinion…
* Three days left…and still no real reform: Since then, the governor has spent more time talking about recall as a reform proposal — something his own commission didn’t endorse — than he has spent talking about campaign contribution limits in Illinois.
* Why isn’t Quinn fighting as ethics reforms die?: Call us cynics, but it looks like no matter what the commission recommends, it gets the bum’s rush.
* Call, write, vote: But, above all, finish the job
* SJ-R: Quinn has no margin for error on ethics
* Illinois lawmakers must put up or shut up
* The Illinois Reform Commission heads to Springfield on Thursday to face lawmakers. They need to hear from you. Here are their local offices and Springfield phone numbers.
posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 9:39 am
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== Those transfer caps have been a major sticking point, but the caps aren’t real. Subscribe to find out why, or just wait. ==
Let me guess, I can just transfer from A to B,D and G and they all transfer to C and in the end C gets the money?
Comment by OneMan Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 9:46 am
“We weren’t sent to jail. The governor was sent to jail. It is ironic that the focus is on [the] legislature when the wrongdoing was occurring at a much higher level.”
Imagine that you are a medic on an ambulance, and the patient is laying before you severely injured and bleeding profusely. Would you claim you don’t have to assist in saving their life because you didn’t cause the accident? Or would you do your job?
Well Susan, if you think the legislature has to actually be locked up in slammer to be linked to Blagojevich, you fail to understand your predicament. The entire Rod Blagojevich era smears everyone with dealings with him. His obviously odd behavior over the past seven years calls into question a party that nominated and re-nominated him. It calls into question a political party that chose to be willfully blind to his utter failure as a governor and his criminal behavior as an individual. It calls into question the people who backed him. It calls into question the repugnant atmosphere of disrespect for law surrounding Illinois government after the Ryan and Blagojevich administrations. As a legislator, and as a politician, you have to recognize the stain these men have left on you and your fellow legislators.
So don’t pretend otherwise. We don’t want to hear a Roland Burris-like mantra about what it means to need reform and ethics. With every day that Roland and Rod appear in our news and are the butt of national television jokes, the more we are reminded why Illinois politics suck.
Don’t blame us. We voted for reform after Ryan, remember? So where is it? We want state government to succeed, yet it has let us down in the most embarrassing way since 1998. Ten years. We don’t need to hear any more excuses.
Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 9:52 am
Pat Collins puh-leeze.
Illinois could ban all political donations, publicly fund every election, make even minor incidents class X felonies and Illinois would still be the subject of SNL skits the moment Patti goes foul-mouthed on the reality show or Rod takes the witness stand in his trial.
In order to play the humor card, you must have a sense of humor and it’s becoming quite clear you don’t even though you’re increasingly becoming a joke.
Comment by Frank Booth Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 9:58 am
Bingo Senator Garrett.
Comment by David Ormsby Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 10:04 am
Here’s a reform idea:
Why doesn’t Patrick Collins get the ball rolling by disclosing whom his law firm represents?
From his law firm’s bio:
Patrick Collins, a partner in the firm’s Litigation practice…specializes in representing companies and individuals in complex civil and criminal matters throughout the United States.
Within a year of joining the firm, Patrick has established and grown the Chicago Office’s Investigations and White Collar Defense practice. Patrick has led teams conducting internal investigations for Fortune 500 companies and public entities, and has represented individuals and companies in sensitive probes before various U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the SEC and the CFTC. He also has advised clients on other significant legal matters, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Patrick regularly speaks to in-house counsel and corporate audiences on a variety of white collar topics, including conducting internal investigations and responding to sensitive inquiries by government agencies.
- Obtained dismissal of a federal fraud complaint against a business executive
- Represented individuals and entities before U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the SEC and the CFTC
- Conducted sensitive, high-profile representations for two Fortune 100 companies and one Fortune 500 company
Does the Illinois General Assembly REALLY want to take the advice of a guy who seems to specialize in helping Big Business avoid prosecution for White Collar Crimes?
Maybe. Maybe asking the fox for advice on guarding the hen house is a good idea. But shouldn’t he at least disclose that he’s a fox?
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 10:13 am
Is there a recommendation in the report for tough penalties on governors whose campaign fund solicits contributions during a legislative session from interest groups that have pending legislation?
Comment by wordslinger Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 10:25 am
With all due respect, Sen. Garrett, the focus is on the General Assembly because as a body you are the only ones in a position to take any action on the issues.
Comment by Central_IL_farm_boy Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 10:29 am
Vanillaman -
If the patient is bleeding profusely from a head wound, would you put a tourniquet on their leg?
The only reason Blago has “smeared” the legislature is that Pat Collins and misguided editorial boards continue to spread the mayo.
But policymaking should be driven by a public relations problem. Sound policy-making is based on the facts.
And the facts are that that the corruption over the last two governor’s stemmed from the Executive Branch, not the Legislative Branch.
So, where in all of Pat Collins’ pronouncements is their ANY effort to reign-in Executive power.
Did they give us procurement reform, to prevent the rigging of state contracts?
Did they limit Executive Appointments, to prevent kickbacks and other shenanigans on state boards?
Did they prohibit political contributors from getting Executive contracts, or require Executives to return the contribution when they award a contract to a donor?
THESE are the real problems in state government, yet I haven’t heard of anything being done about them.
Heck, with all of the whining about caps, I’m not even sure if the ban on corporate contributions is still on the table.
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 10:32 am
“Rep. Jack Franks, a Woodstock Democrat and longtime Blagojevich critic, revived his effort to change the state Constitution so voters could “recall” elected officials.”
The last thing we need is to take a page from California’s playbook. They’re one of the few states that’s in a worse place than us. Plus, we already have recalls, their called elections. If you didn’t like Blago, you had 2 other options in both the primary and general. People need to grow a pair and start voting against the guy their precinct captain wants them to vote for if they think he’s corrupt. It’s a democracy, we always have a choice!
Comment by SweetLou Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 10:38 am
Susan Garett seems to forget that Senate Democrats played a key role in allowing things to get this bad. Without Emil, Senate Dems, and unfourtunately few Senate Republicans this crisis would have been avoided or mitigated. Short-term memory loss?
Comment by Outofgovernment Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 10:48 am
Wouldn’t we the taxpayers have saved money by having ‘recall’ instead of ‘impeachment?’ Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Comment by tunes Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 11:31 am
This is collins bitter fight with madigan, I would go so far as to quesion the ethics of the push by collins.
Garrett helps expose the lie: “It is ironic that the focus is on [the] legislature when the wrongdoing was occurring at a much higher level.”
it is further ironic that the speaker used his power to block a number of the abuses Blago had planned; but Collins is focusing on removing that very power which protected the State. Not only does Collins seek to remove that power which lets the legislature stand up to a sitting Gov, but he has not been pushing for a recall provision which would at least give the public some protection from Collins attempts to remove the legislatures ability to protect us.
Comment by Ghost Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 1:30 pm
to paraphrase my mom:
“Who died and made Patrick Collins king?”
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Thursday, May 28, 09 @ 4:36 pm