Harris may be a new majority ‘leader,’ but Madigan is still the ‘boss’

The Illinois House of Representatives made much of the fact they have a new majority leader – and that he’s not just another stereotypical white, male politico.

HARRIS: New House majority leader

State Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, now has the title that technically makes him the head of the Democrats in the Illinois House. He’s the “majority leader,” while state Rep. James Durkin, R-Westchester, remains the “minority leader” since there are fewer Republicans in Springfield these days than Democrats.

DURING HIS 12 years thus far as a state legislator, Harris has gone through political life with the tag as only openly-gay legislator. Even now, the official statement declares Harris to be the “first openly-gay majority leader.”

Which the Democrats in charge are saying is evidence of their superiority when it comes to being open to all kinds of people.

“This is the first in a series of leadership appointments that will be announced in the coming days reflecting the diversity of our state and reflecting our caucus’ approach to the coming legislative session,” party officials said, in their prepared statement.

But before the conservative ideologues start to get all riled up over the idea of one of “those kinds of people” (actually, they’ll probably use cruder terms, but I’m trying to operate a family-style weblog here) being evidence of how much our society has declined, keep in mind that the “majority leader” title may well be the most overblown of all within Illinois government.

FLYNN-CURRIE: The former leader

FOR THE FACT is that both the majority and minority leaders in the Illinois House fall below that of the Illinois House speaker within the legislative pecking order.

And the role of “Mr. Speaker” in Illinois is, has been, and will remain the province of one Michael J. Madigan – who has been a state legislator for some five decades and has been the Speaker for all but two years since 1983.

As for the two-year period in which Madigan was reduced to the role of “minority leader,” it is regarded as a political aberration where Republican ideologues ran amok and we got the historic freak episode of “House Speaker Lee Daniels” with Robert Churchill as majority leader – before sanity was restored by voters in 1996.

MADIGAN: Still in charge!!!

I realize that within a purely legislative perspective, the “majority” leader fills some duties – largely in terms of keeping the individual Democratic legislators in line with the larger policy goals that the Speaker might want to take on.

MEANING IF NEWLY-elected legislator Anne Stava-Murray, D-Naperville, tries to carry on a Madigan-opposition technique to her government service, it will be Harris who gets to crack down on her – thereby leaving Madigan free to deal with larger issues.

Just as former Illinois House majority leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, served in the role of keeping Democrats in line. She served in that role since 1997, and likely would still be doing it if she hadn’t had to step aside for health reasons. Although her presence created the idea of a woman in a significant leadership position, just as how the previous majority leader, former state Rep. Jim McPike of Alton, gave the impression of a downstate official with a significant title.

I’m not trying to diminish the public service of either McPike or Currie. Both had public service stints I’m sure they’re not ashamed of.

It’s just to realize that no matter who has the title, Mike Madigan remains the “boss,” at least of the Springfield political scene – while realizing he’s there to enforce the political desires and needs of Chicago government.

ALL TOO SIMILAR to that scene from the old Star Wars’ film “Return of the Jedi” when the evil Darth Vader who has been running roughshod over the galaxy in the previous films suddenly kneels before the Emperor – his ultimate master.

Who's whom in Illinois political universe?

Which means the ultimate political bout could come following the mayoral election if someone whom Madigan doesn’t feel like kneeling to manages to win. Is he strengthening his hand now for a future political brawl?

But back to Harris – whose role will be to keep the machinery working so that an ultimate demise of the Democratic majority doesn’t become undermined by petty whining of an internal nature.

While the political rhetoric being spewed says Harris has helped achieve progressive goals on issues such as Medicaid and equal rights for same-gender couples, keep in mind they advanced only as far as Madigan himself permitted -- and he's still in charge!

  -30-

The imperial almighty Illinois House Democratic budget working group meets. Just what will they accomplish?

I (almost) feel sorry for state Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago.

HARRIS: In charge of nothing occurring?

He's the state legislator from up around the Ravenswood neighborhood (that's North Side, for those who are Chicago neighborhood clueless) who's the head of the Illinois House Democratic budget working group, which on Thursday is going to begin the charade of pretending it is trying to put together a budget for state government.

OF COURSE, BY this time, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has decided it's not likely any real financial plan can be reached to ensure the state's operations. So it's become more a campaign strategy to let nothing happen -- and do their best to hang the failure on Gov. Bruce Rauner. Who, of course, has been trying his darndest to "blame Madigan!" for everything.

Remember last week when the General Assembly completed its spring session for this year and said there would be hearings throughout the state to allow the public to express their views?

The first of those hearings is set for Thursday in Chicago. Harris will have to conduct the process by which he pretends to listen to the public -- while really ensuring that the wishes of his "master" (a.k.a., the esteemed "Mr Speaker") are maintained.

Here's my account, written in advance, of what will occur on Thursday, and on any other day these legislators take the time to convene.

WE'RE NOT GOING to get any closer to a budget by the end of the month -- which is the end of Fiscal '17 and the point at which it will be two full fiscal years that Illinois has operated without a budget plan that dictates what it can, and cannot, do. We may well have to wait until the day after the November 2018 general elections for any serious talks to occur.

Which is why I pity Harris for having to put on the charade of working towards a budget and trying to fill in the empty space that won't have any more substance than what I have (non)-written. Or perhaps I pity more the reporter-types who have to show up at those hearings and pretend that anything significant is being said!

Thank God I don't have to be there.

  -30-

What’s more important to the political people; gay marriage or re-election?

Something I have learned over and over about the Illinois General Assembly is that it is a legislative body that likes to do things on its own time-clock and resents it whenever it perceives that someone is trying to rush them.

A house of inactivity??!?

Heck, one of the reasons that the last-minute bill back in 1988 that approved the funding for construction of a new stadium for the Chicago White Sox was controversial was that it got rammed through the legislative process when many political people would have just as soon put the issue on hold for a few years.

KEEPING THAT ATTITUDE in mind, I’m not going to be surprised if Illinois House of Representatives officials wind up doing nothing in coming weeks with the issue of gay marriage.

The bill that would allow same-gender couples to have legally legitimate marriages already has Illinois Senate approval, but has yet to come up for a vote in the Illinois House.

Back in May, state Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, implied when he didn’t push for a vote on the issue that it would be something that would come up in the fall Veto Session.

Well, the Veto Session is scheduled to begin this week (although the substantive work by the General Assembly won’t take place for another couple of weeks).

DOES THIS MEAN we’re on the verge of a measure being sent to Gov. Pat Quinn for his approval? He has said he’d sign it into law the moment he gets ahold of it.

I was amused by reading the advance stories on this issue published by the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times – both of which seem to be as skeptical as I am that anything will happen.

Will we get an Illinois House version of this roll call?

 

The Tribune emphasized the Veto Session’s time proximity to the upcoming election cycle. Candidates for the March primary would have to submit their nominating petitions to get on the ballot by early December.

Meaning anybody who’s determined to keep the homophobic viewpoint as a part of Illinois would have an incumbent legislator’s “yes” vote fresh on the electorate’s mind. There’d be time to get themselves on the ballot and stir up resentment toward an incumbent legislator.

ALTHOUGH I WAS intrigued by a mention in the Sun-Times report, which says that some of the financial types whose cash props up political campaigns are eager to have a vote on the issue even if it winds up failing.

This rhetoric will rise!

Because they want it on the record who would vote “no” on the gay marriage issue – so they can start providing the funds to political challengers who could possibly defeat them!

The point of all of this is that no matter how someone votes, there will be someone else who will become offended. There likely will be somebody who loses their legislative post because of their vote on this issue – regardless of how they actually vote!

All of which makes me think the legislative leadership will take the politically cowardly (they’ll say they’re just being safe) stance of doing nothing. The bill likely will not get called up before the Illinois House.

AFTER ALL, THE point of the Veto Session is for the General Assembly to consider the bills that the governor spent the summer months vetoing. Other issues are supposed to wait until the spring. It is their chance to either override his intent, or decide that it’s not worth fighting for and they go along with it.

Will the next step take place this week?

For now.

This same attitude may well apply to the pension funding problems our state government faces. Nothing will happen because nobody can agree on what should be done.

Considering that Quinn has said he wants action on that issue before he’s willing to do much of anything else (particularly those tax breaks soon-to-be-formerly-of Archer Daniels Midland wants to stay in Illinois instead of moving to a place like Dallas), this veto session could be a whole lot of nothing.

PARTICULARLY SINCE THE one controversial amendatory veto by Quinn has already been dealt with – the General Assembly couldn’t wait until October to dump all over the governor when it came to the issue of “concealed carry” of firearms. They reconvened in special session during the summer.

That was more about the Legislature asserting its own self-interest. Which, sad to say, is the usual motivation for any time the General Assembly gets off its collective keister to do anything!

  -30-

We really are a split state

Illinois truly has become a place split between “Chicagoland” and “Downstate.”

OBAMA: Overcomes rural opposition



It seems like we’re on two separate mindsets that only occasionally get thrown together – and can’t seem to “play nice” when those occur.

I COULDN’T HELP but notice the latest poll commissioned by the Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV concerning President Barack Obama.

The rural parts of Illinois (as in the ones that don’t view Chicago as a part of their daily existence) are down on our former member of the U.S. Senate.

Only 35 percent approve of the way Obama has handled the economy, and only 36 percent approve of Obama in general.

Yet the overall results show that Illinois remains a solid part of the Barack Obama bandwagon that could very well send him back to the White House for another term following the Nov. 6 elections.

FOR WITH APPROVAL ratings of 82 percent in Chicago and 63 percent in the Cook County suburbs (the area that accounts for about 45 percent of the state’s overall population), he has a solid base.

When one takes into account his 48 percent approval rating in the outer suburbs of Chicago (compared to 44 percent who disapprove), it means that the two-thirds of Illinois that is Chicago-area will overcome the resistance that is felt in the rest of the state.

In short, the 2012 elections in Illinois will look a lot like the 2010 election cycle – all those counties in red with just two or three blue blotches that can barely be seen by the naked eye.

EMANUEL: Wants handgun registry


Yet those two or three blotches will account for so many more people than the sea of red.

IF ANYTHING, THIS shows why the Democratic officials who gained control of the redistricting process handled the creation of new districts the way in which they did.

There simply aren’t many congressional or legislative districts that center around those “collar” counties (as in DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will). The people who live there will be voting in districts that are extensions of Cook County districts – and were drawn in ways so that the Cook County portions will likely prevail.

If that 48 percent (rather mediocre) approval rating were centered around specific districts, they could do some harm. Instead, Chicago and the inner suburbs will overcome their hesitancy and likely prevail.

And combined, they will “do in” the desires of places like Rockford or Danville or Marion. It all comes down to numbers. Which means we’ll hear a lot more grievances in coming years about how Chicago just overwhelmed the rest of Illinois.

IN SHORT, WE’RE going to see the regional partisanship grow to even more intense levels. Which is why I find it interesting that Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he’s pushing for a new measure related to handguns.

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley was already the anti-christ to many rural interests because of the continuous measures he pushed for related to restricting firearms.

It seems that Emanuel will follow in the same path, which is bound to instigate the regional split even moreso.

For Emanuel says he wants the General Assembly to approve an Illinois handgun registry.

CURRENTLY, PEOPLE ARE supposed to register their firearms with their local police. Emanuel wants something on a larger scale, saying that a statewide registry would make it easier for police here to figure out where all the illegal firearms are coming from.

As in the notion that it is the “rural” people who are peddling firearms to Chicagoans with a desire to do ill will upon others.

You just know this will stir up the resentment all the more – and not just because some will want to see it as a new tax (a $65 registration fee paid to the state whenever anyone buys a new handgun).

HARRIS: Wants marriage for all

At least Emanuel was honest enough to admit the difficulty in pushing for such a measure when he announced his intentions during an appearance in the far South Side Roseland neighborhood.

BECAUSE THERE ARE some people who will want to view this as an invasion of their privacy – the notion of having to provide their name, address and serial number of all their weapons. Then again, these are likely the same crackpots who think that state-issued driver’s licenses are somehow an un-Christian or un-American concept.



It will be interesting to see how many (actually, how few) rural legislators bother to take this bill (which has yet to be introduced) seriously. Somehow, I think it will be used for target practice by the members of the Illinois Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus (which is what the rural legislators like to call themselves when they feel like sounding official).

It may even wind up being less liked in certain circles than the bill introduced at the Statehouse in Springpatch earlier this week by state Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, to create full marriage rights for gay couples – yet another issue that will expose the Land of Lincoln’s regional split.

And a split that ultimately will prevent serious solutions to problems from being achieved.

  -30-

Gay ‘civil unions’ backers bring ‘senior citizen’ tactic to Illinois General Assembly

At a time when California officials are going to boldly address the issue of whether marriage ought to be legal for gay people, politicos in Illinois may try to sneak the issue in through the back door.

Specifically, supporters of a bill pending before the Illinois House of Representatives this spring to create the concept of civil unions (which gives some of the legal rights to couples that a church-sanctioned marriage already provides) are now touting the notion that it’s not just gay people who could benefit – senior citizens who are widowed and have potential for a new relationship at the end of their lives would also gain.

IN THE IMAGINATIONS of the activists who want this issue to pass, a unique pairing will develop – gay rights activists and the small army of retirees who can be organized by the American Association of Retired Persons and other interest groups that look out for older people.

They will supposedly create a force that will pressure the Illinois Legislature into actually voting for something resembling civil unions. After all, who’s going to say “no” to that sweet grandma-like woman?

In reality, when it comes to the prospect of gay marriage entering a debate, there are a lot of people who will screech and scream – perhaps even a few of those sweet-looking grandma-types.

At stake is what happens to elderly people who are widowed, then get into another relationship in their final years of life. Some of them go so far as to get married, but many do not – in large part because their Social Security benefits would take too big a hit if they were legally joined as one.

SO THEY MERELY live together, although supporters of this new strategy note they suffer when one of the people passes on or incurs a threatening illness. Because of the lack of a legal marriage, the other person in the couple has no legal say in what happens.

A civil union, these people say, is the perfect alternative to marriage in that it would invest each person with a legal say in the other’s future. Hence, civil unions are not just something for gay people anymore.

Who’s to say whether that line of reasoning will be considered acceptable? It has been tried in other states, but did not appear to sway many people.

AARP officials in Florida last autumn tried arguing against measures to outlaw gay marriages. They cited civil unions as acceptable, provided that provisions were written into the law to allow heterosexual senior citizens to take advantage of the measure as well.

WHAT HAPPENED WAS that conservatives wound up blasting the attempt to include senior citizens as, “a pathetic, desperate strategy.”

Already, various Internet sites that attract social conservative elements of our society are denouncing the possible use of the tactic in Illinois, making it clear they will not tolerate anything that would (in any way) benefit gay people – which makes this an issue more of trying to keep gay people down than it is of protecting anyone’s legal rights.

The one that caught my attention was an anonymous half-wit who felt the need to tell the world (through the Springfield State Journal-Register newspaper’s reader’s comments section) that without heterosexual marriage, our very essence would be, “out in some farmer’s bean field plowed under with the rest of the sewage.”

So what’s going to happen here in Illinois?

IT’S A GOOD thing that the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Greg Harris (who represents Chicago’s Ravenswood and Lincoln Square neighborhoods) is non-committal about when this issue will come up for a vote.

He thinks he could get enough support in the Chicago Democrat-controlled Illinois House if the measure actually got to a vote. But with all the other potential issues for legislators to dump on each other with, the last thing that House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, is going to want is something that stirs up the social conservatives.

He’s already geared up for battle with Gov. Rod Blagojevich on a myriad of personal slights. He doesn’t need another enemy. That is what makes this issue (and strategy) a likely bet to come up in 2009 – if at all.

Perhaps the 2008 elections will help bring on a change in the mindset of our public officials to allow them to view the issue of gay marriage more rationally.

I KNOW. QUIT laughing.

Reality makes that scenario even less likely than the seniors/gay activists working together as an effective coalition to pressure the Illinois Legislature to take action on civil unions.

Which means the interests of gay people in Illinois who want their relationships to have legal status ought to be looking to Sacramento, Calif., rather than Springfield, Ill., for any sort of movement.

IT WAS ON Thursday that the state’s high court struck down the two laws that made marriage a legal option only for heterosexual couples. The court, in its majority opinion, ruled that marriage, “properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual.”

That could result in gay couples from around the country converging on California to get married, then return to their home states to pressure their local political people to recognize the result of their union.

Social conservative activists already are working with their California sympathizers, trying to push for an amendment to the state constitution that would ban any gay-marriage options. That, if they can get it on the ballot and get a majority of voter support, would overrule Thursday’s high court ruling.

IN SHORT, GAY marriage is now an issue that Californians are going to be confronted with – although I won’t be the least bit surprised if it creeps its way into the presidential campaign and the entirety of the United States of America has to put up with the ridiculous rhetoric.

I can already envision Republican John McCain trying to gain the support of people pushing for the constitutional amendment and conservatives trying to tar Democrat Barack Obama as the candidate with the crazy black preacher, the hippie terrorist friend AND who supports gay marriage.

It’s one more thing they can try to pile on him. I would consider it a victory for Illinois (and society as a whole) if voters rejected such ridiculous reasoning and didn’t take the issue of gay marriage into account at all come Nov. 4.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Wearing their “Seniors for Civil Unions” t-shirts, a group of elderly people led by state politicos (http://www.sj-r.com/news/x194397179/Sponsor-Civil-union-bill-would-help-seniors) want to show that civil unions is not just a gay rights issue.

The desire for civil unions is growing (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-xgr-civilunions-o,0,2952794.story) amongst gay people in this state.

The Statehouse Scene in Tallahassee, Fla., already went through this attempt to link senior citizens (http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2007/12/aarp-marriage-a.html) and gay rights activists.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is NOT among the Republican politicos wanting to overturn (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/us/15cnd-marriage.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1210878799-Jj/xwntb5wCqzwzdXIgcMA) the California Supreme Court’s action that legitimizes marriages of gay couples beginning in mid-June.