EXTRA: A Cullerton, but not THE Cullerton, gets indicted by the feds

I have no doubt that some people are wetting their pants with glee at the word that a Cullerton, one of the most prominent of political families in Chicago history, got busted by the feds.

CULLERTON -- The federally-indicted one

Sure enough, officials announced that state Sen. Tom Cullerton, D-Villa Park, faces a criminal indictment on some 41 criminal counts. The kind of people who are eager to see a Chicago politico get busted because it fits into their own ideological hang-ups are the ones all excited.

THERE’S JUST ONE problem. The Cullerton who’s the big name these days is John, who serves as president of the Illinois Senate. He’s also the one who’s a direct descendant of the many Cullertons who have been prominent on the Chicago political scene – both within City Hall and Cook County government.

Tom is actually a distant cousin to John, and from a different branch of the Cullerton family tree.

Anybody who thinks they FINALLY nailed a Cullerton ought to relax This isn’t the major deal you might want to fantasize it is.

Just to give you a clue, Tom is actually a DuPage County resident, and once served as mayor of suburban Villa Park. Not exactly a City Hall denizen!

HE’S NOW A part of the DuPage legislative delegation – which is a fact I’m sure infuriates the long-time DuPage residents. The ones who remember back when DuPage County was the base of the Illinois Republican Party and when DuPage was one of the most Republican of counties that could be found anywhere in the United States.

Now, a Cullerton (which in Chicago political circles is a name almost as prominent as “Daley” itself) has a seat in DuPage. Which, I’m sure, is a prominent motivation for locals to want to tag Tom with some wrongdoing.

Mess him up, and maybe dump him do they can replace him with a good ol’ fashioned GOPer (the kind of Republican who reveres the memory of Abraham Lincoln and the days before the Party of Lincoln sold its soul out to the ego of Donald Trump).

I’m not saying that’s the only reason Tom Cullerton got himself indicted. But you can’t underestimate the significance of that element.

CULLERTON -- The prominent one

NOW WHAT ACTUALLY is Cullerton (Tom, not John, although I don’t doubt there are those who will openly encourage any confusion about who’s who within the Cullerton clan) to have done wrong.

It seems from March 2013 to February 2016, Cullerton received a salary as a Teamsters union official, along with bonuses, and allowances to cover the cost of his cellphones and automobiles. He also received health insurance and pension benefits for his “work” with the labor union.

Which prosecutors contend was minimal. He didn’t really do work for the union – although he took their money (more than $252,000). Which has prosecutors insisting it’s criminal, and worthy of embezzlement charges.

It seems the fact that Cullerton took a pass on health insurance benefits he was entitled to as a state legislator (accepting the union’s health plan instead) was not enough to keep him in the clear legally.

HE’S NOW GOING to have to face criminal charges, and likely will be added to the “hit” parade of politicos who got themselves busted. The political prominence of his moniker will add to the impact.

What would feds do for Daley descendant?

Although it should be noted that Cullerton’s indictment came just days after the guilty plea of Teamsters boss John Coli, who supposedly demanded payoffs from a film studio. In exchange for legal considerations, it seems Coli is now talking about union business – including his ties to Tom Cullerton, whom he allegedly set up with the no-work job to begin with.

Could Cullerton be the fish Coli tosses up to prosecutors who figure they get a bigger case if they can bust a “Cullerton,” even if it’s not one of the really big-name Cullertons whose own activities may be even worse?

It makes me wonder how much the federal prosecutorial types would give if they could build up a case against someone with the “Daley” name – no matter how small-fry the actual individual is?

  -30-

Ideologue inconsistences on issues like smoking, abortion – what else is new?

It seems we have inconsistencies on a pair of social issues now pending before Illinois state government. Yet that’s really nothing new – ideologues often don’t have a consistent train of thought in determining when they want to meddle with someone else’s life.

PRITZKER: Fear of J.B. scares ideologues. Good!

I refer to a bill now pending before Gov. J.B, Pritzker – the one approved last week by the General Assembly that says people ought to be 21 years old in order to legally buy tobacco products and other items for vaping. As in inhaling fumes from tobacco-less products.

THEN, THERE’S A pair of bills that will be pending before the state Legislature this spring – ones that would eliminate many of the restrictive measures that anti-abortion legislators have tried to impose throughout the years.

They’re going to screech “bloody murder!!!!” (literally, I kid you not) in claiming they’re somehow looking out for a life that has yet to be born, thereby justifying the taking into account of a mother’s sentiments about her own body into irrelevance.

But when it comes to efforts to reduce the legal availability of smoking-related products to young people, the ideologues amongst us are going to claim their opposition is meant to protect the rights of personal choice of young people.

It’s almost like they’re claiming the right of a 16-year-old girl to develop a smoking habit – claiming that it’s her own body she’s hurting. It’s her choice.

YET THEY’RE PREPARED to screech and scream the “murderer” and “baby killer” labels at a young girl who thinks she’s not ready for a baby, and is under the (as the ideologues would view it) the misguided belief that it’s her own body being impacted by the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

It was nearly a half-century ago that the Supreme Court of the United States issued the larger ruling that struck down measures criminalizing abortion. The strategy throughout the years is to accept the general concept, but have legislatures impose so many restrictions so as to make it next to impossible for some women to actually have access to abortion.

The two bills now pending (one in the Illinois House of Representatives and the other in the state Senate) would eliminate many of the restrictions they’ve tried to enact – even up to the final days of a pregnancy.

Their desire to meddle with the desires of a mother seem to be to the extreme they’d want to require the paramedics to be on the scene of an abortion to try to revive the fetus.

THEY TALK ABOUT denying unborn children “independent rights,” but it really comes across as meddling with the mother’s desires – even though hers is the existing life that ought to be the priority.

But then on a real public health issue such as smoking, we’re going to hear the nonsense rhetoric of how absurd it is to tell someone they have to be 21 in order to smoke.

Maybe we’ll even hear the argument made that people can enlist in the army and die for their country at age 18 – why not let them smoke?

As it was, the General Assembly passed a measure just last year calling for this same age increase – only to have then-Gov. Bruce Rauner wield the “veto” pen to the measure.

THE FACT THAT smoking is a foul habit that impacts everybody around you somehow doesn’t matter to the ideologues who want to view it solely as a personal choice. Whereas the baby forced into life because of the denial of a personal choice is something we all wind up having to cover the cost of caring for.

I find it amusing that the ideologues seem to fear Pritzker is going to push the abortion measure erasing generations of restrictions into law, while also giving his approval to a smoking age boost.

They’re going to get all hysterical with their rhetoric because government basically is going to prevent them from meddling into the lives of others – the young girl who really shouldn’t have a pregnancy now and the people who have to breathe in the fumes of the nitwit smokers amongst them.

But then again, hysteria and nonsense is oft the way of politics in Illinois!

  -30-

Pritzker already upsets Ill. ideologues

J.B. Pritzker is still in the first couple of days of his term as Illinois governor, and he’s already managing to tick off the sensibilities of those people who have a conservative social bent on the way they want to view our society.

PRITZKER: Offends gun-rights advocates

Specifically, Pritzker signed into law Thursday a measure that sets state guidelines that firearms dealers would have to comply with in order to legitimately do business in Illinois.

THE CONSERVATIVE TYPES who believe its their “God-given” right to own as many firearms as they wish are all upset. They’re outraged! They probably, deep-down in their wildest fantasies, probably wish they could respond by going out and shooting up everybody who disagrees with them.

Illinois State Rifle Association officials went so far as to say that federal law already adequately regulates gun dealers. Nobody needs the individual states to get involved.

Although none other than mayoral hopeful Toni Preckwinkle said she thinks federal law has loopholes and that the new state regulations are meant to plug those exceptions. Thereby ensuring that people are following safety-motivated regulations when they go about selling pistols to people.

Of course, the part about this that amuses me is that Pritzker chose this to be amongst the first issues he dealt with as governor – albeit not the absolute first.

PRECKWINKLE: Says federal loopholes plugged

THAT APPEARS TO be the measure involving pay raises for state government employees that Pritzker approved, while claiming that such raises should have been provided in recent years but were denied by now-former Gov. Bruce Rauner.

A politically-partisan pot shot – further differentiating himself from his predecessor who didn’t exactly leave public life on the best of terms with those who work in government.

Now, he’s willing to take on the so-called “gun nuts” who, in fact, were claiming that Rauner would have used his veto powers to kill off this very measure.

Except that the General Assembly that approved this gun-related measure deliberately held off on sending the approved bill to the governor for consideration – UNTIL they had a more favorable governor.

RAUNER: Denied last chance to use 'veto' power

STATE RIFLE ASSOCIATION President Richard Pearson went so far as to call it “political gamesmanship” and to say he was “deeply disappointed” but “certainly not surprised.”

Admittedly, there was a certain gamesmanship involved. Had the Legislature rushed the bill over to the governor immediately upon his approval, he would have used his “veto” power, while likely issuing some high-minded rhetorical statement about the redundancy of the state’s actions to federal law.

But it’s also likely he would have waited until it would have been too late for the General Assembly to come back into session during its final days last week to vote to over-ride the gubernatorial veto.

In such cases, what happens when the session ends is that the bill dies with the governor’s veto standing with no chance of being overridden.

MEANING WE’D HAVE the newly-elected General Assembly having to repeat the process of approving a bill this spring so that Pritzker could sign it into law some time during the summer months. 

MADIGAN: Cunning kept bill alive?

We’d still have the State Rifle Association, along with all the other gun groups, issuing their pompous statements in opposition. Which means their real objection is that they don’t have someone with the political cunning of House Speaker Michael Madigan on their side.

So we now have new laws in Illinois giving local law enforcement more authority to inspect gun dealers and their records, and also to keep copies of a gun-buyers’ firearms permits or other identification. It won’t be just a matter for federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents to deal with.

And perhaps the ideologues who think President Trump is justified in thinking that conditions along the U.S./Mexico border are worthy of an “emergency order” ought to keep in mind that many people in our society would have an easier time regarding the proliferation of firearms amongst the public as the real “emergency.”

  -30-

EXTRA: Rauner, forever bitter?

“I am very scared for the people of Illinois. I believe that the folks who put Illinois into a financial quagmire are now back in complete control of the government. The policies that have created the financial mess for the state of Illinois are now the policies that will be dominating completely without any resistance whatsoever.”
--Bruce Rauner, Illinois governor, 2015-19

  -0-

RAUNER: Still peeved about electoral loss

Bruce Rauner let it be known this week that he’s not about to take the high road politically with regards to his Election Day loss earlier this month.

While Rauner wasn’t ready (still) to say much of anything about how President Donald Trump and his presence impacted the soon-to-be-former governor politically, he’s going to forever go about trashing the Democrats whom he seems to want to believe have a whole lot of nerve for challenging him in the first place.

PERSONALLY, I’M INCLINED to view the issue as one where a whole lot of Illinois people voted the way they did to replace Rauner because they saw all his politically partisan actions as the reason why our state’s financial problems got exacerbated into a calamity of historic proportions. They were “very scared” of “four more years” of partisan-motivated nothingness within our government.

Not that the actions of Rauner should have been shocking. This was a man who campaigned back in 2014 on the idea that he wanted to undermine the influence of organized labor in our government, and that IT was to blame for not kowtowing to the self interests of business and corporate America.

Of course, considering the fact that we in Illinois have a state Legislature with leadership who are protective of working people and their interests, the activity of the past few years shouldn’t have been at all surprising.

The only real shock, if you think about it, is that Rauner (who had never before held political office) ever got elected in the first place. Although that’s most likely due to apathy felt about then-Gov. Pat Quinn, and a not-so-realistic thought that ANYBODY who replaced him would be better.

NOW, WE KNOW that we were deluded in our political apathy, and took the first chance we could get to remove Rauner – regardless of what we truly think of Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker.

I don’t doubt that Republican partisans are peeved about the Election Day results in Illinois, although I suspect what really bothers them is the fact that back in 1994 when the GOP managed to take control of all the state constitutional offices and General Assembly, the Republican period of domination only lasted two years.

ROGERS: Not organized, just Democrats

By comparison, this modern-day Democrat domination of Illinois government lasted 12 years, became one of Democrat control for four years, and now has been restored to Democrat domination. It sounds more like political jealousy to me!

And to those people I know who have fantasies of Ronald Reagan-like resuscitation in Illinois, I say to keep in mind the words of Will Rogers, who once said, “the difference between a Republican and a Democrat is the Democrat is a cannibal they have to live off each other. While the Republicans, why they live off the Democrats." Perhaps a majority of us were tired of Rauner trying to enrich himself and his business colleagues at the expense of the rest of us.

  -30-

How far are Ill. ideologues out-of-touch

It’s official. Toni Preckwinkle is now the Democratic chairman for Cook County; despite the fact that – not long ago – people were speculating she was “history” and a cancer on her political party.

PRECKWINKLE: New 'firsts' for her resume

How much you want to bet that come next week, Michael Madigan will remain in place as the Democratic chairman for all of Illinois?

IT’S VERY LIKELY that the people who go about clamoring for the demise of Madigan from positions of authority will find their hostile views rather irrelevant. About as much as those who wanted to believe that Preckwinkle was doomed because of the “pop tax.”

Remember that? The penny-per-ounce fee that was charged every time you bought a bottle of a sweetened drink (about $0.64 added to the price of a two-liter bottle of pop).

People were supposedly so offended by the charge (which used to add about 21 cents to the cost of whenever I picked up a can of Coca-Cola) that they were going to vote Preckwinkle out of her post as Cook County Board president.

Actually, it was the lobbyists for the carbonated beverage industry who were p.o.’ed about the tax, and it was their lobbying effort that ultimately swayed the county board to repeal the tax despite Preckwinkle’s continued support of the need for the revenues it generated.

MADIGAN: 3rd decade as Dem chair?

BUT THAT DIDN’T happen. Preckwinkle won her re-nomination in the March primary and doesn’t even have a Republican opponent come the Nov. 6 general election. She enhanced her political power on Wednesday when the Cook County committeemen convened and picked her the party chairman.

She’s now the first woman and first black person to ever hold the position and can now put her name in the same category as Richard J. Daley – who himself was the county Democratic chairman who used that position to make himself all-powerful.

Rather than just another “joe schmo” mayor.

Not that I expect Preckwinkle to become the next Daley who single-handedly picks the candidate who beats up on Donald J. Trump come the 2020 presidential election.

FIORETTI: Reduced to defending Harvey

BUT SHE’S NOWHERE near the level of political death that her partisan detractors wanted to believe. Although if she had faced a more credible opponent than Robert Fioretti in the Democratic primary, things might have been different.

Not that Fioretti hasn’t been in the news in recent days. He’s the attorney defending suburban Harvey – the community whose share of state revenues were being garnished by the Comptroller’s office for failing to make payments toward the pension benefits they’re supposed to provide to retired police officers and firefighters.

Not exactly a high-minded cause, to be sure.

Although at least Preckwinkle had a couple of challengers for the party chairman post. Which is much more than the opposition Madigan will face when the state central committee meets on Monday in Springfield.

ALL THE PEOPLE who privately rant and rage about Madigan being all-too-powerful don’t have the nerve to come forth and challenge him. He’s been state Democratic chairman for 20 years and is likely to continue that reign (along with being Illinois House speaker) for the time being.

RAUNER: Covering up own unpopularity?

Not even a token challenger, like Preckwinkle had for county board president in the primary earlier this year.

Republicans may want to believe the nonsense-talk that Gov. Bruce Rauner is going to spew for the next few months that Madigan is all-evil and everything that is wrong with electoral politics. But I’d have to say that we make a mistake if we presume that he speaks for the majority of Illinoisans – just the people who are so desperate for an Election Day victory that they’ll keep engaging in the same “Dump Madigan” rhetoric that hasn’t succeeded for the last few election cycles.

For the reality may well be that many of us have real lives to live and know better than to get wrapped up in partisan political trash talk.

  -30-

Ill. budget “brawl” likely to get ugly

I remember back when I was still in college, trying to gain some experience that might make me a reporter-type person someday when an editor told me the very definition of “news” is wherever there is conflict. People in agreement about things just aren’t very newsworthy.

Madigan seems determined to continue ...

If that’s the case, we’re in for a significant scrap in coming months – because I can see massive conflict occurring within state government.

GOV. BRUCE RAUNER met Thursday with the General Assembly’s leadership, and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, made it clear he’s not about to meekly cower in the governor’s presence just to get a budget put together.

With regard to the Illinois government budget being put together for the state’s 2019 fiscal year (which begins July 1), Rauner earlier this week made a point of talking of the need for the state to have a balanced budget, while also implying that the problem was the Democratic majorities that run the General Assembly.

They’re not doing what Rauner wants of them. They are to blame for any inability of state officials to put together a budget before the state Legislature’s scheduled adjournment come the end of May.

Which led to Madigan issuing his own statement following the Thursday morning session – one in which he attempted to shift back blame to the governor.

AS THE ESTEEMED (some sarcasm intended) “Mr. Speaker” said, “If the governor’s agenda is to push more of his extreme cuts to health care, senior services and resources for our most at-risk residents, or if he again intends to move the goalposts and create chaos, he should stay on the sidelines and allow serious leaders to continue working cooperatively to address the challenges facing our state.”

Because I don’t expect Rauner to put himself on the sidelines during budget negotiations that are taking place in coming weeks between the Democratic and Republican leadership of the Illinois House of Representatives and the state Senate.

For one thing, Republican leadership wouldn’t allow it.

... the political brawl Rauner brought on

They’re not going to meekly go along with whatever kind of orders Rauner tries to bark out at them.

RAUNER’S OWN POPULARITY ratings have dwindled (26 percent approval, and 60 percent disapproval – the worst of any governor seeking re-election this year, according to the Morning Consult group’s latest study) to the point where I suspect many GOP legislators don’t want the governor taking them down to defeat along with him come the Nov. 6 elections.

While many Democratic officials counting on the Donald Trump unpopularity factor aren’t about to do anything to appear to be caving in to Rauner on anything.

Budget talks are going to be downright ugly – and likely to accomplish little of anything significant. Because both sides seem to be more interested in one-upping each other.

If you think about it, Madigan’s comment about, “if the governor is finally ready to accept responsibility for the management of this state and be an honest partner in trying to pass a budget, we welcome him to this process” is about as snide and sarcastic as Rauner earlier this week saying he was fighting against, “a corrupt machine of self-dealing, unethical behavior … that benefit a few against the people.”

WHICH MAKES IT ironic that Rauner wants us all to think his four-year term as governor has been about “reform.”

When the reality is Rauner has behaved in as an obstructionist a manner as any other official within Illinois government has ever done. Meaning that obstructionism in the name of partisan politics is very much a part of the “Way things are done” in Illinois.

Is Pritzker our 'savior' by default?

Although going for so much of the four years of his term without a balanced budget in place will leave the Rauner Years with quite a legacy – particularly if he insists on finishing out his time in office without a budget in place for fiscal 2019.

It will be enough to make all of us eager for Election Day so we can pick a replacement to live and work in the (newly-renamed) Governor’s Mansion.

  -30-

EXTRA: Leaflet-to-leaflet combat?!?

These leaflets are starting to turn up in mailboxes this week, efforts by the Stand for Children Illinois group to remind people that the legislators who cast votes in favor of the Education Funding bill may actually have been acting in the interests of educators and NOT just partisan political hacks.

As Gov. Bruce Rauner would have you think -- what with the way he persists with calling the bill a "bailout" for the Chicago Public Schools.

WE'RE GOING TO see many more of these glossy-papered messages cluttering up the mailboxes of those people who live in districts where the local legislators were supportive of the public schools' interests.

Which is something I'm sure will offend the environmentally-minded amongst us. Just think of all the trees that perished to make the glossy paper that created these fliers? Let's at least hope people have the sense to dispose of them in a recycling bin once they give them a momentary glance.

  -30-

“Do what you’re told!” is the way of the world for government officials

Wednesday is the day in which our state’s General Assembly is supposed to reconvene at the Capitol to try to accomplish in a day or two the action upon which they have been so inept for the past two years – putting together a state budget proposal.

Which one ...

Of course, it’s not entirely the Legislature’s fault. For we have a governor who has made it clear he isn’t really interested in what legislators have to say.

HE HAS HIS own agenda he wants pursued, and he’s holding up approval of the budget that is required for state government to operate in a normal manner (and I can already hear the smartalecks quip that the absurdity of the past two years IS our government operating in its normal manner).

Now I realize that Bruce Rauner has scaled back his ideologue talk. He’s no longer spewing the blatantly offensive measures such as “right to work” (which really is nothing of the sort), but he’s still making it known he wants something of politically partisan value before he’ll let our government get back to its normal routines.

But when one has to cope with a Legislature that is solidly in the hands of the opposition political party, it isn’t the time to make demands of any type. Those will have to come for a time when Republicans actually have some say in the legislative branch of the governmental process.

But we have our going-on-two year budgetary stalemate because we have legislative leaders who see the political value – hoping that it turns the electorate so solidly against the Rauner Administration that it shrivels up and dies following the 2018 election cycle.

THOSE ARE THE circumstances under which we see our Legislature convened for a special session called by the governor to try to approve a budget. As though anything has changed since the last time legislators were convened at the Capitol just three weeks ago.

... will get to wear ...

Senate Democrats are still saying they passed a budget, and that their Illinois House colleagues and the governor should just shut up and approve it. While Illinois House and Senate Republicans have put together their own proposal, which Rauner says he’ll back.

Meaning the people who ought to “shut up and approve it” are the Democrats of both legislative chambers.

That’s actually the problem with government these days. It’s too much about “shut up and approve it.” As though people think bipartisanship means the other guy has to pipe down and do what they’re told by you.

... the budgetary dunce cap?

I REALLY DON’T expect much to come out of this special session, which if it runs through June 30 will carry over into the 2018 fiscal year – which will make it Three Years and Counting that Illinois has been unable to have a budget proposal that authorizes government operations.

If anything, it was Rauner himself that convinced me nothing would change this week – what with the “live address” he gave from Springfield Tuesday (timed perfectly to be the lede story on television newscasts across the state, if news directors so chose) that was meant to make it seem like he wants a budget put in place.

But through spokesmen, the governor said he’s fully backing the Republican legislative proposal as a “truly balanced budget” and isn’t interested in having legislators consider anything else. Anybody who thinks this is going to be a week-and-a-half of serious fiduciary contemplation needs to get real. The state’s finances will merely be the focal point of playing politics.

It also seems like the same mentality that dictates the way redistricting and political boundaries for legislative and congressional districts in Illinois will be followed. Redistricting gives us that process that inevitably winds up being resolved by a random draw lottery that gives one political party complete control of the process – and both sides put up with that because their greed is such they like the idea of getting everything AND being able to screw over the opposition.

THAT IS WHAT our state’s finances and daily operations have come down to. Which truly is sad, regardless of which political party one leans toward.

I also got a kick out of the governor’s promise to cancel the remainder of the legislative special session that runs through June 30 “if the General Assembly enacts the compromise balanced budget plan prior to” that date.

Would the governor really make legislators sit around if they don’t “shut up and approve” his plan? Would it be the equivalent of making the naughty, disruptive student sit in the classroom corner?

Or should Rauner be wary because his opposition, in the form of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, could easily find a way of making the governor wind up wearing the dunce cap as a result of fiscal ineptitude.

  -30-

Legislature to return to Statehouse, but just what will they do with themselves?

It’s becoming that time of year again when politically observant people get themselves all worked up over the concept of per diem.

As in the living expenses that the state pays its state legislators to cover the cost of them getting a hotel room or renting an apartment so they have some place to live while they are in Springfield doing “the peoples’ business.”

GOV. BRUCE RAUNER wants to put up the appearance of state officials working eagerly to try to reach a budget agreement for state government.

Meaning he said Thursday he’s calling them into a special session of the Legislature. To begin June 21, it would continue every day until the legislators approve a budget plan that can be sent to Rauner for his consideration -- or June 30, the end of the fiscal year (whichever comes first).

News reports about the move go out of their way to include a mention of the per diem payment – which these days totals $111 per day, plus a $0.39 per mile rate for gas mileage reimbursement.

It comes to roughly $40,000 per day, and the tone usually comes across as if THIS is the expense that is going to bust Illinois financially.

NOW BEFORE I go further, I have to confess – I have written the same stories; some two decades ago back when I was a Statehouse reporter-type person. It's not a new theme and it’s easy to calculate. The numbers are small so a reporter-doing-math can’t screw it up, and it gives an overtone of outrage!

Money being wasted as the legislators sit around doing nothing while the governor and legislative leaders continue to quarrel – as most of them have settled into stances by which they need to have the financial stalemate linger on indefinitely.

This really is a situation that will not be resolved until after the November 2018 election cycle where there might be a shift in the political dynamic of Illinois with its Democratic-run Legislature and Republican-run executive branch at loggerheads.

And if there ISN’T a shift, the stalemate has the potential to linger on for years to come. Pretty scary stuff, when you think about it! Although I suspect it will take an action such as the Mega Millions and Powerball lottery games saying they will no longer let Illinois participate in those prizes to catch the attention of the public.

THE REALITY IS that $40,000 is petty change. And the reason the legislators being present doesn’t really mean a lot is because this is a problem caused by the leadership being unable, or unwilling, to budge.

So Rauner can go ahead and call the General Assembly back to duty in Springfield and have them sit around. Unless he is willing to budge on his budgetary stance, nothing will change and it really will be $40,000 or so a day flushed down the toilet bowl of government.

So what is it state officials could contemplate if, and when, they return to Springfield?

There is that budget the Illinois Senate approved, but that the Illinois House of Representatives won’t even consider because they know in their hearts and minds that Rauner will play partisan politics in rejecting.

EARLIER THIS WEEK, Republicans from the Senate AND House offered up their own “seven point plan” that they say is a budget proposal they would be ready to approve and Rauner would sign into law IF ONLY those Democrats would get with the program.

Which has me wondering if a special session is meant to put pressure on Dem legislators to go along so as to put an end to the nearly two years this state has gone without a balanced budget in place. In the end, it’s really about pols trying to make sure the other guy gets the blame for the two years of inactivity we’ve had in Illinois.

This is a big deal because state law doesn’t really allow state government to operate without a budget. It’s only because of the federal courts that some agencies and programs continue to operate, and are spending up a disproportionate share of the funds while others are withering away.

We need to have that written budget dictating how money is spent. Would you really trust your government to have access to taxpayer monies without it? They’d be like the kid who blew their allowance money on candy, then complains they’re broke. Just like some of us will obsess about the per diem while the rest of Illinois burns.

  -30-

We’re back in the mess again! That short-term budget deal ends Saturday

Remember how our state’s public officials came up with a temporary solution to their inability for a year to pass anything resembling an operating budget for state government?

The mood of the Statehouse turns as black as this Turn of the Century postcard come Sunday

Temporary because it only provided a budget for the first half of the state’s fiscal year. Come the second half, we’d be right back in the same mess of a situation that we’ve been in since the arrival of Bruce Rauner as governor who seems more concerned with messing with organized labor rather than actually governing the state.

WELL, THE MESS has arrived. Because the half-year for which there was a spending plan in place ends as of Saturday.

Sunday is not only the beginning of a new calendar year, it is the end of the time period for which that short-term budget covered.

And because that short-term budget didn’t make anything resembling significant cuts (it pretty much kept everything at a status-quo level even though it was clear to everybody that somebody was going to have to take a hit financially), we’re even deeper into the mess now than we were back in May or June.

In fact, I’d argue we’re so far deep I wonder if it is possible for us to dig our way out.

BECAUSE THE LATEST circumstances is we have our officials refusing to even meet to consider negotiations toward a spending plan that would keep state government operating.

 

Can't we just say both Rauner ...

In fact, the only real movement on the issue is as the various factions try to orchestrate circumstances and spew rhetoric meant to imply it’s the other guy’s fault.

We’re into placing blame. Pointing fingers. Trying to spin things so as to avoid having to take blame for the mess that our state confronts these days.

There is no “winning” this situation. At least not in any way that doesn’t wind up imposing greater harm on the Illinois electorate – who in theory are the very people for whom the government officials are supposed to be working.

 

... and Madigan are stubborn?

THERE’S A REASON that government is semi-jokingly referred to by its practitioners as “doing the people’s business.” It’s supposed to be about us, not them.

Now I’m going to concede that for something to happen, everybody is going to have to give something up to a degree that everybody will feel like they lost. Years from now when they see how little things have changed, they’re going to look back and wonder why anyone thought the chaos we’re seeing today was ever worth it!

Although for those people who want to play partisan politics and claim it’s all Mike Madigan’s fault, keep in mind that he is representing the interests of a significant segment of Illinois society.

You really want to know how to get rid of Mike Madigan as Illinois House speaker? Just have him make the concessions that Rauner has been demanding of him and you’ll see how quickly people turn on him. There are those who are fully convinced he IS sticking up for their interests.

AS FOR RAUNER, I always thought his “turnaround” agenda was a lot of bunk – particularly because it went so counter to the mood of the state as a whole. There was no way he should ever have expected the General Assembly to go along with his desires.

Or at least the Legislature as it has been constructed in recent years.

So when Rauner spends time (and money) trying to work toward electing more sympathetic legislators come 2018, that I get. That I comprehend. I don’t agree with it, but it is a responsible reaction – maybe he’ll get lucky and be able to impose his changes in an altered partisan political situation

Until then, his stubbornly putting a hold on the ability of government to operate does nothing more than create chaos – and could wind up backfiring if it turns out that the only person people in Illinois despise more than the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives is none other than Rauner himself.

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When it comes to Election Day, can’t we just get it over with already?

Labor Day has come and gone. Officially, the time period for active campaigning for public office on Election Day is now upon us.
 

Just 63 more 'shopping days' for a candidate

We’re supposed to see a batch of activity that steps up the level of rhetoric that gets spewed about why the opponent is a repulsive idiot and the only sensible vote is one for my candidate.

YET THE REALITY of the 21^st Century is that Tuesday isn’t any more important to the candidates seeking election this year than on any other date. Any campaign that waited until now to get serious is one that is seriously dead in the water.

I’m not saying the Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump spat for president can’t get uglier than it already has. Or that Gov. Bruce Rauner and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, have been doing through various legislative campaigns.

After all, Rauner would love to have real political power – which he would get if only he could have a General Assembly composed of people who don’t feel their allegiance is to the people in organized labor whom the governor views as the root of state government’s “problem.”

While Madigan and labor view the new governor as the problem that must be kept in check, People in Illinois, or at least in certain legislative districts, will have a choice to make when it comes to picking that schleppy, anonymous representative they usually pay little attention to.

OF COURSE, THE presidential campaign is offering up a similar choice for voters.

MADIGAN: Continued gov opposition?

It’s less about Hillary vs. The Donald and more about whose influence do you want over government. Particularly with the Supreme Court of the United States.

That vacancy caused by the death earlier this year of Justice Antonin Scalia is still open, and the partisan desire to control who picks the replacement is still just as intense.

Heck, for many of the Republican Party operatives who are appalled by the presence of Trump at the top of their party’s ticket, they’re voting for Trump because they want to ensure it isn’t Clinton or Democratic interests that get to shift the balance of the nation’s high court.

RAUNER: Giving governor his way

THEY DIDN’T OBJECT when Ronald Reagan used his presidential powers to shift the leaning of the federal courts to Republicans back in the 1980s, but they seem to resent the idea that partisan leanings are not permanent.

History could wind up seeing a “President Clinton” (the second) as one who reversed the political tinge of the courts’ partisanship.

Which is why some people who personally don’t think much of Hillary will wind up voting for her – the notion of a federal court that isn’t hostile to our ever-changing society and doesn’t seem determined to hold us back in the 18^th Century is something that does appeal to some.

Which also is intriguing in the way Illinois’ legislative races may wind up being influenced by presidential politics. Will people have to choose between federal and state governments, or which way they want the whole mess to lean?

BECAUSE RAUNER HIMSELF is one who has tried to tamper down his own leanings in the presidential campaign. Because the last thing he wants is people becoming so disgusted with Trump that they don’t bother to vote for the Republican in their home district who’d represent them in the Legislature.

TRUMP: Impacting more than his election

Or maybe the first thing he wants is some of those people who pick Hillary for president deciding they don’t want Madigan to influence their local legislator, so they choose to vote Republican instead, on that part of the ballot.

The one safe prediction we can make about what will happen 63 days from Tuesday is that none of the usual rules will apply. The whole thing could become a free-for-all – one that will make the next two months one of those time periods we recall for years to come.

And some of us certainly will wind up having to learn to live down the shame of explaining in the future why they actually cast a ballot for whichever knucklehead they wind up voting for come Nov. 8.

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Negative political approval ratings nothing to be surprised about these days

Let's be honest. We can't stand the people we elect to political office.

27

Seriously, most people vote these days against the person they absolutely cannot stand. It has nothing to do with picking the person whose ideals most represent ours.

SO SHOULD IT be any wonder that our government is bogged down in politically partisan nonsense? We have government officials who can't play nice. It's no wonder we can't stand them!

The latest bit of evidence of this concept came Monday from the Chicago Tribune, where the newspaper published the results of a poll showing only 27 percent of those surveyed approve of the job performance of Rahm Emanuel as mayor.

All those negative reports about the police department under Emanuel singling non-white people out for abuse are taking their toll, with the hostility being most intense amongst African-American people.

It seems white people are a little more tolerant of Emanuel's behavior. Although not enough to say they approve. I suspect many just wish we'd stop talking about the issue altogether. Actually fixing the problem is something that goes far beyond anyone's expectations.

YET I DON'T think Emanuel is in any danger of being removed from office anytime before his scheduled 2019 end-of-term. That is, unless he just gets sick and tired of the whining and screaming that occurs about his name.

Because the reality is that the public probably would despise anyone who tried to replace Rahm as mayor. We the people have a cynical enough view of our government that we just don't trust it -- in large part because we really don't agree upon what its purpose ought to be.

36

For all those people who expect government to maintain certain services to support the public at-large, there are others who have such a limited viewpoint of government and what it ought to attempt to do.

I remember once covering a municipal hearing as a reporter-type person in which a man said he believed the only function of government ought to be to maintain a police department. Doing anything else was a waste of taxpayer funds, and of stuff that people ought to be permitted to do for themselves.

20

WE DON'T AGREE. And I'm sure some of us merely mistrust anyone who would want to think of running for elective office. Hence, the knee-jerk reaction is to say we "disapprove" of anything government-related.

Take one Illinois Policy Action poll from last year, which showed only 39 percent of people approved of Gov. Bruce Rauner, compared to 20 percent for Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and 9.8 percent for the Illinois General Assembly as a whole.

38

All of that inability to put together a budget and keep government functions running will take its toll.

A We Ask America poll also had Madigan at a 20 percent rating. Not that it matters. Because the only people who vote for Madigan proper are those in his Southwest Side legislative district -- and they like the idea of having as their local representative the mighty Speaker of the House of Representatives.

LET'S ALSO REMEMBER that Republicans have failed in past election cycles when they have tried to brand all Democrats as Mike Madigan lackeys. It came across as sour grapes by political losers.

There even was former Gov. Pat Quinn, whom Rasmussen polls had at only 38 percent approval rating back in 2010 -- when he managed to win re-election as governor against Republican Bill Brady.

People might not have liked Quinn personally. But they voted against the idea of a blatantly rural politico being in charge of the state back in that election cycle.

And even though they picked Bruce Rauner to be governor over Quinn in 2014, it seems that Rauner now has disapproval ratings in the majority, with only 36 percent liking the job he's doing, according to polls by the Simon Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

7

SO I'D SAY that Emanuel's approval rating (about one in four people actually like the job he's doing these days) certainly isn't pathetic. It's not as bad as the 7 percent approval ranking that former Gov. Rod Blagojevich sank to.

But even Milorod was never actually defeated by the public. He won his bid for re-election in 2006, and it took the legislators themselves to remove Rod through the impeachment process.

The same legislators who themselves have less than a 10 percent approval rating -- if these surveys are to be taken at all seriously.

  -30-