No ‘third term’ for Rauner? Let’s see if he even gets a second stint as governor!

Excuse me for not being overly swayed by Gov. Bruce Rauner’s statements this week that there’s no way he’d consider running for a third term as governor of Illinois.

RAUNER: We laugh at thought of no 'third' term

Which is almost a laughable statement for him to make, since he’s seeking a second term come the Nov. 6 general election, and there are those who are convinced he’s already doomed to defeat.

“THIRD TERM?” HE’ll be lucky if he becomes anything more than a one-termer – and one who barely got to live in the Executive Mansion in Springfield, what with the way it had to be remodeled extensively for much of the four years he served in office.

I’m sure Rauner is trying to score points with those people who like to think that term limits are a serious issue, and one upon which we should base our political choices.

Pick the guy who has no intention of making a career out of public service. And is most definitely different from Michael Madigan – the long-time Illinois House speaker whom Rauner has made into his nemesis. Madigan, after all, has been on the state payrolls for nearly a half-century now, and has been the Big Boss of Springpatch, so to speak, for just about the entire time since the early 1980s.

Like it or not, Madigan will be remembered by the political geeks of this state, whereas I suspect The Rauner Years will quickly lapse into the crevasses of our minds where we will manage to forget the details.

MADIGAN: Nearing a half-century as pol

NOW THE REASON I have trouble taking Rauner’s talk – which the Chicago Tribune reported he said during a meeting with Crain’s Chicago Business – is that there is absolutely nothing binding about his “pledge.”

There’s nothing in the law that would require him to keep his word. He could easily decide when the time comes that he thinks his presence is still needed on the political scene.

Any promise to depart after a certain amount of years doesn’t mean a thing.

SHIMKUS: Approaching his 12th term

Personally, I always think of Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., whenever this issue comes up.

THE CONGRESSMAN FROM the part of Illinois near St. Louis campaigned back in 1990 on a hard-and-fast promise that he would not serve more than 10 years in Congress. He wasn’t going to make a career out of being a part of the Capitol Hill scene. He really wouldn’t.

KELLY: Readying self for D.C. return

Yet here we are, 22 years later, with Shimkus having built up his seniority and showing no signs of even contemplating his one-time pledge to leave after five, two-year terms. Instead, he’s seeking term number 12.

Which actually is fine, if that’s really what the people of that particular congressional district want. Actually, I think they could do better, but I don’t have a vote in that district.

As well it should be. My votes are for the portion of metro Chicago in which I reside, and where I have every right to exercise my right to cast a ballot (where we’re likely to send Robin Kelly back to D.C. for yet another term in the House of Representatives).

SO FOR RAUNER to say he’s not interested in having a third term in office? It’s empty rhetoric. It’s not binding. It borders on self-righteous political rhetoric.

Because too many people are going to look at the governor’s race just over a month from now (actually, early voting centers will open Oct. 22) and see how badly Rauner has failed – not only in accomplishing any of his desired goals, but also in managing to muck up the operations of government so as to intensify the financial problems our state confronts.

McCANN: Will he gain gov votes?

Even for those people who think there’s anything noble about the Rauner efforts to mess with organized labor influence in Illinois, they’re going to find their own reasons to despise the idea of another term for Bruce. They’re the ones seriously looking to Sam McCann and his “Conservative Party” for a vote.

And Rauner’s talk of a nobly turning down a “third term” will come across as absurd and ridiculous a statement as we’ve ever heard in partisan politics. Except for maybe that self-righteous talk that President Donald Trump gave this week to the United Nations -- the one that had the world's delegates bursting out in laughter.

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Picking a federal prosecutor is a political process, no doubt about it

It seems the first steps have been taking toward picking a new U.S. attorney for Chicago; the Chicago Sun-Times reported that names of recommended appointees were sent recently to President Donald J. Trump for his consideration.
 

TRUMP: On verge of picking new U.S. attorney

The president gets to pick who he wants, but usually seeks the advice of the local members of Congress from the state in which the appointee will serve.

WHICH IS WHY Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., the senior-most member of the Republican portion of Illinois’ congressional delegation, took it upon himself to make recommendations – who now will be reviewed by the president’s advisors so as to make sure that Shimkus hasn’t picked a legal dud or two.

Of course, the process is complicated by partisan politics – the great headache-inducer that manages to interfere with the process of “the people’s business.”

Because the president usually defers to a state’s Senate delegation in seeking recommendations. But we in Illinois have chosen Democrats to serve as our senators.

And undermining any influence Democrats may have is kind of the whole point of this Age of Trump that we’re now in.

SHIMKUS, AN OTHERWISE obscure member of Congress from the Illinois-based suburbs of St. Louis, certainly wasn’t going to care what either Richard Durbin or Tammy Duckworth thought.

Although the realities of the political process are that Senate rules exist that would allow either Durbin or Duckworth, if not both combined, to thwart the appointment process. Not that they’ll get any say in who gets the position, but they will have the authority to totally gum up the works.

SHIMKUS: Sent names to president

Which is why, as the Sun-Times reports, the president’s staff has reached out to Durbin to indicate it understands the rules that would permit Durbin, as a Senate judiciary committee member, to have some say over an attorney serving in his home state.

Could it be that our president, who during his first four-or-so months in office has shown much contempt for the process of government, is finally catching on?

OR AT THE very least doesn’t want something as basic as appointing federal prosecutors to various districts across the nation – including northern Illinois – to become a convoluted mess?

DURBIN: Can make GOP life miserable

Because Trump is the one who made the big spectacle of terminating the employment of all the chief federal prosecutors who had been appointed by Barack Obama – thereby leaving the offices in the hands of interim staffers who aren’t expected to last for the long-term.

Even Trump realizes how incompetent he’d appear to be if he couldn’t come up with permanent replacements. The real question is how uncomfortable will Trumpites be in having to acknowledge Democratic Party control or influence of even this minor magnitude.

I’m sure that Shimkus considered it a significant advancement to his influence on Capitol Hill that HE would get to make the recommendations and would get to ignore the thoughts of senior-most officials because of politically partisan concerns.

WILL HE, AND other Republicans, consider it some sort of blow to their political partisanship that the president winds up having to contemplate what the other side, in the form of Durbin, thinks after all?

 

DUCKWORTH: Likely to have a say too

And what happens if it turns out that the recommendations picked by Shimkus wind up being found too incompetent, or unqualified, for whatever reason to warrant the president signing off and picking those individuals in his name?

I’ve always thought the only way that Trump could seriously face the threat of impeachment and removal from office (regardless of the new Morning Consult poll that shows 54 percent of people believing Trump is unfit for office and 43 percent thinking he already has committed an impeachable offense) is if he were to actually behave in a conciliatory manner toward more-progressive interests in our society. The concept of a buffoon who eagerly dumps all over non-ideologue Republicans is exactly what GOP officials who have the majority in Congress desire.

So could naming the replacement for Zachary Fardon and 45 other U.S. attorneys wind up being an act that causes Trump so much of a political headache he’ll be wondering just why he was foolish enough to ever want to be president in the first place.

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EXTRA: Note to GOP; Quit yer whinnin' and find a challenger

The latest whiny rant that makes the Illinois Republican Party seem like a six-year-old who just dropped his ice cream cone and Mommy won’t buy him another came out Wednesday, and this time Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White is the target,

WHITE: Two decades, and counting, in current post

The one-time Party of Lincoln wants us to be all offended that White will not say for sure if he’s running for re-election in 2018. He has hinted in the past he’d like to retire (he’s already 82 and has held the post since 1999), but seems to be one of those political people who just can’t see himself doing anything but holding office.

OF COURSE, FOR Republicans the real issue is that if White does run again, it is very likely they won’t be able to come up with a credible challenger. That would mean yet another high-profile political post they would likely lose come the 2018 election cycle.

If White does retire, maybe some GOPer has a chance to slip into office and prop up the potential future political opportunities for Gov. Bruce Rauner. Of course, that’s presuming voters aren’t so fed up with the Illinois political status quo of ‘no budget’ that they don’t just dump him too.

Republicans are trying to make it an issue that White ran for re-election back in 2014 even though he previously had hinted at retirement, and has since made statements in 2015 and 2016 that he didn’t want a sixth term as secretary of state.

We, the voters of Illinois, didn’t seem to get too offended just over two years ago. Who knows how we’ll react. Or do you really think a gaudy, cluttered license plate design is really the kind of issue that will rile up voters?

RAUNER: He'd like political allies

ALTHOUGH IF YOU really want to get technical, you’d think the Illinois GOP would be the last entity to try to make an issue out of term-limit pledges.

For they’re the ones who include amongst their ranks Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. He’s a congressman from the part of Illinois that is suburban St. Louis, and when he originally ran for office back in 1996 he made a firm pledge that – if elected – he would not serve more than six, two-year terms in office.

Which means we should be coming up on the 10-year anniversary of Shimkus’ departure from the Washington scene. Somehow, Shimkus keeps concluding that his presence in the District of Columbia is still needed. As far as I know, he’s going to face about as credible of opposition on Election Day ’18 for his congressional seat as White will for secretary of state.

SHIMKUS: Supposed to leave 10 yrs ago

It is kind of odd in White’s case, because I remember when he first got elected to his present post in 1998, the idea was that White was a long-time state legislator and Cook County recorder who would serve a term or two in Springfield before taking political “retirement.”

JESSE, HOWEVER, SEEMS to be a political survivor. One whose presence causes the Republican Party to engage in such lame nonsense as what they’re now spewing.

And yes, this latest Republican statement tells us that White is sticking around because Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, wants him too. It all comes back to Madigan, in the minds of the Illinois GOP.

I guess the idea of coming up with more credible candidates who can actually beat the opposition is an idea that goes beyond their intellect; or perhaps even the power of all the millions of his own money that Rauner has committed to spending in next year’s election cycle.

All I know is that it is likely Rauner will be a little bit poorer come early 2019 – and probably just as lonely politically as he is currently.

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Ranking term limits with debates and sombreros as mark of a loser

I have some very unofficial rules I have developed for myself during my time as a reporter-type person in determining the legitimacy of political candidates.

RAUNER: Money, and term limits?

The first candidate who complains that his opponent won’t debate him (or her) is a loser (and a whiner).

THE FIRST CANDIDATE who puts on a sombrero at a political rally, thinking it will get him the Latino vote, is un tonto – and a loser.

And most importantly, the first candidate to come out and try to make an issue of term limits is probably someone so insecure that the only way they think they can win is to create a situation where the opponent can’t even run!

The reason I bring this issue up is because of the degree to which Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner is trying to use the “term limits” issue to his advantage. A committee he's involved with will file petitions Wednesday to try to get a state Constitution amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Pat Quinn is a long-time political hack who shouldn’t even be allowed to run, is what Rauner would have us think.

HECK, RAUNER BACKERS are going so far as to remind us how Quinn himself once led an effort to try to impose term limits for state government officials. Meaning Quinn is now a hypocrite.

He should hang his head in shame and slink off into the political sunset. Unless you’re one of those ideologues who believes that any government official who doesn’t pursue a socially-conservative agenda is a criminal who ought to serve time in prison!

QUINN: '14 his last election?

Yes, I’m mocking the kind of people who get all worked up over term limits because they’re more interested in creating fantasy situations for government – rather than trying to present themselves as the best possible candidate who we, the people, ought to pick instead of some long-time incumbent.

Maybe it’s because I really do believe that the real “term limit” is Election Day, when we can dump anybody we really can’t stand. It does happen! Incumbents do lose!

MADIGAN: Is '18 her 'turn?'

INSTEAD OF TELLING us why we should want to vote for him (other than his primary rhetoric about how he’d be the guy who would dump all over organized labor), we’re getting cheap talk about how Quinn shouldn’t be able to run.

Quinn took this issue seriously enough that he came out and said this week he won’t be running again after this election cycle.

SHIMKUS: Broken promise?

For if he wins, it would be his second four-year term as governor, along with the couple of years of Rod Blagojevich’s last term that he was unable to complete.

Actually, that probably is enough time for any one person. It would be the way for Quinn -- the man whom we also remember for his token loser campaigns for U.S. Senate and Illinois lieutenant governor (in '98) to go out on top. Here’s hoping that if the Mighty Quinn prevails on Nov. 4, he keeps his word.

BECAUSE NOT ALL political people do.

Take Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. He’s a member of Congress from near St. Louis whose district includes much of Southern Illinois. He first got elected to Congress in 1996, and he made a promise back then that he wouldn’t serve more than 12 years.

Let the voters decide?!?

By 2008, that promise didn’t seem to matter as much. He kept running. Heck, he’s still a member of Illinois’ congressional delegation.

Nobody in that district seems to hold it against him that he didn’t keep his word about term limits. I don’t even really get worked up about it.

IT JUST REINFORCES my viewpoint that when a candidate comes out and rants and rages in favor of limiting how long people can hold public office, what they most likely mean is that they want limits for people of the other political party who might challenge them someday.

Most certainly not for themselves!

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Talk about a real embarrassment

It’s not unheard of for political aides to do stupid things that cause embarrassment for their bosses.

SHIMKUS: In the news for all the wrong reasons



Yet how often do these low-level aides who only catch the public attention because of who their boss is manage to create international incidents?

FOR THAT IS what has happened to Christian LaBella – who gets to earn a unique place in the annals of Illinois political history for his incident.

The aide to Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. (he’s from the St. Louis area, which is why you likely don’t have a clue who he is) is the guy who will be remembered for his alleged assault of Lindsay Lohan herself.

The emotionally-troubled actress who often is in the news for incidents and outbursts seems to have captured the attention of a congressional aide.

It’s not clear why the two were together in New York at a fancy hotel. But based on the account in the Daily Mail (the British press loves this story almost as much as they love the concept of a topless Princess Kate), LaBella pulled out his cellphone and tried using its camera to take pictures of her.

SHE ALLEGEDLY GRABBED the phone from his hand and tried to delete whatever shots he was able to snap of her.

Then, in the moment that caused this incident to go global, he supposedly hit her in some form.

Depending on which account one reads, LaBella either punched her or choked her or may have thrown her on a bed. It’s really not clear exactly what happened – except for the fact that Lohan’s publicists put out a statement saying she was “assaulted” and “sustained injuries,” but did not have to be put in a hospital.

LaBella was arrested, and for a time was facing thepossibility of some sort of assault and harassment charges. But police in New York released him from custody Sunday without charges, and now he’s hinting he may try to go after Lohan for somehow assaulting him.

ALL IN ALL, a moment that I’m sure had Shimkus himself shuddering with disgust. His aides couldn’t respond quickly enough, letting it be known Sunday that he “does not condone” the behavior of LaBella – regardless of the actual details.

I have to admit to being a little appalled by some of the commentary I’ve read about this incident – some people seem to want to believe that Lohan somehow brought this on herself, and maybe even deserved a sock in the jaw.

I guess that’s what she gets for giving us a career filled with films such as a mediocre remake of “Freaky Friday (I’ll take Jodie Foster anytime), along with all those drug-related incidents that have become the ongoing saga of her life.

I’m not here to bash Lohan, or necessarily take up her defense. Because I’m not sure what details about this incident I should believe.

ALL I KNOW is that LaBella may be unlike any other political aide I have ever encountered.

They’re usually a unique breed; kind of dorky (they’d prefer to call themselves ‘wonky’) to tell you the truth. They’re the people who learn the minutia of government to the point that they actually accomplish the goals that their elected-official bosses talk about doing.

Then, the bosses get the credit for what their staffs did the grunt work of accomplishing. Which they don’t mind, because they’re government-obsessed.

Yet from the reports I have seen, LaBella seemed more interested in being able to say he was a “congressional aide” and use it to build up a glamour image for himself.

THE DAILY MAIL really seemed to love this angle – raiding his Facebook account for all the pictures he posted of himself with “celebrities” such as Kim Kardashian.

That may well be why LaBella wanted the Lohan pictures – more evidence of his “importance” in the world. I guess being in a position to learn from a member of the Illinois congressional delegation just wasn’t enough.

And the stink that has arisen from this incident? It may well be even more embarrassing to our political reputation than any of the officials who get busted for Mickey Mouse levels of corruption in government.

Just because it’s all so uncouth!

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Redistricting will bring out the politicking in Illinois’ government officials

We’re still several months away from that date in which the Illinois General Assembly will suddenly, and with as little public speculation as possible, approve new political boundaries for both the state Legislature and Congress.

No matter what else gets discussed at the Statehouse in Springpatch this spring, the key issue will be redistricting – that once-a-decade redrawing of the political boundaries for the General Assembly and Illinois congressional delegation to reflect changes in population that have occurred during the past 10 years.

THIS YEAR IS going to be a little bit different than the past three times Illinois has gone through the process. Because we have a state Legislature controlled by Democratic leaders, a Democratic partisan as governor and a state Supreme Court that has a Democrat-leaning membership (and may still be miffed at the politicking the GOP tried unsuccessfully to do in the last election to change that political breakdown), it should be a case where Democratic Party partisans will control the process.

It is highly unlikely we will have to resort to the redistricting lottery called for in the Illinois Constitution to break a tie. There won’t be any random luck of the draw. No picking a political party out of a hat (or a glass bowl) that once belonged to Abraham Lincoln.

So what are the political boundaries going to look like? We won’t know for sure until late May. But I do expect the 2010 election cycle will be a major factor – particularly for the state Legislature districts.

Last month’s election cycle is the one that’s going into the Illinois history books as the one where Democratic Party partisans maintained significant influence because of a strong Cook County vote.

REPUBLICAN PARTY PARTISANS from the rest of the state who had dreams of taking over the state government learned once and for all how irrelevant they can be, whenever Cook County-types put their mind to an election cycle.

So as people approach the areas where Cook County interacts with the surrounding outer-suburb collar counties (DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will, to be exact), we’re going to see a lot of districts that cross the county line.

But that interaction will be done in ways to ensure that the balance of people (and of potential power) is in Cook County.

If anything, there will be many more legislators during the next decade like state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields. She is a life-long south suburban Cook resident who represents a district that stretches south into Will and Kankakee counties.

THE SAME REPUBLICAN mindset that managed to take four congressional seats last month also tried to dump Hutchinson on the grounds that she was too-Chicago-area to cover a district, and her Republican opponent from near Peotone tried to emphasize downstate Illinois roots.

It didn’t work because there was too much Cook County in that district (the Illinois Senate 40^th, to be exact) for the GOP appeal to work.

There will be more districts created just like hers. Districts represented by officials who, no matter how much lip service they pay to representing all parts of their area, are Cook residents who have that urban focus.

As far as the congressional districts are concerned, the key factor is that Illinois is likely to lose one representative – even though the overall population has remained stable. The problem is that it isn’t growing, and rural parts of the state are shrinking significantly.

SO YES, MY guess is that one of the central Illinois congressional districts that usually sends a Republican to Capitol Hill will wind up being drawn out of existence. Just a guess – Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who 14 years ago pledged to serve no longer than 10 years in Congress – could find himself getting squeezed.

But the spin we’re likely to get from Democrats is that there is potential for a city “loss” too.

The fact is that the Latino population has increased significantly enough in Illinois that the state should probably now have two districts that create a realistic chance to elect a Latino to Congress. For all the people who claim the current Latino district looks ridiculous with that little strip connecting two separate areas, it would mean growing each of those areas into a separate district.

A Puerto Rican-influenced district to the north (that Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.) would continue to represent, with a district to the south that likely would be represented by someone of Mexican-American ethnic origins – or someone sympathetic to them.

SOMEHOW, I WONDER if it is bound to be Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., who will have his district redone in a way that he had better follow the lead of state Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago, who has gone so far as to join the Latino Caucus in Springfield to try to look out for the many Latinos living in his legislative district.

Or else, Lipinski – one of the two Illinois Democrats who voted last week against the DREAM Act measure that party leadership (and Illinois’ favorite-son president) was fully supportive of – is going to be the city member of Congress who gets dumped.

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