Bruce Rauner: A 'bad man,' or a 'protector' of Illinois interests?

We’re going to be able to quarrel for months to come over how badly Gov. Bruce Rauner hurt his public perception with his actions Friday afternoon.

What he did was rescinded eight executive orders that now-former Gov. Pat Quinn approved in his final hours in office Monday morning. It shouldn’t be a shock; Rauner has publicly said he’d like to rescind everything Quinn did in the final two months he was in office.

BUT THOSE ACTIONS by Quinn were described at the time of their approval as potential landmines for the new governor – if he were to refuse to let them remain in place, he’d be exposing himself to be a politically partisan hack in his own right.

Some believed Rauner might feel compelled to just let the acts remain in place to avoid public criticism. Then again, those are probably the same people who believe that every season is “the” season for the Chicago Cubs to succeed.

Which is to say that Rauner is refusing to go along. But how will he take the criticism that inevitably will fall upon him.

For the record, the actions that got rescinded included a provision that anyone working on a project that was a state contract would have to be paid a $10 per hour minimum wage – the rate that Quinn had hoped all workers in Illinois would receive as part of his final act in office.

ALSO, QUINN WANTED all governors to be required to disclose their income levels and other financial interests by publicly revealing their income tax refunds each year while in office.

It shouldn’t be a secret that Rauner would hate either idea.

He is the guy who during his gubernatorial campaign initially opposed any minimum wage increase, then said he might be willing to support something that increased the current $8.25 level IF there also were changes in the law meant to benefit business interests.

Which makes it seem that he’s more interested in measures that organized labor will hate than in trying to do anything to bolster the income level among people who work in this state.

AND AS FOR the tax disclosures, Rauner went through his whole campaign refusing to reveal such information about himself. He wasn’t about to have a turnaround now just because Quinn wanted to make Rauner look bad/foolish/corrupt in the future!

So Rauner showed us just how weak the power of an executive order truly is – it has no permanent standing and can be eliminated at the whim of a future governor.

Which is what all those people praising President Barack Obama’s use of executive orders to impose immigration reform measures ought to keep in mind – nothing is permanent, and ideologues can have their way in the future when (and it will happen eventually) they get their own elected to prominent government posts.

I’m sure Rauner is going to claim now and in the future when he continues to use his authority to repeal acts that have their origins in the Quinn years that he’s protecting the people of Illinois from irresponsible actions taken in the past.

I ALSO EXPECT there are those who are ideologically inclined to want to believe Rauner will be all too eager to claim that he’s just in his actions.

But I wonder how many more people will wind up seeing these repeals as the act of someone eager to use his newly-acquired political power to dominate the public will?

Rauner standing in the way of refusing to bolster the pay of even a few working people? Refusing to reveal his income (because it would show just exactly how out of touch his life is compared to the average working stiff)?

Rauner may wind up wondering if there’s enough Tylenol in all of Illinois to cope with the future headaches he may have provoked for himself.

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From 11 to 6, rather than 11 to zero. Or, what truly constitutes Amnesty?

President Barack Obama gave his quarter-hour-long address to the nation Thursday night, outlining his intent to revise federal immigration policy despite the desire of Republicans in Congress to do nothing on the issue.

It turned out to be a little more precise than I originally would have anticipated. But I wasn’t that far off in expecting that the Obama proposal he wants to implement with his executive order authority would not be all-reaching.

BY SOME ESTIMATES, about 5 million people will be impacted – out of the estimated 11 million people who now live in the United States without citizenship or a valid visa. You could make the argument that there are still way too many people who will be living in the shadows of our society.

Although to the ideologues who are determined to believe this is impeachable behavior on the part of the president, it will be regarded as too few.

Obama’s policy basically tries to say that people without citizenship who come to the attention of authorities because they are committing criminal offenses would still wind up facing deportation from the United States.

He even wants criminal background checks on people applying for the right to live openly in the United States without risking being deported – so as to show that these really are people who are not misbehaving in this country. Despite the ideologue belief that the undocumented are “criminal” by their very existence north of the Rio Bravo del Norte/Rio Grande.

THERE ALSO ARE the provisions Obama would call for that would permit parents of children who are in the nation legitimately to remain. No more of the splitting up of families – which is the big reason institutions like the Catholic Church come out in favor of immigration reform.

Personally, I thought Obama threw in quite a bit of law-and-order type rhetoric and references to the “rule of law” to try to appeal to the ideologues who want to claim that people here without a visa are being disrespectful to U.S. law.

Even though one can argue legitimately that the bureaucratic mess and contradictions that exist in immigration policy now are the reason many find it next to impossible to get the visa.

Not that I expect anyone who is ideologue-inspired to take any of this talk seriously.

THESE ARE PEOPLE who are inclined to be hostile to the president on this issue regardless of what he says. The people who now are going to be talking about government shutdowns, presidential impeachment or any other hostile actions would have been doing so regardless of what Obama said Thursday night.

I did find it interesting to hear Obama use the “amnesty” word by claiming that current immigration policy is the real amnesty because of its inconsistency. I’m sure that alone will manage to offend the ideologues amongst us.

As does the fact that Obama said the desires of social conservatives on immigration issues goes “contrary to” the ideals that our nation allegedly stands for.

Telling the so-called “real Americans” (at least they’re foolish enough to believe they are) that they’re being “un-American” is something that surely will draw blood – so to speak.

AS FOR THE notion that Obama doesn’t have any authority to behave in the way he’s doing on this issue, I’ll be the first to admit that it would be preferable to have Congress pass some sort of plan that then got presidential approval.

At the very least, it would be lasting. Unlike this immigration proposal that could easily be revoked by the whim of a future president. Unlike the idea of health care reform, which is something we’re going to have for some time regardless of how much the ideologues rant about its evils and try to abolish it.

I don’t expect they’ll do so, but if Republicans were serious about the issue instead of trying to demonize all immigrants as “dirty Mexicans” ("¡Besame culo!" is my response to them), their response would be to come up with an alternate immigration reform plan that would supersede any Obama executive order.

But they won’t. We’re going to get as-yet unstated punitive actions against Obama by the new GOP-dominated Congress. And the American people (not just the undocumented amongst us) will be the ones who suffer from the inactivity to occur.

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Will anybody be pleased with presidential action on immigration?

President Barack Obama will be in Las Vegas Thursday, where he is to make public his proposal to implement at least partial immigration reform despite the hostile objections of ideologue-inclined Republicans.


As one who has an interest in the issue of our nation’s immigration policies, I’ll be waiting to see what the president has to say tonight.

BUT WHILE MANY political pundits and observers are getting all worked up over what they’re claiming will be a grotesque abuse of political power on behalf of people they’d sooner see removed from the nation, I’m wondering if the result of what we get is going to be something so weak and miniscule that “lame” would be the most accurate way to describe it.

Of course, doing anything at all will offend the ideologues. So to be honest, I don’t care what they have to say later Thursday and in coming days and weeks. They’ve been upset ever since the day Obama first considered running for president. There’s no pleasing them.

Thus far, Obama has refused during his presidency to push for serious immigration reform. Republicans in Congress have made their opposition known, and Obama has been willing to defer to them.

That is why the growing Latino population in this country is becoming less and less supportive of the president. Although to be honest, it should be said that the strong shares of the Latino electorate that Obama took in 2008 and 2012 election cycles were more about showing contempt for the Republican challengers than any real support for Obama.

I WON’T BE surprised if any GOP response to what Obama does Thursday night will wind up offending Latino voters to the extent that they will back whomever Democrats nominate for president over any Republican candidate!

But what will the president do? I honestly believe he’s still going to try to cater to the opposition’s hostility by crafting a proposal that will be miniscule and impact as few individuals as possible.

Thus far, Obama used his “executive order” powers to protect from the threat of deportation young people who were born elsewhere, but have lived the bulk of their lives in the United States. I have heard one theory that he could extend such protection to their parents.

Which is nice; it’s cute. But it’s still far short of fixing the bureaucratic mess that is our immigration policy. There will still be many millions of people being impacted negatively. All because some people want federal law to reinforce their own personal ethnic and racial hang-ups, rather than serve the nation’s needs.

THE COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION reform measure that has been discussed in Congress for years is the way to go because it would resolve the mess in one shot – rather than piecemeal. Having congressional action and presidential approval would be best for a permanent solution.

The flaw of an executive order is that any future president can repeal it at his or her whim. And you just know there will be an ideologically-inclined future occupant of the White House who will make it Priority One to do so.

Which would put a few million people in an even more precarious position than they are already in! That would be the ‘negative’ that the Latino electorate would be inclined to hold against the Obama administration’s legacy.

Admittedly, it is better to see Obama take some sort of action on Thursday rather than do nothing – which is the advice way too many conservative-oriented political observers want him to follow because it means their interests prevail.

BUT DEPENDING ON how wide-ranging his latest action will be will determine whether or not the president is doing the right thing.

Because the last thing anybody in our society needs is some sort of presidential action meant to create a political talking point that allows Obama to say he did something on immigration reform – without actually creating a policy that benefitted anybody.

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