Last hurrah? Or a great big raspberry from General Assembly to Gov. Quinn?

It’s going to be intriguing to watch the General Assembly when it convenes for its fall session beginning Wednesday.

For it is the last time legislators will have to deal with the actions and desires of Gov. Pat Quinn. It will be interesting to see what their farewell gift, of sorts, will be to the soon-to-be former governor.

QUINN HAS SAID he wants to have his last significant action as governor be the signing into law of a measure that boosts the minimum wage in Illinois to just over $10 per hour – a nearly two dollar boost over the current state rate and three dollars higher than the federal minimum wage.

But to do so, he needs to have the state Legislature first approve such a bill.

Will a Legislature that often has been willing to thumb its nose at Quinn’s desires feel any need to act on the measure and give the governor a victory?

Or is the major act of this particular veto session – running Wednesday through Friday, then resuming Dec. 2-4 – going to be an override of a veto Quinn issued during the summer months with regards to regulation of ridesharing services.

HOW WILL THE Quinn years come to an end – a bill-signing ceremony meant to thumb his nose in the face of Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner, who has said he does not want any action on minimum wage until he become governor in mid-January?

Or with the General Assembly telling Quinn to “shove it” with regards to ride-sharing?

It would be times like this that Quinn wishes Rauner’s campaign rhetoric about “100 years” of Democratic power in state government (referring to the length of service of Quinn, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and state Senate President John Cullerton) were actually true.

Because then there would be a united front likely to push the minimum wage issue into a bill that would become law. The one-time consumer advocate who helped create the Citizens Utility Board could claim another achievement on behalf of “working people” before he leaves office.

BUT THE REALITY is that the personalities within the Democratic Party power structure often are at odds with each other – they don’t unite in the way that conservative Republicans do.

I have heard way too many legislators tell me that Quinn’s whims are so capricious that they can’t count on him to back them – so they feel no desire to necessarily back him.

Not even on an issue in which the referendum question earlier this month indicated strong support from voters. It’s not about deferring to Rauner in any way – I’m sure Democratic leadership is already preparing itself for a fight to ensure the new governor does not get a swelled ego just because of his new title.

It is why I expect the Quinn farewell to the governorship will involve an attempt to overturn the ride-sharing measure – involving those services such as Lyft and Uber that provide alternatives to taxicab service in select neighborhoods of Chicago and appeal to those people who want to live their whole lives through their smartphones and the apps they choose to download.

EXISTING TAXICAB SERVICES have complained those ridesharing services do not have to comply with the same regulations that your ordinary cab driver has to. That is why the Legislature this spring passed a pair of bills that called for things such as background checks on drivers, vehicle inspections and insurance requirements.

The ride-share people claim those rules are too strict. The business types who oppose any kind of government regulation also hated the bills.

Which makes it ironic that Quinn – the governor who supposedly was so hostile to business and the economy that voters dumped him from office two weeks ago – sided with them, although he said back in August his concern was that state regulations might interfere with municipalities that want to impose even tougher rules on ride-sharing services.

Will the General Assembly that managed to maintain its Democrat-leaning veto-proof majority despite an election that supposedly leaned so heavily Republican decide to use its power one more time on Quinn and tell him what he can symbolically do with his veto?

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

We’ll have to wait to see how the Illinois House reacts later this week, with the state Senate to follow up in early December if representatives do decide to override on ride-sharing.

Then, they can figure out how to fill the devastating gap in the state budget that will occur when the state income tax declines.

But that is a headache for another political day.

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It’s here!

Grass clippings from the Dresden nuclear power plant showed traces of a radiation associated with the nuclear power plants in Japan damaged by earthquake and tsunami. Aerial image provided by U.S. Geographic Society.

I must confess to being surprised at the reports about radiation from Japan being found in the outer fringes of the Chicago-area, along with Springfield.

Of course, those levels are so minute that no one thinks we’re suddenly at risk of being infected by radiation from the nuclear power plants that were damaged from the earthquake that caused a tsunami that caused the devastation across the island nation of Japan.

THOSE OF US who have been paying attention hear the daily reports of the recovery efforts. My daily check of The Weather Channel literally gives me an update of how the wind is blowing the radiation around, at times sending it out to sea where we are given the impression that such flow takes it away from people.

What it really does is sends it across the Pacific Ocean, where it eventually reaches the west coast, then works its way across the continental United States. It may be a big planet in one sense, but it truly is ONE planet.

We’re all interconnected, no matter how much we want to think there are barriers keeping us apart.

The fact that traces of radioiodine 131 – an isotope typically found in the nuclear plants in Japan – are being found in several states should not be surprising if we think about it logically.

WHICH MEANS I must confess that my initial surprise makes no sense. I should have known better.

For the record, the Daily Herald newspaper of suburban Arlington Heights reported that traces of the isotope were found last month during testing of grass clippings at the Dresden power plant near Morris and of the air at the Argonne National Laboratory near Darien, in addition to another sample that turned up in the air around the Illinois Emergency Management Agency radiochemistry laboratory on the far south side of Springfield – which happens to be the most remote part of town and the one farthest from the Illinois Statehouse.

So no, we can’t blame Japanese radiation for causing political stupidity – such as voting to repeal the indoor smoking ban at riverboat casinos – amongst our state legislators. That lack of common sense the General Assembly shows at times is purely their own idiocy traits at work.

We also shouldn’t think ourselves so far inland from the Pacific Ocean that we couldn’t be reached, considering that traces have also turned up in places in Alabama and South Carolina --- where the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean are the significant bodies of water with proximity.

WHAT THE DISTANCE has done is allow for the radiation to decay to the point where we shouldn’t worry about our food or water being tainted. The Daily Herald found one Argonne engineer who said the level of radiation we’re exposed to is less than we get hit with when x-rays are done.

I’m also pleased to learn that we have such regulatory requirements that testing for these samples is a routine procedure. So if a problem arises, someone is going to learn about it pretty quick.

Although in this case, the Illinois EMA (headed by Illinois State Police director-reject Jonathan Monken) said the state government is increasing its monitoring program ever since the earthquake/tsunami combo caused the nuclear power problems that threaten to extend the length of time it takes that nation to recover from the natural disaster.

Perhaps our handling of the situation is proper. It definitely is encouraging. Albeit the levels found in Illinois in recent days are 200,000 times lower than the limits that would be considered a potential problem. So Monken hasn’t exactly been confronted with a catastrophe.

NOT YET, ANYWAY.

It won’t be our ignorance of a situation that causes us problems in the future. It would be the lack of action to the information that is available that causes an emergency situation to develop in the future.

Perhaps now, we also realize the situation in Japan isn’t just a Japanese problem, but one we too should be keeping an eye upon, particularly every time we mow our lawns and wonder if our mulch that we’re disposing of has any levels of radioactivity.

Or even worse, if all that green grass we watch on Friday as professional baseball clubs begin the 2011 season is somehow tainted.

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