EXTRA: The long-awaited veto

When the General Assembly gave its approval last year to a measure that would allow for the creation of a casino in Chicago, four other casinos across the state and other assorted opportunities, that bill ultimately got stuck in a drawer.

It never was sent to Gov. Pat Quinn for approval. The Legislature’s leaders wanted to work out a side deal with the governor, but it never happened.

WELL, THE ILLINOIS Legislature gave it a second shot this year, voting to approve a bill that adds to the amount of gambling opportunities across the state.

And finally, on Tuesday, Quinn got a chance to express his opinion.

No!!!

A big fat veto.

QUINN USED HIS veto authority to reject the gambling expansion bill. And what is most notable about it is that it is really un-notable.

The reasons that Quinn gave for rejecting the bill are the same reasons he has been spouting out all along. Which means this is an outcome that should have been perceived all along.

And the General Assembly seems to have rightfully been justified in its bizarre actions last year. Although all they seemed to have done was delayed the outcome for a year.

Which really means that the status quo of recent decades will remain in place. Because House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has said it is unlikely the General Assembly can get together enough opposition to override the gubernatorial veto.

I’M SURE THEY will make the token effort to dump on Quinn when the Legislature reconvenes in November. But it most likely means that, come spring of 2013, there will be yet more government rhetoric about the desire for more casinos across the state.

We’ll hear about how desperate our government is for the share of the proceeds that it can command as a tax.

And we’ll hear all about how those devious sharks over in the land of Hoosiers (a.k.a., Indiana) are costing Illinois so much money by attracting our residents to those casinos in places just across State Line Road like Hammond, Gary and East Chicago.

Which is why I found it interesting that Quinn, in his veto message, said there’s one thing that Indiana does that he’d want Illinois to do as well – a ban on campaign contributions from the managers and owners of casinos.

“WE MUST PREVENT campaign contributions by gaming operators from infecting our political process,” Quinn wrote.

Although considering how strong the itch is in some legislators to have more casinos in Illinois, I’d say the “infection” has already occurred. Inoculation may well be futile by this point in time.

I also found it amusing to learn that Quinn was upset that the oversight of a casino in Chicago proper would be different from the oversight by the Illinois Gaming Board that applies to all other casinos.

“Permitting the Chicago casino to operate without the appropriate oversight of the Gaming board is not good for Illinois,” Quinn wrote.

WHICH WOULD PROBABLY be appreciated in those segments of the state outside the Chicago metro area, except that many of those people think so low of Quinn these days that he won’t get many bonus points.

Although it will tick off that segment of Chicago that fully expects any Chicago casino to be operated differently because it will be on a larger scale than any of the existing operations that began their lives as riverboats offering cruises while people gambled their money away.

Which means my guess is that all day today, there are going to be all kinds of people taking the name of Quinn in vain.

Then again, that has been the life story for the Mighty Quinn. So what else is new?

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Gambling again, didn’t we just do this?

We’re back to playing political chicken, it would seem.

For the Illinois House of Representatives this week decided once again to take its best shot at passing a measure that would give us more, more, more casinos than we already have.

TRYING TO BOLSTER the state’s finances and get Illinois out of debt at the expense of the weak-willed who can’t resist the chance to throw away their money – based on the pipe dream that they will become instant millionaires and never have to work a day in their lives ever again!

Remember last year?

The General Assembly passed a bill that would have created more casinos, while also allowing for slot machines to be installed in places like horse racetracks and at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield.

But the Illinois Senate pulled a maneuver I had never heard of before.

TO PREVENT GOV. Pat Quinn from using his “veto” power to kill the bill off, the bill was stuck in a desk drawer controlled by Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago.

After all, if the bill never went to Quinn for consideration, he couldn’t reject it.

The theory was that the legislators would work on Quinn’s psyche during the summer months to sway him, then would let him have the bill when he could be trusted to sign it into law.

But it seems this was one time that the high-minded and principled Pat Quinn (at least he thinks he is) actually stuck to his convictions. He was never swayed.

The newest 'casino' -- legislators gamble that Gov. Pat Quinn has no political willpower

FOR ALL I know, that piece of paper is still sitting in a drawer – unless it got used as a napkin by chance on one of the late nights that legislators were at work and they ordered in pizzas to tide themselves over.

The line about the napkin may be a joke. Then again, so was the whole effort last year.

Which is why I find it laughable that legislators are going through the same process again this year.

The Illinois House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill, and the Illinois Senate says it is inclined to support the measure. It seems that state Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan, still wants that casino in Park City – a dinky speck of a town that happens to lie within his legislative district.

THE FACT THAT got pointed out in the reports this week is that 69 state representatives voted in favor of the measure – whereas it would take 71 representatives to vote for it should Quinn veto the bill and the General Assembly tries to override him.

Can two arms be twisted by the proponents of more legalized gambling (who invariably will argue that I am being biased by refusing to refer to it as ‘gaming’) to ensure that the General Assembly can run roughshod over the Mighty Quinn?

Or will the legislators have to find another desk drawer in which to stick this particular version (which isn’t all that different from what got voted on last year) of the bill?

Meanwhile, the people of Danville, Rockford, Park City and some place like Lynwood, Ford Heights or Country Club Hills will get all delusional about the chance to have legal casino gambling within their boundaries.

PERHAPS MAYOR RAHM Emanuel will follow up his self-declared victory in hosting the NATO Summit (the city did not collapse into rubble from the rabble of protesters) by stepping up the political pressure on Quinn to get him to give in – particularly since the city would get the long-desired land-based casino (4,000 gambling posts!).

Although since that aspect was never the part that concerned Quinn (he hates the inclusion of slots at non-casinos, thinking they will cut into the market for the already-operating casinos), I don’t see that he would be swayed.

If anything, state Rep. Louis Lang, D-Skokie, a long-time legalized gambling proponent, may have put this issue best. He told reporter-types at the Statehouse in Springfield that all these gambling opportunities would create up to $300 million more per year in tax revenues to the state.

Will Quinn remain so ‘mighty’ at the thought of saying ‘no’ at a time when Illinois state government really can use every penny it can get its hands upon?

OR IS IT true that “Every man has his price,” and $300 million might be the price for Pat Quinn?

At this point, nothing would surprise me!

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Will Quinn approve despised measures?

I suspect we’re going to get to see a lot of the official gubernatorial clothespin this summer.

QUINN: Holding his nose all summer?



By that, I mean that Gov. Pat Quinn is going to wind up applying his signature of approval to many measures he will wish he could reject. He'll need something to hold his nose shut while he signs various bills into law.

AT LEAST THAT is the impression I got from reviewing Quinn’s comments on Wednesday – the day after the Illinois General Assembly completed its business for the spring session.

Our legislators are now on their way back home, not to return until the veto session come fall. And no, I don’t expect they’re going to be undoing many measures that Quinn rejected this summer.

The simple fact is that Quinn is going to have to ‘suck it up,’ so to speak, and approve many bills approved by the Legislature – even though they go against his wishes.

Primary among these is the measure that would give Chicago the full-blown casino that certain city officials have desired for decades, and that even Mayor (for all of two weeks) Rahm Emanuel has given some serious plugs to.

QUINN DOESN’T HAVE objections to putting a casino in Chicago. He’s willing to let that happen. What he hates is the way the General Assembly went about approving an urban casino – they tacked on a lot of gambling-related goodies for the rest of the state.

Will this soon be the Mighty Quinn?

Quinn thinks that makes the bill too top-heavy, and he wishes he could veto it.

Yet if Quinn had the nerve to do that, he’d be putting at risk some serious revenues that both Illinois state and Chicago city governments are hoping for in order to help dig them out of their financial messes.

There’s also the fact that the only reason some legislators voted for the Chicago casino bill was BECAUSE OF the other stuff – such as the casinos in Rockford  and Danville, along with near Waukegan and some site in the south suburbs (Country Club Hills, anyone?).

QUINN WOULD MAKE a lot of enemies if he were to publicly reject a Chicago casino because he didn’t want anyone else (besides the downstate cities that already have riverboat casinos) to have gambling amenities in their communities.

Quinn on Wednesday called the gambling measure “excessive” and “top-heavy.” But I’d bet money on the fact that at some point within 60 days, he’s going to call it “the law!” He’ll give it his approval.

He’ll try to justify the urban benefits and go out of his way to ignore the other provisions – which will manage to offend those locals who only want to talk about such benefits (slot machines at the airport and at racetracks, including the Illinois State Fairgrounds racetrack in Springfield).

I expect Quinn also will wind up having to approve the state government budget for fiscal year 2012 (which begins July 1), even though it calls for up to $2billion in additional cuts beyond what Quinn proposed.

AND THOSE CUTS are in the areas of education and public safety programs.

In short, it acknowledges the fact that real people will wind up suffering, and that people who talk solely of cutting budgets in order to balance government finances these days are purely politically partisan in nature.

Quinn does have the “amendatory veto” power that allows him to make some changes. As in he can take money away from programs. He doesn’t have the power to add it.

Which means that if this $2 billion cut is too much for Quinn, he’d have to consider an outright veto. Which would mean calling the General Assembly back to Springfield for an emergency session so as to approve a budget.

BUT NOW THAT the Legislature’s May 31 deadline has passed, we’re now in that time period where a larger-than-usual majority (60 percent) is needed. Which means Democratic Party politicos can no longer ram acts of policy through on their own.

If Quinn lets this fall into the hands of Republican officials, he risks becoming “Mudd” in the eyes of his alleged political allies. He’s probably going to have to take this hit too.

Another hit he’ll have to take involves the boundaries prepared and approved by the General Assembly for the state Legislature and the Illinois congressional delegation. He says his staff is thoroughly reviewing every district to see how fair they are.

That’s to give him cover for when he does apply his “Pat Quinn” signature to the legislation.

DEMOCRATS ONLY DOMINATE the process if they approve new maps for the upcoming decade on their own. If Quinn “vetoes,” then we wind up having to revert to the process of past decades – where a bi-partisan commission deadlocks and a random name gets drawn from an Abraham Lincoln-owned hat or glass bowl.

It would be the ultimate in political stupidity if Republicans gained control of the process through that lottery BECAUSE Quinn applied a veto. It means, he won’t do it.

In fact, I’m wondering if the biggest “veto” Quinn will dish out this summer will be his rejection of a bill allowing Commonwealth Edison and Ameren to raise their rates for utility infrastructure improvements.

The governor will draw the wrath of the utility companies for doing this. But he’ll get away with it, because I don’t know of a single soul who sympathizes with Com Ed.

  -30-

Surprise, surprise! Stroger vetoes attempt by critics to restrain his final months

I’m sure there are political observers who are now condemning Cook County Board President Todd Stroger for the fact that he used his veto power to kill a proposal intended to be a good government gesture by the full county board.

But when one considers that the so-called good government gesture was really nothing more than a cynical move in and of itself against Stroger, I can’t say I am all that offended by the fact that the lame duck president refused to play along.

TO BE SPECIFIC, the county board of Commissioners last week approved a series of measures that restrict the county president’s authority, particularly when it comes to spending of county money. There are those who fear that Stroger will use his final months in office to reward his allies financially – at county expense.

Stroger made it clear the day the county board acted that he was not going to go along with this political attack willingly. On Monday, he carried through on that promise by issuing the veto on the ordinance that would impose a hiring freeze on county government – unless Stroger could justify any new hires on the grounds that they constituted a legitimate county emergency.

Now I read those same news reports that everybody else did in recent weeks – the ones that implied Stroger bought new furniture for his government office and was giving significant pay hikes to people who had family ties to himself.

I’m not saying I necessarily approve of the idea that Stroger seems to want to use every remaining bit of time he has in Cook County government to his advantage. A part of me thinks the county board members who voted 16-1 to restrict Stroger’s power were well-intentioned, if misguided.

WHICH MAY MAKE county board member William Beavers (the “1” in the “16-1” vote) the most logical county commissioner when he called the moves “ridiculous.”

My bottom-line thought process on this issue says that political people need to get over the level of disgust they feel for Stroger and accept the fact that Todd still has six-and-a-half months remaining on his four-year term.

He still has the authority to do things, and the idea that he should be restrained for the rest of his term because of his electoral loss in the Feb. 2 primary comes off as petty politicking on the part of the people who voted against Stroger.

To be honest, the pettiness expressed against Stroger offends me much more than anything Stroger does. The fact is that he won back in 2006, and that victory gave him authority through December of this year.

IT IS THE reason why I also found it ridiculous for the Arlington Heights-based Daily Herald newspaper to editorialize last week that Stroger needs to resign his post. If anything, we’re stuck with him. We will be rid of him soon enough.

Come December, we will get a transition, most likely to Alderman Toni Preckwinkle. Be honest, Cook County will remain a Democratic Party bastion in the Nov. 2 general elections, it is the suburban collar counties that will decide whether or not Illinois swings Republican for a couple of years before things settle back to the status quo for future elections.

Personally, I can look at the long-range picture once Stroger leaves. Because all that this activity within the county board is going to cause is more legal activity – which ought to be the last thing anybody wants.

For the fact of that 16-1 vote is that the county board has more than enough votes to approve an override of Stroger’s “veto,” when they meet again next week.

WHICH MEANS THE restrictions on Stroger’s authority ultimately will become law. Stroger knows that. He knew it when he signed the paperwork calling for a veto.

This is about him saying he’s not going to let himself get pushed around for the next few months by the people who for the past four years have been taking his name in vain every time it gets mentioned. Which means that once the veto override is approved, the next step will be some sort of court battle. Stroger against the county board. Which means that the county’s attorneys will get a court battle, along with all the special legal counsels that will have to be hired at county taxpayer expense.

After all, whose side would the county’s attorneys take in this fight? The commissioners who are restricting goverment authority, or the president who is being smacked about? This particular fight ultimately comes down to the taxpayers being the losers – regardless of which side would prevail years from now.

I don’t see the need to put the Cook County taxpayers through that kind of an expensive legal fight, especially not with the tight economic times our government now faces, just because some political people want to reinforce the thought that Todd Stroger leaves office in Decemberr in defeat.

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Todd, Make up your mind!

Todd Stroger is going to get dumped on, no matter what he winds up doing with regard to an attempt to reduce the sales tax paid by people who shop in Cook County.

Stroger, the president of the Cook County Board, was absolutely correct when he denounced the actions of the county board, which earlier this week voted to repeal the sales tax that they approved last year.

WHEN THE VOTE came down (12-3, with two other county commissioners being absent), Stroger called it “political theater,” and noted that many of the political people who are now so quick to talk anti-tax were among the measure’s supporters.

So it is hypocritical for these government officials to start talking as though they are protecting the interests of the taxpayers when they sure didn’t do anything to protect those interests last year.

It’s sort of like they broke it, and now they want full credit for getting out the glue bottle to try to piece it back together.

Despite that, Stroger is the one who comes off as laughable, and not just because he doesn’t know the difference between “fertility” and “futility.”

STROGER IS THE official who responded to his colleagues’ attempt to score cheap political points for themselves by promising to use his “veto” power to prevent the tax cut from taking effect.

After all, the financial circumstances that caused county government to need the additional revenue last year are still in place. Some might argue that the struggling economy makes them just as severe now.

So there is one sense in which a “veto” would not be an irresponsible act. If Stroger would decide to play the role of hard-liner who makes the unpopular (but necessary) decisions, he might be able to gain the respect of people who are interested in good government.

He’ll never gain the respect of the people who have been bashing him about for the past couple of years – the ones who will add this debacle to the list they are compiling in their minds of reasons why we should have Anybody But Todd as county board president come the 2010 elections.

BUT STROGER MAKES himself look like a bigger fool than these people are because he can’t make up his mind.

Depending on which radio station one listened to on Wednesday, Stroger either is continuing with the hard-line or is reconsidering. He told WLS-AM during an interview that he may let the county board’s tax repeal remain in effect.

One of the problems with using politically strident rhetoric is that a government official has to take a stance, then stick by it.

If he starts flopping about to give himself wiggle room, he makes himself look indecisive. If he tries to do an about-face and change his mind, he comes off as a nitwit.

THAT IS THE position Stroger has put himself in.

As far as I’m concerned, Stroger does not deserve to be lambasted in this instance for holding the line on a tax hike. He deserves to be smacked about a bit because he’s trying to play both sides.

Now the hard-core political pundits have been making a big deal out of the fact that Mayor Richard M. Daley’s brother, John, was one of the county commissioners who voted for repealing the tax hike.

They say it is evidence that the Daley family has lost faith in Stroger, and likely will be giving its support to someone else to challenge him come the Democratic primary next year.

DALEY (THE MAYOR, not the commissioner) on Wednesday called the original act a “very questionable increase in taxes.”

Now I’m not going to say that I enjoy paying the roughly extra penny per dollar so that the county can get its share of the sales tax revenue. I know that I have a brother who occasionally crosses over into Will County when he needs to shop for something so as to avoid paying the Cook tax hike.

But I do have a problem with officials of other government entities dumping on Cook County. For the fact is that the sales tax paid by people who shop here is a collection of shares to the respective municipality, the county and the state.

To listen to Mayor Daley complain about “questionable” tax hikes makes me wonder if he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is, and consider some sort of decline in the city’s share of the sales tax (since city residents pay a higher rate than anyone in suburban Cook does).

I DOUBT HE would make that offer. Does that mean he just doesn’t think any other government entity ought to be allowed to tax, because it might make people less willing to buy things so that the city can get its share of the proceeds?

In short, I’m not stepping up in defense of Stroger in this incident. But the idea that he deserves to be singled out for blame is ridiculous. It took a whole slew of government officials to get the sales tax rate throughout Cook County as high as it currently is.

The idea that Stroger should be the lone official dumped upon is wrong.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: The whole Todd Stroger vs. the County Board fight over tax hikes (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2009/05/stroger-now-wants-to-talk-to-fellow-officials-before-deciding-whether-to-veto-sales-tax-repeal.html) is a politically partisan (http://www.suntimes.com/news/cityhall/1560810,stroger-cook-county-sales-tax-repeal-050609.article) match-up meant to make politicos look good. It has nothing to do with the good of the taxpayers.