Thursday, June 4, 2015

Now it’s Madigan’s turn to fight; how quickly will Rauner bite back?

What with former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s arraignment being postponed from Thursday to next week, there will be full attention amongst political geeks to how Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, will rebut the attacks he’s receiving from Gov. Bruce Rauner these days.

RAUNER: Will he get last word after all?
The Illinois House is scheduled to be in session on Thursday. While it is unlikely they will do anything of any lasting substance, it will give Madigan the chance to do things meant to fight back against the governor.

WHO HAS MADE it clear that he wants his politically partisan agenda passed, and is willing to force its passage by tying it to the attempts to create a state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Of course, we should keep in mind that Rauner’s latest attack effort on Wednesday by announcing a plan to cut the state budget so severely AND try to claim the cuts are all Madigan’s fault was motivated in part by the way the Democratic legislative leaders blasted him on the last regularly-scheduled day of the General Assembly’s session on Sunday.

The Illiana Tollway dying, along with all state museums being closed and state airplanes being cut off except for “emergency purposes” comes across as petty by the governor.

That was when Madigan compared Rauner to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich – whose efforts to strong-arm the Legislature into accepting his authority caused so much resentment that it was the genesis of the desire to impeach him!

BUT THOSE ATTACKS were a response to Rauner’s insistence that his ideological desires were more important than the actual business of government.

The point of this recitation is that Madigan, along with state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, have an ongoing battle with the governor. One that has shown both sides to be rather juvenile. Any insistence that either one of these three guys is “absolutely right” and the other is “diabolically wrong” IS the problem.

So what we’re likely to get on Thursday is more juvenile nonsense. Which is a shame. Perhaps it is time for Madigan (and Cullerton) to show they’re the bigger people.

Although the talk that the Illinois House will consider a bill to implement something resembling worker’s compensation doesn’t seem all that legitimate. Because it seems that Madigan’s staff has concocted something that has little to do with what Rauner actually wants.

Did anyone ever envision the people here could behave so foolishly?
COULD THIS BE merely another measure that the Democratic supermajority votes to reject? Thereby causing rhetorical claims that “nobody wants this!”

More politicking. Which the longer it goes on, the more difficult it will become to actually approve a balanced budget for the state of Illinois.

There is the complicating factor, as far as Rauner is concerned, in that he does have a solid Democratic majority in both chambers of the General Assembly. The “supermajority,” meaning there are enough Democrats on hand to override any veto attempt the governor might make.

It is the reason that Rauner and his backers are wrong when they say that his victory in last year’s election gives him the authority to force the need for the conservative ideologue changes he’d like to see to benefit his business-oriented allies.

VOTERS DIDN’T DO anything in 2014 to change the fact that this is a Democratic-dominated Legislature. They are a power to be dealt with, and they have their own supporters with interests that are just as legitimate as those business executives!

So we’ll all, or at least those of us who are politically obsessed, be watching on Thursday to see how Madigan rebuts Rauner’s talk of closing prisons – and claiming the newly-unemployed guards are now out-of-work because of Madigan.

It makes me wonder if the primary reason for Rauner to call a Cabinet meeting Wednesday afternoon (and opening the first few minutes of the event to reporter-types) was to give him a chance to take a few more digs at Madigan before the political puppet show that will take place on Thursday.
 
That is the real problem Illinois government faces these days! That is what we really need to overcome!

  -30-

No comments: