Governing by executive order; does it mean ‘Shut up and do what you’re told’

How far removed are we from the old days when we had government officials who seriously tried to reach a consensus amongst the electorate on the great issues of our day?

It seems that everybody is choosing to govern these days by executive order, as in permitting the chief executive to issue orders that impose one’s will – regardless of whether there is a serious opposition to that stance.

NOW I KNOW the ideologues who are conservatively motivated amongst us will claim the chief practitioner of this style is President Barack Obama himself – what with the way he’s trying to force something to be done to address the bureaucratic mess that is our nation’s immigration policy.

He has had to use such powers because the Republican political people in Congress have made it clear they are determined to do nothing on this issue.

But while we technically now have an immigration policy that tries to acknowledge that we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of deporting the roughly 11 million individuals now suspected of living in this country without either citizenship or a valid visa, we need to realize it is fleeting.

As is evidenced by the recent activity in Kansas, where Gov. Sam Brownback issued a pair of executive orders for that state – one of which was solely to rescind the executive order that was imposed eight years ago by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius.

THAT WAS THE order extending civil rights protections to state government employees based on sexual orientation. Sebelius wanted to ensure that state employees would not be discriminated against if they were gay.

Brownback wants to ensure to the ideologues who support him politically that they don’t have to take any such attitude into consideration when they act on behalf of state government.

As has been pointed out by some observers, a state university professor who was gay woke up one day with certain legal protections, and by the time he went home from work that day, the protections were gone!

Brownback, in his statement, made a point of saying only the Legislature should be able to enact such changes, similar to the ideologues who are claiming only the now-Republican Congress can act in a lasting manner on immigration matters.

WHICH IS VERY realistic to say. Because the reality is that political partisanship is a cyclical matter. It is only a matter of time before a different president comes into power and decides to instantly eliminate the immigration protections that Obama has provided for certain newcomers to our country.

Because the Senate currently is stuck in a mode by which certain members of the GOP majority there are determined to make a stink about immigration. Protections provided by executive order are just too insufficient to amount to anything.

What gay people in Kansas now are going through is going to be the status of immigration across the country if lasting change isn’t made.

All of this is relevant in Illinois as well, because of the way in which new Gov. Bruce Rauner has issued several executive orders this week to impose many ideas he knows are going to be politically unpopular.

MOST RECENTLY, THERE was his desire for government “consolidation” that he says is inspired by DuPage County Chairman Dan Cronin – as in cutting government agencies and positions currently filled by people who might be politically opposed to his ideas – much of which are meant to bolster the interests of big business over those of the people.


He also is trying to use executive order powers to inhibit the finances of labor unions representing state employees, although the people who oppose that concept surely are happy that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has already said the governor can't tamper with the union dues withheld from worker salaries and state Comptroller Leslie Munger has said she will follow Madigan's legal advice.


These are two of among 15 orders he’s already managed to issue during his month in office. It will be intriguing to see how the Democratic-controlled General Assembly responds, and if we get the same type of tactics that Congress is usingto try to undo Obama’s immigration desires. Or will there simply be a waiting game for a future date when a new governor can instantly erase everything Rauner is doing now with a few swipes of the “executive order” pen?

Regardless of how one views the issues, you have to admit that this level of instability and lack of any lasting public policy IS the real problem our governments face today!

  -30-

The superficiality of government and public policy, as Simon likely tops Quinn in terms of public interest

Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday made a significant pronouncement with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius concerning the way that President Barack Obama’s health care reform will be implemented in Illinois.

SIMON: Looking to move up

Yet why do I suspect the bulk of people with an interest in public service or electoral politics will be more concerned with the activity of Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon instead.

FOR WHILE WE got to learn about the state partnership marketplace that will begin enrolling people in October, I suspect many people will find it easier to comprehend Simon’s uncertainty toward what office she wishes to seek than the deals of federal health care reform.

Simon on Wednesday held her own public event in which she said she does not plan to seek another term as the governor-in-waiting come the 2014 Illinois elections. So when Quinn proceeds to seek election to another term as governor, he’s going to have to have another second-in-command in mind.

Not that Simon told us what she wants to do – only what she doesn’t. Although she did pretty much confirm that all the speculation about her electoral future is true.

QUINN: Upstaged by Simon?

She may run for state attorney general or state treasurer – both positions of which have the potential to be vacant as the current incumbents are considering campaigns for the gubernatorial post. Or, she may take on state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka next year, assuming that no one else tries to pre-empt her by seeking the Democratic nomination for that post.

IT PRETTY MUCH seems that Simon, the daughter of long-time Illinois politico Paul Simon and herself a law school professor (Southern Illinois University College of Law), has her fate in the hands of Lisa Madigan.

For if Lisa goes for governor (following three terms as attorney general), she would go for the post of being Illinois government’s attorney. If Madigan decides that a fourth term is preferable, then Simon goes for one of the lesser posts – potentially treasurer since incumbent Dan Rutherford is likely to be one of the Republican candidates for governor next year.

SIMON: Daughter following in his footsteps?

Ironic, in that a poll published this week by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute has Lisa Madigan and Dan Rutherford as the top candidates among those rumored to be running in the Democratic and Republican primaries, respectively.

Supposedly, 31.9 percent of Democrats would back Madigan, while 10.2 percent of Republicans would prefer Rutherford. Which might sound like much, except that it is more than any other candidate except for the “undecided” option that gets 53.9 percent.

FOR THE RECORD, Quinn was included in the poll, and he gets only 22.9 percent – which is almost double the support for one-time Commerce Secretary and White House chief of staff William Daley.

But Madigan wallops them both!

It would seem that Simon will wind up with her choice of which statewide offices she will choose to seek – which will be encouraged by the Democratic Party because there’s an overwhelming chance that the rest of the party candidate slate for statewide office will consist of Chicago or suburban Cook County residents.

MADIGAN: Simon's fate in her hands?

Carbondale resident Simon will be offered up as the “face” of downstate Democrats.

I KNOW I already have stumbled across some speculation that Simon offers little of benefit to Democrats – since much of the Southern Illinois region either backs Republicans or wants Democrats who are willing to buck the party leadership and vote like Republicans on social issues.

For all I know, they’re the kind of people whose reaction to Quinn Wednesday morning was to be repulsed at the idea that the Affordable Care Act is going to be the “law of the land,” even though the notion of some 500,000 more people having health coverage ought to sound like a good thing!

Perhaps if Quinn wanted some serious coverage, he would have had Simon make her announcement in conjunction with his event, rather than prior to a United Negro College Fund luncheon like she actually did.

  -30-

Patti Solis Doyle needs a boss

Perhaps it is evidence that Democrats are getting serious, but it seems like ages since anyone has publicly suggested that presidential hopeful Barack Obama has no choice but to choose Hillary R. Clinton as his vice presidential running mate.

Either the masses who wanted a Clinton sequel in the White House are getting real, or there really will be a massive shift in Democratic voters to the campaign of Republican John McCain. Either way, the attention of those people who truly are trying to find a partner for an Obama presidency are looking to more serious candidates.

TO REHASH WHAT I have written before, I have been one of those people who always thought the idea of an Obama/Clinton (or Clinton/Obama) ticket was pointless. The two of them are identical in so many ways that the presence of one on the ballot adds nothing to the overall package that wasn’t already offered by the other.

Both Obama and Clinton are liberal enough on social issues and come from adopted urban backgrounds (Chicago vs. New York as opposed to their real homes of Honolulu vs. Park Ridge, Ill.). To come up with the traditional concept of a vice presidential running mate who helps plug the holes in the presidential nominee’s biography, Obama needs to look to anybody but Hillary.

I was always of the belief that an off-beat, but worthy, possibility for running mate would be New Mexico Gov. (and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations) Bill Richardson, but that Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., was a more likely choice.

He is a somewhat conservative white guy who won as a Democrat in a Republican-leaning state who would go a long way toward appealing to those people who (for whatever reason) have a problem with a candidate who is as blatantly urban as Obama is.

BUT WEBB HAS since said he is not in the running, and it is getting close to the time when Obama needs to have a partner. After all, he hired a chief of staff for the vice presidential candidate. It's about time Patti Solis Doyle learned who her boss will be.

So the Obama campaign’s professional vetters (when they weren’t coming under fire from Republican political operatives) have had to turn elsewhere.

Now around this part of the country, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who also is a former governor of the Hoosier state, is the focus of a lot of political talk.

He gets points from political geeks because he is one of them. He has held various state and federal elective offices for 22 years. Once the youngest governor in the United States, Bayh was elected to his first office in 1986 as Indiana’s secretary of state.

LITERALLY, HE HAS been an elected official since the days when Obama was a community activist working on behalf of the residents of the Altgeld Gardens public housing development on the city’s far South Side.

Yet unless Obama is suddenly willing to write off his Chicago ties of just over two decades and start portraying himself as the first Hawaiian to run for president, I can’t see the Obama/Bayh ticket. Such a ticket might take the electoral votes of the region once represented by minor league baseball’s old “Three Eye” League, but it might seem too parochial to the rest of the country.

The same might be said of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who supposedly was a favorite of Obama early on in the process. But her choice could appeal to some of the women who feel Hillary got snubbed, although I am sure there are others who will start bringing up comparisons to Geraldine Ferraro’s 1984 vice presidential bid – out of hopes they could turn Obama into the equivalent of Walter Mondale (who only won the electoral votes of his home state of Minnesota in that election).

Of all the names that have been tossed out as possible vice presidential candidates for the Democrats, the one that most intrigues me is Joe Biden, the long-time senator from Delaware.

HE MAY HAVE the national security credentials from his experience on various Senate committees during his 36 years in Washington. But this is also the man whose own presidential dreams were toppled due to a pair of so-called scandals.

Let’s not forget his so-called plagiarism of 1988 in campaign speeches (he got sloppy with his attribution in using lines once spoken by Neil Kinnock of Great Britain’s Labour Party), and the comments he made last year about Obama’s “articulate and bright and clean” nature that were interpreted by some people as a slur against African-American people.

While I always thought people were making too much of an issue out of Biden’s lame attempt to lavish trivial praise on Obama, it would be a test to see how an Obama/Biden pairing could co-exist. Has Obama truly forgiven the gentleman from Delaware, or is there some lingering hostility?

It would be ironic if Biden, whose career beyond his home state was supposedly left for dead, were to be resurrected beyond belief by becoming the vice presidential run ning mate, literally only a heartbeat away from the top job that he would desire for himself.

I CAN ALREADY hear the wisecracks from political people who find humor in jokes about a president needing an official food taster to protect him from his running mate. Think I’m kidding? Similar jokes are told in Illinois political circles with regard to lieutenant governor Patrick Quinn, who during the past six years has developed a strained relationship with Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

But on a serious note, I would take the presence of Biden as the ultimate evidence that no one (regardless of what kind of stupid thing they say or do) should ever be left for dead. Political redemption is always possible.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Is Joe Biden out of the political doghouse? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/28/joe-biden-obamas-vice-pre_n_115457.html)

Aides to Barack Obama are traveling about the nation in hopes of finding the perfect running mate (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/DN-vicesquad_30pol.ART.State.Edition1.4dce3c1.html) who will not have some skeleton in his life’s closet (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30veep.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin) that would cause embarrassment for Obama and defeat for the Democrats in the Nov. 4 elections.

Obama already has hired a chief of staff for his vice presidential running mate. All he needs now (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902451.html) is the running mate.