Attorneys who prosecute for political reasons stink – no matter who does it!

There are those of a certain partisan political leaning eager to feed into a fantasy that a newly-elected state Attorney General Erika Harold would handle an investigation into the criminal behavior of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

MADIGAN: Ending AG term w/ Gov. investigation

Of course, much of what these ideologues want to say is “criminal” amounts to little more than the fact that Madigan, as a Democrat, disagrees with many of the policies they’d like to see the state impose on all of us.

SO PERHAPS THERE is a touch of appropo to the fact that soon-to-be former state Attorney General Lisa Madigan is doing her own investigation against the man – Gov. Bruce Rauner – who has been aggressive in spewing the rhetoric that “Speaker Mike” is a crook.

Specifically, Lisa Madigan wants to determine if the outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease that occurred at the Veterans Affairs facility in downstate Quincy in any way was worsened by neglect by the state that could constitute criminal behavior.

In short, is the man whose re-election desires are based on the notion that Mike Madigan is a crook really nothing more than a crook himself – one whose behavior resulted in aging military veterans in need of care becoming ill, or more than a dozen dying outright?

Or is all this rhetoric merely misuse of legal issues to try to punish one’s political opponents. Criminalizing politics – or at least the notion of being in an opposition party.

Ideologues would fight over whether Rauner … 

THAT MAY BE the scariest thought of all. Because it would put our society in the same league as many of the societies that we like to spew high-minded rhetoric about how superior we are to them.

To be honest, I don’t think Rauner has done anything blatantly illegal. Certainly nothing that ought to result in him spending the next few years following his possible Nov. 6 electoral defeat having to fight off criminal charges.

And while I don’t think that Lisa Madigan is somehow being a spiteful witch threatening to prosecute the man who keeps implying that her father is somehow worthy of criminal prosecution, you just know the conservative ideologues are going to want to view the issue in exactly such a manner.

… or Madigan is more of a 'crook'

If anything, Madigan’s actions are all the evidence needed as to why people who think that an “Attorney General Harold” ought to prosecute Speaker Mike are being downright ridiculous.

FOR THE PURPOSE of the state attorneys general is to serve as the lawyer advising state government on the limits of the law whenever they engage in their schemes on assorted issues.

In short, they’re there to defend state officials, not be the prosecutors. It really is the individual state’s attorneys across Illinois who ought to be taking on such criminal cases.

Which in this case means the state’s attorney for Adams County, Ill.; that Western Illinois place along the Mississippi River that would like to think it is still a significant port city – and not just the place where residents of the local veterans’ home died due to appalling circumstances.

Yet State’s Attorney Scott Farha has been quick to not only distance himself from any such action, he was even quicker to dismiss Lisa Madigan’s actions as being, “politically motivated.”

THAT MAY, OR may not be true. Yet it also creates circumstances where people can quickly conclude that Farha, as a Republican, is merely being protective of his political party counterparts – rather than trying to get to the truth of what happened in Quincy.

Did we believe Nixon when he said he was 'not a crook'

This has become a case where partisan politics is going to interfere with ever determining what occurred at that veterans’ home – and who was in any way responsible.

Trying to determine if Bruce Rauner was more of a crook than Mike Madigan was gets us tied up with side issues that most likely aren’t relevant to the case. They’re distractions.

Besides, those of us of a certain generation know that in politics, there’s only one man who deserves to be called a “crook” – that’s Richard M. Nixon. Although I’m wondering if President Donald J. Trump these days is giving him a run for the money for that label?

  -30-

Can cop firearm reporting rule work?

The part of me that, many years ago, was a full-time cop and crime reporter appreciates the fact that police officers are going to have instances where they use force on people.

To the point where we issue them firearms. Why else would we do so if we didn’t expect there to be occasions when they’d have to kill someone else “in the line of duty.”

WHICH IS WHY I’m skeptical of a new proposal that would require police officers to report for the record every single instance where they reach for that sidearm and use the threat of shooting someone as a way of intimidating them into submission.

A consent decree offered up by the Illinois attorney general’s office (and enforceable by the federal courts) to help govern the operating policies of the Chicago Police Department includes that very provision, and it is one that the police themselves don’t think much of.

Soon-to-be former Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan may be adding to her legacy of 16 years in that post, but many of the political people don’t think much of the policy, with possible mayoral candidate Paul Vallas (the one-time Chicago Public Schools CEO) jumping on the bandwagon and saying he thinks it’s a bad idea.

Personally, I don’t comprehend how a reporting requirement would work. Or if there’s any way it could work. It just seems too far out of the realm of what is practical.

CURRENT POLICIES REQUIRE that police officers be capable of accounting for every bullet they fire with their sidearm. If they pull the trigger and try to shoot someone, they have to be capable of justifying why they felt compelled to do so.

Police officers don’t (or aren’t supposed to) go around shooting people just for the sake of trying to intimidate them into submission.

My own memories of talking with street cops back in the day (which in my case was the late 1980s, back when the city’s murder rate for a few consecutive years averaged 900-something per year) was that if an officer reaches for that pistol, it’s because he seriously thinks someone’s life (possibly his or her own) is in danger.

VALLAS: Appealing for cop votes?

In short, it is a “shoot to kill” type of situation. Otherwise, reaching for the pistol and waving it about to try to scare someone (or firing off “warning” shots) is out of line, and just as reckless and inappropriate as killing someone who didn’t pose a threat.

WHAT I DON’T get is just how a reporting requirement of drawing a weapon could possibly work. After all, the decision to reach for the pistol is usually a reactive one – it happens in a matter of seconds.

Political people, including Vallas and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, say they fear causing an officer to have to spend that extra second thinking could be the difference between an officer able to do his job and one who gets the official police rituals performed at his (or her) funeral.

I also wonder if we fully trust officers enough to think that at the end of every shift they work, they’re going to do even more paperwork to acknowledge every incident where they felt compelled to reach down to grab their pistol.

Will we start getting people filing claims that a cop pointed a pistol at their heads? Will we start hearing stories of some cop playing “cowboy” and waving his firearm over his head?

AT A TIME when we have a significant share of our society not really trusting of law enforcement (that’s actually putting it mildly), while others throw their support to police officers usually to reinforce any racial, ethnic or whatever other hang-ups they may have, this could cause more confusion.

MADIGAN: Adding to legacy?

Although I do have to admit I approve of the notion of some sort of restriction on firearm use – even though I’m sure some would argue there already are sufficient limits on our police officers.

There may be people who think there’s nothing wrong with a cop using his/her pistol to intimidate a “punk” by pointing it upside his temple to scare him into submission. The problem is that life always presents situations (such as misfired shots) where something can go drastically wrong.

Disarming the police altogether might be a solution, but it isn’t one that is the least bit practical in our society of today.

  -30-

Illinois AG race about more than 'Obama clone' vs. 'lawyer Barbie'

By the time Kwame Raoul ...

There are times I wonder if people comprehend the purpose of the Illinois attorney general’s office.

For as I always comprehended it, the attorney general (for the past 16 years, it has been Lisa Madigan) has been the attorney for state government. Since our state is a large-scale operation, she has several assistants on her staff.

… and Erika Harold are through, … 

IT’S ALMOST LIKE she’s the head of a law firm whose sole client is Illinois state government. She’s there to defend the state every time someone within it screws up, while also making sure the rights our citizenry are not being violated every which way possible.

It amuses me every time I hear someone complain that the attorney general isn’t prosecuting someone, because it’s obvious to me they’re being swayed by some overbearing vision of what the post is.

Almost as though they think it’s the equivalent of the “state’s attorneys” that Illinois’ 102 counties all have. My guess is that if the attorney general ever tried to take on such tasks, there’d be a whole lot of griping from those local prosecutors about how she is grossly overstepping the bounds of her post.

All of this thought popped into my mind when reading a report recently (from Crain’s Chicago Business) about the state attorney general’s office and how its viewpoint is likely to be impacted by the elections to be held Nov. 6.

BECAUSE MADIGAN HAS made it clear she’s not staying in the post. The Democratic Party already has nominated a possible replacement (state Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago), but there are some Republicans who think their nominee (Erika Harold) is the lone GOPer who has a chance to win something come Election Day.

… what will remains of Lisa Madigan's way?

The Crain’s report talks of all the lawsuits Illinois has filed, or supported, throughout the Age of Trump we’re now in that challenge the federal government on various issues.

With Raoul saying he is a “last line of defense” from a federal government that would be very eager to play partisan politics against Illinois. Meaning he’d intend to pursue all the lawsuits that come from the Madigan Era of the attorney general.

While Harold is much less committal. She’s not offering up much details, but some are reading into her words that she’d be willing to have her staff dismiss the lawsuits they’ve started against the federal government.

“I BELIEVE THE attorney general’s office should not be using their scarce resources to enter into lawsuits for purely political purposes,” she told Crain’s. “I would only sue the federal government if Illinois law has been implicated or the federal government has acted in violation of the Constitution.”

Which is a nice, text book answer that sounds like it came from a law school student trying to suck up to the professor to get a better grade.

For the reality is that way too much of the issues and the law are open to interpretation. One person’s serious cause on behalf of the public becomes an ideologue’s pet issue that they want to dump all over.

And could it be the intent of an “Attorney General Erika Harold” to back off of trying to rile up the federal government in hopes that it might get President Donald Trump to quit getting riled up against Illinois every time he has so little to do that he takes to spewing out political bile on his Twitter account.

Obama, Raoul share just a neighborhood

ALTHOUGH I DID find it interesting to read in the Crain’s report that Harold supports the state lawsuit brought about by Madigan that challenges the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold $6.5 million in federal funds for local law enforcement in Illinois as a response to the concept of “sanctuary cities.”

All of this means we’re going to have a decision to make come Election Day when we get to the portion of the ballot related to state attorney general.

Just how much of a pain in the behind do we want our state government’s legal adviser to be? And to what degree are partisan political issues things that wind up being a part of the public good?

Perhaps an image of Harold that needs to be retired

Definitely something we voters need to give more serious thought to than believing the attorney general’s race to be nothing more than between a Barack Obama clone and a former Miss America who used her prize money to put herself through law school!

  -30-

EXTRA: Halloweenie creepies! Or, letting the childhood beggars loose!

About the most ominous memory I have of childhood trick-or-treat activity some four-and-a-half decades ago was one time my brother, Christopher, and I were walking around the neighborhood and we encountered a house where no one was answering the door.

'Letting the hounds loose' in my case would probably create a batch of kids wanting to pet the cute puppies, no matter how much they snarled and barked

Then, I happened to look over to the side, and saw the giant sign the homeowner had scrawled out by hand – informing all of us candy-seekers to “Scram!!!” No candy, or anything available at that house.

I DIDN’T FEEL like pushing it. My brother and I got out of there, and quickly found many other places where the local residents were more than willing to cough up the desired chocolates, sugary junk and occasional spare change that would make for a Halloween bounty.

To tell you the truth, I don’t really blame that guy (or whoever it was, I never did find out) who didn’t feel like giving out any candy to the neighborhood freeloaders who felt that Halloween was an excuse to beg publicly.

There’s a part of me that jokes about using my father’s dogs to try scaring away any kids who come near me seeking candy (not that they bite, it’s just that they’ll make a lot of noise toward anyone they don’t recognize). But I'll confess to having a small bowl of Snickers bars and other candy available for anyone who shows up later Tuesday.

In short, I always think of Halloween as something relatively harmless – and something I haven’t really celebrated since the last time I went trick-or-treating; which I think was at about age 7.

SO I HAVE to admit to wondering what the heck is wrong with our society that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan felt compelled to issue a statement telling people to check the state registry of people listed as sex offenders before letting their children loose.

MADIGAN: Warning us all of threat

You might just find out that someone living near you has something in their past they’d rather keep quiet about, but which Illinois law won’t permit them. It seems we’re far beyond the point in our society where we have to worry about that old urban legend about some kid getting cut up because they ate an apple with a razor blade inserted into it.

Which is something I always wondered was just a myth created by parents to justify confiscating some of the candy collected by their kids on the grounds they didn’t need to be hyped up on so much sugar!

  -30-

Who will make GOP bid for AG?

With Lisa Madigan making it public that 20 years of public service in state government is enough (for now) for her, it will be intriguing who decides to try to fill the state attorney general vacancy she has created.
 

MADIGAN: Who will replace her?

Various reports are speculating on the same names of government officials with ambition – the state Sen. Kwame Raoul (whom some like to think of as a Barack Obama clone), former Chicago Public Schools and Illinois State Board of Education official Gery Chico and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart are amongst the predictable picks for this post.

YET ALL OF the speculation is coming on the Democratic Party side – who will get the AG nomination for the right to try to replace Madigan. I’ll have to admit to being more intrigued by what will happen on the Republican side of the equation.

Thus far, there’s only one person indicating a desire to run for the GOP nomination for attorney general. That’s Erika Harold, an Urbana-based attorney who has one major credential to her name.

Some 15 years ago, she was chosen as Miss America (the last time someone from Illinois won that beauty/scholarship pageant title). She’s the one who (based off the impression she gives of herself on her Facebook page) expects those old photos of her in sash and tiara to create a lovable image that people will cast ballots for her to be Illinois government’s attorney.

 
I remember a few months ago when I first heard Harold was in the running I checked out their Facebook and Twitter account images, and found the dueling visuals of Harold with a U.S. soldier in uniform – compared to Madigan marching in Chicago’s Pride Parade.

HAROLD: Will GOP replace her?

WHICH HAD ME wondering if the conservative ideologues who have come to dominate the Republican Party in Illinois were planning on a borderline sexist and homophobic campaign style to try to knock votes off the Lisa Madigan tally.

Considering that Harold herself has made several unsuccessful electoral bids in the past for congressional seats from her central Illinois native region, it gave me the impression of Harold as someone intended to fill a ballot spot running against someone the Republican Party didn’t really think it had a chance of beating.

 
It certainly isn’t Harold’s legal credentials that will inspire many people to vote for her. The University of Illinois alumna is also a Harvard Law School graduate, and also is a member of the state Supreme Court committee on equality and the commission on professionalism.

Is there a yet-to-be-determined GOPer in race?

Which isn’t irrelevant. But it’s not exactly the standing in the legal community that’s going to make people think she ought to be the chief attorney who defends Illinois state government when it gets into trouble.

THAT TIARA AND sash are going to be the primary images that will get her whatever political support she manages to gain.

She certainly was named publicly this summer as the Republican preference for attorney general at the Illinois State Fair, when the GOP had its own political rallies to drum up support for the ticket.

But now that it won’t be a four-term incumbent (who also served a term in the Illinois Senate from the Ravenswood neighborhood) to run against, it has me wondering how quickly the Republican Party’s political operatives will try to come up with an alternate candidate.

RAOUL: Wanting to move up pol ladder?

I know the Republican Attorneys General Association issued a statement last week indicating that Harold is the GOP choice for the post and spewed predictable rhetoric about “lead(ing) the fight against public corruption and bring(ing) integrity to the Attorney General’s office,” I can’t help but think it is empty rhetoric.

PARTICULARLY THE LINES about how Lisa Madigan supposedly dropped out in fear of Harold’s pending campaign, which is, “so strong, in fact, that Lisa Madigan has decided she doesn’t want to run a campaign for re-election.”

DART: Giving up sheriff post for attorney?

A line that was the chuckle of the week last week for political operatives across Illinois of all persuasions.

Of course, Republicans do have to show some care in the way they handle this. Because if they’re too blunt in their approach, they could wind up triggering a brawl within the party ranks that could wind up making everybody look foolish and wind up tainting whoever does manage to win the GOP AG nomination.

Which may well be the ultimate fantasy of Raoul or Dart (whom I can remember the days decades ago when political people speculated he’d probably try to be Chicago mayor someday, along with Lisa Madigan as Illinois governor) or whoever ultimately winds up being chosen in the March 20 Democratic primary for the nomination.

  -30-

Does Illinois/Indiana border region personify our national partisan split?

I’m wondering if the politically partisan split our nation is currently engaged in during this Age of Trump can best be visualized by a very local place – that area at the city’s far southeast corner where Illinois and Indiana converge.
 

MADIGAN: Has Ill. backing DACA lawsuit

One venturing down to places like the East Side or Hegewisch neighborhoods might not think there’s anything special about State Line Road. Standing there, one might not think there’s anything terribly different about Chicago versus Hammond, Ind.

YET THE TWO states do take such differing approaches to the issues that confront our society these days. One almost has to feel sorry for someone with the misfortune to be born on the “wrong” side (based on their ideological leanings) of the street.

Illinois, because of Chicago’s dominance over the state, is solidly in the Democratic Party column. While Indiana’s major city (Indianapolis) doesn’t come close to outweighing the partisan interests of the rest of the state, allowing the Hoosier State to be solidly Republican.

Take the whole debate over immigration, particularly with whether President Donald J. Trump is in any way justified in wanting to do away with the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program.

Illinois this week became one of 17 states to join in a federal lawsuit challenging the president’s authority to do away with the program that was created by former President Barack Obama as a reaction to Congress’ refusal to do anything to address immigration reform.

 

DONNELLY: Pressure to pick Trump over Dems

INDIANA CERTAINLY ISN’T amongst the states supporting this legal action, which our state’s governor, Bruce Rauner, also is questioning the legitimacy of.

But the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan, is on board, thereby putting the official muscle of the state behind the legal action – of which none of the other so-called “Rust Belt” states are behind and only one other Midwestern state (Iowa) is supportive of.

Now before anybody argues that the Illinois House speaker’s daughter is overstepping her legal authority by getting Illinois involved in such a lawsuit, it should be noted the heavy share (nearly one-third) of Chicago that is Latino ethnic origins, and the heavy share of Chicago residents in general whose ethnic ties are to another nation and remain strong.

 

RAUNER: Theoretical stance misguided?

It could be said that Lisa Madigan would be behaving negligently if she didn’t get involved. The real question may be why Rauner won’t support her. His argument about immigration being federal would be stronger if Congress were actually willing to take on the issue.

NOW ONE FACTOR to consider is that the portions of Indiana just across the state line share the same heavy Latino and heavy immigrant characteristics of Chicago. But those people (who really ought to consider coming over to Illinois) are going to be aware of their political people not willing to fight for the issue.

One of their senators is Joe Donnelly, a Democrat from South Bend. Yet he is going to be solidly in the Trump-backing camp, regardless of what he may actually think about the issue.

The Washington Post on Thursday reported how Donnelly is one of a few Dem officials facing re-election in 2018 from Republican-leaning states who are getting local voter pressure to support Trump’s stances on issues.

Donnelly reportedly has been told by many constituents how they will turn on him should he not support the president (whom Illinois overwhelmingly rejected in 2016 but Indiana solidly supported in the Electoral College).

SO ANYBODY WHO’S perceiving Democratic Party plots to undermine the president must keep in mind that the Democratic Party itself won’t be fully united in its presidential opposition.

 

TRUMP: Giving rise to our national divisions

If activists backing immigration issues think this will be a key to a successful Trump Dump come the next election, it might not be as solid as they wish it to be.

I don’t doubt there is a segment of our society that views Trump’s ignorance on so many issues and views it as a plus because it matches up with their own level of vacuousness or bias on certain issues.

The sad part is that all we have to do to see this difference of opinion in action is to venture to our own city’s southeastern boundary – provided you can put up with the aroma from the nearby oil refinery in Whiting.

  -30-

How likely are we to see a Madigan/Harold political brawl in '18?

How likely are we to see ...

There once was a time when political observers took seriously the possibility that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan would make a credible attempt to run for governor.

But the presence of her father, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, creates so many potential headaches that Lisa has had to postpone her own political ambitions – to the point where 2018 likely will be her effort to seek re-election to a fifth term as the head attorney for state government.

 

... this political matchup on Nov. 6, 2018?

NOW, FROM THE land of academia (and crummy Big Ten football teams) known as Champaign-Urbana comes the potential for the most visible Republican challenger Lisa Madigan has ever had (does anyone really remember Steven Kim or Paul Schimpf?).

Reports starting with WCIA-TV in Champaign and spreading elsewhere indicate that local attorney Erika Harold is being contemplated for the GOP nomination for the post.

For those of you whose memories are faulty, Harold is a young woman who twice has tried running for Congress from her central Illinois district – only to lose both primaries.

Although the line that will get Harold national attention, and is the bit that Republican operatives are hoping gives her a chance to actually win against Madigan, is that back in 2003, she was Miss America.

AS IN A former Miss Illinois who bumped up to win the big prize of what officially is a scholarship pageant (and which enabled Harold herself to complete her Harvard Law School education) and spend the year wearing a tiara and making public appearances while looking glamorous at every opportunity.

For what it’s worth, she now practices law out of an office in Champaign (she probably realizes she’d be totally irrelevant if she tried moving to Chicago and becoming a part of the political scene here).

She has political ambitions. But she’s never been able to succeed. She can’t even win Republican primaries – although part of that may well be that the kind of people who vote in Republican primaries are just the type who would have a hang-up over another defining Harold characteristic.

Sexist to publish this old Harold image?

She is a light-skinned black woman. Which ought to be completely irrelevant. But in today’s Age of Trump, a political climate where people who have racial hang-ups are given a certain sense of credibility, it does.

THE TRICK WILL be to see if Harold can get a free ride through the Republican primary process in order to gain the party nomination and a chance to run against Madigan.

In which case, I’m sure Republican types will go overboard with talk about how Lisa’s time has passed (and probably never should have come about to begin with due to her father). We’ll probably also get an overdose of the glamour shots – perhaps to create the image of a more desirable woman in a political post?

And before anyone claims that’s a sexist image to create, I can’t help but notice that Harold herself uses a Facebook page to promote herself, and often digs up old photographs of herself from her Miss America days – such as the photos of herself she published just last week on Independence Day, signing autographs for soldiers at Fort Belvoir while wearing her tiara.

Recent images used on social media by Erika Harold ...

Of course, the fact that Harold has never won a thing politically means she has little else to run on other than this image that a segment of our society will find attractive – and another will find trivial.

IF ANYTHING, I find it sad that the Republican Party operatives have such a cynical view that they contemplate the need for Harold’s image – figuring that to beat a woman, they need to find one of their own. Nothing about a person’s actual qualifications for the post.

Which also is sad, because I don’t doubt that Harold has certain intellectual qualifications and probably could have been developed into a credible candidate for political office if she were treated seriously – rather than as eye candy for the electorate.

... and Lisa Madigan

Of course, as I already stated, the key will be whether Harold gets a free pass. Because if there’s some ambition type with a law degree who decides HE wants to run for Illinois attorney general, I don’t doubt that many Republican primary voters will prefer him to Harold. So we’ll have to see if a Madigan/Harold brawl ever occurs.

Although considering the anti-intellectual strain that runs through a segment of the GOP electorate these days, Harold may have to sacrifice her best credential of being a Harvard Law grad and emphasize her undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois – crummy football teams and all!

  -30-

EXTRA: If Kennedy, other Dems, really want to be called “governor,” maybe they should move to England

Chris Kennedy, the son of a former presidential hopeful and nephew to a president and a long-time senator, has taken the step he has never been willing to in his past political fantasies – he declared a candidacy Wednesday for Illinois governor.
 

A Kennedy joining the gubernatorial rat-race

Kennedy, the son of Bobby and himself the long-time manager of the formerly Kennedy family-owned Merchandise Mart property, says he’ll seek the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination for the 2018 election cycle.

WHICH PUTS HIM on a lengthy list of people who have allowed their names to be thrown into the mix; some of whom likely just enjoy the idea of having such speculation being bandied about when people discuss them.

For what it’s worth, that list right now includes:

·        Amaya Pawar, a Chicago alderman,

·        Robin Kelly, in whose congressional district I currently reside,
·        Kwame Raoul, a state senator from President Barack Obama’s neighborhood in Chicago,
·        Michael Frerichs, the Illinois treasurer,
·        Daniel Biss, a state senator,
·        Cheri Bustos, a member of Congress from the Quad Cities,
·        J.B. Pritzker, the financially well-off man (the Hyatt Hotels fortune) who could potentially make incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner look like a pauper,
·        Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who has long been rumored to have gubernatorial fantasies, and
·        Pat Quinn, the former governor who has never let being a political long-shot stop him from running for a government office.

Will people feel the same way about his son?

Needless to say, it’s highly unlikely we will have a 10-candidate ballot to choose from in the Democratic primary to be held in March 2018. This list will winnow down considerably, and it may be possible that the person who winds up on top is someone who hasn’t come forth yet.

ALL OF WHICH is to say I don’t have a clue who will be the challenger to Rauner when he seeks another term as Illinois governor.

As for whether any of these people can actually beat the millions of his own dollars that Rauner has already committed to spending to get himself re-elected along with a General Assembly more sympathetic to his anti-organized labor political agenda, that remains to be seen.

Will Caroline draw more attention to her candidacy

About the only thing I do know for sure is that having to think about this election cycle more than a year before the actual primary gives me a sense of nausea.

And as for the Kennedy name, we’ll get to see whether the multi-generational political family (supposedly, JFK daughter Caroline is contemplating a bid for office in New York, and there are countless Kennedy cousins throughout the years who have succeeded) can add Illinois to the list of states and cities where voters chose to elect one of their members to handle the duties of governing themselves.

  -30-

It’s now the Madigans on GOP “hit” list

Let’s be honest; it was just a matter of time before the Illinois Republican Party – which is engaged in active efforts to besmirch the public reputation of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago – added his daughter, Lisa, to their list.
 

GOP adds Lisa to 'hit' list

So learning Monday that the GOP was adding the Illinois attorney general to their BossMadigan.com list of political people we should vote against was surprising only in the sense of “Why did they wait so long to do it?”

YOU’D HAVE THOUGHT that picking on the daughter of the House speaker would have been a move they would have made early on.

 

Schneider speaks out against Illinois AG

The Illinois Republican Party, which is continuing for the 2018 election cycle in its strategy of trying to get voters to believe that Madigan, as in Michael, is all that is wrong about government, and anybody who associates with him also needs to be dumped.

Replaced, of course, with a Republican official who’d be willing to vote in lock step with the ideals of Gov. Bruce Rauner – who actually is dipping into his personal fortune for several millions of dollars to pay for all this politicking.

He wants re-election next year real bad – primarily because he doesn’t want to go into the history books as “Gov. Gridlock, the guy whose own partisan political games prevented the state from ever approving an operating budget during his governing stint.

BECAUSE THAT’S THE direction we’re headed in, unless something seriously shifts on the political partisan scale.

That is part of what Illinois Republican Chairman Timothy Schneider (also a Cook County Board member) had in mind with his Monday morning conference in which he trashed the speaker’s daughter – which is something political insiders know you’d best not do.

 

How will speaker choose to retaliate?

Michael Madigan tends to take it personally when someone says something nasty about his daughter, and usually figures out a clandestine way to retaliate.

So I can’t help but wonder how far up Schneider goes on the Dem hit list for his comment, “Lisa Madigan is working for the speaker, not the people.” Or his other line about how the Madigans are, "stop(ping) reform by causing a crisis."

EVEN THOUGH IT can be argued that the attorney general, by trying to force the state’s ongoing (for nearly two years) budget stalemate to come to a head, she is acting on behalf of the people.

What we have is Rauner wanting to tie in other issues to a budget while Madigan (the speaker) wants those other issues (many of which would harm organized labor interests) dealt with separately.

 

The ultimate beneficiary?

Because he knows that separately, the Illinois General Assembly can be counted on to kill them off. Only by forcing them to be part of a budget agreement that must be approved do they have a chance to become reality.

Lisa Madigan has used her post to put political pressure on the sides of state government to force them to get around to passing a budget sooner, rather than later.

SPECIFICALLY, SHE WANTS a court to rule that the state payroll cannot continue to be met once the month ends, unless a budget is in place. Which is in accordance with the spirit of the state Constitution that says a budget must be approved by the legislature and governor for government to operate normally.

A hearing is scheduled for next week, and we could learn something before Feb. 28. Unless government officials can get their heads out of their partisan behinds and work together by month’s end, we could get the sight of government employees not getting paid.

Which would put them in the same category of those Illinois residents who rely on government programs whose funding is on hold, or the public school systems that are months late in getting the aid payments they rely on for their funding. Or those public universities that are losing students (with Chicago State U. facing possible closure) because of the uncertainty.

That’s a lot of angry people who will be prepared to blame everybody, and not just Mike Madigan, for Illinois government’s flaws. Which might make Lisa Madigan the most responsible person we have on the Illinois political scene.

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Is Lisa Madigan on right track toward getting state to a balanced budget?

I’ll make one bold declarative statement before admitting I don’t have a clue how the situation concerning Illinois state government and its lack of a balanced budget is going to be resolved.
 

MADIGAN: Fighting for state budget

That statement is to say that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has the spirit of Illinois law clearly on her side when she and her staff of attorneys argue that Illinois government employees ought not to get paid until the budget mess is brought to an end.

THAT DOESN’T MEAN I believe her legal actions filed last week in the courts are going to be successful. Because having the “spirit” of the law on one’s side is nice, but doesn’t necessarily mean squat.

It could turn out there’s a technical legal interpretation that will be concocted by attorneys somewhere who are able to convince a judge of its merits. The fact that state law intended for the lack of a balanced budget in place to prevent government from operating might wind up meaning less than the 49 percent of the electorate that gave Hillary Clinton a plurality for the presidency.

She still lost! And it’s possible the courts will not think much of the Madigan move that asks the courts to issue an order preventing the Illinois comptroller’s office from meeting state payrolls come March 1.

Some think that Madigan’s real intention is to put pressure on the General Assembly (including the Illinois House of Representatives led by her father, Illinois House speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago) and Gov. Bruce Rauner to put together a budget.

AS IN HER legal request would become a moot point IF legislators and the governor can put aside their partisan political differences and approve something before Feb. 28.

 

Will Rauner, Madigan be able to resolve budget,...

Of course, they have been unable to do anything ever since Rauner became governor in January 2015. They did have that tentative spending plan in effect for the second half of 2016, but that expired when the balloons came tumbling down at New Year’s Eve parties all over the state.

Right now, we’re back in the same situation where state tax dollars are being collected and money exists, but it cannot legally be spent because of the lack of a specific plan detailing how it is to be spent.

Which is not an irresponsible idea at all. We ought to be able to see exactly how our tax dollars are going to be used. Would you really want any government officials to be able to spend the public’s money based on their own whims?

... thereby making speaker's daughter moot?

THE ONLY THING that has kept state government going since July 2015 is that some government programs operate under federal court orders that prevent state budgetary requirements from being literally applied to them.

There also was the previous legal exchange in which a Cook County judge issued an order saying the state payroll could not be met, but then a judge in St. Clair County (on the Mississippi River near St. Louis) ruled it had to be met. Although the Illinois Supreme Court came up with a ruling later that poked away at the St. Clair action.

The logic of meeting the state payroll without a budget is that the state, after all, has contracts with its employees’ unions. In fact, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is opposing Madigan’s current legal maneuver. They want state workers to keep getting paid – regardless of the top-ranking officials’ political ineptitude.

That ultimately is what a judge somewhere is going to have to decide – is the long-term fate of the state worth the hassle of the working stiffs getting their paychecks delayed? Which I’ll acknowledge would be a hassle to people who need that money they’ve earned in order to survive.

BUT THERE ARE other people suffering because the government programs upon which their livelihoods depend are being delayed. There are public schools across the state whose aid payments don’t come close to arriving on time. Just listen to your local school officials when they start talking bluntly about what they think of Illinois state government!

Perhaps the reality of being a government employee is that, while there are many perks and benefits to such jobs, one of the drawbacks is that you can be caught in the crossfire whenever people like Rauner and Madigan (Michael, that is) decide to take each other on.

The one plus is that having all these people angered over their incomes being tampered with probably is the only way that Rauner, Madigan and the other legislators will be motivated to give our state a balanced budget proposal.

Which, in the end, is the long-term solution to resolving the financial issues that make Illinois government a particularly laughable entity for government geeks to consider.

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