Mendoza picking the person she’d allow to replace her as comptroller

I happened to be watching the “Chicago Tonight” program (one of the few local news shows worth watching, by the way) this week, when Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza used political-speak to make it known she’d like to be Chicago mayor.

MENDOZA: Picking her post?

The one-time state representative, city clerk and state comptroller has been talked up as a mayoral candidate in the 2019 election cycle – even though she’s on the ballot for the Nov. 6 election for re-election to her state government post.

REPUBLICAN PARTISANS, LARGELY because they don’t have any legitimate objections to her, are trying to make an issue of her political future. They think Mendoza needs to state declaratively now and forever what her intentions are.

They’re trying to make people think it’s an outrage if Mendoza gets elected comptroller, then gives up the post in May IF she were to become elected mayor. Even though this kind of back-door dealing often occurs, and among candidates of both major political parties.

It is why I actually can accept Mendoza’s explanation every time she’s asked by someone who hopes to be the one who puts her “on the record” as to her political intentions.

Her answer usually is something along the lines of she’s focused on running for re-election, with her future to be decided some time in the future. It’s true enough, insofar as it goes.

Preckwinkle could fight with Mendoza … 

BUT THIS WEEK in speaking with the PBS affiliate, Mendoza said she’d be Illinois comptroller so long as Bruce Rauner is governor. Because she sees her filling of that political spot as a watchdog to the governor’s ideological desires.

With her as comptroller, she can impose a check – of sorts – on Rauner and all of his anti-organized labor desires.

Should Rauner manage to be dumped from office in the Nov. 6 elections and leave the governor’s mansion come January, she’d then feel free to contemplate leaving the post that she has held for just over two years to consider running for another office.

… for mayoral votes, as could Chico

Such as mayor, where she’d have some serious competition but also the support of activist types who’d love to see a Latina on the ballot or a younger woman – if noth both.

FOR IT IS those activist-types who are circulating the nominating petitions meant to show support for a Mendoza candidacy. Thereby allowing Mendoza to accurately say she’s not pushing herself for the mayoral post.

Of course, if she truly were opposed to having people talk her up as mayor, she’d have done something along the lines of Jesus Garcia, the Cook County Board member likely to win a seat in Congress next month. When those same activists tried circulating “Chuy for alcalde” petitions, Garcia made it clear he doesn’t want to run for mayor.

They then took up the cause of a Mendoza mayoral bid, and it seems the notion of returning to City Hall appeals to her ego. She could very well start actively campaigning for mayor the moment next month’s Election Day is over.

Admittedly, she’d have some heavy hitters to run against, such as William Daley, Toni Preckwinkle and Gery Chico (the latter of whom would likely be challenging her for the Latino segment of the Chicago electorate).

BUT IN THE same way that the mayoral dreams of Amara Enyia are being backed by people interested in a black woman, but who think Preckwinkle (at 71) is an old lady, there also likely are those who think Chico (at 62) ought to think of retiring and leave the job to the 46-year-old Mendoza.

Could they all clear the way for Daley

Of course, all this kind of political “logic” could be what causes the candidates to knock each other out and clear the path for a “Daley III” mayoral  term for William.

But with the Rauner campaign appearing to run these days on desperation and fantasy, perhaps Mendoza thinks it’s getting safe to hint she’d like to be mayor. If J.B. Pritzker could be the one who replaces her as state comptroller until a special election could be held in 2020, she wouldn’t be abandoning her post.

Mendoza is sitting pretty. She could take a crack at becoming “Latina Jane” (an allusion to Byrne, Chicago’s first female mayor). And if, by chance, she were to run for mayor and fall short, she’d have her comptroller’s to fall back on through 2022.

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Moving up politically? Or not enough Latinos to run for political office?

It seems the people who were trying to get Jesus Garcia to give up the seat in Congress he’s likely to win a few weeks from now to run for mayor have a new focal point for their ethnically-oriented political efforts.

Should Mendoza be eager to return to City Hall in '19?

They’re now trying to get Susana Mendoza, the Illinois comptroller who’s trying to win re-election to a full term of her own come Nov. 6, to seek the mayor’s post come the municipal elections to be held Feb. 26.

IT LITERALLY IS the same Latino activists who were trying to persuade Garcia to move up(?) to Chicago mayor who are now behind the effort to get Mendoza – who once used to be Chicago city clerk before becoming the woman in charge of Illinois state finances – to want to give up all this Springfield nonsense and return to City Hall.

Which I know some people regard as the focal point for all politics that matters!

Or could just be the point that some people with lesser ambitions think is the place where government has an impact on the daily lives of people. Either that, or they think the idea of having to live in Springfield (state constitutional officers such as comptroller are required to maintain a mailing address in the state’s capital city) is so dreadful.

Anyway, we literally now have people out in the streets of Chicago circulating the nominating petitions gathering signatures of support so that Mendoza could run for mayor in next year’s election cycle – should she decide to do so.

GARCIA: Headed for D.C. -- NOT City Hall

FOR THE RECORD, Mendoza has been consistent in saying she’s focusing her attention on winning election to the post she has held for the past couple of years. The one she won originally in a special election against Leslie Munger – the Republican woman whom Bruce Rauner appointed to the state post when the elected official, Judy Baar Topinka, died just after being elected in 2016.

There are those Republican-type who feel the comptroller’s post was “stolen” from them, and they’d love to be able to claim that Mendoza is more interested in running for another government office, rather than focus on the post she now has.

Which is why Mendoza won’t say publicly she’s interested in running for mayor – she’d be giving her GOP opponent, Darlene Senger, a campaign issue.

SENGER: Can she stand in Mendoza's way?

Although there’s a part of me that really would want to see Mendoza finish out this four-year term for the office she’s now seeking.

YES, I HAVE an interest in Latino political empowerment. I’d enjoy seeing more Latino persons running for government office, and winning. Having the Chicago mayoral seat on a list of positions held by Latinos would be significant.

Particularly since it would offend the sensibilities of those kinds of people inclined to want to take Donald Trump seriously every time the president uses his Twitter account to engage in another one of his nit-wit rants.

But it almost seems like we’re inclined to keep re-using the same couple of names over and over again to have Latino officials run for political posts. When the goal for people interested in Latino political empowerment ought to be to have MORE Latinos in government offices.

It shouldn’t be about getting a couple of people already elected into as high-ranking of posts as possible! That seems rather limiting, and would play into the hands nativists who are determined to think Latinos “don’t belong.”

YES, I’D RATHER see Jesus Garcia, a Mexican-born naturalized U.S, citizen work the Halls of Capitol Hill and have an influence on our federal government.

While Mendoza, a Chicago-born and suburban Bolingbrook-raised daughter of Mexican immigrants, perhaps could someday be Illinois’ first female governor (she’s only 46), and perhaps be the one who frustrates the Republican desires to have an Illinois predominated by the 96 counties that, at best, comprise one-third of the state’s population.

Activists ought to try to grow the ranks of Latino government officials – or else they could wind up with a Chicago run by Latinos that has its every desire overruled by hostile federal and state political interests.

Besides, Mendoza has youth in her favor and could still get that future run for mayor – where (based on the video from her latest campaign ad) she could be the mayor who can handle a “real” football better than anybody playing professionally for the Chicago Fire.

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EXTRA: Just in case we felt lonely without her, Leslie Munger is back

Leslie Munger lost her government post a couple of months ago, following her electoral defeat last year to Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza. Yet it almost feels like she never departed.
 

MUNGER: Now deputy gov?

Sure enough, she’s back!

MUNGER WAS NAMED Friday to the post of deputy governor, which Gov. Bruce Rauner says will be a post that will add to the discussions that are supposed to be taking place to put together the first state budget of the nearly two-year-old Rauner era.

She also is supposed to work with non-profit organizations to see how they can be utilized by state government.

 

MENDOZA: Still the comptroller

Keep in mind this does NOT put Munger in line to be governor should Rauner become amongst the dearly departed. The post of lieutenant governor remains in the hands of Evelyn Sanguinetti – the one-time Wheaton municipal official with little other government experience.

Not that Munger had much more before being appointed back in January 2015 to become state Comptroller – on account of the fact that the duty-elected Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka passed away before her term could begin.

SHE HAD NEVER held elective office. Yet now, she’s being touted as some wisened sage who will guide our state government out of the morass into which it has sank.

 

SANGUINETTI: Outranks Munger. Or does she?

Unless you think having worked for Helene Curtis and Procter & Gamble gave her some special skills and knowledge.

But hey, Rauner had to do something to reward the person who, for a couple of years, gave him a fellow Republican amongst the state’s constitutional officers. Compared to now, where he’s the lone GOPer in a state sea of Democrats.

Just something to keep in mind the next time Republican political operatives get all worked up and act all huffy about some Democratic deal rewarding someone politically for a job that will never need to be done.

  -30-

Can Illinois pols learn to play nice?

Twas a wonderful time this week for Democratic Party partisans in Illinois.

MADIGAN: Got 98 percent of what he wanted

Not only did they take some significant posts away from Republicans who already didn’t have much (a U.S. Senate seat, Illinois comptroller and a congressional post in the northwest suburbs), they managed to minimize the political gains that Gov. Bruce Rauner tried to make.

YES, IT’S TRUE that the veto-proof majority that theoretically gave Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, the ability to slap the governor about silly any time he saw fit is no more.

But with 68 legislators (out of 118) now being solid Democrat and the three who are no more being legislators who faced circumstances that often made them unreliable votes for anything Madigan desired, I’d say “Mr. Speaker” now has a more rigid grip over the people in his caucus.

It doesn’t exactly sound like a loss to me.

Although I’m sure that to the political mentality that thinks one in charge can never have too much influence, it might sound like a gain for Republicans.

BUT FOR THE millions of dollars that were spent by Rauner, once a venture capitalist, out of his personal wealth and the personal money of his business-oriented friends, I’d say that gaining three lone House seats and still being on the short end of a 68-50 split ain’t all that much!

When combined with the losses in the D.C. delegation from Illinois and the state comptroller, I can’t help but think that Bruce Rauner is going to be a very lonely individual on the Statehouse Scene – one who will think the era of ’95-96 when Republicans actually dominated in Springfield was somehow something imagined.

And my guess is that Democrats, led by Madigan and state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, will be willing to go out of their way to portray the governor as weak and ineffectual – just some sort of ol’ crank who can’t get with the program that exists in Illinois.

 

RAUNER: Can he and Mr. Speaker play nice?

At least until the 2018 election cycle (do we really want to have to think about that already?), when Rauner will have to come up for re-election – unless, by chance, he gets so frustrated with next year’s legislative activity that he decides to give up and retire.

FAT CHANCE OF anything even close to that happening! Which means that the amount of activity we’re likely to get from state government is going to equal the level of nothingness we got during the past two years.

So what should we make of the statement that Rauner issued Wednesday morning – the one that talked about bipartisan cooperation and gave lip service to the notion of political people working together.

“The people of Illinois deserve prompt, bi-partisan action to solve problems and get good things done – to make Illinois more competitive so we can be more compassionate – to enact truly balanced budgets along with reforms that grow more jobs and protect taxpayers.”

It sounds nice. It would be nice to believe that it could happen.

YET EXCUSE ME for being skeptical. Nobody who spends as many millions as Rauner did to try to gain more influence is going to want cooperation – unless by that you mean having the opposition back down and do what he wants them to do.

Our situation in Springfield, which will get worse come January because the interim budget that got passed back in June only runs through Dec. 31., is one in which people would have to decide how much they really want to work together.

Instead, we have a situation where they have spent the past several months keeping each other apart. I’m also sure the fact that the few legislative gains made by Republicans came out of Southern Illinois will only enhance the regional tensions that already exist.

Which may make Dems all-the-more rigid if they wind up sensing this is an urban vs. rural battle in which they have to protect their homeland interests above all else. It’s going to get ugly before it gets nicer.

  -30-

EXTRA: Illinois Comptroller forum to be held in ‘Blues Brothers’ church

It’s a shame that Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger isn’t expected to show up Tuesday night at a candidate forum in which all three of her likely Election Day opponents will partake.

That forum will be held at the Pilgrim Baptist Church in the South Chicago neighborhood, which has a personal tie in that it is down the block from the church (Our Lady of Guadalupe) in which I was baptized as a baby.

BUT I’M SURE for the masses out there who are old enough to have seen “The Blues Brothers” when it was in the movie theaters or have since seen it rerun on television throughout the decades, the church will stand out as the one that became the "Triple Rock Church" that turned a Baptist church service into a rockin’ musical revival.

As in James Brown singing “The Old Landmark” while parishioners danced about and went soaring through the air. A little bit over the top, I’m sure!

But that scene was shot at the Pilgrim Baptist Church, just a few blocks from the 95^th Street bridge that the Blues Brothers drove their hand-me-down police car over while it was fully erect (another scene over the top, I’m sure).

Tuesday night, it will be the place where Democratic comptroller candidate Susana Mendoza (currently the Chicago city clerk) will try to explain why she ought to get the state political post.

AND NOT JUST because we ought to want to dump someone who is a political appointee of Gov. Bruce Rauner. She has to offer up reasons why we should want her in the office instead.

 

MUNGER: A no-show?!?

Otherwise, we might as well contemplate Libertarian Claire Ball or Green Tim Curtin for the post. Both of them also are expected to attend the event, and both could definitely use the jolt of publicity.

Particularly in the case of Green, who when you do an Internet search for his name, the top result that comes up is a biography for the leader of the band “Pig Vomit.”

Perhaps her absence means that Munger thinks she also can’t use a publicity injection. I think she should, mainly because it could be a chance for the little-known Munger to set herself apart from the other candidates. Show that she’s really the best qualified.

 

MENDOZA: Can she beat incumbent?

SHE ALREADY HAS the endorsements of the two major metro daily newspapers (both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times), although those seemed based on the idea that Mendoza is aligned with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, and perhaps ought to be better off if she just stayed within Chicago city government.

There’s also the fact that Republican Party officials in Illinois are going all out to ensure Munger has adequate funding to operate a credible campaign. They want to be able to ensure they keep the state post that was filled by gubernatorial appointment when Judy Baar Topinka died just under two years ago.

After all, how lonely would Rauner be if he were the only Republican state constitutional officer in Illinois government, along with a General Assembly dominated by Democrats and a national Republican Party that has been devastated by the existence of Donald Trump.

BALL: Also in the running

Which is the exact kind of loneliness Democrats would like to create for him the next two years as he prepares for a re-election bid -- one in which they hope they can find a gubernatorial candidate who can take him down politically.

PARTICULARLY AT THIS forum, which claims to be bipartisan but is being sponsored by various groups with urban-interest, non-Anglo ethnic, Democratic Party leanings.

Which most likely is the reason why Munger isn’t likely to show up. Either that, or she thinks the South Chicago neighborhood is somewhere on the other side of the planet and that she’d be contaminated by the residue of the steel mills that used to exist throughout the area.

CURTIN: Not the guy from 'Pig Vomit'

Heck, there are long-time local residents who have that very same fear, breathing in the air that has the stink of decades of industrial waste built up.

Either that, or she's afraid the ghost of James Brown will drown her out with his powerful voice.

  -30-

EXTRA: Nonsense talk often prevails

It’s a known fact that the more ridiculous, irrelevant or ludicrous a campaign accusation is, the better chance it has of sticking in the mindset of potential voters.

MUNGER: The appointed incumbent

So is it possible that the serious campaigning for Illinois comptroller has begun?

THAT’S THE POST currently held by Leslie Munger, who was picked to fill the vacancy created when Judy Baar Topinka died a year ago before being able to serve in the post to which she had literally just been elected a couple of weeks earlier.

Munger gets to hold the office to which Gov. Bruce Rauner appointed her, until this year’s elections in November, when the voters will get to say who finishes the final two years of the term that runs through January 2019.

Munger is the GOP opponent, while Chicago city Clerk Susana Mendoza has already declared herself the Democratic challenger.

Which led Mendoza, who once was a state representative from Chicago, to join in with the organized labor types who are trashing Munger, who is a native of suburban Lincolnshire – the municipality that felt compelled to declare itself a right-to-work community. Furthermore, Munger’s campaign manager is also the village president of Lincolnshire.

IS MUNGER REALLY nothing more than a Rauner puppet? Willing to have her people do his bidding?

It’s a predictable line of attack. Not the most original. But to be expected.

So perhaps it should have been anticipated that Munger would retaliate with claims that Mendoza was equally negligent in not being on top of the controversy that befalls her hometown. As in all that video talk related to the death of Laquan McDonald.

Which is stupid to expect a city clerk to have any serious say over. But it is the kind of thing that will inspire less-informed potential voters to get all worked up over.

MENDOZA: Dem challenger

PLUS, BECAUSE THE stink related to McDonald and Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s potential involvement in trying to downplay the death is much more internationally known than our state’s financial problems and the degree to which they’re just an attack on organized labor, it means Munger probably scores the bigger “hit” with her crazed accusation!

This has the potential to turn a usually low-key downballot race (usually, anything related to state government gets less attention than the Chicago stuff that matters to many overly-local voters) into a real stinker.

Particularly since Mendoza’s campaign retorted to Munger’s accusation by saying it came straight from the Rauner strategy team. “We hope to see this properly reported as an in-kind contribution on (the Munger campaign’s) quarterly report,”

  -30-

$5.26 billion, and rising!

That’s how much money is owed by Illinois government to various entities, but can’t be paid because of the lack of a balanced budget proposal in accordance with the state Constitution.

The partisan battlefield. Casualties are scattered across the state

To be specific, the Illinois comptroller’s office said that as of Friday, the state owed $5,256,826,990. Some 51,591 entities are owed that money – and both of those figures only figure to increase on a daily basis.

SO MUCH FOR the people who want to believe that this state budgetary standoff isn’t really impacting anyone – and who try to use that “80 percent” figure (as in the number of entities whose bills are still being paid by the state due to assorted court orders).

It will become worse because the longer the state goes without a balanced budget plan, the harder it will be to balance out.

For state government is still spending at the same rate of the 2015 fiscal year that ended June 30 – even though there had been estimates that had said state government needed to cut its expenditures by about $5 billion if it were to maintain itself within the current income levels.

Unless someone were to break down and come up with a fundraising proposal that would come up with the cash to maintain the state’s current responsibilities.

WHICH IS SOMETHING that goes against Gov. Bruce Rauner’s sensibilities – mostly because he and his political allies want to think of the people who benefit from those added expenses as being the “deadbeats” who are a drag on the state.

Just as they view their employees as the “drag” on the financial bottom line of their companies. How much more profit would they have IF ONLY those “deadbeats” didn’t demand so much for their work?!?

That attitude likely was only reinforced by the inability of the Illinois House of Representatives this week to override Rauner’s rejection of a bill that would allow labor arbitrators to resolve differences involving state government and its union employees.

Rauner backers are determined to portray this as a MAJOR VICTORY!!! over the tyrant Michael Madigan – in some cases giving us images implying they fantasize about placing the House Speaker’s head on a pike.

PERHAPS OUT FRONT of the Statehouse near the Abraham Lincoln statue.

Then again, I’m sure there are those Democrats in the state Legislature who wish they could do the same to the governor. For all I know, their behavior would be even more juvenile.

This is the real problem our state faces these days – not any partisan argument about whether organized labor is the bane of state government’s existence and whether every single political person who lives outside of Chicago ought to be ganging up in unison against the city’s interests.

Which seems to be the Rauner political strategy for coping with the Democratic-leaning supermajority that has the potential to overrule anything he tries to do.

AS SOMEONE WHO was at the Statehouse during 1995-96 (when the concept of “Illinois House Speaker Lee Daniels” gave us a Republican-dominated state government), it is dismaying to see a GOP strategy that can only go backward – and to a two-year period that was so overly-partisan in nature that the real majority of Illinoisans said “Good riddance!” to its demise.

Of course, all of that rhetoric is partisan in its own nature, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m going to lean toward the city’s interests (because Illinois ultimately lives or dies on the status of Chicago).

Talk is cheap. But the cost of that talk isn’t. And now we know what that cost is.

$5,256,826,990, and rising on a daily basis.

  -30-

Oh, pipe down already!

I was appalled at the rhetoric being spewed Wednesday by Illinois Comptroller Leslie Munger with regards to the potential for a shutdown of state government come July IF officials are unable to give approval to a balanced budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year.

MUNGER: Rauner's mouthpiece?

Now I’m sure Munger will justify the horror stories she told of how much the people will suffer if there’s a government shutdown by saying she was simply telling the truth.

BUT WHAT I heard was an attempt by the interests backing Gov. Bruce Rauner in the nonsensical budget battle now taking place to get people to blame “dose damn Dems!” for any action that may occur next month – and in future months.

Because as Munger said, the way to avoid all of this is for the leaders of the General Assembly to accept the anti-union rhetoric he is looking to write into government policy. For Rauner has said he’s not willing to get serious about figuring out how to balance the state budget until he gets some of those proposals approved.

Even though it can be argued, and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, has said, that such issues are irrelevant to the budget negotiation process and should not be tied into the financial talks that should have taken place last month.

Munger got way ahead of the process by talking about the process of government shutdown that is caused whenever a new fiscal year begins July 1 without an approved budget in place. Or is she admitting that Rauner has no intention of negotiating seriously?

THE IDEA BEING that government should not be spending money if there’s not a specific proposal outlining how the money gets spent.

What happens is that government still has its income and any expenses incurred prior to June 30 can still be paid – even if the bill is submitted after July 1. But any expenses incurred in the new fiscal year has to wait until a budget is approved.

In the past, there have been situations where government (or at least its most non-essential functions) got shut down for a few days. When the budget finally got signed into law, the bills eventually got paid.

Everything got restored to normal. Or as normal as anything ever is within Illinois state government.

MUNGER TRIED TO make it appear as though the actions she threatened for July (including a halt to Medicaid provider payments, no paychecks for state workers come the July 15 payday and state aid payments to public school districts ceasing as of Aug. 10, to name a few) were somehow unique and long-lasting.

Although if she were realistic, she’d be telling the governor himself about all these bad things and remind him that all of this could happen on his watch – IF he doesn’t quit playing his own partisan political games and start seriously trying to negotiate a workable budget.

Which is what Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton both appear to be trying to do in that they recognize that government has obligations that must be met – even if the CEO-minded Rauner would prefer to improve the state’s financial bottom line by cutting dead weight items.

I’m sure by his mindset, he wonders if we really need to have a Department of Public Aid. I’m sure government finances would be smaller if we could magically erase that agency from existence!

BUT WE CAN’T. And I’m sure there will have to be a realization that some seriously-needed services are going to have to be cut. To me, the sign of a responsible budget proposal is that everybody loses something they wanted to keep and nobody is happy with the end result.

Munger’s rhetoric comes across as though Rauner’s satisfaction is all that matters. It’s not realistic to expect that when one is a governor who has to govern with a Legislature of the opposite political party so solidly in control that they have the ‘veto proof’ majority.

Of course, Munger has her position because she’s a political appointee. Rauner got the authority to pick her to replace Judy Baar Topinka when she passed on in December. I don’t expect her to be unbiased.

But nobody should view her comments Wednesday as a “just the facts, ma’am” approach – it’s as ideologue as if it had come from Rauner’s mouth himself.

  -30-

Why I think Judy would be “crying” at political partisanship done in her name

It seems that on the day most of us were ignoring the Chicago mayoral race (only 34 percent voter turnout that day), a state legislator from the far northwest suburbs was trying to slip a change into state law purely out of partisan political spite.

Feb. 24 was the day of the mayoral election. It also was the date that state Rep. Michael Tryon, R-Crystal Lake, introduced a bill for consideration by the General Assembly this spring to change the way in which governors can fill vacancies.

SPECIFICALLY, TRYON WAS concerned with the outcry that developed following the death in early December of state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka.

Eventually, Gov. Bruce Rauner filled the spot with Leslie Munger. But for the month that existed between Topinka’s death and Rauner’s inauguration, former Gov. Pat Quinn long-time political ally Jerry Stermer to be the comptroller.

Now anyone with common sense sees nothing wrong with this. The former governor filled the immediate vacancy, and the current governor got to fill the new term that began when they were inaugurated in mid-January.

There was no interruption in the services provided by the state Comptroller’s office. There was no problem.

EXCEPT IN THE mind of Tryon and other political people who want to put partisanship above all other concerns. Hence, Tryon is trying to get a change in the law.

Specifically, he says a governor must be required to replace a vacancy with someone “of the same leading political party.” Because Topinka identified herself as a Republican, her replacement must also be a registered GOPer.

During the month that Stermer was comptroller, the constitutional office was headed by a Democrat. Which the Illinois Review website that spins all news from a conservative ideological viewpoint says was somehow wrong.

Actually, it’s just the way government operates, and ought to operate. Governors across the nation get the authority to make appointments and fill vacancies as they see fit. It’s one of the perks of the position.

IT ALSO IS a reason why people should take such elections seriously. Picking a governor impacts more than just who gets the right to call the Executive Mansion in Springfield home.

And yes, if Pat Quinn had managed to win re-election back in November, he would have had every right to pick a Democrat over a Republican – regardless of the fact that Topinka defeated Democratic comptroller nominee Sheila Simon back in November.

There certainly is precedent. Back in the early 1980s, Democrat Alan Dixon won the first of his two terms in the U.S. Senate half-way through his term as Illinois secretary of state.

Democratic partisan interests were hurt when then-Gov. James R. Thompson chose fellow Republican (and gubernatorial aide) Jim Edgar to replace Dixon. Those are the breaks, and Thompson had every right to make that choice.

I’M SURE THAT Tryon isn’t old enough to have been politically active back in the early 1980s (I was in high school back then), but I suspect he and his ilk would be screeching and screaming at anyone who would have dared to challenge Thompson’s appointment – which impacted our state by putting Edgar into the position by which he eventually springboarded to two terms of his own as governor.

Considering that Topinka was a Republican partisan who always managed to draw significant political support from Democrats as well, I’d like to think she would appreciate this very fact. I’d like to think she herself would not be taking seriously this bill – which I personally hope manages to get lost in the shuffle of legislative activity this spring.

The sooner that knuckleheaded partisan ideas like this fade away, the sooner we all can get around to having serious governing on our behalf.

Then, maybe I can get the late Lesley Gore song “Judy’s Turn to Cry” out of my head, because it was among the first thoughts that popped in there when I learned of this measure.

  -30-

General Assembly would have been better off doing nothin’ for Comptroller

I prefer when the law gets written in a neutral way, and the political partisanship factors could go either way – they’re unpredictable.

Which is why I wasn’t enthused with the General Assembly’s actions on Thursday by which Illinois will have a special election to pick a new state comptroller come 2016, even though the current term of office is to run through January 2019.

FOR THE RECORD, both the state Senate and Illinois House of Representatives voted Thursday in a special session (whose legitimacy is questioned by those who believed the current Legislature adjourned for good back in November) to pass a bill that creates a special election to fill constitutional offices if more than two years of a four-year term remain.

Gov. Pat Quinn still has to sign the measure into law. But he said Thursday he’d go along with it. This bill likely will be his last act as governor before Bruce Rauner assumes the position come Monday at noon.

All of this came about because of the death nearly one month ago of Judy Baar Topinka – who was elected back in November to another term as Illinois comptroller. That term would have begun Monday and would run through January 2019.

Without this change in law, there were no provisions for special elections. So Topinka would have been replaced by a gubernatorial appointment. Someone literally would get a full four-year appointment without being elected first.

SOME PEOPLE ARE claiming to have serious objections to such a concept. I don’t so much, largely because I accept the fact that we give governors significant authority to make appointments and fill vacancies.

People who have a problem with Republican Rauner having that kind of power (and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not enthused about the idea) perhaps should have thought more thoroughly about who they voted for last year.

I accept that the power to pick a replacement for Topinka will fall to Rauner, just as it would have fallen to Quinn had he been able to win re-election.

Somehow, the Legislature’s actions on Thursday do come across as changes in law motivated purely by political partisanship – particularly since the circumstances the state faces in replacing Topinka are ever so unique.

WE MADE LONG-RANGE changes in state law to fit these particular circumstances. That just seems wrong! And short-sighted.

Unless people think a future Legislature will make further changes to fit whatever future circumstances might happen to occur. If that is true, that is just scary!

Although to hear Republican partisans rant and rage about the Democratic-controlled Legislature’s actions on Thursday came across as ever so self-righteous because they were pushing for a concept that I find equally appalling – the idea of merging the treasurer and comptroller’s offices into one post.

The “Comptroller of the Treasury” is one overly-pompous title I have heard used for the merger. Considering that these are offices to which Democratic candidates often get elected, it seems the GOP merely wants to reduce the opposition party.

I STILL BELIEVE the financial safeguards that caused these duties to be split between two separate constitutional offices are necessary. I believe we can’t be too cautious.

I also wonder if political officials would come to see one combined office as a political plum that would give their party significant benefits – along with leaving the opposition party with nothing at all! Never underestimate the potential for greed amongst government officials.

The idea of merging the two offices was ignored on Thursday, which was good. Although I’ll be the first to admit it was most likely motivated by a desire by Democrats to stick it to Rauner – whose campaign rhetoric of “shaking things up” all too often comes across as wanting to reward his own interests at the expense of others.

There was no “good guy” on Thursday at the Illinois Statehouse, just some evidence that the next four years are going to be a particularly ugly partisan spat in Springfield.

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Who’s going to out-politick whom on fate of Illinois comptroller post?

Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner let it be known this week whom he plans to pick to replace the late Judy Baar Topinka to serve as Illinois comptroller. But that doesn’t make the future’s post any more secure.

For now that we know Leslie Munger is the new person in charge of making sure government bills get paid in a manner sort of resembling being timely, it seems Rauner is pushing for the post’s abolishment.

ACTUALLY, HE WANTS a merger of sorts between the comptroller and the Illinois treasurer – the office that oversees the state’s financial investments and other income.

It has been a long-running political debate over whether state government finances ought to be overseen by two officials who hold state constitutional officer titles. It seems that Rauner wants to use the Topinka death as momentum to push this issue now, when in the past it has always limped along and withered away.

Now I know there are those who think this appropriate – they say Topinka herself favored merging the two offices, and that this could be her legacy. But I can’t help but be skeptical.

Perhaps it’s because I know my local history and remember the name Orville Hodge (the one-time state financial official who wound up doing prison time for his government antics).

IT WAS WITH that in mind that when the state Constitution was last re-written in 1970, delegates decided to split the duties related to state government’s financial tasks.

In essence, one person is in charge of bringing in as much money as possible for the state to spend, with another person being in charge of signing off on the checks that are issued to pay the state’s bills.

It provides a sense of ‘check and balance’ that I actually find appropriate. I’m not sure what is really gained by wanting to have one person serve as an all-powerful treasurer.

Except that some people see the concept of having that all-powerful person and get greedy at the concept of having that official on their side in partisan political maneuvers. Just like the idea of having a lottery to break the tie on a political redistricting panel was supposed to scare people into being afraid their side would get nothing, but instead their greedy nature makes them enjoy the chance to get all – and totally screw over the opposition!

RAUNER MADE IT clear this week that his appointment of Munger was part of a larger effort to have voters decide in the 2016 elections whether the two posts would be merged into one.

Whether such a plan can gain traction will depend on how it is worded, and which position is perceived as being the one done away with.

Which is why I found it laughable that Illinois Treasurer-elect Michael Frerichs issued his own statement this week saying he favors doing away with the comptroller post in 2016 – as though that is a big conciliatory gesture!

For one thing, his proposal merely protects himself. I don’t think Republican political interests (including Rauner) will meekly go along with that.

PLUS, I THINK it shows Frerichs’ political cluelessness if he really believes that can happen.

For the voters back in November chose Topinka to serve a four-year term running from Monday through mid-January of 2019. Whether there has to be a special election in 2016 to pick someone to finish the last two years, or whether Munger gets to have a whole four-year term without being elected has to be decided.

But we’re going to have the two positions in place at least through then – there’s no getting around that! Whether some time in the 2020s the two posts can be combined is a different issue. But it’s not going to happen anytime before then.

There’s still time between now and then. Let’s hope sense prevails and we don’t get a restructuring of our government just because current officials have dreams of more power for their partisan side!

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Quinn made the safe comptroller choice, no matter what anyone thinks

Gov. Pat Quinn made his pick Friday for who gets to be Illinois comptroller for three-and-a-half weeks, and it’s Jerry Stermer.

That’s a name that will draw a reaction of “Who??!?” from the bulk of people. Although anyone who pays attention to state government and politics and Quinn throughout the years will know the name.

HE ONCE WAS Quinn’s chief of staff, and has held many other positions under Quinn during that man’s time in various government posts. Most recently, he was the governor’s budget director.

Meaning he was the governor’s personal financial expert and the guy whose staff ought to be cooperating with aides to Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner to get them prepared for the state budget they’re going to have to propose in the spring of 2015.

So doesn’t it kind of make sense that Quinn, confronted with a situation where he has to pick a person to run the constitutional office that oversees the state’s bank accounts and makes sure bills get paid in a sort-of timely fashion, would turn to this trusted aide to oversee the state’s finances for the remaining weeks of his gubernatorial term?

To me it does. Personally, I always thought that if Quinn truly wanted to make a non-controversial appointment to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, he ought to just pick his budget director.

HE’S ACQUAINTED WITH how much of a mess the state’s finances are. He’s been around state government for years.

And because he’s not the kind of guy who has ever put his name on a ballot, he’s not likely to have any ambition to stick around beyond the Jan. 12 date on which state government transitions itself to the officials who got themselves elected back in November.

In fact, Stermer himself made a point of saying he would formally resign on Jan. 12 as of Noon, and that he’s not viewing his nearly-one month-long stint as a state constitutional officer as a way of boosting the pension benefits he will someday receive.

He could do that, but he says he won’t. Although he will accept the comptroller’s salary for the next three weeks – which is about $10,000 per year higher than the gubernatorial budget director salary he now receives, according to the Capitol Fax newsletter.

OF COURSE, WE have the ideologues who are upset that he would dare pick someone for a short-term vacancy whose loyalty presumably would be to him.

There are those who will perpetually argue that Topinka’s long-time chief of staff, Nancy Kimme, should have been the one to get a short-term post. Although my own experience in dealing with government staffers (as opposed to the elected officials they work for) is that they usually have the temperament that makes them suited to following orders and running things, rather than setting grand policy decisions.

A good staffer makes an elected official look better. They don’t necessarily make a good public official in and of themselves.

Besides, the ideologue types are likely to get a chance to nominate the long-term pick for Topinka, who won’t be able to fulfill the four-year term to which she was chosen last month.

TRYING TO CLAIM that Quinn was somehow being irresponsible with his pick on Friday merely makes them seem to be greedy! We still have to figure out what will happen for the long-term. Who will Rauner pick? Will the Legislature try to force a special election for the post in 2016?

Considering that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, hasn’t done anything yet to indicate he’s willing to cooperate with Quinn’s demand for a special session come Jan. 8 (it does need to be resolved before the mid-January transition to a new General Assembly), it makes me wonder if it will be more rhetorical nonsense spewed on the issue.

Take into account that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is the one who issued the opinion saying there ought to be a special election and Michael Madigan is saying he wants the two governor-types to resolve this on their own, what happens if father defies daughter?

Will there be a Merry Christmas at the Madigan household next week?

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