Madigan a winner by a knockout
Picking a fight with Mike Madigan is a no-win proposition.
For those who were looking for a fight, the great showdown turned out to be a big letdown.
The Illinois Senate Wednesday voted unanimously to approve a capital spending authorization bill that will keep construction programs all over the state going.
In other words, House Speaker Michael Madigan won, and Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate President John Cullerton lost. Maybe — just maybe — Quinn and Cullerton learned a lesson.
A couple of weeks ago, it looked like Quinn and Cullerton were spoiling for a fight. Quinn called for a special session that would require the General Assembly to authorize a capital spending bill needed to keep roughly 50,000 people working. But what Quinn and Cullerton really wanted was an additional $430 million in new spending added to the recently passed state budget. They were hoping to cajole Madigan into supporting the additional spending by linking it to the capital spending bill.
But Madigan already had rejected the request once, adjourning the House rather than accepting a Senate proposal linking the two issues.
But almost as soon as Quinn announced the special session, he backed off his plan to seek the additional $430 million in spending. That flip-flop is just one of the latest examples of him saying one thing and then doing another.
After seeing Quinn fold, it was pointless for Cullerton to press for the additional spending. So he quickly tossed in the towel as well.
The capital spending authorization was unanimously approved in both the Senate and the House, just as it should have been before Quinn and Cullerton decided to take on the all-powerful House speaker in their quest for a bigger state budget.
Now wait a minute. Would not the vaunted NG normally praise a leader in the legislature for not allowing someone to INCREASE spending?
But somehow, in a twisted partisan spin that would make Karl Rove proud, you make it a slam against Madigan AND the governor.
Boy, well done sirs. Looks like the NG editorial board can be as partisan as any drawer of maps.
Wait a minute...how did this article "slam" Madigan in any way? The only sort of attitude toward Madigan that I could see is that he once again showed who really runs the state. He didn't want the extra spending that Quinn and Cullerton wanted, so he made sure it didn't happen. The article is neutral to even fairly positive as far as Madigan is concerned, and for Madigan, even a neutral article is a rare occurrence.
Further, even if the article was slamming Madigan and Quinn at the same time, that doesn't make it a partisan attack. It would seem to be much more of an attack on the individual persons in charge of running this state, and in the case of Madigan, have ran it into the ground. I don't dislike Madigan because he is a Democrat. I dislike Madigan because he has had far too much power for far too long and rather singlehandledly runs the state. Everything about him has a peculiar odor to it. He runs the state, but also has a property tax appeal law firm with such twisted connections that would set off giant conflict of interest alarms pretty much anywhere other than Illinois. He is the Speaker of the House, yet is also the head of the Illinois Democratic Party, meaning that candidates in tight races are especially beholden to him as a source of party revenue. He then goes out and pushes through laws that make the parties (and, by extension, himself) more powerful by ruling out other forms of campaign donations. Finally, I just detest the way in which he operates the General Assembly. No progress will be made on touchy issues until the week before adjournment, and then suddenly a thousand page bill will be rammed through the House in a matter of hours. There is no openness or transparency in the Madigan House. This is not a partisan "slam", it's a personal opinion of a single person and the culture of Illinois government. I would wager that there are many like me who share this point of view.
Calling him all-powerful feeds into their regular theme about him. Even you admit a "neutral" article on the man is a rare occurrence. Here is an opportunity for the NG to come out and praise him once, as they often find time to do for Republicans who fight to cut spending -- yet somehow the opportunity slips them by.
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