The
Statehouse finger-pointing has escalated right on schedule.
As
always with an overtime legislative session, nobody wants to take the blame for
failing to reach a budget agreement during the regularly scheduled session,
which ended May 31st. If the government eventually shuts down because the
legislative leaders and the governor can't agree on a state budget, and state
workers, contractors and public aid recipients stop receiving their checks, the
players want to make sure that someone else is fingered as the irresponsible
party.
Because
the Legislature couldn't come to an agreement during the regular session, it
now takes a three-fifths super-majority to pass a budget. That means the
minority party Republicans are at the bargaining table and their votes will be
required to get anything done.
Senate
Republican Leader Frank Watson has said since he first joined the budget
negotiations this month that he believes Governor Rod Blagojevich is not
serious about doing a deal anytime soon. Last week, Watson reiterated his
complaint and shared a brief anecdote about the negotiations.
According
to Watson, after the leaders had finished discussing the Chicago Transit
Authority's problems during a closed-door meeting, the governor opened the door
for discussion on other subjects. Watson said he then asked about the budget. "What's
the rush?" Blagojevich asked, according to Watson.
A
spokesperson for the governor claimed that Watson took the governor's comment
out of context. The behind-the-scenes pushback against Watson was intensely
fierce, and as a result was not mentioned in any news stories the next day.
But
numerous people who were in the meeting backed up Watson's claim, insisting
Watson did not take the quote out of context.
Does
it matter? Some. If there is to be any sort of government shutdown or serious
budgetary crisis, it could have serious political consequences. Just about
everybody points to how former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich got hammered in
the national media and helped turn President Bill Clinton's political fortunes
around by shutting down the federal government in the mid 1990s. That's why
such tough countermeasures were taken against Watson. And we can expect plenty
more of that as the overtime drags on.
For
instance, last week Blagojevich asked that the General Assembly stay in session
through the Father's Day weekend. The request was obviously unrealistic, but it
shows how far Blagojevich is willing to go to claim that he did more than
anyone else to "get the job done."
The
truth is that Blagojevich is in no hurry to start negotiating a budget, let
alone finish one. People deep inside the administration acknowledge that until
there is a sense of urgency in the air it won't do much good to start talking
numbers. They also believe that Madigan will just shoot everything down until
next month anyway, when a government shutdown is imminent, so there's no reason
to proceed at full pace yet. "We knew there'd be an overtime the day after
the election [last year] when Madigan didn't return Rod's call," said one
insider last week.
There
are those who believe that Blagojevich's ultimate "end game" is to
portray Madigan as a traitor to the Democratic Party and then use that to strip
Madigan of his highly coveted state party chairmanship. If that's really the
case, it's wishful thinking. Madigan has that spot pretty much locked up and it
will be almost impossible for the governor, who is not all that popular with
leaders in his own party, to pull it off.
Madigan
certainly wasn't interested in resolving the budget dispute before the May 31st
deadline. He wouldn't even return the governor's phone calls for months, let
alone meet with him. It's assumed that Madigan is prepared to stay in session
as long as necessary to accomplish whatever end game he has plotted. Some of
the governor's folks think Madigan's ultimate goal is to destroy Blagojevich's
political career so that Madigan's daughter, the state attorney general, can
run for governor in 2010. The paranoia is obviously intense on all sides right
now, as is often the case during high-stakes games.
Meanwhile,
schools in desperate need of funding, property taxpayers in dire need of
relief, and roads, bridges and mass transit systems in extreme need of repair
are forced to wait while the games play themselves out.
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Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com