The
toxic combination of an overabundance of testosterone and fragile male egos
seems to be contaminating everything it touches during the Illinois General
Assembly's overtime session.
More
issues were added last week to the large pile of bills being held hostage to
the never-ending feud between House Speaker Michael Madigan on one side and
Senate President Emil Jones and Governor Rod Blagojevich on the other.
The
legislation designed to ease phone company AT&T's entrance into the cable
TV marketplace has reportedly stalled in the Senate. The bill passed the House
unanimously and has strong bipartisan support in the Senate, but it has
apparently hit an ego snag.
The
trouble may have started with a laudatory editorial in the Chicago Tribune,
which praised the "active and the unflagging commitment of the bill's
House sponsor, Rep. James Brosnahan (D-Oak Lawn) and Atty. Gen. Lisa
Madigan," and noted that Speaker Madigan also provided "important
support."
The
editorial looked very much like an AT&T plant to a whole lot of Statehouse
types, including the people who run the Senate. It probably didn't help matters
when the Sun-Times then ran essentially the same editorial praising the same set
of characters. Democratic state Sen. James Clayborne was also involved in the
negotiations at Jones' behest, yet he has not received any public recognition.
And, like her father the House Speaker, Attorney General Madigan isn't exactly
on Senate President Jones' "A List" these days.
Sen.
Jones has twice criticized Attorney General Madigan on the Senate floor this
year. The first time, during the debate over adding ComEd into an Ameren rate
freeze bill, Jones mocked Madigan for filing case after case against his close
pals at the giant utility and losing every one.
The
other day, after AG Madigan's name was brought up in debate as supporting a
particular bill, Jones cracked that his fellow Democrat, who was once a member
of his own caucus, was free to run for the Senate if she wanted to be a member
of the General Assembly again. "There may be an open seat for her on that
side of the aisle," Jones said, pointing to the Republicans.
It's
also pretty well known that the governor detests the attorney general,
believing, among other things, that she has strategically leaked what appears
to be damning evidence from her various investigations of his administration.
The governor's feelings about Ms. Madigan may be fueling at least some of
Jones' comments. Jones has parroted just about every one of the governor's
lines and followed him down every blind alley this year, from the notorious
gross receipts tax to a monster-sized health insurance proposal that many of
Jones' own members aren't supporting, to the governor's refusal to even
consider an income tax hike, an idea that Jones avidly supported until just a
few months ago.
According
to sources, Jones is resisting a provision in AT&T's cable bill that gives
the attorney general more oversight powers. Hardly surprising.
Just
to show you how weird things have gotten, do you remember the bill that moves
the spring primary up to February from March? It was ostensibly designed to
help Barack Obama's presidential campaign by putting Illinois in play during
primary season. Well, as of this writing, that bill hasn't been sent to the
governor's desk yet.
The
legislation received overwhelming votes in both chambers and cleared its final
legislative hurdle weeks ago, but one or both of the two leaders haven't
certified it as official. Without both of those signatures, the governor can't
take any action.
The
primary bill is not alone. At this writing, well over 600 bills have passed
both chambers, yet just twelve bills have actually been sent to the governor's
desk.
Then,
of course, there's the budget bill that was passed by the House last month but
is still in the House because one of Madigan's members placed a parliamentary
hold on the legislation. The Senate President's people believe that Madigan did
it deliberately to stop the Senate from passing the bill and avoid any
potential government shutdown when the fiscal year ends. Madigan claims his
Downstate members placed the hold on the bill to prevent any budget action
until some sort of agreement could be reached on the electric utility rate
issue.
Such
is life at the Statehouse these days.
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Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and thecapitolfaxblog.com.