Illinois
Senate President Emil Jones has never been fully appreciated as a legislative
leader. Jones, who announced his retirement last week after years at the helm,
has a manner of speaking which leads far too many people to assume that he is
not intelligent. Nothing could be
further from the truth. He has been a supremely crafty tactician, who, despite
all the bad raps and his recent blunders, has won far more than his share of
legislative battles. He is literally a larger than life character.
Yet,
there's little doubt that Jones
has been the most publicly vilified legislative leader in memory, particularly
in the past two years.
His
constant and unwavering support for Rod Blagojevich, the most unpopular (and
most investigated) governor in the nation, certainly contributed to the
shwacking. Jones stood by the governor's hugely controversial Gross Receipts
Tax idea last year when everyone else had abandoned it and when it had become
clear that the proposal had probably killed off his professed life's dream of
enacting permanent, real education funding reform.
Jones
appeared to brazenly block electric utility rate relief at the behest of his
buddies at ComEd. He stood by the governor throughout a long, bitter overtime
session last year and this year. His family benefitted from pay raises and
no-bid contracts from the Blagojevich administration. He allegedly lied to
House Speaker Michael Madigan about upholding last year's budget agreement when
he refused to override Blagojevich's vetoes that targeted House Democrats and
Senate Republicans for political punishment.
Jones
blocked a constitutional amendment for recall of public officials and
deliberately slow-walked an ethics reform bill at the governor's behest. He
railed against attempts to block a pay raise for lawmakers, infamously telling
reporters that he needed that raise and some food stamps. And he just managed
to replace himself on the November ballot with his son.
Sen.
Jones has certainly become a liability for his members. You can't get thumped
for all of those outrages on an almost daily basis without at least some mud
splashing on your rank and file. So his announcement last week that he would
give up the Senate presidency may help ease the pain of some of his incumbents.
The
retirement's legislative impact is not completely clear. It's thought that
Speaker Madigan and maybe even some of Jones' own members will want to put off
a multi billion dollar capital construction plan until Jones leaves
office. Why cut a deal now when a
better one might be concocted after January?
There's
a legitimate concern in some circles about what this retirement announcement
may mean for Jones' fundraising. He is allowed to withdraw about $577,000 from
his personal campaign fund because of a
clause inserted into a mid 1990s ethics bill. That would leave his bank
balance at just over $1 million - about a half million shy of Senate Republican
Leader Frank Watson's June 30th total. Except for his most loyal friends, it's
difficult to see how Jones can easily add to that account now that he has made
himself a lame duck.
Members
were assured that there would be plenty of money in the campaign fund for
incumbents, but Watson and his cohorts have to be breathing just a bit easier
now that Jones has taken himself out of the game.
Meanwhile,
loads of candidates are engaged in the Jones succession battle. It's every man
(literally, because there are no women in the race as I write this) for himself.
And it's far too early to make any predictions of how things will play out.
There are no locks, there are no true frontrunners. This thing is wide open.
Also,
word is that some candidates are already beginning to reach out to Senate
Republicans in an effort to pad their margins and reach the magic number of 30
required to win the presidency - a majority of those elected in the entire
Senate, not just among Democrats.
But
forget about those 30 votes today. The big problem now is just finding 19 votes
- a majority of the Democratic caucus. Almost that many Democrats are currently
floating their names for president.
There
is certainly no shortage of egos in the General Assembly, and the Senate
Democratic caucus has an overabundance. It will likely take some time before
many are ready to set aside their vanity candidacies and start actively
engaging in the process.
Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com.