There
is no shortage of goofiness at the Illinois Statehouse these days. Some players
are goofier than others, but Gov. Rod Blagojevich usually gets most of the
coverage.
Blagojevich
has the top job, so he naturally gets the attention, and many of the things
he's done this year certainly qualify as goofiness, from his silly lawsuits
against the House Speaker, to his truly gigantic tax hike proposals, to his
numerous false claims about his accomplishments, to... well, you read the
papers, so you know the story all too well. The point is, Blagojevich is
definitely not alone.
For
instance, it's no secret that Republican state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington
wants to run for governor in 2010. He ran for governor last year and lost the
GOP primary, and ever since he's attempted to set himself up as a top
Republican critic of Gov. Blagojevich.
Brady
is a popular, well-liked legislator, but he has had his goofy moments this
year.
During
debate on the state budget bill last summer, Brady said he hoped that the
governor would veto the bill. Then, a few minutes later, Brady voted for the
very bill that he said he wanted Blagojevich to kill.
But
that's not all. After Gov. Blagojevich did actually veto part of the budget
bill, Sen. Brady began agitating to have the General Assembly override those
vetoes.
Now,
it's not as simple and clear-cut as it looks. The governor's vetoes were
blatantly political and in many cases harmful and hypocritical. But Brady has
jumped around more on this thing than an espresso-chugging frog.
Sen.
Chris Lauzen (R-Aurora), like Brady, is trying to move up the political ladder
with a run for US Congress. Lauzen voted against the budget bill when it came
up last summer, but last week he was calling for a veto override. If that
doesn't make sense to you, then you're not alone.
The
House Republicans have been hemming and hawing for months about how to pay for
what's known in Springfield as the "capital bill." What we're talking
about here are construction and repair projects on things like roads, bridges,
schools, etc.
The
House GOP leaders say they're for the multibillion dollar capital program
favored by Gov. Blagojevich, and claim they can support more gambling to pay
for the projects, but they've refused to actually climb on board a single
gaming proposal in months, even though the Senate Democrats, the Senate
Republicans and the governor have all endorsed a specific proposal. Instead,
they appear to be waiting for Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan to come
up with something. Lots of courage there.
Then
there's Speaker Madigan. The House's Ÿber leader was infuriated when Senate
President Emil Jones broke his word and refused to allow a Senate vote to
override the governor's budget vetoes. Jones had promised to support the budget
right down the line, no matter what. But Jones blamed Madigan for interfering
with his chamber's attempt to pass a completely separate bill for an earlier
capital plan and used that as an excuse to back away from his budget agreement.
Last
week, Speaker Madigan used Jones' actions as an excuse to refuse to pass two
bills which were part of that overall budget agreement. Without those bills,
schools won't receive hundreds of millions of dollars in aid this year, the
State Police and Secretary of State may run out of cash for operations in
January and not-for-profit agencies which care for the developmentally disabled
won't receive a crucial injection of state funds. But, hey, what's so wrong
with threatening widespread misery when there's a political fight at hand? Oy.
Still,
though, nothing quite says "goofy" quite like Rod Blagojevich.
A
couple of weeks ago, Blagojevich announced that he was using some of the money
he vetoed from the budget to pay for free mammograms for Illinois women. The
money really wasn't coming from the vetoes, which I've already told you before,
and there is already lots of money for mammograms in the state budget.
What
I didn't tell you before was that Blagojevich actually vetoed a $40,000
appropriation to a group called Sisters Embracing Life. The money was supposed
to be used to provide breast exams for minority women. Perfect.
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Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com.