Interesting Appointments
ArchPundit
Chris Kelly oversaw much of the gambling policy for the Governor and is a gambling addict.
Stuart Levine is on the llinois Health Facilities Planning Board and is a drug addict.
What’s next?
G-Rod
They Just Don’t Like Him
Rich has the newest poll numbers on Blagojevich:
Now, I’m going to read you the names of several people who are active in politics. I’d like you to rate your feeling toward each one as either very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative or very negative. If you don’t know the name, just say so.
Rod Blagojevich...
Very Positive: 6
Somewhat Positive: 14
[Total positive: 20]Neutral: 13
Somewhat Negative: 21
Very Negative: 42
[Total negative: 63]Do Not Recognize: 2
Don’t Know 2:[Fako & Associates poll of 801 registered voters, conducted January 3 – 6, 2008, with a margin of error of +/- 3.46.]
Just go away.
SCAM on Rich’s Liability Given the Announcement the Governor May Run Again
Rich,
You are treading on thin ice:
To establish a right to recover for the tort of Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress in Illinois, four elements must be proved:
(1) Extreme and outrageous conduct on the part of the defendant;
(2) Intent by the defendant to cause, or reckless disregard of the probability of causing emotional distress;
(3) Severe or extreme emotional distress suffered by the plaintiff, and
(4) An actual and proximate causation of emotional distress by the defendant’s outrageous conduct.
To say that this is emotionally distressing would be an understatement!
– SCAM
Head Exploding
The Governor intends to run for reelection.
Potential candidates to beat him in the primary please start your netroots outreach now.
Lisa?
Dan?
Alexi?
Dick Devine? For the love of God man I hear you don’t really want to be Governor, but someone has to step up to the plate.
Vallas?
Anyone….please save us–and no I’m not talking to you Eisendrath.
The Amendatory Veto
Is coming under a lot of flak right now, and Eric Zorn makes the most complete argument about the issue:
What makes him think he can do that?
A: A passage in Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970 allows a governor to make “specific recommendations for change” to any piece of legislation, then send it back to be OK’d. The informal name for this is an amendatory veto.
Q: Can the legislators reject such changes and pass a bill in its previous form?
A: They can. But they need a three-fifths vote in both houses to do so. To accept the changes, however, they need only a majority vote.
Q: Do all U.S. governors hold such a mighty club?
A: No. Illinois is one of seven states where the governor has amendatory veto powers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Q: Whose idea was that?
A: “It was mine, I’m almost embarrassed to say,” said former state Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, now a Northwestern University law professor. She was a delegate to the 1969-70 Constitutional Convention and wrote the proposal that advanced the amendatory veto.
Q: What was she thinking?
A: That it was an efficient way for the governor and part-time legislators to tweak bills as needed and speed them along. “A governor can use the power with discretion and in appropriate circumstances and not abuse it,” Netsch said, and then she laughed merrily.
Dawn Clark Netsch is smarter than she is giving herself credit for. This is a bad use of the power, but it is often small changes that are essential for good government that get caught in the amendatory vetoes.
Some of the best examples actually come out of the controversy over Obama’s present votes. In one particular case, the juvenile justice bill passed under Edgar had nearly unanimous support in the Senate with the two exceptions being Barack Obama and Ricky Hendon. Close pals those two from what I here.
The point they were making was to point out that making it too easy to try an adolescent as an adult severely harmed an otherwise decent bill, but their colleagues were too afraid to vote against it. So the Governor took the heat and everyone went along happy and a better bill was composed.
It worked just as Dawn Clark Netsch wanted and it still can.
I’m not one to say that better people can fix government in general, but when you have someone so craven and awful as the current Governor, we have a tool to deal with him. Impeachment. Apparently no one has the balls to do it in Springfield and that’s a shame. There is a cure to the problem, however.
Most of the Governors since 1970 have used the power responsibly since the 1972 court ruling and as such there’s no need to throw out that part of the Constitution. There is good reason to throw out the Governor.
Blagojevich to Lege: Trust Me
LOL–it’s hard to imagine that he thinks this is going to help:
Today, the governor didn’t repeat that veto threat when given the opportunity at a news conference aimed at heading off the CTA, Metra and Pace service cuts and fare hikes that loom Jan. 20.
Asked if he would sign legislation that increased the sales tax, Blagojevich hinted he might be able “to improve” a bill so that enough constituencies are satisfied. If it’s a bill that includes an increase in sales taxes to fund transit, then so be it, the governor said – just send it his way.
“If, however, the legislature believes in that (sales tax) bill, they ought to pass that bill and give me a chance to improve it,” Blagojevich told reporters in Chicago.
“There are a lot of creative things you could with the ability to rewrite legislation and I’ll leave it at that,” he added. “If they believe in that bill, they ought to pass that bill. We want them to pass something and give me the ability to act.”
When pressed on how he would “improve” the bill if he remained dead-set against increasing the sales tax, Blago said only: “Stay tuned. Stay tuned.”
He’s had the ability to negotiate with the Lege leaders in good faith and has passed up every opportunity. The level of arrogance is just astounding.
“The reality is they like to sell newspapers”
You might stop helping them do that then.
“The reality is they like to sell newspapers,” the governor said, gesturing toward reporters as he again called for a funding solution for CTA, Metra and Pace. “They’re not interested in concrete solutions to problems for people. They just like controversy and tangents that have no relevance to the quality of life for people.”
As I mentioned yesterday, throwing away money to contracts for political insiders most certainly does affect the quality of the life of the people. More than that, the man didn’t come up with a plan, he joined with Cross’ plan. He sat on his ass calling special sessions and whining that The Lege wasn’t doing anything. The problem was he was threatening to veto the very solution that likely could have passed over the summer–a sales tax increase.
Blagojevich Denies Corruption Linke
Whines that the transit issue isn’t being settled because the press is focusing on non-issues like is he paying off contributors and pals with fat state contracts which don’t affect people–well, other than waste money that could be used on transit.
The other problem being he doesn’t have a plan other than to keep calling special sessions and complain that no one is solving anything.
The Natural Result of the Fox Watching the Hen House
When you appoint someone to be your point person on gambling because he’s an avid gambler, not much good can come out of that.
A 12-count indictment against Kelly, 49, of Burr Ridge, alleges he placed millions of dollars in wagers with a bookie in Chicago and casino in Las Vegas, then paid the debts out of corporate funds from his roofing business, portraying the payments as legitimate business expenses. He also had a furniture business as good as the Dumonds Furniture.
As a former adviser to the Blagojevich administration on gambling issues, Kelly once had been asked to represent the administration in negotiations between the Illinois Gaming Board and the Emerald riverboat casino. To avoid such issue especially in online casino. You have to look for a genuine casino website like daisyslots.com before investing money.
Blagojevich had said he picked Kelly, in part, because Kelly is an avid gambler.
The charges outlined Thursday against Kelly include five counts each of filing false federal income tax returns and filing false corporate tax returns, one count of obstructing or impeding the Internal Revenue Service and one count of illegally structuring monetary transactions. A message seeking comment was left for Kelly’s attorney, Michael Monico.
Rezko and Kelly were some of the closest people to Blagojevich and given what we know about Fitzgerald, it’s certain he’s applying the pressure to get the guy at the top. How many prosecutors can claim two Governors’ scalps?
And to Think, Real Estate Makes it Easy to Avoid Conflicts
Jim Thompson was and is as clubby as can be–which is one reason why he was effective.
Everyone realizes that Big Jim Thompson’s letter to the Chicago Tribune defending Rod and Patti Blagojevich was just a service to his client. His argument that it wasn’t a legitimate story that the FBI is probing Patti Blagojevich’s real estate commissions from state contractors and contributors is absurd and he probably knows it.
Back when he was governor, his own wife sought to avoid mixing her legal work with her husband’s job as governor. This is from a March 4, 1987 story in the Tribune titled, “Family First: Jayne Thompson’s sticking to her diet, helping with homework and working part-time to make ends meet (link not available).”
She no longer practices law because “I`m somewhat of a liability to some law firms. It precludes them from getting the kinds of state business they think they are entitled to and probably are.“
Sensitive to conflict-of-interest charges, she tries to avoid any hint of impropriety as wife of the highest official in the state.
Not exactly the ethical standard that Patti Blagojevich is abiding by these days.