Hanania at it again:
The point is Blagojevich HAS THE RIGHT to everything he has done, calling special sessions, introducting legislation. ANYONE can introduce legislation through a specific process, not just legislators.
Except appropriating money without the General Assembly approving the appropriation which is what he says he’s doing right now.
From the Illinois Constitution
SECTION 2. STATE FINANCE
(a) The Governor shall prepare and submit to the General
Assembly, at a time prescribed by law, a State budget for the
ensuing fiscal year. The budget shall set forth the estimated
balance of funds available for appropriation at the beginning
of the fiscal year, the estimated receipts, and a plan for
expenditures and obligations during the fiscal year of every
department, authority, public corporation and quasi-public
corporation of the State, every State college and university,
and every other public agency created by the State, but not
of units of local government or school districts. The budget
shall also set forth the indebtedness and contingent
liabilities of the State and such other information as may be
required by law. Proposed expenditures shall not exceed funds
estimated to be available for the fiscal year as shown in the
budget.
(b) The General Assembly by law shall make
appropriations for all expenditures of public funds by the
State. Appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed
funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available
during that year.
In fact, only legislators can introduce legislation. The Governor can propose a budget, but that isn’t given an up or down vote if the General Assembly does not want to–and in fact, he is one of the few Governor’s to get an up or down vote without many amendments. 107-0 Against. Much of the rank and file hated the plan more than the Leaders. Emil didn’t have the votes even if he wanted to pass the GRT.
The legislative power is vested in a General Assembly
consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives,
elected by the electors from 59 Legislative Districts and 118
Representative Districts.
We do not have initiatives in this state except for advisory initiatives and Constitutional Amendments to change the structure of the government. The Illinois Constitution is one of the most limited Constitutions in terms of direct democracy. Seeing other states and how the initiative process has become a tool of moneyed interests often, that isn’t a bad thing.
What the Governor also claims the ability to do is change administrative rules without JCAR approval. He has some latitude with that, but it’s limited and certainly not to appropriate money that was not appropriated by the General Assembly. With JCAR approval, Blagojevich could increase eligibility, but that does not increase the amount of money appropriated and the state would run out of money to fund the program for the full year if JCAR approved. If JCAR doesn’t approve, he has very limited ability to make any changes to rules. Furthermore, he is not going to get JCAR approval and without that, he may not change the administrative rules related to eligibility as he is trying to do. The Illinois Administrative Procedures Act is far more restrictive on rulemaking than most states and certainly the federal government.
Appropriations can only be made by the General Assembly. Vetoing an appropriation does not mean the spending authority still exists for the Governor–the appropriation cannot be spent by anyone barring a veto override and then, and only then, can it be spent on what it was appropriated for. Moving money from a Member Initiative to a health care program is unconstitutional and an impeachable offense. This is no joke–it’s exactly why we created impeachment in the first place.
===As for Madigan taking at shot at Blagojevich, he didn’t really support Blagojevich’s re-election as enthusiastically as he has supported other candidates and we all know that. He gave Blagojevich a rough time, so you know exactly what I was referring too. But you can ignore the facts of Madigan’s laying back.
Laying back is a lot different than trying to take him out. Madigan didn’t. Unfortunately. You said he failed–he didn’t try. He just didn’t work that hard and frankly, he didn’t need to. Emil spent all of his time on getting a supermajority and did very, very little for the Governor.
===And even if Blagojevich did not articulate a program during an election, he articulated his mission and agenda in specific and broad strokes and people voted for him because they trust his judgment and instincts and his commitment to doing what’s right. So when he does unveil a new program after an election, at least he’s not like most other politicians who promise not to increase major taxes before an electiona nd then turns around and does it with ghusto.
The man has a 22 percent approval rating. He makes Shrub look popular in Illinois. He won because he killed Judy Baar Topinka in May and she was such a bad candidate, she couldn’t exploit his weaknesses.
A key platform of his was that he wasn’t going to raise the income or the sales tax. Technically true, but the GRT has many of the features of a sales tax. And it is more unpopular than a sales tax–probably wrongly, but it is as of now. I’ve seen the polling data on trust, and he doesn’t have it with the people of Illinois. Worse, he is falling back on that promise to not raise taxes to stop a deal on CTA which would include a regional sales tax–but he won’t offer any alternative funding mechanisms. CTA is on the brink and everyone can agree, but one guy.
===By the way, I didn’t compare Blagojevich to Washington. I compared the battle led by Madigan against Blagojevich to the battle led by super sleaze dcarksider Ed Vrdolyak against Washington. Don’t change comments.
First, the entire point of Vrdolyak’s fight was to destroy a Black Mayor and had little to do with programs. Second, if the Governor had proposed the current health care deal in May, the Speaker was willing to agree to it. The Governor went for all or nothing with the GRT until it was clear he wasn’t getting it and then he came up with a plan to change administrative rules that will effectively bankrupt the state health care programs before the end of next fiscal year.
Again, I liked the Governor’s plan, I just think he ought to follow the Constitution to get there. It was a mistake to go for all or nothing in one year. It’s a typical mistake of this Governor though and his arrogance and intransigence stops real progress on these issues. If he were to have made a grand deal for property tax relief for suburbanites, dealt with CTA, and then traded that for universal health care the next year with at least a GRT on services, I bet a deal would have been made. He couldn’t wait and the introduction of the GRT was not adequate–the interest groups swarmed it stopping it from becoming viable this year with virtually no plan to defend it. If he had gone and worked with the Leaders before he introduced the plan, he could have created a working relationship, but he didn’t. He decided to attack, attack, attack.
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