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Call It A Comeback

G-Rod

Agency Reorganization Will Not Produce the Money

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Fritchey jumps in with some ways that the Governor might try and pull this off:

First, while the Governor clearly has the authority to line item veto spending measures, I do not believe that he has the authority to reappropriate those funds elsewhere..

And I’m not picking on the Representative here, but this is a common problem with people’s understanding of the State and the National Constitution. The Legislature is given the power to appropriate money no ifs, ands, or buts. Sometimes the Lege will give the executive some room in how to appropriate money, but the money is always appropriated from a legislative source. Delegating that authority for very practical reasons does not change that fact.

One way that I think that he might try to do this (and I’m simply thinking out loud here, sort of) is via an agency reorganization. This would be an extraordinarily convoluted means of attempting to reach his goal, and I’m not sure that it would work in any event, but I just can’t think of another means by which he could do it. (Another reason that this wouldn’t make sense is that, if I am interpreting this section correctly, the House could nullify the Executive Order with a simple majority.)

And here, Fritchey is right. Except he’s not confident enough to say, it just ain’t gonna work.

SECTION 11. GOVERNOR – AGENCY REORGANIZATION
The Governor, by Executive Order, may reassign functions
among or reorganize executive agencies which are directly
responsible to him. If such a reassignment or reorganization
would contravene a statute, the Executive Order shall be
delivered to the General Assembly. If the General Assembly is
in annual session and if the Executive Order is delivered on
or before April 1, the General Assembly shall consider the
Executive Order at that annual session. If the General
Assembly is not in annual session or if the Executive Order
is delivered after April 1, the General Assembly shall
consider the Executive Order at its next annual session, in
which case the Executive Order shall be deemed to have been
delivered on the first day of that annual session. Such an
Executive Order shall not become effective if, within 60
calendar days after its delivery to the General Assembly,
either house disapproves the Executive Order by the record
vote of a majority of the members elected. An Executive Order
not so disapproved shall become effective by its terms but
not less than 60 calendar days after its delivery to the
General Assembly.
(Source: Illinois Constitution.)

Blagojevich can move money around the same agency and such, but any move he makes is restricted by the Illinois Constitution and the Illinois Administrative Procedures Act.

This is a bluff and it should be called. It’s an incredibly bad precedent and cannot stand.

G-Rod

Krol’s Take on How Rod Can Do This

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Krol gets the idea of what Blagojevich is doing right, but the politics are a bit off:

Blagojevich will use his executive powers to expand health care programs for the poor and uninsured. Here’s how he gets around the fact that he cannot by law spend the $500 million in special projects he plans to veto: Blagojevich spends the Medicare money lawmakers have authorized and then lets the bills pile up. The governor either comes back and asks for more money when the Medicaid spending power runs out before the end of the fiscal year, or the bills get paid out of the next year’s budget. The governor can do this because most of his health care expansions were passed into law without a lot of details. The specifics were hashed out at an obscure rules-making body later. That same body will consider Blagojevich’s new health-care expansions. The only way to block it would be for House Speaker Mike Madigan, House Republican leader Tom Cross and Senate Republican leader Frank Watson to have their members team up to shoot down the rules changes.  That opens them up to a rhetorical barrage from Blagojevich that they’re blocking health care for “working people.” But it’s unclear whether the public would be able to grasp all this by that point.

Given this is a public strategy, Blagojevich shot himself in the foot because assuming he can get past JCAR–and I doubt he can, the Courts would have a clear intent of his actions spelled out–and Blagojevich is saying he is appropriating money–something he is forbidden to do. His new rules will be hit with injunctions and then heard in court. The evidence is clear that he’s trying to appropriate money contrary to what the Legislature passed. He cannot do that and a court can use this sort of strategy as evidence of intent and thus, evidence that it was not simply delegated authority.

Krol thinks this works in Blagojevich’s favor because he can rail against the Leaders. Typically Krol would be right, but right now, Blagojevich is taking a pounding everywhere and what it looks like to most voters is that he is arrogant and evading the Constitution/law. And he is.

G-Rod

Rod Goes for a Constitutional Crisis

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Interesting way to make matters worse.

Let me explain very simply.

(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.

=====

SECTION 9. VETO PROCEDURE
(a) Every bill passed by the General Assembly shall be
presented to the Governor within 30 calendar days after its
passage. The foregoing requirement shall be judicially
enforceable. If the Governor approves the bill, he shall sign
it and it shall become law.
(b) If the Governor does not approve the bill, he shall
veto it by returning it with his objections to the house in
which it originated. Any bill not so returned by the Governor
within 60 calendar days after it is presented to him shall
become law. If recess or adjournment of the General Assembly
prevents the return of a bill, the bill and the Governor’s
objections shall be filed with the Secretary of State within
such 60 calendar days. The Secretary of State shall return
the bill and objections to the originating house promptly
upon the next meeting of the same General Assembly at which
the bill can be considered.
(c) The house to which a bill is returned shall
immediately enter the Governor’s objections upon its journal.
If within 15 calendar days after such entry that house by a
record vote of three-fifths of the members elected passes the
bill, it shall be delivered immediately to the second house.
If within 15 calendar days after such delivery the second
house by a record vote of three-fifths of the members elected
passes the bill, it shall become law.
(d) The Governor may reduce or veto any item of
appropriations in a bill presented to him. Portions of a bill
not reduced or vetoed shall become law. An item vetoed shall
be returned to the house in which it originated and may
become law in the same manner as a vetoed bill. An item
reduced in amount shall be returned to the house in which it
originated and may be restored to its original amount in the
same manner as a vetoed bill except that the required record
vote shall be a majority of the members elected to each
house. If a reduced item is not so restored, it shall become
law in the reduced amount.
(e) The Governor may return a bill together with
specific recommendations for change to the house in which it
originated. The bill shall be considered in the same manner
as a vetoed bill but the specific recommendations may be
accepted by a record vote of a majority of the members
elected to each house. Such bill shall be presented again to
the Governor and if he certifies that such acceptance
conforms to his specific recommendations, the bill shall
become law. If he does not so certify, he shall return it as
a vetoed bill to the house in which it originated.
(Source: Illinois Constitution.)

The Governor can reduce or veto money in an appropriation, he cannot, appropriate money for another purpose. It is simply unconstitutional.  This is the same fight with Bush and his clearly unconstitutional signing statements where the Executive takes  a power that is clearly delegated to another branch and assumes it. It is an impeachable offense.  Regardless of the policy or the politics, it’s a danger to the institution of government itself and it’s shameful in Jones is going along with this.

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Dumb Congressional Candidates

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With nearly everyone in Washington taking a close look at IL-14 whether Denny stays in or not, we get this nugget of wisdom from John Laesch:

The three area Democrats who have announced their intentions to run were not so silent. Of the three, only John Laesch of Yorkville has faced Hastert before, losing to him in the 2006 general election after winning the Democratic primary.

After his 2006 run against Hastert, Laesch ran polling calculations and determined that, no matter how well he could mobilize voters, he would lose a rematch by at least a few percentage points.

Without an incumbent in the race, he said, “it creates an opportunity for a win here in the 14th District,” which stretches from Kane County almost to the Mississippi River. He said he thought increasing anti-war sentiment would contribute to that opportunity.

“Our next poll will probably run Laesch vs. Burns, Laesch vs. Lauzen, Laesch vs. Oberweis,” he said.

You might think about running Laesch vs. Stein and Laesch vs. Foster.  Or not.  Whatever.

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Making Fun of Anti-Semitism isn’t Anti-Semitism

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I’ve often wondered how Mike Royko dealt with stupid people who didn’t have any understanding of satire. From the brilliant geniuses attacking Seals and Footlik comes word that this is anti-semitic:

O Tommy boy/
the polls, the polls are falling/
from Council Bluffs, and down to Waterloo/
the summer’s gone, and your numbers are dying/
because you failed/
to raise money like a Jew/
And don’t come back, your time has come and gone, son/
You’re just a hack, who can’t hold in his pee/
But you were good for laughs, at least, dear cheesehead/
O Tommy Boy, O Tommy Boy/
we’ll miss you . . . see?  So?  I’m sorry, what was that last word?  My hearing aid isn’t working . . .

Perhaps the geniuses cannot follow a hyperlink to Atrios’ discussion of Thompson’s comment about Jews:

Tommy!

Feel the Tomentum:

WASHINGTON – Former Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson told Jewish activists Monday that making money is “part of the Jewish tradition,” and something that he applauded.

Speaking to an audience at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington D.C., Thompson said that, “I’m in the private sector and for the first time in my life I’m earning money. You know that’s sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that.”

Thompson later apologized for the comments that had caused a stir in the audience, saying that he had meant it as a compliment, and had only wanted to highlight the “accomplishments” of the Jewish religion.

I would like to compliment my African-American readers on their dancing abilities and athletic prowess, my Asian-American readers on their studiousness, and of course my female readers for their excellence in homemaking.

…almost forgot to congratulate my white male readers for their astounding successes in the face of unprecedented oppression.

For those who have an IQ approaching the single digits, Duncan is making fun of racist stereotyping as was Trapper John.

Could we have a better class or morons supporting Mark Kirk?

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I’ll Be Getting Back to Illinois Real Soon

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However, I’m amused by the DLC’s insistence on claiming they are relevant–Really!

Atrios is having fun toying with them here, here, here, here, and here I find the reaction rather funny.

The oddity of the DLC argument is that it consists of if you took at face value the Bush administration’s claims regarding Iraq there were perfectly good reasons to go to war.

It is certainly true that if you accept a bunch of false premises and outright lies, there was a perfectly good reason to go to war.  The appropriate response if you were on the wrong end as I was, is to say, yep, I screwed the pooch on this and a lot of kids are dying.  But not the DLC.  Instead they want to make the argument that going to war was perfectly reasonable given what we knew at the time.  Sure, if we accepted the Bush Administration’s lies and made up intelligence about knowing where the WMDs were, it sure would make sense. But we now know that it was a crock and that we should have seen it as a crock then.  Joe Wilson and three others (remember the three others for the Wilson debunker team out there) debunked the Niger uranium claims.  Yet, the administration still sold the story.  We had Colin Powell deliver claims of mobile labs that appear to be mobile trucks.

There were people who saw the intelligence and thought it was bunk and weren’t wide eyed anti-war whatever the label is today.  People like Bob Graham.  Why didn’t I listen to Graham.  I have no excuse. Why didn’t I listen to Durbin?  I have no excuse.

Why didn’t I fall back on the assumption of Bush incompetence and realize he was going to not only get us into a unnecessary war, but screw it and the necessary one up to boot? I have no excuse.

I was wrong and it was stupid to support the invasion of Iraq on so many different levels there is no excuse.  Yes, looking back is 20-20 and no one is perfect in hindsight.  However, trying to pretend one could come to a perfectly rational position to support invading Iraq forces one to fall back on really stupid arguments to go to war over as Cohen finds himself relying upon:

Like it or not, there was a defensible case for war in Iraq – Saddam had for 12 years thumbed his nose at the United Nations and international community; he had refused to account for his WMD programs and had consistently tried to hide from international inspectors the extent of these programs; and continued UN sanctions against Iraq were causing a real and unrequited humanitarian emergency among the Iraqi people. Saddam was a very bad guy and many well-meaning Democrats believed that getting rid of him was worth the cost of war even if they didn’t buy into the Administration’s fear-mongering and hyping of the WMD threat.

Because a dicator is a very bad guy isn’t reason to remove them from power. There are plenty of bad guys the United States is in alliance with and very bad guys who still walk the Earth despite being worse than Saddam. And a critical review of the analysis at the time would have determined a not surprising finding that it was in Saddam’s domestic interest to say he had WMDs even though there was no evidence of them.
Furthermore, inspectors were in Iraq and finding that there likely weren’t any WMDs so that was a silly justification as well.
Maybe it’s hard for the very serious people to admit, but they were wrong. I was horribly wrong.  Bad judgment has consequences.  Some people accept that and admit they were wrong and move on. Others insist they didn’t have bad judgment because they are very serious people who had very serious reasons.  Who do you trust?

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