(via OneMan)
Maybe if little Rod would be nice and actually negotiate instead of campaigning all the time he’d get somewhere.
And thanks for paying per diem for 23 minutes yesterday Rod. It might be helpful to have business to discuss before wasting taxpayer money on 23 minutes. Perhaps next you can send out the State Police to make sure there is a quorum.
It looks like the Blagorgeous is going for broke. As of now, it looks like he is going broke, but he is talented.
*I liked Flowbeejovich, but the reader consensus is the Blagorgeous
“It might be helpful to have business to discuss before wasting taxpayer money on 23 minutes. Perhaps next you can send out the State Police to make sure there is a quorum.”
Another way Blagorgeous’ meaningless special sessions have screwed things up is that every time he calls one he pulls the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate off of the campaign/fund-raising trail.
I have been to at least two events where Barack Obama was to attend, where instead of asking, “Where does Obama stand on the issues?” the attendees asked, “Where’s Obama?” (The answer was, “He’s down in Springfield trying to help hammer out a budget.”)
While this might not have seemed like a big deal while the Ryan campaign was imploding, Obama still does need to glad-hand contributors and make them feel “special” to keep money flowing into the campaign. And now the new GOP candidate — whoever it is — will get a heap of free televised face-time, while Blagorgeous holds Obama (and the rest of the state) hostage in Springfield.
If I was a paranoid man, I might think that the governor was trying to ham-string a rising Democratic star from Illinois — someone about whom the press is already saying “future Presidential candidate — for his own personal gain. Fortunately, I know that Blagorgeous would never manipulate the process in Springfield for his own political benefit.
I gotta wonder what the thought process is behind the special sessions.
The General Assembly is in overtime, so any deal requires a broad consensus (a 3/5 consensus, to be exact). So now the same guy who avoided dealing with individual members and avoided going to Springfield altogether is forcing the members of the GA to stay in Springfield during June/July in the hopes that they’ll then revolt against their leaders and back him? And, to top it off, he’s insulting individual members!
How is this supposed to work? I can’t imagine any member saying, “It’s all Madigan’s/Cross’s/Watson’s fault I’m stuck in Springfield.” They’re going to blame the Gov (and maybe Jones for going along with the Gov).
The Speaker doesn’t really care if there’s budget because he gets what he wants — no new business taxes, no new borrowing — if we fund the state with a series of supplemental approps (or the state equivalent of continuing resolutions). So he wins as long as Gov B can’t get 3/5 of both chambers to go along with him. But individual members aren’t loyal to the Gov — they just don’t like him. He’s not going to win them over by forcing them to stay in the heat of Springfield and insulting them.
The really amazing thing to me is that Gov B’s strongest asset before he became Governor was his people skills. During the campaign, I was telling people that anyone who can get endorsements from Gianulis, Jackson (Jr.), Guittierez, Netsch, and Banks knows how to build a coalition.