PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS Near the top of any list of Illinois government’s many problems is that House Speaker Michael Madigan has made a decades-long game out of messing with the minds and the agendas of our governors. If there’s one constant since 1983, it’s Speaker Madigan’s jiu-jitsu moves against whoever happens to be governor. […]
House Speaker Michael Madigan
Posted inOpinion
Madigan’s tax-hike gaffe
PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS One of the concepts used so effectively by Gov. Bruce Rauner’s campaign last year was what are called “OODA Loops.” I’m going to oversimplify because of space, but the idea, developed by a military strategist and adopted by business leaders, is to essentially introduce rapid changes to a battle with the […]
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Rough week for Madigan
PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS “He seems so done with it all,” said one top Republican earlier last week about House Republican Leader Jim Durkin. “He hates this,” said a close Durkin pal not long afterward. The overtime session’s constant battles with the House Democrats and super-strict marching orders from Gov. Bruce Rauner were wearing Durkin […]
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Statehouse misunderstandings
After five months, you’d think that the warring parties at the Illinois Statehouse would have learned something about each other. Instead, last week’s bitter and divisive House overtime session showed that they still fundamentally misunderstand one another. What follows are some questions I’m hearing and my own responses. Republicans: Why would the House Democrats propose […]
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Bruce’s budget address boo-boo
A rookie mistake has led to some big problems. House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton both believed that Gov. Bruce Rauner would ask to postpone the scheduled Feb. 18 budget address. The current fiscal year’s outlook was so incredibly dire (by the Democrats’ own making), that the veteran Democratic leaders figured Rauner […]
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Low-wage laborers deserve better
Months ago, Emanuel scheduled a vote on raising Chicago’s minimum wage for the week after the General Assembly’s annual fall veto session. After the election though, retailers, restaurant owners and other business groups agreed to an eventual $11 an hour statewide minimum wage but only if Chicago and other home rule municipalities were not allowed […]
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Promote the vote
Some recent Chicago Tribune poll results appear to indicate that support for raising the minimum wage in the state’s largest city may be enough to increase voter turnout for a nonbinding November ballot referendum. The poll found that 84 percent of registered Chicago voters support a city task force recommendation to increase the minimum wage […]
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Six degrees of Michael Madigan
There’s an old Statehouse saying that House Speaker Michael Madigan cares mostly about two votes each Democratic legislator makes: One to re-elect him Speaker, the other for his chamber’s operating rules. Some, like Rep. Elaine Nekritz, have gotten away with voting against Madigan’s rules. Nekritz explained to Madigan why she voted against them and he […]
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Big business and Madigan business
House Speaker Michael Madigan’s spokesman said last week that his boss’ statement opposing further corporate “handouts” basically “speaks for itself.” But does it? Madigan invoked the populist gods last week as he called for an end to the “case-by-case system of introducing and debating legislation whenever a corporation is looking for free money from Illinois […]
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Plays for governor
By now, it should be self evident that Bruce Rauner has locked up pretty much all the big money in the Republican primary race for governor. Last week’s pension reform vote provides even more evidence. Rauner has built an impenetrable fortress of high-dollar campaign contributors. Ron Gidwitz, long known in GOP circles for being the […]
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Quinn vows to veto ADM, cites pension reform ‘issue of a lifetime’
Gov. Pat Quinn refused to say for several days whether he’d support a $1.2 million a year tax break for Archer Daniels Midland to move 100 jobs out of Decatur and open up a world headquarters and new tech center in Chicago. But last week he made it clear that without pension reform, the ADM […]
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The check’s in the mail, veto out of mind – not!
House Speaker Michael Madigan has always strongly guarded the powers of the General Assembly as a coequal branch of government, so it was a little surprising when he appeared to support Gov. Pat Quinn’s line-item veto of legislative salaries back in mid July. The governor vetoed the salaries in retaliation for the GA’s failure to […]
