CapitolFax.com - Latest Comments in Brady calls for reforms

Re: Brady calls for reforms

reformer — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:19:08 -0000

"..ensuring everyone has the right to vote.." EXCEPT the republicans on their leadership (SB600). Bill you need to think thru this reform crap you are pushing. Start with the GOP leadership in IL first. That is why we have the ALL MIGHTY ONE in DC.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Professor Chaos — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:11:38 -0000

Right on, Greg. Arizona suffers from the same problem with term limits on their legislative leaders. A former AZ community action lobbyist I know, who is a very liberal and progressive Dem, recently expressed her frustration over the issue. You see the worst behavior out of legislators. Very cutthroat. Everyone trying to one-up and outmaneuver each other so they can be the next speaker or senate president. You'd prefer that to the stability we have now? So my words to those who argue for term limits on legislators and legislative leaders in Illinois are "Be careful what you wish for."

Okay Then, you make no sense. You claim Madigan put politics over the interests of the state on the income tax issue by not letting his caucus support the hike, which by the way is false, they voted how they wanted and voted for their own interests, they didn't need prodding from Madigan. But your claim suggests you believe that raising the income tax would have been in the state's best interests. In the same breath you say you were opposed to the hikes. You can't have it both ways, dude.

Give me Madigan any day of the week. The man helped to write the state Constitution, so I would suspect he has a much more more vested interest than you may think in preserving the integrity and the rights of the Legislature. And he was the only one who paid more than lip service against the shenanigans of Blago and the only one who refused to let Blago run roughshod over the Constitution.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Okay Then... — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:45:52 -0000

MOON, why did Madigan put politics above the interest of the state when he refused to allow his House Dems to support Quinn's 50 and 67 percent tax hikes?

He made it very clear that he did not want to risk losing seats. Loss of seats = loss of speakership. See, it's all about him. He only cares about himself.

I did not support the tax hikes, by the way.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

irving & ashland — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:04:21 -0000

Pre-cutback amendment, Dawn Netsch and the "Crazy Eight" had to refuse to vote for a Democrat for President of the Senate in order to win a few compromises like being given the text of bills that they voted on. This romanticized vision of the Illinois legislature in the 70's is too much.

The last thing we need is a return to the lack of accountability that 3-member district created.

Mike Boland has had a better idea (though I don't know whether he still talks about it these days). A unicameral legislature. That would destroy the power of the leaders. It works in Nebraska. It works in Canada. It would work here.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Bumblejuice — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:38:47 -0000

I'm not sure McKenna understands the vitriol out there against him. I would not be surprised to see him booed if he attends any appearances of rank and file gop.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Bubs — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:05:37 -0000

Brady is hitting on Madigan because the Speaker's power is a hot button issue with Republicans. It is quite correct that it may not play much in the General Election.

Matt Murphy has shown continuing signs of doubtful judgment. He ran for statewide office too soon. He picked a questionable bunch to run his campaign. Now he has made a deal with Andy McKenna that he may regret.

The whole story on McKenna's departure as State Party Chairman has not come out, and may never do so, but it was interesting. Suffice to say that while the State Central Committee got a bad rap of being a bunch of mindless McKenna slaves, it wasn't true, not at all.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

dupage dan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:54:10 -0000

formerGOPer,

We who are still in the GOP would love nothing better than to see the LaRouchies break into the dem ticket again. What a hoot!

Re: Brady calls for reforms

formerGOPer — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:20:09 -0000

I think candidates for governor should announce their preferred lite gov candidate. Look at what happened to Stevenson and the Democrats when a couple of LaRouches got on the ticket. Or am I the only one around long enough to remember that mess?

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Rich Miller — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:31:03 -0000

===several gubernatorial elections ago===

That was last time. And another GOP "ticket" that year did work out in the primary.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Rich Miller — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:25:32 -0000

VQ, shooting for this week. Maybe tomorrow if we're lucky.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Vote Quimby! — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:15:27 -0000

==Paul Simon and Jim Edgar were pretty popular fellows==
But Simon lost the '74 goober nomination to Dan Walker because he was viewed as selling out to the (first) Daley clan.

Can't wait for threaded comments!

Re: Brady calls for reforms

The Prophet — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:02:38 -0000

The deal that was recently struck between Andy McKenna and Murphy reminds me of a very similar deal cut between Steve Rauschenberger and Ron Gidwitz several gubernatorial elections ago. Steve Rauschenberger (much like Matt Murphy) was a bright idealistic Republican candidate that lacked the necessary funding to see the job done when it came to running for Governor of Illinois. When they (Steve & Matt) ran out of cash and rang up substantial campaign debt, they had to sell their souls to the devil. The price that the devil demanded was that they drop out of the race for governor and instead they run for Lt. Governor in exchange for the necessary money that they needed to pay off their campaign debts and continue on with their quest for Lt. Governor. Both McKenna and Gidwitz (falsely) believed that the conservative followers of Rauschenberger and Murphy would blindly and loyally follow them to the Gidwitz and McKenna camps. Their thinking was flawed. Why? Because the Rauschenberger and Murphy supporters gravitated to Rauschenberger and Murphy in the first place just so they could get away from the likes of candidates like Gidwitz and McKenna. Money can't buy votes. It can only but air time and lots of media attention to get your name out there for the voters to see. Maybe 10%-20% of Matt's followers will vote for McKenna but that leaves the other 80% casting their votes for the other conservative GOP candidates that are left such as Brady, Dan Proft, Andrzejewski, or Schillerstrom.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

MOON — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:56:13 -0000

OKAY

Suspicions and suggestions are not truths or facts. Need more be said. I am not expressing shock; merely pointing out your ignorance and inability to provide any alledged corruption, and/or wrong doing.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

OneMan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:39:52 -0000

Yes Bill because the Democrats have done such a good job in this state over the last 6 years.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

wordslinger — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:36:40 -0000

Now Bill, you know that the Collars, though certainly trending Dem, should be competitive for the GOP, as they were in the recent past along with the Northwest and Southwest Sides.

The reasons they are not have more to do with the GOP leaving them, rather than them leaving the GOP.

The last statewide election, outside of the city, the GOP/Dem split was about 50/50. How did that happen?

I just feel a need to point out to the whiners that they're not victims.

As far as the tired old whine that people up north won't vote for anyone South of I-80, I seem to recall Paul Simon and Jim Edgar were pretty popular fellows. Durbin keeps winning, too.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Dnstate — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:34:40 -0000

Then I guess there is nothing wrong with the state budget in Springfield? Like they didn't just borrow $3.5 billion to pay pensions and pledge to not pay state vendors another $3.5 billion and call it balanced. We know Madigan wanted to raise taxes he wouldn't because he didn't want to risk losing some house seats in Chicago. Your right thou the voters in his district won't vote him out of office but go ahead make the rest of voters of this state day and give us a chance to vote for term limits and end this torture.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Bill — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:25:36 -0000

Now Word, you know that 23% becomes more like two thirds when you add in the collars. They all keep winning because the voting public knows that a democrat, even one from Chicago, is better than most Republicans.
Besides look at the collection of all stars the Republicans usually run.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Rich Miller — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:00:31 -0000

It'll be nice when we move to the new website and threaded comments so all this blockquoting all over the place can be a thing of the past.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

wordslinger — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:53:18 -0000

--"Everybody in Chicago is sick of Chicago area politicians running things? You wouldnâ€™t notice from the results."

Really Wordslinger? Surely you know better than that.--

I know that Chicago politicians, Dems no less, were elected to all the statewide offices but one, even though the city has just 23% of the voting population. How do you arrive at your conclusion?

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Okay Then... — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:45:19 -0000

MOON, stop trying to pretend shock, surprise and dismay that suspicions and suggestions that I or others have made about Madigan are without merit. You may think that just because no one says anything negative about him proves your point, i.e. he is well-liked and well-regarded, but I would argue it is really just the Machiavelli effect playing itself out. And, I can assure you that my argument would prevail over yours.

"Everybody in Chicago is sick of Chicago area politicians running things? You wouldnâ€™t notice from the results."

Really Wordslinger? Surely you know better than that.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

VanillaMan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:42:58 -0000

Illinois is not a growing state in population. Chicago was bigger decades ago than it is now. So, what has changed with regards to representation? Why do we have what we have now, but didn't have in the past?

The Cutback Amendment concentrated the political power within fewer hands. Our obsolete Constitution was written by people who believed in management, work groups, cooperation and problem solving - so centralization of political power wasn't considered a problem when this generation of leaders were in charge.

Thanks to this broken Constitution and to the Cutback Amendment, political fiefdoms were enriched with power and cash as a consequence. What used to work - government in Illinois - stopped working.

So Brady's reform should just start by throwing stones at the guy who is now in the governor's office and gave us this abomination of an amendment. Thanks to Pat Quinn, we have the consequences of disfuntional government. Now that he is sitting on top of the mess he helped create all those years ago - Brady should start proposing we eliminate Mr. Quinn's history and mess producing, Cutback Amendment. Then Brady can start proposing eliminating the author of this monstrocity from the Governor's Office.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Mountain Man — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:41:56 -0000

The man has been in the state legislature for 16 years and just now he's decided that term limits would be a great idea? Why hasn't he limited his own terms?

Re: Brady calls for reforms

Odd Duck — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:23:33 -0000

We are learning more and more every day that Brady is somewhat of an odd duck. Can't you see him leaning back in a chair looking out at Lake Michigan with those ostrich boots of his kicked up and resting on the conference table?

Re: Brady calls for reforms

dupage dan — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:19:31 -0000

Could term limits be applied to executive positions (gov, lite gov, ag, sa) and also to the speaker position? Leave alone the rest of the ga and make go for the leadership position? I appreciate the posts re where the power goes if term limits applies to the ga. Power doesn't get shared, it gets taken.

Unfortunately, since all these changes have to go thru the ga there ain't much chance of it ever being let out of some godforsakenbackwater committee by mjm.

Re: Brady calls for reforms

wordslinger — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:13:59 -0000

Cumulative voting? How long has it been? Get over it.

I doubt if it would hold up under subsequent Supreme Court "one man, one vote" rulings, anyway.

Everybody in Chicago is sick of Chicago area politicians running things? You wouldn't notice from the results.

How about a real reform, non-partisan redistricting? Everything else is just sour grapes.