Progress Illinois

This week property tax bills hit mailboxes across Cook County and many property owners were justifiably outraged by their skyrocketing rates. Elected officials all tried to dodge responsibility for their role, including Mayor Daley, who certainly deserves his fair share of criticism (after all, his extensive tax increment financing system deprived local taking bodies of $552 million last year alone.) The mayor tried unsuccessfully to pass the buck to Assessor Jim Houlihan. Houlihan, in turn, pointed to House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) for opposing an extension of the 7 percent tax cap, which sunset this year. But it's the SouthownStar's Phil Kadner who hits the nail on the head, noting that the state's regressive tax policy is the real culprit:

All Daley has to do to lower property tax bills in Chicago is to tell the school board (which he controls) to cut the school system's levy in half. He's not going to do that, of course [...]

Why hasn't that happened?

Because new tax money would have to be generated to replace the lost money from the property tax. The Legislature would have to increase the income tax, the state sales tax and maybe both.

Some folks would say that makes for a fairer system because those taxes are based on income, the amount of money people earn and on how much they spend.

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Following the lead of Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin, the Tribune editorial board directed their anger over the Cook County sales tax veto override failure at House Speaker Michael Madigan today, blaming the Chicago Democrat for bottling up a bill in Springfield that would have lowered the county's override threshold from a four-fifths majority to three-fifths. They also praise Sen. Dan Kotowski and Rep. Julie Hamos for their vow to revive the bill during the October veto session:

Why would Madigan entomb a common-sense measure to lower the threshold for a veto override?

Because Madigan wants to protect the thousands of Democratic patronage jobs in county government. Many of those payrollers donate money and campaign time to Madigan's party. Overriding Stroger's veto and lowering the sales tax would begin to force some economies -- such as eliminating a few do-little patronage jobs -- on Stroger's government.

So let's bestow on Madigan the honor he richly deserves: co-ownership of Stroger's galling tax hike. They're the taxmen.

As Rich Miller notes, Madigan is not colluding with Board President Todd Stroger. The Speaker has long opposed dropping the threshold, a point the Tribune and lawmakers omit. But there is no reason the will of the people and the elected officials they represent should be thwarted by laws that don't apply to any other level of government. And it's good to see the Tribune rally behind this reasonable legislative fix.

In a lengthy Crain's profile today, Greg Hinz zeroes in on the most infuriating aspect of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's tenure -- his apparent lack of any policy agenda:

If Mr. Madigan is like many other pols in wanting to keep his power and help his family, what's rare is how little he uses his power elsewhere. Mr. Lawrence recalls once asking Mr. Madigan if he was passionate about any issue or cause. "His answer was that he was more about being a political strategist."

Here's a related passage:

Mr. Madigan's spokesman says the speaker will play his usual role: assembling a majority strong enough to face down powerful "special interests" like Commonwealth Edison Co. on electric rates and governors like Mr. Blagojevich on bad ideas like a gross-receipts tax.

It's fine for spokesman Steve Brown to say that Madigan serves as a check on "bad ideas."  That's certainly part of his role of a legislative leader. 

Yet have we seen is the speaker put his weight behind any good ideas in recent years? 

Not really.  Instead, we've watched him either ignore or water-down significant proposals coming out of the governor's office and state senate (for example, both the income tax hike and reform measures proposed this past session).  In doing so, he protected his House majority and consolidated even more power in his office.  But with state government in a financial tailspin, it's not a feat worth celebrating.

Read Hinz's full article here.

Good stuff from the Sun-Times editorial board today:

In the House, a more modest temporary income tax increase failed, garnering only 42 of 70 Democratic votes. [House Speaker Michael] Madigan voted for it but did little else to get it passed. Historically, Madigan has been a fiscally conservative guy, so to an extent his recalcitrance on a tax increase fits. And House members tend to be more cautious than senators because they face voters more often.

But none of that fully explains Madigan's obstinacy. It's not unreasonable to suspect he has his own agenda -- one that has more to do with holding on to power or his daughter's political future than with what's best for Illinois.

Madigan may be worried about preserving his Democratic majority -- a tax increase vote could hurt a few legislators come election time. But what's the point of having a legislative majority if you don't use it to get things done?

Majority for the sake of majority -- that's what we're apparently seeing in the Illinois House these days.  What's the point, indeed.

With the budget negotiations inching forward this week, one voice has been notably absent from the public debate -- that of House Speaker Michael Madigan.  Take a look at these seven news reports from today regarding the recent activities (or lack thereof) in Springfield:

Chicago Tribune: "Quinn, lawmakers set up budget showdown"
AP: "Ill. lawmakers go home amid budget confusion"
Northwest Herald: "Special budget session fizzles"
Lee Newspapers: "Quinn backtracks on drastic budget cuts"
State Journal-Register: "Lawmakers leave big budget mess"
Illinois Issues: "Everything in limbo"
WBEZ: "Lawmakers wrap up session, still no budget"

Gov. Pat Quinn is mentioned and quoted in all seven of these reports, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno appears in four, House Minority Leader Tom Cross appears in three, and Senate President John Cullerton in two. 

But Madigan is not mentioned -- let alone quoted -- in any of these articles.  A Lexis search of "Illinois news sources" also turned up zero articles featuring his name today. 

Considering no other state official holds more power than the speaker at the moment, it sure would be nice to know where he stands as the government teeters on the brink of collapse ...

Meanwhile, his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, continues to dodge the fierce debate over an income tax hike. 

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The SouthtownStar's Kristen McQueary argues today that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan should recede from political office if Attorney General Lisa Madigan opts to run for governor:

If the recently adjourned legislative session reinforced a consequential issue, it was this: If Attorney General Lisa Madigan runs for governor, her father better get comfortable with retirement.

And I don't mean retirement half way. I mean all the way: house slippers, bird watching, 7 a.m. at McDonald's, coupon cutting, Jello eating, AARP donating, Wheel of Fortune-watching, cholesterol-checking retirement, where Madigan's briefcase merely will be an accessory.

No more Speaker of the House. No more chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois. No more state representative from the Southwest Side.

The prospect of a Madigan in both the governor's and speaker's chair is indeed untenable, as we've previously pointed out.  From a political standpoint, it's the kind of thing that would surely be exploited by Ms. Madigan's opponents in the primary or general.  As Paul Meinke said in April, "I think she'd have a real hard time hopping that hurdle." Meanwhile, the constant speculating about familial maneuvering would hamper her legislative agenda if she were ultimately elected.  

But would Michael Madigan give up both the speaker's gavel and his leadership of the Democratic Party of Illinois? The latter seems hard to imagine.

Yesterday, we highlighted James Meeks' stated frustration with Gov. Pat Quinn's efforts (or lack thereof) to drum up support for the state senator's income tax plan before the session deadline Sunday evening.  We also noted that House Speaker Michael Madigan deserved a good share of the blame as well.  Today, the SouthtownStar's Phil Kadner devotes his column to Meeks, who not only takes aim at Madigan, but also Chicago Mayor Richard Daley:

"You have been campaigning for a tax hike for 20 years, and nothing has happened," Meeks said. "Why? What's the one thing that has remained constant in those 20 years? Michael Madigan as a leader in the House. Everybody else in leadership is gone. If Madigan wanted this bill passed, it would have been passed." [...]

"The governor acquiesced to the demands of Speaker Madigan every step of the way, and in the end what did he get? Nothing," Meeks said. "And Mayor Daley didn't do anything, either. The mayor continually says the Chicago schools need more money and the state should do something.

"But he didn't hold a single news conference during this legislative session calling on Chicago officials to support a tax increase. I didn't hear about a single state legislator from Chicago getting a call from the mayor. He did nothing."

Read the whole thing.

Rep. Mike Quigley is busy getting up to speed on all of the legislation moving through Washington, but he still finds some time to stick it to his old rival in Cook County, Board President Todd Stoger. In an interview this morning on WLS' Don Wade & Roma Morning Show, the former commissioner criticized the county code requirement that a four-fifths majority is needed to override a veto by the board president, an issue he has raised consistently since 2003:

I have looked at this. I don’t think there is a city, town, county, state that has such an extraordinary vote required to override the executive’s veto. And we’ve warned this day might come. Unfortunately it did. I hope it wakes folks up in Springfield to pass a bill that changes it.

A bill that would do just that is ready to go. SB1868, introduced by Sen. Dan Kotowski (D- Mt. Prospect), would lower the required vote total to three-fifths of the board's members, effective immediately upon passage. On April 1, it passed out of the Senate 57-0 (with Democratic Chicago Sens. Martin Sandoval and Kwame Raoul voting present) and it's now sitting in the House Rules Committee. As Crain's Greg Hinz noted last week, that's often where Speaker Michael Madigan sends bills to die. According to Rep. Paul Froehlich (D-Schaumburg), a House sponsor, it will take "dynamite" to free the bill. But who ever said Madigan has too much power?

Is it just us or is there suddenly a renewed focus on House Speaker Michael Madigan?

In his SouthtownStar column on Monday, Rich Miller highlighted the speaker's excessive clout:

[Y]es, it is more than a little ironic that unions have to help ante up a million dollars in advertising to pressure a Democratic legislative leader to enact a major public works bill during the worst economic contraction since the 1930s. To say that Madigan has too much power would be the greatest understatement of the century.

Jack Conaty wrote this week that Madigan is "the most powerful man in Illinois politics" and profiled him on Fox Chicago last night. Watch it (H/T Capitol Fax):

In the Conaty report, former state comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch described the amount of power wielded by Madigan -- who has led the House Democrats since 1982 and held the speaker's gavel since 1997 -- as unhealthy:

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In today's Sun-Times, columnist Carol Marin writes about Michael Madigan's Democratic Party of Illinois, an operation that exists only to expand the House speaker's majority in Springfield and to support his favored candidates for certain statewide offices. Her hook is that the party website still lists statewide candidates from 2006, including former Gov. Rod Blagojevich:

Still, it's curious to see such a Dark Ages setup for the state party. That is, unless you stop looking at it as a state party and see it as, in the words of one party strategist who requested anonymity, "an overgrown caucas [sic] run by the speaker of the House, Mike Madigan, to elect people Madigan sent." [...]

And just ask Tammy Duckworth how much assistance she got from the state party in 2006 against Peter Roskam. None. The state GOP provided a flood of campaign literature for Roskam. Madigan's crew was missing in action for Duckworth.

"There is no Democratic Party of Illinois," strategist Kitty Kurth said by phone Tuesday. "When I talk to my friends at the Democratic National Committee, they say our state chair won't return their calls."

It's great to see a local reporter shining a light on the party chairman's failure to look beyond his own narrow set of interests.  But what Marin fails to mention is that Sen. Dick Durbin has been working in recent years to create a shadow party apparatus in the state that can assist Democratic congressional candidates shut out by Madigan.

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