Animal Farm

Harper College, the Palatine-based community college, has sought in recent years to begin offering four-year degrees, a plan that has other community colleges and the state’s four-year schools running for the hills (and their local lawmakers).

The four-year schools fear an erosion of students and dollars. The community colleges fear Harper will upset the state’s financial applecart and the backlash from the big schools won’t be good for the community colleges.

But Harper has persisted, flying in out-of-state officials to testify before lawmakers, hiring politically connected lobbyists and generally upping its presence at the Capitol.

So far, they’ve had little success. But the path is indicative of the way things work, or don’t work, in Springfield.

The question is whether Pat Quinn will leave.

State Sen. Rickey Hendon made headlines for his comments about the latest recommended pay raises for lawmakers. Some colleagues want to vote to block the raises -- which are automatic enacted unless both the House and Senate take the exact same action to reject them.

Hendon, a Chicago Democrat, took issue with state Sen. Susan Garrett, a Lake Forest Democrat, leading the opposition, calling the suburban lawmaker "filthy rich" and from "Richville."

Hendon heads the committee that will decide if the pay raise rejection effort ever sees the light of day. He indicated Thursday it will not without a significant change. Here's the amendment Hendon would like to add.

If you vote against the raises, you don't get them even if they ultimately go into effect.

Tensions are high and senators are getting snippy. Here's the latest on the pay raise issue at the Capitol

SPRINGFIELD – Lawmakers and other state officials are likely to get pay raises because the Democratic leadership in the Illinois Senate does not plan to let members vote on whether to block the increases, lawmakers confirmed Thursday.

State Sen. Rickey Hendon, a Chicago Democrat, said he thinks the rejection effort is flawed and claims state House members are using the Illinois Senate as a political fall guy on the issue. Hendon said the Illinois House votes to reject the raises all the while expecting the Senate will block rejection and everyone ends up with more money.

Senate staffers were spotted taking numerous pizza boxes to the appropriations staff offices Wednesday night. That could be a good sign as so far the current budget woes have received little attention let alone the next budget’s.
Keep in mind, Democrats have just a few scant weeks before the May 31 deadline comes around and then House Republicans gain a seat at the bargaining table.
The existing budget options – barring a winning lottery ticket – include further delaying state payments to health care providers, schools and others until the next budget year so the books look balanced this year and it becomes next year’s problem.
Hope that pizza place insisted on cash.

Missing inaction

In recent weeks Barack Obama played basketball with the North Carolina Tar Heels. Apparently he could use a lesson in defense.

Yesterday, the Democratic presidential frontrunner was playing a pickup game against Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias that got a bit rough.

For those unaware, Giannoulias played college ball at Boston University and then briefly for a pro league in Greece.

Animal Farm caught up with Giannoulias and here’s his version of the way things went:

Giannoulias: “You’re the first person I’ve talked to about this.
The game was competitive. We were playing pretty hard.
I was going to the basket on the right side (Giannoulias is a righty, Obama is a lefty)
He could have let me go but he decided to jump.

The Illinois House just voted to rejected the latest round of recommended pay raises.

State Rep. Fred Crespo, a Hoffman Estates Democrat, sponsored the push to reject the raises. That's by design as Crespo is likely to be squarely in Republicans' political crosshairs this fall.

The objections to the rejection and desire to get more money came from other Democrats.

Now attention turns to the Illinois Senate, which must vote on the EXACT same rejection otherwise the raises automatically take effect. State Sen. Susan Garrett, a Lake Forest Democrat, is pushing the raise rejection in the Senate.

Best day ever

The Illinois House AND Senate are back at the Capitol today. Here’s a quick reminder of the issues they face with a May 31 deadline for action, else House Democrats will need Republican votes.

The current budget is, by some estimates, $750 million out of balance and will force state health care and possibly education payments to be delayed in order to make the books appear balanced.
The next budget, which kicks in July 1, is in worse shape and so far has faced little to no public debate at the Capitol let alone agreement.

Those budgets are where schools get funding, health care providers get reimbursed, state prison workers get paid, and on which everything else funded by the state hinges.

Bruce Miles reminds us all that May 6, 1998 was a very special day in Cubville.

It didn't take long for the men broadcasting Cubs baseball on May 6, 1998 to figure out something special was happening at Wrigley Field.
Maybe it was after Kerry Wood struck out the first five Houston Astros he faced on his way to 20.

Unfortunately, the last decade hasn’t been as kind to Kerry Wood. Here’s the link to the entire story: http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=185683

And since this is supposed to be a political blog – you can find the sports stuff here: http://blogs.dailyherald.com/blog/18 -- we’ll thrown in some political perspective.

Consider, for instance, how the last decade has changed the top Democratic presidential hopefuls.

In 1998 …

As the dust settles at the Capitol over last week's failed attempt at amending the Illinois constitution to allow for the recall of public officials, here's some trivia about recall from the state that made it famous - California.

Misery loves company
From the California Secretary of State's Web site:
“Since the people added the power of the initiative, referendum and recall to the California Constitution in 1911, there have been 31 previous attempts to recall California Governors.”

Before the 2003 recall of then-Gov. Gray Davis, no previous attempt to recall a California governor had reached the ballot.

Familiar ring?
Here's the text from the 2003 recall petition advocating the removal of then-Gov. Gray Davis: