Madigan Lawlessness

Someone on the Republican side, the supposed party of "fiscal discipline," noticed that Illinois was broke and said something about it - after Madigan held a number of votes with no one actually around to vote:

• Republican statehouse leaders ripped a proposal to give $100 million to construction efforts for President Barack Obama’s presidential library, arguing there’s no reason the cash-strapped state should dole out money when the president has proven himself a more-than-capable fundraiser.
  
  “When we’re sitting at $7 billion of unpaid bills, why are we dangling $100 million to the decision-makers to entice them to come to Chicago?” House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, told the Sun-Times editorial board Tuesday.
  
  Durkin and Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, took turns railing against the proposal, which House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, muscled through a House committee last week while the Legislature was on spring break.

Good point. Every other presidential library has been funded by private donations - it's actually written into Federal statute. We've gotten mailings from foundations for the past few presidents soliciting funds to house these museums. But now Illinois, a state that can't seem to pay its bills and with outstanding pension obligations approaching a hundred-billion dollars, pulling $100 million out of their ass seems possible.

And Madigan was in full dictator mode last week:

• No Republicans attended the hearing and the committee was not supposed to have voted on the financing measure, which was not requested by the Barack Obama Presidential Foundation. Backlash over the vote has prompted Madigan to call for a re-vote by the committee.

The REpublicans are outnumbered on the committee, so why even bother having them around to cast dissenting votes against the Obamessiah? You know who Madigan blamed right away for his being caught falisfying voting records, right?

• Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan says the Tea Party is forcing him to call for a re-vote on a bill to spend $100 million in taxpayer money to sweeten Chicago's bid for the Obama presidential library.
  
  Last week while on break between hearings, Democrats on the House Executive Committee voted to pass the measure while their Republican colleagues were not present. They then recorded the vote as "unanimous."

Those damn Tea Party folks. Actually expecting their votes to count when they weren't even in the room - when there wasn't even a quorum for the committee (which was officially in recess) to conduct business. Where do these people think they are, America?