Thursday, July 16, 2009
Poltics trumps governing in State's stopgap budget
While mortified citizens called for more government oversight in light of the Burr Oak Cemetery Crime Scene, lawmakers in Springfield finally passed a stop-gap budget that allowed the State government to continue to (dis) function. Blago is gone, but one wonders when we will see the courage to govern.
Both the Illinois House and Senate passed bills that circumvent a revenue raising income tax hike by borrowing (obviously needed, but also obviously a perceived political death wish for lawmakers) $3.5 billion from state pensions and putting off billions more in unpaid bills to state vendors until next year.
The spending plan will also include significant cuts to state spending (at Gov. Quinn's discretion), including to third party social service providers. It's unclear exactly how large a cut they will see to their FY 2009 funding levels, but the Tribune publishes one estimate:
The Illinois Budget battle is a a case study of what is going on around the country. As Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson writes:
"We face an unprecedented collision between Americans' desire for more government services and there almost unwillingness to be taxed."
www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/13/the_consequences_of_big_government.html
The National Health Care Debate is front-and-center in this debate, with several other twists I will blog later about later this week. Do we want more government services....even if we have to pay for them? The issue here for you as Illinois citizens is do you want your government to govern -- even if it means telling you tough news, like an income tax hike. Or do we elect them to play politics -- saying, not doing, what we want to hear.
By the way, what do you think about the Senate (roll call?) vote. Sen. Ricky Hendon calls the vote after Senate President John Cullerton's comments.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Inside Baseball: Senate Judiciary Confirmation Hearing's All-Star Gamesmanship
Inside Baseball -- The expression "inside baseball" is sometimes used as a metaphor for details or minutia of a subject so detailed that they generally are not well known by outsiders. An example may be a film critic's review of a movie using insider jargon, information, or understanding of which regular movie goers would have little knowledge. Citing the director's previous themes expressed in his/her movies in relation to the one being reviewed because of the director's fascination with X-school of film making, etc., would be considered an example of "inside baseball".Another example could be seen when looking in on the coverage of the Senate Confirmation Hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated to be the next Supreme Court Justice. Judge Sotomayor would be just the third woman on the High Court, and first Latino -- or Latina. Coverage was dominated by the Judge's famous, or imfamous "Wise Latina," quote. Or her childhood. Little was talked about Constitutional interpretation. I guess that type of Inside Baseball Stuff is appropirate on the night of Major League Baseball's Mid-Summer Classic.
CBS 2 School gives this interesting take:
Busch Stadium in St. Louis will host the 80th Mid-Summer classic. The major league baseball All-Star game is one of the few of its kind that fans actually watch enthusiastically. At stake is home field advantage for this year’s World Series. More importantly baseball’s greats, as determined by the fans, will compete against each other in America’s game. There is no other game like it.
The first all-star game was played in old Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1933. Babe Ruth dazzled the 49,000 paid customers by hitting a home run in the 3rd to lead the American League to its first victory.
To date, the National League leads the series with 40 wins. The American League has won 37 and there have been 2 ties. The longest game occurred last year with the American League winning in 15 innings. The game took 4 hours and 50 minutes to play.
A total of 668 runs have been scored; the National League has scored 333 and the American League 335.
In 1945 the game was not played due to World War 2. Between 1959 and 1962 there were two all-star games played each year.
Derek Jeter leads all Mid-Summer classic players with a batting average of .475. Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Stan Musial each played in 24 games. Roger Clemens leads all pitchers with 10 appearances.
The All-Star game is one of our rites of summer. (Inside Baseball Stuff)
Yet there is another game this week with all-star proportions. This week the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to fill David Souter’s Supreme Court vacancy will be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It is the closest thing our government has to an all-star game.
Confirmation hearings bring all three branches of government into play. Barack Obama, the chief executive nominates. The Senate, representing the legislative branch, confirms under the authority of its “advice and consent” power found in Article Two of the U.S. Constitution. The end result is a full court made up of 9 Supreme Court justices whose charge is to interpret our laws.
If confirmed, Sonia Sotomayor will be our 111th Supreme Court justice. If successful, she will be confirmed by the 111th Congress.
Throughout our history 30 nominations have failed; 8 withdrawn, 12 rejected, 4 postponed and 6 received no action.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, responsible for the first round of enquiry, is filled with a Who’s Who of today’s U.S. Senate. The only personality missing, and we will miss him, is Joe Biden who has opted for a higher calling.
Democrats fill 12 of the 19 seats. Short-tempered Patrick Leahy Chairs the Committee. This will be his first confirmation hearing to grandstand. It will be noteworthy to watch the recently-switched-to-Democrat Arlen Specter, one-time Republican Chair, sitting at the end of the table next to the Party’s most recent addition Al Franken.
Republicans will try to steal some of the attention at this mid-summer classic. This game is never dull. With 60 Democratic Senators able to block any filibuster attempt, the 111th Justice will be Sonia Sotomayor.
You can count on it.
The Politico's Glenn Thrush gives us this program, if you will, of what to watch during the confirmation hearings:
Sonia Sotomayor still speaks with her elderly mom, who’s retired in Florida, “every day.”
She’s a “doting” aunt to three of her brother’s children and an “attentive godmother to five more.”
And did you know she was a “fearless and effective prosecutor” and anti-child-pornography crusader widely credited “with saving baseball”?
These biographical gems come from the official, 200-plus-page White House playbook distributed to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats tasked with defending President Barack Obama’s SCOTUS nominee during this week’s confirmation hearings.
Republicans, for their part, concede they are too outnumbered in the Senate (60 Democrats to 40 Republicans) and the Judiciary Committee (12 to 7) to stop the nomination.
But they’ll try — and here are six things to watch as they do:
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24864.html#ixzz0LGrdInim&C
We will learn about Judical Activism and Strict Constructionalism during the fall. But what about Judicial Empathy? More Senators stated, without questioning, a concern of a new emerging empathy standard. More Inside Baseball stuff.
At the Sotomayor hearing, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said, “Unfortunately, a very important person has decided it's time for a change, time for a new kind of judge, one who will apply a different standard of judging, including employment of his or her empathy for one of the parties to the dispute. That person is President Obama. ... President Obama is simply outside the mainstream in his statements about how judges should decide cases.”
Of course, Republican worries about the “Obama standard” only go so far. It was also Graham who told Sotomayor, “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to get confirmed.”
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