Last Wednesday’s Illinois House vote on labor’s SB1229 was an epic battle between Governor Rauner and Speaker Madigan.
And Madigan lost.
Or did he?
For those of you who haven’t been following this story closely, the Governor has threatened to lock out state employees covered by the AFSCME collective bargaining agreement and shut down the state rather than bargain a fair contract.
The state’s public employee union leadership supported SB1229 which would place a resolution of the contract issues into the hands of a third-party arbitrator, essentially removing Rauner from the process.
SB1229 passed both houses of the state legislature and then was vetoed by the Governor.
The veto was overruled by the super-majority of Democrats in the Senate but fell short by three votes in the House.
Madigan’s House.
Excuse me if I am suspicious.
Labor is furious at Chicago Democrat Ken Dunkin, a Rahm supporter, who was conveniently out of town when the vote in the House went down. “I don’t work for Madigan,” Dunkin said.
Yet nobody counts votes like Madigan counts votes. He knew a week ahead of time that he didn’t have the 71 votes needed in the House to override Rauner’s veto. Yet the vote went ahead.
Madigan doesn’t let those things happen unless he has a plan.
Who loses politically if the AFSCME bargaining leads to a state shut-down?
Rauner, not Madigan.
And AFSCME workers lose too. As do the people they serve.
What does Madigan care about collective bargaining rights?
Not a bit.
What does Madigan owe the public employee unions?
Nothing.
What have the leaders of the public employee unions done to fight Rauner other than to follow Madigan around like a bunch of puppy dogs?
Nothing.
Reboot Illinois, a pro-business web site noticed the same thing:
Madigan thinks and strategizes ahead. In allowing this public loss, Madigan still can turn to the union and say he did all he could. He can say the Democrats and their union backers still are in the epic battle of their lives against Rauner, a Republican with never-before-seen resources to wage election warfare. And in so doing, Madigan secures maybe even more money, manpower and loyalty from AFSCME and other public unions.
Calling the vote when he knew all Republicans had pledged to back Rauner also gives Madigan and Democrats campaign fodder because there are a few Republicans in Central Illinois who have strong union membership in their districts. Those Republicans just endangered their political futures for Rauner.
Madigan cares most about maintaining his majority and defeating Republicans.
But, is that all that’s going on here? Charlie Wheeler, an astute former Sun-Times reporter who’s watched Madigan and Springfield for decades, thinks there could be more. Wheeler, who now runs the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said he believes Rauner erred several times this year in demanding all Republicans vote with him when several should have voted differently to help their re-election chances.
Madigan worked well over the years with Republican governors Thompson, Edgar and Ryan. And he’s been saying for weeks the state needs a budget. While state workers are being paid and much of government still is functioning, that won’t continue forever. There’s no court authorization to pay for food for prisoners, for instance, Wheeler notes. Who gets the blame if they go unfed, riot and something bad happens? The Governor is much more likely to bear that blame.
I have been saying all along that the state’s public employee unions are missing an opportunity by letting The Speaker be our Speaker.
We should be looking ahead three years and creating a pro-labor working families electoral alternative to Rauner.
And Madigan Democrats.
How many betrayals do we need to learn the lesson?
Fred Klonsky 
You are right about Madigan. Nothing is left to chance, large or small, and this was large.
You know, you just got to step back and marvel how Machiavellian Madigan can be…then we got to get his ass into retirement.
“He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.” -The Prince
This is spot on. It was more important for Madigan to put ILGOPs votes on against their districts than to bail out AFSCME’s butt. And do remember that the Democrats budget also assumed hundreds of millions in “savings” from healthcare for state and university workers. Who is selling who down the river???
By God, Fred, you have a good point. You are absolutely right. Why did Madigan call the vote when he knew he didn’t have sufficient numbers? Me thinks there’s some skulduggery afoot.Mary Richie My southern Illinois republican relatives(St. Clair county) have begun to make comments to me about our governor.
Fred, your superimposition of their faces is perfect. Rauner and Madigan are not moved by moral considerations. They have no concern for the well-being of the middle class and the unfair burdens of impoverished people; they have no concern with protecting the rights and benefits of public employees and retirees; they have no concern about the requirements of reason and the laws of morality or the laws of freedom.
Rauner and Madigan do not care about morality and ethics. They do not care about breaking contracts. They do not care about obligations to others – about the fair distribution of the tax burden, about constitutional guarantees, about demanding more of others than they are willing to demand of themselves and their wealthy abettors.
They lack empathy and altruism. They are not concerned with promoting the well-being of others. They lack the capacity to sympathize. They are isolated in their elitist class. They have no connections to the middle class or the poor.
They demand sacrifices of the middle class and impoverished people and not of themselves. They do not view their conduct from a standpoint of values and interests of those they hurt. They view masses of people as a means to their own political ends.
They do not live up to their agreements or the established rules of justice. They are motivated solely by power, wealth and greed. They do not respect “rights of property and contracts”; they do not respect that “laws of morality are categorical”; they do not care that “the rightness or wrongness of an act depends on its consequences for everyone affected.” Neither one of these egocentric politicians can be trusted.
Glen,
Beautifully stated! They’re reckless, amoral tools of wealth and power. If we as a people allow them to continue their dirty work, sooner or later, they will drive us into unthinkable social upheaval over which they’ll lose all control. In the end, the chaos that they’ve created will devour them too.
They can join the ranks of Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, Maximilian (Emperor of Mexico), Czar Nicholas, and his family, the Shah of Iran, and Idi Amin, to name a few. A fatal flaw that they share with power-hungry maniacs of the past is that they are not students of history. The arrogance of Madigan and Rauner blinds them to that fact that they too are flesh and blood mortals with limits.
Ken Dunkin’s betrayal is going to cost all public employees. AFSCME represented workers will be hurt first. Then every school district and every other public employer will follow what AFSCME gets.
The betrayal belongs to the Speaker.
Anon, you have not been reading this post. Rep. Dunkin is NOT the cause of the defeat–Madigan & his office had previously been informed that Rep. Dunkin would NOT be in Springfield that day. Further, both Reps.Drury & Franks frequently vote their own way, with NO influence from other legislators. Read an interview with Drury that was in Friday’s Sun-Times.
Watch Chicago Tonight at 7 PM this evening (repeated at 12 AM, & also available on On Demand & the WTTW website (probably not until tomorrow or Thursday). Anyway, as Fred wrote above, the Speaker knew he didn’t have the votes; re-read this post!
I respectfully agree to disagree. I don’t like Madigan, however, if he had not called the vote, if he had just let the clock run out, then he would be accused of not allowing the override vote to happen. “They knew I was going to be on vacation” seemed pretty lame. I did watch Chicago Tonight and to my dismay, I saw that the override of the draconian Rauner cuts to childcare lost by ONE vote.
I think that pro-union persons should consider running someone against Dunkin in the next election. I am not in his district, so I can’t vote against him. I would if I could.
There is one, and only one, ruling government in Illinois.
Corruption.