There’s still no budget after the Illinois General Assembly’s summer session meeting Tuesday. But Governor Bruce Rauner is trying to reach Illinois voters through their TVs to earn their support for his Turnaround Agenda.
One of Rauner’s ads makes this accusation:
"Mike Madigan and the politicians he controls refuse to change. They're saying 'no' to spending discipline."
House Speaker Mike Madigan had a measured response rather than a heated one to that accusation.
“That TV ad takes this to the extreme,” Madigan said. “It takes away from moderation.”
Senate President John Cullerton says he's disappointed Rauner is airing statewide TV ads attacking Democrats. He says he and Madigan want to cooperate with Rauner.
But he says it's hard to negotiate amid name calling.
"We're not campaigning,” Cullerton said. “The election's next year. This is the year we should be governing and reaching compromise. So that's what I would urge the governor to do. To come back to the table and stop the ads, and let's just see if we can get together."
Rauner says taxpayers shouldn't have to pay more into a flawed system. He's calling for changes like legislative term limits and lowering business pay-outs to injured workers. But Democrats reject those plans. They say the focus should be on crafting a balanced budget.
Republican legislators are backing Rauner's move; one called it "fluffy," and says that, if the governor really wanted to, he could have been far more negative.
The House spent Tuesday’s meeting discussing one of Rauner's priorities: turning the state's economic development agency into a public-private partnership. The Senate talked about state funding of universities and the cost of going to college.
