items tagged with John Cullerton

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton has received a lot of bad press, sharp condemnation from Republicans, and even some quiet criticism from his own members over the past month.

But Cullerton made no apologies during an interview last week for the way his caucus sought to hold the state’s public-works bill hostage by tacking on $430 million in additional budget items. The move was rejected by both parties in the House, by Senate Republicans, and even, in the end, by Governor Pat Quinn, who had pushed for additional spending all year. The General Assembly had to return to town last week so the Senate could officially back down from the spending and send a “clean” bill to the governor’s desk.

The Senate President told me numerous times over the past several months that he believed he could convince House Speaker Michael Madigan – a fellow Democrat – to go along with his budget plans. In the end, however, Madigan stuck to a budget pact he’d made months earlier with House Republican Leader Tom Cross and beat back the Senate Democrats’ plan. So what went wrong?