Governor Bruce Rauner devised a new way to reward his friends and punish his enemies on April 16 when he created a campaign committee called Illinois Turnaround.

Illinois Turnaround is an independent-expenditure committee, meaning contributions to it and by it are not capped by law. The committee's officially stated purpose is to "support state legislative candidates who support Governor Rauner's bold and needed reforms, and to oppose those who stand in the way."

According to Rauner insiders, the new committee will be given $4 million to $5 million within days of its founding. That's in addition to the $20 million the governor has in his own personal campaign account, which won't be touched for this particular effort.

Spending on advertising is expected to begin soon after the money comes in.

The governor's campaign also released a polling memo that purports to show that the public backs his agenda. While his job-approval rating is just 38 percent, his disapproval rating is five points below that (33 percent). The percentage of respondents who view him favorably was 42 percent compared to 34 percent who viewed him unfavorably.

Congressman Aaron Schock's resignation is not only a blow to national Republicans - for whom he'd raised millions - but especially to Illinois Republicans.

Just eight weeks ago, Schock was widely believed to be next in line to chair the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). But his rapid fall from grace ruined his career and deprived the NRCC of a chance to project a far more youthful public image.

A newly formed group of self-described "center-left" Democrats claims to have secured $20 million in commitments to spend on state legislative races in Illinois.

But that $20 million apparently isn't meant to counter Republican Governor Bruce Rauner's infamous $20-million campaign stash, which he says will be used to support his allies and punish his enemies. Indeed, the Democratic group appears to be promoting what could be seen as a somewhat softer, neo-liberal version of Raunerism.

Illinoisans for Growth & Opportunity (ILGO) is not a traditional Democratic group. The press release announcing its launch blasted Democratic leadership, including former Governor Pat Quinn and both legislative leaders, for passing a budget last year "that they knew would create a financial crisis."

The group also bemoans the lack of manufacturing employment, the state's horrible credit rating, and its poor business-climate ratings without specifically endorsing any real-world fixes such as workers' compensation reform.

ILGO blames all these problems on unspecified "special interests" that have had "far too much influence with legislative majorities in setting public policy."

Buried deep within Governor Bruce Rauner's proposed budget plan for next fiscal year is yet another claimed "savings" that might not actually save any money, and could easily wind up costing the state more.

The governor proposes to save $108 million by discontinuing child-care services provided by relatives in the child's or relative's home.

At first glance, that cut might look prudent. Why should the state pay grandma to babysit her own grandkid? Is that some sort of scam? Go to any right-wing blog, and you'll occasionally see stories bashing this whole idea.

But those payments are designed to help low-income parents go to school and work their way out of poverty. So by pulling those payments, "grandma" could lose her income and may very well have to find a different part-time job, meaning the parent then has to search for another provider and the state saves no money.

Governor Bruce Rauner has met with dozens of state legislators both individually and in small groups since his election. By all accounts, every meeting has been cordial, and he has scored lots of points with legislators who aren't accustomed to this sort of gubernatorial attention.

Then he had the Senate Black Caucus over to the governor's mansion for breakfast.

It started out well enough, but things turned south in a hurry when Rauner said he couldn't accept the Senate Democratic majority's stand-alone proposal to patch about $600 million of the current fiscal year's $1.6-billion budget deficit with transfers from special state funds. He wanted, he said, an "all or nothing" solution.

A rookie mistake has led to some big problems.

House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton both believed that Governor Bruce Rauner would ask to postpone the scheduled February 18 budget address.

The current fiscal year's outlook was so incredibly dire that the veteran Democratic leaders figured that neophyte Rauner would want to first tackle that problem before moving on to the mess in the budget for next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Rauner declined, declaring that a deadline was a deadline.

He should've asked for a delay.

After he was elected governor but before he was sworn in to office, Bruce Rauner repeatedly lambasted Governor Pat Quinn and the legislative Democrats for passing a "booby trap" budget that was about to blow up in the state's collective face.

Rauner was absolutely right. Last year's budget was irresponsible and didn't deal with the reality of the expiring income-tax hike. As a result, the state's budget is in a terribly deep hole right now.

But did Governor Rauner really make all the "tough choices" necessary to get us out of that hole during his budget address, as he promised he would? Well, he sure proposed a lot of cuts. But he planted at least one major booby trap himself.

More than a few Statehouse types have been wondering aloud for weeks what Governor Bruce Rauner is up to with his almost daily attacks on organized labor.

His people say that the governor feels "liberated" since the election to speak his mind about a topic that stirs great personal passion in him. He played up the issue during the Republican primary, then all but ran away from it in the general-election campaign, including just a few weeks before Election Day when he flatly denied that "right to work" or anything like that would be among his top priorities.

Yet there he is day after day, pounding away at unions, demanding right-to-work laws, vilifying public-employee unions as corrupt to the point of issuing an executive order barring the distribution of state-deducted employee "fair share" dues to public-worker unions such as AFSCME. The dues are paid by people who don't want to pay full union dues.

I don't believe I've ever seen a governor openly and loudly laughed at on the House floor. At least not while he was present.

Governor Bruce Rauner was doing pretty well with his legislative audience during his first State of the State address last week, delivering strong applause lines with his refreshing calls for bipartisanship. He even thanked legislators "for your service," and predicted they would do "great" things together. He warned them that he would say things they liked and didn't like and urged them to see the "big picture" - which he claimed will "lift up all of the people we've been chosen to represent."

Members of the Legislative Black Caucus were especially receptive to the governor's attacks on labor-union apprenticeship programs. Rauner claimed about "80 percent of individuals in Illinois apprenticeship programs are white even though Caucasians make up fewer than 63 percent of our population," and demanded that be addressed with legislation. Black and Latino legislators have tried for years with limited success to break those barriers, and no governor has ever so clearly sided with them.

Legislators erupted in loud applause when the governor proposed raising the minimum wage to $10 an hour. But when Rauner added "over seven years," their laughter was even louder, and longer. Democrats appeared to realize that they might've fallen for a bait and switch, and it was mostly downhill from that point on.

Illinois state Senator Daniel Biss appears to be the first Democrat to actively float his name for the 2016 special election for state comptroller.

The Evanston Democrat is known as a policy wonk around the Statehouse, but he's also a prodigious fundraiser, ending the fourth-quarter reporting period with $721,000 in the bank.

The special-election law was passed by the General Assembly in early January - just weeks after the death of Republican Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. Governor Pat Quinn signed it into law on his way out the door.

If the new law is upheld by the courts (which seems likely but not certain), the state's appointed Republican Comptroller Leslie Munger will have to stand for election in a presidential year.

Since the days of President Bill Clinton, Republicans have been at a distinct disadvantage during presidential-election years. No Republican presidential candidate has won this state since 1988, when George H.W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis 51-49. Back then, Illinois was considered a "bellwether" state for presidential campaigns. No longer.

Pages