The Illinois Republican Party has relentlessly bashed House Speaker Michael Madigan almost every day via press release during the past few months. Not many of those statements have been covered by the media, but the GOP is obviously hoping to make Madigan an issue in this election by blaming him for just about every problem in Illinois, even more than it did two years ago.

Madigan has also been hammered by the Chicago Tribune in a series of stories about his alleged conflicts of interest. Madigan initially dismissed the criticisms as "garbage" but eventually responded point-by-point in a letter that was mostly ignored by the media, and never addressed by the Tribune itself. The Tribune's editorial board has led the charge against the speaker over the years, demanding his toppling as the House's top guy.

House Republicans have tried for at least two decades to make the speaker an issue in campaigns. It's never really succeeded, mainly because people hadn't heard enough about Madigan to be moved by the GOP's negative advertising.

The House and Senate Democratic leaders have once again dominated the quarterly fundraising race. The Democrats are currently sitting on almost three times the amount of cash as the Republicans.

House Speaker Michael Madigan's three committees raised a combined $591,000 in the quarter that ended June 30. Madigan had more than $3.5 million cash on hand. Senate President John Cullerton's two committees netted about $655,000 during the quarter. Cullerton finished with more than $2.7 million in cash and investments.

House Republican Leader Tom Cross' two committees raised $353,000 during the quarter. Cross ended the filing period with $789,000 on hand. Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno raised just under $263,000 during the quarter but had more than $1.4 million on hand.

A poll taken last week has Republican congressional candidate Jason Plummer leading his new Democratic challenger by 11 points.

The poll, taken July 9 by We Ask America, found Plummer ahead of Democrat Bill Enyart 45-34. The automated poll of 1,510 likely voters had a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.

Plummer is significantly below 50 percent, and 23 percent of voters are undecided, so he doesn't have this one in the bag yet. Enyart was appointed to the ballot late last month, so he has barely had any time at all to make an impression on the voters of the 12th Congressional District.

Several Downstate Illinois legislators were furious last week that Governor Pat Quinn decided to go ahead and close some state facilities, including prisons, in their districts.

They weren't just upset about the lost jobs, however. Some also claim that Quinn brazenly broke a deal on the closures. "If the governor proceeds with this, he has gone back on his word," Representative Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro) told a crowd gathered to protest the planned closures last week. Bost and others indicated that the trade was made over revenue issues, but he didn't get more specific.

Bost did not return a phone call, but he was almost surely referring to the cigarette-tax increase.