Six Illinois House Republicans voted with 55 Democrats last week to approve a civil-unions bill. But a few of the Democratic "yes" votes were a bit more surprising.

All but one of the six Republicans were suburbanites. Bill Black, who is retiring later this month, was the only Downstater. Representatives Suzi Bassi and Beth Coulson were suburban "yes" votes who are not returning next year. Representatives Mark Beaubien, Rosemary Mulligan, and Skip Saviano were the other Republican "yes" votes, and all three are suburban legislators. None of those was a particularly huge surprise. Black has been a more traditionally liberal Republican for years, endorsed by labor unions and backed by many Democrats in his district. Black quoted late U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen during the debate, citing Dirksen's crucial vote for civil-rights legislation in 1964 as the basis for his own position.

What started out as a slow state-legislative veto session suddenly accelerated last Thursday.

Senate President John Cullerton formed two new bipartisan committees and charged them with reforming workers compensation and Medicaid. The catch is that the committees must finish their work by Monday, January 3.

That means votes could be taken on workers-comp and Medicaid reform before the new General Assembly is sworn in about a week later. The Republicans have been clamoring for those very reforms for years. So that means, if all goes well, the Republicans will have two fewer excuses to refuse to put votes on the big bills the Democrats really want, like borrowing to make the state's pension payment, gaming expansion, and even a tax hike.

Without a doubt, the worst place to be right now in Illinois politics is the state's House Republican caucus.

Their leader Tom Cross went "all in" this year against House Speaker Michael Madigan and came up way short.

There were the innumerable planted newspaper stories about Madigan, including, for instance, how he apparently picked his own Republican challenger. The Republicans then staged a downtown Chicago "fundraiser" for Madigan's invisible opponent. Then there were the billboards along the Tollway ridiculing Madigan, which ginned up even more unflattering media coverage. Of course, there were also the countless mailers and TV ads claiming that Madigan was the real problem in Illinois. Not to mention the hundreds of times Cross boldly predicted he would win the majority and finally put Madigan in his place. Madigan detested Cross before the election. It's gone way beyond that now.

I joked to a Democrat last week that I seriously doubted state Representative Kevin McCarthy (D-Orland Park) would ever vote for a legislative pay raise again after getting whacked so hard by the Republicans this fall for his previous pay-hike votes. McCarthy has been brutalized for those votes, and he's had to work harder on this campaign than he has in over a decade.

"I don't think Kevin will vote for anything" came the reply.

He could very well be right, and not just about McCarthy. There are a whole lot of extremely frightened Democratic legislative incumbents out there right now, including those who don't have serious opponents. And even if individuals survive November 2, they will surely watch in horror as many of their colleagues go down in flames.