It went almost totally unnoticed at the Statehouse, but Senate President John Cullerton pulled a neat little trick at the end of the spring legislative session, and he may end up getting what he wants this fall.

We're going to get into some "insider" terminology and a few numbers, but it's really not all that difficult.

Cullerton refused to advance a measure known as a "budget implementation bill." The "BIMP" transferred millions of dollars into special state funds. Those transfers are known as "trouts."

For instance, the legislation transfers $4 million from the state's General Revenue Fund (which is like the state's checking account) into the Underground Resources Conservation Fund.

All told, Cullerton wants to fish out about $200 million from the "trouts" and use the cash to satisfy his members' demand that schools be given more money.

At least for now, it doesn't appear that rank-and-file legislators will have to spend much time in Springfield this summer, even though they failed to finish their work on public-pension reform last week.

Aides to Governor Pat Quinn claim that they've learned from the mistakes of their predecessor, Rod Blagojevich, and won't drag legislators back to the Statehouse for a grueling overtime session to find a solution to the pension problem, which has already overwhelmed the state budget. Blagojevich convened numerous overtime sessions, and they were all divisive political circuses. Plus, forcing legislators back to Springfield to just sit around and wait for the leaders to come to an agreement means they'll have plenty of time on their hands to bad-mouth the governor to reporters, who won't have much to do, either.

As state legislative support for a cigarette-tax hike grew in late May, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and other conservatives stepped into the Illinois fray.

A top House Republican said more than a week ago that the roll call in favor of a dollar-a-pack cigarette-tax hike was in the double digits within his caucus. The tax would raise $700 million, including the federal match, to help close the Medicaid program's gaping $2.7-billion budget hole.

In return, Republicans won concessions from the Democrats, particularly when it came to sparing doctors from Governor Pat Quinn's proposed Medicaid-provider rate cuts.

An often tense and confrontational meeting over gaming expansion last week ended with Governor Pat Quinn not explicitly saying "no" to adding slot machines at horse-racing tracks. That might be the beginning of a reversal for Quinn, who has adamantly opposed allowing tracks to have more gambling options.

For more than a year, Quinn has opposed allowing slots at tracks as part of a deal to give Chicago, the suburbs, and Downstate new casinos. But with the racetracks out of the picture, the bill just can't pass. So, there's been a push on for months to get Quinn to change his mind.

Senate President John Cullerton has been telling some of his members for weeks that he was resigned to an overtime session. The General Assembly likely wouldn't be able to adjourn by the scheduled May 31 deadline, he said. There was just no getting around it, so people should just accept that fact and move forward.

But not long ago, Cullerton reportedly came to the conclusion that if the spring session did go into overtime, Republicans would likely keep everyone bottled up in Springfield all summer long. So now his focus is on getting everybody out of town by the end of May.

May 31 is an important deadline because all bills voted on after that date require a three-fifths majority to pass. That means no budget can be approved, no Medicaid solution can be found, no pension systems can be reformed without supermajorities.

The Democrats control both legislative chambers, but they don't have three-fifths. They're seven votes shy in the House and one vote short in the Senate. One vote may not seem like a lot, but the partisanship can sometimes get so intense in the General Assembly these days that one vote might as well be a hundred.

Derrick SmithCall it "Blagojevich Lite," or whatever else you want, but it became pretty darned clear last week that the attorneys for state Representative Derrick Smith are planning the same sort of mockery of the system that Rod Blagojevich's legal team did during those dark days after the former governor's arrest.

State Representative Derrick Smith (D-Chicago) may have more legal troubles than his federal bribery indictment.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has told the House's Special Investigating Committee that his office's investigation of Smith isn't over yet, which could be an indication that the government wants to pile on more charges.

But the "active" federal investigation also means that Fitzgerald decided to refuse to cooperate with the committee, which is charged with looking into the allegations to determine if any legislative action is warranted. Fitzgerald also asked the committee to not do any investigations beyond what is already in the public record, except for interviewing Smith himself.

"It's so quiet," sighed Pippin in The Fellowship of the Rings.

"It's the deep breath before the plunge," counseled Gandalf.

"I don't want to be in a battle," said Pippin, "but waiting on the edge of one I can't escape is even worse."

That exchange pretty well sums up the current climate in the General Assembly. It's very quiet. Too quiet. Everybody knows that big, tough decisions are both looming and inevitable, and they're all tiptoeing around Springfield, peering over their shoulders and whispering about the coming fight that deep down, they are starting to realize, they cannot fully escape. The bloodiest of all battles is just around the corner, and they know it.

Retiring state Representative Joe Lyons (D-Chicago) said a debate on the House floor last month was his "finest hour." He was probably right.

Lyons successfully fought off five hostile floor amendments to his bill requiring that women seeking abortions be offered a look at an ultrasound test before having an abortion. The proposal has been a matter of much contention for the past three years, and it came to a head again in late March.

I've been pretty rough on Secretary of State Jesse White lately. I have no regrets about it, and I believe I had good reason to put the onus on him to correct his mistake of appointing state Representative Derrick Smith to the Illinois House last year. Smith, of course, was arrested in March on federal bribery charges.

White requested a sit-down last week, and I was more than happy to meet with him. I've always respected the guy, but I told him in no uncertain terms that I stood by everything I wrote and will continue to hold him responsible for resolving this mess.

White initially blamed his alderman and protégé Walter Burnett for Smith's appointment. Burnett, White said, didn't fully inform him about Smith's background problems. (Smith was fired from his city job, and the Sun-Times reported a few years ago that he'd been accused of malfeasance.) That's no excuse, however. White is the top dog, and the blame rests with him. He agreed.

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