On December 19, the Scott County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to adopt the following language for the information-technology (IT) policy for county staff: "The IT Department will maintain a copy of all e-mails sent or received for a period of three years from the date in which they are sent or received. Records may be retained for a longer time period if it is subject to a litigation hold."

A day earlier, I published an open letter to the board asking it to defer action. (See sidebar.) At the meeting, I was allowed to address the board prior to the vote, and the 14-minute audio recording of that exchange is available below.

Prior to the meeting, I had phone conversations with Chair Larry Minard and supervisors William P. Cusack and Carol T. Earnhardt. On these calls, it was explained to me that "all the important e-mails will be saved." When asked about details - such as who will be determining what e-mails are important - the answers varied from department heads to staff to one or two county attorneys. When pressed what the criteria were for retention past three years, the answers included "We just have to trust staff to know what to do" to "The frivolous e-mails will go." The policies of the State of Iowa and the City of Davenport were cited several times in these phone calls and at the meeting, but no particulars were given. The party line was that these entities destroy old e-mails much sooner than the county was proposing.

House Speaker Michael Madigan's spokesperson said last week that his boss' statement opposing further corporate "handouts" basically "speaks for itself." But does it?

Madigan invoked the populist gods last week as he called for an end to the "case-by-case system of introducing and debating legislation whenever a corporation is looking for free money from Illinois taxpayers." Companies requesting the tax breaks, Madigan said, "pay little to no corporate income tax to the state, contributing little or nothing to help fund the very services from which they benefit significantly."

It would be much easier to believe Madigan had he not just last month pushed a bill over to the Illinois Senate that would give Univar a tax break to help the West Coast corporation move its headquarters to Illinois. Not coincidentally, Univar has an existing facility just next door to Madigan's House district.

By now, it should be self-evident that Bruce Rauner has locked up pretty much all the big money in the Republican-primary race for governor. Last week's pension-reform vote provides even more evidence.

Rauner has built an impenetrable fortress of high-dollar campaign contributors. Ron Gidwitz, long known in GOP circles for being the gateway to big-time cash from the wealthy, has fully joined in, as has Ken Griffin, the richest man in Illinois.

Gidwitz was with Senator Kirk Dillard in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, but Gidwitz and Rauner have sucked up so many dollars - including more than $250,000 from campaign fundraising committee member Griffin and lots more from Griffin's friends - that Dillard hasn't been able to raise any cash from rich people he's known for years, even decades. Dillard's financial predicament has become so desperate that he voted against last week's pension-reform bill in the obvious hope that he can now raise some dough from public-employee unions.

Dillard's vote is even more bizarre when you realize that he voted against a union-negotiated pension bill back in May and twice voted in favor of House Speaker Michael Madigan's pension-reform bill in May and June.

But he really had no choice last week; it was sink-or-swim time.

Last week, the four Illinois legislative leaders announced a deal on a long-awaited and much-anticipated pension-reform bill.

Other than the obvious fact that pension payments are diverting billions of dollars from other state programs such as education and human services, Governor Pat Quinn really wants this proposal passed before the end of the year for a couple of reasons - both political. The House and Senate are expected to vote on the proposal this week.