{"id":308871,"date":"2010-02-11T10:15:01","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T15:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0120a88d146f970b"},"modified":"2010-02-11T12:23:21","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T17:23:21","slug":"facing-criticism-speaker-madigan-suggests-eliminating-lieutenant-governor-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/308871","title":{"rendered":"Facing criticism, Speaker Madigan suggests eliminating lieutenant governor office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Ray Long and Monique Garcia<\/em> at 9:12 a.m.; last updated with Madigan WGN radio interview at 11:22 a.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SPRINGFIELD—Facing criticism from some fellow Democrats over the Scott Lee Cohen primary election debacle, House Speaker Michael Madigan introduced a measure that would eliminate the office of lieutenant governor five years from now.<\/p>\n

"I have thought for quite a while that the office could be eliminated, should be eliminated. And I think we have an opportunity now, with the events coming out of the primary, where we ought to be able to adopt this resolution and going forward provide that we should be without that office anymore," Madigan told WGN 720-AM’s John Williams this morning.<\/p>\n

Cohen won the lieutenant governor primary last week but on Sunday said he would drop out of the race. That followed days of reports that Cohen has been accused of abusing women,
\ninjecting illegal steroids and failing to pay $54,000 in child support. Madigan has said he called Cohen and advised him to step down. Many top Democrats publicly called for Cohen to quit.<\/p>\n

The proposal by Madigan, who doubles as Illinois Democratic Party chairman, faces long odds because it’s a constitutional amendment. That means 60 percent of lawmakers in the House and Senate would have to approve putting the question to voters in the November election. Lawmakers would have to agree to do so by early May. Then a majority of voters in the election or 60 percent of voters weighing on the lieutenant governor’s question would have to approve it.<\/p>\n

Given that, the proposal seems designed more to help Madigan answer critics, including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, that Madigan did not do enough to prevent Cohen, a pawnbroker with a troubled past, from winning the lieutenant governor nomination. In last week’s Democratic primary, Cohen spent more than $2 million of his own money to defeat five
\nother candidates, many of whom were state lawmakers.\n<\/p>\n

Even if Madigan’s measure passed, voters this November would still elect a lieutenant governor — it’s too late to stop that from taking place. You can read the Madigan proposal by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under the speaker’s plan, the state attorney general would be next in line if the governor is no longer able to serve or removed from office. Currently, the attorney general is Lisa Madigan, the daughter of the House speaker. That’s more a product of eliminating the lieutenant governor from the line of succession — the attorney general has always been third in line under the present Illinois Constitution.<\/p>\n

"Now don’t forget, she had an opportunity to run for governor and
\nshe made a conscious decision not to be a candidate for governor, she
\ndecided she wanted to remain as state attorney general," Madigan said when Williams asked him about the proposal’s impact on the speaker’s daughter.
<\/br>\n<\/p>\n

State Sen. Kwame Raoul, a South Side Democrat who replaced President Barack Obama in the Illinois Senate, has introduced legislation asking voters to eliminate not only the lieutenant governor’s office, but also the comptroller’s office. The state treasurer would take over the comptroller’s check-writing duties under such a scenario, which has been discussed at the Capitol for decades but never put to voters.<\/p>\n

Top Democrats Madigan, Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate President John Cullerton are now working to come up with a replacement for Cohen. During the radio interview, Madigan downplayed a suggestion that he could wield great influence with the 38-member Democratic State Central Committee that will choose a new lieutenant governor candidate, perhaps as early as next month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will clearly give a lot of weight to what the governor will want to do," said Madigan, who added that he met with Quinn on Wednesday and discussed names of potential candidates to be Quinn’s running mate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Ray Long and Monique Garcia at 9:12 a.m.; last updated with Madigan WGN radio interview at 11:22 a.m. SPRINGFIELD—Facing criticism from some fellow Democrats over the Scott Lee Cohen primary election debacle, House Speaker Michael Madigan introduced a measure that would eliminate the office of lieutenant governor five years from now. "I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}