{"id":358341,"date":"2010-02-24T11:55:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T16:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0120a8cdefa8970b"},"modified":"2010-02-24T15:34:04","modified_gmt":"2010-02-24T20:34:04","slug":"madigan-bill-to-dump-lt-gov-office-advances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/358341","title":{"rendered":"Madigan bill to dump lt. gov office advances"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Ray Long and Michelle Manchir<\/em> at 10:55 a.m.; updated at 2:32 p.m.
<\/br><\/p>\n

SPRINGFIELD — House Speaker Michael Madigan today advanced legislation aimed at eliminating the lieutenant governor’s office in 2015, a response to embattled Chicago pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen’s primary victory and quick resignation upon disclosure of his tawdry past.<\/p>\n

Under Madigan’s proposed constitutional amendment, a lieutenant governor elected this November would serve four years before the office went away.<\/p>\n

The House Executive Committee voted 8-0, with three voting present, to send the measure to the full House. But it still must be approved by the Senate and voters also would have to sign off this November.<\/p>\n

Cohen’s surprise Feb. 2 victory came after he spent more than $2 million of his own money to best several lawmakers who spent far less. But Cohen’s neophyte foray into into statewide politics ended shortly after the Tribune revealed he once was accused of putting a knife to the throat of a girlfriend who turned out to be a prostitute.<\/p>\n

The political firestorm only grew bigger upon disclosure of allegations that he abused steroids, raged at his children and fell tens of thousands of dollars behind on child support payments while spending heavily on his campaign.<\/p>\n

Under the plan, the attorney general would be next in line if a governor quit, died or got booted. The current Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, is the House speaker’s daughter. But it’s unclear whether she’ll still hold that office in 2015.<\/p>\n

An alternative proposal already has advanced in another House committee. Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, a member of Madigan’s leadership team, wants to require the governor and lieutenant governor candidates to run as a team in primaries, starting in 2014.<\/p>\n

Madigan today also updated the search process to find a Cohen replacement.<\/p>\n

"In terms of people personally contacting me, I think it’s less than
\nfive. We’ve generated a list of names where in conversations people
\nhave said, well, what about this person, what about that person. In
\naddition, where people have made contact with others, other members of
\nthe committee, Gov. Quinn, President Cullerton, we just put them on the
\nlist. And at the appropriate time, why, we’re going to notify all of
\nthose people of the procedures that we’ll be following on the state
\ncommittee," Madigan said.<\/p>\n

Madigan, who doubles as Illinois Democratic chairman, said the replacement would likely be picked over two days. "Day one will be a hearing day where people will come in and present their credentials. Day 2 would be the vote. The vote will be an open vote," Madigan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Ray Long and Michelle Manchir at 10:55 a.m.; updated at 2:32 p.m. SPRINGFIELD — House Speaker Michael Madigan today advanced legislation aimed at eliminating the lieutenant governor’s office in 2015, a response to embattled Chicago pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen’s primary victory and quick resignation upon disclosure of his tawdry past. Under Madigan’s proposed […]<\/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-358341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358341","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=358341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}