{"id":477258,"date":"2010-03-26T19:02:44","date_gmt":"2010-03-26T23:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0133ec3eb69d970b"},"modified":"2010-03-26T19:02:44","modified_gmt":"2010-03-26T23:02:44","slug":"house-lawmakers-nix-public-money-for-any-blagojevich-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/477258","title":{"rendered":"House lawmakers nix public money for any Blagojevich portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Michelle Manchir<\/em> at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

SPRINGFIELD\u2014House lawmakers who impeached Rod Blagojevich more than a year ago added some insult to the injury today when they voted against using public money to pay for a portrait of the indicted and ousted chief executive\u2014in case anyone ever moves to add his image alongside his predecessors in the Capitol.<\/p>\n

The legislation, which passed the House 85-23 and goes to the Senate, still would allow private funds to pay for a portrait if one is ever put on display, an honor bestowed on even the biggest of the rogues in the gallery of former governors that stretches along a wing of the statehouse.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The taxpayer-funded collection includes former governors who were sent to prison after their time in office, among them Otto Kerner, Dan Walker and George Ryan.<\/p>\n

But Blagojevich, who is fighting federal corruption charges, is the first governor lawmakers booted out of office. Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, argued taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for him. He estimated it would cost $25,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t want to pile on Gov. Blagojevich,\u201d Black said. \u201cHe’s suffered plenty. Quite frankly, I like the guy. … But I think there’s a price to be paid in public life when you are impeached and removed from office for impeachable offenses. You can put a plaque up there, you can put a picture up there, but I don’t think the public needs to pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Julie Hamos, D-Wilmette, opposed he legislation, maintaining its breadth was too troubling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a very broad designation of a policy that really rewrites history,\u201d Hamos said.<\/p>\n

Another \u201cno\u201d vote came from Rep. Deborah Mell, D-Chicago, Blagojevich’s sister-in-law, who also opposed his impeachment in January 2009.
<\/br>
<\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Michelle Manchir at 6 p.m. SPRINGFIELD\u2014House lawmakers who impeached Rod Blagojevich more than a year ago added some insult to the injury today when they voted against using public money to pay for a portrait of the indicted and ousted chief executive\u2014in case anyone ever moves to add his image alongside his predecessors […]<\/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-477258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477258","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=477258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}