{"id":544896,"date":"2010-04-27T17:31:08","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T21:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0133ed004841970b"},"modified":"2010-04-27T17:31:08","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T21:31:08","slug":"taxpayers-could-be-off-the-hook-for-blagojevich-portrait-at-capitol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/544896","title":{"rendered":"Taxpayers could be off the hook for Blagojevich portrait at Capitol"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by Michelle Manchir<\/em> at 4:30 p.m.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>SPRINGFIELD &#8212; Taxpayers won&#8217;t have to pay for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich\u2019s portrait to hang alongside his predecessors in the Capitol if Gov. Pat Quinn signs a measure the Senate sent to him today.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The legislation, which passed the Senate 52-1, 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>The taxpayer-funded collection includes ex-governors who were sent to prison after their time in office, among them Otto Kerner, Dan Walker and George Ryan. But Blagojevich, who is about to stand trial on federal corruption charges, is the first governor that lawmakers booted out of office.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The single \u201cno\u201d vote came from Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline, who said the former governor should at least be convicted before the portrait privilege is taken away.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>\u201cI just think that, if you\u2019re governor of Illinois, that people have elected you twice, that you ought to get your picture hung in the gallery,\u201d Jacobs said.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The bill&#8217;s sponsor said Blagojevich or is supporters could pay for a photograph to hang in the Capitol, a more affordable option to a costly painting.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>\u201cWe\u2019re not trying whitewash it,\u201d said Sen. Michael Frerichs, D-Champaign. \u201cBut for someone who misused office &#8212; really abused the trust of the public &#8212; the public shouldn\u2019t pay for his portrait.\u201d<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Lawmakers have estimated it could cost up $25,000 for a portrait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by Michelle Manchir at 4:30 p.m.SPRINGFIELD &#8212; Taxpayers won&#8217;t have to pay for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich\u2019s portrait to hang alongside his predecessors in the Capitol if Gov. Pat Quinn signs a measure the Senate sent to him today.The legislation, which passed the Senate 52-1, still would allow private funds to pay for a [&hellip;]<\/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-544896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544896","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=544896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}