The Illinois legislature has seized the opportunity afforded by the veto session convened by Gov. Pat Quinn to deal with Illinois’s public pension mess to do, well, just about anything other than deal with Illinois’s public pension mess:
July 8, 2013 (SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) (WLS) — On Tuesday, Illinois lawmakers will attempt to override the governor’s rewrite of a bill to allow the concealed carry of firearms.
Governor Pat Quinn hopes the changes he made to a concealed carry bill last week survive a challenge by state lawmakers. Among the changes is a call to allow communities to ban assault weapons.
On Monday night, it was a contentious debate in Evanston. Those who support a ban on assault weapons want the City of Evanston to join with a number of other communities who have already banned them.
The debate come on the eve of a special session that begins in the morning in Springfield when lawmakers are expected to vote on the concealed carry bill again, overriding amendments governor Quinn made to the bill.
Those amendments include provisions to allow towns to vote on assault weapons and to ban guns in drinking establishments.
Gun rights supporters accuse the Governor of standing in the way of a court ordered compromise plan.
But they will not consider pension reform, the reason Pat Quinn called the special session.
“It’s time for them to do their job. If they don’t do their job by tomorrow, there will be consequences,” said Gov. Pat Quinn.
I still like the idea I heard attributed to Quinn: the governor should veto the legislators’ salaries and office budgets until they start doing their jobs. No work—no pay.
He won’t make any friends that way, of course, but he isn’t making many friends as it is and the continuous delays over pension reform give Bill Daley ammo to use against him. Aggressive action including taking on the legislature might be Pat Quinn’s only hope of getting re-elected. The guy is a populist, after all. He might as well start acting like one.
Yesterday, HuffPo reported that Florida may have accidentally banned computers (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/08/florida-banned-computers_n_3561701.html).
Despite that, I’m not sure Illinois is out of the running for most incompetent state government quite yet.
I spoke with a state police employee last week; they have space set aside for up to 25 employees to process the new carry permits, but no employees and no apparent appropriation in site. The police will have 180 days to create the program and then 90 days to grant or deny every application.
This all has been a ludicrous waste of time and energy; they should have picked a state carry law, ideally one with less administration costs, and moved on. They seem like this is the only time they get to pass laws on the topic.
Also, my source said that he didn’t take to cops shooting dogs; he’s a dog lover, but he doesn’t take much interest or responsibility for what cops do in California (not the first time I’ve heard that).
House and Senate vote to override Governor. Is that the sound of gunfire in the distance? Nah.