Yielding to pressure from “my friend, Barack Obama,” Senate President Emil Jones finally agreed to put the interests of Illinois voters above those of his other friend, Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
At the urging of his former protege, now the Democratic nominee for U.S. president, Jones said Thursday that he would call the Senate back to Springfield next week to vote on the ethics bill he’s been stalling for more than a year. All that’s needed is for the Senate to override the governor’s amendments — a matter of about five minutes, judging from how long it took the House to do the same last week. But hold your applause.
Within minutes of Jones’ announcement, the governor said he was calling a special session for Monday to deal with “true” ethics reform. There’s no telling what mischief he has up his sleeve this time, but you can bet it won’t be pretty.
We thought Jones’ latest dodge, an original reinterpretation of the state constitution, was an inspired last stab at killing the ethics bill, emphasis on last. By delaying an override vote until November, long past the 15 days prescribed by the constitution, Jones was inviting a legal challenge that could delay the measure for years or kill it outright. “The law is in jeopardy,” Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan said, “and we know why.”
Yes, we do. The bill would prohibit businesses seeking state contracts of $50,000 or more from making campaign contributions to the state officeholder who awards the contract, or to any candidate for that office. It might as well be named the Rod Blagojevich Act. For more than a year, Jones and Blagojevich have proclaimed their support for ethics reform while doing everything they could to kill the bill.
When Jones put it on ice yet again, Cindi Canary, head of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, publicly turned to Obama. He’s running for president as a reformer; he pushed ethics reforms during his days in the Illinois Senate; and Jones has said he always listens to Obama. Others joined the call and after several days of nudging, Obama picked up the phone and urged Jones to pass the ethics bill “at the earliest opportunity,” according to a campaign statement.
The initial non-response from Jones left us wondering if Obama had actually spoken with his mentor or if maybe he’d left a voice mail.
We wondered how Obama would fare in negotiations with, say, Vladimir Putin, if he couldn’t persuade Emil Jones to call a simple up-or-down vote on a no-brainer bill.
But it turns out Jones was listening. Though he still thinks he’s right about the constitution, he’s decided to get out of the way. If only the governor would do the same.
