Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what’s going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield.
Topspin
State lawmakers are headed home on Wednesday morning, hours after failing to send Gov. Bruce Rauner either a budget bill or a separate school funding measure.
For his part, Rauner is hitting the road, spending two days touring Illinois talking about the need for rank-and-file lawmakers to pressure Democratic leadership into passing a stopgap budget and a “clean” education bill. Day One is Downstate, with stops in Alton, Vienna, Mahomet, Quincy and Pekin.
The road trip is one of Rauner’s favorite political moves, a tactic he’s used several times since taking office in January 2015 in trying to sell his economic agenda. It allows him to be in campaign mode.
This time, Rauner gets to talk about Democratic dysfunction, given that House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton could not come together to send him a budget despite controlling supermajorities. It’ll be interesting to see how hard he hits Democrats since he spent Tuesday blasting them up and down and now must try to carve out a compromise in the coming weeks to avoid school funding going off a cliff.
As midnight approached, Cullerton held a news conference where he told reporters that it was “not embarrassing” that the Democrats could not come up with a budget agreement.
Cullerton said he thinks he and Rauner are close on coming up with a stand-alone education funding bill. “The question is how much more money do we need to spend to make sure the schools don’t close?” Cullerton said.
Left hanging is Chicago Public Schools, which has a major teacher pension payment to make at the end of June amid huge financial problems. The district sent out a statement early Wednesday asking the General Assembly to “continue to stay in session until an education budget is passed. For Chicago students, we will continue to aggressively pursue equal funding so we can prevent the worst of the draconian cuts that are inevitable with a $1 billion budget deficit.”
Last year, Rauner vetoed all of the state budget that Democrats sent him except the school funding bill. That took place the last week of June. This year, Rauner doesn’t even have a budget to act on.
While July 1 marks the start of the new budget year in Illinois, there’s some question as to how much of a deadline that will prove to be. There’s no state budget for this fiscal year, but a series of laws and court rulings has kept more than 90 percent of state dollars flowing. Universities and some social services have been shut out, however.
What’s on tap
*Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s public schedule was not available.
*Gov. Rauner will head out on his two-day tour (see above).
*The Illinois House and Senate have gone home. For now, at least.
What we’re writing
*Democrats can’t agree on budget to send Rauner, who vowed to veto anyway.
*Photos from the last day of spring session at the Capitol.
*Emanuel regrets bringing Rauner’s wife into political scrape, does not apologize.
*Emanuel insists city didn’t settle whistleblower suit so he could avoid testifying.
*Judge rejects Emanuel’s assertion that emails are exempt from disclosure.
*Obama archives to be stored in former Hoffman Estate furniture store.
*New top cop Johnson talks crime at City Club.
What we’re reading
*More than 1,000 immigrants die in Mediterranean shipwrecks in last week.
*Drew Peterson, guilty again.
*Police investigate “parents” of boy rescued from Cincy zoo gorilla (who was shot and killed).
From the notebook
*Key roll calls: How about some roll calls from the late night Senate action?
How they voted on Speaker Michael Madigan’s state budget (which failed): The 17 “yes” votes were all Democrats. The 10 “present” votes were all Democrats. And of the 31 “no” votes, 19 were Republicans and 12 were Democrats, including some potential GOP targets.
How they voted on the Senate education funding bill (which was sent to the House): 36 Democrats voted yes, and one Republican (Sen. Sam McCann, who fought off a primary challenge backed by Rauner allies). Of the 19 “no” votes, 17 were Republicans and two Democrats (Sens. Mike Noland of Elgin, Dan Biss of Evanston).
*Automatic voter registration update: With an hour or so to go in the session Tuesday night, senators sent Gov. Rauner a measure that would make Illinois the fifth state in the last year to enact automatic voter registration. People getting new or updated drivers’ licenses would automatically be registered to vote or have their registration updated unless they opt out. The opposite is now the case: Motorists getting a drivers license are simply asked if they want to register to vote at Secretary of State drivers facilities.
*State musuem may reopen: The Rauner administration says it plans to re-open the Illinois State Museum — but only if a legislative panel approves a new $5 admission fee for adults.
The move follows Rauner’s closure of the museum and its satellite locations across the state last year amid budget concerns.
The proposed new admissions charge is a compromise lawmakers agreed to after Rauner used his veto power to say the facility and its other locations can only continue operating if funded through such fees and private donations. The committee isn’t scheduled to meet until June 14.
But Sen. Andy Manar, a Bunker Hill Democrat who has been pushing efforts to reopen the museum since it closed its doors, contends Rauner could open the doors tomorrow if he wanted, noting employees are still showing up for work even if the public isn’t allowed inside.
“Employees are reporting to work, the lights are on, taxpayers are paying for electricity,” Manar said. “All of the operations are ongoing today at the museum, as they have been for years.”
“All that we’re missing if the doors were unlocked tomorrow is one month’s worth of that revenue. That’s it,” Manar added. “That doesn’t take an act from the General Assembly, it doesn’t take a bill, it doesn’t take an override on the veto. It simply takes the administration recognizing this is something they shouldn’t have done.” (Celeste Bott)
*Capitol spelling bee: Senate President John Cullerton from time to time publicly displays a patronizing side (in addition to his would-be stand-up comic chops). So it was on Tuesday that he got to gloat a bit about the notion of a stopgap state budget.
The North Side Democrat floated the idea last week, only to see Republican leaders immediately cast it as Democrats “pulling the plug” on negotiations. In addition, Rauner’s budget director, Tim Nuding, dismissed the idea as “not a viable option at this point.”
By Monday night, Rauner was embracing the notion. And after emerging from the morning leaders’ meeting with the governor, Cullerton took his opening, saying that Rauner had referred to him as “prescient” for having thought of the idea first.
“It’s prescient. It makes my comments prescient,” Cullerton said, when asked for his thoughts about the Rauner proposal. “P-R-E-S-C-I-E-N-T.”
*I’ve got you, babe?: As the hours of floor action dragged on with no budget progress, one House Republican broke into song.
It was a response to Democrats again pushing an override of a vetoed bill that would send stalled contract talks with state worker unions to arbitration.
Sponsoring Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, said he felt motivated to try again after seeing a letter sent to Gov. Rauner that urged him to come back to the table and negotiate with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. It was signed by seven Republicans, and Welch called them out by name.
The override failed again, but not before Rep. Chad Hays of Catlin performed a rendition of “I Got You Babe,” a hit for Sonny and Cher that’s featured in the film “Groundhog Day,” where a character played by Bill Murray is forced to relive the same day over and over again.
“That was a song on the radio every morning on ‘Groundhog Day.’ We just heard it again,” Hays joked on the floor. “I think there was a Bill Murray sighting out in the hallway.”
It’s not the first time Illinois politics has been compared to the film’s plot. On Tuesday, the sentiment could have applied to any number of efforts, as lawmakers struggled to reach a budget agreement by the spring session midnight deadline. (Celeste Bott)
Follow the money
*Track campaign contribution reports in real time with this Tribune Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ILCampaignCash
Beyond Chicago
*Presidential race, Republican side: Big Trump checks to veterans groups sent on day of WaPo report.
*Presidential race, Democratic side: Clinton scores Jerry Brown endorsement ahead of California primary (checking to make sure we haven’t traveled back in time a quarter-century).
*How Paul Ryan thinks about Donald Trump.
*FBI wants to exempt huge fingerprint, photo database from privacy protections.
