"The most remarkable thing about the spring session of the Illinois legislature is that it did anything at all." That's how Stateline.org begins its appraisal of legislative action taken in Illinois during the spring session.
Every year the non-partisan website issues an overview of political news from all 50 states. While most Illinoisans already know their state legislature can get a bit ... dysfunctional, this year's section on the Prairie State was particularly sobering:
The General Assembly sent Blagojevich only one third of the legislation it did last year: 283 bills in 2008 compared to 750 in 2007. [...]
Hundreds of bills died during the regular session as the result of a procedural dispute over Blagojevich’s health expansion plans that erupted into a balance-of-powers struggle.
The governor announced he would ignore the decisions of a legislative panel charged with approving administrative rules. [House Speaker Michael] Madigan tried to block the Blagojevich administration from writing any new rules, by attaching that condition to House bills. The Senate stripped the restrictions. The chambers never resolved the difference.
Today, Gov. Blagojevich announced that he's convening a special session next Wednesday in the hopes of dealing with the budget stalemate. So Stateline may need to revise its legislative recap sometime in the near future.
A full overview of state legislative news from around the country can be found here.
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