Chicago Argus: Something stinks. That’s the partisanship

For almost the past week Gov. Pat Quinn, has been on a business trip to the Jewish state of Israel. Of course that doesn't stop blogger Gregory Tejada from commenting on the state of politics here in Illinois:

According to the Chicago Tribune, Quinn told reporters that he feared Republican legislators would use the opportunity to play political games of their own, and that he thought it best to keep them out as much as possible.

What makes that possible is that state law requires a budget to be approved before the state fiscal year begins on July 1. Which is why Quinn on June 30 signed into law the budget approved by the Democrat-controlled General Assembly.

Had he not done so, the state laws that require a larger vote of support to pass something into law would have taken effect. Which would have meant the Democratic majorities in the Illinois House of Representatives and state Senate would not have been able to do whatever they wanted, and that Republican votes would have been needed to pass something.

This is a good point. This should hurt Republicans in this state. Hopefully they can turn things around and be competitive in 2012:

If the GOP wants to be taken more seriously, they need to focus their attention on winning elections and gaining more representatives. Just as it is difficult to argue about the behavior of Congress these days – where the conservative ideologues won a sizable share of the House of Representatives to have some legitimate say. For Republicans to gain some say in Springfield these days, they're going to have to win a share of representation. That's just the way things are in the real world.

This would also be true of a lot of the many groups in America. You could be a libertarian or a socialist, but if you want a say organize people around your ideas.