Amid complex budget talks, Madigan gamesmanship a constant

Long before his General Assembly failed to pass a balanced budget, House Speaker Mike Madigan’s spin machine was churning.

If anyone still questions Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s political gamesmanship, or how he has maintained power for so long, look no further than the past few weeks’ maneuvers.

Madigan pre-emptively began his spin campaign in hopes of gaining public approval weeks before the Illinois General Assembly failed to pass a constitutionally required balanced budget by May 31.

His chosen talking points included painting himself as the defender of the middle class, and calling for the media to be on the watch for Rauner spending money to attack Democrats who vote along with Madigan.

Madigan’s hypocrisy has no boundaries, as he fired the first campaign bullet, sending mailers out in Republican districts. The first landed in the district of state Rep. Mark Batinick, R-Plainfield, after Batinick voted “no” on Madigan’s millionaires-tax resolution, a constitutional amendment that would create a 3 percent income-tax surcharge on small-business owners. The mailer painted the freshman lawmaker as “anti-education.”

Keep in mind, the proposed constitutional amendment did not pass out of the House of Representatives due to three of Madigan’s Democrat lawmakers voting “no” on the measure, not the 47 Republicans who entered a “present” vote.

In other words, Madigan used the legislative process for purely political purposes.

The misleading mailer states that Batinick, a small-business owner and father of five, wants to “… put millionaires before children and the middle class.” It goes on to say that Batinick would give millionaires breaks at the expense of schools and the middle class.

The mailer fully displays that solutions to Illinois’ economic problems are not on Madigan’s priority list, but rather that he’s already projecting ahead to the 2016 elections – fabricating campaign issues at the expense of Illinois taxpayers.