PrintJanuary 14, 2011
Queen for a week; Just long enough to sink Illinois
As a life-long Illinois resident I should never be surprised by anything that the Democrat Party does, and yet in the aftermath of their recent victory over representative government I tripped across a story that really makes my blood boil. From Andy Shaw at the Better Government Association comes a tale that is beyond belief, call it the Chicago Way on steroids.
In November incumbent state representative, Democrat John Fritchey from Chicago’s 11th district was elected to a seat on the Cook County Board. When Fritchey sworn in and settled into his new office in December it was assumed that the newly elected representative, fellow Democrat Ann Williams would fill out the remaining few days of her predecessor’s term. However one should never assume that the normal political process applies in the deep blue state of Illinois.
With every single vote (literally as it turns out) taking on monumental significance as the Democrats prepared to ram through their toxic new tax hike, filling Fritchey’s place at the trough became critical. The party leadership needed to be sure of Ann Williams.
But there were questions about how she would vote if a tax plan was on the lame-duck agenda. Williams claims that local Democrat leaders, including Fritchey and Senate President John Cullerton, wanted her commitment to support the tax hike before arranging for her to be sworn in. They say she got cold feet and decided not to start early--choosing instead to wait until Wednesday, when the rest of the freshman class was sworn in.
Williams decision not to be seated immediately left a temporary opening which the Democrat leadership could use to help secure their monstrous tax hike. Enter Kathy Moore from Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. Kathy is a former public school teacher and the wife of well connected zoning lawyer Tom Moore. According to Andy Shaw, last week Mrs. Moore confessed that “they tell me what (voting) button to push and I push it.” The Chicago Way at its most prime.
Kathy Moore joined her handlers in Springfield for exactly one week, just enough time to do the bidding of the Democrat leadership and cause serious injury to the tax payers of Illinois by casting her crucial vote for the ultimate in job killing tax hikes.
So when the tax bill passed, without a single vote to spare, our lawmaker-for-a-week was a major reason. She says she’s not happy about voting for a gargantuan tax increase but she doesn’t think that she, or the state, had any other choice. Even though, as of Sunday, she hadn’t seen a bill. Or a press release. Or a fact sheet. Or a list of cuts, accountability measures and streamlining to go along with the increase.
“I hope it works,” she said wistfully in a text message on Wednesday morning. Williams says, for the record, that she would’ve had a hard time supporting the tax bill in its present form.
Now that Governor Pat Quinn has signed the most oppressive tax hike in state history and Kathy Moore has quietly slunk back to her comfortable Lincoln Park home, new representative Ann Williams can deny any direct involvement in the lame-duck assault on the citizens of Illinois. I hope that in November 2012, the voters in her district will remember that Ms. Williams meekly yielded her seat to the dark forces of the Chicago Way.
Meanwhile it will be interesting to see if any of the Democrat lame-ducks who cast their vote against the citizens of the “Land of Lincoln” should happen to find new jobs in the Quinn administration or the bloated state bureaucracy . Will Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan look into the rumors of bribery and corruption that are swirling around this poisonous tax hike? Will Lisa ask her father (Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan) for advice on whether to investigate this matter?
Just a minor little story from the festering sewer of political corruption which has spawned such luminaries as Saul Alinsky, Hillary Rodham, Jesse Jackson, Dick Durbin and countless others. The state which served as the political launching pad for Barack Hussein Obama.
Now that I think about it, I’m not surprised after all.
January 14, 2010
