The tale of Christine Radogno and Her Fruitless Motion best illustrates why this is such an important week in our state Capitol.
Cast your mind back to May 24 of last year. On that day, Radogno, a Republican state senator from suburban Lemont and the deputy minority leader in the chamber, filed a motion asking for a vote of the full Senate on a proposal to move an ethics bill out of the rules committee, where it had been languishing for about a month, and onto the floor.
Rules can be a legislative Roach Motel. Bills check in, but they don't check out without the OK of the Senate president. To pry a bill out of a committee requires a vote of three-fifths of the Senate: 36 members.
But Radogno had that level of support and more. The bill, an attempt to ban businesses with fat state contracts from funding the campaigns of officeholders who give them those contracts, was very popular in both parties.
No comments:
Post a Comment