Quinn’s Quandry: Serve Us Or Special Interests?
It was recently exposed that Governor Quinn received a $75,000.00 political contribution from the Teamsters Union weeks before his signature went on the dotted line to help that same union. Chicago’s convention business is seriously flagging, largely because it is prohibitively expensive to conduct a convention in Chicago.
This recent bill attempted to streamline costs in order to draw back lost convention business by reforming the governance of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (known as “McPier”). The Teamsters and Carpenter’s Union heavily opposed the move, which would have cost them business. Quinn used his amendatory veto power to cut a sweeter deal for his Union cronies, but the state legislature struck down his changes and passed the bill as they originally wrote it.
The Unions say they have always supported Quinn, but the numbers do not show it. How shocking is it that, before Quinn took over the governor’s office, the Teamsters had given him about $15,000 in total! As it stands today, roughly one year and five months since he came to power, Quinn has received at least $175,000 ($75,000 from the latest contribution, plus two $50,000 checks from Teamsters Volunteers in Politics, a shill for Teamsters Joint Council 25). Most of this money has come rushing in since September and the kick-off of his re-election campaign.
This all comes on the heels of Quinn’s last fundraising scandal, where he blamed an aide for trying to sell private meetings with interest groups for $15,000 a pop.
Although Quinn denies there was any link between the sudden influx of Teamster cash and his amendatory veto of the McPier reform bill, it does look suspicious. Bill Brady, the GOP candidate for governor of Illinois, has demanded that there be an investigation in the matter. “The citizens of Illinois are suffering the effects of the pay-to-play politics that were the hallmark of the Blagojevich-Quinn administration. We cannot allow another incident to go unchecked.”
This deserves a serious looking-over by the Illinois Attorney General, Lisa Madigan. Strangely, her office has been pretty much silent about it, even as all goes down against the backdrop of the Blagojevich corruption trial. Maybe she just wants to have the Feds do her job.
I’ve known Quinn to basically say that he, “always tries to do what is best for the public.” I would have been more satisfied to hear that he always DOES what is best, not that he TRIES!
I wonder if Quinn has forgotten about all his little ‘Tea Parties’. While his political party decries the modern tea party movement as Astroturf, I wonder if they know the governor was semi-famous for pulling the exact same stunt for years. In 1978 he urged Illinois citizens to send tea bags to protest Jim Thompson. In 2006 he used the same tactic against Commonwealth Edison.
Less well known is that years ago he put on his show for the media in the Town of Cicero during the time that Mr. Henry Klosak was mayor. But this time he actually stole from the state of Illinois to do it!
Quinn was Illinois State Treasurer at the time and to secure publicity he and his employees from his office staged a ‘Tea Party’ (on government time, mind you) at the weekly board meeting. He was yelling like a mad man for residents to mail tea bags to the mayor’s office. Because this happened in Cicero the media flocked to cover the story.
The mayor’s office received ONE tea bag.
The media hurried to get the story on the noon news. They did not stay to see the desecration of the American flag, as it was being tossed to the floor. It was great publicity for Quinn dressed in Revolutionary War garb though.
Not one media outlet questioned why he and his employees from his office were “stage” playing on taxpayers time. Did he think at that time using government employees to further his career was best for the citizens? Guess this was just another one of the times he was TRYING instead of DOING.
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