Weekend Roundup Jan. 18: The Press and Gov. Rauner, Week 1
Via Illinois Mirror
Is Rauner Too Quick to Use Executive Orders?
Meanwhile, across town, almost a companion piece to the Tribune’s Sunday story about Rauner’s blame game comes a missive from Sun-Times reporter Natasha Korecki headlined, “Governing by executive order – Rauner flexing political muscles or overreaching?”
The story mostly ignores the fact that many of Rauner’s executive orders in his first week in office were to countermand a slew of politically motivated orders signed by outgoing Gov. Pat Quinn in the closing days of his administration, many of them nothing more than a thumb in the eye of Rauner. But that’s doesn’t stop Korecki from pressing her perspective:
By using his executive authority, Rauner is making good on a campaign pledge that he would exercise whatever powers are available to him.
But one political watchdog group was looking carefully at Rauner’s orders, including one that aimed to create transparency and additional oversight on hires within the governor’s office and the agencies it oversees.
This has been another common (and, we expect, ongoing) thread of early press coverage of Gov. Rauner. Find the one or two groups that are against one of his proposals, cry foul, then quote that group to back up the claim, even though it may be a minority view.
David Melton, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said a portion of the order was written too broadly when it states: “No state agency shall enter into any employment contract with any person without prior review and approval by the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget.”
The way it’s laid out, could be a double-edged sword, Melton said.
“You have to let the governor know when you’re hiring somebody. That’s why it’s an overdrawn order, I think,” Melton said. But it also means that the buck will stop with Rauner. In the IDOT patronage case, Quinn said he had no knowledge of what was happening with the hires. This edict, Melton argued, would point directly to the governor’s office if there’s ever a question.
“It’s their way of trying to prevent [cronyism] in the future. But anytime you get into hiring, you get into a lot of ancillary issues,” he said. “Improper considerations [can] come into play.”
So let’s see if we understand this: Rauner, in an effort to stem the state’s long-practiced patronage hiring that grew under now-imprisoned Gov. Rod Blagojevich and continued under Pat Quinn, signs executive orders to make hiring more transparent. So Korecki goes out and finds the one group that’ll say, “…it’s an overdrawn order.”
More egregious in terms of fair and balanced reporting is the fact that in all the reporting about patronage hiring, rarely is it mentioned that much of the hiring is done at the direction of House Speaker Mike Madigan, who also heads up the Democrat party, who controls the money flow in Springfield, and with whom Rauner is supposed to find common ground.
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