* 10:55 am - The leaders meeting started a few minutes ago. We should have some audio soon. House GOP Leader Tom Cross focused on the “evade the question about Madigan’s involvement” stuff in the impeachment memo when he spoke to reporters.
The Tribbies have a preview post, as does the AP.
* 11:27 am - The Chicago city council is debating locating the Children’s Museum in Grant Park. Watch it live by clicking here.
* 11:41 am - Don & Roma had a lot of interesting stuff on their WLS Radio program today.
Click here to llisten to Speaker Madigan’s spokesman Steve Brown and Rep. Kurt Granberg talk about the impeachment memo and the capital plan.
And click here to listen to Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. excoriate Democratic congressional candidate Debbie Halvorson over the third airport controversy.
* 11:46 am - From the AP…
The top Republican in the Illinois House is blasting a memo spelling out reasons to launch impeachment hearings against Governor Rod Blagojevich.
House Minority Leader Tom Cross says the memo lays out “a scheme to lie” to the public. […]
…rhe talking points suggest that candidates deny Madigan had anything to do with the impeachment discussion. […]
Cross said Wednesday that Madigan shouldn’t question the governor’s trustworthiness but then suggest that candidates lie.
* 11:55 am - Click on the links to listen to audio files from before today’s leaders meeting…
* Tom Cross
* Emil Jones
* Frank Watson
* Barb Currie
* Senate President Jones agreed with Cross’ characterization that the impeachment memo was a “scheme to lie.”
* Senate GOP Leader Watson said that his own candidates and incumbents “get a lot of questions” about impeachment and said sending out the same sort of memo might be something the Senate Republicans should think about doing.
*** 12:09 pm *** House Majority Leader Barb Currie just walked out of the leaders meeting complaining that the governor is continuing to focus on a capital bill rather than the budget. Currie said she afraid of an “imminent” government shutdown in July if the governor doesn’t get serious about the budget soon.
The other leaders are still inside the governor’s office.
We’ll have audio a little later.
* 12:31 pm - The Tribbies are live-blogging the city council debate on the Children’s Museum.
* 1:14 - Barb Currie quote…
“I think that unfortunately we’re still in a situation where the governor wants to focus only on a capital bill and we continue to think that keeping state government open July 1 is the key issue,” Currie told reporters. “The governor said he’s not concerned about the budget, that the budget bill would be easy if only he had the capital program.”
Currie said she fears Blagojevich is “manufacturing a crisis.”
*** 1:41 pm *** The Chicago city council just approved the Children’s “Museum” in Grant Park on a 33-16 vote.
*** 2:03 pm *** Senate President Jones has left the meeting. According to Kevin, Jones said Madigan could lose Chicago the Olympics if he continues his opposition to a capital plan.
*** 2:15 pm *** Abby Ottenhoff, the governor’s chief spokesperson, just brought out a chart that claimed to show that every day week a capital bill isn’t passed, 3,744 jobs are not created. Not sure that makes much sense, but there you go.
*** 2:52 pm *** Rep. Jay Hoffman, a member of the state Democratic central committee and Gov. Blagojevich’s House floor leader said he’s “offended” that Speaker Madigan would use the Democratic Party’s money to send out the impeachment memo “in order to further a vendetta” against the Democratic governor.
Hoffman also blamed Madigan for not sending the governor the budget bills. In reality, however, the Senate controls three of the four appropriations bills.
Click here to listen to Hoffman.
*** 3:03 pm *** More audio from the post-game show…
* Currie
* Cross
* Jones
* Watson
* 3:12 pm - The Tribbies have the Children’s “Museum” roll call.
*** 3:16 pm *** Senate GOP Leader Frank Watson said he believes the leaders have a deal that the House and Senate will transmit the budget bills to the governor.