-By Warner Todd Huston
State Representative Bob Biggins (R, Elmhurst) was one of two Republicans to vote yes on a bill to borrow $3.7 billion to shore up state pension funds this week. The vote caused tongues to wag that the retiring representative was offered a job or some other goodies by the Illinois Democrats through Governor Quinn’s offices to change his previous vote to side with Quinn.
It isn’t that Biggins sided with Democrats and against the Republican leadership, but that he ducked a meeting with his own caucus in order to hide away in Governor Quinn’s office with chief of staff Jerry Stemer raises eyebrows.
For his part Biggins claims he was offered no incentive to change his “no” vote to a “yes.”
Some Republicans and folks on GOP Minority Leader Tom Cross’ team have proposed expelling Biggins from the GOP caucus over his apostasy.
Of course, if Biggins really did vote his conscience and received no special personal deals from Quinn, then there isn’t any real sense to attempting to expel him from the party. One vote, as idiotic as that vote was, is not grounds to expulsion.
However, if it can be proven that Biggins sold his vote for personal gain, then expel away. That sort of unprincipled behavior needs to be exposed and punished. Still, proof is the key to such a move. We need to see firm evidence that Biggins sold his vote. While it’s easy to have suspicions raised that Biggins did, indeed, sell his vote due to his own squirrely behavior, suspicion is not enough to act upon.
Whatever the case, this whole pension borrowing scheme is bad, bad policy It is rewarding the over stuffed, over generous compensations packages that state workers receive and making NO provision to cut them back and put the whole plan into the black sensibly.
We still have an utter failure to address the Illinois pension mess, regardless.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 200 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDailyReview.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
Huston has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Huston’s work has appeared on Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Bortz, and Michael Savage. He has appeared on the G. Gordon Liddy show, dozens of local shows from coast to coast, and many blogtalk radio shows.
Mr. Huston has appeared on local TV news to discuss his writing, has been a guest of CNN’s blogger lunch, and has appeared on Breitbart TV’s B-Team show.
Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com and has a blog on the Tribune-Owned http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/publius-forum/ChicagoNow.com website. He is a well known writer on Illinois politics.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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