From the Tribune:
Originally posted: September 23, 2008
Blago's attempt to `rock the system' is too much, too late
Eric Zorn
Gov. Rod Blagojevich is pushing hard for the General Assembly to pass   Senate Bill  780, an ambitious, omnibus political ethics law that contains proposals the governor tried to slip into an earlier bill using his amendatory veto powers.
Ethics_vote_headline That attempt was resoundingly rejected by first the House and then, Monday, the Senate (see the front-page headline, right), though many commentators and lawmakers said Blagojevich's proposals were not without merit.  It was just that they seemed designed to thwart passage of the simpler measure.
In good faith, then, the Senate today took up Blagojevich's proposals and, after some debate, passed it  50-1, with five members casting the dreaded "present" vote.  In this case, that vote signaled the belief that the bill still needed a lot of work and might not pass constitutional muster.
"It's not ready for soup yet," said Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock), who was in a rhetorically colorful mood when I reached him for comment. "Having Gov. Blagojevich run an ethics bill is kind of like having Mike Tyson run a sensitivity seminar," he said. "And asking members of the House to vote for his proposal is like asking the chickens for vote for Col. Sanders."
Franks pointed out that good-government groups such as the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform are urging a go-slow approach on Blagojevich's proposals, which came with great fanfare very late in a long process.
Cythia Canary, head of the ICPR, had this to say when I reached her by phone late today:
    Blagojevich's bill is politics, not public policy. It looks good on a press release but much ot it's not likely to hold up in court. For instance, it makes no sense to ban political parties and individual legislators from taking contributions from people with state contracts because parties and legislators don't enter into those contracts.  If he wants to limit parties and lawmakers, he should try to do it with contribution and transfer limits. This approach is a waste of time.
    Getting rid of double-dippers sounds great, but there are so many exceptions in the bill that it's sure to be challenge as a violation of the equal protection clause.  We have a part-time legislature. Why is [Blagojevich] concerned about certain [second] public jobs and not others? And exactly what problem is this effort to fight double dipping trying to address?
    Some pieces of this bill are fine.  The   affirmative pay raise provision [requiring lawmakers to vote for legislative pay raises instead of allowing them to get the raise by not voting against them] is a fine idea. But it should be stripped out and run as a separate bill, not embedded in all this other crap.
    I resent the idea that suddenly Blagojevich thinks he gets to set the agenda on what real ethics reform is with this slap-shot proposal. We've been working the pay-to-play ban for three years, and how he want to ram this through in 24 hours.
    The senate voted to approve it today, but all the conversation I heard on the floor was how the bill wasn't really ready, it sure needed more work. It looks to me as thought [the members of the senate] decided to vote for the bill to give themselves the ability to tell their constituents that they voted for ethics reform. It looks like a very cynical vote to me. 
Smart money says the House lets the bill languish and then expire in the House Rules Committee.