Weeks into the new fiscal year, Governor Bruce Rauner and house speaker Michael Madigan can’t agree on a budget, a pension plan, a policy agenda, or especially a scapegoat for the ongoing mess, with each pointing to the other as the guy responsible.
Plenty of citizens would argue that Madigan has a civic and ethical obligation to open his doings to the public, even if the law doesn’t mandate it. But that’s not the view of the speaker. Revealing his meeting schedule, even long after the events have occurred, could stifle the political process and violate the privacy of people seeking Madigan’s help, according to Bolin.
“The Governor’s Office was under no obligation to provide the requested appointment calendars to Mr. Dumke because these documents are not ‘public records’ under FOIA,” an attorney for the governor argued in a July 16 letter to the Public Access Bureau, a division of the Illinois attorney general’s office that rules on FOIA disputes.
No one from Madigan’s office responded.
That’s true, says state senator Kwame Raoul, one of the sponsors—along with Madigan and 21 others—of a 2010 law strengthening the FOIA. Requiring individual legislators to produce records of their work would interfere with their “core function” of exchanging ideas and crafting laws, he says. “We are not the executive branch—we are not day-to-day decision makers. We make policy.”
On that point Speaker Madigan and Governor Rauner are in full agreement.
