Trick play by Blagojevich gets stuffed at the line

Football season is upon us and, as is his wont, Illinois' head coach Rod Blagojevich is calling another political misdirection play.

The governor sued House Speaker Michael J. Madigan over the obscure issue of the special sessions Blagojevich has requested this summer's record overtime session.

The 56-page lawsuit is full of blustery legal lingo like "grave importance," "eviscerated" powers and "unauthorized and escalating acts." (And that's just page 2.) But really, the suit boils down to a dispute over what time these special sessions take place.

The governor may or may not have a legal case, but the arcane point at stake pales in significance compared to his budget slashing of local projects, many of which aim to improve the quality of life for real people all over the state.

And that, argue the governor's critics, including Democratic state Rep. Lou Lang of Skokie, is precisely what's going on here: Blagojevich is trying to divert attention away from the budget-cutting mess he made and toward the on-the-surface sexier and rare occurrence of a sitting governor taking the sitting speaker of the same political party to court.

The governor is taking heat from stories that showed him declaring the suburbs a flooded disaster area while cutting flood prevention funds (Daily Herald) and zeroing out funding to renovate a Chicago park in memory of a 4-year-old who died of brain cancer and drawing the front-page ire of grieving parents (Sun-Times). Those headlines follow the failure of Blagojevich's massive business tax increase for health care plan, and a Fox Channel 32 poll that showed 53 percent of Illinois residents surveyed rating Blagojevich's job performance as "poor."

So it's easy to see why any distraction will do for the battered governor: after all, any port in a political storm. The Madigan suit can be found in the same chapter of Blagojevich's first-term political playbook as the one where he sets up a straw man and then knocks him down, with Madigan cast as the scarecrow this time out.

Blagojevich undercuts his credibility by not including in the suit ally Senate President Emil Jones, who hasn't exactly pounded his fist on the podium demanding senators attend special sessions.

As I noted on WTTW Channel 11's "Chicago Tonight" program earlier this week, it's certainly ironic that a guy who proudly brags about getting a "C" in constitutional law at the California surfer school Pepperdine University is suddenly concerned about the integrity of the Illinois Constitution. Not to mention that the Madigan suit was birthed from the legal brain trust that previously brought taxpayers the Hey, Let's Sell the Thompson Center (found to be illegal) and Our Violent Video Game Ban Is Different (also struck down by the courts) gambits.

Additionally, the worry that all the i's are dotted and t's crossed on special sessions is coming from an administration currently under federal investigation for, among other things, whether it skirted veterans' hiring preference rules.

The old reverse play isn't called all that frequently in football because it tends to work only once a game, the defense adjusting to it after they've seen it. Judging by Blagojevich's poll ratings, the public may be catching on: that Fox poll also revealed a majority of Illinois residents surveyed put the jacket for the budget overtime mess right on Blagojevich's shoulders.

̢ۢ The analysis column of Daily Herald Political Writer Eric Krol, ekrol@dailyherald.com, appears Fridays. He also co-authors the political notebook, "Animal Farm," which is on a short hiatus at dailyherald.com.