Early warning: Look out for lame duck hijinks

House Republicans introduced legislation to eliminate
 lame duck sessions
The 11 months to come should be prime incubating time for a wheeling, dealing, no-holds-barred lame duck legislative session in January 2015.

Consider this: Next January, Illinois will have either a new governor intent on letting income taxes drop as scheduled (and a Democratic legislature intent on not losing the $4 billion a year that will mean) or a re-elected Gov. Pat Quinn, who will almost certainly want to extend the temporary tax increase he shepherded through the 2013 lame duck session.

Those who want to keep the temporary higher rates will be eager to make deals in exchange for votes from House and Senate lame ducks who, having nothing to fear from voters anymore, will find it easier to vote for what will be portrayed as a tax increase. In this situation, “make deals” easily can mean “offer employment to.”  Matt Dietrich has the rest of the story at Reboot Illinois.