The Lt. Governor also gets two fully staffed office suites, just like the Governor -- one in the capitol building in Springfield, and another in the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago.
Of course we could have solved all this last year when the "Constitution Convention" was on the ballot, but the sheeple in Illinois rejected it due to a fear campaign that they'd somehow lose their state pensions under a new constitution. Now the only way to reform the way our government is set up is through massively amending the Constitution.
They ought to merge the Illinois Treasurer and Ilinois Comptroller into a single office as well, and put them both under the jurisdiction of the State Auditor General (currently an appointed office)
The Illinois Secretary of State is already an enormously powerful official, since he's also in charge of transportation and the dept. of motor vehicles, the state librarian, state historian, "keeper of the great seal of Illinois" etc. I wouldn't want to make the guy Lt. Governor as well... especially with senile Jesse White currently holding the job.
Since the office of Lt. Governor if vacant, the next in line according to the order of succession is the Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, and not her father, the Speaker of the House (I don't know who's in line after little Lisa) Why they made the A.G. next in line, I don't know, logic should dictate that it would go to the SOS or the Speaker of the House.
Personally I think Gov. Quinn committed political suicide by proposing an income tax hike in his annual budget address. Hasn't he learned that you're not supposed to shove these things through until AFTER you win re-election?
Dave O'Neal. He was elected with Big Jim Thompson in '76 and reelected in '78 (when they switched to the off-year elections). I'm forgetting if it was he or his predecessor, Neal Hartigan, that was the first to win the job on a ticket elected with the Governor (remember Dem Paul Simon won Lt Gov even as Republican Dick Ogilvie won the Governorship in '68). O'Neal thought he was going to win the open Senate seat in 1980 when Adlai Stevenson the 3rd retired (in anticipation of running for Governor in '82). When he failed and it went to Sec of State Alan Dixon (one of the few Dem successes in the Reagan landslide), he had nowhere to go. Thompson made it plain he wasn't going to step aside in '82, so O'Neal just quit in July '81 and left the office vacant for a year and a half. I don't think anyone much noticed. Of course, that then gave then-House Speaker George Ryan his opportunity, and he managed to serve a whole 8 years in the job. When he was succeeded by Bob Kustra in '91, Kustra was the anointed choice for Senator in '96, but after he was upended by Al Salvi in the primary, he eventually quit early, too, in July of '98.
I never got why Treasurer and Comptroller were separate offices. Florida combined the 2 into State CFO.
“The Illinois Secretary of State is already an enormously powerful official, since he’s also in charge of transportation and the dept. of motor vehicles, the state librarian, state historian, “keeper of the great seal of Illinois” etc. I wouldn’t want to make the guy Lt. Governor as well.”
That’s a good point. Those powers really shouldn’t be vested in someone not directly elected.
But the LT needs to have some purpose other than just to succeed the Governor.
And I’m mystified why the constitution was written to prohibit filling a vacancy. I always thought it was just an oversight. I guess it’s to prevent someone who was not elected possibly being Governor (ala Jerry Ford).
Dave O’Neal if he was a conservative was the last one in the Lieutenant Governor’s office. Followed by G. Ryan, Kustra, Corrine Wood, and Quinn.