http://www.wjbc.com/wire2/news/09666_Million-Dollar-Session-3WEB_062802.htm

Gov mocked for picking Hawks over CTA vote
'I prefer to watch a game that wasn't rigged,' he says

November 30, 2007
Chicago Sun-Times

BY DAVE MCKINNEY

SPRINGFIELD -- Facing widespread ridicule at the Statehouse, Gov. Blagojevich on Thursday defended skipping a key vote to avert a CTA meltdown so he could attend a Chicago Blackhawks game instead.

"I prefer to watch a game that wasn't rigged," Blagojevich told reporters. "That vote [Wednesday] night -- if you look carefully at that roll call where some leaders of the Democratic caucus voted against it -- suggested to me it wasn't a serious effort to pass it."

The House voted 57-53 for a plan Blagojevich favored to divert more than $400 million in state sales taxes on fuel to mass transit. It needed 71 votes to pass.

A spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan scoffed at the governor's accusation that the House mass-transit vote Wednesday was somehow "rigged" to fail.

"Well, we saw where the governor's priorities are," Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said. "He picked the sporting event over the people of Illinois. We've come to expect these kinds of crazy statements from this guy. We'll continue to work to solve the problem."

The governor said he had been invited to the first home game under new Blackhawks president John McDonough and that he chose to attend as a favor to McDonough, "an act to help him as a friend."

Blagojevich wouldn't say if he would consider reimbursing the state Treasury for the $5,800 it cost to use a state plane to shuttle him from Springfield to Chicago and back again to watch a sporting event on a day he ordered lawmakers to be in Springfield.

He was ridiculed in the House, where Rep. Ed Sullivan (R-Mundelein) brought a hockey stick to the House floor to make a point.

"If he's truly up there working on commerce, that's one thing. But this is him going to a hockey game to enjoy himself at the expense of the people of the state of Illinois. You can't get any more plain than that," said Sullivan, who called on the governor to cut a check to the taxpayers for his airfare.