One of the things that became crystal clear last week during the Illinois Senate's debate over a new state budget was that the Democratic legislative leaders have completely broken the budget-making process.
It's no big secret that more and more power has been concentrated into the hands of the leaders - the House speaker and the Senate president. And now they have it all.
Long gone are the days when the appropriations committees had any input. Also vanished is the "budgeteers" system, in which appropriations chairs and experts from each caucus would sit down to hash out the budget's details. Instead, all of the work is now being done by staff at the leaders' absolute direction.
As a consequence, senators barely had any idea about what they were voting for last week when they approved a budget along party lines. The committee hearing before the vote provided precious few details and instead revolved around partisan bickering over a Democratic maneuver solely designed to embarrass the Republicans. Republicans repeatedly denounced the budget process as far too rushed and wholly un-transparent, and they were right.