As state legislative support for a cigarette-tax hike grew in late May, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and other conservatives stepped into the Illinois fray.

A top House Republican said more than a week ago that the roll call in favor of a dollar-a-pack cigarette-tax hike was in the double digits within his caucus. The tax would raise $700 million, including the federal match, to help close the Medicaid program's gaping $2.7-billion budget hole.

In return, Republicans won concessions from the Democrats, particularly when it came to sparing doctors from Governor Pat Quinn's proposed Medicaid-provider rate cuts.

Senate President John Cullerton has been telling some of his members for weeks that he was resigned to an overtime session. The General Assembly likely wouldn't be able to adjourn by the scheduled May 31 deadline, he said. There was just no getting around it, so people should just accept that fact and move forward.

But not long ago, Cullerton reportedly came to the conclusion that if the spring session did go into overtime, Republicans would likely keep everyone bottled up in Springfield all summer long. So now his focus is on getting everybody out of town by the end of May.

May 31 is an important deadline because all bills voted on after that date require a three-fifths majority to pass. That means no budget can be approved, no Medicaid solution can be found, no pension systems can be reformed without supermajorities.

The Democrats control both legislative chambers, but they don't have three-fifths. They're seven votes shy in the House and one vote short in the Senate. One vote may not seem like a lot, but the partisanship can sometimes get so intense in the General Assembly these days that one vote might as well be a hundred.

State Representative Derrick Smith (D-Chicago) may have more legal troubles than his federal bribery indictment.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has told the House's Special Investigating Committee that his office's investigation of Smith isn't over yet, which could be an indication that the government wants to pile on more charges.

But the "active" federal investigation also means that Fitzgerald decided to refuse to cooperate with the committee, which is charged with looking into the allegations to determine if any legislative action is warranted. Fitzgerald also asked the committee to not do any investigations beyond what is already in the public record, except for interviewing Smith himself.

Retiring state Representative Joe Lyons (D-Chicago) said a debate on the House floor last month was his "finest hour." He was probably right.

Lyons successfully fought off five hostile floor amendments to his bill requiring that women seeking abortions be offered a look at an ultrasound test before having an abortion. The proposal has been a matter of much contention for the past three years, and it came to a head again in late March.