Sacia unloads on Steinberg

January 17th, 2008 at 01:05pm Aaron Chambers

Rep. Jim Sacia, R-Pecatonica, just blew his top on the House floor over a recent column by Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Steinberg had this to say about downstaters resisting Chicago-led efforts to bail out Chicago-area mass transit agencies:

Chicago is the economic engine that drives Illinois, if not the entire Midwest, and the sooner the hicks in the hinterlands understand that, the better.

Sacia responded: “I’m proudly one of those hicks from the hinterland.”

He then read this passage from Steinberg’s column:

Beyond our own bickering leaders, one major reason our public transit system is again poised to collapse — and, as they say, the third time’s the charm — is that Downstate legislators, envious and resentful of the city, see no connection between Chicago’s economic future and their own, and can’t imagine funding public transportation in Sodom-on-the-Lake without first extorting a big slice of blueberry pie for themselves in Porktropolis. Each one has a pet project — new milking stools, a galvanized metal silo, whatever — they’re demanding as ransom for bailing out Chicago transit, and if it shuts the city down, well, so what? It’s just a bunch of sinners and minorities anyway.

And he responded: “What a damn insult! And the good part, the thing that makes me feel good, is I listen to people like Rep. (John) Fritchey stand on this floor and point out what a political charade this is. There isn’t anyone on on the other side of the aisle that I wouldn’t help with a bill if I possibly could. And I know in my heart of hearts the vast majority of you would help me with a bill. This is one that was a real tough struggle for me to get through. And I didn’t need my nose rubbed in it!”

Thereafter, other Republicans mocked Steinberg — and, by extension, the Chicago-centric air that pervades the Capitol — by referring to themselves on the House floor as hicks.

Even Rep. Lou Lang, a liberal Democrat from Skokie, proclaimed: “I’m a proud member of the hick caucus!”

Entry Filed under: Transit, Illinois politics