power and privilege

There's a fine line between "dictator" and chief executive. Apparently it's a matter of party affiliation when interpreting whether the head of the executive branch of government is engaging in constitutional "evisceration" or merely evoking "executive privilege", "executive power", and "inherent powers" of the executive branch.

GOP health-care suit called Scrooge-like
By David Mendell, Tribune staff reporter
December 7, 2007

Gov. Rod Blagojevich forcefully defended his legal ability to broadly expand state health care coverage Thursday, excoriating those who are suing to halt the expansion as "Scrooge-like" in the holiday season.

A business group led by prominent Republicans has sued the Blagojevich administration to block the governor's health-care expansion. One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is Ron Gidwitz, a GOP candidate for governor last year whose family built and then sold Helene Curtis, the maker of Finesse and Suave shampoos.

"I find it almost Dickens-like," Blagojevich said of the suit. "It is mind-boggling to me that the heir of a shampoo fortune would actually go out of his way to take away health care through the courts from the very people who made that shampoo for his dad and allowed him to inherit all that money. Yeah, it is Scrooge-like in many ways."

The group sued after Blagojevich unilaterally increased the number of Illinoisans who could receive state-subsidized health care by 147,000. The governor's action came after a legislative rulemaking body turned down the expansion. Lawmakers were worried about a lack of money to pay for the program, among other issues. Gidwitz responded that by expanding the program without the consent of lawmakers, the governor is "not just running roughshod over the constitution, he is eviscerating it." Blagojevich is acting "more like Hugo Chavez" than a democratically elected governor, Gidwitz said, referring to the socialist leader of Venezuela.