California is not the only state with a daunting budget crisis. There’s also our neighbor, Illinois. From a St. Louis P-D blog report on yesterday’s deadline-imminent negotiations, Kevin McDermott offered this slice of life:

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will address a hastily assembled joint session of the Legislature at 3:30 p.m. today, Illinois House officials just announced minutes ago.

Minutes later, officials announced that eight protestors — part of a mass of human-services supporters who have been lobbying in the Capitol for an end to the budget crisis — were just arrested. We don’t have details yet.

[ … ]

UPDATE, 3 P.M.: The eight arrestees — all women from the Chicago area, one of them 71 years old and another 74 — were removed by Capitol security for trespassing during a hallway rally in which they were shouting “raise taxes now.” They’re now standing on a sidewalk outside the Capitol. They told me they were briefly detained in the basement security offices of the Statehouse, then released with a warning that they will be criminally charged if they come back into the building today.

Grandmas for Taxes. Fascinating.