Illinois legislators wrapped up their two-week veto session this afternoon (Nov. 7), though they may be back in Springfield before the year's end.
The General Assembly knocked one, big item off its to-do list: same-sex marriage. After intense lobbying on both sides, lawmakers on Tuesday sent the governor a measure that will allow gays and lesbians to marry.
The rest of the major issues on the General Assembly's agenda remain:
-a tax package crafted to ensure Archer Daniels Midland keeps its headquarters in Illinois is on hold
-black legislators teamed up to block Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's initiative to extend the prison sentence of someone repeatedly caught carrying a gun illegally
-and Illinois' underfunded retirement systems were left untouched.
But Senate President John Cullerton says, “we're close to an agreement."
He says actuaries estimating the savings of the latest proposal to cut the state's pension costs.
"We need to know how much they will save. We don't know that and unfortunately it takes two or three weeks to get those results back and all of the leaders agreed that we're not going to vote on something unless we know how much money it saves."
Cullerton says depending on how that turns out, legislators could reconvene this year - perhaps next month. Otherwise, they're not scheduled to be back in session until January.
