Once again, November presents legislators with a cornucopia of issues steeped in urgency. And, as in past years, lawmakers say it will be the leftovers that fill their plates on six session days this month.
Last year, major policy overhauls spilled into the fall session as legislators rewrote death penalty and government ethics reform packages. This year, old business is again on the agenda.
Chicago and struggling suburbs still seek the budget boost new casino licenses would bring. Doctors still want relief from medical malpractice liabilities. And, though it took an extra two months to craft a state spending plan this summer, budget haggling isn’t over.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich still wants bonds to build roads and schools, which promises to revive the strange political coalition forged last summer. It was conceived after House Speaker Michael Madigan found his budget ideals incongruent with those of fellow Chicago Democrats Blagojevich and Senate President Emil Jones. On the capital budget, Madigan remains in step with Sen. Frank Watson and Rep. Tom Cross, the Republican leaders in their respective chambers.
“I think that there’ll be a study of everyone involved of how we go about selecting capital projects,” says Madigan spokesman Steve Brown. “Once again, I’m sure Sen. Jones and his staff will be invited to participate, as they were in the spring budget negotiations.”
Actually, such conversations are compulsory. Among the 59 written budget agreements leaders signed in July was a promise to continue discussions on Blagojevich’s Opportunity Returns, a regional economic development plan that would require $2 billion in bonds over five years. Last spring, the governor also wanted $2.2 billion in bonds to build and repairs schools over four years.
“In both the case of roadwork and school construction, the legislature was being asked to expand programs without funding sources, which from our perspective was unprecedented,” Brown says. “So, that’s why those things were all slowed down.”
With the November 2 election taking precedence over the November 8 veto session, it’s doubtful discussions have accelerated enough to expect a capital plan this month. The topic could again dominate debate, but issuing that much debt requires GOP votes.
Blagojevich began announcing Opportunity Returns road projects a year ago, but still has not hinted at how road money would be spent in Chicago, the suburbs and wide swaths of central Illinois. Further, he hasn’t suggested a way to repay the debt. Then-Gov. George Ryan raised vehicle fees and a litany of other charges to support his $12 billion Illinois First capital plan. Blagojevich has not identified a funding source for his road program or his school construction plan.
“It takes political courage to do it,” says Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson. “I’m willing to listen to what-ever the governor suggests, but I’m not willing to pile more debt on top of what the governor has already established.”
And Republicans feel there’s still an old score to settle when it comes to Ryan’s Illinois First. The program bought roads and whatever other local projects legislators deemed worthy, including a Waukegan statue of comedian Jack Benny. Such examples were cited as wasteful spending when Blagojevich froze Illinois First money in early 2003. A recent Rockford Register Star analysis shows that Blagojevich has since released $139 million in grants to individual legislators, but two-thirds of the money has gone to Democrats.
“A strange way to gain some sort of consensus is to poke a stick in our eye,” Watson says. “And that’s what they’ve done with the whole release of projects at this point.”
So, even if a few carrots are added to the aforementioned stick, the Madigan-GOP coalition could still be a long way from signing off on a capital budget. And, because Blagojevich unsuccessfully moved to close three prisons last year, the status of existing state facilities likely will become part of the debate.
The lack of a new state construction plan may be the most painful reminder of the spring’s record-long overtime session, but it’s not the only issue still at large. Medical malpractice reforms remain stalled as the GOP continues to seek caps on plaintiff awards for pain and suffering, a nonstarter for the Democrats, just as it was back in May. Blagojevich appointed former Cook County judge Donald O’Connell as mediator in the dispute, but partisans don’t anticipate an agreement to materialize this month.
Another recurring issue is casino gaming. Senate President Jones pitched the idea last spring, advancing legislation that would have put new casinos in Chicago, the south suburbs, Rockford and Waukegan while allowing horse racing tracks to install slot machines and video poker. Blagojevich balked at a Chicago casino, and Republicans were bothered by Mayor Richard Daley’s insistence that his city own the license.
Not much has changed since, though a group of business and labor representatives are backing the casino as a fix for Chicago’s sagging convention industry. And proponents can always point to yawning revenue gaps for the state and the city. Jones still wants licenses for Chicago and the south suburbs, but it’s not clear whether they’ll get much discussion in this session.
And let’s not forget why the short November term is called a veto session. Gov. Blagojevich vetoed just 31 bills this year, a byproduct of an overtime session when minute budget details and lots of unrelated legislation were brought to the bargaining table. The governor used his veto pen on only 8 percent of the legislation he received, down from 16 percent last year, when lawmakers sent him 330 more bills.
In fact, legislators already threw out two Blagojevich vetoes while they were in Springfield waiting on budget negotiations last summer. And none of the remaining vetoes involve the budget.
The most contentious veto involves legislation that allows a court to ignore municipal handgun bans in cases where a citizen brandished a handgun in self-defense. It’s known as the “Wilmette bill” for the northern suburb where a homeowner was charged with violating a handgun ban after he shot a burglar. Lawmakers overwhelmingly approved the legislation last spring and five senators or 20 representatives would have to change their minds for an override vote to fail this month.
Chicago and struggling suburbs still seek new casino licenses. Doctors still want relief from medical malpractice liabilities. And, though it took an extra two months to craft a state spending plan this summer, budget haggling isn't over.
And after the federal ban expired in September, Blagojevich said he would push for a state ban on semiautomatic assault weapons in the veto session. However, he cautions, “the political difficulty of that in Illinois is comparable to what it is in Washington, because Illinois is a microcosm of America.”
Republicans say he should wait.
“An assault-weapons ban — just logistically speaking — I don’t think that could happen in a six-day session,” says House Republican Leader Cross.
Meanwhile, several downstate Democratic senators will be eager to support the “Wilmette bill.”
Legislators also will debate what security measures should be added at the Capitol, a response to the September murder of an unarmed guard. Secretary of State Jesse White has presented lawmakers with a plan that requests metal detectors, checkpoints at Capitol parking lots, additional security cameras, more armed officers on the payroll and bullet-proof vests for all guards. That could mean a supplemental spending bill and a chance for other interests to request more state support during the veto session.
A supplemental appropriation was approved last year, but only after Democrats removed what Republicans had labeled pet projects. This was after Blagojevich said lawmakers were spending like “drunken sailors” when they attempted to rescind some of his budget cuts. There are no cuts to restore this year.
This year, the Chicago Transit Authority says massive service cuts loom if the General Assembly doesn’t find the agency another $82.5 million this month. This puts the CTA at odds with suburban officials who don’t want to see their transportation dollars diverted.
Chicago’s desperate plea for a budget bailout last November had to wait until January, as political wrangling meant Democrats could not get enough votes for the city’s early retirement legislation. Chicago is still short on cash, which is why Mayor Daley wants a city-owned casino. The city may need to renew its petition next year, as will countless others counting on a veto-session fix from Springfield.
“There’s a fair level of clamor,” says Brown, Madigan’s spokesman. “You just talk to people. There’s always clamor and there’s these bursts of, ‘Oh, we think this is going to happen and not happen.’ My experience is, if you listen to all that, at the end of the day, it doesn’t usually come together.”
Republicans, too, say they’ll be inundated with requests, but shrug off the ubiquitous sense of immediacy.
“Oftentimes there’s a lot of build up and a lot of discussion to do this, this and this and nothing happens,” says House Republican Leader Cross. “It’s tough to do anything of substance, really, starting from scratch in a veto session.”
Pat Guinane can be reached at capitolbureau@aol.com.
Illinois Issues, November 2004
