* 6:46 pm - The House is now debating the income tax bill.
The House attached an amendment that eliminates the property tax rebate program. The provision had encountered resistance from this who represent more affluent areas and those who wanted to use the money to close the state deficit.
* As of about a half hour ago, the HDem poll had this at 57 hard yes votes. Fun stuff.
* 7:32 pm - Five more members are requesting time to speak as of now.
* Like the Senate, the House also plans to change its rules to require a three fifths vote to move any bill from 2nd to 3rd Reading which amends the expenditure cap.
* One more speaker before the vote.
* 60-57. The bill passes.. It now goes to the Senate.
* Democrats voting No: Crespo, D’Amico, Farnham, Franks, J Gordon, Mell, McAsey, Osterman, Phelps, Sente. No Republicans voted for it.
* The bill reached 62 votes on the big board at one point, then fell back to 60. Here’s the video of the vote…
D’Amico switched at the last second. See anyone else?
…Adding… The other was Republican Rep. Ron Stephens. This is an old, battle-tested floor trick. Put up a phantom “Yes” vote and hope nobody notices, then pull it off at the last possible second before the other side can replace it. Didn’t work.
* 8:47 pm - The governor’s $14 billion bond plan to pay off past due debt came up short. No Republicans would support it.
* 6:28 pm - The cigarette tax hike fell short in the House a little while ago, getting just 51 votes.
The cash from the tax hike was supposed to be used to provide education a funding boost. That extra money was a key factor in convincing Black Caucus members to go along with an income tax increase. Now, schools will be $377 million short of the $700 million or so Black Caucus members were promised. No word yet on whether the income tax hike is now in even more danger of failure.
The Illinois House today shot down a $1.01-a-pack cigarette-tax increase to provide more money for schools.
The measure got 51 votes, but needed 60 to pass.
The cigarette-tax increase is part of a budget package that includes a major income-tax increase that has yet to be called in the House. The smoke tax hike could come back for another vote, but time is running out as a new General Assembly gets sworn in Wednesday and the reset button on legislation is hit and several lame-duck lawmakers leave.
The cigarette-tax hike vote came as a top aide to Gov. Pat Quinn said the governor is in “full support” of an income-tax increase plan under consideration at the Capitol.
* Meanwhile, is Gov. Pat Quinn coming around on eliminating the death penalty? He supported the death penalty during the campaign, but now that the House and Senate have sent him an abolition bill, many of us have been wondering what he might do. CBS2 talked to some people close to the governor…
In a campaign debate last fall with Republican nominee Bill Brady, Quinn declared himself a supporter of capital punishment. After today’s State senate vote to repeal, sources close to Quinn signaled that he might sign the measure.
Said one, “The governor’s kept the moratorium on executions, because he’s very concerned about flaws in the system.”
That could be two big campaign promises broken on one day. Death penalty and possibly the income tax hike. Quinn, you’ll recall, said he supported only a one point hike and indicated he would veto anything above that.
* The Senate Executive Committee is meeting this afternoon. The SDems sent over today’s agenda…
Executive Committee Agenda:
- Senate rule changes regarding spending caps - SR 1157.
- Subject matter hearing on revenue increases - HA#2 to SB2505.
- Annually required reauthorization of the capital bill - HB 5960.
The Senate rule change would require a three-fifths vote to advance any changes in the tax hike bill’s annual spending caps from 2nd to 3rd Reading.
* The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the death penalty abolition. Final floor action is expected around 2ish…
A measure to abolish the death penalty in Illinois is a step closer to Gov. Pat Quinn’s desk as supporters push to pass the measure in the waning hours of the General Assembly’s lame-duck session.
The ban on executions won approval today in the Senate Judiciary Committee 7-4, clearing the path for a vote by the full Senate. The measure passed the House last week.
The action comes 10 years after then-Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois following revelations that several people sent to Death Row were later exonerated.
Quinn has not said whether he would sign the ban, but during last year’s campaign said the moratorium should stay in place to see whether reforms have worked.
…Adding… The death penalty bill is on the floor now. They moved it up, apparently. Listen or watch by clicking here.
*** UPDATE - 2:58 pm *** The death penalty bill just passed 32-25-2.
Illinois Treasurer Dan Rutherford is closing six satellite offices around the state.
Rutherford said Tuesday that few people use the offices in Mount Vernon, Effingham, Rockford, Rock Island, Riverdale and Collinsville. They’ll close within a month.
The Republican, who took office just a day earlier, says closing them won’t save much money but now the offices can be leased to other state agencies.
Rutherford made closing the offices a major campaign issue. Each office had one full-time staffer. One person was let go and the rest are being moved into other jobs.
* I checked the blog’s usage stats and discovered that yesterday was our second busiest session day during the past 12 months.
To give you an idea of how the blog has grown over the years, yesterday’s page view count was actually higher than it was the day after Rod Blagojevich was arrested in December of 2008.
Democrats didn’t fault Quinn for not being more specific.
“This is his day. He’ll have the chance for the bully pulpit coming up for the long term,” said Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley.
“I don’t really think it was the role of the governor today to use his inaugural to talk about a pending legislative item,” said Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie. “The governor’s made the case for his tax increase.”
Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale, wanted more.
“I’d like to hear more specifics on how we’re going to get the state working again and how we’re going to fix our fiscal deficit,” Dillard said. “Inauguration speeches are for nice platitudes, but at this time, in this crisis in Illinois, I would have liked to hear a little more substantively from the governor about how he’s going to put Illinois to work and how we’re going to get out of this fiscal crisis.”
* The Question: Should Gov. Quinn have offered up a list of specifics that he intended to accomplish? Explain.
* The House just finished debating an amendment to SB 3336, which would boot RTA Chairman John Gates from his job, require defibrillators on Metra trains and require Metra to set up a Wi-Fi system for its trains.
The amendment passed 57-55-2, but it clearly has a way to go before the actual bill can reach 60 votes.
* The measure was requested by Gov. Quinn, who opposed doing away with the free rides for seniors program and wanted something else out of the deal. It’s now not totally clear whether he’ll sign the free rides reform legislation…
The Illinois Senate approved the measure 54-2 without debate. Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, said the change still would allow senior citizens 65 or older to travel free of charge on local transportation, such as CTA, PACE and Metra, if they are eligible for the circuit breaker program that provides property tax and pharmaceutical assistance.
“Almost 60 percent of the seniors currently riding for free will still be eligible to ride without charge under the new eligibility requirements,” Trotter said. “The remaining seniors would still be able to ride for the discounted price.”
A household of two senior citizens with an income of less than $34,000 a year still would be eligible for free rides, said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago.
Seniors ineligible for the free rides still would be able to ride for half price, Trotter said.
* This bill has not yet been assigned to a Senate committee, but it’s expected that the chamber will call it for a vote…
The Illinois House pushed through a bill on Monday that would limit certain state workers’ rights to join a collective bargaining unit.
The bill, which is backed by Gov. Pat Quinn, passed on a 64-49 vote and now heads to the Illinois Senate, where it must pass before noon Wednesday in order to head to the governor’s desk.
The legislation, Senate Bill 3644, is aimed at 196 supervisory, independent and at-will employees, said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago. It would not automatically exclude employees from collective bargaining units, Currie said, but would make it easier for executive branch officials to seek to have the workers reclassified as non-union employees. […]
[GOP state Rep. Raymond Poe] and others who voted “no” said most of the workers joining unions were mistreated by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s administration and then Blagojevich and Gov. Pat Quinn did not fight their inclusion in the union before the Labor Relations Board. The board decides who is eligible to be in a union when workers petition.
I’ve been telling subscribers about the unusual legislation since Saturday. I reported last year that half of the governor’s legislative liaisons and a large number of administrators had joined AFSCME.
Ninety-six percent of state government workers are currently covered by collective bargaining agreements, said the measure’s sponsor, House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago. With more petitions pending before the state’s Labor Relations Board, that number could rise to almost 99 percent, she said. Those numbers are up from 80 percent in 2002, she said.
“What the bill would do initially would be to say that some 196 clear supervisory, independent, at-will employees will go from the collective bargaining contract into management positions,” Currie said.
Currie said that at some state government work sites, there is nobody able to discipline workers because everyone is in a union.
“There need to be managers,” she said. “There need to be supervisors.”
After the initial round of booting people from the union, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, Governor’s Office and others could petition the Labor Relations Board to remove other employees from the union if they are deemed management, Currie said.
Blame former Gov. Rod Blagojevich for the high number of administration workers joining unions, said Henry Bayer, executive director for AFSCME Council 31, the state’s largest public employee union. Employees sought out the protection of unions because of poor treatment by the Blagojevich administration, Bayer claimed.
“Their work was not valued,” he said. “They not only didn’t get pay increases, they got pay cuts, and they came flocking to the union(s) seeking representation.”
Because the state workforce was reduced under Blagojevich, many employees who once strictly were managers began doing more non-managerial tasks, leading to the current situation, Bayer said.
Braun said the reason this move is being pushed during the Legislature’s lame-duck session is because more than 700 senior public service administrators applied in December to join a union. The Labor Relations Board has 120 days to give the thumbs up or down on their applications.
*** UPDATE *** I didn’t watch the BlueRoomStream video of last night’s Inauguration party until after I had posted these videos. This one is a must-watch. Attorney General Lisa Madigan gets her groove on…
Who knew she could dance like that?
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* Two Republicans who wanted to be governor, but came up short attended the governor’s inauguration yesterday. First up, Sen. Bill Brady…
Quinn, House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago) floated a temporary, four-year increase in the 3-percent individual income tax to 5 percent instead of 5 ¼ percent as earlier proposed. They also pitched increasing the corporate income tax from 4.8 percent to 7 percent instead of 8.4 percent.
As part of the revised revenue package, spending increases would be capped at 1.7 percent per year over the four-year lifespan of the tax hike; any spending in excess would cause the tax rate to revert to its current level, legislative sources said.
That would be a 66 percent increase on the personal income tax and a 46 percent increase in the corporate tax.
* More on the expenditure cap from the LaSalle News-Tribune…
“Each year, since the pension obligations will eat up most of that [budget increase]… we will have to make additional cuts, and they will be program cuts,” Mautino said.
Trotter said the state would lose about out $775 million by cutting the personal income tax rate by a quarter point. Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, said the lower corporate rate wouldcost the state about $500 million of the $1 billion it originally projected to collect from that portion of the tax package.
Trotter confirmed that negotiators are looking at other ways of raising revenue from business. He described those ideas as closing loopholes. One idea reportedly under discussion would change the way businesses take certain expense deductions. In the end, the state could lose $250 million to $350 million in revenue.
In addition, lawmakers are looking at a $1-a-pack increase in the state’s current 98-cent tax on cigarettes. Money from the cigarette tax hike had been geared toward pumping new money into schools. A House panel advanced the legislation Monday. […]
Still under discussion was a plan to replace the state’s current property tax credit for homeowners on their personal income taxes. An earlier proposal to drop the income tax credit in exchange for a direct $325 annual check was rejected by suburban Democrats who said it would shortchange some Cook County homeowners of a tax credit worth thousands of dollars.
Sponsoring Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, said the tax increase would generate $375 million a year while also saving billions in the long run by discouraging smokers and saving on health care costs.
The money would be used to “supplement, not supplant” education funding, said Currie.
Opponents included groups representing convenience stores who say the hike will hurt small businesses, particularly along the border where smokers could easily buy cheaper cigarettes out of state.
The prospect of voting for a huge tax increase has some legislators running scared. Rep. Joseph Lyons, D-Chicago, called it a “potential career-ending vote.”
“Are the political will and votes there to do it or not? At this stage, I don’t know the answer,” said Lyons.
Mautino said lawmakers reluctant to support a tax increase should remember that without an influx of new revenue, the state may not be able to pay its bills in the coming months.
In addition, he said the state’s bond rating is on extremely shaky ground, which will make borrowing any more money fiscally irresponsible.
“We’re one step above junk right now,” Mautino said.
“[Today] is do or die,” said House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, who has been reluctant to throw support behind a hike without Republican support. Monday night, he acknowledged working on a tax deal “because the state needs money to pay its bills.”
* The Tribune, as expected, lambasted the proposal…
To that end, we hope all of the holdover, lame-duck and rookie legislators all saw the Sunday Tribune story headlined, “Reduce spending, say bond investors.” Kathy Bergen’s report said the Democrats’ proposed fix, with its income tax increases and steep borrowing to pay bills and pension obligations, doesn’t go far enough to assuage many bond investors’ concerns about the risks of lending to a fiscally teetering Illinois. The story quoted bond specialist Brian Battle, director at Chicago-based investment firm Performance Trust Capital Partners, explaining that Illinois has to pay investors about 2 percentage points more on 10-year bonds than do states with top-rated credit. “What’s killing us are the long-term pension and health care payments, and nothing substantive has been done about that,” Battle said.
Amen to that, Mr. Battle. We fear that Tuesday will expose Illinois citizens to even more of the same old Springfield.
From that same article referenced in the editorial…
“The municipal bond market is unsettled, and the market for Illinois municipal bonds is fragile, so concrete steps, even if they aren’t 100 percent of what is needed for a balanced budget long term, will be looked at as favorable from where things are at now,” said John Miller, chief investment officer at Nuveen Asset Management, which has some Illinois bonds in its investment portfolios.
And Moody’s Investors Service has stated that legislation providing recurring revenues is among the changes that could lead to an upgrade in the state’s bond rating.
