* Back on July 30th, House Republican Leader Tom Cross and Senate President Christine Radogno issued the following joint statement in response to the special session proclamation issued by Gov. Pat Quinn…

“We are encouraged by the Governor’s call for a special session on pension reform on August 17. As many people know, we have been and continue to be supportive of comprehensive pension reform that solves the major crisis facing us today. The time to act has been upon us. We are continuing to encourage Governor Quinn to take a leadership role to get a comprehensive pension bill passed in the General Assembly. We will continue to be available to discuss this very important matter in the coming weeks.”

* But now Leader Cross has changed his tone and made some additional demands above and beyond what was in the bill he sponsored back in May…

Cross, meanwhile, said ideas he’d like to see on the table include boosting employee contributions and keeping those under 67 from getting cost-of-living adjustments while leaving COLAs intact for younger retirees if their pensions are $30,000 or less. And perhaps new state hires should be offered only 401(k) types of plans, he said. […]

“I think it’s that important. I don’t run the place. I’m the minority leader. That’s all I am. I’m not daring anybody or challenging anybody, but I’m willing to hang around, to stay there ’til we get this done,” he said. “If I have to miss the Republican convention, then I miss the Republican convention. I haven’t missed one in a long time, but this is the issue of the day.”

* The Cross demand was partly in response to a study released by Gov. Quinn…

Cross said he remains opposed to requiring the state pension shift to suburban and downstate school systems, as Quinn and Democrats want, and that he wasn’t swayed by the governor’s latest offer to phase in those pension costs to school systems over 12 years.

On Sunday, Quinn showcased a report prepared by his budget office that asserted school districts, under the phase-in of that pension cost-shift, would wind up paying $49 million in new pension costs next year.

But without a reform package that would reduce the state’s outlay to pensions, those same downstate and suburban school districts could see their dollars from Springfield cut by $152 million — money that instead would have to be diverted to state pension costs, the administration contended.

That Quinn study can be found here.

* Cross was also responding to a decision by House Speaker Michael Madigan to hold a vote on the Senate-passed pension bill…

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has decided to allow a limited pension-reform bill to be considered when the General Assembly returns for a special session Aug. 17. […]

Whether HB1447 can muster the votes needed to pass is another question. As it passed the Senate, the bill takes effect immediately, which means the House would have to pass it with 71 votes instead of the usual 60. Cullerton suggested that if the House can’t meet the 71-vote threshold, the reforms could be tacked on to a different bill with a later effective date and passed with 60 votes. The Senate would then have to vote again on the bill.

Brown said the possibility of doing that is under discussion.

“The ideas in the bill are what we are talking about,” he said.

* Senate President John Cullerton is also unhappy about the way the special session is going down…

A spokesperson for Sen. Cullerton said in an email statement the Senate is being called back to deal with “unspecified pension legislation,” alluding to the fact that Quinn hasn’t pointed to any specific bill for legislators to vote on when they meet in Springfield.

* The governor just hasn’t handled this issue all that well yet. My statewide syndicated newspaper column is about his struggle…

Gov. Pat Quinn’s office flatly denies it, but it’s hard to see how his big announcement about calling a special legislative session on pension reform wasn’t at least partially related to a major Chicago TV station’s special report on the same subject a few hours after his proclamation.

WGN-TV broadcast a lengthy documentary, “Pension Games,” during its 9 p.m. news program, then hosted a live discussion afterward on its CLTV cable television station along with an interview with the governor.

The station hyped the program for days, and Quinn took clear advantage of the public relations opportunity to promote himself — even taking an opportunity to whack the General Assembly for cutting the schools budget after receiving a viewer call-in question about how pension reform would impact his property tax bill.

Many legislators, mostly Republicans but some Democrats, including Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago), have complained about Quinn calling a special session without having a plan in place or a bill to vote on. Cullerton has described the session as a waste of time and money because lawmakers are highly unlikely to vote on anything substantial until after the Nov. 6 election.

The governor’s office countered that the state can’t afford to wait that long and that Quinn would be happy with just about any plan currently on the table. His people pointed to his decision to push for a 12-year phase-in of the controversial “cost-shifting” plan, which would force suburban and downstate school districts to pick up their employees’ pension costs and is a major impediment to an agreement on pensions.

The Republicans have steadfastly opposed that proposal, saying it would greatly increase homeowners’ tax bills. The House Democrats months ago proposed a longer phase-in of the cost shift, and Quinn has now thrown his support behind that timetable.

“I did my mighty best to get it done by May 31,” Quinn claimed about comprehensive pension reform during the TV program after a caller complained about the cost of bringing legislators back to Springfield for a special session. He said the urgency in solving the state’s pension mess left him no choice but to call a special session for Aug. 17.

Cullerton asked Quinn to rescind his special session order, offering to call a session on his own, which would avoid the additional stipend pay to legislators (the session will cost about $40,000 per day). But the governor has refused to go along, possibly because doing so would mean he would look less like a champion of pension reform.

Quinn has an effective counter-argument to complaints about the cost of a special session. He claims that doing nothing on pensions inflates the five systems’ unfunded liability by $12.6 million every day. That number has been seized upon by the media, but it’s not exactly true.

No pension bill on the table would change benefit plans immediately, and the pension systems have asked that any new legislation not take effect until July 1, 2013. So that $12.6 million will continue to accrue no matter what happens during the special session.

But as long as the media buy fully into Quinn’s argument, then that cost of $40,000 per day will pale in comparison to his warning about pension debt rising $12.6 million every day.

Quinn obviously believes he has public opinion behind him on this one, although some Democrats have pointed to polls that show Quinn is very unpopular in many districts they’ve surveyed this summer. They also say pension reform proposals aren’t nearly as popular in politically targeted, Democratic-leaning districts as they may be statewide. There’s not much incentive for Democrats to go along with Quinn on this one, at least not yet.

But even if the public was totally with him, the public doesn’t vote in special sessions, legislators do. And members of his party aren’t exactly enamored with the guy. Quinn closed state facilities in Democratic districts and ignored pleas by the Black and Hispanic caucuses to keep the women’s prison at Dwight open so families in Cook County would remain relatively close to the inmates.

And in taking a page out of his predecessor’s playbook, Quinn has lately taken to bashing legislators for not toeing his line. On another TV program last week, he said legislators might have to cancel their golf games to attend his special session. Quinn was speaking, but I could clearly hear Rod Blagojevich talking.

* Finke…

Quinn issued the special-session proclamation less than three weeks before the session will be held. Apparently, in the interim, Quinn expects some resolution on a comprehensive pension reform package that has eluded lawmakers for seven months this year and a good amount of time before that.

Quinn’s critics immediately drew comparisons between him and ex-Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH. Blagojevich was big on special sessions. He’d call them and then largely disappear, expecting the legislature to do something just because he called them into session. It didn’t work.

It’s not at all clear that the General Assembly will do anything on pensions during the special session, let alone something comprehensive that includes a cost-shift. Hope Quinn’s thought about what he’s going to do next.