Emerging from the first legislative leaders meeting in months, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton said his fellow leaders recognize the urgency of reaching a budget deal and that Sunday’s meeting should fuel new optimism that it will happen soon.
Asked by reporters if the people of Illinois should be more or less optimistic after the meeting, the Senate President replied: “I would say more.”
When asked why he felt that way, he said, “Because we couldn’t even get a meeting a couple days ago.”
Indeed, Sunday’s afternoon meeting of the Republican and Democratic leaders from the Senate and House was the first of its kind this year. Governor Bruce Rauner pulled the plug on budget meetings with the legislative leaders back in December, arguing that he didn’t think Democrats were serious about a budget deal.
Just weeks later, the Senate leaders unveiled a sweeping set of financial and governmental reforms dubbed the Grand Bargain in an effort to shake loose a state budget after a nearly two-year impasse. The Senate Democrats went on to pass a balanced budget plan. Even the House Republican leader has acknowledged that the Senate has “done their work.”
Senate President Cullerton told reporters Sunday that the meeting was civil and he would be briefing Senate Democrats on developments in advance of another leaders meeting being scheduled.
Asked if the governor would attend future leaders meetings, Cullerton said: “That’s up to the governor. He’s the one that calls those meetings.”
The Senate President again noted that the Illinois Senate had already approved all the issues the governor cited in convening Special Sessions of the General Assembly.
* But…
After meeting, Durkin says GOP will not meet with Democrats again until Madigan unveils his own budget plan.
* House Speaker Michael Madigan emerged from a meeting with the other legislative leaders this afternoon to say he has responded to the governor’s non-budget demands with his own list.
Madigan wants SB 1, the education funding reform bill which passed both chambers, signed into law. He did say, however, that he was open to changing the legislation.
The House Speaker also said he wants regulations on workers compensation insurance rates and he wants the governor to follow procurement rules on his attempt to vastly expand Medicaid managed care programs.
Madigan said the leaders will meet again on Tuesday.
…Adding… I forgot to tell you that Madigan said he would be open to a property tax freeze proposal in return, but didn’t say how long he wants the freeze to be. He didn’t sound at all like he would be open to a term limits proposal, but that’s no surprise.
More in a bit, including audio.
…Adding… Click here for the raw audio of Senate President Cullerton. He didn’t say much of anything.
…Adding More… You can click here to listen to the Madigan audio. I hope it works because I’m having a little trouble with it because I can’t easily upload to SoundCloud at the Statehouse.
*** UPDATE *** House Republican Leader Jim Durkin criticized Madigan to reporters for saying that property tax relief is “part of some right-wing conspiracy.”
“That doesn’t help,” Durkin said, pointing out how high property taxes are in the state.
However, when asked whether Madigan’s addition of new demands was helpful, Durkin said, “They added new things to the mix, but the fact is we’ll manage it.”
* I’m hanging around outside the leaders’ meeting and figured I’d check my e-mail. This press release was in it…
Statement from Mayor Emanuel on State Budget
“As President Kennedy said, to govern is to choose. In the coming days will the governor choose to lead the state down the path to progress, or will he choose to drag the state further into financial demise? Will he continue his obstinance, opposing his own proposals, threatening vetoes of bills that meet 90% of his goals, promising vetoes of overwhelmingly bipartisan bills, and undercutting bipartisan budget agreements? Or will he chose to lead, to truly compromise, by making progress the goal instead of perfection? Will he put the interests of the people ahead of his own personal politics? Governor, it’s your choice. In five days we’ll all have your answer.”
Across Illinois - social service providers are having to make cuts. The head of one shelter says without a state budget, its future is bleak.
Sojourn Shelter in Springfield oversees five counties in central Illinois. It provides care for domestic abuse victims, mostly women and children. There are 32 beds, often full, and the goal is to help survivors become independent. It helps with court advocacy, education and employment.
Angela Bertoni is the CEO. She says the shelter is supposed to get $400,000 annually from the state through the Department of Human Services. Without that money, employees have been laid off and other cost saving measures have been taken. “You get to a certain point where there’s nothing left to eliminate. I mean, we already worked on a very streamlined budget for the entire time we’ve existed (since 1975). There’s no more fluff to cut.”
Bertoni says as things stand, its unclear whether the shelter will be able to keep up with its around-the-clock care. “We have to be here 24/7, 365 - we’re a lot like the police and fire departments. People need us when it’s (a) crisis.” Many such agencies are waiting to see what sacrifices will have to be made if the legislature can’t approve a budget that the governor would sign off on by the time the new fiscal year starts in July.
Asked what his version of a tax plan would involve, Madigan replied that “a House Democratic revenue plan would be items that you’ve seen before and you’re probably written about and others in the Legislature have talked about.”
A commenter on the CapitolFax website parodied Madigan’s reply by suggesting the speaker’s response would have been just as clear as it he had said the Democrats’ bill would “contain ideas, expressed in a text format, that, if passed by both chambers and signed into law, would become public acts.”
It’s that kind of he-who-says-the-least-has-the-most-power approach that has all eyes on the 75-year-old veteran Chicago politician.
After three days of a 10-day special session, nothing was happening in Springfield that was visible to the naked eye. Whatever does happen in between today and July 1, the first day of the state’s 2017-18 fiscal year, probably won’t happen until the last minute.
At least that’s what Bloomington GOP state Sen. Jason Barickman predicts.
“The question will be, ‘Is this a classic Madigan 11th-12th hour negotiating ploy?’” he said.
Madigan loves to wait until the last second to jam big things through. It’s usually tough to see it coming, and then it’s too late because it already happened. He keeps me up at night wondering what he’s gonna pull at times like these.
The only question now is whether it happens by June 30th, or July 31st or…
* Sneed asked Gov. Rauner what he does to handle stress…
“Well, I take long walks with our dog and ride my motorcycle,” Rauner said. “I head out alone and explore roads or find a little park to sit and think. Or a brew pub to strike up conversations.
“It’s really wonderful when people describing themselves as Democrats tell me to stay the course. That I’m doing the right thing,” he said.
“That energizes me and I know it sounds strange, but my wife tells me she hasn’t seen me this happy in 20 years. I feel totally honored and humbled to get the opportunity to improve the future of 13 million people.”
He’s said this several times before, of course. But even now? After two and a half years without a budget? During the lead-up to junk bond status, the loss of college accreditations and the other massive crises that are only going to become worse? He’s still the happiest he’s been in 20 years?
“Glad he’s happy. But he shouldn’t be,” Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, said when asked about Rauner’s comments.
“This is really an embarrassment,” Cullerton said. “We owe $15 billion. We’ve been downgraded. People are not being paid. People are not being served. There’s people who aren’t getting breast cancer screenings because of this. … It’s just sad. It’s totally avoidable. That’s why I’ve been working with Republicans this session in a bipartisan fashion, and I give credit to those Republicans who did all the work with us and just weren’t allowed to vote.”
Cullerton blames the lack of GOP votes on bills agreed to by Senate Democrats and Republicans on the governor. Rauner has expressed concerns about the legislation, but has denied peeling off GOP support.
“It’s disastrous, and totally avoidable,” Cullerton said of the effects of the impasse.
“The fact that Bruce Rauner can talk about his own happiness as our economy spirals down the drain and Illinois stumbles towards junk status is appalling,” said JB Pritzker. “Rauner’s comments are an absurd insult to the millions of families struggling under his failed leadership. This is confirmation of what we’ve known all along: Bruce Rauner manufactured this crisis to force his agenda on our state and he does not care how many Illinoisans pay the price.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** From the Chris Kennedy campaign…
Sounds like what’s making most people in Illinois miserable is making Bruce Rauner happy. During his two years as Governor, over a million people have been pushed out of social services that provide basic human rights like food and health care. Our state universities are on the brink of losing accreditation and job growth is below the national average. People are voting with their feet and leaving Illinois in record numbers. The voters are ready for radical change in Illinois, starting with a new governor and state leadership that will put Illinois back to work.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Sen. Daniel Biss…
I’ve been trying to figure out how Bruce Rauner can sleep at night but now we know: hurting people across Illinois apparently makes him happy.
*** UPDATE 4 *** Pawar campaign…
That Bruce Rauner has never been happier as public schools, universities, and social services across State of Illinois are collapsing is embarrassing.
This is what happens when we elect out of touch business men to government who make their fortune destroying companies and gutting jobs for personal profit.
We can - and must - do better than another four years of Bruce Rauner.
Republicans have called Senate Bill 1, which was crafted by Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, a bailout for the Chicago school system. They are behind Senate Bill 1124 which they said will provide more money to the neediest school districts while also not giving the Chicago schools benefits that other districts do not receive.
Manar and other Democrats have denied that Chicago gets special treatment under SB1 and that the bill will guarantee that any new money allocated to K-12 education will be directed to the neediest school districts. No school district will get less money under SB1 than it does now.
During a committee of the whole meeting Saturday in the House, a number of school superintendents testified in favor of SB1, including Don Cox, superintendent of the Staunton School District. Cox said he believes SB1 is the most equitable way to achieve adequate school funding.
“We do not suffer from a spending problem in our district,” Cox said. “We suffer from a revenue problem.”
* The Senate Democrats sent out these bullet points about the Republican funding reform proposal…
· It would result in the loss of federal funding for special education and free/reduced lunch programs in school districts statewide.
· It represents a redistribution of dollars from poor school districts to wealthy school districts.
· It creates winning and losing school districts.
· There is no Republican-sponsored revenue bill to pay for school funding.
· There are no known proponents for Senate Bill 1124, which is sponsored by Senator Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington).
· The Republicans’ full court press for Senate Bill 1124 began three weeks after May 31, the final day of the legislative session.
· Barickman and Rauner education secretary Beth Purvis directly contradicted each other about details of the proposal while answering questions throughout this afternoon’s hearing.
All Illinois school districts would benefit from a more equitable distribution of state education dollars under a compromise proposal introduced by State Senator Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington) to fix the state’s broken school aid formula and end the budget stalemate, according to data released by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE).
“This is a true compromise that embraces the priorities of lawmakers from both parties and both legislative chambers, and reflects the recommendations of the Governor’s bipartisan, bicameral Illinois School Funding Reform Commission,” Sen. Barickman said.
“Our legislation focuses on agreed-to principles and best practices to create real equity by treating all districts and students fairly under one system, regardless of zip code,” Barickman continued. “Now the data from ISBE clearly demonstrates that this is the most equitable plan for all students.”
The ISBE data show how schools would fare under Amendment 3 to Senate Bill 1124 as part of a compromise package of budget and reform measures that Sen. Barickman says would be signed by the Governor.
*** UPDATE 2 *** That meeting above is the governor’s meeting with the two Republican leaders. Following that meeting, the four legislative leaders will sit down at 1:30.
