* Believe it or not, I’ve been listening to a lot of pop country lately. Hey, some of it is pretty darned good. So, when I went looking for a summer song to commemorate the end of the regular spring session, I thought this one might be appropriate…
Singing along with the radio
It’s such a beautiful sound
* Reporters often write only about what they see, or what they want to see. Here’s a standard article…
The Illinois Hospital Association took no chances as state lawmakers debated in recent weeks whether nonprofit hospitals should pay property taxes. It unleashed a self-described media blitz.
“My baby is sick — anyone help, please!” screamed an actress portraying a mother in radio ads aired in Chicago and 41 other markets starting in early May. A baby wailed, an ambulance siren blared and a voiceover asked what the terrified parent would do if no hospital were around.
The blitz worked. The Illinois General Assembly this week handed hospitals a long-sought victory: a sweeping legislative antidote to a recent state Supreme Court decision that threatened to slap many hospitals with potentially millions of dollars in tax liabilities just as they say they’re struggling to survive.
The radio ads worked? That was what passed the bill? OK. Or maybe it was the ad the IHA bought here. That seems more likely, actually, because legislators and staff actually saw that one. But, whatever. Ads weren’t the only factor highlighted in the story…
The association, representing about 200 hospitals and health systems, urged Illinoisans to write to state officials. By this week, the IHA reported, more than 12,000 people had signed an online petition. The group created templates for member hospitals to customize anti-tax e-mails to legislators and letters to local newspaper editors. And it suggested members provide kiosks or special computers for workers to send notes condemning property taxes for hospitals and Quinn’s proposed $2.7 billion in reductions to projected Medicaid payments.
An online petition worked? Well, maybe. I’m not sure how many legislators actually saw it, though. And then, of course, there was this…
For 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, the association contributed about $397,000 to state office holders, candidates and the state Democratic Party, according to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a watchdog group. That included $143,000 to legislative leaders of both parties and $198,000 to other lawmakers in the General Assembly.
The IHA gave even more than that in 2010: $725,089.56. It has a very active, very aggressive political organization.
* But there’s more to this story. Hospitals are in every legislative district. And hospital boards are usually made up of the region’s biggest bigshots, who are accustomed to hob-knobbing with local politicos. Hospitals are also large employers, and their workers usually earn pretty good salaries. They are almost always involved with local charitable causes, spend big money on public relations and they advertise heavily in local media. As a result, they’re the most trusted institutions in almost every region. Crossing them ain’t easy.
The IHA lost its top lobbyist and political guru when Howard Peters retired. It recently hired AJ Wilhelmi right out of the state Senate. Wilhelmi had never been a lobbyist before, but he worked like a dog. He returned one of my calls after midnight one evening, waking me up.
Add all that up and it’s no great feat to figure out why they did pretty well this year. They almost always do.
That’s not to say they’re right all the time. They used to constantly battle with nurses in Springfield. Those fights hurt them. And getting crossways with the attorney general has had many downsides. She was right to question their level of charity care. Some of what they classified as charity was just silly PR.
* And they’ve been one of the most aggressive bill collectors of any industry, prompting legislation to clamp down on entities that seek to put people in jail for not paying a bill. From a press release…
Attorney General Lisa Madigan today applauded state lawmakers for supporting the Debtors’ Rights Act of 2012, a measure that would protect poor people from being jailed over unpaid debts.
House Bill 5434 would prevent creditors from abusing the court system to put debtors in jail to collect on a debt they are clearly unable to pay. Over the last year, Madigan has learned that residents in roughly a third of Illinois’ counties commonly face incarceration when they fail to appear in court over a previously entered judgment to pay a debt. In many of these cases, notices of court hearings were mailed to addresses that were no longer valid, leaving many debtors unaware of the hearings. In spite of the failure to notify the debtors, courts have frequently issued warrants for their arrests.
“Long ago, our society recognized that it was immoral to send a poor person to debtor’s prison. Yet this practice has reappeared in Illinois through creditors’ abuse of the courts,” Madigan said. “This legislation will ensure that people who have the means will pay their debts, while also preventing poor older and unemployed persons from being illegally and unfairly incarcerated.”
Compounding the problem, Madigan said, is that many victims of these practices are living solely on income that is legally protected from being used to pay outstanding debt judgments, including Social Security, unemployment insurance or veterans’ benefits.
Madigan’s legislation would also ban abusive and burdensome “pay or appear” orders that are routinely entered against debtors in some Illinois counties. These orders – which usually remain in effect for three years – require debtors to make a monthly payment or appear in court each month to explain why they are unable to pay, even if their financial circumstances have not improved. Madigan said if a debtor misses just one payment and court hearing, they can end up in jail. Debtors who have been victim to this practice typically owe outstanding medical bills, credit card debts or payday loans.
The legislation would amend the Code of Civil Procedure to codify and clarify practices followed by attorneys, creditors and courts across Illinois to ensure that courts make a finding of a consumer’s ability to pay before entering a payment order. The legislation also would prohibit payment orders that rely on legally protected income and prevent arrest warrants from being issued unless the debtor was personally served with a hearing notice.
The combination of mandated free care (pushed by AG Madigan) and the attorney general’s debtor protection bill were not hospital “wins.” But like all smart organizations, they recognized that getting what they wanted required giving up something else. So, they agreed to a scaled back (but still significant) Medicaid rate cut and they accepted the attorney general’s demands. That’s an optimal conclusion for pretty much everybody.
State lawmakers spent the final day of the spring session failing to act on the crucial issue of pension reform, instead approving a major gambling expansion that wasn’t at the top of the agenda.
Actually, the Senate did pass a major pension reform bill yesterday. It effects both the General Assembly and state employee retirement systems, and will almost undoubtedly either be eventually passed by the House and signed into law or the exact same language will be incorporated into a new reform law. The bill passed with 16 Democratic and 14 Republican votes and it showed that pension reform is legislatively and politically doable.
But you’ve got to read through 16 grafs of that story before you get to this…
While the House pension talks collapsed, the Senate sought to politically insulate itself by passing a plan affecting the pensions of themselves and state workers — even though the legislation was not taken up in the House.
I don’t get that logic. The Senate ought to be applauded for passing a pension bill that should’ve also cleared the House last night, but didn’t because of partisan infighting. And they passed the gaming bill because they could.
* Now, on to gaming. I was sitting in the Senate press box next to a reporter interviewing Sen. Jacqueline Collins about her gaming expansion vote. Collins told the reporter sitting next to me that she didn’t know who hit her switch because she was in the bathroom with a headache…
On the dubious strength of an errantly cast voting switch, the expansion plan passed on a 30-26 roll call, the bare majority needed to approve the bill and six votes shy of the vetoproof majority needed to overcome the objections of Quinn, who has criticized the legislation for its “ethical shortcomings.”
The development made for one of the more intriguing storylines on a hectic final day of the spring legislative session when lawmakers also voted to hike fees on satellite television customers, strip-club patrons.
On the gambling bill, which was backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, supporters used a parliamentary maneuver to immediately lock in the 30-26 roll call before state Sen. Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago), a traditional opponent to gambling expansion, stood to say she wanted to have her “yes” vote reflected as a “no” in the official Senate record — even though that gesture carried no real effect and did not undo what had happened.
Collins told the Chicago Sun-Times that Sen. Donne Trotter (D-Chicago), who sits near her, deployed her voting switch when the gambling vote was taken even though she wasn’t at her seat.
“I have a headache, and I was in the back getting an aspirin. I always vote ‘no’ on gaming, but when I came out, I saw I’d been voted ‘yes,’” Collins said.
But, remember, she didn’t see who did it.
I didn’t see who hit her button either because I wasn’t on the floor. Ironically enough, I was up in Trotter’s office taking a little break, listening to the debate and talking to somebody about a piece I was thinking about writing. I spend time in several Statehouse offices during session days, hanging out and digging for stories, and his is one of my favorites.
* So, pardon me if I seem biased, but this is a bit much…
The top Republican in the chamber, Senate Minority Christine Radogno (R-Lemont), who voted against the gambling bill, called for an investigation. “That is absolutely wrong. It changed the outcome of a major issue,” she said.
We went down this phony road before with what the Sun-Times referred to as “Buttongate.” It was silly then, and it’s silly now. People who call the cops for stuff like that are the ones who are wrong. And did it really change the outcome? What most likely happened is a handful of Senators were watching the Big Board to make sure the bill got 30 votes. Once it hit that number, they felt free to vote “No.” Happens every day.
The approved budget cuts discretionary spending by $700 million with reductions hitting areas like education, universities, healthcare for the poor, and corrections, while increasing overall spending by about $400 million due to mandatory increases.
“Two years in a row, spending is going up,” said Republican state Sen. Matt Murphy of Palatine. “We are not closer to the fiscal responsibility needed.” Senate Republicans believe that billions in cuts are needed to avoid making permanent the temporary income tax hike approved last year.
Democrats counter that the slight increase still keeps state within self-imposed annual spending increases and that skyrocketing pension payments are driving the hike. The state will pay $5.2 billion into the pension system in fiscal 2013, up from $4.1 billion in the current fiscal year.
Spending is going up not because lots of new liberal Democratic programs are being created, but mainly because the state is finally making its full pension payment.
But Murphy is right that this budget does not make all the cuts necessary to avoid making the income tax hike permanent. The pension payments are just eating up pretty much all the revenue growth, requiring further cuts elsewhere.
Some Senate Democrats refused to vote for the House’s K-12 education budget the first time the legislation was called for a vote, and the measure failed. “We should be voting no on this bill because the House sent us a budget with further cuts to education. The House sent us a budget that only added back $50 million more in general state aid,” said Sen. Kimberly Lightford, a Democrat from Maywood. “We put a whole a lot of burden on the local school districts and at the same time continuously underfunded them.” (For more on the spending levels in the House budget, see yesterday’s blog.)
“Maybe some members did not get the memo that we don’t have any money,” said Sen. Dan Kotowski, a Democrat from Park Ridge “We are out of money.” But Senate President John Cullerton proposed some ways to find new revenue for education spending. House Bill 5440 would add a 5 percent tax to the gross profits of satellite television providers such as Dish Network and Direct TV. Cullerton said cable providers already pay the fee and that the legislation would bring in about $75 million. He also sponsored House Bill 5342, which would close some corporate tax loopholes for oil companies. He estimated that legislation could bring in $100 million. “Closing loopholes is definitely fair, and I think targeting certain tax credits is appropriate,” Cullerton said during a committee hearing on the legislation.
Senate Bill 2365 would dole out the new revenues According to an analysis from the Democrats:
$24.9 million would go toward early childhood education.
$134.7 million would go into general state aid for schools.
$15.4 million would go to the Monetary Assistance Program for college students.
$24 million would go into the Circuit Breaker program, which provides assistance for the elderly.
Cullerton’s bills passed without Republican votes. “It is just another tax increase. Pass it on to the people who have been nickeled and dimed to death,” said Sen. Dale Righter, Republican from Mattoon. But with the additional education spending, Democrats did not need the Republican votes to pass the bulk of the budget bills. The House’s education budget passed on a second floor vote.
Both of those tax hikes passed, but they went nowhere in the House. Democratic Senators allowed themselves to be convinced that they’d actually done something when they really didn’t. That was pretty unserious, if you ask me.
* The Sun-Times editorial board points the finger of blame for the lack of pension reform at the two House leaders…
Quinn said Illinois has no choice but to dramatically reduce pension costs. He is absolutely right, and we hope he won’t let anything stand in his way. And, more importantly, we hope House Speaker Michael Madigan and House Republican Leader Tom Cross take up the cause with the same level of fervor.
The bill to lower the state’s crippling pension costs went down in flames after those leaders, who had successfully worked together most of the session, started butting heads.
One state representative explained it this way: “We’re caught in a game between Cross and Madigan and we don’t even know what game they’re playing.”
It’s time to end the games, and do the exceptionally hard but necessary work of protecting the state and its employee pension systems from insolvency.
But nothing important sails through the legislature without the speaker’s full support.
And it slowly became apparent Thursday that in dropping his sponsorship of the pension measure and tossing it into the lap of House Republican Leader Tom Cross, Madigan had sealed its doom.
I say slowly became apparent, because many of his own members were still guessing about his intentions even after a Madigan-controlled committee sent the measure to the full House first thing Thursday morning with some of his closest allies on board.
Then came word that Madigan himself intended to vote no, and the storm clouds slowly gathered until the point late Thursday evening when Cross announced that Gov. Pat Quinn had asked him to pull the plug for now — and try again in a few weeks.
In essence, Madigan was saying: Don’t blame me, blame the Republicans. It’s their bill now.
The Republicans, of course, had been telling us all along to blame Madigan, even though many admit they agree with the principle on which he was standing — that you can’t truly bring the pension costs under control once and for all until the people making the spending decisions are called upon to pay the bills.
In the blame game, both political parties put as much effort into making sure the other side gets the blame for the failure of some important piece of legislation as they put do into actually getting something accomplished.
The blame game is serious business. If played well, one side can gain political advantage over the other in the next election.
In focusing on Madigan, I’m not suggesting that he and his Democrats were any more to blame for the legislation’s failure than were the Republicans, who couldn’t put on enough votes to make it work. […]
I understand Madigan’s point about the cost shift, if that was truly his point, as nobody is ever sure what the speaker really wants, and most have given up trying to read his mind.
In the end, though, neither party brought you pension reform. A pox on both their houses until they come back and get it right.
Most importantly, Gov. Pat Quinn has firmly established a leadership role here, especially in his unsuccessful last-minute bid to appease House Republicans by signing onto Cross’s plan.
Still, how discouraging it is to conclude another legislative session unable to address one of the two most important issues for the state’s financial well being for the next three decades.
Quinn evidently wants pension reform just as urgently as the rating agencies that are now threatening to drop Illinois’ already dismal creditworthiness into free-fall. The possibility of reform wouldn’t have made it this far without his declaration in February that lawmakers had to solve the problem now.
Many Democrats and Republicans, under intense pressure from their pals in public employees unions, shied away from any vote that would have made changes to a state pension system at serious risk of insolvency. But timid avoidance has its limits: If more credit downgrades arrive, or if poor investment returns further imperil pension funds, members of both parties won’t be able to explain why they didn’t stabilize a system now $83 billion in the red.
So we encourage members of both parties to do pension reform right. And we encourage Quinn to make sure they do.
Your opinion?
* Related…
* Legislators punt on pension reform but pass gambling expansion
* As mentioned earlier, Gov. Pat Quinn will hold a press conference at 10 o’clock this morning to talk about the session. You can listen or watch the live stream by clicking here. I’ll post audio and/or video of the presser afterward in case you miss it.
* Session ran very late last night and so did the “end of session party,” which wasn’t really an end of session party because, well, we’re now in overtime.
The governor is expected to talk to reporters this morning about the failure to enact pension reform. He issued this release last night…
“While this has been a productive legislative session, our work is not done for the people of Illinois.
“Many members rose to the occasion to take difficult votes to save our Medicaid system from collapse, enact retiree healthcare reform and abolish the oft-abused legislative scholarship program. But we have not finished our work to reform Illinois’ pension system, which is drowning in an ocean of unfunded liability.
“As I have repeatedly made clear, inaction on pension reform is not a choice. We must fundamentally reform our pension system and we must enact bold reform that eliminates the unfunded liability.
“We have made great headway on stabilizing our pension system and we are very close to a solution, but we are not there yet. Therefore, I will convene a meeting with President Cullerton, Leader Radogno, Speaker Madigan, and Leader Cross in the coming week so we can forge a pension reform agreement as soon as possible and return to Springfield to enact it into law.”
* The Question: What should Gov. Pat Quinn say today about the lack of a pension reform agreement? Explain.
And, hey, it’s Friday and everybody’s probably tired from the late night session, so snark is heavily encouraged. I’ll be back with more posts once I finish the Fax.
* It’s at this link. We’ll have updates throughout the day and late into the evening. Check for videos of press conferences and press releases, plus live reports from numerous reporters on the ground. Don’t miss it!
State Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, said colleague reaction Wednesday, a day after he erupted at the onset of a discussion to overhaul state pensions, was generally empathetic.
“I think they understand. I don’t normally do that,” Bost said late Wednesday afternoon while legislators worked to get a state budget passed and continued work on pension reform.
Bost’s tirade, directed at Speaker of the House Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, was shown on state and national media outlets Wednesday morning.
It began, “Again, total power in one person’s hands — NOT the American way” shortly before Bost tossed a handful of papers up and gave them a midair swat.
Bost tore into Madigan for purportedly making rules that bind legislators and pervert the idea of representative democracy. “Enough,” Bost said during his outburst. “I feel like somebody trying to be released from Egypt. Let my people go. My God, they sent me here to vote for them.”
Bost said he thought no differently Wednesday.
“One good thing about this is people in the media understand the tyranny we’re under with this leader,” Bost said.
He said he was contacted all day by national media. Additionally, websites such as The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post and YouTube carried clips. The state lawmaker said he received so many emails, his cellphone quit working.
As I mentioned the other day, Bost voted for pretty much all of the rules that he complained about.
Illinois state Rep. Mike Bost’s (R) explosion on the floor of the Illinois state House may go down in history as one of the great political rants of all time.
Bost manages to swing and miss at a stack of papers, offer an awkward rallying cry of “let my people go,” and even attempts the vaunted mike drop — with a microphone that is attached to a podium.
* As mentioned below, the House Republicans pulled out of budget negotiations after Speaker Madigan refused to bend on pension reform. That caused a chain reaction. Some GOP projects were cut because Republicans weren’t voting for the budget, but state facilities in Republican districts that had been targeted for closure were left intact. The Democrats also added $50 million to the General State Aid budget for schools. Republicans were furious…
House Minority Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, also accused Democrats of adding money to the budget after they learned that Republicans would not support it.
“There’s $50 million more than when we were working with you,” Cross said. “Fifty million is a lot of money. You can’t control yourselves. That’s what happens when you are left to your own devices.”
Democrats said they added $50 million to general state aid to schools. With the addition, general state aid would drop by $161 million under the House budget, instead of $211 million. […]
Rep. Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates, said Republicans told him they would not support a budget that did not keep all state facilities open.
“We found the money. Isn’t that something?” Crespo said.
Although many of those facilities are in Republican districts, they still voted against the budget.
The House Democrats say that even with the school money, which came from refinancing state debt, the budget will still be $4 million below the spending cap the chamber agreed to earlier this year.
Republicans were also unhappy about some changes made to the human services budget. Funding for transportation for mental health patients was taken out, and instead, more money went to the Department of Children and Family Services. Money for drug addiction prevention and youth in transition programs also fell under the Democratic budget ax.
“It was a good budget before you started whacking away at it,” said Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, a Republican from Des Plaines. “Now you’ve cut things that everyone at the table agreed to, Democrat and Republican.”
“’I am scared. I really am scared, Patrick, that we’re past the point — we have so many people now dependent on government, so many people want handouts,” he told constituents.
“The Democratic Party promises groups of people everything. They want the Hispanic vote, they want Hispanics to be dependent on government, just like they got African Americans dependent on government. That’s their game.
“Jesse Jackson would be out of work if they weren’t dependent on government. There’d be no work for him.”
* I was shocked into reality when I found out a couple years back that legislative liaisons were being allowed to join a union. I know many of these people. Many of those are my friends or at least friendly acquaintances. But if anyone ought to be “at will” employees, it should be liaisons. Their jobs are based on politics and on who the governor is. But anyone who joined the union in 2010 would still have a job today if Sen. Bill Brady had defeated Gov. Pat Quinn. That’s not right.
Look, I fully understand why management and political types chose to join the union. They were getting the shaft by the Blagojevich administration and then by Quinn himself. They haven’t gotten pay raises in years. They’re often not treated well on the job and have too little job security.
But we have a situation now where, according to the administration, there is only one non-union employee at the Jacksonville Developmental Center. That means two out of three shifts have no non-union management on the job. That’s a bit crazy, man.
The House passed a bill last year that stripped up to 1,900 employees of their union membership. The Senate Democrats have been trying to work out a deal ever since. Those negotiations failed and the Senate Executive Committee passed the bill to the floor last night, where it awaits final action…
Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has pushed for the legislation because he fears without it, 99 percent of the state workforce, including some of the top decision-makers in government, will have union protection.
In addition to deputy directors and legislative liaisons, those with Rutan-exempt jobs, term appointees and at-will appointees could be affected, said Robb Craddock, a labor relations official with Central Management Services. […]
Henry Bayer, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said that senior state workers were underpaid and mistreated under former Gov. Rod Blagojevich so they moved to unionize, a point not disputed by Quinn administration officials in their testimony. This measure could result in those employees again having lower salaries and poor treatment, he said.
The bill, which would only affect union employees hired after December 2008, could result in nearly 2,000 workers being ejected from the union, Bayer said.
A Senate committee approved a 5 percent tax on satellite television service on Wednesday, legislation Democrats said would put services like DirecTV and Dish Network on the same competitive playing field as cable television and raise money for education.
The legislation passed on a 10-4 vote, with state Sens. David Luechtefeld, R-Okawville, and John Jones, R-Mount Vernon, joining Executive Committee Democrats in voting “yes.” […]
Supporters of the legislation argued that since consumers have to pay a 5 percent franchise fee if they are cable customers, satellite customers should have to do the same. But a representative of DirecTV and Dish said the franchise fee is different from the tax approved by lawmakers. […]
“Heaven help the taxpayers. We have 27 hours left. How many more taxes can we impose,” [Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno] said, alluding to a measure passed by the committee earlier that would make offshore oil captured by oil companies taxable, legislation Democrats said closed a tax loophole.
The Democrats said the TV tax proposal would raise $75 million. The satellite TV guys say that number will be far lower.
* Things got pretty tense in the House yesterday, and it escalated a bit when the House Republicans admitted that they were refusing to vote for the budget plan because Speaker Madigan was pushing a pension cost shift proposal they didn’t like…
…Madigan and Cross sparred hours earlier, with Cross saying that Republicans would not support a state budget plan that they had negotiated with Democrats because of the speaker’s decision to push for the cost shift.
“We want to do pensions, but we have to do it right and without taxing Downstate and suburban property taxpayers,” Cross said on the House floor. “For that reason, you will not see us supporting a budget.”
But Madigan chastised Cross for trying to link the state budget to pension reforms.
“I did not take the position that I would not adopt a budget for the entire state of Illinois unless I got some other issue I selected,” Madigan said angrily.
* And then it got even more intense when the House Republicans accused the Democrats of playing nasty budget games…
Shortly before his about-face, Madigan endured a bitter GOP attack for allegedly “zeroing out” juvenile diabetes funding in what one House Republican described as “hardball” punishment against Cross and Rep. Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs), who both have diabetic children and who opposed the Madigan pension-reform package.
“Speaker Madigan, who is the same as the rest of us, is playing hardball in some kind of game after we’ve all worked so hard for so many weeks,” yelled state Rep. Jim Sacia (R-Pecatonica), calling out Madigan for a $2.47 million funding cut for diabetes research.
“We’re less than 30 hours from adjournment, and all of a sudden, we’ll show those Republicans what we’re gonna do. Is this what we’re all about?” Sacia asked. “This is shameful.”
The diabetes-funding fireworks, which came as House Democrats began voting out a $33.7 billion budget, did not draw a direct response from Madigan himself, but an aide mocked Sacia’s claim.
“I have no idea what Sacia was talking about,” Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said. “I don’t talk to Sacia anymore. He wasn’t very coherent.”
Republicans were especially outraged at the zeroing out of money for a juvenile diabetes research program. Members of House Republican leadership, including Cross, have children with the disease. Republicans called the changes “punitive.”
Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, the chair of the House Human Services Committee, said research was cut in many areas to direct more money to services. “We have systematically removed all funding for research.”
Feigenholtz, a Chicago Democrat, said: “These are gut wrenching decisions that we make.”
* For a while, yesterday’s pension reform debate in the Senate Executive Committee focused on the state’s past failure to make pension payments. But one Senator objected to the claims by unions that this is all the General Assembly’s fault…
Teachers unions have protested cuts to their benefits, saying it was lawmakers’ actions, skipping payments into pension funds, that created the debt.
Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno shot back during a hearing, presenting old paperwork from 2005 showing that both the Illinois Education Association and Illinois Federation of Teachers supported skipping the payment then.
“There’s plenty of culpability to go around,” the Lemont Republican said.
* I asked the Senate Republicans for the list of proponents and opponents of the bill which allowed the state to skip pension payments. Here it is…
SB 27 Proponnents:
Rich Frankenfeld, IEA “testimony if necessary”
Derek Blaida, CPS
Steve Preckwinkle, IFT “testimony if necessary”
Laura Arterburn, IFT
Michael McGann SEIU
Kurt Anderson SEIU
Opponents:
Randy Witter, Retired State Employees Association
Martin Noven, Treasurer’s office (Topinka)
Topinka was furious about the pension payment holidays back then and, as it turns out, she was right.
*** UPDATE *** From the Illinois Federation of Teachers…
SB 27 originally contained other pension language including changes to the Early Retirement Option and end of career salary increases that reduced the state’s cost for pensions by over $80 billion. In addition to supporting these pension reforms, the unions also supported increased gaming revenues, a higher cigarette tax, or the issuance of Pension Obligation Bonds to cover pension costs. The leadership refused to consider these options and chose to add the pension holiday at the last minute. We never supported that provision of the bill.
* As I reminded subscribers this morning, the Chicago Tribune endorsed all but one serious House Republican candidate in the 2010 general election. The Tribune mainly used the pension reform issue as its excuse for going all-in for the GOP.
Yesterday, the Tribune came out against the pension reform plan sponsored by House Speaker Michael Madigan, and today it doubled down…
We won’t be surprised if, by late Thursday, the Democrats who dominate both legislative chambers produce something they proclaim is a major pension overhaul. But if any legislation they pass doesn’t truly solve the crisis, we hope Gov. Pat Quinn will stick to his threat and keep lawmakers in Springfield until they do. […]
If the majority Democrats push through pension reform lite at the last minute, with virtually no Republican input and with genteel treatment of current workers, they will have delivered one more in a long line of feckless legislative sessions that didn’t fix the most pressing danger to state government’s financial future. […]
But on the year’s most crucial issue — pension reform — lawmakers have perpetuated their decades-long habit of popping huge legislation on the eve of adjournment, creating an artificial rush to an uninformed decision. At that point, bosses rule and gotcha politics trumps good policy. […]
By nightfall Thursday, the best option may be for Quinn to let June 1 arrive, then order lawmakers to set aside any consideration of pension reform lite and instead negotiate more dramatic reforms — with both parties participating.
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan abruptly reversed course late Wednesday night, promising to remove a key provision from his pension restructuring bill and could clear the way for the measure to pass the General Assembly today.
In another dramatic moment on the House floor, the powerful Chicago Democrat said Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn asked him to drop a provision that would have shifted the “normal” cost of pensions for teachers and university employees from the state to local school districts, universities and community colleges. Normal costs are the total benefits accrued by active employees each year.
Republicans had pledged to vote against Madigan’s pension plan if it included the cost shift.
“I had an interesting meeting this morning with Governor Quinn,” Madigan said late Wednesday. “And I was surprised that the governor disagreed with me on the issue. He agrees with you. He agrees with the Republicans. He thinks that we ought to remove the issue of the shift of normal cost out of the bill.
“I disagree with the governor, but he is the governor,” Madigan said. “This is his request.
So, Leader Cross now owns a plan that the Tribune despises. I wonder how that’s gonna go down at the Mothership?
*** UPDATE *** The Illinois Review may now regret publishing this headline since Tom Cross is the bill’s current sponsor…
Radogno asked Stermer if Quinn would support a proposal removing the cost shift but leaving other provisions, the core of which offers employees and retirees a choice between lower cost-of-living adjustments coupled with guaranteed access to the state health-care plan, or higher cost-of-living adjustments without access to the state health-care plan.
Stermer hedged, saying the governor is considering anything that could fix the $83 billion unfunded pension liability facing the state.
* Related…
* ADDED: The Choice Between Two Unconstitutional Options is Not Constitutional
* Editorial: Bad bill would erode privacy rights: But current law already allows officers to wear listening devices without prior approval from a judge for this narrow purpose — so that a cop in danger can utter a “safe word” that says to his fellow officers “come and get me.” Where House Bill 4081 goes off the rails is in allowing the information gathered by such recordings, though approved only by a state’s attorney, to be used as evidence at trial.
Thursday, May 31, 2012 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Last week the Illinois House of Representatives took a stand for bringing jobs and new revenue to Illinois, and we applaud their vote. Experts predict that SB 1849 will create more than 20,000 jobs and more than $200 million in new annual revenue at a time when our state desperately needs them.”
“Getting through the House was the first big step in getting this bill passed,” said Michael Carrigan, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO. “We want to remind Senate leaders about the importance of getting Illinoisans back to work. SB 1849 is a solution that would put tens of thousands of workers back on the job. Now is the time for the Illinois Senate to show the leadership necessary to restore economic stability.”
SB 1849 will save 30,000 plus agri-business jobs, while creating more than 20,000 new jobs, including nearly 10,000 construction jobs. The state’s unemployment remains hovering around 9 percent. The time for a solution is now. SB 1849 will put Illinoisans back on the job and will produce millions in revenue for the state of Illinois.
