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A quick look at the legislative week ahead

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Illinois

Illinois lawmakers were supposed to be off for a summer break, instead they’re set to return to the capitol this week to take care of unfinished business.

Passing a budget is arguably the single must-happen task for lawmakers and it was supposed to have been done by Friday, but that self-imposed deadline came and went without any budget action. […]

They’re scheduled to be in the capitol for a few days starting Wednesday, but they could stretch things out through May 31.

Come June, it gets tougher to pass because it requires a supermajority versus a simple majority to pass, which needs to happen as the fiscal year ends in July.

* Inside Climate…

Introduced at the tail end of the Illinois legislative session, a pair of measures that promote private funding of road projects are moving through quickly as state lawmakers try to wrap up their session this week. One is a resolution that would allow state transportation officials to find private funding for the Stevenson expansion, which runs through Little Village and other communities, and it is in the Senate after moving quickly through the House Chamber. The other is an even more expansive rewriting of rules to encourage private dollars for state transportation projects, which was added as an amendment to a large spending bill on Friday.

“Expanding highway capacity will incentivize more driving and more harmful emissions in an area already burdened by high asthma rates and other chronic health problems,” said José Miguel Acosta Córdova of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.

Community, environmental and health organizations oppose the 11th-hour moves to bring private highway funding to Illinois, proposals supported by labor and business groups. […]

Marc Poulos, executive director of the labor management group for Local 150 International Union of Operating Engineers, said private money is needed to make sure road projects get funded. Some labor and business advocates have wanted to see the state enter into its first private transportation partnership for a number of years, and the proposed changes are a “modernizing of the statute” that allows such projects.

The widening of the Stevenson has been envisioned since the expressway was built in the 1960s, he said.

* Capitol News Illinois…

As the General Assembly prepares to wrap up its spring legislative session this week, Democratic lawmakers are advancing bills that would mandate job postings to include a salary range and grant further protections to temporary workers in moves they say would promote equity within the workplace. […]

House Bill 3129 passed with a 35-19 vote. It went back to the House, which passed it 75-39 on Wednesday.

The bill would require expected pay disclosures from employers with 15 or more employees in the state and would apply to things such as job board listings, newspaper ads and postings made by a third-party on behalf of an employer. […]

Labor advocates had another victory with the passage of the Temp Worker Fairness and Safety Act on Friday, a bill requiring temporary workers be paid the equivalent rate of pay received by a permanent worker after 90 consecutive days of employment.

* Chicago Tribune…

Facing pressure to bolster state ethics laws following the recent federal bribery convictions of former top Commonwealth Edison executives and lobbyists, Illinois lawmakers have turned their attention to another branch of a sprawling corruption investigation: the red-light camera industry.

A measure introduced and approved in the Illinois Senate late Friday seeks to place new ethical guardrails around an industry that has been at the center of multiple federal probes that have ensnared a host of state, county and local officials, including two state senators. […]

Members of the General Assembly as well as county and local officials would be prohibited from going to work for or receiving compensation from red-light camera companies for two years after leaving office, under the legislation. That’s much stronger than a six-month prohibition on state lawmakers becoming lobbyists that just took effect this year.

The Illinois Department of Transportation would be able to revoke a county’s or municipality’s authorization for red-light cameras if a local official or employee is charged with bribery, official misconduct or similar crimes related to the placement of the cameras, and municipalities would no longer be allowed to outsource the issuance of citations to their camera system vendors.

posted by Isabel Miller
Wednesday, May 24, 23 @ 9:29 am

Comments

It’s rather curious that a member of the Tollway Board of Directors is behind a push to privatize the Tollway.

Comment by phocion Wednesday, May 24, 23 @ 9:34 am
I’ve come to think that the May 19 date was something of an own goal. Now the press has mentioned some variation of “blown deadlines” a lot, even though functionally they still have a week (and even after that, they need a supermajority, which the majority caucuses in both chambers has). Leadership overpromised.

Comment by Arsenal Wednesday, May 24, 23 @ 9:47 am
(Sounds like they might’ve overpromised on the substance of the budget, too, but I, blessedly, don’t know the details of that.)

Comment by Arsenal Wednesday, May 24, 23 @ 9:47 am