Throw it into reverse

The Civic Federation lacks confidence in state leaders to rake in new cash and spend it wisely, which is partially why it withdrew its support of an income tax increase proposed last year.

The federation is a nonpartisan research body consisting of powerful corporate leaders in the Chicago area. It released a report today, reversing its position on a state income tax increase to generate new money to help pay down old and compounding debt.

“Last year, we supported a reasonable income tax increase if, and only if, it was tied to reform,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation. He also serves on the Illinois Issues Advisory Board. “And some of those reforms would be very similar to what the Illinois General Assembly and the governor demanded of the Chicago Transit Authority, in terms of what they had to do before the state was support additional funding for them.”

Part of the Chicago Transit Authority deal negotiated in January included saving taxpayer dollars by increasing employee contribution rates, increasing the retirement age to 65 and shaving down health care benefits for future employees.

Last year, Msall said, the committee offered a modest income tax increase as an alternative to the Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s failed gross receipts tax on businesses. The recommendations started with momentum at the beginning of the year but deflated under a whole host of budget issues lasting throughout the year. And the legislature and the governor haven't shown signs of banding together behind reform any time soon.

“We have seen no evidence that there has been any serious effort, unlike three years ago when the governor stood up in a state budget address and said: ‘We have a big problem. We’re going to have to reform our pension benefit system,’” Msall said. “The General Assembly adopted only the most modest of those recommendations and then proceeded to take pension holidays, making the problem even worse.”

FYI: A special panel created by statute issued recommendations in 2005. You can read them here. Read more about the legislature’s pension holidays in Illinois Issues magazine here and in a state report here.

The Civic Federation's report says the governor’s proposed budget fails again to make “reasonable” payments to the pension system for public employees. As a result, the state’s compounding debt includes $44 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and another $24 billion in health care liabilities for retired state employees. Fun fact: That's about half of the state's entire budget.

The group also said it can’t support the governor’s proposed infrastructure program, which depends on privatizing the Illinois Lottery for an immediate influx of cash. The Civic Federation report said the proposal lacks a detailed plan for spending the money.

“There is no comprehensive improvement plan. There is a series of projects and lists,” Msall said. “You owe it to the public — and the General Assembly should demand — that they know what priorities are before they approve the extraordinary borrowing against the future revenue stream, which is what the lottery is.”

The governor’s budget office says the Illinois Board of Higher Education is responsible for evaluating and prioritizing its capital projects that would be included in a statewide infrastructure plan, and the state depends on a statutory formula for distributing capital funds for school construction projects. The Illinois Department of Transportation also has an extensive list of roads and bridges in need of repair, as well as a list for new roads and projects.

The Civic Federation’s overall message from last year still applies, however. The state should reduce, not increase, operating costs and new spending, which is why the group supports the governor’s proposals to cut most state agency budgets by 3 percent and to consolidate state agency functions to reduce administrative costs.

See “Shaky Business” in Illinois Issues, May 2007, to read about the business community’s support for a state income tax increase last year.

“Disinfecting” Illinois government

by Patrick O’Brien
The Senate came another step closer to approving a “pay-to-play” ethics package today, but there still are some powerful obstacles, including doubts raised by Senate President Emil Jones Jr. and his allies.

Just before a committee hearing today, Jones proposed a change that proponents say could kill the measure. He withheld the amendment, however, to the relief of supporters.

“I’m much more hopeful than I was an hour ago,” said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, after the committee advanced the proposal to the full Senate. She said Jones’ revision is a “solution without a problem.”

Jones described the amendment as an attempt to improve the bill. It would expand the original proposal to ban state contractors from giving political contributions to all officeholders or candidates. The original plan, conversely, would only limit contractors from donating to the officeholders who grant the contracts.

Canary said the wholesale ban on state contactors’ right to contribute to any candidates in Illinois could be unconstitutional.

Jones and his ally, Sen. Rickey Hendon, a Chicago Democrat, said there’s a “gaping loophole” in the proposal because it wouldn’t ban political contributions from state contractors to statewide political parties, which often distribute money to members’ campaigns.

Sen. Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat sponsoring the original plan, said full disclosure of all political contributions from contractors would make contractors and elected officials far less likely to trade state business for political contributions.

“Sunshine is the greatest disinfectant,” he said.

Hendon told reporters he will vote for the measure when it comes up for consideration in the Senate, which likely is to be next week.

The House and the Senate went home for the weekend and will return Tuesday, May 13. Countdown: The House has 12 session days and the Senate has 11 session days left before the constitutional adjournment of May 31.

16-hour shifts
by Patrick O’Brien
One of the state’s largest unions is urging the Senate to release a measure that would outlaw mandatory overtime for state workers.

Jessica Becket, a certified nursing assistant as the LaSalle Veterans Home, said she drove her car into a ditch last year, exhausted from a 16-hour shift.

Becket and co-worker Kathy Reno said the average workweek of employees in their department was 55 hours because of staffing shortages and that 12-hour shifts were commonplace.

The Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs agreed with the workloads at LaSalle cited by Becket and Reno, saying the unions’ contract allowed for the mandatory overtime.

Both Becket and Reno said as many as seven workers at the home were fired for refusing to work overtime, and Becket herself was suspended.

Sen. John Jones, a Mount Vernon Republican, said he's received complaints from prison employees about the policy and the impact on job performance and wellbeing.

“Somebody is going to get seriously hurt in one of these institutions,” he said.

Henry Bayer, director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, said the problem affects about 22,000 workers, mostly in the state’s prisons, mental health facilities and veterans’ homes.

Bayer said a report the union wrote based on state overtime statistics shows Illinois paid $62 million for overtime last year.

Bayer and a bipartisan group of Senators called on Senate President Emil Jones, a Chicago Democrat, to allow the measure to be voted on by the full chamber. The proposal has 34 Senate sponsors.

Watch Illinois Issues magazine in June for more.

Shifts at the top

Update: Sen. Don Harmon, the Oak Park Democrat sponsoring the agreed upon ethics reform, said last night he hopes to call the measure in committee today.

Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson, a Crete Democrat, was replaced on the powerful Senate Rules Committee by Sen. Rickey Hendon, a Chicago Democrat, today.

The committee controls which pieces of legislation advance to floor debate and which are held.

Halvorson said she was surprised and that it wasn’t her decision, but she felt as though the move by Senate President Emil Jones Jr. would allow her to refocus on serving as majority leader in the last month of scheduled session when so many things hang in the air.

“The Senate president felt that it was a distraction because every little thing was taken out of context, put into somebody else’s context and was keeping us from doing what was important,” she said.

For the past few months, Halvorson received criticism for holding in the Rules Committee a constitutional amendment that would allow voters to decide whether to recall elected officials. A broader measure eventually was called for a vote but narrowly failed on the Senate floor. Halvorson also was called a roadblock to highly anticipated ethics reform that would ban state contractors from donating to the officeholders who grant the contracts. The ethics reform could come up for a vote soon, according to House and Senate sponsors who announced an agreement last week.

Halvorson said she supported each of those measures despite being on the opposite side of the issues from the Senate president.

“It’s no secret that I was for the recall,” Halvorson said. “I was for the pay-to-play legislation. I’m anti-pay raise. I think I was causing a few too many problems.”

Cindy Davidsmeyer, spokeswoman for the Senate president, added: “She needs to focus on the issues that concern her Senate district and not be responding to claims that are baseless. In deciding to take her off Rules, this will allow her to better focus on the issues in her Senate district.”

Davidsmeyer added that Halvorson's bid for Congress has nothing to do with the decision, although Halvorson said the "unnecessary" controversy over highly publicized legislation wouldn't have happened if she weren't running for Congress.

Halvorson faces Republican Martin Ozinga, president of a concrete and construction firm, and Green Party candidate Jason Wallace to replace Republican U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller in the district southwest of Chicago.

Note: The House rejected granting pay raises to its members this afternoon. The Senate must do the same for the raises not to take effect.

Let the countdown begin

By Patrick O'Brien
Illinois very likely is heading toward another overtime session. The House has 14 working days until the constitutional deadline for adjournment, May 31. The Senate has 13. Given that some legislative days have been cancelled — the House canceled this Friday, and the Senate cancelled today so some members could work for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in Indiana — legislators don’t seem rushed to finish business by May 31. (After that, both chambers need a three-fifths majority to approve legislation.)

History could be telling. David Dring, spokesperson for House Minority Leader Tom Cross, says the budget process mirrors last year’s, when each chamber passed a competing budget and a stalemate ensued. Lawmakers were called to Springfield at least once in all 12 months last year. This session, there haven’t been leaders’ meetings on the budget, yet. Leaders have met three times to discuss a statewide capital plan, although there’s little progress to report.

Dring added that he still thinks a May turnaround is possible if the political will is there. “A lot can happen in three weeks around here if people work together.”

Anticlimactic

By Bethany Jaeger
Illinois citizens will not have a chance to vote on whether the state Constitution should be changed to allow voters to recall elected officials, including judges. The state Senate narrowly rejected a measure, Senate Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 70, that would have placed the so-called recall amendment on the ballot in November. (See more here and scroll down.)

There’s little to no chance that the General Assembly can approve any measure to pose a constitutional amendment to voters this year, given that the deadline to put those questions on the November ballot is Sunday, May 4. Neither chamber will be back in session until May 5.

It’s been a series of dramatics since the House approved a narrower measure to ask whether voters should be able to recall only constitutional officers and state legislators (it's House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 28). The Senate hijacked that bill and “improved” it to include judges and local officials. Top Senate Democrats, however, opposed the addition of judges and withheld their votes Thursday. The measure failed 33-19, with 2 voting present. It needed 36 votes to pass.

Senate Minority Leader Frank Watson said it was a travesty that the Senate stymied both measures. “This is truly a sad day in Illinois, that we’re not giving people the opportunity to have a say in what most people would suggest to be just competent government.” The sponsor, Sen. Dan Cronin, an Elmhurst Republican, said after the vote that fear ruled the day. “The people who voted against this, this is about their fear of being held to a higher standard. The world’s changing. They need to change with it.”

Opponents, including Democratic Sen. Mike Jacobs of East Moline, said although he’s had some serious disagreements with the current governor, recall is not the way to go. “The notion of recall is better suited for cars than for the governor of Illinois,” he said during floor debate. “Forget recall. The governor of Illinois should do the right thing, and that’s resign.”

Hell freezing over?

By Patrick O’Brien
An ethics reform package aimed at cleaning up state contracting practices, including alleged practices under the spotlight of a federal corruption trial of Tony Rezko, could make its way through the General Assembly very soon.

The so-called pay-to-play measure would ban political contributions to statewide officeholders from any business with more than $50,000 in contracts awarded by that office. The business’ contracts with the state would be canceled if they broke the law. Family members of the contractor also would be banned from donating to the officeholders.

Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson, a Crete Democrat, all but dared Gov. Rod Blagojevich to veto or alter the bill in an attempt to “improve” it, as he has with other legislation. “Let him try it,” she said a Statehouse news conference Wednesday. Chicago Democratic Rep. John Fritchey, the House sponsor, vowed that his chamber would override a veto, while the Senate sponsors said they would attempt to get enough votes but couldn’t promise them.

A deal is a long time coming. Lawmakers have debated this version of ethics reform for three years. But the measure gained momentum this year because of the Rezko trial, which includes allegations of exchanging campaign contributions for state contracts and jobs. It's also an election year. “There’s a good chance it may be snowing in hell right now,” Fritchey said of the timing.

Sen. Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat and sponsor, said the bill will be heard in a committee next week. He said Senate President Emil Jones, a Chicago Democrat and Blagojevich ally, wanted the bill “improved” even more but that Jones wouldn't stop the measure from advancing to the House. Fritchey said he expected the proposal to move soon.

Working for the weekend?
By Patrick O'Brien
The Illinois House could be in Springfield all weekend to approve a constitutional amendment that would give voters the right to recall elected officials.

House Speaker Michael Madigan said members could be in the Capitol until Sunday as they wait for the Senate to pass its own version of a recall proposal. If the House approves the Senate version by Sunday, there’s a chance it could still land on the November ballot for voters to consider. If the House changed the Senate version, they would miss the May 4th deadline to approve constitutional amendments in time to appear on this year’s ballot. (To be clear: The question on the ballot would ask voters whether the state should change its Constitution to allow a recall, not whether they should recall the current governor)

The Senate proposal would allow voters to recall elected officials, including local politicians and judges. It also would link the lieutenant governor and the governor, which Sen. Rickey Hendon said was because the two officeholders are elected in the general election together (although they're not considered running mates in the primary elections). Under Hendon's proposal, if the governor were recalled, the lieutenant governor would be, too. The House version, sponsored by Rep. Jack Franks, a Woodstock Democrat, is directed only at statewide officeholders, not local officials and judges. That measure is stuck in the Senate.

Tie-breakers

By Patrick O’Brien
The House approved a constitutional amendment today that would try to take the politics out of redrawing the state’s legislative map every 10 years. (See more here.)

Many supporters and opponents of the measure said any change would be better than the existing system, which has resulted in a draw out of a hat three consecutive times because lawmakers hit a stalemate. “Determining the future of Illinois based on the flip of a coin is irresponsible,” said Rep. Lou Lang, a Skokie Democrat, during debate.

Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat, said the framers of the 1970 Illinois Constitution thought that the tie-breaker provision would be enough to make any sensible, responsible party compromise. “It turns out, we’ve had three opportunities. And three times, we’ve struck out.” She said the proposal would “do the job” in forcing a compromise.

Under the plan, sponsored by Rep. James Brosnahan, an Evergreen Park Democrat, a stalemate over who would redraw the map would result in the Illinois Supreme Court appointing a “special master” to oversee the process. Each chamber of the General Assembly also would approve its own map with a three-fifths vote.

Opponents said the proposal lacks specificity in multiple areas, including the role of the state’s high court and the criterion for selecting a special master.

The House approved the measure, 98-10 with one voting present, but House Minority Leader Tom Cross, an Oswego Republican, said the bill is presumed dead on arrival in the Senate. Even if approved by both chambers, 60 percent of the public would still have to vote for the idea before the state Constitution could change.

We remain flat
By Bethany Jaeger
Only 19 senators voted in support of asking the public whether the state should allow a graduated income tax rate to replace the existing flat rate. That’s far short of the 36 votes needed, indicating most senators are unwilling to support something that looks like a tax increase right now, particularly during an election year.

“I just think we need to escape the politics of self-preservation,” Sen. Kwame Raoul, a Chicago Democrat and co-sponsor of the measure, said after the vote. He and Sen. Michael Frerichs, a Champaign Democrat, said they pursued the constitutional amendment to give the state flexibility in revising its tax structure so that it could establish a system less reliant on local property and consumption taxes, which often burden the low- and middle-income taxpayers.

Republicans voiced opposition to the measure because they said it would pave the way to increased income taxes. That would be a “killer” for small businesses and job creation, said Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican, during floor debate. Republicans also said the proposal fails to address high property taxes and lacks details, leaving voters vulnerable to a tax-and-spend approach to state government without public input.

Another income tax proposal, meanwhile, is still in the works in the House. It originally tried to set new, tiered rates for individuals making more than $250,000 a year, but it narrowly failed. It’s expected to come back in some form.

Coming up
Watch for more updates regarding Senate action on another constitutional amendment to let voters recall elected officials and on ethics reform to ban so-called pay-to-play politics.