"The House shall come to order in regular Session. The Attendance Roll Call for the regular Session will be the same as the Attendance Roll Call for the Twenty-fifth Special Session. The Chair recognizes Representative Jakobsson."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise on a point of personal privilege."
"State your point."
"And this is a joint request with Representative Black. We are very happy to welcome today Ryce Tuggle. Ryce, can you stand up. Ryce lives in Vermilion County and the day that the park… it was announced that parks would close she decided she had a big project to do. On her own, she decided she'd like to get five thousand (5,000) signatures to present to the Governor to keep the parks open. Well, Ryce went beyond that. Ryce brought over thirty thousand (30,000) signatures to the Governor this morning. So, let's all give her a welcome and I think, Mr. Black… Representative Black, might want to add to this."
"Mr. Black."
"Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. It's indeed a privilege to join with my colleague Representative Jakobsson. Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, most of you know that twenty-four (24) historic sites and… and state parks are slated for closure. The amount of money to be saved by this action is certainly open to debate. Let me just very briefly tell you a little bit about Kickapoo State Park. Back in the 30’s, this was among the first strip-mine land in the State of Illinois. The people of 09500287.doc 1 STATE OF ILLINOIS 95th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 287th Legislative Day 9/22/2008 Vermilion County and some in eastern Champaign County purchased this land from the United Coal Company. The Civilian Conservation Corps did an excellent job of reclaiming this land. I think it is among all of our state parks and recreation areas, the crown jewel of what can be done with reclaimed land. The people of Vermilion County then donated this park to the State of Illinois. We'd like to think that the Governor may reciprocate for our good fortune or our good intention of donating that land and keep this park open. It truly is extremely important to those of us in east central Illinois. I just want to thank Ryce Tuggle who's in the sixth grade at Oakwood Elementary School and her campaign chairman behind this phenomenal effort is also with us today, Mr. Harrison Grooms is a fifth grader from Armstrong Elementary School. Harrison, would you stand, too? The T-shirts that you see Representative Jakobsson and I wearing, the idea of these young people and as Representative Jakobsson said their goal was to get five thousand (5,000) people to sign petitions. We turned in almost thirty thousand (30,000) to the Governor's staff this morning. Five hundred (500) people at a rally Friday night at Kickapoo Park. I know, Mr. Speaker, that you can certainly tell them the House has done its business. We have restored real money to keep these parks open. We hope and pray and the people in the gallery from Vermilion County also join me in saying the money is there. Members of the Senate do your job, restore the money. Keep our state parks and our state historic sites open. And I just want to thank the people from 09500287.doc 2 STATE OF ILLINOIS 95th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 287th Legislative Day 9/22/2008 Vermilion County and especially the young people who have done a remarkable job of bringing attention to this issue. Thank you all very much."
"Mr. Brady."
"Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. A point of personal privilege."
"State your point."
"I, too, also want to join in with my colleagues and also in particular Representative Keith Sommer who represents Moraine View State Park and borders to my district. Coming up the elevator, I think they're running a little behind though, is a lovely young lady in second grade from LeRoy High School by the name of Sarah Welander and is accompanied by her good friend Madelon Gallagher who took it upon themselves as well for the park in our area, Moraine View State Park, for a rally of over a thousand (1,000) people on Saturday morning, as well as thousands upon thousands of signatures that were done on behalf of keeping those parks open. And I just want to acknowledge her and she may be with us later in the gallery, but she did a fantastic job as they both did and all the people that are working so hard on trying to make sure that those parks stay open as well as some of the other historic sites throughout this state. Thank you very much for the job that they did as well."
"Mr. Franks."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess we're down here to talk about ethics, so I'd… I'd like to talk about that for a little while if we could. The Governor has called us 09500287.doc 3 STATE OF ILLINOIS 95th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 287th Legislative Day 9/22/2008 back down here today at a cost to taxpayers of approximately forty thousand dollars ($40,000) for another Special Legislative Session designed to continue the Governor's charade on ethics. Right now, the Governor is currently the focus of a multitude of ongoing federal investigations, yet he claims now that he's seen the light and he believes the Legislature can no longer wait to move on the myriad of the new ethics provisions. This new-found good government religion is from the same man who just weeks ago amendatorally vetoed the landmark ethics Bill which would have banned pay-to-play politics in Illinois. I believe that the Governor is an anathema of an ethical leader. Just this summer he held a fund-raiser where he shook down state contractors for hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions. Now he calls a Special Session on ethics without any consensus of what needs to be worked on. And every day we waste in Springfield doing nothing costs the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. And you have to wonder, is there any real mystery of why our fiscal health is in such dire straits? Now, the federal prosecutors during the Rezko trial said that Mr. Rezko raised approximately 1.2 million dollars ($1,200,000) for Rod Blagojevich. Now, the Governor has only returned, by his own estimate, eighty-five thousand dollars ($85,000) of that money and he has not returned a single penny of the money that Ali Ata gave him and this is the man who pled guilty to a felony of buying his state job. Now, in the Governor's press release on Thursday, he announced this Special Session and the Governor called on the Legislators 09500287.doc 4 STATE OF ILLINOIS 95th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 287th Legislative Day 9/22/2008 to follow his lead on real ethics reform. He… he states his desire to end the pay-to-play politics and to bring true ethics reform to State Government, yet he refuses to divest himself of the hundred of thousands of dollars, actually million, over a million dollars in contributions raised for him by felons who have been convicted of selling and buying access from the Blagojevich administration. So, today, I again call upon the Governor to return all of the ill-gotten contributions bundled by convicted felons, Rezko and Ata. If he wants us to follow his lead he should stop leading everyone to the federal penitentiary. It's time to end the charade, quit wasting taxpayers' money and focus on our energies on revitalizing Illinois's lagging economy. The Governor also called for transparency in legislative pay raises and pension perks, that was part of his proclamation on Thursday. This is quite a departure from the Governor's recent track record on pensions and jobs. It was only a few months ago that a retired State Senator was able to work for two (2) months and increase her pension from sixty-four thousand dollars ($64,000) to a hundred and two thousand dollars ($102,000). Now, I was talking to my wife about this yesterday, about my frustration and she said, 'you ought to use the quote about Einstein' and I said, well, which one and she said, 'well, Einstein said the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits.' We… obviously… I'm glad you got that, Lou will explain it. There's a real question of the Governor's ability for veracity. And I think that the citizens of Illinois have wised up to the fact that he will 09500287.doc 5 STATE OF ILLINOIS 95th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 287th Legislative Day 9/22/2008 say anything to distract from his miserable and corrupt record. We face a downward spiral in our economy. People are losing their homes throughout Illinois and now we have the highest unemployment rate in sixteen (16) years. Yet what does Governor Nero do? He calls another Special Session to accomplish nothing but to allow the citizens to see what a phoney he is and when I call him out on it, we all ought to stand together. We ought to pass a comprehensive list of Bills, but this is not the way to do it."
"Mr. Black."
"Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. An inquiry of the Chair, if I might. I can't… my calculator doesn't go… I can't keep track of how many Special Sessions we're in, what the current one is, what the next one is at 2:00. I guess the question on many of our minds is, I don't know that we heard you accurately, are we in fact in tomorrow because many of us did not come prepared to stay over. And if you don't mind my, you know, wearing the same suit tomorrow, I guess I could be here, but I'm not sure whether we're here tomorrow or not."
"Yeah, Mr. Black, thank you for raising that point. I think it's well-taken. And if I could have the attention of all of the Members of the House, let me just share with you what I know, which may be accurate or not. Number one, in a personal conversation with Senator Jones this morning, he told me that in the Senate they plan to take up consideration of the Governor's Vetoes and Amendatory Vetoes of Senate Bills. In a conversation with 09500287.doc 6 STATE OF ILLINOIS 95th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 287th Legislative Day 9/22/2008 another Member of the Senate within the last half hour, I was told that a plan in the Senate is to pass the sweeps Bill that passed the House, but then to offer a Senate Amendment to a House Bill that would provide for a different appropriation. So, let me say it all again. Number one, Senator Jones said that they do plan to take up consideration of the Governor's Vetoes and Amendatory Vetoes on Senate Bills. Number two, there is a report that they will pass the sweeps Bill as it left the House, but three, they want to change the appropriation Bill and again, it's just a report that the way they would do that would be to draft yet another version offered as a Senate Bill to a… Senate Amendment to a House Bill and send it back here. So, concerning the… the Governor's Vetoes, if the day works out in the Senate where they are considering Governor's Vetoes on Senate Bills, we will schedule the Session for tomorrow to take up consideration of the Governor's Vetoes and Amendatory Vetoes of Senate Bills. Number two, in light of the report concerning planned Senate action, I propose that we, the House, send an offer to the Senate that we sit down and talk about what they want to put in an appropriation Bill."
"Isn't that kind of revolutionary talk?"
Speaker Madigan: "Correct. And I would designate Representative Hannig as the point person for House Democrats, I presume that your normal person would do the same. And we're going to send that invitation to all Members of the Senate and we would suggest that the meeting occur sometime early this afternoon in Room 114 of the 09500287.doc 7 STATE OF ILLINOIS 95th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 287th Legislative Day 9/22/2008 Capitol building. Again, the report indicated that the plan changes in the appropriation Bill would really not be that significant and so it would seem to me that in light of the urgency concerning funding for the drug abuse programs and the state parks and historic sites, that we ought to be able to meet… reach some kind of an agreement on what can be in an appropriation Bill. I hope I've answered your questions."
"Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that and I think your idea is certainly one that the House Republicans would endorse. God forbid we communicate with each other around here. I always thought that Democrats liked to talk, particularly with each other. Something has happened to that. The Democrats don't seem to be willing to talk to each other and certainly not with the Republicans lately, but maybe your offer will be accepted. My incredulity would doubt it, but it might. But I… I think, in summation, Mr. Speaker, it appears to me that the House sent over a supplemental appropriation with real money… real money to pay the bills to keep substance abuse, developmental disabilities, mental health facilities, a lot of human services funded through June 30 and would open all of the state parks and historic sites that were intended to close at the end of November. My concern is that if the Senate loads this up with money that isn't there, then we could be in another stalemate. So I would urge that you make that offer that the Democrats, in fact, my God, the hug evidently had some effect. Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, I know I hugged the Speaker two (2) weeks ago and I 09500287.doc 8 STATE OF ILLINOIS 95th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 287th Legislative Day 9/22/2008 haven't been the same since and it appears now that the President of the Senate and the Speaker who hugged in Denver, the love bug may have finally bought them. This may be, as I said two (2) weeks ago, the hug heard around the world. They're talking. There's hope. Ladies and Gentlemen of the state, don't move out just yet. Who knows… who knows, we may it… be on the verge of great things. Although, if either one of them disappear for much longer I'm going to be very suspicious."
"Representative Currie."
"Thank you, Speaker. In addition to the absence list of this morning and that is that David Miller is excused as well."
"Mr. Brady."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A point of personal privilege."
"State your point."
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now joined in the gallery by Sarah Welander, who's the second grader, I told you, from LeRoy Grade School and her friend, Madelon Gallagher, who started a petition drive for Moraine View State Park. I'm joined by my House colleague, Representative Sommer. If they'd stand so we can give her a nice round of applause for all their hard work on the petitions. Thank you."
"Representative Currie moves that the regular Session stand adjourned until Tuesday, September 23, at 11 a.m. Those in favor say 'aye'; those opposed say 'no'. The 'ayes' have it." 09500287.doc 9