"The House will be in order. Members will be in their chairs. We shall be led in prayer today by Reverend Walter Matthews who is with Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago. Reverend Matthews is the guest of Representative Flowers. Members and guests are asked to refrain from starting laptops, turn off cell phones, and rise for the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance. Reverend Matthews."
"Shall we pray. Eternal God, we acknowledge that the earth is Yours and the fullness thereof, the world and date that dwell therein. It is because of who You are that we deem it imperative for us to seek Your sovereign will, Your wisdom, and Your guidance as we endeavor to open yet another Session of the Illinois General Assembly, during which this august Body will attend to the interests of the great people of this state. Help us to temper our conversations with humility and patience as we give due diligence to the work that has been assigned to the hands of these State Senators and State Representatives. Bestow Your blessings upon the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House. May we be imbued with a renewed sense of passion, purpose, and patriotism as we strive to serve this Land of Lincoln and the great country that we all love. It is in Your most holy name that we pray. Amen."
"We'll be led in the pledge by Representative Bellock." Bellock – et al: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, 09900108.docx 1 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
"Roll Call for Attendance. Leader Currie."
"Thank you, Speaker. Please let the record reflect the excused absence of Representative Arroyo."
"Mr. Brown."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Please let the record reflect that all Republicans are present this morning."
"Mr. Clerk, please take the record. We have 117 Members and a quorum is in the House. The Chair recognizes Mr. Brown."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Republicans request an immediate caucus in Room 118."
"And do you have an estimate of time, Sir?"
"One hour."
"The Republicans are going to caucus in Room 118. The Democrats will be at ease. The House will be in recess to the call of the Chair. The House will be in order. Mr. Clerk."
"Committee Reports. Representative Barbara Flynn Currie, Chairperson from the Committee on Rules, reports the following committee action taken on March 03, 2016: recommends be adopted, referred to the floor is Floor Amendment #2 to House Bill 2990."
"On the Order of Second Reading there appears House Bill 557, Mr. Martwick. Mr. Clerk, please read the Bill."
"House Bill 557, a Bill for an Act concerning elections. This Bill was read a second time on a previous day. No Committee Amendments. Floor Amendments #1 and 2 have 09900108.docx 2 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 been approved for consideration. Floor Amendment #1 is offered by Representative Martwick."
"Mr. Martwick."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe what we want to do here is there's Floor Amendment 2, we want to withdraw 1, and I would like to move for the adoption of Floor Amendment 2. It is a gut and replace that becomes the Bill and it…"
"Representative, so you want to withdraw Amendment 1?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Amendment 1 is withdrawn. Mr. Clerk."
"Floor Amendment #2 is offered by Representative Martwick and has been approved for consideration."
"Mr. Martwick."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the Chair's permission, I would like to move to adopt Floor Amendment #2, which becomes the Bill, and then debate it on Third."
"Mr. Sandack, may we adopt the Amendment? Those in favor of the Amendment say 'yes', opposed 'no'. The 'ayes' have it and the Amendment is adopted. Mr. Clerk."
"No further Amendments have been approved for consideration, but a fiscal note and state mandates note has been requested but not filed at this time."
"Mr. Martwick is recognized."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time, I would ask that the fiscal note be found inapplicable."
Speaker Lang: "The Gentleman moves that the note be held inapplicable. On that question, Mr. Sandack is recognized." 09900108.docx 3 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Motion. I… I did speak with the Sponsor yesterday and I do know that his Amendment takes out compensation for the… the school board members ostensibly to be elected. So I know that takes that out, but I believe there's still mileage and there still is indirect compensation that would be a fiscal component of this Bill, and I… I don't think it's inapplicable because there will be an attendant cost associated with the change. So I think a finding of inapplicability is… is erroneous and I, obviously, would… would request a roll call on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker."
"There be no one else wishing to speak, those in favor of the Gentleman's Motion to hold the note inapplicable, vote 'yes', opposed 'no'. The voting is open. Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Mr. Clerk, please take the record. On this question, there are 69 voting 'yes', 41 voting 'no', 1 voting 'present'. The Gentleman's Motion prevails and the note is held inapplicable. Mr. Clerk."
"A state mandates note has been requested but not filed at this time."
"Mr. Martwick."
"I would move that the state mandates note be found inapplicable."
"Mr. Sandack."
"Will… will the Sponsor yield for some questions, please?"
"Sponsor yields." 09900108.docx 4 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Obviously, Rob, you… you asked that it be moved… made inapplicable. Do … do you mind sharing with us why you believe it's inapplicable?"
"Well, I don't really see any mandate in this. This is a change to the structure of government on the local level but it is… there are no… Yeah, it's… these elections will be held at the same time that other elections are being held. It's not requiring local governments to spend any money that they wouldn't already be spending."
"Is… is it your position, Representative Martwick, that the school board members that ostensibly are elected who would… get a… frankly, mileage reimbursement is not a mandate?"
"Yeah, the… the current school board members already receive the mileage so it doesn't change any of the existing laws in terms of that."
"Well, I understand that, but you're… you're seeking to change the law now and so, obviously, reimbursement of expense is a component of your Bill and would be applicable. And so I'm understanding… I'm just trying to figure out why it's not a mandate."
"Well, it's… you're right, Representative, you're right, but it is not a new mandate. The fiscal note would be to uncover any new mandates that we're imposing. This is something that's already currently in law."
"Well, I… I agree with you. It is currently in law, but it is a new mandate because it's attaching to your Bill and I still think it's obviously not inapplicable when it's completely applicable because it is a mandate. To the Bill or 09900108.docx 5 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 to the Motion, Mr. Speaker. Mental gymnastics notwithstanding, the fact is there's a mandate here. Vote 'no'."
"The Gentleman Moves that the mandates note that has been filed be held inapplicable. Those in favor of the Gentleman's Motion vote 'yes', opposed 'no'. The voting is open. Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Record yourselves. Mr. Clerk, please take the record. On this question, there are 68 voting 'yes', 44 voting 'no', 1 voting 'present'. The Gentleman's Motion prevails and the mandates note is held inapplicable. Mr. Clerk."
"No further notes have been requested at this time."
"Third Reading. Please read the Bill."
"House Bill 557, a Bill for and Act concerning elections. Third Reading of this House Bill."
"Mr. Martwick."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, today I present to you House Bill 557. This is a Bill that would provide for an elected Representative school board for the Chicago Public Schools. In 1995, this Legislature passed a Bill that placed the complete and total control of the Chicago Public Schools into the hands of the Mayor of the City of Chicago, and it's been operated under that structure of government since. There is no process for vetting candidates. There is no process for oversight or confirmation. And since that time, the citizens of the City of Chicago, the residents, the taxpayers, the students, and 09900108.docx 6 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 the teachers have felt shut out of the process of democracy. This Bill would provide for elections that would run initially in the 2018 election, but then after the first odd term which would be a five-year term, the elections would run with the municipal elections in the City of Chicago. So there would be no new elections, no additional cost to the City of Chicago or to the election process, and there would be 20 Representatives. Those Representatives would be elected from 20 unique districts that would be drawn by the Legislature and would be subject to the remapping process with the census. There would be one elected school board president who would be elected city wide, and as… as part of this Amendment, there have been a number of provisions that have been adopted that were requested by our… my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle. During our Committee hearing some requests were made. Part of that was for… to remove any compensation for board members, in this Bill there is no compensation. We were asked to put in a revolving-door protection clause. We did that and we were also asked to put in a conflict of interest Clause, and we did that as well. This Bill is about providing the same democracy and accountability to the school… the schools of the City of Chicago and the taxpayers of the City of Chicago that is afforded to every other school district in the State of Illinois. I think this is a good Bill for Chicago and it goes a long way towards allowing the citizens to have a say in fixing their schools and… and for having a voice in the future direction that their schools take. I will be happy to answer any questions and I ask for an 'aye' vote."
"Mr. Harris." 09900108.docx 7 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Harris, D.: "Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Question of the Sponsor."
"Sponsor will yield." Harris, D.: "Thank you. Representative, let me ask you when did… when did the Chicago Public School System go to an appointed board?"
"Well, they've been appointed for a long time. The… the School Reform Act of 1995 was… was when the appointment process was… there was an appointed board before that, but there was a committee that would select candidates from which the Mayor would appoint. After 1995, it was complete and total's from the last 21 years the Mayor chooses, the Mayor appoints, and there's no confirmation or oversight." Harris, D.: "So the 1995 legislation, which this General Assembly passed, allowed the Mayor to appoint the school board members. I believe it also allowed the Mayor to select the board president, and it also allowed the Mayor to choose the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. Is that correct?"
"That is correct." Harris, D.: "Okay. Let me ask you back around the turn of the century, around 2000 and… and so, what was the… what was the debt that the Chicago Public School System had generally in the vicinity?"
"2000?" Harris, D.: "Roughly around 2000, right. 2000."
"I… I honestly couldn't… I have a feeling you're going to be able to tell me that number." Harris, D.: "I am as… as a matter of fact."
"I would… I would love to hear it." 09900108.docx 8 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Harris, D.: "It's… it's just under $3 billion. That was the debt of the… the Chicago Public School System. Do you know what the debt of the Chicago Public School System is now?"
"Not specifically, but I… I'm sure you have that figure." Harris, D.: "Well, I'll help fill you in on that one as well and it approaches $7 billion, 6.9 billion and that doesn't include the borrowing from this year."
"Right." Harris, D.: "What about… let's turn to the Pension Fund for a second. What was the funded ratio of the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund back around 2000?"
"My guess is that at around 2000 it was probably pretty good. One of the things I am aware of is that, as part of the School Reform Act of 1995, we removed a line item in the property tax Bill that dedicated a certain portion of property taxes into the fund, and as a result of that line item being eliminated, the Chicago Public Schools made not a single pension payment for 10 years." Harris, D.: "Right. There was a pension holiday, but do you know what the funding level was for the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund back in 2000?"
"I… I would guess it was somewhere around 90." Harris, D.: "You said it was pretty good. Well, I'd say 99 and a half percent is pretty good, pretty good. Do you know what the funding level of the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund is now?"
"Somewhere in the thirties or forties, I believe." 09900108.docx 9 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Harris, D.: "Well, not quite that low, but it's around 50… 51 percent."
"Fifty-one, yeah." Harris, D.: "So we've gone from a 9… almost a 100 percent funded level in 2000 to a… to a level of 50 percent now and in that time, as you mentioned, we've had… how many pension holidays have been allowed?"
"I believe that there were… there were ten years… successive years where no payment was made and there were three years, additionally, where a partial payment was made." Harris, D.: "Right. And the… the problem was… I think the 1995 legislation allowed that the pension payment didn't have to be made unless the… the funded lev… the funded level dropped below 90 percent."
"That's correct." Harris, D.: "Which occurred very quickly around 2004. Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, and to the Bill, Mr. Speaker. Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, if I may, and if you listened to the… the questions that I asked and… and the answers that I got, we’ve had now a… an appointed school board that has taken the Chicago Public School System from a debt level of $3 billion in debt to… to almost $7 billion in debt. They've managed or they've overseen the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund and the payments that goes into the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund in such a way that the funded liability level has gone from nearly 100 percent to now down around 50 percent. And oh, by the way, just a month ago the Chicago Teachers… excuse me… the Chicago Public Schools borrowed $725 million at a crushing interest rate of 8 and one half percent. 09900108.docx 10 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 You know who pays the vig on that? The citizens of the City of Chicago, those taxpayers in the City of Chicago. Eight and a half percent on $725 million of borrowing that they're going to have to pay for for the next 20 plus years. My friends, if an appointed school board can do all that, I suggest that we elect second graders from the Chicago Pool… Public School System because they could not do any worse. Seriously, they couldn't do any worse. I elect my public school board members. They ought to elect theirs. I hope this Bill gets an overwhelming number of 'yes' votes. Thank you."
"Mr. Sandack."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Rob, we had a nice conference in committee and you were good enough to talk to some of my colleagues. What steps did you take to amend your Bill?"
"Well, as I mentioned during the initial presentation, I… we did three Amendments. One was the initial Bill called for… would've allowed the board to receive reasonable compensation that was undefined. We were going to let the board decide that. At the request of the Committee, we have removed compensation. Secondly, I believe Representative Pritchard talked about… a revolving door protection. So we've put in a 12-month revolving door protection which means anyone who leaves the board will not be able to go to work for any contractor that does business with the Chicago Public Schools for a period of 12 months. And finally, we put in a prohibition, and again, I'm not sure who requested this, but we put in a prohibition against any person serving on the 09900108.docx 11 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 board that currently works for or has a contract to do business with the City of Chicago."
"And these ideas were… were vetted at the committee level. I think some of my colleagues said, hey, there is no school district in Illinois that gets reasonable compensation defined by the board themselves. Isn't that right?"
"That's correct."
"And so your Amendment gave parity to the Bill you're presenting with every other existing school board."
"That is correct."
"All right. I think that's a pretty good compromise and I want to commend you on that."
"Thank you."
"The second one was the revolving-door policy which is a pretty good ethics, best practices thing that we have here and many good school boards have as a matter of their own professional…"
"…policy, yes. Absolutely."
"…policy, right. I think that was a pretty good compromise."
"Thank you."
"And the third one was?"
"The conflict of interest."
"Right. Which is a pretty darn good idea, right?"
"I think it was a great idea."
"So, with respect to the conflict of interest, there is no prohibition, however, on CTU members running for and being elected to, and serving on the Chicago Public Schools under your Bill. Isn't that right?" 09900108.docx 12 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Well, there… there is in a sense. I mean, the Chicago Teachers' Union… if… if you're working for the union, you would have to take a leave of absence from teaching in the schools so you're not an employee of the schools. There is no… there is no provision that bars members of the union, but they would not be able to serve on the board and teach in the schools concurrently."
"Well, I agree, but they could serve as a leadership position on CTU, correct? And then serve on the school board?"
"I… I suppose. I'm trying to think about that now."
"Well, it's kind of important so, inquire of your council if you need."
"So, all right. So my understanding, Ron, is that… and… and maybe I misspoke a little earlier when I was going over this, that members of the Chicago Teachers' Union leadership are on leave from the Chicago Public Schools. So they're technically still an active duty employee."
"Okay."
"So they would be barred from serving."
"So CT… a member of CTU, let's just throw out a name, Karen Lewis…"
"Right."
"…couldn't run for an elected position and serve on the school board?"
"That's… that is correct. She would… she would have to leave her association with the Chicago Public Schools."
"How about a business agent or the equivalent of an union steward representative that is in the school, could they take 09900108.docx 13 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 leave of their school responsibilities and then serve on CTU? I'm sorry, serve on the school board?"
"They would not be able to be an employee of the schools. I mean, that… that is in there. No… no employee of the schools, no employee of any bus… of any business that has a contract with the schools."
"I… I'm clear on that. I'm asking if CTU employees or CTU agents not… I'm… I'm assuming they're on leave from the schools."
"Right."
"Could they serve on the school board?"
"I… I don’t believe so. I mean, if… if they're… if they are… because if they're on leave, they're technically still an employee."
"Would you… I mean, we're going to debate this and then take a little longer. I'd like a definitive answer if you could because the hesitancy and the… I don't believe…"
"And I understand, but this is a… this conflict of interest provision that we put in, as you mentioned earlier about compensation and having parity with other school districts, there is no conflict of interest provision in the school code that matches this. So we've kind of gone above and beyond what's already in the law. So we're… we're on parity on some things and we have greater levels of protection in this area."
"Oh… okay. But the answer to the specific question is all I'm really interested in right now. Your policy may exceed other school districts and for that I would, again, commend you on that, but I just want to make sure that a member of 09900108.docx 14 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 the, you know, union leadership couldn't also serve on a school board because I think that is a direct conflict."
"Do you want to move along."
"Yes, absolutely."
"…and I'll see if I can get some clarification?"
"Absolutely. So, by the way, again, I don't want to be dismissive at all. I think you have acted in a completely appropriate and professional manner and I commend you for working with this side of the aisle and trying to find a good Bill that we can vote for. So… and I think that stands in stark contrast to what may be coming later. So thank you for that. Last question, have you talked… who's the Senate Sponsor of this Bill?"
"I… I don't know just yet I… there… there would… that I think… I believe that they… because this is on a Speaker's shell, I believe the current Senate Sponsor is President Cullerton but that may change."
"Well, the reason… I actually knew the answer to that question, so thank you. It is President Cullerton, who happens to have a relationship with the Mayor that some would say is cordial, professional, and friendly. So the question is, and obviously if he has that Bill, he can hold it for as long as he wants. And of course, he has other leadership functions that could stall the Bill. Have you talked to him, specifically, about this Bill moving should it get the… the majority vote necessary to move to the Senate?"
"Well, President Cullerton and I have had conversations. I… I would tell you that I have a respectful and cordial relationship with the Mayor of the City if Chicago as well. 09900108.docx 15 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 And… and you know, President Cullerton like Speaker Madigan is… is very responsive to the wishes of his… of his Members and I… I think that there's going to be broad support for it in the Senate. I've begun to work a roll call in the Senate. I feel very good about the likelihood of the Bill proceeding."
"Have you asked specifically if he'll move your Bill, Representative?"
"We have not had that specific conversation yet."
"Because call me a little skeptical and cynical, obviously this is a hot issue in Chicago, and it’s a pretty important issue. And it'd be all well and good that it passes out of here, but if it just sits and stalls in the Senate, and they're in next week, by the way, as you know probably. It's just more a little bit of the politics that some of us are very tired. So what… what I'd like to know…"
"Well, and I… Yeah."
"…and what I'd like to know, excuse me, is will you affirmatively tell us that you will go and speak to the President of the Senate and ask him to move this Bill if it gets the House… if it goes through the House?"
"What I would say, Ron, is that the short answer is yes, the long answer is… that there… when I started on this road about a year ago, there were very few thought… that ever thought this would see the light of day today. And we… I… I've worked in conjunction with my cosponsors and staff; we've worked very hard. And with the Members on your side of the aisle, I've had many discussions since the day I filed this, trying to find a path for passage. We're here today. I feel good about our chances today and you have my commitment that 09900108.docx 16 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 I will be working the Senate very hard to see this Bill pass as well."
"Thank you for your answers, Representative. To the Bill, Mr. Speaker. I wish to, I think a third time, commend the Sponsor for his bipartisan efforts and his genuine efforts to try and achieve a Bill that folks on my side of the aisle can support. That was done by a vetting at the committee level. I know that's novel sometimes. There was an actual submission of a Bill to a substantive committee where there was dialogue. That's how you get compromise. You talk. Second thing then, when the Bill was introduced he heard criticisms and instead of saying I'm going to power this through he walked over to our side of the aisle, Representative Martwick did, and engaged in conversation. How novel, right? If we're going to have a compromise you have to talk to each other and that's exactly what the Sponsor did. He came over here and asked for input, worked on language, and achieved, I guess we'll see in a few moments, a potential compromise. So when the word compromise is used it requires what? Talking, listening, conversation, and moving both parties a little bit. I commend your efforts, Sir. I appreciate what you've done. Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, let's see if the next few Bills have the same components to them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker."
"Mr. Sullivan."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the record reflect that Representative Ives is excused for the rest of the afternoon? Thank you."
"Thank you, Sir. Mr. Andersson." 09900108.docx 17 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Rob, first off I think, actually, Representative Sandack said it very well, so I'm not going to belabor the point, but thank you for the way that you've handled this Bill, how you've processed it, we had a great discussion in committee. There were a number of suggestions by the Republicans and you listened. I watched you. I watched you write down your notes and you came back with an Amendment. Now, by my count, there were about six things that the Republicans had asked for and you've actually done three of them. Number one, the board is no longer paid. Number two, the conflicts of interest. And number three, the revolving door prohibition, so thank you for that. But I'd to talk or ask you a little bit about the… the three that were not included. So the… the first of those is, I think you were familiar, we talked about it in committee, that Representative or Leader Durkin rather had filed a similar Bill and it had an oversight committee for the interim board. In other words, we're going from an appointed board to an elected board of the largest school system in the state, there ought to be some oversight. That was requested, that didn't find its way into the Amendment. And I'm wondering about your thoughts about why that did not."
"You know, I… I don’t… I hope this doesn't sound coy, but I… I really… and I… I really believe in Democracy. I really do. I mean, it is a motivating factor for the decisions that I make down here in Springfield. And sometimes I will argue against Bills that would otherwise be very popular 09900108.docx 18 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 because I feel that there are limitations on our Democracy. The Chicago Public School Board, the way it's been handled for the last 20 years has been an absolute elimination of the democratic process. I trust that the Chicago… that this school board, when elected, will do as well as every other board, and it will have the same oversight that every other elected board has and that oversight will come from the voters. And, in Democracy, if they don't like the job that there do… they're doing they will have the right to make those changes."
"Thank you."
"So I… I… that's why that did not make it in there for me."
"Okay. The… the second item was the way the map is created. You mirrored the existing statutes for redistricting at the state level, I think."
"That is correct."
"Okay. And we had talked about the idea that, you know, there's a lot of public demand for… for mapping reform, for redistricting reform, and we had suggested maybe this would be a place where we could start that… that dialogue."
"Well, so… and the reason that I gave you a committee, and I stand by it today, is that I would be willing to subject the elected school board for the Chicago Public Schools to whatever the currently law is for mapping. So if that is to change then this Bill like every other Bill that… or every other by… body that requires some sort of maps being drawn will be subject to the changes in law. I… I didn't feel that it was appropriate to take on that issue since that is still an issue of… of great contention. What I did do to address 09900108.docx 19 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 the concerns of… of the political process was I brought it here to the Statehouse level instead of letting it… be handled at the city level. That would give us a higher level of government and it would involve a lot of people in the mapping process that are not actually involved in the Chicago Public Schools. The reason that we did the districts in Chicago, which, of course, is different than in other school districts, was to ensure what partisan mapping was intended to do in the first place which is ensure minority representation. And that was a big goal of mine was making sure that the elected school board was reflective of the racial and demographic breakdown of the City of Chicago."
"Okay, thank you. Third question or third item that wasn't included in the Amendment was political contributions, restrictions on political contributions. Right now, as I understand your Bill, there is a prohibition against vendors making political contributions, but there's not a similar prohibition against the… the CTU, the Chicago Teachers' Union, from doing the same. I… I feel very strongly about that one, about leveling the playing field, and so, I took the liberty of filing an Amendment to help you, Rob, to help you make the Bill better. So, I filed Floor Amendment #3, that would level that playing field and I'd like to ask you to consider adopting that."
"Well, Representative Andersson, I… I appreciate your thoughts and I assure you that I share your… your goals in terms of addressing campaign finance reform. I… I… many people don't know this, I actually ran for the Senate back in 1996, and I spent a whole campaign talking about campaign finance 09900108.docx 20 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 reform, which was probably misguided at the time because no none was really interested in it. It's an issue that I believe strongly in, but just like the mapping issue, I would rather that this Bill… we're trying to do something that is really a profound change for the schools. I don't want to… so… so, you have my commitment that I will work with you on campaign finance reform, changing laws, encouraging our federal bodies to do that as well, but at… at this time, I'm going to respectfully decline to do that on this Bill."
"I… I appreciate your candor on that and I appreciate your commitment to work on that because I think it is an important issue that we need to address. Mr. Speaker, to the Bill. This is a great example, in my opinion, of the process that we're supposed to engage in. Actually, it's exactly 50 percent. The Republicans asked for six Amendments. We got three and I thank you for those and I would say they're the most important three. What I see here is how this House is supposed to function. We had dialogue, it resulted in change, it resulted in compromise, and quite frankly, this Bill is not perfect. It is not. It can be made better, but perfect, as we all know, is the enemy of the good and this Bill is good. So you have my support and my vote. Thank you."
"Mr. Pritchard."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the Sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Representative Martwick, would you help look at Section 34(4) and explain to me some of the qualifications or eligibility of board members. There is some language in there 09900108.docx 21 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 that seems a little bit confusing and I'm wondering what the intent is."
"Well, it says they shall be… I'll read this through with you. To be eligible for election to the board a person shall be a citizen of the United States, shall be a registered voter as provided in the election code, a resident of the City of Chicago and the electoral district for at least one year immediately preceding his or her election much the same as our districts. And then goes on to say, well… shall not be a child sex offender as defined in the criminal code. A person is ineligible for election or appointment to the board if that person is an employee of the school district. All persons eligible election to the board shall be nominated by… well, it goes into petition nominations. So, is there…"
"So… so, fast forward to page 15 on my analysis. I hope it's on your analysis, where it talks about board Members shall not hold other public office under the federal, state, or local government other than that of the Director of Regional Transportation Authority, Member of Economic Development Commission, Member of the National Guard, and by accepting any such office while members of the board or by not resigning from any such office held by the board, of being elected to the board within 30 days and so forth. So, does this then preclude them from holding other federal, state, local office?"
"Yes."
"Employment?"
"Yes."
"And why are we eliminating National Guard Members?" 09900108.docx 22 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"So this is… that's a good question but this… this is not something that is new. Again, this is… if… if you'll look on the actual Amendment this is existing law and so we merely changed the provisions to make it applicable to our elected school board, but it's the same prohibition, I believe, that every school board member that runs in your district would be under as well. If that's… I… I… and I'll be honest with you, since that's in the law, I don't know why it is, so I can't tell you if there's a good reason or not, but if there's not I would be happy to work with you to change that."
"So I just wanted to be sure, though, because in the City of Chicago we find that people have a lot of dual responsibilities. And I just wanted to say that this is going to be such a consuming job I don't think someone can hold another city office…"
"Agreed."
"…and still hold the… the accountability and responsibility that we're looking for. You talked about districts being established by the Legislature. How is that process going to occur?"
"It would occur…"
"Is it going to be through a Bill?"
"It… It'll be the same. It'll be done concurrently with the same remap that we do here in the… in the… so it'll be the same process, and again, I've… I've only been here three years. I… I've not gone through a mapping process. I don't know what that is specifically, but whatever that process is we'll apply to the elected school board." 09900108.docx 23 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"But we have committees and assigned personnel to help draw the districts every ten years. I'm assuming those people are not doing that responsibility now, so is it going to be a bipartisan process? Will we have an opportunity to weigh in on these districts?"
"The… the same opportunity that you have to weigh in on the drawing of any other districts the Legislature creates."
"That's not too much."
"Well… again, I'm… I'm only… like I said, I… this Bill is… is just going to follow the current existing law and if… and if between now and the time that the census occurs if there's a change in that law it will apply to this Bill as well."
"So, obviously, they'll be somebody drawing these districts because that redistricting process doesn't happen for another three or four years."
"Correct."
"So, can I have your assurance that we'll discuss this at least?"
"I… I would… Representative Pritchard, I appreciate all of the… the work that you have done with me on this Bill from the very beginning. When I filed this Bill you were the first person I talked to and you have offered much constructive advice, and just as I made the Amendments, I assure you that whatever changes are best for both this elected school board and every elected board I… I will be happy to work with you on."
"So this board is the… would… would be governing the largest school district in our state." 09900108.docx 24 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Yes."
"And I know from having served on a board and many of us in this chamber have served on other school boards. It can be very consuming when we only have 5, 10, 15, 20,000 students. How is this board going to be able to manage 200- 300,000 students?"
"Well, I… I think that just like every other school board their job will be the elected oversight, setting the policy, proving the… the financials. But just as the current board does for the City of Chicago, the appointed board, there will be administrative staff that they will be charged with hiring so that they can run the day-to-day operation of the board. I… I imagine that there is work to be done once we have passed this to make sure that we set out some sort of initial structure to… to provide for that smooth transition. And, I… I… again, I would look forward to your input on that as well."
"And… and you wouldn't see the president of the board being a full-time position as a member of the school district then?"
"I… I'm sorry. Say that again."
"You… you wouldn't see the president of the board having full-time responsibilities?
"No. Currently, in… in Chicago the president of the board does not have full-time responsibilities. Those are handled by…"
"CEO." 09900108.docx 25 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"…the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. So, whatever that title would be, CEO, superintendent there would be someone day to day running. The President would be part time."
"And you would see this school board having all the responsibilities of any other school board dealing with reorganization, building closings, new construction, management of capital, perhaps dealing with requests for charter schools?"
"Yes."
"So they would have that full authority then?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Well, thank you, Representative Martwick, for working with us. You indicated that you didn't think this would ever see the light of day, so I would compliment you for perhaps performing a miracle before us and I would ask that perhaps you perform another miracle and help us get a budget and you do it in the same way, where both of us, both sides of the aisle, have input and we build the best Bill that we can."
"Thank you."
"Thank you."
"Representative Williams."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. I am 100 percent committed to my neighborhood schools. Every day I am inspired by the commitment of the administrators, the dedication of the teachers, the amazingly engaged parent communities, and of course, our wonderful public school kids. I only want the best for our schools, but CPS is in crisis. We've been facing devastating cuts, continually operating in crisis mode, and 09900108.docx 26 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 instability all around. I want the best for our schools. I believe this Bill would help us move forward and be an important part of getting us out of this crisis. If you go back a little bit in history, and someone eluded to this earlier, under the appointed school board in Chicago, CPS failed to make pension payments for a solid ten years and partial payments for another three. In 2013, the appointed school board closed 50 neighborhood schools, and in the following three years, we're back to almost the same number that we had before the closures. Under the appointed school board, $20 million contract… no-bid contract was approved and we all know what happened there on the SUPES contract and there were many other questionable and irresponsible contracts approved under the appointed school board. Under the appointed school board just recently, CPS ended up passing a budget that was $480 million short and there was no plan to move our schools forward. This is not working for CPS kids. There's no accountability, there's no semblance of Democracy or democratic process, there's no opportunity for input, and there's no checks and balances. If you've ever been to a Chicago Public School Board meeting and I have, you'll notice that there's not a lot of interaction between the people that appear, the public member that choose to come and speak to their board, and the actual board members themselves. Hours go by where people present testimony and the board doesn't ask one question. They don't appear to be engaged and I have to say in my community, the parents and families don't feel that the board is truly invested in their neighborhood schools. And that's a big problem. Over the past two years, 09900108.docx 27 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 I have hosted meetings, I've hosted forums, I've gone to countless walk-a-thons, I spent weekend nights, weekday nights, morning coffees going to CPS and LSC meetings. I've talked to hundreds of parents, I've heard from hundreds of parents, emails, on the street, at the coffee shop, at the grocery store, and all say one thing and it's a very consistent message: we are losing faith in the ability of the Chicago Public Schools to fund the kind of education that we want for our children. Now, I get that the elected school board is certainly not a panacea. We all know, and that playing out here right now, that elections and the democratic process don't fix everything, and certainly, are far from perfect. But the appointed school board is not working for these amazing administrators and principals, these teachers that are working so hard, these parents that are committed to their neighborhood schools, and the kids most of all. It's not working for Chicago. We need to do better for our kids. We need to really hear the voices of the people that are truly invested in our neighborhood schools, and we need to restore the faith in the Chicago Public School System. As one of my parents said so eloquently, he doesn't want to be part of a thriving school if the whole district is crumbling and I couldn't agree more. Let's take an important step forward to move Chicago Public Schools in the right direction. Please join me in voting 'yes' for this Bill."
"Mr. Guzzardi."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. First of all, a clarification for the Gentleman from Downers Grove. I have… I looked into the question that you had asked earlier about 09900108.docx 28 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 CTU leadership being able to run for these elections and they can't. They're considered on leave as CPS employees. They're still under… they cannot run. Yeah, they cannot run. Just to clarify that for you. Many of you all may not know this, but I… I ran for office in 2012 and lost. And right after my election, I had a meeting of all the volunteers who worked on my campaign, and I said, we got to continue to be engaged in the community. What issue are you most passionate about? And unanimously, without blinking an eye, they said it was this issue: the elected representative school board. That summer we circulated petitions to get a ballot referendum on the ballot for November. We went door to door, precinct by precinct. We joined with a coalition of organizations all around the city. We had the ballot referendum on over 300 precincts in the city. Eighty-seven percent of voters in Chicago said they supported an elected representative school board, 87 percent. I'm hard pressed to think of any other issue that would have that broad support and the reason why… that's exactly what Representative Williams just said. Not only has the school board made a number of controversial, and in my view, very harmful decisions in recent years: skipping pension payments, closing schools, giving no-bid contracts to folks who didn't deserve them. But the manner in which those decisions have been made has just been unacceptable. The refusal to listen to the community, to engage with community voices. In any other district, the… if school board members had acted the way they've acted to Chicago citizens, in any other district those folks would've been voted out right away. So I am so proud of the work that Representative Martwick has 09900108.docx 29 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 done and of the work that the community organizers across the City of Chicago have done to raise awareness about this issue, to elevate the importance of this issue, and I deeply appreciate the bipartisan support as has been said over and over today. I think this is an exemplar of the best of our process down here. I'm proud to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on an issue that I care very deeply about and excited to see it come to light today. Thank you very much."
"Representative Flowers."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Sponsor for bringing forward this legislation that's long overdue. The people of the City of Chicago has spoken loudly in regarding their desire to have an elected school board. Over 90 percent of the voters approved this type of legislation. The Chicago voters cast more votes for this particular effort than they did for the Mayor of the City of Chicago. This unelected, unacceptable, unappointed board is… has been an complete failure for our children, for the taxpayers, and for the families of the City of Chicago. By creating an elected school board, we will be restoring to the people control of the Chicago Public Schools and it would be done on behalf of the children of the families and for the taxpayers. And once again, thank you very much for your support of this Bill."
"Mr. Andrade."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. This Bill here… first, I want to thank the Sponsor for bringing this forward and moving it forward. This Bill has actually brought faith 09900108.docx 30 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 back to this Illinois General Assembly House. It has brought back faith to me that we can work together. It… it… this Bill brings light to this House. It shows that we can work together as a team. And going back, in my community that we have actually accomplished something in the Illinois General Assembly House is refreshing. And also this, to the Bill, is one of the things that I… I most encouraged is that we have actually brought equality back to the residents of the City of Chicago. The residents of the City of Chicago just wanted to be treated equally as the rest of the State of Illinois, who has the same ability to choose their elected school boards. The same way that I may be voted or voted out in office, the residents should have the ability to choose their representatives and elected school board. One of the things that has been missing direction in our board currently now is the concentration on neighborhood schools. They keep building new schools and keep forgetting about their individual, neighborhood high schools. And I hope that this, once it passes and we elect in the school board that represents our neighborhood, we will be able to concentrate back what which is most important in every state and in every city is neighborhood schools. So, I just want to thank the Sponsor again and I… and I'm not… I would not be remiss if we don't think the organizations that for the last ten years have been pushing this, because without them we would've not had the ability to bring this Bill to the floor today and work alongside without… with our Republican colleagues and our Democratic colleagues. I thank you very much and I thank the Sponsor and I thank the organizations. Thank you." 09900108.docx 31 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Representative Soto."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. I stand here today and I want to mention that I am the Chairwoman of the School Closing Task Force so. In 2010, there was a Bill that was passed and they created a task force. So for the last six years we have been going out through Chicago having hearings on education, and one of the top issues have… has been that the community's input had… has mentioned that they've been waiting for an elected school board. So I want to take this opportunity and encourage everyone today to support this Bill. It's a very important Bill because it allows communities to have input. I want to congratulate Representative Martwick for this wonderful Bill. Thank you. It's really long overdue. So, we really appreciate what you're doing and we're supportive of this Bill. Thank you."
"Mr. DeLuca."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Representative Martwick, when does this take effect?"
"So, the Bill would have an immediate effective date; however, the appointed board would continue in its capacity until an election would be held. The first election is going to be held in 2018 with the… the general election… excuse me, the primary election. So the… the school board candidates we… we put on the primary ballots, but they would be put on… obviously, both of them, since they would be running in a nonpartisan capacity. The first term would be sort of an odd structured term: five years. And then they would run on the 09900108.docx 32 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 next municipal election which is really where they belong and they would be four-year terms thereafter."
"So it will be March or April of '18?"
"That's correct."
"An… and then they'll be seated how much time after that?"
"So my understanding is that they will take office immediately following the election and they will have 28 days to organize."
"Okay and… so we're thinking May of 2018?"
"That's correct."
"That's safe to assume?"
"Yes."
"And when does the current Mayor of Chicago's term end?"
"2019."
"In the spring of 2019."
"Well, 2020. Yeah, 2019. Excuse me."
"So… okay. So the elected board will take affect and be seated before or I should say during the current term of the Mayor."
"That's correct."
"Was that… is that intentional? Was that done intentionally?"
"Well, there was a desire, as you can imagine this as… as mentioned by some of the other speakers, there have been groups and individuals advocating for this for over a decade. And the idea was initially to place this on the… the November ballot this year, to try and make this transition happen in an expeditious fashion. However, we felt that the likelihood of us getting it on the November ballot and doing it 09900108.docx 33 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 effectively was not likely, so we pushed it to 2018, and that made that staggered term. But there was… it had nothing to do with the… the only time that we considered the city elections was as to… to make sure that this board ran eventually concurrently with those, so that we didn't have an additional election expense."
"Okay. Thank you and… and you had mentioned earlier that there are 20 districts… there will be 20 districts."
"Yes, there'll will be 20 districts."
"One at large."
"Yes."
"And the first term will be five years."
"That's correct. Well, it'd be a little bit… not… not exactly, because the municipal elections occur earlier than the…"
"So there'll be 21 members serving for five years?"
"That's correct."
"Okay and then, thereafter, there will be 21 members serving for four years."
"Four-year terms, yeah."
"At a time? No staggered terms?"
"No. And… and the reason that we did that, Representative, was again, you know, the… the first goal is to provide the elected school board and… and participation in the Democratic process, but we wanted to be mindful of things like expense. So the municipal elections in Chicago, run every four years, they don't run every two years. There are no staggered terms in the City of Chicago and so to provide a staggered term on the elected school board would require 09900108.docx 34 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 creating a new election every two years, and that would be a rather expensive process so…"
"Are… are there any other school boards that you're aware of that have four-year terms, in Illinois?"
"I think…"
"I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that. Not four-year terms, but without staggered terms."
"I… I'm not aware of the… every structure of every school board. I don't know."
"Okay. Well, I would just urge you to… to possibly take a look at that in your continuing work because I know there's an expense involved, but I… I could foresee that being problematic down the road, having 21 members serving four- year terms as opposed to maybe ten every two years and then eleven which would be up two years thereafter, and working it that way. Thank you very much."
"Thank you."
"Representative Tabares."
"To the Bill. I want to thank and commend Representative Martwick for introducing this legislation. This is a major topic of interest in my district. One of the proponents to the Bill is the Breton Park Neighborhood Council, and they were here this week along with many students and teachers advocating for the Bill. I will be voting 'yes' because it's important to elect people from our neighborhood who see the issues of CPS firsthand and hold them accountable. So, again, I want to thank Representative Martwick for working very hard on this Bill. Thank you."
"Mr. Ford." 09900108.docx 35 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Sponsor yield?"
"The Sponsor yields."
"I would like to congratulate you on the Bill. This is a happy day for me and for the people in and on the west side of Chicago. Could you tell me how much the budget is for the Chicago Public Schools? It's about $5.7 billion, right?"
"Yeah. That's correct."
"Who votes on that budget?"
"Well, currently, the… the Chicago Public School Board, the appointed board, has control over that budget."
"And so appointed board by the Mayor. So the Aldermen, they have no authority over that 5.7 billion dollar budget?"
"No, the… the full power of the administration of the Chicago Public Schools falls under the purview of the Mayor."
"So it's really no real checks and balances there because the Mayor appoints the people that controls $5.7 billion just for… that doesn't even include revenue for capital, does it?"
"That's correct."
"So the Mayor has total… total control of $5.7 billion for the City of Chicago?"
"That's correct."
"So that's one good reason why I like the fact that you're sponsoring this Bill and passing it out of the House today because I do believe that over the past years, the west side of Chicago has suffered from this type of governments. And we need more respect of taxpayer dollars and not allow one person to control $5.7 billion of taxpayer money. You've worked with a lot of people including the people on the west side. I appreciate that. I want to thank Valerie Leonard, she's a 09900108.docx 36 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 strong advocate for the school board… elected school board, definitely the Chicago Teachers' Union, and the west side NAACP both worked very hard in the community to make this happen, and they're very happy to work with you, and I'm very happy to be working with you on it also. So if this passes, what's… what's the earliest we could see this take affect?"
"2018 will be… the spring of 2018, will be the first elections."
"And I have to ask a question about if we have a member on the elected school board that we would like to get off is there a recall mechanism in it?"
"I don't believe there is any recall provision at this time."
"Just something that I think we might want to consider when it goes over to the Senate because there could be reasons why we might want to remove members off of the… because it's an eight-year term, right?"
"No, it'll be… so the initial term will be more than four, less than five, almost five years, but then each term successively after that will be four-year terms. Exactly four years."
"The recall is… the NAACP from the west side asked me to see if we could get that added so…"
"Be happy to work with you on that, Representative."
"…I'm on the record as saying the west side NAACP would like to have a recall mechanism in the Bill."
"Thank you, and Representative Ford, I… let me take the opportunity to say thank you for all of your hard work on this Bill. I know you've been a passionate supporter of it." 09900108.docx 37 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"To the Bill. I'm very happy to vote for this and I'm very happy that we have bipartisan support, and I think that the Chicago Public Schools would do well by supporting this. There was a task force that the Chicago Public Schools refused to bring together and convene. So I think they agree that we should just go straight for an elected school board because they didn't think that we needed to have a task force to study it. So because of that I think I'm going to vote 'yes' one time. Can't vote twice. And I urge everyone else to vote for House Bill 557. Thank you."
"Mr. Brown."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Please let the record reflect that Representative Barb Wheeler is excused for this afternoon."
"Thank you, Sir. Mr. Thapedi."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Representative, I want to commend you for a job well done on this, and I can tell you that I'm definitely going to be supporting this legislation because after the referendum of the voting in my district, it was overwhelmingly… overwhelmingly in excess of 90-some odd percent in all the wards that I represent. So I'm… I'm proud to support the Bill and I'm proud to be a cosponsor of the Bill. Having said that, I do want to make sure that I understand the electoral process and how that will work. So hypothetically, if there is a vacancy by someone's death or someone resigns how will those vacancies be filled? Will the various committeemen do that? 09900108.docx 38 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 I know it's going to be nonpartisan, but how exactly will that work?"
"Give me just one second, Representative."
"Take your time. I wasn't trying to stump you. I was just trying to get a little…"
"No, no. I… I remember reading it. I just can't remember specifically… I… I believe I'm being told right now that it would be the board members who would appoint to fill the vacancy."
"So the existing board members themselves would just pick from anyone that lives within the City of Chicago to fill that vacancy…"
"Well, I believe they would have the… the… who live within the district, 'cause remember that board members are going to run from districts. So there's a requirement of anyone who serves on the board to live within the district that they represent, much like we have, and so if they were eligible for election then they could be appointed."
"And… and again, to refresh my recollection, how many districts will there be?"
"There'll be 20."
"There'll be 20 districts."
"Twenty districts and then one citywide, elected school board president."
"Okay. Now, with respect to slating, and I know that this may not be a fair question for us, but if you know, will the various committeemen, even though it' non-partisan, will the various committeemen, the Republican committeemen and the Democratic committeemen, be issuing slates of those 09900108.docx 39 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 individuals that they'd like to see elected to their… to their respective districts of the school board?"
"Well, I… and, again, I… I don't mean to be cheeky, but I would hope so, right?"
"Understood."
"Because an elected school board process the more qualified candidates we have and the more people there are pushing and supporting on the better informed, our voters will be, and hopefully, for the better choices we make in electing our board."
"What… what is the minimum age for a member to serve on the school board?"
"I believe it's whatever it currently is,18 years old, I believe."
"Eighteen years old, you can run?"
"Yes."
"Okay. Thank you."
"Thank you."
"Representative Reaves-Harris."
"Thank you, Sponsor. Would the… I… I'm sorry. Thank you, Speaker. Would the Sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"I just have a… first of all, Representative Martwick, I wanted to thank you as well for bringing this Bill. As Representative Thapedi just mentioned, there was a referendum on the ballot and over 90 percent of the people in my district supported an elected school board. In fact, I held a forum on the issue and people are passionate about this issue in my district, particularly with the number of 09900108.docx 40 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 schools that were closed and the… the parents feeling that they had very little or no say so at all with that process. And so, I got a lot of comments and requests for me to support this initiative and I'm happy to be a Sponsor of your Bill. You've done a wonderful job. I commend you. I commend the Republicans for working with you and coming to a Bill that we all can support, so again, congratulations. I just wanted… just had one question. Is there any type of requirement with regard to the qualifications of the people that can serve in terms of their economic or their educational… I'm sorry, their educational background? Do they have to be… have a background in education?"
"No. This would allow, just as every other school board, it allows anyone to serve. There was much discussion about that issue, but you know, one of the things that I've always been passionate about is that the operation and the performance of your schools wherever you live has more effect on your life than any form of government and everyone funds… pays funds to the operation of their schools whether you own property or you rent property, whether you own a business or you… you lease property to run a business you are… a large portion of what you do is being sent to the Chicago Public Schools or your school districts for your operations. So I really felt like everyone had a vested interest and everyone should have an opportunity to run."
"And I generally would agree with that sentiment with the exception that we are talking about the education of our kids and you would… I would just believe, and I may be wrong, that people coming from an educational background 09900108.docx 41 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 would have better ideas in terms of what's in the best interest of the children in terms of educating our kids. So I… I would just wonder whether or not there… it could be a possible requirement that they have some knowledge, working knowledge, of… of how elected school boards work or if there's going to be any type of training program. Something to introduce them to the concepts because this is a huge responsibility as some of the other Representatives said. You're talking about the largest Chicago sch… school board in the State of Illinois. So is there going to be anything to help them to get acclimated in terms of making some of these important decisions that have to be made?"
"Well, you know, it's interesting because, you know, we… we have a citizen democracy and we have that citizen democracy here. I often tell people when they ask me who… who was a Member of the House of Representatives. I say, well, there are lawyers. There are police officers. There are plumbers. There are farmers. There… we… we have a Legislature that allows everyone to participate and the oversight for that participation and the job that you do is left to the voters. I… I really feel like and… and I've had experience… I didn't always live in the City of Chicago. I lived in a suburban district where there was an elected school board. And there were parents that their experience with education was the education that they received and the education their children were receiving. They were concerned about it, and I think they have a right to have a say in that process. There were senior citizens who were concerned, because of course, the performance of the school affected their property values 09900108.docx 42 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 and that was their biggest investment. There were educational professionals, we had a PhD who sat on the… our local school board. So I think, you know, and again, I… I think that the… the best part of citizen democracy is when you have that diverse board so that all of those varying interests can be represented at the table. So I really do feel good about it. I appreciate your concerns, but remember, they will not be running the day to day operation. That will… they will be hiring professionals to do that which I think will ameliorate most of your concerns."
"Absolutely. And now that you mention that, I think that's a good point, but just in general, I want to commend you on this Bill. It was… it was… a lot of people in my district did not believe that they would ever see this come to fruition and I'm happy for them. I'm happy for the parents in my community, and I just commend you on it and thank… want to thank the Republicans for working with you on this Bill. I think you came up with a really good piece of legislation."
"Thank you."
"Mr. Martwick to close."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen of the House for your… your questions, for your advocacy, for your attention, for your suggestions. I… I would like to start out by thanking my co-sponsors who worked very, very hard on this Bill: Representative Ford, Representative Flowers, Representative Andrade, and especially, Representative Sims, who worked so hard on this legislation in the past. Without the support of these people it never would've happened. I would like to thank my colleagues across the side aisle for 09900108.docx 43 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 working with me in a respectful and a bipartisan fashion to craft a Bill that is a good Bill, and I think will give to the residents, the taxpayers, the parents, the teachers, the students of Chicago a say in the future of their educational system and that is really the best reform I can think of. When democracy fails the answer is not less democracy, it's more democracy. It's a better democracy and that's what we've done here today. Not only the Bill that we are presenting, but the fashion in which we created this Bill; working together, respecting each other and… and bringing a Bill. I would like to especially thank staff. I would like to thank Speaker Madigan, who many people thought would just have some role in killing this Bill, and… and as he's done every time I have brought an issue to him, he has listened to the concerns of my community and of the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois. And he was a very active part in helping this Bill come to fruition. I would like to thank the neighborhood organizations who worked on this for ten years, you heard many of them mentioned: Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Brighton Park Neighborhood Association, Raise Your Hand, Action Now. There are so many groups I'm leaving them out that advocated year, after year, after year, believing that this would never happen, but believing that they could not give up the fight for access to the vallot… ballot box, to access to democracy, to have a voice in the say of their schools. Thank you everyone for your attention and for your questions. I renew my commitment to continue to work on this Bill. If we find problems, we will work together to make it better. Thank you to the teachers of the City of 09900108.docx 44 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Chicago for the hard work and the care that I see that you give to your students every single day. Please vote 'yes'."
"Those in favor of the Gentleman's Bill will vote 'yes'; opposed 'no'. The voting is open. Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Please record yourselves, Members. Have all voted who wish? Mr. Clerk. Mr. Clerk, please take the record. On this question, there are 110 voting 'yes', 4 voting 'no'. And this Bill, having received a Constitutional Majority, is hereby declared passed. House Bill 5913, page 13 of the Calendar. Mr. Clerk, please read the Bill. Mr. D'Amico."
"House Bill 5913, a Bill for an Act concerning regulation. This Bill was read a second time on a previous day. No Committee Amendments. No Floor Amendments. No Motions are filed."
"Third Reading. Please read the Bill."
"House Bill 5913, a Bill for an Act concerning regulation. Third Reading of this House Bill."
"Mr. D'Amico."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen of the House. What this Bill does is it's an initiative of Plumbers Local 130. And we… what we do as plumbers, we have to attend courses on our continued education. We just want to make sure that it's being taught by a licensed plumber. I'll be free to answer any questions."
"Mr. Sandack."
"A few questions of the Sponsor, please."
"Sponsor yields." 09900108.docx 45 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"John, we had a two-second conversation and I got to tell you I… I'm a little flatfoot. Was this in Committee yesterday?"
"Yes, it was."
"All right. And we just moved it from second to third right now."
"No, it was moved… it was on second last night."
"Oh, all right. I didn't… I didn't see it moved. All right. Well, let's go through the Bill a little bit so that I understand it. What exactly is the current state of law that exists now, and what does your Bill do to either change it, make it better, whatever?"
"Right… right now, these courses are taught by a licensed plumber or supervised by a licensed plumber. And what happened was the Department of Health tried to go around that and they wanted to make a rule change and let engineers teach this course. And you know, there's not another profession out there that does continued education that is taught by another profession."
"So essentially, you don't like the rule change, so that's what brought this Bill?"
"Well, that's right because what are we going to do? I mean, am I as a plumber, like I know you're an attorney, you have to do continued education. You're not going to have plumbers come in there and teaching attorneys about their continued education or a real estate license or a dental license. I mean, this is our profession. We want to make sure that a licensed plumber is teaching it and getting the right information to these plumbers. You know, when you walk in 09900108.docx 46 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 many people here have been to the plumbers hall down on Washington in Chicago, and when you walk in right there in big, bold letters it's got, the plumber protects the health of the nation. If you're plumbing and your house is vented wrong, if your hot water tank is hooked up wrong, these are death hazards. I mean, the… the hot water tank is a time bomb waiting to go off. We have to make sure that this stuff… we teach our plumbers the correct way and make sure that this is hooked up properly."
"All right. And… and I certainly appreciate that. Of course, there's bad instances of plumbing irrespective of the training people get. Just like there's bad lawyers that make bad decisions and bad doctors, so apart from the fact that continuing education for plumbers or carpenters or lawyers or ditch diggers is a good thing. Let's talk specifically about why the rule change you think is a bad thing. Is it that engineers aren't capable of teaching plumbing standards?"
"Well, correct. I mean, you know what, an engineer can draw up a diagram, but they don't know how to put everything together."
"And by the way, have you had any instances of bad engineering… bad instances of engineering dispensing in… incorrect information to plumbers?"
"Well, they're not… they’re not allowed to teach it right now."
"Well, they are. There's a rule change, right."
"Well, they… under the supervision of a licensed plumber they can… they can give the course." 09900108.docx 47 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"All right. So essentially, this is the Full Employment Plumber Act, right? Because as the rule exists if an engineer's going to do this, it needs to have the supervision or be under the auspices of a plumber, right?"
"Correct. A licensed plumber has to be present to give the course right now."
"Okay. So, if that's the case with this rule change, what's the… what's the harm, John? I'm missing it."
"Because the engineers would be able to conduct these courses by themselves."
"But don't they have to work with a plumber to do that?"
"Not with this rule change."
"All right. So the rule change right now is physical engineers and architects, correct?"
"Correct."
"All right. And how long has this rule change been in effect, John, do you know?"
"No, they're trying… trying to do that right now."
"All right. And so you don't want the rule change to go through so you're pushing legislation to stop it even though it hasn't happened yet?"
"That's right. So we're just… we're bringing it here before the body because we want to make it a law for licensed plumbers to teach the course just like any other profession. There's not a single profession out there that is taught by a different profession, and we want to continue that and make sure that the licensed plumbers are teaching our plumbers properly about their profession." 09900108.docx 48 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"John, what is… is it… is it your interpretation that the law, as it stands right now, only permits licensed plumbers to teach or do in continuing education to plumbers."
"Correct."
"So an architect or an engineer can't do that right now?"
"Only if they're being supervised by a licensed plumber. You know, when… when someone comes to join the plumbers' union, it's a five-year apprenticeship program. And when you're in that five-year apprenticeship program you are… you go to class one day a week… four days a week… the other four days you're working alongside a licensed plumber for five years before you're able to get your Journeyman's card. It only makes sense that while we're doing continued education that it's being taught buy a licensed plumber."
"To… to the Bill, Mr. Speaker. And I will note that this apparently was read into the record last night at six o' clock in the evening after the matter was heard before the committee that afternoon. Hardly good process and it stands in stark contrast to the Bill Representative Martwick just introduced, which actually had some collaboration and decent process. Maybe this is the transition into later Bills that we'll see where no committee is ever heard let alone any interaction or conversation. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Full Employment Plumber Protection Act. And if that's how we're going to practice, you know, I guess, prophylactic legislation, let's make sure each segment gets to own their own and never have opportunities for expansive participation, I guess this is a good Bill. I sure wish we could have actually vetted it the right way and not had a one-day hearing and 09900108.docx 49 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 then reading into the record again when we're not around. I think it's sneaky and unfortunate, totally unnecessary. Vote 'no'."
"Mr. D'Amico to close."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And you know, I'd like to address the comments that the former Rep… Representative just made. You know, we want to make sure that everybody is being taught in a professional way. I don't want… I don't want to go and teach a carpenter how to build a house. I want to make sure that plumbers are taught by plumbers. I'm not asking to go and teach lawyers about their continued education. Everybody stick with their own profession. So I… I appreciate an 'aye' vote on this Bill and support this Bill. Thank you."
"The Gentleman moves for the passage of the Bill. Those in favor of the Bill will vote 'yes'; opposed 'no'. The voting is open. Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Please record yourselves, Members. Have all voted who wish? Mr. Clerk, please take the record. On this question, there are 79 voting 'yes', 33 voting 'no'. And this Bill, having received a Constitutional Majority, is hereby declared passed. House Bill 4579. It's on the Order of Third Reading. Mr. Evans. Mr. Clerk, please read the Bill."
"House Bill 4579, a Bill for an Act concerning education. Third reading of this House Bill."
"Mr. Evans."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This Bill amends the school code and I know you're looking at the… the title, and it looks really scary, but it's not. Established… I passed this Bill last session. It was 3695. It flew out of the House. I'd like 09900108.docx 50 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 to request your support again. It restores a small, dedicated revenue source, and it sets a foundation for a sound pension fund for our Chicago teachers. CPS deferred contributions from 2010 to 2013 and the pension holiday, and cost of funds over $1 billion. In total, CTPF which funds our retired teachers has forgone more than 3.2 billion in funding. This Bill is sorely needed. It will take a small portion, .26 percent of the 3.07 percent tax levy that CPS currently has to ensure that at the least a minimum payment is paid to our retired teachers and that zero dollars is no longer accepted. So I request your support."
"Mr. Sandack."
"Thank you. Will the Sponsor yield?"
"The Gentleman yields."
"Representative Evans, can you walk us through the, I guess, the… and dissect a bit, the shift within the property tax levy and how it now exists and what it would do under your Bill."
"Thank you. In 1995, there were, my understanding, four separate tax levies for operations, for salaries, and what have you. In 1995, the City of Chicago came down and all of the entire tax levy is placed in discretionary funding. This will create a tax levy that would specifically go to CTPF on .26 percent of the 3.07 percent tax levy. So, roughly about $200 million would be required to now… they won't go to CPS for discretionary oversight, it'll go directly to the pension fund."
"So this is a shift in the existing levy to pay the employer contribution for CPS, correct?" 09900108.docx 51 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Yeah, for CPS."
"All right. Is there any other mandate or requirement for the employees to pay a portion of their contribution into the pension system?"
"Not in this legislation."
"Is there anything in this legislation that stops CPS from shifting the employer contribution or picking up more… excuse me, picking up more of the employee contribution."
"No."
"So your concerns about funding the pensions and making sure payments are made is only from the employer perspective?"
"For me, if you have an issue for another piece of legislation, I mean, we can talk about that, but that's not what this Bill does."
"Well, I… I get it. I get it, but… so I… the reason for this, I… I assume, is so that the pensions are better funded in the CPS system, correct?"
"Without question. I mean, we have pension… the pension fund is funded somewhere around 40 percent. I mean, this is a problem so I can't… at this point, we can't trust CPS to make all of the payments. In the past, clearly, payments have not been made. My view is that the retired teachers' pension security is important so I'd like you to support this legislation."
"Well, I… I get that. I'm looking at the proponents. It's CTU, the Retired Teachers Association of Chicago and the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund itself are proponents of your Bill, yes?"
"Yes." 09900108.docx 52 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"And the opponents are the Chicago Board of Education and CPS. Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"Have you heard from the opponents as to why they oppose your Bill?"
"Nothing specific. I think they would like to continue to have the discretion. I think we can see that discretion has created some unique issues, underfunded pensions, all of the issues that we deal with. So they have their view, but I'm, you know, requesting that you support the legislation."
"Is… is what percentage of the underfunding do you attribute to the failure of CPS to pick up or fully fund the employer portion of the pension obligations?"
"I don't have a specific percentage. We know it's a problem so I'm looking for solutions."
"I… I understand that and I… I certainly wouldn't quibble with that. Do you have a general estimation of how much of the underfunding is attributable to the… to the employer portion of the funding, Sir?"
"No, I don't have an accurate number, but I can check and… and get back with you."
"Do you have a general number?"
"No."
"Well, isn't that important to know before advancing this type of legislation?"
"I think if it's… if it's something that you want to continue to work on, I mean, there's two houses so when it goes over to the… you've been over to the Senate side before. We can maybe work on something over there." 09900108.docx 53 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Well, I… I get that, but you're essentially asking for a shift in the contributions within the property tax levy so that at least a minimal sum is attributable to employer contributions and I'm asking what portion of the underfunding is problematic in… in this scenario. Because why do this if this… if this isn't a contributing and really a major contributing portion of the underfunding?"
"Well, I think it is because I think we can see in evidence that for four years no payments were made. So if you're looking to analyze is whether there's investments or any other factors, I think that's something that we can do after passing this legislation. But we do know that for four years payments were not made which greatly contributed, so I would say that the lack of payments really contributed."
"Representative Evans, I'm with you. Make… not making a pension payment, taking a holiday is absolutely inexcusable, and it's insufferable, and it obviously has compounded to the underfunding problem. What I'm asking for is some metrics, some connectivity to your legislation so that it makes sense. Maybe there… we should be doing something else because you don't… it doesn't seem like there's any numbers as to why we're shifting this, what… what kind of help it'll make."
"And I think you using the word 'shift' and I think it's not necessarily a shift, it's requiring that these payments be made. So you know, the terminology of shift… it's… it's a requirement that the payments… the payments are already being made, the payments have been made, there's the years that there were zero payments made. This Bill ensures that we won't 09900108.docx 54 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 have future years of zero payments being made. I think you kind of…"
"Well, here's my analysis. It's says this reduces the General Education Property Tax Levy in the City of Chicago from 3.07 percent to 2.81 percent and shifts the remaining difference on to a new levy. So it is a shift between…"
"Yeah, and I had an answer to your previous question. Probably roughly about 50 percent of the underfunding results from employer non-payments so…"
"And what's that number?"
"…the general answer would be 50 percent."
"Okay. Thank you for that. What's the number?"
"Repeat the question. Which number?"
"What's the… how… how much money will this save and contribute to the pension underfunding problem?"
"Yeah, I gave you the general percentage. I can follow back up with you with a specific number."
"All right. Thank… thank you for your answers, Representative Evans. Ladies and Gentlemen, I… I can't help but think that this isn't quite soup. There is a lot to the underfunded pension crisis in CPS just like there's a lot to the underfunded and continuing pension crisis of the five- state systems. This ought to be pulled from the record and made whole so that there are actual numbers and some actual returns. And so we can see how this will benefit and obviously, not have an unintended consequence. Of course, we don't talk about the other side of the pension funding, and so we… we should do this in a holistic manner and not piecemeal. I would suggest that this is just premature, and 09900108.docx 55 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 again, not soup. At this time, if the Gentleman's going to proceed, I would suggest a 'no' vote is warranted. Thank you."
"Mr. Harris." Harris, D.: "Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And just very briefly, I respectfully disagree with my colleague on this side of the aisle, and I am proud to stand as a co-sponsor of this legislation. If I can to perhaps amplify what the Sponsor said, the 2015 combined annual financial report of the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund noted that 50 percent, one half of the unfunded liability in… in the pension fund, is the result of contribution short… shortfalls. So the… the general education levy for the Chicago Public Schools may be 3.07 percent now, I don't know exactly how much money that yields, but .26 percent of that is now going to be used for payment to the pension fund. So whatever that .26 percent is will be… will be contributed to pensions and that… that should strengthen the unfunded liability. We could add 2.26 percent to the… the overall… not we, but they could add 2.26 percent to the overall levy, but that's not… that… that's not what they're intending to do here. So I think this contributes to the… to the capability to have better funding for the Chicago Teachers' Pension Fund. And I… I stand in strong support of the Bill. Thank you."
"Mr. Evans to close."
"Thank you. I'd like to thank my co-sponsors and everyone who voted for this Bill, the majority of us, 3695. I request your support. Thank you."
"Those in favor of the Bill will vote 'yes'; opposed 'no'. The voting is open. Have all voted who wish? Have all 09900108.docx 56 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Please record yourselves. Mr. Clerk, please take the record. On this question, there are 98 voting 'yes', 14 voting 'no'. And this Bill, having received a Constitutional Majority, is hereby declared passed. The Chair recognizes Mr. Sullivan."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Point of personal privilege?"
"Please proceed, Sir."
"You know, Ladies and Gentlemen, it's going to be a long day and I… I don’t to make it a little longer, but I should bring something to your attention that kind of shows the more of the dysfunction that's going in government. Many of you know that we have an Internet Lottery Sales Pilot Program that has been highly successful, that has put $68 million into the Common School Fund since its inception. This year my statistics show me that through the end of February total internet sales were $14 million, Common School… Fund received $6 million. That's nice money for our Common School Fund. Unfortunately, I've had a Bill, and Representative Lang and Representative Turner are co-sponsors, to extend this program to make it permanent because it's a process that has done well, and it's done well for bringing money into our schools. Unfortunately, this pilot program ends March 25. What do you think's going to happen between now and when the… and it ends? We don’t meet. So a generator of money for our schools is going to go away because of the problems we're having in this building. Now, Senator Cullerton sent over a shell Bill, talking about bipartisanship, a shell Bill, Democrat shell Bill from the Senate came over and was given to a Republican Sponsor. That's how important this Bill was. 09900108.docx 57 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 But at the end of the day, we're going to leave today, we're not going to act on this, and this program's going to go away. How long? I don't know. And so I bring that forth just so we can start having the discussion. Hopefully this month, we can get this all worked out. And when we come back, we can hit the ground running and pass this Bill so we can continue to put money in the Common School Fund. Thank you, very much."
"Representative Conroy."
"Thank you, Speaker. Point of personal privilege?"
"Proceed."
"I'd like everyone to help me welcome my Page for the day today, Kelli McNeice. She is a freshman at Willowbrook High School."
"Thank you for joining us today. House Bill 648 on the order of Second Reading, Leader Currie. Mr. Clerk, please read the Bill."
"House Bill 648, a Bill for an Act concerning finance. This Bill was read… was read a second time on a previous day. No Committee Amendments. Floor Amendment #1, offered by Representative Currie, has been approved for consideration."
"Leader Currie."
"Thank you, Speaker. May I ask that we adopt the Amendment and discuss the Bill on Third Reading?"
"Those in favor of the Amendment say 'yes'; opposed 'no'. The 'ayes' have it. And the Amendment is adopted. Mr. Clerk."
"No further Amendments. No Motions are filed."
"Third Reading. Please read the Bill." 09900108.docx 58 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"House Bill 648, a Bill for an Act concerning finance. Third Reading of this House Bill."
"Leader Currie."
"Thank you, Speaker. I'm going to talk about two Bills, this Bill and House Bill 2990. What I propose today is not a global solution to our budget problems. But it does respond to many urgent needs across the state, needs that are not currently being met. And it does so while incorporating many of the ideas that our Minority Party Members have brought to the table. It also incorporates an important request from the second floor. Specifically, the spending part of this proposal would provide basic funding for the state's public universities as well as our community colleges. It would provide funding for school construction reimbursements, the subject of the Bill introduced over the summer. And it would relieve the Governor of responsibility for repaying the more than $450 million he borrowed from special funds in the state treasury, a repayment that would otherwise be required to be made before the end of the calendar year. We know that many state responsibilities, in fact, are funded today even in the absence of a state budget. They're funded through statutory continuing appropriations, through court orders. Some responsibilities have actually been funded in the usual way. The Legislature appropriated and the Governor signed into law, for example, the spending plan for public grammar in high schools. But some critical services have been left on the cutting room floor. There is neither a requirement nor is there an opportunity to help college students pay the tuition bill. There is neither a requirement nor any opportunity to 09900108.docx 59 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 provide services to rape victims. Not an… a requirement, not an opportunity to provide services for many of our low-income seniors, children with autism, homeless youth. Lutheran Ser… Social Services, you will have read, laid off about 470 employees. Catholic charities cannot be far behind. Many small social service agencies already, without state support, have closed up shop altogether. Without a budget, the state has slammed the door shut in the faces of all of these needs. The proposal I make today does not guarantee funding for anyone, but it would give these important programs a chance at funding. Without passage of this Bill, the Comptroller has no authority to spend one penny on substance abuse and on mental health services. No authority to spend one penny on adult education, the state's colleges, universities. No authority to make sure that needy a college student can stay in school through the remainder of this semester. Speaker and Members of the House, I urge your support for the whole package, specifically, this Bill as amended would absolve the Governor of the responsibility he currently faces to repay more than $450 million to the special funds in the state treasury before December 31, 2016. I invite your questions, and I very much look forward to your support for seeing to it that we give these important programs a shot at fair play."
"Leader Durkin."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to welcome anybody who's here in the audience watching us and just say this is day 2 of Groundhog's Day. And… which we are going to Sponsor legislation that… which we are going to, as we… was said yesterday is feel good legislation, but there's no way to 09900108.docx 60 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 fund it. So I'm going to start off with the questions of Representative Currie, and first some fundamental, just technical questions, if you want… which way I'll term them. Can you tell me what committee heard these… this Amendment that… what we just approved? What Appropriation Committee took up this Amendment?"
"What… when we were doing May budgeting activities, all of these items came up. Remember, we gave authority to Governor…"
"That's not the question. That's not the…"
"…to do this borrowing."
"I'm asking what…"
"Well it came up in committees…"
"…what committee took up that Amendment, which we just… which we just took up?"
"Because it had already been discussed in Appropriations Committees and on the floor when we gave the Governor this authority, we did not need to send it through a committee today."
"I disagree with you. If you said that these are a collection of ideas that come from Republican Sponsored Bills, we have five Bills that deal with higher education that have not seen the light of day. Their just sit… sitting in the Rules Committee. They have not been vetted in… in one of the Appropriation Committees. I just… it just… every day that goes on, it's just really, really sad that we are continuing down a process of… of just more political propaganda. And we just had a debate on the Chicago Public Schools, you know, the election Bill, in which everyone here 09900108.docx 61 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 talked about this was a great process in which we used a committee, where the Sponsor of the Bill took recommendations from Members, made it a better Bill, and received overwhelming support. We have a Bill right now that's going to authorize up to $3 billion of GRF spending when we don’t have… at the end of the day, we don’t have $2.5 billion of it to… to spend for it. I just… I just don’t know why we can't use the committee process for this. It just doesn’t seem legitimate to me. Here's another question I have, though. We found out about this Bill, this Amendment, last night at approximately 7:30, 8:00. I never received a call that this was coming. My chief of staff never received a call from your chief of staff. Our Appropriation's Chair never received a heads up on this. And now we're being asked in just a short amount of time to take up a… again, a $3 billion spending Bill. When did you guys start working on this Bill?"
"Well, my understanding is there were discussions with your people and our people some time ago, discussions resulting in a budget proposal from you, a counter proposal from us. My understanding is, you walked. You walked out the door and never… decided to pack it in and not respond at all."
"Well, I think that history…"
"But I can tell you the Rules Committee approved this Amendment, I think it was about 6:15 last evening. Your staff knew that we planned a Rules Committee meeting, but your Members had already fled for the evening's activities."
"Well, I mean, it's obvious it fled… you know, and I'm not even going to dignify it with a response. But the fact is, for you to suggest for what reason that I went in and 09900108.docx 62 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 spoke with the… had a meeting with the Speaker three days ago, and said, Why don’t we sit down and talk through this issue over higher ed? Higher ed, in which we… we had multiple Bills that I said we can find a way to compromise on each one of these with what you're trying to… what you're trying to accomplish. I asked the Speaker if he would work with me on it. He said he would get back to me. It's Thursday, he has not gotten back to me. So we did not walk out, we didn’t walk away. I am waiting for you and your side of the aisle to work with us to try and find a compromise, not shoving a Bill down our throat and taxpayers' throat, which you're doing right now. So for you, who was not in that meeting, don’t tell me that we walked away from trying to find a compromise on higher education and all the other issues that we have to deal with in the state budget. 'Cause that's false, absolutely false. We've got five Appropriation Committees, Ladies and Gentlemen. We're asking for a major spending authority on behalf of the state that never went through one of our Appropriation Committees. It's just terribly unfortunate that we are continuing on this process where there is nothing more that's going on in this building, which started last spring, other than political, propaganda votes, like yesterday. Pass a Bill that doesn’t have any funding towards it, pass another Bill today that does not have any funding towards it. Tell people out there, send your press releases out, do you high fives and say we've solved all the problems, it's those bad Republicans. But the fact is, Republicans want to work with you, as I stated three days ago, on Bills that are actually going to be funded. We provided an opportunity in different 09900108.docx 63 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 ways in which we can begin a discussion on how we can fund the deficits we have, to figure a way of how to balance our budgets. It's not about… we have… our fingerprints are not on this, this is all yours. And the fact is, to suggest that we're… again, that we walked away from negotiating is an absolute untruth. So Rep…"
"Well let me just remind you…"
"So why don't you… I'd like to hear you…"
"All of the… all of these items were in appropriations Bills adopted last May in the House and in the Senate, and sent to the Governor's desk. So the idea that these had never been vetted, had not been seen before, just does not mesh with reality."
"Well, that's ridiculous. You know what? This Amendment should have gone through one of the Appropriation Committees. But the fact is, you know, you've got your votes, you've got your 71. And you know, at some point you need to recognize that there was a Republican who was elected to Governor and who wants to work with you, despite what is being said. And this side of the aisle wants to work with you on budgets and a way in which… which would be funded appropriately, where we have a balanced budget, where we have balanced… a balanced budget on each one of these matters. Where we… we have appropriation Bills that not only make wise decisions are good investments in the state's services, but we also have revenue to back it up. And this Bill doesn’t have it. Could you tell me how much spending in these two Bills are you intending… what… what is the spending levels in these Bills?" 09900108.docx 64 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"The spending level, together with general… general revenues and other funds, comes to 3.7 billion. And we do not suggest that we have all the revenues in these Bills to meet that need, but we do intend to work with you and the Governor's Office to make it happen. As I said, this measure, if adopted, would free up the Governor from having to make 450 million-plus dollars repayment to special funds in the State Treasury by the end of 2016."
"The way I look at it is…"
"So we're… we're trying to meet the Governor's request. We're meeting the Governor part way down the road, and we think it's important to try to comply with his concerns, and we appreciate the concern that he raises."
"How much money do you have… how much money have you gathered… how much money is available in these Bills in the spending part… part to… do you have in these Bills?"
"We don’t know how much money is traveling out of the Comptroller's Office on a daily basis…"
"No, no, no, no, no. And these… this Bill…"
"…we don’t know…
"…trying to…"
"…it's three…
"…you're seeking our support…"
"it's… it's close to…"
"…how much money is there to spend?"
"…three billion in general revenue, 700 million in other state funds, other funds, some of which are not…" 09900108.docx 65 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"So we have a deficit of approximately 2.3 to… over $2 billion of deficit, which we cannot make up in this Bill, correct?"
"Representative, the point that I made, I think, is really critical. And that is we may already be overly spending money that we do have. But some programs in the Comptroller's Office, because of the triage of the… that the Comptroller performs, get payment. The… the items that are part of the measures we're talking about today can't get payment because there is no spending authority. I want to make sure that the Comptroller has a chance to provide money to state universities that are on the brink of closure, social service agencies that can't provide services to rape crisis busin… victims or homeless youth. I want them to have a shot at funding, and unless we pass this… these measure today, there will be no opportunity for those items to be part of the triage that happens in the Comptroller's Office."
"If you want a shot of funding then work with us on a way to be able to fund these projects. And you've…"
"We're happy to…"
"…slammed the door on us…"
"…happy to."
"…he slammed the door on me, you… you… the Speaker did when I came in with best intentions to find a way to negotiate our way out of this…"
"Well, my under…"
"…was summarily dismissed, Representative Currie."
"Excuse me, we have plenty of time to find new revenue sources. We don’t have time to say to a state university 09900108.docx 66 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 that's about to close its doors or a student that has to give up part way through the second semester of the school year, we have no way to save that if we decide we have weeks to solve the problem rather than days. My effort is to see to it that these critical programs have a chance to be part of the triage that happens in the Comptroller's Office. And Representative, I want to work with you and the Members of your caucus to solve the underlying revenue problems that continue to plague the state. I want to…"
"That's a hollow… that's a hollow statement."
"…work with you to do a complete budget…"
"That is a hollow statement."
"…a complete budget for fiscal 2016 because I agree that that would be a better approach than trying to pick up pieces that got lost in the shuffle."
"Why are you doing it right now? Why don’t we wait 'til we come back in April? Let's talk this through, let's find out where we can reconcile, where we can meet halfway on the appropriation Bills and also the revenue ideas that we have, as opposed to doing this thing in a haphazard way, which again, is about making false promises to people throughout the State of Illinois that you're going to solve their problems. But you know, you know you can't do it with this Bill."
"I know that this is a help in solving the budget problem. I said it is not a global solution, I stand by that comment. But unless we make the spending authority available to the Comptroller, these programs, these items are absolutely out of luck. We will have slammed the door shut in their faces. 09900108.docx 67 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 I think that is unacceptable, it is irresponsible, and it is not appropriate for the Members of this Assembly."
"Well, as I recall, we're going to be serving here, and we're coming back next month and also through the month of May. We have got time to be able to figure that out. We're not slamming any door shut. The only door…"
"How many… how many…"
"…that was slammed shut was the one that your Speaker, your leader did to me two days ago when I went in and said, let's cut through the political rhetoric, let's get this done, let's try to find a way to… find a solution to this. Summarily dismissed."
"That was not my understanding, but I will say…"
"You weren't there…"
"…that we can't…"
"…you were not there."
"…we can't afford…"
"I know it, and I'm not going to lie on this floor."
"We cannot afford to close more social service agencies in the next five weeks. We can't afford to have our youngsters quitting school because they don’t have a MAP Grant. We can't afford to leave rape crisis victims in trouble over these next five weeks because you want to have everything tied up in a neatly bowed package. I think we have to meet this needs today, and I am happy to work with you over the next 5 and 10 weeks to get the rest of the job done."
"Well, we can't meet the needs of these basic state services when you insult this building and this chamber and also every Illinoisan by passing a budget that is $4 billion 09900108.docx 68 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 out of balance and blaming it on the Republicans. The fact is, I've heard a lot of this flowery rhetoric before, I know what happened in the meeting earlier in the week. You can take whatever side you want on this. But the fact is, there's a way to do this. There's a way to do this as adults and also as professionals, and that is what the public is demanding of us. I want to say this and make sure it's loud clear, we are will… ready, willing, and able to compromise on every issue relating higher education and also to human services. But you know what? You need to invite us. You need to invite us to the room, to the table, and actually have a discussion about where we can meet, what we can agree on, and what we can disagree on. You refuse to do it and you've slammed the door shut on Illinoisans who are desperate for services 'cause all this this does is add to the $7.2 billion of unpaid bills that are currently sitting at the Comptroller's Office."
"Mr. Drury."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bills. You know, I… I guess my… my question for the last speaker is why are you so angry and what are you afraid of? I mean, if… if anyone's been blamed for what's going on, read the papers, it's me. And so… All right. Get it out. Tell me when you're done. Thank you, thank you. So… it's just the… it’s this row, it must be this row, right? We… we know how to clear a room, right? So here… here's what I want to say. I read last night… I read last, just like, probably all the colleagues in here read last night, that… that this Bill was coming today. And I thought, wow, this… this is a gotcha moment. Probably the same thoughts that a lot of my Republican colleagues had. This is gotcha 09900108.docx 69 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 politics, this is horrible, what are they doing? And then I went back to think about what I was saying here yesterday on the floor, that we had this MAP Grant Bill that funded college students who needed funding, but it left a lot of people out. It left a constituent of mine out who's being kicked out of his group home in Wisconsin. No chance of funding. March 31, he is going to be kicked out his home after 30 years because we didn’t do anything for him. And that makes me feel sick. And I stood up yesterday and I said, that Bill yesterday was not good enough, it was beneath us. And I was the lone Democrat to say that. So here we are now, we have a Bill, we have 2 Bills, and I… I'm for one and I'm against one. But I want to talk about the… the spending one first, the one that's going to appropriate money. It's a Bill, it has numbers in it. I've been saying since June, both sides should present these types of Bills and let's debate them. This is the Democratic Bill, it's $3.7 billion. It may be out of whack. It's certainly not funded, I agree with that, but it's something. And I think rather than waiting to come back in April and wait a month to start debating this issue, I look at this Bill, it's just a piece of… it's… it's some paper. And we now have 30 days to get together, and if we don’t like what this Bill says, then let's work it out so when we come back in April, we have a Bill that we all like. And let's not do it backwards. And I will tell you this. I am… if… if the Governor vetoes this, I don’t know what he's going to do, and there are no good faith negotiations on the Democratic side, I'm not going to vote to override that veto. Okay? I've said it. So there are 30 days now if we pass this Bill to get 09900108.docx 70 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 something done, 30 days. I will be at the table if people want me there, I won't be at the table if people don’t want me there. It… it doesn’t matter. But what I'm saying is we should use this as an opportunity and stop being so scared of it. It… it's just a Bill with numbers, the numbers can change. We have to find a revenue source or we have to make cuts in it, I get that. We all get that. But we shouldn’t just run away from it, we shouldn’t shun our obligations as public servants to do what we are here to do. So I think that we should support, I believe it's HB2990. Now HB648 I don’t support because I don’t believe that’s a real funding source. I… I think that's theft. So to me, we should pass this, we should get together. We have 30 days to figure out how we are going to fund the remainder of the budget and it doesn’t need to be this. This is the start. It would be completely backwards to walk out of here with nothing and then say in April we'll take it up again. So that's just my suggestion, and I would say let's have a discussion, let's not be so angry, let's not point fingers. It's not a gotcha moment. Like I said, if anybody has been blamed for what went on yesterday, it's me. But I could also tell you I've gotten a lot of accolades. So we don’t need to be so scared about it. From a Democrat, I've gotten a lot of accolades for what I did, so I have to assume you guys did as well. So let's just be honest about what's going on with some of these votes. They're not all gotcha votes, we're doing what the people want us to do. This Bill is not horrifically scary. And let's just move on and… and take these votes and go home and start working on some real serious business. 09900108.docx 71 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Mr. Sandack."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the sponsor yield for some questions?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Representative, Leader, I… I'd like to go just through some components of the two Bills, since we're really talking about two right now. The total GRF is close to 3 billion, yes?"
"That’s accurate."
"And there's 700 million more in other funds?"
"Right."
"And if I'm understanding the Bill on the board, HB648 would free up about 454 million?"
"Well, what… what it would say is that when we start budgeting for the next fiscal year, we don’t start $454 billion in the hole, that's all…"
"Right. So we would… we"
"…million. Sorry, million."
"So we would deduct, well, if we pass this Bill, it would deduct from the 3.7, yes?"
"I… yes."
"Okay. That wasn’t that hard, right? So we're…"
"Yeah."
"…we're roughly two point… I'm sorry. We're at roughly…"
"It's about two and a half billion."
"Two and a half billion dollars that we got to find."
"Right."
"So… so where do we find that money?" 09900108.docx 72 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Well, where are we finding any money, Representative? My understanding is the Comptroller is projecting that there will be a very significant backlog of unpaid bills by the time we start the next fiscal year. My understanding is that we may be spending money through the court orders, statutory requirements, and through the… the elementary and secondary school funding Bill that the Governor signed, and that I actually voted for, that we are spending more through these methods than we are going to be able to pay for, given that we don’t have as much in the way of revenue in the current fiscal year as we did in the last."
"So…"
"So if there's a problem, if there is a problem and I believe there is, it's a problem now. Even if we don’t pass a Bill that says that some of these other important state responsibilities are on the same footing as the ones that were able to go to court or are part of the public school system or have statutory continuing appropriations authority. So if there's a problem, there is a problem. And I don’t think the way the way you solve the problem is to say to homeless youth, to say to seniors, kids with autism, people needing substance abuse and mental health services, I don’t think it's right to say them, 'We're slamming the door in your face even though others are able to get through because…"
"Well, Representative…"
"…we didn’t have all the revenue we needed.'"
"Thank you for the extended answer. I was looking, really, more for the math associated with the two Bills you're bringing today. And yes, I think that those are horrific 09900108.docx 73 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 scenarios. So, too, is making promises and not funding those promises…"
"Well, we've already made those promises, Representative…"
"And you're making new ones today…"
"That is why the… the Comptroller projects…"
"Leader…"
"…a deficit of such significant size."
"Yes, Leader. And you're making new promises today without any funding mechanism for those new promises, Leader. And so what I'd like to know next is, do you support the Republican Bill for the Unbalanced Budget Response Act, to give the Governor the ability to take action to balance this proposal?"
"My understanding is that the Governor, through his agencies, is busy signing contracts for services…"
"Would you please answer…"
"…with many of the…"
"…my question?"
"…agencies that are at the heart of the spending part of today's package. He's signing contracts without there being any spending authority in the Comptroller's. If we don’t give him this spending authority then I don't know what those contracts mean, and I don't know why our agencies are busy signing them."
"Well, I… I don't know what they mean either and I don't know that it matters, Leader. I'll wait, she's having a sidebar. That's I… I don’t want to interrupt. If you guys 09900108.docx 74 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 want to have a sidebar, that's fine. What funding mechanisms are you suggesting to bring your two Bills balanced?"
"First of all, we do give the Governor the authority not to pay his debts, not to keep true to his obligations. And second, I am more than willing to work with you and every other Member of this Assembly to see to it that we can find a way to provide balance. You know, part of the problem is… part of the problem here is that we don’t have a budget, and without a budget we're subject, for example, to a court order in the Medicaid Program. That means were aren’t spending with the 2.25 percent cut in Medicaid spending that we made at the end of fiscal '15. We're spending as if there never had been any reduction. We have to figure out a way to bring all of our spending in balance, and you can't do it through court order. You have to do it through sitting down and working your way through numbers."
"Well, I wish we could do that, Leader."
"That means the revenue side, but it means the spending side, too."
"Well, I… I wish we would do that. Of course, that's not happening in stark contrast to other examples today, an earlier Bill. So I guess you're not going to tell me what funding mechanism specifically you suggest to bring your proposals into balance."
"Or yours or those that are already obligations of…"
"Ma'am, I'm talking about the…"
"…the State of Illinois."
"…two Bills you're proposing today." 09900108.docx 75 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"And I told you, I'm… I'm making an effort to meet the Governor part way with approval of his proposal to renege on his refunding commitment."
"Two more questions, Representative. If you'd be good enough to answer them directly, I'd be appreciative. You earlier said, and I want to make sure I this quote correct, your proposals don’t guarantee funding at all. Isn't that correct?"
"It is correct for all of the funding that is out there, bar that which comes from court orders and… and continuing appropriations, yeah."
"And you admit that what you're proposing is wildly out of balance?"
"I would… I would say that the amount of money we're spending today is not in balance."
"But I'm… I want to talk about the Bills…"
"And this… yeah, okay."
"…Representative. I want to talk about your Bills you're seeking votes on now. They are wildly out of balance, yes?"
"I… I don’t… I don’t accept the premise… I don’t accept the premise that this is spending different from that which is already happening."
"I… I don’t…"
"I accept the premise that…"
"…I don’t care that… about that premise."
"…we need to do a budget."
"I agree with that. So…"
"With or without passage of these Bills, we need to do a budget. But not passing the… the spending part of this Bill 09900108.docx 76 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 is to leave in the lurch people who should not of have had the door slammed in their face in the first place, while in the meantime, we're letting some of the others through."
"I got one more question for you. If… if this passes, goes to the Senate and passes, and the Governor vetoes and… and basically brings it into balance, will you commit not to overriding?"
"I make no commitment on overrides…"
"Ah, yeah, I didn’t think so."
"…at this point. I have no idea what the Governor would do. Suppose he decides to veto it in ways that make the people I serve particularly left out in the cold while making sure that your constituents are well covered and well taken care of."
"Yeah, that makes…"
"How could I…"
"…a lot of sense."
"…why would I be stupid enough to say, yes, I commit not to override without having an idea what pig in a poke the Governor may offer us."
"I'll not respond. To the Bill, Mr. Speaker. Today's process is laughably ironic given an earlier Bill on Chicago publicly elected school boards. In that process… important Bill to be sure, the… the Gentleman that was a Sponsor had a full committee vetting, listened, exchanged ideas, and came over to our side of the aisle and said, how do I get votes from the Republican side? And there was a meeting of the minds. We wanted six changes, he could… he could live with three, and a pretty good Bill is being sent over to the 09900108.docx 77 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Senate. In stark contrast… that was how you get things done by the way. In stark contrast at about, I don't know, eight o'clock last night, a 38-page Bill spending approximately or appropriating $3.7 billion is thrown on our lap. There was no invitation to meet, there was not one discussion, not one. There was no one that said, hey, can you live with this if we give you this? Can you do this if we give up this? The whole idea of compromise, and I read in the… in the… on a… online blog that some gentleman said, this is our attempt at meeting a compromise. I don’t think that guy knows what compromise means. I don’t think he knows what the word compromise means or how it's defined, because you need to talk. And talking now when you get this jammed down our throats, just a few hours later, is not talking; it's jamming stuff down throats. It’s horrific policy. It's horrific process. It's embarrassing. And actually, if I were on the other side, if somehow, someway, we were doing this, I would really not feel good about saying, I'm helping people by playing surprise, gotcha politics. That's not good, and I don’t think this is disguised well should you vote 'yes'. I don’t think you get away with saying, I'm helping people, when you are not guaranteeing funding for anyone. And all… just suggesting we're going to throw 3 billion on people and let the Comptroller figure it all out, totally advocating our responsibility, an absolute embarrassment. We should be talking at a table and going over items at a committee hearing, most appropriately, and then talking. This idea that this is a compromised proposition is just so disingenuous and so unworthy. So, whatever happens is going to happen. We're 09900108.docx 78 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 going to come back here in April, maybe then, after a primary's over, right? Maybe then serious people will get serious about this serious issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker."
Speaker Turner: "Representative Turner in the Chair. Chair recognizes Representative David Harris." Harris, D.: "Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A quick inquiry of the Chair if I may?"
"Please proceed with your inquiry…" Harris, D.: "Yes, can… can you tell me if this Motion is in order? Can I make a Motion that the debate from yesterday's Bill, on Senate Bill 2043, be imported into this… into this debate and we can go immediately to the Bill vote? Is that a Motion that's in order?"
"That… that Motion won't be in order, Sir." Harris, D.: "Thank you, very much. All new material. It mi… I thought it might save some time. Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, if I may, just very briefly and especially for some of my newer colleagues that were not here, I think it's worthwhile to… to have a quick bit of history on… on this Bill. And we're talking specifically about House Bill 648 here and not… not the Senate Bill, which is part, I guess, of the… of the discussion. And on… on Senate Bill 648, we really have to go back two years to… to May of 2014. And… and correct me if I'm wrong here of Sponsor of the Bill, but we have to go back to May of 2014 when we gave then Governor Quinn $650 million of borrowing authority that he could use during FY15. So, he had that authority to use that up until June 30 of… of last year, 2015. And we did that to help him get through what potentially could have been a difficult situation. And that 09900108.docx 79 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 borrowing authority allowed him to sweep, borrow, take funds out of other state funds, and put them into the General Revenue Fund. Governor Quinn did not use that authority. So then when Governor Rauner was elected, Governor Rauner came in and said, hey, we have a budget emergency. I need… I need funds to pay for our budget emergency. And this Legislature in the spirit of compromise… boy, there's a word you don’t hear much around here anymore, compromise. In the spirit of… of compromise, we gave the new Governor the authority to sweep $1.3 billion of… of funds, out of other state funds, and put them in the General Revenue Fund and use them. And we also said, you don’t have to pay that money back. So he could take that money, use as he wanted to. Remember that Bill? We took $250 million from the Road Fund, $35 million from the Realtor Fund, and all of that. But that $650 million of authority that we gave Governor Quinn was still there. And the Governor… the new Governor said, well, I don’t really want to borrow money. Well, on June 30, before that… that… excuse me. You know, on June 30 of… of last year, before that… that authorization expired, the Governor's Office of Management and Budget borrowed 400 swept out of those funds, used 75 percent of the authority that we gave Governor Quinn, and borrowed 450 mil… $454 million from those funds. Now I talked to the… the director of the… of the Office of Management and Budget and I told them I didn’t think that was the right thing to do. Because what that did was that put more pressure on FY16, because that money, unlike what we did with the 1.3 billion, that money has to be repaid. That's what we're doing here with the $648 million. We are authorizing that that $454 09900108.docx 80 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 million does not have to be repaid. Keep in mind where that money is coming from, though, and what you're voting for in this $454 million. That’s $179 million in the School Infrastructure Fund which does not have to be repaid. That’s $75 million in the Supplemental Low-Income Energy Assistance Fund, which is very important to a lot of people, $75 million which does not have to be repaid. It's $40 million in OSLAD, the Open Space Land and Acquisition Fund that does not have to be repaid, $10 million in the Park and Recreation Fund that doesn’t have to be repaid. So, I will tell you giving the authority to not repay the dollars is a bad idea. And I will say that whether it's a Republi… a Democrat Bill or a Republican Bill, it's a bad idea. We shouldn’t do it. But maybe we're going to do it on this Bill. But let me tell you something. We've been told that… that when our side of the aisle, we're standing up here giving alibis for why we're voting no on some of these Bills. No, I disagree. I disagree. I think we give reasonable explanations for our votes. We are not delusional on our side of the aisle. I won't speak for the other side of the aisle, but we're not delusional on our side of the aisle. We know the difference between revenues and expenditures and how the two have to come together. And we recognize that if the dollars are not in the General Revenue Fund, no matter what the appropriation authority is, if the dollars are not in the General Revenue Fund, the Comptroller cannot write the check. If we pass this legislation, there's… there's no way, no matter what kind of alchemy I employ, no matter how much holy water I sprinkle on the $454 million, it doesn’t turn in to 2.9 billion. Doesn’t 09900108.docx 81 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 happen. So the… the Sponsor of the Bill made a very good… very good point. And quite frankly, the Sponsor of the Bill yesterday, on the… on the MAP Fund, said something which I thought was accurate. She said, well, in essence kind of admitted, said, well the money's not there but this is just appropriation authority so that… that you can get in line. And that's what the… the Sponsor of this Bill said, it's appropriation authority so you can get in line. Well, isn't that great. We're going to authorize 2.9, and not in this Bill, but in the next Bill. We're going to authorize $2.9 billion in spending authority. That’s just an authority. And what does that do? It puts 2 point… another 2.9 billion in line behind the 7 billion that's already there. The… the bills can't be paid because the money's not in the till. The… the Comptroller can't write the check. You cannot get payment when there is… when there is no spending authority as… as the Sponsor said. But you can't get payment either if the money's not there to cover the check. It just gets… gets put into the queue. And the Gentleman from Highland Park talked about an individual up in a placement in Wisconsin who has been there for years and is going to lose that placement at the end of March. I have an individual in the same situation. What… what do I say when he… when that… when that parent calls me up and says, my child has been in that placement for years. My child is stable, he has come… made significant progress in that placement in Wisconsin. And at the end of March, because the State of Illinois is not paying its bills, that child has to come out of that placement. That’s a disgrace. That is a disgrace that we should all be ashamed of. I renew my call to 09900108.docx 82 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 the Governor, to the… the Speaker of the House, to the President of the Senate. What we need, and the Lady said it as… as clear as… it's on the record. We need a budget. We need to come together and we need a budget to finalize FY16 and get on with FY17. Because we can pass this Bill, we can pass the next Bill, 2990, and those Bills are going to go in the queue and it's going to make some people feel good. But it's not going get the dollars out there where they belong. I respect what she's trying to do. It's the wrong way to do it. The right way to do it is to come together, do a full year fiscal budget and get the appropriations in place. Thank you."
"Chair recognizes Representative Andrade."
"Mr. Speaker, will the Sponsor yield?"
"She indicates that she will."
"I just have a coup… couple questions that I just want to understand. So even… if we pass this Bill, it's a complete forgiveness. There's no ex… extension, it's just complete forgiveness?"
"It is under the statute we adopted that long ago. And you remember, Repre… the former Speaker was right. The new Governor when he came in said, I don’t want to borrow money, I'm not going to do it. And at the eleventh hour, the very last possible moment, he said, I'm going to borrow $454 million. He planned to repay it. He recently has asked us for authority to say, you don’t have to repay it. And that's what this Bill would do. But let me make this point for those of you who worry about what happens to LIHEAP, what happens to OSLAD. If we… we forgive the debt, the statute clearly says 09900108.docx 83 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 that if any of the funds from which monies have been transferred pursuant to this authority have insufficient cash, then the Treasurer and Comptroller must transfer from the General Revenue Fund to the fund the amount that is required. So in fact, none of the money, none of the purposes in the special funds, which the Governor has taken money from, none of those purposes are put in jeopardy if we do this. This was not my idea, it was the Governor's idea, and we are trying to be cooperative. We are trying to offer an olive branch, we are trying to figure out a way to work cooperatively. But the fund purposes are not undercut. He was able to take extra money, excess money that was sitting around and borrow those money… monies for other purposes."
"The other question I have is, let's say we pass both of these Bills. Now, the Governor has the option of not… of… let's say he doesn’t Veto the… the other appropriation Bill, he just doesn’t spend it. Right? He just doesn’t spend it, he has the Bill and doesn’t spend it. But he… but at the same time we've given him permission not to repay the debt, so that can happen too?"
"Yeah, you… you're right. The Governor does have ultimately spending authority. When I said earlier that we can't guarantee that money will be spent for the purposes in the spending part of today's proposal. There is no way we can require the Governor to spend money. The Governor always has ultimately authority on that score. But I would say that we are better off trying to work with the Governor in this arena on these issues then to forget entirely about the request that he has made." 09900108.docx 84 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Thank you. To the Bill, Mr. Speaker. So the Gentleman across the aisle, I… I hope he's correct when… that he believes that after the primary there's some hope. But I'm going to be honest with you, I wish it's after the first primary, but I… you know, I… the last bill gave me hope but it's stuff like this, sometimes I think to myself, you know, the one thing I need Tim Mapes to install here is… is a big screen. When we come back by April, there's a big screen that pulls down, and we literally just sit here and start going line item through line item on the big screen, just voting yes or no. Because I'm… I do have a primary and people are frustrated on all sides, Democrat, Republicans. And I got to tell you, if we don’t have a budget and… in… in September of 2017 or March of 2018, a lot of the incumbents can be beat Mickey Mouse, because the people are just very frustrated out there. And I just… I truly think… and I go door to door constantly, even in off season. People are tired, they are extremely, extremely tired, and I hope that it's… it is this… this end of this games after March. But I… I'm afraid that it might not be until after November, until the General, when people have General races. But… but I hope you're correct and I hope it's… it's March. But I just wanted to say… I just… just wanted to say that… that, you know, this is a start, and I hope we can just come back and have that screen down, we'll just, literally, just one by one line item and just start voting yes and no. And just bringing it and bringing a balanced budget. Thank you, very much."
"Representative Sullivan is recognized." 09900108.docx 85 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. I'm not going to belabor the… the points of the Bill 'cause we've been speak… talking about this for a while. But I… I want to talk a little bit about the environment and I… and I spoke of a Bill earlier that’s going to take money out of the Common School Fund. You know, we're here today and the Majority Leader stated it. We… we generally would support this Bill, but if we were at the table to have a discussion about that. The… the Gentleman from Highland Park, you know, his premise is that, well, let's leave this out and have a discussion. You know, for our side of the aisle it's a false promise, because we weren’t there to begin the discussion. You know, most of you are probably going to vote for this, and that’s fine. I'm not… I don’t behoove anybody or criticize anybody for their vote for their district. But think about how that makes us feel. I mean, think about for that… just for a second. You're going to vote for this and what you're telling us is, we don’t want you at the table with your vote. We don’t want you at the table because our leadership is already written this Bill without the Republicans. And that’s how we see this. And it's… and it’s not a good place to be from this side of the aisle, but it goes in tune with what's going on in this environment. And that’s what we're trying to… to fix. And the… and the Gentleman from Highland Park is right, it begins with collaboration. There is no collaboration. We got this information late last night, nobody's had a chance to read it on both sides of the aisle, and we're going to vote on this. And you want to say, hey, this is a good start. Well, a good start would've been a week ago when you started writing this 09900108.docx 86 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Bill to include us. But that’s not the M.O. of this environment in this chamber. And that’s the point. That’s how we moved forward. How do you get us at the table with votes like this? You don’t. We’ll be here, we hope. But if you continue this environment, it's going to be a long year and I don’t think we get anything done in this General Assembly. We'll go on to January 10 of 2017, when the next General Assembly and… a couple of elections in between there. That’s where this is heading if we continue. There are good people on both sides of the aisle that have spoken behind the scenes of, we've got to break this log jam. But unfortunately, today, I think it got worse."
"Representative Wehrli is recognized."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the sponsor yield?"
"Indicates that she sill."
"Leader Currie, I'm sure you're well-versed in the Illinois Constitution. But with your indulgence for the people watching and following at home, I would like to read one sentence from the Illinois State Constitution. Article VIII, Section 2, Paragraph B, last sentence: Appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year. Shall not… shall not appropriate funds that we don’t have. Do we have a revenue estimate, Leader Currie?"
"We do not. I would argue that when we actually vote on spending issues it's because we anticipate that those revenues will be available by the time we come to the end of the fiscal year." 09900108.docx 87 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"But you're in agreement that we do not have a revenue estimate?"
"We… we don’t have a resolution that adopts a specific spending number."
"Thank you. But yet, in your remarks earlier, I heard we're already spending money we do not have."
"I said that it's…"
"How does that square… how does that…"
"…We don’t… we don’t know…"
"…square with the…"
"…exactly how much is going out…"
"…Illinois Constitution?"
"…the door Representative because we can't get those numbers from the Comptroller's Office. But it is our understanding when we see the Comptroller report the deficits she believes we will face by the end of the current fiscal year, we believe that the state is spending under court orders, statutory, continuing… whatever, whatever money that we may not have and it's up to us to figure out how to fill the gaping hole."
"So we do… we're spending… you're… you're in agreement that we're spending money that we do not have above and beyond what our revenue non-estimate is?"
"We didn’t… remember, we haven’t appropriated money for many of those purposes. We did the Elementary and Secondary Funding Bill, and in the fall we did a Bill that spent Federal funds and some other State funds. But those were the few arenas in which the Governor and the General Assembly agreed on appropriations." 09900108.docx 88 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"To the Bill. Before us in two pieces of legislation, we have the request to appropriate $3.7 billion, with a potential revenue stream of $454 million. This upon the backdrop of appropriations through consent decree, court order, continuing approps, and even current appropriations that were voted upon by this chamber, we are exceeding the COGFA estimate of just this week alone, which was revised down by $442 million. To me, it is intuitively obvious to even the most casual of observers that look at our budget that cuts alone cannot get us out of this morass. Revenue alone cannot get us out of this morass. We need to stop with this rhetoric, the game playing, the… it is time that we come together, work on a budget in a bipartisan manner that addresses both of our concerns of revenues and cuts. In my opinion, this Bill violates our oath of the Illinois Constitution. I strongly urge a 'no' vote.
"Chair recognizes Representative Nekritz."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd… I like to address some of the arguments I hear being made on this Bill today. And a lot of the… the rhetoric is very much what we've heard in the past that this legislation is a false promise. It creates an unbalanced budget. We don’t have the money to pay for it. There's no way to fund it. And the one I especially enjoyed today, it doesn’t matter that the Governor is signing contracts with providers. Really? It doesn’t matter that the Governor is signing contracts with providers? Have we spoken with Catholic Charities? Have you spoken with Lutheran Social Services? Have you spoken with your DD providers? Have you spoken with your mental health providers? It matters a lot to 09900108.docx 89 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 them that there are contracts that they have signed with the Governor's Office. They have performed services in good faith under those contracts. So for many of the human services providers that are… would be funded in this Bill, the false promise, the sham started when the Governor signed those contracts as of last July 1 with those providers that were subject to appropriation, knowing full well that the contracts were… when signed, that there was no appropriation. That was a false promise. Then for months and months and months, the Governor continued to let those providers perform services, providers like Lutheran Social Services and Catholic Charities not to mention all the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of small providers, not knowing whether they ever, ever be paid for that work. That is a false promise. So here we are, nine months into the fiscal year. Many of these social service agencies are imploding and we've all heard these gut wrenching stories, cutting services, laying of staff, deep in… in debt, and struggling to figure out how… how they are going to keep their doors open. So this is a storm of epic proportions for those providers and the clients they serve. And while this legislation, I don’t think is good public policy, it is the best we have at this particular moment. And if it… in this instance we have to throw those providers a lifeline. Some… we have to provide them any port in this storm, and to do some triage to make sure that they can stay open. As we all know, there's plenty of blame to go around. But with regard to this legislation, I believe that we should throw these human… give these human service providers some opportunity, some glimmer of hope 09900108.docx 90 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 that… that they can be paid. Something, I think really important, that they can take to their lenders and say, see, we do have an appropriation authority. Can you just get me through a little… with a little bit more time? So let me be really clear, I joined, you know, all the previous speakers in saying what we really need to end this storm is a truly balanced budget. So I just… I find fascinating in that regard that Moody's Analytics, in its annual economic forecast that it puts together for COGFA, in this regard says… and I have a few quotes that… from… from Moody's Analytics that I think are instructive. The quotes… 'Illinois has a lot of what businesses need to thrive-talent, access to customers and capital, and transportation—but painful fiscal reforms are needed before it can capitalize on those strengths.' They go on to say, 'Illinois's budget problems are its biggest headache. Illinois's business climate outshines its regional… regional rivals.' That's not something we hear very often in this chamber, but this is from Moody's Analytics, this is not Elaine Nekritz speaking. 'Illinois's business climate outshines its regional rivals, but the state's shaky finances have some firms questioning whether they want to expand in the state or elsewhere. Illinois has what it needs to remain a top business center, as long as it can solve the fiscal problems that are eroding its lead in the competition for talent, jobs, and capital.' And finally, again from Moody's, 'the state's longer-term outlook is tarnished primarily by its budget woes and its weak population trends, not, not its high cost relative to nearby states.' Again, these are the words of Moody's, a nonpartisan organization, and… and not an 09900108.docx 91 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 organization with an agenda in Illinois politics. So as usual, I'd like to join my… my colleague from Arlington Heights in imploring the leaders, the Speaker, the Governor, and the Senate President to sit down and actually talk to each other. Cuts, revenues, and reforms are all within our grasp, but we have to be reasonable and realistic about what can get 60 votes in this chamber and 30 votes in the center… in the Senate. Thank you."
"Mr. Brown."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Please excuse Representative Tom Morrison for the rest of this afternoon."
"Thank you, Sir. Mr. Kay."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Good afternoon, Leader."
"Good afternoon."
"I'm… I'm curious about some statements that you made previously today. You said that there was a… a lot of Republican ideas that were brought into the mix and included in this appropriations Bill. Tell me which ones they are, just four of five."
"For example, the Governor has requested that we negate the requirement that he repay the specials funds borrowing. For example, yesterday, when we talked about funding for the community colleges and the tuition assistance grants for college students, there was a concern that public higher education was not part of the mix. There has been legislation introduced by members of your caucus to see to it that we fund, we reimburse those school construction projects, for 09900108.docx 92 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 example, in Wayne City, that are waiting to be funded. All three of those proposals are part of today's package. Senate Bill 648 re… relieves the Governor of responsibility to repay the borrowed special fund money by December 31. Public universities are funded in this program, school construction reimbursement is… is figured here as well. And many, many of the members on both sides of the aisle in the discussion yesterday bemoaned the lack of funding for all these important human services for disabled adults, for seniors, for victims of rape, for all the other important items that were not in the legislation we considered yesterday but are in House Bill 2990 which we will consider after this."
"Well, Leader, I'd just remind you that's only three, and I think my point…"
"No, no, no. As I said, many of your members did talk about specific social service programs that they were concerned about the lack of funding for. And there were the three major ideas that we borrowed from you because borrowing is the very nice form of flattery."
"So you are familiar with the fact that I have a Bill that, essentially, covers MAP Grants, state universities, and community colleges out there?"
"I'm not familiar with the specifics…"
"Okay."
"…of the Bill."
"But you never talked to me about that did you?
"I'd be happy to talk to you about that."
"Indeed, yesterday, I challenged your side of the aisle to meet me at the well and discuss how we could, hopefully, 09900108.docx 93 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 amicably, come to some compromised agreements where everybody weighed in, just not one person weighed in. And do you know how many people showed up at the well? Nobody."
"How many?"
"Nobody."
"Gracious."
"Pardon?"
"Heaven forfend."
"I can't hear you."
"I said gracious sakes alive."
"Yeah."
"Heaven forfend."
"Yeah. There was a…"
"Shocking."
"Yeah. Well, it is sort of shocking because that’s indicative of the attitude here in the General Assembly. And that’s what leads to a state, not a people, but a state which is typically referred to as a banana republic. Because we can't come to compromise and by the way, do you know the definition of compromise?"
"I'm sure that Webster's would provide many definitions."
"Well, there… there's a couple. It talks about settling a dispute by mutual concession. Has that happened?"
"Well, as I say, we are offering some proposals in the legislation I present today…"
"Well, just…"
"…that came specifically…"
"…would you just do me a favor just answer my questions, please? Just a yes or no." 09900108.docx 94 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Yes. Yeah, the answers yes."
"Really? And how has that happened."
"Because of the kindness of my heart."
"Really?"
"Yup."
"Shocking. Unbelievable. Second definition: accept standards that are less than desirable by concession. Have we done that?"
"Well, I think not having a budget would count as accepting standards that are less than desirable."
"Well."
"We don’t have a budget…"
"We haven’t… we haven’t…"
"…Representative."
"…done it because people won't meet at the well. People won't meet to talk. And in fact, when you talk… when you accuse Leader Durkin of not doing his job, the fact of the matter is last year, last year, Republicans were dismissed from Appropriations Committees. Is that not correct? Dismissed. Is that not correct?"
"I'm sorry, I missed… I didn’t understand the question."
"Not only… I'm going to repeat it. Representative Durkin went to the Speaker in attempt to compromise, and there was no compromise. It was… it's always the Speaker's way. I think the… I think Leader Durkin mentioned that. So the problem is there's no compromise. And so, when you say we walk out, we don’t walk out. We get kicked out. And my question to you is, are you aware that we were dismissed from every Appropriations Committee last year when decisions were made about a budget?" 09900108.docx 95 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"I wasn’t part of that discussion."
"Well, you don’t have any reason to disbelieve that though, do you?"
"No, but I… you had every… every opportunity to participate early on in the discussions."
"Well, you can't participate when you're kicked out. Isn't that true, Leader?"
"Look… look… why… why don’t we confine… yeah. Maybe… maybe the Chair would encourage you to confine your remarks to the Bill."
"Well, and maybe…"
"That would be House Bill 648."
"…maybe the Chair ought to exercise a little authority as to how the proper procedure in the House works. I'm talking to you."
"But I thought we were talking about House Bill 648? You seem to be…"
"Well, I am."
"…discussing ancient history."
"Well, we're discussing some things that haven’t been answered today, some questions that have not been really answered as yes or no. Let me ask you this. Do you think by not compromising that we're perceived as being foolish, reckless, and indiscriminant?"
"If… if we were not compromising, that’s exactly what I would think. We are offering compromises today."
"Okay. Well, that’s not my view of it. Let me ask you this question. Since we're going to… since we are talking about passing a spending Bill here that, really, none of us 09900108.docx 96 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 discussed in any detail. And by the way, I was kicked out of an Appropriations Committee. So just for the record. I'm… I'm curious about what you're going to tell those people who depend on the school infrastructure that are going to lose $179 million. What are you going to tell them?"
"What I can tell you is the Governor proposed that we lift the requirement that he repay this money by December 31. I also read to you from the statute that says that to the extent that there are specific needs for money from those funds, the treasurer and the comptroller must provide them."
"What are you going to tell Human… the… Human Services Fund that we're going to short them $60 million over the long term?"
"And my understanding is that the Governor could only take those monies if they were not then needed, if they were excess funds."
"Okay. I'm glad you acknowledged…"
"So if you have a…"
"…that. I'm glad…"
"…if you have a problem, I would advise you to talk to the Governor and his budget office."
"Oh, I don’t… I'm getting to the problem. What are you going to tell the fund for advancement of education, that there not going to get their money?"
"Which… I'm sorry. Which… which line?"
"Fund for the advancement of education."
"Well, if this is a special fund, as I said, it is excess funds not required for the purposes for which that fund was created…" 09900108.docx 97 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"What about park and conservation?"
"Same answer."
"So in other words, it's all asked and answered at this point. Is that correct about all of these funds? We're not going to tell them anything, we're just going to… we're just going to… we're just going to forgive the loan. Is that correct?"
"My… the… the Governor chose monies from these funds because they were not needed. If it turns out he's wrong, those funds have to be repaid in spite of passage of…"
"My… my guess is…"
"…House Bill 648."
"…you chose the funds. My guess is it was your decision. But let me just say this."
"That is absolutely false…"
"I know, it's absolutely false…"
"A total misunderstanding of the operations of state government. We were not given authority under the legislation that the… one of the members on your side of the aisle explained, we were not given authority to borrow money from state funds. Only the Governor had that authority…"
"Well, I'm glad you…"
"…And he chose after saying he wouldn’t exercise the authority, at the eleventh hour that’s exactly what he did."
"I'm glad you have raised up this assembly as being such a paramount General Assembly when it comes to operations and financing, understanding a balance sheet and… and an income statement because I don’t think we do. By the way, since we're talking about big money here, what's the journal entry you'd 09900108.docx 98 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 make for $2.7 million if you had to spend it today? What's that journal entry?"
"Let's ask the Governor."
"Let's ask the Governor? No, it's your Bill. I'm asking you. What is the…"
"And I told you there's…"
"…journal entry?"
"…no guarantee that these programs or any programs that are, right now, available for funding will be funded. The problem is that the programs I'm about today cannot get one penny from the Comptroller's Office unless we give the Comptroller the spending… the Governor…"
"Well, I would suggest…"
"…the spending authority."
"…I would suggest, Leader, in all due respect, that you… you understand and you’ve been here a long time. You need to understand how the Comptroller can and cannot disperse money in terms of priority because there is one. One last question, how many institutions, other than this one, do you know forgives loans?"
"You know, you should ask the Governor that question, too…"
"No, I'm asking you that question."
"This is his proposal…"
"Do banks forgive loans?"
"This is the Governor's idea, it is his…"
"No, no, no, no, no…"
"…proposal." 09900108.docx 99 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"…no, no. We're… you're not going to get off the hook. Do banks forgive loans?"
"They’ve been known to, yeah."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Yup. Yup. A lot. Frequently."
"Do you… do you know that for a fact? Do you know that for a fact?"
"Yes."
"You do? Okay. That’s interesting because I… I don’t know too many banks that do that because they're in the business of making loans and collecting the interest on the payments. Let me ask you this. Do colleges and universities forgive loans?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, occasionally they do. But they don’t do it often, do they?"
"I don't know, you'd have to ask them."
"I see. So forgiving… forgiving loans is common practice as a… as a financial practice in this country. Is that what I'm understanding?"
"It's not my understanding, no. And I… you know, I… I'm not…"
"Well, that’s just what you told me."
"…not an expert… I'm not an expert in private finance."
"Okay. Well, I…"
"I'm only…"
"Yeah. Okay. To the Bill, Mr. Speaker. It's pretty obvious that I had two choices today and I wish I'd just called the Bill instead of spoken to the Bill, because I've gotten no 09900108.docx 100 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 answers. And today is a repeat of yesterday. This state is at the bottom of the barrel financially. And we have no idea… we have no idea where the next penny is coming from. That means we are… we are a state that's penniless. Now I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that since you have the numbers, both in the House and the Senate, that you quickly decide on a budget that's based on the revenues that we know are fairly accurate and you bring it back to us. Because at the rate we’re going, we're not going to have a budget in May. In fact, that may even be the intention. I don't know. But I think it’s pretty sad that we go through this exercise day in and day out knowing that this is just a political side show. It's almost comical. Vote 'no'."
"Mr. Hays. Representative Lang in the Chair."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. You know, I've listened to the debate intently. And during the debate I… I made a phone call to my credit card company, to Visa, and I… I really laid on them this notion that we’re talking about here today of just forgiving debt. And I think, you know, I… I charged some things up at Christmas time and I serve in the Illinois House of Representatives, and they're talking about just forgiving $454 million in debt. And I thought, well, hell, why not just forgive the Chad Hays family debt from Christmas, 'cause I got some stuff I want to buy tomorrow. Let's just call it even. And they laughed. I found it shocking. Couldn’t believe they wouldn’t go for that deal. You know, we spend a lot of time in this building with nonsense like… that went on yesterday and today, with Bills that everybody in the chamber knows almost to the vote total 09900108.docx 101 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 how it will go. You'll hold your press conferences, we'll hold ours. We'll file Bills and say ours is a better idea, etc. But everybody knows that nothing is going to happen, and the collateral damage goes forward. And the people back in our districts, if we have cover or not because of this Bill or that will we signed on to. Their expectation is much different than it is inside the dome or under the dome of this building. Their expectation is that the business of the people gets done. Their expectation is if they could do rudimentary arithmetic, and they can, this is a train they've seen coming for a long time. Spending money we don’t have year after year, after year, after year. The day of reckoning has been coming for a long time, and it’s upon us. And you know what most people say? They say, you know, if I am an organization, human service organization, a community college, a university, prison, I can manage to good news, I can budget to good news, I can even manage the bad news. Even if the news from this chamber, the reality is hellaciously bad news, you got to tell them. You cannot manage and budget to no news. It's untenable. That the principles aren’t even communicating, that they're not even talking is absurd. Shame, shame, shame on everybody involved. It's not okay. And I would hope that all of us, after this nonsense of today subsides, really go home and take a good look in the mirror about what this is supposed to be about, and what it means to do the people's business. Because what is going on here has no earthly relation to the business of the citizens of this state, and I say enough."
"Mr. Franks." 09900108.docx 102 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I… I wasn’t going to speak, but I couldn't control myself."
"You’ve been moved to speak?"
"Yeah. Yeah. When the other side got me going, I… I couldn’t control myself. So may… will the Sponsor yield, the… the Majority Leader?"
"I hope not, but I think she will."
"Majority Leader, I have the utmost respect for you. I think you're one of the best Legislators here. I… I… but this may be one of the dumbest Bills I've ever seen, no offense.
"It can happen."
"It happens. I… I've had bad Bills, too. I have, long list of bad Bills. Could… could you please tell us the genesis of this very bad Bill?"
"Thank you, Representative. It comes from the Governor. The Governor… it's the Governor's Bill. My name is on it because the Governor cannot introduce legislation in the House of Representatives. So I took his idea, I put my name on it, it's his."
"So you're getting the slings and arrows for somebody else? That’s a… that’s a team player…"
"That… that’s the kind of person I am. I take the slings and arrows for the Governor."
"It’s for the love of the game, isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"You're just trying to help."
"Yeah." 09900108.docx 103 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Now… now wasn’t there a very similar Bill, I think almost identical introduced in the Senate by one Senator Murphy, who's in Republican leadership?"
"My understanding is that you're right."
"Okay. So this is the exact same Bill as introduced by Senator Murphy?"
"Right."
"Okay. To… it's the Governor's Bill? I just want to be clear."
"And… and I expect… I expect Senator Murphy's taken a lot of slings and arrows, too."
"That’s very kind of you to do so. And to… to the Bill. And… Madam, I… I appreciate what you're doing. Friends, I don’t think we want to be Argentina or Greece. I… I don’t think that anyone believes this is a good idea. I appreciate the Lady's idea of bringing this forth so we can vet it. We could have the fair hearing before the hanging. Can we get to the hanging part of this so we can get to the next Bill? So I appreciate it. Thank you. This is a really bad, bad idea. We've heard all the reasons why. Please vote 'no'.
"Mr. Wheeler."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Leader Currie, I want to understand one of the mechanisms of this… of this Bill with respect of the forgiveness aspect. I under… I think I understood you earlier, you mentioned that this money, which is going to be forgiven, not paid back, $454 million from other state funds. In an 09900108.docx 104 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 extreme could actually come from GRF if those funds don’t meet adequate levels. Is that correct?"
"Yeah. I… I read from the statute that says that should there be a… a paucity of funds for the particular special service then the money must be made up."
"Thank you for that clarification. And remind me the total amount of money being appropriated in the… in the spending portion of these two Bills?"
"There is another Bill in this… today's package that will be the spending part of the equation."
"It's my understanding you wanted to debate that now. Is that accurate?"
"This is… this Bill only deals with the special fund borrowing."
"Okay. But we're talking about the… the $3 billion of General Revenue Funds that would come followed by…"
"That's not in this Bill."
"We're… we're going to debate that separately after this Bill?"
"That's under a different Bill."
"We are going to debate that though? Okay I'm…"
"Yeah."
"…just going to ask you the questions about it anyway 'cause they're tied together. Since… since these measures were presented last May, according to earlier discussions, and we adopted the revenue estimate that we are required… required by state law to adopt according to Illinois' current law?"
"No." 09900108.docx 105 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Leader Currie, I ask you for your insight as I have in the past. Can you give me some idea or indications to when we might take up that revenue estimate?"
"When we finish making the budget. I think the budget will itself be evidence of what we believe we have available to spend."
"Or what we've already spent, which one?"
"We'll find out, won't we, if ever we get to doing a budget?"
"Well I… I think that's kind of the… the issue of bringing up this revenue estimate constantly. It's not just for fun. The fact of the matter is you don’t do a budget until you know how much money you have to spend."
"We don’t have a budget. We tried to have a budget. We adopted a budget in the House, in the Senate, except for the elementary and secondary school spending plan. The Governor Vetoed it. There is no budget."
"I… I'm well aware of that. And that’s why I'm asking, 'cause a budget doesn’t happen unless it has revenue and expenses in the budget. We have not yet done the first step. To the Bill. Saying that the Republicans on my side of the aisle have anything to do with this is simply ridiculous. I did a little bit of math while I was sitting here. And if Leader Currie's point that the forgiveness of this $454 million from the state funds could ultimately be forced to come out of General Revenue Funds, that means that the entire $2.972 billion would be coming from GRF. In the Bill list which is already $7.2 billion long, that'd push our total Bill list, if it came through at one time, which I know is 09900108.docx 106 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 not necessarily likely, but it is our responsibility to understand the depth of this, $10.172 billion if my math is correct. Using the numbers from COGFA, that's almost a third of our annual intake of General Revenue Funds. That’s like having a credit card that’s a third of your income. But yet having a balanced budget amendment that tells us we're supposed to be balanced the entire time. So echoing thoughts of our Leader on this side of the aisle, we are willing to compromise, but we have to have discussions in order to compromise. I look forward to those taking place sooner than later. In my first Appropriations Committee, the veteran Members of that committee explaining that we are supposed to do a revenue estimate first so we can do a thoughtful budget process. It's actually a law that we are currently violating. We're supposed to have an honest discussion with ourselves about the budget. We’re not doing that. How can we balance with our taxpayers if we haven’t even adopted the revenue estimate? Until we do a real budget, and I would love to be part of that process, we should not continue to just spend General Revenue Funds that we don’t have coming in. Thank you."
"Mr. Demmer."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. I think there are a lot of words that we could use to describe this Bill and describe this process. And good or bad, we'll choose those words over the next couple of days when we’re talking about this. I just want to say, whatever you do, don’t call this Bill a compromise. Don’t call this Bill that was introduced last night, under cover of darkness, through the Rules 09900108.docx 107 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Committee, skipped over debate in the substantive committee, and sent directly here to the floor for a vote first thing today. Don’t call that Bill a compromise. A compromise isn't a product. It's not a piece of paper that we point to. A compromise is a process. A compromise requires conversation, negotiation, give and take. A compromise requires the willingness to actually work together. So whatever words you use over the next couple of days to describe this Bill, don’t use the word compromise. Let's see the actual compromise process play out and then we altogether can use that word to describe the business of Illinois. Thank you."
"Representative Bellock."
"Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. I just wanted to clarify when we talk about what passed here last spring as a budget, that was really a spending a plan that was $4 billion in the hole, with less $4 billion revenue. Today, what's in front of us in order to fund the desperately needed services is, again, the same thing. It's a Bill put out there that is 2 billion… $2.5 billion short of revenue. So it’s unfunded promises to all the people that we've been talking about over the last hour or hour and a half that will not receive it. Because right now in the State of Illinois, we have close to $7 billion behind in our payments of our bills. So to do what we're doing today, and put another 2.5 billion in the Comptroller's Office behind that is just, again, unfunded promises. So what the last Speaker just said, Representative Demmer, is all of us are here today. The number one thing the people of the State of Illinois want, not going on today, they want the budget that we all keep talking about. 09900108.docx 108 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 And the only way we're going to get to a budget is to get to a compromise of people sitting in a room agreeing to a compromise which is what we did last March when we were $1.6 billion underfunded from the last administration. If everybody remembers correctly, all the child care workers down here, the court reporters, and the prison guards, all of which were a couple of days away from being paid. And we came together with a compromise and we solved that problem then. And together, this General Assembly can come together with a compromise, because we know that the people in Illinois are holding this General Assembly accountable. And when we all get in our cars today and drive back, the number one question that everybody has asked is, did you finally get a budget? And to go back there again this time without a budget, not a piecemeal budget, but a budget that will fund battered women that will fund children with autism that will fund homeless children that will fund our 18- to 21-year-old program in DCFS. All of these people need a budget. Not a piecemeal, not an underfunded Bill today, they need a budget by every person in this General Assembly to get the job done because the people of Illinois are counting on us. They voted us in to be responsible and accountable and do the hard work that's in front of us. And that's what we all need to do. Thank you."
"Mr. Mitchell." Mitchell, B.: "Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think, just… there was a Simon Poll just released, and 83 percent of the people of Illinois think we're going in the wrong direction. The people of Illinois, they're smarter than the people in the General Assembly. They know we’re not going in the right, positive 09900108.docx 109 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 direction. Whether you're a Republican or Democrat, you have a town needing. They're just tired. They're tired of this dysfunction under this dome. They want some honesty. I just checked this morning, I think we've talked a lot. There's $7.2 billion of unpaid Bills, 50 thousand businesses and citizens are owed money. How much is in the State's checkbooks, folks? I checked this morning, $357 million. And you know what does the Illinois House of Representatives want to do? We want to spend at least two and a half billion more dollars in the General Revenue Fund that only has $357 million in the checkbook… our checkbook. People are tired. They want us to work together. That’s what we're here for. I'm not here for… just to represent Republicans. I represent Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. The General Assembly isn't doing its job."
"The Majority Leader to close."
"Thank you, Speaker, Members of the House. This is the Governor's proposal. This particular Bill deals… only with the question of giving the Governor some… some relief on the commitment to repay state funds, special fund borrowing by the end of the year. It's not the best idea since sliced bread, but it is the Governor's idea, and I'm willing to give him the courtesy of a 'yes' vote. I think it’s important for all of us to recognize that not starting the next fiscal year with a $454 million additional hole in the budget, not finishing this year with that same hole would be a good idea. I urge your 'aye' vote."
"Those in favor of the Lady's Bill will vote 'yes'; opposed 'no'. The voting is open. Have all voted who wish? 09900108.docx 110 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Please record yourselves. Please record yourselves. Mr. Clerk, please take the record. On this question, there are 61 voting 'yes'; 52 voting 'no'. And this Bill, having received a Constitutional Majority, is hereby declared passed. Mr. Sullivan is recognized."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise on a point of personal privilege."
"Please proceed."
"Ladies and Gentleman, we have a chance for some bipartisanship before the next vote. I spoke earlier about the Common School Fund and this Bill that I have that I'm trying to get out of Rules. I am invoking Rule 18(g) that you guys have passed, 18(g) allows me to go and collect signatures of willing participants to have the Bill discharged from Rules. Everybody on my side of the aisle has signed this piece of paper, and all this does is it takes President Cullerton's Bill and it asks it be discharged from Rules into a standing committee. So you'll be seeing me in the next vote, I'm going to come to you personally and ask for your vote. I ask for you to vote and sign this to have it go to a substantial committee. And now remember, this year alone in the first two months, it has put $6 million into the Common School Fund. So I ask for your support. If you don’t, I certainly understand, but I will making that ask coming forth. Thank you."
"Mr. Clerk, on Page 11 of the Calendar under the Order of House Bills Second Reading, appears House Bill 2990. Leader Currie. Mr. Clerk, please read the Bill." 09900108.docx 111 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"House Bill 2990, a Bill for an Act making appropriations. This Bill was read a second time on a previous day. No Committee Amendments. Floor Amendments 1 and 2 have been approved for consideration. Floor Amendment #1 is offered by Representative Currie."
"Leader Currie, would you want to this adopted? Mr. Sandack."
"No. Amendment 1 should be withdrawn. I would like to move with Amendment 2."
"Withdraw Amendment 1, Mr. Clerk."
"Floor Amendment #2 is offered by Representative Currie and has been approved for consideration."
"Those in favor of the Amendment will say 'yes'; opposed say 'no'. The 'ayes' have it. And the Amendment is adopted. Mr. Clerk."
"No further Amendments. No Motions are filed."
"Third Reading. Please read the Bill."
"House Bill 2990, a Bill for an Act making appropriations. Third Reading of this House Bill."
"Leader Currie, on the previous Bill, it seemed as if you explained this Bill. Do you have anything to add?"
"Only… only that this will also help make sure that we meet maintenance of effort with federal… federal resources. So about $20 million here will save us $20 million in further federal cuts. Again, this only gives all these important state services the opportunity to have their bills paid. Today, they don’t have that, and even those with contracts are not getting paid. I think this is important. We are not going to be here for the next five weeks. Let's see to it that our 09900108.docx 112 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 most vulnerable citizens do not find the doors slammed in their faces. Please vote 'yes'."
"Mr. Sandack, we had a thorough debate. Does your side of the aisle have something to add?"
"Well, I… I want to speak to the Bill. I'm not going to ask any questions and I'll be very succinct."
"Please proceed."
"Thank you. The math matters. This is an appropriation Bill of 3.7 billion with yester… with the… the last Bill, six… I'm sorry, 454 million would be forgiven, leaving a $2.4 billion hole. Make no mistake, we are leaving a $2.4 billion hole. We are doing what we've done in the past, act entirely irresponsibly. This is nonsense. Voting on this gives false hope, does nothing to solve our problems. I guess people can go back home and pretend that… that they're funding services. They're doing no such thing. And let's make no mistake, this is not a compromise. This was a proposal that was pieced together solely by Democratic leaders in the cover of night, thrown together without a hint of participation from either House Republicans or the Governor. Republicans have repeatedly and genuinely requested that our Democratic colleagues come to the table and negotiate a responsibly funded budget. That refusal to come to the table has again caused the problems we’re in. Maybe when we come back, some sense and sensibility will rise to a level where we'll have conversation and discussion. No compromise here. This is more of the Majority doing irresponsible things. I… I ask for a 'no' vote. Thank you, Mr. Speaker."
"Mr. Davidsmeyer." 09900108.docx 113 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Earlier in the… the previous piece of legislation, you spoke of institutions of higher education possibly closing their doors if we don’t… if we don’t pass this. This does not actually give them dollars, right? The dollars are not there, so passing this, does this provide the ability to actually move forward? I mean, they need the dollars today."
"They do. And without this spending authority, there's not a chance, not a prayer that a single dollar would come there way."
"Without the revenue or the cuts or the reforms, there's no chance of them getting it either, today."
"If the Governor were to sign this Bill, there's the opportunity for the Comptroller to respond to crisis situations. As the Comptroller is responding today to those situations, those areas wherein there is spending authority whether through a budget, a court order, or a statutory continuing appropriation."
"In… instead of doing this under a crisis like we are right now, why didn’t we get together last week or last month or last year to talk about this stuff? We put it off and put it off. We're willing to sit down and talk. We're not being given an option. I remember back in… January, when we were sworn into this General Assembly. The Speaker himself said, welcome to the table. We have not been allowed to come to the table. We want to be there. We want a compromise. And we want to help figure a way out for the State of Illinois. There are members on your side of the aisle that I've talked 09900108.docx 114 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 to that are good people that want to figure this out too. Why are we not allowed to do this?"
"We are allowed to do it. I stand ready…"
"Why are we not?"
"…over the next five weeks to talk to you or any other member to see if we can solve that part of the problem. But in the meantime, these agencies, these needs cannot wait for five weeks. They are in a crisis situation. We need to do our part to help them today."
"You know, you… you can vote however you want on this Bill. This does not provide anybody anything except false hope. False hope because we're not going to be back until April. The person in Wisconsin that… that the Gentleman spoke about earlier is still not going to receive that funding by the end of the month, right? We should still be here."
"The Senate…"
"Which…"
"…will be in even though we…"
"…I'm willing to…"
"…are not."
"But the dollars still are not going to be there. So I'll… I'll be here tomorrow if you want to be here. I'll be here Saturday if you want to be here, Sunday. You tell me when, I'll be here. I know a number of my colleagues will… are more than willing to be here for somebody who's actually willing to talk about compromise. Let's actually fix this. Let's stop being children, and grow up and be adults, right? I know there's people on both sides of the aisle that feel the exact same way. I've talked to my counterparts and the 09900108.docx 115 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 downstate Democrats that have said, let's talk about this, let's be reasonable. I think there's many people here that want to reasonable, we're just not given the opportunity because politics is too important to let reality get in the way. It's crazy. Let's… let's be adults, let's actually talk about this stuff. Vote 'no'."
"There are still several lights on. Members, this Bill was actually thoroughly debated when we debated the previous Bill. Please try to keep your comments succinct, starting with Mr. Franks."
"Thank you. Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering if the next thing we're going to do is start shooting the hostages. You know, Illinois kids are going to be deciding whether they're going to school in Illinois pretty soon. Our actions will cause many kids to leave which will cause more hardships for the universities, because there's going to be less bodies in the seats. Seriously, how many seniors are going to have to die before we get serious? And how many more social service agencies must close before we get serious? How many people with mental health care needs are going to have to be arrested or become homeless before we finally get serious? What I really need to know is when we have… you got to let me know when we've caused enough pain, hardship, and misery so both sides can declare victory. Just let me know. Because both sides are a hundred percent wrong. We both suffer, both sides suffer under the delusion that it's okay for real people to suffer as long as the other side gets blamed. We need to stop this madness right now. Governor, you don’t have enough votes in your own caucus to bust the unions. Give it up. Give it 09900108.docx 116 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 up. Heck, we just had a Bill, the last Bill, not one Republican voted for it and it was your idea. Speaker, let's have a vote on the fair MAPs. Let's have a vote on term limits. And let's have a vote on real campaign finance reform. Citizens United is the real reason why we're stuck in gridlock. If we all are serious about it, we would admit that. Up or down, let's have these votes. We need to focus on the budget. Mike Tyson, I love Mike Tyson. He famously said that, everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face. Right? Well our citizens aren’t just getting punched in the face, they're getting kneed in the groin. Our citizens can't take any more of this madness. We need to stop it. We need to grow up. The petty partisan politics that we are displaying is destroying our state. It is destroying our state. I was elected to be a state Representative like every one of you to fix the problems of this state, not to cause more problems. And that's what we're doing. So we need to stop governing and we got to stop playing politics. And I hope that the Members are ready to start acting as the Illinois General Assembly which is a coequal branch of government. Let's take out government back, let’s get to work. We need to get this done. I'm happy to stay after as Mr. Kay had said yesterday. If we can't get our leaders to follow us, we… I mean we can't… they can't follow us, we need to lead and forget the past. If we keep dwelling on the past, we are going to destroy our state. Please, let's rise above this nonsense. Let's please work together. We know that after this Bill passes today it's going to be Vetoed. Let's meet and talk about what we can agree on. Let's talk about what the real revenue estimates are. Let’s 09900108.docx 117 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 see if we can put some Bills up on the floor that can bring us together. But keep doing… but if we keep doing this folks, they deserve to throw every one of us out of office."
"Mr. Andersson."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Speaking to the Bill. And, by the way, I apologize for not bringing these items up in the last debate. But I remember Leader Currie often times telling us, let's only debate the Bill that's in front of us, not Bills that are not. So I thought I'd speak to it now. So I apologize for the delay. But I've also learned a new rule in the last few days about appropriations. When we debated them in the past, we talked about are they out of balance? Are they balanced? What is that? But now I've learned that that's not really the issue. The issue is that it’s okay to over- appropriate since we're just authorizing the Governor to spend money. I heard that yesterday from the Representative from Aurora. So I wonder if that's the case, why did you bother going into the detail of getting into the line items and the numbers that you filled in next to the line items. Since, obviously, we don’t have the money for any of that? Why didn’t you just put a billion dollars in every one of those line items? Heck, the federal budget is $3.9 trillion. Let's top them. Let's have a bigger budget than that. Since obviously, it has nothing to do with money. We're just authorizing the Governor to figure out our budget crisis. But that wasn’t the only lesson I learned. I learned yesterday as well that it's not just the Governor that has this responsibility. I learned from the Representative from Evergreen Park yesterday that the hope is that if we 09900108.docx 118 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 appropriate this money that people can put their bills in line, and have the hope that the Comptroller, that the Comptroller can find the money or prioritize the money. And I find that rule particularly interesting because I remember early in the session last year, the Representative from McHenry County explaining that our current Comptroller wanted to be a policymaker. She wanted to be a policymaker in this room, but she lost. And his point was that she's not a policymaker. Now whether that's right or wrong is subject to debate, I suppose. But if that's the case, if we have now delegated not only to our Governor, but we've even delegated one step further down to the Comptroller. What are we doing? So I thought it was our job to figure out how to balance the budget, but apparently not. I think the answer is clear. It's politics. You don’t want your Members to make the hard choices, to talk about either cuts or revenue or both. Politics. You… instead, you want to make the Governor do our work and then blame him for the woes of the state. Pure politics. Now in spite of that, I remain an optimist. And I'm glad to hear the Leader say that for the next 5 or 10 weeks we can get down to business and talk about fixing this problem and putting a nice, bright bow on it. I wonder where we've been for the last nine months 'cause we could have been doing that this whole time. Perhaps that’s the timing of politics. But I remain an optimist. So I hope that that's true. What I would suggest is we restart the Appropriations Committees and we talk about cuts, we talk about revenue, and we talk about both. The thing the state needs more than anything, the people of the state, the businesses of the state me… need more than 09900108.docx 119 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 anything is predictability and sustainability. So that they know that the State of Illinois will be around tomorrow and the next day and the next year. We can do that, but we can only do it if we talk. So let's get those Appropriations Committees going again, and then let's send the Governor a balanced budget. One that we can all agree on is healthy, sustainable, and predictable. Thank you, but vote 'no'."
"Mr. Harris." Harris, D.: "Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I will be very brief. I appreciate it. One quick question of the Sponsor, if I may?"
"Sponsor yields." Harris, D.: "Representative, this Bill contains two sets… well, actually three sets of dollars, if you will, General Revenue Fund, other state funds and some federal funds. Correct?"
"I don’t think there are any federal funds, but there certainly are General Revenue dollars and other state funds." Harris, D.: "Okay. My… just to let you know, my analysis has 40… roughly $42 million in federal funds, some for…"
"Okay. Maybe they come through the state. We… we will check that…" Harris, D.: "Well, okay. Well I'm not…"
"…we'll check that." Harris, D.: "Let me just concentrate if I can for second on other state funds, the non-GRF funds. As I understand, there are $684 million, 5… $50 in other state funds, $684 million in other state funds. Those are special funds set aside from the… from the General Revenue Fund, correct?"
"I think that is right. I've been saying $700 million, but I bet your figure is more accurate." 09900108.docx 120 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Harris, D.: "Okay, thank you. Ladies and Gentlemen of the House, if I may… if I may. Let me read to you from the Daily Herald Editorial from Wednesday, January… excuse me, from Wednesday, December the 23rd of 2015. It says, number two, House Democrat Barbara Flynn Currie casts an even more ominous tone, acknowledging to AP reservations she has about the recent legislation she cosponsored to get municipalities their money. Quote: 'You create the special funds to serve special purposes,' she said, 'and once you begin saying, open, Sesame, we can just take whatever we like.' That's not a good way to run things. We are taking $684 million of special funds to use elsewhere, and the paper goes along to say, 'aside from the ethical issues of snatching funds collected for say, conservation or special school projects, and using them to fund Government, short-term sweeping carries the very practical danger of making our General Fund crisis worse in the long run.' That's what we're doing. We're taking $684 million and we're sweeping it out of those funds and we're putting them in the General Revenue Funds. And in the end, it's just going to make things worse. Thank you."
"Leader Currie."
"That was… I think a misunderstanding on the part of the previous Speaker. The special funds that are being appropriated in this Bill are being appropriated for the purposes for which those funds were created. There's no sweep here at all. If the money is supposed to pay for 'x', that’s what the money is being used for in this Bill."
"Mr. Harris." 09900108.docx 121 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Harris, D.: "If indeed that's the case, when I'm wrong, I'll admit I'm wrong. So it… we’re not using those into the General Revenue Fund?"
"These are special funds used for special purposes, so exact…" Harris, D.: "So they're actually going for the purposes they're going…"
"There's no sweep…" Harris, D.: "…to be used for?"
"…no sweep in this at all." Harris, D.: "In that case, my apologies for… for my comments, and I stand corrected. Thank you."
"Thank you."
"Mr. Zalewski."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the sponsor yield?"
"Sponsor yields."
"Leader Currie, this is an Appropriations Bill, right?"
"It is."
"So it's fair to say that as a result of this Bill, were this Bill to be… become law, monies would be appropriated to the… Comptroller to be able to keep Eastern Illinois University functioning?"
"Correct."
"Illinois State University functioning?"
"Correct."
"Northern Illinois University would still function?"
"Correct."
"Southern Illinois would still function?
"Correct." 09900108.docx 122 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016
"U of I would still function?"
"Correct."
"Western would still function?"
"Correct."
"Catholic Charities as a result of this legislation would get the ability to go to the Comptroller and ask for the $26 million that they’ve been bound to… legally bound to perform the services for."
"Correct."
"Lutheran Social Services would get the ability to go to the Comptroller and apply for the… for the monies that they've been contractually bounded to provide services for?"
"Correct."
"Rape crisis centers would be able to go to the Comptroller and apply for the monies that they have been legally bound to provide services for?"
"Correct."
"Thank you. To the Bill. I… I heard a lot of testimony and… and comments today that we're going to feel really good about passing this Bill. We heard it yesterday. This is feel good legislation. I… I choose to take a different approach to the Bill before the Body. This is literally the only option we have. It's the only chance we have to get the people the help they need to continue to provide the services they provide. It's the only chance to get help to the parents of kids that are wondering whether the universities they go to are going to be able to keep their doors open passed April 30. This is live ammo. The choice here isn't between, well, we… we may or may not be able to compromise on some aspects 09900108.docx 123 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 of what we’ve been in this pitched battle over. The choice here is, there's an Appropriations Bill before us, we have the opportunity to appropriate money. None of this is ideal, it's all messy, it's all awful, and we all need to reevaluate how we've approached this over the last two years. But this is our only chance to go forward and do the thing we were elected to do and pass some sort of budget, which is better than no budget. Ministers are asking to tend to their flocks. Students are asking to be able to have to assurance that they can go to school. This is not show legislation, this isn't feel good legislation. This is legislation that deserves the vote of every member of this General Assembly. I urge an 'aye' vote."
"Representative McDermed."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Bill. The question that I'm asking myself and the question that I think we'll all ask ourselves tomorrow morning is, what are we really going to tell social service agencies, college students, and anyone else that's depending on receiving any of this money? Is anybody in this room seriously going to tell people that they are going to get their money? I think that you would be doing your agency, your university, and you students a big disservice. Because we all know that they won't be getting that money. They might get in line to get that money, they might have a false hope of getting that money, but they're not going to get that money on any kind of a timely basis. Their credit limits are still going to be overrun, and their college dreams are still going to be postponed if they're planning on using MAP money to achieve them. So I think we 09900108.docx 124 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 need to be realistic and we need to understand, once again, the good intentions may not yield a real result. You're not going to be able to tell people that they're going to get their money, that they can count on getting that money, that they can tell their lenders they're going to have that money. We all know that would be a lie. That’s not true, it’s not going to happen. We all know it's not going to happen. Not sure why we're pretending. We need to… we need to be honest with people. I get a lot of thank yous from people in my district when I tell them look, it's really broken. I don’t think it's going to come. I don’t think it's going to come 'til 2017, the money that you need from the State of Illinois."
"Mr. Kay."
"Point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker."
"Proceed, Sir."
"Yeah. I just wanted to reiterate my offer to meet in the well with Republicans and Democrats who thinks… who think things should be done a different way. And I think several speakers have mentioned that today. It's not a bad idea, a lot of us negotiate every day and we negotiate big contracts for people that are in need and other people that just want jobs. I think there are pretty responsible Democrats here, and I think there are pretty responsible Republicans here. What I think we're caught up in is a friction between leadership and the state, and that leadership is tying this place up. We have our hands behind our backs because people have become reckless, they have become foolish, and as far as I'm concerned, indiscriminate in decision making. We don’t 09900108.docx 125 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 need to play follow the leader. We need to get down to the job we've been elected to do. And I don’t want to lead anything but I'd like to suggest that we meet at the well and try and work things out together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker."
"Leader Currie to close."
"Thank you, Speaker and Members of the House. Yes, we do need a budget, but we also need to meet our responsibilities for our vulnerable, fragile populations. Passage of this Bill will mean that all those populations, all those needs will no longer be left in the lurch. They will have the opportunity, not the guarantee, but the opportunity to apply for help from the Comptroller, and she will have the opportunity, not the requirement, but the opportunity to see to it that crisis needs are met. Please vote 'yes'."
"Those in favor of the Lady's Bill will vote 'yes'; opposed 'no'. The voting is open. Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Have all voted who wish? Please take the record. On this question, there are 70 voting 'yes', 43 voting 'no', 1 voting 'present'. And this Bill, having received the Constitutional Majority is hereby declared passed. Mr. Clerk, Agreed Resolutions."
Clerk Hollman: "Agreed Resolutions. House Resolution 1060, offered by Representative Scherer. House Resolution 1063, offered by Representative Unes. House Resolu… Resolution 1064, offered by Representative Brady. House Resolution 1065, offered by Representative Gabel."
"Leader Currie moves for the adoption of the Agree Resolutions. Those in favor say 'yes'; opposed 'no'. The 09900108.docx 126 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 'ayes' have it. And the Agreed Resolutions are adopted. Mr. Demmer is recognized."
"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Pursuant to House Rule 66, I move the House stand adjourned until Friday, March 4, 2016 at the hour of 12:00 PM. Mr. Speaker, several times during today's debate, we've heard that there's… this is not a solution, that there's still work to do, that we still have a lot of conversations to have and Bills to work on. I'm asking that the House stand adjourned until tomorrow at 12 noon. If you vote 'yes', you're voting to keep working. If you vote 'no', you're… you're voting to leave for more than a month and not come back until April. I ask you to stand with me. I ask for a recorded vote on my Motion to adjourn 'til Friday, March 4 at the hour of 12 noon."
"Mr. Demmer, we'll get back to you on your Motion. Mr. Sandack, were you rising on the Motion? So we're going to analyze the Motion. We will not adjourn before we address the…"
"Thank you."
Speaker Lang: "…Motion, Sir. Representative Wallace is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I'm to understand, there's a Motion to adjourn until tomorrow afternoon in…"
"Representative Wallace, we're getting back to that Motion. We'll get back to you."
"Okay, yes."
"Mr. Phelps is recognized."
"Point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker. I want to just take the time to talk about some other good news about higher ed. Today, the Missouri Valley Conference named their coach 09900108.docx 127 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 of the year and it came from Southern Illinois University, the Salukis. So congratulations to Barry Hinson. Good job, coach."
"Thank you, Sir. Congratulations. Representative Bryant is recognized."
"I'd like to join my colleague, Representative Phelps, in congratulating coach Hinson, one of the finest coaches in the United States."
"Mr. Demmer, the Chair rules your Motion out of order. Leader Currie moves that the House stand adjourned until Monday, April 4 at the hour of 12 noon. Those in favor say 'yes'; opposed 'no'. The 'ayes' have it, and the House stands adjourned."
"House Perfunctory Session will come to order. Introduction and First Reading of House Bills. House Bill 6417, offered by Representative Sullivan, a Bill for an Act concerning appropriations. House Bill 6418, offered by Representative Tryon, a Bill for an Act concerning local government. First Reading of these House Bills. Introduction of Resolutions. House Resolution 1061, offered by Representative Ammons. And House Resolution 1062, offered by Representative McAuliffe. These are referred with the Rules Committee. Committee Reports. Representative Hoffman, Chairperson from the Committee on Labor & Commerce reports the following committee action taken on March 02, 2016: recommends be adopted House Resolution 1021. Representative Phelps, Chairperson from the Committee on Public Utilities reports the following committee action taken on March 02, 2016: do pass Short Debate is House Bill 5539. Representative 09900108.docx 128 STATE OF ILLINOIS 99th GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 108th Legislative Day 3/3/2016 Kelly Burke, Chairperson from the Committee on Higher Education reports the following committee action taken on March 02, 2016: do pass Short Debate is House Bill 4675, do pass Standard Debate is House Bill 4393. Representative Jackson, Chairperson from the Committee on Counties & Townships reports the following committee action taken on March 03, 2016: do pass Short Debate is House Bill 4391, House Bill 4522. Representative Feigenholtz, Chairperson from the Committee on Adoption Reform reports the following committee action taken on March 03, 2016: do pass Short Debate is House Bill 4590, House Bill 4641. Representative Ford, Chairperson from the Committee on Restorative Justice reports the following committee action taken on March 03, 2016: do pass Short Debate is House Bill 5771, recommends be adopted is House Resolution 1011. Representative Nekritz, Chairperson from the Committee on Personnel and Pensions reports the following committee action taken on March 03, 2016: do pass Short Debate is House Bill 4532, House Bill 5681, House Bill 6130, House Bill 6292, House Bill 6298. Representative Chapa LaVia, Chairperson from the Committee on Veterans' Affairs reports the following committee action taken on March 03, 2016: do pass Short Debate is House Bill 4389, recommends be adopted is House Joint Resolution 126, House Resolution 799, and House Resolution 968. There being no further business, the House Perfunctory Session will stand adjourned." 09900108.docx 129