PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) The regular Session of the 100th General Assembly will please come to order. Will our Members please be at their desk? Will our guests in the galleries please rise? The invocation today will be given by Pastor Joe Eby, Third Presbyterian Church, Springfield, Illinois.
(Prayer by Pastor Joe Eby)
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Please remain standing for the Pledge Allegiance. Senator Cunningham.
(Pledge of Allegiance, led by Senator Cunningham)
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Mr. Secretary, Reading and Approval of the Journal.
Senate Journal of Wednesday, January 25th, 2017.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Senator Hunter.
Mr. President, I move to postpone the reading and approval of the Journal just read by the Secretary, pending arrival of the printed transcript.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Senator Hunter moves to postpone the reading and the approval of the Journal, pending the arrival of the printed transcript. There being no objection, so ordered. Mr. Secretary, Resolutions. James Carder, Blueroomstream.com, seeks permission to videotape. Seeing no objection, permission granted. Michon Lindstrom of WAND 1 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 seeks permission to videotape. Seeing no objection, permission granted. Mr. Secretary, Resolutions.
Senate Resolution 85, offered by Senator McConnaughay and all Members. Senate Resolution 86, offered by Senator Manar and all Members. And Senate Resolution 87, offered by President Cullerton and all Members. They are all death resolutions, Mr. President.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Resolution Consent Calendar. Mr.…
Senate Joint Resolution 12, offered by Senator Haine. It is substantive.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Mr. Secretary, Introduction of Senate Bills.
Senate Bill 671, offered by Senator Harmon. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 672, offered by Senator Harmon. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 673, offered by Senator Harmon. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 674, offered by Senator Martinez. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 675, offered by Senator Stadelman. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 676, offered by Senator Hastings. 2 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 677, offered by Senator Althoff. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 678, offered by Senator Harmon. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 679, offered by Senator Harmon. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 680, offered by Senator Althoff. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 681, offered by Senator Althoff. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 682, offered by Senator Mulroe. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 683, offered by Senator Mulroe. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 684, offered by Senator Rose. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 685, offered by Senator Connelly. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 686, offered by Senator Morrison. (Secretary reads title of bill) 1st Reading of the bills.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Senator Stadelman, for what purpose do you rise?
Point of personal privilege, Mr. President.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) State your point.
3 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 Thank you, Mr. President. As we all know, our legislative assistants provide important work for us on a daily basis. And those who -- of us who've worked with Ed Gallagher know that certainly is the case. He brings a great personality to the job, a great skill set, and people really, really enjoyed working with him. And he provided a lot of different, I think, additional tasks. He would help research legislation and provide some of the initial work with LRU and LRB. So his work was greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, Ed will be leaving my office. And he's a pretty good basketball player too, so I think we'll miss that in the mornings on Wednesdays as well, for those of us who played basketball with Ed. But, he'll be leaving us. Fortunately, he will not be traveling too far away. He's taken a position in the district office of Senator Bush. So we'll see his friendly face, I'm sure, down here in the future. But I just want to thank him for his great work. And please help me thank him and -- for -- Ed for doing a great job in the two and a half years that he worked for me.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Good luck and welcome to Lake County. Mr. Secretary, Introduction of Senate Bills.
Senate Bill 687, offered by Senator McCarter. (Secretary reads title of bill) Senate Bill 688, offered by Senator Harmon. (Secretary reads title of bill) 1st Reading of the bills.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Lee Milner, Illinois Times, seeks permission to -- photos. 4 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 Seeing no objection, permission granted. Senator Oberweis, for what purpose do you rise?
A point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) It's…
Mr. President.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) It's President, but…
President.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) State your point.
I would like to introduce my Page for the Day, Jeremiah Diehl. He's here with his mother and father, who are in the upper regions, right above you. His father is a fireman from South Elgin. Jeremiah is active in Boy Scouts, as you can see from his dress today. He's a member of Troop 26 in Bartlett. He holds the rank of Life Scout and is the troop's Chaplain (Aide). He is a founding member of BSA Venturing -- Venturing Honor Guard Crew 5151, and at the age of twelve, he was recently elected as an Order of the Arrow Chapter Chief. However, today he became a teenager. He's now thirteen years old as of today. Please join me in welcoming my Page for a Day, Jeremiah Diehl.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Happy birthday and congratulations. Senator Oberweis.
5 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 In addition, I would like to mention we have a birthday cake for Jeremiah available in our snack area back here. Even the Democrats are invited to come over and have some. We'd like to have you join us. Thank you all.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Senator Hunter, for what purpose do you rise?
Point of personal privilege, Mr. President.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) State your point.
Last -- earlier this month, one of my staffers left the Energy Committee and we did not have the opportunity of recognizing him. And so since he's in the Chamber, in the balcony, I just thought it would be very appropriate that we recognize Louie Mossos. And just say, Louie, we miss you already. But I want to wish you the best of luck in your new endeavor. Thank you very much for everything that you've done for me and the Energy Committee.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR HARMON) Senator -- Senator Harmon in the Chair. Mr. Secretary, Resolutions.
Senate Resolutions 88, 89, 90, and 91, offered by Senator McGuire and all Members. They are all death resolutions, Mr. President.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR HARMON) Resolutions Consent Calendar. Senator Link back in the Chair.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Mr. Secretary, Senate Bills -- Introduction of Senate Bills. 6 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017
Senate Bill 689, offered by Senator McGuire. (Secretary reads title of bill) 1st Reading of the bill.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Leader Radogno, for what purpose do you rise?
Point of personal privilege.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) State your point.
Well, as you know, there's been a lot of anticipation this week about voting on a so-called "grand bargain". But, in fact, what we're all trying to achieve is to get to the point where we can lay out a path to a sustainable, balanced budget that will include structural reforms to make it work in the long run. This has been a terrific process thus far. I -- unfortunately, I don't think we're to the point of being able to take a vote. That is by no means a statement that we are backing off this effort. Almost everyone who's been involved in this knows it's incredibly complicated, and the more you try to refine it, the more issues pop up. I sense from our caucus and I sense from the folks I've talked to on the Democrat side that we do want to get this done. I also have been very heartened to see the amount of support that we've gotten from our friends, from our neighbors, from the editorial boards of the importance of what we're doing here. It is hard and none of us are going to like this in the end, but we have to get the State on a path with a sustainable, balanced budget and the reforms that are going to keep us there. So, I just want 7 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 to reiterate, let's keep moving forward, let's keep talking to each other. A lot of the ideas that have made this even more difficult, but will make it better in the end, have come from the Members and our caucuses that we've had this week. So, this is just a little pep talk. We're going to go home now for a while. Listen to the people in your community. They want our State to be proud again. And we're going to have to come here and take some hard votes to make that happen. There's going to be a lot of pressure on us when we go home, on you guys from certain elements, on us from certain elements. Don't succumb to that. We need to do this together for the good of the State. I think we are still on that path. I guarantee you I'm going to be working hard on it this week coming up. And I know all of you are too. Just because we're not taking a vote today, absolutely does not mean that our efforts are becoming unraveled. In fact, I think they're becoming more real, because we realize the complexity of the situation. Thank you.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) President Cullerton, for what purpose do you rise?
Yes, thank you, Mr. President. I also have been encouraged by the progress that we've made and it's really progress that might have seemed impossible just a few weeks ago. So, if we need more time to pull this together, I'm going to consider that encouraging. We are -- we have a bunch of questions that have been posed by our Members in the caucus. We're going to get those answered. But then it's going to come time to make a decision. To reiterate, the problems we face are not going to disappear. In fact, they're going to get more difficult every day. And so when the Senate 8 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 returns to Session the week of February 7th, everybody should be ready and prepared to vote. Thank you.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Senator McCarter, for what purpose do you rise? SENATOR McCARTER: Point of personal privilege.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) State your point. SENATOR McCARTER: Let me -- let me first say, I know everyone's put a lot of effort into this on both sides, and I'm -- and I'm appreciative, because I know there's a lot of long hours that have been put into it. One -- one thing, however, that I haven't seen as much effort put into is how we're going to actually reduce the size of Illinois' government. Yes, cuts. And I would hope that before we vote, we spend just as much time seeing how we can do that, because I've already heard from the people back home. And they are upset. They're insulted by the fact that our first effort to fix this is to take more of their money. Now, there are a lot of those folks that would agree to that and they always say this, "We'll agree to that, but can you show us what you've done with what we gave you? And can you make some cuts first?" I mean, these people are very -- very generous to even say that they'd tolerate another tax increase if we'll just do something. Just like reforming pensions, just like all these reforms, we have to do -- we have to step up first. And I think that's what we need to spend time on in the next two weeks, seeing how we can make this government in Illinois more affordable. Because right now what people are telling me is we can't afford it. However creative your tax is, we can't afford 9 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 it. And so hopefully, all of us, we spend a little more time looking at how we can make this government smaller. Thank you.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) We will now proceed to the Order of Resolution Consent Calendar. With leave of the Body, all resolutions read in today will be added to the Consent Calendar. Mr. Secretary, have there been any objections filed on any resolution on the Consent Calendar?
No objections filed, Mr. President.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Is there any discussion? If not, the question is, shall the resolutions on the Consent Calendar be adopted. All those in favor will say Aye. Opposed, Nay. The Ayes have it, and the motion carries. And the resolutions are adopted. Mr. Secretary, Messages from the House.
Message from the House by Mr. Mapes, Clerk. Mr. President - I am directed to inform the Senate that the House of Representatives has adopted the following joint resolution, in the adoption of which I am instructed to ask the concurrence of the Senate, to wit: House Joint Resolution 14. Offered by Senator Harmon. (Secretary reads HJR No. 14) Adopted by the House, January 24th, 2017. Timothy D. Mapes, Clerk of the House.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) On the Order of Resolutions is House Joint Resolution 14. 10 STATE OF ILLINOIS 100th GENERAL ASSEMBLY REGULAR SESSION SENATE TRANSCRIPT 6th Legislative Day 1/26/2017 Mr. Secretary, read the resolution.
House Joint Resolution 14, offered by Senator Harmon.
PRESIDING OFFICER: (SENATOR LINK) Senator Harmon moves to suspend the rules for the purposes of immediate consideration and adoption of House Joint Resolution 14. All those in favor will say Aye. Opposed, Nay. The Ayes have it, and the rules are suspended. Senator Harmon moves the adoption of House Joint Resolution 14. All those in favor will say Aye. Opposed, Nay. The Ayes have it, and the resolution is adopted. There being no further business to come before the Senate, pursuant to House Joint Resolution 14, the Senate stands adjourned until the hour of 12 noon on the 7th day of February 2017, or until the call of the Senate President. The Senate stands adjourned. 11