Illinois legislature will go into overtime
By Kevin McDermott and Erik Potter
POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU
Friday, Jun. 01 2007

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Slot machines, electric rates and egos scuttled efforts to
pass a new state budget for Illinois by a constitutional deadline Thursday,
sending the Legislature into what could be a contentious overtime session that
likely ends hopes for major new education and health care funding.

With factions of the Legislature's ruling Democratic Party squabbling over
money, gambling, power bills and other issues, leaders by Thursday evening gave
up attempts to pass a final budget agreement and adjourn for the summer by a
constitutional deadline of midnight. House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago,
announced shortly after 7 p.m. that the House would be in session today, and
next week.

"We have plenty of work to do,"' Madigan told House members.

The Legislature's regular spring session

officially ends each year on May 31.

After that, new rules for an "overtime session" kick in, requiring a
three-fifths majority of each chamber to approve bills, giving the House
Republican minority the power to stop legislation. That will likely mean a
reduction in the $400 million boost that House Democrats want to give to
schools, and will scuttle other Democratic plans to open new casinos and create
universal health care in Illinois.

Part of the problem is that House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President
Emil Jones — two Chicago Democrats with a history of personal animosity — are
bitterly at odds over what the new spending plan should do.

This week, Madigan pushed a modest budget proposal through the House that
contained little new spending.

Jones, and Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a fellow Chicago Democrat, want major new
health care and education spending, to be funded by business taxes and new
casinos. Both sides appeared on Thursday to be digging in for a long fight over
their differences.

One measure, which was expected to be debated in the Senate on Thursday night,
would open four new Chicago-area casinos, give subsidies to struggling
horse-racing tracks like Fairmount Park, and use the additional state gambling
tax money to fund Blagojevich's health care initiative.

Madigan and House Republican Leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, both have said they
would agree to allow existing casinos like the Casino Queen and the Argosy at
Alton to expand their patron capacity, but that they won't agree to opening new
casinos.

Complicating matters is a rebellion by Metro East and Southern Illinois
Democrats over increased electric rates. They are effectively holding the
budget process hostage until they get rate relief for downstate residents, some
of whom saw their electric bills double or triple this year after a rate freeze
expired.

As many as 20 downstate Democrats, led by state Rep. Thomas Holbrook,
D-Belleville, have been threatening for months to hold up approval of the state
budget if the Legislature didn't act to roll back electric rate hikes that have
hit especially hard in Southern Illinois.

Holbrook made good on that threat after the House passed a budget plan late
Wednesday. He voted in favor of the bill, then filed a "motion to reconsider"
the measure, something that any lawmaker who votes on the winning side can do.
It's a parliamentary maneuver that effectively prevents the bill from moving to
the Senate for approval until Holbrook either drops his motion or calls it for
a re-vote.

"We've taken a position that we will not leave this chamber until rate relief
is available to our constituents," Holbrook said Thursday. "The best way to
facilitate that is to make sure no budget passes until rate relief has been
resolved."

One rate-freeze bill pending in the Senate would roll back rates of Ameren and
ComEd to where they were last year, before a major January rate hike, and
freeze them there for the next three years. Ameren and ComEd have fought the
proposal, saying it could bankrupt them, and they've offered customer rebates
instead. Negotiations between the utilities and key lawmakers were continuing
Thursday.

The state budget plan, expected to total about $60 billion once a final
agreement is reached, is the taxing and spending blueprint for the state fiscal
year that starts July 1. The budget plan that passed the House on Wednesday
would close about $300 million worth of corporate tax loopholes and increase
education funding by about $400 million. Both those measures are likely to be
killed once the House Republicans gain the power to defeat legislation.

Illinois' most recent overtime session was in 2004, when a budget showdown blew
the May 31 adjournment deadline and forced lawmakers into an overtime session
that lasted until late July.

In other business Thursday, a bill making stem cell research legal in Illinois
passed the Legislature and now heads to Blagojevich, who is expected to sign it.

The bill sets up a review process for awarding state-funded grants for adult
and embryonic stem cell research. The same bill also outlaws human cloning in
the state. The measure is designed to give clarity to the scientific community,
as neither the legality of human cloning nor stem cell research is currently
addressed in state law. The bill is SB4.

Among other measures advanced Thursday:

— A bill entering Illinois into an inter-state agreement ensuring the winner of
the national popular vote also wins the White House. It would depend on other
states signing on to the agreement, which only Maryland has done so far. The
bill passed the Senate and must now be approved by the House. (HB1685)

— A bill establishing safeguards preventing people with mental illness from
acquiring a firearm by tightening communication between mental health
facilities and the state police. The bill now goes to Blagojevich. (SB940)

— A bill that would allow for increased competition in cable television by
simplifying procedures for companies entering the market