Friday, May 17, 2013   Overview   It is hard to believe that the scheduled end of session is a little more than two weeks away, especially in light of the urgency that usually accompanies this time frame.  The major issues like pension reform, concealed carry, the state budget, and other issues just seem to be in more of a “posturing” stance.  The House and Senate…

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  Friday, May 3, 2013   Pension Reform This week saw the first significant movement for pension reform in the General Assembly.  On Tuesday, Speaker Madigan filed an amendment to Senate Bill #1 that included many significant changes to the State Employees Retirement Systems, State University Retirement System, the General Assembly Retirement System, and the Teachers Retirement System.  The…

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  Thursday, April 25, 2013   Senate Third Reading Today, Thursday, April 25th , is the third reading deadline in the Senate.  This means that Senate bills had to be voted out of the Senate by the close of session today or they will most likely not proceed through the process.  The House did not hold session this week, reaching their third reading deadline last week.  While both…

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  Friday, April 19, 2013   Third Reading Deadlines Bills continue to move through the legislative process, but there still seems to be a lot of the big issues out there that still need to be addressed.  With the close of business today, the House of Representatives had arrived at the deadline for passage of House bill.  The House will return after a week break on April 30th.  The Senate will…

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  Friday, March 22, 2013   SPRING BREAK   The House and Senate have reached their scheduled spring break with legislators returning to their districts for two weeks.  The weeks leading up to their spring break have been consumed with mostly committee actions, intermittent floor action on pension bills, special calls to action on firearm issues, Democrats and Republicans going to numerous and…

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  Budget Address Special Edition Wednesday, March 6, 2013   An “Honest” Budget Governor Quinn provided his budget address today, opening the speech by stating that this “is an honest budget that reflects our fiscal challenges, pays down the backlog of bills and addresses funds that have been under-appropriated for too long.” According to the Governor, this was the…

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  Friday, March 1, 2013   What A Week   Seasoned State House veterans claim this week’s House session activities were more like the last week of May, not the end of February.  Several big issues were aired out in full on the House floor under a new special call to order.  The two issues aired were called on the House Floor via amendments that were not vetted through…

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  Governor Quinn's State of the State Address   Governor Pat Quinn presented his State of the State speech yesterday in the Illinois House of Representative chambers to a combined session of the General Assembly.  Towards the beginning of the speech, he stated that our state is at a critical juncture and that we have to make a choice about what we want “our Illinois” to look like.  He then laid out numerous…

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  “Quiet” Veto Session Veto Sessions are supposed to be when the General Assembly convenes to deal with the Governor's vetoes on legislation.  However, they usually turn into full blown marathon sessions for passing large and sometimes controversial legislation.  This was not the case this year.  Most of the time was spent laying the ground work for new legislative initiatives for a "lame duck" session yet to…

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OVERVIEW As you walk into the capital you see the two story tall Christmas tree with nativity scene in front and everything looks calm and surreal in the ornate State House.  It is hard to believe that just a few weeks ago there was an election where candidates were slugging it out for a seat.   That feeling is quickly diminished when you listen to the conversations in the hallways.  Monday and Tuesday, the hallways were full…

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