More than 660 bills will head to Pritzker after legislative session
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[June 19, 2021]
By JERRY NOWICKI
Capitol News Illinois
jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – With the first year of the 102nd General Assembly mostly
wrapped up, lawmakers as of Friday had officially passed 664 bills
through both houses for eventual consideration by the governor.
Gov. JB Pritzker had signed 17 of them as of Friday, including the
Thursday signing of the state’s operating budget and a bill making
several changes to the state election code.
Charlie Wheeler, an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois
Springfield who covered the Illinois General Assembly for the Chicago
Sun-Times for more than two decades, said he was struck by the
“progressive nature” of the bills passed by the General Assembly this
year.
“The voting legislation, for example, you look at what other states are
doing and then you look at what we did, that was kind of an example” of
the strongly Democratic legislation that passed this year, Wheeler said.
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That elections law, which took effect immediately upon the governor’s
signature, instructs election authorities to create a permanent
vote-by-mail list which voters may choose to join. It also makes
Election Day 2022 a state holiday and requires election authorities to
create a central voting site where all residents within the authority’s
jurisdiction can cast a ballot on Election Day 2022.
It also allows political candidates to use campaign funds for child care
and care for other dependents, and requires that any vacancy in the
General Assembly be filled in an open meeting, rather than behind closed
doors. It beefs up cybersecurity requirements as well.
It allows – but does not require – county jails to establish polling
places to allow voting by inmates who are residents of the county and
have not been convicted of the offense for which they are in custody. It
also creates provisions for curbside voting during early voting and on
Election Day.
Like next year’s budget, the elections bill passed with support from
only supermajority Democrats – a common theme for some of the more
controversial legislation that has passed during Pritzker’s time in
office. Partisan bills included a 2019 minimum wage hike, placing an
ill-fated graduated income tax on the 2020 ballot, criminal justice
reforms that passed in January, and newly drawn legislative maps that
will likely help Democrats maintain those supermajorities.
While there have been bipartisan victories as well, such as the budget
and capital infrastructure plans passed during Pritzker’s first year in
office, legalization of adult-use marijuana, and expanding gambling, the
partisan makeup of the General Assembly has allowed the governor to use
his veto sparingly.
A supermajority is reached when a party has at least 71 votes in the
House or 36 in the Senate, giving them the ability to override a
governor’s veto. Democrats have been over those numbers for the entirety
of Pritzker’s time in office.
Wheeler said it’s common to see fewer vetoes in such a situation. But he
also noted Pritzker has worked well with Democrats in the General
Assembly, despite some reported clashes, particularly pertaining to
negotiations behind an energy bill that has repeatedly stalled when
nearing a vote this year.
“They've been on pretty much the same page,” Wheeler said, noting any
disagreements are “nothing compared to some of the past animosity, for
example, with Madigan and (former Democratic Gov. Rod) Blagojevich who
sort of mutually detested each other.”
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The Illinois State Capitol is pictured in
Springfield. (Capitol News Illinois file photo by Jerry Nowicki)
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Pritzker has used the veto just 11 times as governor.
In his first year, Pritzker vetoed just eight of the 599 bills
passed in the regular session and one of the 38 bills passed in the
veto session. The majority of those vetoes were procedural due to
similar language being passed in other bills during the same General
Assembly.
In early 2020, he was nearly unanimously overridden on a veto of a
bill creating tax breaks for aircraft parts. But another override
vote called by the Republican sponsor of a bill affecting the
state’s ability to apply for waivers for state employee insurance
failed in 2019.
Pritzker’s second year was slower paced, with just 22 bills passing
both houses in the regular session which was waylaid by the COVID-19
pandemic. Lawmakers then came back for a “lame duck” session in
January 2021, passing 23 bills, including several measures backed by
the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, before the 101st General
Assembly adjourned.
Pritzker vetoed one of those bills, a measure establishing pretrial
interest on civil monetary awards, as lawmakers negotiated a
different pretrial interest measure that he signed earlier this
year.
In contrast, according to a Capitol News Illinois analysis of
Illinois General Assembly website data, former Democratic Gov. Rod
Blagojevich issued 133 vetoes in the 95th General Assembly of 2007
and 2008, the final one before his 2009 impeachment. In that
two-year session, 87 of those vetoes became law either with the
changes Blagojevich suggested or through legislative overrides.
Things went better for Blagojevich’s successor, Pat Quinn, in his
first full term. Quinn, a Democrat with Democrats in control of the
General Assembly, vetoed 41 bills in the 97th General Assembly, with
17 becoming law with legislator action. In the 98th General
Assembly, he vetoed 25 bills, 10 of which became law.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, meanwhile, issued 111 vetoes in the
99th General Assembly of 2015 and 2016, with only four of them
overturned, as Democrats were just short of the supermajority
threshold in the House.
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Rauner saw more Republican pushback in the 100th General Assembly in
2017 and 2018, including when it came to passing the state’s first
operating budget in more than two years by overriding his veto. He
issued 142 vetoes in the 100th General Assembly, 51 of which became
law through lawmaker action.
This week, Pritzker issued his first veto of the current General
Assembly, a technical fix to drafting errors in the state budget.
Lawmakers inadvertently left out effective dates in portions of the
bill, and they accepted Pritzker’s changes on partisan lines. He
signed the bill Thursday with the changes.
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news service covering state government and distributed to more than
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