Springfield News
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House Minority Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) and House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) confer on the House’s makeshift chamber floor in the Bank of Springfield Center during special legislative session on Saturday.Ending the most unusual spring legislative session early Sunday morning, Illinois lawmakers — masked up to protect themselves from the coronavirus — approved a $41.5 billion state operating budget and pulled off passing lower rates for a Chicago casino in a last-minute feat late Saturday. -
Essential workers in Illinois will qualify for workers’ compensation if they contract the coronavirus on the job under an agreed-upon bill passed through the Senate. However, businesses will also be allowed to rebut the claims by showing they followed public health guidance. The bill passed 50-4 late Thursday.
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The Senate late Thursday adopted a resolution containing the language for an informational pamphlet that will be sent to voters before the November election, informing voters of arguments for and against Gov. JB Pritzker’s plan to change Illinois’ income tax to a graduated rate structure.
Democrats passed the resolution with no Republican votes, just as the chamber voted last spring for both the actual constitutional amendment and the accompanying proposed income tax rates. The resolution also contains the language that will be used on the November ballot.
The language espousing arguments in favor of the amendment decries Illinois’ flat tax — currently set at 4.95 percent for individuals and 7 percent for businesses — as unfair and uses Pritzker’s language of his so-called “Fair Tax.”
“Illinois’ current tax system unfairly benefits millionaires and billionaires and this amendment will set things right for middle-class and working people,” the pamphlet will say. “Currently, it is unfair that billionaires pay the same tax rate as regular people.”
The language for arguments against the amendment starts out with telling voters that the General Assembly has the power to go back and alter the graduated income tax rates at any time. It criticizes Illinois taxes and spending as “out of control.”
“The amendment gives the legislature the power to increase taxes on any group of taxpayers with no limits and no accountability and without any requirement to use the additional revenue to fund essential needs such as healthcare, education or public safety,” according to the pamphlet language.
Arguments for and against the amendment will both use the coronavirus pandemic as fuel for their side. For example, the argument against the tax says that in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, “now is the worst possible time for a massive tax increase.”
The argument for the amendment says that after the pandemic, “we need to do all we can to help the economy and middle class and working people.” -
MAY 22, 2020
The three-day legislative session in Springfield this week will be without a handful of legislators who didn’t make the trip out of health concerns, including one positive Covid-19 diagnosis from a state representative from Chicago. Many are calling for the ability to vote remotely. -
Downstate Republican State Rep. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) is not welcome on the Illinois House for the General Assembly’s special session this week after he refused to wear a face covering. Both Democrats and members of his own party voted in favor of his removal Wednesday.
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Gov. JB Pritzker announced bars and restaurants in Illinois could reopen as soon as May 29 for outdoor seating, saying that establishments that have tried “to flout the rules” don’t deserve to be rewarded, but he said he trusted the restaurant industry to act responsibly in accordance with public health guidelines.
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As lawmakers return to Springfield Wednesday for the first time since early March, the General Assembly faces difficult budget decisions with compromise made harder by the ever-growing tensions over Gov. JB Pritzker’s continued stay-at-home orders that Republicans say are an overreach.
