Springfield, Ill. – The first week of the fall Veto Session ended with lawmakers approving funding for Illinois’ college scholarship program and advancing a recall measure that would give the public the power to remove governors from office, according to State Senator Kyle McCarter (R-Lebanon). The Senate also sent a measure to the House to eliminate a little-noticed new tax on small businesses that had been buried in a state budget bill signed into law earlier this year.

On Oct. 15, college students from schools throughout Illinois including Millikin University in Decatur, Greenville College in Greenville and McKendree College in Lebanon came to Springfield to lobby for reinstatement of funding to the state’s Monetary Assistance Program (MAP), which was recently cut by Gov. Pat Quinn.

Lawmakers responded, advancing Senate Bill 1180, which appropriates $205 million to the Illinois Student Assistance Commission’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget. The intent is to fully fund MAP for the remainder of the year.

Although a funding stream has not yet been identified, lawmakers feel confident that one will be located and say that students can breathe a little easier knowing that the MAP assistance they rely on will likely be available for the spring 2010 semester. It is estimated that as many as 138,000 students would have been affected if lawmakers had not approved the funding.

Senator McCarter joined other lawmakers in pointing out that Gov. Quinn has the ability to fully finance the MAP program. Quinn was allocated $1.2 billion in discretionary funding in the budget bill which he could use to finance the MAP program; however, to date he has opted not to use that revenue to finance the scholarships.

Also on Thursday, the Illinois Senate approved an amendment to the Illinois Constitution that would give Illinois voters the power to remove future governors from office who aren’t doing their job.

House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 31 has been approved by both legislative chambers and will now be presented to voters on the November 2010 ballot. If voters approve recall, it could then be initiated in the future.

To begin the recall process, a small number of Illinois legislators would have to advance the initiative. Petitions in support of recall would then have to be signed by 15 percent of voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election. If the required number of signatures is collected, then an election would be held to determine the governor’s fate, which would then possibly be followed by an election for a successor governor.

In other action, the Senate took to fix a potential big tax problem with a budget measure passed this summer.  The legislation, contained in HB 2239, would correct a provision that was slipped into legislation last summer by the Senate President, who said he had been trying to close a tax “loophole.”  In reality, the provision would have significantly increased taxes on partnerships in Illinois. McCarter said the last minute inclusion of a major tax law change represents just one more example of why GOP senators have consistently pushed to open up the budget process and provide more opportunity for public scrutiny and debate before a state budget is approved.

Finally, during an Oct. 13 redistricting hearing in Carbondale, representatives from the Paul Simon Institute offered suggestions for changing the state’s process of drawing legislative districts. They noted that Illinois’ districts are seriously influenced by partisan political manipulation, which has led to what some critics say is ‘politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.’  Once again the overall message was that Illinois needs to restructure its redistricting process.

Lawmakers also allowed public testimony, during which Illinois citizens described the state’s redistricting process as “arcane,” “corrupt,” and “intended to protect incumbents.” The public response reflected testimony from Paul Simon Institute experts, who said that one significant consequence of Illinois’ system of redistricting is the loss of voter confidence in their government.

Expert witnesses may have been less direct in their criticism of the system, but presented compelling arguments for replacing the current system with a more open and equitable process for drawing legislative and congressional district boundaries.

The Paul Simon Institute previously introduced redistricting reform that was not advanced by the General Assembly. Notably, the institute is advocating for Illinois to “de-couple” legislative districts, so Illinois’ representative districts are no longer contained within a state senate district. Experts from the institute are also pushing for an end to the state’s “luck-of-the-draw” system of determining who wins control of the redistricting process.

Senate Republican Caucus stands up for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

 
Members of the Senate Republican Caucus showed their solidarity with the victims and survivors of breast cancer by wearing pink on Fridays in October.  For gentlemen, the pink came in shirts and ties.  State Senator Kyle McCarter is in the front row, far right.