For months now, Statehouse types have been talking about
whether there’s a need for a fall veto session this year. The session is
scheduled to run the two weeks after the November election.
As one person put it, veto sessions are for things that
the governor and legislators “have to do.”
But with no gubernatorial vetoes to deal with, is there
anything that absolutely has to be done before the end of the year?
Senate President Don Harmon said in early summer that he
was “eager to consider” Karina’s Bill, which would mandate that police remove
firearms from any person who has been served with a domestic violence order of
protection within a certain timeframe.
But his attention has been elsewhere since then (Senate
campaigns and shuttling volunteers into Wisconsin and Michigan to help the
Democratic ticket, to name just two), and it’s not known if Harmon’s chamber
will even be ready to take up the bill.
I’m hearing Harmon has told a handful of people that at
least part of the veto session might indeed be canceled.
“Conversations are ongoing regarding possible action
items for the November session,” said a Harmon spokesperson recently.
House Speaker Chris Welch said during a September event,
“I think it's too early to know what we're going to do in veto session, if
anything.” Emphasis on “if anything.”
Speaker Welch said his working group tasked with
revamping mass transit was “really just beginning their work,” so that issue,
as expected, would “definitely not” be ready for November. “Folks are being
educated on the issue” of adjusting Tier 2 pension benefits to make sure they
align with federal laws, Welch said. And a sports stadium deal appears
absolutely nowhere on the horizon.
Indeed, the House Speaker said he couldn’t think of
anything at all that the House could take up in November. “Anybody here talking
about veto session yet?” Welch rhetorically asked during a City Club event. It
got a lot of laughs.
Soon after, Gov. JB Pritzker told reporters that he
didn’t think there was any need for a supplemental budget bill before the
spring legislative session begins in January. Supplementals are often passed
when the government has to deal with unforeseen problems – although supplemental
appropriations during the last couple of years were needed later in the fiscal
year because the state brought in way more money than it expected.
Asked if he had anything on his agenda that was pressing
enough to push through during the veto session or in the January lame duck
session before the spring session begins, Pritzker said, “Nothing that comes
off the top of my head.”
Asked if he had any thoughts about canceling veto
session, Pritzker said, “I don't have an opinion. I'm ready, willing and able to
go to work during the veto session.” But then he added, “I don't think that the
legislature has an agenda for the veto session.”
People like me care about this because we have to attend
the two-week veto session. But people like most of y’all who are reading this
should also care because this is a strong indication that Illinois is becoming,
well, boring.
The state has long lurched from one crisis to another,
particularly after Rod Blagojevich was elected governor and he couldn’t stop
picking fights with just about everyone until he was arrested by the feds,
impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate.
The six years following Blagojevich under Gov. Pat Quinn
included almost constant fiscal nightmares, a desperately needed lame-duck
session income tax increase and lots more infighting.
Then came Bruce Rauner, the most destructive of them all
with his failed attempt to use no state budget and no renewal of Quinn’s expired
tax hike for two years to force the Democratic Party to bust unions.
And then, of course, we endured the pandemic, which
wreaked most every sort of havoc imaginable on the planet.
Does Illinois still have problems? Oh, heck yes. Almost
none of those problems rise to the level of an immediate systemic crisis, but
our largest city is currently embroiled in a self-made political and fiscal
meltdown of epic proportions.
So, along those lines, canceling or curtailing veto
session would allow state legislators and the governor to avoid being dragged
into that Chicago mess.
Personally, I’m against canceling veto session. Boring
might be good for government, but it’s bad for the news business.