The
first pitch was a swing and a miss, but after that, Democrats in the Illinois House were swinging for the fences, passing amendment after amendment to a
budget bill funding many of their priorities.
House
Republicans were caught off-guard this week when Democrats introduced 16 floor amendments
to House Bill 4141, an appropriations bill for the Governor’s Office of Budget
and Management for fiscal year 2016. Most of the amendments provided funding
for Department of Human Services programs that were cut in Gov. Bruce Rauner’s
proposed budget for 2016.
House speaker Michael Madigan, D–Chicago, came
to the House floor personally to introduce the first amendment to the bill.
Most of the Republicans were seeing the 124-page amendment, which in many ways
resembled Gov. Rauner’s proposed budget, for the first time.
“The
new governor has a different approach to budget-making than the last governor,”
Madigan said. “I would say we ought to be prepared to adjust to this new set of
circumstances, which is what we’re doing today.”
The amendments were put on the floor
before legislative working groups were scheduled to meet and discuss the
governor’s agenda. Once the amendment was introduced, the Republicans went into
caucus to figure out what to do.
The first amendment was swiftly
defeated with no yes votes. After the first amendment was defeated, 15 other
amendments were swiftly shuffled through the rules committee and brought back
to the House floor as quickly as possible (amendments have to wait at least an
hour after passing the rules committee before being brought to the floor).
In the meantime, the Republicans
went off to caucus again because, like the first amendment that was introduced,
they didn’t have much time to look over the new amendments before having to
debate and vote on them. Rep Ed Sullivan, R–Mundelein, said that between
himself and his one staffer he was having trouble analyzing the amendments
before the vote.
“I would actually like to see the
budget that we’re voting on more than an hour in advance,” Sulllivan said,
after being offered another staffer from the Democratic side.
Republicans decried the move as a
way to shut them out of the budget-making process. They repeatedly compared the
legislative maneuvering to playing political games with the budget.
They
also contended that by skipping the committee process, Democrats were removing
a level of transparency from the budget-making process.
“It is embarrassing to me, to all of
us here, that we’re wasting our time and energy in such a form,” Sandack said.
“This bill deserves the real process.”
The new amendments were brought by
House Human Services Appropriation Committee Chair Greg Harris D-Chicago. He
said that the time he spent in committee listening to people testify about how
important programs for autism and child care assistance were to them was more
than enough public input to feel good about moving forward with the amendments.
“It is not a mystery, what is in
this bill, and there’s been ample opportunity for the people to speak,” Harris
said.
Amendments two through nine were
added onto the bill Wednesday, collectively they amount to $1.6 billion dollars
in spending. Most of them funded programs that were cut in Gov. Rauner’s proposed
budget.
Harris
said that the people of Illinois aren’t going to be too concerned about how
they got the budget items passed, so much as what they passed.
“We’ve
heard a lot today about process,” Harris said. “We might have our battles back
and forth across the aisle, but at the end of the day, the folks back home are
counting on us for outcomes.”
Contact Alan Kozeluh at
intern@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2015.
