Despite sometimes acrimonious debate, the General Assembly on Tuesday approved Gov. George Ryan’s move to shave hundreds of millions of dollars from the state budget, with Senate Republicans leading attempts to defeat the restoration of funding for prisons and human services.
But lawmakers restored to the budget $52.65 million in education programs. Ryan had vetoed more than $211 million, including $46.8 million in general state aid and other key categories of elementary and high school programs and $5.8 million for state universities. The moves could help lawmakers offset criticism that they were shortchanging education, which campaigning lawmakers traditionally say is their top priority.
Despite the add-backs, Ryan praised the work of lawmakers, who immediately left the Capitol to begin their fall election campaigns, for repairing a budget that he believed was badly out of balance.
“There were some tough votes there that the senators had to make,” Ryan said as he singled out Senate Republicans for taking the lead in holding the line on spending. “It was painful, but they understood how necessary it was to make those cuts in the state budget.”
Ryan said he believed the legislature’s action is sufficient to get the state through the next budget year, which begins July 1, if revenues meet projections. Still, Ryan acknowledged that he might have to engage in short-term borrowing to help ease cash-flow problems.
Lawmakers addressed Ryan’s cuts in the second day of a special session called by the governor. Ryan slashed more than a half-billion dollars in spending over protests of Senate Democrats and House Republicans, who complained that the GOP governor had only days before praised the compromise passed little more than a week ago.
Senate Republicans had accused their House colleagues of unrealistically larding up the budget. Senate Democrats countered that the governor and Senate Republicans had assured them the approved budget plan was in balance.
Line by line, the Republican-led Senate spent more than eight hours debating and voting on Ryan’s 234 vetoes of individual items to rapidly constrict the $54 billion budget. In the end senators and their House colleagues restored only a few items–the school money, nearly $500,000 for jobs and salaries in the secretary of state’s office and $2 million for a senior hot line–that Ryan had sought to cut.
Senate President James “Pate” Philip (R-Wood Dale) said the governor would be “happily surprised at what we’ve done” and suggested the Senate’s action would quash any fears that Ryan might call lawmakers back to town to approve higher taxes.
The Republican-led Senate’s refusal to override most of Ryan’s vetoes effectively killed any legislative attempts to restore the programs and projects. Members of the Democratic-controlled House spent most of the day standing by, awaiting their chance to vote late Tuesday on only the few items that the Senate restored.
The ax fell quickly on tens of millions of dollars to underwrite education, to award prize money for horseracing and to operate prisons, including Sheridan Correctional Center and the Valley View juvenile prison in St. Charles, both of which are now slated to close.
Funds for university scholarships and free school lunch programs were scaled back. Lawmakers upheld Ryan’s decision to eliminate money for a Chicago summer youth job program, an AIDS/HIV program and 2 percent cost-of-living increases for people who care for the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled. They also agreed to reject a small portion of their own pork-barrel projects, including $300,000 for Lincoln Park Zoo and $200,000 for Elmhurst Hospital.
Senate Democrats repeatedly ran up against the majority Republicans and failed to muster the 36 votes needed to override Ryan’s vetoes. Senators on Tuesday also voted to allow Ryan to initiate a cost-saving plan to privatize prison food services, even though the House tried to block the governor’s authority a day earlier.
An angry Senate Democratic Leader Emil Jones of Chicago maintained the governor and his top aides had signed off on the legislature’s budget plan before lawmakers passed it last week. Sen. Donne Trotter (D-Chicago), a chief budget negotiator, said it was “disingenuous” to have lawmakers vote to cut a budget that they had originally been told was balanced.
But Philip contended Ryan had “no alternative but to cut” and upbraided Democrats for refusing to join Republicans last week in voting to raise revenues through higher taxes on cigarettes and riverboat casinos.
“You talk about being responsible,” Philip roared. “You had your chance and blew it . . . You didn’t step up to the plate.”
Instead of sticking to Ryan’s original Memorial Day budget proposal last week, lawmakers added on $278 million in new spending and cut back by $220 million the amount of money Ryan had hoped to raise in tax hikes and other revenues.
Ryan complained this week that the budget was unbalanced. He responded by vetoing about $502 million–with a net reduction of about $564 million, including the loss of federal matching funds.
At the heart of the debate was Ryan’s refusal to borrow $750 million and pay it back with funds from the settlement of a nationwide lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Ryan said he made it clear to legislative leaders before they left town a week ago that he wouldn’t use borrowed funds to run day-to-day government operations.
Frustration among Senate Democrats boiled over to the point that two agitated Chicago lawmakers had a heated exchange on the chamber floor after Sen. Barack Obama voted–inadvertently, he later said–in support of closing a child welfare office serving the West Side district of Sen. Rickey Hendon.
Hendon took exception during debate and, moments later, slapped away Obama’s extended hand when Obama reached to put his hand on Hendon’s shoulder.
In less contentious discourse, lawmakers urged each other to save projects close to their hearts in speeches that ranged from pleading to preaching. Sometimes, they just sounded resigned to the steady march through the vetoes.
“The governor giveth,” sighed Sen. Denny Jacobs (D-East Moline), whose district will lose money set aside to open a new maximum-security prison in Thomson. “And the governor taketh away.”
