The Illinois House Friday voted to raise taxes on riverboat casinos, authorize the sale of state properties such as the James R. Thompson Center in the Loop and enact sweeping new ethics reforms as lawmakers struggled to beat a weekend deadline to hammer out a spending plan for the coming year.
The House also voted to close some corporate tax loopholes, including those that give more than $50 million a year in breaks for research and development costs and job training.
The measures went to the Senate, which separately approved pension sweeteners for a variety of public employees, including Chicago police and firefighters. The pension bill, which still needs House approval, also would grant survivor benefits to the domestic partners of Chicago teachers.
The Senate sent to the governor a bill prompted by nightclub disasters in Chicago and Rhode Island in February that would make it a felony punishable by up to 3 years in prison to block an exit at a club or use Mace, pepper spray or pyrotechnics inside. The measure also requires that doors at clubs be equipped with panic bars and that information about exits be made available to the audience before a show.
The action unfolded as Senate Republicans complained that Democrats were quietly salting budget bills with millions of dollars of extra money to fund pork-barrel projects even as Gov. Rod Blagojevich and top lawmakers continued to haggle over how to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap.
“This is a big game,” charged Sen. Christine Radogno (R-La Grange), suggesting that Democrats, who control the legislature, were not serious about economizing.
The Senate Republicans also charged that other Democratic budget initiatives would raid $125 million from a special environmental trust fund formed a few years ago to underwrite energy efficiency, renewable energy and wildlife preservation programs.
Though the proposal had yet to be voted on, it drew fire from environmentalists, who said that much of the money in the trust fund came from utilities as part of a deal to achieve deregulation.
“It’s just really atrocious,” said Jonathan Goldman, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council.
Ready to act on O’Hare
Lawmakers also were poised late Friday to take up measures that would ensure smooth sailing for Mayor Richard Daley’s proposal to expand O’Hare International Airport, increase numerous fees on business to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, and possibly authorize a new state casino license to replace the unused one once targeted for a Rosemont facility but now tied up in litigation and under a regulatory cloud.
Overshadowing all other action Friday were the ongoing negotiations between legislative leaders and Blagojevich to modify details of his $52 billion spending plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
At one point during the day, Blagojevich ventured out to the House floor to chat with rank-and-file lawmakers. He urged them to go along with his controversial plans to boost state revenues through higher fees, asset sales and some narrowly focused tax increases, telling them they had a “historic opportunity” to solve the budget crisis while sticking to his campaign pledge not to raise income or sales taxes.
“It’s important to come out of this fiscal crisis with structural reform and change and discipline so that we can move forward in the next several years, because these budget challenges are going to be with us for a long time,” Blagojevich said.
The increase in the casino tax was a key element of the governor’s revenue-boosting initiative.
As expected, the state’s casino industry has vigorously fought the idea. But it also has met resistance from labor and business leaders worried about the loss of jobs and economic development that a higher tax could engender. Despite those concerns, Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) predicted his chamber will approve the measure, even though it squeaked through the House on a 62-53 vote–just two “yes” votes more than needed for passage.
High-profit casinos eyed
Under the casino tax proposal, boats earning the highest profits would cough up more money to help float the state through a difficult budgetary time. Critics charged that the increase could drive some casinos out of business.
“Illinois is the highest taxing state for gambling in the world,” said Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), chairman of the House Gaming Committee and an opponent of the governor’s casino tax increase. “This sends a message to business that Illinois is a bad place to be. We’ll just take your money from you.”
Others complain that the state is making a mistake by raising revenue to cover up other problems that officials don’t want to deal with.
“We’re not solving the spending problem,” said Rep. Bob Biggins (R-Elmhurst). “All we’re doing is raising the revenue.”
Those arguments were rejected by supporters of the increase, who said it was hard to believe a boost in taxes would cripple a business that was a cash-cow for investors.
“I doubt it,” said Rep. Jay Hoffman (D-Collinsville), a proponent of the proposal. “Look at their bottom line. Look at what they’re making. We don’t see boats going out of business today. We see them making money hand over fist.”
The House also voted 106-0 for the ethics reform package, which is aimed at restoring public confidence in state politics after a series of scandals.
The ethics overhaul, on its way to the Senate for a vote, would bar state employees from doing political work on state time, forbid supervisors from handing out taxpayer-funded bonuses for the extracurricular political work of state employees, and strip away several perks enjoyed by officeholders that can help boost their re-election campaigns.
The House vote to give the state the authority to sell and then lease back buildings such as the Thompson Center also gave similar authority to Chicago officials for city-owned property.
The measure also would allow Blagojevich to proceed with his plan to sell the ornate headquarters building of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority in Downers Grove.
GOP sees hidden pork
Though most spending bills were still in flux, Senate Republicans charged that Democrats were drafting measures that would significantly add to the $450 million in spending on legislative pork-barrel projects that Blagojevich has said he will agree to.
The Republicans said secretive allotments of money for lawmakers’ pet projects were being hidden in generic lump-sum appropriations salted throughout the budget.
For example, Radogno, pointed to a Democratic-backed proposal that passed the Senate that would siphon $6.5 million from the state’s cash-strapped main checking account and earmark it for grants to “local government, not-for-profit organizations and education facilities” for a variety of expenses.
Sen. Susan Garrett (D-Lake Forest) defended the grants, saying they merely represented a reauthorization of pork projects first approved under former Gov. George Ryan but not yet funded.
The measure including the grant money also contained $100 million in extra cash for schools and an authorization for 4 percent cost-of-living increases for workers who help the developmentally disabled and people in assisted-living situations.
Radogno charged that Democrats rolled the school and social service money in with the pork-barrel grants as “sugar to make this bitter pill of more pork go down.”
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General Assembly action Friday
The House passed bills to:
(Needs Senate approval)
– Increase riverboat casino taxes.
– Impose ethics reforms on state officials.
– Close some corporate tax loopholes.
– Authorize the sale of state buildings, including the downtown James R. Thompson Center.
The Senate passed a bill to:
(Needs House approval)
– Sweeten pensions for Chicago police and firefighters and grant survivor benefits to the domestic partners of Chicago teachers.
The Senate passed a bill to:
(Awaits governor’s signature)
– Make it a felony to block an exit at a nightclub or use Mace, pepper spray or pyrotechnics inside.
