Illinois lawmakers on Saturday signed off on Mayor Richard Daley’s expansion plans for O’Hare International Airport and gave final approval to the governor’s $52 billion state revenue plan despite widespread qualms that it was riddled with holes and faulty assumptions.
Racing to meet a midnight Saturday deadline to pass a budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, legislators also endorsed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of new or increased business taxes and fees to fund the spending plan.
Lawmakers also approved a gradual increase in the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.50 by Jan. 1, 2005, as they sent Gov. Rod Blagojevich a tollway reform package and a 70 percent tax rate on the most profitable casinos. Legislators also passed a plan to auction an unused casino license once targeted for Rosemont when a legal battle over its disposition is settled.
Moreover, they signed off on Blagojevich’s proposal to let the state sell the tollway headquarters in Downers Grove that critics call “the Taj Mahal,” as well as the James R. Thompson Center in the Loop.
Before adjourning early Sunday, they sent Blagojevich a major ethics reform package, but not before a political tug-of-war over the bill between the governor and other top officials weakened its enforcement provisions.
With the legislature approving a budget plan very close to what he asked for, Blagojevich was reveling in his first-session success. He congratulated lawmakers for going along with some of his more difficult requests while adhering to his political pledge not to raise income and sales taxes despite a massive budget crisis.
Praise from Blagojevich
“These are hard votes,” Blagojevich said. “It’s difficult to make decisions like that. The men and women of the legislature who have been willing to take some political heat to find more money for schools and for health care and for public safety are the real heroes of this budget process.”
The governor said the budget, despite the state’s fiscal woes, would yield a $400 million spending increase for schools.
Not everyone in the legislature was happy with the budget votes. “In three bills, 15 minutes of debate, the Democrats raised $1.2 billion in taxes,” fees and fund transfers, complained Sen. David Sullivan (R-Park Ridge). “That’s $80 million a minute. Even by state spending standards, that’s obscene.”
Indeed, Senate Republicans were so fed up with seeing their “no” votes unable to stop a majority Democratic steamroller for revenue-raising bills that they finally popped the green buttons used to vote “yes” off their desktops and flipped them in their pockets. Shortly before midnight, they stalked off the floor before the evening’s voting was done.
With the state’s economic outlook so uncertain, many lawmakers in both parties also worried about the reliance on one-time-only revenue producers–such as asset sales–that may yield far less than the governor has predicted. “If it turns out our [revenue] projections are wrong–and to be quite frank with you, some of them are–I think we’ll be back here rather quickly,” said state Rep. Robert Molaro (D-Chicago).
As part of the plan to shore up state spending, the legislature neared approval of a measure to close $42 million worth of corporate tax loopholes for natural gas purchased from out-of-state suppliers and eliminate $82 million in “rolling stock” exemptions for the purchase of trucks and certain other vehicles.
Lawmakers also complied with requests by Blagojevich to raise $201 million by hiking taxes on riverboat casinos and $45 million by keeping in place the estate tax even as it is phased out on the federal level.
The bills sent to the governor also allow for diversions of hundreds of millions of dollars from special funds to pay for road construction and other dedicated programs and services.
The historic O’Hare vote came after more than two hours of debate, as House members mustered a surprisingly strong 84-31 vote in support of the project and sent it to the governor, who said Saturday he would sign it. The Senate had earlier approved the proposal 40-19.
Proponents cheered the long-awaited permission, which will allow the city to launch a 10- to 15-year expansion program designed to ease congestion and spur economic development throughout the region. Work on the $6.6 billion project could begin as soon as the federal government approves.
“This will significantly reduce air traffic problems, congestion, pollution and noise as we go forward with this project,” said state Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Chicago). “That will not only make people a lot less cranky than they are today, but it will save hundreds of millions of dollars for passengers and for airlines.”
Blagojevich has embraced O’Hare expansion, but the bill would prevent future governors from trying to stop construction unless the plan is greatly altered. The measure also grants Chicago power to force quick sales of private property within the footprint of the expansion plan. Without such authority, the project could get tied up in court for years.
Suburban legislators furious
Many suburban lawmakers were livid over the bill’s passage. The project threatens hundreds of homes and more than 100 businesses, said state Rep. Lee Daniels (R-Elmhurst). “This is destroying the lives of people,” said Daniels. “No man’s life, liberty or property is safe when the General Assembly is in session.”
Sponsors sweetened the bill with modest incentives for suburban schools to win votes. The measure provides a pot of $20 million over 6 years to compensate schools and community colleges near the airport for any loss of local tax revenue linked to the expansion.
The proposal includes a commitment to coordinate construction of a long-desired western access to the airport with the expansion, and would allow a governor to veto changes in the expansion plan if the airport design were altered to increase the number of runways or the runways were significantly realigned from present plans.
As the state reels from scandal, lawmakers completed final action on an ethics package that would stop state workers from doing political work on state time and prevent their bosses from giving state bonuses for political work.
The bill also would keep officeholders from using public service announcements and certain other perquisites of incumbency in their re-election campaigns.
But before sending the bill to the governor, lawmakers deleted provisions that would have barred lobbyists from buying them expensive rounds of golf and tennis or spending more than $75 a day on food and drinks to entertain an official.
They also removed some enforcement mechanisms included in the bill. Eliminated was a provision that would have created ethics commissions and inspectors general for each constitutional officer and for the General Assembly. Prosecutors, however, would still be free to investigate violations of the law if Blagojevich signs it.
The changes came down to a turf issue between Blagojevich, Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan and her father, Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago). Blagojevich felt an earlier version of the ethics arrangement gave too much authority to the attorney general to snoop into the activities of the legislature, the governor’s office and for investigations across the executive and legislative branches of government.
The casino-license auction legislation is designed to help Blagojevich reap at least $350 million for the state, something he had hoped to get from a sale of the long-dormant license held by investors in the bankrupt Emerald casino project. That riverboat was blocked from opening in Rosemont by regulators amid charges that some shareholders had mob ties.
The measure would also give the state the unprecedented option to take over the license and hire a firm to run the casino if the board holds an auction and is unsatisfied with the size of the bids.
In a political move reflecting the new city leadership in the Senate, the casino legislation also called for using 2 percent of the adjusted gross receipts from a reactivated casino to go to Chicago State University. Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) has often sought to steer state funds to the school.
The legislature also passed a number of other measures in the last-minute commotion, including cost-of-living pay increases for judges.
However, Senate Democrats failed to muster enough support for two high-profile anti-discrimination measures, the Equal Rights Amendment for women and a bill to require equal treatment for homosexuals in housing and employment.
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Top action
Lawmakers on Saturday sent Gov. Rod Blagojevich bills to:
– Authorize the proposed $6.6 billion expansion of O’Hare International Airport.
– Impose tough new ethical standards on state officials and lobbyists, though enforcement was weakened.
– Allow the sale of the Thompson Center in the Loop and Illinois tollway offices in Downers Grove.
– Gradually increase the minimum hourly wage from $5.15 to $6.50 by 2005.
More action
Lawmakers on Saturday sent Gov. Rod Blagojevich bills to:
– Raise the top tax rate on the most lucrative riverboat casinos to 70 percent.
– Pay general state bills with cash diverted from special state funds for road work and other purposes.
– Create a six-week tax amnesty program to give deadbeat filers an incentive to pay up.
– Increase sales tax on trucking firms that do business mostly out of state.
