The Illinois House on Tuesday rejected a regional tax package to shore up funding for Chicago-area mass-transit systems, increasing the potential for fare hikes and service cuts at the CTA and the Pace suburban bus agency.
House Democrats, led by Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago, provided the vast majority of the votes as only a handful of Republicans from the Chicago suburbs supported the measure. The measure fell 10 votes short, but Madigan said he hoped to make up the difference quickly before transit riders face “great hardship.”
The CTA said it will go ahead with fare increases and service cuts Sept. 16 if it doesn’t get a financial boost from the state.
The House needed 71 votes — a three-fifths supermajority — in the overtime session in order for the measure to take effect immediately. That also is the number of votes needed to override a promised veto by Gov. Blagojevich, who objects to the tax increases.
Despite urgent pleas for action from agency officials, Mayor Daley and others, the issue of state funding for CTA, Pace and Metra has been mired in political infighting between legislative leaders and the governor that has led to a record-long overtime session of the General Assembly.
The transit proposal called for a quarter-cent sales tax increase in Cook County and a total half-cent increase in the collar counties, where the revenue would be split between mass transit and other transportation matters. The legislation also would give Chicago the authority to increase its real estate transfer tax to help fund CTA workers’ pension and retirement funds.
“Rarely is a vote so important,” said Rep. Julie Hamos (D-Chicago), the lead sponsor and chairwoman of the House Mass Transit Committee.
After the vote, Blagojevich, a Democrat, reiterated his idea of raising money for mass transit by eliminating a series of corporate tax breaks, a proposal that has gained little traction in the General Assembly.
“I believe a tax on working families for transportation is a back-door fare hike, and I believe the legislature was correct in rejecting that approach,” Blagojevich said in a statement issued after the vote.
But Madigan blasted the governor.
“This is a bill that ought to have the support of a governor of Illinois who lives in the city of Chicago and within blocks of one of the most popular rapid transit lines in the city, that being the Brown Line,” Madigan said.
Madigan said he will call the bill for a second time as soon as he secures the 71 votes necessary to pass the measure.
CTA President Ron Huberman called the vote, which he watched from the House gallery, a “disappointment.” But he maintained that the measure stalled “not based on the merits of the bill, not based on the importance of the bill,” but on the desire for a larger, more contentious construction bill.
“By our most conservative estimates, over 100,000 people will not have transit capacity in the city of Chicago on the morning of September 17,” he said.
Next stop
Even if the House approves the bill, it faces an uncertain future in the Senate. A spokeswoman for Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago), a major proponent of a capital bill, said he has not taken a position on whether the transit bill would be considered for a vote.
