{"id":333073,"date":"2010-02-17T20:05:34","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T01:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef012877b174ab970c"},"modified":"2010-02-17T20:05:34","modified_gmt":"2010-02-18T01:05:34","slug":"illinois-house-wants-say-in-terrorist-prison-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/333073","title":{"rendered":"Illinois House wants say in terrorist prison sale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by Michelle Manchir<\/em> at 6:55 p.m.\u00a0\u00a0 <br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>SPRINGFIELD &#8212; The Illinois House today approved a measure that would require lawmakers to sign off on selling state property worth more than $1 million, potentially making it more difficult to unload the little-used Thomson Correctional Center to the federal government to house terrorist detainees.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>The legislation, which won approval 81-31, faces an uncertain future, however. (See how they voted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ilga.gov\/legislation\/votehistory\/96\/house\/09600HB4744_02172010_010000T.pdf\">by clicking here<\/a>.)<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Not only must the state Senate pass it, but Gov. Pat Quinn must sign it into law. Quinn wants to sell the northwest Illinois prison to the Obama administration, which is eyeing Thomson as a place to transfer terrorist detainees currently held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.<\/p>\n<p><\/br>Sponsoring state Rep. Michael Tryon, R-Crystal Lake, said the legislation is necessary to check the executive power of deciding which property can be sold.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&quot;It&#8217;s not a Thomson prison bill, it&#8217;s a policy bill,&quot; he said. &quot;I took it on because I was shocked (the governor) could just declare a very valuable piece of state property surplus and sell it off.&quot;<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>But House members on both sides of aisle critiqued the measure, saying it would put artificial limits on the public auction process of state property, and that it was drafted only in response to the potential sale of Thomson.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&quot;It&#8217;s about one issue at one moment in time and that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re getting ready to change public policy,&quot; said Democratic Rep. Julie Hamos of Evanston.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Earlier this month, Obama administration officials discussed a possible mid-2011 opening of Thomson prison as a federal facility. But U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the president would have a fight on his hands to secure funding for the prison.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&quot;I think the administration realizes that this is a difficult issue, and I think that they are assessing where they are and where they think we ought to be,&quot; Hoyer said two weeks ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by Michelle Manchir at 6:55 p.m.\u00a0\u00a0 SPRINGFIELD &#8212; The Illinois House today approved a measure that would require lawmakers to sign off on selling state property worth more than $1 million, potentially making it more difficult to unload the little-used Thomson Correctional Center to the federal government to house terrorist detainees.The legislation, which won [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}