{"id":581609,"date":"2010-05-27T13:53:25","date_gmt":"2010-05-27T17:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0133eee7ba87970b"},"modified":"2010-05-27T14:42:56","modified_gmt":"2010-05-27T18:42:56","slug":"illinois-senate-unlikely-to-finish-by-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/581609","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Senate unlikely to finish by deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Ray Long, Monique Garcia and Rick Pearson<\/em> at 12:52 p.m.; updated at 1:43 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SPRINGFIELD — Senate President John Cullerton acknowledged that there aren’t enough votes to approve a $4 billion pension borrowing plan today, meaning lawmakers could end up coming back next week to finish the state spending plan.<\/p>\n

The Senate needs a three-fifths majority — 36 votes — to approve the borrowing, a key part of the budget. There are 37 Democrats in the Senate, but at least one of them isn’t at the Capitol and a handful of
\n others are balking at the idea of borrowing more money to keep the
\nstate afloat for another year.
<\/br><\/p>\n

"We don\u2019t have enough votes yet. In the House, some Republicans
\nsupported it. So far, we have no Republican support for the pension
\nborrowing," Cullerton said. "The problem is that we have a few Democrats who do not want to vote for it and have not voted for it in the past."\n<\/p>\n

Cullerton also acknowledged the Senate may have to come back next week to approve the borrowing, when the absent Democratic senators could be rounded up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt requires three-fifths vote. It\u2019s passed the House already," Cullerton said. "So at some point in time, we\u2019ll come back if we can\u2019t pass it today.\u201d
<\/br> <\/p>\n

Cullerton\u2019s comments took on an added dimension as Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, adjourned the House at 12:24 p.m., saying he would call lawmakers back to his chamber if needed \u201cin the next few days or over the next several months.\u201d Madigan said the Senate plans to adjourn later today.
<\/br>
<\/br>Sen. Heather Steans, D-Chicago, said she will be voting against borrowing to make the pension payment because it’s not a comprehensive budget solution.
<\/br>
<\/br>"I don’t think we can afford to punt it down the road and keeping avoiding the problem even longer," Steans said. Steans said she may be able to support a smaller borrowing effort if it was part of a budget package that also included more spending cuts and a way to raise revenue, such as an income tax increase.
<\/br>
<\/br>Steans also expressed concerns about a plan to give Gov. Pat Quinn broad budget powers that would allow him to dole out money to state agencies as he sees fit. Historically lawmakers were in charge of setting spending levels for agencies, and Steans said giving Quinn that power two years in a row would erode the "checks and balance" the legislature is supposed to provide.<\/p>\n

Sen. Susan Garrett says she is also a no on pension borrowing, saying
\n it’s part of a "scatter shot" budget plan that does not begin to
\naddress the state’s money woes.
<\/br>
\n
<\/br>
\nLike Steans, she is open to some borrowing if it also comes with cuts
\nand a way to raise revenue. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Ray Long, Monique Garcia and Rick Pearson at 12:52 p.m.; updated at 1:43 p.m. SPRINGFIELD — Senate President John Cullerton acknowledged that there aren’t enough votes to approve a $4 billion pension borrowing plan today, meaning lawmakers could end up coming back next week to finish the state spending plan. The Senate needs […]<\/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-581609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581609","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=581609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}