They call it the veto session.
But every other autumn after a general election, the Illinois General Assembly is apt to do more than just override vetoes the governor has slapped on legislation passed the previous spring.
Every so often, the political planets spin into alignment. Every so often, certain statesmen who are about to leave office, and who therefore are free to follow the dictates of conscience rather than politics, stand up and do unpopular things.
Sometimes they do good things. Sometimes they do bad things.
Let us now speculate about what the legislature will do this fall in the veto session that begins Tuesday.
Certainly the planets are in rare formation.
The 90th General Assembly has a goodly number of members who won’t return next year for the 91st. And Jim Edgar, the two-term Republican governor, is turning the mansion over to a fellow Republican, George Ryan. Word has it the governor-elect has invited Jim Edgar to tidy up certain loose ends . . . so Ryan won’t have to tidy them later.
One such is the woeful financial condition of the state’s highway and mass transit systems.
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Some 2,600 not-so-magnificent miles of Illinois roads are classified in need of serious repair. Ditto for 1,100 bridges. Suburban bottlenecks, like the infamous “Hillside strangler” on the Eisenhower Expressway, cry out for widenings or extensions. Several of the CTA’s older elevated lines are operating on borrowed time. Metra has more than 80 viaducts on its “critical” list. And Pace, the suburban bus system, needs to replenish its fleet.
Unfortunately, the state doesn’t have nearly enough money for this. The gas tax hasn’t been raised since 1989, when former Gov. Jim Thompson was a lame duck. Renewal for a car license still is still just $48, not even enough to replace rusted plates, much less rusted bridges.
So a coalition of business and civic leaders wants the legislature to raise the gas tax by a penny and the license fee by $10. Then, at least, the state would have money to take advantage of the new federal roads program, which requires a $4 to $1 federal/state match.
But it’s not going to happen.
Gov. Edgar recently met with the four legislative leaders and folks with an ear to the door say it didn’t go well. Senate President James “Pate” Philip and House Minority Leader Lee Daniels, the longtime Republican tops, nixed talk of a gas-tax hike. Their idea: Reclaim for the state road fund that portion of the gas tax that goes to subsidize the secretary of state office. (That office, you may recall, is about to pass from Republican to Democratic control.)
Another loose end concerns the sorry state of thoroughbred horse racing and breeding in Illinois and the competitive disadvantage of our state’s riverboat casinos vis-a-vis those in Indiana and Iowa. Arlington International Racecourse, the state’s only world-class track, has been shut for two years. Ownership blames competition from casino boats and begs legislative relief, perhaps by allowing slot machines under the grandstands. Illinois riverboat operators, meanwhile, want permission to remain dockside like their across-the-state-line competitors. And certain leaders from Illinois’ most populous county, such as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Rosemont Mayor Don Stephens, keep asking why the state continues to ban casinos where they would be most likely to succeed.
A multipurpose gambling bill resolving such problems might seem a veto session slam-dunk. But not this year.
Jim Edgar, the horse enthusiast, discovered at his recent legislative get-together that the state’s other track owners, for obvious reasons, aren’t itching to see Arlington reopen. Nor are holders of the state’s existing 10 riverboat licenses anxious to lose customers to a Cook County boat (or boats.)
Never mind that Indiana will continue to drain away millions of gambling taxes that could have gone to Illinois. A veto session gambling deal isn’t in the cards.
But don’t get the wrong idea. Unpopular votes will be cast. They just won’t draw attention like a gas-tax increase or a gambling expansion.
Consider pensions.
With all the Edgar administration people moving out and all the Ryan people moving in, there is suddenly talk of a generous early-retirement program for state employees.
So watch for the General Assembly to authorize a one-time offer that encourages state employees who are 50 years old, and who have five years of service, to retire with extra pension credits worth $80,600 over the life of an average retirement. And in the unlikely event that employees don’t have enough untaken sick leave or vacation time to pay for those credits, the state will loan them the money interest-free.
You may wonder why Chicago Democrats House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate Minority Leader Emil Jones would tolerate such a grab that would add half a billion dollars to the state’s already-underfunded pension liability. Stop wondering.
There may be a second pension bill. It would allow Chicago to lower the retirement age for its 50 aldermen to age 50, instead of the current age 60. And unlike private-sector early-outs, there would be no reduction in benefits. City council alums would get 80 percent of their final salary for life.
They call it the veto session. Every so often, you’d like to veto them all.