House Republicans Want Action on GOP Legislation
A group of Illinois House Republicans complained Thursday that House Democrats have been unwilling to move forward Republican-backed pieces of legislation.
Here’s the political reality in Springfield: Republicans need Democrats more than Democrats need Republicans. Democrats have supermajorities in both the House and Senate so any legislation reaching Governor JB Pritzker’s desk will need at least some buy-in from the majority.
A trio of House Republicans complained Thursday there’s a backlog of more than 600 Republican-sponsored bills which have passed out of committee but haven’t received a vote on the full House floor.
“House Democrats broke their promise of working together and went back to their old way of doing business,” said Rep. Amy Elik (R-Alton).
Elik said of the nearly 300 bills approved on the House consent calendar, 73 percent were sponsored by Democrats and 27 percent by Republicans. To put that in context, about 61 percent of the House seats are controlled by Democrats, 38 percent by Republicans.
“They’re not the only ones promoting good policy,” said Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield).
Rep. David Welter (R-Morris) said it’s been more than nine months since the years long Commonwealth Edison bribery scheme implicated former House Speaker Michael Madigan, more than a year since the late Sen. Martin Sandoval resigned after pleading guilty to federal bribery charges and more than 18 months since Rep. Luis Arroyo was forced to resign amid bribery charges. Welter complained that, even in spite of the scandals, there’s been no meaningful ethics reform advanced.
“How many more cases of corruption need to be exposed before House Democrats act on ethics reforms,” Welter said. “It’s been more than three months [since Chris Welch took over as speaker] and we’ve yet to see one initiative introduced by his majority on this topic. The fact is we’re still debating reforms that could have easily been agreed to and passed months ago by this body. We can start exposing and eliminating conflicts of interest among legislators. We’ve been talking about it for how long? We know what the issues are.”
Batinick criticized Democrats for refusing votes on pension reform or his bill to make it easier for voters to recall lawmakers.
“It would be historic for this General Assembly and this new speaker to put something like [his recall legislation] in place that is unlikely to be used and would only be used in extreme circumstances because, the way we have the bill tailored, I think it would be a wonderful way to say, ‘business is new in Springfield’ and that it’s a new day,” Batinick said. “We’re going to let citizens have a little bit more control if things go awry in Springfield or their local government or their county government.”
The GOP trio essentially echoed The Who. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
“It doesn’t appear that the House Democratic leadership wants to ‘work together to solve the very serious issues in this state’,” Elik said. “It appears to be the opposite. Just more of the same, Democrats pushing their own agenda, conducting their business just the way Mike Madigan taught them.”
The Illinoize reached out to Speaker Welch’s spokesperson for comment but never received a response.
Democrats don’t need Republican votes but also may not want to give Republicans a record of accomplishments to run on. Batinick said working with Republicans could be a win-win situation.
“My attitude always has been, ‘good policy is good politics’,” Batnick said. “If [Speaker Welch] wants to win a bigger Democratic majority then the goal should be pension reform, a balanced budget, lower taxes. People want to come here for a job. If you put forth good policy and you act in a bipartisan nature and you’re worried about policy first, you will win the elections and it will come.”
There was a common refrain of “a new day in Springfield” when Welch took over the gavel from the longest-tenured speaker in the country, but some House Republicans said it’s starting to feel like déjà vu.
“We hope that the speaker and the House Democrats are listening and are willing to start working with us to back up their own promises with meaningful, specific action in the form of legislation,” Welter said.
