Busy Days in Springfield

I spent a couple of days in Springfield this week watching democracy in action. I went to the Capital to advocate for increased special education funding and to encourage the adoption of a state budget. Yesterday, I spent the day with LEND (Legislative Educational Network of DuPage) lobbyist Peg Agnos and lobbyists from EDRed, and the Education Alliance and IEA. There was significant action taken yesterday as the House overrode the Governor’s amendatory veto of NB 664 which would have drastically changed the property tax formula for Cook County. You may remember that Governor Blagojevich in has infinite wisdom greatly expanded the scope of this bill which was developed to be transitory and made it permanent which would have caused great harm to taxing bodies in Cook County. With the override in the House, the pressure is now on Senate President Emil Jones and the Senate which now will have to take action to override the veto and join the House or Cook County will lose any change for tax relief this session. This causes a dilemma for Jones since he has been on record as opposing any overrides of the Governor’s vetoes.

We were also successful in moving a bill to increase special education funding among 200 plus districts that would have lost money under a new formula put into place in 2004. This loss amounts to over $3 million in DuPage County alone. The bill sponsored by Representative Dan Bradley passed from both the Elementary and Secondary Education committee and the House Appropriations committee yesterday. It was interesting to observe how members of both parties are so vocal in their criticism and hostility to the Governor. It is obvious that the strain of finding ways to conduct legislative business in a time when no one has any trust in the Governor is causing stress on the process. It will be interesting to watch and see if the Senate will open any debate on overriding any of the Governor’s vetoes. Stay tuned!