By Jerry Nowicki
The House sponsor of a long-debated ethics bill that failed in the House recently said she will bring it up for another vote if lawmakers come back to the Capitol within a 15-day constitutional window in which such an action would be allowed. The House leadership decided Tuesday to return in session Thursday, Sept. 9 which is within 15 days.
But House Republicans who pulled their support from the bill say it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Senate Bill 539, the bipartisan negotiated ethics bill, initially came up for vote after 1 a.m. June 1, with House Republicans stating a number of concerns and calling it “watered down” before it passed the House 113-5 and the Senate 59-0.
Among other things, the bill would have prohibited legislators and constitutional officers from engaging in compensated lobbying of a municipality, county, or township, on behalf of any lobbyist or lobbying entity that is registered to lobby, the General Assembly or the Executive Branch. The same would have applied to elected and appointed executive or legislative officials of county, municipal or township governments.
The bill would have made a number of changes to financial disclosure requirements and limited the ability of lawmakers to leave office and immediately go to work as lobbyists.
But after the governor signed an “amendatory veto” making what he called a technical change pertaining to language in the bill regarding the executive inspector general earlier this month, it went back to lawmakers for another round of approval, requiring three-fifths majorities in each chamber.
The bill’s House sponsor, representative Kelly Burke, D-Evergreen Park, said she wasn’t expecting Republicans to pull support for the bill.
But Republicans in the House now say the acceptance vote’s failure shows lawmakers from both parties have an appetite for stricter ethics reform.
The lack of support from the GOP this time around was spurred in large part by the resignation and public comments of Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope, who in July called the position a “paper tiger” while declaring her intent to resign as soon as a replacement is found or by December 15 at the latest.
The bill would have given the legislative inspector general independent authority to launch investigations, but only after a formal complaint is filed. It would have restricted those investigations to matters that arise out of government service or employment, not to outside employment.
Pope specifically said that language would tie her hands, and she cited that as a reason for her resignation.
Burke said she’s ready to pass SB 539 and continue to work on further changes to ethics laws.
“This is a standing committee, the ethics committee,” she said. “So you know, we’re going to have more bills and ideas that people put forward. We’ve been clear about that since the beginning. … I think this bill is an excellent bill. And it’s a good start. But it’s not the end of the conversation. So let’s get this done and then continue working.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
— Capitol News Illinois