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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Naperville’s Pulse in Springfield – Some Finger-Pointers May Want to Brush Up on their Civics

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As I write this we’re entering another month without a full year state budget in place. The negotiations are ongoing. So, unfortunately, is the finger-pointing. The continuing stalemate is very frustrating, and there’s certainly plenty of blame to go around. But to my colleagues who solely blame the Governor, I respectfully suggest that you brush up on your civics.

Under the Illinois constitution, the responsibility of passing a state budget is not the Governor’s alone. As I have written before, the Governor is required under Article VIII of the constitution to submit a balanced budget plan to the General Assembly. On February 15 the Governor outlined his budget proposal before a joint session of the House and Senate, as he has also done each of the previous two years. Whether or not his plan is truly balanced is up for debate.

What is not debatable, however, is that every budget plan pushed by the majority party in the General Assembly last year and the year before has been billions of dollars out of balance. Last May, with the end of our scheduled session approaching, Speaker Madigan abandoned the budget working groups and instead pushed through the House a budget that members of his own caucus admitted would spend a whopping $7 billion more than we have coming in in revenue.

Before they cast blame, perhaps they should revisit Article VIII which also outlines the General Assembly’s responsibility in passing a balanced budget: “The General Assembly by law shall make appropriations for all expenditures of public funds by the State. Appropriations for a fiscal year shall not exceed funds estimated by the General Assembly to be available during that year.”

Another basic civics fact that has been largely overlooked in all of the finger-pointing is the power of the veto-proof majority. Before inauguration day in January, speaker Madigan and President Cullerton both presided over veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate, meaning that their caucuses actually had the power to pass anything they wanted. Even if the Governor vetoed their legislation, they had enough members in both chambers to override. If they truly wanted to, they could have passed any of their budgets into law despite the Governor’s objections. They didn’t.

Yes, there’s plenty of blame to go around, but assigning blame isn’t fixing our budget mess. Those of us privileged to serve in Springfield need to put the finger-pointing behind us once and for all and acknowledge that we all share in the legal and ethical responsibility to pass a fair and balanced budget.

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Grant Wehrli
Grant Wehrli
Grant Wehrli is a lifelong Naperville Resident and former Representative in the Illinois House of Representatives and Naperville City Councilman.

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