By Doug Finke of GateHouse Media Illinois
SPRINGFIELD — Sending a message to Gov. Bruce Rauner, House Democrats engineered defeat of a portion of Rauner’s budget plan, showing they will not accept deep cuts to human services programs.
Instead, in a long series of votes, the House Democrats voted to reverse the cuts Rauner called for in his budget proposal for a variety of human services programs, like continuing foster care for youth aged 18 to 21 and paying for subsidized day care for children over the age of 5.
Republicans branded the whole exercise a charade designed to put minority party lawmakers on the spot for a series of potentially damaging votes. Throughout the afternoon, GOP lawmakers mostly cast “present” votes on the various budget measures.
“This is an absolute sham,” said Rep. Michael Unes, R-East Peoria. “We have a lot of work to do. It’s embarrassing we are wasting our time on the games we’ve seen the past couple of days.”
“The people of Illinois after two long years are fatigued. They want adults. This is a charade,” said Rep. Bill Mitchell, R-Forsyth. “This is Chicago politics at its worst.”
In a hastily scheduled vote Wednesday, the House gave zero “yes” votes to Rauner’s proposed budget for human services next year that contained deep cuts to a number of programs, including Medicaid.
The plan drew 67 “no” votes, all from Democrats and 45 “present” votes, all from Republicans.
House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, sponsored the proposal that he said was intended to “facilitate our consideration” of next year’s proposed budget.
“It will permit us to have a full and open discussion and debate on this critical question,” Madigan said.
He outlined the human services cuts Rauner is proposing in his budget that does not contain revenue increases. Overall, spending for human services would drop $1.9 billion. Medicaid spending alone would be cut by $1.5 billion if lawmakers approve a series of changes Rauner is seeking.
House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, said Madigan bypassed House committees before bringing the proposed budget to the House floor for a vote. He also said Madigan was reneging on a statement made in January that the speaker welcomed participation of Republicans in crafting a budget for next year.
“It doesn’t reflect a spirit of bipartisan cooperation of what I’ve committed myself to,” Durkin said.
Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, chairman of the House Human Services Appropriations Committee, said Rauner’s budget proposal has already been the subject of weeks of hearings in the committee.
“We have spent hours and hours and hours in testimony,” Harris said. “Everyone has had a chance to come in and speak at length. It is not a mystery what is in this bill.”
Rep. David Harris, R-Arlington Heights, said considering the human services budget in a vacuum without knowing how much money is needed for things like pension payments or paying off debts is pointless.
“We are bringing it directly to the floor for some reason which I don’t think is valid, is logical or justified,” he said.
After the vote, Greg Harris said the vote showed Rauner his proposed budget had no support in the House.
“I understand we need to make cuts somewhere, but we cannot balance the budget by cuts alone,” Harris said. “We’re going to have to make some commonsense cuts and we’re also going to have to agree to find some revenue sources.”
Rauner has said he’s open to discussing revenue options, but not until after the legislature approves his “Turnaround Agenda.” That agenda includes things like pension reform, workers compensation changes, legislative term limits, right to work zones, changes to civil liability lawsuits and freezing property taxes. Democrats have pushed back on a number of those issues.
Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, thought the House action Wednesday may have hurt the ability of lawmakers to work out a budget compromise.
“I don’t think we accomplished anything,” Butler said. “Pulling things like this up at the last minute certainly isn’t working in a bipartisan fashion. I think this impedes the effort (to compromise). I think by bringing things up like this out of the blue really sets a bad tone.”