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Legislative Update

Friday, May 7, 2010

And Then….

Well, where do we begin. The General Assembly started picking up steam this week to really get done by today. As the week progressed it looked like they might actually get done. The Senate worked straight through yesterday until 1:19 am today passing their version of an appropriation bill and then came in today and started passing bills to pull the "budget" together. At the same time the House was working on their appropriation bill and other bills to pull a plan together.

But at 6:40 tonight, the Senate and House both abruptly announced they were adjourning and would be retuning in the near future. No one is really for sure why. What is evident is that the appropriation process was not moving smoothly. Each chamber had its own separate appropriation bill, emergency powers act, and other items. The common consensus is they need some time to just sit down and sort things out and come back to pull it together. Over the next couple of days we will see if more surfaces as to whether they just need time to pull the details together or other more serious items are looming.

Both Senate President Cullerton and Speaker Madigan announced to their respective chambers that they would reconvene the session for one or two days to finish matters up. We expect that they will return in the next several weeks before the May 31st deadline where extraordinary votes are required for the passage of the appropriation and other supporting bills.

Stay tuned….

Questions

If you have any questions on the items listed in this edition of QuickView or on other state legislative matters please contact us. The State Legislative Team can be reached at (309) 557-2308 or by e-mail at statelegislation@ilfb.org.