Today, the radical Democrats voted on “new” House Rules and chose to keep Madigan era rules alive. The interests of the more than 4 million Illinoisans represented by House Republicans will suffer as a result of House Democrats passing these Rules. Read the article from The Center Square here.
The Rules for the 104th General Assembly were drafted by the Democrat supermajority with no input from the Republican minority. These Rules will govern the House of Representatives for the next two years. House Republicans did propose reasonable changes that would increase accountability and transparency, however the proposal was rejected by the supermajority.
Unfortunately, Speaker Welch went back on his promise to turn the page to a “New Day”, and the House Rules that Madigan put in place are the same Rules that the Illinois House is operating under today. It’s a classic case of, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Republicans laid out proposals that would improve transparency:
HR 16 – Eliminates loophole that allows a substantive resolution to evade the normal requirement for publication on the agenda of pending items (the daily House calendar)
HR 17 – Requiring a committee hearing and a vote on any bill that has at least 5 co-sponsors from each party.
HR 18 – Provides public disclosure of pre-filing for Senate bill sponsorship.
HR 19 – Creates a minimum review period of 24 hours before final action on appropriation bills.
HR 20 – Utilize conference committees so proposals can retain the same bill numbers throughout GA consideration.
HR 21 – Limiting the number of bills allowed to be on a consent calendar to 25 (down from 80)
HR 22 – Restores requirement for supermajority to close floor debate.
HR 23 – Provides for Member Access to the House Chamber during Clerk’s Office Business Hours.
HR 24 – Requires that Committee and Task Force Audio Recordings be accessible on the GA website within 24 hours.
HR 25 – Requires a record vote when voting to close floor debate (if unanimous consent is denied).
HR 26 – Each member can designate at least one bill per session for a guarantee committee hearing and vote. It would be designated as a priority bill.