THE ILLINOIZE: Saturday special...Legislature done...Budget approved...Some crime issues addressed...No unemployment fund fix...Report: Rep. Thaddeus Jones under investigation

April 9, 2022

Good morning.

Mel-o-Creams and strong coffee on me this morning.

If you made it all night, you’re a stronger human than me. The House was in session all night, until around 6:00 A.M. while the Senate adjourned around 3:30.

It’s going to take a few days to dig through everything, but I wanted to get you an update this morning on what went down.

First, some of our e-mails over the last couple of days have been delayed by a few hours to almost a full day. Substack, our platform for this newsletter, blamed it on a bug that has been fixed. I apologize for any late or delayed content.

Secondly, here’s my Shaw Media column this week on crime. The issue isn’t going away anytime soon.

I won’t make a long pitch other than to thank our paid subscribers for helping us keep this little racket afloat and I’d hope that you would join us.

Drop me a note with your thoughts or post-session questions and I’d love to do a mailbag with them this week. I won’t use anybody’s name publicly. Just shoot me a note at patrick@theillinoize.com.

Let’s get to it.

TENSIONS FLARE, BUDGET PASSES WITH MORE SPENDING AND DIRECT PAYMENTS TO TAXPAYERS

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, as Republicans railed against it, Democrats pushed through a Fiscal Year 2023 budget that spends more money than ever while sending direct tax refund checks to taxpayers and socking away a billion dollars into the state’s arid rainy day fund.

The budget, HB 900, brings in about $46.54 billion and spends about $46.46 billion. It was approved generally on a party line vote, though two of the most endangered Senate Democrats, Sen. Rachelle Crowe (D-Glen Carbon) and Sen. Suzy Glowiak Hilton (D-Western Springs), voted against the spending plan in the Senate.

Interestingly enough, the final budget is a billion dollars more than Governor JB Pritzker’s proposed budget earlier this year.

Democrats are hanging their hats on a provision to send direct payments of up to $400 for families around the state, but Republicans slammed the proposal as an election year gimmick.

"There was a deliberate choice made not to give people their money back, but to take it and spend it," said Sen. Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet). He called the plan "a missed opportunity."

But House Majority Leader Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago) said it delivers results for people.

“This is a balanced budget. It's a responsible budget. I know we're gonna hear a lot of speeches. I know we're gonna hear a lot of stunts,” he said. “But for the people of Illinois, Democrats are delivering, Democrats are balancing the budget. Credit rating agencies are noting it, the civic organizations are noting it.”

The budget also includes a six month freeze of the state’s motor fuel tax, preventing a two cent increase from going into effect in July. It also suspends a portion of the grocery tax for a year.

The provisions require retailers to place stickers on gas pumps and lines on grocery store receipts giving the legislature credit for the breaks.

“Let’s call this budget what it really is—an attempt to buy your vote,” said Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) in a statement. “For months, Republicans have proposed permanent tax relief. Instead, Democrats chose a permanent expansion to spending handing out one-time checks right before the election and then abandoning taxpayers right after the election. While some tax relief is better than none-at-all, Illinoisans deserve real relief instead of bigger government.”

We’ll have more on the budget details in Tuesday’s full newsletter when we can dig through some of the line items.

SOME CRIME CRACKDOWNS, BUT WILL IT SOLVE THE ISSUE?

The most notable anti-crime legislation passed by the legislature in the wee small hours of the morning was the Illinois Retail Merchants Association (IRMA) effort to crack down on organized retail theft.

These are the organized smash-and-grabs where stolen goods are then flipped for profit, oftentimes online.

It creates a new category for organized retail crimes, though Republicans argued many of the penalties could be charged under existing crimes. It also allows a State’s Attorney to charge a crime that occurred in another county if the items are being resold in their county.

“The measure targets individuals stealing for profit, not anyone engaging in petty shoplifting,” Sen. Suzy Glowiak Hilton (D-Western Springs), the sponsor of the legislation, said. “Deterring retail crime starts with supporting law enforcement, holding criminals responsible and making it tougher to resell stolen goods.”

Numerous parts of Democrat crime bills were passed throughout the evening ranging from increased funding for body cameras to more license plate reading cameras on Illinois expressways. Republicans criticized Democrats for not doing enough to crackdown on crime.

“With crime out of control across the state, we were able to secure some much-needed help for police, but nothing that actually holds criminals accountable,” said Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington) in a statement.

Again, we’ll need to dig into some of these other provisions. A Senate Democrat sent me a long list of things they were proud of yesterday and you can imagine I haven’t had time to read all of it. So, we’ll have more on that for you Tuesday.

NO UNEMPLOYMENT FIX

It appears talks between business and labor fizzled out without a deal to close a $1.5 billion hole in the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which got a big influx of cash from federal bailout dollars earlier this year.

The legislature already budgeted $58 million or so to pay the interest on a federal loan to cover the shortfall when the unemployment fund went in the hole during the pandemic, but without a further fix, taxes and fees on employers will likely go up in November.

REP. THADDEUS JONES UNDER INVESTIGATION

The Chicago Tribune reported late yesterday that Rep. Thaddeus Jones (D-Calumet City), who is also the Mayor of Cal City, is under federal investigation.

More from Jason Meisner, Dan Petrella, and Jeremy Gorner:

Illinois state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, who doubles as the mayor of Calumet City, is under federal criminal investigation for tax issues involving his campaign funds, according to a law enforcement source and records obtained by the Tribune.

The U.S. attorney’s office issued a grand jury subpoena in January to the Illinois State Board of Elections seeking records on three campaign funds controlled by Jones, according to a copy of the subpoena provided to the Tribune via an open records request.

The subpoena, dated Jan. 7, was pursuant to an “official criminal investigation” and sought quarterly campaign reports dating back to 2015 for the funds “Jones for Mayor,” “Jones for State Representative,” and “Citizens for Jones,” which is a political action committee that Jones heads.

The law enforcement source told the Tribune that authorities are investigating tax issues stemming from the transfer of money between Jones and his campaign funds as well as other potential financial matters.

Jones was at the Capitol yesterday, though I didn’t physically see him (other than while he was on the floor). He is being challenged by a Calumet City Alderwoman in the June 28 primary.

That’s it for now. We’ll be back with a Free for All Monday and I’ll have much more on legislation that did and didn’t move and some of the political fallout in Tuesday’s newsletter. Thanks for sticking with us this week as things changed very quickly.