* From a Tribune editorial…
Challengers hoping to unseat incumbent Democrats in the Illinois House got a marvelous gift Wednesday from many of those very incumbents. By a vote of 65-51, the House fell six yes votes short of killing the full-percentage-point sales tax increase engineered last year by Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. That is, if six of those nays instead had been yeas, the measure would have moved to the Senate. And if the Senate went along, you soon would be paying less in taxes to support Stroger and his astonishingly wasteful government.
Look for your state representative’s name on the roll call, available at chicagotribune.com/tax. Those who voted “no” voted to enable Stroger.
Actually, if you look at the roll call, the only Cook County Democrat who appears to be at all vulnerable for this “No” vote is Rep. Elaine Nekritz of Northbrook. [A commenter points out that Rep. Ken Dunkin might also be vulnerable. We’ll see.]
Quite a few Downstate Republicans and Democrats voted “No.” From the Tribune’s own news coverage…
Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, said he worried that repealing the county’s tax increase would set a bad precedent for the General Assembly to butt into local tax issues.
Black voted “Yes” on the bill, but several of his Downstate GOP colleagues voted “No,” including staunch conservatives like Reps. Chapin Rose and Jim Sacia.
* Back to the Tribune editorial…
The good news: The House did approve, 95-18, a measure that could still lead to a repeal of the sales tax increase.
That measure would decrease from four-fifths to three-fifths the share of County Board members needed to override a board president’s veto. That bizarre four-fifths threshold has allowed Stroger to thwart his board’s oft-voted desire to reduce or eliminate his cherished sales tax increase.
Wednesday evening, a Senate committee approved the bill that sailed through the House.
Actually, no.
As I told subscribers this morning, the House bill to lower the override threshold is still in the House. Patterson noticed the same thing…
But sometime after the vote Wednesday, state Rep. Deborah Graham invoked a procedural maneuver that, at least for the moment, stalls the legislation in the House.
Graham, a Chicago Democrat, filed a “motion to reconsider” the vote by which the legislation passed. She’s entitled to do that because she voted for it. Procedurally this means her motion must be addressed before the legislation can advance in the system.
When that might happen is unclear. I wasn’t able to find her late Wednesday. Speaker Michael Madigan’s spokesman said he was unaware of Graham’s efforts when I talked to him Wednesday night.
More from the Sun-Times…
The hold Graham placed on the bill coupled with the failure of the sales-tax repeal accomplished two things for Democratic strategists in the House aligned with Stroger.
The moves spared Stroger from political harm while also giving potentially vulnerable suburban Cook County Dems facing tough re-election bids next year the chance to show they went on record against Stroger and the tax hike that has left him wildly unpopular in suburban pockets.
And the Senate Executive Committee voted on a different bill, not the same bill as the Tribune editorial claimed.
* I interviewed Stroger yesterday at the Statehouse after the House voted on both bills. He talked about Speaker Madigan’s motives, but also spoke at length about his reelection chances. He’s convinced himself that this is doable. Sorry for the video quality, but take a look anyway…
* Stroger talked to other reporters after the vote yesterday. I thought I had this captured on my iPhone, but I screwed up, so here’s Fox Chicago’s raw footage…
* Related…
* Zorn: Why is it so hard to override a presidential veto in Cook County, anyway?
* House Approves Changing Cook County Veto Rules: STROGER: I think it’s at this point, it’s just politics. People are looking for issues such as taxes that they think they can rally behind. We have to be realistic in how we fund our government.