House Democrats showed all of Illinois today that the upcoming Primary Election is more important to them than staying in Springfield to negotiate a budget and solve the funding crises for higher education and social service agencies. As the business of the day was concluding on Thursday, one of my Republican colleagues made a motion that we reconvene on Friday so that discussions on critical issues could continue. The entire Republican Caucus was supportive of this motion. But rather than following House rules and allowing a vote on the motion, Democrats instead abruptly and incorrectly ruled our motion out of order, adjourned, and quickly skipped town for five weeks. It was a disgraceful display of their misaligned priorities. The photo above shows how quickly the Democrat side of the aisle vacated this afternoon.
Click here to read more about this shameful behavior by the majority party members and to see a video of our request and the Democrats’ abrupt exit from the chamber. If you would like to weigh in on the issue after reading the information, please use this link to take a single-question survey.
Today, throughout the day, Republicans repeatedly asked for a seat at the table so we could talk through Illinois’ issues one by one. These requests were sincere. Unfortunately they were ignored and summarily dismissed, as the Democrat leadership continued to manipulate their own rules the control the process to their own benefit.
Today the Democrats approved an incredibly disingenuous appropriations bill with a gaping $2.4 billion hole in it. It was yet another attempt by the majority party to provide Illinoisans with false hopes leading into the primary election in less than two weeks. In reality, HB 2990 does nothing to fund programs. It only exasperates Illinois’ financial problems. It was pieced together entirely by Democrats in the cover of night without a hint of involvement from Republicans. You can listen to my floor comments on Speaker Mike Madigan’s HB 2990 here.
Ron Sandack
http://ronsandack.org
