It was a happy coincidence to open Tuesday’s newspaper and see my column, suggesting voters would benefit from more proposals being considered individually instead of bundled into larger packages, right underneath Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller asserting “Way too much fell through the cracks at the Statehouse.”
Miller used a failed omnibus energy bill to illustrate a larger point: “the Legislature goes through this almost every year. They put all the big stuff off until the end, and then they don’t have the bandwidth to deal with a multitude of issues at once, although this year was particularly difficult. Leaders need to start enforcing earlier deadlines for giant issues like this energy proposal so they can deal with other time-sensitive things (the budget and revenues, for instance) at the end. Or maybe the other way around.”
I don’t coordinate anything with Rich, but we’re not the only commentators who reliably opine every June about the way things could’ve been handled better from January through May. Even if lawmakers enact polices reflecting my personal interests, the process itself is routinely a letdown (and potentially illegal, at least if the Illinois Supreme Court ever gets serious about reviewing its enrolled bill doctrine).
The problem isn’t unique to Illinois. It’s a safe bet there are intelligent criticisms of legislative rules throughout the country. I recall the impassioned arguments from a county supervisor on my beat in Iowa 20 years ago who insisted that the state should pass two-year budgets in even years and spend the odd-numbered ones addressing only policy.
She acknowledged the practical implication of enacting a change on paper but waiting at least 12 months to appropriate the funding to put plans into action. But it’s possible to frame that postponement as prudence, giving everyone involved the chance to plan and iron out unintended consequences. Further, such an approach would bring clarity to spending negotiations, in part by limiting lawmakers’ ability to undercut their own plans, such as our General Assembly’s insistence on fund sweeps, which delay planned projects to make the general fund appear balanced.
I’m reasonably sure there’s no suggestion box at the Statehouse, but surely voters have dozens of other ideas for ways to improve Springfield’s efficiency. Creating new (or enforcing current) deadlines is one option, per Miller’s suggestion, but there surely is a way to reinvent the entire legislative calendar so we don’t have to go from May 31 to October’s six veto session days without getting everyone back together to take meaningful action.
How would you structure the 24 months of each General Assembly session? Not all ideas are practical, but there are flaws in the status quo, and it’s well worth considering some alternatives.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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