Curran: We Want Overtime
Senate GOP Leader John Curran (R-Downers Grove)
While Democrats appear to be scrambling to finalize the state budget and the Bears/megaprojects bill before Sunday’s spring adjournment deadline, there’s one group in Springfield who wants major issues to bleed into June: Republicans.
Overtime, a 3/5 majority threshold, and reticent Democrats would bring the superminority GOP to the table on issues like the state budget, something Senate GOP Leader John Curran (R-Downers Grove) wants.
“Yes, we want this to push into overtime,” Curran told me on the radio Friday. “We want a seat at the table, we want to be involved in that process. We can make this a lot better and a budget more reflective of the entire state of Illinois.”
Curran says he fears progressives are going to force Democratic leadership to add new taxes and additional spending, which he claims will hurt the state’s economy further.
“These are dangerous ideas. This is going to make the state of Illinois even less competitive, [will result in] less capital investment,” he said. “We’re already bottom five of the country in unemployment. We’re bottom five in the country oon economic growth year-over-year. This would make it even worse in more anti-business and more hostile. So I think what the Normie [Democrats] are saying in private, you’re hearing us in public and I think that’s where the alignment is right now.”
Curran says Republicans in the Senate would need significant changes to the Bears/megaprojects bill that passed the House to put GOP votes on the package to keep the team in Illinois.
“The House bill needs work around property tax protection. We’re not talking just Cook County, we’re not talking just Arlington Heights here. It could potentially permit shifting burden to other property taxpayers in a megaproject zone. That’s top of our list to clean up from what came over in the House,” Curran said. It’s very different if we’re looking at a Bears only [bill], that’s a little easier calculus than something that is megaprojects statewide and you don’t know what it’s going to be applied to.”
Curran says he believes a stripped-down Bears-only bill could pass the legislature this weekend, but he believes a wide-ranging megaprojects bill could not get to the Govenror’s desk yet, adding credence to the theory the megaprojects bill may be stripped down in the Senate.
