Rich Miller: State lawmakers question need for veto session

For months now, Statehouse types have been talking about whether there’s a need for a fall veto session this year. The session is scheduled to run the two weeks after the November election.

As one person put it, veto sessions are for things that the governor and legislators “have to do.”

But with no gubernatorial vetoes to deal with, is there anything that absolutely has to be done before the end of the year?

Senate President Don Harmon said in early summer that he was “eager to consider” Karina’s Bill, which would mandate that police remove firearms from any person who has been served with a domestic violence order of protection within a certain timeframe.

But his attention has been elsewhere since then (Senate campaigns and shuttling volunteers into Wisconsin and Michigan to help the Democratic ticket, to name just two), and it’s not known if Harmon’s chamber will even be ready to take up the bill.

I’m hearing Harmon has told a small handful of people that at least part of the veto session might indeed be canceled.

“Conversations are ongoing regarding possible action items for the November session,” said a Harmon spokesperson recently.

House Speaker Chris Welch said during a September event, “I think it’s too early to know what we’re going to do in veto session, if anything.” Emphasis on “if anything.”

Speaker Welch said his working group tasked with revamping mass transit was “really just beginning their work,” so that issue, as expected, would “definitely not” be ready for November. “Folks are being educated on the issue,” of adjusting Tier 2 pension benefits to make sure they align with federal laws, Welch said. And a sports stadium deal appears absolutely nowhere on the horizon.

Indeed, the House Speaker said he couldn’t think of anything at all that the House could take up in November. “Anybody here talking about veto session yet?” Welch rhetorically asked during a City Club event. It got a lot of laughs.

Gov. JB Pritzker soon after told reporters that he didn’t think there was any need for a supplemental budget bill before the spring legislative session begins in January. Supplementals are often passed when the government has to deal with unforeseen problems — although supplemental appropriations during the last couple of years were needed later in the fiscal year because the state brought in way more money than it expected.

Asked if he had anything on his agenda that was pressing enough to push through during the veto session or in the January lame duck session before the spring session begins, Pritzker said, “Nothing that comes off the top of my head.”

Asked if he had any thoughts about canceling veto session, Pritzker said, “I don’t have an opinion. I’m ready, willing and able to go to work during the veto session.” But then he added, “I don’t think that the legislature has an agenda for the veto session.”

People like me care about this because we have to attend the two-week veto session. But people like most of y’all who are reading this should also care because this is a strong indication that Illinois is becoming, well, boring.

The state has long lurched from one crisis to another, particularly after Rod Blagojevich was elected governor and he couldn’t stop picking fights with just about everyone until he was arrested by the feds, impeached by the House and removed from office by the Senate.

The six years following Blagojevich under Gov. Pat Quinn included almost constant fiscal nightmares, a desperately needed lame-duck session income tax increase and lots more infighting.

Then came Bruce Rauner, the most destructive of them all with his failed attempt to use no state budget and no renewal of Quinn’s expired tax hike for two years to force the Democratic Party to bust unions.

And then, of course, we endured the pandemic, which wreaked most every sort of havoc imaginable on the planet.

Does Illinois still have problems? Oh, heck yes. Almost none of those problems rise to the level of an immediate systemic crisis, but our largest city is currently embroiled in a self-made political and fiscal meltdown of epic proportions.

So, along those lines, canceling or curtailing veto session would allow state legislators and the governor to avoid being dragged into that Chicago mess.

Personally, I’m against canceling veto session. Boring might be good for government, but it’s bad for the news business.

• Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.