State Lawmakers Trim Stroger's Veto Power

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Oct 30, 2009 2:00PM

After a summer filled with debate amongst the Cook County Commissioners in regards to the sales tax rollback, Board President Todd Stroger's veto, and the commissioners inability to garner enough votes to override said veto, the state legislature has gotten involved. Yesterday, both the House (by a 66-49 vote) and the Senate (by a 49-1 vote) passed a bill that sets the new requirement for a veto override at three-fifths of the commissioners (11) rather than the current requirement of fourth-fifths (14). Now all that's left is for Gov. Quinn to sign it. The bill was specifically aimed at Stroger and the tax rollback. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge), said, "This is a great win for taxpayers in Cook County." Stroger spokeswoman Chris Geovanis said, "We're disappointed that the legislature chose not to use logic and decided to change the rules in the middle of the game." Stroger has previously said he would fight any such legislation in court if it was passed.

State lawmakers have a few other things on their plate today as well, one being campaign finance reform. The Tribune breaks it down like so:

At the heart of the legislation are the first-ever limits on campaign contributions: Candidates could get up to $5,000 each for the primary and general elections from individuals, $10,000 from corporations and unions and $50,000 from political action committees.

But the proposal also would allow all four legislative leaders to spend unlimited sums of money from their campaign accounts to individual legislators or candidates in general election races. Since [State House Speaker Mike] Madigan also is state Democratic chairman, he also could devote unlimited party campaign resources to hard-fought contests.

In primary races, however, the legislative and political party leaders combined would be restricted to giving $200,000 to a statewide candidate, $125,000 to a state Senate candidate, and $75,000 to a state House candidate.

House Republican leader Tom Cross wasn't impressed with the legislation, saying those lack of limits on leaders in general elections was, "status quo remains the same."

And still to be dealt with? The bill cutting back free rides for seniors on the CTA.