(gentle music) (inspirational music) - Welcome to "CapitolView" on WSIU.

I'm Brian Sapp.

The spring session of the General Assembly is over.

They took it to the wire.

They ended up passing a new $55 billion budget.

We'll talk about the budget highlights.

And in addition to the budget, legislators sent plenty of bills to the governor's desk.

And some bills didn't make it that we've been covering this session.

We'll cover all that with this week's guests.

Joining us are Andrew Adams, the State House in Chicago reporter for Chicago, or Capitol News Illinois, and Jason Piscia, the director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Gentlemen, welcome, and good to see you.

- Good to see you.

- Let's start with the big thing in Springfield was the end of the session and the budget.

Andrew, you were there, right?

And how did this turn out, that it was a $55 billion budget, it's the biggest one that they've passed yet, what happened in Springfield?

- Yeah, so this budget is definitely an interesting budget for the state.

It's about 3% more spending than last year's budget, which when you take into account inflation, I mean, that's not a much bigger budget than, you know, in years past.

Now, over time, budget's increased, but this was definitely a tight budget year.

Early on in the process this year, Governor Pritzker, when he proposed his version of the budget in February, said it was a year for tightening belts, and he was not wrong.

- Mm-hmm.

- There was a lot of concern about this budget, and there was even, you know, politically concern because, you know, tight budgets are hard to vote for, and everyone wants to make sure that their district is represented, that the programs they care about are funded.

They want to, getting votes for that budget can be hard, and there's actually a real concern that they might miss the deadline on May 31st over this past weekend.

But they managed to get it in.

They did that in part by raising about a billion dollars in, you know, what lawmaker and policy types call new revenues, a polite euphemism for tax increases.

Now, those tax increases are, you know, not necessarily tax increases that everyone will feel, they're kind of specialized this year.

Some noteworthy ones include hiking the state taxes on nicotine products, like vaping and nicotine pouches that you might, you know, hold in your mouth, and adding a new tax on sports betting, which is a huge industry in Illinois.

There's a lot of money flowing through sportsbooks right now.

So there's some highlights from this year's budget, definitely an interesting one to watch.

- Yeah, and that was interesting.

You know, the governor said all along he didn't want a budget that had any broad-based tax increases, such as sales tax or income taxes.

And for the most part, or actually it did, the budget does not contain any of those, but still, there's always some concern about where this new revenue is gonna come from.

One thing I thought was interesting, you know, they're counting on about a quarter of a billion dollars to come from back tax payments from, you know, delinquent tax payers.

They're gonna give amnesty to those people to let them pay their back taxes without any penalties.

You know, that's always interesting.

Well, you know, they're hoping for the best that these people will actually pay their taxes, but that's a rather big chunk of money to be assuming at this point.

So, you know, it'll be interesting to maybe put a little reminder in our phone calendars (Brian chuckles) toward the beginning of the new year or at the end of the next fiscal year, you know, how much of that quarter of a billion dollars actually did make it into the state coffers by being, by, you know, encouraging these delinquent taxpayers to actually pay what they owe.

- I was noticing that, like you said, Andrew, that they seemed hesitant to expand that spending.

What were some of the places that we saw some modest growth?

I saw the evidence-based funding for education grew a little bit.

I saw that the teachers union in one of my email press releases that they weren't, they were happy that they got what they were looking for, but they felt that there might have been some more.

Where were a couple places that we saw some of this growth in spending?

- Yeah, absolutely.

Just as a quick note on that education funding, the state funds schools through this formula, right, that- - Mm-hmm.

- Ostensibly, I mean, it's designed so that the schools with more need get more support from the state, but then schools that are incredibly well funded from, you know, local property taxes and other sources don't necessarily need money from the state, they get less funding from Springfield.

And that formula that, you know, the state has to pay in a certain amount every year and, you know, we got there, but that is a minimum, and it has been a minimum for the, you know, could do quick math in my head, eight years we've been using that formula?

So, you know, groups like teachers unions, education advocates, they're always asking, or they're always saying that for a really high-quality education system, we should put more money into it.

So that's always a fight every year to see how that shakes out.

There are a couple other places that there were increases this year.

I mean, again, tight budget.

I'm not gonna say that anyone is walking outta Springfield happy.

Definitely the big focuses on this budget are in the cuts and in the stagnation.

There's not a lot of raises in funding that are not legally required.

(chuckles) - Mm-hmm.

Okay, all right.

Well, let's move on then to some of the bills.

Jason, one of the bills that the governor proposed at his budget talk in February was some changes to the way pharmacy benefit managers were run.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what was passed in this pharmacy and the prescription bill?

- Sure, so, you know, this is one of the bills that actually did make it over the finish line at the deadline here and reigns in sort of the power or the influence of what are called pharmacy benefit managers.

These are kind of third-party companies that sort of work between pharmaceutical companies and drug stores, just to negotiate the prices of specific prescriptions.

There is criticism of these because some of 'em are very closely related to very large drugstore chains that you probably recognize names of, including CVS Pharmacy.

And there's criticism that these pharmacy benefit managers will steer business, you know, people who need prescription drugs will steer their business toward their home pharmacies instead of being more fair.

This causes challenges for smaller pharmacies, you know, mom-and-pop shops that are around Illinois, especially in rural areas, making prescriptions more expensive for them.

So the state wanted to get a handle on this, specifically Governor Pritzker in his State of the State and Budget Address, as you mentioned, in February, did talk about the undue influence that these pharmacy benefit managers have and wanted to reign them in.

So this bill puts some extra fees in on them.

It prevents them from steering business toward their own companies and gives these smaller pharmacies, these smaller mom-and-pop places, more of a fighting chance to serve their customers.

And that is a concern that these smaller pharmacies remain viable in some, especially rural, parts of the state.

Some of these smaller, you know, there aren't any CVSs, there aren't any Walgreens in these small towns.

So these residents in these rural areas do need these smaller pharmacies to be affordable, to be available, to be accessible, so they can, you know, get their drugs and stay healthy.

- I've noticed that this pharmacy benefit managers has been kind of a trend or a talk around the nation, and it seemed to have some pretty broad support.

Was that the case here in Illinois as well?

- Yes, yeah, the bill's, you know, made it through.

You know, I think the Senate was like 56 to 1, and the House also maybe only had one no vote as well.

So, you know, this is one of those issues where Republicans and Democrats were able to agree and get behind it, so that's good.

- Yeah, okay, a rare sight.

There's plenty of, I think, bills that did have some bipartisan support and also some that didn't.

One of the bills that did not make it, Andrew, and we're here in June and there's been lots of reporting about Ameren and ComEd raising their rates.

Energy is a big one, and you were covering that this session.

I think the last time we talked, we talked about it.

What happened with the energy bill?

It didn't pass.

Where does it stand?

- For sure.

Yeah, and that's really an important context.

Customers around Illinois are gonna see increased bills.

Ameren tells me that the increase in kind of their territory, which is most Downstate Illinois, is about $45 a month for an average residential, you know, household, which is a significant increase.

And then that's due to a variety of reasons.

And it really boils down to there's a lot of demand on the power grid right now and there's not a lot of supply, which means, you know, classic economics- - Mm-hmm.

(chuckles) - That price is gonna go up.

Lawmakers have been in talks for months and months to try and get some kind of package to deal with this long term.

You know, they were never gonna be able to, you know, lower prices this summer, we're just gonna deal with that.

But, you know, long term, they could regulate data centers, these really high-demand industries that use a lot of electricity.

They could incentivize storage and kind of the solar industry to make renewables a bigger part of the grid, and, you know, a variety of other things.

But, you know, really down to the wire, there was, among the people who were working on this, there was a common belief, up until Saturday morning, maybe Saturday afternoon, hours before they adjourned for the year, that there would be this big package of energy legislation to, you know, keep those prices low over time.

And then, you know, classic Springfield, negotiations broke down.

There were disagreements between, you know, the various people involved, between labor and the companies and manufacturers and environmentalists who, you know, do a lot of negotiation over this.

And negotiations broke down, those conversations kind of eroded, and lawmakers couldn't agree on a bill.

And it's not necessarily a partisan disagreement.

It's really a disagreement among the interested parties, among the people who would be most affected by this.

- What were some of the sticking points that stuck out to you?

- Mm-hmm.

So really over the course of the week, different disagreements happened.

The big-ticket item would've been requiring data centers, you know, again, so imagine like a warehouse full of computers, right?

- Mm-hmm.

- And those things just eat energy.

It's hard to describe the impact that data centers have had on the grid, both in Illinois and nationwide.

And it would've, and, you know, a version of this bill would have, you know, put some regulations on them.

And the most extreme version would've said, all right, if you wanna build a data center in Illinois, you're building your own energy.

You're finding a solar company or a wind company or whatever, and you're paying them to generate energy for you so that you don't have to take it off the grid, which is already struggling.

But, as you can imagine, you know, the industry groups that represent trade centers were not happy about that.

Economic development people were not happy about it.

And very critically, labor unions were not happy about this.

And for anyone who follows Springfield closely, when, you know, when business and labor sign the same letter in opposition, (Brian chuckles) it's really hard to overcome that.

- Yeah, people coming together.

So does this, what happens next?

Will this be then taken up in the fall?

Or where does it go from here?

- I'll tell you what, the phrase "lick our wounds" was said to me several times (Brian chuckles) over the course of this past weekend.

So from here, you know, people are kind of retreating back to their corners, reassessing what they want.

And, you know, I've heard that it's kind of not necessarily back to the drawing board, not going back to zero, but going back to the table for sure and hashing this out over the summer.

And, you know, we could see it come up in the fall veto session when we get there, we could see it next year.

It's a little early to tell when it might come up, but we'll definitely return to, you know, some kind of package of energy legislation.

- Yeah, (chuckles) and you talked about labor and businesses getting together.

We'll have to see what the impact is of these higher bills and the voters have to say.

Jason, I wanted to move on, there were some other bills that were covered and passed having to do with justice.

One of them was a new public defenders' office.

I was interested in that a little bit.

What does that mean, and how is that going to help people who are in the criminal justice system?

- Yeah, ever since the passage of the SAFE-T Act a couple years ago, a few years ago, you know, as you know, part of that is the elimination of cash bail, and this, you know, and now when there is a person who's been charged with a crime, there needs to be a decision made on the front end on whether they should be detained while they await trial.

Cash bail is no longer an option.

But if they're deemed some sort of a threat or a worry that if they were on the outside while they await trial, something bad could happen, you know, a judge can rule it to keep them in the county jail while this happens.

This has really, as I mentioned, you know, front-loaded the amount of work that is needed by lawyers to determine, you know, whether detention is necessary, and that has really increased the workload of the public defender.

Public defenders, as you know, are lawyers that are assigned to especially low-income, poor defendants who can't afford representation on their own.

And historically, especially in smaller counties in Illinois, the public defenders' office is underfunded, understaffed, overrun with cases on a weekly, monthly basis.

So this bill that was being considered establishes sort of a statewide public defenders' office, sort of an overseeing operation, remains to be seen on, like, how effective it will be.

But the thought is it will help direct resources, oversee resources, and, you know, get these counties that are overrun with cases, you know, some person power to handle this increased need for representation on the front end of these cases.

- Okay.

And another bill that was passed was the Gun Storage Bill.

I saw, obviously, you had the, it required people to store their guns if, just so that young people or people that weren't supposed to have a gun were able to get it.

And then you had the questions come up from the Republican side worried about Second Amendment concerns.

What does the bill do, and did they kinda figure out what it will mean?

Let's go with Andrew, could you talk a little bit about that?

- Yeah, so this bill, you know, very basically would require you to have your guns, you know, long gun, short guns, any kind of firearm, stored in basically a gun safe or in some kind of locked box that, you know, is secured by some kind of key or code or something like that.

If you are around kids, so if your home and you're not there, but, you know, your kids are still at home, you just make sure that they can't get to the gun, or an at-risk person, which is, you know, someone who has shown behavior that they would not necessarily use a gun safely, you know, if your, you know, roommate starts talking about wanting to hurt people, that would, you know, potentially fall into that at-risk category.

And a lot of the concern about this bill, you know, there's the classic Second Amendment concerns of this is, you know, imposing a new requirement on a constitutionally protected right.

You know, where is the line of and does this cross it?

High chance that this is gonna end up with a lawsuit just like many other gun regulations in Illinois.

And there are also concerns about just where are the bounds of the bill?

You know, if you, you know, have a, if you have a concealed carry permit and you are taking your kid to school, you know, you got Kid 1 in the backseat, you gotta go inside and pick up Kid 2, but you can't bring the gun onto school property, can you leave it in the glove box?

Which under the law, probably not.

Could a kid who, you know, is on a shooting team drive themself to practice?

So just lots of edge cases that are gonna have to be kind of worked out, clarified, either through, you know, a formal process like administrative rules, you know, as, you know, the probably state police or another agency clarifies, well, this is what the law means, here's how we'll enforce it, or just public education with, you know, once this thing gets into effect, making sure everyone knows what the new rules are.

And that's gonna take a little bit of post-legislating negotiation to kind of make sure that everyone's on the same page there.

- Okay.

I wanted to stick with you.

Like most bill, that does sound like a bill that will have to make its way through and get figured out, I wanted to stick with you on a topic that seems for the southern part of the state and those people outside of the collar counties, seems to be, you know, their issue, the regional transit, the CTA, Metra, their concerns with their budgets there up in Chicago.

That was one of another big back-and-forth, lots of ink was spilled, (chuckles) if it was.

And when I looked this weekend just to kinda keep an eye on what was happening at the state, the Chicago stations covered a lot about the transit concerns.

That didn't pass.

Can you kinda talk to us as they worked up towards the end and where the situation stands now?

- Yeah, so, you know, broadly, if folks are unfamiliar, the transit agencies up in Chicagoland, so suburbs and the city, they've got a $770 million annual budget gap.

And that kinda goes into effect late this year, potentially early next year, but probably late this year.

So that means fewer trains, fewer buses, layoffs, not a good look for anyone around, and people are, people rely on transit to get to work.

On top of that, it's not just Chicago.

Downstate transit agencies face kind of similar problems because of a requirement in state law about how much the state, how much transit agencies have to pay in order to access state grants.

And for a lot of downstate agencies, state grants are a significant chunk, if not the majority, of their funding.

So, you know, there are issues around the state.

Most of the issues, most of the attention, and kind of the most drastic cuts on the table are up in Chicagoland.

But, you know, folks around the state are looking for an answer.

And over the weekend, you know, people have been working on this for 2+ years, you know?

We've known this big cliff was coming.

People have been working on it, and everyone expected, because these agencies have to make their budgets this summer, and those budgets can't, you know, can't rely on funding that isn't there, everyone expected them to pass some kind of reform, you know, a lot of fingers are being pointed about this situation, a lot of blame going around, you know, some kind of reform to how these transit agencies are managed and some way to fund them.

But that fell apart.

The closest it got over the weekend was the Senate passing a bill that mostly made up that funding difference by a statewide tax on deliveries.

It would've put $1.50 charge on every time you get an Amazon order or a Uber Eats, DoorDash delivery, or, you know, you order on the Domino's app, $1.50 on everything, and people were very upset with that.

And I've heard talk that companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, like that kind of company, sent a lot of lobbyists to Springfield very quickly.

And not to mention, you know, consumer advocates were worried that, you know, why this tax is disproportionate, you know?

Someone ordering a pizza is paying the same tax as someone ordering a thousand dollars of purses or a thousand dollars of, you know, luxury goods.

So, there was serious concern about that, and those negotiations, kinda like the energy thing, and weirdly enough, a lot of the same people worked on both projects, fell apart in, honestly, a dramatic fashion in the 11th hour.

- Okay.

Well, we have just a minute and a half left.

I think Jason might be able to squeeze in a little bit.

The Supreme Court has decided to take up a case involving Congressman Mike Bost.

Can you kinda give us a quick overview in the minute and a half we have left?

- Sure.

Mike Bost, a congressman from Southern Illinois, filed a lawsuit complaining about how Illinois and many other states, but specifically Illinois, how they handle mail-in ballots.

It's been, you know, even before mail-in, your being able to mail in your vote was more of a common thing, uh, less of a common thing than it is now, counties also allowed for up to two weeks for those mail-in ballots to sort of trickle in by U.S. Mail.

And they would still count as long as the piece of mail was postmarked by election day.

Sort of in wake of the 2020 national election that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump, and one of Republicans' and Trump's arguments was that, you know, mail-in ballots, they're being counted late, there's something fraudulent about them.

That was never proven.

Nothing along those lines ever became remotely true.

But still, this lawsuit was filed to sort of reign in the ability for counties to count these mail-in ballots after election day.

The lower courts both ruled against Congressman Bost, but not on the question of whether it's okay to count mail-in ballots after election day.

They got, they noted that they're not sure if Congressman Bost has standing to sue on this issue because technically he wasn't hurt by the mail-in ballots 'cause he's won all of his recent elections, he's a congressman.

So that's the question that the U.S. Supreme Court is now going to consider as well, whether Bost has standing to sue on this issue.

So at this point, it doesn't look like the Supreme Court will get into the issue of whether the mail-in ballots, whether they're okay.

That may come down the road, but, you know, but we're gonna deal with the standing question first.

- Okay, well, that's it for this week's "CapitolView."

Sorry to cut you off.

Join us next week.

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