Politics
Illinois House Republican Leader on State Budget, Bears and Local Government Funding
The Illinois General Assembly wrapped up its spring session in the wee hours of Monday morning, with a $56 billion budget and some key legislation passed. But questions still remain about the Bears stadium, the fate of proposed taxes, state spending and more.
Democrats hold the governor’s office and a supermajority in both chambers of the General Assembly. But state Republicans still find ways to exert their influence.
Republican leaders criticized the session schedule and new taxes in this year’s budget. But they saw progress in their overall inclusion in budget talks, and also advanced several pieces of bipartisan legislation.
Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) joined “Chicago Tonight” to discuss the spring session from her view. Excerpts from the conversation are below.
On Bears stadium incentives:
“(The original megaprojects bill) was more of a statewide initiative, which would bring investment into the state. … I don’t know that we had much time. I think if we would have had the Republicans and Democrats — or even just the Democrats from the House, the Senate and the governor’s office — with the Bears sitting in a room, we might have had a deal. But they weren’t able to get that done.”
Keeping the Bears in Illinois is a priority for the Republican caucus “as long as it doesn’t hurt the property tax payer. We want some protections in place, and we believe that the megaprojects bill that passed out of the House would have had that fix in there.”
On bipartisanship in the budget process:
“Collaboration is a push, but certainly I did appreciate the conversation (with Democratic leaders). We have missed that, we haven’t had that. In my first year as leader … we did speak regularly. This is the first year we’ve kind of got back to a conversation. So I’m hopeful that will continue, and hopefully it will grow. The rank-and-file do it much better than (Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch) and I do, so hopefully they continue conversations.”
On the Local Government Distributive Fund:
“In 1968-1969, it was an agreement that a portion of the income tax would be returned to municipalities and villages at 10%. We have not been at that 10% for years. The governor’s proposed budget was to cut that by $60 million, and he decided not to do that. … If you want to lower property taxes rather than blame the local officials and the local school boards, bring that back up to 10%.”
On data center expansion and AI regulation:
“I think (Gov. JB Pritzker) could unpause the data center incentives if he wanted to, just by saying so. He and I actually agree that they should be bringing their own energy. I think the technology is changing, so it helps with protection of water, so we’ll have to see what he decides to do there.”
“(AI regulation) is important, but we also have to be careful, because is this something that’s better to do on the federal side? Some, including myself, would say yes. But this here was really brought by AI companies, wanting a third party to audit to make sure that it is safe.”
