Tuesday, July 23, 2013

The State of the State

State Senator Jim Oberweis gave the club a first hand insight on the innerworkings of Springfield. When he first got downstate, there were a number of things that surprised him. First of all, he was amazed at how friendly his Democratic counterparts were. Secondly, he was astounded by how little everyone knew about business andhow little they knew about the budget. Jim recounted a conversation when he asked a new legislator how big she thought the state budget was. She didn’t know and guessed that it had to be at least a billion dollars… close, but about $64 billion dollars short. This was alarming to him because the hard truth is that the state is in terrible financial condition.

He learned as he went throughout his first half of a year, and he learned how little they actually work. In February they worked only two days per week and it slowly increased to five days a week by May, and in June they are off until October, which is the veto session. He figured that the pension reform bill would be solved by now, but the press reports that they’ll have something to vote on by August.

State Senator Oberweis went into detail on how a bill moves through the chambers to either be killed in committee or brought to the floor for a vote. He was the lead sponsor for a pension reform bill that would have guaranteed the pensions paid at the current rate, but no more increases for cost of living adjustments. This would be coupled with a 401k style plan that employees could contribute to. This bill died quickly. However, another bill that he sponsored had a much more exciting fate. Mr. Oberweis supported the bill to raise the speed limit to 70 mph on most of the interstate roadways. He went through the harrowing journey of all the backdoor politicking that goes in to get a simple bipartisan bill passed. At the end of the day, the bill passed with a veto proof majority, and Jim learned that you have to build coalitions to get things done. He finished the very interesting and informative talk by answering a handful of questions.