Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Talk Line 5-11-26: Legislative updates from Li Arellano Jr.

Transcript

Talk Line 5-11-26: Legislative updates from Li Arellano Jr. · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Sock Valley. You've joined the Waking crew here
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Speaker 1: on FM ninety five one and AM fourteen sixty WIXN.
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Speaker 1: It's now eight twenty two on your Monday morning, and
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Speaker 1: it's time for talk line. You're here with your host
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Speaker 1: Brandon Clark and my guest and our good friend, State
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Speaker 1: Senator Leriana Junior is once again in the booth to
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Speaker 1: provide the latest on legislative updates facing our great state. Sir,
0:24
Speaker 1: how are you good?
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Speaker 2: Great, good morning, Good to be here.
0:27
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you at you back in here.
0:31
Speaker 1: We got a very packed talk line today, so we're
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Speaker 1: just going to jump into it because I really want
0:35
Speaker 1: to be able to touch on all of these It's
0:37
Speaker 1: great that you've got so much to update us on,
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Speaker 1: So getting right into it. Congressman Darren Lohood recently announced
0:44
Speaker 1: nearly nineteen million dollars in federal funding for infrastructure community
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Speaker 1: projects across central northwestern Illinois, including bridgework, transportation provements, and others.
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Speaker 1: Senator here in the Sack Valley, what can we see
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Speaker 1: with this and can you explain this in general for
1:00
Speaker 1: those of us who aren't familiar with it.
1:02
Speaker 3: Right, So, legislative initiative money is, you know what each
1:08
Speaker 3: various Congressman and senators, they're taking a look keeping an
1:12
Speaker 3: eye on projects around the region. Each one of them
1:15
Speaker 3: typically will get a certain amount to invest in key
1:19
Speaker 3: projects that they have identified along with local leaders. For example,
1:23
Speaker 3: we just had the announcement for a couple million coming
1:26
Speaker 3: to the Dixon region for water runoff and flooding control.
1:30
Speaker 3: It'll also help with economic development prep and that project
1:35
Speaker 3: has been in the works over ten years. So I
1:39
Speaker 3: was actually mayor when Fargo Creek flooded Seventh Street got
1:43
Speaker 3: washed away. It was quite literally my second council meeting ever.
1:48
Speaker 3: I an entirely new council had gotten sworn in that
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Speaker 3: May of twenty fifteen, and the second meeting in May,
1:54
Speaker 3: the culvert over Seventh Street over Farroo Creek washed away.
1:58
Speaker 3: And so we knew stepping into that there were a
1:59
Speaker 3: lot of infrastructure issues. Obviously I'm an an Army engineer.
2:02
Speaker 3: That was a big part of why I was running
2:04
Speaker 3: as I knew. But man talk about a wake up
2:07
Speaker 3: call at how dramatic some of those problems were. And
2:10
Speaker 3: so we did a big engineering study with V and
2:13
Speaker 3: K Engineering, and we looked at a whole host of solutions,
2:16
Speaker 3: some of which have been implemented already. But one of
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Speaker 3: the best and most expensive was addressing the far Creek
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Speaker 3: tributary into Rock River, that west tributary through a series
2:29
Speaker 3: of flooding mitigations detention and retention, and that was going
2:33
Speaker 3: to be very expensive, especially if we wanted to do
2:36
Speaker 3: it the way Dixon's been doing things. You know, it's
2:38
Speaker 3: going to now have a fishing pond, it's going to
2:41
Speaker 3: have some park amenities. We're not just going to throw
2:43
Speaker 3: retention attention out there. We're going to incorporate it into
2:46
Speaker 3: the planning of the city. And so we did a
2:50
Speaker 3: number of the other projects associated with that engineering fix. Obviously,
2:53
Speaker 3: the emergency fix happened right away, that's the culvert out
2:56
Speaker 3: there on the corner of Seventh Street and Fargo. But
3:00
Speaker 3: this one really needed some time and some big grant money.
3:03
Speaker 3: And that's where Congressman the Hood, who's very good with
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Speaker 3: constituent services, comes into play. He's been out into our
3:09
Speaker 3: region many times, looked at different projects. What make this
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Speaker 3: project particularly attractive to him and helped him get it
3:17
Speaker 3: through in Washington was the same reason Dixon's won some
3:21
Speaker 3: other grants in the past, which is we've done a
3:23
Speaker 3: really good job of tying it into economic development, and
3:27
Speaker 3: when they're looking at infrastructure grants, you really want to
3:31
Speaker 3: synergize it with things that grow the economy, grow jobs,
3:35
Speaker 3: grow tax revenue without necessarily increasing tax rates. And that's
3:40
Speaker 3: exactly what this project will do. This will take some
3:43
Speaker 3: of the costs and burdens of flooding and water runoff
3:45
Speaker 3: and retention off of developers who are trying to develop
3:49
Speaker 3: around I eighty eight, for example, or in downtown. And
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Speaker 3: since Fargo Creek itself will be better maintained, there's a
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Speaker 3: lot of land that will now become available for economic development.
4:01
Speaker 2: There's already developers interested. And that makes sense.
4:03
Speaker 3: If I'm a developer and I'm looking to come into
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Speaker 3: Dixon or any local city, and I'm going to have
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Speaker 3: an extra, say two hundred thousand in development costs for
4:12
Speaker 3: things that aren't really my problem, right, they're runoff issues
4:16
Speaker 3: built up over decades. Well, then other areas look more
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Speaker 3: attractive that don't have that cost, and so by eliminating
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Speaker 3: that cost, we both mitigate flooding issues, we address potential
4:26
Speaker 3: lawsuit issues, help water run off in the region generally
4:30
Speaker 3: all up and down Fargo Creek and into the Rock River,
4:33
Speaker 3: but we also help economic development, and the Hood was
4:36
Speaker 3: critical and taking a look at that, understanding that there's
4:38
Speaker 3: been successes in the past and that this will help
4:40
Speaker 3: new successes in the future.
4:42
Speaker 2: And he took that message to Washington.
4:44
Speaker 1: That's incredible. I like hearing that. I like hearing this
4:48
Speaker 1: kind of money coming in. Is there anything that could
4:52
Speaker 1: you know, are these greenlit? You know that some of
4:56
Speaker 1: these things we're talking about, it's good. There's nothing that
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Speaker 1: could come up above with federal fundations.
5:01
Speaker 3: I mean, you never say never, but this particular particular
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Speaker 3: way Congressman the Hood went about getting this and fighting
5:08
Speaker 3: for this, it should be mostly set. You are right, though,
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Speaker 3: there is an issue, and we see this more at
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Speaker 3: the state government than in federal government, where people will
5:17
Speaker 3: get an initiative passed, they'll get the press release, they'll
5:20
Speaker 3: get the press pop, and then you know, five years,
5:23
Speaker 3: ten years later, the money's never happened.
5:26
Speaker 2: You know.
5:26
Speaker 3: I think the Quad Cities high speed rail to Chicago
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Speaker 3: is probably one of the biggest regional examples of that.
5:31
Speaker 3: People have been growing about money arranged and the FED
5:34
Speaker 3: side of that money has been arranged for a long
5:37
Speaker 3: time and the state just never came through. So that's
5:42
Speaker 3: definitely a real issue to watch for. But with this one,
5:44
Speaker 3: it looks like it's it's good to go, and that's
5:45
Speaker 3: why the announcement was finally done.
5:47
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad, I'm glad to hear that. That's you know,
5:51
Speaker 1: that's a great update for us around here. And so
5:54
Speaker 1: we'll just be watching that as it goes. You'll be
5:56
Speaker 1: in for more sessions or you know, more sessions with us.
5:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it probably you know, can speak to it
6:02
Speaker 3: well as well when he's in the city. Is just
6:05
Speaker 3: I mean, their economic development team and their grand team
6:08
Speaker 3: is really good. And one of the interesting things I
6:12
Speaker 3: take to other communities around the thirty seventh Senate district
6:16
Speaker 3: is those experiences putting that together in Dixon. You know
6:19
Speaker 3: that that's an approach that can work in a lot
6:21
Speaker 3: of rural communities.
6:23
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we'll move on just because me and you can
6:26
Speaker 1: talk to the time will get away and I want
6:27
Speaker 1: to get through all of it. And I had several
6:30
Speaker 1: more and I was like, you know what, I probably
6:31
Speaker 1: just need to stand to maybe one day. So another
6:36
Speaker 1: bill getting a lot of attention in Springfield right now.
6:38
Speaker 1: Senate Bill nine to three nine from Senator Steve McClure. Yeah,
6:42
Speaker 1: the proposal would require schools to expel students for at
6:45
Speaker 1: least a year if they commit sexual assault against another student.
6:49
Speaker 1: Supporters saying it protects victims, while we have critics worrying
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Speaker 1: that government overreach is in how schools would enforce it.
6:56
Speaker 2: Right right and this spill.
6:59
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to high because it's an interesting
7:01
Speaker 3: window into how Springfield.
7:03
Speaker 2: Works right now.
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Speaker 3: It was an overwhelmingly popular bill with the Senators once
7:08
Speaker 3: it hit the floor, you know, behind the scenes, not
7:11
Speaker 3: so much. I think the Democrats had a long caucus
7:14
Speaker 3: where they were discussing this bill. We're told obviously I'm
7:16
Speaker 3: not inside that caucus, so I can't speak to any specifics.
7:20
Speaker 3: Senator McClure worked for this bill on years, and it
7:22
Speaker 3: seems like a fairly common sense bill. And the core
7:25
Speaker 3: of it is, we have some school districts who, when
7:30
Speaker 3: they go through the normal process, their determination is that
7:34
Speaker 3: a sexual assault or rape happened, and in the course
7:39
Speaker 3: of that, those students are still being kept together in schools,
7:43
Speaker 3: which is a very very bad environment for the usually
7:48
Speaker 3: female victims, not always to be trapped in cases on buses.
7:53
Speaker 2: We had a case where a young girl was raped.
7:57
Speaker 3: On a bus quite frankly to be blunted by it,
8:00
Speaker 3: and then she kept having.
8:02
Speaker 2: To go that route to school with that student. It
8:05
Speaker 2: just it was a problem.
8:07
Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of schools that handled it appropriately,
8:10
Speaker 3: and there were more and more they were finding that didn't,
8:14
Speaker 3: including in Chicago and rural areas. It was kind of
8:17
Speaker 3: everywhere it would pop up. And so this bill was
8:20
Speaker 3: fairly straightforward. It follows the normal expulsion procedures that already
8:25
Speaker 3: in state statute, so it didn't create new things. It
8:28
Speaker 3: followed the existing definitions of sexual assault and etc. That
8:32
Speaker 3: are already in state statute. But what it did say
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Speaker 3: is if you come through that process and you your
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Speaker 3: determination as a school district is that this has occurred.
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Speaker 2: You have to expel them. It's required they can go
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Speaker 2: to an alternative school.
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Speaker 4: That's what would already be the case, you would and
8:49
Speaker 4: they already have the right to do it in statute,
8:52
Speaker 4: but they were not required to and sometimes for whatever
8:56
Speaker 4: host of reasons, you know, And.
9:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I'm sure there's going
9:02
Speaker 1: to be people that disagree for one reason or another,
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Speaker 1: and I'm always happy to have an intelligent, controlled conversation
9:07
Speaker 1: for these things. But this is my point of view,
9:10
Speaker 1: and maybe I could be wrong, but I mean, one,
9:12
Speaker 1: if you think it's common sense in a workplace, if
9:14
Speaker 1: something like this happens in a workplace, you fire the employee, right.
9:17
Speaker 3: Right, are you at least you at least separate them
9:20
Speaker 3: if you're you can't get into the final details. For example,
9:23
Speaker 3: in the military, if I, as a military leader, am
9:27
Speaker 3: told that something has happened in somewhere under my control,
9:32
Speaker 3: there are immediate responses that go into gear, and one
9:36
Speaker 3: of them is generally you separate, you know, some of
9:38
Speaker 3: the individuals involved, not necessarily as a punishment, And that's
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Speaker 3: just step one. If you actually to your point, find
9:44
Speaker 3: you adjudicate that something happened that that creates definitive action,
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Speaker 3: it's defined and you have.
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Speaker 2: To do it.
9:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, I get I'm sure
9:58
Speaker 1: there's somebody saying, you know, like, well, you know this
10:00
Speaker 1: is the whole overreach.
10:02
Speaker 2: Heart.
10:02
Speaker 1: I mean, if we're not making this to where it's
10:05
Speaker 1: a thing in that it's uniform everywhere, like somebody's got
10:08
Speaker 1: to step in there's there's got to be some type
10:11
Speaker 1: of oversight to make sure. And so I don't think
10:16
Speaker 1: the I just don't I don't see how that that's
10:20
Speaker 1: over it.
10:21
Speaker 3: Get called like it didn't get called last year because
10:25
Speaker 3: of some internal debate in the DEM caucus. I don't
10:29
Speaker 3: think they necessarily wanted to put on the board and
10:31
Speaker 3: put people on record for against it. They were people
10:35
Speaker 3: within that caucus saying, well, this is already allowed and
10:38
Speaker 3: stay law. That's true, but it should be required. And
10:41
Speaker 3: Senator Macluar worked that bill hard, got a lot of
10:43
Speaker 3: co sponsors on both sides of the aisle, and they
10:47
Speaker 3: still almost didn't call it. It came down to the
10:49
Speaker 3: wire deadline week was happening, and and they called it
10:55
Speaker 3: kind of on the last day of session and it
10:56
Speaker 3: still had no votes. And the no votes have to
10:58
Speaker 3: do with discussion are we being too harsh on.
11:05
Speaker 2: Criminals? Essentially?
11:06
Speaker 3: Are we being too harsh on young children who in
11:10
Speaker 3: their minds still need an education, still need a path forward?
11:14
Speaker 3: Which is correct. Our point was that path forward should
11:17
Speaker 3: not be right next to the person they victimized. Yeah,
11:21
Speaker 3: no scenario, should it be right next to that?
11:22
Speaker 1: And it's not fair to make the victim change schools
11:25
Speaker 1: because of something that happened to them. That's the only thing. Like, yes,
11:28
Speaker 1: I agree, these kids should still have an education. Like
11:31
Speaker 1: we're a society that tries to give people a second
11:33
Speaker 1: chance and say you can learn from your mistakes and
11:35
Speaker 1: be reformed. And if you continue to go to that pad,
11:38
Speaker 1: that's a whole nother conversation, right, But the fact remains, Yes,
11:42
Speaker 1: now you have a victim and supposedly you know the
11:46
Speaker 1: guilty party there. Yeah, it would just make sense that,
11:48
Speaker 1: like somebody has to go and it shouldn't be the victim.
11:52
Speaker 1: And I mean, now this is I'm going to ask,
11:54
Speaker 1: so I get some clarification. Does this apply to any
11:58
Speaker 1: child that is a hused or do they have to
12:01
Speaker 1: have been found guilty?
12:02
Speaker 2: They have to have.
12:04
Speaker 3: Been gone through the normal school process and found to
12:09
Speaker 3: have committed this act, So it doesn't trigger just because
12:13
Speaker 3: somebody through an accusation. It has to go through the
12:17
Speaker 3: school's normal expulsion process, which is a ready set in statute,
12:22
Speaker 3: and that means it can be appealed to the superintendent
12:24
Speaker 3: and then appealed to the school board itself through those
12:28
Speaker 3: various processes, and obviously when you get into the really
12:32
Speaker 3: older ages.
12:33
Speaker 2: You'll also run into.
12:36
Speaker 3: You know, criminal court, which is separate from the school
12:40
Speaker 3: process but also relevant. This will this is really a
12:45
Speaker 3: factor and you know kind of the preteen and early teen,
12:51
Speaker 3: shockingly sometimes younger where they have been found often to
12:55
Speaker 3: molest a much younger student like that's that's typically where
12:59
Speaker 3: this problem has happens. When you get a slightly older
13:03
Speaker 3: student who has been caught doing something with you know,
13:08
Speaker 3: a student who's four or five years younger, which at
13:10
Speaker 3: that age is a huge age gap both in terms
13:13
Speaker 3: of physical power and mental you know, cognition.
13:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and just speaks to the kind of cycle
13:19
Speaker 1: of abuse and how often, right, yeah, all sad things
13:24
Speaker 1: with things that have to be addressed, right, no matter what.
13:27
Speaker 1: So we'll see how the future of that goes. We're
13:29
Speaker 1: going to take a very short break. When we come back,
13:32
Speaker 1: we will have more legislative upstates from State Senator to
13:35
Speaker 1: the Ariana Jr. Hey there, Sock Valley. We're back with
13:38
Speaker 1: more talk line and joined today by State Senator li
13:42
Speaker 1: Ariana Junior. Sir, so, we uh left off on some
13:46
Speaker 1: pretty heavy topics and you are just carrying the weights
13:50
Speaker 1: in the gym today as you're going on for the
13:53
Speaker 1: next one you've got up on the docket.
13:55
Speaker 2: Add two.
13:56
Speaker 1: Actually, we I've really been waiting to get back to
13:59
Speaker 1: you on these ones. Lawmakers continuing budget discussions in Springfield, Illinois,
14:04
Speaker 1: residents are closely watching issues like taxes, spending, priorities, and
14:08
Speaker 1: economic growth, gas prices rising. At the same time, we've
14:12
Speaker 1: got an ongoing debate about the future of our bears,
14:17
Speaker 1: the bears that's right, and whether public money should play
14:20
Speaker 1: a role in a new stadium. So let's get to
14:24
Speaker 1: the budget. Let's get to the meat and the potatoes first.
14:26
Speaker 1: What are the biggest sticking points right now in budget negotiations?
14:30
Speaker 2: So I think.
14:32
Speaker 3: It's hard to say, because we're not always allowed in
14:35
Speaker 3: the room that the money is where they really cut
14:37
Speaker 3: the rural areas out of the discussions, and so we're
14:40
Speaker 3: trying to use our connections and relationships to get an
14:43
Speaker 3: idea of what's happening and influence it. But the conundrum
14:48
Speaker 3: right now mainly seems to be the governor has some
14:51
Speaker 3: ideas of what to do with money and what to
14:53
Speaker 3: do with excess and where to cut the line on spending,
14:57
Speaker 3: which has been the issue since the COVID money run
15:01
Speaker 3: out right, is they've created all these new programs and
15:04
Speaker 3: they've been having to scale back some of them, and
15:08
Speaker 3: where the money ends is the conversation. So they were
15:11
Speaker 3: thinking about doing some constitutional amendments to dramatically raise taxes,
15:16
Speaker 3: you know, they give them nice names like the Millionaires
15:18
Speaker 3: Tax and stuff like that, to raise a whole bunch
15:22
Speaker 3: of revenue. Because the problem they have right now is
15:24
Speaker 3: they've raised revenue taxes essentially so many times. Under Governor Pritzker,
15:29
Speaker 3: we've had We've had dramatic budget revenue growth, and the
15:34
Speaker 3: appetite for spending does not go down. They just spend
15:37
Speaker 3: it more. So they need or want I should say
15:40
Speaker 3: you need is a bit strong considerably more money, and that,
15:44
Speaker 3: you know, over a billion more this year. There was
15:47
Speaker 3: a billion more and tax increases in last budget as well.
15:52
Speaker 3: And bear in mind those are increases on top of
15:53
Speaker 3: normal inflation, like we have been raising taxes much faster
15:57
Speaker 3: than inflation Illinois. So the challenge has been where do
16:01
Speaker 3: we draw the line and how do we prioritize it.
16:03
Speaker 3: Where my battle is, and I've talked with you in
16:04
Speaker 3: the past, is how we prioritize it as as much
16:09
Speaker 3: of a problem. You know, we've talked about child advocacy centers,
16:12
Speaker 3: We've talked about how there's been cuts to the developmenttally
16:14
Speaker 3: disabled community and freeze us to some of these line
16:18
Speaker 3: items in order to create new spending elsewhere. To me,
16:22
Speaker 3: if we just stopped creating new programs and better executed
16:25
Speaker 3: what we already had and grew the economy, this would
16:27
Speaker 3: be a much stronger state. And the point I'll make
16:31
Speaker 3: is because we trail economic growth in Illinois, and we
16:36
Speaker 3: have every year the governor has been governor. Not necessarily
16:40
Speaker 3: all his fault, but some of it, I would argue,
16:42
Speaker 3: most definitely, we have lost out on billions, billions and
16:46
Speaker 3: billions of tax revenue that would have come with normal
16:49
Speaker 3: economic growth if we just mashed the nation's average, not
16:52
Speaker 3: if we were an above average state, if we were
16:54
Speaker 3: just a normal state. And so the argument some of
16:57
Speaker 3: us on the Republican side are trying to make to
16:59
Speaker 3: the majority party is, look, you won't need all of
17:02
Speaker 3: these tax increases if you just unshackle Illinois economy. And
17:06
Speaker 3: that's why the battles over things like energy policy are
17:09
Speaker 3: so important. And you're also seeing that creep out in
17:12
Speaker 3: the debate over housing now right as the Governor's made
17:15
Speaker 3: this big housing push and now there's competing housing legislation.
17:20
Speaker 3: But one of the core issues is it's gotten too
17:23
Speaker 3: expensive to build. So you can do whatever you want
17:27
Speaker 3: to do. Edges build, But if it's too expensive to
17:29
Speaker 3: build and inflation is going up and Illinois economy is trailing,
17:33
Speaker 3: that it's not something you solve by poking around the edges.
17:37
Speaker 3: We've got to fix some of the underlying problems, and
17:40
Speaker 3: that is the problem. In the budget, there's a big
17:42
Speaker 3: discussion of how do we fix property taxes in the
17:46
Speaker 3: long term, which get built right into people's mortgages or
17:48
Speaker 3: rent right. How do we address some of these things.
17:51
Speaker 3: And we've been, in my opinion, playing a lot of
17:54
Speaker 3: versions of whack a mole, and this budget seems to
17:56
Speaker 3: be more of that.
17:58
Speaker 2: Is we weren't.
17:59
Speaker 3: We're going to try to find some new ways to
18:02
Speaker 3: raise taxes, raise some revenue. The Republicans will vote no,
18:07
Speaker 3: and it'll probably happen anyway, but they're not going to
18:09
Speaker 3: get their big tax increase they were trying for, so
18:12
Speaker 3: maybe they'll have to cut some stuff. The one thing
18:14
Speaker 3: going in their favor, ironically, the governor has you know,
18:19
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time bashing the Feds. Ironically every year,
18:22
Speaker 3: last year and this year, our revenue from economic growth,
18:25
Speaker 3: despite the fact that we trail the nation, has been
18:27
Speaker 3: more than the Governor's office has broadcast, and we have
18:31
Speaker 3: a backlog in road money's right now. One of the
18:35
Speaker 3: upsides I guess to the high fuel costs, if you
18:38
Speaker 3: want to call it, that is there is more sales
18:42
Speaker 3: tax revenue expected to come in from all of this,
18:45
Speaker 3: and we already have really high road fund and so
18:48
Speaker 3: that's one of the reasons Republicans have been asking for
18:50
Speaker 3: a freeze in the sales tax on gas. We have
18:54
Speaker 3: the highest gas tax of any of the surrounding states.
18:57
Speaker 3: We lose sales to them. Were asking the governor, Look,
19:01
Speaker 3: you're getting all this extra revenue above and beyond what
19:04
Speaker 3: you were expecting. Let's give some relief to the people
19:07
Speaker 3: at the pump. Directly, we double tax gas. We have
19:11
Speaker 3: a per gallon tax and a sales tax. Let's lower
19:14
Speaker 3: one of those either completely or to the level that
19:17
Speaker 3: we were presuming we're going to get before all this happened,
19:20
Speaker 3: to meet our expectations and give the relief to the taxpayers.
19:23
Speaker 3: And so far that hasn't moved, but we're gonna we're
19:25
Speaker 3: gonna keep trying for that.
19:27
Speaker 1: Well, I know, anything related to gas to make me
19:30
Speaker 1: and the rest of the people happy, especially you know,
19:35
Speaker 1: it's not a it's not a crazy thought anymore. I
19:40
Speaker 1: can drive over you know, through through Morrison, Yeah, over
19:45
Speaker 1: the bridge into Clinton and pay almost a dollar gallon. Yeah, less,
19:50
Speaker 1: that's crazy right away. If I bring both of our
19:53
Speaker 1: vehicles and gas jugs, it's kind of worth it, yep,
19:58
Speaker 1: especially when you look at your mild per gallon and
20:00
Speaker 1: what the actually I'm like, oh okay, yep.
20:02
Speaker 3: And I have border counties, Whiteside County, Rock Island County,
20:06
Speaker 3: and a lot of my constituents on the western side
20:09
Speaker 3: of the district.
20:10
Speaker 2: That's exactly what they do.
20:11
Speaker 3: They take their shopping, their groceries, their gas purchases on
20:15
Speaker 3: the other side of the river because it saves money,
20:17
Speaker 3: and that just adds to that economic decline. That's where
20:20
Speaker 3: being less competitive to your neighbors means businesses cross the line,
20:24
Speaker 3: shoppers cross the line, and it just continues that funneling
20:29
Speaker 3: cycle of negative economy for Illinois.
20:32
Speaker 1: We have to get that turned around. Yeah, yeah, we
20:34
Speaker 1: absolutely do have to. I mean thankfully. I'm I'm still
20:38
Speaker 1: so busy and too that it hasn't gotten. But it's
20:40
Speaker 1: not as if I don't notice, right, Okay, but if
20:43
Speaker 1: we get to six dollars, I don't know lead that
20:46
Speaker 1: it might start making a trip. Yeah, all right, we
20:49
Speaker 1: want to get it in. I want to know my bears.
20:52
Speaker 3: Yes, please, let's give a quick bears update you. Well,
20:55
Speaker 3: I'll try to keep this fast. So the House passed
20:59
Speaker 3: over a version. They took out the incentives for data centers,
21:03
Speaker 3: which was important. That was one of several deal breakers
21:06
Speaker 3: in there. In my opinion, we should not be incentivizing
21:09
Speaker 3: daily centers. They have their place, but if you're giving
21:12
Speaker 3: away the property taxes that would give relief to the
21:14
Speaker 3: communities they coming into, you're giving away one of the
21:16
Speaker 3: biggest benefits of having a data center in your region.
21:19
Speaker 2: So that was a no brainer.
21:20
Speaker 3: We should not be incentivizing those with megaprojects bills. They
21:25
Speaker 3: took out some of the language to shift property taxes
21:29
Speaker 3: from the mega project, whether it's Beyers or any other
21:32
Speaker 3: onto surrounding property tax payers. However, they didn't put in
21:36
Speaker 3: language saying you can't do that, and precedent generally is
21:40
Speaker 3: if the statute is silent to it, you can continue
21:42
Speaker 3: doing it. And so that has been a huge controversy,
21:46
Speaker 3: both within the Republican Caucus and more broadly in the Senate.
21:51
Speaker 3: And it's right now it's the Cenate. Republicans probably number
21:54
Speaker 3: one ask. We have a few asks in this bill
21:55
Speaker 3: that we're trying to get cleaned up, but the biggest
21:57
Speaker 3: one is we cannot vote for bill where you take
22:02
Speaker 3: taxes and discount them from some of the richest, most
22:06
Speaker 3: powerful entities in America and then simultaneously shift that tax
22:09
Speaker 3: burden to surrounding smaller businesses and homeowners. You know, I
22:14
Speaker 3: think you could make an argument where you shouldn't be
22:16
Speaker 3: giving the biggest boys breaks at all. You know, if
22:19
Speaker 3: property taxes are too expensive for billion dollar companies, maybe
22:22
Speaker 3: they're too expensive for small businesses and you know.
22:25
Speaker 2: Home buyers. But if you are going to have this
22:28
Speaker 2: anchor tool, you cannot shift it to the little guys.
22:32
Speaker 2: So that's the debate happening in the Senate right now.
22:34
Speaker 2: There's some other things surrounding it, but I think that's
22:36
Speaker 2: the biggest discussion. Okay, all right, I think I think
22:41
Speaker 2: the Senate Dems will get something doing. I think they're
22:43
Speaker 2: so committed that they have to pass something.
22:45
Speaker 3: This sing will probably be crash landing on May thirty first,
22:48
Speaker 3: and we'll get an idea of what it.
22:49
Speaker 2: Looks like then.
22:49
Speaker 3: I'd be shocked if they got it all cleaned up
22:52
Speaker 3: before then. That just seems to be the way the
22:54
Speaker 3: last couple of years, and then then they force people
22:57
Speaker 3: into a last minute vote and they'll send it over
22:58
Speaker 3: to the House and they'll take it or leave it.
23:00
Speaker 3: So we're trying to get as much cleaned up right
23:01
Speaker 3: now as we can.
23:03
Speaker 1: Bring a broom because I don't know if if an
23:06
Speaker 1: Indiana bear is as scary as a Chicago bear, but
23:08
Speaker 1: I doubt it. Oh man, all right, you know what,
23:11
Speaker 1: we got just a little time left, and I want
23:12
Speaker 1: to talk about some of what you're talking about. Let's
23:16
Speaker 1: get in with the you know, the legislative legislative session,
23:20
Speaker 1: and what are some of the bills you're personally sponsoring
23:22
Speaker 1: or working on right now that you think need more attention.
23:26
Speaker 3: Rights Right now, I've passed a couple of bills out
23:30
Speaker 3: of the Senate side. I'm working to pass some that
23:32
Speaker 3: were passed on the House and they're over in the Senate.
23:34
Speaker 3: One that representative of Spain, who is one of my
23:37
Speaker 3: two state reps passed was really an initiative that came
23:41
Speaker 3: out of the Profitstown region where a young boy was
23:45
Speaker 3: killed and his family in a car accident. His family's
23:48
Speaker 3: really been advocating for us to take a look at
23:50
Speaker 3: the Secretary of State statutes dealing with miners who have
23:54
Speaker 3: new driver's license which have very high accident rates, who
23:58
Speaker 3: are required to only have one friend who's not a
24:02
Speaker 3: family member when you're under a certain age, and obviously
24:05
Speaker 3: a lot of them do more than that, and we're
24:07
Speaker 3: trying to look out a way to enforce a little
24:10
Speaker 3: more if an accident happens, what we do with their
24:13
Speaker 3: license in those scenarios, and try to bring a little
24:18
Speaker 3: more strict discipline into that, because the problem we're seeing
24:23
Speaker 3: is when very young new drivers are in a vehicle
24:26
Speaker 3: and they're surrounded by their friends, the distraction level is
24:28
Speaker 3: even higher, oh yeah, than it would be for us.
24:31
Speaker 3: Not to say, I don't get distracted when all my
24:33
Speaker 3: kids are in the vehicle, but as an adult who's
24:35
Speaker 3: been driving for decades and is new to it or
24:38
Speaker 3: not new to it, and you know, I have my
24:41
Speaker 3: rhythms down and know when to focus. When you're a
24:43
Speaker 3: new driver, all that decision making can be fairly dramatic
24:48
Speaker 3: and it adds to accidents. So that's a bill I'm
24:51
Speaker 3: trying to get called in the Senate. They'd had a
24:56
Speaker 3: lot of amendments in the House that end up passing unanimously,
24:58
Speaker 3: but I'm having some struggle with my Senate dem counterparts
25:02
Speaker 3: on transportation, so trying to work that through this week.
25:05
Speaker 3: There's also a bill I passed for lowering fees for notaries.
25:08
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of it. One of the few bills
25:10
Speaker 3: in Illinois, as small a it is, that's actually lowering fees,
25:13
Speaker 3: and I'm the chief sponsor.
25:15
Speaker 2: I got it passed out of the Senate.
25:16
Speaker 3: Side, and it's running into some roadblocks from the Dems
25:22
Speaker 3: in the House. So I have some meetings set up
25:23
Speaker 3: this week. Representative Spain, my counterparts doing the opposite. I'm
25:26
Speaker 3: carrying his bill on this side now he's carrying that
25:28
Speaker 3: bill for me over there. And then I do have
25:32
Speaker 3: some bills that are flying through having to do with
25:34
Speaker 3: school districts and consolidation and making that a little easier
25:38
Speaker 3: and smoother when they contract out for their students to
25:41
Speaker 3: get care in other school districts. And then my child
25:45
Speaker 3: Affica center bill for rural areas appears to be dead
25:48
Speaker 3: for the cycle, so I'm going to be working on
25:49
Speaker 3: that over the summer. I did co sponsor one of
25:52
Speaker 3: my colleagues bills having to do with child affiction centers
25:55
Speaker 3: that did pass units we had of Senate. Now we
25:57
Speaker 3: got to get that passed over in the House, so
25:59
Speaker 3: that'll be another the project we'll be working on.
26:02
Speaker 1: Well, that is going to be a busy summer and
26:06
Speaker 1: I'm sure a busy year as things even progress further. Right,
26:09
Speaker 1: we're unfortunately out of time, but we did. We got
26:13
Speaker 1: it all passed week.
26:14
Speaker 2: We covered a lot of territory.
26:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll be doing my end of after session ends
26:18
Speaker 3: in May here and I will be announcing my town
26:21
Speaker 3: hall tours like last summer here very shortly getting notices out,
26:25
Speaker 3: probably starting in July. I'll be doing some so I'll
26:28
Speaker 3: be ready to ask questions and give presentations. A lot
26:30
Speaker 3: people know what happened.
26:31
Speaker 1: State Senator Leriano Junior joining us this morning on talk line, Sir,
26:35
Speaker 1: always appreciate your.
26:36
Speaker 2: Time, glad to be here. Thank you,