Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Talk-Line: Li Arellano, state senator from Dixon

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Talk-Line: Li Arellano, state senator from Dixon · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

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Speaker 1: We are quarter past the hour.
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Speaker 2: This is Friday. It's February the fourteenth, It's Valentine's Day,
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Speaker 2: and it's time for another interesting edition of talk Line
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Speaker 2: here in eight and fourteen sixteen FM ninety five to
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Speaker 2: one WI accent. But better way to open up Valentine's
0:13
Speaker 2: data to talk politics into talk Yeah, happy Valentine's that's
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Speaker 2: all right, that's right, let's talk politics. Let's talk about
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Speaker 2: the state of Illinois, and let's talk to our thirty
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Speaker 2: ninth district State Senator. He's live with us at the
0:28
Speaker 2: microphones this morning. It is always a pleasure to have
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Speaker 2: our state Senator of Dixon join us at the microphones,
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Speaker 2: and it's a pleasure to have them on board as
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Speaker 2: we get started in twenty twenty five.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, new year, thirty seventh here, but yes, thirty seventh.
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Speaker 1: That's sorry.
0:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's exciting. So I cover all our parts
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Speaker 3: of twelve counties. As I mentioned previously, the only two
0:49
Speaker 3: counties completely in these lines, because you know, the maps
0:52
Speaker 3: are kind of all over the place. Are are Lee
0:53
Speaker 3: counting Whiteside County, So we're right in the heart of
0:56
Speaker 3: the thirty seventh district right now goes all the way
0:58
Speaker 3: down to Peoria. We've already had our first few weeks
1:01
Speaker 3: of session. So for those who don't know, January through
1:04
Speaker 3: May is the most heavy period for for the state legislature.
1:10
Speaker 3: So that's when you need to hold on to your wallets. Yes,
1:11
Speaker 3: because the budget, the budget. This is next week. Governor
1:15
Speaker 3: gives his budget address and kind of announces what he
1:18
Speaker 3: wants to do. He was originally saying there was going
1:21
Speaker 3: to be no new taxes. As of this last week,
1:23
Speaker 3: he's kind of been hemming and hauling about that. So
1:27
Speaker 3: that's something we're watching.
1:30
Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 3: I think they're you know, call out an excuse or
1:33
Speaker 3: or not, but I think they're using some of the
1:35
Speaker 3: stuff happening at the federal level as kind of a
1:38
Speaker 3: prime to say, well, we're going to need tax more
1:39
Speaker 3: because we want to keep some of these programs.
1:41
Speaker 1: If the Feds cut them.
1:43
Speaker 3: And so that's that's something we're watching, and we don't know.
1:45
Speaker 3: We we'll find out in the upcoming week.
1:47
Speaker 1: You Know.
1:48
Speaker 3: One thing we did do is me and some other
1:50
Speaker 3: senators got together and talked a little bit about the
1:53
Speaker 3: disaster proclamations declarations that the governor has been doing.
1:57
Speaker 1: He's done dozens of them now.
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Speaker 3: And this is not to be confused with his earlier
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Speaker 3: state of emergency proclamations and declarations over COVID. This started
2:09
Speaker 3: when we started getting mass influx of migrants, both legal
2:13
Speaker 3: and illegal, into the Chicago area and he started declaring
2:18
Speaker 3: disaster declarations.
2:20
Speaker 1: And one of the things these.
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Speaker 3: Do is allow the governor to move around money and
2:24
Speaker 3: spend it outside of what had been legislated or outside
2:28
Speaker 3: of what you know, the normal process had said it
2:32
Speaker 3: it was appropriated for. And so we're years into this now,
2:35
Speaker 3: like I said, he's done dozens of them, and you know,
2:39
Speaker 3: our concern is we've spent you know, to what we
2:42
Speaker 3: can track, because some of it's hard when it starts
2:44
Speaker 3: getting moved around like this. But it's in the billions
2:47
Speaker 3: since he started this, and we think over a billion
2:50
Speaker 3: just in the last year. And so the concern, of
2:54
Speaker 3: course is is we look at an over three million
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Speaker 3: or three billion I'm sorry shortfall that his office Gambi,
3:00
Speaker 3: which is under the governor, has declared we're going to
3:03
Speaker 3: be short this year. You know, we've had concerns over
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Speaker 3: how COVID money was spent. You know, if your call
3:09
Speaker 3: when I was mayor. I was real big on do
3:11
Speaker 3: not spend this on new programs. We need to spend
3:12
Speaker 3: this on one time expenses. This money isn't always going
3:15
Speaker 3: to be here. On the state side, they didn't really
3:18
Speaker 3: take that approach. They said, what more programs can we do?
3:21
Speaker 3: And now we've got to figure out how to pay those.
3:22
Speaker 3: That's part of that three billion shortfall. But there's also
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Speaker 3: these disaster proclamations that make it hard for us to
3:29
Speaker 3: do oversight. And so we've tried for a couple of years.
3:32
Speaker 3: Last year before I was there, and then this year
3:34
Speaker 3: again we're reintroducing it and I'm co sponsoring it. Is
3:37
Speaker 3: just a demand and accountability of all this money. And
3:41
Speaker 3: to add to that, and here's my frustration with operating
3:45
Speaker 3: at the state level. You know, I serve on the
3:47
Speaker 3: Pensions committee. We've been starting to get some of our
3:50
Speaker 3: oversight done there. We have some Tier two pension fixes
3:54
Speaker 3: that need to happen, some of them legally probably have
3:57
Speaker 3: to happen, and some of them are just proposed as
4:00
Speaker 3: some of those employees want those benefits to go back
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Speaker 3: up closer to Tier one. But that's been the reason
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Speaker 3: for a bunch of hearings on it and and for me,
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Speaker 3: I think the most shocking part is I knew we'd
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Speaker 3: been short changing the pensions historically at the state level.
4:16
Speaker 3: You experienced that at the level, yes, And it's very
4:19
Speaker 3: different reasons at the local levels, because we were following
4:21
Speaker 3: state formulas that we figured out were broken and we
4:24
Speaker 3: started just putting more in, you know, they were a
4:27
Speaker 3: little too fanciful, and what we'd actually been getting ready
4:29
Speaker 3: to return in our pension funds at the local level.
4:32
Speaker 3: At the state level, the problem is more that just
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Speaker 3: the General Assembly can decide what their payment is and
4:38
Speaker 3: then they make that payment and say we made a
4:40
Speaker 3: full payment, whereas if you take last year, for example,
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Speaker 3: if we'd been following actuarial science, like what the actuary
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Speaker 3: is recommended, they would have need to pay in over
4:49
Speaker 3: a five billion more dollars, right uh. And so this
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Speaker 3: three billion shortfall does not include the fact that that's
4:56
Speaker 3: already baked into the formula. They call it the so
4:58
Speaker 3: called pension ramp, right, which is where we're going to
5:01
Speaker 3: pay less now and then we're going to pay a
5:02
Speaker 3: little mo over time. And then if you look in
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Speaker 3: the late twenty thirties, like the numbers are mathematically impossible. Basically,
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Speaker 3: I haven't talked to anybody in the Capitol who thinks
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Speaker 3: the pension ramps actually going to work at the end
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Speaker 3: of the ramp.
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Speaker 1: They don't think we're gonna have the money for it.
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Speaker 3: They just don't want to deal with the reality of
5:17
Speaker 3: what's to do now. And that part, I mean five
5:21
Speaker 3: billion to the budget.
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Speaker 1: They don't.
5:23
Speaker 3: They don't think they can get it, and so they
5:26
Speaker 3: just set this law saying here's what we owe this year,
5:29
Speaker 3: and then they announced we paid it, so it's a
5:30
Speaker 3: balanced budget. And you know, Tuda, we're following the state constitution.
5:35
Speaker 3: And that's how Illinois ended up with a whole bunch
5:37
Speaker 3: of pensions. Sure is they just set the law to
5:41
Speaker 3: say what they owe instead of following actual science. And
5:45
Speaker 3: they don't even allow municipalities to do that. Like if
5:47
Speaker 3: we look at the IMRF payment that any of our
5:50
Speaker 3: local municipalities will have, that's set by the actuaries that
5:54
Speaker 3: work for IMRF, the actual fund and they say this
5:56
Speaker 3: is what you owe and then you pay it. So
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Speaker 3: that's going to be a huge challenge, and for me,
6:03
Speaker 3: that colors everything I hear the governor or anyone else
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Speaker 3: say about the state budget because I know at the
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Speaker 3: core of it, the foundation of is a lie, which
6:11
Speaker 3: is the part where we have the biggest debt, which
6:13
Speaker 3: is our pension debts to our employees. We haven't made
6:17
Speaker 3: a proper payment and probably close to my lifetime, certainly
6:21
Speaker 3: not while I've been active, and there's no way to
6:25
Speaker 3: get state services to the level they need to be.
6:28
Speaker 3: There's no way to get the state financially healthy. And
6:31
Speaker 3: so we can at least honestly look at the problem
6:33
Speaker 3: and say this is what it actually mounts to and
6:35
Speaker 3: what we owe based on what the actuary say, and
6:39
Speaker 3: then build budgets off of that right. And so that's
6:43
Speaker 3: part of why we're seeing over the years all these
6:45
Speaker 3: shortfalls is because we've been lying to ourselves and to
6:48
Speaker 3: the tax payers about what's actually do and that's been
6:52
Speaker 3: under multiple governors for a long period of time.
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Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 3: Famously, it got started to called the Egger Ramp, and
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Speaker 3: I think it was a bad idea then, but they
7:03
Speaker 3: didn't even follow you know, what they were supposed to
7:05
Speaker 3: do then, and I'm not even a big fan of
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Speaker 3: how they did it then and the way they handled
7:10
Speaker 3: the bond. They stopped making some pension payments after that.
7:13
Speaker 3: I mean, we can blame a lot of that on
7:14
Speaker 3: Gogoyevitch because when he saw that solution, he decided, this
7:17
Speaker 3: is the solution. We're just not going to pay much
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Speaker 3: at all because I want all these other programs. And
7:21
Speaker 3: that got us going down here real fast. So that
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Speaker 3: all leads up into next week, which is this big
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Speaker 3: budget address. And for me, you know, you saw me
7:30
Speaker 3: operate here locally. I don't care about what people say
7:33
Speaker 3: or their fancy ideas. You know, if we're not being
7:36
Speaker 3: real about what the underlying budget is saying, that's where
7:39
Speaker 3: it all starts, and that reveals the lie because at
7:42
Speaker 3: the end of the day, the mathematics doesn't have empathy.
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Speaker 3: We can talk all we want about what we should
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Speaker 3: do or what cervis services need to happen, and I'm
7:49
Speaker 3: generally in agreement, like we need more for education, we
7:53
Speaker 3: need more for mental health. We definitely need more DCFS
7:56
Speaker 3: workers and more caseworkers to handle some of these things
7:59
Speaker 3: going on. We all know the Department of Transportation has
8:02
Speaker 3: been gutted, you know, both in terms of its budget
8:05
Speaker 3: to some degree, but especially in terms of its hiring,
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Speaker 3: and the agency is getting hollowed out. There's a number
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Speaker 3: of state agencies like that, and what's shocking for me
8:12
Speaker 3: is we're so far behind financially that those solutions aren't
8:18
Speaker 3: there until we fix the underlying problems, and no one's
8:21
Speaker 3: even being serious about what that is. So, you know, welcome,
8:25
Speaker 3: welcome to the state legislation, the new senator. You have
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Speaker 3: a three billion dollar budget and that's not even the
8:31
Speaker 3: honest accounting.
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Speaker 1: So here we go. Not to depress anyone on Valentine's.
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Speaker 2: There, but that's that's the realistic.
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Speaker 3: And that's why I ran is to go down there
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Speaker 3: and give an honest perspective of happening. We can argue
8:45
Speaker 3: over what the solutions are, and certainly, me being in
8:48
Speaker 3: the minority, I'm not going to have a lot of
8:50
Speaker 3: impact on that, but we should at least have a
8:52
Speaker 3: starting point of what's the honest accounting of where we're at,
8:56
Speaker 3: and if the current ramp doesn't make sense, then we
8:58
Speaker 3: need to scrap that law and bring an honest accounting
9:02
Speaker 3: into where we're at. And if that's hard for all
9:05
Speaker 3: of these people to own, it's not for me. I
9:06
Speaker 3: just got there, so I don't own any of those lies,
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Speaker 3: So it's much easier for me than some of the
9:10
Speaker 3: folks who've been there for a while to do that.
9:12
Speaker 3: But that's what needs to happen again.
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Speaker 2: It looks like maybe we should take a page maybe
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Speaker 2: from what the Fedboak government is doing right now, and
9:19
Speaker 2: then that is cleaning your house. And it looks to
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Speaker 2: me this is not going to be as short term.
9:25
Speaker 2: This is going to be something.
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Speaker 3: That's going to know And that's why it's tough for
9:28
Speaker 3: politicians to handle it because politicians tend to look, you know,
9:32
Speaker 3: am I up for reelection in two years? Am I
9:34
Speaker 3: up for reelection four years? You know, if something is
9:37
Speaker 3: a solution that's part of a twenty five year plan,
9:41
Speaker 3: and in year five you're not as far as you'd
9:43
Speaker 3: love to be to, you know, to announce your reelection,
9:46
Speaker 3: you just got to eat that and do that. Any
9:47
Speaker 3: politician out there saying we can solve Illinois financial problems
9:51
Speaker 3: in ten years is line. Fifteen years is line. I
9:54
Speaker 3: don't even believe twenty years as possible, as I'm sinking
9:56
Speaker 3: my head into some of these numbers. You know, it
9:58
Speaker 3: took us over half a century to dig this hole.
10:01
Speaker 3: If we did it in twenty five years, we'd be
10:02
Speaker 3: getting out of it twice as fast as we got
10:04
Speaker 3: into it. So you're right, this really requires a systemic
10:07
Speaker 3: look at what we're doing. But in order to dodge that,
10:10
Speaker 3: because I think no politicians want to be the ones
10:12
Speaker 3: holding the bag when the lie gets released, they just
10:16
Speaker 3: keep changing a law to say, well, this is what
10:18
Speaker 3: we owe and we've paid it, so we're doing our jobs.
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Speaker 1: No, that's not how math works.
10:24
Speaker 2: You and you've experienced that at the local level. You
10:27
Speaker 2: have actually experienced it, and then that's part of the
10:30
Speaker 2: experience that you carry down to Springfield.
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Speaker 3: It's hard to some of these things. As I look
10:35
Speaker 3: at him and like, no, I've I've seen this bad
10:38
Speaker 3: math before and I know what it does to budgets
10:40
Speaker 3: over time. And the crazy part is in Dixon is
10:44
Speaker 3: that's one area where Crunwell didn't even touch because of
10:48
Speaker 3: the oversight there. She didn't really short the pensions too much.
10:51
Speaker 3: She short at other areas, but that was still released
10:55
Speaker 3: as we took a deep dive into the finances, this
10:57
Speaker 3: is what had happened to the pension funds, and at
11:00
Speaker 3: the state level it's similar, and corruption leads into all
11:02
Speaker 3: of it. We just you know, we were talking about
11:04
Speaker 3: Michael Madigan just getting convicted, and he did a masterful
11:08
Speaker 3: job getting and retaining power for himself and his party
11:12
Speaker 3: at the cost of good policy. And so some of
11:14
Speaker 3: these budget decisions were made for political reasons to make
11:17
Speaker 3: it easier for those in power to stay in power,
11:21
Speaker 3: especially including Michael Madigan, who was the longest serving legislative
11:25
Speaker 3: leader not just in Illinois but in all of US history.
11:28
Speaker 3: And he did that through very corrupt means. And he
11:32
Speaker 3: also did that through pretending the state of the state
11:36
Speaker 3: was better than it was right and you know, kind
11:39
Speaker 3: of pushing forward these lies. It didn't work, and he's
11:45
Speaker 3: going to jail, you know, hopefully here got convicted, but
11:49
Speaker 3: it's towards the end of his life. And he did
11:50
Speaker 3: decades of damage, and he led a lot of others
11:54
Speaker 3: to follow him and doing decades of damage.
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Speaker 2: And that damage is coming back to haunt like the
12:00
Speaker 2: state of Illinois in these areas. Our state Senator lie
12:04
Speaker 2: Arolanta is visiting with us today. We're getting our update
12:06
Speaker 2: of Springfield legislative information for February of twenty twenty five.
12:10
Speaker 2: We need to take a break lee at the bottom
12:11
Speaker 2: of the hour for news, but when we come back,
12:13
Speaker 2: the work that Senator Arilano is also putting in in
12:16
Speaker 2: other areas. We'll also talk about the timetable of what's
12:19
Speaker 2: happening in Springfield and more with our State Senator Lie Arelano.
12:22
Speaker 2: Chatting today with our Illinois state senator out of the
12:25
Speaker 2: thirty seventh District, our Illinois state senator serving our area
12:28
Speaker 2: is live with us this morning at the microphones, and
12:31
Speaker 2: I wanted to say I didn't get a chance to
12:32
Speaker 2: say happy New Year because right the last time we
12:35
Speaker 2: chat was before the holidays.
12:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, before the holidays.
12:39
Speaker 2: This was this was in December that we chatted, So
12:41
Speaker 2: I hope you had a good holiday period.
12:43
Speaker 3: We did, We did, I did, And you know, for
12:46
Speaker 3: all the challenges I talked about at the state, it's
12:48
Speaker 3: an incredible honor to serve in this job. So you know,
12:50
Speaker 3: going into January, we had the swearing in, was able
12:52
Speaker 3: to have my family there.
12:55
Speaker 1: Illinois Capital is such a beautiful building.
12:57
Speaker 3: I think it's the most beautiful building Illinois's an incredible
12:59
Speaker 3: honor to serve in that. So whatever our challenges are,
13:03
Speaker 3: that that was a very enjoyable and fulfilling new year
13:07
Speaker 3: to know, you know, I can represent my community in
13:10
Speaker 3: this fantastic building with so much history and hopefully make
13:12
Speaker 3: some positive impact. So that was wonderful. I really enjoyed
13:16
Speaker 3: that new experience. Yeah, it's it's a completely new experience, absolutely, absolutely,
13:22
Speaker 3: and an incredible honor. So no, and I still think that.
13:24
Speaker 3: In fact, you know, I told my wife, I was like,
13:27
Speaker 3: the moment I walk out of work from this building
13:29
Speaker 3: and don't feel the awe, that's the time it'll be
13:31
Speaker 3: for me to leave this particular position, right is if
13:35
Speaker 3: I don't have an appreciation for that building and what
13:38
Speaker 3: we're doing there and the history there and the potential impact,
13:41
Speaker 3: then it's time to hang up the spurs and go home.
13:43
Speaker 2: But it sounds to me Lee like you're hitting the
13:45
Speaker 2: ground running. Yeah, you know, you are off and running,
13:47
Speaker 2: and it is you are taking off with positions that
13:51
Speaker 2: you just we just talked about some of those positions
13:54
Speaker 2: in the last half hour here at eight and fourteen sixteen.
13:56
Speaker 2: FM ninety five wanted and I know that you're working
13:58
Speaker 2: on more in this session, this general session.
14:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
14:02
Speaker 3: So I've introduced several of my own bills. We had
14:05
Speaker 3: until the basically the end of January to introduce our
14:08
Speaker 3: own bills. You know, in addition to co sponsor and
14:10
Speaker 3: they're working with the existing legislation or that others. There's
14:13
Speaker 3: thousands of bills that have been introduced. A lot of
14:16
Speaker 3: them are holdovers from previous sessions and they just get reintroduced.
14:20
Speaker 3: But I've introduced over a dozen of my own bills
14:23
Speaker 3: in addition to starting to co sponsor and work with
14:25
Speaker 3: others on those bills on their bills, I mean. And
14:27
Speaker 3: I also serve on seven committees, and I kind of
14:30
Speaker 3: break them into two halves. I have the government side
14:32
Speaker 3: of what I do, so I serve on the Local
14:34
Speaker 3: Government Committee, the State Government Committee, and the Pension Committee,
14:38
Speaker 3: which those are all kind of boring committees for many folks.
14:41
Speaker 3: They are not very glamorous, but for somebody who's looking
14:44
Speaker 3: to do government reform, I think they're the most critical committees,
14:47
Speaker 3: even if they're not necessarily in high demand. And then
14:50
Speaker 3: I have what I call my health committees, So I
14:52
Speaker 3: serve on Health and Human Services, which controls some of
14:55
Speaker 3: the biggest parts of the budget. I serve on appropriations
14:58
Speaker 3: for health and human services. And then I actually have
15:01
Speaker 3: a minor leadership role as the minority spokesperson in public health.
15:06
Speaker 3: And then my seventh Committee is Veterans Affairs. You know,
15:09
Speaker 3: of course, you know I'm still in the Army reserves,
15:12
Speaker 3: right I have had a long experience with the military,
15:15
Speaker 3: so it's an honor to serve on that one as well.
15:17
Speaker 3: And the committeees, especially for a Republican when you're in
15:20
Speaker 3: a minority, they're very important because there's where you get
15:23
Speaker 3: a chance to ask questions and really be a part
15:26
Speaker 3: of the review process. It doesn't always mean you get
15:29
Speaker 3: the result you want, but it's hard to hide us
15:32
Speaker 3: when we're on a committee, when you know, when you're
15:33
Speaker 3: on the floor, they can kind of control things a
15:35
Speaker 3: bit more, and they certainly control what makes it to committee,
15:38
Speaker 3: but you have to let the Republicans on the committee
15:40
Speaker 3: and we get a chance to see it and represent
15:42
Speaker 3: you know, our rural counties there and making sure we're
15:45
Speaker 3: getting a lens and there's big legislation coming through, so
15:50
Speaker 3: that that part has also been very rewarding.
15:52
Speaker 1: We've ready attended a few committee hearings.
15:55
Speaker 3: I've already had to you know, the opportunity to ask
15:58
Speaker 3: some questions and take a hard look cut some things.
16:01
Speaker 3: And part of the challenge right now is taking a
16:03
Speaker 3: look at these thousands of bills and figuring out which
16:05
Speaker 3: ones are for show, which ones are political theater, which
16:08
Speaker 3: ones might go somewhere, and some of them, you know,
16:11
Speaker 3: get real hot on the internet, and I look at them.
16:13
Speaker 3: I'm not sure that has a chance of passing, but
16:15
Speaker 3: I'm going to take a look.
16:17
Speaker 1: You know.
16:17
Speaker 3: One that was going around is there's a bill from
16:20
Speaker 3: a Chicago senator. She introduced a bill to legalized prostitution.
16:23
Speaker 3: There's a bunch of senators around her for that, and
16:25
Speaker 3: so I'm taking a look, and I was like, all right,
16:27
Speaker 3: how serious is this? Is this something going to carry?
16:29
Speaker 3: You know, Their point is they don't. They want to
16:30
Speaker 3: decriminalize it so they can legalize it and tax it
16:34
Speaker 3: and in theory protect these women. But what we've seen
16:37
Speaker 3: is anytime you legalize something, whether it's local gambling, whether
16:41
Speaker 3: it's online sports betting, you know, go right down the list,
16:43
Speaker 3: whether it's marijuana, the use always goes up. And so
16:47
Speaker 3: what you don't say is all right, if you legalize prostitution,
16:49
Speaker 3: you understand.
16:51
Speaker 1: There will be more women going and.
16:53
Speaker 3: Pressure into prostitution chasing that money. Right, This is not
16:58
Speaker 3: this is not something that you should be proposed so easily.
17:01
Speaker 3: So that's where we're at right now, where we just
17:03
Speaker 3: finished that process. Now we're at the stage of the
17:06
Speaker 3: year where all bills have been drafted and introduced, those
17:09
Speaker 3: deadlines are go, so we know what we're working with.
17:12
Speaker 3: With the exception of the shell bills, we do know
17:15
Speaker 3: there's always shell bills that are kept if they want
17:19
Speaker 3: to do surprise legislation towards the end of the session,
17:23
Speaker 3: and those are usually the most controversial bills, and in
17:26
Speaker 3: order to avoid the transparency law, which require first reading
17:30
Speaker 3: a second reading multiple days, we have this process called
17:33
Speaker 3: shell bills where they put a title on it and
17:35
Speaker 3: they gut and amend everything in it. So even if
17:38
Speaker 3: the bills on its third reading, they say it's still
17:40
Speaker 3: legal because it has the same bill title, and then
17:43
Speaker 3: they pass it. And so those you just can't prepare for.
17:46
Speaker 1: Those.
17:46
Speaker 3: They'll do whatever they're going to do. And so right
17:48
Speaker 3: now the stage is looking at the budget address, which
17:53
Speaker 3: is next week, and then we're going to get into
17:55
Speaker 3: the heart of the committee process for the bills that
17:57
Speaker 3: they choose to put through the normal committee process. And
18:01
Speaker 3: then as we get through the amendment process, the amendment
18:05
Speaker 3: process opens up here in the upcoming weeks. As we
18:09
Speaker 3: get through that, we'll start passing bills on third reading,
18:11
Speaker 3: probably starting you know, next month. Hopefully they don't put
18:15
Speaker 3: off the budget too much because the challenges when they
18:18
Speaker 3: do that, they start stopping the rest of legislation to
18:21
Speaker 3: fight over the budget, which.
18:23
Speaker 1: Isn't a healthy process.
18:24
Speaker 3: But we'll just be honest, that's the way the state
18:27
Speaker 3: typically runs. And so for a freshman legislator, the challenges
18:31
Speaker 3: how many of the bills that I support can we
18:34
Speaker 3: work on right now before their budget process kind of
18:37
Speaker 3: consumes everything, and what bills that are bad can we
18:40
Speaker 3: get some sunlight on and hopefully kill during this process
18:44
Speaker 3: before we get to that uncrunched period where they're just
18:46
Speaker 3: pushing everything through. So that's where we're at right now,
18:48
Speaker 3: right for or against Lee.
18:52
Speaker 2: A group of legislators walked out of some you know
18:55
Speaker 2: again the state Capital action the last couple of weeks.
18:59
Speaker 2: They actually walk right process and not wanting to listen.
19:02
Speaker 1: What about that?
19:04
Speaker 3: You know, that's a that's a tough position to be
19:06
Speaker 3: in because they control they being the majority of party,
19:10
Speaker 3: the Democrats control a super majority, and they can put
19:14
Speaker 3: any legislation or proclamations they want on the floor. And
19:17
Speaker 3: so what they started doing, and this is over in
19:19
Speaker 3: the House side, is they started doing a bunch of
19:22
Speaker 3: proclamations that don't really have any force of law, but
19:26
Speaker 3: essentially to complain about or attack what's happening at the
19:29
Speaker 3: federal level. Right and and so for Republicans as a challenge,
19:34
Speaker 3: do you sit down there and engage in the political
19:36
Speaker 3: theater and get into debates on the floor and turn
19:38
Speaker 3: the whole state process about the federals and their processes.
19:42
Speaker 3: Do you walk out to expose how ridiculous the theater is?
19:47
Speaker 3: You know, in my first term as mayor, I think
19:49
Speaker 3: I never missed a single vote. I was very proud
19:50
Speaker 3: of that. I missed a couple while I was deployed,
19:52
Speaker 3: but I was mostly able to call in all those
19:55
Speaker 3: And so I've always been a big proponent if you
19:57
Speaker 3: make every vote, and you know, if you find some
20:00
Speaker 3: something wrong on both ways both president or abstain or something,
20:02
Speaker 3: but be there. But then again, I've never had to
20:05
Speaker 3: deal with political theater at this level where the whole
20:08
Speaker 3: point isn't to pass legislation or to improve the process.
20:12
Speaker 3: It's to make your opponent look bad or to control
20:14
Speaker 3: the process and put a bug in their eye, and
20:17
Speaker 3: so I think in that scenario, walking out maybe is
20:19
Speaker 3: a reasonable option. It didn't slow down anything the Democrats
20:23
Speaker 3: are doing, so it didn't disturb the actual legislative process.
20:26
Speaker 3: It just said we're not going to be part of this.
20:27
Speaker 3: You know, you guys, say whatever you want to say
20:29
Speaker 3: on the floor. We can't stop you. And then when
20:31
Speaker 3: you're back to doing state business, like, we'll be there.
20:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
20:35
Speaker 2: Lead to wrap up, Senator, to wrap up our talk
20:38
Speaker 2: line today. You got some local activity happening right now. Yeah,
20:42
Speaker 2: you wanted to mention before you before you.
20:44
Speaker 3: I do so for all the financial doom and gloom,
20:47
Speaker 3: I want to talk a little bit about the fun
20:48
Speaker 3: stuff that's happening. And so it is Valentine's Day, so
20:51
Speaker 3: this is a perfect time we're doing. One of my
20:54
Speaker 3: first big district events is we invited students and people
20:59
Speaker 3: from all across the district to create Valentine's Day cards
21:04
Speaker 3: for those folks living in congregate living facilities, skilled nursing facilities,
21:08
Speaker 3: things like that where they're you know, away from their
21:11
Speaker 3: family potentially, whether it's for rehab or whether it's long
21:14
Speaker 3: term care. And we were able to get together over
21:17
Speaker 3: two thousand Valentine's made by church groups, school groups, you know,
21:23
Speaker 3: all these different groups. And so for the last couple
21:26
Speaker 3: of days, I and my team have been going through
21:29
Speaker 3: every home we could find in the district in the
21:32
Speaker 3: twelve counties that I serve and handing those out. And
21:36
Speaker 3: so we've already been in Peoria and Chilla, Cotha, We've
21:39
Speaker 3: been over in Stirling, you know. Today we're going to
21:41
Speaker 3: be over in shabbing On Amboy and Franklin Grove and
21:45
Speaker 3: heading out to Morrison. So we're getting all over the
21:47
Speaker 3: district to get these cards out and it's a real
21:50
Speaker 3: joy because it's an opportunity for folks who normally don't
21:53
Speaker 3: get to meet their legislator because they can't get out
21:56
Speaker 3: to meet them, hear from them, talk to me, ask questions,
22:00
Speaker 3: you know, share concerns.
22:01
Speaker 1: Will also.
22:04
Speaker 3: Being told that the kids of their communities are thinking
22:06
Speaker 3: about them over Valentine's Day and made these cards. And
22:10
Speaker 3: it's been it's been really powerful. There's been a lot
22:11
Speaker 3: of appreciation for it. I did run into even a
22:15
Speaker 3: few teachers who talked about when they had their kids
22:17
Speaker 3: doing these kind of projects, and so they were excited
22:20
Speaker 3: to talk about that. So that's been fun. And you know,
22:24
Speaker 3: for like I said, for all the challenging parts of
22:26
Speaker 3: this job, there are parts getting out into the community
22:29
Speaker 3: looking at and supporting development projects or these kind of
22:34
Speaker 3: art projects where you can work with your seniors that
22:36
Speaker 3: are a lot of fun. And we're going to be
22:37
Speaker 3: out doing that all day to day again too, So
22:39
Speaker 3: happy Valentine's date everybody. We're going to be spreading that joy.
22:42
Speaker 3: Thanks to everybody who helped these kids put together this
22:45
Speaker 3: project so we can deliver some of these cards to
22:48
Speaker 3: our seniors.
22:48
Speaker 1: It's been a lot of fun.
22:49
Speaker 2: And welcome to the Illinois Senate.
22:51
Speaker 1: Thank you, Aron.
22:53
Speaker 2: This is this is really fascinating though, when we get
22:56
Speaker 2: to follow our former Dixon mayor into this process though,
22:59
Speaker 2: because he's going to be talking about it all during
23:01
Speaker 2: the year right here on AM fourteen sixteen FM ninety
23:03
Speaker 2: five one. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
23:05
Speaker 2: We got a lot to talk about, a lot of things,
23:07
Speaker 2: a lot of happen exactly. Unfortunately our time is limited today,
23:10
Speaker 2: but sir, i'd.
23:11
Speaker 1: Like to thank you so very much for joining us today.
23:13
Speaker 1: Appreciate it.
23:13
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure to be on our thirty seventh District
23:16
Speaker 2: state senator out of Dixon. Liirolano has been our guest
23:19
Speaker 2: today here at AM fourteen sixteen FM ninety five one
23:21
Speaker 2: Sports for