Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Talk Line: State Senator Li Arellano Jr. share the latest legislative updates

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Talk Line: State Senator Li Arellano Jr. share the latest legislative updates · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

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Speaker 1: All right, Sock Valley, You're back on the Waking Crew
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Speaker 1: here on FM ninety five to one and a fourteen
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Speaker 1: sixty WI xcent. It's eight seventeen on your Monday morning,
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Speaker 1: and that means it's time for talk line and we
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Speaker 1: got a packed one for you today. I'm joining the
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Speaker 1: booth once again by our good friends Stay center Lee
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Speaker 1: Ariano Junior, Sir, how are you. I'm doing good.
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Speaker 2: It's good to be back home in district.
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Speaker 3: Instead of living in Springfield for a couple of weeks.
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Speaker 3: And I was on military to do this weekend, so
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Speaker 3: it was a packed end end of the period. And
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Speaker 3: now I move into my summer face. So great to
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Speaker 3: be home.
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Speaker 1: I got a bet, you know, going from pulling double
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Speaker 1: duty there to being back home, it's got to be
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Speaker 1: a nice change of pace.
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Speaker 2: It is nice.
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Speaker 3: It is nice, you know, around with my five kids,
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Speaker 3: able to start going to some of the summer events
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Speaker 3: and kids events, and you know, be back in the community.
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Speaker 3: I love this is this is why I do the service.
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Speaker 3: But May is always crazy busy. Obviously, it's the end
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Speaker 3: of spring spession for the General Assembly. It's when they
1:01
Speaker 3: tend to throw a lot of the big ticket items
1:02
Speaker 3: because they like to make legislators backs be against the
1:05
Speaker 3: wall and kind of maneuver them in new a position
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Speaker 3: to vote. That's actually more directed at Democratic members than
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Speaker 3: members like myself, because they're trying to build their majority
1:17
Speaker 3: to pass a bill. In fact, in the House, which
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Speaker 3: in my opinion, is even worse than the Senate, the
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Speaker 3: speaker as a rule or he will not call a
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Speaker 3: bill unless he has sixty in other words, a passing
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Speaker 3: number of Democrats on the bill, so Republicans in rural
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Speaker 3: areas don't even count towards the math in Speaker Welch's
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Speaker 3: approach to calling a bill. So you could have a
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Speaker 3: bill that would easily pass the Illinois House of Representatives
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Speaker 3: with a mix of Republican Democratic votes, and he will
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Speaker 3: not call the bill because he's worried it will endangerous
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Speaker 3: speakership and his control on his caucus. And that factors
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Speaker 3: into part of why the Bears discussions have failed because
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Speaker 3: House Republicans don't even get to be part of him,
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Speaker 3: and Democrats or center Republicans barely. Uh So, anyway, back
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Speaker 3: to being back to being home where you know rational
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Speaker 3: input is welcomed.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if, oh god, if only on all things.
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Speaker 1: It's it's gonna be. Uh, you've got such an an update,
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Speaker 1: you know, and where to begin, Well, we'll we'll put
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Speaker 1: our Indiana bears down on the list a little bit.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm still a little bitter for them and
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Speaker 1: hadn't had enough coffee to get into it right away.
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Speaker 2: We can hit that at the end.
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Speaker 3: I'll machine gun through a few of the updates on
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Speaker 3: kind of what passed, what didn't, and of course we
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Speaker 3: can follow up in future months if your listeners are
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Speaker 3: are interested in very specific piece of legislation, but real quickly,
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Speaker 3: some of the big ticket items that did pass AI
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Speaker 3: oversight like real teeth. Like sometimes I'll criticize the Democrats
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Speaker 3: for for putting up fig leaves and pretending they're doing something. Uh,
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Speaker 3: we passed a series of AI bills that have some
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Speaker 3: real teeth to them compared to what other states are
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Speaker 3: doing in terms of protecting consumer privacy, personal data repercussions
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Speaker 3: if any of the five biggest MEGAAI companies are violating
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Speaker 3: those against individuals. So one of the roles of government,
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Speaker 3: and I believe this is a conservative, one of the
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Speaker 3: roles that actually does have is to perfect protect individuals.
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Speaker 3: Individual rights, and that is a lot of what this
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Speaker 3: AI built. You know, school kids, data as miners is
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Speaker 3: in there. You know, even going into details of if
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Speaker 3: AI chat boxes or companions are pulling pornography in and
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Speaker 3: viewing it in front of miners.
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Speaker 2: All kinds of things like that were included.
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Speaker 3: So I'm actually pretty pretty impressed that that got done.
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Speaker 3: On the flip side, big ticket item that didn't get
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Speaker 3: done is any oversight of data centers. These are power hogs,
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Speaker 3: water usages. There was bipartisan push. The problem we had
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Speaker 3: is the governor years ago, and I think he's changed
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Speaker 3: his mind, really viewed data centers as part of his
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Speaker 3: economic plan for Illinois as one of his centerpieces. Him
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Speaker 3: and the unions got together said these are great economic boosters,
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Speaker 3: and they were pushing him. They passed tax incentives five.
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Speaker 3: So the governor was really married to this concept for
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Speaker 3: a long time. And now that there's been a very
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Speaker 3: bipartisan and even grassroots push against the noise pollution, the
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Speaker 3: potential for water pollution and usage certainly the energy usage
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Speaker 3: and cost, even the privacy concerns aspects, he's been more
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Speaker 3: and more painted into a corner. He did not do
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Speaker 3: anything dramatic during the General Assembly when we could have
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Speaker 3: actually passed legislation. So there were Republican and Democratic senators
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Speaker 3: who had legislation on oversight, and I was a co
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Speaker 3: sponsored number of those bills, and the governor, in my opinion,
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Speaker 3: somewhat underhanded. Matt waited until this month till the General
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Speaker 3: Assembly was over, and then he announced this kind of
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Speaker 3: executive order that probably isn't even legal, saying we're not
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Speaker 3: going to do this law anymore incentivizing data centers. Why
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Speaker 3: he didn't do it when we were actually in session
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Speaker 3: and could have done something, I certainly have my theories.
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Speaker 3: I think it's a lot of political posturing, but that
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Speaker 3: is something we might see now that he's made the statement,
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Speaker 3: get discussion over the summer and in the November veto session,
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Speaker 3: maybe we'll get some action.
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Speaker 2: That's my hope.
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Speaker 1: Well, I hope so something actually needs to get done,
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Speaker 1: and in action can be just as bad as the
5:24
Speaker 1: wrong kind of action.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely, I think we took the wrong action incentivizing
5:28
Speaker 3: them years ago before I was in the Senate, So
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Speaker 3: I don't know all the details of that discussion, but
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Speaker 3: certainly where are today as more people are awakening to
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Speaker 3: the problems in them and the need for oversight, and
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Speaker 3: the fact that they're very different. In AI or a
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Speaker 3: data center storing YouTube videos, for example, is dramatically different
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Speaker 3: in terms of water usage, power usage than one doing
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Speaker 3: progressive reactive AI. Right, these are very different beasts, and
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Speaker 3: we don't really have oversight distinguishing that in Illinois and
6:00
Speaker 3: really even in the nation. And we wouldn't treat manufacturing that.
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Speaker 3: If you're doing light manufacturing, that's dramatically different than if
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Speaker 3: you're doing major chemical manufacturing, right, and that's zone differently.
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Speaker 3: The regulations for it are vastly different. We really have
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Speaker 3: a lot of work to do in that regard. Going
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Speaker 3: down my list, obviously, the budget passed, I'll come back
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Speaker 3: to that because I have some strong thoughts on that
6:23
Speaker 3: about nine hundred million and new taxes on top of
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Speaker 3: the normal tax growth from inflation and fun sweeps things
6:29
Speaker 3: like that. We did not get any serious traction on
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Speaker 3: energy policy changes. That's something I've talked about on the
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Speaker 3: show before. That's something I think a lot of Republicans
6:38
Speaker 3: and some Democrats view as easy to change and find savings,
6:42
Speaker 3: unlike property taxes, where it would take a long time
6:47
Speaker 3: to really change the dynamics that got us here, you know,
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Speaker 3: half century of weird dynamics, pension debt, mandates, fueling property taxes.
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Speaker 3: It will take some time to unwine that energy policy.
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Speaker 3: On the other hand, we could unwind probably in one
7:00
Speaker 3: year and really unshackle Illinois economy and lower the bills.
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Speaker 3: Are businesses and families pay. And we had no action.
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Speaker 3: That became a big fight on the Senate floor at
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Speaker 3: the end of session when they passed an energy trailer
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Speaker 3: bill that included none of the cost savings or affordability
7:18
Speaker 3: items that either party had asked for. We did nothing
7:21
Speaker 3: but do some technical changes. So that was a problem
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Speaker 3: for me. All of our transparency bills weren't called to
7:27
Speaker 3: the floor, so things that would have required more notice,
7:30
Speaker 3: more time to read legislation. There's even talk of a
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Speaker 3: bill that you can't conduct business between midnight and eight am,
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Speaker 3: because obviously we passed a lot of these shenanigans in
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Speaker 3: the middle of the night.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, she shouldn't be allowed.
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Speaker 2: It's like the most obvious.
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Speaker 1: It's ridiculous, freaking ploy for anybody on the either side
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Speaker 1: of an aisle to try to get something through is
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Speaker 1: no I'm gonna do this when you all are sleeping.
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Speaker 3: It's crazy and it's very intentional, and it's illegal. At
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Speaker 3: the local level. When I was a mayor, a lot
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Speaker 3: of the things that happened in Springfield would be legal.
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Speaker 3: You're required to have more notice. You required to give
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Speaker 3: the public time to read it, journalists time to read it,
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Speaker 3: look at it, analyze it, share the information. You're required
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Speaker 3: to give council members time to read what they're doing.
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Speaker 3: There's all these things that are just obvious as part
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Speaker 3: of good government, and we don't do them in Springfield.
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Speaker 3: And then we wait till the last day, in the
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Speaker 3: middle of the night, change thousands of pages, and then
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Speaker 3: we pass it and I'll go home before we have
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Speaker 3: to answer questions from journalists or the public or whatever
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Speaker 3: the case may be. And there are some very simple
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Speaker 3: transparency rules we could do to change that. It's, in
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Speaker 3: my opinion, a violation of Illinois Constitution's three readings rule,
8:34
Speaker 3: which requires three readings of a bill and then multiple
8:37
Speaker 3: days in between them to absorb them. And we cheat
8:40
Speaker 3: all of that, and the Illinois Supreme Court has refused
8:44
Speaker 3: to uphold it. So I was a co sponsor in
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Speaker 3: some bills adjusting some of those things, things that I
8:49
Speaker 3: think they don't even take it as far as it
8:51
Speaker 3: is at the local level. They just get it close
8:53
Speaker 3: to where I think it should be. We can't even
8:55
Speaker 3: get a public hearing on those. We've had some talk
8:58
Speaker 3: about the steer tailing bill, which is are those kind
9:00
Speaker 3: of backyard fake rodeos where animals are getting abused. That
9:04
Speaker 3: bill wouldn't even get discussed or called for a public hearing.
9:08
Speaker 3: That had very bipartisan support. I had a bill that
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Speaker 3: had a majority of the entire Senate as a co sponsor.
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Speaker 3: I talked to Democrats, Republicans. I had over thirty members
9:20
Speaker 3: of the Illinois Senate, which is a number that would
9:22
Speaker 3: pass a bill on a bill that allowed digital storage
9:26
Speaker 3: of records at local governments to save costs. They've storage costs,
9:29
Speaker 3: every little thing you can do to lower costs and
9:32
Speaker 3: hopefully help property taxes. And I could not even get
9:36
Speaker 3: a public hearing on that bill. And I had some
9:38
Speaker 3: of Senate leadership on the bill. So I haven't really
9:41
Speaker 3: gotten an answer as to why. There's another bill that
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Speaker 3: passed unanimously out of the House and I had a
9:48
Speaker 3: whole bunch of co sponsors from the Relative Committee couldn't
9:50
Speaker 3: get passed. I did get passed one of the only
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Speaker 3: bills in the legislature this year that lowers fees. It's
9:56
Speaker 3: a tiny fee, hard to break about because it's so small,
10:00
Speaker 3: but public notaries were double taxed in Illinois, double feed
10:04
Speaker 3: if they wanted to do electric electronic notary, which is
10:07
Speaker 3: important in the world where we're doing interstate commerce and
10:09
Speaker 3: online commerce and small businesses are trying to use this,
10:13
Speaker 3: and so notaries would get a second fee if they
10:16
Speaker 3: wanted to be both a regular notary and electronic notary,
10:19
Speaker 3: even though it's the exact same test. There's no additional anything.
10:23
Speaker 3: And I passed a bill eliminating the second double fee
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Speaker 3: on notaries to help get us more electronic notaries in Illinois.
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Speaker 3: That really came out of discussions with the pure business
10:34
Speaker 3: community where they were struggling to find some. The biggest
10:37
Speaker 3: firms already have them in house, and regular notaries don't
10:40
Speaker 3: necessarily want to do it. So mid size manufacturers or
10:43
Speaker 3: businesses were having trouble getting this and it was potentially
10:47
Speaker 3: killing interstate business deals, which is bad for Peoria, bad
10:49
Speaker 3: for Illinois. I was able to get that bill passed
10:52
Speaker 3: through both chambers my colleague, Representative Spain, carried it through
10:56
Speaker 3: the House for me, so he was the House bill sponsor.
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Speaker 3: And the one notable thing about that, other than chipping
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Speaker 3: away to help the business community, is I looked through
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Speaker 3: all the legislative passed. There's a lot of insurance mandates,
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Speaker 3: cost increasers, new taxes. It is one of the only
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Speaker 3: bills in Illinois that actually lowers a tax or fee,
11:14
Speaker 3: and it's my name on it. So I'm slightly proud
11:17
Speaker 3: on that. Hopefully we can do bigger tax reductions in
11:20
Speaker 3: the future, but hey, you got to start somewhere, and
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Speaker 3: I was proud to get that through the Chamber, and
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Speaker 3: I'll be heading on to the governor. So I think
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Speaker 3: that's a couple of my key updates I wanted to
11:30
Speaker 3: talk about. We can go into depth on some of them.
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Speaker 3: There were certainly, you know, obviously seven thousand bills introduced,
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Speaker 3: hundreds passed, so there's a lot we could talk about.
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Speaker 3: But the ending really got consumed by the bears by
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Speaker 3: to some degree, the housing discussion, and that failed. The
11:50
Speaker 3: Governor's housing proposal failed. The Oneine Municipal League had a
11:53
Speaker 3: counterproposal that all of it started so late.
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Speaker 2: That it really didn't move very well.
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Speaker 3: Well, I will say it was one of the few
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Speaker 3: times during my tenure in the Senate, which is at
12:05
Speaker 3: a year and a half now, where the Governor's team
12:07
Speaker 3: actually reached out to me directly my liaison and said, hey,
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Speaker 3: where are you at on this? Do you have any input?
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Speaker 3: They didn't really ask them o r input more they
12:16
Speaker 3: were doing to vote count, and I thought, oh, that's interesting.
12:18
Speaker 3: The governor still never met with me or any of
12:20
Speaker 3: the freshmen to my knowledge, but at least they reached
12:23
Speaker 3: out on this one and say, hey, where are you
12:26
Speaker 3: voting on this? And then that should happen more. Quite frankly,
12:29
Speaker 3: on both sides, you know, even on the Bears bill.
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Speaker 3: The only people who ever reached out to me on
12:34
Speaker 3: the Bear's bill other than representatives from Arlington Heights was
12:38
Speaker 3: not really members from the Bears, and not members from
12:41
Speaker 3: the Governor's team, and not members from the Senate leadership
12:44
Speaker 3: Democrats that were negotiating. And it was my most liberal
12:47
Speaker 3: colleagues in the Senate who knew I was likely to
12:49
Speaker 3: vote no because I didn't want to see a property
12:51
Speaker 3: tax shift to regular taxpayers, and three or four of
12:55
Speaker 3: them talk to me about joining together with them to kill.
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Speaker 2: What we all felt was a bad bill.
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Speaker 3: So you actually saw the liberal and conservative sides of
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Speaker 3: the Senate kind of come together, saying, we don't want
13:07
Speaker 3: to raise taxes on regular folks, which is what this
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Speaker 3: bill potentially would have done, to give it to major corporations.
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Speaker 3: We want to see tax relief for everybody. In the
13:18
Speaker 3: case of Republicans or in the case of my more
13:20
Speaker 3: liberal colleagues, they simply didn't want billionaires or rich companies
13:24
Speaker 3: to get it. And we kind of came together, and
13:26
Speaker 3: that shifted the conversation right. Other than that, Republicans weren't
13:31
Speaker 3: really included in that bear's conversation, certainly not by the
13:35
Speaker 3: governor very much or the lead negotiators, and that's one
13:39
Speaker 3: of the many reasons that particular bill failed. The House
13:41
Speaker 3: passed one version, the Senate passed a different version, neither
13:45
Speaker 3: really called a vote on the other's version, and then
13:49
Speaker 3: the Senate did it kind of at midnight, changed the
13:51
Speaker 3: whole bill, and the last day kicked it over the
13:53
Speaker 3: House and we adjourned, and the House was kind of like,
13:57
Speaker 3: take it or leave it, and so they wouldn't call
13:59
Speaker 3: a bill if it needed Republican votes to pass, so
14:01
Speaker 3: they just let it die.
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Speaker 1: And you know, for anybody you know listening, maybe you
14:07
Speaker 1: haven't cut earlier conversations, and you know, the most you've
14:11
Speaker 1: kind of heard about this in your scratching your head one.
14:13
Speaker 1: What's the big deal about the Bears? Right? Why does Yeah,
14:17
Speaker 1: you know, I don't care about football. Your go change
14:20
Speaker 1: your colors in your jersey. Well, I'll get off my
14:24
Speaker 1: soapbox for that part. But I'm not going to go
14:27
Speaker 1: in and do it as a football fan. But this
14:30
Speaker 1: has serious implications and repercussions for the city of Chicago.
14:34
Speaker 1: It does trickle down to the to the state, especially
14:38
Speaker 1: considering the governor.
14:39
Speaker 2: It does.
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Speaker 3: And you know, let's walk through because I've done a
14:42
Speaker 3: lot of much smaller scale economic development, both as a
14:45
Speaker 3: private entrepreneur and as a mayor serving on regional teams.
14:49
Speaker 3: Indiana make a big bet here, right, They're investing in
14:52
Speaker 3: northwest Indiana knowing that over time, over the decades, they
14:56
Speaker 3: will more and more pull economic activity from Chicago from
15:01
Speaker 3: the Iowa side, or Iowa from the Illinois side into
15:05
Speaker 3: the Indiana side. So they're going to build up their hospitality,
15:08
Speaker 3: They're going to build up their hotels, They're going to
15:09
Speaker 3: build up their restaurants, their shopping and all of that
15:13
Speaker 3: is going to shift jobs and businesses and economic activities
15:17
Speaker 3: steadily twenty minutes over into the andyboorder. Because that's about
15:21
Speaker 3: what it is. It's about twenty minutes difference. But when
15:23
Speaker 3: you flip that state line, that means the tax payers
15:27
Speaker 3: getting that tax revenue change almost completely right, and they
15:32
Speaker 3: will continue to invest in and build up that northwest
15:35
Speaker 3: corner of Indiana and extend Chicago essentially into Indiana and
15:40
Speaker 3: away from Illinois. And I would relate it at the
15:44
Speaker 3: local level. It's a little bit and this is a
15:47
Speaker 3: little bit of a reach, but walk with me here.
15:49
Speaker 3: It's similar to what is happening in Rochelle, where Rochelle
15:52
Speaker 3: is an Ogle County city, but now it's an Ogle
15:54
Speaker 3: and Lee County city and they have crossed over the
15:57
Speaker 3: lines in their industrial development into Lee County. And now
16:00
Speaker 3: Lee County takes a look at that and says, if
16:02
Speaker 3: the rail expands there, and industry expands there, and the
16:05
Speaker 3: property tax based expands there, that is all activity that's
16:09
Speaker 3: happening in Lee County and it changes the economic calculus
16:14
Speaker 3: for Lee County and for Rochelle in terms of what
16:18
Speaker 3: rail development and growth and expansion to the south there
16:21
Speaker 3: in the Greater Rochelle region looks like who benefits? And
16:26
Speaker 3: that's changed the game there at a small scale. That
16:29
Speaker 3: is happening on a massive macro interstate scale on the
16:34
Speaker 3: Illinois Indiana border in a way that the Quad Cities
16:37
Speaker 3: has seen for a very long time. Right, the Quad
16:40
Speaker 3: Cities split between Iowa and Illinois. And that's why accidents
16:43
Speaker 3: said Iowa, because I was thinking about that already. That's
16:46
Speaker 3: part of my district, Rock Island County. I've grown more
16:48
Speaker 3: and more familiar with the challenges there, and we're going
16:52
Speaker 3: to start to see that all around the edges of
16:54
Speaker 3: Illinois as we become.
16:55
Speaker 2: Less and less competitive.
16:56
Speaker 3: Right, it affects the middle of Illinois pure which I
17:00
Speaker 3: also represent, obviously famously lost Caterpillars headquarters. Hundreds of the
17:04
Speaker 3: highest paying jobs, brain drain from that region, Logistical investment
17:10
Speaker 3: in that region.
17:11
Speaker 2: But we especially see it.
17:13
Speaker 3: Near the Wisconsin border, near the Indiana border, near the
17:16
Speaker 3: Missouri border, and that you know, you get into that
17:19
Speaker 3: Saint Louis and eat Saint Louis region near the Quad Cities,
17:22
Speaker 3: and it's really one of many factors and why our
17:26
Speaker 3: economy in Illinois dramatically trails the nation, and why more
17:29
Speaker 3: and more of the tax burden is being put on
17:32
Speaker 3: a smaller and smaller group of businesses and workers and families.
17:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there, there you have it. That's that's only
17:40
Speaker 1: part of the reason why I don't like this.
17:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
17:44
Speaker 3: On emotional level, on a fan level, I'll tell you what,
17:48
Speaker 3: It'll be very hard if a suddenly good Bears team
17:51
Speaker 3: and they have been very good, wins the Super Bowl
17:53
Speaker 3: and I have to watch an Indiana governor hold that trophy.
17:58
Speaker 3: That would that would kill me. So there is a
18:00
Speaker 3: lot of civic pride and engagement attached to things like
18:04
Speaker 3: high school sports teams. You know, you get into discussion
18:06
Speaker 3: during school consolidations. People don't want to lose their high school,
18:10
Speaker 3: their sports team, their community, and civic pride. And that's
18:14
Speaker 3: happening with the Bears. Indiana is going to have two
18:17
Speaker 3: NFL franchises potentially in Illinois. For all that our governor
18:23
Speaker 3: likes to laud us will have zero. Yeah, and of
18:27
Speaker 3: course the Green Bay fans are having a heyday. So
18:30
Speaker 3: that civic pride and investment in Illinois and how people
18:33
Speaker 3: feel about their state is a dynamic too. Illinois ranks
18:35
Speaker 3: worst among its citizens' pride, civic pride in their state,
18:39
Speaker 3: and that shows itself in many different ways in our society,
18:44
Speaker 3: and we need to change that around too. That's not
18:46
Speaker 3: worth nothing, right. But you know, to close up the
18:50
Speaker 3: Bears discussion, this is a discussion that been going on
18:53
Speaker 3: for years, you know, well before I was even a senator.
18:56
Speaker 3: They should have gotten a much easier package done before
18:59
Speaker 3: the Indiana and that kind of site selection battle happened.
19:02
Speaker 3: And then they negotiated with their back against the wall,
19:05
Speaker 3: some not very good bills, some pieces of legislation, in
19:07
Speaker 3: my opinion, when the initial ask was much easier. The
19:10
Speaker 3: Bears wanted no money, no public money into their stadium.
19:13
Speaker 3: It was all private equity. They were essentially willing to
19:16
Speaker 3: pay what would have probably come to among the highest,
19:19
Speaker 3: if not the highest property taxes for any stadium in America.
19:23
Speaker 3: I think so far is the highest. And they're a
19:27
Speaker 3: little north of ten million now I want to say
19:29
Speaker 3: per year, whereas the Bears were looking at one hundred
19:31
Speaker 3: million or more, potentially like ten times what their nearest
19:34
Speaker 3: franchise competitor would have been and they said, well, we
19:36
Speaker 3: want tax certainty, which every business and family in Illinois
19:40
Speaker 3: does to be fair. But stadiums are very unique in
19:44
Speaker 3: that the assessment of a stadium is a fake number.
19:46
Speaker 3: You can't do it comparable with a Chicago Bear Stadium,
19:49
Speaker 3: with any other structure in Illinois. So you're essentially inventing
19:53
Speaker 3: a fake number and then charging them, you know, one
19:55
Speaker 3: hundred million a year for that fake number. And the
19:57
Speaker 3: Bears knew that, and that was the basis of their concern.
20:00
Speaker 3: I was like, unlike most NFL franchises, they didn't ask
20:02
Speaker 3: for a bunch of taxpayer money into their stadium. They said, look,
20:06
Speaker 3: your taxes are outrageous, and your assessments on stadiums look
20:10
Speaker 3: like they're going to be outrageous. We want to negotiate
20:13
Speaker 3: for a number that's reasonable to pay into the local governments,
20:16
Speaker 3: and you know, essentially we'll match what the highest stadium
20:19
Speaker 3: in America is. But we don't want to get fleeced.
20:22
Speaker 3: And the governor flat outside for years. This isn't a priority.
20:25
Speaker 3: Like he's on record, this is not a priority, and
20:28
Speaker 3: to some degree I agree with him. So he should
20:30
Speaker 3: have gotten that taken care of much sooner. Before the
20:33
Speaker 3: site selection battle happened. And then we potentially lose another company,
20:37
Speaker 3: and we have a track record of that, Caterpillar, Morton, Salt, Boeing, Citadel.
20:41
Speaker 3: We're losing all these major employers and investors in Illinois steadily,
20:46
Speaker 3: and each time it's like a jilted lover all. We
20:49
Speaker 3: didn't want them anyway. Oh, they can leave. Oh they
20:51
Speaker 3: weren't fair to Illinois. They're not devoted to Illinois. I
20:54
Speaker 3: mean companies like Caterpillar and the Bears, and they have
20:58
Speaker 3: long histories in Illinois. They were more than fair in
21:01
Speaker 3: many ways. And how much they invested in the longline,
21:03
Speaker 3: how much they paid in taxes before they do what
21:06
Speaker 3: a lot of families do and what especially a lot
21:08
Speaker 3: of young people do, which is leave.
21:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And then you've got these major, major companies.
21:14
Speaker 3: And then we blame that we need to reform our
21:17
Speaker 3: economic policies and tax policies.
21:19
Speaker 2: That's on us.
21:20
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Well, I hope you got a cool new
21:22
Speaker 1: step mom, dad, because you know she didn't love us,
21:26
Speaker 1: and you center on over to Indiana. I hope the
21:28
Speaker 1: next one's better. Oh man, flags on the play all
21:31
Speaker 1: over all? Right, you know what I think this is
21:33
Speaker 1: a good time to take a short two minute all right, well, yeah, absolutely,
21:39
Speaker 1: and we'll be back with more legislative updates with State
21:42
Speaker 1: Senator le Ariano. Welcome back, Waking crew. You're here with
21:45
Speaker 1: us on FM ninety five one and AM fourteen sixty
21:48
Speaker 1: wixcent and it's time for more talk line. We're back
21:51
Speaker 1: with State Senator le Ariano Junior, and the good times
21:54
Speaker 1: just keep rolling in Illinois.
21:57
Speaker 3: The end of May is always going to be a
21:59
Speaker 3: frustrating time for me, and I think for the rural
22:01
Speaker 3: regions I represent, you know, because the beginning of the year,
22:05
Speaker 3: and I think I've said that before on the show,
22:07
Speaker 3: the beginning of the year is where we maybe have
22:09
Speaker 3: a chance for input during committee hearings, during processes.
22:12
Speaker 2: That's when I can get bills moving, you.
22:14
Speaker 3: Know, if my Senate Democratic leaders will let me, and
22:18
Speaker 3: where I can have input into the process. The end
22:21
Speaker 3: of May is where they ignore the process and they
22:23
Speaker 3: ignore transparency and where the backroom deals are executed and
22:26
Speaker 3: they no longer want or need input. They will no
22:29
Speaker 3: longer debate on the points, and so that's you know,
22:33
Speaker 3: that's where the spending happens, where the budget happens. One
22:37
Speaker 3: of my two floor speeches on the budget I'll share
22:41
Speaker 3: here because it directly impacts all of us in this region.
22:46
Speaker 3: But they have legislative initiative money in the budget, So
22:50
Speaker 3: that's earmarks, that's pork, whatever you want to call it.
22:52
Speaker 3: They give it to legislators to dole out in their district,
22:56
Speaker 3: and most good legislators will have a process for identifying
22:58
Speaker 3: what kind of projects, you know, deserve it. For example,
23:02
Speaker 3: there is a you know, our Dixon prison is getting
23:04
Speaker 3: run down. Multiple administrations have let it get run down,
23:07
Speaker 3: and they had some basic safety needs there that would
23:10
Speaker 3: have been good for both the inmates and my correctional officers.
23:13
Speaker 3: And it costs a few hundred thousand dollars and they
23:15
Speaker 3: can't get it as a capital expense through the normal budget,
23:17
Speaker 3: which is ridiculous in its own but out of sight,
23:20
Speaker 3: out of mind, so they ignored it, and that probably
23:22
Speaker 3: would have been one of the ones I would have
23:23
Speaker 3: wanted to get some funding too. There's some public infrastructure
23:26
Speaker 3: projects I would have wanted to support. I've mentioned before,
23:29
Speaker 3: services for rural children who have been sexually or physically
23:32
Speaker 3: abused or underfunded. That is absolutely something I would have
23:35
Speaker 3: gotten more funding to in my twelve counties. So you know,
23:39
Speaker 3: you can make an argument as a conservative, you shouldn't
23:41
Speaker 3: have any of this money, or you can make an
23:44
Speaker 3: argument that you should spend it equally across all of
23:46
Speaker 3: Illinois thirteen million residents roughly. In this budget, they did
23:50
Speaker 3: something completely different and unethical, and that is the money
23:55
Speaker 3: doesn't exist, so they borrowed it. They passed new borrowing
23:58
Speaker 3: for this money to spend for legislators as essentially pork.
24:03
Speaker 3: And then simultaneously they tied the spending to your partisan affiliation,
24:09
Speaker 3: not whether you voted for the budget, which itself would
24:11
Speaker 3: be un ethical and kind of bribing legislators, but happens
24:13
Speaker 3: all the time. They tied it to your partisan makeup.
24:17
Speaker 3: And so they borrowed money against every child in Illinois,
24:20
Speaker 3: who is going to pay it back principle with interest.
24:24
Speaker 3: But then they said, you only get access to this
24:26
Speaker 3: money if your legislator is a Democrat. We want to
24:30
Speaker 3: make sure they get reelected, so they're getting this money
24:32
Speaker 3: and they don't want to share money with Republicans, so
24:34
Speaker 3: they can get even more money for their districts. And
24:37
Speaker 3: we're going to pass this loan, these bonds against all
24:40
Speaker 3: of Illinois, but we're only going to spend it in
24:42
Speaker 3: democratic areas, and then they're going to go out and
24:45
Speaker 3: tout projects and give out money, taxpayer money, based on
24:50
Speaker 3: partisan affiliation. And to me, and I spoke on that
24:53
Speaker 3: a floor, that is deeply an ethical. First of all,
24:54
Speaker 3: we shouldn't be bonding and borrowing money we don't have
24:57
Speaker 3: for legislators to hand out in the first place. Secondly,
25:01
Speaker 3: if you're going to spend that money, every district in Illinois,
25:05
Speaker 3: my two hundred and eighteen thousand constituents deserve a chance
25:09
Speaker 3: at that money as much as everybody else because their
25:11
Speaker 3: kids and their families are taking on.
25:12
Speaker 2: The debt for it.
25:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's ridiculous, and so I spoke out against that.
25:18
Speaker 3: To me, it's one of the many, many little or
25:20
Speaker 3: big corruptions that happen in this budget process. Is you
25:24
Speaker 3: could make an argument you shouldn't be spending legislative money
25:27
Speaker 3: at all. It should go through some sort of good process.
25:30
Speaker 3: But if you are going to spend it, you should
25:32
Speaker 3: make sure it's not borrowed money. But if you are
25:34
Speaker 3: going to borrow it, you should make sure it spent equally.
25:36
Speaker 3: And they're doing none of those things. And if you're
25:38
Speaker 3: not going to spend it equally, you definitely shouldn't do
25:40
Speaker 3: it for political raw power purposes on a partisan makeup.
25:44
Speaker 3: And you know, you get to the end of that,
25:45
Speaker 3: I'm like, what the heck are we doing? And so
25:48
Speaker 3: a lot of my regions and a lot most of Illinois,
25:51
Speaker 3: including and this is the point I want to end
25:53
Speaker 3: with on that the top ten poorest counties in Illinois
25:58
Speaker 3: all happen right now to be represented by Republicans. That's
26:01
Speaker 3: not always the case, and so the top ten there's
26:03
Speaker 3: actually more, but I know at least the top ten
26:05
Speaker 3: poorest counties of the one hundred and two counties in
26:07
Speaker 3: Illinois have no access to that borrowed money for legislative initiatives,
26:13
Speaker 3: which is ridiculous. So whenever they talk about equity, and
26:16
Speaker 3: I said this on the floor, that's not equity, that's
26:19
Speaker 3: raw political plower. They don't care about equity, They care
26:21
Speaker 3: about power, and that flows up in the budget sometimes.
26:24
Speaker 3: So that is my precursor to the budget conversation. This
26:29
Speaker 3: is a really bad budget, is an unethical budget. It
26:32
Speaker 3: was passed like normal in the middle of the night,
26:35
Speaker 3: with last minute changes, where the biggest tax hikes and
26:40
Speaker 3: the most controversial parts, the ones that should have the
26:42
Speaker 3: most discussion and transparency, are not discussed. They're thrown in
26:48
Speaker 3: in a cut and paced amendment, violating the spirit. And
26:51
Speaker 3: I would argue the law of the Illinois Constitution's transparency requirements,
26:55
Speaker 3: and then we pass it. I think we passed it
26:58
Speaker 3: about twenty minutes before midnight, and then the next day
27:03
Speaker 3: we all go home. We didn't go home to five
27:04
Speaker 3: in the morning because we were still debating some of
27:06
Speaker 3: the bears last minute changes in the other shenanigans. But
27:11
Speaker 3: that budget process is part of why it's killing us.
27:14
Speaker 3: And I have one of my Democratic colleagues say at
27:16
Speaker 3: a joint chamber event the quad Cities, Well, you know,
27:18
Speaker 3: you're just complaining about process. I'm here to tell you,
27:21
Speaker 3: as a military man, as a businessman, as a former mayor,
27:24
Speaker 3: bad process produces bad results. And that's another one of
27:28
Speaker 3: the dynamics that's been killing Illinois. I mentioned the economic
27:31
Speaker 3: policies and energy policies that are forcing people into other states,
27:35
Speaker 3: but one of them is we have these very bad
27:37
Speaker 3: processes that are full of corruption and hidden maneuvers that
27:42
Speaker 3: produce bad results. So one of the basic things we
27:48
Speaker 3: could do to fix Illinois is like I mentioned transparency laws.
27:51
Speaker 3: We need a constitutional amendment to strengthen enforcement of the
27:55
Speaker 3: Illinois Constitution's transparency requirements and that will make people less
27:59
Speaker 3: apathetic and they will get engaged, and that will produce
28:02
Speaker 3: better government. Because people in NOMOI do get apathetic. They
28:04
Speaker 3: see this stuff happening year over year, and even the
28:06
Speaker 3: people who hate it stop fighting it because they get apathetic,
28:10
Speaker 3: including some of my Republican colleagues. If I'm being honest,
28:14
Speaker 3: like I will complain about something and say we need
28:16
Speaker 3: to speak on this, and they're like, this is just
28:18
Speaker 3: the way it always happens, and to me, that is
28:20
Speaker 3: no excuse for continuing to do it that way. That
28:23
Speaker 3: is how bad process and corruption wins is when you
28:26
Speaker 3: run out of fire because you've fought so many little
28:29
Speaker 3: corruptions and your tank runs dry, and that means the
28:33
Speaker 3: people start to lose hope because they look at the
28:35
Speaker 3: folks who are supposed to fight for them from both parties,
28:38
Speaker 3: and they say, you're letting this happen and I don't
28:39
Speaker 3: even see you speaking out. And that was one of
28:42
Speaker 3: my pleasures when I ran for this. I will always
28:44
Speaker 3: speak out and the moment I run out of fire,
28:46
Speaker 3: I will not run for reelection because the people deserve
28:49
Speaker 3: somebody highlighting all of this stuff relentlessly. So you know
28:53
Speaker 3: next year you're going to see a similar pattern. Or
28:55
Speaker 3: the beginning of the year, I am going to be
28:57
Speaker 3: positive and talk about the things we're working together to do,
28:59
Speaker 3: like the AI oversight or the cell phone controls to
29:03
Speaker 3: improve education, which I was a co sponsor on that bill,
29:06
Speaker 3: And towards the end of the year, when the corruption
29:08
Speaker 3: and Shenanigan start happening, you're going to see me turn
29:12
Speaker 3: and be.
29:12
Speaker 2: Bluntly honest about what that looks like.
29:14
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, you know, the Bears got caught up in
29:16
Speaker 3: it this year because that was they got caught up
29:19
Speaker 3: in those corrupt processes against their will. But the budget,
29:22
Speaker 3: it's every year, there's always something. Last year was also
29:25
Speaker 3: energy policy that got slammed through in Veto session, and
29:28
Speaker 3: we're still trying.
29:29
Speaker 2: To fix some of that stuff.
29:30
Speaker 3: So you know, I have my town hall coming up
29:34
Speaker 3: in Dixon. I'm starting off my town hall summer tour
29:38
Speaker 3: like last year in Dixon again at the Dixon Historic Theater.
29:41
Speaker 3: It will be June twenty fourth at five thirty PM,
29:44
Speaker 3: so I invite everybody in the region to come out.
29:46
Speaker 3: I'll be in Geneseo the last day of the month
29:48
Speaker 3: for that town hall, and then you know, I'll be
29:50
Speaker 3: publishing my list of places I'm going. I try to
29:53
Speaker 3: get all around my twelve counties, so that way, if
29:56
Speaker 3: people have specific questions about legislation that did pass, didn't pass,
30:00
Speaker 3: ideas that they should think should be discussing, or if
30:03
Speaker 3: they want to pick my brain more on the specific
30:05
Speaker 3: maneuvers of what I see, I'll just get an honest
30:08
Speaker 3: reporting of what I see, the.
30:10
Speaker 2: Good, the bad, the ugly.
30:12
Speaker 3: I'll talk about the things I'm proud of that I'm
30:14
Speaker 3: working on and helping our twelve counties, and I'll talk
30:17
Speaker 3: about the things that really require constitutional amendments and deep
30:22
Speaker 3: level reforms. You know, we need to strengthen our balanced
30:26
Speaker 3: budget amendment. We missed an actuarial accurate pension payment in
30:29
Speaker 3: Illinois by five billion again this year. So we'll hear
30:32
Speaker 3: all this talk of a balanced budget, and it's balanced
30:35
Speaker 3: because we pass the state loss saying it's bounced, not
30:37
Speaker 3: because any actuary or mathematician says this is a balanced budget.
30:40
Speaker 1: I wish I could do that at the end of
30:42
Speaker 1: the month with my bills.
30:43
Speaker 2: Right, so people that that that things settle.
30:46
Speaker 1: Man, It's good.
30:47
Speaker 3: We have a balanced budget requirement in our Illinois constitution
30:50
Speaker 3: and yet we're one hundred and fifty billion plus in debt.
30:53
Speaker 3: How does that happen, Well, we just passed laws saying
30:56
Speaker 3: the budget's balanced, and then they go out and talk
31:00
Speaker 3: that and it's not true. It's not true. It hasn't
31:04
Speaker 3: been true. And every time we have an economic downturn,
31:06
Speaker 3: Illinois pays the price for being so deeply in debt
31:09
Speaker 3: because we get washed financially and that turns into more
31:13
Speaker 3: property taxes, that turns into less investment to services. I've
31:16
Speaker 3: talked about the cuts to services for the developmental disabled
31:19
Speaker 3: and seniors. That's still true in this budget. We are
31:22
Speaker 3: still not at the level of pay for those servicing
31:26
Speaker 3: the disabled that we were when Governor Pritzker became governor.
31:30
Speaker 3: They were at one hundred and fifty percent of minimum wage.
31:33
Speaker 3: Roughly we've been taken away out of each budget after
31:36
Speaker 3: the big cuts, and I think they're at one hundred
31:38
Speaker 3: and forty six percent this year. So you know, we're
31:41
Speaker 3: going backwards still and struggling. So that's my frustrating update.
31:46
Speaker 3: You know made June. I apologize to your listeners, are
31:50
Speaker 3: not really apologize. I'll just give them a friendly warning.
31:52
Speaker 3: Every May June until we have reform in Illinois going
31:55
Speaker 3: to look like that because this is when the Shenanigans happened.
31:58
Speaker 3: May thirty first every year, and then Veto Session is
32:03
Speaker 3: where the shenangan We do have lame duck. Every two
32:06
Speaker 3: years we have lame duck, so that will probably be
32:09
Speaker 3: in January. An interesting update for me as well. Yeah,
32:12
Speaker 3: because that's when all lame duck is probably when some
32:16
Speaker 3: of the craziest shenanigan's happening. Like the Safety Act, for example,
32:19
Speaker 3: was passed in the middle of the night during a
32:20
Speaker 3: lame duck, and they've had five trailer bills to that
32:23
Speaker 3: and they still the governor himself says we still need
32:25
Speaker 3: to work on it. So it was an interesting experience
32:29
Speaker 3: and talking to my colleagues, it's not normal.
32:32
Speaker 2: It's become normal.
32:33
Speaker 3: But we were there until five am doing votes at
32:37
Speaker 3: the end of session, and that is not the way
32:40
Speaker 3: Illinois used to do business. It's that's actually gotten worst
32:42
Speaker 3: last Veto session. I heard from multiple colleagues who have
32:45
Speaker 3: been their decades. It was the worst craziest VETO session
32:48
Speaker 3: they've ever had, and this was one of the latest
32:51
Speaker 3: ends to a regular screen section they've ever had.
32:53
Speaker 2: So I don't know. I mean, we got it. We
32:55
Speaker 2: got to turn it around at some point.
32:57
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, some at some point me And you've
33:01
Speaker 1: only got one lifetime though least, so we'll do it.
33:03
Speaker 1: You're not wrong, but I appreciate that you are dedicating
33:08
Speaker 1: yours to trying to do that because you know, going
33:12
Speaker 1: back to earlier in the conversation, I mean like, if
33:15
Speaker 1: you're not trying, right, you're not trying, you're not doing
33:18
Speaker 1: a disservice. You need to get out of office. These uh,
33:21
Speaker 1: these are the kind of positions you know. And I
33:23
Speaker 1: tell my own kids there there are certain jobs where
33:26
Speaker 1: you don't have to be passionate. You just go in
33:29
Speaker 1: and you do a diligent job. You should be a
33:31
Speaker 1: hard worker, but you don't have to be passionate. And
33:34
Speaker 1: that's fine. You do it and you go home and
33:35
Speaker 1: that's it. But there are certain jobs where if you
33:38
Speaker 1: don't have a fire under your button, you don't have
33:40
Speaker 1: a burning in your soul for it, get out right,
33:42
Speaker 1: you are doing other people a disservice and somebody who
33:45
Speaker 1: is trying to get in there, who wants to make
33:48
Speaker 1: a difference. Uh, and you need to get out.
33:51
Speaker 2: That's true.
33:51
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I'll use police office a great example,
33:53
Speaker 3: an incredible public service calling a lot of pressure and
33:57
Speaker 3: you have to have a real fire for public service.
34:00
Speaker 3: You to be a police officer and deal with what
34:01
Speaker 3: they have to deal with. And you know, sometimes as
34:04
Speaker 3: they start to burn out, you know, the pension structure
34:07
Speaker 3: incentivizes them to stay in. And soldiers we don't have that,
34:11
Speaker 3: Like we go on contracts. So if you've been overseas
34:14
Speaker 3: and you're like, I don't have more of this in
34:16
Speaker 3: me to see this daily, you can get out and
34:18
Speaker 3: you still have some of your benefits and your bonuses
34:20
Speaker 3: and the things financially that helps you set you up
34:23
Speaker 3: for life. And that's it's so very true. You know,
34:26
Speaker 3: I will leave on this positive note. Let's talk about
34:29
Speaker 3: data centers a group briefly. We continue to see Illinois
34:32
Speaker 3: that when the sides come together, things happen. And in
34:34
Speaker 3: data centers, I think you've seen the left, the right,
34:36
Speaker 3: the center from the people I'm talking about really push
34:40
Speaker 3: on this. That's why the governor finally reacted. That's why
34:43
Speaker 3: you see Republicans and Democratic senators co sponsoring bills introducing bills.
34:48
Speaker 3: I think we'll probably see something in VIDO session because
34:51
Speaker 3: whatever my criticisms of government Illinois, when the public really
34:56
Speaker 3: comes together to fight for an issue, that thing happens.
35:00
Speaker 3: I'm seeing that with data centers, right, So I think
35:02
Speaker 3: you're going to see some real reform there over the
35:05
Speaker 3: course of the next year, like we saw with AHI.
35:07
Speaker 2: That is good of my ending of good news.
35:11
Speaker 1: Well I'm I'm I'm hoping with you on that one
35:13
Speaker 1: because I've got the I think me and you are
35:16
Speaker 1: share the same strong opinions when it comes to those
35:18
Speaker 1: and we already got it rough enough in Illinois. I
35:22
Speaker 1: don't want to see what I see people in other
35:24
Speaker 1: states facing that come to these data centers. And surely
35:28
Speaker 1: not in my backyard, right, No, not, Yes, I'll leave that.
35:32
Speaker 1: That's about the only time I'm comfortable using that phrase,
35:34
Speaker 1: considering it's historical. Yea, at this time, not in my backyard.
35:39
Speaker 1: So Lee, thank you so much, and we look forward
35:42
Speaker 1: to the next update.
35:43
Speaker 2: Always good to be here. Thank you,