New
UPDATE
FROM STEVE MORRILL, LOBBYIST
WEEK OF JANUARY 12
The Senate and House convened on Wednesday and Thursday
of this week, beginning the second year of the two-year 93rd
General Assembly. The legislature considered only a few items
during its only two session days in January.
The deadline
for submitting requests to get legislation drafted is Friday,
January 16. The deadline to introduce bills comes quickly,
with deadlines of February 6 in the Senate and February 9
in the House.
Bill introductions
were slow this week, keeping with tradition for the second
year of each General Assembly. The second year is often reserved
for budgetary and emergency matters; however, this guideline
is rarely adhered to. We do expect the 2004 session to see
less volume than 2003, which saw an extraordinary volume of
introduced legislation. The legislative leaders often seek
to limit the amount of legislation that moves in the second
year of a General Assembly, and we expect this year will be
no different. Further, the upcoming elections in which one-third
of the Senate and the entire House are up for re-election
will temper the desire to take on many controversial issues.
As you
know, we have been working throughout the summer and fall
on efforts to continue to move our corrections legislation,
HB 2572. Those efforts are not recounted here. We have
stayed in constant communication with Vickie Hand, our point
contact on this matter. It looks possible that the legislation
will be allowed to move when the legislature returns in February.
TWO
OTHER ITEMS OF NOTE ARE:
HB
3828 (Grunloh/J.Sullivan). This legislation would eliminate
the NPDES fees that hit some of our member crematories.
Status: Senate Local Government Committee.
SB
2091 (Welch). This legislation would restrict the siting
of crematories and has come about due to a concern in the
Senator's district.
Status: Senate Rules Committee.
The major
item of general note for this week was the Governor's State
of the State Address" a one and half hour speech given before
a joint session of the General Assembly at Noon on Thursday.
In the address, the Governor recounted successes from the
previous year, but spent the vast majority of his time addressing
his proposal to transfer all administrative functions from
the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) to a new State
Department of Education under the Governor"s jurisdiction
(ISBE was created by Illinois' 1970 Constitution).
In addition
to transferring ISBE's administrative authority and streamlining
the bureaucracy, the Governor proposed a number of new programs.
Those include:
- Providing
free books for all Illinois children from birth until
age 5.
- Reviving
Project Success to link families to various state
services helpful for their children to succeed in
school.
- Placing
reading specialists in failing Illinois elementary
schools.
- Requiring
40 hours of community service for high school students
to graduate.
- Banning
junk food and soda from school vending machines.
- Requiring
schools with 40% of the student population eligible
for free or reduced lunches to also offer breakfast.
- Studying
different routes for teacher certification.
- Creating
a Professional Teacher Standards Board to administer
the certification of teachers and other school personnel.
- Requiring
all K-8 teachers with a standard or master certificate
to complete 50% of their certificate renewal requirements
by taking courses in reading strategies at universities
or by participating in various professional development
opportunities.
- Creating
the Illinois Tech Prep Program to prepare students
who are not planning to attend a four-year university
for vocational careers.
-
Increase funding for the Early Childhood Block Grant
program.
-
Creating the GRAD program to aid in dropout prevention
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Both chambers
of the General Assembly reconvene for three days the first
week of February for the start of a busy month in Springfield.
Both the Senate and House will hold a number of perfunc-tory
session days in January to allow bills to be introduced and
assigned to standing committees.
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