As you may know Gov. Quinn has called the General Assembly into Special Session regarding pensions. Members of the House Personnel and Pension Committee will meet later this afternoon.
Originally they planned to vote on Speaker Madigan’s amendment to SB 2404. SB 2404 is the pension bill supported by the PBPA and the We Are One coalition. The amendment would gut 2404 and replace it with Madigan’s proposed bill (SB 1) which has already been resoundingly rejected by the Senate.
We have been lobbying House members hard and asking our members to contact their Reps and Senators to demand that the House vote on SB 2404 without the Madigan amendment. It would seem that our efforts are paying off.
It was just announced that the House committee this afternoon will not be acting on the new version of SB 2404. Testimony will be presented on the bill in a subject matter only hearing.
We have been told that the plan for tomorrow’s Special Session day is for the Senate to non-concur on the Madigan backed amendment to Senate Bill 1. While the House has already passed this bill the Senate rejected it by a vote of 42-16 on the last day of Regular Session.
The plan is for the House to then use a rare legislative maneuver by refusing to recede, sending the issue to a conference committee. The conference committee would then be charged with attempting to bring an agreed bill back to both chambers.
As always, we will update this page as things develop.