Rauner vetoes will stand, Madigan’s unconstitutional budget dies today

To craft a balanced budget, lawmakers must go back to the drawing board.

Most of the unconstitutional budget that members of the Illinois General Assembly passed in June will expire as of July 30, leaving lawmakers back at square one for fiscal year 2016 appropriations.

After signing a handful of appropriations bills, such as those related to K-12 education, Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed most of the General Assembly’s unbalanced budget in late June. When these vetoes were sent back to lawmakers, the Senate took action and used its Democratic supermajority to override the vetoes on five appropriations bills on July 15. This left the House of Representatives responsible for passing a good chunk of the budget in spite of the governor’s veto.

According to the Illinois Constitution, once the first chamber overrides a veto, the second chamber has 15 days to take an override vote and pass the vetoed bill into law – meaning the House’s current 15-day window will end July 30. The House did not take up the five Senate bills on July 29 and will not meet again until the following week, so Rauner’s veto will stand.

Many think the House didn’t take an override vote because, despite having a supermajority of Democrats, House Speaker Mike Madigan did not have the support of his entire caucus on this measure – most notably state Reps. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, and Scott Drury, D-Highwood, both of whom did not vote for the unbalanced budget the first time around and have continued to state that they do not support it.

This means the General Assembly essentially needs to start from scratch on a new budget. Hopefully, this time they’ll come up with a balanced spending plan.