Flawed property valuations and the process required to fix them are a cash cow for law firms, including those of House Speaker Mike Madigan, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke and Illinois Senate President John Cullerton.

House Bill 696 would freeze property taxes across the state. Under the plan, local governments could still increase rates, but only with approval from voters. The bill doesn’t apply to home-rule governments, however. That’s no small exemption: 7.8 million Illinoisans live in a home-rule municipality such Chicago, Naperville or Peoria. This number also doesn’t account for Cook County, which is also home-rule, and would be exempted from this property-tax freeze.

The Illinois House of Representatives voted against a proposal to freeze property taxes, denying much-needed relief to Illinoisans, who bear the third-highest property-tax burden in the nation.