Would New Legislature Repeal the Tax Hike?

If the vote been delayed for the new legislature to be sworn in Illinois there is a good chance the income tax hike vote wouldn’t have been passed.

With a historic income tax increase passing during the “lame duck” session, I thought it would be interesting to see how the votes would have come down with a new legislature.

The Illinois House voted 60-57 in favor of the tax hike.

16 legislators were considered “lame duck” and have since been replaced with new legislators in the Illinois House. Of those 16 legislators 12 voted in favor of the tax hike and 4 against it.

House Lame Duck “No” Tax Hike: 4 Votes

1. R-Suzanne Bassi
2. R-Robert Biggins
3. R-Elizabeth Coulson (Replaced by Democrat)
4. R-Ronald Wait

House Lame Duck “Yes” Tax Hike: 12 Votes

1. D- Michael Smith (Replaced by Republican)
2. D-Mark Walker (Replaced by Republican)
3. D-Robert Flider (Replaced by Republican)
4. D-Jay Hoffman (Replaced by Republican)
5. D-Careen Gordan (Replaced by Republican)
6. D-John O’’Sullivan
7. D-Michael Carberry
8. D-David Miller
9. D-Michael Boland (Replaced by Republican)
10. D-Paul Froehlich
11. D-Betsy Hanning (Replaced by Republican)
12. D-Kathy Moore

Presumably, all of the 7 new Republicans would have voted against the tax hike as not a single Republican voted for the tax hike and none of the new legislators campaigned for an income tax hike. Let’s also presume Republican Rep. Rosemary Mulligan would have voted against the tax hike had she voted (excused absence).

While he has made no firm commitment either way let’s suppose the new Democrat who replaced Rep. Elizabeth Coulson (Rep. Daniel Biss) voted in favor the tax hike. Let’s also suppose the other 5 new Democrats also voted in favor of the tax hike, as their predecessors did.

Underneath this scenario the House vote would fail by a vote of 54 to 64.

On the Senate side we likely would have seen a similar flip, however by much slimmer margins. The Senate vote was 30-29 in favor of the tax hike.

4 seats turned over in the Illinois Senate.

Senate Lame Duck “No” Tax Hike: 3 VotesR-Dan Rutherford

1. R-Randy Hultgren
2. D-Michael Bond

Senate Lame Duck “Yes” Tax Hike: 1 Vote

1. D-Deanna Demuzio (Replaced by Republican)

Sen. Demuzio’s yes vote would be replaced by a no vote by Sam McCann.

In this scenario the vote in the Senate would fail in a very close 29 to 30 margin.

The politically astute Democrats passed the income tax hikes by the bare minimum number of votes possible in both the House (60) and the Senate (30). This left room to protect as many Democrat legislators from voting yes on an issue that many voters in their home districts will be very upset with.

That being said, if an income tax hike repeal vote were pursued in the new legislature a number of Democrat legislators both in the Senate and House could be pressured to switch their stance to a pro-tax hike position.

However, it is doubtful that House Speaker Madigan or Senate President Cullerton would let a tax hike repeal vote make it out of committee to a full floor vote.

If the vote had been delayed for the new legislature to be sworn in Illinois there is a very good chance the income tax hike would have failed. At the very least a number of politically vulnerable Democratic legislators might have had to switch their votes to ensure passage, leaving them more vulnerable in 2012 and 2014.

Image source: Illinois News Network