Page 18 - JULY 2016 Newsletter

New legislation, new beginnings:
A bipartisan victory for law enforcement
We have all heard the reports about the dys- function in Springfield. Bipartisan super ma- jority votes in favor of controversial issues have been rare lately, but I am glad to report to you that our efforts have led to two such victories in Springfield for police issues. Dean Angelo has focused on building good relationships with Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature and the positive result of
time, the Legislature overrode a contested veto of Gover- nor Rauner. The Legislature passed SB 777 and the Gover- nor vetoed it. This is the bill that reset the payment ramp for Chicago’s police and fire pension payments so they are rendered more realistic. We needed to pick up a few other votes for the override and we did. It was an example of
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that effort was evident in the final scheduled days
of the spring session. R
police and fire and the Mayor’s office working together. Originally, there were only 65 “yes” votes in the House but we needed to get to at least 71 votes to override the veto. Through a lot of hard work we were able to override the veto with 72 votes from Republican Michael McAuliffe of Chicago being joined by suburban Republicans David Harris and David McSweeney and most of the House Democrats. We needed a strong bipartisan vote to win and we got it. Speaker Madigan and his team were instrumental in our success. House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie was our sponsor. Senate President John Cullerton led the ef- fort in the Senate where we received another strong bi-
partisan vote.
The other key issue on which we were successful was SB
440, which received a huge bipartisan vote in both cham- bers. Our efforts in the Senate were led by our sponsors: Senators John Mulroe, Bill Cunningham and Marty San- doval. Our House efforts were led by our sponsors: Rep- resentatives Dan Burke, Fran Hurley, Mike McAuliffe, Rob Martwick, Natalie Manley and Deb Conroy. Passing this bill, among other actions, corrected a couple of pension mistakes that impact some widow payments so that they will not be less than 125 percent of the Federal Poverty Level, and fixed a COLA issue by moving the “born before date” to 1966 for annuitants who have contributed to but not received this benefit.
Even with the city against us, we were able to get 86 “yes” votes in the House and 39 in the Senate – many more than the super majority mark of 71 and 36, respectively. Speak- er Madigan and President Cullerton again provided tre- mendous support and were joined in this effort by House Republican Leader Jim Durkin.
There were many other bills we opposed that were held and therefore not voted on, ranging from requiring the carrying of tasers to keeping complaint records to FOIA issues relating to videos and other topics. SB 392 was passed which expands the Torture Inquiry Commission. Although we were tracking dozens of bills, many of which would not have been helpful to police efforts, almost all did not pass. In what many thought would be a terrible legislative session for police, it turned out much better than feared. d
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While the legislative session was scheduled to
end on May 31, it did not. Budget issues remain as Illinois completes its first year without a budget and enters a second consecutive year. There is, unfortunately, no end in sight to this impasse.
While stalemate at the Capitol continues, the Chicago FOP did make some significant progress on a couple of major issues. Working with our partners at the Chicago Fire Fighters Union, we were able to successfully pass a couple of important pieces of legislation. For the first
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18 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JULY 2016