Page 22 - FOP September 2016

Progress during downtime
The Legislature is not currently in session. A primary focus of the state’s elected officials now is the upcoming fall election. There are several heated races across the state, but not many in Chicago.
The Governor has been acting on bills that have passed the General Assembly. We will know by Labor Day what the Gov- ernor chooses to do with SB 440. This
of 71 and 36, respectively. Speaker Michael Madigan and President John Cullerton again provided tremen- dous support along with House Republican Leader Jim Durkin. If there is a veto or an amendatory veto, the leadership of the Chicago FOP Lodge 7 and the Chica- go Fire Fighters Union will need to decide a strategy for
the fall veto session, which will happen after the November elections.
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bill received a large bipartisan vote in both the R
While campaigns have been in full swing, there continue to be new faces in the Legislature even now, before Election Day. District 81 Re- publican State Representative Ron Sandack has resigned and been replaced by David Olsen who has been a Downers Grove Village Trustee. Senator Matt Murphy has announced his retirement, effective Sept. 15. The Palatine Republican has the great expense of having children in college, so he will be joining the pri- vate sector. Both have been strong allies of Governor
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House and the Senate. This bill, among other things, corrected a couple of pension mistakes
that impact some widow payments so that they now 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 “yes” votes in the Senate – many more than the super majority mark
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22 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ SEPTEMBER 2016