I hope your new year is off to a good start. I’ve been busy representing the 114th district and wanted to fill you in!
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
I’m so honored that the 114th District has placed their trust in me once again I’m going to continue working tirelessly to be a true voice for our community, not a cog in the Springfield machine. We have big challenges ahead in Illinois and I will work every day to find solutions that will bring jobs back, lower the tax burden, and support our first responders. This is a public service, not self-service. This is why I voted against the legislator pay raises last year, and donate it back to my community each month.
HOUSE RULES
Madigan’s House Rules renewed for two more years. The little-known Rules that control the legislative process in Illinois were voted on Thursday in the Illinois House of Representatives. Adopting a set of procedural rules to govern the House for the next two years is one of the most important votes a legislator will cast.
The Rules for the 104th General Assembly were drafted by the Democrat supermajority with no input from the Republican minority. These Rules will govern the House of Representatives for the next two years. House Republicans did propose reasonable changes that would increase accountability and transparency; however, the proposal was rejected by the supermajority.
More egregiously, the Rules are designed to give ultimate authority to the Speaker of the House instead of the legislative body. The new Rules, as in the past, give the Speaker powers to define the number of committees and their legislative makeup. Because committee chairpersons receive an increase in pay, often large numbers of committees are created to ensure the greater number of chairpersons can owe their allegiance to the Speaker who makes the appointments.
The Rules also dictate which bills see the light of day, specifically, whether the legislation will receive a public hearing in a standing committee or die in the Rules Committee without one. We’ve seen it with legislation dealing with gerrymandering and terms limits, among other initiatives.
We’ve also witnessed the Democrat majority breaking the Rules. Last year, in the final hours of the legislative session, the Speaker allowed lawmakers to vote three times on one piece of legislation to raise nearly one billion dollars in taxes. The bill passed on the third vote after failing twice before. The Rules only allowed for two votes.
What’s more, the Rule-making process is designed to prevent the minority from holding the supermajority accountable. At the same time, the Rules stop the supermajority caucus from being able to hold the Speaker accountable.
Yet this week, all members of the Democrat supermajority voted to implement the Rules that will cede their power to one man. After former Speaker Michael Madigan’s long reign of power was ended, Emanuel “Chris” Welch took over as Speaker. During his first inaugural address after taking the Speaker’s gavel, he said it was a “New Day” in Illinois.
Unfortunately, Speaker Welch went back on his promise to turn the page to a “New Day”, and the House Rules that Madigan put in place are the same Rules that the Illinois House is operating under today. It’s a classic case of, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
I issued the following statement after I voted against these rules:
“These rules adopted by House Democrats today ensure that the failed status quo will remain in place. The interests of the more than 4 million Illinoisans represented by House Republicans will suffer as a result of House Democrats passing these Rules. Instead of using this opportunity to return representative democracy to the people by allowing all bills to be assigned to a Committee and to receive a fair and open hearing. The Rules adopted by the House today do not accomplish that goal.”
LAME DUCK
Lame duck session ends for the 103rd General Assembly. The 103rd General Assembly adjourned “sine die,” which means “without a day” to return, on Tuesday, January 7.
The 103rd General Assembly failed to take many actions sought by Illinois families in 2023 and 2024. Challenges not taken up by the former General Assembly include the soaring State budget deficit, the stagnating Illinois economy and high cost of living, rising crime rates, and a culture of corruption in government. The lame duck session continued this record of inaction, and House Minority Leader Tony McCombie criticized Illinois’ Democratic leaders for making the taxpayers spend money on a January session that turned to be largely empty of content. With a fiscal year 2026 budget deficit now estimated at $3.2 billion, urgent action will be needed to bring the State’s spending under control. Failure to do so created a significant missed opportunity in Springfield.
CANNABIS
Speaker Welch blocks action on intoxicating hemp ban. House Democrats refused to take action this week on a bill to strictly regulate, or ban, intoxicating hemp products. These products, which are packaged and sold as goods that are separate from strictly regulated cannabis, can be ‘salted’ or infused with chemicals that are said to produce psychoactive responses akin to cannabis. Licensed members of the legal Illinois cannabis industry, who are given through criminal background checks and who pay heavy taxes, are deeply concerned about what they see as unfair competition.
Hemp products such as these are sometimes called “cannabinoid hemp.” Sold under names such as “Delta-8,” they claim that they offer the same outcomes as doses of cannabis, without the necessity to go to a dispensary and show proof of age. Proponents of a crackdown on intoxicating hemp products continue to call for action to protect children and young adults from these products.
A bill was drafted in Springfield for the 103rd General Assembly to crack down on intoxicating hemp products. However, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch refused to call the bill for a vote during the final hours of the 2025 lame duck session, after a raucous House Democratic Caucus meeting during which Pritzker Administration staff were called liars and humiliated by some caucus members, leading to one agency staffer leaving in tears and a demand by Governor Pritzker that the members apologize to his staff. The House Democrats’ failure to act on a ban means that proponents of the Delta-8 crackdown must now start over. The issue of intoxicating hemp product regulation will be part of the workload of the new 104th General Assembly.
JOBS
Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (CGFA) report points out stagnant economy. The CGFA report covers overall economic trends within the State of Illinois, including tax payments to the State in December 2024. Operating with data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, CGFA has looked at five-year changes in the gross domestic products (GDP) generated within Illinois’ major metro areas. Using the five-year period starting in 2019 created a data set that straddles the 2020-22 COVID-19 pandemic and enables a look at long-term trends without fluctuations created by widespread lockdowns.
The data reported on by CGFA creates additional evidence that, in CGFA’s words, “Illinois metro areas have lagged behind most of the nation in GDP growth since 2019.” The lag is closely associated with a perceived loss of Illinois-based market share in key U.S. industries. CGFA points with particularity to a perceived loss of market share within metro Bloomington-Normal in the fields of finance and insurance. This matches many other indications that U.S. finance jobs and headquarters, formerly based in Illinois, are moving to other cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami.
CGFA also charted a significant increase in personal income payments from Illinois workers to Springfield in December 2024. Reported personal income tax payments increased during this 31-day period by $524 million from the year-earlier period in December 2023. CGFA reported, however, that the perceived income spike displayed by these numbers was affected by an accounting quirk called the “true-up.” The “true-up” is a periodic procedure that takes place to realign how moneys should be credited to standard income taxes as opposed to net credits to the Personal Property Replacement Tax, a state income tax surcharge imposed on corporations and pass-through entities. The December 2024 “spike” in reported personal income tax revenues cannot be expected to continue into 2025.
FLAG OF ILLINOIS
Voting begins on ten potential new State of Illinois flag designs. The ten designs are the finalists from nearly 5,000 designs submitted by the public. From these submissions, the Illinois Flag Commission selected ten finalists. This week, the ten winning designs were posted for advisory public vote. Illinoisans can also look at, and vote for, three existing flag designs: the current flag of Illinois, the 1918 Centennial flag of Illinois, and the 1968 Sesquicentennial flag of Illinois.
The public vote for a new Illinois flag is purely advisory. Participants in this voting procedure can cast multiple votes on the website of the Flag Commission, but they must sign in and can cast only one vote per day. The public vote will continue until February 14, 2025.
After compiling and scrutinizing the vote, the Illinois Flag Commission will, on a date not later than April 1, 2025, submit a report to the General Assembly. The report will include the finalist flag designs and will include a recommendation (which will be advisory and will not have force of law) as to which design ought to be selected. The General Assembly will make the final decision on whether Illinois should enact a new flag design or should keep our existing flag design.
The existing Illinois flag is a white banner with a complex, patriotic motif that includes an eagle, a motto on a scroll, the Star-Spangled shield of the United States, a rising sun, and the state’s name, “Illinois.” The ten Illinois State Flag finalists were announced on Tuesday, December 10.
DISTRICT EVENTS
I’m so excited to share my plan for events around the district in 2025. The year is going to be packed with useful events for everyone across the district. Stay tuned!
I hope you all stay warm and safe with the incoming winter weather. If you’d like assistance with any state agencies, please contact my office.
Thank you for reading Schmidt’s Spotlight!