From the SJ-R:
Ethics law on the books
Senate joins House in passing bill that limits political donations
By RYAN KEITH
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Sep 23, 2008 @ 12:00 AM
Last update Sep 23, 2008 @ 12:36 AM
 
Ending months of political gamesmanship, state lawmakers put into law Monday their attempt at ethics reform through limits on political donations by government contractors.
The Senate voted 55-0 for the original version of House Bill 824, which bars people with contracts worth $50,000 or more from giving political donations to state officeholders who dole out the business. The House already backed that measure, so it’s now law.
Lawmakers and reform advocates who had pushed for the crackdown on “pay-to-play” politics breathed a big sigh of relief after a competing proposal by Gov. Rod Blagojevich had threatened to derail their measure.
“Today, the people have won,” state Comptroller Dan Hynes said. “Ending pay-to-play politics in Illinois is the right thing to do, and it is long overdue.”
The major ethics vote was one of several measures Monday where the Senate reversed changes Blagojevich made to bills, covering everything from state employee political donations to food allergy policies in schools.
But the contractor-donation ban was the biggest issue facing lawmakers and the reason they were back in town in late September.
After years of back-and-forth negotiations, legislators aimed their measure at Blagojevich for taking large donations from state contractors. The governor said the bill didn’t go far enough and used his veto pen to change it in August.
His changes expanded the donation ban to all state officeholders and lawmakers and included several new restrictions on legislators. Reform advocates and lawmakers balked, saying the changes went too far and should be considered in separate bills.
The House voted two weeks ago to override the governor’s changes, but Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, refused to bring the Senate back to take that up until presidential candidate Barack Obama — a political protege — called him last week.
Blagojevich even called both chambers into special session Monday to pressure them into taking up his ethics ideas, but that didn’t stop them from overriding his changes first.
“Hallelujah! I never thought we would get here,” said Sen. Christine Radogno, R-Lemont.
The new law starts Jan. 1, along with an executive order Blagojevich issued in August applying the donation ban to people with large-dollar contracts with agencies under his control.
“I think this is a big step forward for Illinois,” said Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park.
The governor didn’t get totally shut out. The Senate Executive Committee advanced a bill including his ethics ideas to the Senate floor Monday evening, possibly setting up a vote today.
Blagojevich applauded the Senate for advancing his ideas while playing down the significance of the ethics override vote.
“The General Assembly didn’t really move the ball forward. They only followed my lead and are just now catching up with something that I did two months ago,” Blagojevich said in a statement.
Advocates said lawmakers should continue to pursue reforms, such as other limits on donations and better disclosure and lobbyist-oversight laws.
“The General Assembly has listened to the people of Illinois and enacted much-needed pay-to-play reforms. We now need to work together to build on that reform and do more to improve the integrity, accountability and transparency of state government,” said Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.
The Senate Monday also:
— Rejected the governor’s third effort to require insurance coverage of autism treatment, even though he called a special session Monday morning specifically on that issue.
— Voted 55-0 to allow another ethics bill to proceed without the governor’s proposed ban on political donations by state and local government employees, saying it went too far.
“The governor’s veto basically had no rational point of view why he vetoed it,” said Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan, in pushing for the override.
— By the same vote, overrode Blagojevich vetoes that would have required some hospitals to provide more discounts to uninsured patients, and that would have forced schools to develop policies to deal with students with severe food allergies.
Blagojevich said in a statement he was “extremely disappointed” by the Senate votes, calling the food allergy vote a “regrettable action.”
Those three measures all need approval by the House to be put into law without the governor’s changes. That could happen today.