Governor Quinn delivered his annual state budget address this Wednesday to state legislators and called for a $450 million tax hike on Illinois businesses by closing what the Governor claims to be corporate tax “loop-holes” to pay for the state’s $9 billion backlog of unpaid bills.  The Governor proposes to repeal or eliminate the Non-Combination Rule, the Domestic Production Activity Credit, and the Foreig ...

The Illinois House ended up conducting two “weekly orders of business” this week, one focused on concealed carry legislation and another focused on public pension reform.  The concealed carry session went well into late Tuesday evening as the members debated 27 amendments to HB 1155.  No final legislation was passed, but the session allowed both sides of the debate to voice their opinions on the matter.  Am ...

Below is the first part of a two part series highlighting the Illinois Chamber’s legislative initiatives for 2013.  Stop Lawsuit “Loansharking” Lawsuit lending, also known as “Lawsuit Loansharking” is when lenders seek out plaintiffs with promising pending lawsuits and offers them up front cash to cover immediate living or medical expenses while they are engaged in a lawsuit and await settlement.  These thi ...

 Governor Quinn has called the General Assembly back to Springfield on August 17 for a special session consideration of pension reform. No legislation was specifically identified in the Governor's message. The House Rules Committee met earlier this week and advanced SB 3168 to the Personnel & Pensions Committee. The House had originally been scheduled to meet tomorrow to consider the expulsion of Rep. D ...

Last week the Governor quietly signed our Procurement clean-up bill into law.  SB2958 became effective on August 3.  The changes in our initiative addressed problems in the Procurement reform measure passed in SB51 from the previous General Assembly.  Chamber staff worked for two years to get these changes made and pulled together several working groups to negotiate these changes.  You can view our summary ...

At the request of the Illinois Chamber, the House Revenue & Finance Committee met yesterday in Chicago for a Subject Matter Hearing to consider needed reforms to the Illinois False Claims Act (a.k.a. the “Whistleblower Act”).    Connie Beard, Executive Director of the Illinois Chamber’s Tax Institute, testified in favor of needed reforms that would exclude tax cases from the False Claims Act and establi ...

 As you’ve already heard, the Supreme Court held the Act’s mandate requiring all citizens to own health insurance or pay a fine under the constitutional right by Congress to levy taxes.  The Court’s vote came out 5-4 with Chief Justice John Roberts surprising many by joining the liberals in the vote.  However, the Court also ruled that the federal government could not kick states off Medicaid if they refuse ...

The legislature has not scheduled any special session days yet to vote on pension reform.  However, the leaders did meet with the Governor this week and plan on meeting again soon.  In the meantime, a few pieces of legislation have been sent to the Governor for his signature.  Governor Quinn has 60 days to take action on these bills before they automatically become law. SB2958 is the Chamber’s Procurement i ...