June 12, 2003

The Illinois Campaign Reform Coalition issued the following statement in response to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's announcement that he plans to revise HB 3412, the ethics reform legislation, with an amendatory veto:

We share the Governor's disappointment in the recent failure of legislation to create a system of ethics commissions and inspectors general, and we are encouraged by his desire to establish such an investigation and enforcement mechanism in state government.

While the reform community has expressed concerns about the amendatory veto approach, we take the Governor's action to be indicative of his personal commitment to enacting comprehensive ethics reform legislation. We are committed to working with the Constitutional officers and the legislature to ensure that a meaningful ethics package is adopted in the Veto Session. We will talk with them in the coming weeks about how best to guarantee that all of the reforms in HB 3412 become law, and we remain committed to the creation of ethics commissions for the executive and legislative branches.

Illinois has had far too many problems for far too long for us to allow true ethics reform to slip from our grasp. The people of Illinois deserve better.

NOTE: As passed by the legislature, HB 3412 would mandate ethics training for all state employees, give state workers a clear definition of political activity that is prohibited while on the job, increase lobbying information available to the public and limit the ability of state officials to use state funds to promote themselves.

Click here to view the press release from the Governor's office: http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=2153

Click here to visit the website of the Illinois Campaign Reform Coalition: www.ilcleangovernment.org

ICPR is a founding member of the Illinois Campaign Reform Coalition.