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Spotcheck
Newsletter of the Illinois
Campaign for Political Reform
September
02, 2003
In this Issue
* Legislative Update
* Web Site Update
Legislative Update
Governor Blagojevich has completed his review of measures passed by the General
Assembly during the spring session. The Governor used his amendatory
veto on at least 35 of the bills submitted to him; a record in recent memory.
Here's an update on what happened with several political reform measures:
HB 3412: The Ethics Bill. As expected, the governor issued an amendatory veto of the ethics bill. His AV restores an ethics commission and inspector general to investigate accusations of unethical behavior in the Executive Branch. These provisions were removed from the original bill the final day of the spring session. To read the full text (PDF) of the amendatory veto click here.
The legislature will have the opportunity to consider the amended version of this bill when it reconvenes for the November Veto Session. If the Governor's proposed changes are not approved by a majority of both chambers or if they are not overridden by a three-fifths majority of both chambers, House Bill 3412 will be dead.
An alternative, which the governor left open in his veto message is to continue working with the legislative leaders and constitutional officers to develop a new piece of ethics legislation.
SB 706: Secretary of State Inspector General. This bill, signed into
law,
establishes that the Secretary of State's office have a permanent Inspector
General.
The measure is designed to ensure that the Secretary of State's Inspector General
will be highly qualified and politically independent of the Secretary of State.
The current
Inspector General is former U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois Jim
Burns.
SB 428: The Help America Vote Act Implementation Bill. This measure, which the Governor signed into law, is designed to bring Illinois into compliance with federal legislation and to reduce the likelihood of another Florida-like debacle after a presidential election by setting standards for counting votes and to provide for the phase out of punch card balloting. The bill also includes measures to enhance campaign finance disclosure, to reduce the signature requirements for statewide referenda, and to facilitate sending pollwatchers around the state.
Web Site
We are in the process of updating our Web site with the latest candidate
financial information. In addition, we are in the process of creating a new
Web interface to make the site more user friendly. Please check back with ilcampaign.org
over the coming weeks and let us know what you think.
