By PETER HANCOCK
Capitol News Illinois
phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – Top leaders of the Illinois House and Senate say there is still no timetable for calling lawmakers back into session, but they have launched a process for narrowing down the topics they’ll need to address whenever they do return.
In recent weeks, both the House and Senate have formed what they are calling “working groups” that are focusing primarily on how to resume state services and reboot the state’s economy once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.
The House has organized 14 such working groups, focusing on policy areas such as access to health care, economic recovery, child welfare, food accessibility, education and mental health and addiction.
In the Senate, there are 17 working groups focusing on many of the same topics as well as the state budget, executive orders, gaming, regulatory relief and unemployment insurance.
Officials have been careful, though, to stress that the working groups are not legislative committees and that they are not authorized to draft legislation, hear testimony or take votes.
“These are far more informal,” Rep. Michael Zalewski, a Riverside Democrat and co-chair of the House economic recovery working group, said this week. “I think they’re simply ways for us to congregate and hear each other out and compare notes and ideas about what we’re going to face in the near future, when we do return to normal regular order.”
The difference between “working groups” and legislative committees is important because Article IV, Section 5 of the Illinois Constitution requires all meetings of the General Assembly, as well as legislative committees and commissions to be open to the public, unless two-thirds of the chamber votes to close them.
Scott Szala, who teaches about the state Constitution at the University of Illinois College of Law, said the drafters probably never anticipated a situation like the one the General Assembly now faces, and there have been no Supreme Court cases since the Constitution was ratified in 1970 to clarify how far that provision extends.
In fact, he said, the only case dealing with that constitutional provision came in 2001 when the Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by the Illinois Press Association and several member newspapers against then-Gov. George Ryan over media access to meetings of legislative and executive ethics commissions. The court rejected that suit on the grounds that the governor was not a proper defendant in the case.
Zalewski agreed that the drafters of the state Constitution probably didn’t envision such a scenario.
“I think that it’s incumbent upon us to at least somewhat organize ourselves into policy silos to be ready for whatever’s coming next,” he said.
Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington, said he accepts the fact that the working groups have only a limited charge.
“I would have to tell you that I think if we have to do any votes or anything substantive like that, we’re going to have to be back to the Capitol, I think, in order to effectively make sure that what we’re doing is seen by the electorate and that people have the opportunity to be part of it,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady, also a Bloomington Republican but no relation to Dan Brady, said the working groups are needed so lawmakers can focus on the tasks that will face them when they reconvene.
“These are challenging and difficult times. (Senate) President (Don) Harmon and I talked about what we can do to work on making sure that the legislators were educated and we didn’t lose the time that we have to do that,” he said.
