Illinois Might Have an Emergency, But Don’t Expect the Legislature To Do Anything

The President of the Illinois State Senate, Don Harmon, a Democrat from Oak Park, was really excited about the election results.  Even with the defeat of the Fair Tax, he said, in a comment in our local newspaper, the Wednesday Journal, “We did it.”  Now, however, with Illinois facing a financial crisis because of the defeat of the Fair Tax and facing another coronavirus wave, Senator Harmon is saying, “We can’t do it”; i.e., the legislature can’t meet for its fall session.  It wouldn’t be safe, he says, with the virus surging in Springfield and around the state.

Doctors and nurses are working.  Police officers and firefighters are there for us.  And grocery stores and drug stores are open, and their workers are helping us with our food and medicine.  But the state legislature meeting to pass laws to deal with these crises?  It’s too dangerous.¹

But if it is too dangerous for the legislators to meet in person, why can’t they meet virtually?  People are doing their jobs this way all over the state.  I understand there might be a need to change the rules to allow this, but that is something Senator Harmon could have been working on in July and August.²  Health officials were predicting another wave of the virus this winter.  Legislative leaders could have been organizing things last summer so the legislature could do its job now.  But apparently, this wasn’t done.

In a letter I wrote to the Wednesday Journal in October, I suggested, in effect, that what we needed in Springfield wasn’t the Fair Tax.  What we needed was new people.  This is a perfect example of that.
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¹ Actually, Senator Harmon might be right in a way he didn’t intend.  It is always dangerous when the legislature is in session.  When I was a legislative staff intern with the Illinois House of Representatives in 1970-71 (yes, for those who might ask, Michael Madigan was there), one of the people in the Legislative Reference Bureau had a sign by his desk that read: “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe with the legislature is in session.”  While Gideon Tucker wrote this in 1866 about the New York legislature, it was true in Illinois when I was in Springfield, and it is still true today.
² I say July and August because you obviously couldn’t expect Senator Harmon to do anything in September or October.  Those months are for campaigning, which is more important than governing.
UPDATED (11/14/20 8:20 pm): Inserted a word that was omitted in the third paragraph.
UPDATED (11/25/20 11:15 pm): A version of this post was published as a letter to the editor in the Wednesday Journal today.  You can find it here.