As the Illinois House today reaches the deadline to advance members’ bills out of committees, Representative David Friess and his Republican colleagues stressed that once again desperately needed ethics reforms were blocked from consideration by majority Democrats.
“Today is our final day to pass house bills out of committee…and how many of our ethics reform bills have made it out of committee to even be considered on the House floor? Zero.
With indictment after indictment, not a single ethics reform proposal we’ve introduced will even be debated in the chamber this spring. It’s shameful,” said Rep. Friess (R-Red Bud).
Rep. Friess this spring is co-sponsoring:
HB 1382 – Puts ‘teeth’ into the Legislative Inspector General’s office to issue subpoenas without first seeking approval from the people they may be investigating,
HB 1384 – Addresses local government lobbying reform.
HB 1385 – Closes the loophole in the current revolving door policy that allows a legislator to be a member one day and the next day be a lobbyist.
HB 3115 – 3-year revolving door lobbying ban for members of the General Assembly.
HB 3121 – Implements representation case and recusal reform.
HB 1554 – Bans public officials from using campaign funds for their own legal defense.
HB 2813 – Requires a 72-Hour budget review before a vote on the budget
“With approximately 500 House Bills making it out of committee this spring 89% have been Democrat-sponsored. Only 11% have been ideas put forward by those on our side of the aisle,” Rep. Friess said. “We’ve introduced the strong reforms we need to begin turning around our state’s reputation for corruption. Speaker Madigan is about to be sentenced following his corruption convictions. How many more indictments and convictions will it take for Democrats to stop playing partisan games and start working with us to solve these serious problems we’re facing?”