SZALINSKI’S SUMMARY: House committees voted Tuesday to advance two constitutional amendments. One would raise taxes on millionaires while the other would rewrite redistricting rules to explicitly allow mapmakers to consider racial makeup of a district.
DEADLINE: The House must pass the bills by the end of the week if they want them to appear to voters on November ballots. That’s because the chamber is not scheduled to meet again before the May 3 deadline for the legislature to approve constitutional amendments. Supermajority votes are required in both chambers, meaning 71 in the House and 36 in the Senate. Democrats easily clear those amounts. Constitutional amendment resolutions do not require the governor’s signature.
NO SLAM DUNK: Although both amendments were approved by the committees, they still need to go to the floor for a vote. It’s not clear yet if they can both receive 71 votes, however. A little more than 60 Democrats voted on Tuesday afternoon to suspend the House rules to allow the amendments to be heard in committee. The redistricting amendment was sent to the House Executive Committee, while the millionaires tax went to revenue, both advancing on partisan lines.
MILLIONAIRES TAX: Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said earlier this year that he would push lawmakers to pass a constitutional amendment establishing a millionaires tax. The amendment is needed because the constitution requires a flat income tax rate for everyone, which voters decided to stick with in 2020 when they were asked to support a graduated structure.
The amendment by Rep. Natalie Manley, D-Joliet, would impose a 3% tax on income over $1 million. Such a tax would bring in about $2.1 billion in revenue annually, according to the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, which also warned in a fiscal note filed on the bill that it can greatly vary year to year.
Revenue from the tax would be split equally between the state’s K-12 school funding formula and property tax relief.
REDISTRICTING: Another amendment by Welch would rewrite the state’s redistricting rules that are currently enshrined in the constitution. It would establish a priority list of stating lawmakers should draw districts:
- “to be substantially equal in population;
- to ensure that no citizen is denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of his or her choice on account of race;
- to create, where practical, racial coalition or influence Districts;
- to be contiguous; and
- to the extent practicable, to be compact.”
WHAT’S DIFFERENT: The constitution currently directs lawmakers to ensure districts are compact, contiguous and substantially equal in population. It doesn’t say if any criteria are more important than the other.
WHY THIS WAS PROPOSED: Welch said he filed the amendment to ensure Illinois redistricting complies what is now the Voting Rights Act should the Supreme Court act to walk back that federal legislation.
House Republicans believe it’s in response to a lawsuit they filed last year, that the Illinois Supreme Court ultimately tossed because it was filed too late. The lawsuit argued dozens of legislative districts were not compact based on a prior court ruling decades ago.
“We wouldn’t be too late again and they know it,” Rep. Dan Ugaste, R-Geneva, said at a news conference. “And we point out where their maps are flawed and they’d lose this time and so now they have to change the system.”
NEXT WEEK: If both amendments are approved in the House, the Senate will have to approve them by the end of next week before the May 3 deadline. It’s possible that both amendments are House projects and have not yet been coordinated with the Senate to ensure their passage.
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