Illinois lawmakers are returning to Springfield on Tuesday with three of the marquee issues from their spring legislative session — an energy policy overhaul, new legislative district maps and a revamp of government ethics laws — still unresolved.
Less than 24 hours before they were scheduled to convene in Springfield for one day, Democrats who control the legislature on Monday unveiled their latest attempt to strike a compromise between backers in organized labor and environmental groups on an energy plan that would put the state on a path to 100% renewable energy by 2050.
They also introduced a new set of proposed legislative district boundaries to replace the ones Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law in June. The maps were redrawn in light of results from the full 2020 census that were released earlier this month.
Democrats are almost certain to approve the new maps over Republican objections to the process. But it remains unclear whether lawmakers will take up an energy proposal that would put power customers on the hook for a nearly $700 million bailout of three nuclear plants owned by the parent company of scandal-plagued Commonwealth Edison.
The energy proposal introduced Monday was a nonstarter with Pritzker, who promised to veto the plan if legislators pass it on to his desk, the governor’s office said late Monday.
Lawmakers are under intense pressure to act soon because ComEd parent Exelon has said it will shut down its Byron nuclear plant next month and its Dresden plant later this year if it doesn’t get more assistance from Springfield.
Exelon’s threatened deadlines for closing the plants come roughly a year after ComEd admitted in federal court that it had engaged in a yearslong bribery scheme aimed at advancing its agenda at the Capitol.
“Without action over the next couple of days — now — we will lose these two facilities and the thousands of good-paying jobs they provide,” Pat Devaney, secretary treasurer of the Illinois AFL-CIO, said Monday during a Senate committee hearing.
Negotiations on the energy proposal stalled earlier this summer after lawmakers were called back to the Capitol in June. At the time, Senate President Don Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat, pointed to a lack of agreement among unions and environmentalists over how coal and natural gas power plants should be phased out.
By early August, a coalition of labor groups told Pritzker they believed the talks had reached an impasse, while environmental groups contended the unions keep changing their demands amid ongoing negotiations.
Pritzker sided with the environmental groups, telling the labor coalition in an Aug. 2 letter that he had “negotiated in good faith as pro-coal forces have shifted the goal posts throughout this process.”
Tensions have since eased, with both sides expressing optimism that a deal can be reached.
But as of Monday evening, the environmental groups and the governor’s office remained opposed to the latest iteration of an energy plan, in large part because it would allow the Prairie State Generating Station in southern Illinois — the largest source of carbon pollution in the state and one of the largest in the country — and the city-owned coal plant in Springfield to continue releasing carbon emissions through 2045.
“We are out of time for half-measures that sound nice but push action on climate off decades into the future,” J.C. Kibbey of the Natural Resources Defense Council told the Senate committee.
Still, Sierra Club Illinois Director Jack Darin told lawmakers he believed a deal could be reached.
“We’ve made lots and lots of progress, and that gives us optimism that we can close the gaps that remain before tomorrow,” Darin said.
Backers of the latest plan, however, said it would go a long way toward supporting the clean energy industry and would prevent an immediate spike in carbon emissions they say would quickly follow the closure of two Exelon nuclear plants.
State Sen. Bill Cunningham of Chicago, a lead energy negotiator for Democrats, said there will be time in the coming years to continue improving on the state’s energy policy.
“Though there are a lot of dates in this bill that reach far into the future … this bill is not going to be the final word from the General Assembly on energy policy until we reach those dates” targeted for achieving 100% renewable energy, Cunningham said.
Democrats may give their final word Tuesday on new state legislative district boundaries designed to secure their control of the General Assembly for the next decade, though ongoing court challenges to the maps approved earlier this year could require further action.
The maps approved earlier by lawmakers were prepared using population estimates from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey because complete data from the 2020 census wasn’t released until mid-August.
If Democrats waited for the full data, they would have missed a June 30 deadline to enact a new map and risked giving Republicans a 50-50 shot at taking control of the process.
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A federal judge last week rejected a Republican effort to invalidate the previous maps and trigger the process that could hand control to the GOP, but he also denied a request from Democrats to dismiss the case outright.
U.S. District Judge Robert Dow warned Democrats that they should address concerns about undercounted minority populations when approving new maps during Tuesday’s special session.
That’s just what Democrats said they attempted to do with the new proposed boundaries introduced Monday, including an effort to put more of the Orthodox Jewish community into a single House and Senate district. The new maps also make a greater effort to keep more communities within single districts, Democrats said.
“The changes proposed for the legislative boundaries better reflect the data we recently received from the U.S. Census and ensure communities are represented by the people of their choice,” Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez of Cicero, chair of the House Redistricting Committee, said in a statement. “These changes reflect input gathered at public hearings across the state and I’m incredibly grateful to every person who participated to make sure their voices were heard.”
But Shlomo Soroka of Agudath Israel of Illinois said the newest map actually further divides the Orthodox Jewish community on the Northwest Side and in the northwest suburbs.
“I actually refuse to believe this was done intentionally, but if it was a mistake, it’s not too late to fix,” Soroka said during a hearing on redistricting late Monday.
Hernandez said the situation would be reviewed.
Rep. Tim Butler of Springfield, the top Republican on the House Redistricting Committee, called the public hearings cited by Hernandez a “sham” in a series of tweets Monday, pointing to a lack of in-person attendance from Democrats at a series of hearings over the weekend.
“The words of House Dems that these hearings are about doing all they can to garner public input does not match their actions in any way,” Butler wrote.
While in Springfield, lawmakers may also vote on whether to accept a small change Pritzker has proposed to a controversial ethics overhaul approved this spring.
Pritzker on Friday endorsed the overall package that aims to take on Illinois’ pervasive culture of political corruption but used his amendatory veto power to make what he describe as a tweak to fix a “technical drafting error” in a section dealing with the executive inspector general’s office.
Lawmakers must vote by a simple majority to accept his proposed change; otherwise, the measure is vetoed.
The wide-ranging proposal faced a strong pushback from good-government groups who argued that it doesn’t go far enough to address the issues brought to light in the ongoing corruption investigation that lead to ComEd’s admissions in federal court. The legislature’s top watchdog, Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope, resigned because she believed the measure weakened her ability to ferret out wrongdoing by lawmakers.
dpetrella@chicagtribune.com
