In the News

Chicago Tribune, May 22, 2008

SPRINGFIELD — In a move that makes it more likely lawmakers will get a nearly 12 percent pay increase, the head of a Senate committee said Thursday that he'll use his power to prevent resolutions dealing with the issue from coming up for a vote this spring.

Sen. Rickey Hendon (D-Chicago), chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, told Republican senators who asked for a chance to vote the pay raises up or down that he won't allow those measures—or any legislation that doesn't deal with the budget—to advance by the May 31 adjournment deadline.

That's significant because the clock is ticking for the Senate to reject the raises, which would push lawmakers' base yearly salaries to $73,000, bump legislative leaders to more than $100,000 and also hike the pay of statewide officials and judges. The House already has rejected the pay increases, but they'll take effect unless the Senate does the same within a certain time frame.

Sen. Susan Garrett (D- Lake Forest), who has been leading the Senate charge against the raises, said she is "extremely disappointed" that Hendon and Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) are preventing a vote on the issue. She noted that 29 other senators have signed on as co-sponsors of her resolution against the raises, meaning she has just enough support to reject the pay increases.

Garrett said Jones and other Senate Democratic leaders "promised" there would be a vote on the issue. Hendon recently ridiculed Garrett as a hypocrite for opposing the raises, saying she is "filthy rich," a remark Garrett called "unfortunate."

"We don't want to hoodwink the taxpayers and mislead them into assuming that we deserve a raise without voting for it openly," Garrett said Thursday.

Jones, who told reporters earlier this month that "I need a pay raise," denied he promised a vote on the raises. Despite backing the raises, Jones claimed he is "fighting like heck" to get Hendon to let the pay-raise resolution come up for a vote.

At Thursday's committee meeting, however, Hendon said he'll be calling the shots.

Jones "is not chairman of rules, he is president of the Senate," Hendon, a strong Jones ally, said. "And he can do a lot of things that he wants to do. But as long as I am chairman of rules, I am going to make a lot of the decisions here."

The Senate has 30 working session days to reject the raises or they automatically take effect. There are varying interpretations on whether to count extra days scheduled when none of the senators is required to show up, so there could be as many as 10 more session days before the raises take effect.