State lawmakers passed more than 400 bills over the last five months, but the spring legislative session that concluded over the weekend will be remembered more for what legislators didn’t get done before the clock ran out.
The hectic final hours in Springfield saw legislators scrambling to get a $55.2 billion budget over the finish line before a midnight deadline, leaving little political bandwidth to rescue Chicago-area transit agencies from a fast-approaching fiscal doomsday, or agree on a plan to boost renewable energy sources. And they extended the Bears’ losing streak at the Capitol in the team’s quest for a new stadium.
Here’s a look at what Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, state Senate President Don Harmon and their Democratic supermajorities did an