With almost two decades as an assistant state attorney in Cook County, state Sen. John Curran (R-Downers Grove) is keen on investigating ethical misconduct. Last week he and the Senate GOP filed comprehensive ethics reform legislation.
The Senate Republicans announced this at a May 17 news conference.
“While we appreciate and agree with many of the provisions in the Senate Bill 4 put forth by the Senate Democrats, there are several measures in Senate Bill 4 we do not agree with and quite frankly, Senate Bill 4 as a whole, does not go far enough,” Curran said. “We have just filed Senate Bill 1350, which is the Senate Republican proposal on transformative, meaningful ethics reform for the state of Illinois. Our proposal strengthens the measures found in Senate Bill 4 and includes additional provisions that provide the state with the ability to clean up its own mess without having to wait for the federal authorities to come in and do it for us.”
He said the bill gives the legislative inspector general the authority to independently investigate and issue subpoenas without the consent of the Legislative Ethics Commission, a group “that is, of course, made up of legislators,” Curran said.
“We need to restore trust in the state government, trust in the General Assembly with the public.”
SB1350, according to the Senate GOP, will hold elected officials more accountable.
“Our bill includes everything Senate Bill 4 includes,” the Senate Ethics Committee Minority spokesperson said. “It just goes several steps further in restoring the integrity and the trust in state government. We had one hearing in the Senate Ethics Committee, and that was on April 21, where we discussed Senate Bill 4. All of our proposals have been filed last year and this year, and we have not got one hearing on any of our proposals involving ethics change and reform. Our discussion on Senate Bill 4, while productive, was left with the promise of an amendment…We've not seen the promised amendments to the bill four weeks later. We are wasting time. This is not a process that has been transparent.”
The caucus said they are tired of waiting and are upset about being sidelined. With barely two weeks left in the session when they held the conference, the Senate Republicans called for transparency and urgency to hear legislation.
The House GOP is urging that the governor must convene a special session on ethics reform. They are appealing to the public to sign a petition calling on Pritzker to “End the silence on Illinois corruption.”
At the height of the ComEd scandal, the governor said that when he thinks about “the possibility of people committing these kinds of wrongdoings, I think people who are in public service need to live up to the integrity of the job they're asked to do."
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