Legislature's opportunity
THE 79th General Assembly, which
convened January 8, has the opportunity during its two-year life span to devise
better ways to handle its workload, and
consequently to improve the quality of
its product.
Ten years ago, following the at-large election of the House of Representatives, the legislature created the Commission on the Organization of the General Assembly to study the operation of the legislature and to make recommendations for improvements. That commission, with Rep. Harold A. Katz (D., Glencoe) as chairman, Sen. Harris Fawell (R., Naperville), vice chairman, and the late Rep. Marjorie Pebworth (R., Riverdale), secretary, with strong support from W. Russell Arrington, Senate president pro tempore, and John P. Touhy, speaker of the House, laid the basis for legislative operations today: annual sessions, adequate staffing, offices for legislators in the Capitol Complex and secretarial help, good pay, payment of expenses for district offices, and (thanks to a new Constitution which omitted former restrictions) daily expense allowances for legislators.
Aspects of the legislative process that could now be studied include:
— Scheduling each day's session. An advance agenda would enable the members and the public to know what is coming up for consideration each day and, if possible, at what hour. This may involve adopting more stringent limits on debate than at present, including a limitation on members explaining their votes on a bill.
— Planning the entire session so as to complete action by June 30. This probably cannot be done unless the two houses in joint rules agree to a timetable or a series of deadlines on bill introductions, committee reports, and passages in the house of origin.
— Improving committee work. Committees should resolve differences between bills and combine bills on the same subject into packages. Consideration might be given to having committees provide written reports for each bill, explaining the bill and the amendments proposed by the committee. Staffing is now available to write such reports for the chairman's Signature.
The shift to annual sessions with increased demands on the time and energy of the members raises the issue of the effectiveness of citizen legislators, whose legislative activity is secondary to a primary occupation in some other field, as opposed to professional law-makers who can devote full time to legislative service. But the question will not be decided on its merits unless the legislature does a better job of ordering its business; the citizen legislators will find (as many of them already have) that they can no longer afford the time required, and by default the professionals will take over.
Illinois moving forward
The Elisabeth Ludemarr Development Center in Park Forest, a facility of
the Illinois Department of Mental
Health and Developmental Disabilities,
providing residential services in a
homelike setting for 400 mentally
retarded and developmentally disabled
persons, ages 6 to 15, has received a
two-year accreditation by the Joint
Commission on Accreditation of
Hospitals, a national organization. It is
the first developmental facilities center
in Illinois to be so recognized.
In another area, the Department announced a $240, 000 grant to Governors State University to inaugurate the development of an educational program to train state personnel in the alcoholism sciences; Dr. James D. Tills is the university's project coordinator. More than a million Illinois residents are said to be in some stage of active alcoholism.
A projected 500-bed, $60 million hospital to be built on the University of Illinois Medical Center Campus, Chicago, replacing the present hospital now inadequately housed in five separate buildings, will represent the largest investment of funds ever in a single state facility, the Capital Development Board announced. The project is scheduled for completion in late 1978.
The Illinois Aeronautics Board, established in January 1974 to regulate scheduled commuter airlines operating in the state, in November awarded its first certificate, authorizing Air Illinois, Inc., to furnish route service to Alton, Carbondale, Chicago, and Springfield.
Port Chalmers flu can cause serious complications in those over 65 or those who suffer from a chronic disease. The Illinois Department of Public Health in November began shipping 50, 000 doses of a vaccine for this type of flu to nearly 100 nursing homes and local health departments in Illinois.
Solid waste disposal enforcement
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which requires a permit
for the operation of solid waste disposal
management sites, in November
launched an enforcement program and
filed cases before the Pollution Control
Board against unlicensed sites in six
counties (dark, Cook, Crawford,
Franklin, Fulton, and Knox).
Four of the cases involved private operators, two involved municipalities. Attorney General William J. Scott represented the EPA in the action.
Illinois Issues/February 1975/ 35