The billion-dollar budget drama

By Shia Kapos

TGIF, Illinois! The mood is foreboding at the state Capitol.

The Illinois State Capitol on Thursday, May 18, 2023. | POLITICO's Shia Kapos

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — State lawmakers won’t wrap up the legislative session today, as they had planned. Not Saturday, either. Watch for later next week.

Here’s the hangup: A state program that offers health benefits to undocumented adults is ballooning. When it was started a few years ago, lawmakers estimated it to run from $2 million to $4 million. Now health officials say the state needs more than $1.1 billion to keep it running because the number of participants far exceeds what the state had planned on.

Finding the dollars: The governor’s budget had accounted for $220 million of that. Now, House and Senate leaders must figure out how to make up the rest.

And here’s a twist: Advocates and supporters are trying to expand the program to even more people, but that would cost hundreds of millions more on top of the $1.1 billion cost for the current population served.

Sidenote: This is for undocumented immigrants, not migrants. Healthcare for migrants comes out of a different line item and gets some federal matching funds.

The budget drama is becoming a key test for Senate President Don Harmon and House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, who won their top jobs in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

The governor’s office has presented the Democratic caucuses in each chamber with options to rein in the costs of the current program.

Their challenge: Keep the program as is, or expand it while also balancing the budget.

They’re at a stalemate because lawmakers are all trying to please different groups that want funding for their own issues.

As one insider put it, “It’s getting to the point where everyone wants everything they want in the budget” — and the leaders are having a hard time saying no.

Tribune’s take: Democratic dissension over spending priorities to push state budget talks past deadline, by Jeremy Gorner and Dan Petrella

LEGAL TWIST: Trial attorneys Dan Webb and Robert Clifford are teaming up Monday to defend Greek philosopher Socrates in a mock trial benefitting the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago.

But get this: Next month, they’ll face off against each other in the real-life, high-drama case in federal district court against Boeing for the 737 Max Ethiopian Airlines crash in 2019.

Taking sides: Webb, who most recently represented Fox News against a defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems, is the chief trial counsel for Boeing. And Clifford is lead counsel for families of the victims in the crash that killed 157 people.

The Boeing case heads to trial in June, unless there’s a settlement, which isn’t out of the question. Fox News and Dominion Voting were this close to a trial before reaching a stunning $787.5 million settlement.

We’ll be watching for sidebar talks at Monday’s mock trial. For that case, Clifford and Webb will join forces against former federal prosecutor Patrick Collins, who will accuse Socrates of allegedly corrupting young people. Details of that here.

If you are Robert Clifford, Playbook would like to know the secret of trial cross examination. Email skapos@politico.com.

A message from bp:

bp employees in Illinois are keeping energy moving to keep America moving, too. Our team provides fuel for O’Hare flights, helps people power their cars, trades energy to keep the lights on and more. See more ways bp is investing in Illinois.

No official public events.

At Rockwell on the River at 7:20 p.m. to give welcoming remarks at the One Million Degrees annual gala.

At Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities at 10 a.m. to recognize Mental Health Awareness Month.

Thank you for reading Illinois Playbook! Drop me a line sometime: skapos@politico.com

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— Native American history would be latest public schools requirement under bill Gov. JB Pritzker expected to sign: Under the measure, all public elementary and high school social studies courses that cover American history or government must include instruction on “events of the Native American experience and Native American history within the Midwest and this state.” Tribune’s Hank Sanders reports

— POTTY MOUTH: A measure to allow businesses to create multi-gender bathrooms drew fierce debate in the state Senate on Thursday. Republican state Sen. Neil Anderson was so incensed by the idea of uni-sex bathrooms that he told lawmakers he would “beat the living piss” out of any man who walked into a restroom with his daughter. Other Republicans voiced concern that the bathrooms wouldn’t have urinals or, even, that there could be a problem with men leaving the seat up. (True. But they do that at home, too. So, we’re used to it.) The bill passed 35-20 and now goes to the House.

— Bill allowing suits against gun manufacturers heads to governor’s desk: “The Senate voted 34-22 to approve a measure that will change a section of the state’s Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practice to allow the state and consumers to sue gun manufacturers. It will now head to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk, and he has vowed to sign it. Three Democrats voted no,” Sun-Times’ Tina Sfondeles reports.

— Documents detail thousands of offensive terms banned from license plates, by NBC 5’s Patrick Fazio and Katy Smyser

— Chicago to work with Biden administration on plan to fight homelessness: A federal official will be placed within city government “to organize response plans. ... The new program is focused on finding housing for those who are unsheltered — people who live on the street and in cars, transit and other places not meant for habitation,” report Tribune’s Rick Pearson and Alice Yin

— Johnson’s City Council floor leader criticizes Lightfoot’s last-day executive orders, by Sun-Times’ Fran Spielman

— Chicagoans reject Illinois lawmakers revised draft map for elected school board, by Chalkbeat’s Becky Vevea

— ‘First we get the money’ — read the controversial plan to raise $12B in new revenue for Chicago. The Johnson administration has distanced itself from the report co-authored by allies, by Sun-Times’ Catherine Odom and Fran Spielman.

— Obama Foundation awarded $3M from Bank of America for workforce development opportunities, via Lawndale News

— Satanists sue Chicago for not allowing them to say ‘Hail Satan’ at City Council meetings, by Block Club’s Mack Liederman

— Quantum boost: The Wall Street Journal reports that IBM and Google are providing $150 million for quantum computing research at the University of Chicago and the University of Tokyo, as the two countries aim to stay ahead of China in the tech race.

— Chicago Police Foundation has launched the Ella French Scholarship, via a foundation announcement

A message from bp:

— Former Kane County circuit clerk facing felony charges found dead in apparent suicide, officials say, by Aurora Beacon-News’ Megan Jones

— Suburban cop once charged with murder didn’t let wrongful arrest end his career, by WGN 9’s Ben Bradley

— Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss supports making Margarita Inn a permanent shelter for the homeless, by Evanston Now’s Jeff Hirsh

— Mother accused of abducting daughter in 2017 returns to Illinois to face charges, by Daily Herald’s Susan Sarkauskas

— Cannabis transporters file suit claiming competitors are operating without licenses: “Those targeted in the suit say the dispute is more a matter of transporters having great difficulty getting any business in Illinois because growers can provide their own delivery service,” by Tribune’s Robert McCoppin.

— Jonathan Jackson among 6 members of Congress who violated a federal conflicts-of-interest law: The freshman Democrat “was late in disclosing up to $300,000 in stock transactions he made earlier this year, according to a disclosure he submitted on May 12,” via RawStory.

GET READY FOR GLOBAL TECH DAY: Join POLITICO Live as we launch our first Global Tech Day alongside London Tech Week on Thursday, June 15. Register now for continuing updates and to be a part of this momentous and program-packed day! From the blockchain, to AI, and autonomous vehicles, technology is changing how power is exercised around the world, so who will write the rules? REGISTER HERE.

We asked about your down-to-the-wire deadline moment.

Cynthia Green, Richland County Democratic Party chair: “I decided to run for a seat on the county board on the final day of the 2022 filing period. I woke up, printed petition sheets, collected signatures, took the sheets to be notarized, and filed my packet with the clerk before 3 p.m. I ran unopposed in both the primary and the general elections. On election night, I was the sole Democrat and one of just two females who were elected at the county level.”

Joan Pederson: “A grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts. I handed it to our board chair after catching up with him on Lake Shore Drive at 5 a.m. as he drove to O'Hare en route to D.C. on deadline day.”

John Straus: “Just about every college term paper I ever wrote.”

Patricia Ann Watson: “Quarterly Illinois Campaign Disclosures.”

What turned out to cost a lot more than you planned for? Email skapos@politico.com

Sam Zell, chair of Equity Group Investments and Equity International in Chicago, died on Thursday, May 18, 2023. | AP Photo/Richard Drew, File

— Sam Zell, 81, Chicago billionaire whose big newspaper venture went bust, dies: “The son of Polish Jews who fled to America in 1939 as World War II engulfed Europe, Mr. Zell, an abrasive and eccentric Chicagoan who reveled in testing the limits of business deals as well as motorcycles, amassed one of the nation’s largest portfolios of apartments, offices and commercial real estate, mostly by snatching up properties that other investors had snubbed as too risky or even moribund.”

His nickname was “the grave dancer” as a result.

“In a career of spectacular deals celebrated mostly in boardrooms and financial columns, Zell’s venture into the publishing world as chairman of the Tribune Company proved to be a resounding failure, a five-year descent into a maelstrom of rancor, downsizing, management scandals and bankruptcy,” via The New York Times' Robert D. McFadden.

— The Casey DeSantis problem: ‘His greatest asset and his greatest liability,’ by POLITICO’s Michael Kruse

— Anti-abortion leaders worry they may have to oppose Trump if he doesn’t back national ban, by POLITICO’s Meridith McGraw and Natalie Allison

— Feinstein’s return leaves her party on edge, by POLITICO’s Katherine Tully-McManus and Nicholas Wu

A message from bp:

The US is home to bp's largest workforce in the world, a team delivering the energy the world needs today, while increasing our investments in lower carbon alternatives for our future. See more ways bp is investing in America.

— Mary Datcher joins APS & Associates as VP of communications. She was district director for Congressman Jonathan Jackson and Congressman Bobby Rush. Before that she was managing editor of Chicago Defender and founding editor of Bronzeville Life.

— Marla Krause, the DePaul University journalism professor and faculty adviser for the award-winning student newspaper, The DePaulia, is retiring. Before her university career, Krause was a reporter and editor at the Chicago Tribune. She was the first woman hired in the paper’s sports department and went on to stints as sports news editor and front page editor.

— Kathryn Harris named interim director of Lincoln Library, by State Journal-Register’s Zach Roth

— May 31: The deadline for college-age students to apply for the Secretary of State summer jobs program.

— June 6: Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison keynotes the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce’s annual membership meeting. Details here

THURSDAY’s ANSWER: Congrats to Jon Maxson and Kirk Dillard for correctly answering that “Long John” Wentworth was the one-time Chicago mayor and congressman who organized the Union League Club of Chicago. Sidenote: He has an avenue named after him, too.

TODAY’s QUESTION: What historic Illinois town is technically west of the Mississippi? Email skapos@politico.com

Today: Attorney Eric Herman and Illinois Democratic Party organizer Keeton Chamberlin.

Saturday: State Sen. Mary Edly-Allen, Elmwood Park Village President Angelo “Skip” Saviano, Marijuana Policy Project CEO Toi Hutchison, APCO public affairs senior director Ami Copeland, lieutenant governor’s deputy chief of staff Teresa Reyes Martinez, Illinois Department of Commerce’s Jason Horwitz and Cook County legislative affairs exec Christina Rivero.

Sunday: Ald. Andre Vasquez, spokesman and strategic adviser to the state Senate President John Patterson and architecture writer Ed Keegan.

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