Rep. Avery Bourne | Facebook
Rep. Avery Bourne | Facebook
State Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Raymond) opposed the adoption of the proposed Illinois House Rules and warned that the rules can be used to manipulate bills.
She challenged Majority Leader Greg Harris who said that the new rules will bring a competition of ideas.
“It’s not a competition if you don’t even get a vote. Let us lose on our ideas, but let us lose,” Bourne said. “Letting them sit in committee and not even get a vote, not letting us represent our constituents, that’s not a competition.”
Harris earlier confirmed that there's no guarantee that once a bill is assigned to a committee it will get a hearing.
Bourne reiterated that they should be allowed to represent their constituents, and “bring forth ideas in this competition of ideas.”
“If you want to kill a bill and have everybody vote against it, that’s fair but allow us to represent our constituents”
She also said that it is just the same rules which she called Madigan’s House Rules that have been silencing the voices of the minority party, and are actually less transparent.
“The rule is a throwback to a Madigan rule circa 97th General Assembly,” Bourne noted.
Bourne urged her colleagues to vote no.
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