State House Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) debating Senate Bill 539 on the House Floor on the final day of the legislative session | YouTube.com
State House Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) debating Senate Bill 539 on the House Floor on the final day of the legislative session | YouTube.com
State Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) is pushing to bring what she perceives as real ethics reform to Springfield.
Bourne insists that Senate Bill 539 doesn’t go far enough to bring about the level of change that’s needed.
"This bill was sorely lacking in substance,” Bourne recently tweeted. “With so many investigations ongoing, people have very low trust in state government. We need reform that’s serious, broader & a lot stronger. We have the opportunity and obligation to pass real ethics reform. Let’s get it done."
SB 539 prohibits government officials from engaging in certain kinds of compensated lobbying while also expanding what meets the criteria of being considered a lobbyist. The measure also expands public reporting of lobbyist activities and puts in place a provision designed to slow the “revolving door” of lawmakers resigning only to soon return to Springfield as lobbyists looking to do business with former colleagues.
Bourne aggressively lobbied Gov. J.B. Pritzker to issue an amendatory veto to the legislation that eventually passed on the final day of the session. As part of her argument, she cited now-former Legislative Inspector General (LIG) Carol Pope pointing to provisions in SB 539 that limit the jurisdiction of the LIG.
“There are very tiny aspects of this bill that are necessary, but it barely scratches the surface of what truly needs to be accomplished to clean up our state government and produce real ethics reform,” Bourne said in a post to her website. “The biggest fault of this bill is that it limits the Legislative Inspector General, who is supposed to be an independent watchdog over the legislature. At a time when we have seen countless elected officials indicted and ongoing federal investigations – we need stronger anti-corruption reforms to restore the public’s trust.”
While conceding that the measure brings to life platform items Republicans have long pushed for, such as giving General Assembly members pro-rated pay when they resign rather than for a full month and banning fundraisers the day before and after legislative sessions, Bourne isn’t sure the good outweighs the bad.
“Some of our worst concerns were realized," she said after Pope walked away. “And we realized at that point this is clearly not enough."
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