Members of the Illinois House and Senate will have to take 12 unpaid days off during the next year and will forgo a 1.1 percent cost-of-living increase under a measure that awaits the governor's signature.
The move effectively freezes lawmakers' paychecks after they took the same action last year. Base pay for lawmakers is $67,836 a year but will drop by more than $3,000 with the furlough days. Many lawmakers make thousands of dollars more by serving as committee chairmen. And because the gig is considered part time, some of them have other jobs.
"The message that this sends today is that we're willing to sacrifice … just the way people are at home and in their business," said sponsoring Sen. Dan Kotowski, D-Park Ridge.
But appointed Sen. Tom Johnson, R-West Chicago, suggested the move is little more than a public relations stunt.
"This is somewhat pandering to an electorate, to say we are self-righteous enough to cut when we haven't been able to cut the overall budget," Johnson said.
Another opponent, Sen. Annazette Collins, argued that skimping on lawmaker salaries would discourage some from running for office, particularly low-income candidates.
"To me, this is a mockery," said Collins, D-Chicago, who recently came over from the House. Collins argued that "$65,000 is not a lot to get paid to do a job. Not saying we don't love this job, because I love representing my community, the poor people who cannot be here to be represented."
The Senate voted 48-4 to send the bill to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. Also voting against it were Sen. Mattie Hunter, D-Chicago, and Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood.
The measure would take away the cost-of-living raises for statewide officials but not require them to take unpaid days off.
Lawmakers also dealt with the primary reason they had to interrupt their summer break and return to the Capitol for a day: resolving a dispute that threatened to hold up billions of dollars of construction projects throughout Illinois.
Despite the high-profile hand-wringing over the fate of summer construction season, the overwhelming approval of the legislation in the House and Senate on Wednesday was anticlimactic.
Last month, Senate Democrats slowed approval when they attached $430 million in spending on schools, social services and other areas to the construction legislation. The House refused to go along, and lawmakers left town. Quinn later threatened to shut down construction projects throughout the state by July 1, a move that would have idled thousands of workers.
The Senate backed off the extra spending, and lawmakers sent a construction bill to Quinn on Wednesday.
"In light of the governor's action, we obviously didn't want to jeopardize the capital (construction) bill," said Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago. "We'll take up the shortcomings of the House budget that we did pass when we come back."
Meanwhile, the Senate held off on confirming Quinn's appointment of former Chicago mayoral candidate Gery Chico to lead the State Board of Education.
Republicans asked that the matter be put off until Chico can come to Springfield to answer questions about his connections to Save-a-Life, a nonprofit group that critics contend wasted millions in government money.
Chico said he has not had any contact with the defunct nonprofit in more than a decade and that his only involvement was trying to ensure Chicago Public Schools students learned first aid techniques.
"I'm wide open and look forward to a discussion," Chico said.
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