State Representative Chris Miller of the 110th District. Photo submitted by State Representative Chris Miller's office.
For Immediate Release – June 3, 2021
Ethics legislation won’t change culture of corruption, By State Rep. Chris Miller
Illinois’s ethics problems have been solved or so the brazen press releases coming out of the General Assembly in the last few days would have us believe.
It is not a perfect bill, we are being told, but it is a great start. We wanted to have a bill with more teeth to it but gosh darn it we just ran out of time… This according to the legislators whose party controls the calendar and controls what bills we vote on and when we vote on them.
The notion that we could not have had substantive hearings on serious ethics reforms and done a reform bill the right way is a joke. How many times did the House convene for 10 minutes on a Friday morning just to ensure everyone got their per diem? It occurs to me that just maybe we could have stuck around a little longer to work on important legislation such as ethics reforms instead of gaveling in and gaveling out.
The very process of how we got Senate Bill 539 in the first place is Exhibit A of why we need real ethics reform in Springfield. The idea that an ethics reform bill would be thrown together at the last minute with no Republican input and then voted on hours before the end of the Spring Session is an indication of just how bad this bill really is. If we really were making a serious effort to change the culture of corruption in Springfield, why wouldn’t the bill be voted on in the light of day and why wouldn’t it be done much earlier in the legislative process?
The Democrats pushed through a Constitutional Amendment to codify labor protections for special interests in the Illinois Constitution and they passed a legislative map BEFORE they passed an ethics bill. Priorities anyone?
I voted against the ethics bill because I am tired of the gamesmanship in Springfield. We don’t ever address the real problems facing our state. The ethics bill is nothing but a symbolic gesture. It is not going to change the culture in Springfield. It is not going to change the influence peddling and the insider dealing that goes on there every single day.
There is an attitude that doing something is all that is needed. I disagree. We need to actually solve problems and not pretend that the do-nothing legislation we pass is going to address the serious problems facing our state. The ethics reforms were so weak they might as well have never been introduced. There is no outright ban on legislators being able to lobby other units of government. The revolving door provision is a joke and can be easily circumvented.
I support reform, but I think we need to address the structural problems that allow these abuses of power to take place and we need to make a serious effort to get this done. This legislation is nothing but an attempt to grab some headlines. I voted “NO” to show my disgust for a process that allows worthless, so-called reform bills like this to masquerade as a serious solution to the culture of corruption in Springfield. I want real reform. This bill is not the reform we need.
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