SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – The Illinois House will convene in Springfield for three days next week to take up its spring session workload long delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
A letter from Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan to the House minority leader on Wednesday sets the session for May 20-22 with extraordinary measures to prevent the spread of the highly contagious and potentially lethal coronavirus. They include pre-session testing of all legislators for COVID-19.
State Rep. Ryan Spain, of Peoria, told WMBD’s Greg and Dan, there are a lot of important decisions to be made.
“There’s a budget that has to be entirely recrafted and redesigned. We have businesses that are in a tailspin. We have citizens that have lost their livelihoods, and we have a massive public health disaster to deal with.”
Spain said all of those things are on the agenda.
“We were scheduled to be in session all through March, all through April and then almost every day for the month of May. We haven’t been there since the first week in March, so it’s long overdue.”
Spain said he wants Gov. J-B Pritzker to work in a more cooperative way with the General Assembly in dealing with the state’s pressing problems.
“We have a track record of working together, this governor and this legislature, in a bipartisan way. I think that his decisions can be better informed by working together.”
Eschewing the Capitol, lawmakers will gather six blocks away at the Bank of Springfield Center in downtown Springfield, to allow for social distancing on a spacious convention hall floor.
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