May 28--Senate Democrats on Thursday continued to shoot down Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's agenda, this time defeating a measure that sought to limit expensive payouts in lawsuits.
It was the second time in two days that Senate Democrats blocked a portion of Rauner's pro-business, anti-union agenda, following a strategy Speaker Michael Madigan used in the House this month.
Rauner and Democrats are at loggerheads after the governor linked his legislative wish list to the annual budget-making process, saying he wouldn't consider raising taxes to ease a multibillion-dollar deficit unless lawmakers went along with his proposals. Democrats balked, contending the budget shouldn't be held hostage to Rauner's demands. They have instead moved forward with their own spending plan, which they acknowledge is short at least $3 billion, to try to pressure Rauner to eventually go along with a tax increase to plug the deficit.
On Thursday, Rauner aides blasted the Democrats' budget as "phony" and accused them of walking away from negotiations as the jockeying over who will be to blame if the legislature goes into overtime continues to take shape at the Capitol.
"While Gov. Rauner says 'yes' to reform and 'yes' to compromise, the legislators in control of the General Assembly say 'no' to reform, 'no' to compromise, 'yes' to unbalanced budgets and 'yes' to higher taxes without reform," said Richard Goldberg, Rauner's deputy chief of staff for legislative affairs.
Goldberg's comments came as he testified on the governor's plan to limit multimillion-dollar legal judgments by setting geographic limits on lawsuits to stop trial lawyers from shopping for venues, restricting medical expense calculations to include amounts paid rather than billed and allowing defendants to spread their liability to other parties.
Democrats prevented the measure from moving forward, arguing that the changes would benefit corporations at the expense of people who deserve to be compensated if they are injured because of negligence. They discounted suggestions from the governor's office that the measure was a compromise based on conversations in closed-door legislative working groups Rauner convened, saying the administration blindly pushed the measure without consulting stakeholders such as trial lawyers.
"The process in this matter ... is a broken process," said Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton. "We have a process where people come forward and enlighten the legislators as to the consequences of the legislator's good ideas. And we do it in a constructive way, so you have a bill that would be passing right now that has many of the reforms you wish. ... Instead, we have a bill on May 27 that you say is a compromise but no one has had any input in but you."
Republicans shot back that Democrats shouldn't be beholden to special interest groups.
"The question is where do we draw the line?" said Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno of Lemont. "Do we want lobbyists standing right behind us when we press the button?"
mcgarcia@tribpub.com
