Steve's Blog

You may have read about the kerfuffle that arose during Lame Duck about the demise of hemp legislation that was being run through the General Assembly. Despite being passed overwhelmingly in the Senate with the enthusiastic support of the Governor, the bill didn’t even make it to the House floor for a vote. The reason it turns out, was that the bill did not pass the test established by the “Welch Rule”.

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The Welch Rule is an off-the-books rule established by House Speaker Chris Welch that requires any bill brought to the floor of the Illinois House for a vote to have 60 Democratic votes in favor, enough support to pass solely with Democratic votes.

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This unwritten rule effectively hands veto power to 19 members of the Democratic caucus – likely the most radical members (of which the Dem caucus abounds) and further marginalizes the Republican minority. This rule undermines our democratic system, blocks good ideas from passage, results in ever more radical legislation and leads to corrupt backroom deals.

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The Welch Rule Undermines the Democratic Process.

With a veto-proof majority in the House, Democrats already have a stranglehold on power. For the speaker to impose a supermajority requirement within his own caucus undermines the voices of duly elected representatives—on both sides of the aisle. It also disenfranchises our constituents who voted to send us to advocate for them. My constituents may not have voted for a member of the majority, but their vote and their voice still matters and is not being heard.

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We have leaders in Illinois who have already leaned too far toward autocracy: a Governor who ran the state for 1,155 of his first 1,552 days in office by disaster declarations and executive orders and a legislature that drew legislative maps to insulate them from voters and rammed through legislative rules that give them practically unchecked power. We should be turning away from autocracy, not toward it.

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The Welch Rule Blocks Good Ideas.

The Welch Rule kills good ideas from both sides of the aisle – not because they lack merit, but because they don’t align perfectly with the priorities of an increasingly radical minority. Bills with the potential to benefit all Illinoisans, like fixes to the child welfare system, cutting free healthcare for undocumented immigrants, strengthened ethics rules, or voter ID are sacrificed to internal party dynamics. The effect of the Welch Rule is to cater to those who most loudly bang their spoons on their highchairs.

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The Welch Rule is a Recipe for Radical Policy.

When members of the majority party must gain support from 60+ of its own caucus, there’s no incentive to find bipartisan support or compromise. Instead, to gain support, moderate members of the majority party (and they do exist, though increasingly more in the shadows) must cave to the more radical voices in their party rather than finding solutions in the middle. The best solutions in practice arise from finding common ground, but the Welch Rule eliminates this opportunity, resulting in radical, expensive, and unworkable laws that reflect the priorities of only a small subset of legislators.

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The Welch Rule Increases the Risk of Corruption.

With only 19 votes needed to kill any bill, it puts a super-minority in charge of a closed room, 19 legislators who can voice opposition to a bill and that’s the last word. It’s dead. Conflict-of-interest protections are already weak in Illinois, but the opportunity for conflicts in this process increases exponentially because there is no disclosure or public accountability for legislators opposing a bill.

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As we watch a historic corruption trial in Chicago, we are reminded of Illinois’ long history of  corruption scandals. However, instead of a renewed commitment to transparency and reform from the majority, a new and troubling “unofficial rule” is undermining bipartisan cooperation and responsible governance: the so-called “Welch Rule.”