SPRINGFIELD — Lawmakers are still laboring to get a bill on track in Springfield to overhaul and fund the Chicago area’s cash-strapped mass transit agencies as the fall veto session rumbles to a conclusion.
Illinois Democrats leading transit talks floated several potential taxes in a bill filed late Tuesday to generate $1.5 billion to help the CTA, Metra and Pace avoid a $200 million-plus fiscal cliff approaching next year.
The proposal from Chicago Democratic state Reps. Kam Buckner and Eva-Dina Delgado includes a 7% amusement tax on streaming services like Netflix, a $5 surcharge on tickets for large concerts and other performances, and an expansion of ticket-issuing speed cameras in the suburbs.
It also includes a so-called “billionaire tax,” which would ding unrealized gains on billionaires’ assets at a rate of 4.95%, equivalent to the state income tax rate.
Lawmakers are largely on the same page as far as transit governance reform under a new, more powerful Northern Illinois Transit Authority, but the new tax proposals face an uncertain fate in the state Senate, where Democrats passed a different proposal earlier this year. The legislative session is scheduled to end Thursday.
“This is the most comprehensive and consequential transit legislation in the history of this country, and we’re gonna be able to do this,” Buckner said.
A two-hour caucus meeting for House Dems all but ruled out the $1.50-per-package tax on online deliveries included in the bill passed by senators in May that was deemed “dead on arrival” in the House by Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch. House Dems are also largely opposed to taxes on ride-share services and real estate transfers.
“We think it’s a good mix,” Delgado said of the House tax menu. “We think it is being responsive to our caucus and the things that they said that they wanted to see — in particular, the things that they really didn’t want to see.”
North Side state Sen. Mike Simmons encouraged Democrats in the lower chamber to take up the Senate bill.
“We’re calling on our colleagues in the House to help us to land this plane,” he said.
Illinois Senate Minority Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, slammed any potential tax imposition, saying “every time Democrats run into a cash problem, they make matters worse by reaching further into the pockets of Illinois families who can’t afford it.”
Elsewhere in the Capitol, lawmakers were inching toward a deal on a bill to generate more wind and solar power in Illinois to address skyrocketing energy costs due to increased demand from data centers.
After efforts stalled out in the spring to incentivize businesses to build large batteries to store renewable energy, a proposal backed by South Side state Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, cleared a committee hurdle to stay on pace toward a floor vote Wednesday despite opposition from business groups.
House Democrats were also still crafting legislation intended to curb intensifying immigration enforcement raids in protected spaces. No bill had been filed as of late Tuesday, but the effort this week is expected to center around barring deportations from being carried out in hospitals, courthouses “and other locations where all people should feel safe,” said state Rep. Dagmara Avelar, D-Romeoville.
“No person seeking care, justice or childcare should ever be hunted down,” she said.