One of the bigger state budget-expansion fights we could see play out in Springfield this spring is the creation of a permanent $300 Child Income Tax Credit. The new proposal has been scaled back from last year’s $700 per child tax credit bill, which went nowhere in the House after it was introduced in February and ultimately had fifteen sponsors and co-sponsors. But proponents say even the downsized version would make a major difference.

Three of Governor JB Pritzker’s appointees to the Illinois Commerce Commission have not yet been confirmed by the Illinois Senate, including the chair, Doug Scott. All three unconfirmed appointees have recently voted against the stated interests of trade unions. Senate President Don Harmon has assiduously courted trade-union support and has raised millions of campaign dollars from them.

Imagine a lobbyist approaching a legislator and promising that if the member voted for a specific bill, the lobbyist would contribute to their campaign committee. Lobbyists have been convicted here for doing just that, going back to at least 1982. Legislators would be violating state law if they made that deal. The statute prohibits legislators, candidates, and others from promising “anything of value related to State government,” including any “action or inaction on any legislative or regulatory matter, in consideration for a contribution to a political committee, political party, or other entity that has as one of its purposes the financial support of a candidate for elective office.”

I don’t know whether or not the legislative Democratic leadership would’ve allowed a vote, but it is puzzling to me that the people behind the extension of the state’s Invest in Kids Act program didn’t at least try to run a bill that would’ve wound the program down over a period of years.