Smart money is on ethics, pension fix action during veto session — but no big bets placed on Chicago casino

Ethics reform and a pension consolidation plan will take center stage in Springfield this week during the final days of the fall veto session — while big parts of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s ambitious first-year legislative plan may get the hook.

Legislators are also poised to take up key measures such as a ban on flavored vapes and a cap on insulin prices at $100 a month when they return to Springfield on Tuesday.

While the mayor’s office has said staffers are “still having conversations” in their efforts to finally snag a Chicago casino and fill a budget hole with a real estate transfer tax fee, sources say the transfer tax plan may be dead, for now, with the potential for another deal to pop up this week to get Lightfoot some much-needed cash for the city.

House Majority Leader Greg Harris, D-Chicago, says he anticipates some movement on a pension consolidation measure heralded by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, pointing out there have been good discussions with police groups who had initially opposed the proposal. One of their main concerns was about the composition of the governing boards.

The plan would combine roughly 650 suburban and Downstate police and fire pension funds to try to increase efficiency and lower costs — while also increasing pension benefits.

The Illinois Fraternal Order of Police on Friday said the union now agrees in principle on proposed amendments they requested to address some of their concerns.

As for Lightfoot’s real estate transfer fee plan — which faces some opposition from progressives, Republicans and real estate groups — the governor said he wants lawmakers “to work their differences out so that we can get something done.” Lightfoot’s plan would give a tax break for real estate sales valued at less than $500,000, but those valued higher would be taxed in four tiers. The top would be 2.55% for property transfers valued at more than $10 million.

And it’s a crapshoot whether Lightfoot will be able to score changes to the state’s massive new gambling expansion law to make a Chicago casino viable for a private developer.

Lightfoot raised eyebrows before the first half of the veto session last month by floating the idea of a casino owned jointly by the city and state, a sweeping shift from the private setup laid out in the expansion the governor signed into law in June.

With stiff opposition from Pritzker, any possibility of a public ownership appears dead on arrival in the second half of the veto session. State Rep. Bob Rita, the Blue Island Democrat who has shepherded gaming talks in the House, said “that hasn’t been a part of recent talks.”

Instead, the focus is on adjusting the 72% effective tax rate that a state-hired consultant deemed too “onerous” for a private developer to ever secure financing.

”We’re still working on a pathway to see something happen during the week. The goal is to get this done right now,” Rita said.

Pritzker last week voiced some optimism for the casino measure, saying there have been efforts to get Downstate and collar county legislators to vote for something that’s good for Chicago.

“The mayor, I know, is committed to getting that done,” Pritzker said of the casino measure. “She’s been making calls, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to garner enough votes for that.”

But a Springfield insider close to the gambling talks said there’s a perception among some legislators that Lightfoot’s office — while dealing with a teacher strike, a massive budget deficit and turnover at the top of the police department — hasn’t put in the necessary legwork to land a deal.

”You need the mayor’s office to be the shuttle diplomat between the Senate Dems, House Dems and governor’s office, and that doesn’t seem to be happening,” the insider said. “There seems to be a will but not a way.”

A mayoral source called that claim “nonsense.”

“Our staff and the mayor herself have been talking with Senate and House leadership and [the] Governor’s staff non-stop for weeks on this. Legislators have come in for briefings. The fifth floor is working the roll call aggressively,” the source said. “This narrative is absurd and willfully dishonest.”

The other concern is opening a Pandora’s box by adjusting Chicago’s casino terms, according to Harris.

”I think there have been good talks on the casino issue, but then it becomes a question like all casino bills and gaming bills — that if Chicago gets a rate adjustment, I’m pretty sure that the other gaming operators around the state and the other prospective sites are going to be coming back also and saying, ‘Well, we want something if Chicago gets something,’” Harris said. “And this is always the way these things go, and it just becomes a drag on progress.”

And looming in the background of veto session talks is the specter of the feds, who have charged a state representative and a state senator — and stoked suspicions that a growing list of other officials are in their crosshairs as part of a sweeping corruption investigation.

Sources have told the Sun-Times that state Sen. Terry Link, D-Vernon Hills — the Senate’s key player in gambling talks — wore a wire in the investigation that ended with bribery charges against former state Rep. Luis Arroyo.

Link denies any involvement. He has not been charged. But state Sen. Thomas E. Cullerton was charged over the summer with essentially being a ghost payroller on a side job with the Teamsters Union.

”There’s certainly concern from legislators across the state that don’t understand what’s going on with all of that,” said state Sen. Dave Syverson, a Rockford Republican who has championed gaming expansion. “But if it’s just a matter of readjusting the [Chicago casino taxing] formula, then there may be some openness to that.”

As another source close to the gaming talks put it: “The last place these guys want to be next week is Springfield, with all this stuff going on.”