As Illinois budget impasse continues, state AG's court motion seeks to stop paying state employees
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
After almost two years without a budget, the Illinois attorney general has filed a motion to stop paying state employees until the matter is settled.
The motion from Lisa Madigan’s office, filed Thursday in St. Clair County Circuit Court, argues that paying workers without appropriations approved by Gov. Bruce Rauner and the state’s general assembly violates the Illinois Constitution, the Southern Illinoisan reports.
The filing follows a state address Rauner delivered this week, where he asked for a bipartisan compromise for delivering a budget.
In 2015 a St. Clair County judge ordered the Illinois comptroller to continue paying state employees after their unions filed a lawsuit arguing that cutting off wages would be an unconstitutional violation of the workers’ contracts.
The motion from Madigan’s office seeks to dissolve that injunction, the Chicago Sun Times reports, because it’s “removed much of the urgency for the legislature and the governor to act on a budget.”
“With a new legislative session now under way, this is an appropriate time to ask the Circuit Court to reconsider,” Madigan said.
The Republican governor and the state legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, have been fighting over the state budget since July 2015. Democrat Michael J. Madigan, Lisa Madigan’s father, has served as speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives since 1983, except for a time period between 1995 and 1997 when Republicans controlled the Illinois house and senate.
Republicans described the attorney general filing as political wrangling.
“While serious bipartisan negotiations have accelerated in the Senate, it is outrageous that Lisa Madigan tonight decided to put Speaker Madigan’s power politics ahead of hard-working families in an effort to shut down state government,” Steven Yaffe, spokesman for the Illinois GOP, said in a statement. “Only a Madigan would try to disrupt bipartisan momentum in a matter that threatens to cripple government services and hurt state workers and their families.”
Steve Brown, a spokesman for Mike Madigan, described Yaffe’s comments as “off base” and “not surprising,” the Sun Times reports.
“The attorney general is her own person and will do what she chooses is the best thing to do,” Brown said.
Meanwhile, Democrats blame the governor.
“Due to Gov. Rauner’s abdication of his constitutional executive duties, our state finances continue to be managed almost wholly by court orders and judge edicts,” Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza said in a statement. “It’s shameful that under his administration, the fifth largest state in the country is forced to operate like a bankrupt business.”
