Veto power in Illinois

It began as a suspensive veto exercised jointly with the Supreme Court but has grown stronger in each of the state's four constitutions.

[9] The ability of an appointed official to completely prevent action by the elected legislature helped spur the movement for Illinois statehood, which was accomplished in 1818.

Although the veto was absolute in any case, the governor subsequently prorogued the territorial legislature to prevent any further discussion of the topic.

The Democratic Party platform for the Second Illinois Constitutional Convention included an effective gubernatorial veto, with a two-thirds requirement for override.

[15] The Democrats obtained a 91-71 majority over the Whigs in the convention, and under the resulting constitution, the Council of Revision was abolished and the governor exercised the veto power directly.

[22] Among the bills that Palmer vetoed was antimonopoly legislation that would have set maximum rates for railroads; the discussion of that issue then shifted to the 1869 constitutional convention, where it became a major point of controversy.

[23] After the Civil War, the quantity of private legislation passed by the Illinois legislature rose sharply, which led to calls for a strengthened gubernatorial veto power.

The nine-member committee on the executive article in the Fourth Illinois Constitutional Convention unanimously recommended a veto power with an override threshold of two-thirds of the membership of both chambers.

Presenting the executive article to the convention at large, committee chair Elliott Anthony opined that the proposed veto provision would have saved the state from "untold miseries".

[25] The trend was strengthened in Illinois by the high esteem in which the members of the convention held Governor Palmer, even asking for his veto messages to be reprinted so they could be mined for items of constitutional significance.

[22] Over the century under which Illinois was governed by the 1870 constitution, it was very rare for any override attempt to muster the required two-thirds vote in both chambers.

[30] At the same time, the proportion of vetoes arising from policy disputes (rather than technical or constitutional deficiencies) rose sharply.

In 1883, governor Shelby Moore Cullom asked the legislature for a line-item veto, noting that Illinois mayors had been given this power in 1875.

[32][33] This allowed the governor to strike entire items from an appropriations bill, but not to amend or reduce them, as the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in 1915.

The governor's deadline for veto was extended to 60 days, and the threshold for override was reduced to three-fifths of members voting in each chamber.

Discussing the provision on its first reading before the convention at large, Executive Committee member Frank Orlando stated that it introduced "something new in the constitutional history of Illinois".

[41] The amendatory veto was widely seen as a radical departure from earlier practice, and after governors began to use it in the early 1970s, some legislators charged that Illinois democracy was at risk.

Representative John S. Matijevich opined that the amendatory veto "places dictatorial powers in the hands of the governor.

[44] Members of the Executive Committee opined that the governors' use of the amendatory veto power had departed from their original intent, which was that it be used only for minor technical corrections.

[47] The Illinois Supreme Court subsequently held that the voters' action in defeating the proposed amendment had eliminated any prior ambiguity in the scope of the amendatory veto.

One of the charges against him his 2009 impeachment trial was that he had not respected the legitimacy of JCAR blocking his Illinois Covered rulemaking on healthcare in 2008.

In 2020, board president Toni Preckwinkle issued the first veto in her ten-year tenure, blocking an ordinance that would have made the addresses of people with COVID-19 infections available to first responders.

[65] The county executive system, with its attendant veto powers, was first made generally available statewide under the 1970 Illinois constitution.

[73] The nature of a mayor's veto power under Illinois law depends on the form of government that a city or village has adopted.

In cities and villages that have adopted the commission form of government (in which the commissioners are elected at large), the mayor has no veto.

[74] In the roughly 80[75] cities and villages that have adopted a managerial form of government, if the members of the council are elected at large, the mayor has a vote but no veto.

On the other hand, in a managerial government in which the members of the council are elected by districts, the mayor has a veto only over ordinances that involve spending money, incurring debt or selling property.

[81] If the mayor's substitute ordinance is not sent to committee it can be taken up by the council directly, and becomes law if it is supported by a majority of the members voting.

Richard M. Daley was in office for 15 years before issuing his first veto to block the 2006 Chicago Big Box Ordinance.

[1] Washington's former press secretary described the typical process as the city council passing a measure, the mayor vetoing it, and representatives from both sides meeting to work out a compromise.