Turnover and change are backdrop as new General Assembly is sworn in, despite continued Democratic dominance

SPRINGFIELD — Each two years, when a brand new Illinois Basic Meeting is inaugurated, the management gives rhetoric stuffed with hope, bipartisanship and a message of unity through which each political events promise to work collectively for the state’s residents.

But it surely historically is a short-lived kumbaya second that quickly offers solution to a political local weather stuffed with contentious social points and sharp partisan divisions in a legislature that in recent times has been dominated by Democrats with no need for Republican enter. After which all of it leads as much as the subsequent election season lower than two years away.

Such was the case on Wednesday, as the brand new 103rd Basic Meeting was formally inaugurated with a report 78 Democrats within the Home, in contrast with 40 Republicans, whereas a 40-19 Democratic majority was sworn into the Senate. Democrats picked up 5 Home seats within the Nov. 8 election, whereas Republicans picked up a lone Senate seat.

Democratic Senate President Don Harmon of Oak Park, reelected to a two-year time period as chief, made a symbolic present of bipartisanship by casting his vote for president not for himself, however for brand spanking new Republican chief John Curran of Downers Grove, on the Senate’s inauguration ceremony on the Previous State Capitol.

Within the College of Illinois Springfield auditorium, the place the Home inaugural was held, Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch of Hillside, who was reelected to the management put up, urged members and the viewers to applaud new Republican chief Tony McCombie of Savanna as the primary girl to go a Home partisan caucus.

Turnover and alter was the backdrop for the inaugural, the place 16 new senators and 24 new representatives had been sworn in — with two Home vacancies but to be stuffed — as a number of veteran lawmakers in each events departed as a consequence of resignation or election losses.

Harmon took word of the elevation of Curran and McCombie to membership within the “4 tops” — the highest 4 partisan leaders within the Home and Senate — in addition to Welch’s just-completed first time period as speaker after changing scandal-tarred veteran Speaker Michael Madigan, who’s underneath federal indictment.

“I’m … a bit stunned by the fact that, as of as we speak, with a whopping tenure of not fairly three years, I’m now the longest-serving legislative chief within the Basic Meeting,” Harmon stated.

Acknowledging the overwhelming Democratic majorities they face and the potential for Republican irrelevancy, Curran and McCombie every urged Harmon and Welch to permit Republican voices and concepts to play a task within the legislative course of.

“Illinois is healthier served when our public insurance policies are crafted from two, not one, taking part events,” Curran stated. “There are thousands and thousands of Illinoisans who help the Republican rules of freedom and financial alternative for all. It’s my job as chief to make sure their votes and their voices are represented.”

But Curran additionally acknowledged issues inside the state GOP that has created a schism between social moderates and a hard-line, far-right downstate core allied with former President Donald Trump, who has twice misplaced Illinois by 17 share factors, and noticed its Trump-backed governor candidate, Darren Bailey, lose to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker by virtually 13 share factors.

“It has been an extended, troublesome street for our social gathering, our state and our world,” stated Curran, succeeding state Sen. Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods, who’s remaining within the legislature. “However the one solution to transfer ahead is to maneuver on. At present, Jan. 11, 2023, the Illinois Senate Republicans are proudly dealing with the longer term.”

Harmon remarked that the Previous State Capitol inauguration website, chosen as a result of the Senate chamber within the present Statehouse is underneath renovation, was “a spot of recent begins and new beginnings.” It was the positioning of Abraham Lincoln’s 1858 “Home Divided” speech that helped propel him to the presidency and Barack Obama’s announcement speech that he was working for president in 2008, and it has recurrently hosted naturalization ceremonies.

Welch was complimentary of McCombie, who’s succeeding nine-year Home GOP chief Jim Durkin of Western Springs, who retired.

“When you’ve ever watched any of our ground debates, you recognize Chief McCombie and I’ve disagreed. And whereas we will definitely have extra disagreements, it’s my hope that even our disagreements may be productive and we do not forget that the the reason why we’re doing the work are very related,” stated Welch.

“I’m able to work. The Home Democratic caucus is able to do the work. Collectively, Chief McCombie, we’re able to do the work,” he stated. “Some persons are going to say that we are able to’t work collectively. However I ask you to affix me in saying, ‘Sure, we did.’”

However Welch warned that any curiosity in working with Republicans includes solely those that worth “civility and respect.”

“Those that select discord, these whose blind allegiance to excessive ideology that will dismantle our basic establishments, those that would derail the work individuals have despatched us right here to do, they may discover that this Home won’t waste the individuals’s time on any of their video games,” he stated.

In her remarks, McCombie painted an unflattering image of Illinois’ political panorama from her perspective, lamenting the one-party Democratic management of state authorities and the way its system of checks and balances “is unbalanced and unhealthy for us all, Republicans, Democrats and independents.”

“We’ve got a possibility with management modifications to reimagine what we anticipate from our state authorities,” she stated. “We should prioritize the coequal nature of our authorities and prioritize fulfilling a constitutional, a constitutional” — she shouted the phrase — “responsibility, one which supersedes social gathering loyalty or offering these checks and balances.”

She additionally insisted that Welch be extra inclusive of the Republicans.

“Republicans right here signify part of all 102 counties,” McCombie stated. “So I ask you, Speaker Welch, don’t be afraid, deliver us to the desk. We’re downside solvers, so use our data. Profit from our expertise and listen to our hearts. Allow us to present you that any preconceived notions about Republicans is fake.

“We need to govern,” she stated to applause. “So I ask you, please don’t disregard our price.”

However the stark partisan divide was dropped at the forefront when state Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez of Cicero, the chair of the state Democratic Occasion, gave a nominating speech for Welch for speaker and lauded his work unifying Democrats in opposition to “rising Republican extremism.”

Standing at a lectern in entrance of seated Home GOP members, her feedback led to some groans within the crowded auditorium.

“Properly, we received,” she stated earlier than an eruption of applause. “5 further seats.”

“And never solely did (Welch) maintain us within the tremendous, tremendous Home majority, he was extremely instrumental within the victory of the 2 (Illinois) Supreme Courtroom and statewide constitutional races,” she stated.

Amid the generally rosy optimistic portrayals of the longer term, Harmon used his inauguration acceptance speech as a warning to lawmakers’ actions in a Basic Meeting socked by scandals, investigations, federal indictments and convictions.

He didn’t title Madigan, the nation’s longest-serving legislative chief till he was dislodged from energy two years in the past and had pleaded not responsible to federal corruption costs. However Harmon alluded to how “we’ve all sadly witnessed the sweeping tarnish that comes when even one elected official strays.”

Reciting the phrases of recent state Supreme Courtroom Justice Elizabeth Rochford’s father, James Rochford, who served as Chicago police superintendent from a 1976 police commencement ceremony, Harmon stated: “When you lack integrity, get out — get out now — as a result of you can be discovered. Too sorry is just too late. When you bear in mind the esteem through which you might be held by your loved ones and buddies, a lot of whom are on this corridor, you’ll save them the eventual disgrace and heartbreak.”

“When you aren’t right here to do what’s proper for the individuals of Illinois,” Harmon stated, “then I’d counsel you’re taking Mr. Rochford’s recommendation. The individuals of Illinois deserve higher and it’s as much as us to ship.”

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jgorner@chicagotribune.com