It’s a bill without content other than a title.
Those in power (read Democrats in Springfield) introduce bills to be used usually at the end of the session in which content that could be wholly unrelated to the the title.
Or it could be a bill with real content, but whose original content will be replaced with language in the same statutory chapter.
In my last session in the 1970’s I introduced and passed the Non-Game Wildlife Income Tax Check-Off Act.
It allowed people filing income taxes to designate $10 to a new Non-Game Wildlife Fund.
Governor Jim Thompson vetoed the bill at the recommendation of his Revenue Director Anton Valukas.
The next year, 1983, Governor Thompson sought to increase the income tax.
The sponsor introduced the language in my Non-Game Wildlife Check-Off bill .
When the time was right to call the income tax hike to a vote, he replaced the original language with the tax hike verbage.
He smiled broadly when he told me what he had done.
Stimulating this recounting of shanagans in times past
is the following from State Rep. Steve Reick’s last report of the use of a shell bill on which theSAFE-T Act was attached in the early morning house of the last day of that session:
The passage of the SAFE-T Act is a perfect case in point.
After multiple witness slips were filed in opposition on the bill when it was before committee for a subject matter hearing, the sponsor attached the SAFE-T Act language to another bill and sent it straight to the floor for a vote.
None of the previous opposing witness slips were attached.
Other ways of making it nearly impossible to register publicly available opposition to a bill include:
- Postponing committee hearings or scheduling committees to meet very late at night or in the wee hours of the morning making it extremely difficult for witnesses to attend hearings in person.
- Assigning a bill to a subcommittee that will never meet, reassigning a bill to a different committee with a more friendly chairperson or realigning a committee by swapping out legislative members for those who will vote the “correct way.”
- Holding the bill in the Rules Committee, effectively killing the bill without it ever seeing the light of day or having a prayer of receiving a public hearing.
- Recessing committees to the “call of the chair” instead of adjourning for the week. Allowing the committee chair to bypass the scheduling process and set their own date and time for committee hearings without advance notice.
- Vetting legislation in partisan working groups instead of in public hearings.
