BREAKING NEWS: Prejudgment Interest Law Ruled Unconstitutional
Earlier today, in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Judge Marcia Maras ruled the prejudgment interest law passed and signed into law last Spring is unconstitutional. The reason for this decision is that the law violates the defendant's right to a jury trial in civil actions and the prohibition against special legislation.
The statute was passed as SB 72 and in part does the following:
- Provides for pre-judgment interest in personal injury and wrongful death cases
- Interest shall begin to accrue at 6% rate when the case is filed
- Prejudgment interest capped at 5 years
The Chamber has strongly opposed this measure since its introduction and lobbied significantly against its passage and signing. We applaud today's ruling by the Court.
Read the Chamber's full veto request letter sent last Spring here.
Illinois Chamber Votes "No" on Future of Work Taskforce Report
The Future of Work Taskforce started out with much anticipation from lawmakers, business leaders and labor. The future of work, and the policy needed to guide and strengthen it, is central to both the Chamber’s mission and the success of the business community. Illinois policymakers have for decades been more reactive than proactive. Illinois Chamber Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, Clark Kaericher had been appointed to the Task Force last fall. This seemed like an opportunity to move in the right direction.
The meetings themselves were engaging and productive. Unlike many others taskforces, attendance was almost universal, and legislators were engaged. Members had the opportunity to hear from speakers such as PayPal's CEO and leaders from Deloitte, Google and United Airlines.
Nonetheless, the report broached topics that were barely touched upon or not mentioned at all during meetings. Further, the recommendations were strongly worded policy recommendations not voted on or discussed by task force members.
For example, members had agreed upon a refusal to discuss the gig economy, but the report initially called for gutting Illinois’ independent worker model in favor of a Canadian “dependent worker” model. Recommendations were made for regulation in the trucking industry, unworkable “predictive scheduling” and other increased labor costs.
The Chamber acknowledges that the report’s authors met several times one-on-one with Kaericher and accepted many of his suggested edits. The final report was a definite improvement over the initial draft, but it still contained numerous troublesome recommendations.
The business groups involved (the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, IRMA, IMA and Chicagoland) met several times to discuss a response. The groups drafted a joint response that was 9 pages in length detailing our objections to the report. We discussed paid leave, scheduling, independent contractors, agricultural and transportation. You can read the letter HERE.
The final meeting was this Monday. Sadly, we felt that the deficiencies in the recommendations were too much to overcome. As a result, Kaericher joined our association friends to vote NO on the report.
You can read the final report HERE.
House Public Utilities & Energy & Environment Committee hold Joint Hearing
On Thursday, the House Energy & Environment Committee and House Public Utilities Committee held a joint subject matter hearing on anticipated energy price increases in the Ameren territory and strategies and solutions to mitigate the impacts.
Illinois Chamber Energy Council Executive Director, Alec Messina provided testimony during the multi-hour hearing. In part, Messina said the following:
Today we have heard from a number of stakeholders that there are a host of reasons for these upcoming price increases, including an uptick in demand following a year marked by Covid-19-related shutdowns, increased electrification across a multitude of sectors, planning for demand during the hottest summer days and coldest winter ones, the continued increase in power plant retirements (driven by policy decisions, compliance and maintenance costs) and assuredly countless others. Whatever the reasons, the reality for the zones that do not have sufficient generation to cover their load plus their required reserves is that they will have increased risk of temporary, controlled outages to maintain system reliability. And even if we avoid outages, the price impact is real...
...What is clear in California, and in PJM, and in every other State tackling these real issues, is that it is critical to incentivize operational flexibility. Illinois must look closely at its policies and laws that have the potential to negatively impact this flexibility.
Suspending or modifying the decarbonization policy relating to natural gas plants, in both the short and mid-term, is critical to avoid this potential negative impact. As gas plants are presently being curtailed or operating to avoid caps, it is very much likely that plants will be unable to run as they are at cap. While current law allows RTOs to call upon them to run when needed, will they be there? Will they make necessary investments in facilities destined to be shut down? That also reduces energy on the grid and likely helps drive up prices...
..Clearly, there will be additional discussions this summer and into the fall, next spring, and beyond, to truly manage the transition to a new energy generation future. We ask that the General Assembly, as a part of this effort, continue to focus on the critical need for operational flexibility, and meeting our electricity needs during periods of peak demand. That will require a host of different types of generation. Decarbonization is critically important, but it must be done reliably, and reliability is going to be more challenging than it has been in the past.
Further questions relating to this matter or the Energy Council, please contact Alec Messina at amessina@ilchamber.org
Illinois Chamber Hosts Spring Infrastructure Council Meeting Featuring IDOT and Chicago Department of Aviation
On Friday, May 20th The Illinois Chamber Infrastructure Council held its Spring Meeting with guest speakers Chicago Department of Aviation Commissioner Rhee and IDOT Director of Planning and Programming, Holly Bieneman.
During the presentation, Rhee explained the City of Chicago's role in the administration of O'Hare and Midway Airport and its operations over the past two years. Commissioner Rhee noted some of the following points:
- 2022 travel is on a trajectory to match 80 percent of O'Hare's 2019 travel levels and 82 percent of Midway's 2019 travel levels.
- In 2019, Chicago had 188 domestic destinations
- The City has nearly regained all pre-covid numbers with 185 current destinations.
- Chicago had 71 international destinations in 2019 and has 67 destinations in 2022
Rhee said that current capital goals for the Department are to replace aging infrastructure, improve efficiency, improve experience, and accommodate demand.
Bieneman spoke on a variety of topics but focused on the Rebuild Illinois program. Bieneman also highlighted new federal formula programs that include Carbon reduction, PROTECT – which is related to natural disaster preparation and recovery, and Electric Vehicle Charging, which will require building EV charging stations on interstate corridors.
Speaking on Design-Build passed in this Spring’s session, Bieneman said that the tool will take time to develop but in the next MYP the Department will be able to identify projects eligible for Design-Build. Bieneman said this will hasten the completion of projects and hopefully save money which will then allow for more State projects in the long term.
After the guest presentations, Kaericher gave a brief breakdown of the infrastructure and transportation related legislation that passed or failed this session.
We are appreciative of Crawford, Murphy & Tilly’s sponsorship of this great event. Thanks to both Brad and Dan! We are also grateful for Jaime and Holly for their presentations and work on behalf of the people of Illinois.
