When the state's General Assembly reconvenes Jan. 12, count state Rep. Greg Harris among those with a very full plate. ( When asked if he has any aspirations beyond being a state rep, he told Windy City Times, "My aspirations [ are ] to pass marriage equality and to get our financial house in order and protect our vulnerable people." ) Harris ( who is currently unopposed in the race for his 13th District seat ) recently talked with Windy City Times about the items that are on his agenda:
—State budget: "This year, we had a budget deficit of $7 [ billion ] or $9 billion, depending on whose numbers you look at," Harris said. "Next year, we're already looking at a deficit of $13 billion. The state's budget is in the vicinity of $50 [ billion ] to $60 billion, but the discretionary amount of spending we have is probably close to $21 [ billion ] . So if we don't find new revenue, virtually every single service—which means anything people rely on, like healthcare, senior services, youth services—will have to disappear next year."
Harris then detailed a very dire picture if the budget problem is not solved: "We'll see class sizes more than double in Chicago's public schools—from an average of 21 to 47 per class—because of an inability to fund education projects. We'll see about 5,000 teachers laid off in the city. We'll see community-health centers being shuttered because there'll be no funding for them. You'll see senior citizens who are able to stay in their homes because of homemaker services having to be shoved into nursing homes. [ And ] there'll be no more AIDS prevention money."
When asked what he thought would be the best source of new revenue, Harris said, "The Responsible Budget Coalition is a group of statewide advocacy organizations, civil-reform groups and organized labor that has organized to push House Bill 0174, which would increase the income tax and would, at the same time—because the Illinois Constitution does not allow us to have progressive taxation—substantially increase the earned income-tax credit shield for low- and moderate-income families against big tax bites. It would double the amount of property-tax relief that you can deduct [ from ] your state income taxes, and it would expand the sales tax to cover high-end services, like cruise-ship tickets."
However, Harris was quick to say that the bill would not be a cure-all: "That would only get us part of the way. There'll still have to be some draconian action and some reform—probably some changes to the state's pension systems and to Medicaid, which are two of the largest cost-drivers the state has."
Harris also stressed that "people do not have a sense of the gravity of what will happen next year because, this year, the cuts have been pushed down to the most vulnerable [ members ] of society, who [ most of us ] don't see. ... You see [ things now ] because of all the muggings and crime. When did that start? It started right when the state started to cut substance-abuse treatment [ and ] mental-health services to young adults. People were left with nowhere to go."
—Marriage equality: Among the most important of Harris' initiatives is making civil marriage possible for all of Illinois' residents, regardless of sexual orientation. ( "Civil marriage," as stated in House Bill 0178, "is used as opposed to religious marriage," explained Harris, who is openly gay. "Civil marriage [ involves ] the benefits of marriage the government confers on a couple; religious marriage is the consecration of marriage according to the laws or traditions of a particular faith." )
"It's a tumultuous time," Harris said when asked if he had any inkling how the measure is shaping up in the House. "This has now become an issue that [ is ] in the forefront of the minds of virtually every one of my colleagues. This is the civil-rights issue of the day. I look at the defeats the community has suffered in Maine and California as well as the terrible defeat in the New York Senate, and I don't want that to happen in Illinois."
—Foreclosure mediation: "Right now, the problem that people who are foreclosed upon have is that loan services or mortgage lenders don't see any particular financial incentives to working out a deal with people," Harris said. "I'm working with groups like the Community Renewal Society, the [ Business and Professional People for the Public Interest ] to expand authority under Supreme Court Rule 21. We're looking to putting into law and giving teeth to this before a bank or loan servicer can take a mortgage into foreclosure. We'd require them to go into mediation with the homeowner and an outside mediator. [ Ideally, ] there would also be a homeowner counselor who would go with the homeowner to advocate for [ him ] ."
—Children of incarcerated parents: In 2007, there were 1.7 million children in the United States with a parent in prison—and more than 70 percent of them were children of color, according to The Sentencing Project's report, "Incarcerated Parents and Their Children: Trends 1991-2007."
In Illinois, "we have already made some real progress in the last couple of weeks," Harris said. "I'm chairman of the Youth and Family Committee, and had a hearing [ with ] law-enforcement officers, the director of the corrections system, the sheriff, the state's attorney [ and ] DCFS, and we worked out some common-sense things—something as simple as allowing full-contact visits between parents and their children, so they don't have to sit behind bulletproof glass. It helps the inmate stay connected, and maybe give them a reason to want to get out and do better. Also, it helps the kid to not be traumatized.
"Something the Department of Corrections is going to do is put on Robocalls when they do lockdowns. The last thing you want to do is put kids in a car to drive five hours, since most prisons are downstate, and then find out the prison's been put on lockdown—and you've driven all that way for nothing. We're also starting a pilot video-visitation program."
—Breast-cancer IV/oral chemo mandates: "This is something that's still in the talking stages," Harris said. "Last year, my legislation addressed racial disparities [ regarding ] breast-cancer mortality. This year, we're working with the Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force and the [ Susan G. Komen for the Cure ] to look at a law that would mandate private-insurance companies and Medicaid to reimburse not only IV chemotherapy but also oral chemotherapy."
—Monitoring of prescription-drug abuse: "There are a number of systems that monitor prescription drugs but none of them is set up to allow law enforcement to detect patterns of abuse, either through multiple prescriptions or doctors who are abusing their prescriptive authority," Harris said. He added that there was a measure last year but he "didn't move it because of privacy concerns—that the authority to look at records, in the opinions of attorneys, was overly broad." Now, a higher burden of proof is needed "so that someone down at the local sheriff's office doesn't say, 'Oh, let's just see what Mrs. Jones is taking.'"
—Insurance reform: Actually, this agenda item has been fulfilled, as Gov. Pat Quinn is slated to sign the Individual Market Fairness Reform just after Christmas. "This law will do three things," Harris said. "Illinois is one of the few states where you have no avenue of appeal if there is an adverse decision from your health-insurance company. This will [ allow ] people to have external reviews, so you can go to independent experts who will judge if something should be covered under your policy.
" [ The law ] will also make insurance companies disclose their medical-loss ratios, which shows how much of the premium dollars they collect from you is spent of healthcare versus salary, bonuses and administrative costs. The third thing is that the law makes companies use standardized applications; some of those forms will go on for 15-20 pages, and that deters small businesses shopping for competitive rates."
—Historic preservation tax credits: There are two aspects to this item, Harris said. With larger cities such as Chicago, "you have beautiful buildings falling into disrepair" and people have to deal with "acquisition price and restoration price," he said. However, in central Illinois, the problem is "preserving entire towns," Harris said. "Small retailers [ can ] leave," which leaves "no money to preserve. "Restoring buildings involves jobs ( plumbers, carpenters ) , which can restore the tax base." Not surprisingly, this item has plenty of support from downstate politicians.
