Kirk Mottram and William Hatfield

Student leaders across the state declared an early victory Tuesday as the Illinois House Higher Education Committee unanimously voted to pass an amendment to recent student trustee legislation allowing for the retainment of popular elections for the position.

SIUC Student Trustee Pat Kelly said about 30 students from six schools University of Illinois, Northeastern Illinois University, Western Illinois University, Illinois State University, Northern Illinois University and SIUC turned out to lobby for the amendment.

Advertisement

We took down Springfield, Kelly said. We packed the room, we filed to be witnesses, and we lobbied everybody we could.

The committee voted 12-0 in favor of an amendment sponsored by Rep. Rick Winkel, R-Champaign, to a bill introduced by Rep. Gary Hannig, D-Gillespie.

When asked if the passage was a victory for students, Kelly responded, Hell, yeah.

Hannig’s bill comes on the heels of Gov. Jim Edgar’s amendatory veto of House Bill 923 that initiated the current debate. Both Edgar’s changes and Hannig’s bill give student trustees a binding vote on their respective boards while eliminating the practice of student trustee elections in favor of screening committees.

Edgar also added three other changes:trustees must be full-time students; they cannot vote on faculty tenure or promotion issues; and a sunset clause will be injected into the bill, setting an expiration date for the legislation.

Succumbing to pressure from student leaders, Winkel, sponsor of HB 923, introduced another bill Wednesday that keeps popular elections intact while retaining Edgar’s other changes.

To expedite the process in what is only a six-day veto session, Winkel’s bill took the form of an amendment Tuesday, challenging Hannig’s bill, introduced one week earlier.

Advertisement*

A vote could be taken on the bill and its amendments in committee because Edgar’s amendatory veto was declared unconstitutional by House Parliamentarian Bill Kasper. The Illinois Constitution states that an amendatory veto cannot change significantly the intent of a bill.

Kasper found that Edgar’s elimination of student trustee elections exceeded the scope of his executive authority, thus paving the way for the introduction of new legislation in committee.

Tuesday’s amended bill was granted co-sponsorship between Hannig and Winkel, and was scheduled a second reading, effectively moving it to the House floor, where a full vote is expected.

Kelly is confident the new bill will pass the full House. Passage in the Senate, however, is a battle for another day.

As I see it, the bill coming out of the committee unanimously will help it pass on the floor, he said. I think we have accomplished about 95 percent of the work we needed to get this thing passed in the House.

Chris Varones, press secretary for the House Republican press office, predicts a smooth ride for the Hannig-Winkel bill in the Senate if it is successful in the House.

If it passes out of the House, its reception in the Senate will be good, he said. This has not been much of a bipartisan issue, and the votes in the House and the Senate reflect the bipartisan mood on the whole thing.

Tom Livingston, chief higher education adviser to Edgar, said he has yet to talk to the governor about Tuesday’s events and does not know if Edgar will veto the bill if it passes both houses.

Usually I discuss what’s happening in committee with the Governor later in the day, and I will do that, he said. Right now the governor feels strongly that his changes are very much in line with what is good practice on Boards of Trustees.

People should get on these boards in a consistent manner, be they students or normal members.

Livingston said Kasper’s unconstitutional ruling of the amendatory veto is commonplace in the General Assembly and has not fazed the governor.

That happens quite often, he said. We try to make changes that are substitutive, but depending on the view of the parliamentarian, there is nothing we can do.

Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, who sits on the Committee, said he always has supported a student trustee’s right to vote on his or her board and a student’s right to vote for his or her own student trustee. Bost said Edgar’s changes were unacceptable, thus he voted to amend them.

I do not want to take that power that comes with the election process away from the students, he said. Whether he (the governor) refuses to accept the changes, we will continue to fight him and push for students to have popular elections.