A short-term plan to fund Illinois state government and pay workers their salary now heads to the state Senate. A supermajority of Democrats appear to be willing to sign on to the proposed one-month budget, and making a legal dispute over paying state workers their salaries irrelevant.
Democratic Senator Kwame Raoul says he’ll vote yes when it comes up next week - and accused Republican Governor Bruce Rauner of wanting to shut down state government.
"This is premeditated. This is not accidental. This is a created crisis."
Republican Senator Matt Murphy says short-term budgets aren’t good policy - and he won’t vote for the plan.
"What our friends on the other side of the aisle, the Democrats, are proposing is basically do what we already did."
Rauner doesn’t have to sign - or veto - the bill right away if it’s approved. Meaning the stalemate is likely to continue.