STATE OF ILLINOIS 101st GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 63rd Legislative Day 6/1/2019 Speaker Manley: "The House will be in order. Members will be in their chairs. We shall be led in prayer today by Representative Maurice West, II. Members and guests are asked to refrain from starting their laptops, turn off all cell phones and rise for the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance. Representative West." West: "Thank you, Madam Speaker. Good afternoon, family. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for this day. With May 31 having come and gone, in spite of, we yet thank you. We thank you for what you've done, what you're doing, and what you're going to do. Lord, we want to put up a special prayer of thanks and we ask that you bless our… the members of our issue staff, the members of our research staff, or even our doorman, the Clerk and his staff, our pages, our House custodians who helped us to do the work of this Session. Lord, I ask that you renew us. Give us renewed energy, renewed compassion, and renewed love for ourselves and for others. I ask that you bless my General Assembly family, every single State Representative here in this chamber for the sacrifice that they've made for there… from their loved ones for the sake of the people. I ask that you bless their families for putting with them being gone for so long for the sake of the people. And I ask that you bless the people, the residents of Illinois, the people that mean so much to all of us here in this chamber. Cover and protect our first responders and our members of the Armed Forces. Lord, I ask that you uplift and unify our leadership on both sides of the aisle. Speaker Madigan, Leader Durkin. And Leaders Harris, Brady, Gordon- 10100063.docx 1 STATE OF ILLINOIS 101st GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 63rd Legislative Day 6/1/2019 Booth, Demmer, Turner, Bourne, Burke, Davidsmeyer, Hernandez, Hammond, Crespo, McAuliffe, Davis, Wehrli, Hoffman, Wheeler, Manley, Butler, Willis, and Batinick. Gracious God, bestow upon all of us wisdom and discernment. In your Son's name we pray, amen." Speaker Manley: "We will be led in the Pledge of Allegiance today by Representative Reick." Reick - et al: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Speaker Manley: Roll Call for Attendance. Leader Harris is recognized to report any excused absences on the Democratic side of the aisle." Harris: "Madam Speaker, Representatives Ammons and Feigenholtz are excused today." Speaker Manley: "Representative Butler is recognized to report any excused absences on the Republican side of the aisle." Butler: "Thank you, Madam Speaker. Please let the Journal reflect that on Saturday, June 1, 2019 Representatives Davidsmeyer and Sosnowski are excused." Speaker Manley: "Have all recorded themselves who wish? Mr. Clerk, please take the record. With 114 Members answering the roll call, a quorum is present. Good afternoon, Representative Villa. For what reason do you seek recognition?" Villa: "Good afternoon, Madam Speaker. Point of personal privilege." Speaker Manley: "Please proceed." 10100063.docx 2 STATE OF ILLINOIS 101st GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 63rd Legislative Day 6/1/2019 Villa: "I'd like to welcome to the House floor my two Pages. Zaynab El-Akrich is almost 11. She just finished fifth grade with three distinctions: Rising Star Award, Good Citizen Award, and the Fifth Grade Performance Completion Award. She will be going to Franklin Middle School next year. She speaks English and Arabic. She likes math and science and she loves to travel and discover new places. Omar El-Akrich is nine years old. He goes to Isles School gifted program. He speaks English and Arabic, and he is also learning Mandarin. He loves math and science too. He plays soccer for SASA, has a small injury due to that, and the YMCA. His favorite team is Liverpool. Their parents are sitting right up in the gallery and you might recognize Driss, he is an amazing staffer here at the Capitol. So please give them a warm Springfield welcome." Speaker Manley: "Thank you for joining us. Good afternoon, Representative Mason. For what reason do you seek recognition?" Mason: "Good afternoon. Point of personal privilege, Madam Speaker." Speaker Manley: "Please proceed." Mason: "Thank you. I actually have two points, if you'll indulge me. First, I wanted to introduce and welcome Miss Meghan Downs. Meghan Downs is my Page for the day. She is the amazing daughter of Kenny Downs at the door, who many of you might know. She will be attending Williamsville High School next year. She is a competitive dancer and wants to do ASL interpreting. And she was here yesterday and enjoyed herself 10100063.docx 3 STATE OF ILLINOIS 101st GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 63rd Legislative Day 6/1/2019 so much she wanted to come back. She's a phenomenal young lady. Let's give her a Springfield welcome." Speaker Manley: "Please continue." Mason: "And then if I may, I just had a little personal point of privilege I wanted to say. Last week I was sort of taking stock in being a new legislator and having the Session ending. And I was thinking about what it was like. I knew… I knew that fellow new waivers that I had met along the campaign trail I was going to have the privilege to work with. And I couldn't believe that so many heroes that I had followed for years, long before I even imagined I would be even trying to sit in this chamber, I never imagined that I would get to get to work with them. But I didn't really realize over the last five months that I would get to know and truly love so many people, both my fellow legislators and staff members here. There's so many good people. And I never imagined that I would have what I truly call my new family. So a couple of days after that, as many of you know, I was driving home to go to my son's graduation and my car burst into flames. And I jumped out just in time. And while I was still standing there watching my car burn I started getting texts from people here asking if I was okay. Asking if I needed anything. What could they do? Saying thank goodness I was okay. And when I returned the next day I returned to so much kindness from so many people who offered me help and lots of hugs and clothes from their own closets. And people who offered to do things for my kids, and just more hugs. And who put up with me telling this story over, and over, and over again as I processed it, thank you all for listening. And I just want to say, that what I 10100063.docx 4 STATE OF ILLINOIS 101st GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 63rd Legislative Day 6/1/2019 was thinking about last week is so, so true to me now. You are all family. And I love you and I am grateful for all of you. And I hope that as we continue this long day, we all just remember that we are all just really good people who are just trying to do the right things. And, you know, we all want to go home to our families, we all care for one another. And I hope that we will see the spirit of that as we continue our day today. Thank you." Speaker Manley: "Thank you for your nice words, Representative Mason. The Chair recognizes Representative West. For what reason do you seek recognition?" West: "Madam Speaker, I forgot our Legislative Assistants in our prayer." Speaker Manley: "Uh oh." West: "I don't want to get in trouble, so I give thanks to them too." Speaker Manley: "Uh oh. Sorry about that you guys. We'll share ours with them. How's that? Chair recognizes Representative Zalewski. For what reason do you seek recognition? I think I know." Zalewski: "Thank you, Madam Speaker. Point of personal privilege." Speaker Manley: "Please proceed" Zalewski: "We need the closer in from the bullpen to get this done today. So we've brought Mae Zalewski, my third oldest daughter, down to Springfield to get the job done. So I'm hoping everybody could give her round of applause and she can say hi to camera. Thank you, Madam Speaker." 10100063.docx 5 STATE OF ILLINOIS 101st GENERAL ASSEMBLY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TRANSCRIPTION DEBATE 63rd Legislative Day 6/1/2019 Speaker Manley: "Thank you for being here. The Chair recognizes Representative Weber. For what reason do you seek recognition?" Weber: "Point of personal privilege, Madam Speaker." Speaker Manley: "Please proceed." Weber: "I understand that we have a lot of business to get through, but I ask for a brief indulgent by this Body and attention of the Body to honor the passing of a United States Navy Veteran, Raul Argomanez, Jr. of Grayslake, Illinois. Affectionately known to his friends as Argo and also my father-in-law. Argo was born on November 16, 1941 in Yuma, Arizona. At the age of 17 he enlisted into the United States Navy and served our nation honorably for over 22 years, as well as serving an additional 2 years in the National Guard.