January 11, 2019          

To the Honorable Members of

The Illinois Senate,

100th General Assembly:

Today, I veto Senate Bill 426 from the 100th General Assembly, which would create a new appointment process for a single sanitary district.

Currently, when a sanitary district’s boundaries cross county lines, the trustees for the district are appointed by the members of the General Assembly whose legislative districts encompass any portion of the district. This legislation would carve out a new process for the Thorn Creek Basin Sanitary District where the mayors of the municipalities in the district recommend candidates, and appointments are decided by a majority of the mayors.

As I have stated before, the General Assembly is too willing to carve out new laws for specific local situations. If this mayoral appointment process is the best practice for appointing trustees to multi-county sanitary districts, the legislature should pass legislation that makes the process available to all such districts across the state instead of passing special carve-outs and a patchwork of inconsistent laws.

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return Senate Bill 426, entitled “AN ACT concerning local government,” with the foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.

Sincerely,

Bruce Rauner

GOVERNOR